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He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men dont generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time; and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a womans heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt it a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I cant help crying; and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isnt at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all brokenhearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy. Evening. Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I dont, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yetMy dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesnt, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could; I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesnt always speak slangthat is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite mannersbut he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang; I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly Miss Lucy, I know I aint good enough to regulate the fixins of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Wont you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together driving in double harness? Well, he did look so goodhumoured and so jolly that it didnt seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward, so I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasnt broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldnt help feeling a bit serious, tooI know, Mina, you will think me a horrid flirtthough I couldnt help feeling a sort of exultation that he was number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of lovemaking, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free Lucy, you are an honesthearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is, Ill never trouble you a hairs breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend. My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this greathearted, true gentleman. I burst into tearsI am afraid, my dear, you will think this is a very sloppy letter in more ways than oneand I really felt very badly. Why cant they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morriss brave eyes, and I told him out straight Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me. I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mineI think I put them into hisand said in a hearty way Thats my brave girl. Its better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Dont cry, my dear. If its for me, Im a hard nut to crack; and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesnt know his happiness, well, hed better look for it soon, or hell have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and thats rarer than a lover; its more unselfish anyhow. My dear, Im going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Wont you give me one kiss? Itll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellowhe must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love himhasnt spoken yet. That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble, too, to a rivalwasnt it?and he so sad; so I leant over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my faceI am afraid I was blushing very muchhe said Little girl, I hold your hand, and youve kissed me, and if these things dont make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and goodbye. He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause; and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were freeonly I dont want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it; and I dont wish to tell of the number three till it can all be happy. Ever your loving LUCY. P.S.Oh, about number threeI neednt tell you of number three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused; it seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I dont know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend. Goodbye. Dr. Sewards Diary. (Kept in phonograph.) 25 April.Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing.... As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint in his ideas, and so unlike the normal lunatic, that I have determined to understand him as well as I can. Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery. I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madnessa thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell. (Mem., under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?) Omnia Romae vernalia sunt. Hell has its price! verb. sap. If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do so, therefore R. M. Renfield, tat 59.Sanguine temperament; great physical strength; morbidly excitable; periods of gloom ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentallyaccomplished finish; a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal when duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood. 25 May. My dear Art, Weve told yarns by the campfire in the prairies; and dressed one anothers wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas; and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Wont you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinnerparty, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. Hes coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the winecup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come! Yours, as ever and always, QUNICEY P. MORRIS. Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris. 26 May. Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle. ART. CHAPTER VI. MINA MURRAYS JOURNAL. 24 July. Whitby.Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems, somehow, farther away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old townthe side away from usare all redroofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of Marmion, where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is, to my mind, the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and talk. The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy seawall runs along outside of it. On the near side, the seawall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens. It is nice at high tide; but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he is coming this way.... He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely I wouldnt fash masel about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I dont say they never was, but I do say that they wasnt in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers an the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feetfolks from York and Leeds that be always eatin cured herrins an drinkin tea an lookin out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel whod be bothered tellin lies to themeven the newspapers, which is full of fooltalk. I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about whalefishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My granddaughter doesnt like to be kept waitin when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of em; an, miss, I lack bellytimber sairly by the clock. He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature of the place. They lead from the town up to the church; there are hundreds of themI do not know how manyand they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally have had something to do with the Abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did not go. They will be home by this. 1 August.I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admit anything, and downfaces everybody. If he cant outargue them he bullies them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down It be all fooltalk, lock, stock, and barrel; thats what it be, an nowt else. These bans an wafts an bohghosts an barguests and bogles an all anent them is only fit to set bairns an dizzy women abelderin. They be nowt but airblebs! They, an all grims an signs an warnins, be all invented by parsons an illsome beukbodies an railway touters to skeer an scunner hafflins, an to get folks to do somethin that they dont other incline to. It makes me ireful to think o them. Why, its them that, not content with printin lies on paper an preachin them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin them on the tombsteans. Look here all round you in what airt ye will; all them steans, holdin up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, is acantsimply tumblin down with the weight o the lies wrote on them, Here lies the body or Sacred to the memory wrote on all of them, an yet in nigh half of them there beant no bodies at all; an the memories of them beant cared a pinch of snuff about, much less sacred. Lies all of them, nothin but lies of one kind or another! My gog, but itll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment, when they come tumblin up here in their deathsarks, all jouped together an tryin to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of them trimmlin and ditherin, with their hands that dozzened an slippy from lyin in the sea that they cant even keep their grup o them. I could see from the old fellows selfsatisfied air and the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was showing off, so I put in a word to keep him going Oh, Mr. Swales, you cant be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong? Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin where they make out the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balmbowl be like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here; you come here a stranger, an you see this kirkgarth. I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He went on And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be happed here, snod an snog? I assented again. Then that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these laybeds that be toom as old Duns baccabox on Friday night. He nudged one of his companions, and they all laughed. And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest abaft the bierbank; read it! I went over and read Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, t. 30. When I came back Mr. Swales went on Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! an you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas abovehe pointed northwardsor where the currents may have drifted them. There be the steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the smallprint of the lies from here. This Braithwaite LowreyI knew his father, lost in the Lively off Greenland in 20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in 50. Do ye think that all these men will have to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums aboot it! I tell ye that when they got here theyd be jommlin an jostlin one another that way that it ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when wed be at one another from daylight to dark, an tryin to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis. This was evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in with gusto. But, I said, surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary? Well, what else be they tombsteans for? Answer me that, miss! To please their relatives, I suppose. To please their relatives, you suppose! This he said with intense scorn. How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies? He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. Read the lines on that thruffstean, he said. The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb is erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Really, Mr. Swales, I dont see anything very funny in that! She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely. Ye dont see aught funny! Ha! ha! But thats because ye dont gawm the sorrowin mother was a hellcat that hated him because he was acrewkda regular lamiter he wasan he hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightnt get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin the crows with. Twarnt for crows then, for it brought the clegs and the dowps to him. Thats the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, Ive often heard him say masel that he hoped hed go to hell, for his mother was so pious that shed be sure to go to heaven, an he didnt want to addle where she was. Now isnt that stean at any ratehe hammered it with his stick as he spokea pack of lies? and wont it make Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes pantin up the grees with the tombstean balanced on his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence! I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she said, rising up Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide. That wont harm ye, my pretty; an it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin on his lap. That wont hurt ye. Why, Ive sat here off an on for nigh twenty years past, an it hasnt done me no harm. Dont ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn lie there either! Itll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubblefield. Theres the clock, an I must gang. My service to ye, ladies! And off he hobbled. Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little heartsick, for I havent heard from Jonathan for a whole month. The same day.I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly; they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next the Abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of a donkeys hoofs up the paved road below. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and farther along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here. Dr. Sewards Diary. 5 June.The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said May I have three days? I shall clear them away. Of course, I said that would do. I must watch him. 18 June.He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room. 1 July.His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and today I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blowfly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultingly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little notebook in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he was focusing some account, as the auditors put it. 8 July.There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I might notice if there were any change. Things remained as they were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food. 19 July.We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favoura very, very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice and bearing A kitten, a nice little, sleek, playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feedand feedand feed! I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered Oh, yes I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they? I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more. 10 p.m.I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it. I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early. 20 July.Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his flycatching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if there were anything odd about him during the day. 11 a.m.The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. My belief is, doctor, he said, that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw! 11 p.m.I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight; enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocketbook to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous (lifeeating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspectthe knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such minddid I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunaticI might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which BurdonSandersons physiology or Ferriers brain knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally? How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and today begun a new record.

How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives? To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work! If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, a good, unselfish cause to make me work, that would be indeed happiness. MINA MURRAYS JOURNAL. 26 July.I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it is like whispering to ones self and listening at the same time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan; I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleepwalkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs, and then get suddenly awakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucys father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwoodhe is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalmingis coming up here very shortlyas soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he arrives. 27 July.No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him, though why I should I do not know; but I do wish that he would write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually being awakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucys health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose pink. She has lost that anmic look which she had. I pray it will all last. 3 August.Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for the key. 6 August.Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. Today is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is greyexcept the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock; grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the grey sea, into which the sandpoints stretch like grey fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the seamists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a brool over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem men like trees walking. The fishingboats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk.... I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way I want to say something to you, miss. I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine Im afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things Ive been sayin about the dead, and suchlike, for weeks past; but I didnt mean them, and I want ye to remember that when Ive gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krokhooal, dont altogether like to think of it, and we dont want to feel scart of it; an thats why Ive took to makin light of it, so that Id cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I aint afraid of dyin, not a bit; only I dont want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect; and Im so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin his scythe. Ye see, I cant get out o the habit of caffin about it all at once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But dont ye dooal an greet, my deary!for he saw that I was cryingif he should come this very night Id not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin for somethin else than what were doin; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But Im content, for its comin to me, my deary, and comin quick. It may be comin while we be lookin and wonderin. Maybe its in that wind out over the sea thats bringin with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look! he cried suddenly. Theres something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. Its in the air; I feel it comin. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes! He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said goodbye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me very much. I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spyglass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship. I cant make her out, he said; shes a Russian, by the look of her; but shes knocking about in the queerest way. She doesnt know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but cant decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesnt mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff of wind. Well hear more of her before this time tomorrow. CHAPTER VII. CUTTING FROM THE DAILYGRAPH, 8 AUGUST. (Pasted in Mina Murrays Journal.) From a Correspondent. Whitby. ONE of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as ever was known, and the great body of holidaymakers set out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hoods Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighbourhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made excursions along the coast, and there was an unusual amount of tripping both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of marestails high in the sky to the northwest. The wind was then blowing from the southwest in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked No. 2 light breeze. The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidlycoloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunsetcolourflame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and there masses not large, but seemingly of absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the sketches of the Prelude to the Great Storm will grace the R.A. and R.I. walls in May next. More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his cobble or his mule, as they term the different classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed. The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature. There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, which usually hug the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishingboats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in face of her danger. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea, As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Shortly before ten oclock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of natures silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint hollow booming. Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realise, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. Whitecrested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold. To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of seafog came drifting inlandwhite, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many a one shuddered as the wreaths of seamist swept by. At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the glare of the lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such sudden peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under the shock of the footsteps of the storm. Some of the scenes thus revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and of absorbing interestthe sea, running mountains high, threw skywards with each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to snatch at and whirl away into space; here and there a fishingboat, with a rag of sail, running madly for shelter before the blast; now and again the white wings of a stormtossed seabird. On the summit of the East Cliff the new searchlight was ready for experiment, but had not yet been tried. The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in the pauses of the inrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. Once or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishingboat, with gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers. As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of joy from the mass of people on shore, a shout which for a moment seemed to cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush. Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner with all sails set, apparently the same vessel which had been noticed earlier in the evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east, and there was a shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff as they realised the terrible danger in which she now was. Between her and the port lay the great flat reef on which so many good ships have from time to time suffered, and, with the wind blowing from its present quarter, it would be quite impossible that she should fetch the entrance of the harbour. It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed that, in the words of one old salt, she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only in hell. Then came another rush of seafog, greater than any hithertoa mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a grey pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the mighty bellows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before. The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour mouth across the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited breathless. The wind suddenly shifted to the northeast, and the remnant of the seafog melted in the blast; and then, mirabile dictu, between the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all. A great awe came on all as they realised that the ship, as if by a miracle, had found the harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead man! However, all took place more quickly than it takes to write these words. The schooner paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms into the southeast corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill Pier. There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of the tophamper came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on to the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat tombstonesthruffsteans or throughstones, as they call them in the Whitby vernacularactually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which seemed intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight. It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill Pier, as all those whose houses are in close proximity were either in bed or were out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the eastern side of the harbour, who at once ran down to the little pier, was the first to climb on board. The men working the searchlight, after scouring the entrance of the harbour without seeing anything, then turned the light on the derelict and kept it there. The coastguard ran aft, and when he came beside the wheel, bent over to examine it and recoiled at once as though under some sudden emotion. This seemed to pique the general curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run. It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd. When I arrived, however, I found already assembled on the pier a crowd, whom the coastguard and police refused to allow to come on board. By the courtesy of the chief boatman, I was, as your correspondent, permitted to climb on deck, and was one of a small group who saw that dead seaman whilst actually lashed to the wheel. It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. Accurate note was made of the state of things, and a doctorSurgeon J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Placewho came immediately after me, declared, after making examination, that the man must have been dead for quite two days. In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log. The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening the knots with his teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on board may save some complications, later on, in the Admiralty Court; for the coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is the right of the first civilian entering on a derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are wagging, and one young law student is loudly asserting that the rights of the owner are already completely sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the statutes of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a dead hand. It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till deatha steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabiancaand placed in the mortuary to await inquest. Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is abating; the crowds are scattering homewards, and the sky is beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into harbour in the storm. Whitby. 9 August.The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It turns out that the schooner is a Russian from Varna, and is called the Demeter. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargoa number of great wooden boxes filled with mould. This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, of 7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and formally took possession of the goods consigned to him. The Russian consul, too, acting for the charterparty, took formal possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc. Nothing is talked about here today except the strange coincidence; the officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter is to be a nine days wonder, they are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of after complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S.P.C.A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found; it seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a halfbred mastiff, belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite its masters yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly slit open as if with a savage claw. Later.By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been permitted to look over the logbook of the Demeter, which was in order up to within three days, but contained nothing of special interest except as to facts of missing men. The greater interest, however, is with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was today produced at the inquest; and a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across. As there is no motive for concealment, I am permitted to use them, and accordingly send you a rescript, simply omitting technical details of seamanship and supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had been seized with some kind of mania before he had got well into blue water, and that this had developed persistently throughout the voyage. Of course my statement must be taken cum grano, since I am writing from the dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated for me, time being short. LOG OF THE DEMETER. Varna to Whitby. Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land. On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands, ... two mates, cook, and myself (captain). On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p.m. On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago. On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not speak out. On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong; they only told him there was something, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet. On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of crew, Petrofsky, was missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last night; was relieved by Abramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but would not say more than that there was something aboard. Mate getting very impatient with them; feared some trouble ahead. On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deckhouse, as there was a rainstorm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companionway, and go along the deck forward, and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall today search entire ship carefully from stem to stern. Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as they evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we should search from stem to stern. First mate angry; said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men; said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns; we left no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when search over, and went back to work cheerfully. First mate scowled, but said nothing. 22 July.Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy with sailsno time to be frightened. Men seem to have forgotten their dread. Mate cheerful again, and all on good terms. Praised men for work in bad weather. Passed Gibraltar and out through Straits. All well. 24 July.There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, and entering on the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lostdisappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear; sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate violent. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence. 28 July.Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, and the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out. Hardly know how to set a watch since no one fit to go on. Second mate volunteered to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours sleep. Wind abating; seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is steadier. 29 July.Another tragedy. Had single watch tonight, as crew too tired to double. When morning watch came on deck could find no one except steersman. Raised outcry, and all came on deck. Thorough search, but no one found. Are now without second mate, and crew in a panic. Mate and I agreed to go armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause. 30 July.Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, all sails set. Retired worn out; slept soundly; awaked by mate telling me that both men on watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and two hands left to work ship. 1 August.Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower, as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of them. His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are Russian, he Roumanian. 2 August, midnight.Woke up from few minutes sleep by hearing a cry, seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck, and ran against mate. Tells me heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out. If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us; and God seems to have deserted us. 3 August.At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel, but when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate. After a few seconds he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wildeyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear It is here; I know it, now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave It my knife; but the knife went through It, empty as the air. And as he spoke he took his knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went on But It is here, and Ill find it. It is in the hold, perhaps, in one of those boxes. Ill unscrew them one by one and see. You work the helm. And, with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a toolchest and a lantern, and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and its no use my trying to stop him. He cant hurt those big boxes they are invoiced as clay, and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay, and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I cant steer to any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails and lie by, and signal for help.... It is nearly all over now. Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate would come out calmerfor I heard him knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good for himthere came up the hatchway a sudden, startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he came as if shot from a guna raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed with fear. Save me! save me! he cried, and then looked round on the blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair, and in a steady voice he said You had better come too, captain, before it is too late. He is there. I know the secret now. The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left! Before I could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was this madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has followed them himself. God help me! How am I to account for all these horrors when I get to port? When I get to port! Will that ever be? 4 August.Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm; so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw ItHim! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It is better to die like a man; to die like a sailor in blue water no man can object. But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship.

But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which HeIt!dare not touch; and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; if not, ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty.... Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to adduce; and whether or not the man himself committed the murders there is now none to say. The folk hold almost universally here that the captain is simply a hero, and he is to be given a public funeral. Already it is arranged that his body is to be taken with a train of boats up the Esk for a piece and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the Abbey steps; for he is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff. The owners of more than a hundred boats have already given in their names as wishing to follow him to the grave. No trace has ever been found of the great dog; at which there is much mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state, he would, I believe, be adopted by the town. Tomorrow will see the funeral; and so will end this one more mystery of the sea. MINA MURRAYS JOURNAL 8 August.Lucy was very restless all night, and I, too, could not sleep. The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the chimneypots, it made me shudder. When a sharp puff came it seemed to be like a distant gun. Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake; but she got up twice and dressed herself. Fortunately, each time I awoke in time, and managed to undress her without waking her, and got her back to bed. It is a very strange thing, this sleepwalking, for as soon as her will is thwarted in any physical way, her intention, if there be any, disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine of her life. Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour to see if anything had happened in the night. There were very few people about, and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big, grimlooking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam that topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the narrow mouth of the harbourlike a bullying man going through a crowd. Somehow I felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land. But, oh, is he on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I am getting fearfully anxious about him. If I only knew what to do, and could do anything! 10 August.The funeral of the poor seacaptain today was most touching. Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and the coffin was carried by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard. Lucy came with me, and we went early to our old seat, whilst the cortge of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a lovely view, and saw the procession nearly all the way. The poor fellow was laid to rest quite near our seat, so that we stood on it when the time came and saw everything. Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She was restless and uneasy all the time, and I cannot but think that her dreaming at night is telling on her. She is quite odd in one thing she will not admit to me that there is any cause for restlessness; or if there be, she does not understand it herself. There is an additional cause in that poor old Mr. Swales was found dead this morning on our seat, his neck being broken. He had evidently, as the doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for there was a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made them shudder. Poor dear old man! Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels influences more acutely than other people do. Just now she was quite upset by a little thing which I did not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals. One of the men who come up here often to look for the boats was followed by his dog. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet persons, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then angrily; but it would neither come nor cease to make a noise. It was in a sort of fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hairs bristling out like a cats tail when puss is on the warpath. Finally the man, too, got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the stone the poor thing became quiet and fell all into a tremble. It did not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it. Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog, but looked at it in an agonised sort of way. I greatly fear that she is of too supersensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble. She will be dreaming of this tonight, I am sure. The whole agglomeration of thingsthe ship steered into port by a dead man; his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads; the touching funeral; the dog, now furious and now in terrorwill all afford material for her dreams. I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hoods Bay and back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleepwalking then. CHAPTER VIII. MINA MURRAYS JOURNAL. Same day, 11 oclock p.m.Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I have made my diary a duty I should not open it tonight. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything, except, of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital severe tea at Robin Hoods Bay in a sweet little oldfashioned inn, with a bowwindow right over the seaweedcovered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the New Woman with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. Lucy was really tired, and we intended to creep off to bed as soon as we could. The young curate came in, however, and Mrs. Westenra asked him to stay for supper. Lucy and I had both a fight for it with the dusty miller; I know it was a hard fight on my part, and I am quite heroic. I think that some day the bishops must get together and see about breeding up a new class of curates, who dont take supper, no matter how they may be pressed to, and who will know when girls are tired. Lucy is asleep and breathing softly. She has more colour in her cheeks than usual, and looks, oh, so sweet. If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with her seeing her only in the drawingroom, I wonder what he would say if he saw her now. Some of the New Women writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman wont condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too! Theres some consolation in that. I am so happy tonight, because dear Lucy seems better. I really believe she has turned the corner, and that we are over her troubles with dreaming. I should be quite happy if I only knew if Jonathan.... God bless and keep him. 11 August, 3 a.m.Diary again. No sleep now, so I may as well write. I am too agitated to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such an agonising experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.... Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me. The room was dark, so I could not see Lucys bed; I stole across and felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match, and found that she was not in the room. The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it. I feared to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw on some clothes and got ready to look for her. As I was leaving the room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to her dreaming intention. Dressinggown would mean house; dress, outside. Dressinggown and dress were both in their places. Thank God, I said to myself, she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress. I ran downstairs and looked in the sittingroom. Not there! Then I looked in all the other open rooms of the house, with an evergrowing fear chilling my heart. Finally I came to the halldoor and found it open. It was not wide open, but the catch of the lock had not caught. The people of the house are careful to lock the door every night, so I feared that Lucy must have gone out as she was. There was no time to think of what might happen; a vague, overmastering fear obscured all details. I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I was in the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected. At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the harbour to the East Cliff, in the hope or fearI dont know whichof seeing Lucy in our favourite seat. There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Marys Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the Abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a swordcut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a halfreclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately; but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell; I did not wait to catch another glance, but flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the fishmarket to the bridge, which was the only way to reach the East Cliff. The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see; I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucys condition. The time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the Abbey. I must have gone fast, and yet it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty. When I got almost to the top I could see the seat and the white figure, for I was now close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the halfreclining white figure. I called in fright, Lucy! Lucy! and something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes. Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the entrance of the churchyard. As I entered, the church was between me and the seat, and for a minute or so I lost sight of her. When I came in view again the cloud had passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly that I could see Lucy half reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat. She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about. When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she was breathingnot softly, as usual with her, but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress close round her throat. Whilst she did so there came a little shudder through her, as though she felt the cold. I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight round her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free that I might help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safetypin; but I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for byandby, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet, and then began very gently to wake her. At first she did not respond; but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and for many other reasons, I wished to get her home at once, I shook her more forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised to see me, as, of course, she did not realise all at once where she was. Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little, and clung to me; when I told her to come at once with me home she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes; but I would not. However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there was a puddle of water remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home no one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet. Fortune favoured us, and we got home without meeting a soul. Once we saw a man, who seemed not quite sober, passing along a street in front of us; but we hid in a door till he had disappeared up an opening such as there are here, steep little closes, or wynds, as they call them in Scotland. My heart beat so loud all the time that sometimes I thought I should faint. I was filled with anxiety about Lucy, not only for her health, lest she should suffer from the exposure, but for her reputation in case the story should get wind. When we got in, and had washed our feet, and had said a prayer of thankfulness together, I tucked her into bed. Before falling asleep she askedeven imploredme not to say a word to any one, even her mother, about her sleepwalking adventure. I hesitated at first to promise; but on thinking of the state of her mothers health, and how the knowledge of such a thing would fret her, and thinking, too, of how such a story might become distortednay, infallibly wouldin case it should leak out, I thought it wiser to do so. I hope I did right. I have locked the door, and the key is tied to my wrist, so perhaps I shall not be again disturbed. Lucy is sleeping soundly; the reflex of the dawn is high and far over the sea.... Same day, noon.All goes well. Lucy slept till I woke her, and seemed not to have even changed her side. The adventure of the night does not seem to have harmed her; on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she looks better this morning than she has done for weeks. I was sorry to notice that my clumsiness with the safetypin hurt her. Indeed, it might have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for there are two little red points like pinpricks, and on the band of her nightdress was a drop of blood. When I apologised and was concerned about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Fortunately it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny. Same day, night.We passed a happy day. The air was clear, and the sun bright and there was a cool breeze. We took our lunch to Mulgrave Woods, Mrs. Westenra driving by the road and Lucy and I walking by the cliff path and joining her at the gate. I felt a little sad myself, for I could not but feel how absolutely happy it would have been had Jonathan been with me. But there! I must only be patient. In the evening we strolled in the Casino Terrace, and heard some good music by Spohr and Mackenzie, and went to bed early. Lucy seems more restful than she has been for some time, and fell asleep at once. I shall lock the door and secure the key the same as before, though I do not expect any trouble tonight. 12 August.My expectations were wrong, for twice during the night I was awakened by Lucy trying to get out. She seemed, even in her sleep, to be a little impatient at finding the door shut, and went back to bed under a sort of protest. I woke with the dawn, and heard the birds chirping outside of the window. Lucy woke, too, and, I was glad to see, was even better than on the previous morning. All her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me, and told me all about Arthur; I told her how anxious I was about Jonathan, and then she tried to comfort me. Well, she succeeded somewhat, for, though sympathy cant alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable. 13 August.Another quiet day, and to bed with the key on my wrist as before. Again I woke in the night, and found Lucy sitting up in bed, still asleep, pointing to the window. I got up quietly, and pulling aside the blind, looked out. It was brilliant moonlight, and the soft effect of the light over the sea and skymerged together in one great, silent mysterywas beautiful beyond words. Between me and the moonlight flitted a great bat, coming and going in great, whirling circles. Once or twice it came quite close, but was, I suppose, frightened at seeing me, and flitted away across the harbour towards the Abbey. When I came back from the window Lucy had lain down again, and was sleeping peacefully. She did not stir again all night. 14 August.On the East Cliff, reading and writing all day. Lucy seems to have become as much in love with the spot as I am, and it is hard to get her away from it when it is time to come home for lunch or tea or dinner. This afternoon she made a funny remark. We were coming home for dinner, and had come to the top of the steps up from the West Pier and stopped to look at the view, as we generally do. The setting sun, low down in the sky, was just dropping behind Kettleness; the red light was thrown over on the East Cliff and the old Abbey, and seemed to bathe everything in a beautiful rosy glow. We were silent for a while, and suddenly Lucy murmured as if to herself His red eyes again! They are just the same. It was such an odd expression, coming apropos of nothing, that it quite startled me. I slewed round a little, so as to see Lucy well without seeming to stare at her, and saw that she was in a halfdreamy state, with an odd look on her face that I could not quite make out; so I said nothing, but followed her eyes. She appeared to be looking over at our seat, whereon was a dark figure seated alone. I was a little startled myself, for it seemed for an instant as if the stranger had great eyes like burning flames; but a second look dispelled the illusion. The red sunlight was shining on the windows of St. Marys Church behind our seat, and as the sun dipped there was just sufficient change in the refraction and reflection to make it appear as if the light moved. I called Lucys attention to the peculiar effect, and she became herself with a start, but she looked sad all the same; it may have been that she was thinking of that terrible night up there. We never refer to it; so I said nothing, and we went home to dinner. Lucy had a headache and went early to bed. I saw her asleep, and went out for a little stroll myself; I walked along the cliffs to the westward, and was full of sweet sadness, for I was thinking of Jonathan. When coming homeit was then bright moonlight, so bright that, though the front of our part of the Crescent was in shadow, everything could be well seenI threw a glance up at our window, and saw Lucys head leaning out. I thought that perhaps she was looking out for me, so I opened my handkerchief and waved it. She did not notice or make any movement whatever. Just then, the moonlight crept round an angle of the building, and the light fell on the window. There distinctly was Lucy with her head lying up against the side of the windowsill and her eyes shut. She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the windowsill, was something that looked like a goodsized bird. I was afraid she might get a chill, so I ran upstairs, but as I came into the room she was moving back to her bed, fast asleep, and breathing heavily; she was holding her hand to her throat, as though to protect it from cold. I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly; I have taken care that the door is locked and the window securely fastened. She looks so sweet as she sleeps; but she is paler than is her wont, and there is a drawn, haggard look under her eyes which I do not like. I fear she is fretting about something. I wish I could find out what it is. 15 August.Rose later than usual. Lucy was languid and tired, and slept on after we had been called. We had a happy surprise at breakfast. Arthurs father is better, and wants the marriage to come off soon. Lucy is full of quiet joy, and her mother is glad and sorry at once. Later on in the day she told me the cause. She is grieved to lose Lucy as her very own, but she is rejoiced that she is soon to have some one to protect her. Poor dear, sweet lady! She confided to me that she has got her deathwarrant. She has not told Lucy, and made me promise secrecy; her doctor told her that within a few months, at most, she must die, for her heart is weakening. At any time, even now, a sudden shock would be almost sure to kill her. Ah, we were wise to keep from her the affair of the dreadful night of Lucys sleepwalking. 17 August.No diary for two whole days. I have not had the heart to write. Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over our happiness. No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker, whilst her mothers hours are numbering to a close. I do not understand Lucys fading away as she is doing. She eats well and sleeps well, and enjoys the fresh air; but all the time the roses in her cheeks are fading, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day; at night I hear her gasping as if for air. I keep the key of our door always fastened to my wrist at night, but she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the open window. Last night I found her leaning out when I woke up, and when I tried to wake her I could not; she was in a faint. When I managed to restore her she was as weak as water, and cried silently between long, painful struggles for breath. When I asked her how she came to be at the window she shook her head and turned away. I trust her feeling ill may not be from that unlucky prick of the safetypin. I looked at her throat just now as she lay asleep, and the tiny wounds seem not to have healed. They are still open, and, if anything, larger, than before, and the edges of them are faintly white. They are like little white dots with red centres. Unless they heal within a day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing about them. Letter, Samuel F. Billington Son, Solicitors, Whitby, to Messrs. Carter, Paterson Co., London. 17 August. Dear Sirs, Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great Northern Railway. Same are to be delivered to Carfax, near Purfleet, immediately on receipt at goods station Kings Cross. The house is at present empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of which are labelled. You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the house and marked A on rough diagram enclosed. Your agent will easily recognise the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion. The goods leave by the train at 9.30 tonight, and will be due at Kings Cross at 4.30 tomorrow afternoon. As our client wishes the delivery made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by your having teams ready at Kings Cross at the time named and forthwith conveying the goods to destination. In order to obviate any delays possible through any routine requirements as to payment in your departments, we enclose cheque herewith for ten pounds (10), receipt of which please acknowledge. Should the charge be less than this amount, you can return balance; if greater, we shall at once send cheque for difference on hearing from you. You are to leave the keys on coming away in the main hall of the house, where the proprietor may get them on his entering the house by means of his duplicate key. Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy in pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition. We are, dear Sirs, Faithfully yours, SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON SON. Letter, Messrs. Carter, Paterson Co., London, to Messrs. Billington Son, Whitby 21 August. Dear Sirs, We beg to acknowledge 10 received and to return cheque 1 17s. 9d., amount of overplus, as shown in receipted account herewith. Goods are delivered in exact accordance with instructions, and keys left in parcel in main hall, as directed. We are, dear Sirs, Yours respectfully, Pro CARTER, PATERSON CO. MINA MURRAYS JOURNAL. 18 August.I am happy today, and write sitting on the seat in the churchyard. Lucy is ever so much better. Last night she slept well all night, and did not disturb me once. The roses seem coming back already to her cheeks, though she is still sadly pale and wanlooking. If she were in any way anmic I could understand it, but she is not. She is in gay spirits and full of life and cheerfulness. All the morbid reticence seems to have passed from her, and she has just reminded me, as if I needed any reminding, of that night, and that it was here, on this very seat, I found her asleep. As she told me she tapped playfully with the heel of her boot on the stone slab and said My poor little feet didnt make much noise then! I daresay poor old Mr. Swales would have told me that it was because I didnt want to wake up Geordie. As she was in such a communicative humour, I asked her if she had dreamed at all that night. Before she answered, that sweet, puckered look came into her forehead, which ArthurI call him Arthur from her habitsays he loves; and, indeed, I dont wonder that he does. Then she went on in a halfdreaming kind of way, as if trying to recall it to herself I didnt quite dream; but it all seemed to be real. I only wanted to be here in this spotI dont know why, for I was afraid of somethingI dont know what. I remember, though I suppose I was asleep, passing through the streets and over the bridge. A fish leaped as I went by, and I leaned over to look at it, and I heard a lot of dogs howlingthe whole town seemed as if it must be full of dogs all howling at onceas I went up the steps. Then I have a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men; and then everything seemed passing away from me; my soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air. I seemed to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under me, and then there was a sort of agonising feeling, as if I were in an earthquake, and I came back and found you shaking my body. I saw you do it before I felt you. Then she began to laugh. It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I listened to her breathlessly. I did not quite like it, and thought it better not to keep her mind on the subject, so we drifted on to other subjects, and Lucy was like her old self again. When we got home the fresh breeze had braced her up, and her pale cheeks were really more rosy. Her mother rejoiced when she saw her, and we all spent a very happy evening together. 19 August.Joy, joy, joy! although not all joy. At last, news of Jonathan. The dear fellow has been ill; that is why he did not write. I am not afraid to think it or to say it, now that I know. Mr. Hawkins sent me on the letter, and wrote himself oh, so kindly. I am to leave in the morning and to go over to Jonathan, and to help nurse him if necessary, and to bring him home. Mr. Hawkins says it would not be a bad thing if we were to be married out there. I have cried over the good Sisters letter till I can feel it wet against my bosom, where it lies. It is of Jonathan, and must be next my heart, for he is in my heart. My journey is all mapped out, and my luggage ready. I am only taking one change of dress; Lucy will bring my trunk to London and keep it till I send for it, for it may be that.... I must write no more; I must keep it to say to Jonathan, my husband. The letter that he has seen and touched must comfort me till we meet. Letter, Sister Agatha, Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, BudaPesth, to Miss Wilhelmina Murray. 12 August. Dear Madam, I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker, who is himself not strong enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been under our care for nearly six weeks, suffering from a violent brain fever. He wishes me to convey his love, and to say that by this post I write for him to Mr. Peter Hawkins, Exeter, to say, with his dutiful respects, that he is sorry for his delay, and that all his work is completed. He will require some few weeks rest in our sanatorium in the hills, but will then return. He wishes me to say that he has not sufficient money with him, and that he would like to pay for his staying here, so that others who need shall not be wanting for help. Believe me, Yours, with sympathy and all blessings, SISTER AGATHA. P.S.My patient being asleep, I open this to let you know something more. He has told me all about you, and that you are shortly to be his wife. All blessings to you both! He has had some fearful shockso says our doctorand in his delirium his ravings have been dreadful; of wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons; and I fear to say of what. Be careful with him always that there may be nothing to excite him of this kind for a long time to come; the traces of such an illness as his do not lightly die away. We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends, and there was on him nothing that any one could understand. He came in the train from Klausenburgh, and the guard was told by the stationmaster there that he rushed into the station shouting for a ticket for home. Seeing from his violent demeanour that he was English, they gave him a ticket for the farthest station on the way thither that the train reached. Be assured that he is well cared for. He has won all hearts by his sweetness and gentleness. He is truly getting on well, and I have no doubt will in a few weeks be all himself. But be careful of him for safetys sake. There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, many, many happy years for you both. Dr. Sewards Diary. 19 August.Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night. About eight oclock he began to get excited and to sniff about as a dog does when setting. The attendant was struck by his manner, and knowing my interest in him, encouraged him to talk.

He is usually respectful to the attendant, and at times servile; but tonight, the man tells me, he was quite haughty. Would not condescend to talk with him at all. All he would say was I dont want to talk to you you dont count now; the Master is at hand. The attendant thinks it is some sudden form of religious mania which has seized him. If so, we must look out for squalls, for a strong man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one. At nine oclock I visited him myself. His attitude to me was the same as that to the attendant; in his sublime selffeeling the difference between myself and attendant seemed to him as nothing. It looks like religious mania, and he will soon think that he himself is God. These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent being. How these madmen give themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall; but the God created from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow. Oh, if men only knew! For half an hour or more Renfield kept getting excited in greater and greater degree. I did not pretend to be watching him, but I kept strict observation all the same. All at once that shifty look came into his eyes which we always see when a madman has seized an idea, and with it the shifty movement of the head and back which asylum attendants come to know so well. He became quite quiet, and went and sat on the edge of his bed resignedly, and looked into space with lacklustre eyes. I thought I would find out if his apathy were real or only assumed, and tried to lead him to talk of his pets, a theme which never failed to excite his attention. At first he made no reply, but at length said testily Bother them all! I dont care a pin about them. What? I said. You dont mean to tell me that you dont care about spiders? (Spiders at present are his hobby, and the notebook is filling up with columns of small figures.) To this he answered enigmatically The bridemaidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled. He would not explain himself, but remained obstinately seated on his bed all the time I remained with him. I am weary tonight and low in spirits. I cannot but think of Lucy, and how different things might have been. If I dont sleep at once, chloral, the modern MorpheusC2HCl3O H2O! I must be careful not to let it grow into a habit. No, I shall take none tonight! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If need be, tonight shall be sleepless.... Glad I made the resolution; gladder that I kept to it. I had lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the nightwatchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once; my patient is too dangerous a person to be roaming about. Those ideas of his might work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. He said he had seen him not ten minutes before, seemingly asleep in his bed, when he had looked through the observationtrap in the door. His attention was called by the sound of the window being wrenched out. He ran back and saw his feet disappear through the window, and had at once sent up for me. He was only in his nightgear, and cannot be far off. The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out of the building by the door. He is a bulky man, and couldnt get through the window. I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, and, as we were only a few feet above ground, landed unhurt. The attendant told me the patient had gone to the left and had taken a straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates our grounds from those of the deserted house. I ran back at once, and told the watchman to get three or four men immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend might be dangerous. I got a ladder myself, and crossing the wall, dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfields figure just disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On the far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old ironbound oak door of the chapel. He was talking, apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, lest I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to himthe more so as my men had now crossed the wall and were closing him in. I heard him say I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things? He is a selfish old beggar anyhow. He thinks of the loaves and fishes even when he believes he is in a Real Presence. His manias make a startling combination. When we closed in on him he fought like a tiger. He is immensely strong, and he was more like a wild beast than a man. I never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before; and I hope I shall not again. It is a mercy that we have found out his strength and his danger in good time. With strength and determination like his, he might have done wild work before he was caged. He is safe now at any rate. Jack Sheppard himself couldnt get free from the straitwaistcoat that keeps him restrained, and hes chained to the wall in the padded room. His cries are at times awful, but the silences that follow are more deadly still, for he means murder in every turn and movement. Just now he spoke coherent words for the first time I shall be patient, Master. It is comingcomingcoming! So I took the hint, and came too. I was too excited to sleep, but this diary has quieted me, and I feel I shall get some sleep tonight. CHAPTER IX. Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra. BudaPesth, 24 August. My dearest Lucy, I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened since we parted at the railway station at Whitby. Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right, and caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train on here. I feel I can hardly recall anything of the journey, except that I knew I was coming to Jonathan, and, that as I should have to do some nursing, I had better get all the sleep I could.... I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weaklooking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished. He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past. At least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask. He has had some terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to recall it. Sister Agatha, who is a good creature and a born nurse, tells me that he raved of dreadful things whilst he was off his head. I wanted her to tell me what they were; but she would only cross herself, and say she would never tell; that the ravings of the sick were the secrets of God, and that if a nurse through her vocation should hear them, she should respect her trust. She is a sweet, good soul, and the next day, when she saw I was troubled, she opened up the subject again, and after saying that she could never mention what my poor dear raved about, added I can tell you this much, my dear that it was not about anything which he has done wrong himself; and you, as his wife to be, have no cause to be concerned. He has not forgotten you or what he owes to you. His fear was of great and terrible things, which no mortal can treat of. I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous lest my poor dear should have fallen in love with any other girl. The idea of my being jealous about Jonathan! And yet, my dear, let me whisper, I felt a thrill of joy through me when I knew that no other woman was a cause of trouble. I am now sitting by his bedside, where I can see his face while he sleeps. He is waking! ... When he woke he asked me for his coat, as he wanted to get something from the pocket; I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought all his things. I saw that amongst them was his notebook, and was going to ask him to let me look at itfor I knew then that I might find some clue to his troublebut I suppose he must have seen my wish in my eyes, for he sent me over to the window, saying he wanted to be quite alone for a moment. Then he called me back, and when I came he had his hand over the notebook, and he said to me very solemnly WilhelminaI knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry himyou know, dear, my ideas of the trust between husband and wife there should be no secret, no concealment. I have had a great shock, and when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage. For, my dear, we had decided to be married as soon as the formalities are complete. Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know; unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here. He fell back, exhausted, and I put the book under his pillow, and kissed him. I have asked Sister Agatha to beg the Superior to let our wedding be this afternoon, and am waiting her reply.... She has come and told me that the chaplain of the English mission church has been sent for. We are to be married in an hour, or as soon after as Jonathan awakes.... Lucy, the time has come and gone. I feel very solemn, but very, very happy. Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and all was ready, and he sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. He answered his I will firmly and strongly. I could hardly speak; my heart was so full that even these words seemed to choke me. The dear Sisters were so kind. Please God, I shall never, never forget them, nor the grave and sweet responsibilities I have taken upon me. I must tell you of my wedding present. When the chaplain and the Sisters had left me alone with my husbandoh, Lucy, it is the first time I have written the words my husbandleft me alone with my husband, I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped it up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon which was wound round my neck, and sealed it over the knot with sealingwax, and for my seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it and showed it to my husband, and told him that I would keep it so, and then it would be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trusted each other; that I would never open it unless it were for his own dear sake or for the sake of some stern duty. Then he took my hand in his, and oh, Lucy, it was the first time he took his wifes hand, and said that it was the dearest thing in all the wide world, and that he would go through all the past again to win it, if need be. The poor dear meant to have said a part of the past; but he cannot think of time yet, and I shall not wonder if at first he mixes up not only the month, but the year. Well, my dear, what could I say? I could only tell him that I was the happiest woman in all the wide world, and that I had nothing to give him except myself, my life, and my trust, and that with these went my love and duty for all the days of my life. And, my dear, when he kissed me, and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it was like a very solemn pledge between us.... Lucy dear, do you know why I tell you all this? It is not only because it is all sweet to me, but because you have been, and are, very dear to me. It was my privilege to be your friend and guide when you came from the schoolroom to prepare for the world of life. I want you to see now, and with the eyes of a very happy wife, whither duty has led me; so that in your own married life you too may be all happy as I am. My dear, please Almighty God, your life may be all it promises a long day of sunshine, with no harsh wind, no forgetting duty, no distrust. I must not wish you no pain, for that can never be; but I do hope you will be always as happy as I am now. Goodbye, my dear. I shall post this at once, and, perhaps, write you very soon again. I must stop, for Jonathan is wakingI must attend to my husband! Your everloving MINA HARKER. Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Harker. Whitby, 30 August. My dearest Mina, Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own home with your husband. I wish you could be coming home soon enough to stay with us here. This strong air would soon restore Jonathan; it has quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here. We have such walks and drives, and rides, and rowing, and tennis, and fishing together; and I love him more than ever. He tells me that he loves me more, but I doubt that, for at first he told me that he couldnt love me more than he did then. But this is nonsense. There he is, calling to me. So no more just at present from your loving LUCY. P.S.Mother sends her love. She seems better, poor dear. P.P.S.We are to be married on 28 September. Dr. Sewards Diary 20 August.The case of Renfield grows even more interesting. He has now so far quieted that there are spells of cessation from his passion. For the first week after his attack he was perpetually violent. Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to himself Now I can wait; now I can wait. The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the straitwaistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleadingI might almost say, cringingsoftness. I was satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved. The attendants hesitated, but finally carried out my wishes without protest. It was a strange thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for, coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking furtively at them They think I could hurt you! Fancy me hurting you! The fools! It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself dissociated even in the mind of this poor madman from the others; but all the same I do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together; or has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my wellbeing is needful to him? I must find out later on. Tonight he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten or even a fullgrown cat will not tempt him. He will only say I dont take any stock in cats. I have more to think of now, and I can wait; I can wait. After a while I left him. The attendant tells me that he was quiet until just before dawn, and then he began to get uneasy, and at length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted him so that he swooned into a sort of coma. ... Three nights has the same thing happenedviolent all day, then quiet from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It would almost seem as if there was some influence which came and went. Happy thought! We shall tonight play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help; tonight he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required.... 23 August.The unexpected always happens. How well Disraeli knew life! Our bird when he found the cage open would not fly, so all our subtle arrangements went for naught. At any rate, we have proved one thing that the spells of quietness last a reasonable time. We shall in future be able to ease his bond for a few hours each day. I have given orders to the night attendant merely to shut him in the padded room, when once he is quiet, until an hour before sunrise. The poor souls body will enjoy the relief even if his mind cannot appreciate it. Hark! The unexpected again! I am called; the patient has once more escaped. Later.Another night adventure. Renfield artfully waited until the attendant was entering the room to inspect. Then he dashed out past him and flew down the passage. I sent word for the attendants to follow. Again we went into the ground of the deserted house, and we found him in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door. When he saw me he became furious, and had not the attendants seized him in time, he would have tried to kill me. As we were holding him a strange thing happened. He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then he suddenly grew calm. I looked round instinctively, but could see nothing. Then I caught the patients eye and followed it, but could trace nothing as it looked into the moonlit sky except a big bat, which was flapping its silent and ghostly way to the west. Bats usually wheel and flit about but this one seemed to go straight on, as if it knew where it was bound for or had some intention of its own. The patient grew calmer every instant, and presently said You neednt tie me; I shall go quietly! Without trouble we came back to the house. I feel there is something ominous in his calm, and shall not forget this night.... Lucy Westenras Diary. Hillingham, 24 August.I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when it will be. I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby. Perhaps it is the change of air, or getting home again. It is all dark and horrid to me, for I can remember nothing; but I am full of vague fear, and I feel so weak and worn out. When Arthur came to lunch he looked quite grieved when he saw me, and I hadnt the spirit to be cheerful. I wonder if I could sleep in mothers room tonight. I shall make an excuse and try. 25 August.Another bad night. Mother did not seem to take to my proposal. She seems not too well herself, and doubtless she fears to worry me. I tried to keep awake, and succeeded for a while; but when the clock struck twelve it waked me from a doze, so I must have been falling asleep. There was a sort of scratching or flapping at the window, but I did not mind it, and as I remember no more, I suppose I must then have fallen asleep. More bad dreams. I wish I could remember them. This morning I am horribly weak. My face is ghastly pale, and my throat pains me. It must be something wrong with my lungs, for I dont seem ever to get air enough. I shall try to cheer up when Arthur comes, or else I know he will be miserable to see me so. Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Dr. Seward. Albemarle Hotel, 31 August. My dear Jack, I want you to do me a favour. Lucy is ill; that is, she has no special disease, but she looks awful, and is getting worse every day. I have asked her if there is any cause; I do not dare to ask her mother, for to disturb the poor ladys mind about her daughter in her present state of health would be fatal. Mrs. Westenra has confided to me that her doom is spokendisease of the heartthough poor Lucy does not know it yet. I am sure that there is something preying on my dear girls mind. I am almost distracted when I think of her; to look at her gives me a pang. I told her I should ask you to see her, and though she demurred at firstI know why, old fellowshe finally consented. It will be a painful task for you, I know, old friend, but it is for her sake, and I must not hesitate to ask, or you to act. You are to come to lunch at Hillingham tomorrow, two oclock, so as not to arouse any suspicion in Mrs. Westenra, and after lunch Lucy will take an opportunity of being alone with you. I shall come in for tea, and we can go away together. I am filled with anxiety, and want to consult with you alone as soon as I can after you have seen her. Do not fail! ARTHUR. Telegram, Arthur Holmwood to Seward. 1 September. Am summoned to see my father, who is worse. Am writing. Write me fully by tonights post to Ring. Wire me if necessary. Letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood. 2 September. My dear old fellow, With regard to Miss Westenras health, I hasten to let you know at once that in my opinion there is not any functional disturbance or any malady that I know of. At the same time, I am not by any means satisfied with her appearance; she is woefully different from what she was when I saw her last. Of course you must bear in mind that I did not have full opportunity of examination such as I should wish; our very friendship makes a little difficulty which not even medical science or custom can bridge over. I had better tell you exactly what happened, leaving you to draw, in a measure, your own conclusions. I shall then say what I have done and propose doing. I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits. Her mother was present, and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying all she knew to mislead her mother and prevent her from being anxious. I have no doubt she guesses, if she does not know, what need of caution there is. We lunched alone, and as we all exerted ourselves to be cheerful, we got, as some kind of reward for our labours, some real cheerfulness amongst us. Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and Lucy was left with me. We went into her boudoir, and till we got there her gaiety remained, for the servants were coming and going. As soon as the door was closed, however, the mask fell from her face, and she sank down into a chair with a great sigh, and hid her eyes with her hand. When I saw that her high spirits had failed, I at once took advantage of her reaction to make a diagnosis. She said to me very sweetly I cannot tell you how I loathe talking about myself. I reminded her that a doctors confidence was sacred, but that you were grievously anxious about her. She caught on to my meaning at once, and settled that matter in a word. Tell Arthur everything you choose. I do not care for myself, but all for him! So I am quite free. I could easily see that she is somewhat bloodless, but I could not see the usual anmic signs, and by a chance I was actually able to test the quality of her blood, for in opening a window which was stiff a cord gave way, and she cut her hand slightly with broken glass. It was a slight matter in itself, but it gave me an evident chance, and I secured a few drops of the blood and have analysed them. The qualitative analysis gives a quite normal condition, and shows, I should infer, in itself a vigorous state of health. In other physical matters I was quite satisfied that there is no need for anxiety; but as there must be a cause somewhere, I have come to the conclusion that it must be something mental. She complains of difficulty in breathing satisfactorily at times, and of heavy, lethargic sleep, with dreams that frighten her, but regarding which she can remember nothing. She says that as a child she used to walk in her sleep, and that when in Whitby the habit came back, and that once she walked out in the night and went to the East Cliff, where Miss Murray found her; but she assures me that of late the habit has not returned. I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of; I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world. I have asked him to come over, and as you told me that all things were to be at your charge, I have mentioned to him who you are and your relations to Miss Westenra. This, my dear fellow, is only in obedience to your wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to do anything I can for her. Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal reason. So, no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man, but this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day; and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the icebrook, an indomitable resolution, selfcommand and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindest and truest heart that beatsthese form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankindwork both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his allembracing sympathy. I tell you these facts that you may know why I have such confidence in him. I have asked him to come at once. I shall see Miss Westenra tomorrow again. She is to meet me at the Stores, so that I may not alarm her mother by too early a repetition of my call. Yours always, JOHN SEWARD. Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M.D., D.Ph., D.Litt., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward. 2 September. My good Friend, When I have received your letter I am already coming to you. By good fortune I can leave just at once, without wrong to any of those who have trusted me. Were fortune other, then it were bad for those who have trusted, for I come to my friend when he call me to aid those he holds dear. Tell your friend that when that time you suck from my wound so swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that our other friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when he wants my aids and you call for them than all his great fortune could do. But it is pleasure added to do for him, your friend; it is to you that I come. Have then rooms for me at the Great Eastern Hotel, so that I may be near to hand, and please it so arrange that we may see the young lady not too late on tomorrow, for it is likely that I may have to return here that night. But if need be I shall come again in three days, and stay longer if it must. Till then goodbye, my friend John. VAN HELSING. Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood. 3 September. My dear Art, Van Helsing has come and gone. He came on with me to Hillingham, and found that, by Lucys discretion, her mother was lunching out, so that we were alone with her. Van Helsing made a very careful examination of the patient. He is to report to me, and I shall advise you, for of course I was not present all the time. He is, I fear, much concerned, but says he must think. When I told him of our friendship and how you trust to me in the matter, he said You must tell him all you think. Tell him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will. Nay, I am not jesting. This is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more. I asked what he meant by that, for he was very serious. This was when we had come back to town, and he was having a cup of tea before starting on his return to Amsterdam. He would not give me any further clue. You must not be angry with him, Art, because his very reticence means that all his brains are working for her good. He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure. So I told him I would simply write an account of our visit, just as if I were doing a descriptive special article for The Daily Telegraph. He seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts in London were not quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here. I am to get his report tomorrow if he can possibly make it. In any case I am to have a letter. Well, as to the visit. Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I first saw her, and certainly looked better. She had lost something of the ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal. She was very sweet to the Professor (as she always is), and tried to make him feel at ease; though I could see that the poor girl was making a hard struggle for it. I believe Van Helsing saw it, too, for I saw the quick look under his bushy brows that I knew of old. Then he began to chat of all things except ourselves and diseases, and with such an infinite geniality that I could see poor Lucys pretence of animation merge into reality. Then, without any seeming change, he brought the conversation gently round to his visit, and suavely said My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are much beloved. That is much, my dear, even were there that which I do not see. They told me you were down in the spirit, and that you were of a ghastly pale. To them I say Pouf! And he snapped his fingers at me and went on But you and I shall show them how wrong they are. How can heand he pointed at me with the same look and gesture as that with which once he pointed me out to his class, on, or rather after, a particular occasion which he never fails to remind me ofknow anything of a young ladies? He has his madmans to play with, and to bring them back to happiness and to those that love them. It is much to do, and, oh, but there are rewards, in that we can bestow such happiness. But the young ladies! He has no wife nor daughter, and the young do not tell themselves to the young, but to the old, like me, who have known so many sorrows and the causes of them. So, my dear, we will send him away to smoke the cigarette in the garden, whiles you and I have little talk all to ourselves. I took the hint, and strolled about, and presently the Professor came to the window and called me in. He looked grave, but said I have made careful examination, but there is no functional cause. With you I agree that there has been much blood lost; it has been, but is not. But the conditions of her are in no way anmic. I have asked her to send me her maid, that I may asked just one or two questions, that so I may not chance to miss nothing. I know well what she will say. And yet there is cause; there is always cause for everything. I must go back home and think. You must send to me the telegram every day; and if there be cause I shall come again. The diseasefor not to be all well is a diseaseinterest me, and the sweet young dear, she interest me too. She charm me, and for her, if not for you or disease, I come. As I tell you, he would not say a word more, even when we were alone. And so now, Art, you know all I know. I shall keep stern watch. I trust your poor father is rallying. It must be a terrible thing to you, my dear old fellow, to be placed in such a position between two people who are both so dear to you. I know your idea of duty to your father, and you are right to stick to it; but, if need be, I shall send you word to come at once to Lucy; so do not be overanxious unless you hear from me. Dr. Sewards Diary. 4 September.Zoophagous patient still keeps up our interest in him. He had only one outburst, and that was yesterday at an unusual time. Just before the stroke of noon he began to grow restless. The attendant knew the symptoms, and at once summoned aid. Fortunately the men came at a run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him. In about five minutes, however, he began to get more and more quiet, and finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained up to now. The attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the paroxysm were really appalling; I found my hands full when I got in, attending to some of the other patients who were frightened by him.

Indeed, I can quite understand the effect, for the sounds disturbed even me, though I was some distance away. It is now after the dinnerhour of the asylum, and as yet my patient sits in a corner brooding, with a dull, sullen, woebegone look in his face, which seems rather to indicate than to show something directly. I cannot quite understand it. Later.Another change in my patient. At five oclock I looked in on him, and found him seemingly as happy and contented as he used to be. He was catching flies and eating them, and was keeping note of his capture by making nailmarks on the edge of the door between the ridges of padding. When he saw me, he came over and apologised for his bad conduct, and asked me in a very humble, cringing way to be let back to his own room and to have his notebook again. I thought it well to humour him; so he is back in his room, with the window open. He has the sugar of his tea spread out on the windowsill, and is reaping quite a harvest of flies. He is not now eating them, but putting them in a box, as of old, and is already examining the corners of his room to find a spider. I tried to get him to talk about the past few days, for any clue of his thoughts would be of immense help to me; but he would not rise. For a moment or two he looked very sad, and said in a sort of faraway voice, as though saying it rather to himself than to me All over! all over! He has deserted me. No hope for me now unless I do it for myself! Then suddenly turning to me in a resolute way, he said Doctor, wont you be very good to me and let me have a little more sugar? I think it would be good for me. And the flies? I said. Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies; therefore I like it. And there are people who know so little as to think that madmen do not argue. I procured him a double supply, and left him as happy a man as, I suppose, any in the world. I wish I could fathom his mind. Midnight.Another change in him. I had been to see Miss Westenra, whom I found much better, and had just returned, and was standing at our own gate looking at the sunset, when once more I heard him yelling. As his room is on this side of the house, I could hear it better than in the morning. It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all. I reached him just as the sun was going down, and from his window saw the red disc sink. As it sank he became less and less frenzied; and just as it dipped he slid from the hands that held him, an inert mass, on the floor. It is wonderful, however, what intellectual recuperative power lunatics have, for within a few minutes he stood up quite calmly and looked around him. I signalled to the attendants not to hold him, for I was anxious to see what he would do. He went straight over to the window and brushed out the crumbs of sugar; then he took his flybox and emptied it outside, and threw away the box; then he shut the window, and crossing over, sat down on his bed. All this surprised me, so I asked him Are you not going to keep flies any more? No, said he; I am sick of all that rubbish! He certainly is a wonderfully interesting study. I wish I could get some glimpse of his mind or of the cause of his sudden passion. Stop; there may be a clue after all, if we can find why today his paroxysms came on at high noon and at sunset. Can it be that there is a malign influence of the sun at periods which affects certain naturesas at times the moon does others? We shall see. Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam 4 September.Patient still better today. Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam 5 September.Patient greatly improved. Good appetite; sleeps naturally; good spirits, colour coming back. Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam 6 September.Terrible change for the worse. Come at once; do not lose an hour. I hold over telegram to Holmwood till have seen you. CHAPTER X. Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood. 6 September. My dear Art, My news today is not so good. Lucy this morning had gone back a bit. There is, however, one good thing which has arisen from it Mrs. Westenra was naturally anxious concerning Lucy, and has consulted me professionally about her. I took advantage of the opportunity, and told her that my old master, Van Helsing, the great specialist, was coming to stay with me, and that I would put her in his charge conjointly with myself; so now we can come and go without alarming her unduly, for a shock to her would mean sudden death, and this, in Lucys weak condition, might be disastrous to her. We are hedged in with difficulties, all of us, my poor old fellow; but please God, we shall come through them all right. If any need I shall write, so that, if you do not hear from me, take it for granted that I am simply waiting for news. In haste, Yours ever, JOHN SEWARD. Dr. Sewards Diary. 7 September.The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met at Liverpool Street was Have you said anything to our young friend the lover of her? No, I said. I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my telegram. I wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were coming, as Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him know if need be. Right, my friend, he said, quite right! Better he not know as yet; perhaps he shall never know. I pray so; but if it be needed, then he shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution you. You deal with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other; and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with Gods madmen, toothe rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may restwhere it may gather its kind around it and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here. He touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the same way. I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall unfold to you. Why not now? I asked. It may do some good; we may arrive at some decision. He stopped and looked at me, and said My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripenedwhile the milk of its motherearth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you Look! hes good corn; he will make good crop when the time comes. I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as he used long ago to do at lectures, and said The good husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow; that is for the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout; if he sprout at all, theres some promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell. He broke off, for he evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on, and very gravely You were always a careful student, and your casebook was ever more full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master, and I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker. Even if you have not kept the good practice, let me tell you that this case of our dear miss is one that may bemind, I say may beof such interest to us and others that all the rest may not make him kick the beam, as your peoples say. Take then good note of it. Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success! When I described Lucys symptomsthe same as before, but definitely more markedhe looked very grave, but said nothing. He took with him a bag in which were many instruments and drugs, the ghastly paraphernalia of our beneficial trade, as he once called, in one of his lectures, the equipment of a professor of the healing craft. When we were shown in, Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed, but not nearly so much as I expected to find her. Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case where any shock may prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some cause or other, the things not personaleven the terrible change in her daughter to whom she is so attacheddo not seem to reach her. It is something like the way Dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper roots for its causes than we have knowledge of. I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and laid down a rule that she should not be present with Lucy or think of her illness more than was absolutely required. She assented readily, so readily that I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life. Van Helsing and I were shown up to Lucys room. If I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, I was horrified when I saw her today. She was ghastly, chalkily pale; the red seemed to have gone even from her lips and gums, and the bones of her face stood out prominently; her breathing was painful to see or hear. Van Helsings face grew set as marble, and his eyebrows converged till they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay motionless and did not seem to have strength to speak, so for a while we were all silent. Then Van Helsing beckoned to me, and we went gently out of the room. The instant we had closed the door he stepped quickly along the passage to the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and closed the door. My God! he said; this is dreadful. There is no time to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the hearts action as it should be. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is it you or me? I am younger and stronger, Professor. It must be me. Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared. I went downstairs with him and as we were going there was a knock at the halldoor. When we reached the hall the maid had just opened the door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in an eager whisper Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and have been in an agony. The dad was better, so I ran down here to see for myself. Is not that gentleman Dr. Van Helsing? I am so thankful to you, sir, for coming. When first the Professors eye had lit upon him he had been angry at any interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed. Without a pause he said to him gravely as he held out his hand Sir, you have come in time. You are the lover of our dear miss. She is bad, very, very bad. Nay, my child, do not go like that. For he suddenly grew pale and sat down in a chair almost fainting. You are to help her. You can do more than any that live, and your courage is your best help. What can I do? asked Arthur hoarsely. Tell me, and I shall do it. My life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her. The Professor has a strongly humorous side, and I could from old knowledge detect a trace of its origin in his answer My young sir, I do not ask so much as thatnot the last! What shall I do? There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostrils quivered with intent. Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder. Come! he said. You are a man, and it is a man we want. You are better than me, better than my friend John. Arthur looked bewildered, and the Professor went on by explaining in a kindly way Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have or die. My friend John and I have consulted; and we are about to perform what we call transfusion of bloodto transfer from full veins of one to the empty veins which pine for him. John was to give his blood, as he is the more young and strong than mehere Arthur took my hand and wrung it hard in silencebut, now you are here, you are more good than us, old or young, who toil much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood not so bright than yours! Arthur turned to him and said If you only knew how gladly I would die for her you would understand He stopped, with a sort of choke in his voice. Good boy! said Van Helsing. In the notsofaroff you will be happy that you have done all for her you love. Come now and be silent. You shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must go; and you must leave at my sign. Say no word to Madame; you know how it is with her! There must be no shock; any knowledge of this would be one. Come! We all went up to Lucys room. Arthur by direction remained outside. Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing. She was not asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort. Her eyes spoke to us; that was all. Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid them on a little table out of sight. Then he mixed a narcotic, and coming over to the bed, said cheerily Now, little miss, here is your medicine. Drink it off, like a good child. See, I lift you so that to swallow is easy. Yes. She had made the effort with success. It astonished me how long the drug took to act. This, in fact, marked the extent of her weakness. The time seemed endless until sleep began to flicker in her eyelids. At last, however, the narcotic began to manifest its potency; and she fell into a deep sleep. When the Professor was satisfied he called Arthur into the room, and bade him strip off his coat. Then he added You may take that one little kiss whiles I bring over the table. Friend John, help to me! So neither of us looked whilst he bent over her. Van Helsing, turning to me, said He is so young and strong and of blood so pure that we need not defibrinate it. Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the operation. As the transfusion went on something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucys cheeks, and through Arthurs growing pallor the joy of his face seemed absolutely to shine. After a bit I began to grow anxious, for the loss of blood was telling on Arthur, strong man as he was. It gave me an idea of what a terrible strain Lucys system must have undergone that what weakened Arthur only partially restored her. But the Professors face was set, and he stood watch in hand and with his eyes fixed now on the patient and now on Arthur. I could hear my own heart beat. Presently he said in a soft voice Do not stir an instant. It is enough. You attend him; I will look to her. When all was over I could see how much Arthur was weakened. I dressed the wound and took his arm to bring him away, when Van Helsing spoke without turning roundthe man seems to have eyes in the back of his head The brave lover I think deserve another kiss, which he shall have presently. And as he had now finished his operation, he adjusted the pillow to the patients head. As he did so the narrow black velvet band which she seemed always to wear round her throat, buckled with an old diamond buckle which her lover had given her, was dragged a little up, and showed a red mark on her throat. Arthur did not notice it, but I could hear the deep hiss of indrawn breath which is one of Van Helsings ways of betraying emotion. He said nothing at the moment, but turned to me, saying Now take down our brave young lover, give him of the port wine, and let him lie down a while. He must then go home and rest, sleep much and eat much, that he may be recruited of what he has so given to his love. He must not stay here. Hold! a moment. I may take it, sir, that you are anxious of result. Then bring it with you that in all ways the operation is successful. You have saved her life this time, and you can go home and rest easy in mind that all that can be is. I shall tell her all when she is well; she shall love you none the less for what you have done. Goodbye. When Arthur had gone I went back to the room. Lucy was sleeping gently, but her breathing was stronger; I could see the counterpane move as her breast heaved. By the bedside sat Van Helsing, looking at her intently. The velvet band again covered the red mark. I asked the Professor in a whisper What do you make of that mark on her throat? What do you make of it? I have not seen it yet, I answered, and then and there proceeded to loose the band. Just over the external jugular vein there were two punctures, not large, but not wholesomelooking. There was no sign of disease, but the edges were white and wornlooking, as if by some trituration. It at once occurred to me that this wound, or whatever it was, might be the means of that manifest loss of blood; but I abandoned the idea as soon as formed, for such a thing could not be. The whole bed would have been drenched to a scarlet with the blood which the girl must have lost to leave such a pallor as she had before the transfusion. Well? said Van Helsing. Well? said I, I can make nothing of it. The Professor stood up. I must go back to Amsterdam tonight, he said. There are books and things there which I want. You must remain here all the night, and you must not let your sight pass from her. Shall I have a nurse? I asked. We are the best nurses, you and I. You keep watch all night; see that she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her. You must not sleep all the night. Later on we can sleep, you and I. I shall be back as soon as possible. And then we may begin. May begin? I said. What on earth do you mean? We shall see! he answered as he hurried out. He came back a moment later and put his head inside the door, and said, with warning finger held up Remember, she is your charge. If you leave her, and harm befall, you shall not sleep easy hereafter! Dr. Sewards Diarycontinued. 8 September.I sat up all night with Lucy. The opiate worked itself off towards dusk, and she waked naturally; she looked a different being from what she had been before the operation. Her spirits even were good, and she was full of a happy vivacity, but I could see evidences of the absolute prostration which she had undergone. When I told Mrs. Westenra that Dr. Van Helsing had directed that I should sit up with her she almost poohpoohed the idea, pointing out her daughters renewed strength and excellent spirits. I was firm, however, and made preparations for my long vigil. When her maid had prepared her for the night I came in, having in the meantime had supper, and took a seat by the bedside. She did not in any way make objection, but looked at me gratefully whenever I caught her eye. After a long spell she seemed sinking off to sleep, but with an effort seemed to pull herself together and shook it off. This was repeated several times, with greater effort and with shorter pauses as the time moved on. It was apparent that she did not want to sleep, so I tackled the subject at once You do not want to go to sleep? No; I am afraid. Afraid to go to sleep! Why so? It is the boon we all crave for. Ah, not if you were like meif sleep was to you a presage of horror! A presage of horror! What on earth do you mean? I dont know; oh, I dont know. And that is what is so terrible. All this weakness comes to me in sleep; until I dread the very thought. But my dear girl, you may sleep tonight. I am here watching you, and I can promise that nothing will happen. Ah, I can trust you! I seized the opportunity, and said I promise you that if I see any evidence of bad dreams I will wake you at once. You will? Oh, will you really? How good you are to me! Then I will sleep! And almost at the word she gave a deep sigh of relief, and sank back, asleep. All night long I watched by her. She never stirred, but slept on and on in a deep, tranquil, lifegiving, healthgiving sleep. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breast rose and fell with the regularity of a pendulum. There was a smile on her face, and it was evident that no bad dreams had come to disturb her peace of mind. In the early morning her maid came, and I left her in her care and took myself back home, for I was anxious about many things. I sent a short wire to Van Helsing and to Arthur, telling them of the excellent result of the operation. My own work, with its manifold arrears, took me all day to clear off; it was dark when I was able to inquire about my zoophagous patient. The report was good he had been quite quiet for the past day and night. A telegram came from Van Helsing at Amsterdam whilst I was at dinner, suggesting that I should be at Hillingham tonight, as it might be well to be at hand, and stating that he was leaving by the night mail and would join me early in the morning. 9 September.I was pretty tired and worn out when I got to Hillingham. For two nights I had hardly had a wink of sleep, and my brain was beginning to feel that numbness which marks cerebral exhaustion. Lucy was up and in cheerful spirits. When she shook hands with me she looked sharply in my face and said No sitting up tonight for you. You are wornout. I am quite well again; indeed, I am; and if there is to be any sitting up, it is I who will sit up with you. I would not argue the point, but went and had my supper. Lucy came with me, and, enlivened by her charming presence, I made an excellent meal, and had a couple of glasses of the more than excellent port. Then Lucy took me upstairs and showed me a room next her own, where a cosy fire was burning. Now, she said, you must stay here. I shall leave this door open and my door too. You can lie on the sofa, for I know that nothing would induce any of you doctors to go to bed whilst there is a patient above the horizon. If I want anything I shall call out, and you can come to me at once. I could not but acquiesce, for I was dogtired, and could not have sat up had I tried. So, on her renewing her promise to call me if she should want anything, I lay on the sofa, and forgot all about everything. Lucy Westenras Diary 9 September.I feel so happy tonight. I have been so miserably weak, that to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine after a long spell of east wind out of a steel sky. Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me. I suppose it is that sickness and weakness are selfish things and turn our inner eyes and sympathy on ourselves, whilst health and strength give Love rein, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he wills. I know where my thoughts are. If Arthur only knew! My dear, my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking. Oh, the blissful rest of last night! How I slept with that dear, good Dr. Seward watching me. And tonight I shall not fear to sleep, since he is close at hand and within call. Thank everybody for being so good to me! Thank God! Goodnight, Arthur. Dr. Sewards Diary. 10 September.I was conscious of the Professors hand on my head, and started awake all in a second. That is one of the things that we learn in an asylum, at any rate. And how is our patient? Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me, I answered. Come, let us see, he said. And together we went into the room. The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently, whilst Van Helsing stepped, with his soft, catlike tread, over to the bed. As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded the room, I heard the Professors low hiss of inspiration, and knowing its rarity, a deadly fear shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved back, and his exclamation of horror, Gott in Himmel! needed no enforcement from his agonised face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed, and his iron face was drawn and ashen white. I felt my knees begin to tremble. There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly white and wanlooking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a corpse after a prolonged illness. Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down again softly. Quick! he said. Bring the brandy. I flew to the diningroom, and returned with the decanter. He wetted the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and wrist and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising suspense said It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is undone; we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now; I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John. As he spoke, he was dipping into his bag and producing the instruments for transfusion; I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirtsleeve. There was no possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need of one; and so, without a moments delay, we began the operation. After a timeit did not seem a short time either, for the draining away of ones blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a terrible feelingVan Helsing held up a warning finger. Do not stir, he said, but I fear that with growing strength she may wake; and that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall precaution take. I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia. He proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent. The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own lifeblood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves. The Professor watched me critically. That will do, he said. Already? I remonstrated. You took a great deal more from Art. To which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied He is her lover, her fianc. You have work, much work, to do for her and for others; and the present will suffice. When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied digital pressure to my own incision. I lay down, whilst I waited his leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick. Byandby he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine for myself. As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half whispered Mind, nothing must be said of this. If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and enjealous him, too. There must be none. So! When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said You are not much the worse. Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and rest awhile; then have much breakfast, and come here to me. I followed out his orders, for I knew how right and wise they were. I had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength. I felt very weak, and in the weakness lost something of the amazement at what had occurred. I fell asleep on the sofa, however, wondering over and over again how Lucy had made such a retrograde movement, and how she could have been drained of so much blood with no sign anywhere to show for it. I think I must have continued my wonder in my dreams, for sleeping and waking, my thoughts always came back to the little punctures in her throat and the ragged, exhausted appearance of their edgestiny though they were. Lucy slept well into the day; and when she woke she was fairly well and strong, though not nearly so much as the day before. When Van Helsing had seen her, he went out for a walk, leaving me in charge, with strict injunctions that I was not to leave her for a moment. I could hear his voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest telegraph office. Lucy chatted with me freely, and seemed quite unconscious that anything had happened. I tried to keep her amused and interested. When her mother came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any change whatever, but said to me gratefully We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done, but you really must now take care not to overwork yourself. You are looking pale yourself. You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit; that you do! As she spoke Lucy turned crimson, though it was only momentarily, for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long such an unwonted drain to the head. The reaction came in excessive pallor as she turned imploring eyes on me. I smiled and nodded, and laid my finger on my lips; with a sigh, she sank back amid her pillows. Van Helsing returned in a couple of hours, and presently said to me Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough. Make yourself strong. I stay here tonight, and I shall sit up with little miss myself. You and I must watch the case, and we must have none other to know. I have grave reasons. No, do not ask them; think what you will. Do not fear to think even the most notprobable. Goodnight. In the hall two of the maids came to me, and asked if they or either of them might not sit up with Miss Lucy. They implored me to let them; and when I said it was Dr. Van Helsings wish that either he or I should sit up, they asked me quite piteously to intercede with the foreign gentleman. I was much touched by their kindness. Perhaps it is because I am weak at present, and perhaps it was on Lucys account that their devotion was manifested; for over and over again have I seen similar instances of womans kindness. I got back here in time for a late dinner; went my roundsall well; and set this down whilst waiting for sleep. It is coming. 11 September.This afternoon I went over to Hillingham. Found Van Helsing in excellent spirits, and Lucy much better. Shortly after I had arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it with much impressmentassumed, of courseand showed a great bundle of white flowers. These are for you, Miss Lucy, he said. For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing! Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines. Here Lucy made a wry face. Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicinal, but you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! they, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas, and find him all too late. Whilst he was speaking, Lucy had been examining the flowers and smelling them. Now she threw them down, saying, with halflaughter and halfdisgust Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me. Why, these flowers are only common garlic. To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness, his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting No trifling with me! I never jest! There is grim purpose in all I do; and I warn you that you do not thwart me. Take care, for the sake of others if not for your own. Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she might well be, he went on more gently Oh, little miss, my dear, do not fear me. I only do for your good; but there is much virtue to you in those so common flower.

See, I place them myself in your room. I make myself the wreath that you are to wear. But hush! no telling to others that make so inquisitive questions. We must obey, and silence is a part of obedience; and obedience is to bring you strong and well into loving arms that wait for you. Now sit still awhile. Come with me, friend John, and you shall help me deck the room with my garlic, which is all the way from Haarlem, where my friend Vanderpool raise herb in his glasshouses all the year. I had to telegraph yesterday, or they would not have been here. We went into the room, taking the flowers with us. The Professors actions were certainly odd, and not to be found in any pharmacopia that I ever heard of. First, he fastened up the windows and latched them securely; next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that might get in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each side, and round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed grotesque to me, and presently I said Well, Professor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me. It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit. Perhaps I am! he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath which Lucy was to wear round her neck. We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her neck. The last words he said to her were Take care you do not disturb it; and even if the room feel close, do not tonight open the window or the door. I promise, said Lucy, and thank you both a thousand times for all your kindness to me! Oh, what have I done to be blessed with such friends? As we left the house in my fly, which was waiting, Van Helsing said Tonight I can sleep in peace, and sleep I wanttwo nights of travel, much reading in the day between, and much anxiety on the day to follow, and a night to sit up, without to wink. Tomorrow in the morning early you call for me, and we come together to see our pretty miss, so much more strong for my spell which I have work. Ho! ho! He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears. CHAPTER XI. LUCY WESTENRAS DIARY. 12 September.How good they all are to me! I quite love that dear Dr. Van Helsing. I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers. He positively frightened me, he was so fierce. And yet he must have been right, for I feel comfort from them already. Somehow, I do not dread being alone tonight, and I can go to sleep without fear. I shall not mind any flapping outside the window. Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am tonight, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with virgin crants and maiden strewments. I never liked garlic before, but tonight it is delightful! There is peace in its smell; I feel sleep coming already. Goodnight everybody. Dr. Sewards Diary. 13 September.Called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing, as usual, up to time. The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting. The Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now. Let all be put down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at eight oclock. It was a lovely morning; the bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of natures annual work. The leaves were turning to all kinds of beautiful colours, but had not yet begun to drop from the trees. When we entered we met Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room. She is always an early riser. She greeted us warmly and said You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in, lest I should disturb her. The Professor smiled, and looked quite jubilant. He rubbed his hands together, and said Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working, to which she answered You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucys state this morning is due in part to me. How do you mean, maam? asked the Professor. Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into her room. She was sleeping soundlyso soundly that even my coming did not wake her. But the room was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strongsmelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odour would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air. You will be pleased with her, I am sure. She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually breakfasted early. As she had spoken, I watched the Professors face, and saw it turn ashen grey. He had been able to retain his selfcommand whilst the poor lady was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a shock would be; he actually smiled on her as he held open the door for her to pass into her room. But the instant she had disappeared he pulled me, suddenly and forcibly, into the diningroom and closed the door. Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat his palms together in a helpless way; finally he sat down on a chair, and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart. Then he raised his arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. God! God! God! he said. What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such a way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul; and we must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or she die, and then both die. Oh, how we are beset! How are all the powers of the devils against us! Suddenly he jumped to his feet. Come, he said, come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same. He went to the halldoor for his bag; and together we went up to Lucys room. Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed. This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with the same awful, waxen pallor as before. He wore a look of stern sadness and infinite pity. As I expected, he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his which meant so much. Without a word he went and locked the door, and then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet another operation of transfusion of blood. I had long ago recognised the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a warning hand. No! he said. Today you must operate. I shall provide. You are weakened already. As he spoke he took off his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeve. Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep. This time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested. Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucys room without consulting him; that the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour was a part of the system of cure. Then he took over the care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next and would send me word when to come. After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright, and seemingly not much the worse from her terrible ordeal. What does it all mean? I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of life amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain. Lucy Westenras Diary. 17 September.Four days and nights of peace. I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me. I have a dim halfremembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing; darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant; and then long spells of oblivion, and the rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of water. Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away; the noises that used to frighten me out of my witsthe flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not whathave all ceased. I go to bed now without any fear of sleep. I do not even try to keep awake. I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from Haarlem. Tonight Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has to be for a day in Amsterdam. But I need not be watched; I am well enough to be left alone. Thank God for mothers sake, and dear Arthurs, and for all our friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found him asleep twice when I awoke; but I did not fear to go to sleep again, although the boughs or bats or something flapped almost angrily against the windowpanes. The Pall Mall Gazette, 18 September. THE ESCAPED WOLF. PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER. Interview with the Keeper in the Zoological Gardens. After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using the words Pall Mall Gazette as a sort of talisman, I managed to find the keeper of the section of the Zoological Gardens in which the wolf department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in the enclosure behind the elephanthouse, and was just sitting down to his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk, elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called business until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said Now, sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. Youll excoose me refoosin to talk of perfeshunal subjects afore meals. I gives the wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their tea afore I begins to arsk them questions. How do you mean, ask them questions? I queried, wishful to get him into a talkative humour. Ittin of them over the ead with a pole is one way; scratchin of their hears is another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a showorf to their gals. I dont so much mind the fustthe ittin with a pole afore I chucks in their dinner; but I waits till theyve ad their sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the earscratchin. Mind you, he added philosophically, theres a deal of the same nature in us as in them there animiles. Heres you acomin and arskin of me questions about my business, and I that grumpylike that only for your bloomin arfquid Id a seen you blowed fust fore Id answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcasticlike if Id like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence, did I tell yer to go to ell? You did. An when you said youd report me for usin of obscene language, that was itten me over the ead; but the arfquid made that all right. I werent agoin to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my owl as the wolves, and lions, and tigers does. But, Lor love yer art, now that the old ooman has stuck a chunk of her teacake in me, an rinsed me out with her bloomin old teapot, and Ive lit up, you may scratch my ears for all youre worth, and wont get even a growl out of me. Drive along with your questions. I know what yer acomin at, that ere escaped wolf. Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it happened; and when I know the facts Ill get you to say what you consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair will end. All right, guvnor. This ere is about the ole story. That ere wolf what we called Bersicker was one of three grey ones that came from Norway to Jamrachs, which we bought off him four year ago. He was a nice wellbehaved wolf, that never gave no trouble to talk of. Im more surprised at im for wantin to get out nor any other animile in the place. But, there, you cant trust wolves no more nor women. Dont you mind him, sir! broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery laugh. Es got mindin the animiles so long that blest if he aint like a old wolf isself! But there aint no arm in im. Well, sir, it was about two hours after feedin yesterday when I first hear any disturbance. I was makin up a litter in the monkeyhouse for a young puma which is ill; but when I heard the yelpin and owlin I kem away straight. There was Bersicker atearin like a mad thing at the bars as if he wanted to get out. There wasnt much people about that day, and close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin through it. He had a ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it was im as they was hirritated at. He ad white kid gloves on is ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something. Maybe its you, says I, for I did not like the airs as he give isself. He didnt get angry, as I oped he would, but he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. Oh no, they wouldnt like me, e says. Ow yes, they would, says I, aimitatin of him. They always like a bone or two to clean their teeth on about teatime, which you as a bagful. Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us atalkin they lay down, and when I went over to Bersicker he let me stroke his ears same as ever. That there man kem over, and blessed but if he didnt put in his hand and stroke the old wolfs ears too! Tyke care, says I. Bersicker is quick. Never mind, he says. Im used to em! Are you in the business yourself? I says, tyking off my at, for a man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good friend to keepers. No, says he, not exactly in the business, but I ave made pets of several. And with that he lifts his at as perlite as a lord, and walks away. Old Bersicker kep alookin arter im till e was out of sight, and then went and lay down in a corner, and wouldnt come hout the ole hevening. Well, larst night, so soon as the moon was hup, the wolves here all began aowling. There warnt nothing for them to owl at. There warnt no one near, except some one that was evidently acallin a dog somewheres out back of the gardings in the Park road. Once or twice I went out to see that all was right, and it was, and then the owling stopped. Just before twelve oclock I just took a look round afore turnin in, an, bust me, but when I kem opposite to old Bersickers cage I see the rails broken and twisted about and the cage empty. And thats all I know for certing. Did any one else see anything? One of our gardners was acomin ome about that time from a armony, when he sees a big grey dog comin out through the gardin edges. At least, so he says; but I dont give much for it myself, for if he did e never said a word about it to his missis when e got ome, and it was only after the escape of the wolf was made known, and we had been up all night ahuntin of the Park for Bersicker, that he remembered seein anything. My own belief was that the armony ad got into his ead. Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape of the wolf? Well, sir, he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, I think I can; but I dont know as ow youd be satisfied with the theory. Certainly I shall. If a man like you, who knows the animals from experience, cant hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to try? Well then, sir, I accounts for it this way; it seems to me that ere wolf escapedsimply because he wanted to get out. From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the joke I could see that it had done service before, and that the whole explanation was simply an elaborate sell. I couldnt cope in badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said Now, Mr. Bilder, well consider that first halfsovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when youve told me what you think will happen. Right yare, sir, he said briskly. Yell excoose me, I know, for achaffin of ye, but the old woman here winked at me, which was as much as telling me to go on. Well, I never! said the old lady. My opinion is this that ere wolf is aidin of, somewheres. The gardner wot didnt remember said he was agallopin northward faster than a horse could go; but I dont believe him, for, yer see, sir, wolves dont gallop no more than dogs does, they not bein built that way. Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when they gets in packs and does be chivvin somethin thats more afeared than they is they can make a devil of a noise and chop it up, whatever it is. But, Lor bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature, not half so clever as a good dog; and not half a quarter so much fight in im. This one aint been used to fightin or even to providin for hisself, and more like hes somewhere round the Park aidin an ashiverin of, and, if he thinks at all, wonderin where he is to get his breakfast from; or maybe hes got down some area and is in a coalcellar. My eye, wont some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes ashining at her out of the dark! If he cant get food hes bound to look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butchers shop in time. If he doesnt, and some nursemaid goes awalkin orf with a soldier, leavin of the hinfant in the perambulatorwell then I shouldnt be surprised if the census is one babby the less. Thats all. I was handing him the halfsovereign, when something came bobbing up against the window, and Mr. Bilders face doubled its natural length with surprise. God bless me! he said. If there aint old Bersicker come back by isself! He went to the door and opened it; a most unnecessary proceeding it seemed to me. I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us; a personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea. After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog. The animal itself was as peaceful and wellbehaved as that father of all picturewolvesRed Riding Hoods quondam friend, whilst seeking her confidence in masquerade. The whole scene was an unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The wicked wolf that for half a day had paralysed London and set all the children in the town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble; didnt I say it all along? Heres his head all cut and full of broken glass. Es been agettin over some bloomin wall or other. Its a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This eres what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker. He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report. I came off, too, to report the only exclusive information that is given today regarding the strange escapade at the Zoo. Dr. Sewards Diary. 17 September.I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy, had fallen sadly into arrear. Suddenly the door was burst open, and in rushed my patient, with his face distorted with passion. I was thunderstruck, for such a thing as a patient getting of his own accord into the Superintendents study is almost unknown. Without an instants pause he made straight at me. He had a dinnerknife in his hand, and, as I saw he was dangerous, I tried to keep the table between us. He was too quick and too strong for me, however; for before I could get my balance he had struck at me and cut my left wrist rather severely. Before he could strike again, however, I got in my right, and he was sprawling on his back on the floor. My wrist bled freely, and quite a little pool trickled on to the carpet. I saw that my friend was not intent on further effort, and occupied myself binding up my wrist, keeping a wary eye on the prostrate figure all the time. When the attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his employment positively sickened me. He was lying on his belly on the floor licking up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist. He was easily secured, and, to my surprise, went with the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again The blood is the life! the blood is the life! I cannot afford to lose blood just at present I have lost too much of late for my physical good, and the then prolonged strain of Lucys illness and its horrible phases is telling on me. I am overexcited and weary, and I need rest, rest, rest. Happily Van Helsing has not summoned me, so I need not forego my sleep; tonight I could not well do without it. Telegram, Van Helsing, Antwerp, to Seward, Carfax. (Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county given; delivered late by twentytwo hours.) 17 September.Do not fail to be at Hillingham tonight. If not watching all the time, frequently visit to see that flowers are as placed; very important; do not fail. Shall be with you as soon as possible after arrival. Dr. Sewards Diary. 18 September.Just off for train to London. The arrival of Van Helsings telegram filled me with dismay. A whole night lost, and I know by bitter experience what may happen in a night. Of course it is possible that all may be well, but what may have happened? Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do. I shall take this cylinder with me, and then I can complete my entry on Lucys phonograph. Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra. 17 September. Night.I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by chance get into any trouble through me. This is an exact record of what took place tonight. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing. I went to bed as usual, taking care that the flowers were placed as Dr. Van Helsing directed, and soon fell asleep. I was waked by the flapping at the window, which had begun after the sleepwalking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and which now I know so well. I was not afraid, but I did wish that Dr. Seward was in the next roomas Dr. Van Helsing said he would beso that I might have called him. I tried to go to sleep, but could not. Then there came to me the old fear of sleep, and I determined to keep awake. Perversely sleep would try to come when I did not want it; so, as I feared to be alone, I opened my door and called out Is there anybody there? There was no answer. I was afraid to wake mother, and so closed my door again. Then outside in the shrubbery I heard a sort of howl like a dogs, but more fierce and deeper. I went to the window and looked out, but could see nothing, except a big bat, which had evidently been buffeting its wings against the window. So I went back to bed again, but determined not to go to sleep. Presently the door opened, and mother looked in; seeing by my moving that I was not asleep, came in, and sat by me. She said to me even more sweetly and softly than her wont I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all right. I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me; she did not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay awhile and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers, the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was startled and a little frightened, and cried out What is that? I tried to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay quiet; but I could hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was the low howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great gaunt grey wolf. Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat; then she fell over, as if struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two. The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoom in the desert. I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear mothers poor body, which seemed to grow cold alreadyfor her dear heart had ceased to beatweighed me down; and I remembered no more for a while. The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I recovered consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling; the dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling; and in our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they came in, and when they saw what had happened, and what it was that lay over me in the bed, they screamed out. The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my dear mother and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up. They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go to the diningroom and have each a glass of wine. The door flew open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went in a body to the diningroom; and I laid what flowers I had on my dear mothers breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing had told me, but I didnt like to remove them, and, besides, I would have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I was surprised that the maids did not come back. I called them, but got no answer, so I went to the diningroom to look for them. My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay helpless on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about. I was suspicious, and examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle which mothers doctor uses for heroh! did usewas empty. What am I to do? What am I to do? I am back in the room with mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for the sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window. The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Goodbye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me! CHAPTER XII. DR. SEWARDS DIARY. 18 September.I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early. Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to bring only a servant to the door. After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again; still no answer. I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an hourfor it was now ten oclockand so rang and knocked again, but more impatiently, and still without response. Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me. Was this desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing tight around us? Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come too late? I knew that minutes, even seconds, of delay might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses; and I went round the house to try if I could to find by chance an entry anywhere. I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door was fastened and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch. As I did so, I heard the rapid pitpat of a swiftly driven horses feet. They stopped at the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the avenue. When he saw me, he gasped out Then it was you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get my telegram? I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got his telegram early in the morning and had not lost a minute in coming here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me. He paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly Then I fear we are too late. Gods will be done! With his usual recuperative energy, he went on Come. If there be no way open to get in, we must make one. Time is all in all to us now. We went round to the back of the house, where there was a kitchen window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case, and handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded the window. I attacked them at once and had very soon cut through three of them. Then with a long, thin knife we pushed back the fastening of the sashes and opened the window. I helped the Professor in and followed him. There was no one in the kitchen or in the servants rooms, which were close at hand. We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in the diningroom, dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, found four servantwomen lying on the floor. There was no need to think them dead, for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of laudanum in the room left no doubt as to their condition. Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and as we moved away he said We can attend to them later. Then we ascended to Lucys room. For an instant or two we paused at the door to listen, but there was no sound that we could hear. With white faces and trembling hands, we opened the door gently, and entered the room.

How shall I describe what we saw? On the bed lay two women, Lucy and her mother. The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a white sheet, the edge of which had been blown back by the draught through the broken window, showing the drawn, white face, with a look of terror fixed upon it. By her side lay Lucy, with face white and still more drawn. The flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her mothers bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white and mangled. Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, his head almost touching poor Lucys breast; then he gave a quick turn of his head, as of one who listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to me It is not yet too late! Quick! quick! Bring the brandy! I flew downstairs and returned with it, taking care to smell and taste it, lest it, too, were drugged like the decanter of sherry which I found on the table. The maids were still breathing, but more restlessly, and I fancied that the narcotic was wearing off. I did not stay to make sure, but returned to Van Helsing. He rubbed the brandy, as on another occasion, on her lips and gums and on her wrists and the palms of her hands. He said to me I can do this, all that can be at the present. You go wake those maids. Flick them in the face with a wet towel, and flick them hard. Make them get heat and fire and a warm bath. This poor soul is nearly as cold as that beside her. She will need be heated before we can do anything more. I went at once, and found little difficulty in waking three of the women. The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had evidently affected her more strongly, so I lifted her on the sofa and let her sleep. The others were dazed at first, but as remembrance came back to them they cried and sobbed in a hysterical manner. I was stern with them, however, and would not let them talk. I told them that one life was bad enough to lose, and that if they delayed they would sacrifice Miss Lucy. So, sobbing and crying, they went about their way, halfclad as they were, and prepared fire and water. Fortunately, the kitchen and boiler fires were still alive, and there was no lack of hot water. We got a bath, and carried Lucy out as she was and placed her in it. Whilst we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock on the halldoor. One of the maids ran off, hurried on some more clothes, and opened it. Then she returned and whispered to us that there was a gentleman who had come with a message from Mr. Holmwood. I bade her simply tell him that he must wait, for we could see no one now. She went away with the message, and, engrossed with our work, I clean forgot all about him. I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly earnest. I knewas he knewthat it was a standup fight with death, and in a pause told him so. He answered me in a way that I did not understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon. He went on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied vigour. Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to be of some effect. Lucys heart beat a trifle more audibly to the stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. Van Helsings face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in a hot sheet to dry her he said to me The first gain is ours! Check to the King! We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and laid her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat. I noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not worse than, we had ever seen her. Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned me out of the room. We must consult as to what is to be done, he said as we descended the stairs. In the hall he opened the diningroom door, and we passed in, he closing the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been opened, but the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette of death which the British woman of the lower classes always rigidly observes. The room was, therefore, dimly dark. It was, however, light enough for our purposes. Van Helsings sternness was somewhat relieved by a look of perplexity. He was evidently torturing his mind about something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke What are we to do now? Where are we to turn for help? We must have another transfusion of blood, and that soon, or that poor girls life wont be worth an hours purchase. You are exhausted already; I am exhausted too. I fear to trust those women, even if they would have courage to submit. What are we to do for some one who will open his veins for her? Whats the matter with me, anyhow? The voice came from the sofa across the room, and its tones brought relief and joy to my heart, for they were those of Quincey Morris. Van Helsing started angrily at the first sound, but his face softened and a glad look came into his eyes as I cried out Quincey Morris! and rushed towards him with outstretched hands. What brought you here? I cried as our hands met. I guess Art is the cause. He handed me a telegram Have not heard from Seward for three days, and am terribly anxious. Cannot leave. Father still in same condition. Send me word how Lucy is. Do not delay.HOLMWOOD. I think I came just in the nick of time. You know you have only to tell me what to do. Van Helsing strode forward and took his hand, looking him straight in the eyes as he said A brave mans blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble. Youre a man, and no mistake. Well, the devil may work against us for all hes worth, but God sends us men when we want them. Once again we went through that ghastly operation. I have not the heart to go through with the details. Lucy had got a terrible shock, and it told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went into her veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as on the other occasions. Her struggle back into life was something frightful to see and hear. However, the action of both heart and lungs improved, and Van Helsing made a subcutaneous injection of morphia, as before, and with good effect. Her faint became a profound slumber. The Professor watched whilst I went downstairs with Quincey Morris, and sent one of the maids to pay off one of the cabmen who were waiting. I left Quincey lying down after having a glass of wine, and told the cook to get ready a good breakfast. Then a thought struck me, and I went back to the room where Lucy now was. When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet or two of notepaper in his hand. He had evidently read it, and was thinking it over as he sat with his hand to his brow. There was a look of grim satisfaction in his face, as of one who has had a doubt solved. He handed me the paper, saying only It dropped from Lucys breast when we carried her to the bath. When I had read it, I stood looking at the Professor, and after a pause asked him In Gods name, what does it all mean? Was she, or is she, mad; or what sort of horrible danger is it? I was so bewildered that I did not know what to say more. Van Helsing put out his hand and took the paper, saying Do not trouble about it now. Forget it for the present. You shall know and understand it all in good time; but it will be later. And now what is that you came to me to say? This brought me back to fact, and I was all myself again. I came to speak about the certificate of death. If we do not act properly and wisely, there may be an inquest, and that paper would have to be produced. I am in hopes that we need have no inquest, for if we had it would surely kill poor Lucy, if nothing else did. I know, and you know, and the other doctor who attended her knows, that Mrs. Westenra had disease of the heart, and we can certify that she died of it. Let us fill up the certificate at once, and I shall take it myself to the registrar and go on to the undertaker. Good, oh my friend John! Well thought of! Truly Miss Lucy, if she be sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends that love her. One, two, three, all open their veins for her, besides one old man. Ah yes, I know, friend John; I am not blind! I love you all the more for it! Now go. In the hall I met Quincey Morris, with a telegram for Arthur telling him that Mrs. Westenra was dead; that Lucy also had been ill, but was now going on better; and that Van Helsing and I were with her. I told him where I was going, and he hurried me out, but as I was going said When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you all to ourselves? I nodded in reply and went out. I found no difficulty about the registration, and arranged with the local undertaker to come up in the evening to measure for the coffin and to make arrangements. When I got back Quincey was waiting for me. I told him I would see him as soon as I knew about Lucy, and went up to her room. She was still sleeping, and the Professor seemingly had not moved from his seat at her side. From his putting his finger to his lips, I gathered that he expected her to wake before long and was afraid of forestalling nature. So I went down to Quincey and took him into the breakfastroom, where the blinds were not drawn down, and which was a little more cheerful, or rather less cheerless, than the other rooms. When we were alone, he said to me Jack Seward, I dont want to shove myself in anywhere where Ive no right to be; but this is no ordinary case. You know I loved that girl and wanted to marry her; but, although thats all past and gone, I cant help feeling anxious about her all the same. What is it thats wrong with her? The Dutchmanand a fine old fellow he is; I can see thatsaid, that time you two came into the room, that you must have another transfusion of blood, and that both you and he were exhausted. Now I know well that you medical men speak in camera, and that a man must not expect to know what they consult about in private. But this is no common matter, and, whatever it is, I have done my part. Is not that so? Thats so, I said, and he went on I take it that both you and Van Helsing had done already what I did today. Is not that so? Thats so. And I guess Art was in it too. When I saw him four days ago down at his own place he looked queer. I have not seen anything pulled down so quick since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that I was fond of go to grass all in a night. One of those big bats that they call vampires had got at her in the night, and, what with his gorge and the vein left open, there wasnt enough blood in her to let her stand up, and I had to put a bullet through her as she lay. Jack, if you may tell me without betraying confidence, Arthur was the first; is not that so? As he spoke the poor fellow looked terribly anxious. He was in a torture of suspense regarding the woman he loved, and his utter ignorance of the terrible mystery which seemed to surround her intensified his pain. His very heart was bleeding, and it took all the manhood of himand there was a royal lot of it, tooto keep him from breaking down. I paused before answering, for I felt that I must not betray anything which the Professor wished kept secret, but already he knew so much, and guessed so much, that there could be no reason for not answering, so I answered in the same phrase Thats so. And how long has this been going on? About ten days. Ten days! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood of four strong men. Man alive, her whole body wouldnt hold it. Then, coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce halfwhisper What took it out? I shook my head. That, I said, is the crux. Van Helsing is simply frantic about it, and I am at my wits end. I cant even hazard a guess. There has been a series of little circumstances which have thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched. But these shall not occur again. Here we stay until all be wellor ill. Quincey held out his hand. Count me in, he said. You and the Dutchman will tell me what to do, and Ill do it. When she woke late in the afternoon, Lucys first movement was to feel in her breast, and, to my surprise, produced the paper which Van Helsing had given me to read. The careful Professor had replaced it where it had come from, lest on waking she should be alarmed. Her eye then lit on Van Helsing and on me too, and gladdened. Then she looked round the room, and seeing where she was, shuddered; she gave a loud cry, and put her poor thin hands before her pale face. We both understood what that meantthat she had realised to the full her mothers death; so we tried what we could to comfort her. Doubtless sympathy eased her somewhat, but she was very low in thought and spirit, and wept silently and weakly for a long time. We told her that either or both of us would now remain with her all the time, and that seemed to comfort her. Towards dusk she fell into a doze. Here a very odd thing occurred. Whilst still asleep she took the paper from her breast and tore it in two. Van Helsing stepped over and took the pieces from her. All the same, however, she went on with the action of tearing, as though the material were still in her hands; finally she lifted her hands and opened them as though scattering the fragments. Van Helsing seemed surprised, and his brows gathered as if in thought, but he said nothing. 19 September.All last night she slept fitfully, being always afraid to sleep, and something weaker when she woke from it. The Professor and I took it in turns to watch, and we never left her for a moment unattended. Quincey Morris said nothing about his intention, but I knew that all night long he patrolled round and round the house. When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in poor Lucys strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good. At times she slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her, between sleeping and waking. Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more haggard, and her breathing was softer; her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and sharper than usual; when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying one. In the afternoon she asked for Arthur, and we telegraphed for him. Quincey went off to meet him at the station. When he arrived it was nearly six oclock, and the sun was setting full and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and gave more colour to the pale cheeks. When he saw her, Arthur was simply choked with emotion, and none of us could speak. In the hours that had passed, the fits of sleep, or the comatose condition that passed for it, had grown more frequent, so that the pauses when conversation was possible were shortened. Arthurs presence, however, seemed to act as a stimulant; she rallied a little, and spoke to him more brightly than she had done since we arrived. He too pulled himself together, and spoke as cheerily as he could, so that the best was made of everything. It is now nearly one oclock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with her. I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am entering this on Lucys phonograph. Until six oclock they are to try to rest. I fear that tomorrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too great; the poor child cannot rally. God help us all. Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra. (Unopened by her.) 17 September. My dearest Lucy, It seems an age since I heard from you, or indeed since I wrote. You will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when you have read all my budget of news. Well, I got my husband back all right; when we arrived at Exeter there was a carriage waiting for us, and in it, though he had an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took us to his own house, where there were rooms for us all nice and comfortable, and we dined together. After dinner Mr. Hawkins said My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity; and may every blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make your home here with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in my will I have left you everything. I cried, Lucy dear, as Jonathan and the old man clasped hands. Our evening was a very, very happy one. So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from both my bedroom and drawingroom I can see the great elms of the cathedral close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow stone of the cathedral; and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and cawing and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of rooksand humans. I am busy, I need not tell you, arranging things and housekeeping. Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day; for, now that Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the clients. How is your dear mother getting on? I wish I could run up to town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not go yet, with so much on my shoulders; and Jonathan wants looking after still. He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the long illness; even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual placidity. However, thank God, these occasions grow less frequent as the days go on, and they will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now I have told you my news, let me ask yours. When are you to be married, and where, and who is to perform the ceremony, and what are you to wear, and is it to be a public or a private wedding? Tell me all about it, dear; tell me all about everything, for there is nothing which interests you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send his respectful duty, but I do not think that is good enough from the junior partner of the important firm of Hawkins Harker; and so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his love instead. Goodbye, my dearest Lucy, and all blessings on you. Yours, MINA HARKER. Report from Patrick Hennessey, M.D., M.R.C.S., L.K.Q.CP.I., etc., etc., to John Seward, M.D. 20 September. My dear Sir, In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the conditions of everything left in my charge.... With regard to patient, Renfield, there is more to say. He has had another outbreak which might have had a dreadful ending, but which, as it fortunately happened, was unattended with any unhappy results. This afternoon a carriers cart with two men made a call at the empty house whose grounds abut on oursthe house to which, you will remember, the patient twice ran away. The men stopped at our gate to ask the porter their way, as they were strangers. I was myself looking out of the study window, having a smoke after dinner, and saw one of them come up to the house. As he passed the window of Renfields room, the patient began to rate him from within, and called him all the foul names he could lay his tongue to. The man, who seemed a decent fellow enough, contented himself by telling him to shut up for a foulmouthed beggar, whereon our man accused him of robbing him and wanting to murder him and said that he would hinder him if he were to swing for it. I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, so he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his mind as to what kind of place he had got to by saying Lor bless yer, sir, I wouldnt mind what was said to me in a bloomin madhouse. I pity ye and the guvnor for havin to live in the house with a wild beast like that. Then he asked the way civilly enough, and I told him where the gate of the empty house was; he went away, followed by threats and curses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I could make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a wellbehaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind had ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed and most genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the window of his room, and was running down the avenue. I called to the attendants to follow me, and ran after him, for I feared he was intent on some mischief. My fear was justified when I saw the same cart which had passed before coming down the road, having on it some great wooden boxes. The men were wiping their foreheads, and were flushed in the face, as if with violent exercise. Before I could get up to him the patient rushed at them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to knock his head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at the moment I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The other fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with the buttend of his heavy whip. It was a terrible blow; but he did not seem to mind it, but seized him also, and struggled with the three of us, pulling us to and fro as if we were kittens. You know I am no light weight, and the others were both burly men. At first he was silent in his fighting; but as we began to master him, and the attendants were putting a straitwaistcoat on him, he began to shout Ill frustrate them! They shant rob me! they shant murder me by inches! Ill fight for my Lord and Master! and all sorts of similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set it all right; and he is going on well. The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on us. Their threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect apology for the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They said that if it had not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made short work of him. They gave as another reason for their defeat the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had been reduced by the dusty nature of their occupation and the reprehensible distance from the scene of their labours of any place of public entertainment. I quite understood their drift, and after a stiff glass of grog, or rather more of the same, and with each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of meeting so bloomin good a bloke as your correspondent. I took their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are as followsJack Smollet, of Duddings Rents, King Georges Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Parleys Row, Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of Harris Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Masters Yard, Soho. I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance. Believe me, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, PATRICK HENNESSEY. Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra. (Unopened by her.) 18 September. My dearest Lucy, Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him that it really seems as though we had lost a father. I never knew either father or mother, so that the dear old mans death is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as hisa nature which enabled him by our dear, good friends aid, to rise from clerk to master in a few yearsshould be so injured that the very essence of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in the midst of your own happiness; but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one, for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must do the day after tomorrow; for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will that he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner. I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings, Your loving MINA HARKER. Dr. Sewards Diary. 20 September.Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry tonight. I am too miserable, too lowspirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, and I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of death. And he has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of lateLucys mother and Arthurs father, and now.... Let me get on with my work. I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wanted Arthur to go to rest also, but he refused at first. It was only when I told him that we should want him to help us during the day, and that we must not all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy should suffer, that he agreed to go. Van Helsing was very kind to him. Come, my child, he said; come with me. You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and much mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know of. You must not be alone; for to be alone is to be full of fears and alarms. Come to the drawingroom, where there is a big fire, and there are two sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other, and our sympathy will be comfort for each other, even though we do not speak, and even if we sleep. Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucys face, which lay on her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn. She lay quite still, and I looked round the room to see that all was as it should be. I could see that the Professor had carried out in this room, as in the other, his purpose of using the garlic; the whole of the windowsashes reeked with it, and round Lucys neck, over the silk handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a rough chaplet of the same odorous flowers. Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down by her, and presently she moved uneasily. At the same moment there came a sort of dull flapping or buffeting at the window. I went over to it softly, and peeped out by the corner of the blind. There was a full moonlight, and I could see that the noise was made by a great bat, which wheeled rounddoubtless attracted by the light, although so dimand every now and again struck the window with its wings. When I came back to my seat I found that Lucy had moved slightly, and had torn away the garlic flowers from her throat. I replaced them as well as I could, and sat watching her. Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had prescribed. She took but a little, and that languidly. There did not seem to be with her now the unconscious struggle for life and strength that had hitherto so marked her illness. It struck me as curious that the moment she became conscious she pressed the garlic flowers close to her. It was certainly odd that whenever she got into that lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put the flowers from her; but that when she waked she clutched them close. There was no possibility of making any mistake about this, for in the long hours that followed, she had many spells of sleeping and waking, and repeated both actions many times. At six oclock Van Helsing came to relieve me. Arthur had then fallen into a doze, and he mercifully let him sleep on. When he saw Lucys face I could hear the hissing indraw of his breath, and he said to me in a sharp whisper Draw up the blind; I want light! Then he bent down, and, with his face almost touching Lucys, examined her carefully. He removed the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief from her throat. As he did so he started back, and I could hear his ejaculation, Mein Gott! as it was smothered in his throat. I bent over and looked too, and as I noticed some queer chill came over me. The wounds on the throat had absolutely disappeared. For fully five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with his face at its sternest. Then he turned to me and said calmly She is dying. It will not be long now. It will be much difference, mark me, whether she dies conscious or in her sleep. Wake that poor boy, and let him come and see the last; he trusts us, and we have promised him. I went to the diningroom and waked him. He was dazed for a moment, but when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the edges of the shutters he thought he was late, and expressed his fear. I assured him that Lucy was still asleep, but told him as gently as I could that both Van Helsing and I feared that the end was near. He covered his face with his hands, and slid down on his knees by the sofa, where he remained, perhaps a minute, with his hands buried, praying, whilst his shoulders shook with grief. I took him by the hand and raised him up. Come, I said, my dear old fellow, summon all your fortitude; it will be best and easiest for her. When we came into Lucys room I could see that Van Helsing had, with his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and making everything look as pleasing as possible. He had even brushed Lucys hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples. When we came into the room she opened her eyes, and seeing him, whispered softly Arthur! Oh, my love, I am glad you have come! He was stooping to kiss her, when Van Helsing motioned him back. No, he whispered, not yet! Hold her hand; it will comfort her more. So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her, and she looked her best, with all the soft lines matching the angelic beauty of her eyes. Then gradually her eyes closed, and she sank to sleep. For a little bit her breast heaved softly, and her breath came and went like a tired childs. And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed in the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever.

In a sort of sleepwaking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me! Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her; but at that instant Van Helsing, who, like me, had been startled by her voice, swooped upon him, and catching him by the neck with both hands, dragged him back with a fury of strength which I never thought he could have possessed, and actually hurled him almost across the room. Not for your life! he said; not for your living soul and hers! And he stood between them like a lion at bay. Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment know what to do or say; and before any impulse of violence could seize him he realised the place and the occasion, and he stood silent, waiting. I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face; the sharp teeth champed together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily. Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and putting out her poor pale, thin hand, took Van Helsings great brown one; drawing it to her, she kissed it. My true friend, she said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos, My true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace! I swear it! said he solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding up his hand, as one who registers an oath. Then he turned to Arthur, and said to him Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on the forehead, and only once. Their eyes met instead of their lips; and so they parted. Lucys eyes closed; and Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took Arthurs arm, and drew him away. And then Lucys breathing became stertorous again, and all at once it ceased. It is all over, said Van Helsing. She is dead! I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the drawingroom, where he sat down, and covered his face with his hands, sobbing in a way that nearly broke me down to see. I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking at poor Lucy, and his face was sterner than ever. Some change had come over her body. Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines; even the lips had lost their deadly pallor. It was as if the blood, no longer needed for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death as little rude as might be. We thought her dying whilst she slept, And sleeping when she died. I stood beside Van Helsing, and said Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end! He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity Not so! alas! not so. It is only the beginning! When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and answered We can do nothing as yet. Wait and see. CHAPTER XIII. DR. SEWARDS DIARYcontinued. The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff were afflictedor blessedwith something of his own obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brotherprofessional way, when she had come out from the deathchamber She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. Its quite a privilege to attend on her. Its not too much to say that she will do credit to our establishment! I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away. This was possible from the disordered state of things in the household. There were no relatives at hand; and as Arthur had to be back the next day to attend at his fathers funeral, we were unable to notify any one who should have been bidden. Under the circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it upon ourselves to examine papers, etc. He insisted upon looking over Lucys papers himself. I asked him why, for I feared that he, being a foreigner, might not be quite aware of English legal requirements, and so might in ignorance make some unnecessary trouble. He answered me I know; I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a doctor. But this is not altogether for the law. You knew that, when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to avoid. There may be papers moresuch as this. As he spoke he took from his pocketbook the memorandum which had been in Lucys breast, and which she had torn in her sleep. When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late Mrs. Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him tonight. For me, I watch here in the room and in Miss Lucys old room all night, and I myself search for what may be. It is not well that her very thoughts go into the hands of strangers. I went on with my part of the work, and in another halfhour had found the name and address of Mrs. Westenras solicitor and had written to him. All the poor ladys papers were in order; explicit directions regarding the place of burial were given. I had hardly sealed the letter, when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room, saying Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, my service is to you. Have you got what you looked for? I asked, to which he replied I did not look for any specific thing. I only hoped to find, and find I have, all that there wasonly some letters and a few memoranda, and a diary new begun. But I have them here, and we shall for the present say nothing of them. I shall see that poor lad tomorrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use some. When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me And now, friend John, I think we may to bed. We want sleep, both you and I, and rest to recuperate. Tomorrow we shall have much to do, but for the tonight there is no need of us. Alas! Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker had certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a small chapelle ardente. There was a wilderness of beautiful white flowers, and death was made as little repulsive as might be. The end of the windingsheet was laid over the face; when the Professor bent over and turned it gently back, we both started at the beauty before us, the tall wax candles showing a sufficient light to note it well. All Lucys loveliness had come back to her in death, and the hours that had passed, instead of leaving traces of decays effacing fingers, had but restored the beauty of life, till positively I could not believe my eyes that I was looking at a corpse. The Professor looked sternly grave. He had not loved her as I had, and there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me Remain till I return, and left the room. He came back with a handful of wild garlic from the box waiting in the hall, but which had not been opened, and placed the flowers amongst the others on and around the bed. Then he took from his neck, inside his collar, a little golden crucifix, and placed it over the mouth. He restored the sheet to its place, and we came away. I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap at the door, he entered, and at once began to speak Tomorrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of postmortem knives. Must we make an autopsy? I asked. Yes, and no. I want to operate, but not as you think. Let me tell you now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head and take out her heart. Ah! you a surgeon, and so shocked! You, whom I have seen with no tremble of hand or heart, do operations of life and death that make the rest shudder. Oh, but I must not forget, my dear friend John, that you loved her; and I have not forgotten it, for it is I that shall operate, and you must only help. I would like to do it tonight, but for Arthur I must not; he will be free after his fathers funeral tomorrow, and he will want to see herto see it. Then, when she is coffined ready for the next day, you and I shall come when all sleep. We shall unscrew the coffinlid, and shall do our operation; and then replace all, so that none know, save we alone. But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body without need? And if there is no necessity for a postmortem and nothing to gain by itno good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledgewhy do it? Without such it is monstrous. For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with infinite tenderness Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart; and I love you the more because it does so bleed. If I could, I would take on myself the burden that you do bear. But there are things that you know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for knowing, though they are not pleasant things. John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may errI am but man; but I believe in all I do. Was it not for these causes that you send for me when the great trouble came? Yes! Were you not amazed, nay horrified, when I would not let Arthur kiss his lovethough she was dyingand snatched him away by all my strength? Yes! And yet you saw how she thanked me, with her so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too, so weak, and she kiss my rough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did you not hear me swear promise to her, that so she closed her eyes grateful? Yes! Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. You have for many years trust me; you have believe me weeks past, when there be things so strange that you might have well doubt. Believe me yet a little, friend John. If you trust me not, then I must tell what I think; and that is not perhaps well. And if I workas work I shall, no matter trust or no trustwithout my friend trust in me, I work with heavy heart, and feel, oh! so lonely when I want all help and courage that may be! He paused a moment, and went on solemnly Friend John, there are strange and terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me? I took his hand, and promised him. I held my door open as he went away, and watched him go into his room and close the door. As I stood without moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along the passageshe had her back towards me, so did not see meand go into the room where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare, and we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we love. Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest.... I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight when Van Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came over to my bedside and said You need not trouble about the knives; we shall not do it. Why not? I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had greatly impressed me. Because, he said sternly, it is too lateor too early. See! Here he held up the little golden crucifix. This was stolen in the night. How stolen, I asked in wonder, since you have it now? Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it, from the woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her punishment will surely come, but not through me; she knew not altogether what she did, and thus unknowing, she only stole. Now we must wait. He went away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to think of, a new puzzle to grapple with. The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came Mr. Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand Lidderdale. He was very genial and very appreciative of what we had done, and took off our hands all cares as to details. During lunch he told us that Mrs. Westenra had for some time expected sudden death from her heart, and had put her affairs in absolute order; he informed us that, with the exception of a certain entailed property of Lucys father which now, in default of direct issue, went back to a distant branch of the family, the whole estate, real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood. When he had told us so much he went on Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a matrimonial alliance. Indeed, we pressed the matter so far that we almost came into collision, for she asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out her wishes. Of course, we had then no alternative but to accept. We were right in principle, and ninetynine times out of a hundred we should have proved, by the logic of events, the accuracy of our judgment. Frankly, however, I must admit that in this case any other form of disposition would have rendered impossible the carrying out of her wishes. For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would have come into possession of the property, and, even had she only survived her mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were no willand a will was a practical impossibility in such a casehave been treated at her decease as under intestacy. In which case, Lord Godalming, though so dear a friend, would have had no claim in the world; and the inheritors, being remote, would not be likely to abandon their just rights for sentimental reasons regarding an entire stranger. I assure you, my dear sirs, I am rejoiced at the result, perfectly rejoiced. He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little partin which he was officially interestedof so great a tragedy was an objectlesson in the limitations of sympathetic understanding. He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the day and see Lord Godalming. His coming, however, had been a certain comfort to us, since it assured us that we should not have to dread hostile criticism as to any of our acts. Arthur was expected at five oclock, so a little before that time we visited the deathchamber. It was so in very truth, for now both mother and daughter lay in it. The undertaker, true to his craft, had made the best display he could of his goods, and there was a mortuary air about the place that lowered our spirits at once. Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to, explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it would be less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of his fiance quite alone. The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity, and exerted himself to restore things to the condition in which we left them the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his feelings as we could avoid were saved. Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken; even his stalwart manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his muchtried emotions. He had, I knew, been very genuinely and devotedly attached to his father; and to lose him, and at such a time, was a bitter blow to him. With me he was warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he was sweetly courteous; but I could not help seeing that there was some constraint with him. The Professor noticed it, too, and motioned me to bring him upstairs. I did so, and left him at the door of the room, as I felt he would like to be quite alone with her; but he took my arm and led me in, saying huskily You loved her too, old fellow; she told me all about it, and there was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I dont know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I cant think yet.... Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my shoulders and laid his head on my breast, crying Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do? The whole of life seems gone from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for. I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not need much expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a mans heart. I stood still and silent till his sobs died away, and then I said softly to him Come and look at her. Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from her face. God! how beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be enhancing her loveliness. It frightened and amazed me somewhat; and as for Arthur, he fell atrembling, and finally was shaken with doubt as with an ague. At last, after a long pause, he said to me in a faint whisper Jack, is she really dead? I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggestfor I felt that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a moment longer than I could helpthat it often happened that after death faces became softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty; that this was especially so when death had been preceded by any acute or prolonged suffering. It seemed to quite do away with any doubt, and, after kneeling beside the couch for a while and looking at her lovingly and long, he turned aside. I told him that that must be goodbye, as the coffin had to be prepared; so he went back and took her dead hand in his and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead. He came away, fondly looking back over his shoulder at her as he came. I left him in the drawingroom, and told Van Helsing that he had said goodbye; so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertakers men to proceed with the preparations and to screw up the coffin. When he came out of the room again I told him of Arthurs question, and he replied I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself! We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to make the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all dinnertime, but when we had lit our cigars he said Lord; but Arthur interrupted him No, no, not that, for Gods sake! not yet at any rate. Forgive me, sir I did not mean to speak offensively; it is only because my loss is so recent. The Professor answered very sweetly I only used that name because I was in doubt. I must not call you Mr., and I have grown to love youyes, my dear boy, to love youas Arthur. Arthur held out his hand, and took the old mans warmly. Call me what you will, he said. I hope I may always have the title of a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you for your goodness to my poor dear. He paused a moment, and went on I know that she understood your goodness even better than I do; and if I was rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted soyou rememberthe Professor noddedyou must forgive me. He answered with a grave kindness I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to understand; and I take it that you do notthat you cannottrust me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannotand may notand must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others, and for her dear sake to whom I swore to protect. And, indeed, indeed, sir, said Arthur warmly, I shall in all ways trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and you are Jacks friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you like. The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though about to speak, and finally said May I ask you something now? Certainly. You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property? No, poor dear; I never thought of it. And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will. I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucys papers and letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of which, be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand might touch themno strange eye look through words into her soul. I shall keep them, if I may; even you may not see them yet, but I shall keep them safe. No word shall be lost; and in the good time I shall give them back to you. Its a hard thing I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for Lucys sake? Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I am doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you with questions till the time comes. The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you tooyou most of all, my dear boywill have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well! I slept on a sofa in Arthurs room that night. Van Helsing did not go to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patrolling the house, and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through the odour of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night. Mina Harkers Journal. 22 September.In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping. It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much between them, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and no news of him; and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and Jonathan with another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthandsee what unexpected prosperity does for usso it may be as well to freshen it up again with an exercise anyhow.... The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was gone from us.... We came back to town quietly, taking a bus to Hyde Park Corner. Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so we sat down; but there were very few people there, and it was sadlooking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home; so we got up and walked down Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you cant go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didnt know anybody who saw usand we didnt care if they didso on we walked. I was looking at a very beautiful girl, in a big cartwheel hat, sitting in a victoria outside Giulianos when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said under his breath My God! I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I fear that some nervous fit may upset him again; so I turned to him quickly, and asked him what it was that disturbed him. He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, and so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animals. Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would notice. I feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked Jonathan why he was so disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that I knew as much about it as he did Do you see who it is? No, dear, I said; I dont know him; who is it? His answer seemed to shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it was to me, Mina, to whom he was speaking It is the man himself! The poor dear was evidently terrified at somethingvery greatly terrified; I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to support him, he would have sunk down. He kept staring; a man came out of the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then drove off. The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when the carriage moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction, and hailed a hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as if to himself I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this be so! Oh, my God! my God! If I only knew! if I only knew! He was distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on the subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent. I drew him away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily. We walked a little further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green Park. It was a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady place. After a few minutes staring at nothing, Jonathans eyes closed, and he went quietly into a sleep, with his head on my shoulder. I thought it was the best thing for him, so did not disturb him. In about twenty minutes he woke up, and said to me quite cheerfully Why, Mina, have I been asleep? Oh, do forgive me for being so rude. Come, and well have a cup of tea somewhere. He had evidently forgotten all about the dark stranger, as in his illness he had forgotten all that this episode had reminded him of. I dont like this lapsing into forgetfulness; it may make or continue some injury to the brain. I must not ask him, for fear I shall do more harm than good; but I must somehow learn the facts of his journey abroad. The time is come, I fear, when I must open that parcel and know what is written. Oh, Jonathan, you will, I know, forgive me if I do wrong but it is for your own dear sake. Later.A sad homecoming in every waythe house empty of the dear soul who was so good to us; Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a slight relapse of his malady; and now a telegram from Van Helsing, whoever he may be You will be grieved to hear that Mrs. Westenra died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried today. Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! poor Lucy! Gone, gone, never to return to us! And poor, poor Arthur, to have lost such sweetness out of his life! God help us all to bear our troubles. Dr. Sewards Diary. 22 September.It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring, and has taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucys death as any of us; but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world indeed. Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest preparatory to his journey. He goes over to Amsterdam tonight, but says he returns tomorrow night; that he only wants to make some arrangements which can only be made personally. He is to stop with me then, if he can; he says he has work to do in London which may take him some time. Poor old fellow! I fear that the strain of the past week has broken down even his iron strength. All the time of the burial he was, I could see, putting some terrible restraint on himself. When it was all over, we were standing beside Arthur, who, poor fellow, was speaking of his part in the operation where his blood had been transfused to his Lucys veins; I could see Van Helsings face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was saying that he felt since then as if they two had been really married, and that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word of the other operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of hysterics. He has denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humour asserting itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge; and then he cried till he laughed again; and laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with him, as one is to a woman under the circumstances; but it had no effect. Men and women are so different in manifestations of nervous strength or weakness! Then when his face grew grave and stern again I asked him why his mirth, and why at such a time. His reply was in a way characteristic of him, for it was logical and forceful and mysterious. He said Ah, you dont comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, May I come in? is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no time of suitability. He say I am here. Behold, in example, I grieve my heart out for that so sweet young girl; I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn; I give my time, my skill, my sleep; I let my other sufferers want that she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very gravelaugh when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say, Thud! thud! to my heart, till it send back the blood from my cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boythat dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same. There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when he say things that touch my husbandheart to the quick, and make my fatherheart yearn to him as to no other mannot even to you, friend John, for we are more level in experiences than father and sonyet even at such moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, Here I am! Here I am! till the blood come dance back and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek. Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fallall dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be. I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea; but, as I did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, I asked him. As he answered me his face grew stern, and he said in quite a different tone Oh, it was the grim irony of it allthis so lovely lady garlanded with flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by one we wondered if she were truly dead; she laid in that so fine marble house in that lonely churchyard, where rest so many of her kin, laid there with the mother who loved her, and whom she loved; and that sacred bell going Toll! toll! toll! so sad and slow; and those holy men, with the white garments of the angel, pretending to read books, and yet all the time their eyes never on the page; and all us with the bowed head. And all for what? She is dead; so! Is it not? Well, for the life of me, Professor, I said, I cant see anything to laugh at in all that. Why, your explanation makes it a harder puzzle than before. But even if the burial service was comic, what about poor Art and his trouble? Why, his heart was simply breaking. Just so.

Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride? Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him. Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Churchs law, though no wits, all goneeven I, who am faithful husband to this nownowife, am bigamist. I dont see where the joke comes in there either! I said; and I did not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things. He laid his hand on my arm, and said Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart then when I want to laugh; if you could have done so when the laugh arrived; if you could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown and all that is to himfor he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long timemaybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all. I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why. Because I know! And now we are all scattered; and for many a long day loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly deathhouse in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord. So I can finish this diary; and God only knows if I shall ever begin another. If I do, or if I ever open this again, it will be to deal with different people and different themes; for here at the end, where the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up the thread of my lifework, I say sadly and without hope, FINIS. The Westminster Gazette, 25 September. A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY. The neighbourhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines as The Kensington Horror, or The Stabbing Woman, or The Woman in Black. During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a bloofer lady. It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighbourhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a bloofer lady had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favourite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the bloofer lady is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the bloofer lady should be the popular rle at these al fresco performances. Our correspondent navely says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubbyfaced little children pretendand even imagine themselvesto be. There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own. The police of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for straying children, especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about. The Westminster Gazette, 25 September. Extra Special. THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR. ANOTHER CHILD INJURED. The Bloofer Lady. We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooters Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is, perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the bloofer lady. CHAPTER XIV. MINA HARKERS JOURNAL. 23 September.Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terrible things; and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunch at home. My household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it.... 24 September.I hadnt the heart to write last night; that terrible record of Jonathans upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those terrible things; or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to him.... And yet that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him.... Poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some train of thought.... He believes it all himself. I remember how on our weddingday he said Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane. There seems to be through it all some thread of continuity.... That fearful Count was coming to London.... If it should be, and he came to London, with its teeming millions. ... There may be a solemn duty; and if it come we must not shrink from it.... I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted; then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it all. If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him. Letter, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker. 24 September. (Confidence.) Dear Madam, I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that I send to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenras death. By the kindness of Lord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I implore you, help me. It is for others good that I askto redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible troublesthat may be more great than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am a friend of Dr. John Seward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. I implore your pardon, madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good you are and how your husband suffer; so I pray you, if it may be, enlighten him not, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me. VAN HELSING. Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing. 25 September.Come today by quarterpast ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call. WILHELMINA HARKER. MINA HARKERS JOURNAL. 25 September.I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect it will throw some light upon Jonathans sad experience; and as he attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about her. That is the reason for his coming; it is concerning Lucy and her sleepwalking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him of her sleepwalking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it; and now he wants me to tell him about it, so that he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra; I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope, too, Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me; I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present. I suppose a cry does us all good at timesclears the air as other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will occur to upset him. It is two oclock and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing of Jonathans journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have typewritten out my own journal, so that, in case he asks about Lucy, I can hand it to him; it will save much questioning. Later.He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head whirl round! I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathans journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God all this may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it; but it may be even a consolation and a help to himterrible though it be and awful in its consequencesto know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts him; that when the doubt is removed, no matter whichwaking or dreamingmay prove the truth, he will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthurs friend and Dr. Sewards, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he is good and kind and of a noble nature. When he comes tomorrow I shall ask him about Jonathan; and then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing; Jonathans friend on The Exeter News told him that memory was everything in such workthat you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview; I shall try to record it verbatim. It was halfpast two oclock when the knock came. I took my courage deux mains and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced Dr. Van Helsing. I rose and bowed, and he came towards me; a man of medium height, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; the head is noble, wellsized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, cleanshaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a goodsized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy eyebrows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart; such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the mans moods. He said to me Mrs. Harker, is it not? I bowed assent. That was Miss Mina Murray? Again I assented. It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead I come. Sir, I said, you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra. And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good, but I had yet to learn He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diaryyou need not look surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you left, and was made in imitation of youand in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleepwalking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you remember. I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it. Ah, then you have a good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies. No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like. Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour. I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bitI suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouthsso I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said May I read it? If you wish, I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for the instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed. Oh, you so clever woman! he said. I long knew that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand. By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed; so I took the typewritten copy from my workbasket and handed it to him. Forgive me, I said I could not help it; but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have to waitnot on my account, but because I know your time must be preciousI have written it out on the typewriter for you. He took it, and his eyes glistened. You are so good, he said. And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read. By all means, I said, read it over whilst I order lunch; and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat. He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch, chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands. Oh, Madam Mina, he said, how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with so much light; and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madamhe said this very solemnlyif ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend; as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and your husband will be blessed in you. But, doctor, you praise me too much, andand you do not know me. Not know youI, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and women; I, who have made my speciality the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husbandtell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty? I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said He has almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkinss death. He interrupted Oh yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters. I went on I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he had a sort of shock. A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kind of shock was it? He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain fever. And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me; he held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than everand it has grown with my advancing yearsthe loneliness of my life. Believe me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hopehope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happygood women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you; for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do all for him that I canall to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps overanxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale; and what he like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter tonight, for I want to think over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husband Jonathans trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now; afterwards you shall tell me all. After lunch, when we went back to the drawingroom, he said to me And now tell me all about him. When it came to speaking to this great, learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madmanthat journal is all so strangeand I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things. He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any ones belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keep an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane. Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathans. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it; you will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think. I promise, he said as I gave him the papers; I shall in the morning, so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may. Jonathan will be here at halfpast eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3.34 train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight. He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains offhand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry. So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinkingthinking I dont know what. Letter (by hand), Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker. 25 September, 6 oclock. Dear Madam Mina, I have read your husbands so wonderful diary. You may sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is true! I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others; but for him and you there is no dread. He is a noble fellow; and let me tell you from experience of men, that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and to that roomay, and going a second timeis not one to be injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all right; this I swear, before I have even seen him; so be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other things. I am blessed that today I come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzledazzle more than ever, and I must think. Yours the most faithful, ABRAHAM VAN HELSING. Letter, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing. 25 September, 6.30 p.m. My dear Dr. Van Helsing, A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6.25 tonight from Launceston and will be here at 10.18, so that I shall have no fear tonight. Will you therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come to breakfast, at eight oclock, if this be not too early for you? You can get away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10.30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2.35. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast. Believe me, Your faithful and grateful friend, MINA HARKER. JONATHAN HARKERS JOURNAL 26 September.I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsings visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she had been about me. She showed me in the doctors letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over.... He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder and turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock. It was so funny to hear my wife called Madam Mina by this kindly, strongfaced old man. I smiled, and said I was ill, I have had a shock; but you have cured me already. And how? By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do; and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you dont know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you dont; you couldnt with eyebrows like yours. He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said So! You are physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast; and, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife. I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent. She is one of Gods women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoistand that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. And you, sirI have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others; but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives. We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky. And now, he said, may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind; but at first this will do. Look here, sir, I said, does what you have to do concern the Count? It does, he said solemnly. Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10.30 train, you will not have time to read them; but I shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the train. After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting he said Perhaps you will come to town if I send to you, and take Madam Mina too. We shall both come when you will, I said. I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eye suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, The Westminster GazetteI knew it by the colourand he grew quite white. He read something intently, groaning to himself Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! so soon! I do not think he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out Love to Madam Mina; I shall write so soon as ever I can. Dr. Sewards Diary. 26 September.Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week since I said Finis, and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the same record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business; and he had just started in the spider line also; so he had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy; so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised. Everything is, however, now reopened; and what is to be the end God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows too, but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. Today he came back, and almost bounded into my room at about halfpast five oclock, and thrust last nights Westminster Gazette into my hand. What do you think of that? he asked as he stood back and folded his arms. I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant; but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a passage where it described small punctured wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up. Well? he said. It is like poor Lucys. And what do make of it? Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injured her has injured them. I did not quite understand his answer That is true indirectly, but not directly. How do you mean, Professor? I asked. I was a little inclined to take his seriousness lightlyfor, after all, four days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore ones spiritsbut when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern. Tell me! I said. I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture. Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of; not after all the hints given, not only by events, but by me? Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood. And how the blood lost or waste? I shook my head. He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by mens eyes, because they knowor think they knowsome things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be younglike the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialisation. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism Yes, I said. Charcot has proved that pretty well. He smiled as he went on Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcotalas that he is no more!into the very soul of the patient that he influence.

No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell mefor I am student of the brainhow you accept the hypnotism and reject the thoughtreading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricitywho would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and Old Parr one hundred and sixtynine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four mens blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had she lived one more day, we could have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy, and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins; how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, that those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them, and thenand then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was? Good God, Professor! I said, starting up. Do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat; and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century? He waved his hand for silence, and went on Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties; and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint? Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are some few who live on always if they be permit; that there are men and women who cannot die? We all knowbecause science has vouched for the factthat there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal, and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before? Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mind his list of natures eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam; but he used then to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time. But now I was without his help, yet I wanted to follow him, so I said Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going in my mind from point to point as a mad man, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice blundering through a bog in a mist, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going. That is good image, he said. Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this I want you to believe. To believe what? To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith that which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue. For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him; but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe. Then you want me not to let some previous conviction injure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright? Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the childrens throats were made by the same that made the hole in Miss Lucy? I suppose so. He stood up and said solemnly Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! but alas! no. It is worse, far, far worse. In Gods name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean? I cried. He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke They were made by Miss Lucy! CHAPTER XV. DR. SEWARDS DIARYcontinued. For a while sheer anger mastered me; it was as if he had during her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I said to him Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad? He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. Would I were! he said. Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell you so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful death? Ah no! Forgive me, said I. He went on My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady. But even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the no of it; it is more hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy. Tonight I go to prove it. Dare you come with me? This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth; Byron excepted from the category, jealousy. And prove the very truth he most abhorred. He saw my hesitation, and spoke The logic is simple, no madmans logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty fog. If it be not true, then proof will be relief; at worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread; yet very dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come, I tell you what I propose first, that we go off now and see that child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent of the North Hospital, where the papers say the child is, is friend of mine, and I think of yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then And then? He took a key from his pocket and held it up. And then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffinman to give to Arthur. My heart sank within me, for I felt that there were some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was passing.... We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some food, and altogether was going on well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no mistaking the similarity to those which had been on Lucys throat. They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher; that was all. We asked Vincent to what he attributed them, and he replied that it must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat; but, for his own part, he was inclined to think that it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the northern heights of London. Out of so many harmless ones, he said, there may be some wild specimen from the South of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to escape; or even from the Zoological Gardens a young one may have got loose, or one be bred there from a vampire. These things do occur, you know. Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on the Heath and in every alley in the place until this bloofer lady scare came along, since when it has been quite a galatime with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up today, asked the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the bloofer lady. I hope, said Van Helsing, that when you are sending the child home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it. These fancies to stray are most dangerous; and if the child were to remain out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you will not let it away for some days? Certainly not, not for a week at least; longer if the wound is not healed. Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said There is no hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way. We dined at Jack Straws Castle along with a little crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten oclock we started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly; but as for me, I was in quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficultyfor it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to uswe found the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight. Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the daytime, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when timediscoloured stone, and dustencrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silverplating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that lifeanimal lifewas not the only thing which could pass away. Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucys coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took out a turnscrew. What are you going to do? I asked. To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced. Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living; I actually took hold of his hand to stop him. He only said You shall see, and again fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny fretsaw. Striking the turnscrew through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince, he made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the weekold corpse. We doctors, who have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to such things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never stopped for a moment; he sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to look. I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. It was certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground, and so emboldened to proceed in his task. Are you satisfied now, friend John? he asked. I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as I answered him I am satisfied that Lucys body is not in that coffin; but that only proves one thing. And what is that, friend John? That it is not there. That is good logic, he said, so far as it goes. But how do youhow can youaccount for it not being there? Perhaps a bodysnatcher, I suggested. Some of the undertakers people may have stolen it. I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet it was the only real cause which I could suggest. The Professor sighed. Ah well! he said, we must have more proof. Come with me. He put on the coffinlid again, gathered up all his things and placed them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key, saying Will you keep it? You had better be assured. I laughedit was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to sayas I motioned him to keep it. A key is nothing, I said; there may be duplicates; and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of that kind. He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he could watch at the other. I took up my place behind a yewtree, and I saw his dark figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my sight. It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I heard a distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two. I was chilled and unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust; so altogether I had a dreary, miserable time. Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white streak, moving between two dark yewtrees at the side of the churchyard farthest from the tomb; at the same time a dark mass moved from the Professors side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railedoff tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little way off, beyond a line of scattered junipertrees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure, and coming over, found the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he saw me he held it out to me, and said Are you satisfied now? No, I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive. Do you not see the child? Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded? I asked. We shall see, said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child. When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of trees, and struck a match, and looked at the childs throat. It was without a scratch or scar of any kind. Was I right? I asked triumphantly. We were just in time, said the Professor thankfully. We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted about it. If we were to take it to a policestation we should have to give some account of our movements during the night; at least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find it; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policemans heavy tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a cab near the Spaniards, and drove to town. I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall go with him on another expedition. 27 September.It was two oclock before we found a suitable opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of aldertrees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how unutterably meanlooking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucys coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shock of surprise and dismay shot through me. There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. Is this a juggle? I said to him. Are you convinced now? said the Professor in response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. See, he went on, see, they are even sharper than before. With this and thisand he touched one of the canine teeth and that below itthe little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John? Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I could not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said She may have been placed here since last night. Indeed? That is so, and by whom? I do not know. Some one has done it. And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not look so. I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleepwalkingoh, you start; you do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it all laterand in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is UnDead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when the UnDead sleep at homeas he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was hometheir face show what they are, but this so sweet thatwas when she not UnDead she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep. This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsings theories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in my face, for he said almost joyously Ah, you believe now? I answered Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to accept. How will you do this bloody work? I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body. It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this UnDead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective? I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a snap, and said I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things that are thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to act now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the wounds on Lucys throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the childs at the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full today with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more beautiful in a whole week after she dieif you know of this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say goodbye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our ideas; and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet he never can be sure; and that is the worst of all. And he will sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and, again, he will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all, an UnDead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You return home for tonight to your asylum, and see that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard in my own way. Tomorrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set. So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly. Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel, directed to John Seward, M.D. (Not delivered.) 27 September. Friend John, I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the UnDead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave tonight, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like notgarlic and a crucifixand so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as UnDead, and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out; they may not prevail on her wanting to get in; for then the UnDead is desperate, and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after the sunrise, and if there be aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy, or from her, I have no fear but that other to whom is there that she is UnDead, he have now the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucys life, and we lost; and in many ways the UnDead are strong. He have always the strength in his hand of twenty men; even we four who gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and I know not what. So if it be that he come thither on this night he shall find me; but none other shalluntil it be too late. But it may be that he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should; his hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the UnDead woman sleep, and one old man watch. Therefore I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and then find this great UnDead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake though it, so that the world may rest from him. If it be so, farewell. VAN HELSING. Dr. Sewards Diary. 28 September.It is wonderful what a good nights sleep will do for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsings monstrous ideas; but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be some rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that the Professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his head he would carry out his intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Van Helsing was mad; but anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some light on the mystery. 29 September, morning.... Last night, at a little before ten oclock, Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsings room; he told us all what he wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would all come with him too, for, he said, there is a grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter? This query was directly addressed to Lord Godalming. I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over; but the more we talked, the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that Im about up a tree as to any meaning about anything. Me, too, said Quincey Morris laconically. Oh, said the Professor, then you are nearer the beginning, both of you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can even get so far as to begin. It was evident that he recognised my return to my old doubting frame of mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said with intense gravity I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is, I know, much to ask; and when you know what it is I propose to do you will know, and only then, how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a timeI must not disguise from myself the possibility that such may beyou shall not blame yourselves for anything. Thats frank anyhow, broke in Quincey. Ill answer for the Professor. I dont quite see his drift, but I swear hes honest; and thats good enough for me. I thank you, sir, said Van Helsing proudly. I have done myself the honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear to me. He held out a hand, which Quincey took. Then Arthur spoke out Dr. Van Helsing, I dont quite like to buy a pig in a poke, as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once; though, for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at. I accept your limitation, said Van Helsing, and all I ask of you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your reservations. Agreed! said Arthur; that is only fair. And now that the pourparlers are over, may I ask what it is we are to do? I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard at Kingstead. Arthurs face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way Where poor Lucy is buried? The Professor bowed. Arthur went on And when there? To enter the tomb! Arthur stood up. Professor, are you in earnest; or is it some monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are in earnest. He sat down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There was silence until he asked again And when in the tomb? To open the coffin. This is too much! he said, angrily rising again. I am willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable; but in thisthis desecration of the graveof one who He fairly choked with indignation. The Professor looked pityingly at him. If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend, he said, God knows I would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame! Arthur looked up with set, white face and said Take care, sir, take care! Would it not be well to hear what I have to say? said Van Helsing. And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go on? Thats fair enough, broke in Morris. After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort Miss Lucy is dead; is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong to her. But if she be not dead Arthur jumped to his feet. Good God! he cried. What do you mean? Has there been any mistake; has she been buried alive? He groaned in anguish that not even hope could soften. I did not say she was alive, my child; I did not think it. I go no further than to say that she might be UnDead. UnDead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what is it? There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy? Heavens and earth, no! cried Arthur in a storm of passion.

Not for the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should want to cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad that speak such things, or am I mad that listen to them? Dont dare to think more of such a desecration; I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage; and, by God, I shall do it! Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and said, gravely and sternly My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead; and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you look and listen; and if when later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its fulfilment even than I am, thenthen I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordships wishes, I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will. His voice broke a little, and he went on with an accent full of pity But, I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so much of labour and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what I can of good; at the first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady, whom, too, I came to love. For herI am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindnessI gave what you gave the blood of my veins; I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave to her my nights and daysbefore death, after death; and if my death can do her good even now, when she is the dead UnDead, she shall have it freely. He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by it. He took the old mans hand and said in a broken voice Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand; but at least I will go with you and wait. CHAPTER XVI. DR. SEWARDS DIARYcontinued. It was just a quarter before twelve oclock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark, with occasional gleams of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him; but he bore himself well. I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding tended in some way a counteractent to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly; Van Helsing said to me You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin? It was. The Professor turned to the rest, saying You hear; and yet there is one who does not believe with me. He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent; when the lid was removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or, at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness; he was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and recoiled. The coffin was empty! For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by Quincey Morris Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldnt ask such a thing ordinarilyI wouldnt so dishonour you as to imply a doubt; but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this your doing? I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor touched her. What happened was this Two nights ago my friend Seward and I came herewith good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then sealed up, and we found it, as now, empty. We then waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in daytime, and she lay there. Did she not, friend John? Yes. That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the UnDead can move. I waited here all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic, which the UnDead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last night there was no exodus, so tonight before the sundown I took away my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. Sohere he shut the dark slide of his lanternnow to the outside. He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the door behind him. Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the brief gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passinglike the gladness and sorrow of a mans life; how sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsings conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a goodsized plug of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, waferlike biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white napkin; next he took out a doublehandful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious. He answered I am closing the tomb, so that the UnDead may not enter. And is that stuff you have put there going to do it? asked Quincey. Great Scott! Is this a game? It is. What is that which you are using? This time the question was by Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence. It was an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professors, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror; and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the faraway howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night. There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the Professor a keen Ssss! He pointed; and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advancea dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell between the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a darkhaired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fairhaired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professors warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yewtree, kept us back; and then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the concentrated light that fell on Lucys face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn deathrobe. We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even Van Helsings iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen. When LucyI call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shapesaw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucys eyes in form and colour; but Lucys eyes unclean and full of hellfire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a coldbloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile, he fell back and hid his face in his hands. She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come! There was something diabolically sweet in her tonessomething of the tingling of glass when struckwhich rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb. When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped as if arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsings iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hellfire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusas snakes, and the lovely, bloodstained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant deathif looks could killwe saw it at that moment. And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work? Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he answered Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more! and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal body as real at the moment as our own, pass in through the interstice where scarce a knifeblade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty to the edges of the door. When this was done, he lifted the child and said Come now, my friends; we can do no more till tomorrow. There is a funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but not like this of tonight. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by tomorrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find him, as on the other night; and then to home. Coming close to Arthur, he said My friend Arthur, you have had sore trial; but after, when you will look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this time tomorrow, you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me. Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other on the way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired; so we all slept with more or less reality of sleep. 29 September, night.A little before twelve oclock we threeArthur, Quincey Morris, and myselfcalled for the Professor. It was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by halfpast one, and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task, and the sexton, under the belief that everyone had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was manifestly of fair weight. When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucys coffin we all lookedArthur trembling like an aspenand saw that the body lay there in all its deathbeauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucys shape without her soul. I could see even Arthurs face grow hard as he looked. Presently he said to Van Helsing Is this really Lucys body, or only a demon in her shape? It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you shall see her as she was, and is. She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouthwhich it made one shudder to seethe whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucys sweet purity. Van Helsing, in his methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then a small oillamp, which gave out, when lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a blue flame; then his operating knives, which he placed to hand; and last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coalcellar for breaking the lumps. To me, a doctors preparations for work of any kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet. When all was ready, Van Helsing said Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the UnDead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the UnDead become themselves UnDead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those UnDeads that so have fill us with horror. The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those children whose blood she suck are not as yet so much the worse; but if she live on, UnDead, more and more they lose their blood, and by her power over them they come to her; and so she draw their blood with that so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease; the tiny wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their plays unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when this now UnDead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilation of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose? Tell me if there be such a one amongst us. We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter! Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said Brave lad! A moments courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordealbe not deceived in thatbut it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time. Go on, said Arthur hoarsely. Tell me what I am to do. Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the heart, and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for the deadI shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall followstrike in Gods name, that so all may be well with the dead that we love, and that the UnDead pass away. Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might. The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, bloodcurdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercybearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; the sight of it gave us courage, so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault. And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth ceased to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. The terrible task was over. The hammer fell from Arthurs hand. He reeled and would have fallen had we not caught him. Great drops of sweat sprang out on his forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain on him; and had he not been forced to his task by more than human considerations he could never have gone through with it. For a few minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look towards the coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled surprise ran from one to the other of us. We gazed so eagerly that Arthur rose, for he had been seated on the ground, and came and looked too; and then a glad, strange light broke over his face and dispelled altogether the gloom of horror that lay upon it. There in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that there was there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever. Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthurs shoulder, and said to him And now, Arthur, my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven? The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old mans hand in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me peace. He put his hands on the Professors shoulder, and laying his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil nownot any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devils UnDead. She is Gods true dead, whose soul is with Him! Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the tomb; the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffinlid, and gathering up our belongings, came away. When the Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur. Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy. Before we moved away Van Helsing said Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves. But there remains a greater task to find out the author of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can follow; but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all of usis it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end? Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the Professor as we moved off Two nights hence you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of the clock with friend John. I shall entreat two others, two that you know not as yet; and I shall be ready to all our work show and our plans unfold. Friend John, you come with me home, for I have much to consult about, and you can help me. Tonight I leave for Amsterdam, but shall return tomorrow night. And then begins our great quest. But first I shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and to dread. Then our promise shall be made to each other anew; for there is a terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the ploughshare, we must not draw back. CHAPTER XVII. DR. SEWARDS DIARYcontinued. When we arrived at the Berkeley Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram waiting for him Am coming up by train. Jonathan at Whitby. Important news.MINA HARKER. The Professor was delighted. Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina, he said, pearl among women! She arrive, but I cannot stay. She must go to your house, friend John. You must meet her at the station. Telegraph her en route, so that she may be prepared. When the wire was despatched he had a cup of tea; over it he told me of a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harkers diary at Whitby. Take these, he said, and study them well. When I have returned you will be master of all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of today. What is here told, he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of papers as he spoke, may be the beginning of the end to you and me and many another; or it may sound the knell of the UnDead who walk the earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind; and if you can add in any way to the story here told do so, for it is allimportant. You have kept diary of all these so strange things; is it not so? Yes! Then we shall go through all these together when that we meet. He then made ready for his departure, and shortly after drove off to Liverpool Street. I took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before the train came in. The crowd melted away after the bustling fashion common to arrival platforms; and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my guest, when a sweetfaced, daintylooking girl stepped up to me, and, after a quick glance, said Dr. Seward, is it not? And you are Mrs. Harker! I answered at once; whereupon she held out her hand. I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy; but She stopped suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face. The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it was a tacit answer to her own. I got her luggage, which included a typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sittingroom and bedroom prepared at once for Mrs. Harker. In due time we arrived. She knew, of course, that the place was a lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a slight shudder when we entered. She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study, as she had much to say. So here I am finishing my entry in my phonograph diary whilst I await her. As yet I have not had the chance of looking at the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before me. I must get her interested in something, so that I may have an opportunity of reading them. She does not know how precious time is, or what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten her. Here she is! MINA HARKERS JOURNAL. 29 September.After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Sewards study. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him talking with some one. As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I knocked at the door, and on his calling out, Come in, I entered. To my intense surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone, and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from the description to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was much interested. I hope I did not keep you waiting, I said; but I stayed at the door as I heard you talking, and thought there was some one with you. Oh, he replied, with a smile, I was only entering my diary. Your diary? I asked him in surprise. Yes, he answered. I keep it in this. As he spoke he laid his hand on the phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something? Certainly, he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train for speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face. The fact is, he began awkwardly, I only keep my diary in it; and as it is entirelyalmost entirelyabout my cases, it may be awkwardthat is, I mean He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his embarrassment You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died; for all that I can know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very, very dear to me. To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world! Why not? I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me. Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse. At length he stammered out You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary. Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the navet of a child Thats quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian! I could not but smile, at which he grimaced. I gave myself away that time! he said. But do you know that, although I have kept the diary for months past, it never once struck me how I was going to find any particular part of it in case I wanted to look it up? By this time my mind was made up that the diary of a doctor who attended Lucy might have something to add to the sum of our knowledge of that terrible Being, and I said boldly Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on my typewriter. He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he said No! no! no! For all the world, I wouldnt let you know that terrible story! Then it was terrible; my intuition was right! For a moment I thought, and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for something or some opportunity to aid me, they lit on the great batch of typewriting on the table. His eyes caught the look in mine, and, without his thinking, followed their direction.

As they saw the parcel he realised my meaning. You do not know me, I said. When you have read those papersmy own diary and my husbands also, which I have typedyou will know me better. I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart in this cause; but, of course, you do not know meyet; and I must not expect you to trust me so far. He is certainly a man of noble nature; poor dear Lucy was right about him. He stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in order a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, and said You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. But I know you now; and let me say that I should have known you long ago. I know that Lucy told you of me; she told me of you too. May I make the only atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear themthe first halfdozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify you; then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be better able to understand certain things. He carried the phonograph himself up to my sittingroom and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn something pleasant, I am sure; for it will tell me the other side of a true love episode of which I know one side already.... Dr. Sewards Diary. 29 September.I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of Jonathan Harker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on without thinking. Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce dinner, so I said She is possibly tired; let dinner wait an hour; and I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harkers diary, when she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were flushed with crying. This somehow moved me much. Of late I have had cause for tears, God knows! but the relief of them was denied me; and now the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened with recent tears, went straight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could I greatly fear I have distressed you. Oh no, not distressed me, she replied, but I have been more touched than I can say by your grief. That is a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart. It was like a soul crying out to almighty God. No one must hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out the words on my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart beat, as I did. No one need ever know, shall ever know, I said in a low voice. She laid her hand on mine and said very gravely Ah, but they must! Must! But why? I asked. Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor dear Lucys death and all that led to it; because in the struggle which we have before us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all the knowledge and all the help which we can get. I think that the cylinders which you gave me contained more than you intended me to know; but I can see that there are in your record many lights to this dark mystery. You will let me help, will you not? I know all up to a certain point, and I see already, though your diary only took me to 7 September, how poor Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was being wrought out. Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor Van Helsing saw us. He is gone to Whitby to get more information, and he will be here tomorrow to help us. We need have no secrets amongst us; working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark. She looked at me so appealingly, and at the same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing, that I gave in at once to her wishes. You shall, I said, do as you like in the matter. God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terrible things yet to learn of; but if you have so far travelled on the road to poor Lucys death, you will not be content, I know, to remain in the dark. Nay, the endthe very endmay give you a gleam of peace. Come, there is dinner. We must keep one another strong for what is before us; we have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten you shall learn the rest, and I will answer any questions you askif there be anything which you do not understand, though it was apparent to us who were present. MINA HARKERS JOURNAL. 29 September.After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study. He brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took my typewriter. He placed me in a comfortable chair, and arranged the phonograph so that I could touch it without getting up, and showed me how to stop it in case I should want to pause. Then he very thoughtfully took a chair, with his back to me, so that I might be as free as possible, and began to read. I put the forked metal to my ears and listened. When the terrible story of Lucys death, andand all that followed, was done, I lay back in my chair powerless. Fortunately I am not of a fainting disposition. When Dr. Seward saw me he jumped up with a horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a casebottle from a cupboard, gave me some brandy, which in a few minutes somewhat restored me. My brain was all in a whirl, and only that there came through all the multitude of horrors, the holy ray of light that my dear, dear Lucy was at last at peace, I do not think I could have borne it without making a scene. It is all so wild, and mysterious, and strange that if I had not known Jonathans experience in Transylvania I could not have believed. As it was, I didnt know what to believe, and so got out of my difficulty by attending to something else. I took the cover off my typewriter, and said to Dr. Seward Let me write this all out now. We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing when he comes. I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here when he arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything, and I think that if we get all our material ready, and have every item put in chronological order, we shall have done much. You tell me that Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell them when they come. He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I began to typewrite from the beginning of the seventh cylinder. I used manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done with all the rest. It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went about his work of going his round of the patients; when he had finished he came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel too lonely whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good meneven if there are monsters in it. Before I left him I remembered what Jonathan put in his diary of the Professors perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at the station at Exeter; so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his newspapers, I borrowed the files of The Westminster Gazette and The Pall Mall Gazette, and took them to my room. I remember how much The Dailygraph and The Whitby Gazette, of which I had made cuttings, helped us to understand the terrible events at Whitby when Count Dracula landed, so I shall look through the evening papers since then, and perhaps I shall get some new light. I am not sleepy, and the work will help to keep me quiet. Dr. Sewards Diary. 30 September.Mr. Harker arrived at nine oclock. He had got his wifes wire just before starting. He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face, and full of energy. If his journal be trueand judging by ones own wonderful experiences it must behe is also a man of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a remarkable piece of daring. After reading his account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, businesslike gentleman who came here today. Later.After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room, and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter. They are hard at it. Mrs. Harker says that they are knitting together in chronological order every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the carriers in London who took charge of them. He is now reading his wifes typescript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here he is.... Strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be the Counts hidingplace! Goodness knows that we had enough clues from the conduct of the patient Renfield! The bundle of letters relating to the purchase of the house were with the typescript. Oh, if we had only had them earlier we might have saved poor Lucy! Stop; that way madness lies! Harker has gone back, and is again collating his material. He says that by dinnertime they will be able to show a whole connected narrative. He thinks that in the meantime I should see Renfield, as hitherto he has been a sort of index to the coming and going of the Count. I hardly see this yet, but when I get at the dates I suppose I shall. What a good thing that Mrs. Harker put my cylinders into type! We never could have found the dates otherwise.... I found Renfield sitting placidly in his room with his hands folded, smiling benignly. At the moment he seemed as sane as any one I ever saw. I sat down and talked with him on a lot of subjects, all of which he treated naturally. He then, of his own accord, spoke of going home, a subject he has never mentioned to my knowledge during his sojourn here. In fact, he spoke quite confidently of getting his discharge at once. I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of his outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for him after a brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those outbreaks were in some way linked with the proximity of the Count. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that his instinct is satisfied as to the vampires ultimate triumph? Stay; he is himself zoophagous, and in his wild ravings outside the chapel door of the deserted house he always spoke of master. This all seems confirmation of our idea. However, after a while I came away; my friend is just a little too sane at present to make it safe to probe him too deep with questions. He might begin to think, and then! So I came away. I mistrust these quiet moods of his; so I have given the attendant a hint to look closely after him, and to have a straitwaistcoat ready in case of need. Jonathan Harkers Journal. 29 September, in train to London.When I received Mr. Billingtons courteous message that he would give me any information in his power, I thought it best to go down to Whitby and make, on the spot, such inquiries as I wanted. It was now my object to trace that horrid cargo of the Counts to its place in London. Later, we may be able to deal with it. Billington junior, a nice lad, met me at the station, and brought me to his fathers house, where they had decided that I must stay the night. They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire hospitality give a guest everything, and leave him free to do as he likes. They all knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short, and Mr. Billington had ready in his office all the papers concerning the consignment of boxes. It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had seen on the Counts table before I knew of his diabolical plans. Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision. He seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which might be placed by accident in the way of his intentions being carried out. To use an Americanism, he had taken no chances, and the absolute accuracy with which his instructions were fulfilled was simply the logical result of his care. I saw the invoice, and took note of it Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes. Also the copy of letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply; of both of these I got copies. This was all the information Mr. Billington could give me, so I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs officers, and the harbourmaster. They had all something to say of the strange entry of the ship, which is already taking its place in local tradition; but no one could add to the simple description Fifty cases of common earth. I then saw the stationmaster, who kindly put me in communication with the men who had actually received the boxes. Their tally was exact with the list, and they had nothing to add except that the boxes were main and mortal heavy, and that shifting them was dry work. One of them added that it was hard lines that there wasnt any gentleman suchlike as yourself, squire, to show some sort of appreciation of their efforts in a liquid form; another put in a rider that the thirst then generated was such that even the time which had elapsed had not completely allayed it. Needless to add, I took care before leaving to lift, for ever and adequately, this source of reproach. 30 September.The stationmaster was good enough to give me a line to his old companion the stationmaster at Kings Cross, so that when I arrived there in the morning I was able to ask him about the arrival of the boxes. He, too, put me at once in communication with the proper officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original invoice. The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here limited; a noble use of them had, however, been made, and again I was compelled to deal with the result in an ex post facto manner. From thence I went on to Carter Patersons central office, where I met with the utmost courtesy. They looked up the transaction in their daybook and letterbook, and at once telephoned to their Kings Cross office for more details. By good fortune, the men who did the teaming were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over, sending also by one of them the waybill and all the papers connected with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax. Here again I found the tally agreeing exactly; the carriers men were able to supplement the paucity of the written words with a few details. These were, I shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and of the consequent thirst engendered in the operators. On my affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying at a later period this beneficent evil, one of the men remarked That ere ouse, guvnor, is the rummiest I ever was in. Blyme! but it aint been touched sence a hundred years. There was dust that thick in the place that you might have slep on it without urtin of yer bones; an the place was that neglected that yer might ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it. But the ole chapelthat took the cike, that did! Me and my mate, we thort we wouldnt never git out quick enough. Lor, I wouldnt take less nor a quid a moment to stay there arter dark. Having been in the house, I could well believe him; but if he knew what I know, he would, I think, have raised his terms. Of one thing I am now satisfied that all the boxes which arrived at Whitby from Varna in the Demeter were safely deposited in the old chapel of Carfax. There should be fifty of them there, unless any have since been removedas from Dr. Sewards diary I fear. I shall try to see the carter who took away the boxes from Carfax when Renfield attacked them. By following up this clue we may learn a good deal. Later.Mina and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers into order. Mina Harkers Journal. 30 September.I am so glad that I hardly know how to contain myself. It is, I suppose, the reaction from the haunting fear which I have had that this terrible affair and the reopening of his old wound might act detrimentally on Jonathan. I saw him leave for Whitby with as brave a face as I could, but I was sick with apprehension. The effort has, however, done him good. He was never so resolute, never so strong, never so full of volcanic energy, as at present. It is just as that dear, good Professor Van Helsing said he is true grit, and he improves under strain that would kill a weaker nature. He came back full of life and hope and determination; we have got everything in order for tonight. I feel myself quite wild with excitement. I suppose one ought to pity any thing so hunted as is the Count. That is just it this Thing is not humannot even beast. To read Dr. Sewards account of poor Lucys death, and what followed, is enough to dry up the springs of pity in ones heart. Later.Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris arrived earlier than we expected. Dr. Seward was out on business, and had taken Jonathan with him, so I had to see them. It was to me a painful meeting, for it brought back all poor dear Lucys hopes of only a few months ago. Of course they had heard Lucy speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van Helsing, too, had been quite blowing my trumpet, as Mr. Morris expressed it. Poor fellows, neither of them is aware that I know all about the proposals they made to Lucy. They did not quite know what to say or do, as they were ignorant of the amount of my knowledge; so they had to keep on neutral subjects. However, I thought the matter over, and came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do would be to post them in affairs right up to date. I knew from Dr. Sewards diary that they had been at Lucys deathher real deathand that I need not fear to betray any secret before the time. So I told them, as well as I could, that I had read all the papers and diaries, and that my husband and I, having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order. I gave them each a copy to read in the library. When Lord Godalming got his and turned it overit does make a pretty good pilehe said Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker? I nodded, and he went on I dont quite see the drift of it; but you people are all so good and kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that all I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you. I have had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a man humble to the last hour of his life. Besides, I know you loved my poor Lucy Here he turned away and covered his face with his hands. I could hear the tears in his voice. Mr. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just laid a hand for a moment on his shoulder, and then walked quietly out of the room. I suppose there is something in womans nature that makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood; for when Lord Godalming found himself alone with me he sat down on the sofa and gave way utterly and openly. I sat down beside him and took his hand. I hope he didnt think it forward of me, and that if he ever thinks of it afterwards he never will have such a thought. There I wrong him; I know he never willhe is too true a gentleman. I said to him, for I could see that his heart was breaking I loved dear Lucy, and I know what she was to you, and what you were to her. She and I were like sisters; and now she is gone, will you not let me be like a sister to you in your trouble? I know what sorrows you have had, though I cannot measure the depth of them. If sympathy and pity can help in your affliction, wont you let me be of some little servicefor Lucys sake? In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed to me that all that he had of late been suffering in silence found a vent at once. He grew quite hysterical, and raising his open hands, beat his palms together in a perfect agony of grief. He stood up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks. I felt an infinite pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob he laid his head on my shoulder, and cried like a wearied child, whilst he shook with emotion. We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the motherspirit is invoked; I felt this big, sorrowing mans head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child. I never thought at the time how strange it all was. After a little bit his sobs ceased, and he raised himself with an apology, though he made no disguise of his emotion. He told me that for days and nights pastweary days and sleepless nightshe had been unable to speak with any one, as a man must speak in his time of sorrow. There was no woman whose sympathy could be given to him, or with whom, owing to the terrible circumstances with which his sorrow was surrounded, he could speak freely. I know now how I suffered, he said, as he dried his eyes, but I do not know even yetand none other can ever knowhow much your sweet sympathy has been to me today. I shall know better in time; and believe me that, though I am not ungrateful now, my gratitude will grow with my understanding. You will let me be like a brother, will you not, for all our livesfor dear Lucys sake? For dear Lucys sake, I said as we clasped hands. Ay, and for your own sake, he added, for if a mans esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won mine today. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a mans help, believe me, you will not call in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you to break the sunshine of your life; but if it should ever come, promise me that you will let me know. He was so earnest, and his sorrow was so fresh, that I felt it would comfort him, so I said I promise. As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window. He turned as he heard my footsteps. How is Art? he said. Then noticing my red eyes, he went on Ah, I see you have been comforting him. Poor old fellow! he needs it. No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart; and he had no one to comfort him. He bore his own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for him. I saw the manuscript in his hand, and I knew that when he read it he would realise how much I knew; so I said to him I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me be your friend, and will you come to me for comfort if you need it? You will know, later on, why I speak. He saw that I was in earnest, and stooping, took my hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it. It seemed but poor comfort to so brave and unselfish a soul, and impulsively I bent over and kissed him. The tears rose in his eyes, and there was a momentary choking in his throat; he said quite calmly Little girl, you will never regret that truehearted kindness, so long as ever you live! Then he went into the study to his friend. Little girl!the very words he had used to Lucy, and oh, but he proved himself a friend! CHAPTER XVIII. DR. SEWARDS DIARY. 30 September.I got home at five oclock, and found that Godalming and Morris had not only arrived, but had already studied the transcript of the various diaries and letters which Harker and his wonderful wife had made and arranged. Harker had not yet returned from his visit to the carriers men, of whom Dr. Hennessey had written to me. Mrs. Harker gave us a cup of tea, and I can honestly say that, for the first time since I have lived in it, this old house seemed like home. When we had finished, Mrs. Harker said Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour? I want to see your patient, Mr. Renfield. Do let me see him. What you have said of him in your diary interests me so much! She looked so appealing and so pretty that I could not refuse her, and there was no possible reason why I should; so I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a lady would like to see him; to which he simply answered Why? She is going through the house, and wants to see every one in it, I answered. Oh, very well, he said let her come in, by all means; but just wait a minute till I tidy up the place. His method of tidying was peculiar he simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes before I could stop him. It was quite evident that he feared, or was jealous of, some interference. When he had got through his disgusting task, he said cheerfully Let the lady come in, and sat down on the edge of his bed with his head down, but with his eyelids raised so that he could see her as she entered. For a moment I thought that he might have some homicidal intent; I remembered how quiet he had been just before he attacked me in my own study, and I took care to stand where I could seize him at once if he attempted to make a spring at her. She came into the room with an easy gracefulness which would at once command the respect of any lunaticfor easiness is one of the qualities mad people most respect. She walked over to him, smiling pleasantly, and held out her hand. Good evening, Mr. Renfield, said she. You see, I know you, for Dr. Seward has told me of you. He made no immediate reply, but eyed her all over intently with a set frown on his face. This look gave way to one of wonder, which merged in doubt; then, to my intense astonishment, he said Youre not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You cant be, you know, for shes dead. Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she replied Oh no! I have a husband of my own, to whom I was married before I ever saw Dr. Seward, or he me. I am Mrs. Harker. Then what are you doing here? My husband and I are staying on a visit with Dr. Seward. Then dont stay. But why not? I thought that this style of conversation might not be pleasant to Mrs. Harker, any more than it was to me, so I joined in How did you know I wanted to marry any one? His reply was simply contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned his eyes from Mrs. Harker to me, instantly turning them back again What an asinine question! I dont see that at all, Mr. Renfield, said Mrs. Harker, at once championing me. He replied to her with as much courtesy and respect as he had shown contempt to me You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that when a man is loved and honoured as our host is, everything regarding him is of interest in our little community. Dr. Seward is loved not only by his household and his friends, but even by his patients, who, being some of them hardly in mental equilibrium, are apt to distort causes and effects. Since I myself have been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, I cannot but notice that the sophistic tendencies of some of its inmates lean towards the errors of non causa and ignoratio elenchi. I positively opened my eyes at this new development. Here was my own pet lunaticthe most pronounced of his type that I had ever met withtalking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. I wonder if it was Mrs. Harkers presence which had touched some chord in his memory. If this new phase was spontaneous, or in any way due to her unconscious influence, she must have some rare gift or power. We continued to talk for some time; and, seeing that he was seemingly quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished, for he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of the completest sanity; he even took himself as an example when he mentioned certain things. Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his bloodrelying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, For the blood is the life. Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarised the truism to the very point of contempt. Isnt that true, doctor? I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what I ought to think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up his spiders and flies not five minutes before. Looking at my watch, I saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told Mrs. Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once, after saying pleasantly to Mr. Renfield Goodbye, and I hope I may see you often, under auspices pleasanter to yourself, to which, to my astonishment, he replied Goodbye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again. May He bless and keep you! When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for many a long day. Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good! As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harkers suggestion; at which the Professor interrupted me Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has mans braina brain that a man should have were he much giftedand womans heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help to us; after tonight she must not have to do with this so terrible affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are determinednay, are we not pledged?to destroy this monster; but it is no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may sufferboth in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides, she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things to think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she must consult with us; but tomorrow she say goodbye to this work, and we go alone. I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we had found in his absence that the house which Dracula had bought was the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed to come on him. Oh that we had known it before! he said, for then we might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards, as you say. We shall not think of that, but go on our way to the end. Then he fell into a silence that lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for dinner he said to Mrs. Harker I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment. Not up to this moment, Professor, she said impulsively, but up to this morning. But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who has told is the worse for it. Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pocket, she said Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in? It is my record of today. I too have seen the need of putting down at present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except what is personal. Must it go in? The Professor read it over gravely, and handed it back, saying It need not go in if you do not wish it; but pray that it may. It can but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more honour youas well as more esteem and love. She took it back with another blush and a bright smile.

And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner, and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine oclock. The rest of us have already read everything; so when we meet in the study we shall all be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this terrible and mysterious enemy. Mina Harkers Journal. 30 September.When we met in Dr. Sewards study two hours after dinner, which had been at six oclock, we unconsciously formed a sort of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary; Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. MorrisLord Godalming being next to the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the centre. The Professor said I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts that are in these papers. We all expressed assent, and he went on Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure according. There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that through long years I have trained myself to keep an open mind, I could not have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. See! see! I prove; I prove. Alas! Had I known at the first what now I knownay, had I even guess at himone so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things the rat, and the owl, and the batthe moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our strife to destroy him? How shall we find his where; and having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much; it is a terrible task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win; and then where end we? Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail here, is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him; that we henceforward become foul things of the night like himwithout heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all; a blot on the face of Gods sunshine; an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face with duty; and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say, no; but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music, and his love, lie far behind. You others are young. Some have seen sorrow; but there are fair days yet in store. What say you? Whilst he was speaking Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touchso strong, so selfreliant, so resolute. A brave mans hand can speak for itself; it does not even need a womans love to hear its music. When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I in his; there was no need for speaking between us. I answer for Mina and myself, he said. Count me in, Professor, said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual. I am with you, said Lord Godalming, for Lucys sake, if for no other reason. Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up, and, after laying his golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left; Jonathan held my right with his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way, as any other transaction of life Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not without strength. We have on our side power of combinationa power denied to the vampire kind; we have resources of science; we are free to act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are free to use them. We have selfdevotion in a cause, and an end to achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much. Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular. All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and deathnay of more than either life or death. Yet must we be satisfied; in the first place because we have to beno other means is at our controland secondly, because, after all, these thingstradition and superstitionare everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest for othersthough not, alas! for uson them? A year ago which of us would have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific, sceptical, matteroffact nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief that we saw justified under our very eyes. Take it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome; he flourish in Germany all over, in France, in India, even in the Chersonese; and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear him at this day. He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the devilbegotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar. So far, then, we have all we may act upon; and let me tell you that very much of the beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own so unhappy experience. The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger; that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. But he cannot flourish without this diet; he eat not as others. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him to eat, never! He throws no shadow; he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many in his handwitness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolfs, and when he help him from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog; he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. He can come in mist which he createthat noble ships captain proved him of this; but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He come on moonlight rays as elemental dustas again Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so smallwe ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with firesolder you call it. He can see in the darkno small power this, in a world which is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear me through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay; he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists; he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of natures lawswhy we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come; though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These things are we told, and in this record of ours we have proof by inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he have his earthhome, his coffinhome, his hellhome, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby; still at other time he can only change when the time come. It is said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has no power, as the garlic that we know of; and as for things sacred, as this symbol, my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to them he is nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, lest in our seeking we may need them. The branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from it; a sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake through him, we know already of its peace; or the cutoff head that giveth rest. We have seen it with our eyes. Thus when we find the habitation of this manthatwas, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of BudaPesth University, to make his record; and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkeyland. If it be so, then was he no common man; for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the land beyond the forest. That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as stregoicawitch, ordog, and pokolSatan and hell; and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as wampyr, which we all understand too well. There have been from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good; in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest. Whilst they were talking Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the window, and he now got up quietly, and went out of the room. There was a little pause, and then the Professor went on And now we must settle what we do. We have here much data, and we must proceed to lay out our campaign. We know from the inquiry of Jonathan that from the castle to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all of which were delivered at Carfax; we also know that at least some of these boxes have been removed. It seems to me, that our first step should be to ascertain whether all the rest remain in the house beyond that wall where we look today; or whether any more have been removed. If the latter, we must trace Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house came the sound of a pistolshot; the glass of the window was shattered with a bullet, which, ricocheting from the top of the embrasure, struck the far wall of the room. I am afraid I am at heart a coward, for I shrieked out. The men all jumped to their feet; Lord Godalming flew over to the window and threw up the sash. As he did so we heard Mr. Morriss voice without Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about it. A minute later he came in and said It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely; I fear I must have frightened you terribly. But the fact is that while the Professor was talking there came a big bat and sat on the windowsill. I have got such a horror of the damned brutes from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to have a shot, as I have been doing of late of evenings whenever I have seen one. You used to laugh at me for it then, Art. Did you hit it? asked Dr. Van Helsing. I dont know; I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood. Without saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume his statement We must trace each of these boxes; and when we are ready, we must either capture or kill this monster in his lair; or we must, so to speak, sterilise the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it. Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most weak. And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well. You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part tonight, you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men, and are able to bear; but you must be our star and our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we are. All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved; but it did not seem to me good that they should brave danger and, perhaps, lessen their safetystrength being the best safetythrough care of me; but their minds were made up, and, though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me. Mr. Morris resumed the discussion As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right now. Time is everything with him; and swift action on our part may save another victim. I own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so close, but I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave me out of their counsels altogether. They have now gone off to Carfax, with means to get into the house. Manlike, they have told me to go to bed and sleep; as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he returns. Dr. Sewards Diary 1 October, 4 a.m.Just as we were about to leave the house, an urgent message was brought to me from Renfield to know if I would see him at once, as he had something of the utmost importance to say to me. I told the messenger to say that I would attend to his wishes in the morning; I was busy just at the moment. The attendant added He seems very importunate, sir. I have never seen him so eager. I dont know but what, if you dont see him soon, he will have one of his violent fits. I knew the man would not have said this without some cause, so I said All right; Ill go now; and I asked the others to wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and see my patient. Take me with you, friend John, said the Professor. His case in your diary interested me much, and it had bearing, too, now and again on our case. I should much like to see him, and especially when his mind is disturbed. May I come also? asked Lord Godalming. Me too? said Quincey Morris. I nodded, and we all went down the passage together. We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him. There was an unusual understanding of himself, which was unlike anything I had ever met with in a lunatic; and he took it for granted that his reasons would prevail with others entirely sane. We all four went into the room, but none of the others at first said anything. His request was that I would at once release him from the asylum and send him home. This he backed up with arguments regarding his complete recovery, and adduced his own existing sanity. I appeal to your friends, he said; they will, perhaps, not mind sitting in judgment on my case. By the way, you have not introduced me. I was so much astonished, that the oddness of introducing a madman in an asylum did not strike me at the moment; and, besides, there was a certain dignity in the mans manner, so much of the habit of equality, that I at once made the introduction Lord Godalming; Professor Van Helsing; Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas; Mr. Renfield. He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn Lord Godalming, I had the honour of seconding your father at the Windham; I grieve to know, by your holding the title, that he is no more. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him; and in his youth was, I have heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much patronised on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have farreaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold allegiance to the Stars and Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove a vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place as a political fable. What shall any man say of his pleasure at meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of conventional prefix. When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brainmatter, conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to one of a class. You gentlemen, who by nationality, by heredity, or by the possession of natural gifts, are fitted to hold your respective places in the moving world, I take to witness that I am as sane as at least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties. And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medicojurist as well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to be considered as under exceptional circumstances. He made this last appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own charm. I think we were all staggered. For my own part, I was under the conviction, despite my knowledge of the mans character and history, that his reason had been restored; and I felt under a strong impulse to tell him that I was satisfied as to his sanity, and would see about the necessary formalities for his release in the morning. I thought it better to wait, however, before making so grave a statement, for of old I knew the sudden changes to which this particular patient was liable. So I contented myself with making a general statement that he appeared to be improving very rapidly; that I would have a longer chat with him in the morning, and would then see what I could do in the direction of meeting his wishes. This did not at all satisfy him, for he said quickly But I fear, Dr. Seward, that you hardly apprehend my wish. I desire to go at onceherenowthis very hourthis very moment, if I may. Time presses, and in our implied agreement with the old scytheman it is of the essence of the contract. I am sure it is only necessary to put before so admirable a practitioner as Dr. Seward so simple, yet so momentous a wish, to ensure its fulfilment. He looked at me keenly, and seeing the negative in my face, turned to the others, and scrutinised them closely. Not meeting any sufficient response, he went on Is it possible that I have erred in my supposition? You have, I said frankly, but at the same time, as I felt, brutally. There was a considerable pause, and then he said slowly Then I suppose I must only shift my ground of request. Let me ask for this concessionboon, privilege, what you will. I am content to implore in such a case, not on personal grounds, but for the sake of others. I am not at liberty to give you the whole of my reasons; but you may, I assure you, take it from me that they are good ones, sound and unselfish, and springing from the highest sense of duty. Could you look, sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the sentiments which animate me. Nay, more, you would count me amongst the best and truest of your friends. Again he looked at us all keenly. I had a growing conviction that this sudden change of his entire intellectual method was but yet another form or phase of his madness, and so determined to let him go on a little longer, knowing from experience that he would, like all lunatics, give himself away in the end. Van Helsing was gazing at him with a look of the utmost intensity, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting with the fixed concentration of his look. He said to Renfield in a tone which did not surprise me at the time, but only when I thought of it afterwardsfor it was as of one addressing an equal Can you not tell frankly your real reason for wishing to be free tonight? I will undertake that if you will satisfy even mea stranger, without prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mindDr. Seward will give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility, the privilege you seek. He shook his head sadly, and with a look of poignant regret on his face. The Professor went on Come sir, bethink yourself. You claim the privilege of reason in the highest degree, since you seek to impress us with your complete reasonableness. You do this, whose sanity we have reason to doubt, since you are not yet released from medical treatment for this very defect. If you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can we perform the duty which you yourself put upon us? Be wise, and help us; and if we can we shall aid you to achieve your wish. He still shook his head as he said Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to say. Your argument is complete, and if I were free to speak I should not hesitate a moment; but I am not my own master in the matter. I can only ask you to trust me. If I am refused, the responsibility does not rest with me. I thought it was now time to end the scene, which was becoming too comically grave, so I went towards the door, simply saying Come, my friends, we have work to do. Goodnight. As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient. He moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he was about to make another homicidal attack. My fears, however, were groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his petition in a moving manner. As he saw that the very excess of his emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old relations, he became still more demonstrative. I glanced at Van Helsing, and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes; so I became a little more fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him that his efforts were unavailing. I had previously seen something of the same constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some request of which at the time he had thought much, such, for instance, as when he wanted a cat; and I was prepared to see the collapse into the same sullen acquiescence on this occasion. My expectation was not realised, for, when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into quite a frantic condition. He threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks and his whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out of this house at once. Send me away how you will and where you will; send keepers with me with whips and chains; let them take me in a straitwaistcoat, manacled and legironed, even to a gaol; but let me go out of this. You dont know what you do by keeping me here. I am speaking from the depths of my heartof my very soul. You dont know whom you wrong, or how; and I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell. By all you hold sacredby all you hold dearby your love that is lostby your hope that livesfor the sake of the Almighty, take me out of this and save my soul from guilt! Cant you hear me, man? Cant you understand? Will you never learn? Dont you know that I am sane and earnest now; that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go! I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so would bring on a fit; so I took him by the hand and raised him up. Come, I said sternly, no more of this; we have had quite enough already. Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly. He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments. Then without a word he rose, and moving over, sat down on the side of the bed. The collapse had come, as on former occasions, just as I had expected. When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a quiet, wellbred voice You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later on, that I did what I could to convince you tonight. CHAPTER XIX. JONATHAN HARKERS JOURNAL. 1 October, 5 a.m.I went with the party to the search with an easy mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us. We were, I think, all a little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield. When we came away from his room we were silent till we got back to the study. Then Mr. Morris said to Dr. Seward Say, Jack, if that man wasnt attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. Im not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a chance. Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added Friend John, you know more of lunatics than I do, and Im glad of it, for I fear that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last hysterical outburst have given him free. But we live and learn, and in our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say. All is best as they are. Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a dreamy kind of way I dont know but that I agree with you. If that man had been an ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him; but he seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads. I cant forget how he prayed with almost equal fervour for a cat, and then tried to tear my throat out with his teeth. Besides, he called the Count lord and master, and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way. That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help him, so I suppose he isnt above trying to use a respectable lunatic. He certainly did seem earnest, though. I only hope we have done what is best. These things, in conjunction with the wild work we have in hand, help to unnerve a man. The Professor stepped over, and laying a hand on his shoulder, said in his grave, kindly way Friend John, have no fear. We are trying to do our duty in a very sad and terrible case; we can only do as we deem best. What else have we to hope for, except the pity of the good God? Lord Godalming had slipped away for a few minutes, but he now returned. He held up a little silver whistle as he remarked That old place may be full of rats, and if so, Ive got an antidote on call. Having passed the wall, we took our way to the house, taking care to keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone out. When we got to the porch the Professor opened his bag and took out a lot of things, which he laid on the step, sorting them into four little groups, evidently one for each. Then he spoke My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of many kinds. Our enemy is not merely spiritual. Remember that he has the strength of twenty men, and that, though our necks or our windpipes are of the common kindand therefore breakable or crushablehis is not amenable to mere strength. A stronger man, or a body of men more strong in all than him, can at certain times hold him; but yet they cannot hurt him as we can be hurt by him. We must, therefore, guard ourselves from his touch. Keep this near your heartas he spoke he lifted a little silver crucifix and held it out to me, I being nearest to himput these flowers round your neckhere he handed to me a wreath of withered garlic blossomsfor other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this knife; and for aid in all, these so small electric lamps, which you can fasten to your breast; and for all, and above all at the last, this, which we must not desecrate needless. This was a portion of sacred wafer, which he put in an envelope and handed to me. Each of the others was similarly equipped. Now, he said, friend John, where are the skeleton keys? If so that we can open the door, we need not break house by the window, as before at Miss Lucys. Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys, his mechanical dexterity as a surgeon standing him in good stead. Presently he got one to suit; after a little play back and forward the bolt yielded, and, with a rusty clang, shot back. We pressed on the door, the rusty hinges creaked, and it slowly opened. It was startlingly like the image conveyed to me in Dr. Sewards diary of the opening of Miss Westenras tomb; I fancy that the same idea seemed to strike the others, for with one accord they shrank back. The Professor was the first to move forward, and stepped into the open door. In manus tuas, Domine! he said, crossing himself as he passed over the threshold. We closed the door behind us, lest when we should have lit our lamps we might possibly attract attention from the road. The Professor carefully tried the lock, lest we might not be able to open it from within should we be in a hurry to make our exit. Then we all lit our lamps and proceeded on our search. The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of odd forms, as the rays crossed each other, or the opacity of our bodies threw great shadows. I could not for my life get away from the feeling that there was some one else amongst us. I suppose it was the recollection, so powerfully brought home to me by the grim surroundings, of that terrible experience in Transylvania.

I think the feeling was common to us all, for I noticed that the others kept looking over their shoulders at every sound and every new shadow, just as I felt myself doing. The whole place was thick with dust. The floor was seemingly inches deep, except where there were recent footsteps, in which on holding down my lamp I could see marks of hobnails where the dust was caked. The walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of spiders webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they looked like old tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down. On a table in the hall was a great bunch of keys, with a timeyellowed label on each. They had been used several times, for on the table were several similar rents in the blanket of dust, like that exposed when the Professor lifted the keys. He turned to me and said You know this place, Jonathan. You have copied maps of it, and you know at least more than we do. Which is the way to the chapel? I had an idea of its direction, though on my former visit I had not been able to get admission to it; so I led the way, and after a few wrong turnings found myself opposite a low, arched oaken door, ribbed with iron bands. This is the spot, said the Professor, as he turned his lamp on a small map of the house, copied from the file of my original correspondence regarding the purchase. With a little trouble we found the key on the bunch and opened the door. We were prepared for some unpleasantness, for as we were opening the door a faint, malodorous air seemed to exhale through the gaps, but none of us ever expected such an odour as we encountered. None of the others had met the Count at all at close quarters, and when I had seen him he was either in the fasting stage of his existence in his rooms or, when he was bloated with fresh blood, in a ruined building open to the air; but here the place was small and close, and the long disuse had made the air stagnant and foul. There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the fouler air. But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? It was not alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt. Faugh! it sickens me to think of it. Every breath exhaled by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and intensified its loathsomeness. Under ordinary circumstances such a stench would have brought our enterprise to an end; but this was no ordinary case, and the high and terrible purpose in which we were involved gave us a strength which rose above merely physical considerations. After the involuntary shrinking consequent on the first nauseous whiff, we one and all set about our work as though that loathsome place were a garden of roses. We made an accurate examination of the place, the Professor saying as we began The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left; we must then examine every hole and corner and cranny, and see if we cannot get some clue as to what has become of the rest. A glance was sufficient to show how many remained, for the great earth chests were bulky, and there was no mistaking them. There were only twentynine left out of the fifty! Once I got a fright, for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the vaulted door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an instant my heart stood still. Somewhere, looking out from the shadow, I seemed to see the high lights of the Counts evil face, the ridge of the nose, the red eyes, the red lips, the awful pallor. It was only for a moment, for as Lord Godalming said, I thought I saw a face, but it was only the shadows, and resumed his inquiry, I turned my lamp in the direction, and stepped into the passage. There was no sign of any one; and as there were no corners, no doors, no aperture of any kind, but only the solid walls of the passage, there could be no hidingplace even for him. I took it that fear had helped imagination, and said nothing. A few minutes later I saw Morris step suddenly back from a corner, which he was examining. We all followed his movements with our eyes, for undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole mass of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars. We all instinctively drew back. The whole place was becoming alive with rats. For a moment or two we stood appalled, all save Lord Godalming, who was seemingly prepared for such an emergency. Rushing over to the great ironbound oaken door, which Dr. Seward had described from the outside, and which I had seen myself, he turned the key in the lock, drew the huge bolts, and swung the door open. Then, taking his little silver whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call. It was answered from behind Dr. Sewards house by the yelping of dogs, and after about a minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house. Unconsciously we had all moved towards the door, and as we moved I noticed that the dust had been much disturbed the boxes which had been taken out had been brought this way. But even in the minute that had elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight, shining on their moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made the place look like a bank of earth set with fireflies. The dogs dashed on, but at the threshold suddenly stopped and snarled, and then, simultaneously lifting their noses, began to howl in most lugubrious fashion. The rats were multiplying in thousands, and moved out. Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, and carrying him in, placed him on the floor. The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies. They fled before him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score, the other dogs, who had by now been lifted in in the same manner, had but small prey ere the whole mass had vanished. With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in the air with vicious shakes. We all seemed to find our spirits rise. Whether it was the purifying of the deadly atmosphere by the opening of the chapel door, or the relief which we experienced by finding ourselves in the open, I know not; but most certainly the shadow of dread seemed to slip from us like a robe, and the occasion of our coming lost something of its grim significance, though we did not slacken a whit in our resolution. We closed the outer door and barred and locked it, and bringing the dogs with us, began our search of the house. We found nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary proportions, and all untouched save for my own footsteps when I had made my first visit. Never once did the dogs exhibit any symptom of uneasiness, and even when we returned to the chapel they frisked about as though they had been rabbithunting in a summer wood. The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front. Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the halldoor from the bunch, and locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket when he had done. So far, he said, our night has been eminently successful. No harm has come to us such as I feared might be, and yet we have ascertained how many boxes are missing. More than all do I rejoice that this, our firstand perhaps our most difficult and dangerousstep has been accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and smells of horror which she might never forget. One lesson, too, we have learned, if it be allowable to argue a particulari that the brute beasts which are to the Counts command are yet themselves not amenable to his spiritual power; for look, these rats that would come to his call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going and to that poor mothers cry, though they come to him, they run pellmell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other matters before us, other dangers, other fears; and that monsterhe has not used his power over the brute world for the only or the last time tonight. So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has given us opportunity to cry check in some way in this chess game, which we play for the stake of human souls. And now let us go home. The dawn is close at hand, and we have reason to be content with our first nights work. It may be ordained that we have many nights and days to follow, if full of peril; but we must go on, and from no danger shall we shrink. The house was silent when we got back, save for some poor creature who was screaming away in one of the distant wards, and a low, moaning sound from Renfields room. The poor wretch was doubtless torturing himself, after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of pain. I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting tonight has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and tomorrow I shall keep dark over tonights doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened. I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her. 1 October, later.I suppose it was natural that we should have all overslept ourselves, for the day was a busy one, and the night had no rest at all. Even Mina must have felt its exhaustion, for though I slept till the sun was high, I was awake before her, and had to call two or three times before she awoke. Indeed, she was so sound asleep that for a few seconds she did not recognise me, but looked at me with a sort of blank terror, as one looks who has been waked out of a bad dream. She complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest till later in the day. We now know of twentyone boxes having been removed, and if it be that several were taken in any of these removals we may be able to trace them all. Such will, of course, immensely simplify our labour, and the sooner the matter is attended to the better. I shall look up Thomas Snelling today. Dr. Sewards Diary. 1 October.It was towards noon when I was awakened by the Professor walking into my room. He was more jolly and cheerful than usual, and it is quite evident that last nights work has helped to take some of the brooding weight off his mind. After going over the adventure of the night he suddenly said Your patient interests me much. May it be that with you I visit him this morning? Or if that you are too occupy, I can go alone if it may be. It is a new experience to me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy, and reason so sound. I had some work to do which pressed, so I told him that if he would go alone I would be glad, as then I should not have to keep him waiting; so I called an attendant and gave him the necessary instructions. Before the Professor left the room I cautioned him against getting any false impression from my patient. But, he answered, I want him to talk of himself and of his delusion as to consuming live things. He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your diary of yesterday, that he had once had such a belief. Why do you smile, friend John? Excuse me, I said, but the answer is here. I laid my hand on the typewritten matter. When our sane and learned lunatic made that very statement of how he used to consume life, his mouth was actually nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before Mrs. Harker entered the room. Van Helsing smiled in turn. Good! he said. Your memory is true, friend John. I should have remembered. And yet it is this very obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease such a fascinating study. Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise. Who knows? I went on with my work, and before long was through that in hand. It seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was Van Helsing back in the study. Do I interrupt? he asked politely as he stood at the door. Not at all, I answered. Come in. My work is finished, and I am free. I can go with you now, if you like. It is needless; I have seen him! Well? I fear that he does not appraise me at much. Our interview was short. When I entered the room he was sitting on a stool in the centre, with his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of sullen discontent. I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with such a measure of respect as I could assume. He made no reply whatever. Dont you know me? I asked. His answer was not reassuring I know you well enough; you are the old fool Van Helsing. I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else. Damn all thickheaded Dutchmen! Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at all. Thus departed for this time my chance of much learning from this so clever lunatic; so I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina. Friend John, it does rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be worried, with our terrible things. Though we shall much miss her help, it is better so. I agree with you with all my heart, I answered earnestly, for I did not want him to weaken in this matter. Mrs. Harker is better out of it. Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have been in many tight places in our time; but it is no place for a woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time infallibly have wrecked her. So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker; Quincey and Art are both out following up the clues as to the earthboxes. I shall finish my round of work, and we shall meet tonight. Mina Harkers Journal. 1 October.It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am today; after Jonathans full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Counts house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I know it comes from my husbands great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men.... That has done me good. Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has doubted of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read. I feel strangely sad and lowspirited today. I suppose it is the reaction from the terrible excitement. Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they told me to. I didnt feel sleepy, and I did feel full of devouring anxiety. I kept thinking over everything that has been ever since Jonathan came to see me in London, and it all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate pressing on relentlessly to some destined end. Everything that one does seems, no matter how right it may be, to bring on the very thing which is most to be deplored. If I hadnt gone to Whitby, perhaps poor dear Lucy would be with us now. She hadnt taken to visiting the churchyard till I came, and if she hadnt come there in the daytime with me she wouldnt have walked there in her sleep; and if she hadnt gone there at night and asleep, that monster couldnt have destroyed her as he did. Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby? There now, crying again! I wonder what has come over me today. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he knew that I had been crying twice in one morningI, who never cried on my own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tearthe dear fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn.... I cant quite remember how I fell asleep last night. I remember hearing the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like praying on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfields room, which is somewhere under this. And then there was silence over everything, silence so profound that it startled me, and I got up and looked out of the window. All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate; so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience and a vitality of its own. I think that the digression of my thoughts must have done me good, for when I got back to bed I found a lethargy creeping over me. I lay awhile, but could not quite sleep, so I got out and looked out of the window again. The mist was spreading, and was now close up to the house, so that I could see it lying thick against the wall, as though it were stealing up to the windows. The poor man was more loud than ever, and though I could not distinguish a word he said, I could in some way recognise in his tones some passionate entreaty on his part. Then there was the sound of a struggle, and I knew that the attendants were dealing with him. I was so frightened that I crept into bed, and pulled the clothes over my head, putting my fingers in my ears. I was not then a bit sleepy, at least so I thought; but I must have fallen asleep, for, except dreams, I do not remember anything until the morning, when Jonathan woke me. I think that it took me an effort and a little time to realise where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was bending over me. My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of the way that waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams. I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act; my feet, and my hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at the usual pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around me. The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will. I lay still and endured; that was all. I closed my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) The mist grew thicker and thicker, and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smokeor with the white energy of boiling waterpouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the top of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room, and through it all came the scriptural words a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. Was it indeed some such spiritual guidance that was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was composed of both the day and the nightguiding, for the fire was in the red eye, which at the thought got a new fascination for me; till, as I looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes; such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering when, on the cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Marys Church. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made was to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat ones reason if there was too much of them. I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to prescribe something for me which would make me sleep, only that I fear to alarm them. Such a dream at the present time would become woven into their fears for me. Tonight I shall strive hard to sleep naturally. If I do not, I shall tomorrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral; that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good nights sleep. Last night tired me more than if I had not slept at all. 2 October, 10 p.m.Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must have slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed; but the sleep has not refreshed me, for today I feel terribly weak and spiritless. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozing. In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless me. Some way it affected me much; I am crying when I think of him. This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out until dinnertime, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to brighten them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other of what had occurred to each during the day; I could see from Jonathans manner that he had something important to communicate. I was not so sleepy as I should have been; so before they went I asked Dr. Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking. I might want it. Here comes sleep. Goodnight. CHAPTER XX. JONATHAN HARKERS JOURNAL. 1 October, evening.I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything. The very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauch. I learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates was the responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr. Joseph Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dogseared notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick, halfobliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes. There were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at 197 Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were chosen at the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical schemelet alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable London in the southwest and west. I went back to Smollet and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax. He replied Well, guvnor, youve treated me wery ansomeI had given him half a sovereignan Ill tell yer all I know. I heeard a man by the name of Bloxam say four nights ago in the Are an Ounds, in Pinchers Alley, as ow he an his mate ad ad a rare dusty job in a old ouse at Purfleet. There aint amany such jobs as this ere, an Im thinkin that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut. I asked if he could tell me where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it would be worth another halfsovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search then and there. At the door he stopped, and said Look, ere, guvnor, there aint no sense in me akeepin you ere. I may find Sam soon, or I maynt; but anyhow he aint like to be in a way to tell ye much tonight. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze. If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on it, Ill find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye tonight. But yed better be up arter im soon in the mornin, or maybe ye wont ketch im; for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore. This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When she came back I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet had again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my way to home. Were on the track anyhow. I am tired tonight, and want sleep. Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as though she had been crying. Poor dear, Ive no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision. 2 October, evening.A long and trying and exciting day. By the first post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on which was written with a carpenters pencil in a sprawling hand Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite. I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her, but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some difficulty, Potters Court. Mr. Smollets spelling misled me, as I asked for Poters Court instead of Potters Court. However, when I had found the court I had no difficulty in discovering Corcorans lodginghouse. When I asked the man who came to the door for the depite, he shook his head, and said I dunno im. There aint no such person ere; I never eard of im in all my bloomin days. Dont believe there aint nobody of that kind livin ere or anywheres. I took out Smollets letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me. What are you? I asked. Im the depity, he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A halfcrown tip put the deputys knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at Corcorans, had left for his work at Poplar at five oclock that morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a newfangled wareus; and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve oclock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this I got at a coffeeshop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new cold storage building; and as this suited the condition of a newfangled wareus, I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my suggesting that I was willing to pay his days wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly, and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxesmain heavy oneswith a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to which he replied Well, guvnor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a dusty old ouse, too, though nothin to the dustiness of the ouse we tooked the bloomin boxes from. How did you get into the house if they were both empty? There was the old party what engaged me awaitin in the ouse at Purfleet. He elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an him a old feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldnt throw a shadder. How this phrase thrilled through me! Why, e took up is end o the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and me apuffin an ablowin afore I could upend mine anyhowan Im no chicken, neither. How did you get into the house in Piccadilly? I asked. He was there too. He must a started off and got there afore me, for when I rung of the bell he kem an opened the door isself an elped me to carry the boxes into the all. The whole nine? I asked. Yus; there was five in the first load an four in the second.

It was main dry work, an I dont so well remember ow I got ome. I interrupted him Were the boxes left in the hall? Yus; it was a big all, an there was nothin else in it. I made one more attempt to further matters You didnt have any key? Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door isself an shut it again when I druv off. I dont remember the last timebut that was the beer. And you cant remember the number of the house? No, sir. But ye neednt have no difficulty about that. Its a igh un with a stone front with a bow on it, and igh steps up to the door. I know them steps, avin ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillins, an they seem they got so much, they wanted more; but e took one of them by the shoulder and was like to throw im down the steps, till the lot of them went away cussin. I thought that with this description I could find the house, so having paid my friend for his information, I started off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience the Count could, it was evident, handle the earthboxes himself. If so, time was precious; for, now he had achieved a certain amount of distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been a large noticeboard in front of the balcony; it had, however, been roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the noticeboard intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means of gaining access to the house. There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if anything could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything about the empty house. One of them said he had heard it had lately been taken, but he couldnt say from whom. He told me, however, that up to very lately there had been a noticeboard of For sale up, and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons Candy, the house agents, could tell me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in Sackville Street. The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the Piccadilly housewhich throughout our interview he called a mansionwas sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and paused a few seconds before replying It is sold, sir. Pardon me, I said, with equal politeness, but I have a special reason for wishing to know who purchased it. Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. It is sold, sir, was again his laconic reply. Surely, I said, you do not mind letting me know so much. But I do mind, he answered. The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons Candy. This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am myself a professional man. Here I handed him my card. In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was, he understood, lately for sale. These words put a different complexion on affairs. He said I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordships address I will consult the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his lordship by tonights post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his lordship. I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him, gave the address at Dr. Sewards, and came away. It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Arated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train. I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful; it wrung my heart to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing knowledge would be torture to her. I could not tell the others of the days discovery till we were alone; so after dinnerfollowed by a little music to save appearances even amongst ourselvesI took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no difference between us. When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own information; when I had finished Van Helsing said This has been a great days work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we make our final coup, and hunt the wretch to his real death. We all sat silent awhile, and all at once Mr. Morris spoke Say! how are we going to get into that house? We got into the other, answered Lord Godalming quickly. But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I dont see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us a key of some sort; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the morning. Lord Godalmings brows contracted, and he stood up and walked about the room. Byandby he stopped and said, turning from one to another of us Quinceys head is level. This burglary business is getting serious; we got off once all right; but we have now a rare job on handunless we can find the Counts key basket. As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchells, we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and bearings; I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed.... Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning. Tomorrow will, I hope, mend all this; she will be herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy! Dr. Sewards Diary. 1 October.I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they always mean something more than his own wellbeing, they form a more than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny. He was, in fact, commanding destinysubjectively. He did not really care for any of the things of mere earth; he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals. I thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked him What about the flies these times? He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of waysuch a smile as would have become the face of Malvolioas he answered me The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature its wings are typical of the arial powers of the psychic faculties. The ancients did well when they typified the soul as a butterfly! I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said quickly Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it? His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said Oh no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want. Here he brightened up I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right; I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zoophagy! This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose? He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority. Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied spiritually! This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment recall Enochs appositeness; so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that by doing so I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic And why Enoch? Because he walked with God. I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it; so I harked back to what he had denied So you dont care about life and you dont want souls. Why not? I put my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him. The effort succeeded; for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as he replied I dont want any souls, indeed, indeed! I dont. I couldnt use them if I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I couldnt eat them or He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face, like a windsweep on the surface of the water. And, Doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When youve got all you require, and you know that you will never want, that is all. I have friendsgood friendslike you Doctor Seward; this was said with a leer of inexpressible cunning, I know that I shall never lack the means of life! I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as hea dogged silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away. Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues; and so are Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over the record prepared by the Harkers; he seems to think that by accurate knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he might not care to go again. There was also another reason Renfield might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were alone. I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his lips What about souls? It was evident then that my surmise had been correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with the lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. What about them yourself? I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for an answer. I dont want any souls! he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use itto be cruel only to be kind. So I said You like life, and you want life? Oh yes! but that is all right; you neednt worry about that! But, I asked, how are we to get the life without getting the soul also? This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up A nice time youll have some time when youre flying out there, with the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing and twittering and miauing all round you. Youve got their lives, you know, and you must put up with their souls! Something seemed to affect his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes, screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me; it also gave me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a childonly a child, though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance, and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him, speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again! He seemed to wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied Not much! flies are poor things, after all! After a pause he added, But I dont want their souls buzzing round me, all the same. Or spiders, I went on. Blow spiders! Whats the use of spiders? There isnt anything in them to eat orhe stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden topic. So, so! I thought to myself, this is the second time he has suddenly stopped at the word drink; what does it mean? Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract my attention from it I dont take any stock at all in such matters. Rats and mice and such small deer as Shakespeare has it; chickenfeed of the larder they might be called. Im past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chopsticks, as to try to interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before me. I see, I said. You want big things that you can make your teeth meet in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant? What ridiculous nonsense you are talking! He was getting too wide awake, so I thought I would press him hard. I wonder, I said reflectively, what an elephants soul is like! The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his highhorse and became a child again. I dont want an elephants soul, or any soul at all! he said. For a few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. To hell with you and your souls! he shouted. Why do you plague me about souls? Havent I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already, without thinking of souls? He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant, however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a straitwaistcoat. I want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am sure you will understand! He had evidently selfcontrol; so when the attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield watched them go; when the door was closed he said, with considerable dignity and sweetness Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that I am very very grateful to you! I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I came away. There is certainly something to ponder over in this mans state. Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls a story, if one could only get them in proper order. Here they are Will not mention drinking. Fears the thought of being burdened with the soul of anything. Has no dread of wanting life in the future. Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being haunted by their souls. Logically all these things point one way! he has assurance of some kind that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequencethe burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to! And the assurance? Merciful God! the Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of terror afoot! Later.I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my suspicion. He grew very grave; and, after thinking the matter over for a while asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time which now seems so long ago. When we entered we saw with amazement that he had spread out his sugar as of old; the flies, lethargic with the autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a notebook. We had to come away as ignorant as we went in. His is a curious case indeed; we must watch him tonight. Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming 1 October. My Lord, We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald WinterSuffield. The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money in notes over the counter, if your Lordship will pardon us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever of him. We are, my Lord, Your Lordships humble servants, MITCHELL, SONS CANDY. Dr. Sewards Diary. 2 October.I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfields room, and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire in the studyMrs. Harker having gone to bedwe discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one. Before going to bed I went round to the patients room and looked in through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his chest rose and fell with regular respiration. This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him if that was all; he replied that it was all he heard. There was something about his manner so suspicious that I asked pointblank if he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having dozed for a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are watched. Today Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported earth between sunrise and sunset; we shall thus catch the Count at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the British Museum, looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful later. I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in straitwaistcoats. Later.We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track, and our work of tomorrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder if Renfields quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have so followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the monster may be carried to him in some subtle way. If we could only get some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my argument with him today and his resumption of flycatching, it might afford us a valuable clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell.... Is he? that wild yell seemed to come from his room.... The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell; and when he went to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood. I must go at once.... CHAPTER XXI. DR. SEWARDS DIARY. 3 October.Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well as I can remember it, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I can recall must be forgotten; in all calmness I must proceed. When I came to Renfields room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries; there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floorindeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned him over I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed. How such a thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said I cant understand the two things. He could mark his face like that by beating his own head on the ground. I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I suppose he might have broke his back by falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I cant imagine how the two things occurred. If his back was broke, he couldnt beat his head; and if his face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of it. I said to him Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here at once. I want him without an instants delay. The man ran off, and within a very few minutes the Professor, in his dressinggown and slippers appeared. When he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly at him a moment and then turned to me. I think he recognized my thought in my eyes, for he said very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much attention. I shall stay with you myself; but I shall first dress myself. If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you. The patient was now breathing stertorously, and it was easy to see that he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case. He had evidently been thinking and had his mind made up; for, almost before he looked at the patient, he whispered to me Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes conscious, after the operation. So I said I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere. The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient. The wounds of the face were superficial; the real injury was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area. The Professor thought a moment and said We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be; the rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of his injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too late. As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and Quincey in pyjamas and slippers the former spoke I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident. So I woke Quincey, or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us these times. Ive been thinking that tomorrow night will not see things as they have been. Well have to look backand forward a little more than we have done. May we come in? I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered; then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the floor, he said softly My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil! I told him briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after the operationfor a short time at all events. He went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him; we all watched in patience. We shall wait, said Van Helsing, just long enough to fix the best spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove the blood clot; for it is evident that the hmorrhage is increasing. The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsings face I gathered that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to think; but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read of men who have heard the deathwatch. The poor mans breathing came in uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his eyes and speak; but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was to sickbeds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could almost hear the beating of my own heart; and the blood surging through my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect it. At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he spoke There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear. Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest. Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This was continued for a few moments; then it softened into a glad surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said Ill be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the straitwaistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. Whats wrong with my face? It feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully. He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his eyes seemed to grow glassy again, so I gently put it back. Then Van Helsing said in a quiet, grave tone Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield. As he heard the voice his face brightened through its mutilation, and he said That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry; and I shall try to tell you. I dreamedhe stopped and seemed fainting. I called quietly to QuinceyThe brandyit is in my studyquick! He flew and returned with a glass, the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I shall never forget, and said I must not deceive myself; it was no dream, but all a grim reality. Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on If I were not sure already, I should know from them. For an instant his eyes closednot with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear; when he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes; and then I must go back to deathor worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must say before I die; or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldnt speak then, for I felt my tongue was tied; but I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left me; it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed to become cool again, and I realized where I was. I heard the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was! As he spoke Van Helsings eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself; he nodded slightly, and said Go on, in a low voice. Renfield proceeded He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before; but he was solid thennot a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a mans when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when He turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldnt ask him to come in at first, though I knew he wanted tojust as he had wanted all along. Then he began promising me thingsnot in words but by doing them. He was interrupted by a word from the Professor How? By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining.

Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and crossbones on their backs. Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously The Acberontia atropos of the Sphingeswhat you call the Deathshead moth! The patient went on without stopping. Then he began to whisper Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely buzzing flies! I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire; and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing redlike His, only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought He seemed to be saying All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me! And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him Come in, Lord and Master! The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch widejust as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack, and has stood before me in all her size and splendour. His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in the interval, for his story was further advanced. I was about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me Let him go on. Do not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought. He proceeded All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not even a blowfly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him. When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didnt even smell the same as he went by me. I couldnt hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the room. The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better. They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without noticing When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasnt the same; it was like tea after the teapot had been watered. Here we all moved, but no one said a word; he went on I didnt know that she was here till she spoke; and she didnt look the same. I dont care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didnt think of it at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad to know that He had been taking the life out of her. I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did; but we remained otherwise still. So when He came tonight I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and as I knew I was a madmanat times anyhowI resolved to use my power. Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle with me. I held tight; and I thought I was going to win, for I didnt mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed to steal away under the door. His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively. We know the worst now, he said. He is here, and we know his purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armedthe same as we were the other night, but lose no time; there is not an instant to spare. There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into wordswe shared them in common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we had when we entered the Counts house. The Professor had his ready and as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with. Alas! alas! that the dear Madam Mina should suffer. He stopped; his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart. Outside the Harkers door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said Should we disturb her? We must, said Van Helsing grimly. If the door be locked, I shall break it in. May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a ladys room! Van Helsing said solemnly You are always right; but this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor; and even were they not they are all as one to me tonight. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you too, my friends. Now! He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still. The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed, and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the whiteclad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw it we all recognised the Countin every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harkers hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the mans bare breast which was shown by his tornopen dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kittens nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blooddripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up under Quinceys match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting open had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so earpiercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of blood. Her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Counts terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself; I must wake him! He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heartbreaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the instant I heard Harkers quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up. His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook. In Gods name what does this mean? Harker cried out. Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear, what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to this! and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly together. Good God help us! help her! oh, help her! With a quick movement he jumped from the bed, and began to pull on his clothesall the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. What has happened? Tell me all about it! he cried without pausing. Dr. Van Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for him! His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him; instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried out No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough tonight, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you! Her expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she pulled him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him fiercely. Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can approach. You are safe for tonight; and we must be calm and take counsel together. She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her husbands breast. When she raised it, his white nightrobe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear. To this he spoke out resolutely Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us! He put out his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous power to the utmost And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad fact; tell me all that has been. I told him exactly what had happened, and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to see that whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on my nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming answered I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I looked in the study, but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had, however He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed. Van Helsing said gravely Go on friend Arthur. We want no more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell freely! So Art went on He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes; the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the wax had helped the flames. Here I interrupted. Thank God there is the other copy in the safe! His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked into Renfields room; but there was no trace there except! Again he paused. Go on, said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head, and moistening his lips with his tongue, added except that the poor fellow is dead. Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of us as she said solemnly Gods will be done! I could not but feel that Art was keeping back something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing. Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell? A little, he answered. It may be much eventually, but at present I cant say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from Renfields window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He will not be back tonight; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the dawn is close. We must work tomorrow! He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harkers head And now, Madam Minapoor, dear, dear Madam Minatell us exactly what happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must end all, if it may so be; and now is the chance that we may live and learn. The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing, who took it in his, and, after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly. After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she began I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mindall of them connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble. Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said lovingly Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine do its work with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remembered no more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before, and the same sense of some presence. I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught and not I. I tried, but could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mistor rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappearedstood a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the descriptions of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Marys Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he spoke to Jonathan Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out before your very eyes. I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst! I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat! Her husband groaned again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if he were the injured one, and went on I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood! The remembrance seemed for a while to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her husbands sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and went on Then he spoke to me mockingly And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they played wits against meagainst me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were bornI was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful winepress for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call. When my brain says Come! to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding; and to that end this! With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of theOh, my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days? God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril; and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear! Then she began to rub her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution. As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair. We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action. Of this I am sure the sun rises today on no more miserable house in all the great round of its daily course. CHAPTER XXII. JONATHAN HARKERS JOURNAL. 3 October.As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It is now six oclock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God knows, required today. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are today. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our faith is testedthat we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh, my God! what end?... To work! To work! When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken. Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. He said that he had been sitting downhe confessed to half dozingwhen he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out loudly several times, God! God! God! After that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard voices or a voice, and he said he could not say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear to it, if required, that the word God was spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the attendants evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result. When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing of any sortno matter how painfulshould be kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair. There must be no more concealment, she said. Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already enduredthan I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me! Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly But, dear Madam Mina are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened? Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered Ah no! for my mind is made up! To what? he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact Because if I find in myselfand I shall watch keenly for ita sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die! You would not kill yourself? he asked hoarsely. I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort! She looked at him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment, if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But, my child for a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his throat; he gulped it down and went on There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die; for if he is still with the quick UnDead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not dienay, nor think of deathtill this great evil be past. The poor dear grew white as death, and shook and shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm, and turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may have passed away from me. She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to doif pleased could be used in connection with so grim an interest. As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was prepared with an exact ordering of our work. It is perhaps well he said, that at our meeting after our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earthboxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our intentions. Nay more, in all probability he does not know that such a power exists to us as can sterilize his lairs, so that he cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as to their disposition, that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. Today, then, is ours; and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its course. Until it sets tonight, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilize them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time, sure. Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Minas life and happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was possible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. Nay, friend Jonathan, he said, in this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act, and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he write on; he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings that he must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet, where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and search that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt, stop the earths and so we run down our old foxso? is it not? Then let us come at once, I cried, we are wasting the precious, precious time! The Professor did not move, but simply said And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly? Any way! I cried. We shall break in if need be. And your police; where will they be, and what will they say? I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could Dont wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I am in. Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add to your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world be at movement? Then will come our time. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key; is it not so? I nodded. Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get it; and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do? I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me. And your police, they would interfere, would they not? Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed. Then, he looked at me keenly as he spoke, all that is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one.

Your police must indeed be zealous men and cleveroh, so clever!in reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty houses in this your London, or of any city in the world; and if you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine house in your London, and when he went for months of summer to Zwitzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in Zwitzerland he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done en rgle; and in our work we shall be en rgle too. We shall not go so early that the policeman who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange; but we shall go after ten oclock when there are many about, and when such things would be done were we indeed owners of the house. I could not but see how right he was, and the terrible despair of Minas face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good counsel. Van Helsing went on When once within that house we may find more clues; at any rate some of us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places where there be more earthboxesat Bermondsey and Mile End. Lord Godalming stood up. I can be of some use here, he said. I shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will be most convenient. Look here, old fellow, said Morris, it is a capital idea to have all ready in case we want to go horsebacking; but dont you think that one of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byeway at Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our purposes? It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east; and even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are going to. Friend Quincey is right! said the Professor. His head is what you call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may. Mina took a growing interest in everything, and I was rejoiced to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very palealmost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear. When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the Counts lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction; and his presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us some new clue. As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that, after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly; that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any rate we might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, in so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect Mina. I thought that my mind was made up on the subject; but Mina would not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful; that amongst the Counts papers might be some clue which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania; and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Counts extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Minas resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for her that we should all work together. As for me, she said, I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present. So I started up crying out Then in Gods name let us come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think. Not so! said Van Helsing, holding up his hand. But why? I asked. Do you forget, he said, with actually a smile, that last night he banqueted heavily, and will sleep late? Did I forget! shall I evercan I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he had said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. Oh Madam Mina, he said, dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I, of all who so reverence you, should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will forget it, will you not? He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong. Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemys lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack? We all assured him. Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case quite safe here until the sunset; and before then we shall returnifwe shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing of the things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he placed the Wafer on Minas forehead, it had seared ithad burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of whitehot metal. My poor darlings brain told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day. They all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some way inspired and was stating things outside himself It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God Himself see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day to redress all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of Gods knowledge of what has been, shall pass away and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God see right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other through stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man. There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old mans hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved; and we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay before us. It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out. To one thing I have made up my mind if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks. We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such fear as we already knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, nor any sign of use in the house; and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it to God. As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth smelled musty and close; but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked. One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was a portion of the Host. When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam Minas forehead all white as ivory and with no stain! As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the window of my room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished. She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we sought the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the platform. I have written this in the train. Piccadilly, 12.30 oclock.Just before we reached Fenchurch Street Lord Godalming said to me Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in case there should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances it wouldnt seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a solicitor, and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you should have known better. I demurred as to my not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went on Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door open and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the look out for you, and will let you in. The advice is good! said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition amongst its more lively and sprucelooking neighbours. We sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others. At length we saw a fourwheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the box descended a thickset working man with his rushwoven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done. The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a selection of tools which he proceeded to lay beside him in orderly fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a goodsized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others entered the hall. We sat still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsings went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and take in his bag. Then he held the door partly open, steading it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock. This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole transaction. When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar. The place smells so vilely, said the latter as we came in. It did indeed smell vilelylike the old chapel at Carfaxand with our previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using the place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the house. In the diningroom, which lay at the back of the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found the missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out across a narrow stoneflagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we were not afraid of being overlooked. We did not lose any time in examining the chests. With the tools which we had brought with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had treated those others in the chapel. It was evident to us that the Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for any of his effects. After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms from basement to attic, we came to the conclusion that the diningroom contained any effects which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the great diningroom table. There were titledeeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle; deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey; notepaper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basinthe latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris, taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us are, with what patience we can, awaiting their returnor the coming of the Count. CHAPTER XXIII. DR. SEWARDS DIARY. 3 October.The time seemed terribly long whilst we were waiting for the coming of Godalming and Quincey Morris. The Professor tried to keep our minds active by using them all the time. I could see his beneficent purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to time at Harker. The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. Last night he was a frank, happylooking man, with strong youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. Today he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and griefwritten lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in fact he is like a living flame. This may yet be his salvation, for, if all go well, it will tide him over the despairing period; he will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of life. Poor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his! The Professor knows this well enough, and is doing his best to keep his mind active. What he has been saying was, under the circumstances, of absorbing interest. As well as I can remember, here it is I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster; and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance; not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminius of BudaPesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemistwhich latter was the highest development of the scienceknowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of mans stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well; and if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yethe may be yet if we failthe father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life. Harker groaned and said And this is all arrayed against my darling! But how is he experimenting? The knowledge may help us to defeat him! He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but surely; that big childbrain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as yet, a childbrain; for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow. Festina lente may well be his motto. I fail to understand, said Harker wearily. Oh, do be more plain to me! Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain. The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, of late, this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally? How he has been making use of the zoophagous patient to effect his entry into friend Johns home; for your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come when and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by an inmate. But these are not his most important experiments. Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others? He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great childbrain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he begin to help; and then, when he found that this be all right, he try to move them all alone. And so he progress, and he scatter these graves of him; and none but he know where they are hidden. He may have intend to bury them deep in the ground. So that he only use them in the night, or at such time as he can change his form, they do him equal well; and none may know these are his hiding place! But, my child, do not despair; this knowledge come to him just too late! Already all of his lairs but one be sterilize as for him; and before the sunset this shall be so. Then he have no place where he can move and hide. I delayed this morning that so we might be sure. Is there not more at stake for us than for him? Then why we not be even more careful than him? By my clock it is one hour, and already, if all be well, friend Arthur and Quincey are on their way to us. Today is our day, and we must go sure, if slow, and lose no chance. See! there are five of us when those absent ones return. Whilst he was speaking we were startled by a knock at the hall door, the double postmans knock of the telegraph boy. We all moved out to the hall with one impulse, and Van Helsing, holding up his hand to us to keep silence, stepped to the door and opened it. The boy handed in a despatch. The Professor closed the door again and, after looking at the direction, opened it and read it aloud Look out for D. He has just now, 12.45, come from Carfax hurriedly and hastened towards the south. He seems to be going the round and may want to see you Mina. There was a pause, broken by Jonathan Harkers voice Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet! Van Helsing turned to him quickly and said God will act in His own way and time. Do not fear, and do not rejoice as yet; for what we wish for at the moment may be our undoings. I care for nothing now, he answered hotly, except to wipe out this brute from the face of creation. I would sell my soul to do it! Oh, hush, hush, my child! said Van Helsing, God does not purchase souls in this wise; and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not keep faith. But God is merciful and just, and knows your pain and your devotion to that dear Madam Mina. Think you, how her pain would be doubled, did she but hear your wild words. Do not fear any of us; we are all devoted to this cause, and today shall see the end. The time is coming for action; today this Vampire is limit to the powers of man, and till sunset he may not change. It will take him time to arrive heresee, it is twenty minutes past oneand there are yet some times before he can hither come, be he never so quick. What we must hope for is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first. About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harkers telegram, there came a quiet resolute knock at the hall door. It was just an ordinary knock, such as is given hourly by thousands of gentlemen, but it made the Professors heart and mine beat loudly. We looked at each other, and together moved out into the hall; we each held ready to use our various armamentsthe spiritual in the left hand, the moral in the right. Van Helsing pulled back the latch, and, holding the door half open, stood back, having both hands ready for action. The gladness of our hearts must have shown upon our faces when on the step, close to the door, we saw Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris. They came quickly in and closed the door behind them, the former saying, as they moved along the hall It is all right. We found both places; six boxes in each, and we destroyed them all! Destroyed? asked the Professor. For him! We were silent for a minute, and then Quincey said Theres nothing to do but to wait here. If, however, he doesnt turn up by five oclock, we must start off; for it wont do to leave Mrs. Harker alone after sunset. He will be here before long now, said Van Helsing, who had been consulting his pocketbook. Nota bene, in Madams telegram he went south from Carfax, that means he went to cross the river, and he could only do so at slack of tide, which should be something before one oclock. That he went south has a meaning for us. He is as yet only suspicious; and he went from Carfax first to the place where he would suspect interference least. You must have been at Bermondsey only a short time before him. That he is not here already shows that he went to Mile End next. This took him some time; for he would then have to be carried over the river in some way. Believe me, my friends, we shall not have long to wait now. We should have ready some plan of attack, so that we may throw away no chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your arms! Be ready! He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we all could hear a key softly inserted in the lock of the halldoor. I could not but admire, even at such a moment, the way in which a dominant spirit asserted itself. In all our hunting parties and adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always been the one to arrange the plan of action, and Arthur and I had been accustomed to obey him implicitly. Now, the old habit seemed to be renewed instinctively. With a swift glance round the room, he at once laid out our plan of attack, and, without speaking a word, with a gesture, placed us each in position. Van Helsing, Harker, and I were just behind the door so that when it was opened the Professor could guard it whilst we two stepped between the incomer and the door. Godalming behind and Quincey in front stood just out of sight ready to move in front of the window. We waited in a suspence that made the seconds pass with nightmare slowness. The slow, careful steps came along the hall; the Count was evidently prepared for some surpriseat least he feared it. Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room, winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so pantherlike in the movementsomething so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who, with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eyeteeth long and pointed; but the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lionlike disdain. His expression again changed, as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organised plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife, and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Counts leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorn through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of banknotes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Counts face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the crucifix and wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm; and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignityof anger and hellish ragewhich came over the Counts face. His waxen hue became greenishyellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harkers arm ere his blow could fall, and, grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, and threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the ting of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us You think to baffle me, youwith your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butchers. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest; but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be minemy creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah! With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor, as, realising the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved towards the hall. We have learnt somethingmuch! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us; he fear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he return. As he spoke he put the money remaining into his pocket; took the titledeeds in the bundle as Harker had left them, and swept the remaining things into the open fireplace, where he set fire to them with a match. Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had lowered himself from the window to follow the Count. He had, however, bolted the stable door; and by the time they had forced it open there was no sign of him. Van Helsing and I tried to make inquiry at the back of the house; but the mews was deserted and no one had seen him depart. It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off.

We had to recognise that our game was up; with heavy hearts we agreed with the Professor when he said Let us go back to Madam Minapoor, poor, dear Madam Mina. All we can do just now is done; and we can there, at least, protect her. But we need not despair. There is but one more earthbox, and we must try to find it; when that is done all may yet be well. I could see that he spoke as bravely as he could to comfort Harker. The poor fellow was quite broken down; now and again he gave a low groan which he could not suppresshe was thinking of his wife. With sad hearts we came back to my house, where we found Mrs. Harker awaiting us, with an appearance of cheerfulness which did honour to her bravery and unselfishness. When she saw our faces, her own became as pale as death; for a second or two her eyes were closed as if she were in secret prayer; and then she said cheerfully I can never thank you all enough. Oh, my poor darling! as she spoke she took her husbands grey head in her hands and kissed itLay your poor head here and rest it. All will yet be well, dear! God will protect us if He so will it in His good intent. The poor fellow only groaned. There was no place for words in his sublime misery. We had a sort of perfunctory supper together, and I think it cheered us all up somewhat. It was, perhaps, the mere animal heat of food to hungry peoplefor none of us had eaten anything since breakfastor the sense of companionship may have helped us; but anyhow we were all less miserable, and saw the morrow as not altogether without hope. True to our promise, we told Mrs. Harker everything which had passed; and although she grew snowy white at times when danger had seemed to threaten her husband, and red at others when his devotion to her was manifested, she listened bravely and with calmness. When we came to the part where Harker had rushed at the Count so recklessly, she clung to her husbands arm, and held it tight as though her clinging could protect him from any harm that might come. She said nothing, however, till the narration was all done, and matters had been brought right up to the present time. Then without letting go her husbands hand she stood up amongst us and spoke. Oh that I could give any idea of the scene; of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teethremembering whence and how it came; her loving kindness against our grim hate; her tender faith against all our fears and doubting; and we, knowing that, so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God. Jonathan, she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips, it was so full of love and tenderness, Jonathan dear, and you all, my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fightthat you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he too is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction. As she spoke I could see her husbands face darken and draw together, as though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core. Instinctively the clasp on his wifes hand grew closer, till his knuckles looked white. She did not flinch from the pain which I knew she must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more appealing than ever. As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing his hand from hers as he spoke May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it! Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name of the good God. Dont say such things, Jonathan, my husband; or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just think, my dearI have been thinking all this long, long day of itthat ... perhaps ... some day ... I too may need such pity; and that some other like youand with equal cause for angermay deny it to me! Oh, my husband! my husband, indeed I would have spared you such a thought had there been another way; but I pray that God may not have treasured your wild words, except as the heartbroken wail of a very loving and sorely stricken man. Oh God, let these poor white hairs go in evidence of what he has suffered, who all his life has done no wrong, and on whom so many sorrows have come. We men were all in tears now. There was no resisting them, and we wept openly. She wept too, to see that her sweeter counsels had prevailed. Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and putting his arms round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress. Van Helsing beckoned to us and we stole out of the room, leaving the two loving hearts alone with God. Before they retired the Professor fixed up the room against any coming of the Vampire, and assured Mrs. Harker that she might rest in peace. She tried to school herself to the belief, and, manifestly for her husbands sake, tried to seem content. It was a brave struggle; and was, I think and believe, not without its reward. Van Helsing had placed at hand a bell which either of them was to sound in case of any emergency. When they had retired, Quincey, Godalming, and I arranged that we should sit up, dividing the night between us, and watch over the safety of the poor stricken lady. The first watch falls to Quincey, so the rest of us will be off to bed as soon as we can. Godalming has already turned in, for his is the second watch. Now that my work is done, I, too, shall go to bed. Jonathan Harkers Journal. 34 October close to midnight.I thought yesterday would never end. There was over me a yearning for sleep in some sort of blind belief that to wake would be to find things changed, and that any change must now be for the better. Before we parted, we discussed what our next step was to be, but we could arrive at no result. All we knew was that one earthbox remained, and that the Count alone knew where it was. If he chooses to lie hidden, he may baffle us for years; and in the meantime!the thought is too horrible, I dare not think of it even now. This I know that if ever there was a woman who was all perfection, that one is my poor wronged darling. I love her a thousand times more for her sweet pity of last night, a pity that made my own hate of the monster seem despicable. Surely God will not permit the world to be the poorer by the loss of such a creature. This is hope to me. We are all drifting reefwards now, and faith is our only anchor. Thank God! Mina is sleeping, and sleeping without dreams. I fear what her dreams might be like, with such terrible memories to ground them in. She has not been so calm, within my seeing, since the sunset. Then, for a while, there came over her face a repose which was like spring after the blasts of March. I thought at the time that it was the softness of the red sunset on her face, but somehow now I think it had a deeper meaning. I am not sleepy myself, though I am wearyweary to death. However, I must try to sleep; for there is tomorrow to think of, and there is no rest for me until.... Later.I must have fallen asleep, for I was awakened by Mina, who was sitting up in bed, with a startled look on her face. I could see easily, for we did not leave the room in darkness; she had placed a warning hand over my mouth, and now she whispered in my ear Hush! there is someone in the corridor! I got up softly, and crossing the room, gently opened the door. Just outside, stretched on a mattress, lay Mr. Morris, wide awake. He raised a warning hand for silence as he whispered to me Hush! go back to bed; it is all right. One of us will be here all night. We dont mean to take any chances! His look and gesture forbade discussion, so I came back and told Mina. She sighed, and positively a shadow of a smile stole over her poor, pale face as she put her arms round me and said softly Oh, thank God for good brave men! With a sigh she sank back again to sleep. I write this as I am not sleepy, though I must try again. 4 October, morning.Once again during the night I was wakened by Mina. This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the coming dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas flame was like a speck rather than a disc of light. She said to me hurriedly Go call the Professor. I want to see him at once. Why? I asked. I have an idea. I suppose it must have come in the night, and matured without my knowing it. He must hypnotise me before the dawn, and then I shall be able to speak. Go quick, dearest; the time is getting close. I went to the door. Dr. Seward was resting on the mattress, and, seeing me, he sprang to his feet. Is anything wrong? he asked, in alarm. No, I replied; but Mina wants to see Dr. Van Helsing at once. I will go, he said, and hurried into the Professors room. Two or three minutes later Van Helsing was in the room in his dressinggown, and Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming were with Dr. Seward at the door asking questions. When the Professor saw Mina a smilea positive smileousted the anxiety of his face; he rubbed his hands as he said Oh, my dear Madam Mina, this is indeed a change. See! friend Jonathan, we have got our dear Madam Mina, as of old, back to us today! Then turning to her, he said cheerfully And what am I do for you? For at this hour you do not want me for nothings. I want you to hypnotise me! she said. Do it before the dawn, for I feel that then I can speak, and speak freely. Be quick, for the time is short! Without a word he motioned her to sit up in bed. Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her, from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn. Mina gazed at him fixedly for a few minutes, during which my own heart beat like a trip hammer, for I felt that some crisis was at hand. Gradually her eyes closed, and she sat, stock still; only by the gentle heaving of her bosom could one know that she was alive. The Professor made a few more passes and then stopped, and I could see that his forehead was covered with great beads of perspiration. Mina opened her eyes; but she did not seem the same woman. There was a faraway look in her eyes, and her voice had a sad dreaminess which was new to me. Raising his hand to impose silence, the Professor motioned me to bring the others in. They came on tiptoe, closing the door behind them, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking on. Mina appeared not to see them. The stillness was broken by Van Helsings voice speaking in a low level tone which would not break the current of her thoughts Where are you! The answer came in a neutral way I do not know. Sleep has no place it can call its own. For several minutes there was silence. Mina sat rigid, and the Professor stood staring at her fixedly; the rest of us hardly dared to breathe. The room was growing lighter; without taking his eyes from Minas face, Dr. Van Helsing motioned me to pull up the blind. I did so, and the day seemed just upon us. A red streak shot up, and a rosy light seemed to diffuse itself through the room. On the instant the Professor spoke again Where are you now? The answer came dreamily, but with intention; it was as though she were interpreting something. I have heard her use the same tone when reading her shorthand notes. I do not know. It is all strange to me! What do you see? I can see nothing; it is all dark. What do you hear? I could detect the strain in the Professors patient voice. The lapping of water. It is gurgling by, and little waves leap. I can hear them on the outside. Then you are on a ship? We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the other. We were afraid to think. The answer came quick Oh, yes! What else do you hear? The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about. There is the creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan falls into the ratchet. What are you doing? I am stilloh, so still. It is like death! The voice faded away into a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again. By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of day. Dr. Van Helsing placed his hands on Minas shoulders, and laid her head down softly on her pillow. She lay like a sleeping child for a few moments, and then, with a long sigh, awoke and stared in wonder to see us all around her. Have I been talking in my sleep? was all she said. She seemed, however, to know the situation without telling; though she was eager to know what she had told. The Professor repeated the conversation, and she said Then there is not a moment to lose it may not be yet too late! Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming started for the door, but the Professors calm voice called them back Stay, my friends. That ship, wherever it was, was weighing anchor whilst she spoke. There are many ships weighing anchor at the moment in your so great Port of London. Which of them is it that you seek? God be thanked that we have once again a clue, though whither it may lead us we know not. We have been blind somewhat; blind after the manner of men, since when we can look back we see what we might have seen looking forward if we had been able to see what we might have seen! Alas! but that sentence is a puddle; is it not? We can know now what was in the Counts mind when he seize that money, though Jonathans so fierce knife put him in the danger that even he dread. He meant escape. Hear me, ESCAPE! He saw that with but one earthbox left, and a pack of men following like dogs after a fox, this London was no place for him. He have take his last earthbox on board a ship, and he leave the land. He think to escape, but no! we follow him. Tally Ho! as friend Arthur would say when he put on his red frock! Our old fox is wily; oh! so wily, and we must follow with wile. I too am wily and I think his mind in a little while. In meantime we may rest and in peace, for there are waters between us which he do not want to pass, and which he could not if he wouldunless the ship were to touch the land, and then only at full or slack tide. See, and the sun is just rose, and all day to sunset is to us. Let us take bath, and dress, and have breakfast which we all need, and which we can eat comfortable since he be not in the same land with us. Mina looked at him appealingly as she asked But why need we seek him further, when he is gone away from us? He took her hand and patted it as he replied Ask me nothing as yet. When we have breakfast, then I answer all questions. He would say no more, and we separated to dress. After breakfast Mina repeated her question. He looked at her gravely for a minute and then said sorrowfully Because, my dear, dear Madam Mina, now more than ever must we find him even if we have to follow him to the jaws of Hell? She grew paler as she asked faintly Why? Because, he answered solemnly, he can live for centuries, and you are but mortal woman. Time is now to be dreadedsince once he put that mark upon your throat. I was just in time to catch her as she fell forward in a faint. CHAPTER XXIV. DR. SEWARDS PHONOGRAPH DIARY, SPOKEN BY VAN HELSING. THIS to Jonathan Harker. You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall go to make our searchif I can call it so, for it is not search but knowing, and we seek confirmation only. But do you stay and take care of her today. This is your best and most holiest office. This day nothing can find him here. Let me tell you that so you will know what we four know already, for I have tell them. He, our enemy, have gone away; he have gone back to his Castle in Transylvania. I know it so well, as if a great hand of fire wrote it on the wall. He have prepare for this in some way, and that last earthbox was ready to ship somewheres. For this he took the money; for this he hurry at the last, lest we catch him before the sun go down. It was his last hope, save that he might hide in the tomb that he think poor Miss Lucy, being as he thought like him, keep open to him. But there was not of time. When that fail he make straight for his last resourcehis last earthwork I might say did I wish double entente. He is clever, oh, so clever! he know that his game here was finish; and so he decide he go back home. He find ship going by the route he came, and he go in it. We go off now to find what ship, and whither bound; when we have discover that, we come back and tell you all. Then we will comfort you and poor dear Madam Mina with new hope. For it will be hope when you think it over that all is not lost. This very creature that we pursue, he take hundreds of years to get so far as London; and yet in one day, when we know of the disposal of him we drive him out. He is finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose; and we are all more strong together. Take heart afresh dear husband of Madam Mina. This battle is but begun, and in the end we shall winso sure as that God sits on high to watch over His children. Therefore be of much comfort till we return. VAN HELSING. Jonathan Harkers Journal. 4 October.When I read to Mina, Van Helsings message in the phonograph, the poor girl brightened up considerably. Already the certainty that the Count is out of the country has given her comfort; and comfort is strength to her. For my own part, now that this horrible danger is not face to face with us, it seems almost impossible to believe in it. Even my own terrible experiences in Castle Dracula seem like a longforgotten dream. Here in the crisp autumn air, in the bright sunlight Alas! how can I disbelieve! In the midst of my thought my eye fell on the red scar on my poor darlings white forehead. Whilst that lasts, there can be no disbelief. And afterwards the very memory of it will keep faith crystal clear. Mina and I fear to be idle, so we have been over all the diaries again and again. Somehow, although the reality seems greater each time, the pain and the fear seem less. There is something of a guiding purpose manifest throughout, which is comforting. Mina says that perhaps we are the instruments of ultimate good. It may be! I shall try to think as she does. We have never spoken to each other yet of the future. It is better to wait till we see the Professor and the others after their investigations. The day is running by more quickly than I ever thought a day could run for me again. It is now three oclock. Mina Harkers Journal 5 October, 5 p.m.Our meeting for report. Present Professor Van Helsing, Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Mr. Quincey Morris, Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker. Dr. Van Helsing described what steps were taken during the day to discover on what boat and whither bound Count Dracula made his escape As I knew that he wanted to get back to Transylvania, I felt sure that he must go by the Danube mouth; or by somewhere in the Black Sea, since by that way he come. It was a dreary blank that was before us. Omne ignotum pro magnifico; and so with heavy hearts we start to find what ships leave for the Black Sea last night. He was in sailing ship, since Madam Mina tell of sails being set. These not so important as to go in your list of the shipping in the Times, and so we go, by suggestion of my Lord Godalming, to your Lloyds, where are note of all ships that sail, however so small. There we find that only one BlackSeabound ship go out with the tide. She is the Czarina Catherine, and she sail from Doolittles Wharf for Varna, and thence on to other parts and up the Danube. Soh! said I, this is the ship whereon is the Count. So off we go to Doolittles Wharf, and there we find a man in an office of wood so small that the man look bigger than the office. From him we inquire of the goings of the Czarina Catherine. He swear much, and he red face and loud of voice, but he good fellow all the same; and when Quincey give him something from his pocket which crackle as he roll it up, and put it in a so small bag which he have hid deep in his clothing, he still better fellow and humble servant to us. He come with us, and ask many men who are rough and hot; these be better fellows too when they have been no more thirsty. They say much of blood and bloom and of others which I comprehend not, though I guess what they mean; but nevertheless they tell us all things which we want to know. They make known to us among them, how last afternoon at about five oclock comes a man so hurry. A tall man, thin and pale, with high nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning. That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time. That he scatter his money in making quick inquiry as to what ship sails for the Black Sea and for where. Some took him to the office and then to the ship, where he will not go aboard but halt at shore end of gangplank, and ask that the captain come to him. The captain come, when told that he will be pay well; and though he swear much at the first he agree to term. Then the thin man go and some one tell him where horse and cart can be hired. He go there, and soon he come again, himself driving cart on which is a great box; this he himself lift down, though it take several to put it on truck for the ship. He give much talk to captain as to how and where his box is to be place; but the captain like it not and swear at him in many tongues, and tell him that if he like he can come and see where it shall be. But he say no; that he come not yet, for that he have much to do. Whereupon the captain tell him that he had better be quickwith bloodfor that his ship will leave the placeof bloodbefore the turn of the tidewith blood. Then the thin man smile, and say that of course he must go when he think fit; but he will be surprise if he go quite so soon. The captain swear again, polyglot, and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the sailing. Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues, tell him that he doesnt want no Frenchmenwith bloom upon them and also with bloodin his shipwith blood on her also. And so, after asking where there might be close at hand a ship where he might purchase ships forms, he departed. No one knew where he went or bloomin well cared, as they said, for they had something else to think ofwell with blood again; for it soon became apparent to all that the Czarina Catherine would not sail as was expected. A thin mist began to creep up from the river, and it grew, and grew; till soon a dense fog enveloped the ship and all around her. The captain swore polyglotvery polyglotpolyglot with bloom and blood; but he could do nothing. The water rose and rose; and he began to fear that he would lose the tide altogether. He was in no friendly mood, when just at full tide, the thin man came up the gangplank again and asked to see where his box had been stowed. Then the captain replied that he wished that he and his boxold and with much bloom and bloodwere in hell. But the thin man did not be offend, and went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and came up and stood awhile on deck in fog. He must have come off by himself, for none notice him. Indeed they thought not of him; for soon the fog begin to melt away, and all was clear again. My friends of the thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as they told how the captains swears exceeded even his usual polyglot, and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on questioning other mariners who were in movement up and down the river that hour, he found that few of them had seen any of fog at all, except where it lay round the wharf. However the ship went out on the ebb tide; and was doubtless by morning far down the river mouth. She was by then, when they told us, well out to sea. And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a time, for our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on his way to the Danube mouth. To sail a ship takes time, go she never so quick; and when we start we go on land more quick, and we meet him there. Our best hope is to come on him when in the box between sunrise and sunset; for then he can make no struggle, and we may deal with him as we should. There are days for us in which we can make ready our plan. We know all about where he go; for we have seen the owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all papers that can be. The box we seek is to be landed in Varna, and to be given to an agent, one Ristics who will there present his credentials; and so our merchant friend will have done his part. When he ask if there be any wrong, for that so, he can telegraph and have inquiry made at Varna, we say no; for what is to be done is not for police or of the customs. It must be done by us alone and in our own way. When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if it were certain that the Count had remained on board the ship. He replied We have the best proof of that your own evidence, when in the hypnotic trance this morning. I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should pursue the Count, for oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that he would surely go if the others went. He answered in growing passion, at first quietly. As he went on, however, he grew more angry and more forceful, till in the end we could not but see wherein was at least some of that personal dominance which made him so long a master amongst men Yes, it is necessarynecessarynecessary! For your sake in the first, and then for the sake of humanity. This monster has done much harm already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and in the short time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so small measure in darkness and not knowing. All this have I told these others; you, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the phonograph of my friend John, or in that of your husband. I have told them how the measure of leaving his own barren landbarren of peoplesand coming to a new land where life of man teems till they are like the multitude of standing corn, was the work of centuries. Were another of the UnDead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him. With this one, all the forces of nature that are occult and deep and strong must have worked together in some wondrous way. The very place where he have been alive, UnDead for all these centuries, is full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical world. There are deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither. There have been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters of strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless, there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way; and in himself were from the first some great qualities. In a hard and warlike time he was celebrate that he have more iron nerve, more subtle brain, more braver heart, than any man. In him some vital principle have in strange way found their utmost; and as his body keep strong and grow and thrive, so his brain grow too. All this without that diabolic aid which is surely to him; for it have to yield to the powers that come from, and are, symbolic of good. And now this is what he is to us. He have infect youoh, forgive me, my dear, that I must say such; but it is for good of you that I speak. He infect you in such wise, that even if he do no more, you have only to liveto live in your own old, sweet way; and so in time, death, which is of mans common lot and with Gods sanction, shall make you like to him. This must not be! We have sworn together that it must not. Thus are we ministers of Gods own wish that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise; and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause. He paused and I said But will not the Count take his rebuff wisely? Since he has been driven from England, will he not avoid it, as a tiger does the village from which he has been hunted? Aha! he said, your simile of the tiger good, for me, and I shall adopt him. Your maneater, as they of India call the tiger who has once taste blood of the human, care no more for other prey, but prowl unceasing till he get him. This that we hunt from our village is a tiger, too, a maneater, and he never cease to prowl. Nay, in himself he is not one to retire and stay afar. In his life, his living life, he go over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on his own ground; he be beaten back, but did he stay? No! He come again, and again, and again. Look at his persistence and endurance. With the childbrain that was to him he have long since conceive the idea of coming to a great city. What does he do? He find out the place of all the world most of promise for him. Then he deliberately set himself down to prepare for the task. He find in patience just how is his strength, and what are his powers. He study new tongues. He learn new social life; new environment of old ways, the politic, the law, the finance, the science, the habit of a new land and a new people who have come to be since he was. His glimpse that he have had, whet his appetite only and enkeen his desire. Nay, it help him to grow as to his brain; for it all prove to him how right he was at the first in his surmises. He have done this alone; all alone! from a ruin tomb in a forgotten land. What more may he not do when the greater world of thought is open to him? He that can smile at death, as we know him; who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill off whole peoples. Oh! if such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, what a force for good might he not be in this old world of ours. But we are pledged to set the world free. Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armour, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies, who are willing to peril even our own souls for the safety of one we lovefor the good of mankind, and for the honour and glory of God. After a general discussion it was determined that for tonight nothing be definitely settled; that we should all sleep on the facts, and try to think out the proper conclusions. Tomorrow at breakfast we are to meet again, and, after making our conclusions known to one another, we shall decide on some definite course of action. I feel a wonderful peace and rest tonight. It is as if some haunting presence were removed from me. Perhaps.... My surmise was not finished, could not be; for I caught sight in the mirror of the red mark upon my forehead; and I knew that I was still unclean. Dr. Sewards Diary. 5 October.We all rose early, and I think that sleep did much for each and all of us. When we met at early breakfast there was more general cheerfulness than any of us had ever expected to experience again. It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any wayeven by deathand we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment. More than once as we sat around the table, my eyes opened in wonder whether the whole of the past days had not been a dream. It was only when I caught sight of the red blotch on Mrs.

Harkers forehead that I was brought back to reality. Even now, when I am gravely resolving the matter, it is almost impossible to realise that the cause of all our trouble is still existent. Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells; it is only now and again, when something recalls it to her mind, that she thinks of her terrible scar. We are to meet here in my study in half an hour and decide on our course of action. I see only one immediate difficulty, I know it by instinct rather than reason we shall all have to speak frankly; and yet I fear that in some mysterious way poor Mrs. Harkers tongue is tied. I know that she forms conclusions of her own, and from all that has been I can guess how brilliant and how true they must be; but she will not, or cannot, give them utterance. I have mentioned this to Van Helsing, and he and I are to talk it over when we are alone. I suppose it is some of that horrid poison which has got into her veins beginning to work. The Count had his own purposes when he gave her what Van Helsing called the Vampires baptism of blood. Well, there may be a poison that distils itself out of good things; in an age when the existence of ptomaines is a mystery we should not wonder at anything! One thing I know that if my instinct be true regarding poor Mrs. Harkers silences, then there is a terrible difficultyan unknown dangerin the work before us. The same power that compels her silence may compel her speech. I dare not think further; for so I should in my thoughts dishonour a noble woman! Van Helsing is coming to my study a little before the others. I shall try to open the subject with him. Later.When the Professor came in, we talked over the state of things. I could see that he had something on his mind which he wanted to say, but felt some hesitancy about broaching the subject. After beating about the bush a little, he said suddenly Friend John, there is something that you and I must talk of alone, just at the first at any rate. Later, we may have to take the others into our confidence; then he stopped, so I waited; he went on Madam Mina, our poor, dear Madam Mina, is changing. A cold shiver ran through me to find my worst fears thus endorsed. Van Helsing continued With the sad experience of Miss Lucy, we must this time be warned before things go too far. Our task is now in reality more difficult than ever, and this new trouble makes every hour of the direst importance. I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in her face. It is now but very, very slight; but it is to be seen if we have eyes to notice without to prejudge. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard. But these are not all, there is to her the silence now often; as so it was with Miss Lucy. She did not speak, even when she wrote that which she wished to be known later. Now my fear is this. If it be that she can, by our hypnotic trance, tell what the Count see and hear, is it not more true that he who have hypnotise her first, and who have drink of her very blood and make her drink of his, should, if he will, compel her mind to disclose to him that which she know? I nodded acquiescence; he went on Then what we must do is to prevent this; we must keep her ignorant of our intent, and so she cannot tell what she know not. This is a painful task! Oh! so painful that it heartbreak me to think of; but it must be. When today we meet, I must tell her that for reason which we will not to speak she must not more be of our council, but be simply guarded by us. He wiped his forehead, which had broken out in profuse perspiration at the thought of the pain which he might have to inflict upon the poor soul already so tortured. I knew that it would be some sort of comfort to him if I told him that I also had come to the same conclusion; for at any rate it would take away the pain of doubt. I told him, and the effect was as I expected. It is now close to the time of our general gathering. Van Helsing has gone away to prepare for the meeting, and his painful part of it. I really believe his purpose is to be able to pray alone. Later.At the very outset of our meeting a great personal relief was experienced by both Van Helsing and myself. Mrs. Harker had sent a message by her husband to say that she would not join us at present, as she thought it better that we should be free to discuss our movements without her presence to embarrass us. The Professor and I looked at each other for an instant, and somehow we both seemed relieved. For my own part, I thought that if Mrs. Harker realised the danger herself, it was much pain as well as much danger averted. Under the circumstances we agreed, by a questioning look and answer, with finger on lip, to preserve silence of our suspicions, until we should have been able to confer alone again. We went at once into our Plan of Campaign. Van Helsing roughly put the facts before us first The Czarina Catherine left the Thames yesterday morning. It will take her at the quickest speed she has ever made at least three weeks to reach Varna; but we can travel overland to the same place in three days. Now, if we allow for two days less for the ships voyage, owing to such weather influences as we know that the Count can bring to bear; and if we allow a whole day and night for any delays which may occur to us, then we have a margin of nearly two weeks. Thus, in order to be quite safe, we must leave here on 17th at latest. Then we shall at any rate be in Varna a day before the ship arrives, and able to make such preparations as may be necessary. Of course we shall all go armedarmed against evil things, spiritual as well as physical. Here Quincey Morris added I understand that the Count comes from a wolf country, and it may be that he will get there before us. I propose that we add Winchesters to our armament. I have a kind of belief in a Winchester when there is any trouble of that sort around. Do you remember, Art, when we had the pack after us at Tobolsk? What wouldnt we have given then for a repeater apiece! Good! said Van Helsing. Winchesters it shall be. Quinceys head is level at all times, but most so when there is to hunt, though my metaphor be more dishonour to science than wolves be of danger to man. In the meantime we can do nothing here; and as I think that Varna is not familiar to any of us, why not go there more soon? It is as long to wait here as there. Tonight and tomorrow we can get ready, and then, if all be well, we four can set out on our journey. We four? said Harker interrogatively, looking from one to another of us. Of course! answered the Professor quickly. You must remain to take care of your so sweet wife! Harker was silent for a while and then said in a hollow voice Let us talk of that part of it in the morning. I want to consult with Mina. I thought that now was the time for Van Helsing to warn him not to disclose our plans to her; but he took no notice. I looked at him significantly and coughed. For answer he put his finger on his lip and turned away. JONATHAN HARKERS JOURNAL. 5 October, afternoon.For some time after our meeting this morning I could not think. The new phases of things leave my mind in a state of wonder which allows no room for active thought. Minas determination not to take any part in the discussion set me thinking; and as I could not argue the matter with her, I could only guess. I am as far as ever from a solution now. The way the others received it, too, puzzled me; the last time we talked of the subject we agreed that there was to be no more concealment of anything amongst us. Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness. Thank God there are such moments still for her. Later.How strange it all is. I sat watching Minas happy sleep, and came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I shall ever be. As the evening drew on, and the earth took its shadows from the sun sinking lower, the silence of the room grew more and more solemn to me. All at once Mina opened her eyes, and looking at me tenderly, said Jonathan, I want you to promise me something on your word of honour. A promise made to me, but made holily in Gods hearing, and not to be broken though I should go down on my knees and implore you with bitter tears. Quick, you must make it to me at once. Mina, I said, a promise like that, I cannot make at once. I may have no right to make it. But, dear one, she said, with such spiritual intensity that her eyes were like pole stars, it is I who wish it; and it is not for myself. You can ask Dr. Van Helsing if I am not right; if he disagrees you may do as you will. Nay, more, if you all agree, later, you are absolved from the promise. I promise! I said, and for a moment she looked supremely happy; though to me all happiness for her was denied by the red scar on her forehead. She said Promise me that you will not tell me anything of the plans formed for the campaign against the Count. Not by word, or inference, or implication; not at any time whilst this remains to me! and she solemnly pointed to the scar. I saw that she was in earnest, and said solemnly I promise! and as I said it I felt that from that instant a door had been shut between us. Later, midnight.Mina has been bright and cheerful all the evening. So much so that all the rest seemed to take courage, as if infected somewhat with her gaiety; as a result even I myself felt as if the pall of gloom which weighs us down were somewhat lifted. We all retired early. Mina is now sleeping like a little child; it is a wonderful thing that her faculty of sleep remains to her in the midst of her terrible trouble. Thank God for it, for then at least she can forget her care. Perhaps her example may affect me as her gaiety did tonight. I shall try it. Oh! for a dreamless sleep. 6 October, morning.Another surprise. Mina woke me early, about the same time as yesterday, and asked me to bring Dr. Van Helsing. I thought that it was another occasion for hypnotism, and without question went for the Professor. He had evidently expected some such call, for I found him dressed in his room. His door was ajar, so that he could hear the opening of the door of our room. He came at once; as he passed into the room, he asked Mina if the others might come too. No, she said quite simply, it will not be necessary. You can tell them just as well. I must go with you on your journey. Dr. Van Helsing was as startled as I was. After a moments pause he asked But why? You must take me with you. I am safer with you, and you shall be safer too. But why, dear Madam Mina? You know that your safety is our solemnest duty. We go into danger, to which you are, or may be, more liable than any of us fromfrom circumstancesthings that have been. He paused embarrassed. As she replied, she raised her finger and pointed to her forehead I know. That is why I must go. I can tell you now, whilst the sun is coming up; I may not be able again. I know that when the Count wills me I must go. I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must come by wile; by any device to hoodwinkeven Jonathan. God saw the look that she turned on me as she spoke, and if there be indeed a Recording Angel that look is noted to her everlasting honour. I could only clasp her hand. I could not speak; my emotion was too great for even the relief of tears. She went on You men are brave and strong. You are strong in your numbers, for you can defy that which would break down the human endurance of one who had to guard alone. Besides, I may be of service, since you can hypnotise me and so learn that which even I myself do not know. Dr. Van Helsing said very gravely Madam Mina, you are, as always, most wise. You shall with us come; and together we shall do that which we go forth to achieve. When he had spoken, Minas long spell of silence made me look at her. She had fallen back on her pillow asleep; she did not even wake when I had pulled up the blind and let in the sunlight which flooded the room. Van Helsing motioned to me to come with him quietly. We went to his room, and within a minute Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris were with us also. He told them what Mina had said, and went on In the morning we shall leave for Varna. We have now to deal with a new factor Madam Mina. Oh, but her soul is true. It is to her an agony to tell us so much as she has done; but it is most right, and we are warned in time. There must be no chance lost, and in Varna we must be ready to act the instant when that ship arrives. What shall we do exactly? asked Mr. Morris laconically. The Professor paused before replying We shall at the first board that ship; then, when we have identified the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it. This we shall fasten, for when it is there none can emerge; so at least says the superstition. And to superstition must we trust at the first; it was mans faith in the early, and it have its root in faith still. Then, when we get the opportunity that we seek, when none are near to see, we shall open the box, andand all will be well. I shall not wait for any opportunity, said Morris. When I see the box I shall open it and destroy the monster, though there were a thousand men looking on, and if I am to be wiped out for it the next moment! I grasped his hand instinctively and found it as firm as a piece of steel. I think he understood my look; I hope he did. Good boy, said Dr. Van Helsing. Brave boy. Quincey is all man, God bless him for it. My child, believe me none of us shall lag behind or pause from any fear. I do but say what we may dowhat we must do. But, indeed, indeed we cannot say what we shall do. There are so many things which may happen, and their ways and their ends are so various that until the moment we may not say. We shall all be armed, in all ways; and when the time for the end has come, our effort shall not be lack. Now let us today put all our affairs in order. Let all things which touch on others dear to us, and who on us depend, be complete; for none of us can tell what, or when, or how, the end may be. As for me, my own affairs are regulate; and as I have nothing else to do, I shall go make arrangement for the travel. I shall have all tickets and so forth for our journey. There was nothing further to be said, and we parted. I shall now settle up all my affairs of earth, and be ready for whatever may come.... Later.It is all done; my will is made, and all complete. Mina if she survive is my sole heir. If it should not be so, then the others who have been so good to us will have remainder. It is now drawing towards the sunset; Minas uneasiness calls my attention to it. I am sure that there is something on her mind which the time of exact sunset will reveal. These occasions are becoming harrowing times for us all, for each sunrise and sunset opens up some new dangersome new pain, which, however, may in Gods will be means to a good end. I write all these things in the diary since my darling must not hear them now; but if it may be that she can see them again, they shall be ready. She is calling to me. CHAPTER XXV. DR. SEWARDS DIARY. 11 October, Evening.Jonathan Harker has asked me to note this, as he says he is hardly equal to the task, and he wants an exact record kept. I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs. Harker a little before the time of sunset. We have of late come to understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar freedom; when her old self can be manifest without any controlling force subduing or restraining her, or inciting her to action. This mood or condition begins some half hour or more before actual sunrise or sunset, and lasts till either the sun is high, or whilst the clouds are still aglow with the rays streaming above the horizon. At first there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened, and then the absolute freedom quickly follows; when however the freedom ceases the changeback or relapse comes quickly, preceded only by a spell of warning silence. Tonight, when we met she was somewhat constrained, and bore all the signs of an internal struggle. I put it down myself to her making a violent effort at the earliest instant she could do so. A very few minutes, however, gave her complete control of herself; then, motioning her husband to sit beside her on the sofa where she was half reclining, she made the rest of us bring chairs up close. Taking her husbands hand in hers she began We are all here together in freedom, for perhaps the last time! I know, dear; I know that you will always be with me to the end. This was to her husband, whose hand had, as we could see, tightened upon hers. In the morning we go out upon our task, and God alone knows what may be in store for any of us. You are going to be so good to me as to take me with you. I know that all that brave earnest men can do for a poor weak woman, whose soul perhaps is lostno, no, not yet, but is at any rate at stakeyou will do. But you must remember that I am not as you are. There is a poison in my blood, in my soul, which may destroy me; which must destroy me, unless some relief comes to us. Oh, my friends, you know as well as I do, that my soul is at stake; and though I know there is one way out for me, you must not and I must not take it! She looked appealingly at us all in turn, beginning and ending with her husband. What is that way? asked Van Helsing in a hoarse voice. What is that way, which we must notmay nottake? That I may die now, either by my own hand or that of another, before the greater evil is entirely wrought. I know, and you know, that were I once dead you could and would set free my immortal spirit, even as you did my poor Lucys. Were death, or the fear of death, the only thing that stood in the way, I would not shrink to die here, now, amidst the friends who love me. But death is not all. I cannot believe that to die in such a case, when there is hope before us and a bitter task to be done, is Gods will. Therefore, I on my part, give up here the certainty of eternal rest, and go out into the dark where may be the blackest things that the world or the nether world holds! We were all silent, for we knew instinctively that this was only a prelude. The faces of the others were set, and Harkers grew ashen grey; perhaps he guessed better than any of us what was coming. She continued This is what I can give into the hotchpot. I could not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all seriousness. What will each of you give? Your lives, I know, she went on quickly; that is easy for brave men. Your lives are Gods, and you can give them back to Him; but what will you give to me? She looked again questioningly, but this time avoided her husbands face. Quincey seemed to understand; he nodded, and her face lit up. Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubtful matter in this connection between us now. You must promise me, one and alleven you, my beloved husbandthat, should the time come, you will kill me. What is that time? The voice was Quinceys but it was low and strained. When you shall be convinced that I am so changed that it is better that I die that I may live. When I am thus dead in the flesh, then you will, without a moments delay, drive a stake through me and cut off my head; or do whatever else may be wanting to give me rest! Quincey was the first to rise after the pause. He knelt down before her and taking her hand in his said solemnly Im only a rough fellow, who hasnt, perhaps, lived as a man should to win such a distinction, but I swear to you by all that I hold sacred and dear that, should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty that you have set us. And I promise you, too, that I shall make all certain, for if I am only doubtful I shall take it that the time has come! My true friend! was all she could say amid her fastfalling tears, as, bending over, she kissed his hand. I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina! said Van Helsing. And I! said Lord Godalming, each of them in turn kneeling to her to take the oath. I followed, myself. Then her husband turned to her, waneyed and with a greenish pallor which subdued the snowy whiteness of his hair, and asked And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife? You too, my dearest, she said, with infinite yearning of pity in her voice and eyes. You must not shrink. You are nearest and dearest and all the world to me; our souls are knit into one, for all life and all time. Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy. Their hands did not falter any the more because those that they loved implored them to slay them. It is mens duty towards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial! And oh, my dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it be at the hand of him that loves me best. Dr. Van Helsing, I have not forgotten your mercy in poor Lucys case to him who lovedshe stopped with a flying blush, and changed her phraseto him who had best right to give her peace. If that time shall come again, I look to you to make it a happy memory of my husbands life that it was his loving hand which set me free from the awful thrall upon me. Again I swear! came the Professors resonant voice. Mrs. Harker smiled, positively smiled, as with a sigh of relief she leaned back and said And now one word of warning, a warning which you must never forget this time, if it ever come, may come quickly and unexpectedly, and in such case you must lose no time in using your opportunity. At such a time I myself might benay! if the time ever comes, shall beleagued with your enemy against you. One more request; she became very solemn as she said this, it is not vital and necessary like the other, but I want you to do one thing for me, if you will. We all acquiesced, but no one spoke; there was no need to speak I want you to read the Burial Service. She was interrupted by a deep groan from her husband; taking his hand in hers, she held it over her heart, and continued You must read it over me some day. Whatever may be the issue of all this fearful state of things, it will be a sweet thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will, I hope, read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory for evercome what may! But oh, my dear one, he pleaded, death is afar off from you. Nay, she said, holding up a warning hand. I am deeper in death at this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me! Oh, my wife, must I read it? he said, before he began. It would comfort me, my husband! was all she said; and he began to read when she had got the book ready. How can Ihow could any onetell of that strange scene, its solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror; and, withal, its sweetness? Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of bitter truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to the heart had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends kneeling round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender passion of her husbands voice, as in tones so broken with emotion that often he had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service for the Burial of the Dead. II cannot go onwordsandvvoiceffail mme!.... She was right in her instinct. Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time, it comforted us much; and the silence, which showed Mrs. Harkers coming relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of despair to any of us as we had dreaded. Jonathan Harkers Journal. 15 October, Varna.We left Charing Cross on the morning of the 12th, got to Paris the same night, and took the places secured for us in the Orient Express. We travelled night and day, arriving here at about five oclock. Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any telegram had arrived for him, whilst the rest of us came on to this hotelthe Odessus. The journey may have had incidents; I was, however, too eager to get on, to care for them. Until the Czarina Catherine comes into port there will be no interest for me in anything in the wide world. Thank God! Mina is well, and looks to be getting stronger; her colour is coming back. She sleeps a great deal; throughout the journey she slept nearly all the time. Before sunrise and sunset, however, she is very wakeful and alert; and it has become a habit for Van Helsing to hypnotise her at such times. At first, some effort was needed, and he had to make many passes; but now, she seems to yield at once, as if by habit, and scarcely any action is needed. He seems to have power at these particular moments to simply will, and her thoughts obey him. He always asks her what she can see and hear. She answers to the first Nothing; all is dark. And to the second I can hear the waves lapping against the ship, and the water rushing by. Canvas and cordage strain and masts and yards creak. The wind is highI can hear it in the shrouds, and the bow throws back the foam. It is evident that the Czarina Catherine is still at sea, hastening on her way to Varna. Lord Godalming has just returned. He had four telegrams, one each day since we started, and all to the same effect that the Czarina Catherine had not been reported to Lloyds from anywhere. He had arranged before leaving London that his agent should send him every day a telegram saying if the ship had been reported. He was to have a message even if she were not reported, so that he might be sure that there was a watch being kept at the other end of the wire. We had dinner and went to bed early. Tomorrow we are to see the ViceConsul, and to arrange, if we can, about getting on board the ship as soon as she arrives. Van Helsing says that our chance will be to get on board between sunrise and sunset. The Count, even if he takes the form of a bat, cannot cross the running water of his own volition, and so cannot leave the ship. As he dare not change to mans form without suspicionwhich he evidently wishes to avoidhe must remain in the box. If, then, we can come on board after sunrise, he is at our mercy; for we can open the box and make sure of him, as we did of poor Lucy, before he wakes. What mercy he will get from us will not count for much. We think that we shall not have much trouble with officials or the seamen. Thank God! this is the country where bribery can do anything, and we are well supplied with money. We have only to make sure that the ship cannot come into port between sunset and sunrise without our being warned, and we shall be safe. Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I think! 16 October.Minas report still the same lapping waves and rushing water, darkness and favouring winds. We are evidently in good time, and when we hear of the Czarina Catherine we shall be ready. As she must pass the Dardanelles we are sure to have some report. 17 October.Everything is pretty well fixed now, I think, to welcome the Count on his return from his tour. Godalming told the shippers that he fancied that the box sent aboard might contain something stolen from a friend of his, and got a half consent that he might open it at his own risk. The owner gave him a paper telling the captain to give him every facility in doing whatever he chose on board the ship, and also a similar authorisation to his agent at Varna. We have seen the agent, who was much impressed with Godalmings kindly manner to him, and we are all satisfied that whatever he can do to aid our wishes will be done. We have already arranged what to do in case we get the box open. If the Count is there, Van Helsing and Seward will cut off his head at once and drive a stake through his heart. Morris and Godalming and I shall prevent interference, even if we have to use the arms which we shall have ready. The Professor says that if we can so treat the Counts body, it will soon after fall into dust. In such case there would be no evidence against us, in case any suspicion of murder were aroused. But even if it were not, we should stand or fall by our act, and perhaps some day this very script may be evidence to come between some of us and a rope. For myself, I should take the chance only too thankfully if it were to come. We mean to leave no stone unturned to carry out our intent. We have arranged with certain officials that the instant the Czarina Catherine is seen, we are to be informed by a special messenger. 24 October.A whole week of waiting. Daily telegrams to Godalming, but only the same story Not yet reported. Minas morning and evening hypnotic answer is unvaried lapping waves, rushing water, and creaking masts. Telegram, October 24th. Rufus Smith, Lloyds, London, to Lord Godalming, care of H.B.M. ViceConsul, Varna Czarina Catherine reported this morning from Dardanelles. Dr. Sewards Diary. 24 October.How I miss my phonograph! To write diary with a pen is irksome to me; but Van Helsing says I must. We were all wild with excitement today when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyds. I know now what men feel in battle when the call to action is heard. Mrs. Harker, alone of our party, did not show any signs of emotion. After all, it is not strange that she did not; for we took special care not to let her know anything about it, and we all tried not to show any excitement when we were in her presence. In old days she would, I am sure, have noticed, no matter how we might have tried to conceal it; but in this way she is greatly changed during the past three weeks. The lethargy grows upon her, and though she seems strong and well, and is getting back some of her colour, Van Helsing and I are not satisfied. We talk of her often; we have not, however, said a word to the others. It would break poor Harkers heartcertainly his nerveif he knew that we had even a suspicion on the subject. Van Helsing examines, he tells me, her teeth very carefully, whilst she is in the hypnotic condition, for he says that so long as they do not begin to sharpen there is no active danger of a change in her. If this change should come, it would be necessary to take steps!... We both know what those steps would have to be, though we do not mention our thoughts to each other. We should neither of us shrink from the taskawful though it be to contemplate. Euthanasia is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it. It is only about 24 hours sail from the Dardanelles to here, at the rate the Czarina Catherine has come from London. She should therefore arrive some time in the morning; but as she cannot possibly get in before then, we are all about to retire early. We shall get up at one oclock, so as to be ready. 25 October, Noon.No news yet of the ships arrival. Mrs. Harkers hypnotic report this morning was the same as usual, so it is possible that we may get news at any moment. We men are all in a fever of excitement, except Harker, who is calm; his hands are as cold as ice, and an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka knife which he now always carries with him. It will be a bad look out for the Count if the edge of that Kkri ever touches his throat, driven by that stern, icecold hand! Van Helsing and I were a little alarmed about Mrs. Harker today. About noon she got into a sort of lethargy which we did not like; although we kept silent to the others, we were neither of us happy about it. She had been restless all the morning, so that we were at first glad to know that she was sleeping. When, however, her husband mentioned casually that she was sleeping so soundly that he could not wake her, we went to her room to see for ourselves. She was breathing naturally and looked so well and peaceful that we agreed that the sleep was better for her than anything else.

Poor girl, she has so much to forget that it is no wonder that sleep, if it brings oblivion to her, does her good. Later.Our opinion was justified, for when after a refreshing sleep of some hours she woke up, she seemed brighter and better than she has been for days. At sunset she made the usual hypnotic report. Wherever he may be in the Black Sea, the Count is hurrying to his destination. To his doom, I trust! 26 October.Another day and no tidings of the Czarina Catherine. She ought to be here by now. That she is still journeying somewhere is apparent, for Mrs. Harkers hypnotic report at sunrise was still the same. It is possible that the vessel may be lying by, at times, for fog; some of the steamers which came in last evening reported patches of fog both to north and south of the port. We must continue our watching, as the ship may now be signalled any moment. 27 October, Noon.Most strange; no news yet of the ship we wait for. Mrs. Harker reported last night and this morning as usual lapping waves and rushing water, though she added that the waves were very faint. The telegrams from London have been the same no further report. Van Helsing is terribly anxious, and told me just now that he fears the Count is escaping us. He added significantly I did not like that lethargy of Madam Minas. Souls and memories can do strange things during trance. I was about to ask him more, but Harker just then came in, and he held up a warning hand. We must try tonight, at sunset, to make her speak more fully when in her hypnotic state. 28 October.Telegram. Rufus Smith, London, to Lord Godalming, care of H.B.M. ViceConsul, Varna Czarina Catherine reported entering Galatz at one oclock today. Dr. Sewards Diary. 28 October.When the telegram came announcing the arrival in Galatz I do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been expected. True, we did not know whence, or how, or when, the bolt would come; but I think we all expected that something strange would happen. The delay of arrival at Varna made us individually satisfied that things would not be just as we had expected; we only waited to learn where the change would occur. None the less, however, was it a surprise. I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it be a willothewisp to man. It was an odd experience, and we all took it differently. Van Helsing raised his hands over his head for a moment, as though in remonstrance with the Almighty; but he said not a word, and in a few seconds stood up with his face sternly set. Lord Godalming grew very pale, and sat breathing heavily. I was myself half stunned and looked in wonder at one after another. Quincey Morris tightened his belt with that quick movement which I knew so well; in our old wandering days it meant action. Mrs. Harker grew ghastly white, so that the scar on her forehead seemed to burn, but she folded her hands meekly and looked up in prayer. Harker smiledactually smiledthe dark bitter smile of one who is without hope; but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested there. When does the next train start for Galatz? said Van Helsing to us generally. At 6.30 tomorrow morning! We all stared, for the answer came from Mrs. Harker. How on earth do you know? said Art. You forgetor perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsingthat I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I always used to make up the timetables, so as to be helpful to my husband. I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study of the timetables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I learned the times very carefully. Unhappily there are not many to learn, as the only train tomorrow leaves as I say. Wonderful woman! murmured the Professor. Cant we get a special? asked Lord Godalming. Van Helsing shook his head I fear not. This land is very different from yours or mine; even if we did have a special, it would probably not arrive as soon as our regular train. Moreover, we have something to prepare. We must think. Now let us organize. You, friend Arthur, go to the train and get the tickets and arrange that all be ready for us to go in the morning. Do you, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of the ship and get from him letters to the agent in Galatz, with authority to make search the ship just as it was here. Quincey Morris, you see the ViceConsul, and get his aid with his fellow in Galatz and all he can do to make our way smooth, so that no times be lost when over the Danube. John will stay with Madam Mina and me, and we shall consult. For so if time be long you may be delayed; and it will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make report. And I, said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than she had been for many a long day, shall try to be of use in all ways, and shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is shifting from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have been of late! The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to realise the significance of her words; but Van Helsing and I, turning to each other, met each a grave and troubled glance. We said nothing at the time, however. When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs. Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of Harkers journal at the castle. She went away to get it; when the door was shut upon her he said to me We mean the same! speak out! There is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may deceive us. Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript? No! said I, unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me alone. You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a greata terriblerisk; but I believe it is right. In the moment when Madam Mina said those words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration come to me. In the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to read her mind; or more like he took her to see him in his earthbox in the ship with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of sun. He learn then that we are here; for she have more to tell in her open life with eyes to see and ears to hear than he, shut, as he is, in his coffinbox. Now he make his most effort to escape us. At present he want her not. He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his call; but he cut her offtake her, as he can do, out of his own power, that so she come not to him. Ah! there I have hope that our manbrains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his childbrain that he in his tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina; not a word to her of her trance! She know it not; and it would overwhelm her and make despair just when we want all her hope, all her courage; when most we want all her great brain which is trained like mans brain, but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not take away altogetherthough he think not so. Hush! let me speak, and you shall learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! here she comes! I thought that the Professor was going to break down and have hysterics, just as he had when Lucy died, but with a great effort he controlled himself and was at perfect nervous poise when Mrs. Harker tripped into the room, bright and happylooking and, in the doing of work, seemingly forgetful of her misery. As she came in, she handed a number of sheets of typewriting to Van Helsing. He looked over them gravely, his face brightening up as he read. Then, holding the pages between his finger and thumb, he said Friend John, to you with so much of experience alreadyand you too, dear Madam Mina, that are younghere is a lesson do not fear ever to think. A halfthought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to let him loose his wings. Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to where that halfthought come from, and I find that he be no halfthought at all; that he be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet strong to use his little wings. Nay, like the Ugly Duck of my friend Hans Andersen, he be no duckthought at all, but a big swanthought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them. See I read here what Jonathan have written That other of his race who, in a later age, again and again, brought his forces over the Great River into Turkey Land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph. What does this tell us? Not much! no! The Counts childthought see nothing; therefore he speak so free. Your manthought see nothing; my manthought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she too know not what it meanwhat it might mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in natures course they move on their way and they touchthen pouf! and there comes a flash of light, heavens wide, that blind and kill and destroy some; but that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? Yes and No. You, John, yes; for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina; for crime touch you notnot but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not a particulari ad universale. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that it is. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crimethat is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full manbrain. He is clever and cunning and resourceful; but he be not of manstature as to brain. He be of childbrain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also; he too have childbrain, and it is of the child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically; and when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. Dos pou sto, said Archimedes. Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world! To do once, is the fulcrum whereby childbrain become manbrain; and until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues, for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands, and her eyes sparkled. He went on Now you shall speak. Tell us two dry men of science what you see with those so bright eyes. He took her hand and held it whilst she spoke. His finger and thumb closed on her pulse, as I thought instinctively and unconsciously, as she spoke The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, and qua criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit. His past is a clue, and the one page of it that we knowand that from his own lipstells that once before, when in what Mr. Morris would call a tight place, he went back to his own country from the land he had tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared himself for a new effort. He came again, better equipped for his work; and won. So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten, and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey land. Good, good! oh, you so clever lady! said Van Helsing, enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand. A moment later he said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sickroom consultation Seventytwo only; and in all this excitement. I have hope. Turning to her again, he said with keen expectation But go on. Go on! there is more to tell if you will. Be not afraid; John and I know. I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right. Speak, without fear! I will try to; but you will forgive me if I seem egotistical. Nay! fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think. Then, as he is criminal he is selfish; and as his intellect is small and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on being safe, careless of all. So, his own selfishness frees my soul somewhat of the terrible power which he acquired over me on that dreadful night. I felt it, Oh! I felt it. Thank God for His great mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour; and all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have used my knowledge for his ends. The Professor stood up He has so used your mind; and by it he has left us here in Varna, whilst the ship that carried him rushed through enveloping fog up to Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation for escaping from us. But his childmind only saw so far; and it may be that, as ever is in Gods Providence, the very thing that the evil doer most reckoned on for his selfish good, turns out to be his chiefest harm. The hunter is taken in his own snare, as the great Psalmist says. For now that he think he is free from every trace of us all, and that he has escaped us with so many hours to him, then his selfish childbrain will whisper him to sleep. He think, too, that as he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge of him to you; there is where he fail! That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set. At such times you go by my volition and not by his; and this power to good of you and others, you have won from your suffering at his hands. This is now all more precious that he know it not, and to guard himself have even cut himself off from his knowledge of our where. We, however, are not all selfish, and we believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours. We shall follow him; and we shall not flinch; even if we peril ourselves that we become like him. Friend John, this has been a great hour; and it have done much to advance us on our way. You must be scribe and write him all down, so that when the others return from their work you can give it to them; then they shall know as we do. And so I have written it whilst we wait their return, and Mrs. Harker has written with her typewriter all since she brought the MS. to us. CHAPTER XXVI. DR. SEWARDS DIARY. 29 October.This is written in the train from Varna to Galatz. Last night we all assembled a little before the time of sunset. Each of us had done his work as well as he could; so far as thought, and endeavour, and opportunity go, we are prepared for the whole of our journey, and for our work when we get to Galatz. When the usual time came round Mrs. Harker prepared herself for her hypnotic effort; and after a longer and more strenuous effort on the part of Van Helsing than has been usually necessary, she sank into the trance. Usually she speaks on a hint; but this time the Professor had to ask her questions, and to ask them pretty resolutely, before we could learn anything; at last her answer came I can see nothing; we are still; there are no waves lapping, but only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear mens voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere; the echo of it seems far away. There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains are dragged along. What is this? There is a gleam of light; I can feel the air blowing upon me. Here she stopped. She had risen, as if impulsively, from where she lay on the sofa, and raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if lifting a weight. Van Helsing and I looked at each other with understanding. Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her intently, whilst Harkers hand instinctively closed round the hilt of his kkri. There was a long pause. We all knew that the time when she could speak was passing; but we felt that it was useless to say anything. Suddenly she sat up, and, as she opened her eyes, said sweetly Would none of you like a cup of tea? You must all be so tired! We could only make her happy, and so acquiesced. She bustled off to get tea; when she had gone Van Helsing said You see, my friends. He is close to land; he has left his earthchest. But he has yet to get on shore. In the night he may lie hidden somewhere; but if he be not carried on shore, or if the ship do not touch it, he cannot achieve the land. In such case he can, if it be in the night, change his form and can jump or fly on shore, as he did at Whitby. But if the day come before he get on shore, then, unless he be carried he cannot escape. And if he be carried, then the customs men may discover what the box contains. Thus, in fine, if he escape not on shore tonight, or before dawn, there will be the whole day lost to him. We may then arrive in time; for if he escape not at night we shall come on him in daytime, boxed up and at our mercy; for he dare not be his true self, awake and visible, lest he be discovered. There was no more to be said, so we waited in patience until the dawn; at which time we might learn more from Mrs. Harker. Early this morning we listened, with breathless anxiety, for her response in her trance. The hypnotic stage was even longer in coming than before; and when it came the time remaining until full sunrise was so short that we began to despair. Van Helsing seemed to throw his whole soul into the effort; at last, in obedience to his will she made reply All is dark. I hear lapping water, level with me, and some creaking as of wood on wood. She paused, and the red sun shot up. We must wait till tonight. And so it is that we are travelling towards Galatz in an agony of expectation. We are due to arrive between two and three in the morning; but already, at Bucharest, we are three hours late, so we cannot possibly get in till well after sunup. Thus we shall have two more hypnotic messages from Mrs. Harker; either or both may possibly throw more light on what is happening. Later.Sunset has come and gone. Fortunately it came at a time when there was no distraction; for had it occurred whilst we were at a station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation. Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than this morning. I am in fear that her power of reading the Counts sensations may die away, just when we want it most. It seems to me that her imagination is beginning to work. Whilst she has been in the trance hitherto she has confined herself to the simplest of facts. If this goes on it may ultimately mislead us. If I thought that the Counts power over her would die away equally with her power of knowledge it would be a happy thought; but I am afraid that it may not be so. When she did speak, her words were enigmatical Something is going out; I can feel it pass me like a cold wind. I can hear, far off, confused soundsas of men talking in strange tongues, fiercefalling water, and the howling of wolves. She stopped, and a shudder ran through her, increasing in intensity for a few seconds, till, at the end, she shook as though in a palsy. She said no more, even in answer to the Professors imperative questioning. When she woke from the trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid; but her mind was all alert. She could not remember anything, but asked what she had said; when she was told, she pondered over it deeply for a long time and in silence. 30 October, 7 a.m.We are near Galatz now, and I may not have time to write later. Sunrise this morning was anxiously looked for by us all. Knowing of the increasing difficulty of procuring the hypnotic trance, Van Helsing began his passes earlier than usual. They produced no effect, however, until the regular time, when she yielded with a still greater difficulty, only a minute before the sun rose. The Professor lost no time in his questioning; her answer came with equal quickness All is dark. I hear the water swirling by, level with my ears, and the creaking of wood on wood. Cattle low far off. There is another sound, a queer one like she stopped and grew white, and whiter still. Go on; Go on! Speak, I command you! said Van Helsing in an agonized voice. At the same time there was despair in his eyes, for the risen sun was reddening even Mrs. Harkers pale face. She opened her eyes, and we all started as she said, sweetly and seemingly with the utmost concern Oh, Professor, why ask me to do what you know I cant? I dont remember anything. Then, seeing the look of amazement on our faces, she said, turning from one to the other with a troubled look What have I said? What have I done? I know nothing, only that I was lying here, half asleep, and I heard you say go on! speak, I command you! It seemed so funny to hear you order me about, as if I were a bad child! Oh, Madam Mina, he said sadly, it is proof, if proof be needed, of how I love and honour you, when a word for your good, spoken more earnest than ever, can seem so strange because it is to order her whom I am proud to obey! The whistles are sounding; we are nearing Galatz. We are on fire with anxiety and eagerness. Mina Harkers Journal. 30 October.Mr. Morris took me to the hotel where our rooms had been ordered by telegraph, he being the one who could best be spared, since he does not speak any foreign language. The forces were distributed much as they had been at Varna, except that Lord Godalming went to the ViceConsul as his rank might serve as an immediate guarantee of some sort to the official, we being in extreme hurry. Jonathan and the two doctors went to the shipping agent to learn particulars of the arrival of the Czarina Catherine. Later.Lord Godalming has returned. The Consul is away, and the ViceConsul sick; so the routine work has been attended to by a clerk. He was very obliging, and offered to do anything in his power. Jonathan Harkers Journal. 30 October.At nine oclock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and I called on Messrs Mackenzie Steinkoff, the agents of the London firm of Hapgood. They had received a wire from London, in answer to Lord Godalmings telegraphed request, asking them to show us any civility in their power. They were more than kind and courteous, and took us at once on board the Czarina Catherine, which lay at anchor out in the river harbour. There we saw the captain, Donelson by name, who told us of his voyage. He said that in all his life he had never had so favourable a run. Man! he said, but it made us afeared, for we expeckit that we should have to pay for it wi some rare piece o ill luck, so as to keep up the average. Its no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea wi a wind ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin on yer sail for his ain purpose. An a the time we could no speer a thing. Gin we were nigh a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us and travelled wi us, till when after it had lifted and we looked out, the deil a thing could we see. We ran by Gibraltar wioot bein able to signal; an till we came to the Dardanelles and had to wait to get our permit to pass, we never were within hail o aught. At first I inclined to slack off sail and beat about till the fog was lifted; but whiles, I thocht that if the Deil was minded to get us into the Black Sea quick, he was like to do it whether we would or no. If we had a quick voyage it would be no to our miscredit wi the owners, or no hurt to our traffic; an the Old Mon who had served his ain purpose wad be decently grateful to us for no hinderin him. This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and commercial reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than he is thought by some; and he know when he meet his match! The skipper was not displeased with the compliment, and went on When we got past the Bosphorus the men began to grumble; some o them, the Roumanians, came and asked me to heave overboard a big box which had been put on board by a queerlookin old man just before we had started frae London. I had seen them speer at the fellow, and put out their twa fingers when they saw him, to guard against the evil eye. Man! but the supersteetion of foreigners is pairfectly rideeculous! I sent them aboot their business pretty quick; but as just after a fog closed in on us, I felt a wee bit as they did anent something, though I wouldnt say it was agin the big box. Well, on we went, and as the fog didnt let up for five days I joost let the wind carry us; for if the Deil wanted to get somewhereswell, he would fetch it up areet. An if he didnt, well, wed keep a sharp look out anyhow. Sure enuch, we had a fair way and deep water all the time; and two days ago, when the mornin sun came through the fog, we found ourselves just in the river opposite Galatz. The Roumanians were wild, and wanted me right or wrong to take out the box and fling it in the river. I had to argy wi them aboot it wi a handspike; an when the last o them rose off the deck, wi his head in his hand, I had convinced them that, evil eye or no evil eye, the property and the trust of my owners were better in my hands than in the river Danube. They had, mind ye, taken the box on the deck ready to fling in, and as it was marked Galatz via Varna, I thocht Id let it lie till we discharged in the port an get rid ot athegither. We didnt do much clearin that day, an had to remain the nicht at anchor; but in the mornin, braw an airly, an hour before sunup, a man came aboord wi an order, written to him from England, to receive a box marked for one Count Dracula. Sure enuch the matter was one ready to his hand. He had his papers a reet, an glad I was to be rid o the dam thing, for I was beginnin masel to feel uneasy at it. If the Deil did have any luggage aboord the ship, Im thinkin it was nane ither than that same! What was the name of the man who took it? asked Dr. Van Helsing, with restrained eagerness. Ill be tellin ye quick! he answered, and, stepping down to his cabin, produced a receipt signed Immanuel Hildesheim. Burgenstrasse 16 was the address. We found out that this was all the captain knew; so with thanks we came away. We found Hildesheim in his office, a Hebrew of rather the Adelphi type, with a nose like a sheep, and a fez. His arguments were pointed with speciewe doing the punctuationand with a little bargaining he told us what he knew. This turned out to be simple but important. He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London, telling him to receive, if possible before sunrise, so as to avoid customs, a box which would arrive at Galatz in the Czarina Catherine. This he was to give in charge to a certain Petrof Skinsky, who dealt with Slovaks who traded down the river to the port. He had been paid for his work by an English bank note, which had been duly cashed for gold at the Danube International Bank. When Skinsky had come to him, he had taken him to the ship and handed over the box, so as to save porterage. That was all he knew. We then sought for Skinsky, but were unable to find him. One of his neighbours, who did not seem to bear him any affection, said that he had gone away two days before, no one knew whither. This was corroborated by his landlord, who had received by messenger the key of the house together with the rent due, in English money. This had been between ten and eleven oclock last night. We were at a standstill again. Whilst we were talking, one came running and breathlessly gasped out that the body of Skinsky had been found inside the wall of the churchyard of St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if by some wild animal. Those we had been speaking with ran off to see the horror, the women crying out, This is the work of a Slovak! We hurried away lest we should have been in some way drawn into the affair, and so detained. As we came home we could arrive at no definite conclusion. We were all convinced that the box was on its way, by water, to somewhere; but where that might be we would have to discover. With heavy hearts we came home to the hotel to Mina. When we met together, the first thing was to consult as to taking Mina again into our confidence. Things are getting desperate, and it is at least a chance, though a hazardous one. As a preliminary step, I was released from my promise to her. Mina Harkers Journal. 30 October, evening.They were so tired and wornout and dispirited that there was nothing to be done till they had some rest; so I asked them all to lie down for half an hour whilst I should enter everything up to the moment. I feel so grateful to the man who invented the Travellers typewriter, and to Mr. Morris for getting this one for me. I should have felt quite astray doing the work if I had to write with a pen.... It is all done; poor dear, dear Jonathan, what he must have suffered, what must he be suffering now. He lies on the sofa hardly seeming to breathe, and his whole body appears in collapse. His brows are knit; his face is drawn with pain. Poor fellow, maybe he is thinking, and I can see his face all wrinkled up with the concentration of his thoughts. Oh! if I could only help at all.... I shall do what I can.... I have asked Dr. Van Helsing, and he has got me all the papers that I have not yet seen.... Whilst they are resting, I shall go over all carefully, and perhaps I may arrive at some conclusion. I shall try to follow the Professors example, and think without prejudice on the facts before me.... I do believe that under Gods Providence I have made a discovery. I shall get the maps and look over them.... I am more than ever sure that I am right. My new conclusion is ready, so I shall get our party together and read it. They can judge it; it is well to be accurate, and every minute is precious. Mina Harkers Memorandum. (Entered in her Journal.) Ground of inquiry.Count Draculas problem is to get back to his own place. (a) He must be brought back by some one. This is evident; for, had he power to move himself as he wished he could go either as man, or wolf, or bat, or in some other way. He evidently fears discovery or interference, in the state of helplessness in which he must beconfined as he is between dawn and sunset in his wooden box. (b) How is he to be taken?Here a process of exclusion may help us. By road, by rail, by water? 1. By Road.There are endless difficulties, especially in leaving a city. (x) There are people; and people are curious, and investigate. A hint, a surmise, a doubt as to what might be in the box, would destroy him. (y) There are, or there might be, customs and octroi officers to pass. (z) His pursuers might follow. This is his greatest fear; and in order to prevent his being betrayed he has repelled, so far as he can, even his victimme! 2. By Rail.There is no one in charge of the box. It would have to take its chance of being delayed; and delay would be fatal, with enemies on the track.

True, he might escape at night; but where would he be, if left in a strange place with no refuge that he could fly to? This is not what he intends; and he does not mean to risk it. 3. By Water.Here is the safest way, in one respect, but with most danger in another. On the water he is powerless except at night; even then he can only summon fog and storm and snow and his wolves. But were he wrecked, the living water would engulf him, helpless; and he would indeed be lost. He could have the vessel drive to land; but if it were unfriendly land, wherein he was not free to move, his position would still be desperate. We know from the record that he was on the water; so what we have to do is to ascertain what water. The first thing is to realise exactly what he has done as yet; we may, then, get a light on what his later task is to be. Firstly.We must differentiate between what he did in London as part of his general plan of action, when he was pressed for moments and had to arrange as best he could. Secondly we must see, as well as we can surmise it from the facts we know of, what he has done here. As to the first, he evidently intended to arrive at Galatz, and sent invoice to Varna to deceive us lest we should ascertain his means of exit from England; his immediate and sole purpose then was to escape. The proof of this is the letter of instructions sent to Immanuel Hildesheim to clear and take away the box before sunrise. There is also the instruction to Petrof Skinsky. This we must only guess at; but there must have been some letter or message, since Skinsky came to Hildesheim. That, so far, his plans were successful we know. The Czarina Catherine made a phenomenally quick journeyso much so that Captain Donelsons suspicions were aroused; but his superstition united with his canniness played the Counts game for him, and he ran with his favouring wind through fogs and all till he brought up blindfold at Galatz. That the Counts arrangements were well made, has been proved. Hildesheim cleared the box, took it off, and gave it to Skinsky. Skinsky took itand here we lose the trail. We only know that the box is somewhere on the water, moving along. The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have been avoided. Now we come to what the Count must have done after his arrivalon land, at Galatz. The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise. At sunrise the Count could appear in his own form. Here, we ask why Skinsky was chosen at all to aid in the work? In my husbands diary, Skinsky is mentioned as dealing with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port; and the mans remark, that the murder was the work of a Slovak, showed the general feeling against his class. The Count wanted isolation. My surmise is, this that in London the Count decided to get back to his Castle by water, as the most safe and secret way. He was brought from the Castle by Szgany, and probably they delivered their cargo to Slovaks who took the boxes to Varna, for there they were shipped for London. Thus the Count had knowledge of the persons who could arrange this service. When the box was on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he came out from his box, met Skinsky and instructed him what to do as to arranging the carriage of the box up some river. When this was done, and he knew that all was in train, he blotted out his traces, as he thought, by murdering his agent. I have examined the map, and find that the river most suitable for the Slovaks to have ascended is either the Pruth or the Sereth. I read in the typescript that in my trance I heard cows low and water swirling level with my ears and the creaking of wood. The Count in his box, then, was on a river in an open boatpropelled probably either by oars or poles, for the banks are near and it is working against stream. There would be no such sound if floating down stream. Of course it may not be either the Sereth or the Pruth, but we may possibly investigate further. Now of these two, the Pruth is the more easily navigated, but the Sereth is, at Fundu, joined by the Bistritza, which runs up round the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is manifestly as close to Draculas Castle as can be got by water. Mina Harkers Journalcontinued. When I had done reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me. The others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have seen where we were blinded. Now we are on the track once again, and this time we may succeed. Our enemy is at his most helpless; and if we can come on him by day, on the water, our task will be over. He has a start, but he is powerless to hasten, as he may not leave his box lest those who carry him may suspect; for them to suspect would be to prompt them to throw him in the stream, where he perish. This he knows, and will not. Now, men, to our Council of War; for, here and now, we must plan what each and all shall do. I shall get a steam launch and follow him, said Lord Godalming. And I, horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land, said Mr. Morris. Good! said the Professor, both good. But neither must go alone. There must be force to overcome force if need be; the Slovak is strong and rough, and he carries rude arms. All the men smiled, for amongst them they carried a small arsenal. Said Mr. Morris I have brought some Winchesters; they are pretty handy in a crowd, and there may be wolves. The Count, if you remember, took some other precautions; he made some requisitions on others that Mrs. Harker could not quite hear or understand. We must be ready at all points. Dr. Seward said I think I had better go with Quincey. We have been accustomed to hunt together, and we two, well armed, will be a match for whatever may come along. You must not be alone, Art. It may be necessary to fight the Slovaks, and a chance thrustfor I dont suppose these fellows carry gunswould undo all our plans. There must be no chances, this time; we shall not rest until the Counts head and body have been separated, and we are sure that he cannot reincarnate. He looked at Jonathan as he spoke, and Jonathan looked at me. I could see that the poor dear was torn about in his mind. Of course he wanted to be with me; but then the boat service would, most likely, be the one which would destroy the ... the ... the ... Vampire. (Why did I hesitate to write the word?) He was silent awhile, and during his silence Dr. Van Helsing spoke Friend Jonathan, this is to you for twice reasons. First, because you are young and brave and can fight, and all energies may be needed at the last; and again that it is your right to destroy himthatwhich has wrought such woe to you and yours. Be not afraid for Madam Mina; she will be my care, if I may. I am old. My legs are not so quick to run as once; and I am not used to ride so long or to pursue as need be, or to fight with lethal weapons. But I can be of other service; I can fight in other way. And I can die, if need be, as well as younger men. Now let me say that what I would is this while you, my Lord Godalming, and friend Jonathan go in your so swift little steamboat up the river, and whilst John and Quincey guard the bank where perchance he might be landed, I will take Madam Mina right into the heart of the enemys country. Whilst the old fox is tied in his box, floating on the running stream whence he cannot escape to landwhere he dares not raise the lid of his coffinbox lest his Slovak carriers should in fear leave him to perishwe shall go in the track where Jonathan wentfrom Bistritz over the Borgoand find our way to the Castle of Dracula. Here, Madam Minas hypnotic power will surely help, and we shall find our wayall dark and unknown otherwiseafter the first sunrise when we near that fateful place. There is much to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated. Here Jonathan interrupted him hotly Do you mean to say, Professor Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina, in her sad case and tainted as she is with that devils illness, right into the jaws of his deathtrap? Not for the world! Not for Heaven or Hell! He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on Do you know what the place is? Have you seen that awful den of hellish infamywith the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and ever speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo? Have you felt the Vampires lips upon your throat? Here he turned to me, and as his eyes lit on my forehead, he threw up his arms with a cry Oh, my God, what have we done to have this terror upon us? and he sank down on the sofa in a collapse of misery. The Professors voice, as he spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed to vibrate in the air, calmed us all Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful place that I would go. God forbid that I should take her into that place. There is workwild workto be done there, that her eyes may not see. We men here, all save Jonathan, have seen with our own eyes what is to be done before that place can be purify. Remember that we are in terrible straits. If the Count escape us this timeand he is strong and subtle and cunninghe may choose to sleep him for a century; and then in time our dear onehe took my handwould come to him to keep him company, and would be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw. You have told us of their gloating lips; you heard their ribald laugh as they clutched the moving bag that the Count threw to them. You shudder; and well may it be. Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is necessary. My friend, is it not a dire need for the which I am giving, if need be, my life? If it were that anyone went into that place to stay, it is I who would have to go, to keep them company. Do as you will; said Jonathan, with a sob that shook him all over, We are in the hands of God! Later.Oh, it did me good to see the way that these brave men worked. How can women help loving men when they are so earnest, and so true, and so brave! And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used! I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and that both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within another hour. It is not three hours since it was arranged what part each of us was to do; now Lord Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam launch, with steam up ready to start at a moments notice. Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris have half a dozen beautiful horses, well appointed. We have all the maps and appliances of various kinds that can be had. Professor Van Helsing and I are to leave by the 11.40 train tonight for Veresti, where we are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass. We are bringing a good deal of ready money, as we are to buy a carriage and horses. We shall drive ourselves, for we have no one whom we can trust in this matter. The Professor knows something of a great many languages, so we shall get on all right. We have all got arms, even for me a largebore revolver; Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like the rest. Alas! I cannot carry one arm that the rest do; the scar on my forehead forbids that. Dear Dr. Van Helsing comforts me by telling me that I am fully armed as there may be wolves; the weather is getting colder every hour, and there are snowflurries which come and go as warnings. Later.It took all my courage to say goodbye to my darling. We may never meet again. Courage, Mina! the Professor is looking at you keenly; his look is a warning. There must be no tears nowunless it may be that God will let them fall in gladness. Jonathan Harkers Journal. October 30. Night.I am writing this in the light from the furnace door of the steam launch; Lord Godalming is firing up. He is an experienced hand at the work, as he has had for years a launch of his own on the Thames, and another on the Norfolk Broads. Regarding our plans, we finally decided that Minas guess was correct, and that if any waterway was chosen for the Counts escape back to his Castle, the Sereth, and then the Bistritza at its junction, would be the one. We took it that somewhere about the 47th degree, north latitude, would be the place chosen for crossing the country between the river and the Carpathians. We have no fear in running at good speed up the river at night; there is plenty of water, and the banks are wide enough apart to make steaming, even in the dark, easy enough. Lord Godalming tells me to sleep for a while, as it is enough for the present for one to be on watch. But I cannot sleephow can I with the terrible danger hanging over my darling, and her going out into that awful place.... My only comfort is that we are in the hands of God. Only for that faith it would be easier to die than to live, and so be quit of all the trouble. Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward were off on their long ride before we started; they are to keep up the right bank, far enough off to get on higher lands, where they can see a good stretch of river and avoid the following of its curves. They have, for the first stages, two men to ride and lead their spare horsesfour in all, so as not to excite curiosity. When they dismiss the men, which will be shortly, they will themselves look after the horses. It may be necessary for us to join forces; if so they can mount our whole party. One of the saddles has a movable horn, and can be easily adapted for Mina, if required. It is a wild adventure we are on. Here, as we are rushing along through the darkness, with the cold from the river seeming to rise up and strike us; with all the mysterious voices of the night around us, it all comes home. We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things. Godalming is shutting the furnace door.... 31 October.Still hurrying along. The day has come, and Godalming is sleeping. I am on watch. The morning is bitterly cold; the furnace heat is grateful, though we have heavy fur coats. As yet we have passed only a few open boats, but none of them had on board any box or package of anything like the size of the one we seek. The men were scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and prayed. 1 November, evening.No news all day; we have found nothing of the kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza; and if we are wrong in our surmise our chance is gone. We have overhauled every boat, big and little. Early this morning, one crew took us for a Government boat, and treated us accordingly. We saw in this a way of smoothing matters, so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a Roumanian flag which we now fly conspicuously. With every boat which we have overhauled since then this trick has succeeded; we have had every deference shown to us, and not once any objection to whatever we chose to ask or do. Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them, going at more than usual speed as she had a double crew on board. This was before they came to Fundu, so they could not tell us whether the boat turned into the Bistritza or continued on up the Sereth. At Fundu we could not hear of any such boat, so she must have passed there in the night. I am feeling very sleepy; the cold is perhaps beginning to tell upon me, and nature must have rest some time. Godalming insists that he shall keep the first watch. God bless him for all his goodness to poor dear Mina and me. 2 November, morning.It is broad daylight. That good fellow would not wake me. He says it would have been a sin to, for I slept so peacefully and was forgetting my trouble. It seems brutally selfish of me to have slept so long, and let him watch all night; but he was quite right. I am a new man this morning; and, as I sit here and watch him sleeping, I can do all that is necessary both as to minding the engine, steering, and keeping watch. I can feel that my strength and energy are coming back to me. I wonder where Mina is now, and Van Helsing. They should have got to Veresti about noon on Wednesday. It would take them some time to get the carriage and horses; so if they had started and travelled hard, they would be about now at the Borgo Pass. God guide and help them! I am afraid to think what may happen. If we could only go faster! but we cannot; the engines are throbbing and doing their utmost. I wonder how Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris are getting on. There seem to be endless streams running down from the mountains into this river, but as none of them are very largeat present, at all events, though they are terrible doubtless in winter and when the snow meltsthe horsemen may not have met much obstruction. I hope that before we get to Strasba we may see them; for if by that time we have not overtaken the Count, it may be necessary to take counsel together what to do next. Dr. Sewards Diary. 2 November.Three days on the road. No news, and no time to write it if there had been, for every moment is precious. We have had only the rest needful for the horses; but we are both bearing it wonderfully. Those adventurous days of ours are turning up useful. We must push on; we shall never feel happy till we get the launch in sight again. 3 November.We heard at Fundu that the launch had gone up the Bistritza. I wish it wasnt so cold. There are signs of snow coming; and if it falls heavy it will stop us. In such case we must get a sledge and go on, Russian fashion. 4 November.Today we heard of the launch having been detained by an accident when trying to force a way up the rapid. The Slovak boats get up all right, by aid of a rope, and steering with knowledge. Some went up only a few hours before. Godalming is an amateur fitter himself, and evidently it was he who put the launch in trim again. Finally, they got up the Rapids all right, with local help, and are off on the chase afresh. I fear that the boat is not any better for the accident; the peasantry tell us that after she got upon the smooth water again, she kept stopping every now and again so long as she was in sight. We must push on harder than ever; our help may be wanted soon. Mina Harkers Journal. 31 October.Arrived at Veresti at noon. The Professor tells me that this morning at dawn he could hardly hypnotize me at all, and that all I could say was Dark and quiet. He is off now buying a carriage and horses. He says that he will later on try to buy additional horses, so that we may be able to change them on the way. We have something more than 70 miles before us. The country is lovely, and most interesting; if only it were under different conditions, how delightful it would be to see it all. If Jonathan and I were driving through it alone what a pleasure it would be. To stop and see people, and learn something of their life, and to fill our minds and memories with all the colour and picturesqueness of the whole wild, beautiful country and the quaint people! But, alas! Later.Dr. Van Helsing has returned. He has got the carriage and horses; we are to have some dinner, and to start in an hour. The landlady is putting us up a huge basket of provisions; it seems enough for a company of soldiers. The Professor encourages her, and whispers to me that it may be a week before we can get any good food again. He has been shopping too, and has sent home such a wonderful lot of fur coats and wraps, and all sorts of warm things. There will not be any chance of our being cold. We shall soon be off. I am afraid to think what may happen to us. We are truly in the hands of God. He alone knows what may be, and I pray Him, with all the strength of my sad and humble soul, that He will watch over my beloved husband; that whatever may happen, Jonathan may know that I loved him and honoured him more than I can say, and that my latest and truest thought will be always for him. CHAPTER XXVII. MINA HARKERS JOURNAL. 1 November.All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed. The horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated, for they go willingly their full stage at best speed. We have now had so many changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged to think that the journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing is laconic; he tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays them well to make the exchange of horses. We get hot soup, or coffee, or tea; and off we go. It is a lovely country; full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities. They are very, very superstitious. In the first house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye. I believe they went to the trouble of putting an extra amount of garlic into our food; and I cant abide garlic. Ever since then I have taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have escaped their suspicions. We are travelling fast, and as we have no driver with us to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal; but I daresay that fear of the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way. The Professor seems tireless; all day he would not take any rest, though he made me sleep for a long spell. At sunset time he hypnotized me, and he says that I answered as usual darkness, lapping water and creaking wood; so our enemy is still on the river. I am afraid to think of Jonathan, but somehow I have now no fear for him, or for myself. I write this whilst we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be got ready. Dr. Van Helsing is sleeping. Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and grey, but his mouth is set as firmly as a conquerors; even in his sleep he is instinct with resolution. When we have well started I must make him rest whilst I drive. I shall tell him that we have days before us, and he must not break down when most of all his strength will be needed.... All is ready; we are off shortly. 2 November, morning.I was successful, and we took turns driving all night; now the day is on us, bright though cold. There is a strange heaviness in the airI say heaviness for want of a better word; I mean that it oppresses us both. It is very cold, and only our warm furs keep us comfortable. At dawn Van Helsing hypnotised me; he says I answered darkness, creaking wood and roaring water, so the river is changing as they ascend. I do hope that my darling will not run any chance of dangermore than need be; but we are in Gods hands. 2 November, night.All day long driving. The country gets wilder as we go, and the great spurs of the Carpathians, which at Veresti seemed so far from us and so low on the horizon, now seem to gather round us and tower in front. We both seem in good spirits; I think we make an effort each to cheer the other; in the doing so we cheer ourselves. Dr. Van Helsing says that by morning we shall reach the Borgo Pass. The houses are very few here now, and the Professor says that the last horses we got will have to go on with us, as we may not be able to change. He got two in addition to the two we changed, so that now we have a rude fourinhand. The dear horses are patient and good, and they give us no trouble. We are not worried with other travellers, and so even I can drive. We shall get to the Pass in daylight; we do not want to arrive before. So we take it easy, and have each a long rest in turn. Oh, what will tomorrow bring to us? We go to seek the place where my poor darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided aright, and that He will deign to watch over my husband and those dear to us both, and who are in such deadly peril. As for me, I am not worthy in His sight. Alas! I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred His wrath. Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing. 4 November.This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D., of Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him. It may explain. It is morning, and I write by a fire which all the night I have kept aliveMadam Mina aiding me. It is cold, cold; so cold that the grey heavy sky is full of snow, which when it falls will settle for all winter as the ground is hardening to receive it. It seems to have affected Madam Mina; she has been so heavy of head all day that she was not like herself. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! She, who is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day; she even have lost her appetite. She make no entry into her little diary, she who write so faithful at every pause. Something whisper to me that all is not well. However, tonight she is more vif. Her long sleep all day have refresh and restore her, for now she is all sweet and bright as ever. At sunset I try to hypnotise her, but alas! with no effect; the power has grown less and less with each day, and tonight it fail me altogether. Well, Gods will be donewhatever it may be, and whithersoever it may lead! Now to the historical, for as Madam Mina write not in her stenography, I must, in my cumbrous old fashion, that so each day of us may not go unrecorded. We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday morning. When I saw the signs of the dawn I got ready for the hypnotism. We stopped our carriage, and got down so that there might be no disturbance. I made a couch with furs, and Madam Mina, lying down, yield herself as usual, but more slow and more short time than ever, to the hypnotic sleep. As before, came the answer darkness and the swirling of water. Then she woke, bright and radiant, and we go on our way and soon reach the Pass. At this time and place she become all on fire with zeal; some new guiding power be in her manifested, for she point to a road and say This is the way. How know you it? I ask. Of course I know it, she answer, and with a pause, add Have not my Jonathan travel it and wrote of his travel? At first I think somewhat strange, but soon I see that there be only one such byroad. It is used but little, and very different from the coach road from Bukovina to Bistritz, which is more wide and hard, and more of use. So we came down this road; when we meet other waysnot always were we sure that they were roads at all, for they be neglect and light snow have fallenthe horses know and they only. I give rein to them, and they go on so patient. Byandby we find all the things which Jonathan have note in that wonderful diary of him. Then we go on for long, long hours and hours. At the first, I tell Madam Mina to sleep; she try, and she succeed. She sleep all the time; till at the last, I feel myself to suspicious grow, and attempt to wake her. But she sleep on, and I may not wake her though I try. I do not wish to try too hard lest I harm her; for I know that she have suffer much, and sleep at times be allinall to her. I think I drowse myself, for all of sudden I feel guilt, as though I have done something; I find myself bolt up, with the reins in my hand, and the good horses go along jog, jog, just as ever. I look down and find Madam Mina still sleep. It is now not far off sunset time, and over the snow the light of the sun flow in big yellow flood, so that we throw great long shadow on where the mountain rise so steep. For we are going up, and up; and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though it were the end of the world. Then I arouse Madam Mina. This time she wake with not much trouble, and then I try to put her to hypnotic sleep. But she sleep not, being as though I were not. Still I try and try, till all at once I find her and myself in dark; so I look round, and find that the sun have gone down. Madam Mina laugh, and I turn and look at her. She is now quite awake, and look so well as I never saw her since that night at Carfax when we first enter the Counts house. I am amaze, and not at ease then; but she is so bright and tender and thoughtful for me that I forget all fear. I light a fire, for we have brought supply of wood with us, and she prepare food while I undo the horses and set them, tethered in shelter, to feed. Then when I return to the fire she have my supper ready. I go to help her; but she smile, and tell me that she have eat alreadythat she was so hungry that she would not wait. I like it not, and I have grave doubts; but I fear to affright her, and so I am silent of it. She help me and I eat alone; and then we wrap in fur and lie beside the fire, and I tell her to sleep while I watch. But presently I forget all of watching; and when I sudden remember that I watch, I find her lying quiet, but awake, and looking at me with so bright eyes. Once, twice more the same occur, and I get much sleep till before morning. When I wake I try to hypnotise her; but alas! though she shut her eyes obedient, she may not sleep. The run rise up, and up, and up; and then sleep come to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake. I have to lift her up and place her sleeping in the carriage when I have harnessed the horses and made all ready. Madam still sleep, and sleep; and she look in her sleep more healthy and more redder than before. And I like it not. And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!I am afraid of all thingseven to think; but I must go on my way. The stake we play for is life and death, or more than these, and we must not flinch. 5 November, morning.Let me be accurate in everything, for though you and I have seen some strange things together, you may at the first think that I, Van Helsing, am madthat the many horrors and the so long strain on nerves has at the last turn my brain. All yesterday we travel, ever getting closer to the mountains, and moving into a more and more wild and desert land. There are great, frowning precipices and much falling water, and Nature seemed to have held sometime her carnival. Madam Mina still sleep and sleep; and though I did have hunger and appeased it, I could not waken hereven for food. I began to fear that the fatal spell of the place was upon her, tainted as she is with that Vampire baptism. Well, said I to myself, if it be that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at night. As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient and imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept. Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down. But all was indeed changed; the frowning mountains seemed further away, and we were near the top of a steeprising hill, on summit of which was such as castle as Jonathan tell of in his diary. At once I exulted and feared; for now, for good or ill, the end was near. I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotise her; but alas! unavailing till too late. Then, ere the great dark came upon usfor even after downsun the heavens reflected the gone sun on the snow, and all was for a time in a great twilightI took out the horses and fed them in what shelter I could. Then I make a fire; and near it I made Madam Mina, now awake and more charming than ever, sit comfortable amid her rugs. I got ready food but she would not eat, simply saying that she had not hunger. I did not press her, knowing her unavailingness. But I myself eat, for I must needs now be strong for all. Then, with the fear on me of what might be, I drew a ring so big for her comfort, round where Madam Mina sat; and over the ring I passed some of the wafer, and I broke it fine so that all was well guarded. She sat still all the timeso still as one dead; and she grew whiter and ever whiter till the snow was not more pale; and no word she said. But when I drew near, she clung to me, and I could know that the poor soul shook her from head to feet with a tremor that was pain to feel.

I said to her presently, when she had grown more quiet Will you not come over to the fire? for I wished to make a test of what she could. She rose obedient, but when she have made a step she stopped, and stood as one stricken. Why not go on? I asked. She shook her head, and, coming back, sat down in her place. Then, looking at me with open eyes, as of one waked from sleep, she said simply I cannot! and remained silent. I rejoiced, for I knew that what she could not, none of those that we dreaded could. Though there might be danger to her body, yet her soul was safe! Presently the horses began to scream, and tore at their tethers till I came to them and quieted them. When they did feel my hands on them, they whinnied low as in joy, and licked at my hands and were quiet for a time. Many times through the night did I come to them, till it arrive to the cold hour when all nature is at lowest; and every time my coming was with quiet of them. In the cold hour the fire began to die, and I was about stepping forth to replenish it, for now the snow came in flying sweeps and with it a chill mist. Even in the dark there was a light of some kind, as there ever is over snow; and it seemed as though the snowflurries and the wreaths of mist took shape as of women with trailing garments. All was in dead, grim silence, only that the horses whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the worst. I began to fearhorrible fears; but then came to me the sense of safety in that ring wherein I stood. I began, too, to think that my imaginings were of the night, and the gloom, and the unrest that I have gone through, and all the terrible anxiety. It was as though my memories of all Jonathans horrid experience were befooling me; for the snow flakes and the mist began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him. And then the horses cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as men do in pain. Even the madness of fright was not to them, so that they could break away. I feared for my dear Madam Mina when these weird figures drew near and circled round. I looked at her, but she sat calm, and smiled at me; when I would have stepped to the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held me back, and whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low it was No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe! I turned to her, and looking in her eyes, said But you? It is for you that I fear! whereat she laugheda laugh low and unreal, and said Fear for me! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them than I am, and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead. Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without the Holy circle. Then they began to materialise, tillif God have not take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyesthere were before me in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina; and as their laugh came through the silence of the night, they twined their arms and pointed to her, and said in those so sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were of the intolerable sweetness of the waterglasses Come, sister. Come to us. Come! Come! In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina, and my heart with gladness leapt like flame; for oh! the terror in her sweet eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my heart that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of them. I seized some of the firewood which was by me, and holding out some of the Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire. They drew back before me, and laughed their low horrid laugh. I fed the fire, and feared them not; for I knew that we were safe within our protections. They could not approach me, whilst so armed, nor Madam Mina whilst she remained within the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter. The horses had ceased to moan, and lay still on the ground; the snow fell on them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was for the poor beasts no more of terror. And so we remained till the red of the dawn began to fall through the snowgloom. I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror; but when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again. At the first coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the whirling mist and snow; the wreaths of transparent gloom moved away towards the castle, and were lost. Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina, intending to hypnotise her; but she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, from which I could not wake her. I tried to hypnotise through her sleep, but she made no response, none at all; and the day broke. I fear yet to stir. I have made my fire and have seen the horses; they are all dead. Today I have much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high; for there may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist obscure it, will be to me a safety. I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will to my terrible work. Madam Mina still sleeps; and, God be thanked! she is calm in her sleep.... Jonathan Harkers Journal. 4 November, evening.The accident to the launch has been a terrible thing for us. Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago; and by now my dear Mina would have been free. I fear to think of her, off on the wolds near that horrid place. We have got horses, and we follow on the track. I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready. We have our arms. The Szgany must look out if they mean to fight. Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more, Goodbye, Mina! God bless and keep you. Dr. Sewards Diary. 5 November.With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing away from the river with their leiterwaggon. They surrounded it in a cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The snow is falling lightly and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own excited feelings, but the depression is strange. Far off I hear the howling of wolves; the snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready, and we are soon off. We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be.... Dr. Van Helsings Memorandum. 5 November, afternoon.I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle. The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful; though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some illintent or illchance should close them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathans bitter experience served me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive; it seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma had me between his horns. Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle; and yet even there would be the wolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were Gods Will. At any rate it was only death and freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy; the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work. I knew that there were at least three graves to findgraves that are inhabit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton UnDead have hypnotise him; and he remain on, and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kissand man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the UnDead!... There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was movedI, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hateI was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the openeyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snowstilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard. Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching away tombtops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthral; but I go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soulwail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears; and, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell; and as there had been only three of these UnDead phantoms around us in the night, I took it that there were no more of active UnDead existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word DRACULA. This then was the UnDead home of the KingVampire, to whom so many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew. Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Draculas tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, UnDead, for ever. Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror; for if it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the years; who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives?... Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work; had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen the repose in the first face, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death, for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble into its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud I am here! Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can the Count enter there UnDead. When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her sleep, and seeing me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much. Come! she said, come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my husband, who is, I know, coming towards us. She was looking thin and pale and weak; but her eyes were pure and glowed with fervour. I was glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the fresh horror of that ruddy Vampire sleep. And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet our friendsand himwhom Madam Mina tell me that she know are coming to meet us. Mina Harkers Journal. 6 November.It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming. We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us; we dared not face the possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our provisions too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and, so far as we could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of a habitation. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back and saw where the clear line of Draculas castle cut the sky; for we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led downwards; we could trace it through the drifted snow. In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and joined him. He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He took me by the hand and drew me in See! he said, here you will be in shelter; and if the wolves do come I can meet them one by one. He brought in our furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out some provisions and forced them upon me. But I could not eat; to even try to do so was repulsive to me, and, much as I would have liked to please him, I could not bring myself to the attempt. He looked very sad, but did not reproach me. Taking his fieldglasses from the case, he stood on the top of the rock, and began to search the horizon. Suddenly he called out Look! Madam Mina, look! look! I sprang up and stood beside him on the rock; he handed me his glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling more heavily, and swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning to blow. However, there were times when there were pauses between the snow flurries, and I could see a long way round. From the height where we were it was possible to see a great distance; and far off, beyond the white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black ribbon in kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of us and not far offin fact so near that I wondered we had not noticed beforecame a group of mounted men hurrying along. In the midst of them was a cart, a long leiterwaggon, which swept from side to side, like a dogs tail wagging, with each stern inequality of the road. Outlined against the snow as they were, I could see from the mens clothes that they were peasants or gipsies of some kind. On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped as I saw it, for I felt that the end was coming. The evening was now drawing close, and well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then imprisoned there, would take new freedom and could in any of many forms elude all pursuit. In fear I turned to the Professor; to my consternation, however, he was not there. An instant later, I saw him below me. Round the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found shelter in last night. When he had completed it he stood beside me again, saying At least you shall be safe here from him! He took the glasses from me, and at the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below us. See, he said, they come quickly; they are flogging the horses, and galloping as hard as they can. He paused and went on in a hollow voice They are racing for the sunset. We may be too late. Gods will be done! Down came another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was blotted out. It soon passed, however, and once more his glasses were fixed on the plain. Then came a sudden cry Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen follow fast, coming up from the south. It must be Quincey and John. Take the glass. Look, before the snow blots it all out! I took it and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I knew that Jonathan was not far off; looking around I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at breakneck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of course, to be Lord Godalming. They, too, were pursuing the party with the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, and, after looking intently till a snowfall made sight impossible, he laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the opening of our shelter. They are all converging, he said. When the time comes we shall have the gipsies on all sides. I got out my revolver ready to hand, for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came louder and closer. When the snowstorm abated a moment we looked again. It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us, and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down towards the far mountain tops. Sweeping the glass all around us I could see here and there dots moving singly and in twos and threes and larger numbersthe wolves were gathering for their prey. Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited. The wind came now in fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us in circling eddies. At times we could not see an arms length before us; but at others as the hollowsounding wind swept by us, it seemed to clear the airspace around us so that we could see afar off. We had of late been so accustomed to watch for sunrise and sunset, that we knew with fair accuracy when it would be; and we knew that before long the sun would set. It was hard to believe that by our watches it was less than an hour that we waited in that rocky shelter before the various bodies began to converge close upon us. The wind came now with fiercer and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemingly had driven the snowclouds from us, for, with only occasional bursts, the snow fell. We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each party, the pursued and the pursuers. Strangely enough those pursued did not seem to realize, or at least to care, that they were pursued; they seemed, however, to hasten with redoubled speed as the sun dropped lower and lower on the mountain tops. Closer and closer they drew. The Professor and I crouched down behind our rock, and held our weapons ready; I could see that he was determined that they should not pass. One and all were quite unaware of our presence. All at once two voices shouted out to Halt! One was my Jonathans, raised in a high key of passion; the other Mr. Morriss strong resolute tone of quiet command. The gipsies may not have known the language, but there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the words were spoken. Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the other. The leader of the gipsies, a splendid looking fellow, who sat his horse like a centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses, which sprang forward; but the four men raised their Winchester rifles, and in an unmistakable way commanded them to stop. At the same moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them. Seeing that they were surrounded, the men tightened their reins and drew up. The leader turned to them and gave a word at which every man of the gipsy party drew what weapon he carried, knife or pistol, and held himself in readiness to attack. Issue was joined in an instant. The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in front, and pointing first to the sunnow close down on the hilltopsand then to the castle, said something which I did not understand. For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardour of battle must have been upon me as well as the rest of them; I felt no fear, but only a wild, surging desire to do something. Seeing a quick movement of our parties, the leader of the gipsies gave a command; his men instantly formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined endeavour, each one shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness to carry out the order. In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the levelled weapons or the flashing knives of the gipsies in front, or the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathans impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they cowered aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had, with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had seen the knives of the gipsies flash as he won a way through them, and they cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first I thought that he too had come through in safety; but as he sprang beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was spurting through his fingers. He did not delay notwithstanding this, for as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, attempting to prise off the lid with his great kukri knife, he attacked the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back. By this time the gipsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made no further resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well. As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph. But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathans great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris bowie knife plunged in the heart. It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there. The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun. The gipsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away as if for their lives. Those who were unmounted jumped upon the leiterwaggon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them. The wolves, which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their wake, leaving us alone. Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his hand pressed to his side; the blood still gushed through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back; so did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his head on his shoulder. With a sigh he took, with a feeble effort, my hand in that of his own which was unstained. He must have seen the anguish of my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God! he cried suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, It was worth this to die! Look! look! The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse the men sank on their knees, and a deep and earnest Amen broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger as the dying man spoke Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away! And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman. NOTE. Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boys birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our brave friends spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together; but we call him Quincey. In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out. The castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation. When we got home we got to talking of the old timewhich we could all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily married. I took the papers from the safe where they have been ever since our return so long ago. We were struck with the fact, that in all the mass of material of which the record is composed, there is hardly one authentic document; nothing but a mass of typewriting, except the later notebooks of Mina and Seward and myself, and Van Helsings memorandum. We could hardly ask any one, even did we wish to, to accept these as proofs of so wild a story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with our boy on his knee We want no proofs; we ask none to believe us! This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care; later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake. JONATHAN HARKER. Transcribers Note This etext is based on a reproduction of the original 1897 edition. All modern material has been removed. Inconsistencies in hyphenation and spelling (tomorrowtomorrow; aerialarial, etc.), as well as incorrectly used phrases in Van Helsings speech have been retained. A number of obvious errors in punctuation and inconsistencies in singledouble quotation have been tacitly removed. The following typographical errors, have been corrected p. vivii header word Page has been moved from page vii to page vi. p. vii Chapter VXVIII Chapter XVIII; Chapter XXI Chapter XXVII; 320 324 p. 16 a long along p. 30 W Woe p. 43 that than p. 44 wondow window p. 58 number One number one p. 63 Hopwood Holmwood p. 82 role of paper roll of paper p. 98 dreadul dreadful p. 99 pounts pounds p. 112 Holmmood Holmwood p. 133 pharmacopia pharmacopia p. 147 do do to do p. 157 confortable comfortable; everthing everything p. 186 greatful; grateful; p. 212 next the Professor; next to the Professor; p. 241 Arther; Arthur; p. 257 gloated with fresh blood; bloated with fresh blood; p. 286 Rat, rats, rats!; Rats, rats, rats!; p. 339 preceeded preceded p. 358 the bit box; the big box; p. 380 they mean fight; they mean to fight; p. 384 respulsive; repulsive END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRACULA Updated editions will replace the previous onethe old editions will be renamed. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The call of Cthulhu This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title The call of Cthulhu Author H. P. Lovecraft Release date June 10, 2022 [eBook 68283] Most recently updated June 5, 2024 Language English Original publication United States Popular Fiction Publishing Company Credits Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at httpwww.pgdp.net START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF CTHULHU The CALL of CTHULHU By H.P. LOVECRAFT [Transcriber's Note This etext was produced from Weird Tales, February 1928. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival ... a survival of a hugely remote period when ... consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity ... forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds...." Algernon Blackwood. "The ring of worshipers moved in endless bacchanale between the ring of bodies and the ring of fire."[1] 1. The Horror in Clay. The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survivals in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism. But it is not from them that there came the single glimpse of forbidden eons which chills me when I think of it and maddens me when I dream of it. That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated thingsin this case an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor. I hope that no one else will accomplish this piecing out; certainly, if I live, I shall never knowingly supply a link in so hideous a chain. I think that the professor, too, intended to keep silent regarding the part he knew, and that he would have destroyed his notes had not sudden death seized him. My knowledge of the thing began in the winter of 192627 with the death of my granduncle, George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic languages in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Professor Angell was widely known as an authority on ancient inscriptions, and had frequently been resorted to by the heads of prominent museums; so that his passing at the age of ninetytwo may be recalled by many. Locally, interest was intensified by the obscurity of the cause of death. The professor had been stricken whilst returning from the Newport boat; falling suddenly, as witnesses said, after having been jostled by a nauticallooking negro who had come from one of the queer dark courts on the precipitous hillside which formed a short cut from the waterfront to the deceased's home in Williams Street. Physicians were unable to find any visible disorder, but concluded after perplexed debate that some obscure lesion of the heart, induced by the brisk ascent of so steep a hill by so elderly a man, was responsible for the end. At the time I saw no reason to dissent from this dictum, but latterly I am inclined to wonderand more than wonder. As my granduncle's heir and executor, for he died a childless widower, I was expected to go over his papers with some thoroughness; and for that purpose moved his entire set of files and boxes to my quarters in Boston. Much of the material which I correlated will be later published by the American Archeological Society, but there was one box which I found exceedingly puzzling, and which I felt much averse from showing to other eyes. It had been locked, and I did not find the key till it occurred to me to examine the personal ring which the professor carried always in his pocket. Then, indeed, I succeeded in opening it, but when I did so seemed only to be confronted by a greater and more closely locked barrier. For what could be the meaning of the queer clay basrelief and the disjointed jottings, ramblings, and cuttings which I found? Had my uncle, in his latter years, become credulous of the most superficial impostures? I resolved to search out the eccentric sculptor responsible for this apparent disturbance of an old man's peace of mind. The basrelief was a rough rectangle less than an inch thick and about five by six inches in area; obviously of modern origin. Its designs, however, were far from modern in atmosphere and suggestion; for, although the vagaries of cubism and futurism are many and wild, they do not often reproduce that cryptic regularity which lurks in prehistoric writing. And writing of some kind the bulk of these designs seemed certainly to be; though my memory, despite much familiarity with the papers and collections of my uncle, failed in any way to identify this particular species, or even hint at its remotest affiliations. Above these apparent hieroglyphics was a figure of evidently pictorial intent, though its impressionistic execution forbade a very clear idea of its nature. It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful. Behind the figure was a vague suggestion of a Cyclopean architectural background. The writing accompanying this oddity was, aside from a stack of press cuttings, in Professor Angell's most recent hand; and made no pretense to literary style. What seemed to be the main document was headed "CTHULHU CULT" in characters painstakingly printed to avoid the erroneous reading of a word so unheardof. This manuscript was divided into two sections, the first of which was headed "1925Dream and Dream Work of H. A. Wilcox, 7 Thomas St., Providence, R. I.," and the second, "Narrative of Inspector John R. Legrasse, 121 Bienville St., New Orleans, La., at 1908 A. A. S. MtgNotes on Same, Prof. Webb's Acct." The other manuscript papers were all brief notes, some of them accounts of the queer dreams of different persons, some of them citations from theosophical books and magazines (notably W. ScottEliott's Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria), and the rest comments on longsurviving secret societies and hidden cults, with references to passages in such mythological and anthropological sourcebooks as Frazer's Golden Bough and Miss Murray's WitchCult in Western Europe. The cuttings largely alluded to outr mental illnesses and outbreaks of group folly or mania in the spring of 1925. The first half of the principal manuscript told a very peculiar tale. It appears that on March 1st, 1925, a thin, dark young man of neurotic and excited aspect had called upon Professor Angell bearing the singular clay basrelief, which was then exceedingly damp and fresh. His card bore the name of Henry Anthony Wilcox, and my uncle had recognized him as the youngest son of an excellent family slightly known to him, who had latterly been studying sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design and living alone at the FleurdeLys Building near that institution. Wilcox was a precocious youth of known genius but great eccentricity, and had from childhood excited attention through the strange stories and odd dreams he was in the habit of relating. He called himself "psychically hypersensitive", but the staid folk of the ancient commercial city dismissed him as merely "queer". Never mingling much with his kind, he had dropped gradually from social visibility, and was now known only to a small group of esthetes from other towns. Even the Providence Art Club, anxious to preserve its conservatism, had found him quite hopeless. On the occasion of the visit, ran the professor's manuscript, the sculptor abruptly asked for the benefit of his host's archeological knowledge in identifying the hieroglyphics on the basrelief. He spoke in a dreamy, stilted manner which suggested pose and alienated sympathy; and my uncle showed some sharpness in replying, for the conspicuous freshness of the tablet implied kinship with anything but archeology. Young Wilcox's rejoinder, which impressed my uncle enough to make him recall and record it verbatim, was of a fantastically poetic cast which must have typified his whole conversation, and which I have since found highly characteristic of him. He said, "It is new, indeed, for I made it last night in a dream of strange cities; and dreams are older than brooding Tyre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or gardengirdled Babylon." It was then that he began that rambling tale which suddenly played upon a sleeping memory and won the fevered interest of my uncle. There had been a slight earthquake tremor the night before, the most considerable felt in New England for some years; and Wilcox's imagination had been keenly affected. Upon retiring, he had had an unprecedented dream of great Cyclopean cities of Titan blocks and skyflung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror. Hieroglyphics had covered the walls and pillars, and from some undetermined point below had come a voice that was not a voice; a chaotic sensation which only fancy could transmute into sound, but which he attempted to render by the almost unpronounceable jumble of letters, "Cthulhu fhtagn". This verbal jumble was the key to the recollection which excited and disturbed Professor Angell. He questioned the sculptor with scientific minuteness; and studied with almost frantic intensity the basrelief on which the youth had found himself working, chilled and clad only in his nightclothes, when waking had stolen bewilderingly over him. My uncle blamed his old age, Wilcox afterward said, for his slowness in recognizing both hieroglyphics and pictorial design. Many of his questions seemed highly out of place to his visitor, especially those which tried to connect the latter with strange cults or societies; and Wilcox could not understand the repeated promises of silence which he was offered in exchange for an admission of membership in some widespread mystical or paganly religious body. When Professor Angell became convinced that the sculptor was indeed ignorant of any cult or system of cryptic lore, he besieged his visitor with demands for future reports of dreams. This bore regular fruit, for after the first interview the manuscript records daily calls of the young man, during which he related startling fragments of nocturnal imagery whose burden was always some terrible Cyclopean vista of dark and dripping stone, with a subterrene voice or intelligence shouting monotonously in enigmatical senseimpacts uninscribable save as gibberish. The two sounds most frequently repeated are those rendered by the letters "Cthulhu" and "R'lyeh". On March 23rd, the manuscript continued, Wilcox failed to appear; and inquiries at his quarters revealed that he had been stricken with an obscure sort of fever and taken to the home of his family in Waterman Street. He had cried out in the night, arousing several other artists in the building, and had manifested since then only alternations of unconsciousness and delirium. My uncle at once telephoned the family, and from that time forward kept close watch of the case; calling often at the Thayer Street office of Dr. Tobey, whom he learned to be in charge. The youth's febrile mind, apparently, was dwelling on strange things; and the doctor shuddered now and then as he spoke of them. They included not only a repetition of what he had formerly dreamed, but touched wildly on a gigantic thing "miles high" which walked or lumbered about. He at no time fully described this object, but occasional frantic words, as repeated by Dr. Tobey, convinced the professor that it must be identical with the nameless monstrosity he had sought to depict in his dreamsculpture. Reference to this object, the doctor added, was invariably a prelude to the young man's subsidence into lethargy. His temperature, oddly enough, was not greatly above normal; but the whole condition was otherwise such as to suggest true fever rather than mental disorder. On April 2nd at about 3 p. m. every trace of Wilcox's malady suddenly ceased. He sat upright in bed, astonished to find himself at home and completely ignorant of what had happened in dream or reality since the night of March 22nd. Pronounced well by his physician, he returned to his quarters in three days; but to Professor Angell he was of no further assistance. All traces of strange dreaming had vanished with his recovery, and my uncle kept no record of his nightthoughts after a week of pointless and irrelevant accounts of thoroughly usual visions. Here the first part of the manuscript ended, but references to certain of the scattered notes gave me much material for thoughtso much, in fact, that only the ingrained skepticism then forming my philosophy can account for my continued distrust of the artist. The notes in question were those descriptive of the dreams of various persons covering the same period as that in which young Wilcox had had his strange visitations. My uncle, it seems, had quickly instituted a prodigiously farflung body of inquiries amongst nearly all the friends whom he could question without impertinence, asking for nightly reports of their dreams, and the dates of any notable visions for some time past. The reception of his request seems to have been varied; but he must, at the very least, have received more responses than any ordinary man could have handled without a secretary. This original correspondence was not preserved, but his notes formed a thorough and really significant digest. Average people in society and businessNew England's traditional "salt of the earth"gave an almost completely negative result, though scattered cases of uneasy but formless nocturnal impressions appear here and there, always between March 23rd and April 2ndthe period of young Wilcox's delirium. Scientific men were little more affected, though four cases of vague description suggest fugitive glimpses of strange landscapes, and in one case there is mentioned a dread of something abnormal. It was from the artists and poets that the pertinent answers came, and I know that panic would have broken loose had they been able to compare notes. As it was, lacking their original letters, I half suspected the compiler of having asked leading questions, or of having edited the correspondence in corroboration of what he had latently resolved to see. That is why I continued to feel that Wilcox, somehow cognizant of the old data which my uncle had possessed, had been imposing on the veteran scientist. These responses from esthetes told a disturbing tale. From February 28th to April 2nd a large proportion of them had dreamed very bizarre things, the intensity of the dreams being immeasurably the stronger during the period of the sculptor's delirium. Over a fourth of those who reported anything, reported scenes and halfsounds not unlike those which Wilcox had described; and some of the dreamers confessed acute fear of the gigantic nameless thing visible toward the last. One case, which the note describes with emphasis, was very sad. The subject, a widely known architect with leanings toward theosophy and occultism, went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox's seizure, and expired several months later after incessant screamings to be saved from some escaped denizen of hell. Had my uncle referred to these cases by name instead of merely by number, I should have attempted some corroboration and personal investigation; but as it was, I succeeded in tracing down only a few. All of these, however, bore out the notes in full. I have often wondered if all the objects of the professor's questioning felt as puzzled as did this fraction. It is well that no explanation shall ever reach them. The press cuttings, as I have intimated, touched on cases of panic, mania, and eccentricity during the given period. Professor Angell must have employed a cutting bureau, for the number of extracts was tremendous, and the sources scattered throughout the globe. Here was a nocturnal suicide in London, where a lone sleeper had leaped from a window after a shocking cry. Here likewise a rambling letter to the editor of a paper in South America, where a fanatic deduces a dire future from visions he has seen. A dispatch from California describes a theosophist colony as donning white robes en masse for some "glorious fulfilment" which never arrives, whilst items from India speak guardedly of serious native unrest toward the end of March. Voodoo orgies multiply in Haiti, and African outposts report ominous mutterings. American officers in the Philippines find certain tribes bothersome about this time, and New York policemen are mobbed by hysterical Levantines on the night of March 2223. The west of Ireland, too, is full of wild rumor and legendry, and a fantastic painter named ArdoisBonnot hangs a blasphemous Dream Landscape in the Paris spring salon of 1926. And so numerous are the recorded troubles in insane asylums that only a miracle can have stopped the medical fraternity from noting strange parallelisms and drawing mystified conclusions. A weird bunch of cuttings, all told; and I can at this date scarcely envisage the callous rationalism with which I set them aside. But I was then convinced that young Wilcox had known of the older matters mentioned by the professor. 2. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse. The older matters which had made the sculptor's dream and basrelief so significant to my uncle formed the subject of the second half of his long manuscript. Once before, it appears, Professor Angell had seen the hellish outlines of the nameless monstrosity, puzzled over the unknown hieroglyphics, and heard the ominous syllables which can be rendered only as "Cthulhu"; and all this in so stirring and horrible a connection that it is small wonder he pursued young Wilcox with queries and demands for data. This earlier experience had come in 1908, seventeen years before, when the American Archeological Society held its annual meeting in St. Louis. Professor Angell, as befitted one of his authority and attainments, had had a prominent part in all the deliberations; and was one of the first to be approached by the several outsiders who took advantage of the convocation to offer questions for correct answering and problems for expert solution. The chief of these outsiders, and in a short time the focus of interest for the entire meeting, was a commonplacelooking middleaged man who had traveled all the way from New Orleans for certain special information unobtainable from any local source. His name was John Raymond Legrasse, and he was by profession an inspector of police. With him he bore the subject of his visit, a grotesque, repulsive, and apparently very ancient stone statuette whose origin he was at a loss to determine. It must not be fancied that Inspector Legrasse had the least interest in archeology. On the contrary, his wish for enlightenment was prompted by purely professional considerations. The statuette, idol, fetish, or whatever it was, had been captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting; and so singular and hideous were the rites connected with it, that the police could not but realize that they had stumbled on a dark cult totally unknown to them, and infinitely more diabolic than even the blackest of the African voodoo circles. Of its origin, apart from the erratic and unbelievable tales extorted from the captured members, absolutely nothing was to be discovered; hence the anxiety of the police for any antiquarian lore which might help them to place the frightful symbol, and through it track down the cult to its fountainhead. Inspector Legrasse was scarcely prepared for the sensation which his offering created. One sight of the thing had been enough to throw the assembled men of science into a state of tense excitement, and they lost no time in crowding around him to gaze at the diminutive figure whose utter strangeness and air of genuinely abysmal antiquity hinted so potently at unopened and archaic vistas. No recognized school of sculpture had animated this terrible object, yet centuries and even thousands of years seemed recorded in its dim and greenish surface of unplaceable stone. The figure, which was finally passed slowly from man to man for close and careful study, was between seven and eight inches in height, and of exquisitely artistic workmanship. It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopuslike head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubberylooking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat occupied the center, whilst the long, curved claws of the doubledup, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way down toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge forepaws which clasped the croucher's elevated knees. The aspect of the whole was abnormally lifelike, and the more subtly fearful because its source was so totally unknown. Its vast, awesome, and incalculable age was unmistakable; yet not one link did it show with any known type of art belonging to civilization's youthor indeed to any other time. Totally separate and apart, its very material was a mystery; for the soapy, greenishblack stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy. The characters along the base were equally baffling; and no member present, despite a representation of half the world's expert learning in this field, could form the least notion of even their remotest linguistic kinship. They, like the subject and material, belonged to something horribly remote and distinct from mankind as we know it; something frightfully suggestive of old and unhallowed cycles of life in which our world and our conceptions have no part. And yet, as the members severally shook their heads and confessed defeat at the inspector's problem, there was one man in that gathering who suspected a touch of bizarre familiarity in the monstrous shape and writing, and who presently told with some diffidence of the odd trifle he knew. This person was the late William Channing Webb, professor of anthropology in Princeton University, and an explorer of no slight note. Professor Webb had been engaged, fortyeight years before, in a tour of Greenland and Iceland in search of some Runic inscriptions which he failed to unearth; and whilst high up on the West Greenland coast had encountered a singular tribe or cult of degenerate Eskimos whose religion, a curious form of devilworship, chilled him with its deliberate bloodthirstiness and repulsiveness. It was a faith of which other Eskimos knew little, and which they mentioned only with shudders, saying that it had come down from horribly ancient eons before ever the world was made. Besides nameless rites and human sacrifices there were certain queer hereditary rituals addressed to a supreme elder devil or tornasuk; and of this Professor Webb had taken a careful phonetic copy from an aged angekok or wizardpriest, expressing the sounds in Roman letters as best he knew how. But just now of prime significance was the fetish which this cult had cherished, and around which they danced when the aurora leaped high over the ice cliffs. It was, the professor stated, a very crude basrelief of stone, comprising a hideous picture and some cryptic writing. And as far as he could tell, it was a rough parallel in all essential features of the bestial thing now lying before the meeting. These data, received with suspense and astonishment by the assembled members, proved doubly exciting to Inspector Legrasse; and he began at once to ply his informant with questions. Having noted and copied an oral ritual among the swamp cultworshipers his men had arrested, he besought the professor to remember as best he might the syllables taken down amongst the diabolist Eskimos. There then followed an exhaustive comparison of details, and a moment of really awed silence when both detective and scientist agreed on the virtual identity of the phrase common to two hellish rituals so many worlds of distance apart. What, in substance, both the Eskimo wizards and the Louisiana swamppriests had chanted to their kindred idols was something very like thisthe worddivisions being guessed at from traditional breaks in the phrase as chanted aloud "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." Legrasse had one point in advance of Professor Webb, for several among his mongrel prisoners had repeated to him what older celebrants had told them the words meant. This text, as given, ran something like this "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." And now, in response to a general urgent demand, Inspector Legrasse related as fully as possible his experience with the swamp worshipers; telling a story to which I could see my uncle attached profound significance. It savored of the wildest dreams of mythmaker and theosophist, and disclosed an astonishing degree of cosmic imagination among such halfcastes and pariahs as might be least expected to possess it. On November 1st, 1907, there had come to New Orleans police a frantic summons from the swamp and lagoon country to the south. The squatters there, mostly primitive but goodnatured descendants of Lafitte's men, were in the grip of stark terror from an unknown thing which had stolen upon them in the night. It was voodoo, apparently, but voodoo of a more terrible sort than they had ever known; and some of their women and children had disappeared since the malevolent tomtom had begun its incessant beating far within the black haunted woods where no dweller ventured. There were insane shouts and harrowing screams, soulchilling chants and dancing devilflames; and, the frightened messenger added, the people could stand it no more. So a body of twenty police, filling two carriages and an automobile, had set out in the late afternoon with the shivering squatter as a guide. At the end of the passable road they alighted, and for miles splashed on in silence through the terrible cypress woods where day never came. Ugly roots and malignant hanging nooses of Spanish moss beset them, and now and then a pile of dank stones or fragments of a rotting wall intensified by its hint of morbid habitation a depression which every malformed tree and every fungous islet combined to create. At length the squatter settlement, a miserable huddle of huts, hove in sight; and hysterical dwellers ran out to cluster around the group of bobbing lanterns. The muffled beat of tomtoms was now faintly audible far, far ahead; and a curdling shriek came at infrequent intervals when the wind shifted. A reddish glare, too, seemed to filter through the pale undergrowth beyond endless avenues of forest night. Reluctant even to be left alone again, each one of the cowed squatters refused pointblank to advance another inch toward the scene of unholy worship, so Inspector Legrasse and his nineteen colleagues plunged on unguided into black arcades of horror that none of them had ever trod before. The region now entered by the police was one of traditionally evil repute, substantially unknown and untraversed by white men. There were legends of a hidden lake unglimpsed by mortal sight, in which dwelt a huge, formless white polypous thing with luminous eyes; and squatters whispered that batwinged devils flew up out of caverns in inner earth to worship it at midnight. They said it had been there before D'Iberville, before La Salle, before the Indians, and before even the wholesome beasts and birds of the woods. It was nightmare itself, and to see it was to die. But it made men dream, and so they knew enough to keep away. The present voodoo orgy was, indeed, on the merest fringe of this abhorred area, but that location was bad enough; hence perhaps the very place of the worship had terrified the squatters more than the shocking sounds and incidents. Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse's men as they plowed on through the black morass toward the red glare and the muffled tomtoms. There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic license here whipped themselves to demoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organized ululations would cease, and from what seemed a welldrilled chorus of hoarse voices would rise in singsong chant that hideous phrase or ritual "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." Then the men, having reached a spot where the trees were thinner, came suddenly in sight of the spectacle itself. Four of them reeled, one fainted, and two were shaken into a frantic cry which the mad cacophony of the orgy fortunately deadened. Legrasse dashed swamp water on the face of the fainting man, and all stood trembling and nearly hypnotized with horror. In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an acre's extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped and twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than any but a Sime or an Angarola could paint. Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing and writhing about a monstrous ringshaped bonfire; in the center of which, revealed by occasional rifts in the curtain of flame, stood a great granite monolith some eight feet in height; on top of which, incongruous in its diminutiveness, rested the noxious carven statuette. From a wide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flamegirt monolith as a center hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the helpless squatters who had disappeared. It was inside this circle that the ring of worshipers jumped and roared, the general direction of the mass motion being from left to right in endless bacchanale between the ring of bodies and the ring of fire.

It may have been only imagination and it may have been only echoes which induced one of the men, an excitable Spaniard, to fancy he heard antiphonal responses to the ritual from some far and unillumined spot deeper within the wood of ancient legendry and horror. This man, Joseph D. Galvez, I later met and questioned; and he proved distractingly imaginative. He indeed went so far as to hint of the faint beating of great wings, and of a glimpse of shining eyes and a mountainous white bulk beyond the remotest treesbut I suppose he had been hearing too much native superstition. Actually, the horrified pause of the men was of comparatively brief duration. Duty came first; and although there must have been nearly a hundred mongrel celebrants in the throng, the police relied on their firearms and plunged determinedly into the nauseous rout. For five minutes the resultant din and chaos were beyond description. Wild blows were struck, shots were fired, and escapes were made; but in the end Legrasse was able to count some fortyseven sullen prisoners, whom he forced to dress in haste and fall into line between two rows of policemen. Five of the worshipers lay dead, and two severely wounded ones were carried away on improvised stretchers by their fellowprisoners. The image on the monolith, of course, was carefully removed and carried back by Legrasse. Examined at headquarters after a trip of intense strain and weariness, the prisoners all proved to be men of a very low, mixedblooded, and mentally aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes and mulattoes, largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a coloring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. But before many questions were asked, it became manifest that something far deeper and older than negro fetishism was involved. Degraded and ignorant as they were, the creatures held with surprizing consistency to the central idea of their loathsome faith. They worshiped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first man, who formed a cult which had never died. This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him. Meanwhile no more must be told. There was a secret which even torture could not extract. Mankind was not absolutely alone among the conscious things of earth, for shapes came out of the dark to visit the faithful few. But these were not the Great Old Ones. No man had ever seen the Old Ones. The carven idol was great Cthulhu, but none might say whether or not the others were precisely like him. No one could read the old writing now, but things were told by word of mouth. The chanted ritual was not the secretthat was never spoken aloud, only whispered. The chant meant only this "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." Only two of the prisoners were found sane enough to be hanged, and the rest were committed to various institutions. All denied a part in the ritual murders, and averred that the killing had been done by Blackwinged Ones which had come to them from their immemorial meetingplace in the haunted wood. But of those mysterious allies no coherent account could ever be gained. What the police did extract came mainly from an immensely aged mestizo named Castro, who claimed to have sailed to strange ports and talked with undying leaders of the cult in the mountains of China. Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that paled the speculations of theosophists and made man and the world seem recent and transient indeed. There had been eons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still to be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before man came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars, and brought Their images with Them. These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shapefor did not this starfashioned image prove it?but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe, for Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by molding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals. Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around small idols which the Great Ones showed them; idols brought in dim eras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return. In the elder time chosen men had talked with the entombed Old Ones in dreams, but then something had happened. The great stone city R'lyeh, with its monoliths and sepulchers, had sunk beneath the waves; and the deep waters, full of the one primal mystery through which not even thought can pass, had cut off the spectral intercourse. But memory never died, and high priests said that the city would rise again when the stars were right. Then came out of the earth the black spirits of earth, moldy and shadowy, and full of dim rumors picked up in caverns beneath forgotten seabottoms. But of them old Castro dared not speak much. He cut himself off hurriedly, and no amount of persuasion or subtlety could elicit more in this direction. The size of the Old Ones, too, he curiously declined to mention. Of the cult, he said that he thought the center lay amid the pathless deserts of Arabia, where Irem, the City of Pillars, dreams hidden and untouched. It was not allied to the European witchcult, and was virtually unknown beyond its members. No book had ever really hinted of it, though the deathless Chinamen said that there were double meanings in the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred which the initiated might read as they chose, especially the muchdiscussed couplet "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange eons even death may die." Legrasse, deeply impressed and not a little bewildered, had inquired in vain concerning the historic affiliations of the cult. Castro, apparently, had told the truth when he said that it was wholly secret. The authorities at Tulane University could shed no light upon either cult or image, and now the detective had come to the highest authorities in the country and met with no more than the Greenland tale of Professor Webb. The feverish interest aroused at the meeting by Legrasse's tale, corroborated as it was by the statuette, is echoed in the subsequent correspondence of those who attended, although scant mention occurs in the formal publication of the society. Caution is the first care of those accustomed to face occasional charlatanry and imposture. Legrasse for some time lent the image to Professor Webb, but at the latter's death it was returned to him and remains in his possession, where I viewed it not long ago. It is truly a terrible thing, and unmistakably akin to the dreamsculpture of young Wilcox. That my uncle was excited by the tale of the sculptor I did not wonder, for what thoughts must arise upon hearing, after a knowledge of what Legrasse had learned of the cult, of a sensitive young man who had dreamed not only the figure and exact hieroglyphics of the swampfound image and the Greenland devil tablet, but had come in his dreams upon at least three of the precise words of the formula uttered alike by Eskimo diabolists and mongrel Louisianans? Professor Angell's instant start on an investigation of the utmost thoroughness was eminently natural; though privately I suspected young Wilcox of having heard of the cult in some indirect way, and of having invented a series of dreams to heighten and continue the mystery at my uncle's expense. The dreamnarratives and cuttings collected by the professor were, of course, strong corroboration; but the rationalism of my mind and the extravagance of the whole subject led me to adopt what I thought the most sensible conclusions. So, after thoroughly studying the manuscript again and correlating the theosophical and anthropological notes with the cult narrative of Legrasse, I made a trip to Providence to see the sculptor and give him the rebuke I thought proper for so boldly imposing upon a learned and aged man. Wilcox still lived alone in the FleurdeLys Building in Thomas Street, a hideous Victorian imitation of Seventeenth Century Breton architecture which flaunts its stuccoed front amidst the lovely Colonial houses on the ancient hill, and under the very shadow of the finest Georgian steeple in America. I found him at work in his rooms, and at once conceded from the specimens scattered about that his genius is indeed profound and authentic. He will, I believe, be heard from sometime as one of the great decadents; for he has crystallized in clay and will one day mirror in marble those nightmares and fantasies which Arthur Machen evokes in prose, and Clark Ashton Smith makes visible in verse and in painting. Dark, frail, and somewhat unkempt in aspect, he turned languidly at my knock and asked me my business without rising. When I told him who I was, he displayed some interest; for my uncle had excited his curiosity in probing his strange dreams, yet had never explained the reason for the study. I did not enlarge his knowledge in this regard, but sought with some subtlety to draw him out. In a short time I became convinced of his absolute sincerity, for he spoke of the dreams in a manner none could mistake. They and their subconscious residuum had influenced his art profoundly, and he showed me a morbid statue whose contours almost made me shake with the potency of its black suggestion. He could not recall having seen the original of this thing except in his own dream basrelief, but the outlines had formed themselves insensibly under his hands. It was, no doubt, the giant shape he had raved of in delirium. That he really knew nothing of the hidden cult, save from what my uncle's relentless catechism had let fall, he soon made clear; and again I strove to think of some way in which he could possibly have received the weird impressions. He talked of his dreams in a strangely poetic fashion; making me see with terrible vividness the damp Cyclopean city of slimy green stonewhose geometry, he oddly said, was all wrongand hear with frightened expectancy the ceaseless, halfmental calling from underground "Cthulhu fhtagn," "Cthulhu fhtagn." These words had formed part of that dread ritual which told of dead Cthulhu's dreamvigil in his stone vault at R'lyeh, and I felt deeply moved despite my rational beliefs. Wilcox, I was sure, had heard of the cult in some casual way, and had soon forgotten it amidst the mass of his equally weird reading and imagining. Later, by virtue of its sheer impressiveness, it had found subconscious expression in dreams, in the basrelief, and in the terrible statue I now beheld; so that his imposture upon my uncle had been a very innocent one. The youth was of a type, at once slightly affected and slightly illmannered, which I could never like; but I was willing enough now to admit both his genius and his honesty. I took leave of him amicably, and wish him all the success his talent promises. The matter of the cult still remained to fascinate me, and at times I had visions of personal fame from researches into its origin and connections. I visited New Orleans, talked with Legrasse and others of that oldtime raidingparty, saw the frightful image, and even questioned such of the mongrel prisoners as still survived. Old Castro, unfortunately, had been dead for some years. What I now heard so graphically at first hand, though it was really no more than a detailed confirmation of what my uncle had written, excited me afresh; for I felt sure that I was on the track of a very real, very secret, and very ancient religion whose discovery would make me an anthropologist of note. My attitude was still one of absolute materialism, as I wish it still were, and I discounted with almost inexplicable perversity the coincidence of the dream notes and odd cuttings collected by Professor Angell. One thing which I began to suspect, and which I now fear I know, is that my uncle's death was far from natural. He fell on a narrow hill street leading up from an ancient waterfront swarming with foreign mongrels, after a careless push from a negro sailor. I did not forget the mixed blood and marine pursuits of the cultmembers in Louisiana, and would not be surprized to learn of secret methods and poison needles as ruthless and as anciently known as the cryptic rites and beliefs. Legrasse and his men, it is true, have been let alone; but in Norway a certain seaman who saw things is dead. Might not the deeper inquiries of my uncle after encountering the sculptor's data have come to sinister ears? I think Professor Angell died because he knew too much, or because he was likely to learn too much. Whether I shall go as he did remains to be seen, for I have learned much now. 3. The Madness from the Sea. If heaven ever wishes to grant me a boon, it will be a total effacing of the results of a mere chance which fixed my eye on a certain stray piece of shelfpaper. It was nothing on which I would naturally have stumbled in the course of my daily round, for it was an old number of an Australian journal, Sydney Bulletin for April 18, 1925. It had escaped even the cutting bureau which had at the time of its issuance been avidly collecting material for my uncle's research. I had largely given over my inquiries into what Professor Angell called the "Cthulhu Cult," and was visiting a learned friend of Paterson, New Jersey, the curator of a local museum and a mineralogist of note. Examining one day the reserve specimens roughly set on the storage shelves in a rear room of the museum, my eye was caught by an odd picture in one of the old papers spread beneath the stones. It was the Sydney Bulletin I have mentioned, for my friend has wide affiliations in all conceivable foreign parts; and the picture was a halftone cut of a hideous stone image almost identical with that which Legrasse had found in the swamp. Eagerly clearing the sheet of its precious contents, I scanned the item in detail; and was disappointed to find it of only moderate length. What it suggested, however, was of portentous significance to my flagging quest; and I carefully tore it out for immediate action. It read as follows MYSTERY DERELICT FOUND AT SEA Vigilant Arrives With Helpless Armed New Zealand Yacht in Tow. One Survivor and Dead Man Found Aboard. Tale of Desperate Battle and Deaths at Sea. Rescued Seaman Refuses Particulars of Strange Experience. Odd Idol Found in His Possession. Inquiry to Follow. The Morrison Co.'s freighter Vigilant, bound from Valparaiso, arrived this morning at its wharf in Darling Harbour, having in tow the battled and disabled but heavily armed steam yacht Alert of Dunedin, N. Z., which was sighted April 12th in S. Latitude 34 21', W. Longitude 152 17', with one living and one dead man aboard. The Vigilant left Valparaiso March 25th, and on April 2d was driven considerably south of her course by exceptionally heavy storms and monster waves. On April 12th the derelict was sighted; and though apparently deserted, was found upon boarding to contain one survivor in a halfdelirious condition and one man who had evidently been dead for more than a week. The living man was clutching a horrible stone idol of unknown origin, about a foot in height, regarding whose nature authorities at Sydney University, the Royal Society, and the Museum in College Street all profess complete bafflement, and which the survivor says he found in the cabin of the yacht, in a small carved shrine of common pattern. This man, after recovering his senses, told an exceedingly strange story of piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf Johansen, a Norwegian of some intelligence, and had been second mate of the twomasted schooner Emma of Auckland, which sailed for Callao February 20th, with a complement of eleven men. The Emma, he says, was delayed and thrown widely south of her course by the great storm of March 1st, and on March 22d, in S. Latitude 49 51, W. Longitude 128 34, encountered the Alert, manned by a queer and evillooking crew of Kanakas and halfcastes. Being ordered peremptorily to turn back, Capt. Collins refused; whereupon the strange crew began to fire savagely and without warning upon the schooner with a peculiarly heavy battery of brass cannon forming part of the yacht's equipment. The Emma's men showed fight, says the survivor, and though the schooner began to sink from shots beneath the waterline they managed to heave alongside their enemy and board her, grappling with the savage crew on the yacht's deck, and being forced to kill them all, the number being slightly superior, because of their particularly abhorrent and desperate though rather clumsy mode of fighting. Three of the Emma's men, including Capt. Collins and First Mate Green, were killed; and the remaining eight under Second Mate Johansen proceeded to navigate the captured yacht, going ahead in their original direction to see if any reason for their ordering back had existed. The next day, it appears, they raised and landed on a small island, although none is known to exist in that part of the ocean; and six of the men somehow died ashore, though Johansen is queerly reticent about this part of his story and speaks only of their falling into a rock chasm. Later, it seems, he and one companion boarded the yacht and tried to manage her, but were beaten about by the storm of April 2nd. From that time till his rescue on the 12th, the man remembers little, and he does not even recall when William Briden, his companion, died. Briden's death reveals no apparent cause, and was probably due to excitement or exposure. Cable advices from Dunedin report that the Alert was well known there as an island trader, and bore an evil reputation along the waterfront. It was owned by a curious group of halfcastes whose frequent meetings and night trips to the woods attracted no little curiosity; and it had set sail in great haste just after the storm and earth tremors of March 1st. Our Auckland correspondent gives the Emma and her crew an excellent reputation, and Johansen is described as a sober and worthy man. The admiralty will institute an inquiry on the whole matter beginning tomorrow, at which every effort will be made to induce Johansen to speak more freely than he has done hitherto. This was all, together with the picture of the hellish image; but what a train of ideas it started in my mind! Here were new treasuries of data on the Cthulhu Cult, and evidence that it had strange interests at sea as well as on land. What motive prompted the hybrid crew to order back the Emma as they sailed about with their hideous idol? What was the unknown island on which six of the Emma's crew had died, and about which the mate Johansen was so secretive? What had the viceadmiralty's investigation brought out, and what was known of the noxious cult in Dunedin? And most marvelous of all, what deep and more than natural linkage of dates was this which gave a malign and now undeniable significance to the various turns of events so carefully noted by my uncle? March 1stour February 28th according to the International Date Linethe earthquake and storm had come. From Dunedin the Alert and her noisome crew had darted eagerly forth as if imperiously summoned, and on the other side of the earth poets and artists had begun to dream of a strange, dank Cyclopean city whilst a young sculptor had molded in his sleep the form of the dreaded Cthulhu. March 23rd the crew of the Emma landed on an unknown island and left six men dead; and on that date the dreams of sensitive men assumed a heightened vividness and darkened with dread of a giant monster's malign pursuit, whilst an architect had gone mad and a sculptor had lapsed suddenly into delirium! And what of this storm of April 2ndthe date on which all dreams of the dank city ceased, and Wilcox emerged unharmed from the bondage of strange fever? What of all thisand of those hints of old Castro about the sunken, starborn Old Ones and their coming reign; their faithful cult and their mastery of dreams? Was I tottering on the brink of cosmic horrors beyond man's power to bear? If so, they must be horrors of the mind alone, for in some way the second of April had put a stop to whatever monstrous menace had begun its siege of mankind's soul. That evening, after a day of hurried cabling and arranging, I bade my host adieu and took a train for San Francisco. In less than a month I was in Dunedin; where, however, I found that little was known of the strange cultmembers who had lingered in the old sea taverns. Waterfront scum was far too common for special mention; though there was vague talk about one inland trip these mongrels had made, during which faint drumming and red flame were noted on the distant hills. In Auckland I learned that Johansen had returned with yellow hair turned white after a perfunctory and inconclusive questioning at Sydney, and had thereafter sold his cottage in West Street and sailed with his wife to his old home in Oslo. Of his stirring experience he would tell his friends no more than he had told the admiralty officials, and all they could do was to give me his Oslo address. After that I went to Sydney and talked profitlessly with seamen and members of the viceadmiralty court. I saw the Alert, now sold and in commercial use, at Circular Quay in Sydney Cove, but gained nothing from its noncommittal bulk. The crouching image with its cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly wings, and hieroglyphed pedestal, was preserved in the Museum at Hyde Park; and I studied it long and well, finding it a thing of balefully exquisite workmanship, and with the same utter mystery, terrible antiquity, and unearthly strangeness of material which I had noted in Legrasse's smaller specimen. Geologists, the curator told me, had found it a monstrous puzzle; for they vowed that the world held no rock like it. Then I thought with a shudder of what old Castro had told Legrasse about the primal Great Ones "They had come from the stars, and had brought Their images with Them." Shaken with such a mental revolution as I had never before known, I now resolved to visit Mate Johansen in Oslo. Sailing for London, I reembarked at once for the Norwegian capital; and one autumn day landed at the trim wharves in the shadow of the Egeberg. Johansen's address, I discovered, lay in the Old Town of King Harold Haardrada, which kept alive the name of Oslo during all the centuries that the greater city masqueraded as "Christiania." I made the brief trip by taxicab, and knocked with palpitant heart at the door of a neat and ancient building with plastered front. A sadfaced woman in black answered my summons, and I was stung with disappointment when she told me in halting English that Gustaf Johansen was no more. He had not long survived his return, said his wife, for the doings at sea in 1925 had broken him. He had told her no more than he had told the public, but had left a long manuscriptof "technical matters" as he saidwritten in English, evidently in order to safeguard her from the peril of casual perusal. During a walk through a narrow lane near the Gothenburg dock, a bundle of papers falling from an attic window had knocked him down. Two Lascar sailors at once helped him to his feet, but before the ambulance could reach him he was dead. Physicians found no adequate cause for the end, and laid it to heart trouble and a weakened constitution. I now felt gnawing at my vitals that dark terror which will never leave me till I, too, am at rest; "accidentally" or otherwise. Persuading the widow that my connection with her husband's "technical matters" was sufficient to entitle me to his manuscript, I bore the document away and began to read it on the London boat. It was a simple, rambling thinga naive sailor's effort at a postfacto diaryand strove to recall day by day that last awful voyage. I can not attempt to transcribe it verbatim in all its cloudiness and redundance, but I will tell its gist enough to show why the sound of the water against the vessel's sides became so unendurable to me that I stopped my ears with cotton. Johansen, thank God, did not know quite all, even though he saw the city and the Thing, but I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which dream beneath the sea, known and favored by a nightmare cult ready and eager to loose them on the world whenever another earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to the sun and air. Johansen's voyage had begun just as he told it to the viceadmiralty. The Emma, in ballast, had cleared Auckland on February 20th, and had felt the full force of that earthquakeborn tempest which must have heaved up from the seabottom the horrors that filled men's dreams. Once more under control, the ship was making good progress when held up by the Alert on March 22nd, and I could feel the mate's regret as he wrote of her bombardment and sinking. Of the swarthy cultfiends on the Alert he speaks with significant horror. There was some peculiarly abominable quality about them which made their destruction seem almost a duty, and Johansen shows ingenuous wonder at the charge of ruthlessness brought against his party during the proceedings of the court of inquiry. Then, driven ahead by curiosity in their captured yacht under Johansen's command, the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47 9', W. Longitude 126 43' come upon a coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth's supreme terrorthe nightmare corpsecity of R'lyeh, that was built in measureless eons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults and sending out at last, after cycles incalculable, the thoughts that spread fear to the dreams of the sensitive and called imperiously to the faithful to come on a pilgrimage of liberation and restoration. All this Johansen did not suspect, but God knows he soon saw enough! I suppose that only a single mountaintop, the hideous monolithcrowned citadel whereon great Cthulhu was buried, actually emerged from the waters. When I think of the extent of all that may be brooding down there I almost wish to kill myself forthwith. Johansen and his men were awed by the cosmic majesty of this dripping Babylon of elder demons, and must have guessed without guidance that it was nothing of this or of any sane planet. Awe at the unbelievable size of the greenish stone blocks, at the dizzying height of the great carven monolith, and at the stupefying identity of the colossal statues and basreliefs with the queer image found in the shrine on the Alert, is poignantly visible in every line of the mate's frightened description. Without knowing what futurism is like, Johansen achieved something very close to it when he spoke of the city; for instead of describing any definite structure or building, he dwells only on the broad impressions of vast angles and stone surfacessurfaces too great to belong to anything right or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyphs. I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something Wilcox had told me of his awful dreams. He had said that the geometry of the dreamplace he saw was abnormal, nonEuclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours. Now an unlettered seaman felt the same thing whilst gazing at the terrible reality. Johansen and his men landed at a sloping mudbank on this monstrous Acropolis, and clambered slipperily up over titan oozy blocks which could have been no mortal staircase. The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarizing miasma welling out from this seasoaked perversion, and twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance showed concavity after the first showed convexity. Something very like fright had come over all the explorers before anything more definite than rock and ooze and weed was seen. Each would have fled had he not feared the scorn of the others, and it was only halfheartedly that they searchedvainly, as it provedfor some portable souvenir to bear away. It was Rodriguez the Portuguese who climbed up the foot of the monolith and shouted of what he had found. The rest followed him, and looked curiously at the immense carved door with the now familiar squiddragon basrelief. It was, Johansen said, like a great barndoor; and they all felt that it was a door because of the ornate lintel, threshold, and jambs around it, though they could not decide whether it lay flat like a trapdoor or slantwise like an outside cellardoor. As Wilcox would have said, the geometry of the place was all wrong. One could not be sure that the sea and the ground were horizontal, hence the relative position of everything else seemed fantasmally variable. Briden pushed at the stone in several places without result. Then Donovan felt over it delicately around the edge, pressing each point separately as he went. He climbed interminably along the grotesque stone moldingthat is, one would call it climbing if the thing was not after all horizontaland the men wondered how any door in the universe could be so vast. Then, very softly and slowly, the acregreat panel began to give inward at the top; and they saw that it was balanced.

Donovan slid or somehow propelled himself down or along the jamb and rejoined his fellows, and everyone watched the queer recession of the monstrously carven portal. In this fantasy of prismatic distortion it moved anomalously in a diagonal way, so that all the rules of matter and perspective seemed upset. The aperture was black with a darkness almost material. That tenebrousness was indeed a positive quality; for it obscured such parts of the inner walls as ought to have been revealed, and actually burst forth like smoke from its eonlong imprisonment, visibly darkening the sun as it slunk away into the shrunken and gibbous sky on flapping membranous wings. The odor arising from the newly opened depths was intolerable, and at length the quickeared Hawkins thought he heard a nasty, slopping sound down there. Everyone listened, and everyone was listening still when It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of that poison city of madness. Poor Johansen's handwriting almost gave out when he wrote of this. Of the six men who never reached the ship, he thinks two perished of pure fright in that accursed instant. The Thing can not be describedthere is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. God! What wonder that across the earth a great architect went mad, and poor Wilcox raved with fever in that telepathic instant? The Thing of the idols, the green, sticky spawn of the stars, had awaked to claim his own. The stars were right again, and what an ageold cult had failed to do by design, a band of innocent sailors had done by accident. After vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again, and ravening for delight. Three men were swept up by the flabby claws before anybody turned. God rest them, if there be any rest in the universe. They were Donovan, Guerrera and Angstrom. Parker slipped as the other three were plunging frenziedly over endless vistas of greencrusted rock to the boat, and Johansen swears he was swallowed up by an angle of masonry which shouldn't have been there; an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse. So only Briden and Johansen reached the boat, and pulled desperately for the Alert as the mountainous monstrosity flopped down the slimy stones and hesitated floundering at the edge of the water. Steam had not been suffered to go down entirely, despite the departure of all hands for the shore; and it was the work of only a few moments of feverish rushing up and down between wheels and engines to get the Alert under way. Slowly, amidst the distorted horrors of that indescribable scene, she began to churn the lethal waters; whilst on the masonry of that charnel shore that was not of earth the titan Thing from the stars slavered and gibbered like Polypheme cursing the fleeing ship of Odysseus. Then, bolder than the storied Cyclops, great Cthulhu slid greasily into the water and began to pursue with vast waveraising strokes of cosmic potency. Briden looked back and went mad, laughing shrilly as he kept on laughing at intervals till death found him one night in the cabin whilst Johansen was wandering deliriously. But Johansen had not given out yet. Knowing that the Thing could surely overtake the Alert until steam was fully up, he resolved on a desperate chance; and, setting the engine for full speed, ran lightninglike on deck and reversed the wheel. There was a mighty eddying and foaming in the noisome brine, and as the steam mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean froth like the stern of a demon galleon. The awful squidhead with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but Johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that the chronicler would not put on paper. For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; whereGod in heaven!the scattered plasticity of that nameless skyspawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam. That was all. After that Johansen only brooded over the idol in the cabin and attended to a few matters of food for himself and the laughing maniac by his side. He did not try to navigate after the first bold flight, for the reaction had taken something out of his soul. Then came the storm of April 2nd, and a gathering of the clouds about his consciousness. There is a sense of spectral whirling through liquid gulfs of infinity, of dizzying rides through reeling universes on a comet's tail, and of hysterical plunges from the pit to the moon and from the moon back again to the pit, all livened by a cachinnating chorus of the distorted, hilarious elder gods and the green, batwinged mocking imps of Tartarus. Out of that dream came rescuethe Vigilant, the viceadmiralty court, the streets of Dunedin, and the long voyage back home to the old house by the Egeberg. He could not tellthey would think him mad. He would write of what he knew before death came, but his wife must not guess. Death would be a boon if only it could blot out the memories. That was the document I read, and now I have placed it in the tin box beside the basrelief and the papers of Professor Angell. With it shall go this record of minethis test of my own sanity, wherein is pieced together that which I hope may never be pieced together again. I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me. But I do not think my life will be long. As my uncle went, as poor Johansen went, so I shall go. I know too much, and the cult still lives. Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more, for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idolcapped monoliths in lonely places. He must have been trapped by the sinking whilst within his black abyss, or else the world would by now be screaming with fright and frenzy. Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will comebut I must not and can not think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye. [1] Found among the papers of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston. END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF CTHULHU Updated editions will replace the previous onethe old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The festival This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title The festival Author H. P. Lovecraft Illustrator Andrew Brosnatch Release date July 18, 2022 [eBook 68553] Language English Original publication United States Popular Fiction Publishing Company Credits Roger Frank START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FESTIVAL The Festival By H. P. Lovecraft Author of Dagon, The Rats in the Walls, etc. Efficiunt daemones, ut quae non sunt, sic tamen quasi sint, conspicienda hominibus exhibeant.Lactantius. I was far from home, and the spell of the eastern sea was upon me. In the twilight I heard it pounding on the rocks, and I knew it lay just over the hill where the twisting willows writhed against the clearing sky and the first stars of evening. And because my fathers had called me to the old town beyond, I pushed on through the shallow, newfallen snow along the road that soared lonely up to where Aldebaran twinkled among the trees; on toward the very ancient town I had never seen but often dreamed of. It was the Yuletide, which men call Christmas, though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten. Mine were an old people, old even when this land was settled three hundred years before. And they were strange, because they had come as dark, furtive folk from opiate southern gardens of orchids, and spoken another tongue before they learnt the tongue of the blueeyed fishers. And now they were scattered, and shared only the rituals of mysteries that none living could understand. I was the only one who came back that night to the old fishing town as legend bade, for only the poor and the lonely remember. Then beyond the hills crest I saw Kingsport outspread frostily in the gloaming; snowy Kingsport with its ancient vanes and steeples, ridgepoles and chimneypots, wharves and small bridges, willow trees and graveyards; endless labyrinths of steep, narrow, crooked streets, and dizzy churchcrowned central peak that time durst not touch; ceaseless mazes of colonial houses piled and scattered at all angles and levels like a childs disordered blocks; antiquity hovering on gray wings over winterwhitened gables and gambrel roofs. And against the rotting wharves the sea pounded; the secretive, immemorial sea out of which the people had come in the elder time. Beside the road at its crest a still higher summit rose, bleak and windswept, and I saw that it was a buryingground where black gravestones stuck ghoulishly through the snow like the decayed fingernails of a gigantic corpse. The printless road was very lonely, and sometimes I thought I heard a distant horrible creaking as of a gibbet in the wind. They had hanged four kinsmen of mine for witchcraft in 1692, but I did not know just where. As the road wound down the seaward slope I listened for the merry sounds of a village at evening, but did not hear them. Then I thought of the season, and felt that these old Puritan folk might well have Christmas customs strange to me, and full of silent hearthside prayer. So after that I did not listen for merriment or look for wayfarers, but kept on down past the hushed, lighted farmhouses and shadowy stone walls to where the signs of ancient shops and sea taverns creaked in the salt breeze, and the grotesque knockers of pillared doorways glistened along deserted, unpaved lanes in the light of little, curtained windows. I had seen maps of the town, and knew where to find the home of my people. It was told that I should be known and welcomed, for village legend lives long; so I hastened through Back Street to Circle Court, and across the fresh snow on the one full flagstone pavement in the town, to where Green Lane leads off behind the Market House. I was glad I had chosen to walk. The white village had seemed very beautiful from the hill; and now I was eager to knock at the door of my people, the seventh house on the left in Green Lane, with an ancient peaked roof and jutting second story, all built before 1650. There were lights inside the house when I came upon it, and I saw from the diamond windowpanes that it must have been kept very close to its antique state. The upper part overhung the narrow, grassgrown street and nearly met the overhanging part of the house opposite, so that I was almost in a tunnel, with the low stone doorstep wholly free from snow. There was no sidewalk, but many houses had high doors reached by double flights of steps with iron railings. It was an odd scene, and because I was strange to New England I had never known its like before. Though it pleased me, I would have relished it better if there had been footprints in the snow, and people in the streets, and a few windows without drawn curtains. When I sounded the archaic iron knocker I was half afraid. Some fear had been gathering in me, perhaps because of the strangeness of my heritage, and the bleakness of the evening, and the queerness of the silence in that aged town of curious customs. And when my knock was answered I was fully afraid, because I had not heard any footsteps before the door creaked open. But I was not afraid long, for the gowned, slippered old man in the doorway had a bland face that reassured me; and though he made signs that he was dumb, he wrote a quaint and ancient welcome with the stylus and wax tablet he carried. He beckoned me into a low, candlelit room with massive exposed rafters and dark, stiff, sparse furniture of the seventeenth century. The past was vivid there, for not an attribute was missing. There was a cavernous fireplace and a spinningwheel at which a bent old woman in loose wrapper and deep pokebonnet sat back toward me, silently spinning despite the festive season. An infinite dampness seemed upon the place, and I marveled that no fire should be blazing. The highbacked settle faced the row of curtained windows at the left, and seemed to be occupied, though I was not sure. I did not like everything about what I saw, and felt again the fear I had had. This fear grew stronger from what had before lessened it, for the more I looked at the old mans bland face, the more its very blandness terrified me. The eyes never moved, and the skin was too like wax. Finally I was sure it was not a face at all, but a fiendishly cunning mask. But the flabby hands, curiously gloved, wrote genially on the tablet and told me I must wait a while before I could be led to the place of festival. Pointing to a chair, table, and pile of books, the old man now left, the room; and when I sat down to read I saw that the books were hoary and moldy, and that they included old Morrysters wild Marvels of Science, the terrible Saducismus Triumphatus of Joseph Glanvil, published in 1681, the shocking Daemonolatreia of Remigius, printed in 1595 at Lyons, and worst of all, the unmentionable Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, in Olaus Wormius forbidden Latin translation a book which I had never seen, but of which I had heard monstrous things whispered. No one spoke to me, but I could hear the creaking of signs in the wind outside, and the whir of the wheel as the bonneted old woman continued her silent spinning, spinning. I thought the room and the books and the people very morbid and disquieting, but because an old tradition of my fathers had summoned me to strange feastings, I resolved to expect queer things. So I tried to read, and soon became tremblingly absorbed by something I found in that accursed Necronomicon; a thought and a legend too hideous for sanity or consciousness. But I disliked it when I fancied I heard the closing of one of the windows that the settle faced, as if it had been stealthily opened. It had seemed to follow a whirring that was not of the old womans spinningwheel. This was not much, though, for the old woman was spinning very hard, and the aged clock had been striking. After that I lost the feeling that there were persons on the settle, and was reading intently and shudderingly when the old man came back booted and dressed in a loose antique costume, and sat down on that very bench, so that I could not see him. It was certainly nervous waiting, and the blasphemous book in my hands made it doubly so. When 11 oclock struck, however, the old man stood up, glided to a massive carved chest in a corner, and got two hooded cloaks, one of which he donned, and the other of which he draped round the old woman, who was ceasing her monotonous spinning. Then they both started for the outer door; the woman lamely creeping, and the old man, after picking up the very book I had been reading, beckoning me as he drew his hood over that unmoving face or mask. We went out into the moonless and tortuous network of that incredibly ancient town; went out as the lights in the curtained windows disappeared one by one, and the Dog Star leered at the throng of cowled, cloaked figures that poured silently from every doorway and formed monstrous processions up this street and that, past the creaking signs and antediluvian gables, the thatched roofs and the diamondpaned windows; threading precipitous lanes where decaying houses overlapped and crumbled together, gliding across open courts and churchyards where the bobbing lanterns made eldritch drunken constellations. Amid these hushed throngs I followed my voiceless guides; jostled by elbows that seemed preternaturally soft, and pressed by chests and stomachs that seemed abnormally pulpy; but seeing never a face and hearing never a word. Up, up, up, the eery columns slithered, and I saw that all the travelers were converging as they flowed near a sort of focus of crazy alleys at the top of a high hill in the center of the town, where perched a great white church. I had seen it from the roads crest when I looked at Kingsport in the new dusk, and it had made me shiver because Aldebaran had seemed to balance itself a moment on the ghostly spire. There was an open space around the church; partly a churchyard with spectral shafts, and partly a halfpaved square swept nearly bare of snow by the wind, and lined with unwholesomely archaic houses having peaked roofs and overhanging gables. Deathfires danced over the tombs, revealing gruesome vistas, though queerly failing to cast any shadows. Past the churchyard, where there were no houses, I could see over the hills summit and watch the glimmer of stars on the harbor, though the town was invisible in the dark. Only once in a while a lantern bobbed horribly through serpentine alleys on its way to overtake the throng that was now slipping speechlessly into the church. I waited till the crowd had oozed into the black doorway, and till all the stragglers had followed. The old man was pulling at my sleeve, but I was determined to be the last. Then finally I went, the sinister man and the old spinning woman before me. Crossing the threshold into that swarming temple of unknown darkness, I turned once to look at the outside world as the churchyard phosphorescence cast a sickly glow on the hilltop pavement. And as I did so I shuddered. For though the wind had not left much snow, a few patches did remain on the path near the door; and in that fleeting backward look it seemed to my troubled eye that they bore no mark of passing feet, not even mine. The church was scarce lighted by all the lanterns that had entered it, for most of the throng had already vanished. They had streamed up the aisle between the high white pews to the trapdoor of the vaults which yawned loathsomely open just before the pulpit, and were now squirming noiselessly in. I followed dumbly down the footworn steps and into the dank, suffocating crypt. The tail of that sinuous line of nightmarchers seemed very horrible, and as I saw them wriggling into a venerable tomb, they seemed more horrible still. Then I noticed that the tombs floor had an aperture down which the throng was sliding, and in a moment we were all descending an ominous staircase of roughhewn stone; a narrow spiral staircase damp and peculiarly odorous, that wound endlessly down into the bowels of the hill, past monotonous walls of dripping stone blocks and crumbling mortar. It was a silent, shocking descent, and I observed after a horrible interval that the walls and steps were changing in nature, as if chiseled out of the solid rock. What mainly troubled me was that the myriad footfalls made no sound and set up no echoes. After more eons of descent I saw some side passages or burrows leading from unknown recesses of blackness to this shaft of nighted mystery. Soon they became excessively numerous, like impious catacombs of nameless menace; and their pungent odor of decay grew quite unbearable. I knew we must have passed down through the mountain and beneath the earth of Kingsport itself, and I shivered that a town should be so aged and maggoty with subterraneous evil. Then I saw the lurid shimmering of pale light, and heard the insidious lapping of sunless waters. Again I shivered, for I did not like the things that the night had brought, and wished bitterly that no forefather had summoned me to this primal rite. As the steps and the passage grew broader, I heard another sound, the thin, whining mockery of a feeble flute; and suddenly there spread out before me the boundless vista of an inner worlda vast fungous shore litten by a belching column of sick greenish flame and washed by a wide oily river that flowed from abysses frightful and unsuspected to join the blackest gulfs of immemorial ocean. Fainting and gasping, I looked at that unhallowed Erebus of titan toadstools, leprous fire and slimy water, and saw the cloaked throngs forming a semicircle around the blazing pillar. It was the Yulerite, older than man and fated to survive him; the primal rite of the solstice and of springs promise beyond the snows; the rite of fire and evergreen, light and music. And in that Stygian grotto I saw them do the rite, and adore the sick pillar of flame, and throw into the water handfuls gouged out of the viscous vegetation which glittered green in the chlorotic glare. I saw this, and I saw something amorphously squatted far away from the light, piping noisomely on a flute; and as the thing piped I thought I heard noxious muffled flutterings in the fetid darkness where I could not see. But what frightened me most was that flaming column; spouting volcanically from depths profound and inconceivable, casting no shadows as healthy flame should, and coating the nitrous stone above with a nasty, venomous verdigris. For in all that seething combustion no warmth lay, but only the clamminess of death and corruption. The man who had brought me now squirmed to a point directly beside the hideous flame, and made stiff ceremonial motions to the semicircle he faced. At certain stages of the ritual they did groveling obeisance, especially when he held above his head that abhorrent Necronomicon he had taken with him; and I shared all the obeisances because I had been summoned to this festival by the writings of my forefathers. Then the old man made a signal to the halfseen fluteplayer in the darkness, which player thereupon changed its feeble drone to a scarce louder drone in another key; precipitating as it did so a horror unthinkable and unexpected. At this horror I sank nearly to the lichened earth, transfixed with a dread not of this nor any world, but only of the mad spaces between the stars. Out of the unimaginable blackness beyond the gangrenous glare of that cold flame, out of the tartarean leagues through which that oily river rolled uncanny, unheard, and unsuspected, there flopped rhythmically a horde of tame, trained, hybrid winged things that no sound eye could ever wholly grasp, or sound brain ever wholly remember. They were not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings, but something I cannot and must not recall. They flopped limply along, half with their webbed feet and half with their membranous wings; and as they reached the throng of celebrants the cowled figures seized and mounted them, and rode off one by one along the reaches of that unlighted river, into pits and galleries of panic where poison springs feed frightful and undiscoverable cataracts. The old spinning woman had gone with the throng, and the old man remained only because I had refused when he motioned me to seize an animal and ride like the rest. I saw when I staggered to my feet that the amorphous fluteplayer had rolled out of sight, but that two of the beasts were patiently standing by. As I hung back, the old man produced his stylus and tablet and wrote that he was the true deputy of my fathers who had founded the Yule worship in this ancient place; that it had been decreed I should come back; and that the most secret mysteries were yet to be performed. He wrote this in a very ancient hand, and when I still hesitated he pulled from his loose robe a seal ring and a watch, both with my family arms, to prove that he was what he said. But it was a hideous proof, because I knew from old papers that that watch had been buried with my greatgreatgreatgreatgrandfather in 1698. Presently the old man drew back his hood and pointed to the family resemblance in his face, but I only shuddered, because I was sure that the face was merely a devilish waxen mask. The flopping animals were now scratching restlessly at the lichens, and I saw that the old man was nearly as restless himself. When one of the things began to waddle and edge away, he turned quickly to stop it; so that the suddenness of his motion dislodged the waxen mask from what should have been his head. And then, because that nightmares position barred me from the stone staircase down which we had come, I flung myself into the oily underground river that bubbled somewhere to the caves of the sea; flung myself into that putrescent juice of earths inner horrors before the madness of my screams could bring down upon me all the charnel legions these pestgulfs might conceal. At the hospital they told me I had been found halffrozen in Kingsport Harbor at dawn, clinging to the drifting spar that accident sent to save me. They told me I had taken the wrong fork of the hill road the night before, and fallen over the cliffs at Orange Pointa thing they deducted from prints found in the snow. There was nothing I could say, because everything was wrong. Everything was wrong, with the broad window showing a sea of roofs in which only about one in five was ancient, and the sound of trolleys and motors in the streets below. They insisted that this was Kingsport, and I could not deny it. When I went delirious at hearing that the hospital stood near the old churchyard on Central Hill, they sent me to St. Marys Hospital in Arkham, where I could have better care. I liked it there, for the doctors were broadminded, and even lent me their influence in obtaining the carefully sheltered copy of Alhazreds objectionable Necronomicon from the library of Miskatonic University. They said something about a psychosis, and agreed that I had better get my harassing obsessions off my mind. So I read again that hideous chapter, and shuddered doubly because it was indeed not new to me. I had seen it before, let footprints tell what they might; and where it was I had seen it were best forgotten. There was no onein waking hourswho could remind me of it; but my dreams are filled with terror, because of phrases I dare not quote. I dare quote only one paragraph, put into such English as I can make from the awkward Low Latin. The nethermost caverns, wrote the mad Arab, are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabac say that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all in ashes. For it is of old rumor that the soul of the devilbought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earths pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl. Transcribers Note This story appeared in the January 1925 issue of Weird Tales Magazine. END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FESTIVAL Updated editions will replace the previous onethe old editions will be renamed. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of At the mountains of madness This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title At the mountains of madness Author H. P. Lovecraft Illustrator Howard V. Brown Release date April 27, 2023 [eBook 70652] Language English Original publication United States Street Smith Publications, Inc Credits Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at httpwww.pgdp.net START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS At the MOUNTAINS of MADNESS By H. P. LOVECRAFT [Transcriber's Note This etext was produced from Astounding Stories February, March, April 1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarcticwith its vast fossil hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice caps. And I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain. Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet, if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible there would be nothing left. The hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinary and arial, will count in my favor, for they are damnably vivid and graphic. Still, they will be doubted because of the great lengths to which clever fakery can be carried. The ink drawings, of course, will be jeered at as obvious impostures; notwithstanding a strangeness and technique which art experts ought to remark and puzzle over. In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to weigh my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain primordial and highly baffling myth cycles; and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any rash and overambitious program in the region of those mountains of madness. It is an unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself and my associates, connected only with a small university, have little chance of making an impression where matters of a wildly bizarre or highly controversial natures are concerned. It is further against us that we are not, in the strictest sense, specialists in the fields which came primarily to be concerned. As a geologist, my object in leading the Miskatonic University Expedition was wholly that of securing deeplevel specimens of rock and soil from various parts of the antarctic continent, aided by the remarkable drill devised by Professor Frank H. Pabodie of our engineering department. I had no wish to be a pioneer in any other field than this, but I did hope that the use of this new mechanical appliance at different points along previously explored paths would bring to light materials of a sort hitherto unreached by the ordinary methods of collection. Pabodie's drilling apparatus, as the public already knows from our reports, was unique and radical in its lightness, portability, and capacity to combine the ordinary Artesian drill principle with the principle of the small circular rock drill in such a way as to cope quickly with strata of varying hardness. Steel head, jointed rods, gasoline motor, collapsible wooden derrick, dynamiting paraphernalia, cording, rubbishremoval auger, and sectional piping for bores five inches wide and up to one thousand feet deep all formed, with needed accessories, no greater load than three sevendog sledges could carry. This was made possible by the clever aluminum alloy of which most of the metal objects were fashioned. Four large Dornier aroplanes, designed especially for the tremendous altitude flying necessary on the antarctic plateau and with added fuelwarming and quickstarting devices worked out by Pabodie, could transport our entire expedition from a base at the edge of the great ice barrier to various suitable inland points, and from these points a sufficient quota of dogs would serve us. We planned to cover as great an area as one antarctic seasonor longer, if absolutely necessarywould permit, operating mostly in the mountain ranges and on the plateau south of Ross Sea; regions explored in varying degree by Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, and Byrd. With frequent changes of camp, made by aroplane and involving distances great enough to be of geological significance, we expected to unearth a quite unprecedented amount of materialespecially in the preCambrian strata of which so narrow a range of antarctic specimens had previously been secured. We wished also to obtain as great as possible a variety of the upper fossiliferous rocks, since the primal life history of this bleak realm of ice and death is of the highest importance to our knowledge of the earth's past. That the antarctic continent was once temperate and even tropical, with a teeming vegetable and animal life of which the lichens, marine fauna, arachnida, and penguins of the northern edge are the only survivors, is a matter of common information; and we hoped to expand that information in variety, accuracy, and detail. When a simple boring revealed fossiliferous signs, we would enlarge the aperture by blasting, in order to get specimens of suitable size and condition. Our borings, of varying depth according to the promise held out by the upper soil or rock, were to be confined to exposed, or nearly exposed, land surfacesthese inevitably being slopes and ridges because of the mile or twomile thickness of solid ice overlying the lower levels. We could not afford to waste drilling depth on any considerable amount of more glaciation, though Pabodie had worked out a plan for sinking copper electrodes in thick clusters of borings and melting off limited areas of ice with current from a gasolinedriven dynamo. It is this planwhich we could not put into effect except experimentally on an expedition such as oursthat the coming StarkweatherMoore Expedition proposes to follow, despite the warnings I have issued since our return from the antarctic. The public knows of the Miskatonic Expedition through our frequent wireless reports to the Arkham Advertiser and Associated Press, and through the later articles by Pabodie and myself. We consisted of four men from the UniversityPabodie, Lake of the biology department, Atwood of the physics departmentalso a meteorologistand myself, representing geology and having nominal command, also sixteen assistants seven graduate students from Miskatonic and nine skilled mechanics. Of these sixteen, twelve were qualified aroplane pilots, all but two of whom were competent wireless operators. Eight of them understood navigation with compass and sextant, as did Pabodie, Atwood and I. In addition, of course, our two shipswooden exwhalers, reinforced for ice conditions and having auxiliary steamwere fully manned. The Nathaniel Derby Pickman Foundation, aided by a few special contributions, financed the expedition; hence our preparations were extremely thorough, despite the absence of great publicity. The dogs, sledges, machines, camp materials, and unassembled parts of our five planes were delivered in Boston, and there our ships were loaded. We were marvelously wellequipped for our specific purposes, and in all matters pertaining to supplies, regimen, transportation, and camp construction we profited by the excellent example of our many recent and exceptionally brilliant predecessors. It was the unusual number and fame of these predecessors which made our own expeditionample though it wasso little noticed by the world at large. As the newspapers told, we sailed from Boston Harbor on September 2nd, 1930, taking a leisurely course down the coast and through the Panama Canal, and stopping at Samoa and Hobart, Tasmania, at which latter place we took on final supplies. None of our exploring party had ever been in the polar regions before, hence we all relied greatly on our ship captainsJ. B. Douglas, commanding the brig Arkham, and serving as commander of the sea party, and Georg Thorfinnssen, commanding the barque Miskatonicboth veteran whalers in antarctic waters. As we left the inhabited world behind the sun sank lower and lower in the north, and stayed longer and longer above the horizon each day. At about 62 South Latitude we sighted our first icebergstablelike objects with vertical sidesand just before reaching the antarctic circle, which we crossed on October 20th with appropriately quaint ceremonies, we were considerably troubled with field ice. The falling temperature bothered me considerably after our long voyage through the tropics, but I tried to brace up for the worse rigors to come. On many occasions the curious atmospheric effects enchanted me vastly; these included a strikingly vivid miragethe first I had ever seenin which distant bergs became the battlements of unimaginable cosmic castles. Pushing through the ice, which was fortunately neither extensive nor thickly packed, we regained open water at South Latitude 67, East Longitude 175. On the morning of October 26th a strong land blink appeared on the south, and before noon we all felt a thrill of excitement at beholding a vast, lofty, and snowclad mountain chain which opened out and covered the whole vista ahead. At last we had encountered an outpost of the great unknown continent and its cryptic world of frozen death. These peaks were obviously the Admiralty Range discovered by Ross, and it would now be our task to round Cape Adare and sail down the east coast of Victoria Land to our contemplated base on the shore of McMurdo Sound, at the foot of the volcano Erebus in South Latitude 77 9. The last lap of the voyage was vivid and fancystirring. Great barren peaks of mystery loomed up constantly against the west as the low northern sun of noon or the still lower horizongrazing southern sun of midnight poured its hazy reddish rays over the white snow, bluish ice and water lanes, and black bits of exposed granite slope. Through the desolate summits swept raging, intermittent gusts of the terrible antarctic wind, whose cadences sometimes held vague suggestions of a wild and halfsentient musical piping, with notes extending over a wide range, and which for some subconscious mnemonic reason seemed to me disquieting and even dimly terrible. Something about the scene reminded me of the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich, and of the still stranger and more disturbing descriptions of the evilly fabled plateau of Leng which occur in the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. I was rather sorry, later on, that I had ever looked into that monstrous book at the college library. On the 7th of November, sight of the westward range having been temporarily lost, we passed Franklin Island; and the next day descried the cones of Mts. Erebus and Terror on Ross Island ahead, with the long line of the Parry Mountains beyond. There now stretched off to the east the low, white line of the great ice barrier, rising perpendicularly to a height of two hundred feet like the rocky cliffs of Quebec, and marking the end of southward navigation. In the afternoon we entered McMurdo Sound and stood off the coast in the lee of smoking Mt. Erebus. The scoriaceous peak towered up some twelve thousand seven hundred feet against the eastern sky, like a Japanese print of the sacred Fujiyama, while beyond it rose the white, ghostlike height of Mt. Terror, ten thousand nine hundred feet in altitude, and now extinct as a volcano. Puffs of smoke from Erebus came intermittently, and one of the graduate assistantsa brilliant young fellow named Danforthpointed out what looked like lava on the snowy slope, remarking that this mountain, discovered in 1840, had undoubtedly been the source of Poe's image when he wrote seven years later "the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole." Danforth was a great reader of bizarre material, and had talked a good deal of Poe. I was interested myself because of the antarctic scene of Poe's only long storythe disturbing and enigmatical Arthur Gordon Pym. On the barren shore, and on the lofty ice barrier in the background, myriad of grotesque penguins squawked and flapped their fins, while many fat seals were visible on the water, swimming or sprawling across large cakes of slowly drifting ice. Using small boats, we effected a difficult landing on Ross Island shortly after midnight, on the morning of the 9th, carrying a line of cable from each of the ships and preparing to unload supplies by means of a breechesbuoy arrangement. Our sensations on first treading antarctic soil were poignant and complex, even though at this particular point the Scott and Shackleton expeditions had preceded us. Our camp on the frozen shore below the volcano's slope was only a provisional one, headquarters being kept aboard the Arkham. We landed all our drilling apparatus, dogs, sledges, tents, provisions, gasoline tanks, experimental icemelting outfit, cameras, both ordinary and arial, aroplane parts, and other accessories, including three small portable wireless outfitsbesides those in the planescapable of communicating with the Arkham's large outfit from any part of the antarctic continent that we would be likely to visit. The ship's outfit, communicating with the outside world, was to convey press reports to the Arkham Advertiser's powerful wireless station on Kingsport Head, Mass. We hoped to complete our work during a single antarctic summer; but if this proved impossible we would winter on the Arkham, sending the Miskatonic north before the freezing of the ice for another summer's supplies. I need not repeat what the newspapers have already published about our early work of our ascent of Mt. Erebus; our successful mineral borings at several points on Ross Island and the singular speed with which Pabodie's apparatus accomplished them, even through solid rock layers; our provisional test of the small icemelting equipment; our perilous ascent of the great barrier with sledges and supplies; and our final assembling of five huge aroplanes at the camp atop the barrier. The health of our land partytwenty men and fiftyfive Alaskan sledge dogswas remarkable, though of course we had so far encountered no really destructive temperatures or windstorms. For the most part, the thermometer varied between zero and 20 or 25 above, and our experience with New England winters had accustomed us to rigors of this sort. The barrier camp was semipermanent, and destined to be a storage cache for gasoline, provisions, dynamite, and other supplies. Only four of our planes were needed to carry the actual exploring material, the fifth being left with a pilot and two men, from the ships, at the storage cache to form a means of reaching us from the Arkham in case all our exploring planes were lost. Later, when not using all the other planes for moving apparatus, we would employ one or two in a shuttle transportation service between this cache and another permanent base on the great plateau from six hundred to seven hundred miles southward, beyond Beardmore Glacier. Despite the almost unanimous accounts of appalling winds and tempests that pour down from the plateau, we determined to dispense with intermediate bases, taking our chances in the interest of economy and probable efficiency. Wireless reports have spoken of the breathtaking, fourhour, nonstop flight of our squadron on November 21st over the lofty shelf ice, with vast peaks rising on the west, and the unfathomed silences echoing to the sound of our engines. Wind troubled us only moderately, and our radio compasses helped us through the one opaque fog we encountered. When the vast rise loomed ahead, between Latitudes 83 and 84, we knew we had reached Beardmore Glacier, the largest valley glacier in the world, and that the frozen sea was now giving place to a frowning and mountainous coast line. At last we were truly entering the white, ondead world of the ultimate south. Even as we realized it we saw the peak of Mt. Nansen in the eastern distance, towering up to its height of almost fifteen thousand feet. The successful establishment of the southern base above the glacier in Latitude 86 7, East Longitude 174 23, and the phenomenally rapid and effective borings and blastings made at various points reached by our sledge trips and short aroplane flights, are matters of history; as is the arduous and triumphant ascent of Mt. Nansen by Pabodie and two of the graduate studentsGedney and Carrollon December 13th to 15th. We were some eight thousand five hundred feet above sealevel. When experimental drillings revealed solid ground only twelve feet down through the snow and ice at certain points, we made considerable use of the small melting apparatus and sunk bores and performed dynamiting at many places, where no previous explorer had ever thought of securing mineral specimens. The preCambrian granites and beacon sandstones thus obtained confirmed our belief that this plateau was homogeneous, with the great bulk of the continent to the west, but somewhat different from the parts lying eastward below South Americawhich we then thought to form a separate and smaller continent divided from the larger one by a frozen junction of Ross and Weddell Seas, though Byrd has since disproved the report. In certain of the sandstones, dynamited and chiseled after boring revealed their nature, we found some highly interesting fossil markings and fragments; notably ferns, seaweeds, trilobites, crinoids, and such mollusks as linguell and gastropodsall of which seemed of real significance in connection with the region's primordial history. There was also a queer triangular, striated marking, about a foot in greatest diameter, which Lake pieced together from three fragments of slate brought up from a deepblasted aperture. These fragments came from a point to the westward, near the Queen Alexandra Range; and Lake, as a biologist, seemed to find their curious marking unusually puzzling and provocative, though to my geological eye it looked not unlike some of the ripple effects reasonably common in the sedimentary rocks. Since slate is no more than a metamorphic formation into which a sedimentary stratum is pressed, and since the pressure itself produces odd distorting effects on any markings which may exist, I saw no reason for extreme wonder over the striated depression. On January 6, 1931, Lake, Pabodie, Daniels, all six of the students, four mechanics, and myself flew directly over the south pole in two of the great planes, being forced down once by a sudden high wind, which, fortunately, did not develop into a typical storm. This was, as the papers have stated, one of several observation flights, during others of which we tried to discern new topographical features in areas unreached by previous explorers. Our early flights were disappointing in this latter respect, though they afforded us some magnificent examples of the richly fantastic and deceptive mirages of the polar regions, of which our sea voyage had given us some brief foretastes. Distant mountains floated in the sky as enchanted cities, and often the whole white world would dissolve into a gold, silver, and scarlet land of Dunsanian dreams and adventurous expectancy under the magic of the low midnight sun. On cloudy days we had considerable trouble in flying, owing to the tendency of snowy earth and sky to merge into one mystical opalescent void with no visible horizon to mark the junction of the two. At length we resolved to carry out our original plan of flying five hundred miles eastward with all four exploring planes and establishing a fresh subbase at a point which would probably be on the smaller continental division, as we mistakenly conceived it. Geological specimens obtained there would be desirable for purposes of comparison. Our health so far had remained excellentlime juice well offsetting the steady diet of tinned and salted food, and temperatures generally above zero enabling us to do without our thickest furs. It was now midsummer, and with haste and care we might be able to conclude work by March and avoid a tedious wintering through the long antarctic night. Several savage windstorms had burst upon us from the west, but we had escaped damage through the skill of Atwood in devising rudimentary aroplane shelters and windbreaks of heavy snow blocks, and in reinforcing the principal camp buildings with snow. Our good luck and efficiency had indeed been almost uncanny. The outside world knew, of course, of our program, and was told also of Lake's strange and dogged insistence on a westwardor rather, northwestwardprospecting trip before our radical shift to the new base. It seems that he had pondered a great deal and with alarmingly radical daring over that triangular striated marking in the slate; reading into it certain contradictions in nature and geological period which whetted his curiosity to the utmost, and made him avid to sink more borings and blastings in the weststretching formation to which the exhumed fragments evidently belonged. He was strangely convinced that the marking was the print of some bulky, unknown, and radically unclassifiable organism of considerably advanced evolution, notwithstanding that the rock which bore it was of so vastly ancient a dateCambrian if not actually preCambrianas to preclude the probable existence not only of all highly evolved life, but of any life at all above the unicellular or at most the trilobite stage. These fragments, with their odd marking, must have been five hundred million to a thousand million years old. II. Popular imagination, I judge, responded actively to our wireless bulletins of Lake's start northwestward into regions never trodden by human foot or penetrated by human imagination, though we did not mention his wild hopes of revolutionizing the entire sciences of biology and geology. His preliminary sledging and boring journey of January 11th to 18th with Pabodie and five othersmarred by the loss of two dogs in an upset when crossing one of the great pressure ridges in the icehad brought up more and more of the Archan slate; and even I was interested by the singular profusion of evident fossil markings in that unbelievably ancient stratum. These markings, however, were of very primitive life forms involving no great paradox except that any life forms should occur in rock as definitely preCambrian as this seemed to be; hence I still failed to see the good sense of Lake's demand for an interlude in our timesaving programan interlude requiring the use of all four planes, many men, and the whole of the expedition's mechanical apparatus. I did not, in the end, veto the plan, though I decided not to accompany the northwestward party despite Lake's plea for my geological advice. While they were gone, I would remain at the base with Pabodie and five men and work out final plans for the eastward shift. In preparation for this transfer, one of the planes had begun to move up a good gasoline supply from McMurdo Sound; but this could wait temporarily. I kept with me one sledge and nine dogs, since it is unwise to be at any time without possible transportation in an utterly tenantless world of onlong death. Lake's subexpedition into the unknown, as every one will recall, sent out its own reports from the shortwave transmitters on the planes; these being simultaneously picked up by our apparatus at the southern base and by the Arkham at McMurdo Sound, whence they were relayed to the outside world on wave lengths up to fifty meters. The start was made January 22nd at 4 a.m.; and the first wireless message we received came only two hours later, when Lake spoke of descending and starting a smallscale icemelting and bore at a point some three hundred miles away from us. Six hours after that a second and very excited message told of the frantic, beaverlike work whereby a shallow shaft had been sunk and blasted, culminating in the discovery of slate fragments with several markings approximately like the one which had caused the original puzzlement. Three hours later a brief bulletin announced the resumption of the flight in the teeth of a raw and piercing gale; and when I dispatched a message of protest against further hazards, Lake replied curtly that his new specimens made any hazard worth taking. I saw that his excitement had reached the point of mutiny, and that I could do nothing to check this headlong risk of the whole expedition's success; but it was appalling to think of his plunging deeper and deeper into that treacherous and sinister white immensity of tempests and unfathomed mysteries which stretched off for some fifteen hundred miles to the halfknown, halfsuspected coast line of Queen Mary and Knox Lands. Then, in about an hour and a half more, came that doubly excited message from Lake's moving plane, which almost reversed my sentiments and made me wish I had accompanied the party "1005 p.m. On the wing. After snowstorm, have spied mountain range ahead higher than any hitherto seen. May equal Himalayas, allowing for height of plateau. Probable Latitude 76 15, Longitude 113 10 E. Reaches far as can see to right and left. Suspicion of two smoking cones. All peaks black and bare of snow. Gale blowing off them impedes navigation." After that Pabodie, the men, and I hung breathlessly over the receiver. Thought of this titanic mountain rampart seven hundred miles away inflamed our deepest sense of adventure; and we rejoiced that our expedition, if not ourselves personally, had been its discoverers. In half an hour Lake called us again "Moulton's plane forced down on plateau in foothills, but nobody hurt and perhaps can repair. Shall transfer essentials to other three for return or further moves if necessary, but no more heavy plane travel needed just now. Mountains surpass anything in imagination. Am going up scouting in Carroll's plane, with all weight out. "You can't imagine anything like this. Highest peaks must go over thirtyfive thousand feet. Everest out of the running, Atwood to work out height with theodolite while Carroll and I go up. Probably wrong about cones, for formations look stratified. Possibly preCambrian slate with other strata mixed in. Queer sky line effectsregular sections of cubes clinging to highest peaks. Whole thing marvelous in redgold light of low sun. Like land of mystery in a dream or gateway to forbidden world of untrodden wonder. Wish you were here to study." Though it was technically sleeping time, not one of us listeners thought for a moment of retiring. It must have been a good deal the same at McMurdo Sound, where the supply cache and the Arkham were also getting the messages; for Captain Douglas gave out a call congratulating everybody on the important find, and Sherman, the cache operator, seconded his sentiments. We were sorry, of course, about the damaged aroplane, but hoped it could be easily mended. Then, at eleven p.m., came another call from Lake "Up with Carroll over highest foothills. Don't dare try really tall peaks in present weather, but shall later. Frightful work climbing, and hard going at this altitude, but worth it. Great range fairly solid, hence can't get any glimpses beyond. Main summits exceed Himalayas, and very queer. Range looks like preCambrian slate, with plain signs of many other upheaved strata. Was wrong about volcanism. Goes farther in either direction than we can see. Swept clear of snow above about twentyone thousand feet. "Odd formations on slopes of highest mountains. Great low square blocks with exactly vertical sides, and rectangular lines of low, vertical ramparts, like the old Asian castles clinging to steep mountains in Roerich's paintings. Impressive from distance. Flew close to some, and Carroll thought they were formed of smaller separate pieces, but that is probably weathering. Most edges crumbled and rounded off as if exposed to storms and climate changes for millions of years. "Parts, especially upper parts, seem to be of lightercolored rock than any visible strata on slopes proper, hence an evidently crystalline origin. Close flying shows many cave mouths, some unusually regular in outline, square or semicircular. You must come and investigate. Think I saw rampart squarely on top of one peak. Height seems about thirty thousand to thirtyfive thousand feet. Am up twentyone thousand five hundred myself, in devilish, gnawing cold. Wind whistles and pipes through passes and in and out of caves, but no flying danger so far." From then on for another half hour Lake kept up a running fire of comment, and expressed his intention of climbing some of the peaks on foot. I replied that I would join him as soon as he could send a plane, and that Pabodie and I would work out the best gasoline planjust where and how to concentrate our supply in view of the expedition's altered character. Obviously, Lake's boring operations, as well as his aroplane activities, would need a great deal delivered at the new base which he was to establish at the foot of the mountains; and it was possible that the eastward flight might not be made, after all, this season. In connection with this business I called Captain Douglas and asked him to get as much as possible out of the ships and up the barrier with the single dog team we had left there. A direct route across the unknown region between Lake and McMurdo Sound was what we really ought to establish. Lake called me later to say that he had decided to let the camp stay where Moulton's plane had been forced down, and where repairs had already progressed somewhat. The ice sheet was very thin, with dark ground here and there visible, and he would sink some borings and blasts at that very point before making any sledge trips or climbing expeditions. He spoke of the ineffable majesty of the whole scene, and the queer state of his sensations at being in the lee of vast, silent pinnacles, whose ranks shot up like a wall reaching the sky at the world's rim. It was a queer state of sensationsbeing in the lee of vast, silent pinnacles, where ranks shot up like a wall reaching the sky at the world's rim. Atwood's theodolite observations had placed the height of the five tallest peaks at from thirty thousand to thirtyfour thousand feet. The windswept nature of the terrain clearly disturbed Lake, for it argued the occasional existence of prodigious gales, violent beyond anything we had so far encountered. His camp lay a little more than five miles from where the higher foothills rose abruptly. I could almost trace a note of subconscious alarm in his wordsflashed across a glacial void of seven hundred milesas he urged that we all hasten with the matter and get the strange, new region disposed of as soon as possible. He was about to rest now, after a continuous day's work of almost unparalleled speed, strenuousness, and results. In the morning I had a threecornered wireless talk with Lake and Captain Douglas at their widely separated bases. It was agreed that one of Lake's planes would come to my base for Pabodie, the five men, and myself, as well as for all the fuel it could carry. The rest of the fuel question, depending on our decision about an easterly trip, could wait for a few days, since Lake had enough for immediate camp heat and borings.

Eventually the old southern base ought to be restocked, but if we postponed the easterly trip we would not use it till the next summer, and, meanwhile, Lake must send a plane to explore a direct route between his new mountains and McMurdo Sound. Pabodie and I prepared to close our base for a short or long period, as the case might be. If we wintered in the antarctic we would probably fly straight from Lake's base to the Arkham without returning to this spot. Some of our conical tents had already been reinforced by blocks of hard snow, and now we decided to complete the job of making a permanent village. Owing to a very liberal tent supply, Lake had with him all that his base would need, even after our arrival. I wirelessed that Pabodie and I would be ready for the northwestward move after one day's work and one night's rest. Our labors, however, were not very steady after four p.m., for about that time Lake began sending in the most extraordinary and excited messages. His working day had started unpropitiously, since an aroplane survey of the nearly exposed rock surfaces showed an entire absence of those Archan and primordial strata for which he was looking, and which formed so great a part of the colossal peaks that loomed up at a tantalizing distance from the camp. Most of the rocks glimpsed were apparently Jurassic and Comanchean sandstones and Permian and Triassic schists, with now and then a glossy black outcropping suggesting a hard and slaty coal. This rather discouraged Lake, whose plans all hinged on unearthing specimens more than five hundred million years older. It was clear to him that in order to recover the Archan slate vein in which he had found the odd markings, he would have to make a long sledge trip from these foothills to the steep slopes of the gigantic mountains themselves. He had resolved, nevertheless, to do some local boring as part of the expedition's general program; hence, he set up the drill and put five men to work with it while the rest finished settling the camp and repairing the damaged aroplane. The softest visible rocka sandstone about a quarter of a mile from the camphad been chosen for the first sampling; and the drill made excellent progress without much supplementary blasting. It was about three hours afterward, following the first really heavy blast of the operation, that the shouting of the drill crew was heard; and that young Gedneythe acting foremanrushed into the camp with the startling news. They had struck a cave. Early in the boring the sandstone had given place to a vein of Comanchean limestone, full of minute fossil cephalopods, corals, echini, and spirifera, and with occasional suggestions of siliceous sponges and marine vertebrate bonesthe latter probably of teliosts, sharks, and ganoids. This, in itself, was important enough, as affording the first vertebrate fossils the expedition had yet secured; but when shortly afterward the drill head dropped through the stratum into apparent vacancy, a wholly new and doubly intense wave of excitement spread among the excavators. A goodsized blast had laid open the subterrane secret; and now, through a jagged aperture perhaps five feet across and three feet thick, there yawned before the avid searchers a section of shallow limestone hollowing worn more than fifty million years ago by the trickling ground waters of a bygone tropic world. The hollowed layer was not more than seven or eight feet deep, but extended off indefinitely in all directions and had a fresh, slightly moving air which suggested its membership in an extensive subterranean system. Its roof and floor were abundantly equipped with large stalactites and stalagmites, some of which met in columnar form. But important above all else was the vast deposit of shells and bones, which in places nearly choked the passage. Washed down from unknown jungles of Mesozoic tree ferns and fungi, and forests of Tertiary cycads, fan palms, and primitive angiosperms, this osseous medley contained representatives of more Cretaceous, Eocene, and other animal species than the greatest palontologist could have counted or classified in a year. Mollusks, crustacean armor, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and early mammalsgreat and small, known and unknown. No wonder Gedney ran back to the camp shouting, and no wonder every one else dropped work and rushed headlong through the biting cold to where the tall derrick marked a newfound gateway to secrets of inner earth and vanished ons. When Lake had satisfied the first keen edge of his curiosity he scribbled a message in his notebook and had young Moulton run back to the camp to dispatch it by wireless. This was my first word of the discovery, and it told of the identification of early shells, bones of ganoids and placoderms, remnants of labyrinthodonta and thecoiidea, great mosasaur skull fragments, dinosaur vertebr and armor plates, pterodactyl teeth and wing bones, Archaeopteryx dbris, Miocene sharks' teeth, primitive bird skulls, and other bones of archaic mammals such as Palotheres, Xiphodons, Eohippi, Oreodons, and Titanotheriid. There was nothing as recent as a mastodon, elephant, true camel, deer, or bovine animal; hence Lake concluded that the last deposits had occurred during the Oligocene Age, and that the hollowed stratum had lain in its present dried, dead, and inaccessible state for at least thirty million years. On the other hand, the prevalence of very early life forms was singular in the highest degree. Though the limestone formation was, on the evidence of such typical imbedded fossils as ventriculites, positively and unmistakably Comanchean and not a particle earlier; the free fragments in the hollow space included a surprising proportion from organisms hitherto considered as peculiar to far older periodseven rudimentary fishes, mollusks, and corals as remote as the Silurian or Ordovician. The inevitable inference was that in this part of the world there had been a remarkable and unique degree of continuity between the life of over three hundred million years ago and that of only thirty million years ago. How far this continuity had extended beyond the Oligocene Age when the cavern was closed was of course past all speculation. In any event, the coming of the frightful ice in the Pleistocene some five hundred thousand years agoa mere yesterday as compared with the age of this cavitymust have put an end to any of the primal forms which had locally managed to outlive their common terms. Lake was not content to let his first message stand, but had another bulletin written and dispatched across the snow to the camp before Moulton could get back. After that Moulton stayed at the wireless in one of the planes, transmitting to meand to the Arkham for relaying to the outside worldthe frequent postscripts which Lake sent him by a succession of messengers. Those who followed the newspapers will remember the excitement created among men of science by that afternoon's reportsreports which have finally led, after all these years, to the organization of that very StarkweatherMoore Expedition which I am so anxious to dissuade from its purposes. I had better give the messages literally as Lake sent them, and as our base operator McTighe translated them from his pencil shorthand Fowler makes discovery of highest importance in sandstone and limestone fragments from blasts. Several distinct triangular striated prints like those in archan slate, proving that source survived from over six hundred million years ago to Comanchean times without more than moderate morphological changes and decrease in average size. Comanchean prints apparently more primitive or decadent, if anything, than older ones. Emphasize importance of discovery in press. Will mean to biology what Einstein has meant to mathematics and physics. Joins up with my previous work and amplifies conclusions. Appears to indicate, as I suspected, that earth has seen whole cycle or cycles of organic life before known one that begins with Archozoic cells. Was evolved and specialized not later than a thousand million years ago, when planet was young and recently uninhabitable for any life forms of normal protoplasmic structure. Question arises when, where, and how development took place. Later. Examining certain skeletal fragments of large land and marine saurians and primitive mammals, find singular local wounds or injuries to bony structure not attributable to any known predatory or carnivorous animal of any period. Of two sortsstraight, penetrant bores, and apparently hacking incisions. One or two cases of cleanly severed bones. Not many specimens affected. Am sending to camp for electric torches. Will extend search area underground by hacking away stalactites. Still later. Have found peculiar soapstone fragment about six inches across and an inch and a half thick, wholly unlike any visible local formationgreenish, but no evidences to place its period. Has curious smoothness and regularity. Shaped like fivepointed star with tips broken off, and signs of other cleavage at inward angles and in center of surface. Small, smooth depression in center of unbroken surface. Arouses much curiosity as to source and weathering. Probably some freak of water action. Carroll, with magnifier, thinks he can make out additional markings of geologic significance. Groups of tiny dots in regular patterns. Dogs growing uneasy as we work, and seem to hate this soapstone. Must see if it has any peculiar odor. Will report again when Mills gets back with light and we start on underground area. 1015 p.m. Important discovery. Orrendorf and Watkins, working underground at 945 with light, found monstrous barrelshaped fossil of wholly unknown nature; probably vegetable unless overgrown specimen of unknown marine radiata. Tissue evidently preserved by mineral salts. Tough as leather, but astonishing flexibility retained in places. Marks of brokenoff parts at ends and around sides. Six feet end to end, three and five tenths feet central diameter, tapering to one foot at each end. Like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves. Lateral breakages, as of thinnish stalks, are at equator in middle of these ridges. In furrows between ridges are curious growthscombs or wings that fold up and spread out like fans. All greatly damaged but one, which gives almost sevenfoot wing spread. Arrangement reminds one of certain monsters of primal myth, especially fabled Elder Things in Necronomicon. These wings seem to be membranous, stretched on framework of glandular tubing. Apparent minute orifices in frame tubing at wing tips. Ends of body shriveled, giving no clue to interior or to what has been broken off there. Must dissect when we get back to camp. Can't decide whether vegetable or animal. Many features obviously of almost incredible primitiveness. Have set all hands cutting stalactites and looking for further specimens. Additional scarred bones found, but these must wait. Having trouble with dogs. They can't endure the new specimen, and would probably tear it to pieces if we didn't keep it at a distance from them. 1130 p.m. Attention, Dyer, Pabodie, Douglas. Matter of highestI might say transcendentimportance. Arkham must relay to Kingsport Head Station at once. Strange barrel growth is the archan thing that left prints in rocks. Mills, Boudreau, and Fowler discover cluster of thirteen more at underground point forty feet from aperture. Mixed with curiously rounded and configured soapstone fragments smaller than one previously foundstarshaped, but no marks of breakage except at some of the points. Of organic specimens, eight apparently perfect, with all appendages. Have brought all to surface, leading off dogs to distance. They cannot stand the things. Give close attention to description and repeat back for accuracy. Papers must get this right. Objects are eight feet long all over. Sixfoot, fiveridged barrel torso three and five tenths feet central diameter, one foot end diameters. Dark gray, flexible, and infinitely tough. Sevenfoot membranous wings of same color, found folded, spread out of furrows between ridges. Wing framework tubular or glandular, or lighter gray, with orifices at wing tips. Spread wings have serrated edge. Around equator, one at central apex of each of the five vertical, stavelike ridges, are five systems of lightgray flexible arms or tentacles found tightly folded to torso but expansible to maximum length of over three feet. Like arms of primitive crinoid. Single stalks three inches diameter branch after six inches into five substalks, each of which branches after eight inches into five small, tapering tentacles or tendrils, giving each stalk a total of twentyfive tentacles. At top of torso blunt, bulbous neck of lighter gray, with gilllike suggestions, holds yellowish fivepointed starfishshaped apparent head covered with threeinch wiry cilia of various prismatic colors. Head thick and puffy, about two feet point to point, with threeinch flexible yellowish tubes projecting from each point. Slit in exact center of top probably breathing aperture. At end of each tube is spherical expansion where yellowish membrane rolls back on handling to reveal glassy, redirised globe, evidently an eye. Five slightly longer reddish tubes start from inner angles of starfishshaped head and end in saclike swellings of same color which, upon pressure, open to bellshaped orifices two inches maximum diameter and lined with sharp, white toothlike projectionsprobable mouths. All these tubes, cilia, and points of starfish head, found folded tightly down; tubes and points clinging to bulbous neck and torso. Flexibility surprising despite vast toughness. At bottom of torso, rough but dissimilarly functioning counterparts of head arrangements exist. Bulbous lightgray pseudoneck, without gill suggestions, holds greenish fivepointed starfish arrangement. Tough, muscular arms four feet long and tapering from seven inches diameter at base to about two and five tenths at point. To each point is attached small end of a greenish fiveveined membranous triangle eight inches long and six wide at farther end. This is the paddle, fin, or pseudofoot which had made prints in rocks from a thousand million to fifty or sixty million years old. From inner angles of starfish arrangement project twofoot reddish tubes tapering from three inches diameter at base to one at tip. Orifices at tips. All these parts infinitely tough and leathery, but extremely flexible. Fourfoot arms with paddles undoubtedly used for locomotion of some sort, marine or otherwise. When moved, display suggestions of exaggerated muscularity. As found, all these projections tightly folded over pseudoneck and end of torso, corresponding to projections at other end. Cannot yet assign positively to animal or vegetable kingdom, but odds now favor animal. Probably represents incredibly advanced evolution of radiata without loss of certain primitive features. Echinoderm resemblances unmistakable despite local contradictory evidences. Wing structure puzzles in view of probable marine habitat, but may have use in water navigation. Symmetry is curiously vegetablelike, suggesting vegetable's essential upanddown structure rather than animal's foreandaft structure. Fabulously early date of evolution, preceding even simplest archan Protozoa hitherto known, baffles all conjecture as to origin. Complete specimens have such uncanny resemblance to certain creatures of primal myth that suggestion of ancient existence outside antarctic becomes inevitable. Dyer and Pabodie have read Necronomicon and seen Clark Ashton Smith's nightmare paintings based on text, and will understand when I speak of Elder Things supposed to have created all earth life as jest or mistake. Students have always thought conception formed from morbid imaginative treatment of very ancient tropical radiata. Also like prehistoric folklore things Wilmarth has spoken ofCthulhu cult appendages, etc. Vast field of study opened. Deposits probably of late Cretaceous or early Eocene period, judging from associated specimens. Massive stalagmites deposited above them. Hard work hewing out, but toughness prevented damage. State of preservation miraculous, evidently owing to limestone action. No more found so far, but will resume search later. Job now to get fourteen huge specimens to camp without dogs, which bark furiously and can't be trusted near them. With nine menthree left to guard the dogswe ought to manage the three sledges fairly well, though wind is bad. Must establish plane communication with McMurdo Sound and begin shipping material. But I've got to dissect one of these things before we take any rest. Wish I had a real laboratory here. Dyer better kick himself for having tried to stop my westward trip. First the world's greatest mountains, and then this. If this last isn't the high spot of the expedition, I don't know what is. We're made scientifically. Congrats, Pabodie, on the drill that opened up the cave. Now will Arkham please repeat description? "I've got to dissect one of these things before" "First the world's greatest mountainsthen this!" The sensations of Pabodie and myself at receipt of this report were almost beyond description, nor were our companions much behind us in enthusiasm. McTighe, who had hastily translated a few high spots as they came from the droning receiving set, wrote out the entire message from his shorthand version, as soon as Lake's operator signed off. All appreciated the epochmaking significance of the discovery, and I sent Lake congratulations as soon as the Arkham's operator had repeated back the descriptive parts as requested; and my example was followed by Sherman from his station at the McMurdo Sound supply cache, as well as by Captain Douglas of the Arkham. Later, as head of the expedition, I added some remarks to be relayed through the Arkham to the outside world. Of course, rest was an absurd thought amidst this excitement; and my only wish was to get to Lake's camp as quickly as I could. It disappointed me when he sent word that a rising mountain gale made early arial travel impossible. But within an hour and a half interest again rose to banish disappointment. Lake, sending more messages, told of the completely successful transportation of the fourteen great specimens to the camp. It had been a hard pull, for the things were surprisingly heavy; but nine men had accomplished it very neatly. Now some of the party were hurriedly building a snow corral at a safe distance from the camp, to which the dogs could be brought for greater convenience in feeding. The specimens were laid out on the hard snow near the camp, save for one on which Lake was making crude attempts at dissection. This dissection seemed to be a greater task than had been expected, for, despite the heat of a gasoline stove in the newly raised laboratory tent, the deceptively flexible tissues of the chosen specimena powerful and intact onelost nothing of their more than leathery toughness. Lake was puzzled as to how he might make the requisite incisions without violence destructive enough to upset all the structural niceties he was looking for. He had, it is true, seven more perfect specimens; but these were too few to use up recklessly unless the cave might later yield an unlimited supply. Accordingly, he removed the specimen and dragged in one which, though having remnants of the starfish arrangements at both ends, was badly crushed and partly disrupted along one of the great torso furrows. Results, quickly reported over the wireless, were baffling and provocative indeed. Nothing like delicacy or accuracy was possible with instruments hardly able to cut the anomalous tissue, but the little that was achieved left us all awed and bewildered. Existing biology would have to be wholly revised, for this thing was no product of any cell growth science knows about. There had been scarcely any mineral replacement, and despite an age of perhaps forty million years the internal organs were wholly intact. The leathery, undeteriorative, and almost indestructible quality was an inherent attribute of the thing's form of organization, and pertained to some paleocene cycle of invertebrate evolution utterly beyond our powers of speculation. At first all that Lake found was dry, but as the heated tent produced its thawing effect, organic moisture of pungent and offensive odor was encountered toward the thing's uninjured side. It was not blood, but a thick, darkgreen fluid apparently answering the same purpose. By the time Lake reached this stage all thirtyseven dogs had been brought to the still uncompleted corral near the camp, and even at that distance set up a savage barking and show of restlessness at the acrid, diffusive smell. Far from helping to place the strange entity, this provisional dissection merely deepened its mystery. All guesses about its external members had been correct, and on the evidence of these one could hardly hesitate to call the thing animal, but internal inspection brought up so many vegetable evidences that Lake was left hopelessly at sea. It had digestion and circulation, and eliminated waste matter through the reddish tubes of its starfishshaped base. Cursorily, one would say that its respiratory apparatus handled oxygen rather than carbon dioxide; and there were odd evidences of airstorage chambers and methods of shifting respiration from the external orifice to at least two other fully developed breathing systemsgills and pores. Clearly, it was amphibian and probably adapted to long airless hibernation periods as well. Vocal organs seemed present in connection with the main respiratory system, but they presented anomalies beyond immediate solution. Articulate speech, in the sense of syllable utterance, seemed barely conceivable, but musical piping notes covering a wide range were highly probable. The muscular system was almost prenaturally developed. The nervous system was so complex and highly developed as to leave Lake aghast. Though excessively primitive and archaic in some respects, the thing had a set of gangliar centers and connectives arguing the very extremes of specialized development. Its fivelobed brain was surprisingly advanced, and there were signs of a sensory equipment, served in part through the wiry cilia of the head, involving factors alien to any other terrestrial organism. Probably it had more than five senses, so that its habits could not be predicted from any existing analogy. It must, Lake thought, have been a creature of keen sensitiveness and delicately differentiated functions in its primal worldmuch like the ants and bees of today. It reproduced like the vegetable cryptogams, especially the pteridophyta; having spore cases at the tips of the wings and evidently developing from a thallus or prothallus. But to give it a name at this stage was mere folly. It looked like a radiate, but was clearly something more. It was partly vegetable, but had three fourths of the essentials of animal structure. That it was marine in origin, its symmetrical contour and certain other attributes clearly indicated; yet one could not be exact as to the limit of its later adaptations. The wings, after all, held a persistent suggestion of the arial. How it could have undergone its tremendously complex evolution on a newborn earth in time to leave prints in archan rocks was so far beyond conception as to make Lake whimsically recall the primal myths about Great Old Ones who filtered down from the stars and concocted earth life as a joke or mistake; and the wild tales of cosmic hill things from outside told by a folklorist colleague in Miskatonic's English department. Naturally, he considered the possibility of the preCambrian prints having been made by a less evolved ancestor of the present specimens, but quickly rejected this toofacile theory upon considering the advanced structural qualities of the older fossils. If anything, the later contours showed decadence rather than higher evolution. The size of the pseudofeet had decreased, and the whole morphology seemed coarsened and simplified. Moreover, the nerves and organs, just examined, held singular suggestions of retrogression from forms still more complex. Atrophied and vestigial parts were surprisingly prevalent. Altogether, little could be said to have been solved; and Lake fell back on mythology for a provisional namejocosely dubbing his finds "The Elder Ones." At about twothirty a.m., having decided to postpone further work and get a little rest, he covered the dissected organism with a tarpaulin, emerged from the laboratory tent, and studied the intact specimens with renewed interest. The ceaseless antarctic sun had begun to limber up their tissues a trifle, so that the head points and tubes of two or three showed signs of unfolding; but Lake did not believe there was any danger of immediate decomposition in the almost subzero air. He did, however, move all the undissected specimens closer together and throw a spare tent over them in order to keep off the direct solar rays. That would also help to keep their possible scent away from the dogs, whose hostile unrest was really becoming a problem, even at their substantial distance and behind the higher and higher snow walls, which an increased quota of the men were hastening to raise around their quarters. He had to weight down the corners of the tent cloth with heavy blocks of snow to hold it in place amidst the rising gale, for the titan mountains seemed about to deliver some gravely severe blasts. Early apprehensions about sudden antarctic winds were revived, and under Atwood's supervision precautions were taken to bank the tents, new dog corral, and crude aroplane shelters with snow, on the mountainward side. These latter shelters, begun with hard snow blocks during odd moments, were by no means as high as they should have been; and Lake finally detached all hands from other tasks to work on them. It was after four when Lake at last prepared to sign off and advised us all to share the rest period his outfit would take when the shelter walls were a little higher. He held some friendly chat with Pabodie over the ether, and repeated his praise of the really marvelous drills that had helped him make his discovery. Atwood also sent greetings and praises. I gave Lake a warm word of congratulation, owning up that he was right about the western trip, and we all agreed to get in touch by wireless at ten in the morning. If the gale was then over, Lake would send a plane for the party at my base. Just before retiring I dispatched a final message to the Arkham, with instructions about toning down the day's news for the outside world, since the full details seemed radical enough to rouse a wave of incredulity until further substantiated. III. None of us, I imagine, slept very heavily or continuously that morning. Both the excitement of Lake's discovery and the mounting fury of the wind were against such a thing. So savage was the blast even where we were, that we could not help wondering how much worse it was at Lake's camp, directly under the vast unknown peaks that bred and delivered it. McTighe was awake at ten o'clock and tried to get Lake on the wireless, as agreed, but some electrical condition in the disturbed air to the westward seemed to prevent communication. We did, however, get the Arkham, and Douglas told me that he had likewise been vainly trying to reach Lake. He had not known about the wind, for very little was blowing at McMurdo Sound, despite its persistent rage where we were. Throughout the day we all listened anxiously and tried to get Lake at intervals, but invariably without results. About noon a positive frenzy of wind stampeded out of the west, causing us to fear for the safety of our camp; but it eventually died down, with only a moderate relapse at two p.m. After three o'clock it was very quiet, and we redoubled our efforts to get Lake. Reflecting that he had four planes, each provided with an excellent shortwave outfit, we could not imagine any ordinary accident capable of crippling all his wireless equipment at once. Nevertheless, the stony silence continued, and when we thought of the delirious force the wind must have had in his locality we could not help making the most direful conjectures. By six o'clock our fears had become intense and definite, and after a wireless consultation with Douglas and Thorfinnssen I resolved to take steps toward investigation. The fifth aroplane, which we had left at the McMurdo Sound supply cache with Sherman and two sailors, was in good shape and ready for instant use, and it seemed that the very emergency for which it had been saved was now upon us. I got Sherman by wireless and ordered him to join me with the plane and the two sailors at the southern base as quickly as possible, the air conditions being apparently highly favorable. We then talked over the personnel of the coming investigation party, and decided that we would include all hands, together with the sledge and dogs which I had kept with me. Even so great a load would not be too much for one of the huge planes built to our special orders for heavy machinery transportation. At intervals I still tried to reach Lake with the wireless, but all to no purpose. Sherman, with the sailors Gunnarsson and Larsen, took off at seven thirty; and reported a quiet flight from several points on the wing. They arrived at our base at midnight, and all hands at once discussed the next move. It was risky business sailing over the antarctic in a single aroplane without any line of bases, but no one drew back from what seemed like the plainest necessity. We turned in at two o'clock for a brief rest after some preliminary loading of the plane, but were up again in four hours to finish the loading and packing. At seven fifteen a.m., January 25th, we started northwestward under McTighe's pilotage with ten men, seven dogs, a sledge, a fuel and food supply, and other items including the plane's wireless outfit. The atmosphere was clear, fairly quiet, and relatively mild in temperature, and we anticipated very little trouble in reaching the latitude and longitude designated by Lake as the site of his camp. Our apprehensions were over what we might find, or fail to find, at the end of our journey, for silence continued to answer all calls dispatched to the camp. Every incident of that fourandahalfhour flight is burned into my recollection because of its crucial position in my life. It marked my loss, at the age of fiftyfour, of all that peace and balance which the normal mind possesses through its accustomed conception of external nature and nature's laws. Thenceforward the ten of usbut the student Danforth and myself above all otherswere to face a hideously amplified world of lurking horrors which nothing can erase from our emotions, and which we would refrain from sharing with mankind in general if we could. The newspapers have printed the bulletins we sent from the moving plane, telling of our nonstop course, our two battles with treacherous upperair gales, our glimpse of the broken surface where Lake had sunk his midjourney shaft three days before, and our sight of a group of those strange fluffy snow cylinders noted by Amundsen and Byrd as rolling in the wind across the endless leagues of frozen plateau. There came a point, though, when our sensations could not be conveyed in any words the press would understand, and a later point when we had to adopt an actual rule of strict censorship. The sailor Larsen was first to spy the jagged line of witchlike cones and pinnacles ahead, and his shouts sent every one to the windows of the great cabined plane. Despite our speed, they were very slow in gaining prominence; hence we knew that they must be infinitely far off, and visible only because of their abnormal height.

Little by little, however, they rose grimly into the western sky, allowing us to distinguish various bare, bleak, blackish summits, and to catch the curious sense of phantasy which they inspired as seen in the reddish antarctic light against the provocative background of iridescent icedust clouds. In the whole spectacle there was a persistent, pervasive hint of stupendous secrecy and potential revelation. It was as if these stark, nightmare spires marked the pylons of a frightful gateway into forbidden spheres of dream, and complex gulfs of remote time, space, and ultradimensionality. I could not help feeling that they were evil thingsmountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss. That seething, halfluminous cloud background held ineffable suggestions of a vague, ethereal beyondness far more than terrestrially spatial, and gave appalling reminders of the utter remoteness, separateness, desolation, and onlong death of this untrodden and unfathomed austral world. It was young Danforth who drew our notice to the curious regularities of the higher mountain sky lineregularities like clinging fragments of perfect cubes, which Lake had mentioned in his messages, and which indeed justified his comparison with the dreamlike suggestions of primordial temple ruins, on cloudy Asian mountaintops so subtly and strangely painted by Roerich. There was indeed something hauntingly Roerichlike about this whole unearthly continent of mountainous mystery. I had felt it in October when we first caught sight of Victoria Land, and I felt it afresh now. I felt, too, another wave of uneasy consciousness of archan mythical resemblances, of how disturbingly this lethal realm corresponded to the evilly famed plateau of Leng in the primal writings. Mythologists have placed Leng in Central Asia, but the racial memory of manor of his predecessorsis long, and it may well be that certain tales have come down from lands and mountains and temples of horror earlier than Asia and earlier than any human world we know. A few daring mystics have hinted at a prePleistocene origin for the fragmentary Pnakotic Manuscripts, and have suggested that the devotees of Tsathoggua were as alien to mankind as Tsathoggua itself. Leng, wherever in space or time it might brood, was not a region I would care to be in or near, nor did I relish the proximity of a world that had ever bred such ambiguous and archan monstrosities as those Lake had just mentioned. At the moment I felt sorry that I had ever read the abhorred Necronomicon, or talked so much with that unpleasantly erudite folklorist Wilmarth at the university. This mood undoubtedly served to aggravate my reaction to the bizarre mirage which burst upon us from the increasingly opalescent zenith as we drew near the mountains and began to make out the cumulative undulations of the foothills. I had seen dozens of polar mirages during the preceding weeks, some of them quite as uncanny and fantastically vivid as the present sample, but this one had a wholly novel and obscure quality of menacing symbolism, and I shuddered as the seething labyrinth of fabulous walls and towers and minarets loomed out of the troubled ice vapors above our heads. The effect was that of a Cyclopean city of no architecture known to man or to human imagination, with vast aggregations of nightblack masonry embodying monstrous perversions of geometrical laws. There were truncated cones, sometimes terraced or fluted, surmounted by tall cylindrical shafts here and there bulbously enlarged and often capped with tiers of thinnish scalloped disks, and strange, beetling, tablelike constructions suggesting piles of multitudinous rectangular slabs or circular plates or fivepointed stars with each one overlapping the one beneath. There were composite cones and pyramids either alone or surmounting cylinders or cubes or flatter truncated cones and pyramids, and occasional needlelike spires in curious clusters of five. All of these febrile structures seemed knit together by tubular bridges crossing from one to the other at various dizzy heights, and the implied scale of the whole was terrifying and oppressive in its sheer giganticism. The general type of mirage was not unlike some of the wilder forms observed and drawn by the arctic whaler Scoresby in 1820, but at this time and place, with those dark, unknown mountain peaks soaring stupendously ahead, that anomalous elderworld discovery in our minds, and the pall of probable disaster enveloping the greater part of our expedition, we all seemed to find in it a taint of latent malignity and infinitely evil portent. I was glad when the mirage began to break up, though in the process the various nightmare turrets and cones assumed distorted, temporary forms of even vaster hideousness. As the whole illusion dissolved to churning opalescence, we began to look earthward again, and saw that our journey's end was not far off. The unknown mountains ahead rose dizzily up like a fearsome rampart of giants, their curious regularities showing with startling clearness even without a field glass. We were over the lowest foothills now, and could see amidst the snow, ice, and bare patches of their main plateau a couple of darkish spots which we took to be Lake's camp and boring. The higher foothills shot up between five and six miles away, forming a range almost distinct from the terrifying line of more than Himalayan peaks beyond them. At length Ropesthe student who had relieved McTighe at the controlsbegan to head downward toward the lefthand dark spot whose size marked it as the camp. As he did so, McTighe sent out the last uncensored wireless message the world was to receive from our expedition. Every one, of course, has read the brief and unsatisfying bulletins of the rest of our antarctic sojourn. Some hours after our landing we sent a guarded report of the tragedy we found, and reluctantly announced the wiping out of the whole Lake party by the frightful wind of the preceding day, or of the night before that. There were eleven known dead, young Gedney was missing. People pardoned our hazy lack of details through realization of the shock the sad event must have caused us, and believed us when we explained that the mangling action of the wind had rendered all eleven bodies unsuitable for transportation outside. Indeed, I flatter myself that even in the midst of our distress, utter bewilderment, and soulclutching horror, we scarcely went beyond the truth in any specific instance. The tremendous significance lies in what we dared not tell; what I would not tell now but for the need of warning others off from nameless terrors. It is a fact that the wind had wrought dreadful havoc. Whether all could have lived through it, even without the other thing, is gravely open to doubt. The storm, with its fury of madly driven ice particles, must have been beyond anything our expedition had encountered before. One aroplane shelterall, it seems, had been left in a far too flimsy and inadequate statewas nearly pulverized; and the derrick at the distant boring was entirely shaken to pieces. The exposed metal of the grounded planes and drilling machinery was bruised into a high polish, and two of the small tents were flattened despite their snow banking. Wooden surfaces left out in the blast were pitted and denuded of paint, and all signs of tracks in the snow were completely obliterated. It is also true that we found none of the archan biological objects in a condition to take outside as a whole. We did gather some minerals from a vast, tumbled pile, including several of the greenish soapstone fragments whose odd fivepointed rounding and faint patterns of grouped dots caused so many doubtful comparisons, and some fossil bones, among which were the most typical of the curiously injured specimens. None of the dogs survived, their hurriedly built snow inclosure near the camp being almost wholly destroyed. The wind may have done that, though the greater breakage, on the side next to the camp, which was not the windward one, suggests an outward leap or break of the frantic beasts themselves. All three sledges were gone, and we have tried to explain that the wind may have blown them off into the unknown. The drill and icemelting machinery at the boring were too badly damaged to warrant salvage, so we used them to choke up that subtly disturbing gateway to the past which Lake had blasted. We likewise left at the camp the two most shaken up of the planes; since our surviving party had only four real pilotsSherman, Danforth, McTighe, and Ropesin all, with Danforth in a poor nervous shape to navigate. We brought back all the books, scientific equipment, and other incidentals we could find, though much was rather unaccountably blown away. Spare tents and furs were either missing or badly out of condition. It was approximately four p.m., after wide plane cruising had forced us to give Gedney up for lost, that we sent our guarded message to the Arkham for relaying; and I think we did well to keep it as calm and noncommittal as we succeeded in doing. The most we said about agitation concerned our dogs, whose frantic uneasiness near the biological specimens was to be expected from poor Lake's accounts. We did not mention, I think, their display of the same uneasiness when sniffing around the queer greenish soapstones and certain other objects in the disordered regionobjects including scientific instruments, aroplanes, and machinery, both at the camp and at the boring, whose parts had been loosened, moved, or otherwise tampered with by winds that must have harbored singular curiosity and investigativeness. About the fourteen biological specimens we were pardonably indefinite. We said that the only ones we discovered were damaged, but that enough was left of them to prove Lake's description wholly and impressively accurate. It was hard work keeping our personal emotions out of this matterand we did not mention numbers or say exactly how we had found those which we did find. We had by that time agreed not to transmit anything suggesting madness on the part of Lake's men, and it surely looked like madness to find six imperfect monstrosities carefully buried upright in ninefoot snow graves under fivepointed mounds punched over with groups of dots in patterns exactly like those on the queer greenish soapstones dug up from Mesozoic or Tertiary times. The eight perfect specimens mentioned by Lake seemed to have been completely blown away. We were careful, too, about the public's general peace of mind; hence Danforth and I said little about that frightful trip over the mountains the next day. It was the fact that only a radically lightened plane could possibly cross a range of such height which mercifully limited that scouting tour to the two of us. On our return at one a.m., Danforth was close to hysterics, but kept an admirably stiff upper lip. It took no persuasion to make him promise not to show our sketches and the other things we brought away in our pockets, not to say anything more to the others than what we had agreed to relay outside, and to hide our camera films for private development later on; so that part of my present story will be as new to Pabodie, McTighe, Ropes, Sherman, and the rest as it will be to that world in general. IndeedDanforth is closer mouthed than I for he saw, or thinks he saw, one thing he will not tell even me. As all know, our report included a tale of a hard ascenta confirmation of Lake's opinion that the great peaks are of archan slate and other very primal crumpled strata unchanged since at least middle Comanchean time, a conventional comment on the regularity of the clinging cube and rampart formations, a decision that the cave mouths indicate dissolved calcareous veins, a conjecture that certain slopes and passes would permit of the scaling and crossing of the entire range by seasoned mountaineers, and a remark that the mysterious other side holds a lofty and immense superplateau as ancient and unchanging as the mountains themselvestwenty thousand feet in elevation, with grotesque rock formations protruding through a thin glacial layer and with low gradual foothills between the general plateau surface and the sheer precipices of the highest peaks. This body of data is in every respect true so far as it goes, and it completely satisfied the men at the camp. We laid our absence of sixteen hoursa longer time than our announced flying, landing, reconnoitering, and rockcollecting program called forto a long mythical spell of adverse wind conditions, and told truly of our landing on the farther foothills. Fortunately our tale sounded realistic and prosaic enough not to tempt any of the others into emulating our flight. Had any tried to do that, I would have used every ounce of my persuasion to stop themand I do not know what Danforth would have done. While we were gone, Pabodie, Sherman, Ropes, McTighe, and Williamson had worked like beavers over Lake's two best planes, fitting them again for use, despite the altogether unaccountable juggling of their operative mechanism. We decided to load all the planes the next morning and start back for our old base as soon as possible. Even though indirect, that was the safest way to work toward McMurdo Sound; for a straightline flight across the most utterly unknown stretches of the ondead continent would involve many additional hazards. Further exploration was hardly feasible in view of our tragic decimation and the ruin of our drilling machinery. The doubts and horrors around uswhich we did not revealmade us wish only to escape from this austral world of desolation and brooding madness as swiftly as we could. As the public knows, our return to the world was accomplished without further disasters. All planes reached the old base on the evening of the next dayJanuary 27thafter a swift nonstop flight; and on the 28th we made McMurdo Sound in two laps, the one pause being very brief, and occasioned by a faulty rudder, in the furious wind over the ice shelf after we had cleared the great plateau. In five days more, the Arkham and Miskatonic, with all hands and equipment on board, were shaking clear of the thickening field ice and working up Ross Sea, with the mocking mountains of Victoria Land looming westward against a troubled antarctic sky and twisting the wind's wails into a wideranged musical piping which chilled my soul to the quick. Less than a fortnight later we left the last hint of polar land behind us and thanked heaven that we were clear of a haunted, accursed realm where life and death, space and time, have made black and blasphemous alliances in the unknown epochs since matter first writhed and swam on the planet's scarcecooled crust. Since our return we have all constantly worked to discourage antarctic exploration, and have kept certain doubts and guesses to ourselves with splendid unity and faithfulness. Even young Danforth, with his nervous breakdown, has not flinched or babbled to his doctors. Indeed, as I have said, there is one thing he thinks he alone saw which he will not tell even me, though I think it would help his psychological state if he would consent to do so. It might explain and relieve much, though perhaps the thing was no more than the delusive aftermath of an earlier shock. That is the impression I gather after those rare, irresponsible moments when he whispers disjointed things to methings which he repudiates vehemently as soon as he gets a grip on himself again. It will be hard work deterring others from the great white south, and some of our efforts may directly harm our cause by drawing inquiring notice. We might have known from the first that human curiosity is undying, and that the results we announced would be enough to spur others ahead on the same agelong pursuit of the unknown. Lake's reports of those biological monstrosities had aroused naturalists and palontologists to the highest pitch, though we were sensible enough not to show the detached parts we had taken from the actual buried specimens, or our photographs of those specimens as they were found. We also refrained from showing the more puzzling of the scarred bones and greenish soapstones; while Danforth and I have closely guarded the pictures we took or drew on the superplateau across the range, and the crumpled things we smoothed, studied in terror, and brought away in our pockets. But now that StarkweatherMoore party is organizing, and with a thoroughness far beyond anything our outfit attemptedif not dissuaded, they will get to the innermost nucleus of the antarctic and melt and bore till they bring up that which we know may end the world. So I must break through all reticences at lasteven about that ultimate, nameless thing beyond the mountains of madness. IV. It is only with vast hesitancy and repugnance that I let my mind go back to Lake's camp and what we really found thereand to that other thing beyond the awful mountain wall. I have told of the windravaged terrain, the damaged shelters, the disarranged machinery, the varied uneasiness of our dogs, the missing sledges and other items, the deaths of men and dogs, the absence of Gedney, and the six insanely buried biological specimens, strangely sound in texture for all their structural injuries, from a world forty million years dead. I do not recall whether I mentioned that upon checking up the canine bodies we found one dog missing. We did not think much about that till laterindeed, only Danforth and I have thought of it at all. The principal things I have been keeping back relate to the bodies, and to certain subtle points which may or may not lend a hideous and incredible kind of rationale to the apparent chaos. At the time, I tried to keep the men's minds off those points; for it was so much simplerso much more normalto lay everything to an outbreak of madness on the part of some of Lake's party. From the look of things, that demon mountain wind must have been enough to drive any man mad in the midst of this center of all earthly mystery and desolation. The crowning abnormality, of course, was the condition of the bodiesmen and dogs alike. They had all been in some terrible kind of conflict, and were torn and mangled in fiendish and altogether inexplicable ways. Death, so far as we could judge, had in each case come from strangulation or laceration. The dogs had evidently started the trouble, for the state of their illbuilt corral bore witness to its forcible breakage from within. It had been set some distance from the camp because of the hatred of the animals for those hellish archan organisms, but the precaution seemed to have been taken in vain. When left alone in that monstrous wind, behind flimsy walls of insufficient height, they must have stampededwhether from the wind itself, or from some subtle, increasing odor emitted by the nightmare specimens, one could not say. But whatever had happened, it was hideous and revolting enough. Perhaps I had better put squeamishness aside and tell the worst at lastthough with a categorical statement of opinion, based on the firsthand observations and most rigid deductions of both Danforth and myself, that the then missing Gedney was in no way responsible for the loathsome horrors we found. I have said that the bodies were frightfully mangled. Now I must add that some were incised and subtracted from in the most curious, coldblooded, and inhuman fashion. It was the same with dogs and men. All the healthier, fatter bodies, quadrupedal or bipedal, had had their most solid masses of tissue cut out and removed, as by a careful butcher; and around them was a strange sprinkling of salttaken from the ravaged provision chests on the planeswhich conjured up the most horrible associations. The thing had occurred in one of the crude aroplane shelters from which the plane had been dragged out, and subsequent winds had effaced all tracks which could have supplied any plausible theory. Scattered bits of clothing, roughly slashed from the human incision subjects, hinted no clues. It is useless to bring up the half impression of certain faint snow prints in one shielded corner of the ruined inclosurebecause that impression did not concern human prints at all, but was clearly mixed up with all the talk of fossil prints which poor Lake had been giving throughout the preceding weeks. One had to be careful of one's imagination in the lee of those overshadowing mountains of madness. As I have indicated, Gedney and one dog turned out to be missing in the end. When we came on that terrible shelter we had missed two dogs and two men; but the fairly unharmed dissecting tent, which we entered after investigating the monstrous graves, had something to reveal. It was not as Lake had left it, for the covered parts of the primal monstrosity had been removed from the improvised table. Indeed, we had already realized that one of the six imperfect and insanely buried things we had foundthe one with the trace of a peculiarly hateful odormust represent the collected sections of the entity which Lake had tried to analyze. On and around that laboratory table were strewn other things, and it did not take long for us to guess that those things were the carefully, though oddly and inexpertly dissected parts of one man and one dog. I shall spare the feelings of survivors by omitting mention of the man's identity. Lake's anatomical instruments were missing, but there were evidences of their careful cleansing. The gasoline stove was also gone, though around it we found a curious litter of matches. We buried the human parts beside the other ten men, and the canine parts with the other thirtyfive dogs. Concerning the bizarre smudges on the laboratory table, and on the jumble of roughly handled illustrated books scattered near it, we were much too bewildered to speculate. This formed the worst of the camp horror, but other things were equally perplexing. The disappearance of Gedney, the one dog, the eight uninjured biological specimens, the three sledges, and certain instruments, illustrated technical and scientific books, writing materials, electric torches and batteries, food and fuel, heating apparatus, spare tents, fur suits, and the like, was utterly beyond sane conjecture; as were likewise the spatterfringed ink blots on certain pieces of paper, and the evidences of curious alien fumbling and experimentation around the planes and all other mechanical devices both at the camp and at the boring. The dogs seemed to abhor this oddly disordered machinery. Then, too, there was the upsetting of the larder, the disappearance of certain staples, and the jarringly comical heap of tin cans pried open in the most unlikely ways and at the most unlikely places. The profusion of scattered matches, intact, broken, or spent, formed another minor enigmaas did the two or three tent cloths and fur suits which we found lying about with peculiar and unorthodox slashings conceivably due to clumsy efforts at unimaginable adaptations. The maltreatment of the human and canine bodies, and the crazy burial of the damaged archan specimens, were all of a piece with this apparent disintegrative madness. In view of just such an eventuality as the present one, we carefully photographed all the main evidences of insane disorder at the camp; and shall use the prints to buttress our pleas against the departure of the proposed StarkweatherMoore Expedition. Our first act after finding the bodies in the shelter was to photograph and open the row of insane graves with the fivepointed snow mounds. We could not help noticing the resemblance of these monstrous mounds, with their clusters of grouped dots, to poor Lake's descriptions of the strange greenish soapstones; and when we came on some of the soapstones themselves in the great mineral pile we found the likeness very close indeed. The whole general formation, it must be made clear, seemed abominably suggestive of the starfish head of the archan entities; and we agreed that the suggestion must have worked potently upon the sensitized minds of Lake's overwrought party. For madnesscentering in Gedney as the only possible surviving agentwas the explanation spontaneously adopted by everybody so far as spoken utterance was concerned; though I will not be so nave as to deny that each of us may have harbored wild guesses which sanity forbade him to formulate completely. Sherman, Pabodie, and McTighe made an exhaustive aroplane cruise over all the surrounding territory in the afternoon, sweeping the horizon with field glasses in quest of Gedney and of the various missing things; but nothing came to light. The party reported that the titanbarrier range extended endlessly to right and left alike, without any diminution in height or essential structure. On some of the peaks, though, the regular cube and rampart formations were bolder and plainer, having doubly fantastic similitudes to Roerichpainted Asian hill ruins. The distribution of cryptical cave mouths on the black snowdenuded summits seemed roughly even as far as the range could be traced. In spite of all the prevailing horrors we were left with enough sheer scientific zeal and adventurousness to wonder about the unknown realm beyond those mysterious mountains. As our guarded messages stated, we rested at midnight after our day of terror and bafflementbut not without a tentative plan for one or more rangecrossing altitude flights in a lightened plane with arial camera and geologist's outfit, beginning the following morning. It was decided that Danforth and I try it first, and we awaked at seven a.m. intending an early trip; though heavy windsmentioned in our brief bulletin to the outside worlddelayed our start till nearly nine o'clock. I have already repeated the noncommittal story we told the men at campand relayed outsideafter our return sixteen hours later. It is now my terrible duty to amplify this account by filling in the merciful blanks with hints of what we really saw in that hidden transmontane worldhints of the revelations which have finally driven Danforth to a nervous collapse. I wish he would add a really frank word about the thing which he thinks he alone saweven though it was probably a nervous delusionand which was perhaps the last straw that put him where he is; but he is firm against that. All I can do is to repeat his later disjointed whispers about what set him shrieking as the plane soared back through the windtortured mountain pass after that real and tangible shock which I shared. This will form my last word. If the plain signs of surviving elder horrors in what I disclose be not enough to keep others from meddling with the inner antarcticor at least from prying too deeply beneath the surface of that ultimate waste of forbidden secrets and unhuman, oncursed desolationthe responsibility for unnamable and perhaps immeasurable evils will not be mine. Danforth and I, studying the notes made by Pabodie in his afternoon flight and checking up with a sextant, had calculated that the lowest available pass in the range lay somewhat to the right of us, within sight of camp, and about twentythree thousand or twentyfour thousand feet above sealevel. For this point, then, we first headed in the lightened plane as we embarked on our flight of discovery. The camp itself, on foothills which sprang from a high continental plateau, was some twelve thousand feet in altitude; hence the actual height increase necessary was not so vast as it might seem. Nevertheless we were acutely conscious of the rarefied air and intense cold as we rose; for, on account of visibility conditions, we had to leave the cabin windows open. We were dressed, of course, in our heaviest furs. As we drew near the forbidding peaks, dark and sinister above the line of crevasseriven snow and interstitial glaciers, we noticed more and more the curiously regular formations clinging to the slopes; and thought again of the strange Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich. The ancient and windweathered rock strata fully verified all of Lake's bulletins, and proved that these pinnacles had been towering up in exactly the same way since a surprisingly early time in earth's historyperhaps over fifty million years. How much higher they had once been, it was futile to guess; but everything about this strange region pointed to obscure atmospheric influences unfavorable to change, and calculated to retard the usual climatic processes of rock disintegration. But it was the mountainside tangle of regular cubes, ramparts, and cave mouths which fascinated and disturbed us most. I studied them with a field glass and took arial photographs while Danforth drove; and at times I relieved him at the controlsthough my aviation knowledge was purely an amateur'sin order to let him use the binoculars. We could easily see that much of the material of the things was a lightish archan quartzite, unlike any formation visible over broad areas of the general surface; and that their regularity was extreme and uncanny to an extent which poor Lake had scarcely hinted. As he had said, their edges were crumbled and rounded from untold ons of savage weathering; but their preternatural solidity and tough material had saved them from obliteration. Many parts, especially those closest to the slopes, seemed identical in substance with the surrounding rock surface. The whole arrangement looked like the ruins of Macchu Picchu in the Andes, or the primal foundation walls of Kish as dug up by the OxfordField Museum Expedition in 1929; and both Danforth and I obtained that occasional impression of separate Cyclopean blocks which Lake had attributed to his flightcompanion Carroll. How to account for such things in this place was frankly beyond me, and I felt queerly humbled as a geologist. Igneous formations often have strange regularitieslike the famous Giants' Causeway in Irelandbut this stupendous range, despite Lake's original suspicion of smoking cones, was above all else nonvolcanic in evident structure. The curious cave mouths, near which the odd formation seemed most abundant, presented another, albeit a lesser puzzle because of their regularity of outline. They were, as Lake's bulletin had said, often approximately square or semicircular; as if the natural orifices had been shaped to greater symmetry by some magic hand. Their numerousness and wide distribution were remarkable, and suggested that the whole region was honeycombed with tunnels dissolved out of limestone strata. Such glimpses as we secured did not extend far within the caverns, but we saw that they were apparently clear of stalactites and stalagmites. Outside, those parts of the mountain slopes adjoining the apertures seemed invariably smooth and regular; and Danforth thought that the slight cracks and pittings of the weathering tended toward unusual patterns. Filled as he was with the horrors and strangenesses discovered at the camp, he hinted that the pittings vaguely resembled those baffling groups of dots sprinkled over the primeval greenish soapstones, so hideously duplicated on the madly conceived snow mounds above those six buried monstrosities. We had risen gradually in flying over the higher foothills and along toward the relatively low pass we had selected. As we advanced we occasionally looked down at the snow and ice of the land route, wondering whether we could have attempted the trip with the simpler equipment of earlier days. Somewhat to our surprise we saw that the terrain was far from difficult as such things go; and that despite the crevasses and other bad spots it would not have been likely to deter the sledges of a Scott, a Shackleton, or an Amundsen. Some of the glaciers appeared to lead up to windbared passes with unusual continuity, and upon reaching our chosen pass we found that its case formed no exception.

Our sensations of tense expectancy as we prepared to round the crest and peer out over an untrodden world can hardly be described on paper; even though we had no cause to think the regions beyond the range essentially different from those already seen and traversed. The touch of evil mystery in these barrier mountains, and in the beckoning sea of opalescent sky glimpsed betwixt their summits, was a highly subtle and attenuated matter not to be explained in literal words. Rather was it an affair of vague psychological symbolism and sthetic associationa thing mixed up with exotic poetry and paintings, and with archaic myths lurking in shunned and forbidden volumes. Even the wind's burden held a peculiar strain of conscious malignity; and for a second it seemed that the composite sound included a bizarre musical whistling, or piping over a wide range as the blast swept in and out of the omnipresent and resonant cave mouths. There was a cloudy note of reminiscent repulsion in this sound, as complex and unplaceable as any of the other dark impressions. We were now, after a slow ascent, at a height of twentythree thousand five hundred and seventy feet according to the aneroid; and had left the region of clinging snow definitely below us. Up here were only dark, bare rock slopes and the start of roughribbed glaciersbut with those provocative cubes, ramparts, and echoing cave mouths to add a portent of the unnatural, the fantastic, and the dreamlike. Looking along the line of high peaks, I thought I could see the one mentioned by poor Lake, with a rampart exactly on top. It seemed to be half lost in a queer antarctic hazesuch a haze, perhaps, as had been responsible for Lake's early notion of volcanism. The pass loomed directly before us, smooth and windswept between its jagged and malignly frowning pylons. Beyond it was a sky fretted with swirling vapors and lighted by the low polar sunthe sky of that mysterious farther realm upon which we felt no human eye had ever gazed. A few more feet of altitude and we would behold that realm. Danforth and I, unable to speak except in shouts amidst the howling, piping wind that raced through the pass and added to the noise of the unmuffled engines, exchanged eloquent glances. And then, having gained those last few feet, we did indeed stare across the momentous divide and over the unsampled secrets of an elder and utterly alien earth. V. I think that both of us simultaneously cried out in mixed awe, wonder, terror, and disbelief in our own senses as we finally cleared the pass and saw what lay beyond. Of course, we must have had some natural theory in the back of our heads to steady our faculties for the moment. Probably we thought of such things as the grotesquely weathered stones of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, or the fantastically symmetrical windcarved rocks of the Arizona desert. Perhaps we even half thought the sight a mirage like that we had seen the morning before on first approaching those mountains of madness. We must have had some such normal notions to fall back upon as our eyes swept that limitless, tempestscarred plateau and grasped the almost endless labyrinth of colossal, regular, and geometrically eurythmic stone masses which reared their crumbled and pitted crests above a glacial sheet not more than forty or fifty feet deep at its thickest, and in places obviously thinner. The effect of the monstrous sight was indescribable, for some fiendish violation of known natural law seemed certain at the outset. Here, on a hellishly ancient tableland fully twenty thousand feet high, and in a climate deadly to habitation since a prehuman age not less than five hundred thousand years ago, there stretched nearly to the vision's limit a tangle of orderly stone which only the desperation of mental selfdefense could possibly attribute to any but a conscious and artificial cause. The effect of the monstrous sight was indescribable! Some fiendish violation of natural law! We had previously dismissed, so far as serious thought was concerned, any theory that the cubes and ramparts of the mountainsides were other than natural in origin. How could they be otherwise, when man himself could scarcely have been differentiated from the great apes at the time when this region succumbed to the present unbroken reign of glacial death? Yet now the sway of reason seemed irrefutably shaken, for this Cyclopean maze of squared, curved, and angled blocks had features which cut off all comfortable refuge. It was, very clearly, the blasphemous city of the mirage in stark, objective, and ineluctable reality. That damnable portent had had a material basis after allthere had been some horizontal stratum of ice dust in the upper air, and this shocking stone survival had projected its image across the mountains according to the simple laws of reflection. Of course, the phantom had been twisted and exaggerated, and had contained things which the real source did not contain; yet now, as we saw that real source, we thought it even more hideous and menacing than its distant image. It was, very clearly, the blasphemous city of the miragein stark, objective reality! Only the incredible, unhuman massiveness of these vast stone towers and ramparts had saved the frightful thing from utter annihilation in the hundreds of thousandsperhaps millionsof years it had brooded there amidst the blasts of a bleak upland. "Corona MundiRoof of the World" All sorts of fantastic phrases sprang to our lips as we looked dizzily down at the unbelievable spectacle. I thought again of the eldritch primal myths that had so persistently haunted me since my first sight of this dead antarctic worldof the demonic plateau of Leng, of the MiGo, or Abominable Snow Men of the Himalayas, of the Pnakotic Manuscripts with their prehuman implications, of the Cthulhu cult, of the Necronomicon, and of the Hyperborean legends of formless Tsathoggua and the worse than formless star spawn associated with that semientity. For boundless miles in every direction the thing stretched off with very little thinning; indeed, as our eyes followed it to the right and left along the base of the low, gradual foothills which separated it from the actual mountain rim, we decided that we could see no thinning at all except for an interruption at the left of the pass through which we had come. We had merely struck, at random, a limited part of something of incalculable extent. The foothills were more sparsely sprinkled with grotesque stone structures, linking the terrible city to the already familiar cubes and ramparts which evidently formed its mountain outposts. These latter, as well as the queer cave mouths, were as thick on the inner as on the outer sides of the mountains. The nameless stone labyrinth consisted, for the most part, of walls from ten to one hundred and fifty feet in iceclear height, and of a thickness varying from five to ten feet. It was composed mostly of prodigious blocks of dark primordial slate, schist, and sandstoneblocks in many cases as large as 4 6 8 feetthough in several places it seemed to be carved out of a solid, uneven bed rock of preCambrian slate. The buildings were far from equal in size, there being innumerable honeycomb arrangements of enormous extent as well as smaller separate structures. The general shape of these things tended to be conical, pyramidal, or terraced; though there were many perfect cylinders, perfect cubes, clusters of cubes, and other rectangular forms, and a peculiar sprinkling of angled edifices whose fivepointed ground plan roughly suggested modern fortifications. The builders had made constant and expert use of the principle of the arch, and domes had probably existed in the city's heyday. The whole tangle was monstrously weathered, and the glacial surface from where the towers projected was strewn with fallen blocks and immemorial dbris. Where the glaciation was transparent we could see the lower parts of the gigantic piles, and we noticed the icepreserved stone bridges which connected the different towers at varying distances above the ground. On the exposed walls we could detect the scarred places where other and higher bridges of the same sort had existed. Closer inspection revealed countless largish windows; some of which were closed with shutters of a petrified material originally wood, though most gaped open in a sinister and menacing fashion. Many of the ruins, of course, were roofless, and with uneven though windrounded upper edges; whilst others, of a more sharply conical or pyramidal model or else protected by higher surrounding structures, preserved intact outlines despite the omnipresent crumbling and pitting. With the field glass we could barely make out what seemed to be sculptural decorations in horizontal bandsdecorations including those curious groups of dots whose presence on the ancient soapstones now assumed a vastly larger significance. In many places the buildings were totally ruined and the ice sheet deeply riven from various geologic causes. In other places the stonework was worn down to the very level of the glaciation. One broad swath, extending from the plateau's interior to a cleft in the foothills about a mile to the left of the pass we had traversed, was wholly free from buildings. It probably represented, we concluded, the course of some great river which in Tertiary timesmillions of years agohad poured through the city and into some prodigious subterranean abyss of the great barrier range. Certainly, this was above all a region of caves, gulfs, and underground secrets beyond human penetration. Looking back to our sensations, and recalling our dazedness at viewing this monstrous survival from ons we had thought prehuman, I can only wonder that we preserved the semblance of equilibrium which we did. Of course, we knew that somethingchronology, scientific theory, or our own consciousnesswas woefully awry; yet we kept enough poise to guide the plane, observe many things quite minutely, and take a careful series of photographs which may yet serve both us and the world in good stead. In my case, ingrained scientific habit may have helped; for above all my bewilderment and sense of menace there burned a dominant curiosity to fathom more of this ageold secretto know what sort of beings had built and lived in this incalculably gigantic place, and what relation to the general world of its time or of other times so unique a concentration of life could have had. For this place could be no ordinary city. It must have formed the primary nucleus and center of some archaic and unbelievable chapter of earth's history whose outward ramifications, recalled only dimly in the most obscure and distorted myths, had vanished utterly amidst the chaos of terrene convulsions long before any human race we know had shambled out of apedom. Here sprawled a Palogan megalopolis compared with which the fabled Atlantis and Lemuria, Commoriom and Uzuldaroum, and Olatho in the land of Lomar are recent things of todaynot even of yesterday; a megalopolis ranking with such whispered prehuman blasphemies as Valusia, R'lyeh, Ib in the land of Mnar, and the Nameless City of Arabia Deserta. As we flew above that tangle of stark Titan towers my imagination sometimes escaped all bounds and roved aimlessly in realms of fantastic associationseven weaving links betwixt this lost world and some of my own wildest dreams concerning the mad horror at the camp. The plane's fuel tank, in the interest of greater lightness, had been only partly filled; hence we now had to exert caution in our explorations. Even so, however, we covered an enormous extent of groundor rather, airafter swooping down to a level where the wind became virtually negligible. There seemed to be no limit to the mountain range, or to the length of the frightful stone city which bordered its inner foothills. Fifty miles of flight in each direction showed no major change in the labyrinth of rock and masonry that clawed up corpselike through the eternal ice. There were, though, some highly absorbing diversifications; such as the carvings on the canyon where that broad river had once pierced the foothills and approached its sinking place in the great range. The headlands at the stream's entrance had been boldly carved into Cyclopean pylons; and something about the ridgy, barrelshaped designs stirred up oddly vague, hateful, and confusing semiremembrances in both Danforth and me. We also came upon several starshaped open spaces, evidently public squares, and noted various undulations in the terrain. Where a sharp hill rose, it was generally hollowed out into some sort of rambling stone edifice; but there were at least two exceptions. Of these latter, one was too badly weathered to disclose what had been on the jutting eminence, while the other still bore a fantastic conical monument carved out of the solid rock and roughly resembling such things as the wellknown Snake Tomb in the ancient valley of Petra. Flying inland from the mountains, we discovered that the city was not of infinite width, even though its length along the foothills seemed endless. After about thirty miles the grotesque stone buildings began to thin out, and in ten more miles we came to an unbroken waste virtually without signs of sentient artifice. The course of the river beyond the city seemed marked by a broad, depressed line, while the land assumed a somewhat greater ruggedness, seeming to slope slightly upward as it receded in the misthazed west. So far we had made no landing, yet to leave the plateau without an attempt at entering some of the monstrous structures would have been inconceivable. Accordingly, we decided to find a smooth place on the foothills near our navigable pass, there grounding the plane and preparing to do some exploration on foot. Though these gradual slopes were partly covered with a scattering of ruins, low flying soon disclosed an ample number of possible landing places. Selecting that nearest to the pass, since our next flight would be across the great range and back to camp, we succeeded about twelve thirty p.m. in coming down on a smooth, hard snow field wholly devoid of obstacles and well adapted to a swift and favorable takeoff later on. It did not seem necessary to protect the plane with a snow banking for so brief a time and in so comfortable an absence of high winds at this level; hence we merely saw that the landing skis were safely lodged, and that the vital parts of the mechanism were guarded against the cold. For our foot journey we discarded the heaviest of our flying furs, and took with us a small outfit consisting of pocket compass, hand camera, light provisions, voluminous notebooks and paper, geologist's hammer and chisel, specimen bags, coil of climbing rope, and powerful electric torches with extra batteries; this equipment having been carried in the plane on the chance that we might be able to effect a landing, take ground pictures, make drawings and topographical sketches, and obtain rock specimens from some bare slope, outcropping, or mountain cave. Fortunately, we had a supply of extra paper to tear up, place in a spare specimen bag, and use on the ancient principle of hare and hounds for marking our course in any interior mazes we might be able to penetrate. This had been brought in case we found some cave system with air quiet enough to allow such a rapid and easy method in place of the usual rockchipping method of trail blazing. Walking cautiously downhill over the crusted snow, toward the stupendous stone labyrinth that loomed against the opalescent west, we felt almost as keen a sense of imminent marvels as we had felt on approaching the unfathomed mountain pass four hours previously. True, we had become visually familiar with the incredible secret concealed by the barrier peaks; yet the prospect of actually entering primordial walls reared by conscious beings perhaps millions of years agobefore any known race of men could have existedwas none the less awesome and potentially terrible in its implications of cosmic abnormality. Though the thinness of the air at this prodigious altitude made exertion somewhat more difficult than usual, both Danforth and I found ourselves bearing up very well, and felt equal to almost any task which might fall to our lot. It took only a few steps to bring us to a shapeless ruin worn level with the snow, while ten or fifteen rods farther on there was a huge, roofless rampart still complete in its gigantic fivepointed outline, and rising to an irregular height of ten or eleven feet. For this latter we headed; and when at last we were actually able to touch its weathered Cyclopean blocks, we felt that we had established an unprecedented and almost blasphemous link with forgotten ons normally closed to our species. This rampart, shaped like a star and perhaps three hundred feet from point to point, was built of Jurassic sandstone blocks of irregular size, averaging 6 x 8 feet in surface. There was a row of arched loopholes or windows about four feet wide and five feet high, spaced quite symmetrically along the points of the star and at its inner angles, and with the bottoms about four feet from the glaciated surface. Looking through these, we could see that the masonry was fully five feet thick, that there were no partitions remaining within, and that there were traces of banded carvings or basreliefs on the interior wallsfacts we had indeed guessed before, when flying low over this rampart and others like it. Though lower parts must have originally existed, all traces of such things were now wholly obscured by the deep layer of ice and snow at this point. We crawled through one of the windows and vainly tried to decipher the nearly effaced mural designs, but did not attempt to disturb the glaciated floor. Our orientation flights had indicated that many buildings in the city proper were less icechoked, and that we might perhaps find wholly clear interiors leading down to the true ground level if we entered those structures still roofed at the top. Before we left the rampart we photographed it carefully, and studied its mortarless Cyclopean masonry with complete bewilderment. We wished that Pabodie were present, for his engineering knowledge might have helped us guess how such titanic blocks could have been handled in that unbelievably remote age when the city and its outskirts were built up. The halfmile walk downhill to the actual city, with the upper wind shrieking vainly and savagely through the skyward peaks in the background, was something of which the smallest details will always remain engraved on my mind. Only in fantastic nightmares could any human beings but Danforth and me conceive such optical effects. Between us and the churning vapors of the west lay that monstrous tangle of dark stone towers, its outr and incredible forms impressing us afresh at every new angle of vision. It was a mirage in solid stone, and were it not for the photographs I would still doubt that such a thing could be. The general type of masonry was identical with that of the rampart we had examined; but the extravagant shapes which this masonry took in its urban manifestations were past all description. Even the pictures illustrate only one or two phases of its endless variety, preternatural massiveness, and utterly alien exoticism. There were geometrical forms for which an Euclid could scarcely find a namecones of all degrees of irregularity and truncation, terraces of every sort of provocative disproportion, shafts with odd bulbous enlargements, broken columns in curious groups, and fivepointed or fiveridged arrangements of mad grotesqueness. As we drew nearer we could see beneath certain transparent parts of the ice sheet, and detect some of the tubular stone bridges that connected the crazily sprinkled structures at various heights. Of orderly streets there seemed to be none, the only broad open swath being a mile to the left, where the ancient river had doubtless flowed through the town into the mountains. Our field glasses showed the external, horizontal bands of nearly effaced sculptures and dot groups to be very prevalent, and we could half imagine what the city must once have looked likeeven though most of the roofs and tower tops had necessarily perished. As a whole, it had been a complex tangle of twisted lanes and alleys, all of them deep canyons, and some little better than tunnels because of the overhanging masonry or overarching bridges. Now, outspread below us, it loomed like a dream phantasy against a westward mist through whose northern end the low, reddish antarctic sun of early afternoon was struggling to shine; and when, for a moment, that sun encountered a denser obstruction and plunged the scene into temporary shadow, the effect was subtly menacing in a way I can never hope to depict. Even the faint howling and piping of the unfelt wind in the great mountain passes behind us took on a wilder note of purposeful malignity. The last stage of our descent to the town was unusually steep and abrupt, and a rock outcropping at the edge where the grade changed led us to think that an artificial terrace had once existed there. Under the glaciation, we believed, there must be a flight of steps or its equivalent. When at last we plunged into the town itself, clambering over fallen masonry and shrinking from the oppressive nearness and dwarfing height of omnipresent crumbling and pitted walls, our sensations again became such that I marvel at the amount of selfcontrol we retained. Danforth was frankly jumpy, and began making some offensively irrelevant speculations about the horror at the campwhich I resented all the more because I could not help sharing certain conclusions forced upon us by many features of this morbid survival from nightmare antiquity. The speculations worked on his imagination, too; for in one placewhere a dbrislittered alley turned a sharp cornerhe insisted that he saw faint traces of ground markings which he did not like; whilst elsewhere he stopped to listen to a subtle, imaginary sound from some undefined pointa muffled musical piping, he said, not unlike that of the wind in the mountain caves, yet somehow disturbingly different. The ceaseless fivepointedness of the surrounding architecture and of the few distinguishable mural arabesques had a dimly sinister suggestiveness we could not escape, and gave us a touch of terrible subconscious certainty concerning the primal entities which had reared and dwelt in this unhallowed place. Nevertheless, our scientific and adventurous souls were not wholly dead, and we mechanically carried out our program of chipping specimens from all the different rock types represented in the masonry. We wished a rather full set in order to draw better conclusions regarding the age of the place. Nothing in the great outer walls seemed to date from later than the Jurassic and Comanchean periods, nor was any piece of stone in the entire place of a greater recency than the Pliocene age. In stark certainty, we were wandering amidst a death which had reigned at least five hundred thousand years, and in all probability even longer. As we proceeded through this maze of stoneshadowed twilight we stopped at all available apertures to study interiors and investigate entrance possibilities. Some were above our reach, whilst others led only into icechoked ruins as unroofed and barren as the rampart on the hill. One, though spacious and inviting, opened on a seemingly bottomless abyss without visible means of descent. Now and then we had a chance to study the petrified wood of a surviving shutter, and were impressed by the fabulous antiquity implied in the still discernible grain. These things had come from Mesozoic gymnosperms and conifersespecially Cretaceous cycadsand from fan palms and early angiosperms of plainly Tertiary date. Nothing definitely later than the Pliocene could be discovered. In the placing of these shutterswhose edges showed the former presence of queer and longvanished hingesusage seemed to be variedsome being on the outer and some on the inner side of the deep embrasures. They seemed to have become wedged in place, thus surviving the rusting of their former and probably metallic fixtures and fastenings. After a time we came across a row of windowsin the bulges of a colossal fiveedged cone of undamaged apexwhich led into a vast, wellpreserved room with stone flooring; but these were too high in the room to permit descent without a rope. We had a rope with us, but did not wish to bother with this twentyfoot drop unless obliged toespecially in this thin plateau air where great demands were made upon the heart action. This enormous room was probably a hall or concourse of some sort, and our electric torches showed bold, distinct, and potentially startling sculptures arranged round the walls in broad, horizontal bands separated by equally broad strips of conventional arabesques. We took careful note of this spot, planning to enter here unless a more easily gained interior was encountered. Finally, though, we did encounter exactly the opening we wished; an archway about six feet wide and ten feet high, marking the former end of an arial bridge which had spanned an alley about five feet above the present level of glaciation. These archways, of course, were flush with upperstory floors, and in this case one of the floors still existed. The building thus accessible was a series of rectangular terraces on our left facing westward. That across the alley, where the other archway yawned, was a decrepit cylinder with no windows and with a curious bulge about ten feet above the aperture. It was totally dark inside, and the archway seemed to open on a well of illimitable emptiness. Heaped dbris made the entrance to the vast lefthand building doubly easy, yet for a moment we hesitated before taking advantage of the longwished chance. For though we had penetrated into this tangle of archaic mystery, it required fresh resolution to carry us actually inside a complete and surviving building of a fabulous elder world whose nature was becoming more and more hideously plain to us. In the end, however, we made the plunge, and scrambled up over the rubble into the gaping embrasure. The floor beyond was of great slate slabs, and seemed to form the outlet of a long, high corridor with sculptured walls. Observing the many inner archways which led off from it, and realizing the probable complexity of the nest of apartments within, we decided that we must begin our system of hareandhound trail blazing. Hitherto our compasses, together with frequent glimpses of the vast mountain range between the towers in our rear, had been enough to prevent our losing our way; but from now on, the artificial substitute would be necessary. Accordingly we reduced our extra paper to shreds of suitable size, placed these in a bag to be carried by Danforth, and prepared to use them as economically as safety would allow. This method would probably gain us immunity from straying, since there did not appear to be any strong air currents inside the primordial masonry. If such should develop, or if our paper supply should give out, we could of course fall back on the more secure though more tedious and retarding method of rock chipping. Just how extensive a territory we had opened up, it was impossible to guess without a trial. The close and frequent connection of the different buildings made it likely that we might cross from one to another on bridges underneath the ice, except where impeded by local collapses and geologic rifts, for very little glaciation seemed to have entered the massive constructions. Almost all the areas of transparent ice had revealed the submerged windows as tightly shuttered, as if the town had been left in that uniform state until the glacial sheet came to crystallize the lower part for all succeeding time. Indeed, one gained a curious impression that this place had been deliberately closed and deserted in some dim, bygone on, rather than overwhelmed by any sudden calamity or even gradual decay. Had the coming of the ice been foreseen, and had a nameless population left en masse to seek a less doomed abode? The precise physiographic conditions attending the formation of the ice sheet at this point would have to wait for later solution. It had not, very plainly, been a grinding drive. Perhaps the pressure of accumulated snows had been responsible, and perhaps some flood from the river, or from the bursting of some ancient glacial dam in the great range, had helped to create the special state now observable. Imagination could conceive almost anything in connection with this place. VI. It would be cumbrous to give a detailed, consecutive account of our wanderings inside that cavernous, ondead honeycomb of primal masonrythat monstrous lair of elder secrets which now echoed for the first time, after uncounted epochs, to the tread of human feet. This is especially true because so much of the horrible drama and revelation came from a mere study of the omnipresent mural carvings. Our flashlight photographs of those carvings will do much toward proving the truth of what we are now disclosing, and it is lamentable that we had not a larger film supply with us. As it was, we made crude notebook sketches of certain salient features after all our films were used up. The building which we had entered was one of great size and elaborateness, and gave us an impressive notion of the architecture of that nameless geologic past. The inner partitions were less massive than the outer walls, but on the lower levels were excellently preserved. Labyrinthine complexity, involving curiously irregular differences in floor levels, characterized the entire arrangement; and we should certainly have been lost at the very outset but for the trail of torn paper left behind us. We decided to explore the more decrepit upper parts first of all, hence climbed aloft in the maze for a distance of some one hundred feet, to where the topmost tier of chambers yawned snowily and ruinously open to the polar sky. Ascent was effected over the steep, transversely ribbed stone ramps or inclined planes which everywhere served in lieu of stairs. The rooms we encountered were of all imaginable shapes and proportions, ranging from fivepointed stars to triangles and perfect cubes. It might be safe to say that their general average was about 30 x 30 feet in floor area, and twenty feet in height, though many larger apartments existed. After thoroughly examining the upper regions and the glacial level we descended, story by story, into the submerged part, where indeed we soon saw we were in a continuous maze of connected chambers and passages probably leading over unlimited areas outside this particular building. The Cyclopean massiveness and giganticism of everything about us became curiously oppressive; and there was something vaguely but deeply unhuman in all the contours, dimensions, proportions, decorations, and constructional nuances of the blasphemously archaic stonework. We soon realized, from what the carvings revealed, that this monstrous city was many million years old. We cannot yet explain the engineering principles used in the anomalous balancing and adjustment of the vast rock masses, though the function of the arch was clearly much relied on. The rooms we visited were wholly bare of all portable contents, a circumstance which sustained our belief in the city's deliberate desertion. The prime decorative feature was the almost universal system of mural sculpture, which tended to run in continuous horizontal bands three feet wide and arranged from floor to ceiling in alternation with bands of equal width given over to geometrical arabesques. There were exceptions to this rule of arrangement, but its preponderance was overwhelming.

Often, however, a series of smooth cartouches containing oddly patterned groups of dots would be sunk along one of the arabesque bands. The technique, we soon saw, was mature, accomplished, and sthetically evolved to the highest degree of civilized mastery, though utterly alien in every detail to any known art tradition of the human race. In delicacy of execution no sculpture I have ever seen could approach it. The minutest details of elaborate vegetation, or of animal life, were rendered with astonishing vividness despite the bold scale of the carvings; whilst the conventional designs were marvels of skillful intricacy. The arabesques displayed a profound use of mathematical principles, and were made up of obscurely symmetrical curves and angles based on the quantity of five. The pictorial bands followed a highly formalized tradition, and involved a peculiar treatment of perspective, but had an artistic force that moved us profoundly notwithstanding the intervening gulf of vast geologic periods. Their method of design hinged on a singular juxtaposition of the cross section with the twodimensional silhouette, and embodied an analytical psychology beyond that of any known race of antiquity. It is useless to try to compare this art with any represented in our museums. Those who see our photographs will probably find its closest analogue in certain grotesque conceptions of the most daring futurists. The arabesque tracery consisted altogether of depressed lines, whose depth on unweathered walls varied from one to two inches. When cartouches with dot groups appearedevidently as inscriptions in some unknown and primordial language and alphabetthe depression of the smooth surface was perhaps an inch and a half, and of the dots perhaps a half inch more. The pictorial bands were in countersunk low relief, their background being depressed about two inches from the original wall surface. In some specimens marks of a former coloration could be detected, though for the most part the untold ons had disintegrated and banished any pigments which may have been applied. The more one studied the marvelous technique the more one admired the things. Beneath their strict conventionalization one could grasp the minute and accurate observation and graphic skill of the artists; and indeed, the very conventions themselves served to symbolize and accentuate the real essence or vital differentiation of every object delineated. We felt, too, that besides these recognizable excellences there were others lurking beyond the reach of our perceptions. Certain touches here and there gave vague hints of latent symbols and stimuli which another mental and emotional background, and a fuller or different sensory equipment, might have made of profound and poignant significance to us. The subject matter of the sculptures obviously came from the life of the vanished epoch of their creation, and contained a large proportion of evident history. It is this abnormal historicmindedness of the primal racea chance circumstance operating, through coincidence, miraculously in our favorwhich made the carvings so awesomely informative to us, and which caused us to place their photography and transcription above all other considerations. In certain rooms the dominant arrangement was varied by the presence of maps, astronomical charts, and other scientific designs on an enlarged scalethese things giving a nave and terrible corroboration to what we gathered from the pictorial friezes and dados. In hinting at what the whole revealed, I can only hope that my account will not arouse a curiosity greater than sane caution on the part of those who believe me at all. It would be tragic if any were to be allured to that realm of death and horror by the very warning meant to discourage them. Interrupting these sculptured walls were high windows and massive twelvefoot doorways; both now and then retaining the petrified wooden plankselaborately carved and polishedof the actual shutters and doors. All metal fixtures had long ago vanished, but some of the doors remained in place and had to be forced aside as we progressed from room to room. Window frames with odd transparent panesmostly ellipticalsurvived here and there, though in no considerable quantity. There were also frequent niches of great magnitude, generally empty, but once in a while containing some bizarre object carved from green soapstone which was either broken or perhaps held too inferior to warrant removal. Other apertures were undoubtedly connected with bygone mechanical facilitiesheating, lighting, and the likeof a sort suggested in many of the carvings. Ceilings tended to be plain, but had sometimes been inlaid with green soapstone or other tiles, mostly fallen now. Floors were also paved with such tiles, though plain stonework predominated. As I have said, all furniture and other movables were absent; but the sculptures gave a clear idea of the strange devices which had once filled these tomblike, echoing rooms. Above the glacial sheet the floors were generally thick with detritus, litter, and dbris, but farther down this condition decreased. In some of the lower chambers and corridors there was little more than gritty dust or ancient incrustations, while occasional areas had an uncanny air of newly swept immaculateness. Of course, where rifts or collapses had occurred, the lower levels were as littered as the upper ones. A central courtas we had seen in other structures, from the airsaved the inner regions from total darkness; so that we seldom had to use our electric torches in the upper rooms except when studying sculptured details. Below the ice cap, however, the twilight deepened; and in many parts of the tangled ground level there was an approach to absolute blackness. To form even a rudimentary idea of our thoughts and feelings as we penetrated this onsilent maze of unhuman masonry one must correlate a hopelessly bewildering chaos of fugitive moods, memories, and impressions. The sheer appalling antiquity and lethal desolation of the place were enough to overwhelm almost any sensitive person, but added to these elements were the recent unexplained horror at the camp, and the revelations all too soon effected by the terrible mural sculptures around us. The moment we came upon a perfect section of carving, where no ambiguity of interpretation could exist, it took only a brief study to give us the hideous trutha truth which it would be nave to claim Danforth and I had not independently suspected before, though we had carefully refrained from even hinting it to each other. There could now be no further merciful doubt about the nature of the beings which had built and inhabited this monstrous dead city millions of years ago, when man's ancestors were primitive archaic mammals, and vast Dinosauria roamed the tropical steppes of Europe and Asia. We had previously clung to a desperate alternative and insistedeach to himselfthat the omnipresence of the fivepointed motif meant only some cultural or religious exaltation of the archan natural object which had so patently embodied the quality of fivepointedness; as the decorative motifs of Minoan Crete exalted the sacred bull, those of Egypt the scarabus, those of Rome the wolf and the eagle, and those of various savage tribes some chosen totem animal. But this lone refuge was now stripped from us, and we were forced to face definitely the reasonshaking realization which the reader of these pages has doubtless long ago anticipated. I can scarcely bear to write it down in black and white even now, but perhaps that will not be necessary. The things once rearing and dwelling in this frightful masonry in the age of Dinosauria were not indeed Dinosauria, but far worse. Mere Dinosauria were new and almost brainless objectsbut the builders of the city were wise and old, and had left certain traces in rocks even then laid down well nigh a thousand million yearsrocks laid down before the true life of earth had advanced beyond plastic groups of cellsrocks laid down before the true life of earth had existed at all. They were the makers and enslavers of that life, and above all doubt the originals of the fiendish elder myths which things like the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon affrightedly hint about. They were the great "Old Ones" that had filtered down from the stars when earth was youngthe beings whose substance an alien evolution had shaped, and whose powers were such as this planet had never bred. And to think that only the day before Danforth and I had actually looked upon fragments of their millennially fossilized substanceand that poor Lake and his party had seen their complete outlines It is, of course, impossible for me to relate in proper order the stages by which we picked up what we know of that monstrous chapter of prehuman life. After the first shock of the certain revelation, we had to pause a while to recuperate, and it was fully three o'clock before we got started on our actual tour of systematic research. The sculptures in the building we entered were of relatively late dateperhaps two million years agoas checked up by geological, biological, and astronomical featuresand embodied an art which would be called decadent in comparison with that of specimens we found in older buildings, after crossing bridges under the glacial sheet. One edifice hewn from the solid rock seemed to go back forty or possibly even fifty million yearsto the lower Eocene or upper Cretaceousand contained basreliefs of an artistry surpassing anything else, with one tremendous exception, that we encountered. That was, we have since agreed, the oldest domestic structure we traversed. Were it not for the support of those flashlights soon to be made public, I would refrain from telling what I found and inferred, lest I be confined as a madman. Of course, the infinitely early parts of the patchwork talerepresenting the preterrestrial life of the starheaded beings on other planets, in other galaxies, and in other universescan readily be interpreted as the fantastic mythology of those beings themselves; yet such parts sometimes involved designs and diagrams so uncannily close to the latest findings of mathematics and astrophysics that I scarcely know what to think. Let others judge when they see the photographs I shall publish. Naturally, no one set of carvings which we encountered told more than a fraction of any connected story, nor did we even begin to come upon the various stages of that story in their proper order. Some of the vast rooms were independent units so far as their designs were concerned, whilst in other cases a continuous chronicle would be carried through a series of rooms and corridors. The best of the maps and diagrams were on the walls of a frightful abyss below even the ancient ground levela cavern perhaps two hundred feet square and sixty feet high, which had almost undoubtedly been an educational center of some sort. There were many provoking repetitions of the same material in different rooms and buildings, since certain chapters of experience, and certain summaries or phases of racial history, had evidently been favorites with different decorators or dwellers. Sometimes, though, variant versions of the same theme proved useful in settling debatable points and filling up gaps. I still wonder that we deduced so much in the short time at our disposal. Of course, we even now have only the barest outlineand much of that was obtained later on from a study of the photographs and sketches we made. It may be the effect of this later studythe revived memories and vague impressions acting in conjunction with his general sensitiveness and with that final supposed horrorglimpse whose essence he will not reveal even to mewhich has been the immediate source of Danforth's present breakdown. But it had to be; for we could not issue our warning intelligently without the fullest possible information, and the issuance of that warning is a prime necessity. Certain lingering influences in that unknown antarctic world of disordered time and alien natural law make it imperative that further exploration be discouraged. VII. The full story, so far as deciphered, will eventually appear in an official bulletin of Miskatonic University. Here I shall sketch only the salient highlights in a formless, rambling way. Myth or otherwise, the sculptures told of the coming of those starheaded things to the nascent, lifeless earth out of cosmic spacetheir coming, and the coming of many other alien entities such as at certain times embark upon spatial pioneering. They seemed able to traverse the interstellar ether on their vast membranous wingsthus oddly confirming some curious hill folklore long ago told me by an antiquarian colleague. They had lived under the sea a good deal, building fantastic cities and fighting terrific battles with nameless adversaries by means of intricate devices employing unknown principles of energy. Evidently their scientific and mechanical knowledge far surpassed man's today, though they made use of its more widespread and elaborate forms only when obliged to. Some of the sculptures suggested that they had passed through a stage of mechanized life on other planets, but had receded upon finding its effects emotionally unsatisfying. Their preternatural toughness of organization and simplicity of natural wants made them peculiarly able to live on a high plane without the more specialized fruits of artificial manufacture, and even without garments, except for occasional protection against the elements. It was under the sea, at first for food and later for other purposes, that they first created earth lifeusing available substances according to longknown methods. The more elaborate experiments came after the annihilation of various cosmic enemies. They had done the same thing on other planets, having manufactured not only necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of molding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community. These viscous masses were without doubt what Abdul Alhazred whispered about as the "Shoggoths" in his frightful Necronomicon, though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existed on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb. When the starheaded Old Ones on this planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of Shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose presence became troublesome. With the aid of the Shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, the small, low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing labyrinths of stone not unlike those which later rose on land. Indeed, the highly adaptable Old Ones had lived much on land in other parts of the universe, and probably retained many traditions of land construction. As we studied the architecture of all these sculptured Palogan cities, including that whose ondead corridors we were even then traversing, we were impressed by a curious coincidence which we have not yet tried to explain, even to ourselves. The tops of the buildings, which in the actual city around us had, of course, been weathered into shapeless ruins ages ago, were clearly displayed in the basreliefs, and showed vast clusters of needlelike spires, delicate finials on certain cone and pyramid apexes, and tiers of thin, horizontal scalloped disks capping cylindrical shafts. This was exactly what we had seen in that monstrous and portentous mirage, cast by a dead city whence such skyline features had been absent for thousands and ten of thousands of years, which loomed on our ignorant eyes across the unfathomed mountains of madness as we first approached poor Lake's illfated camp. Of the life of the Old Ones, both under the sea and after part of them migrated to land, volumes could be written. Those in shallow water had continued the fullest use of the eyes at the ends of their five main head tentacles, and had practiced the arts of sculpture and of writing in quite the usual waythe writing accomplished with a stylus on waterproof waxen surfaces. Those lower down in the ocean depths, though they used a curious phosphorescent organism to furnish light, pieced out their vision with obscure special senses operating through the prismatic cilia on their headssenses which rendered all the Old Ones partly independent of light in emergencies. Their forms of sculpture and writing had changed curiously during the descent, embodying certain apparently chemical coating processesprobably to secure phosphorescencewhich the basreliefs could not make clear to us. The beings moved in the sea partly by swimmingusing the lateral crinoid armsand partly by wriggling with the lower tier of tentacles containing the pseudofeet. Occasionally they accomplished long swoops with the auxiliary use of two or more sets of their fanlike folding wings. On land they locally used the pseudofeet, but now and then flew to great heights or over long distances with their wings. The many slender tentacles into which the crinoid arms branched were infinitely delicate, flexible, strong, and accurate in muscularnervous cordinationensuring the utmost skill and dexterity in all artistic and other manual operations. The toughness of the things was almost incredible. Even the terrific pressure of the deepest sea bottoms appeared powerless to harm them. Very few seemed to die at all except by violence, and their burial places were very limited. The facts that they covered their vertically inhumed dead with fivepointed inscribed mounds set up thoughts in Danforth and me which made a fresh pause and recuperation necessary after the sculptures revealed it. The toughness of the things was almost incredible. Even terrific pressures were powerless to harm them! The beings multiplied by means of sporeslike vegetable pteridophyta, as Lake had suspectedbut, owing to their prodigious toughness and longevity, and consequent lack of replacement needs, they did not encourage the largescale development of new prothallia except when they had new regions to colonize. The young matured swiftly, and received an education evidently beyond any standard we can imagine. The prevailing intellectual and sthetic life was highly evolved, and produced a tenaciously enduring set of customs and institutions which I shall describe more fully in my coming monograph. These varied slightly according to sea or land residence, but had the same foundations and essentials. Though able, like vegetables, to derive nourishment from inorganic substances; they vastly preferred organic and especially animal food. They ate uncooked marine life under the sea, but cooked their viands on land. They hunted game and raised meat herdsslaughtering with sharp weapons whose odd marks on certain fossil bones our expedition had noted. They resisted all ordinary temperatures marvelously, and in their natural state could live in water down to freezing. When the great chill of the Pleistocene drew on, howevernearly a million years agothe land dwellers had to resort to special measures, including artificial heatinguntil, at last, the deadly cold appears to have driven them back into the sea. For their prehistoric flights through cosmic space, legend said, they had absorbed certain chemicals and become almost independent of eating, breathing, or heat conditionsbut by the time of the great cold they had lost track of the method. In any case, they could not have prolonged the artificial state indefinitely without harm. Being nonpairing and semivegetable in structure, the Old Ones had no biological basis for the family phase of mammal life, but seemed to organize large households on the principles of comfortable spaceutility andas we deduced from the pictured occupations and diversions of codwellerscongenial mental association. In furnishing their homes they kept everything in the center of the huge rooms, leaving all wall spaces free for decorative treatment. Lighting, in the case of the land inhabitants, was accomplished by a device probably electrochemical in nature. Both on land and under water they used curious tables, chairs and couches like cylindrical framesfor they rested and slept upright with foldeddown tentaclesand racks for the hinged sets of dotted surfaces forming their books. Government was evidently complex and probably socialistic, though no certainties in this regard could be deduced from the sculptures we saw. There was extensive commerce, both local and between different citiescertain small, flat counters, fivepointed and inscribed, serving as money. Probably the smaller of the various greenish soapstones found by our expedition were pieces of such currency. Though the culture was mainly urban, some agriculture and much stock raising existed. Mining and a limited amount of manufacturing were also practiced. Travel was very frequent, but permanent migration seemed relatively rare except for the vast colonizing movements by which the race expanded. For personal locomotion no external aid was used, since in land, air, and water movement alike the Old Ones seemed to possess excessively vast capacities for speed. Loads, however, were drawn by beasts of burdenShoggoths under the sea, and a curious variety of primitive vertebrates in the later years of land existence. These vertebrates, as well as an infinity of other life formsanimal and vegetable, marine, terrestrial, and arialwere the products of unguided evolution acting on life cells made by the Old Ones, but escaping beyond their radius of attention. They had been suffered to develop unchecked because they had not come in conflict with the dominant beings. Bothersome forms, of course, were mechanically exterminated. It interested us to see in some of the very last and most decadent sculptures a shambling, primitive mammal, used sometimes for food and sometimes as an amusing buffoon by the land dwellers, whose vaguely simian and human foreshadowings were unmistakable. In the building of land cities the huge stone blocks of the high towers were generally lifted by vastwinged pterodactyls of a species heretofore unknown to palontology. The persistence with which the Old Ones survived various geologic changes and convulsions of the earth's crust was little short of miraculous. Though few or none of their first cities seem to have remained beyond the Archan Age, there was no interruption in their civilization or in the transmission of their records. Their original place of advent to the planet was the Antarctic Ocean, and it is likely that they came not long after the matter forming the moon was wrenched from the neighboring South Pacific. According to one of the sculptured maps, the whole globe was then under water, with stone cities scattered farther and farther from the antarctic as ons passed. Another map shows a vast bulk of dry land around the south pole, where it is evident that some of the beings made experimental settlements, though their main centers were transferred to the nearest sea bottom. Later maps, which display this land mass as cracking and drifting, and sending certain detached parts northward, uphold in a striking way the theories of continental drift lately advanced by Taylor, Wegener, and Joly. With the upheaval of new land in the South Pacific, tremendous events began. Some of the marine cities were hopelessly shattered, yet that was not the worst misfortune. Another racea land race of beings shaped like octopi and probably corresponding to the fabulous prehuman spawn of Cthulhusoon began filtering down from cosmic infinity and precipitated a monstrous war which for a time drove the Old Ones wholly back to the seaa colossal blow in view of the increasing land settlements. Later, peace was made, and the new lands were given to the Cthulhu spawn whilst the Old Ones held the sea and the older lands. New land cities were foundedthe greatest of them in the antarctic, for this region of first arrival was sacred. From then on, as before, the antarctic remained the center of the Old Ones' civilization, and all the cities built there by the Cthulhu spawn were blotted out. Then, suddenly, the lands of the Pacific sank again, taking with them the frightful stone city of R'lyeh and all the cosmic octopi, so that the Old Ones were again supreme on the planet, except for one shadowy fear about which they did not like to speak. At a rather later age their cities dotted all the land and water areas of the globehence the recommendation in my coming monograph that some archologist make systematic borings with Pabodie's type of apparatus in certain widely separated regions. The steady trend down the ages was from water to landa movement encouraged by the rise of new land masses, though the ocean was never wholly deserted. Another cause of the landward movement was the new difficulty in breeding and managing the Shoggoths upon which successful sea life depended. With the march of time, as the sculptures sadly confessed, the art of creating new life from inorganic matter had been lost, so that the Old Ones had to depend on the molding of forms already in existence. On land the great reptiles proved highly tractable; but the Shoggoths of the sea, reproducing by fission and acquiring a dangerous degree of accidental intelligence, presented for a time a formidable problem. They had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestion of the Old Ones, and had modeled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs; but now their selfmodeling powers were sometimes exercised independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion. They had, it seems, developed a semistable brain whose separate and occasionally stubborn volition echoed the will of the Old Ones without always obeying it. Sculptured images of these Shoggoths filled Danforth and me with horror and loathing. They were normally shapeless entities composed of a viscous jelly which looked like an agglutination of bubbles, and each averaged about fifteen feet in diameter when a sphere. They had, however, a constantly shifting shape and volumethrowing out temporary developments or forming apparent organs of sight, hearing, and speech in imitation of their masters, either spontaneously or according to suggestion. They seem to have become peculiarly intractable toward the middle of the Permian Age, perhaps one hundred and fifty million years ago, when a veritable war of resubjugation was waged upon them by the marine Old Ones. Pictures of this war, and of the headless, slimecoated fashion in which the Shoggoths typically left their slain victims, held a marvelously fearsome quality despite the intervening abyss of untold ages. The Old Ones had used curious weapons of molecular disturbance against the rebel entities, and in the end had achieved a complete victory. Thereafter the sculptures showed a period in which Shoggoths were tamed and broken by armed Old Ones as the wild horses of the American west were tamed by cowboys. Though during the rebellion the Shoggoths had shown an ability to live out of water, this transition was not encouragedsince their usefulness on land would hardly have been commensurate with the trouble of their management. During the Jurassic Age the Old Ones met fresh adversity in the form of a new invasion from outer spacethis time by halffungous, halfcrustacean creaturescreatures undoubtedly the same as those figuring in certain whispered hill legends of the north, and remembered in the Himalayas as the MiGo, or Abominable Snow Men. To fight these beings the Old Ones attempted, for the first time since their terrene advent, to sally forth again into the planetary ether; but, despite all traditional preparations, found it no longer possible to leave the earth's atmosphere. Whatever the old secret of interstellar travel had been, it was now definitely lost to the race. In the end the MiGo drove the Old Ones out of all the northern lands, though they were powerless to disturb those in the sea. Little by little the slow retreat of the elder race to their original antarctic habitat was beginning. It was curious to note from the pictured battles that both the Cthulhu spawn and the MiGo seem to have been composed of matter more widely different from that which we know than was the substance of the Old Ones. They were able to undergo transformations and reintegrations impossible for their adversaries, and seem therefore to have originally come from even remoter gulfs of cosmic space. The Old Ones, but for their abnormal toughness and peculiar vital properties, were strictly material, and must have had their absolute origin within the known spacetime continuumwhereas the first sources of the other beings can only be guessed at with bated breath. All this, of course, assuming that the nonterrestrial linkages and the anomalies ascribed to the invading foes are not pure mythology. Conceivably, the Old Ones might have invented a cosmic framework to account for their occasional defeats, since historical interest and pride obviously formed their chief psychological element. It is significant that their annals failed to mention many advanced and potent races of beings whose mighty cultures and towering ethics figure persistently in certain obscure legends. The changing state of the world through long geologic ages appeared with startling vividness in many of the sculptured maps and scenes. In certain cases existing science will require revision, while in other cases its bold deductions are magnificently confirmed. As I have said, the hypothesis of Taylor, Wegener, and Joly that all the continents are fragments of an original antarctic land mass which cracked from centrifugal force and drifted apart over a technically viscous lower surfacean hypothesis suggested by such things as the complimentary outlines of Africa and South America, and the way the great mountain chains are rolled and shoved upreceives striking support from this uncanny source. Maps evidently showing the Carboniferous of a hundred million or more years ago displayed significant rifts and chasms destined later to separate Africa from the once continuous realms of Europe (then the Valusia of primal legend), Asia, the Americas, and the antarctic continent. Other chartsand most significantly one in connection with the founding fifty million years ago of the vast dead city around usshowed all the present continents well differentiated. And in the latest discoverable specimendating perhaps from the Pliocene Agethe approximate world of today appeared quite clearly despite the linkage of Alaska with Siberia, of North America with Europe through Greenland, and of South America with the antarctic continent through Graham Land. In the Carboniferous map the whole globeocean floor and rifted land mass alikebore symbols of the Old Ones' vast stone cities, but in the later charts the gradual recession toward the antarctic became very plain. The final Pliocene specimen showed no land cities except on the antarctic continent and the tip of South America, nor any ocean cities north of the fiftieth parallel of South Latitude. Knowledge and interest in the northern world, save for a study of coast lines probably made during long exploration flights on those fanlike membranous wings, had evidently declined to zero among the Old Ones. Destruction of cities through the upthrust of mountains, the centrifugal rending of continents, the seismic convulsions of land or sea bottom, and other natural causes was a matter of common record; and it was curious to observe how fewer and fewer replacements were made as the ages wore on.

The vast dead megalopolis that yawned around us seemed to be the last general center of the racebuilt early in the Cretaceous Age after a titanic earth buckling had obliterated a still vaster predecessor not far distant. It appeared that this general region was the most sacred spot of all, where reputedly the first Old Ones had settled on a primal sea bottom. In the new citymany of whose features we could recognize in the sculptures, but which stretched fully a hundred miles along the mountain range in each direction beyond the farthest limits of our arial surveythere were reputed to be preserved certain sacred stones forming part of the first seabottom city, which were thrust up to light after long epochs in the course of the general crumpling of strata. VIII. Naturally, Danforth and I studied with special interest and a peculiarly personal sense of awe everything pertaining to the immediate district in which we were. Of this local material there was naturally a vast abundance. On the tangled ground level of the city we were lucky enough to find a house of very late date whose walls, though somewhat damaged by a neighboring rift, contained sculptures of decadent workmanship carrying the story of the region, much beyond the Pliocene map, whence we derived our last general glimpse of the prehuman world. This was the last place we examined in detail, since what we found there set upon us a fresh, immediate objective. Certainly, we were in one of the strangest, weirdest, and most terrible of all the corners of earth's globe. Of all existing lands it was infinitely the most ancient. The conviction grew upon us that this hideous upland must indeed be the fabled nightmare plateau of Leng which even the mad author of the Necronomicon was reluctant to discuss. The great mountain chain was tremendously longstarting as a low range at Luitpold Land on the coast of Weddell Sea and virtually crossing the entire continent. The really high part stretched in a mighty arc from about Latitude 82, E. Longitude 60 to Latitude 70, East Longitude 115, with its concave side toward our camp and its seaward end in the region of that long, icelocked coast whose hills were glimpsed by Wilkes and Mawson at the antarctic circle. Yet even more monstrous exaggerations of nature seemed disturbingly close at hand. I have said that these peaks are higher than the Himalayas, but the sculptures forbid me to say that they are earth's highest. That grim honor is beyond doubt reserved for something which half the sculptures hesitated to record at all, whilst others approached it with obvious repugnance and trepidation. It seems that there was one part of the ancient landthe first part that ever rose from the waters after the earth had flung off the moon and the Old Ones had seeped down from the starswhich had come to be shunned as vaguely and namelessly evil. Cities built there had crumbled before their time, and had been found suddenly deserted. Then when the first great earth buckling had convulsed the region in the Comanchean Age, a frightful line of peaks had shot suddenly up amidst the most appalling din and chaosand earth had received her loftiest and most terrible mountains. If the scale of the carvings was correct, these abhorred things must have been much over forty thousand feet highradically vaster than even the shocking mountains of madness we had crossed. They extended, it appeared, from about Latitude 77, E. Longitude 70 to Latitude 70, E. Longitude 100less than three hundred miles away from the dead city, so that we would have spied their dreaded summits in the dim western distance had it not been for that vague, opalescent haze. Their northern end must likewise be visible from the long antarctic circle coast line at Queen Mary Land. Some of the Old Ones, in the decadent days, had made strange prayers to those mountainsbut none ever went near them or dared to guess what lay beyond. No human eye had ever seen them, and as I studied the emotions conveyed in the carvings I prayed that none ever might. There are protecting hills along the coast beyond themQueen Mary and Kaiser Wilhelm Landsand I thank Heaven no one has been able to land and climb those hills. I am not as sceptical about old tales and fears as I used to be, and I do not laugh now at the prehuman sculptor's notion that lightning paused meaningfully now and then at each of the brooding crests, and that an unexplained glow shone from one of those terrible pinnacles all through the long polar night. There may be a very real and very monstrous meaning in the old Pnakotic whispers about Kadath in the Cold Waste. But the terrain close at hand was hardly less strange, even if less namelessly accursed. Soon after the founding of the city the great mountain range became the seat of the principal temples, and many carvings showed what grotesque and fantastic towers had pierced the sky where now we saw only the curiously clinging cubes and ramparts. In the course of ages the caves had appeared, and had been shaped into adjuncts of the temples. With the advance of still later epochs all the limestone veins of the region were hollowed out by ground waters, so that the mountains, the foothills, and the plains below them were a veritable network of connected caverns and galleries. Many graphic sculptures told of explorations deep underground, and of the final discovery of the Stygian sunless sea that lurked at earth's bowels. This vast nighted gulf had undoubtedly been worn by the great river which flowed down from the nameless and horrible westward mountains, and which had formerly turned at the base of the Old Ones' range and flowed beside that chain into the Indian Ocean between Budd and Totten Lands on Wilkes's coast line. Little by little it had eaten away the limestone hill base at its turning, till at last its sapping currents reached the caverns of the ground waters and joined with them in digging a deeper abyss. Finally its whole bulk emptied into the hollow hills and left the old bed toward the ocean dry. Much of the later city as we now found it had been built over that former bed. The Old Ones, understanding what had happened, and exercising their always keen artistic sense, had carved into ornate pylons those headlands of the foothills where the great stream began its descent into eternal darkness. This river, once crossed by scores of noble stone bridges, was plainly the one whose extinct course we had seen in our aroplane survey. Its position in different carvings of the city helped us to orient ourselves to the scene as it had been at various stages of the region's agelong, ondead history, so that we were able to sketch a hasty but careful map of the salient featuressquares, important buildings, and the likefor guidance in further explorations. We could soon reconstruct in fancy the whole stupendous thing as it was a million or ten million or fifty million years ago, for the sculptures told us exactly what the buildings and mountains and squares and suburbs and landscape setting and luxuriant Tertiary vegetation had looked like. It must have had a marvelous and mystic beauty, and as I thought of it I almost forgot the clammy sense of sinister oppression with which the city's inhuman age and massiveness and deadness and remoteness and glacial twilight had choked and weighed on my spirit. Yet, according to certain carvings the denizens of that city had themselves known the clutch of oppressive terror; for there was a somber and recurrent type of scene in which the Old Ones were shown in the act of recoiling affrightedly from some objectnever allowed to appear in the designfound in the great river and indicated as having been washed down through waving, vinedraped cycad forests from those horrible westward mountains. It was only in the one latebuilt house with the decadent carvings that we obtained any foreshadowing of the final calamity leading to the city's desertion. Undoubtedly there must have been many sculptures of the same age elsewhere, even allowing for the slackened energies and aspirations of a stressful and uncertain period; indeed, very certain evidence of the existence of others came to us shortly afterward. But this was the first and only set we directly encountered. We meant to look farther later on; but as I have said, immediate conditions dictated another present objective. There would, though, have been a limitfor after all hope of a long future occupancy of the place had perished among the Old Ones, there could not but have been a complete cessation of mural decoration. The ultimate blow, of course, was the coming of the great cold which once held most of the earth in thrall, and which has never departed from the illfated polesthe great cold that, at the world's other extremity, put an end to the fabled lands of Lomar and Hyperborea. Just when this tendency began in the antarctic it would be hard to say in terms of exact years. Nowadays we set the beginning of the general glacial periods at a distance of about five hundred thousand years from the present, but at the poles the terrible scourge must have commenced much earlier. All quantitative estimates are partly guesswork, but it is quite likely that the decadent sculptures were made considerably less than a million years ago, and that the actual desertion of the city was complete long before the conventional opening of the Pleistocenefive hundred thousand years agoas reckoned in terms of the earth's whole surface. In the decadent sculptures there were signs of thinner vegetation everywhere, and of a decreased country life on the part of the Old Ones. Heating devices were shown in the houses, and winter travelers were represented as muffled in protective fabrics. Then we saw a series of cartouchesthe continuous band arrangement being frequently interrupted in these late carvingsdepicting a constantly growing migration to the nearest refuges of greater warmthsome fleeing to cities under the sea off the faraway coast, and some clambering down through networks of limestone caverns in the hollow hills to the neighboring black abyss of subterrane waters. In the end, it seems to have been the neighboring abyss which received the greatest colonization. This was partly due, no doubt, to the traditional sacredness of this special region, but may have been more conclusively determined by the opportunities it gave for continuing the use of the great temples on the honeycombed mountains, and for retaining the vast land city as a place of summer residence and base of communication with various mines. The linkage of old and new abodes was made more effective by means of several gradings and improvements along the connecting routes, including the chiseling of numerous direct tunnels from the ancient metropolis to the black abysssharply downpointing tunnels whose mouths we carefully drew, according to our most thoughtful estimates, on the guide map we were compiling. It was obvious that at least two of these tunnels lay within a reasonable exploring distance of where we wereboth being on the mountainward edge of the city, one less than a quarter of a mile toward the ancient rivercourse, and the other perhaps twice that distance in the opposite direction. The abyss, it seems, had shelving shores of dry land at certain places, but the Old Ones built their new city under waterno doubt because of its greater certainty of uniform warmth. The depth of the hidden sea appears to have been very great, so that the earth's internal heat could insure its habitability for an indefinite period. The beings seem to have had no trouble in adapting themselves to parttimeand eventually, of course, wholetimeresidence under water, since they had never allowed their gill systems to atrophy. There were many sculptures which showed how they had always frequently visited their submarine kinsfolk elsewhere, and how they had habitually bathed on the deep bottom of their great river. The darkness of inner earth could likewise have been no deterrent to a race accustomed to long antarctic nights. Decadent though their style undoubtedly was, these latest carvings had a truly epic quality where they told of the building of the new city in the cavern sea. The Old Ones had gone about it scientificallyquarrying insoluble rocks from the heart of the honeycombed mountains, and employing expert workers from the nearest submarine city to perform the construction according to the best methods. These workers brought with them all that was necessary to establish the new ventureShoggoth tissue from which to breed stone lifters and subsequent beasts of burden for the cavern city, and other protoplasmic matter to mold into phosphorescent organisms for lighting purposes. At last a mighty metropolis rose on the bottom of that Stygian sea, its architecture much like that of the city above, and its workmanship displaying relatively little decadence because of the precise mathematical element inherent in building operations. The newly bred Shoggoths grew to enormous size and singular intelligence, and were represented as taking and executing orders with marvelous quickness. They seemed to converse with the Old Ones by mimicking their voicesa sort of musical piping over a wide range, if poor Lake's dissection had indicated arightand to work more from spoken commands than from hypnotic suggestions as in earlier times. They were, however, kept in admirable control. The phosphorescent organisms supplied light with vast effectiveness, and doubtless atoned for the loss of the familiar polar auroras of the outerworld night. Art and decoration were pursued, though, of course, with a certain decadence. The Old Ones seemed to realize this falling off themselves, and in many cases anticipated the policy of Constantine the Great by transplanting especially fine blocks of ancient carving from their land city, just as the emperor, in a similar age of decline, stripped Greece and Asia of their finest art to give his new Byzantine capital greater splendors than its own people could create. That the transfer of sculptured blocks had not been more extensive, was doubtless owing to the fact that the land city was not at first wholly abandoned. By the time total abandonment did occurand it surely must have occurred before the polar Pleistocene was far advancedthe Old Ones had perhaps become satisfied with their decadent artor had ceased to recognize the superior merit of the older carvings. At any rate, the onsilent ruins around us had certainly undergone no wholesale sculptural denudation, though all the best separate statues, like other movables, had been taken away. The decadent cartouches and dados telling this story were, as I have said, the latest we could find in our limited search. They left us with a picture of the Old Ones shuttling back and forth betwixt the land city in summer and the seacavern city in winter, and sometimes trading with the seabottom cities off the antarctic coast. By this time the ultimate doom of the land city must have been recognized, for the sculptures showed many signs of the cold's malign encroachments. Vegetation was declining, and the terrible snows of the winter no longer melted completely even in midsummer. The saurian live stock were nearly all dead, and the mammals were standing it none too well. To keep on with the work of the upper world it had become necessary to adapt some of the amorphous and curiously coldresistant Shoggoths to land lifea thing the Old Ones had formerly been reluctant to do. The great river was now lifeless, and the upper sea had lost most of its denizens except the seals and whales. All the birds had flown away, save only the great, grotesque penguins. What had happened afterward we could only guess. How long had the new seacavern city survived? Was it still down there, a stony corpse in eternal blackness? Had the subterranean waters frozen at last? To what fate had the oceanbottom cities of the outer world been delivered? Had any of the Old Ones shifted north ahead of the creeping ice cap? Existing geology shows no trace of their presence. Had the frightful MiGo been still a menace in the outer land world of the north? Could one be sure of what might or might not linger, even to this day, in the lightless and unplumbed abysses of earth's deepest water? Those things had seemingly been able to withstand any amount of pressureand men of the sea have fished up curious objects at times. And has the killerwhale theory really explained the savage and mysterious scars on antarctic seals noticed a generation ago by Borchgrevingk? The specimens found by poor Lake did not enter into these guesses, for their geologic setting proved them to have lived at what must have been a very early date in the land city's history. They were, according to their location, certainly not less than thirty million years old, and we reflected that in their day the seacavern city, and indeed the cavern itself, had had no existence. They would have remembered an older scene, with lush Tertiary vegetation everywhere, a younger land city of flourishing arts around them, and a great river sweeping northward along the base of the mighty mountains toward a faraway tropic ocean. And yet we could not help thinking about these specimensespecially about the eight perfect ones that were missing from Lake's hideously ravaged camp. There was something abnormal about that whole businessthe strange things we had tried so hard to lay to somebody's madnessthose frightful gravesthe amount and nature of the missing materialGedneythe unearthly toughness of those archaic monstrosities, and the queer vital freaks the sculptures now showed the race to haveDanforth and I had seen a good deal in the last few hours, and were prepared to believe and keep silent about many appalling and incredible secrets of primal nature. IX. I have said that our study of the decadent sculptures brought about a change in our immediate objective. This, of course, had to do with the chiseled avenues to the black inner world, of whose existence we had not known before, but which we were now eager to find and traverse. From the evident scale of the carvings we deduced that a steeply descending walk of about a mile through either of the neighboring tunnels would bring us to the brink of the dizzy, sunless cliffs about the great abyss, down whose side paths, improved by the Old Ones, led to the rocky shore of the hidden and nighted ocean. To behold this fabulous gulf in stark reality was a lure which seemed impossible of resistance once we knew of the thingyet we realized we must begin the quest at once if we expected to include it in our present trip. In was now eight p.m., and we had not enough battery replacements to let our torches burn on forever. We had done so much of our studying and copying below the glacial level that our battery supply had had at least five hours of nearly continuous use, and despite the special dry cell formula would obviously be good for only about four morethough by keeping one torch unused, except for especially interesting or difficult places, we might manage to eke out a safe margin beyond that. It would not do to be without a light in these Cyclopean catacombs, hence in order to make the abyss trip we must give up all further mural deciphering. Of course, we intended to revisit the place for days and perhaps weeks of intensive study and photographycuriosity having long ago gotten the better of horrorbut just now we must hasten. Our supply of trailblazing paper was far from unlimited, and we were reluctant to sacrifice spare notebooks or sketching paper to augment it, but we did let one large notebook go. If worst came to worst, we could resort to rock chippingand, of course, it would be possible, even in case of really lost direction, to work up to full daylight by one channel or another if granted sufficient time for plentiful trial and error. So, at last, we set off eagerly in the indicated direction of the nearest tunnel. According to the carvings from which we had made our map, the desired tunnel mouth could not be much more than a quarter of a mile from where we stood; the intervening space showing solidlooking buildings quite likely to be penetrable still at a subglacial level. The opening itself would be in the basementon the angle nearest the foothillsof a vast fivepointed structure of evidently public and perhaps ceremonial nature, which we tried to identify from our arial survey of the ruins. No such structure came to our minds as we recalled our flight, hence we concluded that its upper parts had been greatly damaged, or that it had been totally shattered in an ice rift we had noticed. In the latter case the tunnel would probably turn out to be choked, so that we would have to try the next nearest onethe one less than a mile to the north. The intervening river course prevented our trying any of the more southern tunnels on this trip; and indeed, if both of the neighboring ones were choked it was doubtful whether our batteries would warrant an attempt on the next northerly oneabout a mile beyond our second choice. As we threaded our dim way through the labyrinth with the aid of map and compasstraversing rooms and corridors in every stage of ruin or preservation, clambering up ramps, crossing upper floors and bridges and clambering down again, encountering choked doorways and piles of dbris, hastening now and then along finely preserved and uncannily immaculate stretches, taking false leads and retracing our way (in such cases removing the blind paper trail we had left), and once in a while striking the bottom of an open shaft through which daylight poured or trickled downwe were repeatedly tantalized by the sculptured walls along our route. We had wormed our way very close to the computed site of the tunnel's mouthhaving crossed a secondstory bridge to what seemed plainly the tip of a pointed wall, and descended to a ruinous corridor especially rich in decadently elaborate and apparently ritualistic sculptures of late workmanshipwhen, about eight thirty p.m., Danforth's keen young nostrils gave us the first hint of something unusual. If we had had a dog with us, I suppost we would have been warned before. At first we could not precisely say what was wrong with the formerly crystalpure air, but after a few seconds our memories reached only too definitely. Let me try to state the thing without flinching. There was an odorand that odor was vaguely, subtly, and unmistakably akin to what had nauseated us upon opening the insane grave of the horror poor Lake had dissected. Of course, the revelation was not as clearly cut at the time as it sounds now. There were several conceivable explanations, and we did a good deal of indecisive whispering. Most important of all, we did not retreat without further investigation; for having come this far, we were loath to be balked by anything short of certain disaster. Anyway, what we must have suspected was altogether too wild to believe. Such things did not happen in any normal world. It was probably sheer irrational instinct which made us dim our single torchtempted no longer by the decadent and sinister sculptures that leered menacingly from the oppressive wallsand which softened our progress to a cautious tiptoeing and crawling over the increasingly littered floor and heaps of dbris. Danforth's eyes as well as nose proved better than mine, for it was likewise he who first noticed the queer aspect of the dbris after we had passed many halfchoked arches leading to chambers and corridors on the ground level. It did not look quite as it ought after countless thousands of years of desertion, and when we cautiously turned on more light we saw that a kind of swath seemed to have been lately tracked through it. The irregular nature of the latter precluded any definite marks, but in the smoother places there were suggestions of the dragging of heavy objects. Once we thought there was a hint of parallel tracks, as if of runners. This was what made us pause again. It was during that pause that we caughtsimultaneously this timethe other odor ahead. Paradoxically, it was both a less frightful and a more frightful odorless frightful intrinsically, but infinitely appalling in this place under the known circumstancesunless, of course, GedneyFor the odor was the plain and familiar one of common petroleveryday gasoline. Our motivation after that is something I will leave to psychologists. We knew now that some terrible extension of the camp horrors must have crawled into this nighted burial place of the ons, hence could not doubt any longer the existence of nameless conditionspresent or at least recentjust ahead. Yet in the end we did let sheer burning curiosityor anxietyor autohypnotismor vague thoughts of responsibility toward Gedneyof what notdrive us on. Danforth whispered again of the print he thought he had seen at the alley turning in the ruins above; and of the faint musical pipingpotentially of tremendous significance in the light of Lake's dissection report, despite its close resemblance to the cavemouth echoes of the windy peakswhich he thought he had shortly afterward half heard from unknown depths below. I, in my turn, whispered of how the camp was leftof what had disappeared, and of how the madness of a lone survivor might have conceived the inconceivablea wild trip across the monstrous mountains and a descent into the unknown, primal masonry But we could not convince each other, or even ourselves, of anything definite. We had turned off all light as we stood still, and vaguely noticed that a trace of deeply filtered upper daylight kept the blackness from being absolute. Having automatically begun to move ahead, we guided ourselves by occasional flashes from our torch. The disturbed dbris formed an impression we could not shake off, and the smell of gasoline grew stronger. More and more ruin met our eyes and hampered our feet, until very soon we saw that the forward way was about to cease. We had been all too correct in our pessimistic guess about that rift glimpsed from the air. Our tunnel quest was a blind one, and we were not even going to be able to reach the basement out of which the abyssward aperture opened. The torch, flashing over the grotesquely carved walls of the blocked corridor in which we stood, showed several doorways in various states of obstruction; and from one of them the gasoline odorquite submerging that other hint of odorcame with especial distinctness. As we looked more steadily, we saw that beyond a doubt there had been a slight and recent clearing away of dbris from that particular opening. Whatever the lurking horror might be, we believed the direct avenue toward it was now plainly manifest. I do not think any one will wonder that we waited an appreciable time before making any further motion. And yet, when we did venture inside that black arch, our first impression was one of anticlimax. For amidst the littered expanse of that sculptured crypta perfect cube with sides of about twenty feetthere remained no recent object of instantly discernible size; so that we looked instinctively, though in vain, for a farther doorway. In another moment, however, Danforth's sharp vision had discovered a place where the floor dbris had been disturbed. We turned on both torches full strength. Though what we saw in that light was actually simple and trifling, I am none the less reluctant to tell of it because of what it implied. It was a rough leveling of the dbris, upon which several small objects lay carelessly scattered, and at one corner of which a considerable amount of gasoline must have been spilled lately enough to leave a strong odor even at this extreme superplateau altitude. In other words, it could not be other than a sort of campa camp made by questing beings who, like us, had been turned back by the unexpectedly choked way to the abyss. Let me be plain. The scattered objects were, so far as substance was concerned, all from Lake's camp, and consisted of tin cans as queerly opened as those we had seen at that ravaged place, many spent matches, three illustrated books more or less curiously smudged, an empty ink bottle with its pictorial and instructional carton, a broken fountain pen, some oddly snipped fragments of fur and tent cloth, a used electric battery with circular of directions, a folder that came with our type of tent heater, and a sprinkling of crumpled papers. It was all bad enough, but when we smoothed out the papers and looked at what was on them we felt we had come to the worst. We had found certain inexplicably blotted papers at the camp which might have prepared us, yet the effect of the sight, down there in the prehuman vaults of a nightmare city, was almost too much to bear. A mad Gedney might have made the groups of dots in imitation of those found on the greenish soapstones, just as the dots on those insane fivepointed grave mounds might have been made; and he might conceivably have prepared rough, hasty sketchesvarying in their accuracyor lack of itwhich outlined the neighboring parts of the city and traced the way from a circularly represented place outside our previous routea place we identified as a great cylindrical tower in the carvings and as a vast circular gulf glimpsed in our arial surveyto the present fivepointed structure and the tunnel mouth therein. He might, I repeat, have prepared such sketches; for those before us were quite obviously compiled, as our own had been, from late sculptures somewhere in the glacial labyrinth, though not from the ones which we had seen and used. But what this artblind bungler could never have done was to execute those sketches in a strange and assured technique perhaps superior, despite haste and carelessness, to any of the decadent carvings from which they were takenthe characteristic and unmistakable technique of the Old Ones themselves in the dead city's heyday. There are those who will say Danforth and I were utterly mad not to flee for our lives after that; since our conclusions were nownotwithstanding their wildnesscompletely fixed, and of a nature I need not even mention to those who have read my account as far as this. Perhaps we were madfor have I not said those horrible peaks were mountains of madness? But I think I can detect something of the same spiritalbeit in a less extreme formin the men who stalk deadly beasts through African jungles to photograph them or study their habits. Half paralyzed with terror though we were, there was nevertheless fanned within us a blazing flame of awe and curiosity which triumphed in the end. Of course, we did not mean to face thator thosewhich we knew had been there, but we felt that they must be gone by now. They would by this time have found the other neighboring entrance to the abyss, and have passed within, to whatever nightblack fragments of the past might await them in the ultimate gulfthe ultimate gulf they had never seen. Or if that entrance, too, was blocked, they would have gone on to the north seeking another. They were, we remembered, partly independent of light. Looking back to that moment, I can scarcely recall just what precise form our new emotions tookjust what change of immediate objective it was that so sharpened our sense of expectancy. We certainly did not mean to face what we fearedyet I will not deny that we may have had a lurking, unconscious wish to spy certain things from some hidden vantage point. Probably we had not given up our zeal to glimpse the abyss itself, though there was interposed a new goal in the form of that great circular place shown on the crumpled sketches we had found. We had at once recognized it as a monstrous cylindrical tower in the carvings, but appearing only as a prodigious, round aperture from above.

Something about the impressiveness of its rendering, even in these hasty diagrams, made us think that its subglacial levels must still form a feature of peculiar importance. Perhaps it embodied architectural marvels as yet unencountered by us. It was certainly of incredible age, according to the sculptures in which it figuredbeing indeed among the first things built in the city. Its carvings, if preserved, could not but be highly significant. Moreover, it might form a good present link with the upper worlda shorter route than the one we were so carefully blazing and probably that by which those others had descended. At any rate, the thing we did was to study the terrible sketcheswhich quite perfectly confirmed our ownand start back over the indicated course to the circular place; the course which our nameless predecessors must have traversed twice before us. The other neighboring gate to the abyss would lie beyond that. I need not speak of our journeyduring which we continued to leave an economical trail of paperfor it was precisely the same in kind as that by which we had reached the culdesac, except that it tended to adhere more closely to the ground level and even descend to basement corridors. Every now and then we could trace certain disturbing marks in the dbris or litter underfoot; and, after we had passed outside the radius of the gasoline scent, we were again faintly consciousspasmodicallyof that more hideous and more persistent scent. After the way had branched from our former course, we sometimes gave the rays of our single torch a furtive sweep along the walls; noting in almost every case the wellnigh omnipresent sculptures, which indeed seem to have formed a main sthetic outlet for the Old Ones. About ninethirty p.m., while traversing a vaulted corridor whose increasingly glaciated floor seemed somewhat below the ground level and whose roof grew lower as we advanced, we began to see strong daylight ahead and were able to turn off our torch. It appeared that we were coming to the vast, circular place, and that our distance from the upper air could not be very great. The corridor ended in an arch, surprisingly low for these megalithic ruins, but we could see much through it even before we emerged. Beyond, there stretched a prodigious round spacefully two hundred feet in diameterstrewn with dbris and containing many choked archways corresponding to the one we were about to cross. The walls werein available spacesboldly sculptured into a spiral band of heroic proportions; and displayed, despite the destructive weathering caused by the openness of the spot, an artistic splendor far beyond anything we had encountered before. The littered floor was quite heavily glaciated, and we fancied that the true bottom lay at a considerably lower depth. But the salient object of the place was the titanic stone ramp which, eluding the archways by a sharp turn outward into the open floor, wound spirally up the stupendous cylindrical wall like an inside counterpart of those once climbing outside the monstrous towers or zikkurats of antique Babylon. Only the rapidity of our flight, and the perspective which confounded the descent with the tower's inner wall, had prevented our noticing this feature from the air, and thus caused us to seek another avenue to the subglacial level. Pabodie might have been able to tell what sort of engineering held it in place, but Danforth and I could merely admire and marvel. We could see mighty stone corbels and pillars here and there, but what we saw seemed inadequate to the function performed. The thing was excellently preserved up to the present top of the towera highly remarkable circumstance in view of its exposureand its shelter had done much to protect the bizarre and disturbing cosmic sculptures on the walls. As we stepped out into the awesome half daylight of this monstrous cylinder bottomfifty million years old, and without doubt the most primally ancient structure ever to meet our eyeswe saw that the ramptraversed sides stretched dizzily up to a height of fully sixty feet. This, we recalled from our arial survey, meant an outside glaciation of some forty feet; since the yawning gulf we had seen from the plane had been at the top of an approximately twentyfoot mound of crumbled masonry, somewhat sheltered for three fourths of its circumference by the massive curving walls of a line of higher ruins. According to the sculptures the original tower had stood in the center of an immense circular plaza, and had been perhaps five hundred or six hundred feet high, with tiers of horizontal disks near the top, and a row of needlelike spires along the upper rim. Most of the masonry had obviously toppled outward rather than inwarda fortunate happening, since otherwise the ramp might have been shattered and the whole interior choked. As it was, the ramp showed sad battering; whilst the choking was such that all the archways seemed to have been half cleared. It took us only a moment to conclude that this was indeed the route by which those others had descended, and that this would be the logical route for our own ascent, despite the long trail of paper we had left elsewhere. The tower's mouth was no farther from the foothills and our waiting plane than was the great terraced building we had entered, and any further subglacial exploration we might make on this trip would lie in this general region. Oddly, we were still thinking about possible later tripseven after all we had seen and guessed. Then, as we picked our way cautiously over the dbris of the great floor, there came a sight which for the time excluded all other matters. It was the neatly huddled array of three sledges in that farther angle of the ramp's lower and outwardprojecting course which had hitherto been screened from our view. There they werethe three sledges missing from Lake's campshaken by a hard usage which must have included forcible dragging along great reaches of snowless masonry and dbris, as well as much hand portage over utterly unnavigable places. They were carefully and intelligently packed and strapped, and contained things memorably familiar enough the gasoline stove, fuel cans, instrument cases, provision tins, tarpaulins obviously bulging with books, and some bulging with less obvious contentseverything derived from Lake's equipment. After what we had found in that other room, we were in a measure prepared for this encounter. The really great shock came when we stepped over and undid one tarpaulin, whose outlines had peculiarly disquieted us. It seems that others as well as Lake had been interested in collecting typical specimens; for there were two here, both stiffly frozen, perfectly preserved, patched with adhesive plaster where some wounds around the neck had occurred, and wrapped with care to prevent further damage. They were the bodies of young Gedney and the missing dog. X. Many people will probably judge us callous as well as mad for thinking about the northward tunnel and the abyss so soon after our somber discovery, and I am not prepared to say that we would have immediately revived such thoughts but for a specific circumstance which broke in upon us and set up a whole new train of speculations. We had replaced the tarpaulin over poor Gedney and were standing in a kind of mute bewilderment when the sounds finally reached our consciousnessthe first sounds we had heard since descending out of the open where the mountain wind whined faintly from its unearthly heights. Wellknown and mundane though they were, their presence in this remote world of death was more unexpected and unnerving than any grotesque or fabulous tones could possibly have beensince they gave a fresh upsetting to all our notions of cosmic harmony. Had it been some trace of that bizarre musical piping over a wide range, which Lake's dissection report had led us to expect in those othersand which, indeed, our overwrought fancies had been reading into every wind howl we had heard since coming on the camp horrorit would have had a kind of hellish congruity with the ondead region around us. A voice from other epochs belongs in a graveyard of other epochs. As it was, however, the noise shattered all our profoundly seated adjustmentsall out tacit acceptance of the inner antarctic as a waste utterly and irrevocably void of every vestige of normal life. What we heard was not the fabulous note of any buried blasphemy of elder earth from whose supernal toughness an agedenied polar sun had evoked a monstrous response. Instead, it was a thing so mockingly normal and so unerringly familiarized by our sea days off Victoria Land and our camp days at McMurdo Sound that we shuddered to think of it here, where such things ought not to be. To be briefit was simply the raucous squawking of a penguin. The muffled sound floated from subglacial recesses nearly opposite to the corridor whence we had comeregions manifestly in the direction of that other tunnel to the vast abyss. The presence of a living water bird in such a directionin a world whose surface was one of agelong and uniform lifelessnesscould lead to only one conclusion; hence our first thought was to verify the objective reality of the sound. It was, indeed, repeated, and seemed at times to come from more than one throat. Seeking its source, we entered an archway from which much dbris had been cleared; resuming our trail blazingwith an added paper supply taken with curious repugnance from one of the tarpaulin bundles on the sledgeswhen we left daylight behind. As the glaciated floor gave place to a litter of detritus, we plainly discerned some curious, dragging tracks; and once Danforth found a distinct print of a sort whose description would be only too superfluous. The course indicated by the penguin cries was precisely what our map and compass prescribed as an approach to the more northerly tunnel mouth, and we were glad to find that a bridgeless thoroughfare on the ground and basement levels seemed open. The tunnel, according to the chart, ought to start from the basement of a large pyramidal structure which we seemed vaguely to recall from our arial survey as remarkably wellpreserved. Along our path the single torch showed a customary profusion of carvings, but we did not pause to examine any of these. Suddenly a bulky white shape loomed up ahead of us, and we flashed on the second torch. It is odd how wholly this new quest had turned our minds from earlier fears of what might lurk near. Those other ones, having left their supplies in the great circular place, must have planned to return after their scouting trip toward or into the abyss; yet we had now discarded all caution concerning them as completely as if they had never existed. This white, waddling thing was fully six feet high, yet we seemed to realize at once that it was not one of those others. They were larger and dark, and, according to the sculptures, their motion over land surfaces was a swift, assured matter despite the queerness of their seaborn tentacle equipment. But to say that the white thing did not profoundly frighten us would be vain. We were indeed clutched for an instant by a primitive dread almost sharper than the worst of our reasoned fears regarding those others. Then came a flash of anticlimax as the white shape sidled into a lateral archway to our left, to join two others of its kind which had summoned it in raucous tones. For it was only a penguinalbeit of a huge, unknown species larger than the greatest of the known king penguins, and monstrous in its combined albinism and virtual eyelessness. When we had followed the thing into the archway and turned both our torches on the indifferent and unheeding group of three, we saw that they were all eyeless albinos of the same unknown and gigantic species. Their size reminded us of some of the archaic penguins depicted in the Old Ones' sculptures, and it did not take us long to conclude that they were descended from the same stockundoubtedly surviving through a retreat to some warmer inner region whose perpetual blackness had destroyed their pigmentation and atrophied their eyes to mere useless slits. That their present habitat was the vast abyss we sought, was not for a moment to be doubted; and this evidence of the gulf's continued warmth and habitability filled us with the most curious and subtly perturbing fancies. We wondered, too, what had caused these three birds to venture out of their usual domain. The state and silence of the great dead city made it clear that it had at no time been a habitual seasonal rookery, whilst the manifest indifference of the trio to our presence made it seem odd that any passing party of those others should have startled them. Was it possible that those others had taken some aggressive notion or tried to increase their meat supply? We doubted whether that pungent odor which the dogs had hated could cause an equal antipathy in these penguins; since their ancestors had obviously lived on excellent terms with the Old Onesan amicable relationship which must have survived in the abyss below as long as any of the Old Ones remained. Regrettingin a flareup of the old spirit of pure sciencethat we could not photograph these anomalous creatures, we shortly left them to their squawking and pushed on toward the abyss whose openness was now so positively proved to us, and whose exact direction occasional penguin tracks made clear. Not long afterward a steep descent in a long, low, doorless, and peculiarly sculptureless corridor led us to believe that we were approaching the tunnel mouth at last. We had passed two more penguins. Then the corridor ended in a prodigious open space which made us gasp involuntarilya perfect inverted hemisphere, obviously deep underground, fully a hundred feet in diameter and fifty feet high, with low archways opening around all parts of the circumference but one, and that one yawning cavernously with a black, arched aperture which broke the symmetry of the vault to a height of nearly fifteen feet. It was the entrance to the great abyss. In this vast hemisphere, whose concave roof was impressively though decadently carved to a likeness of the primordial celestial dome, a few albino penguins waddledaliens there, but indifferent and unseeing. The black tunnel yawned indefinitely off at a steep, descending grade, its aperture adorned with grotesquely chiseled jambs and lintel. From that cryptical mouth we fancied a current of slightly warmer air and perhaps even a suspicion of vapor proceeded; and we wondered what living entities other than penguins the limitless void below, and the contiguous honeycombings of the land and the titan mountains, might conceal. We wondered, too, whether the trace of mountaintop smoke at first suspected by poor Lake, as well as the odd haze we had ourselves perceived around the rampartcrowned peak, might not be caused by the tortuouschanneled rising of some such vapor from the unfathomed regions of earth's core. Entering the tunnel, we saw that its outline wasat least at the startabout fifteen feet each waysides, floor, and arched roof composed of the usual megalithic masonry. The sides were sparsely decorated with cartouches of conventional designs in a later, decadent style; and all the construction and carving were marvellously wellpreserved. The floor was quite clear, except for a slight detritus bearing outgoing penguin tracks and the inward tracks of those others. The farther one advanced, the warmer it became; so that we were soon unbuttoning our heavy garments. We wondered whether there were any actually igneous manifestations below, and whether the waters of that sunless sea were hot. After a short distance the masonry gave place to solid rock, though the tunnel kept the same proportions and presented the same aspect of carved regularity. Occasionally its varying grade became so steep that grooves were cut in the floor. Several times we noted the mouths of small lateral galleries not recorded in our diagrams; none of them such as to complicate the problem of our return, and all of them welcome as possible refuges in case we met unwelcome entities on their way back from the abyss. The nameless scent of such things was very distinct. Doubtless it was suicidally foolish to venture into that tunnel under the known conditions, but the lure of the unplumbed is stronger in certain persons than most suspectindeed, it was just such a lure which had brought us to this unearthly polar waste in the first place. We saw several penguins as we passed along, and speculated on the distance we would have to traverse. The carvings had led us to expect a steep downhill walk of about a mile to the abyss, but our previous wanderings had shown us that matters of scale were not wholly to be depended on. After about a quarter of a mile that nameless scent became greatly accentuated, and we kept very careful track of the various lateral openings we passed. There was no visible vapor as at the mouth, but this was doubtless due to the lack of contrasting cooler air. The temperature was rapidly ascending, and we were not surprised to come upon a careless heap of material shudderingly familiar to us. It was composed of furs and tent cloths taken from Lake's camp, and we did not pause to study the bizarre forms into which the fabrics had been slashed. Slightly beyond this point we noticed a decided increase in the size and number of the side galleries, and concluded that the densely honeycombed region beneath the higher foothills must now have been reached. The nameless scent was now curiously mixed with another and scarcely less offensive odorof what nature we could not guess, though we thought of decaying organisms and perhaps unknown subterrane fungi. Then came a startling expansion of the tunnel for which the carvings had not prepared usa broadening and rising into a lofty, naturallooking elliptical cavern with a level floor, some seventyfive feet long and fifty broad, and with many immense side passages leading away into cryptical darkness. Though this cavern was natural in appearance, an inspection with both torches suggested that it had been formed by the artificial destruction of several walls between adjacent honeycombings. The walls were rough, and the high, vaulted roof was thick with stalactites; but the solid rock floor had been smoothed off, and was free from all dbris, detritus, or even dust to a positively abnormal extent. Except for the avenue through which we had come, this was true of the floors of all the great galleries opening off from it; and the singularity of the condition was such as to set us vainly puzzling. The curious new fetor which had supplemented the nameless scent was excessively pungent here; so much so that it destroyed all trace of the other. Something about this whole place, with its polished and almost glistening floor, struck us as more vaguely baffling and horrible than any of the monstrous things we have previously encountered. The regularity of the passage immediately ahead, prevented all confusion as to the right course amidst this plethora of equally great cave mouths. Nevertheless we resolved to resume our paper trail blazing if any further complexity should develop; for dust tracks, of course, could no longer be expected. Upon resuming our direct progress we cast a beam of torchlight over the tunnel wallsand stopped short in amazement at the supremely radical change which had come over the carvings in this part of the passage. We realized, of course, the great decadence of the Old Ones' sculpture at the time of the tunneling, and had indeed noticed the inferior workmanship of the arabesques in the stretches behind us. But now, in this deeper section beyond the cavern, there was a sudden difference wholly transcending explanationa difference in basic nature as well as in mere quality, and involving so profound and calamitous a degradation of skill that nothing in the hitherto observed rate of decline could have led one to expect it. This new and degenerate work was coarse, bold, and wholly lacking in delicacy of detail. It was countersunk with exaggerated depth in bands following the same general line as the sparse cartouches of the earlier sections, but the height of the reliefs did not reach the level of the general surface. Danforth had the idea that it was a second carvinga sort of palimpsest formed after the obliteration of a previous design. In nature it was wholly decorative and conventional, and consisted of crude spirals and angles roughly following the quintile mathematical tradition of the Old Ones, yet seeming more like a parody than a perpetuation of that tradition. Since we could not afford to spend any considerable time in study, we resumed our advance after a cursory look. We saw and heard fewer penguins, but thought we caught a vague suspicion of an infinitely distant chorus of them somewhere deep within the earth. The new and inexplicable odor was abominably strong, and we could detect scarcely a sign of that other nameless scent. Puffs of visible vapor ahead bespoke increasing contrasts in temperature, and the relative nearness of the sunless sea cliffs of the great abyss. Then, quite unexpectedly, we saw certain obstructions on the polished floor aheadobstructions which were quite definitely not penguinsand turned on our second torch after making sure that the objects were quite stationary. XI. Still another time have I come to a place where it is very difficult to proceed. I ought to be hardened by this stage; but there are some experiences and intimations which scar too deeply to permit of healing, and leave only such added sensitiveness that memory reinspired all the original horror. We saw, as I have said, certain obstructions on the polished floor ahead; and I may add that our nostrils were assailed almost simultaneously by a very curious intensification of the strange, prevailing fetor, now quite plainly mixed with the nameless stench of those others which had gone before us. The light of the second torch left no doubt of what the obstructions were, and we dared approach them only because we could see, even from a distance, that they were quite as past all harming power as had been the six similar specimens unearthed from the monstrous starmounded graves at poor Lake's camp. They were, indeed, as lacking in completeness as most of those we had unearthedthough it grew plain from the thick, darkgreen pool gathering around them that their incompleteness was of infinitely greater recency. There seemed to be only four of them, whereas Lake's bulletins would have suggested no less than eight as forming the group which had preceded us. To find them in this state was wholly unexpected, and we wondered what sort of monstrous struggle had occurred down here in the dark. Penguins, attacked in a body, retaliate savagely with their beaks; and our ears now made certain the existence of a rookery far beyond. Had those others disturbed such a place and aroused murderous pursuit? The obstructions did not suggest it, for penguin beaks against the tough tissues Lake had dissected could hardly account for the terrible damage our approaching glance was beginning to make out. Besides, the huge blind birds we had seen appeared to be singularly peaceful. Had there, then, been a struggle among those others, and were the absent four responsible? If so, where were they? Were they close at hand and likely to form an immediate menace to us? We glanced anxiously at some of the smoothfloored lateral passages as we continued our slow and frankly reluctant approach. Whatever the conflict was, it had clearly been that which had frightened the penguins into their unaccustomed wandering. It must, then, have arisen near that faintly heard rookery in the incalculable gulf beyond, since there were no signs that any birds had normally dwelt here. Perhaps, we reflected, there had been a hideous running fight, with the weaker party seeking to get back to the cached sledges when their pursuers finished them. One could picture the demonic fray between namelessly monstrous entities as it surged out of the black abyss with great clouds of frantic penguins squawking and scurrying ahead. I say that we approached those sprawling and incomplete obstructions slowly and reluctantly. Would to Heaven we had never approached them at all, but had run back at top speed out of that blasphemous tunnel with the greasily smooth floors and the degenerate murals aping and mocking the things they had supersededrun back, before we had seen what we did see, and before our minds were burned with something which will never let us breathe easily again! Both of our torches were turned on the prostrate objects, so that we soon realized the dominant factor in their incompleteness. Mauled, compressed, twisted, and ruptured as they were, their chief common injury was total decapitation. From each one the tentacled starfish head had been removed; and as we drew near we saw that the manner of removal looked more like some hellish tearing or suction than like any ordinary form of cleavage. Their noisome darkgreen ichor formed a large, spreading pool; but its stench was half overshadowed by that newer and stranger stench, here more pungent than at any other point along our route. Only when we had come very close to the sprawling obstructions could we trace that second, unexplainable fetor to any immediate sourceand the instant we did so Danforth, remembering certain very vivid sculptures of the Old Ones' history in the Permian Age one hundred and fifty million years ago, gave vent to a nervetortured cry which echoed hysterically through that vaulted and archaic passage with the evil, palimpsest carvings. I came only just short of echoing his cry myself; for I had seen those primal sculptures, too, and had shudderingly admired the way the nameless artist had suggested that hideous slime coating found on certain incomplete and prostrate Old Onesthose whom the frightful Shoggoths had characteristically slain and sucked to a ghastly headlessness in the great war of resubjugation. They were infamous, nightmare sculptures even when telling of ageold, bygone things; for Shoggoths and their work ought not to be seen by human beings or portrayed by any beings. The mad author of the Necronomicon had nervously tried to swear that none had been bred on this planet, and that only drugged dreamers had ever conceived them. Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processesviscous agglutinations of bubbling cellsrubbery fifteenfoot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductileslaves of suggestion, builders of citiesmore and more sullen, more and more intelligent, more and more amphibious, more and more imitative! Great Heaven! What madness made even those blasphemous Old Ones willing to use and to carve such things? And now, when Danforth and I saw the freshly glistening and reflectively iridescent black slime which clung thickly to those headless bodies and stank obscenely with that new, unknown odor whose cause only a diseased fancy could envisageclung to those bodies and sparkled less voluminously on a smooth part of the accursedly resculptured wall in a series of grouped dotswe understood the quality of cosmic fear to its uttermost depths. It was not fear of those four missing othersfor all too well did we suspect they would do no harm again. Poor devils! After all, they were not evil things of their kind. They were the men of another age and another order of being. Nature had played a hellish jest on themas it will on any others that human madness, callousness, or cruelty may hereafter drag up in that hideously dead or sleeping polar wasteand this was their tragic homecoming. They had not been even savagesfor what indeed had they done? That awful awakening in the cold of an unknown epochperhaps an attack by the furry, frantically barking quadrupeds, and a dazed defense against them and the equally frantic white simians with the queer wrappings and paraphernalia! Poor Lake. Poor Gedney. And poor Old Ones! Scientists to the lastwhat had they done that we would not have done in their place? Lord, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawnwhatever they had been, they were men! They had crossed the icy peaks on whose templed slopes they had once worshiped and roamed among the tree ferns. They had found their dead city brooding under its curse, and had read its carven latter days as we had done. They had tried to reach their living fellows in fabled depths of blackness they had never seenand what had they found? All this flashed in unison through the thoughts of Danforth and me as we looked from those headless, slimecoated shapes to the loathsome palimpsest sculptures and the diabolical dot groups of fresh slime on the wall beside themlooked and understood what must have triumphed and survived down there in the Cyclopean water city of that nighted, penguinfringed abyss, whence even now a sinister curling mist had begun to belch pallidly as if in answer to Danforth's hysterical scream. The shock of recognizing that monstrous slime and headlessness had frozen us into mute, motionless statues, and it is only through later conversations that we have learned of the complete identity of our thoughts at that moment. It seemed ons that we stood there, but actually it could not have been more than ten or fifteen seconds. That hateful, pallid mist curled forward as if veritably driven by some remoter advancing bulkand then came a sound which upset much of what we had just decided, and in so doing broke the spell and enabled us to run like mad past squawking, confused penguins over our former trail back to the city, along icesunken megalithic corridors to the great open circle, and up that archaic spiral ramp in a frenzied, automatic plunge for the sane outer air and light of day. And then came a sounda horrible soundwhich enabled us to run like mad for the sane outer air The new sound, as I have intimated, upset much that we had decided; because it was what poor Lake's dissection had led us to attribute to those we had just judged dead. It was, Danforth later told me, precisely what he had caught in infinitely muffled form when at that spot beyond the alley corner above the glacial level; and it certainly had a shocking resemblance to the wind pipings we had both heard around the lofty mountain caves. At the risk of seeming puerile I will add another thing, too, if only because of the surprising way Danforth's impression chimed with mine. Of course, common reading is what prepared us both to make the interpretation, though Danforth has hinted at queer notions about unsuspected and forbidden sources to which Poe may have had access when writing his "Arthur Gordon Pym" a century ago. It will be remembered that in that fantastic tale there is a word of unknown but terrible and prodigious significance connected with the antarctic and screamed eternally by the gigantic, spectrally snowy birds of that malign region's core. "Tekelili! Tekelili!" That, I may admit, is exactly what we thought we heard conveyed by that sudden sound behind the advancing white mistthat insidious, musical piping over a singularly wide range. We were in full flight before three notes or syllables had been uttered, though we knew that the swiftness of the Old Ones would enable any screamroused and pursuing survivor of the slaughter to overtake us in a moment if it really wished to do so. We had a vague hope, however, that nonaggressive conduct and a display of kindred reason might cause such a being to spare us in case of capture, if only from scientific curiosity. After all, if such a one had nothing to fear for itself it would have no motive in harming us.

Concealment being futile at this juncture, we used our torch for a running glance behind, and perceived that the mist was thinning. Would we see at last, a complete and living specimen of those others? Again came that insidious musical piping"Tekelili! Tekelili!" Then, noting that we were actually gaining on our pursuer, it occurred to us that the entity might be wounded. We could take no chances, however, since it was very obviously approaching in answer to Danforth's scream, rather than in flight from any other entity. The timing was too close to admit of doubt. Of the whereabouts of that less conceivable and less mentionable nightmarethat fetid, unglimpsed mountain of slimespewing protoplasm whose race had conquered the abyss and sent land pioneers to recarve and squirm through the burrows of the hillswe could form no guess; and it cost us a genuine pang to leave this probably crippled Old Oneperhaps a lone survivorto the peril of recapture and a nameless fate. Thank Heaven we did not slacken our run. The curling mist had thickened again, and was driving ahead with increased speed; whilst the straying penguins in our rear were squawking and screaming and displaying signs of a panic really surprising in view of their relatively minor confusion when we had passed them. Once more came that sinister, wideranged piping"Tekelili! Tekelili!" We had been wrong. The thing was not wounded, but had merely paused on encountering the bodies of its fallen kindred and the hellish slime inscription above them. We could never know what that demon message wasbut those burials at Lake's camp had shown how much importance the beings attached to their dead. Our recklessly used torch now revealed ahead of us the large open cavern where various ways converged, and we were glad to be leaving those morbid palimpsest sculpturesalmost felt even when scarcely seenbehind. Another thought which the advent of the cave inspired was the possibility of losing our pursuer at this bewildering focus of large galleries. There were several of the blind albino penguins in the open space, and it seemed clear that their fear of the oncoming entity was extreme to the point of unaccountability. If at that point we dimmed our torch to the very lowest limit of traveling need, keeping it strictly in front of us, the frightened squawking motions of the huge birds in the mist might muffle our footfalls, screen our true course, and somehow set up a false lead. Amidst the churning, spiraling fog, the littered and unglistening floor of the main tunnel beyond this point, as differing from the other morbidly polished burrows, could hardly form a highly distinguishing feature; even, so far as we could conjecture, for those indicated special senses which made the Old Ones partly, though imperfectly, independent of light in emergencies. In fact, we were somewhat apprehensive lest we go astray ourselves in our haste. For we had, of course, decided to keep straight on toward the dead city; since the consequences of loss in those unknown foothill honeycombings would be unthinkable. The fact that we survived and emerged is sufficient proof that the thing did take a wrong gallery whilst we providentially hit on the right one. The penguins alone could not have saved us, but in conjunction with the mist they seem to have done so. Only a benign fate kept the curling vapors thick enough at the right moment, for they were constantly shifting and threatening to vanish. Indeed, they did lift for a second just before we emerged from the nauseously resculptured tunnel into the cave; so that we actually caught one first and only half glimpse of the oncoming entity as we cast a final, desperately fearful glance backward before dimming the torch and mixing with the penguins in the hope of dodging pursuit. If the fate which screened us was benign, that which gave us the half glimpse was infinitely the opposite; for to that flash of semivision can be traced a full half of the horror which has ever since haunted us. Our exact motive in looking back again was perhaps no more than the immemorial instinct of the pursued to gauge the nature and course of its pursuer; or perhaps it was an automatic attempt to answer a subconscious question raised by one of our senses. In the midst of our flight, with all our faculties centered on the problem of escape, we were in no condition to observe and analyze details; yet even so our latent brain cells must have wondered at the message brought them by our nostrils. Afterward, we realized what it wasthat our retreat from the fetid slime coating on those headless obstructions, and the coincident approach of the pursuing entity, had not brought us the exchange of stenches which logic called for. In the neighborhood of the prostrate things that new and lately unexplainable fetor had been wholly dominant; but by this time it ought to have largely given place to the nameless stench associated with those others. This it had not donefor instead, the newer and less bearable smell was now virtually undiluted, and growing more and more poisonously insistent each second. So we glanced backsimultaneously, it would appear; though no doubt the incipient motion of one prompted the imitation of the other. As we did so we flashed both torches full strength at the momentarily thinned mist; either from sheer primitive anxiety to see all we could, or in a less primitive but equally unconscious effort to dazzle the entity before we dimmed our light and dodged among the penguins of the labyrinth center ahead. Unhappy act! Not Orpheus himself, or Lot's wife, paid much more dearly for a backward glance. And again came that shocking, wideranged piping"Tekelili! Tekelili!" Danforth was totally unstrung, and the first thing I remember of the rest of the journey was hearing him lightheadedly chant a hysterical formula in which I alone of mankind could have found anything but insane irrelevance. It reverberated in falsetto echoes among the squawks of the penguins; reverberated through the vaulting ahead, andthank Heaventhrough the now empty vaultings behind. He could not have begun it at onceelse we would not have been alive and blindly racing. I shudder to think of what a shade of difference in his nervous reactions might have brought. "South Station UnderWashington UnderPark Street UnderKendallCentralHarvard" The poor fellow was chanting the familiar stations of the BostonCambridge tunnel that burrowed through our peaceful native soil thousands of miles away in New England, yet to me the ritual had neither irrelevance nor home feeling. It had only horror, because I knew unerringly the monstrous, nefandous analogy that had suggested it. We had expected, upon looking back, to see a terrible and incredible moving entity if the mists were thin enough; but of that entity we had formed a clear idea. What we did seefor the mists were indeed all too malignly thinnedwas something altogether different, and immeasurably more hideous and detestable. It was the utter, objective embodiment of the fantastic novelist's 'thing that should not be'; and its nearest comprehensible analogue is a vast, onrushing subway train as one sees it from a station platformthe great black front looming colossally out of infinite subterraneous distance, constellated with strangely colored lights and filling the prodigious burrow. But we were not on a station platform. We were on the track ahead as the nightmare, plastic column of fetid black iridescence oozed tightly onward through its fifteenfoot sinus, gathering unholy speed and driving before it a spiral, rethickening cloud of the pallid abyss vapor. It was a terrible, indescribable thing, vaster than any subway traina shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly selfluminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnelfilling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter. Still came that eldritch, mocking cry"Tekelili! Tekelili!" And at last we remembered that the demonic Shoggothsgiven life, though, and plastic organ patterns solely by the Old Ones, and having no language save that which the dot groups expressedhad likewise no voice save the imitated accents of their bygone masters. XII. Danforth and I have recollections of emerging into the great sculptured hemisphere and of threading our back trail through the Cyclopean rooms and corridors of the dead city; yet these are purely dream fragments involving no memory of volition, details, or physical exertion. There was something vaguely appropriate about our departure from those buried epochs; for as we wound our panting way up the sixtyfoot cylinder of primal masonry we glimpsed beside us a continuous procession of heroic sculptures in the dead race's early and undecayed techniquea farewell from the Old Ones, written fifty million years ago. Finally, scrambling out at the top, we found ourselves on a great mound of tumbled blocks, with the curved walls of higher stonework rising westward, and the brooding peaks of the great mountains showing beyond the more crumbled structures toward the east. The sky above was a churning and opalescent mass of tenuous ice vapors, and the cold clutched at our vitals. In less than a quarter of an hour we had found the steep grade to the foothillsthe probable ancient terraceby which we had descended, and could see the dark bulk of our great plane amidst the sparse ruins on the rising slope ahead. Halfway uphill toward our goal we paused for a momentary breathing spell, and turned to look again at the fantastic tangle of incredible stone shapes below usonce more outlined mystically against an unknown west. As we did so we saw that the sky beyond had lost its morning haziness; the restless ice vapors having moved up to the zenith, where their mocking outlines seemed on the point of settling into some bizarre pattern which they feared to make quite definite or conclusive. There now lay revealed on the ultimate white horizon behind the grotesque city a dim, elfin line of pinnacled violet whose needlepointed heights loomed dreamlike against the beckoning rose color of the western sky. Up toward this shimmering rim sloped the ancient tableland, the depressed course of the bygone river traversing it as an irregular ribbon of shadow. For a second we gasped in admiration of the scene's unearthly cosmic beauty, and then vague horror began to creep into our souls. For this far violet line could be nothing else than the terrible mountains of the forbidden landhighest of earth's peaks and focus of earth's evil; harborers of nameless horrors and Archan secrets; shunned and prayed to by those who feared to carve their meaning; untrodden by any living thing of earth, but visited by the sinister lightnings and sending strange beams across the plains in the polar night. If the sculptured maps and pictures in that prehuman city had told truly, these cryptic violet mountains could not be much less than three hundred miles away; yet none the less sharply did their dim elfin essence jut above that remote and snowy rim, like the serrated edge of a monstrous alien planet about to rise into unaccustomed heavens. Looking at them, I thought nervously of certain sculptured hints of what the great bygone river had washed down into the city from their accursed slopingand wondered how much sense and how much folly had lain in the fears of those Old Ones who carved them so reticently. I recalled how their northerly end must come near the coast at Queen Mary Land, where even at that moment Sir Douglas Mawson's expedition was doubtless working less than a thousand miles away; and hoped that no evil fate would give Sir Douglas and his men a glimpse of what might lie beyond the protecting coastal range. Such thoughts formed a measure of my overwrought condition at the timeand Danforth seemed to be even worse. Yet before we had passed the great starshaped ruin and reached our plane our fears had become transferred to the lesser, but vast enough, range whose recrossing lay ahead of us. From these foothills the black, ruincrusted slopes reared up starkly and hideously against the east, again reminding us of those strange Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich; and when we thought of the damnable honeycombings inside them, and of the frightful amorphous entities that might have pushed their fetidly squirming sway even to the topmost hollow pinnacles, we could not face without panic the prospect of again sailing by those suggestive skyward cave mouths where the wind made sounds like an evil musical piping over a wide range. To make matters worse, we saw distinct traces of local mist around several of the summitsas poor Lake must have done when he made that early mistake about volcanismand thought shiveringly of that kindred mist from which we had just escapedof that, and of the blasphemous, horrorfostering abyss whence all such vapors came. All was well with the plane, and we clumsily hauled on our heavy flying furs. Danforth got the engine started without trouble, and we made a very smooth takeoff over the nightmare city. At a very high level there must have been great disturbance, since the icedust clouds of the zenith were doing all sorts of fantastic things; but at twentyfour thousand feet, the height we needed for the pass, we found navigation quite practicable. As we drew close to the jutting peaks the wind's strange piping again became manifest, and I could see Danforth's hands trembling at the controls. Rank amateur though I was, I thought at that moment that I might be a better navigator than he in effecting the dangerous crossing between pinnacles; and when I made motions to change seats and take over his duties he did not protest. I tried to keep all my skill and selfpossession about me, and stared at the sector of reddish farther sky betwixt the walls of the pass. But Danforth, released from his piloting and keyed up to a dangerous nervous pitch, could not keep quiet. I felt him turning and wriggling about as he looked back at the terrible receding city, ahead at the caveriddled, cubebarnacled peaks, sidewise at the bleak sea of snowy, rampartstrown foothills, and upward at the seething, grotesquely clouded sky. It was then, just as I was trying to steer safely through the pass, that his mad shrieking brought us so close to disaster, by shattering my tight hold on myself and causing me to fumble helplessly with the controls for a moment. A second afterward my resolution triumphed and we made the crossing safelyYet I am afraid that Danforth will never be the same again. I have said that Danforth refused to tell me what final horror made him scream out so insanelya horror which, I feel sadly sure, is mainly responsible for his present breakdown. We had snatches of shouted conversation above the wind's piping and the engine's buzzing as we reached the safe side of the range and swooped slowly down toward the camp, but that had mostly to do with the pledges of secrecy we had made as we prepared to leave the nightmare city. All that Danforth has ever hinted is that the final horror was a mirage. It was not, he declares, anything connected with the cubes and caves of those echoing, vaporous, wormily honeycombed mountains of madness which we crossed; but a single fantastic, demonic glimpse, among the churning westward zenith clouds, of what lay back of those other violet westward mountains which the Old Ones had shunned and feared. He has on rare occasions whispered disjointed and irresponsible things about "the black pit," "the carven rim," "the protoShoggoths," "the windowless solids with five dimensions," "the nameless cylinders," "the elder pharos," "YogSothoth," "the primal white jelly," "the color out of space," "the wings," "the eyes in darkness," "the moonladder," "the original, the eternal, the undying," and other bizarre conceptions; but when he is fully himself he repudiates all this and attributes it to his curious and macabre reading of earlier years. Danforth, indeed, is known to be among the few who have ever dared go completely through that wormriddled copy of the Necronomicon kept under lock and key in the college library. The higher sky, as we crossed the range, was surely vaporous and disturbed enough; and although I did not see the zenith I can well imagine that its swirls of ice dust may have taken strange forms. Imagination, knowing how vividly distant scenes can sometimes be reflected, refracted, and magnified by such layers of restless cloud, might easily have supplied the restand, of course, Danforth did not hint any of these specific horrors till after his memory had had a chance to draw on his bygone reading. He could never have seen so much in one instantaneous glance. At the time, his shrieks were confined to the repetition of a single, mad word of all too obvious source "Tekelili! Tekelili!" 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The shadow over Innsmouth This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title The shadow over Innsmouth Author H. P. Lovecraft Illustrator Hannes Bok Release date March 16, 2024 [eBook 73181] Language English Original publication New York, NY Weird Tales Credits Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at httpwww.pgdp.net START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH The Shadow Over Innsmouth Horrifying Novelette By H. P. LOVECRAFT Unspeakable monstrousness overhung the crumbling, stenchcursed town of Innsmouth ... and folks there had somehow got out of the idea of dying.... [Transcriber's Note This etext was produced from Weird Tales January 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] During the winter of 192728 Federal government officials made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth. The public first learned of it in February, when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamitingunder suitable precautionsof an enormous number of crumbling, wormeaten, and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront. Uninquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one of the major clashes in a spasmodic war on liquor. Keener newsfollowers, however, wondered at the prodigious number of arrests, the abnormally large force of men used in making them, and the secrecy surrounding the disposal of the prisoners. No trials, or even definite charges, were reported; nor were any of the captives seen thereafter in the regular jails of the nation. There were vague statements about disease and concentration camps, and later about dispersal in various naval and military prisons, but nothing positive ever developed. Complaints from many liberal organizations were met with long confidential discussions, and representatives were taken on trips to certain camps and prisons. As a result, these societies became surprisingly passive and reticent. Newspaper men were harder to manage, but seemed largely to cooperate with the government in the end. Only one papera tabloid always discounted because of its wild policymentioned the deepdiving submarine that discharged torpedoes downward in the marine abyss just beyond Devil Reef. That item, gathered by chance in a haunt of sailors, seemed indeed rather farfetched; since the low, black reef lies a full mile and a half out from Innsmouth Harbor. But at last I am going to defy the ban on speech about this thing. Results, I am certain, are so thorough that no public harm save a shock of repulsion could ever accrue from a hinting of what was found by those horrified raiders at Innsmouth. For my contact with this affair has been closer than that of any other layman, and I have carried away impressions which are yet to drive me to drastic measures. It was I who fled frantically out of Innsmouth in the early morning hours of July 16, 1927, and whose frightened appeals for government inquiry and action brought on the whole reported episode. I was willing enough to stay mute while the affair was fresh and uncertain; but now that it is an old story, with public interest and curiosity gone, I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that illrumored and evillyshadowed seaport of death and blasphemous abnormality. I never heard of Innsmouth till the day before I saw it for the first andso farlast time. I was celebrating my coming of age by a tour of New Englandsightseeing, antiquarian, and genealogicaland had planned to go directly from ancient Newburyport to Arkham, whence my mother's family was derived. I had no car, but was traveling by train, trolley, and motorcoach, always seeking the cheapest possible route. In Newburyport they told me that the steam train was the thing to take to Arkham; and it was only at the station ticketoffice, when I demurred at the high fare, that I learned about Innsmouth. The stout, shrewdfaced agent, whose speech showed him to be no local man, seemed sympathetic toward my efforts at economy, and made a suggestion that none of my other informants had offered. "You could take that old bus, I suppose," he said with a certain hesitation, "but it ain't thought much of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouthyou may have heard about thatand so the people don't like it. Run by an Innsmouth fellowJoe Sargentbut never gets any custom from here, or Arkham either, I guess. Leaves the Squarefront of Hammond's Drug Storeat 10 A.M. and 7 P.M. unless they've changed lately. Looks like a terrible rattletrapI've never been on it." That was the first I ever heard of shadowed Innsmouth. Any reference to a town not shown on common maps or listed in recent guidebooks would have interested me, and the agent's old manner of allusion roused something like real curiosity. So I asked the agent to tell me something about it. He was very deliberate, and spoke with an air of feeling slightly superior to what he said. "Innsmouth? Well, it's a queer kind of town down at the mouth of the Manuxet. Used to be almost a cityquite a port before the War of 1812but all gone to pieces in the last hundred years or so. No railroad nowB. M. never went through, and the branch line from Rowley was given up years ago. "More empty houses than there are people, I guess, and no business to speak of except fishing and lobstering. Everybody trades mostly either here or in Arkham or Ipswich. Once they had quite a few mills, but nothing's left now except one gold refinery running on the leanest kind of part time. "That refinery, though, used to be a big thing, and Old Man Marsh, who owns it, must be richer'n Croesus. Queer old duck, though, and sticks mighty close in his home. He's supposed to have developed some skin disease or deformity late in life that makes him keep out of sight. Grandson of Captain Obed Marsh, who founded the business. His mother seems to've been some kind of foreignerthey say a South Sea islanderso everybody raised Cain when he married an Ipswich girl fifty years ago. They always do that about Innsmouth people, and folks here and hereabouts always try to cover up any Innsmouth blood they have in 'em. But Marsh's children and grandchildren look just like anybody else so far's I can see. I've had 'em pointed out to me herethough, come to think of it, the elder children don't seem to be around lately. Never saw the old man. "And why is everybody so down on Innsmouth? Well, young fellow, you mustn't take too much stock in what people around here say. They're hard to get started, but once they do get started they never let up. They've been telling things about Innsmouthwhispering 'em, mostlyfor the last hundred years, I guess, and I gather they're more scared than anything else. Some of the stories would make you laughabout old Captain Marsh driving bargains with the devil and bringing imps out of hell to live in Innsmouth, or about some kind of devilworship and awful sacrifices in some place near the wharves that people stumbled on around 1845 or thereaboutsbut I come from Panton, Vermont, and that kind of story don't go down with me. "You ought to hear, though, what some of the oldtimers tell about the black reef off the coastDevil Reef, they call it. It's well above water a good part of the time, and never much below it, but at that you could hardly call it an island. The story is that there's a whole legion of devils seen sometimes on that reefsprawled about, or darting in and out of some kind of caves near the top. It's a rugged, uneven thing, a good bit over a mile out, and toward the end of shipping days sailors used to make big detours just to avoid it. "That is, sailors that didn't hail from Innsmouth. One of the things they had against old Captain Marsh was that he was supposed to land on it sometimes at night when the tide was right. Maybe he did, for I dare say the rock formation was interesting, and it's just barely possible he was looking for pirate loot and maybe finding it; but there was talk of his dealing with demons there. Fact is, I guess on the whole it was really the captain that gave the bad reputation to the reef. "That was before the big epidemic of 1846, when over half the folks in Innsmouth was carried off. They never did quite figure out what the trouble was, but it was probably some foreign kind of disease brought from China or somewhere by the shipping. It surely was bad enoughthere was riots over it, and all sorts of ghastly doings that I don't believe ever got outside of townand it left the place in awful shape. Never came backthere can't be more'n 300 or 400 people living there now. "But the real thing behind the way folks feel is simply race prejudiceand I don't say I'm blaming those that hold it. I hate those Innsmouth folks myself, and I wouldn't care to go to their town. I s'pose you knowthough I can see you're a Westerner by your talkwhat a lot our New England ships used to have to do with queer ports in Africa, Asia, the South Seas, and everywhere else, and what queer kinds of people they sometimes brought back with 'em. You've probably heard about the Salem man that came home with a Chinese wife, and maybe you know there's still a bunch of Fiji Islanders somewhere around Cape Cod. "Well, there must be something like that back of the Innsmouth people. The place always was badly cut off from the rest of the country by marshes and creeks, and we can't be sure about the ins and outs of the matter; but it's pretty clear that old Captain Marsh must have brought home some odd specimens when he had all three of his ships in commission back in the twenties and thirties. There certainly is a strange kind of a streak in the Innsmouth folks todayI don't know how to explain it, but it sort of makes you crawl. You'll notice a little in Sargent if you take his bus. Some of 'em have queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, starey eyes that never seem to shut, and their skin ain't quite right. Rough and scabby, and the sides of their necks are all shriveled or creased up. Get bald, too, very young. The older fellows look the worstfact is, I don't believe I've ever seen a very old chap of that kind. Guess they must die of looking in the glass! Animals hate 'emthey used to have lots of horse trouble before autos came in. "Nobody can ever keep track of those people, and state school officials and census men have a devil of a time. You can bet that prying strangers ain't welcome around Innsmouth. I've heard personally of more'n one business or government man that's disappeared there, and there's loose talk of one who went crazy and is out at Danvers now. They must have fixed up some awful scare for that fellow. "That's why I wouldn't go at night if I was you. I've never been there and have no wish to go, but I guess a daytime trip couldn't hurt youeven though the people hereabouts will advise you not to make it. If you're just sightseeing, and looking for oldtime stuff, Innsmouth ought to be quite a place for you." And so I spent part of that evening at the Newburyport Public Library looking up data about Innsmouth. The Essex County histories on the library shelves had very little to say, except that the town was founded in 1643, noted for shipbuilding before the Revolution, a seat of great marine prosperity in the early 19th century, and later a minor factory center using the Manuxet as power. The epidemic and riots of 1846 were very sparsely treated, as if they formed a discredit to the country. References to decline were few, though the significance of the later record was unmistakable. After the Civil War all industrial life was confined to the Marsh Refining Company, and the marketing of gold ingots formed the only remaining bit of major commerce aside from the eternal fishing. Most interesting of all was a glancing reference to the strange jewelry vaguely associated with Innsmouth. It had evidently impressed the whole countryside more than a little, for mention was made of specimens in the museum of Miskatonic University at Arkham, and in the display room of the Newburyport Historical Society. I resolved to see the local samplesaid to be a large, queerlyproportioned thing evidently meant for a tiaraif it could possibly be arranged. The librarian gave me a note of introduction to the curator of the Society, a Miss Anna Tilton, who lived nearby, and after a brief explanation that ancient gentlewoman was kind enough to pilot me into the closed building, since the hour was not outrageously late. The collection was a notable one indeed, but in my present mood I had eyes for nothing but the bizarre object which glistened in a corner cupboard under the electric lights. It took no excessive sensitiveness to beauty to make me literally gasp at the strange, unearthly splendor of the alien, opulent phantasy that rested there on a purple velvet cushion. The longer I looked, the more the thing fascinated me; and in this fascination there was a curiously disturbing element hardly to be classified or accounted for. I decided that it was the queer otherworldly quality of the art which made me uneasy. It was as if the workmanship were that of another planet. The patterns all hinted of remote secrets and unimaginable abysses in time and space, and the monotonously aquatic nature of the reliefs became almost sinister. Among these reliefs were fabulous monsters of abhorrent grotesqueness and malignitywholly primal and awesomely ancestral. At times I fancied that every contour of these blasphemous fishfrogs was overflowing with the ultimate quintessence of unknown and inhuman evil. In odd contrast to the tiara's aspect was its brief and prosy history as related by Miss Tilton. It had been pawned for a ridiculous sum at a shop in State Street in 1873, by a drunken Innsmouth man shortly afterward killed in a brawl. Miss Tilton was inclined to believe that it formed part of some exotic pirate hoard discovered by old Captain Obed Marsh. This view was surely not weakened by the insistent offers of purchase at a high price which the Marshes began to make as soon as they knew of its presence, and which they repeated to this day despite the Society's unvarying determination not to sell. As the good lady showed me out of the building, she assured me that the rumors of devilworship were partly justified by a peculiar secret cult which had gained force there and engulfed all the orthodox churches. It was called, she said, "The Esoteric Order of Dagon," and was undoubtedly a debased, quasipagan thing imported from the East a century before, at a time when Innsmouth fisheries seemed to be going barren. Its persistence among a simple people was quite natural in view of the sudden and permanent return of abundantly fine fishing, and it soon came to be the greatest influence on the town. All this, to the pious Miss Tilton, formed an excellent reason for shunning the ancient town of decay and desolation; but to me it was merely a fresh incentive; and I could scarcely sleep in my small room at the "Y" as the night wore away. II Shortly before ten the next morning I stood with my one small valise in front of Hammond's Drug Store in old Market Square waiting for the Innsmouth bus. In a few moments a small motorcoach of extreme decrepitude and dirty gray color rattled down State Street, made a turn, and drew up at the curb beside me. I felt immediately that it was the right one; a guess which the halfillegible sign on the windshield"ArkhamInnsmouthNewb'port"soon verified. There were only three passengersdark, unkempt men of sullen visage and somewhat youthful castand when the vehicle stopped they clumsily shambled out and began walking up State Street in a silent, almost furtive fashion. The driver also alighted. This, I reflected, must be the Joe Sargent mentioned by the ticketagent; and even before I had noticed any details there spread over me a wave of spontaneous aversion which could be neither checked nor explained. He was a thin, stoopshouldered man not much under six feet tall, dressed in shabby blue civilian clothes and wearing a frayed gray golf cap. His age was perhaps thirtyfive, but the odd, deep creases in the sides of his neck made him seem older when one did not study his dull, expressionless face. He had a narrow head, bulging, watery blue eyes that seemed never to wink, a flat nose, a receding forehead and chin, and singularly undeveloped ears. As he walked toward the bus I observed his peculiarly shambling gait and saw that his feet were inordinately immense. The more I studied them the more I wondered how he could buy any shoes to fit them. A certain greasiness about the fellow increased my dislike. He was evidently given to working or lounging around the fish docks, and carried with him much of their characteristic smell. Just what foreign blood was in him I could not even guess. I was sorry when I saw that there would be no other passengers on the bus. Somehow I did not like the idea of riding alone with this driver. But as the leaving time obviously approached I conquered my qualms and followed the man aboard, extending him a dollar bill and murmuring the single word "Innsmouth." At length the decrepit vehicle started with a jerk, and rattled noisily past the old brick buildings of State Street amidst a cloud of vapor from the exhaust. The day was warm and sunny, but the landscape of sand, sedgegrass, and stunted shrubbery became more and more desolate as we proceeded. Out the window I could see the blue water and the sandy line of Plum Island, and we presently drew very near the beach as our narrow road veered off from the main highway to Rowley and Ipswich. At last we lost sight of Plum Island and saw the vast expanse of the open Atlantic on our left. Our narrow course began to climb steeply, and I felt a singular sense of disquiet in looking at the lonely crest ahead where the rutted roadway met the sky. It was as if the bus were about to keep on its ascent leaving the sane earth altogether and merging with the unknown arcana of upper air and cryptical sky. The smell of the sea took on ominous implications, and the silent driver's bent, rigid back and narrow head became more and more hateful. As I looked at him I saw that the back of his head was almost as hairless as his face, having only a few straggling yellow strands upon a gray scabrous surface. Then we reached the crest and beheld the outspread valley beyond, where the Manuxet joins the sea just north of the long line of cliffs that culminate in Kingsport Head; all my attention was captured by the nearer panorama just below me. I had, I realized, come face to face with rumorshadowed Innsmouth. It was a town of wide extent and dense construction, yet one with a portentous dearth of visible life. The vast huddle of sagging gambrel roofs and peaked gables conveyed with offensive clearness the idea of wormy decay, and as we approached along the now descending road I could see that many roofs had wholly caved in. Stretching inland I saw the rusted, grassgrown line of the abandoned railway, with leaning telegraphpoles now devoid of wires. Here and there the ruins of wharves jutted out from the shore to end in indeterminate rottenness, those farthest south seeming the most decayed. And far out at sea, despite a high tide, I glimpsed a long, black line scarcely rising above the water yet carrying a suggestion of odd latent malignancy. This, I knew, must be Devil Reef. As I looked, a subtle, curious sense of beckoning seemed superadded to the grim repulsion; and oddly enough, I found this overtone more disturbing than the primary impression. As the bus reached a lower level I began to catch the steady note of a waterfall through the unnatural stillness. The leaning, unpainted houses grew thicker, lined both sides of the road, and displayed more urban tendencies than did those we were leaving behind. The panorama ahead had contracted to a street scene, and in spots I could see where a cobblestone pavement and stretches of brick sidewalk had formerly existed. All the houses were apparently deserted, and there were occasional gaps where tumbledown chimneys and cellar walls told of buildings that had collapsed. Pervading everything was the most nauseous fishy odor imaginable. And I was not to reach my destination without one other very strong impression of poignantly disagreeable quality. The bus had come to a sort of open concourse or radial point with churches on two sides and the bedraggled remains of a circular green in the center, and I was looking at a large pillared hall on the righthand junction ahead. The structure's once white paint was now gray and peeling, and the black and gold sign on the pediment was so faded that I could only with difficulty make out the words "Esoteric Order of Dagon." The door of the church basement was open, revealing a rectangle of blackness inside. And as I looked, a certain object crossed or seemed to cross that dark rectangle; burning into my brain a momentary conception of nightmare which was all the more maddening because analysis could not show a single nightmarish quality in it. It was a living objectthe first except the driver that I had seen since entering the compact part of the townand had I been in a steadier mood I would have found nothing whatever of terror in it. Clearly, as I realized a moment later, it was the pastor; clad in some peculiar vestments doubtless introduced since the Order of Dagon had modified the ritual of the local churches. The thing which had probably caught my first subconscious glance and supplied the touch of bizarre horror was the tall tiara he wore; an almost exact duplicate of the one Miss Tilton had shown me the previous evening. This, acting on my imagination, had supplied namelessly sinister qualities to the indeterminate face and robed, shambling form beneath it. A very thin sprinkling of repellentlooking youngish people now became visible on the sidewalkslone individuals, and silent knots of two or three. The lower floors of the crumbling houses sometimes harbored small shops with dingy signs, and I noticed a parked truck or two as we rattled along. The sound of waterfalls became more and more distinct, and presently I saw a fairly deep rivergorge ahead, spanned by a wide, ironrailed highway bridge beyond which a large square opened out. Then we rolled into the large semicircular square across the river and drew up on the righthand side in front of a tall, cupolacrowned building with remnants of yellow paint and with a halfeffaced sign proclaiming it to be the Gilman House. I was glad to get out of that bus, and at once proceeded to check my valise in the shabby hotel lobby. There was only one person in sightan elderly man without what I had come to call the "Innsmouth look"and I decided not to ask him any of the questions which bothered me; remembering that odd things had been noticed in this hotel. Instead, I strolled out on the square, from which the bus had already gone, and studied the scene minutely and appraisingly. For some reason or other I chose to make my first inquiries at the chain grocery, whose personnel was not likely to be native to Innsmouth. I found a solitary boy of about seventeen in charge, and was pleased to note the brightness and affability which promised cheerful information. He seemed exceptionally eager to talk, and I soon gathered that he did not like the place, its fishy smell, or its furtive people. His family did not like him to work in Innsmouth, but the chain had transferred him there and he did not wish to give up his job. There was, he said, no public library or chamber of commerce in Innsmouth, but I could probably find my way about. The street I had come down was Federal. West of that were the fine old residence streetsBroad, Washington, Lafayette, and Adamsand east of it were the shoreward slums. Certain spots were almost forbidden territory, as he had learned at considerable cost. One must not, for example, linger much around the Marsh refinery, or around any of the still used churches, or around the pillared Order of Dagon Hall at New Church Green. Those churches were very oddall violently disavowed by their respective denominations elsewhere, and apparently using the queerest kind of ceremonials and clerical vestments. As for the Innsmouth peoplethe youth hardly knew what to make of them. Their appearanceespecially those staring, unwinking eyes which one never saw shutwas certainly shocking enoughand their voices were disgusting. It was awful to hear them chanting in their churches at night, and especially during their main festivals or revivals, which fell twice a year on April 30 and October 31. They were very fond of the water, and swam a great deal in both river and harbor. Swimming races out to Devil Reef were very common, and everyone in sight seemed well able to share in this arduous sport. It would be of no use, my informant said, to ask the natives anything about the place. The only one who would talk was a very aged but normallooking man who lived at the poorhouse on the north rim of the town and spent his time walking about or lounging around the fire station. This hoary character, Zadok Allen, was 96 years old and somewhat touched in the head, besides being the town drunkard. He was a strange, furtive creature who constantly looked over his shoulder as if afraid of something, and when sober could not be persuaded to talk at all with strangers. He was, however, unable to resist any offer of his favorite poison; and once drunk would furnish the most astonishing fragments of whispered reminiscence. After all, though, little useful data could be gained from him; since his stories were all insane, incomplete hints of impossible marvels and horrors which could have no source save in his own distorted fancy. Nobody ever believed him, but the natives did not like him to drink and talk with any strangers; and it was not always safe to be seen questioning him. It was probably from him that some of the wildest popular whispers and delusions were derived. The Marshes, together with the other three gently bred families of the townthe Waites, the Gilmans, and the Eliotswere all very retiring. They lived in immense houses along Washington Street, and several were reputed to harbor in concealment certain kinsfolk whose personal aspect forbade public view, and whose deaths had been reported and recorded. Warning me that most of the street signs were down, the youth drew for my benefit a rough but ample and painstaking sketch map of the town's salient features. After a moment's study I felt sure that it would be of great help, and pocketed it with profuse thanks. Thus began my systematic though halfbewildered tour of Innsmouth's narrow, shadowblighted ways. Crossing the bridge and turning toward the roar of the lower falls, I passed close to the Marsh refinery, which seemed oddly free from the noise of industry. This building stood on the steep river bluff near a bridge and an open confluence of streets which I took to be the earliest civic center, displaced after the Revolution by the present Town Square. Recrossing the gorge on the Main Street bridge, I struck a region of utter desertion which somehow made me shudder. Collapsing huddles of gambrel roofs formed a jagged and fantastic skyline, above which rose the ghoulish, decapitated steeple of an ancient church. Fish Street was as deserted as Main, though it differed in having many brick and stone warehouses still in excellent shape. Water Street was almost its duplicate, save that there were great seaward gaps where wharves had been. Not a living thing did I see, except for the scattered fishermen on the distant breakwater, and not a sound did I hear save the lapping of the harbor tides and the roar of the falls in the Manuxet. I kept north along Main to Martin, then turning inland, crossing Federal Street safely north of the Green, and entering the decayed patrician neighborhood of northern Broad, Washington, Lafayette, and Adams Streets. Following Washington Street toward the river, I now faced a zone of former industry and commerce; noting the ruins of a factory ahead, and seeing others, with the traces of an old railway station and covered railway bridge beyond up the gorge on my right. The uncertain bridge now before me was posted with a warning sign, but I took the risk and crossed again to the south bank where traces of life reappeared. Furtive, shambling creatures stared cryptically in my direction, and more normal faces eyed me coldly and curiously. Innsmouth was rapidly becoming intolerable, and I turned down Paine Street toward the Square in the hope of getting some vehicle to take me to Arkham before the stilldistant starting time of that sinister bus. It was then that I saw the tumbledown fire station on my left, and noticed the redfaced, bushybearded, wateryeyed old man in nondescript rags who sat on a bench in front of it talking with a pair of unkempt but not abnormallooking firemen. This, of course, must be Zadok Allen, the halfcrazed, liquorish nonagenarian whose tales of old Innsmouth and its shadow were so hideous and incredible. III I had been assured that the old man could do nothing but hint at wild, disjointed, and incredible legends, and I had been warned that the natives made it unsafe to be seen talking with him; yet the thought of this aged witness to the town's decay, with memories going back to the early days of ships and factories, was a lure that no amount of reason could make me resist. Curiosity flared up beyond sense and caution, and in my youthful egotism I fancied I might be able to sift a nucleus of real history from the confused, extravagant outpouring I would probably extract with the aid of whiskey. A quart bottle of such was easily, though not cheaply, obtained in the rear of a dingy varietystore just off the Square in Eliot Street. Reentering the Square I saw that luck was with me; forshuffling out of Paine Street around the corner of the Gilman HouseI glimpsed nothing less than the tall, lean, tattered form of old Zadok Allen himself. In accordance with my plan, I attracted his attention by brandishing my newlypurchased bottle; and soon realized that he had begun to shuffle wistfully after me as I turned into Waite Street on my way to the most deserted region I could think of. Before I reached Main Street I could hear a faint and wheezy "Hey, Mister!" behind me, and I presently allowed the old man to catch up and take copious pulls from the quart bottle. I began putting out feelers as we walked along to Water Street and turned southward amidst the omnipresent desolation and crazily tilted ruins, but found that the aged tongue did not loosen as quickly as I had expected. At length I saw a grassgrown opening toward the sea between crumbling brick walls, with the weedy length of an earthandmasonry wharf projecting beyond. Piles of mosscovered stones near the water promised tolerable seats, and the scene was sheltered from all possible view by a ruined warehouse on the north. About four hours remained for conversation if I were to catch the eight o'clock coach for Arkham, and I began to dole out more liquor to the ancient tippler; meanwhile eating my own frugal lunch. In my donations I was careful not to overshoot the mark, for I did not wish Zadok's vinous garrulousness to pass into a stupor.

After an hour his furtive taciturnity showed signs of disappearing, and something or other had caused his wandering gaze to light on the low, distant line of Devil Reef, then showing plainly and almost fascinatingly above the waves. He bent toward me, took hold of my coat lapel, and hissed out some hints that could not be mistaken. "Thar's whar it all begunthat cursed place of all wickedness whar the deep water starts. Gate o' hellsheer drop daown to a bottom no saoundin'line kin tech. Ol' Cap'n Obed done ithim that faound aout more'n was good fer him in the Saouth Sea islands. "Never was nobody like Cap'n Obedold limb o' Satan! Heh, heh! I kin mind him atellin' abaout furren parts, an' callin' all the folks stupid fer goin' to Christian meetin' an' bearin' their burdens meek an' lowly. Says they'd orter git better gods like some o' the folks in the Injiesgods as ud bring 'em good fishin' in return fer their sacrifices, an' ud reely answer folks's prayers. "Matt Eliot, his fust mate, talked a lot, too, only he was agin' folks's doin' any heathen things. Told abaout an island east of Othaheite whar they was a lot o' stone ruins older'n anybody knew anything abaout, kind o' like them on Ponape, in the Carolines, but with carvin's of faces that looked like the big statues on Easter Island. They was a little volcanic island near thar, too, whar they was other ruins with diff'rent carvin'sruins all wore away like they'd ben under the sea onct, an' with picters of awful monsters all over 'em. "Wal, Sir, Matt he says the natives araound thar had all the fish they cud ketch, an' sported bracelets an' armlets an' head rigs made aout of a queer kind o' gold an' covered with picters o' monsters jest like the ones carved over the ruins on the little islandsorter fishlike frogs or froglike fishes that was drawed in all kinds o' positions like they was human bein's. Nobody cud git aout o' them whar they got all the stuff, an' all the other natives wondered haow they managed to find fish in plenty even when the very next islands had lean pickin's. Matt he got to wonderin' too, an' so did Cap'n Obed. Obed, he notices, besides, that lots of the han'some young folks ud drop aout o' sight fer good from year to year, an' that they wan't many old folk araound. Also, he thinks some of the folks looks durned queer even fer Kanakys. "It took Obed to git the truth aout o' them heathens. I dun't know haow he done it, but he begun by tradin' fer the goldlike things they wore. Ast 'em whar they come from, an' ef they cud git more, an' finally wormed the story aout o' the old chiefWalakea, they called him. Nobody but Obed ud ever a believed the old yeller devil, but the Cap'n cud read folks like they was books. Heh, heh! Nobody never believes me naow when I tell 'em, an I dun't s'pose you will, young fellerthough come to look at ye, ye hev kind o' got them sharpreadin' eyes like Obed had." The old man's whisper grew fainter, and I found myself shuddering at the terrible and sincere portentousness of his intonation, even though I knew his tale could be nothing but drunken phantasy. "Wal, Sir, Obed he larnt that they's things on this arth as most folks never heard abaoutan' wouldn't believe ef they did hear. It seems these Kanakys was sacrificin' heaps o' their young men an' maidens to some kind o' godthings that lived under the sea, an' gittin' all kinds o' favors in return. They met the things on the little islet with the queer ruins, an' it seems them awful picters o' frogfish monsters was supposed to be picters o' these things. Mebbe they was the kind o' critters as got all the mermaids stories an' sech started. They had all kinds o' cities on the seabottom, an' this island was heaved up from thar. Seems they was some of the things alive in the stone buildin's when the island come up sudden to the surface. That's haow the Kanakys got wind they was daown thar. Made signtalk as soon as they got over bein' skeert, an' pieced up a bargain afore long. "Them things liked human sacrifices. Had had 'em ages afore, but lost track o' the upper world arter a time. What they done to the victims it ain't fer me to say, an' I guess Obed wa'n't none too sharp abaout askin'. But it was all right with the heathens, because they'd ben havin' a hard time an' was desp'rate abaout everything. They give a sarten number o' young folks to the seathings twict every yearMayEve an' Hallowe'enreg'lar as cud be. Also give some o' the carved knickknacks they made. What the things agreed to give in return was a plenty o' fishthey druv 'em in from all over the seaan' a few goldlike things naow an' then. "When it come to matin' with them toadlookin' fishes, the Kanakys kind o' balked, but finally they larnt something as put a new face on the matter. Seems that human folks has got a kind o' relation to sech waterbeaststhat everything alive come aout o' the water onct, an' only needs a little change to go back agin. Them things told the Kanakys that ef they mixed bloods there'd be children as ud look human at fust, but later turn more'n more like the things, till finally they'd take to the water an' jine the main lot o' things daown thar. An' this is the important part, young fellerthem as turned into fish things an' went into the water wouldn't never die. Them things never died excep' they was kilt violent. "Wal, Sir, it seems by the time Obed knowed them islanders they was all full o' fish blood from them deepwater things. When they got old an' begun to show it, they was kep' hid until they felt like takin' to the water an' quittin' the place. Some was more teched than others, an' some never did change quite enough to take to the water; but mostly they turned aout jest the way them things said. Them as was born more like the things changed arly, but them as was nearly human sometimes stayed on the island till they was past seventy, though they'd usually go daown under fer trial trips afore that. Folks as had took to the water, gen'rally come back a good deal to visit, so's a man ud often be atalkin' to his own fivetimesgreatgrandfather, who'd left the dry land a couple o' hundred years or so afore. "Everybody got aout o' the idee o' dyin'excep' in canoe wars with the other islanders, or as sacrifices to the seagods daown below, or from snakebite or plague or sharp gallopin' ailments or somethin' afore they cud take to the waterbut simply looked forrad to a kind o' change that wa'n't a bit horrible arter a while. They thought what they'd got was well wuth all they'd had to give upan' I guess Obed kind o' come to think the same hisself when he'd chewed over old Walakea's story a bit. Walakea, though, was one of the few as hadn't got none of the fish bloodbein' of a royal line that intermarried with royal lines on other islands. "Walakea give him a funny kind o' thingumajig made aout o' lead or something, that he said ud bring up the fish things from any place in the water whar they might be a nest of 'em. The idee was to drop it daown with the right kind o' prayers an' sech. Walakea allaowed as was the things was scattered all over the world, so's anybody that looked abaout cud find a nest an' bring 'em up ef they was wanted. "Matt he didn't like this business at all, an' wanted Obed shud keep away from the island; but the Cap'n was sharp fer gain, an' faound he cud git them goldlike things so cheap it ud pay him to make a specialty of 'em. "Things went on that way fer years, an' Obed got enough o' that goldlike stuff to make him start the refinery in Waite's old rundaown fullin' mill. "Wall, come abaout 'thuttyeightwhen I was seven year' oldObed he faound the island people all wiped aout between v'yages. Seems the other islanders had got wind o' what was goin' on, an' had took matters into their own hands. S'pose they must a had, arter all, them old magic signs as the sea things says was the only things they was afeard of. No tellin' what any o' them Kanakys will chance to git a holt of when the seabottom throws up some island with ruins older'n the deluge. Pious cusses, these wasthey didn't leave nothin' standin' on either the main island or the little volcanic islet excep' what parts of the ruins was too big to knock daown. "That naturally hit Obed pretty hard, seein' as his normal trade was doin' very poor. It hit the whole of Innsmouth, too, because in seafarin' days what profited the master of a ship gen'lly profited the crew proportionate. Most o' the folks araound the taown took the hard times kind o' sheeplike an' resigned, but they was in bad shape because the fishin' was peterin' aout an' the mills wa'n't doin' none too well. "Then's the time Obed he begun acursin' at the folks fer bein' dull sheep an' prayin' to a Christian heaven as didn't help 'em none. He told 'em he'd knowed of folks as prayed to gods that give somethin' ye reely need, an' says ef a good bunch o' men ud stand by him, he cud mebbe git a holt o' sarten paowers as ud bring plenty o' fish an' quite a bit o' gold." Here the old man faltered, mumbled, and lapsed into a moody and apprehensive silence; glancing nervously over his shoulder and then turning back to stare fascinatedly at the distant black reef. When I spoke to him he did not answer, so I knew I would have to let him finish the bottle. He licked its nose and slipped it into his pocket, then beginning to nod and whisper softly to himself. I bent close to catch any articulate words he might utter, and thought I saw a sardonic smile behind the stained, bushy whiskers. Yeshe was really forming words, and I could grasp a fair proportion of them. "Poor MattMatt he allus was agin ittried to line up the folks on his side, an' had long talks with the preachersno usethey run the Congregational parson aout o' taown, an' the Methodist feller quitnever did see Resolved Babcock, the Baptist parson, aginWrath o' JehovyI was a mighty little critter, but I heerd what I heerd an' seen what I seenDagon an' AshtorethBelial an' BelzebubGolden Caff an' the idols o' Canaan an' the PhilistinesBabylonish abominationsMene, mene, tekel, upharsin" He stopped again, and from the look in his watery blue eyes I feared he was close to a stupor after all. But when I gently shook his shoulder he turned on me with astonishing alertness and snapped out some more obscure phrases. "Dun't believe me, hey? Heh, heh, hehthen just tell me, young feller, why Cap'n Obed an' twenty odd other folks used to row aout to Devil Reef in the dead o' night an' chant things so laoud ye cud hear 'em all over taown when the wind was right? Tell me that, hey? An' tell me why Obed was allus droppin' heavy things daown into the deep water t'other side o' the reef whar the bottom shoots daown like a cliff lower'n ye kin saound? Tell me what he done with that funnyshaped lead thingumajig as Walakea give him? Hey, boy?" The watery blue eyes were almost savage and maniacal now, and the dirty white beard bristled electrically. Old Zadok probably saw me shrink back, for he began to cackle evilly. "Heh, heh, heh, heh! Beginnin' to see, hey? Haow abaout the night I took my pa's ship's glass up to a cupalo an' seed the reef abristlin' thick with shapes that dove off quick soon's the moon riz? Obed an' the folks was in a dory, but them shapes dove off the far side into the deep water an' never come up.... Haow'd ye like to be a little shaver alone up in a cupalo awatchin' shapes as wa'n't human shapes?... Hey?... Heh, heh, heh, heh...." The old man was getting hysterical, and I began to shiver with a nameless alarm. He laid a gnarled claw on my shoulder, and it seemed to me that its shaking was not altogether that of mirth. "S'pose one night ye seed somethin' heavy heaved offen Obed's dory beyond the reef, an' then larned nex' day a young feller was missin' from home? Hey? Did anybody ever see hide or hair o' Hiram Gilman agin? Did they? An' Nick Pierce, an' Luelly Waite, an' Adoniram Saouthwick, an' Henry Garrison? Hey? Heh, heh.... "Wal, Sir, that was the time Obed begun to git on his feet agin. Folks see his three darters awearin' goldlike things as nobody'd never see on 'em afore, an' smoke started comin' aout o' the refin'ry chimbly. Other folks was prosp'rin', toofish began to swarm into the harbor fit to kill, an' heaven knows what sized cargoes we begun to ship aout to Newb'ryport, Arkham, an' Boston. 'Twas then Obed got the ol' branch railrud put through. "Remember, I ain't sayin' Obed was set on hevin' things jest like they was on that Kanaky isle. I dun't think he aimed at fust to do no mixin', nor raise no younguns to take to the water an' turn into fishes with etarnal life. He wanted them gold things, an' was willin' to pay heavy, an' I guess the others was satisfied fer a while.... "Come in 'fortysix the taown done some lookin' an' thinkin' fer itself. Too many folks missin'too much wild preachin' at meetin' of a Sundaytoo much talk abaout that reef. I guess I done a bit by tellin' Selectman Mowry what I see from the cupalo. They was a party one night as follered Obed's craowd aout to the reef, an' I heerd shots betwixt the dories. Nex' day Obed an' thuttytwo others was in jail, with everybody awonderin' jest what was afoot an' jest what charge agin 'em cud be got to holt. God, ef anybody'd looked ahead ... a couple o' weeks later, when nothin' had ben throwed into the sea fer that long...." Zadok was showing signs of fright and exhaustion, and I let him keep silence for a while, though glancing apprehensively at my watch. The tide had turned and was coming in now, and the sound of the waves seemed to arouse him. "That awful night.... I seed 'em.... I was up in the cupalo ... hordes of 'em ... swarms of 'em ... all over the reef an' swimmin' up the harbor into the Manuxet.... God, what happened in the streets of Innsmouth that night ... they rattled our door, but pa wouldn't open ... then he clumb aout the kitchen winder with his musket to find Selectman Mowry an' see what he cud do.... Maounds o' the dead an' the dyin' ... shots an' screams ... shaoutin' in Ol' Squar an' Taown Squar an' New Church Green ... jail throwed open ... proclamation ... treason ... called it the plague when folks come in an' faound haff our people missin' ... nobody left but them as ud jine in with Obed an' them things or else keep quiet ... never heerd o' my pa no more...." The old man was panting, and perspiring profusely. His grip on my shoulder tightened. "Everything cleaned up in the mornin'but they was traces.... Obed he kinder takes charge an' says things is goin' to be changed ... others'll worship with us at meetin'time, an' sarten haouses hez got to entertain guests ... they wanted to mix like they done with the Kanakys, an' he fer one didn't feel baound to stop 'em. Far gone, was Obed ... jest like a crazy man on the subjeck. He says they brung us fish an' treasure, an' shud hev what they hankered arter.... "Nothin' was to be diff'runt on the aoutside, only we was to keep shy o' strangers ef we knowed what was good fer us. We all hed to take the Oath o' Dagon, an' later on they was secon' an' third Oaths that some of us took. Them as ud help special, ud git special rewardsgold an' sech. No use balkin', fer they was millions of 'em daown thar. They'd ruther not start risin' an' wipin' aout humankind, but ef they was gave away an' forced to, they cud do a lot toward jest that. "Yield up enough sacrifices an' savage knickknacks an' harborage in the taown when they wanted it, an' they'd let well enough alone. All in the band of the faithfulOrder o' Dagonan' the children shud never die, but go back to the Mother Hydra an' Father Dagon what we all come from onctI! I! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn" Old Zadok began to moan now, and tears were coursing down his channelled cheeks into the depths of his beard. "God, what I seen senct I was fifteen year' oldMene, mene, tekel, upharsin!the folks as was missin', an' them as kilt theirselvesthem as told things in Arkham or Ipswich or sech places was all called crazy, like you're acallin' me right naowbut God, what I seenthey'd a kilt me long ago fer what I know, only I'd took the fust an' secon' Oaths o' Dagon offen Obed, so was pertected unlessen a jury of 'em proved I told things knowin' an' delib'rit ... but I wudn't take the third OathI'd a died ruther'n take that "It got wuss araound Civil War time, when children born senct 'fortysix begun to grow upsome of 'em, that is. I was afeardnever did no pryin' arter that awful night, an' never see one o'themclost to in all my life. That is, never no fullblooded one. Barnabas Marsh that runs the refin'ry naow is Obed's grandson by his fust wifeson of Onesiphorus, his eldest son, but his mother was another o' them as wa'n't never seed aoutdoors. "Right naow Barnabas is abaout changed. Can't shet his eyes no more, an' is all aout o' shape. They say he still wears clothes, but he'll take to the water soon." ... The sound of the incoming tide was now very insistent, and little by little it seemed to change the old man's mood from maudlin tearfulness to watchful fear. He would pause now and then to renew those nervous glances over his shoulder or out toward the reef, and despite the wild absurdity of his tale, I could not help beginning to share his vague apprehensiveness. Zadok now grew shriller, and seemed to be trying to whip up his courage with louder speech. "Hey, yew, why dun't ye say somethin'? Haow'd ye like to be livin' in a taown like this, with everything arottin' an' adyin', an' boardedup monsters crawlin' an' bleatin' an' barkin' an' hoppin' araoun' black cellars an' attics every way ye turn? Hey? Wal, Sir, let me tell ye that aint the wust!" Zadok was really screaming now, and the mad frenzy of his voice disturbed me more than I care to own. "Curse ye, dun't set thar astarin' at me with them eyesI tell Obed Marsh he's in hell, an' hez got to stay thar! Heh, heh ... in hell, I says! Can't git meI hain't done nothin' nor told nobody nothin' "Oh, you, young feller? Wal, even ef I hain't told nobody nothin' yet, I'm agoin' to naow! Yew jest set still an' listen to me, boythis is what I ain't never told nobody.... I says I didn't get to do no pryin' arter that nightbut I found things aout jest the same! "Yew want to know what the reel horror is, hey? Wal, it's thisit ain't what them fish devils hez done, but what they're agoin' to do! They're abringin' things up aout o' whar they come from into the taownben doin' it fer years, an' slackenin' up lately. Them haouses north o' the river betwixt Water an' Main Streets is full of 'emthem devils an' what they brungan' when they git ready ... I say, when they git ready ... ever hear tell of a shoggoth?.... "Hey, d'ye hear me? I tell ye I know what them things beI seen 'em one night when.... EHAHHHHAH! E'YAAHHHH...." The hideous suddenness and inhuman frightfulness of the old man's shriek almost made me faint. His eyes, looking past me toward the malodorous sea, were positively starting from his head; while his face was a mask of fear worthy of Greek tragedy. His bony claw dug monstrously into my shoulder, and he made no motion as I turned my head to look at whatever he had glimpsed. There was nothing that I could see. Only the incoming tide, with perhaps one set of ripples more local than the longflung line of breakers. But now Zadok was shaking me, and I turned back to watch the melting of that fearfrozen face into a chaos of twitching eyelids and mumbling gums. Presently his voice came backalbeit as a trembling whisper. "Git aout o' here! Git aout o' here! They seen usgit aout fer your life! Dun't wait fer nothin'they know naowRun fer itquickaout o' this taown" Another heavy wave dashed against the loosening masonry of the bygone wharf, and changed the mad ancient's whisper to another inhuman and bloodcurdling scream. "EYAAAHHHH!... "YHAAAAAAAA!..." Before I could recover my scattered wits he had relaxed his clutch on my shoulder and dashed wildly inland toward the street, reeling northward around the ruined warehouse wall. I glanced back at the sea, but there was nothing there. And when I reached Water Street and looked along it toward the north there was no remaining trace of Zadok Allen. IV I can hardly describe the mood in which I was left by this harrowing episodean episode at once mad and pitiful, grotesque and terrifying. The grocery boy had prepared me for it, yet the reality left me none the less bewildered and disturbed. Puerile though the story was, old Zadok's insane earnestness and horror had communicated to me a mounting unrest which joined with my earlier sense of loathing for the town and its blight of intangible shadow. The hour had grown perilously latemy watch said 715, and the Arkham bus left Town Square at eightso I tried to give my thoughts as neutral and practical a cast as possible, meanwhile walking rapidly through the deserted streets of gaping roofs and leaning houses toward the hotel where I had checked my valise and would find my bus. Studying the grocery youth's map and seeking a route I had not traversed before, I chose Marsh Street instead of State for my approach to Town Square. Near the corner of Fall Street I began to see scattered groups of furtive whisperers, and when I finally reached the Square I saw that almost all the loiterers were congregated around the door of the Gilman House. It seemed as if many bulging, watery, unwinking eyes looked oddly at me as I claimed my valise in the lobby, and I hoped that none of these unpleasant creatures would be my fellowpassengers on the coach. The bus, rather early, rattled in with three passengers somewhat before eight, and an evillooking fellow on the sidewalk muttered a few indistinguishable words to the driver. I was, it appeared, in very bad luck. There had been something wrong with the engine, despite the excellent time made from Newburyport, and the bus could not complete the journey to Arkham. No, it could not possibly be repaired that night, nor was there any other way of getting transportation out of Innsmouth, either to Arkham or elsewhere. Sargent was sorry, but I would have to stop over at the Gilman. Probably the clerk would make the price easy for me, but there was nothing else to do. Almost dazed by this sudden obstacle, and violently dreading the fall of night in this decaying and halfunlighted town, I left the bus and reentered the hotel lobby; where the sullen, queerlooking night clerk told me I could have Room 428 on next the top floorlarge, but without running waterfor a dollar. Despite what I had heard of this hotel in Newburyport, I signed the register, paid my dollar, let the clerk take my valise, and followed that sour, solitary attendant up three creaking flights of stairs past dusty corridors which seemed wholly devoid of life. My room, a dismal rear one with two windows and bare, cheap furnishings, overlooked a dingy courtyard otherwise hemmed in by low, deserted brick blocks, and commanded a view of decrepit westwardstretching roofs with a marshy countryside beyond. At the end of the corridor was a bathrooma discouraging relique with ancient marble bowl, tin tub, faint electric light, and musty wooden panelling around all the plumbing fixtures. As twilight deepened I turned on the one feeble electric bulb over the cheap, ironframed bed, and tried as best I could to read. I felt it advisable to keep my mind wholesomely occupied, for it would not do to brood over the abnormalities of this ancient, blightshadowed town while I was still within its borders. The insane yarn I had heard from the aged drunkard did not promise very pleasant dreams, and I felt I must keep the image of his wild, watery eyes as far as possible from my imagination. Another thing that disturbed me was the absence of a bolt on the door of my room. One had been there, as marks clearly showed, but there were signs of recent removal. No doubt it had become out of order, like so many other things in this decrepit edifice. In my nervousness I looked around and discovered a bolt on the clothespress which seemed to be of the same size, judging from the marks, as the one formerly on the door. To gain a partial relief from the general tension I busied myself by transferring this hardware to the vacant place with the aid of a handy threeinone device including a screwdriver which I kept on my keyring. The bolt fitted perfectly, and I was somewhat relieved when I knew that I could shoot it firmly upon retiring. There were adequate bolts on the two lateral doors to connecting rooms, and these I proceeded to fasten. I did not undress, but decided to read till I was sleepy and then lie down with only my coat, collar, and shoes off. Taking a pocket flashlight from my valise, I placed it in my trousers, so that I could read my watch if I woke up later in the dark. Drowsiness, however, did not come; and when I stopped to analyze my thoughts I found to my disquiet that I was really unconsciously listening for somethinglistening for something which I dreaded but could not name. At length, feeling a fatigue which had nothing of drowsiness in it, I bolted the newly outfitted hall door, turned off the light, and threw myself down on the hard, uneven bedcoat, collar, shoes, and all. In the darkness every faint noise of the night seemed magnified, and a flood of doubly unpleasant thoughts swept over me. I was sorry I had put out the light, yet was too tired to rise and turn it on again. Then, after a long, dreary interval, and prefaced by a fresh creaking of stairs and corridor, there came that soft, damnably unmistakable sound which seemed like a malign fulfilment of all my apprehensions. Without the least shadow of a doubt, the lock on my hall door was being triedcautiously, furtively, tentativelywith a key. The change in the menace from vague premonition to immediate reality was a profound shock, and fell upon me with the force of a genuine blow. It never once occurred to me that the fumbling might be a mere mistake. Malign purpose was all I could think of, and I kept deathly quiet, awaiting the wouldbe intruder's next move. After a time the cautious rattling ceased, and I heard the room to the north entered with a pass key. Then the lock of the connecting door to my room was softly tried. The bolt held, of course, and I heard the floor creak as the prowler left the room. After a moment there came another soft rattling, and I knew that the room to the south of me was being entered. Again a furtive trying of a bolted connecting door, and again a receding creaking. This time the creaking went along the hall and down the stairs, so I knew that the prowler had realized the bolted condition of my doors and was giving up his attempt for a time. The one thing to do was to get out of that hotel alive as quickly as I could, and through some channel other than the front stairs and lobby! Rising softly and throwing my flashlight on the switch, I sought to light the bulb over my bed in order to choose and pocket some belongings for a swift, valiseless flight. Nothing, however, happened; and I saw that the power had been cut off. So, filling my pockets with the flashlight's aid, I put on my hat and tiptoed to the windows to consider chances of descent. Despite the state's safety regulations there was no fire escape on this side of the hotel, and I saw that my windows commanded only a sheer threestory drop to the cobbled courtyard. On the right and left, however, some ancient brick business blocks abutted on the hotel; their slant roofs coming up to a reasonable jumping distance from my fourthstory level. To reach either of these lines of buildings I would have to be in a room two doors from my ownin one case on the north and in the other case on the southand my mind instantly set to work calculating what chances I had of making the transfer. First, I reinforced my own outer door by pushing the bureau against itlittle by little, in order to make a minimum of sound. Then, gathering from the grocery boy's map that the best route out of town was southward, I glanced first at the connecting door on the south side of the room. It was designed to open in my direction, hence I sawafter drawing the bolt and finding other fastenings in placeit was not a favorable one for forcing. Accordingly abandoning it as a route, I cautiously moved the bedstead against it to hamper any attack which might be made on it later from the next room. The door on the north was hung to open away from me, and thisthough a test proved it to be locked or bolted from the other sideI knew must be my route. If I could gain the roofs of the buildings in Paine Street and descend successfully to the ground level, I might perhaps dart through the courtyard and the adjacent or opposite buildings to Washington or Batesor else emerge in Paine and edge around southward into Washington. In any case, I would aim to strike Washington somehow and get quickly out of the Town Square region. My preference would be to avoid Paine, since the fire station there might be open all night. I was irresolutely speculating on when I had better attack the northward door, and on how I could least audibly manage it, when I noticed that the vague noises underfoot had given place to a fresh and heavier creaking of the stairs. A wavering flicker of light showed through my transom, and the boards of the corridor began to groan with a ponderous load. Muffled sounds of possible vocal origin approached, and at length a firm knock came at my outer door. For a moment I simply held my breath and waited. Eternities seemed to elapse, and the nauseous fishy odor of my environment seemed to mount suddenly and spectacularly. Then the knocking was repeatedcontinuously, and with growing insistence. I knew that the time for action had come, and forthwith drew the bolt of the northward connecting door, bracing myself for the task of battering it open. The knocking waxed louder, and I hoped that its volume would cover the sound of my efforts. At last beginning my attempt, I lunged again and again at the thin panelling with my left shoulder, heedless of shock or pain. Finally the connecting door gave, but with such a crash that I knew those outside must have heard. Instantly the outside knocking became a violent battering, while keys sounded ominously in the hall doors of the rooms on both sides of me. Rushing through the newly opened connection, I succeeded in bolting the northerly hall door before the lock could be turned; but even as I did so I heard the hall door of the third roomthe one from whose window I had hoped to reach the roof belowbeing tried with a pass key. For an instant I felt absolute despair, since my trapping in a chamber with no window egress seemed complete. Then, with a dazed automatism, I made for the next connecting door and performed the blind motion of pushing at it in an effort to get through! Sheer fortunate chance gave me my reprievefor the connecting door before me was not only unlocked but actually ajar. In a second I was through, and had my right knee and shoulder against a hall door which was visibly opening inward. My pressure took the opener off guard, for the thing shut as I pushed, so that I could slip the wellconditioned bolt as I had done with the other door. As I gained this respite I heard the battering at the two other doors abate, while a confused clatter came from the connecting door I had shielded with the bedstead. Evidently the bulk of my assailants had entered the southerly room and were massing in a lateral attack. But at the same moment a pass key sounded in the next door to the north, and I knew that a nearer peril was at hand. The northward connecting door was wide open, but there was no time to think about checking the already turning lock in the hall.

All I could do was to shut and bolt the open connecting door, as well as its mate on the opposite sidepushing a bedstead against the one and a bureau against the other, and moving a washstand in front of the hall door. I must, I saw, trust to such makeshift barriers to shield me till I could get out the window and on the roof of the Paine Street block. But even in this acute moment my chief horror was something apart from the immediate weakness of my defenses. I was shuddering because not one of my pursuers, despite some hideous pantings, gruntings, and subdued barkings at odd intervals, was uttering an intelligible vocal sound! As I moved the furniture and rushed toward the windows I heard a frightful scurrying along the corridor toward the room north of me, and perceived that the southward battering had ceased. Plainly, most of my opponents were about to concentrate against the feeble connecting door which they knew must open directly on me. Outside, the moon played on the ridgepole of the block below, and I saw that the jump would be desperately hazardous because of the steep surface on which I must land. The clatter at the northerly connecting door was now terrific, and I saw that the weak panelling was beginning to splinter. Obviously, the besiegers had brought some ponderous object into play as a batteringram. The bedstead, however, still held firm; so that I had at least a faint chance of making good my escape. As I opened the window I noticed that it was flanked by heavy velour draperies suspended from a pole by brass rings, and also that there was a large projecting catch for the shutters on the exterior. Seeing a possible means of avoiding the dangerous jump, I yanked at the hangings and brought them down, pole and all; then quickly hooking two of the rings in the shutter catch and flinging the drapery outside. The heavy folds reached fully to the abutting roof, and I saw that the rings and catch would be likely to bear my weight. So, climbing out of the window and down the improvised rope ladder, I left behind me forever the morbid and horrorinfested fabric of the Gilman House. I landed safely on the loose slates of the steep roof, and succeeded in gaining the gaping black skylight without a slip. The place inside was ghoulishlooking, but I was past minding such impressions and made at once for the staircase revealed by my flashlightafter a hasty glance at my watch, which showed the hour to be 2 A.M. The steps creaked, but seemed tolerably sound; and I raced down past a barnlike second story to the ground floor. The desolation was complete, and only echoes answered my footfalls. The hallway inside was black, and when I reached the opposite end I saw that the street door was wedged immovably shut. Resolved to try another building, I groped my way toward the courtyard, but stopped short when close to the doorway. For out of an opened door in the Gilman House a large crowd of doubtful shapes was pouringlanterns bobbing in the darkness, and horrible croaking voices exchanging low cries in what was certainly not English. Their features were indistinguishable, but their crouching, shambling gait was abominably repellent. And worst of all, I perceived that one figure was strangely robed, and unmistakably surmounted by a tall tiara of a design altogether too familiar. Again groping toward the street, I opened a door off the hall and came upon an empty room with closely shuttered but sashless windows. Fumbling in the rays of my flashlight, I found I could open the shutters; and in another moment had climbed outside and was carefully closing the aperture in its original manner. I walked rapidly, softly, and close to the ruined houses. At Bates Street I drew into a yawning vestibule while two shambling figures crossed in front of me, but was soon on my way again and approaching the open space where Eliot Street obliquely crosses Washington at the intersection of South. Though I had never seen this space, it had looked dangerous to me on the grocery youth's map; since the moonlight would have free play there. There was no use trying to evade it, for any alternative course would involve detours of possibly disastrous visibility and delaying effect. The only thing to do was to cross it boldly and openly; imitating the typical shamble of the Innsmouth folk as best I could, and trusting that no oneor at least no pursuer of minewould be there. Just how fully the pursuit was organizedand indeed, just what its purpose might beI could form no idea. There seemed to be unusual activity in the town, but I judged that the news of my escape from the Gilman had not yet spread. The open space was, as I had expected, strongly moonlit. But my progress was unimpeded, and no fresh sound arose to hint that I had been spied. Glancing about me, I involuntarily let my pace slacken for a second to take in the sight of the sea, gorgeous in the burning moonlight at the street's end. Far out beyond the breakwater was the dim, dark line of Devil Reef. Then, without warning, I saw the intermittent flashes of light on the distant reef. My muscles tightened for panic flight, held in only by a certain unconscious caution and halfhypnotic fascination. And to make matters worse, there now flashed forth from the lofty cupola of the Gilman House, which loomed up to the northeast behind me, a series of analogous though differently spaced gleams which could be nothing less than an answering signal. I now bent to the left around the ruinous green; still gazing toward the ocean as it blazed in the spectral summer moonlight, and watching the cryptical flashing of those nameless, unexplainable beacons. It was then that the most horrible impression of all was borne in upon methe impression which destroyed my last vestige of selfcontrol and sent me running frantically southward past the yawning black doorways and fishily staring windows of that deserted nightmare street. For at a closer glance I saw that the moonlit waters between the reef and the shore were far from empty. They were alive with a teeming horde of shapes swimming inward toward the town! My frantic running ceased before I had covered a block, for at my left I began to hear something like the hue and cry of organized pursuit. There were footsteps and guttural sounds, and a rattling motor wheezed south along Federal Street. In a second all my plans were utterly changedfor if the southward highway were blocked ahead of me, I must clearly find another egress from Innsmouth. I paused and drew into a gaping doorway, reflecting how lucky I was to have left the moonlit open space before these pursuers came down the parallel street. Then I thought of the abandoned railway to Rowley, whose solid line of ballasted, weedgrown earth still stretched off to the northwest from the crumbling station on the edge of the river gorge. There was just a chance that the townsfolk would not think of that! Drawing inside the hall of my deserted shelter, I once more consulted the grocery boy's map with the aid of the flashlight. The immediate problem was how to reach the ancient railway; and I now saw that the safest course was ahead to Babson Street, then west to Lafayettethere edging around but not crossing an open space homologous to the one I had traversedand subsequently back northward and westward in zigzagging line through Lafayette, Bates, Adams, and Banks Streetsthe latter skirting the river gorgeto the abandoned and dilapidated station I had seen from my window. My reason for going ahead to Babson was that I wished neither to recross the earlier open space nor to begin my westward course along a cross street as broad as South. I crossed the street to the righthand side in order to edge around into Babson as inconspicuously as possible. In Babson Street I clung as closely as possible to the sagging, uneven buildings; twice pausing in a doorway as the noises behind me momentarily increased. The open space ahead shone wide and desolate under the moon, but my route would not force me to cross it. During my second pause I began to detect a fresh distribution of the vague sounds; and upon looking cautiously out from cover beheld a motor car darting across the open space, bound outward along Eliot Street. As I watchedchoked by a sudden rise in the fishy odor after a short abatementI saw a band of uncouth, crouching shapes loping and shambling in the same direction; and knew that this must be the party guarding the Ipswich road, since that highway forms an extension of Eliot Street. Two of the figures I glimpsed were in voluminous robes, and one wore a peaked diadem which glistened whitely in the moonlight. The gait of this figure was so odd that it sent a chill through mefor it seemed to me the creature was almost hopping. When the last of the band was out of sight I resumed my progress; darting around the corner into Lafayette Street, and crossing Eliot very hurriedly lest stragglers of the party be still advancing along that thoroughfare. I did hear some croaking and clattering sounds far off toward Town Square, but accomplished the passage without disaster. My greatest dread was in recrossing broad and moonlit South Streetwith its seaward viewand I had to nerve myself for the ordeal. Someone might easily be looking, and possible Eliot Street stragglers could not fail to glimpse me from either of two points. At the last moment I decided I had better slacken my trot and make the crossing as before in the shambling gait of an average Innsmouth native. I had not quite crossed the street when I heard a muttering band advancing along Washington from the north. As they reached the broad open space where I had had my first disquieting glimpse of the moonlit water I could see them plainly only a block awayand was horrified by the bestial abnormality of their faces and the doglike subhumanness of their crouching gait. One man moved in a positively simian way, with long arms frequently touching the ground; while another figurerobed and tiaraedseemed to progress in an almost hopping fashion. I judged this party to be the one I had seen in the Gilman's courtyardthe one, therefore, most closely on my trail. As some of the figures turned to look in my direction I was transfixed with fright, yet managed to preserve the casual, shambling gait I had assumed. To this day I do not know whether they saw me or not. If they did, my stratagem must have deceived them, for they passed on across the moonlit space without varying their coursemeanwhile croaking and jabbering in some hateful guttural patois I could not identify. Once more in shadow, I resumed my former dogtrot past the leaning and decrepit houses that stared blankly into the night. Having crossed to the western sidewalk I rounded the nearest corner into Bates Street, where I kept close to the buildings on the southern side. At last I saw the ancient arcaded stationor what was left of itand made directly for the tracks that started from its farther end. The rails were rusty but mainly intact, and not more than half the ties had rotted away. Walking or running on such a surface was very difficult; but I did my best, and on the whole made very fair time. For some distance the line kept on along the gorge's brink, but at length I reached the long covered bridge where it crossed the chasm at a dizzy height. The condition of this bridge would determine my next step. If humanly possible, I would use it; if not, I would have to risk more street wandering and take the nearest intact highway bridge. The vast, barnlike length of the old bridge gleamed spectrally in the moonlight and I saw that the ties were safe for at least a few feet within. Entering, I began to use my flashlight, and was almost knocked down by the cloud of bats that flapped past me. About halfway across there was a perilous gap in the ties which I feared for a moment would halt me; but in the end I risked a desperate jump which fortunately succeeded. I was glad to see the moonlight again when I emerged from that macabre tunnel. The old tracks crossed River Street at a grade, and at once veered off into a region increasingly rural and with less and less of Innsmouth's abhorrent fishy odor. Here the dense growth of weeds and briers hindered me and cruelly tore my clothes, but I was none the less glad that they were there to give me concealment in case of peril. I knew that much of my route must be visible from the Rowley road. The marshy region began very shortly, with the single track on a low, grassy embankment. Then came a sort of island of higher ground, where the line passed through a shallow open cut choked with bushes and brambles. I was very glad of this partial shelter, since at this point the Rowley road was uncomfortably near according to my window view. Just before entering the cut I glanced behind me, but saw no pursuer. The ancient spires and roofs of decaying Innsmouth gleamed lovely and ethereal in the magic yellow moonlight, and I thought of how they must have looked in the old days before the shadow fell. Then, as my gaze circled inland from the town, something less tranquil arrested my notice and held me immobile for a second. What I sawor fancied I sawwas a disturbing suggestion of undulant motion far to the south; a suggestion which made me conclude that a very large horde must be pouring out of the city along the level Ipswich road. The distance was great, and I could distinguish nothing in detail; but I did not at all like the look of that moving column. All sorts of unpleasant conjectures crossed my mind. I thought of those very extreme Innsmouth types said to be hidden in crumbling, centuried warrens near the waterfront. I thought, too, of those nameless swimmers I had seen. Counting the parties so far glimpsed, as well as those presumably covering other roads, the number of my pursuers must be strangely large for a town as depopulated as Innsmouth. Who were they? Why were they here? And if such a column of them was scouring the Ipswich road, would the patrols on the other roads be likewise augmented? I had entered the brushgrown cut and was struggling along at a very slow pace when that damnable fishy odor again waxed dominant. There were sounds, tooa kind of wholesale, colossal flopping or pattering which somehow called up images of the most detestable sort. And then both stench and sounds grew stronger, so that I paused shivering and grateful for the cut's protection. It was here, I recalled, that the Rowley road drew so close to the old railway before crossing westward and diverging. Something was coming along that road, and I must lie low till its passage and vanishment in the distance. Crouched in the bushes of that sandy cleft I felt reasonably safe, even though I knew the searchers would have to cross the track in front of me not much more than a hundred yards away. I would be able to see them, but they could not, except by a malign miracle, see me. All at once I began dreading to look at them as they passed. I saw the close moonlit space where they would surge by, and had curious thoughts about the irredeemable pollution of that space. They would perhaps be the worst of all Innsmouth typessomething one would not care to remember. The stench waxed overpowering, and the noises swelled to a bestial babel of croaking, baying, and barking, without the least suggestion of human speech. Were these indeed the voices of my pursuers? That flopping or pattering was monstrousI could not look upon the degenerate creatures responsible for it. I would keep my eyes shut till the sounds receded toward the west. The horde was very close nowthe air foul with their hoarse snarlings, and the ground almost shaking with their alienrhythmed footfalls. My breath nearly ceased to come, and I put every ounce of willpower into the task of holding my eyelids down. I am not even yet willing to say whether what followed was a hideous actuality or only a nightmare hallucination. The later action of the government, after my frantic appeals, would tend to confirm it as a monstrous truth; but could not an hallucination have been repeated under the quasihypnotic spell of that ancient, haunted, and shadowed town? But I must try to tell what I thought I saw that night under the mocking yellow moonsaw surging and hopping down the Rowley road in plain sight in front of me as I crouched among the wild brambles of that desolate railway cut. Of course my resolution to keep my eyes shut had failed. It was foredoomed to failurefor who could crouch blindly while a legion of croaking, baying entities of unknown source flopped noisomely past, scarcely more than a hundred yards away? For I knew that a long section of them must be plainly in sight where the sides of the cut flattened out and the road crossed the trackand I could no longer keep myself from sampling whatever horror that leering yellow moon might have to show. It was the end, for whatever remains to me of life on the surface of this earth, of every vestige of mental peace and confidence in the integrity of nature and of the human mind. Can it be possible that this planet has actually spawned such things; that human eyes have truly seen, as objective flesh, what man has hitherto known only in febrile phantasy and tenuous legend? And yet I saw them in a limitless streamflopping, hopping, croaking, bleatingsurging inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic nightmare. And some of them had tall tiaras of that nameless whitishgold metal ... and some were strangely robed ... and one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly humped black coat and striped trousers, and had a man's felt hat perched on the shapeless thing that answered for a head.... I think their predominant color was a grayishgreen, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked. But for all of their monstrousness they were not unfamiliar to me. I knew too well what they must befor was not the memory of that evil tiara at Newburyport still fresh? They were the blasphemous fishfrogs of the nameless designliving and horribleand as I saw them I knew also of what that humped, tiaraed priest in the black church basement had so fearsomely reminded me. Their number was past guessing. It seemed to me that there were limitless swarms of themand certainly my momentary glimpse could have shown only the least fraction. In another instant everything was blotted out by a merciful fit of fainting; the first I had ever had. V It was a gentle daylight rain that awaked me from my stupor in the brushgrown railway cut, and when I staggered out to the roadway ahead I saw no trace of any prints in the fresh mud. Innsmouth's ruined roofs and toppling steeples loomed up grayly toward the southeast, but not a living creature did I spy in all the desolate salt marshes around. My watch was still going, and told me that the hour was past noon. The reality of what I had been through was highly uncertain in my mind, but I felt that something hideous lay in the background. I must get away from evilshadowed Innsmouthand accordingly I began to test my cramped, wearied powers of locomotion. Despite weakness, hunger, horror, and bewilderment I found myself after a time able to walk; so started slowly along the muddy road to Rowley. Before evening I was in the village, getting a meal and providing myself with presentable clothes. I caught the night train to Arkham, and the next day talked long and earnestly with government officials there; a process I later repeated in Boston. With the main result of these colloquies the public is now familiarand I wish, for normality's sake, there were nothing more to tell. Perhaps it is madness that is overtaking meyet perhaps a greater horroror a greater marvelis reaching out. I dared not look for that piece of strange jewelry said to be in the Miskatonic University Museum. I did, however, improve my stay in Arkham by collecting some genealogical notes I had long wished to possess; very rough and hasty data, it is true, but capable of good use later on when I might have time to collate and codify them. The curator of the historical society thereMr. E. Lapham Peabodywas very courteous about assisting me, and expressed unusual interest when I told him I was a grandson of Eliza Orne of Arkham, who was born in 1867 and had married James Williamson of Ohio at the age of seventeen. It seemed that a maternal uncle of mine had been there many years before on a quest much like my own; and that my grandmother's family was a topic of some local curiosity. There had, Mr. Peabody said, been considerable discussion about the marriage of her father, Benjamin Orne, just after the Civil War; since the ancestry of the bride was peculiarly puzzling. That bride was understood to have been an orphaned Marsh of New Hampshirea cousin of the Essex County Marshesbut her education had been in France and she knew very little of her family. A guardian had deposited funds in a Boston bank to maintain her and her French governess; but that guardian's name was unfamiliar to Arkham people, and in time he dropped out of sight, so that the governess assumed his role by court appointment. The Frenchwomannow long deadwas very taciturn, and there were those who said she could have told more than she did. But the most baffling thing was the inability of anyone to place the recorded parents of the young womanEnoch and Lydia (Meserve) Marshamong the known families of New Hampshire. Possibly, many suggested, she was the natural daughter of some Marsh of prominenceshe certainly had the true Marsh eyes. Most of the puzzling was done after her early death, which took place at the birth of my grandmotherher only child. Having formed some disagreeable impressions connected with the name of Marsh, I did not welcome the news that it belonged on my own ancestral tree; nor was I pleased by Mr. Peabody's suggestion that I had the true Marsh eyes myself. However, I was grateful for data which I knew would prove valuable; and took copious notes and lists of book references regarding the welldocumented Orne family. I went directly home to Toledo from Boston, and later spent a month at Maumee recuperating from my ordeal. In September I entered Oberlin for my final year, and from then till the next June was busy with studies and other wholesome activitiesreminded of the bygone terror only by occasional official visits from government men in connection with the campaign which my pleas and evidence had started. Around the middle of Julyjust a year after the Innsmouth experienceI spent a week with my late mother's family in Cleveland; checking some of my new genealogical data with the various notes, traditions, and bits of heirloom material in existence there, and seeing what kind of a connected chart I could construct. I did not exactly relish this task, for the atmosphere of the Williamson home had always depressed me. There was a strain of morbidity there, and my mother had never encouraged my visiting her parents as a child, although she always welcomed her father when he came to Toledo. My Arkhamborn grandmother had seemed strange and almost terrifying to me, and I do not think I grieved when she disappeared. I was eight years old then, and it was said that she had wandered off in grief after the suicide of my uncle Douglas, her eldest son. He had shot himself after a trip to New Englandthe same trip, no doubt, which had caused him to be recalled at the Arkham Historical Society. This uncle had resembled her, and I had never liked him either. Something about the staring, unwinking expression of both of them had given me a vague, unaccountable uneasiness. My mother and uncle Walter had not looked like that. They were like their father, though poor little cousin LawrenceWalter's sonhad been an almost perfect duplicate of his grandmother before his condition took him to the permanent seclusion of a sanitarium at Canton. I had not seen him in four years, but my uncle once implied that his state, both mental and physical, was very bad. This worry had probably been a major cause of his mother's death two years before. My grandfather and his widowered son Walter now comprised the Cleveland household, but the memory of older times hung thickly over it. I still disliked the place, and tried to get my researches done as quickly as possible. Williamson records and traditions were supplied in abundance by my grandfather; though for Orne material I had to depend on my uncle Walter, who put at my disposal the contents of all his files, including notes, letters, cuttings, heirlooms, photographs, and miniatures. It was in going over the letters and pictures on the Orne side that I began to acquire a kind of terror of my own ancestry. As I have said, my grandmother and uncle Douglas had always disturbed me. Now, years after their passing, I gazed at their pictured faces with a measurably heightened feeling of repulsion and alienation. I could not at first understand the change, but gradually a horrible sort of comparison began to obtrude itself on my unconscious mind despite the steady refusal of my consciousness to admit even the least suspicion of it. It was clear that the typical expression of these faces now suggested something it had not suggested beforesomething which would bring stark panic if too openly thought of. But the worst shock came when my uncle showed me the Orne jewelry in a downtown safedeposit vault. Some of the items were delicate and inspiring enough, but there was one box of strange old pieces descended from my mysterious greatgrandmother which my uncle was almost reluctant to produce. They were, he said, of very grotesque and almost repulsive design. As my uncle began slowly and grudgingly to unwrap the things, he urged me not to be shocked by the strangeness and frequent hideousness of the designs. There were two armlets, a tiara, and a kind of pectoral; the latter having in high relief certain figures of almost unbearable extravagance. He seemed to expect some demonstration when the first piecethe tiarabecame visible, but I doubt if he expected quite what actually happened. I did not expect it, either, for I thought I was thoroughly forewarned regarding what the jewelry would turn out to be. What I did was to faint silently away just as I had done in that brierchoked railway cut a year before. From that day on my life has been a nightmare of brooding and apprehension, nor do I know how much is hideous truth and how much madness. My greatgrandmother had been a Marsh of unknown source whose husband lived in Arkhamand did not old Zadok say that the daughter of Obed Marsh by a monstrous mother was married to an Arkham man through a trick? What was it the ancient toper had muttered about the likeness of my eyes to Captain Obed's? In Arkham, too, the curator had told me I had the true Marsh eyes. Was Obed Marsh my own greatgreatgrandfather? Whoor whatthen, was my greatgreatgrandmother? But perhaps this was all madness. Those whitishgold ornaments might easily have been bought from some Innsmouth sailor by the father of my greatgrandmother, whoever he was. And that look in the staringeyed faces of my grandmother and selfslain uncle might be sheer fancy, bolstered up by the Innsmouth shadow which had so darkly colored my imagination. But why had my uncle killed himself after an ancestral quest in New England? For more than two years I fought off these reflections with partial success. My father secured me a place in an insurance office, and I buried myself in routine as deeply as possible. In the winter of 193031, however, the dreams began. They were very sparse and insidious at first, but increased in frequency and vividness as the weeks went by. Great watery spaces opened out before me, and I seemed to wander through titanic sunken porticos and labyrinths of weedy cyclopean walls and grotesque fishes as my companions. Then the other shapes began to appear, filling me with nameless horror the moment I awoke. But during the dreams they did not horrify me at allI was one with them; wearing their unhuman trappings, treading their aqueous ways, and praying monstrously at their evil seabottom temples. There was much more than I could remember, but even what I did remember each morning would be enough to stamp me as a madman or a genius if ever I dared write it down. Some frightful influence, I felt, was seeking gradually to drag me out of the sane world of wholesome life into unnameable abysses of blackness and alienage; and the process told heavily on me. My health and appearance grew steadily worse, till finally I was forced to give up my position and adopt the static, secluded life of an invalid. Some odd nervous affliction had me in its grip, and I found myself at times almost unable to shut my eyes. It was then that I began to study the mirror with mounting alarm. The slow ravages of disease are not pleasant to watch, but in my case there was something subtler and more puzzling in the background. My father seemed to notice it, too, for he began looking at me curiously and almost affrightedly. What was taking place in me? Could it be that I was coming to resemble my grandmother and uncle Douglas? One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changedas those who take to the water changeand told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wondersdestined for him as wellhe had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, tooI could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth. "One night, in a frightful dream, I met two Ancient Ones under the sea in a phosphorescent, many terraced palace surrounded by gardens of strange, leprous corals." I met also that which had been her grandmother. For eighty thousand years Pth'thyal'yi had lived in Y'hanthlei, and thither she had gone back after Obed Marsh was dead. Y'hanthlei was not destroyed when the upperearth men shot death into the sea. It was hurt, but not destroyed. The Deep Ones could never be destroyed, even though the palaeogean magic of the forgotten Old Ones might sometimes check them. For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved. It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time. They had planned to spread, and had brought up that which would help them, but now they must wait once more. For bringing the upperearth men's death I must do a penance, but that would not be heavy. This was the dream in which I saw a shoggoth for the first time, and the sight set me awake in a frenzy of screaming. That morning the mirror definitely told me I had acquired the Innsmouth look. So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown seadeeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror.

I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheardof splendors await me below, and I shall seek them soon. IR'lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! I! I! No, I shall not shoot myselfI cannot be made to shoot myself! I shall plan my cousin's escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvelshadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to cyclopean and manycolumned Y'hanthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever. END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH Updated editions will replace the previous onethe old editions will be renamed. 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The Fall of the House of Usher Table of Contents The Fall of the House of Usher The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe Copyright 2014 epubBooks All Rights Reserved. This publication is protected by copyright. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen or via personal texttospeech computer systems. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of epubBooks. www.epubbooks.com The Fall of the House of Usher Son coeur est un luth suspendu; Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne. DE BERANGER. During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it wasbut, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that halfpleasureable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before meupon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domainupon the bleak wallsupon the vacant eyelike windowsupon a few rank sedgesand upon a few white trunks of decayed treeswith an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the afterdream of the reveller upon opiumthe bitter lapse into everyday lifethe hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heartan unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was itI paused to thinkwhat was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed downbut with a shudder even more thrilling than beforeupon the remodelled and inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly treestems, and the vacant and eyelike windows. Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the countrya letter from himwhich, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illnessof a mental disorder which oppressed himand of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was saidit was the apparent heart that went with his requestwhich allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons. Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all timehonoured as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the otherit was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the "House of Usher"an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion. I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experimentthat of looking down within the tarnhad been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstitionfor why should I not so term it?served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancya fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinityan atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the grey wall, and the silent tarna pestilent and mystic vapour, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leadenhued. Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled webwork from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old woodwork which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn. Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around mewhile the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancywhile I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all thisI still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master. The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all. Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordialityof the constrained effort of the ennuye man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finelymoulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than weblike softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity. In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherencean inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancyan excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concisionthat abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollowsounding enunciationthat leaden, selfbalanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement. It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedya mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror. To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effectin terror. In this unnervedin this pitiable conditionI feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR." I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forthin regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be restatedan influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spiritan effect which the physique of the grey walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence. He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable originto the severe and longcontinued illnessindeed to the evidently approaching dissolutionof a tenderly beloved sisterhis sole companion for long yearshis last and only relative on earth. "Her decease," he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dreadand yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brotherbut he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears. The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtainthat the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more. For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavours to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom. I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will ring for ever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vagueness at which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not why;from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavour to educe more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at leastin the circumstances then surrounding methere arose out of the pure abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli. One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch, or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendour. I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of the performances. But the fervid facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus I. In the greenest of our valleys, By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace Radiant palacereared its head. In the monarch Thought's dominion It stood there! Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair. II. Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and flow; (Thisall thiswas in the olden Time long ago) And every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day, Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, A winged odour went away. III. Wanderers in that happy valley Through two luminous windows saw Spirits moving musically To a lute's well tuned law, Round about a throne, where sitting (Porphyrogene!) In state his glory well befitting, The ruler of the realm was seen. IV. And all with pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door, Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing And sparkling evermore, A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty Was but to sing, In voices of surpassing beauty, The wit and wisdom of their king. V. But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him, desolate!) And, round about his home, the glory That blushed and bloomed Is but a dimremembered story, Of the old time entombed. VI. And travellers now within that valley, Through the redlitten windows, see Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody; While, like a rapid ghastly river, Through the pale door, A hideous throng rush out forever, And laughbut smile no more. I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad, led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its novelty (for other men have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stonesin the order of their arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood aroundabove all, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidencethe evidence of the sentiencewas to be seen, he said, (and I here started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw himwhat he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none. Watson, Dr Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of Landaff. Our booksthe books which, for years, had formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalidwere, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indagine, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the City of the Sun by Campanella. One favourite volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and OEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothicthe manual of a forgotten churchthe Vigiliae Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae. I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, (previously to its final interment), in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burialground of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution. At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjonkeep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges. Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the deadfor we could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house. And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly huebut the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrifiedthat it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions. It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couchwhile the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavoured to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the roomof the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkenedI know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted meto certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night,) and endeavoured to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apartment. I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterwards he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wanbut, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyesan evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanour. His air appalled mebut anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief. "And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence"you have not then seen it?but, stay! you shall." Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the storm. The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty.

A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the lifelike velocity with which they flew careering from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving thisyet we had no glimpse of the moon or starsnor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion. "You must notyou shall not behold this!" said I, shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommonor it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement;the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favourite romances. I will read, and you shall listen;and so we will pass away this terrible night together." The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favourite of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my design. I had arrived at that wellknown portion of the story where Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus "And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollowsounding wood alarmed and reverberated throughout the forest." At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story "But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanour, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend enwritten Who entereth herein, a conquerer hath bin; Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win; and Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard." Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazementfor there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating soundthe exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the romancer. Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of the second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanour. From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breastyet I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this ideafor he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded "And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound." No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, thanas if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silverI became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words. "Not hear it?yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Longlonglongmany minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard ityet I dared notoh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!I dared notI dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard themmany, many days agoyet I dared notI dared not speak! And nowtonightEthelredha! ha!the breaking of the hermit's door, and the deathcry of the dragon, and the clangour of the shield!say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footsteps on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!" here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul"Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!" As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spellthe huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gustbut then without those doors there DID stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold,then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final deathagonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated. From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and bloodred moon which now shone vividly through that once barelydiscernible fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widenedthere came a fierce breath of the whirlwindthe entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sightmy brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunderthere was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand watersand the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher".

The Masque of the Red Death Table of Contents The Masque of the Red Death The Masque of the Red Death Edgar Allan Poe Copyright 2014 epubBooks All Rights Reserved. This publication is protected by copyright. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen or via personal texttospeech computer systems. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of epubBooks. www.epubbooks.com The Masque of the Red Death The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its sealthe redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellowmen. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour. But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and lighthearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were balletdancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death". It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence. It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. These were sevenan imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose colour varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example in blueand vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orangethe fifth with whitethe sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarleta deep blood colour. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the bloodtinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all. It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minutehand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colours and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not. He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fte; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasmmuch of what has been since seen in "Hernani". There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And thesethe dreamswrithed in and about taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stifffrozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die awaythey have endured but an instantand a light, halfsubdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the bloodcoloured panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulged in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments. But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumour of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprisethen, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust. In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade licence of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had outHeroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in bloodand his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror. When the eyes of the Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage. "Who dares,"he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him"who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask himthat we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!" It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand. It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purplethrough the purple to the greenthrough the green to the orangethrough this again to the whiteand even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cryand the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpselike mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the bloodbedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

The Raven Table of Contents Introduction The Poem. The Poem Illustrated The Raven Edgar Allan Poe Contributor Edmund C. Stedman Illustrator Gustave Dor Copyright 2014 epubBooks All Rights Reserved. This publication is protected by copyright. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen or via personal texttospeech computer systems. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of epubBooks. www.epubbooks.com First published in 1884 Introduction Comment on the Poem. The secret of a poem, no less than a jest's prosperity, lies in the ear of him that hears it. Yield to its spell, accept the poet's mood this, after all, is what the sages answer when you ask them of its value. Even though the poet himself, in his other mood, tell you that his art is but sleight of hand, his food enchanter's food, and offer to show you the trick of it,believe him not. Wait for his prophetic hour; then give yourself to his passion, his joy or pain. "We are in Love's hand today!" sings Gautier, in Swinburne's buoyant paraphrase,and from morn to sunset we are wafted on the violent sea there is but one love, one May, one flowery strand. Love is eternal, all else unreal and put aside. The vision has an end, the scene changes; but we have gained something, the memory of a charm. As many poets, so many charms. There is the charm of Evanescence, that which lends to supreme beauty and grace an aureole of Pathos. Share with Landor his one "night of memories and of sighs" for Rose Aylmer, and you have this to the full. And now take the hand of a newworld minstrel, strayed from some proper habitat to that rude and dissonant America which, as Baudelaire saw, "was for Poe only a vast prison through which he ran, hither and thither, with the feverish agitation of a being created to breathe in a purer world," and where "his interior life, spiritual as a poet, spiritual even as a drunkard, was but one perpetual effort to escape the influence of this antipathetical atmosphere." Clasp the sensitive hand of a troubled singer dreeing thus his weird, and share with him the clime in which he found,never throughout the day, always in the night,if not the Atlantis whence he had wandered, at least a place of refuge from the bounds in which by day he was immured. To one land only he has power to lead you, and for one night only can you share his dream. A tract of neither Earth nor Heaven "Noman'sland," out of Space, out of Time. Here are the perturbed ones, through whose eyes, like those of the Cenci, the soul finds windows though the mind is dazed; here spirits, groping for the path which leads to Eternity, are halted and delayed. It is the limbo of "planetary souls," wherein are all moonlight uncertainties, all lost loves and illusions. Here some are fixed in trance, the only respite attainable; others "move fantastically To a discordant melody" while everywhere are "Sheeted Memories of the Past Shrouded forms that start and sigh As they pass the wanderer by." Such is the land, and for one night we enter it,a night of astral phases and recurrent chimes. Its monodies are twelve poems, whose music strives to change yet ever is the same. One by one they sound, like the chiming of the brazen and ebony clock, in "The Masque of the Red Death," which made the waltzers pause with "disconcert and tremulousness and meditation," as often as the hour came round. Of all these mystical cadences, the plaint of The Raven, vibrating through the portal, chiefly has impressed the outer world. What things go to the making of a poem,and how true in this, as in most else, that race which named its bards "the makers"? A work is called out of the void. Where there was nothing, it remains,a new creation, part of the treasure of mankind. And a few exceptional lyrics, more than others that are equally creative, compel us to think anew how bravely the poet's pen turns things unknown "to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation, and a name." Each seems without a prototype, yet all fascinate us with elements wrested from the shadow of the Supernatural. Now the highest imagination is concerned about the soul of things; it may or may not inspire the Fantasy that peoples with images the interlunar vague. Still, one of these lyrics, in its smaller way, affects us with a sense of uniqueness, as surely as the sublimer works of a supernatural cast,Marlowe's "Faustus," the "Faust" of Goethe, "Manfred," or even those ethereal masterpieces, "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." More than one, while otherwise unique, has some burden or refrain which haunts the memory,once heard, never forgotten, like the tone of a rarely used but distinctive organstop. Notable among them is Buerger's "Lenore," that ghostly and resonant ballad, the lure and foil of the translators. Few will deny that Coleridge's wondrous "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" stands at their very head. "Le JuifErrant" would have claims, had Beranger been a greater poet; and, but for their remoteness from popular sympathy, "The Lady of Shalott" and "The Blessed Damozel" might be added to the list. It was given to Edgar Allan Poe to produce two lyrics, "The Bells" and The Raven, each of which, although perhaps of less beauty than those of Tennyson and Rossetti, is a unique. "Ulalume," while equally strange and imaginative, has not the universal quality that is a portion of our test. The Raven in sheer poetical constituents falls below such pieces as "The Haunted Palace," "The City in the Sea," "The Sleeper," and "Israfel." The whole of it would be exchanged, I suspect, by readers of a fastidious cast, for such passages as these "Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long nighttime of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine. No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some faroff happier sea No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene." It lacks the aerial melody of the poet whose heartstrings are a lute "And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings." But The Raven, like "The Bells" and "Annabel Lee," commends itself to the many and the few. I have said elsewhere that Poe's rarer productions seemed to me "those in which there is the appearance, at least, of spontaneity,in which he yields to his feelings, while dying falls and cadences most musical, most melancholy, come from him unawares." This is still my belief; and yet, upon a fresh study of this poem, it impresses me more than at any time since my boyhood. Close acquaintance tells in favor of every true work of art. Induce the man, who neither knows art nor cares for it, to examine some poem or painting, and how soon its force takes hold of him! In fact, he will overrate the relative value of the first good work by which his attention has been fairly caught. The Raven, also, has consistent qualities which even an expert must admire. In no other of its author's poems is the motive more palpably defined. "The Haunted Palace" is just as definite to the select reader, but Poe scarcely would have taken that subtle allegory for bald analysis. The Raven is wholly occupied with the author's typical themethe irretrievable loss of an idolized and beautiful woman; but on other grounds, also, the public instinct is correct in thinking it his representative poem. A man of genius usually gains a footing with the success of some one effort, and this is not always his greatest. Recognition is the more instant for having been postponed. He does not acquire it, like a miser's fortune, coin after coin, but "not at all or all in all." And thus with other ambitions the courtier, soldier, actor,whatever their parts,each counts his triumph from some lucky stroke. Poe's Raven, despite augury, was for him "the bird that made the breeze to blow." The poet settled in NewYork, in the winter of 1844'45, finding work upon Willis's paper, "The Evening Mirror," and eking out his income by contributions elsewhere. For six years he had been an active writer, and enjoyed a professional reputation; was held in both respect and misdoubt, and was at no loss for his share of the illpaid journalism of that day. He also had done much of his very best work,such tales as "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," (the latter containing that mystical counterpart, in verse, of Elihu Vedder's "A Lost Mind,") such analytic feats as "The Gold Bug" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget." He had made proselytes abroad, and gained a lasting hold upon the French mind. He had learned his own power and weakness, and was at his prime, and not without a certain reputation. But he had written nothing that was on the tongue of everybody. To rare and delicate work some popular touch must be added to capture the general audience of one's own time. Through the industry of Poe's successive biographers, the hit made by The Raven has become an ofttold tale. The poet's young wife, Virginia, was fading before his eyes, but lingered for another year within death's shadow. The long, low chamber in the house near the Bloomingdale Road is as famous as the room where Rouget de l'Isle composed the Marseillaise. All have heard that the poem, signed "Quarles," appeared in the "American Review," with a pseudoeditorial comment on its form; that Poe received ten dollars for it; that Willis, the kindest and least envious of fashionable arbiters, reprinted it with a eulogy that instantly made it towntalk. All doubt of its authorship was dispelled when Poe recited it himself at a literary gathering, and for a time he was the most marked of American authors. The hit stimulated and encouraged him. Like another and prouder satirist, he too found "something of summer" even "in the hum of insects." Sorrowfully enough, but three years elapsed,a period of influence, pride, anguish, yet always of imaginative or critical labor,before the final defeat, before the curtain dropped on a life that for him was in truth a tragedy, and he yielded to "the Conqueror Worm." "The American Review A Whig Journal" was a creditable magazine for the time, doublecolumned, printed on good paper with clear type, and illustrated by mezzotint portraits. Amid much matter below the present standard, it contained some that any editor would be glad to receive. The initial volume, for 1845, has articles by Horace Greeley, Donald Mitchell, Walter Whitman, Marsh, Tuckerman, and Whipple. Ralph Hoyt's quaint poem, "Old," appeared in this volume. And here are three lyrics by Poe "The City in the Sea," "The Valley of Unrest," and The Raven. Two of these were built up,such was his way,from earlier studies, but the lastnamed came out as if freshly composed, and almost as we have it now. The statement that it was not afterward revised is erroneous. Eleven trifling changes from the magazinetext appear in The Raven and Other Poems, 1845, a book which the poet shortly felt encouraged to offer the public. These are mostly changes of punctuation, or of single words, the latter kind made to heighten the effect of alliteration. In Mr. Lang's pretty edition of Poe's verse, brought out in the "Parchment Library," he has shown the instinct of a scholar, and has done wisely, in going back to the text in the volume just mentioned, as given in the London issue of 1846. The "standard" Griswold collection of the poet's works abounds with errors. These have been repeated by later editors, who also have made errors of their own. But the text of The Raven, owing to the requests made to the author for manuscript copies, was still farther revised by him; in fact, he printed it in Richmond, just before his death, with the poetic substitution of "seraphim whose footfalls" for "angels whose faint footfalls," in the fourteenth stanza. Our present text, therefore, while substantially that of 1845, is somewhat modified by the poet's later reading, and is, I think, the most correct and effective version of this single poem. The most radical change from the earliest version appeared, however, in the volume in 1845; the eleventh stanza originally having contained these lines, faulty in rhyme and otherwise a blemish on the poem "Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed fasterso, when Hope he would adjure, Stern Despair returned, instead of the sweet Hope he dared adjure That sad answer, 'Nevermore!'" It would be well if other, and famous, poets could be as sure of making their changes always improvements. Poe constantly rehandled his scanty show of verse, and usually bettered it. The Raven was the first of the few poems which he nearly brought to completion before printing. It may be that those who care for poetry lost little by his death. Fluent in prose, he never wrote verse for the sake of making a poem. When a refrain of image haunted him, the lyric that resulted was the inspiration, as he himself said, of a passion, not of a purpose. This was at intervals so rare as almost to justify the Fairfield theory that each was the product of a nervous crisis. What, then, gave the poet his clue to The Raven? From what misty foundation did it rise slowly to a music slowly breathed? As usual, more than one thing went to the building of so notable a poem. Considering the longer sermons often preached on brief and less suggestive texts, I hope not to be blamed for this discussion of a single lyric,especially one which an artist like Dore has made the subject of prodigal illustration. Until recently I had supposed that this piece, and a few which its author composed after its appearance, were exceptional in not having grown from germs in his boyish verse. But Mr. Fearing Gill has shown me some unpublished stanzas by Poe, written in his eighteenth year, and entitled, "The Demon of the Fire." The manuscript appears to be in the poet's early handwriting, and its genuineness is vouched for by the family in whose possession it has remained for half a century. Besides the plainest germs of "The Bells" and "The Haunted Palace" it contains a few lines somewhat suggestive of the opening and close of The Raven. As to the rhythm of our poem, a comparison of dates indicates that this was influenced by the rhythm of "Lady Geraldine's Courtship." Poe was one of the first to honor Miss Barrett's genius; he inscribed his collected poems to her as "the noblest of her sex," and was in sympathy with her lyrical method. The lines from her lovepoem, "With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows," found an echo in these "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled mefilled me with fantastic terrors never felt before." Here Poe assumed a privilege for which he roughly censured Longfellow, and which no one ever sought on his own premises without swift detection and chastisement. In melody and stanzaic form, we shall see that the two poems are not unlike, but in motive they are totally distinct. The generous poetess felt nothing but the true originality of the poet. "This vivid writing!" she exclaimed,"this power which is felt!Our great poet, Mr. Browning, author of 'Paracelsus,' etc., is enthusiastic in his admiration of the rhythm." Mr. Ingram, after referring to "Lady Geraldine," cleverly points out another source from which Poe may have caught an impulse. In 1843, Albert Pike, the halfGreek, halffrontiersman, poet of Arkansas, had printed in "The New Mirror," for which Poe then was writing, some verses entitled "Isadore," but since revised by the author and called "The Widowed Heart." I select from Mr. Pike's revision the following stanza, of which the main features correspond with the original version "Restless I pace our lonely rooms, I play our songs no more, The garish sun shines flauntingly upon the unswept floor; The mockingbird still sits and sings, O melancholy strain! For my heart is like an autumncloud that overflows with rain; Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore!" Here we have a prolonged measure, a similarity of refrain, and the introduction of a bird whose song enhances sorrow. There are other trails which may be followed by the curious; notably, a passage which Mr. Ingram selects from Poe's final review of "Barnaby Rudge" "The raven, too, might have been made, more than we now see it, a portion of the conception of the fantastic Barnaby. Its character might have performed, in regard to that of the idiot, much the same part as does, in music, the accompaniment in respect to the air." Nevertheless, after pointing out these germs and resemblances, the value of this poem still is found in its originality. The progressive music, the scenic detail and contrasted light and shade,above all, the spiritual passion of the nocturn, make it the work of an informing genius. As for the gruesome bird, he is unlike all the other ravens of his clan, from the "twa corbies" and "three ravens" of the balladists to Barnaby's rumpled "Grip." Here is no semblance of the cawing rook that haunts ancestral turrets and treads the field of heraldry; no boding phantom of which Tickell sang that, when, "shrieking at her window thrice, The raven flap'd his wing, Too well the lovelorn maiden knew The solemn boding sound." Poe's raven is a distinct conception; the incarnation of a mourner's agony and hopelessness; a sable embodied Memory, the abiding chronicler of doom, a type of the Irreparable. Escaped across the Styx, from "the Night's Plutonian shore," he seems the imaged soul of the questioner himself,of him who can not, will not, quaff the kind nepenthe, because the memory of Lenore is all that is left him, and with the surcease of his sorrow even that would be put aside. The Raven also may be taken as a representative poem of its author, for its exemplification of all his notions of what a poem should be. These are found in his essays on "The Poetic Principle," "The Rationale of Verse," and "The Philosophy of Composition." Poe declared that "in Music, perhaps, the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired by the Poetic Sentiment, it strugglesthe creation of supernal Beauty. Verse cannot be better designated than as an inferior or less capable music"; but again, verse which is really the "Poetry of Words" is "The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty,"this and nothing more. The tone of the highest Beauty is one of Sadness. The most melancholy of topics is Death. This must be allied to Beauty. "The death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world,and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of a bereaved lover." These last expressions are quoted from Poe's whimsical analysis of this very poem, but they indicate precisely the general range of his verse. The climax of "The Bells" is the muffled monotone of ghouls, who glory in weighing down the human heart. "Lenore," The Raven, "The Sleeper," "To One in Paradise," and "Ulalume" form a tenebrose symphony,and "Annabel Lee," written last of all, shows that one theme possessed him to the end. Again, these are all nothing if not musical, and some are touched with that quality of the Fantastic which awakes the sense of awe, and adds a new fear to agony itself. Through all is dimly outlined, beneath a shadowy pall, the poet's ideal love,so often halfportrayed elsewhere,the entombed wife of Usher, the Lady Ligeia, in truth the counterpart of his own nature. I suppose that an artist's love for one "in the form" never can wholly rival his devotion to some ideal. The woman near him must exercise her spells, be all by turns and nothing long, charm him with infinite variety, or be content to forego a share of his allegiance. He must be lured by the Unattainable, and this is ever just beyond him in his passion for creative art. Poe, like Hawthorne, came in with the decline of the Romantic school, and none delighted more than he to laugh at its calamity. Yet his heart was with the romancers and their Oriental or Gothic effects. His invention, so rich in the prose tales, seemed to desert him when he wrote verse; and his judgment told him that long romantic poems depend more upon incident than inspiration,and that, to utter the poetry of romance, lyrics would suffice. Hence his theory, clearly fitted to his own limitations, that "a 'long poem' is a flat contradiction in terms." The components of The Raven are few and simple a man, a bird, and the phantasmal memory at a woman. But the piece affords a fine display of romantic material. What have we? The midnight; the shadowy chamber with its tomes of forgotten lore; the student,a modern Hieronymus; the raven's tap on the casement; the wintry night and dying fire; the silken windswept hangings; the dreams and vague mistrust of the echoing darkness; the black, uncanny bird upon the pallid bust; the accessories of violet velvet and the gloating lamp. All this stage effect of situation, light, color, sound, is purely romantic, and even melodramatic, but of a poetic quality that melodrama rarely exhibits, and thoroughly reflective of the poet's "eternal passion, eternal pain." The rhythmical structure of The Raven was sure to make an impression. Rhyme, alliteration, the burden, the stanzaic form, were devised with singular adroitness. Doubtless the poet was struck with the aptness of Miss Barrett's musical trochaics, in "eights," and especially by the arrangement adopted near the close of "Lady Geraldine" "'Eyes,' he said, 'now throbbing through me! Are ye eyes that did undo me? Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statuestone! Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid O'er the desolate sanddesert of my heart and life undone?'" His artistic introduction of a third rhyme in both the second and fourth lines, and the addition of a fifth line and a final refrain, made the stanza of The Raven. The persistent alliteration seems to come without effort, and often the rhymes within lines are seductive; while the refrain or burden dominates the whole work. Here also he had profited by Miss Barrett's study of ballads and romaunts in her own and other tongues. A "refrain" is the lure wherewith a poet or a musician holds the wandering ear,the recurrent longing of Nature for the initial strain. I have always admired the beautiful refrains of the English songstress,"The Nightingales, the Nightingales," "Margret, Margret," "My Heart and I," "Toll slowly," "The River floweth on," "Pan, Pan is dead," etc. She also employed what I term the Repetend, in the use of which Poe has excelled all poets since Coleridge thus revived it "O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware." Poe created the fifth line of his stanza for the magic of the repetend. He relied upon it to the uttermost in a few later poems,"Lenore," "Annabel Lee," "Ulalume," and "For Annie." It gained a wild and melancholy music, I have thought, from the "sweet influences," of the Afric burdens and repetends that were sung to him in childhood, attuning with their native melody the voice of our Southern poet. "The Philosophy of Composition," his analysis of The Raven, is a technical dissection of its method and structure. Neither his avowal of coldblooded artifice, nor his subsequent avowal to friends that an exposure of this artifice was only another of his intellectual hoaxes, need be wholly credited. If he had designed the complete work in advance, he scarcely would have made so harsh a prelude of rattlepan rhymes to the delicious melody of the second stanza,not even upon his theory of the fantastic. Of course an artist, having perfected a work, sees, like the first Artist, that it is good, and sees why it is good. A subsequent analysis, coupled with a disavowal of any sacred fire, readily enough may be made. My belief is that the first conception and rough draft of this poem came as inspiration always comes; that its author then saw how it might be perfected, giving it the final touches described in his chapter on Composition, and that the latter, therefore, is neither wholly false nor wholly true. The harm of such analysis is that it tempts a novice to fancy that artificial processes can supersede imagination. The impulse of genius is to guard the secrets of its creative hour. Glimpses obtained of the toil, the baffled experiments, which precede a triumph, as in the sketchwork of Hawthorne recently brought to light, afford priceless instruction and encouragement to the sincere artist. But one who voluntarily exposes his Muse to the gaze of all comers should recall the fate of King Candaules. The world still thinks of Poe as a "luckless man of genius." I recently heard him mentioned as "one whom everybody seems chartered to misrepresent, decry or slander." But it seems to me that his illluck ended with his pitiable death, and that since then his defence has been persistent, and his fame of as steadfast growth as a suffering and gifted author could pray for in his hopeful hour. Griswold's decrial and slander turned the current in his favor. Critics and biographers have come forward with successive refutations, with tributes to his character, with new editions of his works. His own letters and the minute incidents of his career are before us; the record, good and bad, is widely known. No appellor has received more tender and forgiving judgement. His mishaps in life belonged to his region and period, perchance still more to his own infirmity of will. Doubtless his environment was not one to guard a finegrained, illbalanced nature from perils without and within. His strongest will, to be lord of himself, gained for him "that heritage of woe." He confessed himself the bird's unhappy master, the stricken sufferer of this poem. But his was a full share of that dramatic temper which exults in the presage of its own doom. There is a delight in playing one's high part we are all gladiators, crying Ave Imperator! To quote Burke's matter of fact "In grief the pleasure is still uppermost, and the affliction we suffer has no resemblance to absolute pain, which is always odious, and which we endeavor to shake off as soon as possible." Poe went farther, and was an artist even in the tragedy of his career. If, according to his own belief, sadness and the vanishing of beauty are the highest poetic themes, and poetic feeling the keenest earthly pleasure, then the sorrow and darkness of his broken life were not without their frequent compensation. In the following pages, we have a fresh example of an artist's genius characterizing his interpretation of a famous poem. Gustave Dore, the last work of whose pencil is before us, was not the painter, or even the draughtsman, for realists demanding truth of tone, figure, and perfection. Such matters concerned him less than to make shape and distance, light and shade, assist his purpose,which was to excite the soul, the imagination, of the looker on. This he did by arousing our sense of awe, through marvellous and often sublime conceptions of things unutterable and full of gloom or glory. It is well said that if his works were not great paintings, as pictures they are great indeed. As a "literary artist," and such he was, his force was in direct ratio with the dramatic invention of his author, with the brave audacities of the spirit that kindled his own. Hence his success with Rabelais, with "Le JuifErrant," "Les Contes Drolatiques," and "Don Quixote," and hence, conversely, his failure to express the beauty of Tennyson's Idyls, of "Il Paradiso," of the Hebrew pastorals, and other texts requiring exaltation, or sweetness and repose. He was a born master of the grotesque, and by a special insight could portray the spectres of a haunted brain. We see objects as his personages saw them, and with the very eyes of the Wandering Jew, the bewildered Don, or the goldsmith's daughter whose fancy so magnifies the King in the shop on the PontauChange. It was in the nature of things that he should be attracted to each masterpiece of verse or prose that I have termed unique. The lower kingdoms were called into his service; his rocks, trees and mountains, the sky itself, are animate with motive and diablerie. Had he lived to illustrate Shakespeare, we should have seen a remarkable treatment of Caliban, the Witches, the storm in "Lear"; but doubtless should have questioned his ideals of Imogen or Miranda. Beauty pure and simple, and the perfect excellence thereof, he rarely seemed to comprehend. Yet there is beauty in his designs for the "Ancient Mariner," unreal as they are, and a consecutiveness rare in a series by Dore. The Rime afforded him a prolonged story, with many shiftings of the scene. In The Raven sound and color preserve their monotone and we have no change of place or occasion. What is the result? Dore proffers a series of variations upon the theme as he conceived it, "the enigma of death and the hallucination of an inconsolable soul." In some of these drawings his faults are evident; others reveal his powerful originality, and the best qualities in which, as a draughtsman, he stood alone. Plainly there was something in common between the working moods of Poe and Dore. This would appear more clearly had the latter tried his hand upon the "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque." Both resorted often to the elfland of fantasy and romance. In melodramatic feats they both, through their command of the supernatural, avoided the dangerline between the ideal and the absurd. Poe was the truer worshipper of the Beautiful; his love for it was a consecrating passion, and herein he parts company with his illustrator. Poet or artist, Death at last transfigures all within the shadow of his sable harbinger, Vedder's symbolic crayon aptly sets them face to face, but enfolds them with the mantle of immortal wisdom and power. An American woman has wrought the image of a stareyed Genius with the final torch, the exquisite semblance of one whose vision beholds, but whose lips may not utter, the mysteries of a land beyond "the door of a legended tomb." EDMUND C. STEDMAN. The Poem. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'T is some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door Only this, and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrowvainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrowsorrow for the lost Lenore For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled mefilled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'T is some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; This it is, and nothing more.

" Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"here I opened wide the door; Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" Merely this and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping, somewhat louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; 'T is the wind and nothing more!" Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore, Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaninglittle relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore." But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he utterednot a feather then he fluttered Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Nevermore." Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Nevernevermore.'" But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore." This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er She shall press, ah, nevermore! Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent theeby these angels he hath sent thee Respiterespite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted On this home by Horror hauntedtell me truly, I implore Is thereis there balm in Gilead?tell metell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evilprophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above, usby that God we both adore Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be liftednevermore! The Poem Illustrated "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore." "Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor." "Eagerly I wished the morrow;vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrowsorrow for the lost Lenore." "Sorrow for the lost Lenore." "For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore Nameless here for evermore." "'T is some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door." "Here I opened wide the door; Darkness there, and nothing more." "Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." "'Surely,' said I, 'surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore.'" "Open here I flung the shutter." "A stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he." "Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door Perched, and sat, and nothing more." "Wandering from the Nightly shore." "Till I scarcely more than muttered, 'Other friends have flown before On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'" "Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy." "But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er She shall press, ah, nevermore!" "'Wretch,' I cried, 'thy God hath lent theeby these angels he hath sent thee Respiterespite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!'" "On this home by Horror haunted." "Tell me truly, I implore Is thereis there balm in Gilead?tell metell me, I implore!" "Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore." "'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked, upstarting." "'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!'" "And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be liftednevermore!"

The TellTale Heart Table of Contents The Telltale Heart The TellTale Heart Edgar Allan Poe Copyright 2014 epubBooks All Rights Reserved. This publication is protected by copyright. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen or via personal texttospeech computer systems. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of epubBooks. www.epubbooks.com The Telltale Heart TRUE!nervousvery, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my sensesnot destroyednot dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthilyhow calmly I can tell you the whole story. It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulturea pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degreesvery graduallyI made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceededwith what cautionwith what foresightwith what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened itoh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowlyvery, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiouslyoh, so cautiouslycautiously (for the hinges creaked)I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nightsevery night just at midnightbut I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept. Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powersof my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew backbut no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily. I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out"Who's there?" I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening;just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall. Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of griefoh, no!it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself"It is nothing but the wind in the chimneyit is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feelalthough he neither saw nor heardto feel the presence of my head within the room. When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a littlea very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened ityou cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthilyuntil, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye. It was openwide, wide openand I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctnessall a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot. And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but overacuteness of the sense?now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment!do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized methe sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked onceonce only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more. If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eyenot even hiscould have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash outno stain of any kindno bloodspot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught allha! ha! When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clockstill dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart,for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises. I smiled,for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them searchsearch well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim. The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinctIt continued and became more distinct I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling but it continued and gained definitenessuntil, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears. No doubt I now grew very pale;but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increasedand what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick soundmuch such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breathand yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quicklymore vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the menbut the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamedI ravedI swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louderlouderlouder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!no, no! They heard!they suspected!they knew!they were making a mockery of my horror!this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and nowagain!hark! louder! louder! louder! louder! "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!tear up the planks! here, here!It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

BY STEPHEN KING NOVELS AS RICHARD BACHMAN Carrie Rage 'Salem's Lot The Long Walk The Shining Roadwork The Stand The Running Man The Dead Zone Thinner Firestarter Cujo COLLECTIONS The Dark Tower Night Shift The Gunslinger Different Seasons Christine Skeleton Crew Pet Sematary The Talisman NONFICTION (with Peter Straub) Danse Macabre It The Eyes of the Dragon SCREENPLAYS Misery Creepshow The Tommyknockers Cat's Eye The Dark Tower II Silver Bullet Drawing of the Three The Dark Half The Stand The Complete Uncut Edition News item from the Westover (Me.) weekly Enterprise, August 19, 1966 RAIN OF STONES REPORTED It was reliably reported by several persons that a rain of stones fell from a clear blue sky on Carlin Street in the town of Chamberlain on August 17th. The stones fell principally on the home of Mrs. Margaret White, damaging the roof extensively and ruining two gutters and a downspout valued at approximately 25. Mrs. White, a widow, lives with her threeyearold daughter, Carietta. Mrs. White could not be reached for comment. Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow. On the surface, all the girls in the shower room were shocked, thrilled, ashamed, or simply glad that the White bitch had taken it in the mouth again. Some of them might also have claimed surprise, but of course their claim was untrue. Carrie had been going to school with some of them since the first grade, and this had been building since that time, building slowly and immutably, in accordance with all the laws that govern human nature, building with all the steadiness of a chain reaction approaching critical mass. What none of them knew, of course, was that Carrie White was telekinetic. Graffiti scratched on a desk of the Barker Street Grammar School in Chamberlain Carrie White eats shit. The locker room was filled with shouts, echoes, and the subterranean sound of showers splashing on tile. The girls had been playing volleyball in Period One, and their morning sweat was light and eager. Girls stretched and writhed under the hot water, squalling, flicking water, squirting white bars of soap from hand to hand. Carrie stood among them stolidly, a frog among swans. She was a chunky girl with pimples on her neck and back and buttocks, her wet hair completely without color. It rested against her face with dispirited sogginess and she simply stood, head slightly bent, letting the water splat against her flesh and roll off. She looked the part of the sacrificial goat, the constant butt, believer in lefthanded monkey wrenches, perpetual foulup, and she was. She wished forlornly and constantly that Ewen High had individualand thus privateshowers, like the high schools at Westover or Lewiston. They stared. They always stared. Showers turning off one by one, girls stepping out, removing pastel bathing caps, toweling, spraying deodorant, checking the clock over the door. Bras were hooked, underpants stepped into. Steam hung in the air; the place might have been an Egyptian bathhouse except for the constant rumble of the Jacuzzi whirlpool in the corner. Calls and catcalls rebounded with all the snap and flicker of billiard balls after a hard break. so Tommy said he hated it on me and I I'm going with my sister and her husband. He picks his nose but so does she, so they're very shower after school and too cheap to spend a goddam penny so Cindi and I Miss Desjardin, their slim, nonbreasted gym teacher, stepped in, craned her neck around briefly, and slapped her hands together once, smartly. What are you waiting for, Carrie? Doom? Bell in five minutes. Her shorts were blinding white, her legs not too curved but striking in their unobtrusive muscularity. A silver whistle, won in college archery competition, hung around her neck. The girls giggled and Carrie looked up, her eyes slow and dazed from the heat and the steady, pounding roar of the water. Ohuh? It was a strangely froggy sound, grotesquely apt, and the girls giggled again. Sue Snell had whipped a towel from her hair with the speed of a magician embarking on a wondrous feat and began to comb rapidly. Miss Desjardin made an irritated cranking gesture at Carrie and stepped out. Carrie turned off the shower. It died in a drip and a gurgle. It wasn't until she stepped out that they all saw the blood running down her leg. From The Shadow Exploded Documented Facts and Specific Conclusions Derived from the Case of Carietta White, by David R. Congress (Tulane University Press 1981), p. 34 It can hardly be disputed that failure to note specific instances of telekinesis during the White girl's earlier years must be attributed to the conclusion offered by White and Stearns in their paper Telekinesis A Wild Talent Revisitedthat the ability to move objects by effort of the will alone comes to the fore only in moments of extreme personal stress. The talent is well hidden indeed; how else could it have remained submerged for centuries with only the tip of the iceberg showing above a sea of quackery? We have only skimpy hearsay evidence upon which to lay our foundation in this case, but even this is enough to indicate that a TK potential of immense magnitude existed within Carrie White. The great tragedy is that we are now all Mondaymorning quarterbacks . . . Period! The catcall came first from Chris Hargensen. It struck the tiled walls, rebounded, and struck again. Sue Snell gasped laughter from her nose and felt an odd, vexing mixture of hate, revulsion, exasperation, and pity. She just looked so dumb, standing there, not knowing what was going on. God, you'd think she never PERiod! It was becoming a chant, an incantation. Someone in the background (perhaps Hargensen again, Sue couldn't tell in the jungle of echoes) was yelling, Plug it up! with hoarse, uninhibited abandon. PERiod, PERiod, PERiod! Carrie stood dumbly in the center of a forming circle, water rolling from her skin in beads. She stood like a patient ox, aware that the joke was on her (as always), dumbly embarrassed but unsurprised. Sue felt welling disgust as the first dark drops of menstrual blood struck the tile in dimesized drops. For God's sake, Carrie, you got your period! she cried. Clean yourself up! Ohuh? She looked around bovinely. Her hair stuck to her cheeks in a curving helmet shape. There was a cluster of acne on one shoulder. At sixteen, the elusive stamp of hurt was already marked clearly in her eyes. She thinks they're for lipstick! Ruth Gogan suddenly shouted with cryptic glee, and then burst into a shriek of laughter. Sue remembered the comment later and fitted it into a general picture, but now it was only another senseless sound in the confusion. Sixteen? She was thinking. She must know what's happening, she More droplets of blood. Carrie still blinked around at her classmates in slow bewilderment. Helen Shyres turned around and made mock throwingup gestures. You're bleeding! Sue yelled suddenly, furiously. You're bleeding, you big dumb pudding! Carrie looked down at herself. She shrieked. The sound was very loud in the humid locker room. A tampon suddenly struck her in the chest and fell with a plop at her feet. A red flower stained the absorbent cotton and spread. Then the laughter, disgusted, contemptuous, horrified, seemed to rise and bloom into something jagged and ugly, and the girls were bombarding her with tampons and sanitary napkins, some from purses, some from the broken dispenser on the wall. They flew like snow and the chant became Plug it up, plug it up, plug it up, plug it Sue was throwing them too, throwing and chanting with the rest, not really sure what she was doinga charm had occurred to her mind and it glowed there like neon There's no harm in it really no harm in it really no harmIt was still flashing and glowing, reassuringly, when Carrie suddenly began to howl and back away, flailing her arms and grunting and gobbling. The girls stopped, realizing that fission and explosion had finally been reached. It was at this point, when looking back, that some of them would claim surprise. Yet there had been all these years, all these years of let's shortsheet Carrie's bed at Christian Youth Camp and I found this love letter from Carrie to Flash Bobby Pickett let's copy it and pass it around and hide her underpants somewhere and put this snake in her shoe and duck her again, duck her again; Carrie tagging along stubbornly on biking trips, known one year as pudd'n and the next year as truckface, always smelling sweaty, not able to catch up; catching poison ivy from urinating in the bushes and everyone finding out (hey, scratchass, your bum itch?); Billy Preston putting peanut butter in her hair that time she fell asleep in study hall; the pinches, the legs outstretched in school aisles to trip her up, the books knocked from her desk, the obscene postcard tucked into her purse; Carrie on the church picnic and kneeling down clumsily to pray and the seam of her old madras skirt splitting along the zipper like the sound of a huge windbreakage; Carrie always missing the ball, even in kickball, falling on her face in Modern Dance during their sophomore year and chipping a tooth, running into the net during volleyball; wearing stockings that were always run, running, or about to run, always showing sweat stains under the arms of her blouses; even the time Chris Hargensen called up after school from the Kelly Fruit Company downtown and asked her if she knew that pig poop was spelled CARRIE Suddenly all this and the critical mass was reached. The ultimate shiton, grossout, putdown, long searched for, was found. Fission. She backed away, howling in the new silence, fat forearms crossing her face, a tampon stuck in the middle of her pubic hair. The girls watched her, their eyes shining solemnly. Carrie backed into the side of one of the four large shower compartments and slowly collapsed into a sitting position. Slow, helpless groans jerked out of her. Her eyes rolled with wet whiteness, like the eyes of a hog in the slaughtering pen. Sue said slowly, hesitantly I think this must be the first time she ever That was when the door pumped open with a flat and hurried bang and Miss Desjardin burst in to see what the matter was. From The Shadow Exploded (p. 41) Both medical and psychological writers on the subject are in agreement that Carrie White's exceptionally late and traumatic commencement of the menstrual cycle might well have provided the trigger for her latent talent. It seems incredible that, as late as 1979, Carrie knew nothing of the mature woman's monthly cycle. It is nearly as incredible to believe that the girl's mother would permit her daughter to reach the age of nearly seventeen without consulting a gynecologist concerning the daughter's failure to menstruate. Yet the facts are incontrovertible. When Carrie White realized she was bleeding from the vaginal opening, she had no idea of what was taking place. She was innocent of the entire concept of menstruation. One of her surviving classmates, Ruth Gogan, tells of entering the girls' locker room at Ewen High School the year before the events we are concerned with and seeing Carrie using a tampon to blot her lipstick with. At that time Miss Gogan said What the hell are you up to? Miss White replied Isn't this right? Miss Gogan then replied Sure. Sure it is. Ruth Gogan let a number of her girl friends in on this (she later told this interviewer she thought it was sorta cute), and if anyone tried in the future to inform Carrie of the true purpose of what she was using to make up with, she apparently dismissed the explanation as an attempt to pull her leg. This was a facet of her life that she had become exceedingly wary of. . . . When the girls were gone to their Period Two classes and the bell had been silenced (several of them had slipped quietly out the back door before Miss Desjardin could begin to take names), Miss Desjardin employed the standard tactic for hysterics She slapped Carrie smartly across the face. She hardly would have admitted the pleasure the act gave her, and she certainly would have denied that she regarded Carrie as a fat, whiny bag of lard. A firstyear teacher, she still believed that she thought all children were good. Carrie looked up at her dumbly, face still contorted and working. MMMiss DDDesD Get up, Miss Desjardin said dispassionately. Get up and tend to yourself. I'm bleeding to death! Carrie screamed, and one blind, searching hand came up and clutched Miss Desjardin's white shorts. It left a bloody handprint. I . . . you . . . The gym teacher's face contorted into a pucker of disgust, and she suddenly hurled Carrie, stumbling, to her feet. Get over there! Carrie stood swaying between the showers and the wall with its dime sanitarynapkin dispenser, slumped over, breasts pointing at the floor, her arms dangling limply. She looked like an ape. Her eyes were shiny and blank. Now, Miss Desjardin said with hissing, deadly emphasis, you take one of those napkins out . . . no, never mind the coin slot, it's broken anyway . . . take one and . . . damn it, will you do it! You act as if you never had a period before. Period? Carrie said. Her expression of complete unbelief was too genuine, too full of dumb and hopeless horror, to be ignored or denied. A terrible and black foreknowledge grew in Rita Desjardin's mind. It was incredible, could not be. She herself had begun menstruation shortly after her eleventh birthday and had gone to the head of the stairs to yell down excitedly Hey, Mum, I'm on the rag! Carrie? she said now. She advanced toward the girl. Carrie? Carrie flinched away. At the same instant, a rack of softball bats in the corner fell over with a large, echoing bang. They rolled every which way, making Desjardin jump. Carrie, is this your first period? But now that the thought had been admitted, she hardly had to ask. The blood was dark and flowing with terrible heaviness. Both of Carrie's legs were smeared and splattered with it, as though she had waded through a river of blood. It hurts, Carrie groaned. My stomach . . . That passes, Miss Desjardin said. Pity and selfshame met in her and mixed uneasily. You have to . . . uh, stop the flow of blood. You There was a bright flash overhead, followed by a flashgunlike pop as a lightbulb sizzled and went out. Miss Desjardin cried out with surprise, and it occurred to her (the whole damn place is falling in) that this kind of thing always seemed to happen around Carrie when she was upset, as if bad luck dogged her every step. The thought was gone almost as quickly as it had come. She took one of the sanitary napkins from the broken dispenser and unwrapped it. Look, she said. Like this From The Shadow Exploded (p. 54) Carrie White's mother, Margaret White, gave birth to her daughter on September 21, 1963, under circumstances which can only be termed bizarre. In fact, an overview of the Carrie White case leaves the careful student with one feeling ascendent over all others that Carrie was the only issue of a family as odd as any that has ever been brought to popular attention. As noted earlier, Ralph White died in February of 1963 when a steel girder fell out of a carrying sling on a housingproject job in Portland. Mrs. White continued to live alone in their suburban Chamberlain bungalow. Due to the Whites' nearfanatical fundamentalist religious beliefs, Mrs. White had no friends to see her through her period of bereavement. And when her labor began seven months later, she was alone. At approximately 130 P.M. on September 21, the neighbors on Carlin Street began to hear screams from the White bungalow. The police, however, were not summoned to the scene until after 600 P.M. We are left with two unappetizing alternatives to explain this time lag Either Mrs. White's neighbors on the street did not wish to become involved in a police investigation, or dislike for her had become so strong that they deliberately adopted a waitandsee attitude. Mrs. Georgia McLaughlin, the only one of three remaining residents who were on the street at that time and who would talk to me, said that she did not call the police because she thought the screams had something to do with holy rollin'. When the police did arrive at 622 P.M. the screams had become irregular. Mrs. White was found in her bed upstairs, and the investigating officer, Thomas G. Mearton, at first thought she had been the victim of an assault. The bed was drenched with blood, and a butcher knife lay on the floor. It was only then that he saw the baby, still partially wrapped in the placental membrane, at Mrs. White's breast. She had apparently cut the umbilical cord herself with the knife. It staggers both imagination and belief to advance the hypothesis that Mrs. Margaret White did not know she was pregnant, or even understand what the word entails, and recent scholars such as J. W. Bankson and George Fielding have made a more reasonable case for the hypothesis that the concept, linked irrevocably in her mind with the sin of intercourse, had been blocked entirely from her mind. She may simply have refused to believe that such a thing could happen to her. We have records of at least three letters to a friend in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that seem to prove conclusively that Mrs. White believed, from her fifth month on, that she had a cancer of the womanly parts and would soon join her husband in heaven. . . . When Miss Desjardin led Carrie up to the office fifteen minutes later, the halls were mercifully empty. Classes droned onward behind closed doors. Carrie's shrieks had finally ended, but she had continued to weep with steady regularity. Desjardin had finally placed the napkin herself, cleaned the girl up with wet paper towels, and gotten her back into her plain cotton underpants. She tried twice to explain the commonplace reality of menstruation, but Carrie clapped her hands over her ears and continued to cry. Mr. Morton, the assistant principal, was out of his office in a flash when they entered. Billy deLois and Henry Trennant, two boys waiting for the lecture due them for cutting French I, goggled around from their chairs. Come in, Mr. Morton said briskly. Come right in. He glared over Desjardin's shoulder at the boys, who were staring at the bloody handprint on her shorts. What are you looking at? Blood, Henry said, and smiled with a kind of vacuous surprise. Two detention periods, Morton snapped. He glanced down at the bloody handprint and blinked. He closed the door behind them and began pawing through the top drawer of his filing cabinet for a school accident form. Are you all right, uh Carrie, Desjardin supplied. Carrie White. Mr. Morton had finally located an accident form. There was a large coffee stain on it. You won't need that, Mr. Morton. I suppose it was the trampoline. We just . . . I won't? No. But I think Carrie should be allowed to go home for the rest of the day. She's had a rather frightening experience. Her eyes flashed a signal which he caught but could not interpret. Yes, okay, if you say so. Good. Fine. Morton crumpled the form back into the filing cabinet, slammed it shut with his thumb in the drawer, and grunted. He whirled gracefully to the door, yanked it open, glared at Billy and Henry, and called Miss Fish, could we have a dismissal slip here, please? Carrie Wright. White, said Miss Desjardin. White, Morton agreed. Billy deLois sniggered. Week's detention! Morton barked. A blood blister was forming under his thumbnail. Hurt like hell. Carrie's steady, monotonous weeping went on and on. Miss Fish brought the yellow dismissal slip and Morton scrawled his initials on it with his silver pocket pencil, wincing at the pressure on his wounded thumb. Do you need a ride, Cassie? he asked. We can call a cab if you need one. She shook her head. He noticed with distaste that a large bubble of green mucus had formed at one nostril. Morton looked over her head and at Miss Desjardin. I'm sure she'll be all right, she said. Carrie only has to go over to Carlin Street. The fresh air will do her good. Morton gave the girl the yellow slip. You can go now, Cassie, he said magnanimously. That's not my name! she screamed suddenly. Morton recoiled, and Miss Desjardin jumped as if struck from behind. The heavy ceramic ashtray on Morton's desk (it was Rodin's Thinker with his head turned into a receptacle for cigarette butts) suddenly toppled to the rug, as if to take cover from the force of her scream. Butts and flakes of Morton's pipe tobacco scattered on the palegreen nylon rug. Now, listen, Morton said, trying to muster sternness. I know you're upset, but that doesn't mean I'll stand for Please, Miss Desjardin said quietly. Morton blinked at her and then nodded curtly. He tried to project the image of a lovable John Wayne figure while performing the disciplinary functions that were his main job as Assistant Principal, but did not succeed very well. The administration (usually represented at Jay Cee suppers, P.T.A. functions, and American Legion award ceremonies by Principal Henry Grayle) usually termed him lovable Mort. The student body was more apt to term him that crazy assjabber from the office. But, as few students such as Billy deLois and Henry Trennant spoke at P.T.A. functions or town meetings, the administration's view tended to carry the day. Now lovable Mort, still secretly nursing his jammed thumb, smiled at Carrie and said, Go along then if you like, Miss Wright. Or would you like to sit a spell and just collect yourself? I'll go, she muttered, and swiped at her hair. She got up, then looked around at Miss Desjardin. Her eyes were wide open and dark with knowledge. They laughed at me. Threw things. They've always laughed. Desjardin could only look at her helplessly. Carrie left. For a moment there was silence; Morton and Desjardin watched her go. Then, with an awkward throatclearing sound, Mr. Morton hunkered down carefully and began to sweep together the debris from the fallen ashtray. What was that all about? She sighed and looked at the drying maroon handprint on her shorts with distaste. She got her period. Her first period. In the shower. Morton cleared his throat again and his cheeks went pink. The sheet of paper he was sweeping with moved even faster. Isn't she a bit, uh Old for her first? Yes. That's what made it so traumatic for her. Although I can't understand why her mother . . . The thought trailed off, forgotten for the moment. I don't think I handled it very well, Morty, but I didn't understand what was going on. She thought she was bleeding to death. He stared up sharply. I don't believe she knew there was such a thing as menstruation until half an hour ago. Hand me that little brush there, Miss Desjardin. Yes, that's it. She handed him a little brush with the legend Chamberlain Hardware and Lumber Company NEVER Brushes You Off written up the handle. He began to brush his pile of ashes onto the paper. There's still going to be some for the vacuum cleaner, I guess. This deep pile is miserable. I thought I set that ashtray back on the desk further. Funny how things fall over. He bumped his head on the desk and sat up abruptly. It's hard for me to believe that a girl in this or any other high school could get through three years and still be alien to the fact of menstruation, Miss Desjardin. It's even more difficult for me, she said. But it's all I can think of to explain her reaction. And she's always been a group scapegoat. Um. He funneled the ashes and butts into the wastebasket and dusted his hands. I've placed her, I think. White. Margaret White's daughter. Must be. That makes it a little easier to believe. He sat down behind his desk and smiled apologetically. There's so many of them. After five years or so, they all start to merge into one group face. You call boys by their brother's names, that type of thing. It's hard. Of course it is. Wait 'til you've been in the game twenty years, like me, he said morosely, looking down at his blood blister. You get kids that look familiar and find out you had their daddy the year you started teaching. Margaret White was before my time, for which I am profoundly grateful. She told Mrs. Bicente, God rest her, that the Lord was reserving a special burning seat in hell for her because she gave the kids an outline of Mr. Darwin's beliefs on evolution. She was suspended twice while she was hereonce for beating a classmate with her purse. Legend has it that Margaret saw the classmate smoking a cigarette. Peculiar religious views. Very peculiar. His John Wayne expression suddenly snapped down. The other girls. Did they really laugh at her? Worse. They were yelling and throwing sanitary napkins at her when I walked in. Throwing them like . . . like peanuts. Oh. Oh, dear. John Wayne disappeared. Mr. Morton went scarlet. You have names? Yes. Not all of them, although some of them may rat on the rest. Christine Hargensen appeared to be the ringleader . . . as usual. Chris and her Mortimer Snerds, Morton murmured. Yes. Tina Blake, Rachel Spies, Helen Shyres, Donna Thibodeau and her sister Mary Lila Grace, Jessica Upshaw. And Sue Snell. She frowned. You wouldn't expect a trick like that from Sue. She's never seemed the type for this kind of aa stunt. Did you talk to the girls involved? Miss Desjardin chuckled unhappily. I got them the hell out of there. I was too flustered. And Carrie was having hysterics. Um. He steepled his fingers. Do you plan to talk to them? Yes. But she sounded reluctant. Do I detect a note of You probably do, she said glumly. I'm living in a glass house, see. I understand how those girls felt. The whole thing just made me want to take the girl and shake her. Maybe there's some kind of instinct about menstruation that makes women want to snarl, I don't know. I keep seeing Sue Snell and the way she looked. Um, Mr. Morton repeated wisely. He did not understand women and had no urge at all to discuss menstruation. I'll talk to them tomorrow, she promised, rising. Rip them down one side and up the other. Good. Make the punishment suit the crime. And if you feel you have to send any of them to, ah, to me, feel free I will, she said kindly. By the way, a light blew out while I was trying to calm her down. It added the final touch. I'll send a janitor right down, he promised. And thanks for doing your best, Miss Desjardin. Will you have Miss Fish send in Billy and Henry? Certainly. She left. He leaned back and let the whole business slide out of his mind. When Billy deLois and Henry Trennant, classcutters extraordinaire, slunk in, he glowered at them happily and prepared to talk tough. As he often told Hank Grayle, he ate classcutters for lunch. Graffiti scratched on a desk in Chamberlain Junior High School Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, but Carrie White eats shit. She walked down Ewen Avenue and crossed over to Carlin at the stoplight on the corner. Her head was down and she was trying to think of nothing. Cramps came and went in great, gripping waves, making her slow down and speed up like a car with carburetor trouble. She stared at the sidewalk. Quartz glittering in the cement. Hopscotch grids scratched in ghostly, rainfaded chalk. Wads of gum stamped flat. Pieces of tinfoil and pennycandy wrappers. They all hate and they never stop. They never get tired of it. A penny lodged in a crack. She kicked it. Imagine Chris Hargensen all bloody and screaming for mercy. With rats crawling all over her face. Good. Good. That would be good. A dog turd with a foottrack in the middle of it. A roll of blackened caps that some kid had banged with a stone. Cigarette butts. Crash in her head with a rock, with a boulder. Crash in all their heads. Good. Good. (saviour jesus meek and mild) That was good for Momma, all right for her. She didn't have to go among the wolves every day of every year, out into a carnival of laughers, joketellers, pointers, snickerers. And didn't Momma say there would be a Day of Judgment (the name of that star shall be wormwood and they shall be scourged with scorpions) and an angel with a sword? If only it would be today and Jesus coming not with a lamb and a shepherd's crook, but with a boulder in each hand to crush the laughers and the snickerers, to root out the evil and destroy it screaminga terrible Jesus of blood and righteousness. And if only she could be His sword and His arm. She had tried to fit. She had defied Momma in a hundred little ways, had tried to erase the redplague circle that had been drawn around her from the first day she had left the controlled environment of the small house on Carlin Street and had walked up to the Barker Street Grammar School with her Bible under her arm. She could still remember that day, the stares, and the sudden, awful silence when she had gotten down on her knees before lunch in the school cafeteriathe laughter had begun on that day and had echoed up through the years. The redplague circle was like blood itselfyou could scrub and scrub and scrub and still it would be there, not erased, not clean. She had never gotten on her knees in a public place again, although she had not told Momma that. Still, the original memory remained, with her and with them. She had fought Momma tooth and nail over the Christian Youth Camp, and had earned the money to go herself by taking in sewing. Momma told her darkly that it was Sin, that it was Methodists and Baptists and Congregationalists and that it was Sin and Backsliding. She forbade Carrie to swim at the camp. Yet although she had swum and had laughed when they ducked her (until she couldn't get her breath any more and they kept doing it and she got panicky and began to scream) and had tried to take part in the camp's activities, a thousand practical jokes had been played on ol' prayin' Carrie and she had come home on the bus a week early, her eyes red and socketed from weeping, to be picked up by Momma at the station, and Momma had told her grimly that she should treasure the memory of her scourging as proof that Momma knew, that Momma was right, that the only hope of safety and salvation was inside the red circle. For strait is the gate, Momma said grimly in the taxi, and at home she had sent Carrie to the closet for six hours. Momma had, of course, forbade her to shower with the other girls; Carrie had hidden her shower things in her school locker and had showered anyway, taking part in a naked ritual that was shameful and embarrassing to her in hopes that the circle around her might fade a little, just a little (but today o today) Tommy Erbter, age five, was biking up the other side of the street. He was a small, intenselooking boy on a twentyinch Schwinn with brightred training wheels. He was humming Scoobie Doo, where are you? under his breath. He saw Carrie, brightened, and stuck out his tongue. Hey, ol' fartface! Of prayin' Carrie! Carrie glared at him with sudden smoking rage. The bike wobbled on its training wheels and suddenly fell over. Tommy screamed. The bike was on top of him. Carrie smiled and walked on. The sound of Tommy's wails was sweet, jangling music in her ears. If only she could make something like that happen whenever she liked. (just did) She stopped dead seven houses up from her own, staring blankly at nothing. Behind her, Tommy was climbing tearfully back onto his bike, nursing a scraped knee. He yelled something at her, but she ignored it. She had been yelled at by experts. She had been thinking (fall off that bike kid push you off that bike and split your rotten head) and something had happened. Her mind had . . . had . . . she groped for a word. Had flexed. That was not just right, but it was very close. There had been a curious mental bending, almost like an elbow curling a dumbbell. That wasn't exactly right either, but it was all she could think of. An elbow with no strength. A weak baby muscle. Flex.

She suddenly stared fiercely at Mrs. Yorraty's big picture window. She thought (stupid frumpy old bitch break that window) Nothing. Mrs. Yorraty's picture window glittered serenely in the fresh nine o'clock glow of morning. Another cramp gripped Carrie's belly and she walked on. But . . . The light. And the ashtray; don't forget the ashtray. She looked back (old bitch hates my momma) over her shoulder. Again it seemed that something flexed . . . but very weakly. The flow of her thoughts shuddered as if there had been a sudden bubbling from a wellspring deeper inside. The picture window seemed to ripple. Nothing more. It could have been her eyes. Could have been. Her head began to feel tired and fuzzy, and it throbbed with the beginning of a headache. Her eyes were hot, as if she had just sat down and read the Book of Revelations straight through. She continued to walk down the street toward the small white house with the blue shutters. The familiar hatelovedread feeling was churning inside her. Ivy had crawled up the west side of the bungalow (they always called it the bungalow because the White house sounded like a political joke and Momma said all politicians were crooks and sinners and would eventually give the country over to the Godless Reds who would put all the believers of Jesuseven the Catholicsup against the wall), and the ivy was picturesque, she knew it was, but sometimes she hated it. Sometimes, like now, the ivy looked like a grotesque giant hand ridged with great veins which had sprung up out of the ground to grip the building. She approached it with dragging feet. Of course, there had been the stones. She stopped again, blinking vapidly at the day. The stones. Momma never talked about that; Carrie didn't even know if her momma still remembered the day of the stones. It was surprising that she herself still remembered it. She had been a very little girl then. How old? Three? Four? There had been that girl in the white bathing suit, and then the stones came. And things had flown in the house. Here the memory was, suddenly bright and clear. As if it had been here all along, just below the surface, waiting for a kind of mental puberty. Waiting, maybe, for today. From Carrie The Black Dawn of T.K. (Esquire magazine, September 12, 1980) by Jack Gaver Estelle Horan has lived in the neat San Diego suburb of Parrish for twelve years, and outwardly she is typical Ms. California She wears bright print shifts and smoked amber sunglasses; her hair is blackstreaked blonde; she drives a neat maroon Volkswagen Formula Vee with a smile decal on the gas cap and a greenflag ecology sticker on the back window. Her husband is an executive at the Parrish branch of the Bank of America; her son and daughter are certified members of the Southern California Sun 'n Fun Crowd, burnishedbrown beach creatures. There is a hibachi in the small, beautifully kept back yard, and the door chimes play a tinkly phrase from the refrain of Hey, Jude. But Ms. Horan still carries the thin, difficult soil of New England somewhere inside her, and when she talks of Carrie White her face takes on an odd, pinched look that is more like Lovecraft out of Arkham than Kerouac out of Southern Cal. Of course she was strange, Estelle Horan tells me, lighting a second Virginia Slim a moment after stubbing out her first. The whole family was strange. Ralph was a construction worker, and people on the street said he carried a Bible and a .38 revolver to work with him every day. The Bible was for his coffee break and lunch. The .38 was in case he met Antichrist on the job. I can remember the Bible myself. The revolver . . . who knows? He was a big oliveskinned man with his hair always shaved into a flattop crewcut. He always looked mean. And you didn't meet his eyes, not ever. They were so intense they actually seemed to glow. When you saw him coming you crossed the street and you never stuck out your tongue at his back, not ever. That's how spooky he was. She pauses, puffing clouds of cigarette smoke toward the pseudoredwood beams that cross the ceiling. Stella Horan lived on Carlin Street until she was twenty, commuting to day classes at Lewin Business College in Motton. But she remembers the incident of the stones very clearly. There are times, she says, when I wonder if I might have caused it. Their back yard was next to ours, and Mrs. White had put in a hedge but it hadn't grown out yet. She'd called my mother dozens of times about the show I was putting on in my back yard. Well, my bathing suit was perfectly decentprudish by today's standardsnothing but a plain old onepiece Jantzen. Mrs. White used to go on and on about what a scandal it was for her baby. My mother . . . well, she tries to be polite, but her temper is so quick. I don't know what Margaret White said to finally push her over the edgecalled me the Whore of Babylon, I supposebut my mother told her our yard was our yard and I'd go out and dance the hootchiekootchie buck naked if that was her pleasure and mine. She also told her that she was a dirty old woman with a can of worms for a mind. There was a lot more shouting, but that was the upshot of it. I wanted to stop sunbathing right then. I hate trouble. It upsets my stomach. But Momwhen she gets a case, she's a terror. She came home from Jordan Marsh with a little white bikini. Told me I might as well get all the sun I could. After all, she said, the privacy of our own back yard and all. Stella Horan smiles a little at the memory and crushes out her cigarette. I tried to argue with her, tell her I didn't want any more trouble, didn't want to be a pawn in their backfence war. Didn't do a bit of good. Trying to stop my mom when she gets a bee in her hat is like trying to stop a Mack truck going downhill with no brakes. Actually, there was more to it. I was scared of the Whites. Real religious nuts are nothing to fool with. Sure, Ralph White was dead, but what if Margaret still had that .38 around? But there I was on Saturday afternoon, spread out on a blanket in the back yard, covered with suntan lotion and listening to Top Forty on the radio. Mom hated that stuff and usually she'd yell out at least twice for me to turn it down before she went nuts. But that day she turned it up twice herself. I started to feel like the Whore of Babylon myself. But nobody came out of the Whites' place. Not even the old lady to hang her wash. That's something elseshe never hung any undies on the back line. Not even Carrie's, and she was only three back then. Always in the house. I started to relax. I guess I was thinking Margaret must have taken Carrie to the park to worship God in the raw or something. Anyway, after a little while I rolled on my back, put one arm over my eyes, and dozed off. When I woke up, Carrie was standing next to me and looking down at my body. She breaks off, frowning into space. Outside, the cars are whizzing by endlessly. I can hear the steady little whine my tape recorder makes. But it all seems a little too brittle, too glossy, just a cheap patina over a darker worlda real world where nightmares happen. She was such a pretty girl, Stella Horan resumes, lighting another cigarette. I've seen some high school pictures of her, and that horrible fuzzy blackandwhite photo on the cover of Newsweek. I look at them and all I can think is, Dear God, where did she go? What did that woman do to her? Then I feel sick and sorry. She was so pretty, with pink cheeks and bright brown eyes, and her hair the shade of blonde you know will darken and get mousy. Sweet is the only word that fits. Sweet and bright and innocent. Her mother's sickness hadn't touched her very deeply, not then. I kind of started up awake and tried to smile. It was hard to think what to do. I was logy from the sun and my mind felt sticky and slow. I said Hi. She was wearing a little yellow dress, sort of cute but awfully long for a little girl in the summer. It came down to her shins. She didn't smile back. She just pointed and said, What are those? I looked down and saw that my top had slipped while I was asleep. So I fixed it and said, Those are my breasts, Carrie. Then she saidvery solemnly I wish I had some. I said You have to wait, Carrie. You won't start to get them for another . . . oh, eight or nine years. No, I won't, she said. Momma says good girls don't. She looked strange for a little girl, half sad and half selfrighteous. I could hardly believe it, and the first thing that popped into my mind also popped right out my mouth. I said Well, I'm a good girl. And doesn't your mother have breasts? She lowered her head and said something so softly I couldn't hear it. When I asked her to repeat it, she looked at me defiantly and said that her momma had been bad when she made her and that was why she had them. She called them dirtypillows, as if it was all one word. I couldn't believe it. I was just dumbfounded. There was nothing at all I could think to say. We just stared at each other, and what I wanted to do was grab that sad little scrap of a girl and run away with her. And that was when Margaret White came out of her back door and saw us. For a minute she just goggled as if she couldn't believe it. Then she opened her mouth and whooped. That's the ugliest sound I've ever heard in my life. It was like the noise a bull alligator would make in a swamp. She just whooped. Rage. Complete, insane rage. Her face went just as red as the side of a fire truck and she curled her hands into fists and whooped at the sky. She was shaking all over. I thought she was having a stroke. Her face was all scrunched up, and it was a gargoyle's face. I thought Carrie was going to faintor die on the spot. She sucked in all her breath and that little face went a cottagecheesy color. Her mother yelled CAAAARRRIEEEEEE! I jumped up and yelled back Don't you yell at her that way! You ought to be ashamed! Something stupid like that. I don't remember. Carrie started to go back and then she stopped and then she started again, and just before she crossed over from our lawn to theirs she looked back at me and there was a look . . . oh, dreadful. I can't say it. Wanting and hating and fearing . . . and misery. As if life itself had fallen on her like stones, all at the age of three. My mother came out on the back stoop and her face just crumpled when she saw the child. And Margaret . . . oh, she was screaming things about sluts and strumpets and the sins of the fathers being visited even unto the seventh generation. My tongue felt like a little driedup plant. For just a second Carrie stood swaying back and forth between the two yards, and then Margaret White looked upward and I swear sweet Jesus that woman bayed at the sky. And then she started to . . . to hurt herself, scourge herself. She was clawing at her neck and cheeks, making red marks and scratches. She tore her dress. Carrie screamed out Momma! and ran to her. Mrs. White kind of. . . squatted, like a frog, and her arms swooped wide open. I thought she was going to crush her and I screamed. The woman was grinning. Grinning and drooling right down her chin. Oh, I was sick. Jesus, I was so sick. She gathered her up and they went in. I turned off my radio and I could hear her. Some of the words, but not all. You didn't have to hear all the words to know what was going on. Praying and sobbing and screeching. Crazy sounds. And Margaret telling the little girl to get herself into her closet and pray. The little girl crying and screaming that she was sorry, she forgot. Then nothing. And my mother and I just looked at each other. I never saw Mom look so bad, not even when Dad died. She said The child and that was all. We went inside. She gets up and goes to the window, a pretty woman in a yellow noback sundress. It's almost like living it all over again, you know, she says, not turning around. I'm all riled up inside again. She laughs a little and cradles her elbows in her palms. Oh, she was so pretty. You'd never know from those pictures. Cars go by outside, back and forth, and I sit and wait for her to go on. She reminds me of a polevaulter eyeing the bar and wondering if it's set too high. My mother brewed us scotch tea, strong, with milk, the way she used to when I was tomboying around and someone would push me in the nettle patch or I'd fall off my bicycle. It was awful but we drank it anyway, sitting across from each other in the kitchen nook. She was in some old housedress with the hem falling down in back, and I was in my Whore of Babylon twopiece swimsuit. I wanted to cry but it was too real to cry about, not like the movies. Once when I was in New York I saw an old drunk leading a little girl in a blue dress by the hand. The girl had cried herself into a bloody nose. The drunk had goiter and his neck looked like an inner tube. There was a red bump in the middle of his forehead and a long white string on the blue serge jacket he was wearing. Everyone kept going and coming because, if you did, then pretty soon you wouldn't see them any more. That was real, too. I wanted to tell my mother that, and I was just opening my mouth to say it when the other thing happened . . . the thing you want to hear about, I guess. There was a big thump outside that made the glasses rattle in the china cabinet. It was a feeling as well as a sound, thick and solid, as if someone had just pushed an iron safe off the roof. She lights a new cigarette and begins to puff rapidly. I went to the window and looked out, but I couldn't see anything. Then, when I was getting ready to turn around, something else fell. The sun glittered on it. I thought it was a big glass globe for a second. Then it hit the edge of the Whites' roof and shattered, and it wasn't glass at all. It was a big chunk of ice. I was going to turn around and tell Mom, and that's when they started to fall all at once, in a shower. They were falling on the Whites' roof, on the back and front lawn, on the outside door to their cellar. That was a sheettin bulkhead, and when the first one hit it made a huge bong noise, like a church bell. My mother and I both screamed. We were clutching each other like a couple of girls in a thunderstorm. Then it stopped. There was no sound at all from their house. You could see the water from the melting ice trickling down their slate shingles in the sunshine. A great big hunk of ice was stuck in the angle of the roof and their little chimney. The light on it was so bright that my eyes hurt to look at it. My mother started to ask me if it was over, and then Margaret screamed. The sound came to us very clearly. In a way it was worse than before, because there was terror in this one. Then there were clanging, banging sounds, as if she was throwing every pot and pan in the house at the girl. The back door slammed open and slammed closed. No one came out. More screams. Mom said for me to call the police but I couldn't move. I was stuck to the spot. Mr. Kirk and his wife Virginia came out on their lawn to look. The Smiths, too. Pretty soon everyone on the street that was home had come out, even old Mrs. Warwick from up the block, and she was deaf in one ear. Things started to crash and tinkle and break. Bottles, glasses, I don't know what all. And then the side window broke open and the kitchen table fell halfway through. With God as my witness. It was a big mahogany thing and it took the screen with it and it must have weighed three hundred pounds. How could a womaneven a big womanthrow that? I ask her if she is implying something. I'm only telling you, she insists, suddenly distraught. I'm not asking you to believe She seems to catch her breath and then goes on flatly There was nothing for maybe five minutes. Water was dripping out of the gutters over there. And there was ice all over the Whites' lawn. It was melting fast. She gives a short, chopping laugh and butts her cigarette. Why not? It was August. She wanders aimlessly back toward the sofa, then veers away. Then the stones. Right out of the blue, blue sky. Whistling and screaming like bombs. My mother cried out, What, in the name of God! and put her hands over her head. But I couldn't move. I watched it all and I couldn't move. It didn't matter anyway. They only fell on the Whites' property. One of them hit a downspout and knocked it onto the lawn. Others punched holes right through the roof and into the attic. The roof made a big cracking sound each time one hit, and puffs of dust would squirt up. The ones that hit the ground made everything vibrate. You could feel them hitting in your feet. Our china was tinkling and the fancy Welsh dresser was shaking and Mom's teacup fell on the floor and broke. They made big pits in the Whites' back lawn when they struck. Craters. Mrs. White hired a junkman from across town to cart them away, and Jerry Smith from up the street paid him a buck to let him chip a piece off one. He took it to B.U. and they looked at it and said it was ordinary granite. One of the last ones hit a little table they had in their back yard and smashed it to pieces. But nothing, nothing that wasn't on their property was hit. She stops and turns from the window to look at me, and her face is haggard from remembering all that. One hand plays forgetfully with her casually stylish shag haircut. Not much of it got into the local paper. By the time Billy Harris came aroundhe reported the Chamberlain newsshe had already gotten the roof fixed, and when people told him the stones had gone right through it, I think he thought we were all pulling his leg. Nobody wants to believe it, not even now. You and all the people who'll read what you write will wish they could laugh it off and call me just another nut who's been out here in the sun too long. But it happened. There were lots of people on the block who saw it happen, and it was just as real as that drunk leading the little girl with the bloody nose. And now there's this other thing. No one can laugh that off, either. Too many people are dead. And it's not just on the White's property any more. She smiles, but there's not a drop of humor in it. She says Ralph White was insured, and Margaret got a lot of money when he died . . . double indemnity. He left the house insured, too, but she never got a penny of that. The damage was caused by an act of God. Poetic justice, huh? She laughs a little, but there's no humor in that, either. . . . Found written repeatedly on one page of a Ewen Consolidated High School notebook owned by Carrie White Everybody's guessedthat baby can't be blessed'til she finally sees that she's like all the rest. . . .1 Carrie went into the house and closed the door behind her. Bright daylight disappeared and was replaced by brown shadows, coolness, and the oppressive smell of talcum powder. The only sound was the ticking of the Black Forest cuckoo clock in the living room. Momma had gotten the cuckoo clock with Green Stamps. Once, in the sixth grade, Carrie had set out to ask Momma if Green Stamps weren't sinful, but her nerve had failed her. She walked up the hall and put her coat in the closet. A luminous picture above the coathooks limned a ghostly Jesus hovering grimly over a family seated at the kitchen table. Beneath was the caption (also luminous) The Unseen Guest. She went into the living room and stood in the middle of the faded, startingtobethreadbare rug. She closed her eyes and watched the little dots flash by in the darkness. Her headache thumped queasily behind her temples. Alone. Momma worked on the speed ironer and folder down at the Blue Ribbon Laundry in Chamberlain Center. She had worked there since Carrie was five, when the compensation and insurance that had resulted from her father's accident had begun to run out. Her hours were from seventhirty in the morning until four in the afternoon. The laundry was Godless. Momma had told her so many times. The foreman, Mr. Elton Mott, was especially Godless. Momma said that Satan had reserved a special blue corner of Hell for Elt, as he was called at the Blue Ribbon. Alone. She opened her eyes. The living room contained two chairs with straight backs. There was a sewing table with a light where Carrie sometimes made dresses in the evening while Momma tatted doilies and talked about The Coming. The Black Forest cuckoo clock was on the far wall. There were many religious pictures, but the one Carrie liked best was on the wall above her chair. It was Jesus leading lambs on a hill that was as green and smooth as the Riverside golf course. The others were not as tranquil Jesus turning the moneychangers from the temple, Moses throwing the Tablets down upon the worshipers of the golden calf, Thomas the doubter putting his hand in Christ's wounded side (oh, the horrified fascination of that one and the nightmares it had given her as a girl!), Noah's ark floating above the agonized, drowning sinners, Lot and his family fleeing the great burning of Sodom and Gomorrah. On a small deal table there were a lamp and a stack of tracts. The top pamphlet showed a sinner (his spiritual status was obvious from the agonized expression on his face) trying to crawl beneath a large boulder. The title blared Neither shall the rock hide him ON THAT DAY! But the room was actually dominated by a huge plaster crucifix on the far wall, fully four feet high. Momma had mailordered it special from St. Louis. The Jesus impaled upon it was frozen in a grotesque, musclestraining rictus of pain, mouth drawn down in a groaning curve. His crown of thorns bled scarlet streams down temples and forehead. The eyes were turned up in a medieval expression of slanted agony. Both hands were also drenched with blood and the feet were nailed to a small plaster platform. This corpus had also given Carrie endless nightmares in which the mutilated Christ chased her through dream corridors, holding a mallet and nails, begging her to take up her cross and follow Him. Just lately these dreams had evolved into something less understandable but more sinister. The object did not seem to be murder but something even more awful. Alone. The pain in her legs and belly and privates had drained away a little. She no longer thought she was bleeding to death. The word was menstruation, and all at once it seemed logical and inevitable. It was her Time of the Month. She giggled a strange, affrighted giggle in the solemn stillness of the living room. It sounded like a quiz show. You too can win an allexpensespaid trip to Bermuda on Time of the Month. Like the memory of the stones, the knowledge of menstruation seemed always to have been there, blocked but waiting. She turned and walked heavily upstairs. The bathroom had a wooden floor that had been scrubbed nearly white (Cleanliness is next to Godliness) and a tub on claw feet. Rust stains dripped down the porcelain below the chrome spout, and there was no shower attachment. Momma said showers were sinful. Carrie went in, opened the towel cabinet, and began to hunt purposefully but carefully, not leaving anything out of place. Momma's eyes were sharp. The blue box was in the very back, behind the old towels they didn't use any more. There was a fuzzily silhouetted woman in a long, filmy gown on the side. She took one of the napkins out and looked at it curiously. She had blotted the lipstick she snuck into her purse quite openly with theseonce on a street corner. Now she remembered (or imagined she did) quizzical, shocked looks. Her face flamed. They had told her. The flush faded to a milky anger. She went into her tiny bedroom. There were many more religious pictures here, but there were more lambs and fewer scenes of righteous wrath. A Ewen pennant was tacked over her dresser. On the dresser itself was a Bible and a plastic Jesus that glowed in the dark. She undressedfirst her blouse, then her hateful kneelength skirt, her slip, her girdle, her pettipants, her garter belt, her stockings. She looked at the pile of heavy clothes, their buttons and rubber, with an expression of fierce wretchedness. In the school library there was a stack of back issues of Seventeen and often she leafed through them, pasting an expression of idiotic casualness on her face. The models looked so easy and smooth in their short, kicky skirts, pantyhose, and frilly underwear with patterns on them. Of course easy was one of Momma's pet words (she knew what Momma would say o no question) to describe them. And it would make her dreadfully selfconscious, she knew that. Naked, evil, blackened with the sin of exhibitionism, the breeze blowing lewdly up the backs of her legs, inciting lust. And she knew that they would know how she felt. They always did. They would embarrass her somehow, push her savagely back down into clowndom. It was their way. She could, she knew she could be (what) in another place. She was thick through the waist only because sometimes she felt so miserable, empty, bored, that the only way to fill that gaping, whistling hole was to eat and eat and eatbut she was not that thick through the middle. Her body chemistry would not allow her to go beyond a certain point. And she thought her legs were actually pretty, almost as pretty as Sue Snell's or Vicky Hanscom's. She could be (what o what o what) could stop the chocolates and her pimples would go down. They always did. She could fix her hair. Buy pantyhose and blue and green tights. Make little skirts and dresses from Butterick and Simplicity patterns. The price of a bus ticket, a train ticket. She could be, could be, could be Alive. She unsnapped her heavy cotton bra and let it fall. Her breasts were milkwhite, upright and smooth. The nipples were a light coffee color. She ran her hands over them and a little shiver went through her. Evil, bad, oh it was. Momma had told her there was Something. The Something was dangerous, ancient, unutterably evil. It could make you Feeble. Watch, Momma said. It comes at night. It will make you think of the evil that goes on in parking lots and roadhouses. But, though this was only ninetwenty in the morning, Carrie thought that the Something had come to her. She ran her hands over her breasts (dirtypillows) again, and the skin was cool but the nipples were hot and hard, and when she tweaked one it made her feel weak and dissolving. Yes, this was the Something. Her underpants were spotted with blood. Suddenly she felt that she must burst into tears, scream, or rip the Something out of her body whole and beating, crush it, kill it. The napkin Miss Desjardin had fixed was already wilting and she changed it carefully, knowing how bad she was, how bad they were, how she hated them and herself. Only Momma was good. Momma had battled the Black Man and had vanquished him. Carrie had seen it happen in a dream. Momma had driven him out of the front door with a broom, and the Black Man had fled up Carlin Street into the night, his cloven feet striking red sparks from the cement. Her momma had torn the Something out of herself and was pure. Carrie hated her. She caught a glimpse of her own face in the tiny mirror she had hung on the back of the door, a mirror with a cheap green plastic rim, good only for combing hair by. She hated her face, her dull, stupid, bovine face, the vapid eyes, the red, shiny pimples, the nests of blackheads. She hated her face most of all. The reflection was suddenly split by a jagged, silvery crack. The mirror fell on the floor and shattered at her feet, leaving only the plastic ring to stare at her like a blinded eye. From Ogilvie's Dictionary of Psychic Phenomena Telekinesis is the ability to move objects or to cause changes in objects by force of the mind. The phenomenon has most reliably been reported in times of crisis or in stress situations, when automobiles have been levitated from pinned bodies or debris from collapsed buildings, etc. The phenomenon is often confused with the work of poltergeists, which are playful spirits. It should be noted that poltergeists are astral beings of questionable reality, while telekinesis is thought to be an empiric function of the mind, possibly electrochemical in nature. . . . When they had finished making love, as she slowly put her clothes in order in the back seat of Tommy Ross's 1963 Ford, Sue Snell found her thoughts turning back to Carrie White. It was Friday night and Tommy (who was looking pensively out the back window with his pants still down around his ankles; the effect was comic but oddly endearing) had taken her bowling. That, of course, was a mutually accepted excuse. Fornication had been on their minds from the word go. She had been going out more or less steadily with Tommy ever since October (it was now May) and they had been lovers for only two weeks. Seven times, she amended. Tonight had been the seventh. There had been no fireworks yet, no bands playing Stars and Stripes Forever, but it had gotten a little better. The first time had hurt like hell. Her girl friends, Helen Shyres and Jeanne Gault, had both done It, and they both assured her that it only hurt for a minutelike getting a shot of penicillinand then it was roses. But for Sue, the first time had been like being reamed out with a hoe handle. Tommy had confessed to her since, with a grin, that he had gotten the rubber on wrong, too. Tonight was only the second time she had begun to feel something like pleasure, and then it was over. Tommy had held out for as long as he could, but then it was just . . . over. It seemed like an awful lot of rubbing for a little warmth. In the aftermath she felt low and melancholy, and her thoughts turned to Carrie in this light. A wave of remorse caught her with all emotional guards down, and when Tommy turned back from the view of Brickyard Hill, she was crying. Hey, he said, alarmed. Oh, hey. He held her clumsily. 'S all right, she said, still weeping. It's not you. I did a notsogood thing today. I was just thinking of it. What? He patted the back of her neck gently. So she found herself launching into the story of that morning's incident, hardly believing it was herself she was listening to. Facing the thing frankly, she realized the main reason she had allowed Tommy to have her was because she was in (love? infatuation? didn't matter results were the same) with him, and now to put herself in this positioncohort in a nasty showerroom jokewas hardly the approved method to hook a fella. And Tommy was, of course, Popular. As someone who had been Popular herself all her life, it had almost seemed written that she would meet and fall in love with someone as Popular as she. They were almost certain to be voted King and Queen of the high school Spring Ball, and the senior class had already voted them class couple for the yearbook. They had become a fixed star in the shifting firmament of the high school's relationships, the acknowledged Romeo and Juliet. And she knew with sudden hatefulness that there was one couple like them in every white suburban high school in America. And having something she had always longed fora sense of place, of security, of statusshe found that it carried uneasiness with it like a darker sister. It was not the way she had conceived it. There were dark things lumbering around their warm circle of light. The idea that she had let him fuck her (do you have to say it that way yes this time I do) simply because he was Popular, for instance. The fact that they fit together walking, or that she could look at their reflection in a store window and think, There goes a handsome couple. She was quite sure (or only hopeful) that she wasn't that weak, not that liable to fall docilely into the complacent expectations of parents, friends, and even herself. But now there was this shower thing, where she had gone along and pitched in with high, savage glee.

The word she was avoiding was expressed To Conform, in the infinitive, and it conjured up miserable images of hair in rollers, long afternoons in front of the ironing board in front of the soap operas while hubby was off busting heavies in an anonymous Office; of joining the P.T.A. and then the country club when their income moved into five figures; of pills in circular yellow cases without number to insure against having to move out of the misses' sizes before it became absolutely necessary and against the intrusion of repulsive little strangers who shat in their pants and screamed for help at two in the morning; of fighting with desperate decorum to keep the niggers out of Kleen Korners, standing shoulder to shoulder with Terri Smith (Miss Potato Blossom of 1975) and Vicki Jones (Vice President of the Women's League), armed with signs and petitions and sweet, slightly desperate smiles. Carrie, it was that goddamned Carrie, this was her fault. Perhaps before today she had heard distant, circling footfalls around their lighted place, but tonight, hearing her own sordid, crummy story, she saw the actual silhouettes of all these things, and yellow eyes that glowed like flashlights in the dark. She had already bought her prom gown. It was blue. It was beautiful. You're right, he said when she was done. Bad news. Doesn't sound a bit like you. His face was grave and she felt a cool slice of terror. Then he smiledhe had a very jolly smileand the darkness retreated a bit. I kicked a kid in the slats once when he was knocked out. Did I ever tell you about that? She shook her head. Yeah. He rubbed his nose reminiscently and his cheek gave a small tic, the way it had when he made his confession about getting the rubber wrong the first time. The kid's name was Danny Patrick. He beat the living shit out of me once when we were in the sixth grade. I hated him, but I was scared, too. I was laying for him. You know how that is? She didn't, but nodded anyway. Anyway, he finally picked on the wrong kid a year or so later. Pete Taber. He was just a little guy, but he had lots of muscle. Danny got on him about something, I don't know, marbles or something, and finally Peter just rose up righteous and beat the shit out of him. That was on the playground of the old Kennedy Junior High. Danny fell down and hit his head and went out cold. Everybody ran. We thought he might be dead. I ran away too, but first I gave him a good kick in the ribs. Felt really bad about it afterward. You going to apologize to her? It caught Sue flatfooted and all she could do was clinch weakly Did you? Huh? Hell no! I had better things to do than spend my time in traction. But there's a big difference, Susie. There is? It's not seventh grade any more. And I had some kind of reason, even if it was a pisspoor reason. What did that sad, silly bitch ever do to you? She didn't answer because she couldn't. She had never passed more than a hundred words with Carrie in her whole life, and three dozen or so had come today. Phys Ed was the only class they'd had in common since they had graduated from Chamberlain Junior High. Carrie was taking the commercialbusiness courses. Sue, of course, was in the college division. She thought herself suddenly loathsome. She found she could not bear that and so she twisted it at him. When did you start making all these big moral decisions? After you started fucking me? She saw the good humor fade from his face and was sorry. Guess I should have kept quiet, he said, and pulled up his pants. It's not you, it's me. She put a hand on his arm. I'm ashamed, see? I know, he said. But I shouldn't be giving advice. I'm not very good at it. Tommy, do you ever hate being so . . . well, Popular? Me? The question wrote surprise on his face. Do you mean like football and class president and that stuff? Yes. No. It's not very important. High school isn't a very important place. When you're going you think it's a big deal, but when it's over nobody really thinks it was great unless they're beered up. That's how my brother and his buddies are, anyway. It did not soothe her; it made her fears worse. Little Susie mix 'n match from Ewen High School, Head Cupcake of the entire Cupcake Brigade. Prom gown kept forever in the closet, wrapped in protective plastic. The night pressed dark against the slightly steamed car windows. I'll probably end up working at my dad's car lot, he said. I'll spend my Friday and Saturday nights down at Uncle Billy's or out at The Cavalier drinking beer and talking about the Saturday afternoon I got that fat pitch from Saunders and we upset Dorchester. Get married to some nagging broad and always own last year's model, vote Democrat Don't, she said, her mouth suddenly full of a dark, sweet horror. She pulled him to her. Love me. My head is so bad tonight. Love me. Love me. So he loved her and this time it was different, this time there finally seemed to be room and there was no tiresome rubbing but a delicious friction that went up and up Twice he had to stop, panting, and held himself back, and then he went again (he was a virgin before me and admitted it i would have believed a lie) and went hard and her breath came in short, digging gasps and then she began to yell and hold at his back, helpless to stop, sweating, the bad taste washed away, every cell seeming to have its own climax, body filled with sunlight, musical notes in her mind, butterflies behind her skull in the cage of her mind. Later, on the way home, he asked her formally if she would go to the Spring Ball with him. She said she would. He asked her if she had decided what to do about Carrie. She said she hadn't. He said that it made no difference, but she thought that it did. It had begun to seem that it meant all the difference. From Telekinesis Analysis and Aftermath (Science Yearbook 1981), by Dean D. L. McGuffin There are, of course, still these scientists todayregretfully, the Duke University people are in their forefrontwho reject the terrific underlying implications of the Carrie White affair. Like the Flatlands Society, the Rosicrucians, or the Corlies of Arizona, who are positive that the atomic bomb does not work, these unfortunates are flying in the face of logic with their heads in the sandand beg your pardon for the mixed metaphor. Of course one is able to understand the consternation, the raised voices, the angry letters and arguments at scientific convocations. The idea of telekinesis itself has been a bitter pill for the scientific community to swallow, with its horrormovie trappings of ouija boards and mediums and table rappings and floating coronets; but understanding will still not excuse scientific irresponsibility. The outcome of the White affair raises grave and difficult questions. An earthquake has struck our ordered notions of the way the natural world is supposed to act and react. Can you blame even such a renowned physicist as Gerald Luponet for claiming the whole thing is a hoax and a fraud, even in the face of such overwhelming evidence as the White Commission presented? For if Carrie White is the truth, then what of Newton? . . . They sat in the living room, Carrie and Momma, listening to Tennessee Ernie Ford singing Let the Lower Lights Be Burning on a Webcor phonograph (which Momma called the victrola, or, if in a particularly good mood, the vic). Carrie sat at the sewing machine, pumping with her feet as she sewed the sleeves on a new dress. Momma sat beneath the plaster crucifix tatting doilies and bumping her feet in time to the song, which was one of her favorites. Mr. P. P. Bliss, who had written this hymn and others seemingly without number, was one of Momma's shining examples of God at work upon the face of the earth. He had been a sailor and a sinner (two terms that were synonymous in Momma's lexicon), a great blasphemer, a augher in the face of the Almighty. Then a great storm had come up at sea, the boat had threatened to capsize, and Mr. P. P. Bliss had gotten down on his sinsickly knees with a vision of Hell yawning beneath the ocean floor to receive him, and he had prayed to God. Mr. P. P. Bliss promised God that if He saved him, he would dedicate the rest of his life to Him. The storm, of course, had cleared immediately. Brightly beams our Father's mercy From his lighthouse evermore, But to us he gives the keeping Of the lights along the shore . . . All of Mr. P. P. Bliss's hymns had a seagoing flavor to them. The dress she was sewing was actually quite pretty, a dark wine colorthe closest Momma would allow her to redand the sleeves were puffed. She tried to keep her mind strictly on her sewing, but of course it wandered. The overhead light was strong and harsh and yellow, the small dusty plush sofa was of course deserted (Carrie had never had a boy in To Sit), and on the far wall was a twin shadow the crucified Jesus, and beneath Him, Momma. The school had called Momma at the laundry and she had come home at noon. Carrie had watched her come up the walk, and her belly trembled. Momma was a very big woman, and she always wore a hat. Lately her legs had begun to swell, and her feet always seemed on the point of overflowing her shoes. She wore a black cloth coat with a black fur collar. Her eyes were blue and magnified behind rimless bifocals. She always carried a large black satchel purse and in it was her change purse, her billfold (both black), a large King James Bible (also black) with her name stamped on the front in gold, and a stack of tracts secured with a rubber band. The tracts were usually orange, and smearily printed. Carrie knew vaguely that Momma and Daddy Ralph had been Baptists once but had left the church when they became convinced that the Baptists were doing the work of the Antichrist. Since that time, all worship had taken place at home. Momma held worship on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. These were called Holy Days. Momma was the minister, Carrie the congregation. Services lasted from two to three hours. Momma had opened the door and walked stolidly in. She and Carrie had stared at each other down the short length of the front hall for a moment, like gunfighters before a shootout. It was one of those brief moments that seem (fear could it really have been fear in momma's eyes) much longer in retrospect. Momma closed the door behind her. You're a woman, she said softly. Carrie felt her face twisting and crumpling and could not help it. Why didn't you tell me? she cried. Oh Momma, I was so scared! And the girls all made fun and threw things and Momma had been walking toward her, and now her hand flashed with sudden limber speed, a hard hand, laundrycallused and muscled. It struck her backhand across the jaw and Carrie fell down in the doorway between the hall and the living room, weeping loudly. And God made Eve from the rib of Adam, Momma said. Her eyes were very large in the rimless glasses; they looked like poached eggs. She thumped Carrie with the side of her foot and Carrie screamed. Get up, woman. Let's us get in and pray. Let's us pray to Jesus for our womanweak, wicked, sinning souls. Momma The sobs were too strong to allow more. The latent hysterics had come out grinning and gibbering. She could not stand up. She could only crawl into the living room with her hair hanging in her face, braying huge, hoarse sobs. Every now and again Momma would swing her foot. So they progressed across the living room toward the place of the altar, which had once been a small bedroom. And Eve was weak andsay it, woman. Say it! No, Momma, please help me The foot swung. Carrie screamed. And Eve was weak and loosed the raven on the world, Momma continued, and the raven was called Sin, and the first Sin was Intercourse. And the Lord visited Eve with a Curse, and the Curse was the Curse of Blood. And Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden and into the World and Eve found that her belly had grown big with child. The foot swung and connected with Carrie's rump. Her nose scraped the wood floor. They were entering the place of the altar. There was a cross on a table covered with an embroidered silk cloth. On either side of the cross there were white candles. Behind this were several paintbythenumbers of Jesus and His apostles. And to the right was the worst place of all, the home of terror, the cave where all hope, all resistance to God's willand Momma'swas extinguished. The closet door leered open. Inside, below a hideous blue bulb that was always lit, was Derrault's conception of Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. And there was a second Curse, and this was the Curse of Childbearing, and Eve brought forth Cain in sweat and blood. Now Momma dragged her, halfstanding and halfcrawling, down to the altar, where they both fell on their knees. Momma gripped Carrie's wrist tightly. And following Cain, Eve gave birth to Abel, having not yet repented of the Sin of Intercourse. And so the Lord visited Eve with a third Curse, and this was the Curse of Murder. Cain rose up and slew Abel with a rock. And still Eve did not repent, nor all the daughters of Eve, and upon Eve did the Crafty Serpent found a kingdom of whoredoms and pestilences. Momma! she shrieked. Momma, please listen! It wasn't my fault! Bow your head, Momma said. Let's us pray. You should have told me! Momma brought her hand down on the back of Carrie's neck, and behind it was all the heavy muscle developed by eleven years of slinging heavy laundry bags and trucking piles of wet sheets. Carrie's eyebulging face jerked forward and her forehead smacked the altar, leaving a mark and making the candles tremble. Let's us pray, Momma said softly, implacably. Weeping and snuffling, Carrie bowed her head. A runner of snot hung pendulously from her nose and she wiped it away (if i had a nickel for every time she made me cry here) with the back of her hand. O Lord, Momma declaimed hugely, her head thrown back, help this sinning woman beside me here see the sin of her days and ways. Show her that if she had remained sinless the Curse of Blood never would have come on her. She may have committed the Sin of Lustful Thoughts. She may have been listening to rock 'n roll music on the radio. She may have been tempted by the Antichrist. Show her that this is Your kind, vengeful hand at work and No! Let me go! She tried to struggle to her feet and Momma's hand, as strong and pitiless as an iron manacle, forced her back to her knees. and Your sign that she must walk the straight and narrow from here on out if she is to avoid the flaming agonies of the Eternal Pit. Amen. She turned her glittering, magnified eyes upon her daughter. Go to your closet now. No! She felt her breath go thick with terror. Go to your closet. Pray in secret. Ask forgiveness for your sin. I didn't sin, Momma. You sinned. You didn't tell me and they laughed. Again she seemed to see a flash of fear in Momma's eyes, gone as quickly and soundlessly as summer lightning. Momma began to force Carrie toward the blue glare of the closet. Pray to God and your sins may be washed away. Momma, you let me go. Pray, woman. I'll make the stones come again, Momma. Momma halted. Even her breath seemed to stop in her throat for a moment. And then the hand tightened on her neck, tightened, until Carrie saw red, lurid dots in front of her eyes and felt her brain go fuzzy and faroff. Momma's magnified eyes swam in front of her. You spawn of the devil, she whispered. Why was I so cursed? Carrie's whirling mind strove to find something huge enough to express her agony, shame, terror, hate, fear. It seemed her whole life had narrowed to this miserable, beaten point of rebellion. Her eyes bulged crazily, her mouth, filled with spit, opened wide. You SUCK! she screamed. Momma hissed like a burned cat. Sin! she cried. O, Sin! She began to beat Carrie's back, her neck, her head. Carrie was driven, reeling, into the close blue glare of the closet. You FUCK! Carrie screamed. (there there o there it's out how else do you think she got you o god o good) She was whirled into the closet headfirst and she struck the far wall and fell on the floor in a semidaze. The door slammed and the key turned. She was alone with Momma's angry God. The blue light glared on a picture of a huge and bearded Yahweh who was casting screaming multitudes of humans down through cloudy depths into an abyss of fire. Below them, black horrid figures struggled through the flames of perdition while the Black Man sat on a huge flamecolored throne with a trident in one hand. His body was that of a man, but he had a spiked tail and the head of a jackal. She would not break this time. But of course she did break. It took six hours but she broke, weeping and calling Momma to open the door and let her out. The need to urinate was terrible. The Black Man grinned at her with his jackal mouth, and his scarlet eyes knew all the secrets of womanblood. An hour after Carrie began to call, Momma let her out. Carrie scrabbled madly for the bathroom. It was only now, three hours after that, sitting here with her head bowed over the sewing machine like a penitent, that she remembered the fear in Momma's eyes and she thought she knew the reason why. There had been other times when Momma had kept her in the closet for as long as a day at a stretchwhen she stole that fortyninecent finger ring from Shuber's Five and Ten, the time she had found that picture of Flash Bobby Pickett under Carrie's pillowand Carrie had once fainted from the lack of food and the smell of her own waste. And she had never, never spoken back as she had done today. Today she had even said the Eff Word. Yet Momma had let her out almost as soon as she broke. There. The dress was done. She removed her feet from the treadle and held it up to look at it. It was long. And ugly. She hated it. She knew why Momma had let her out. Momma, may I go to bed? Yes. Momma did not look up from her doily. She folded the dress over her arm. She looked down at the sewing machine. All at once the treadle depressed itself. The needle began to dip up and down, catching the light in steely flashes. The bobbin whirred and jerked. The sidewheel spun. Momma's head jerked up, her eyes wide. The looped matrix at the edge of her doily, wonderfully intricate yet at the same time as precise and even, suddenly fell in disarray. Only clearing the thread, Carrie said softly. Go to bed, Momma said curtly, and the fear was back in her eyes. Yes, (she was afraid i'd knock the closet door right off its hinges) Momma. (and i think i could i think i could yes i think i could) From The Shadow Exploded (p. 58) Margaret White was born and raised in Motton, a small town which borders Chamberlain and sends its tuition students to Chamberlain's junior and senior high schools. Her parents were fairly welltodo; they owned a prosperous night spot just outside the Motton town limits called The Jolly Roadhouse. Margaret's father, John Brigham, was killed in a barroom shooting incident in the summer of 1959. Margaret Brigham, who was then almost thirty, began attending fundamentalist prayer meetings. Her mother had become involved with a new man (Harold Allison, whom she later married) and they both wanted Margaret out of the houseshe believed her mother, Judith, and Harold Allison were living in sin and made her views known frequently. Judith Brigham expected her daughter to remain a spinster the rest of her life. In the more pungent phraseology of her soontobe stepfather, Margaret had a face like the ass end of a gasoline truck and a body to match. He also referred to her as a little prayin' Jesus. Margaret refused to leave until 1960, when she met Ralph White at a revival meeting. In September of that year she left the Brigham residence in Motton and moved to a small flat in Chamberlain Center. The courtship of Margaret Brigham and Ralph White terminated in marriage on March 23, 1962. On April 3, 1962, Margaret White was admitted briefly to Westover Doctors Hospital. Nope, she wouldn't tell us what was wrong, Harold Allison said. The one time we went to see her she told us we were living in adultery even though we were hitched, and we were going to hell. She said God had put an invisible mark on our foreheads, but she could see it. Acted crazy as a bat in a henhouse, she did. Her mom tried to be nice, tried to find out what the matter with her was. She got hysterical and started to rave about an angel with a sword who would walk through the parking lots of roadhouses and cut down the wicked. We left. Judith Allison, however, had at least an idea of what might have been wrong with her daughter; she thought that Margaret had gone through a miscarriage. If so, the baby was conceived out of wedlock. Confirmation of this would shed an interesting light on the character of Carrie's mother. In a long and rather hysterical letter to her mother dated August 19, 1962, Margaret said that she and Ralph were living sinlessly, without the Curse of Intercourse. She urged Harold and Judith Allison to close their abode of wickedness and do likewise. It is, Margaret declares near the end of her letter, the oney [sic] way you That Man can avoid the Rain of Blood yet to come. Ralph I, like Mary Joseph, will neither know or polute [sic] each other's flesh. If there is issue, let it be Divine. Of course, the calendar tells us that Carrie was conceived later that same year . . . The girls dressed quietly for their Monday morning Period One gym class, with no horseplay or little screaming catcalls, and none of them were very surprised when Miss Desjardin slammed open the lockerroom door and walked in. Her silver whistle dangled between her small breasts, and if her shorts were the ones she had been wearing on Friday, no trace of Carrie's bloody handprint remained. The girls continued to dress sullenly, not looking at her. Aren't you the bunch to send out for graduation, Miss Desjardin said softly. When is it? A month? And the Spring Ball even less than that. Most of you have your dates and gowns already, I bet. Sue, you'll be going with Tommy Ross. Helen, Roy Evarts. Chris, I imagine that you can take your pick. Who's the lucky guy? Billy Nolan, Chris Hargensen said sullenly. Well, isn't he the lucky one? Desjardin remarked. What are you going to give him for a party favor, Chris, a bloody Kotex? Or how about some used toilet paper? I understand these things seem to be your sack these days. Chris went red. I'm leaving. I don't have to listen to that. Desjardin had not been able to get the image of Carrie out of her mind all weekend, Carrie screaming, blubbering, a wet napkin plastered squarely in the middle of her pubic hairand her own sick, angry reaction. And now, as Chris tried to storm out past her, she reached out and slammed her against a row of dented, olivecolored lockers beside the inner door. Chris's eyes widened with shocked disbelief. Then a kind of insane rage filled her face. You can't hit us! she screamed. You'll get canned for this! See if you don't, you bitch! The other girls winced and sucked breath and stared at the floor. It was getting out of hand. Sue noticed out of the corner of her eye that Mary and Donna Thibodeau were holding hands. I don't really care, Hargensen, Desjardin said. If youor any of you girlsthink I'm wearing my teacher hat right now, you're making a bad mistake. I just want you all to know that you did a shitty thing on Friday. A really shitty thing. Chris Hargensen was sneering at the floor. The rest of the girls were looking miserably at anything but their gym instructor. Sue found herself looking into the shower stallthe scene of the crimeand jerked her glance elsewhere. None of them had ever heard a teacher call anything shitty before. Did any of you stop to think that Carrie White has feelings? Do any of you ever stop to think? Sue? Fern? Helen? Jessica? Any of you? You think she's ugly. Well, you're all ugly. I saw it on Friday morning. Chris Hargensen was mumbling about her father being a lawyer. Shut up! Desjardin yelled in her face. Chris recoiled so suddenly that her head struck the lockers behind her. She began to whine and rub her head. One more remark out of you, Desjardin said softly, and I'll throw you across the room. Want to find out if I'm telling the truth? Chris, who had apparently decided she was dealing with a madwoman, said nothing. Desjardin put her hands on her hips. The office has decided on punishment for you girls. Not my punishment, I'm sorry to say. My idea was three days' suspension and refusal of your prom tickets. Several girls looked at each other and muttered unhappily. That would have hit you where you live, Desjardin continued. Unfortunately, Ewen is staffed completely by men in its administration wing. I don't believe they have any real conception of how utterly nasty what you did was. So. One week's detention. Spontaneous sighs of relief. But. It's to be my detention. In the gym. And I'm going to run you ragged. I won't come, Chris said. Her lips had thinned across her teeth. That's up to you, Chris. That's up to all of you. But punishment for skipping detention is going to be three days' suspension and refusal of your prom tickets. Get the picture? No one said anything. Right. Change up. And think about what I said. She left. Utter silence for a long and stricken moment. Then Chris Hargensen said with loud, hysterical stridency She can't get away with it! She opened a door at random, pulled out a pair of sneakers and hurled them across the room. I'm going to get her! Goddammit! Goddammit! See if I don't! If we all stick together we can Shut up, Chris, Sue said, and was shocked to hear a dead, adult lifelessness in her voice. Just shut up. This isn't over, Chris Hargensen said, unzipping her skirt with a rough jab and reaching for her fashionably frayed green gym shorts. This isn't over by a long way. And she was right. From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 6061) In the opinion of this researcher, a great many of the people who have researched the Carrie White mattereither for the scientific journals or for the popular presshave placed a mistaken emphasis on a relatively fruitless search for incidents of telekinesis in the girl's childhood. To strike a rough analogy, this is like spending years researching the early incidents of masturbation in a rapist's childhood. The spectacular incident of the stones serves as a kind of red herring in this respect. Many researchers have adopted the erroneous belief that where there has been one incident, there must be others. To offer another analogy, this is like dispatching a crew of meteor watchers to Crater National Park because a huge asteroid struck there two million years ago. To the best of my knowledge, there are no other recorded instances of TK in Carrie's childhood. If Carrie had not been an only child, we might have at least hearsay reports of dozens of other minor occurrences. In the case of Andrea Kolintz (see Appendix II for a fuller history), we are told that, following a spanking for crawling out on the roof, The medicine cabinet flew open, bottles fell to the floor or seemed to hurl themselves across the bathroom, doors flew open and slammed shut, and, at the climax of the manifestation, a 300pound stereo cabinet tipped over and records flew all over the living room, divebombing the occupants and shattering against the walls. Significantly, this report is from one of Andrea's brothers, as quoted in the September 4, 1955, issue of Life magazine. Life is hardly the most scholarly or unimpeachable source, but there is a great deal of other documentation, and I think that the point of familiar witnessship is served. In the case of Carrie White, the only witness to any possible prologue to the final climactic events was Margaret White, and she, of course is dead. . . . Henry Grayle, principal of Ewen High School, had been expecting him all week, but Chris Hargensen's father didn't show up until Fridaythe day after Chris had skipped her detention period with the formidable Miss Desjardin. Yes, Miss Fish? He spoke formally into the intercom, although he could see the man in the outer office through his window, and certainly knew his face from pictures in the local paper. John Hargensen to see you, Mr. Grayle. Send him in, please. Goddammit, Fish, do you have to sound so impressed? Grayle was an irrepressible paperclipbender, napkinripper, cornerfolder. For John Hargensen, the town's leading legal light, he was bringing up the heavy ammunitiona whole box of heavyduty clips in the middle of his desk blotter. Hargensen was a tall, impressive man with a selfconfident way of moving and the kind of sure, mobile features that said this was a man superior at the game of onestepahead social interaction. He was wearing a brown Savile Row suit with subtle glints of green and gold running through the weave that put Grayle's local offtherack job to shame. His briefcase was thin, real leather, and bound with glittering stainless steel. The smile was faultless and full of many capped teetha smile to make the hearts of lady jurors melt like butter in a warm skillet. His grip was major league all the wayfirm, warm, long. Mr. Grayle. I've wanted to meet you for some time now. I'm always glad to see interested parents, Grayle said with a dry smile. That's why we have Parents Open House every October. Of course. Hargensen smiled. I imagine you're a busy man, and I have to be in court fortyfive minutes from now. Shall we get down to specifics? Surely. Grayle dipped into his box of clips and began to mangle the first one. I suspect you are here concerning the disciplinary action taken against your daughter Christine. You should be informed that school policy on the matter has been set. As a man concerned with the workings of justice yourself, you should realize that bending the rules is hardly possible or Hargensen waved his hand impatiently. Apparently you're laboring under a misconception, Mr. Grayle. I am here because my daughter was manhandled by your gym teacher, Miss Rita Desjardin. And verbally abused, I'm afraid. I believe the term your Miss Desjardin used in connection with my daughter was shitty. Grayle sighed inwardly. Miss Desjardin has been reprimanded. John Hargensen's smile cooled thirty degrees. I'm afraid a reprimand will not be sufficient. I believe this has been the young, ah, lady's first year in a teaching capacity? Yes. We have found her to be eminently satisfactory. Apparently your definition of eminently satisfactory includes throwing students up against lockers and the ability to curse like a sailor? Grayle fenced As a lawyer, you must be aware that this state acknowledges the school's title to in loco parentisalong with full responsibility, we succeed to full parental rights during school hours. If you're not familiar, I'd advise you to check Monondock Consolidated School District vs. Cranepool or I'm familiar with the concept, Hargensen said. I'm also aware that neither the Cranepool case that you administrators are so fond of quoting or the Frick case cover anything remotely concerned with physical or verbal abuse. There is, however, the case of School District 4 vs. David. Are you familiar with it? Grayle was. George Kramer, the assistant principal of the consolidated high school in S.D. 14 was a poker buddy. George wasn't playing much poker any more. He was working for an insurance company after taking it upon himself to cut a student's hair. The school district had ultimately paid seven thousand dollars in damages, or about a thousand bucks a snip. Grayle started on another paper clip. Let's not quote cases at each other, Mr. Grayle. We're busy men. I don't want a lot of unpleasantness. I don't want a mess. My daughter is at home, and she will stay there Monday and Tuesday. That will complete her threeday suspension. That's all right. Another dismissive wave of the hand.

(catch fido good boy here's a nice bone) Here's what I want, Hargensen continued. One, prom tickets for my daughter. A girl's senior prom is important to her, and Chris is very distressed. Two, no contract renewal of the Desjardin woman. That's for me. I believe that if I cared to take the School Department to court, I could walk out with both her dismissal and a hefty damage settlement in my pocket. But I don't want to be vindictive. So court is the alternative if I don't agree to your demands? I understand that a School Committee hearing would precede that, but only as a formality. But yes, court would be the final result. Nasty for you. Another paper clip. For physical and verbal abuse, is that correct? Essentially. Mr. Hargensen, are you aware that your daughter and about ten of her peers threw sanitary napkins at a girl who was having her first menstrual period? A girl who was under the impression that she was bleeding to death? A faint frown creased Hargensen's features, as if someone had spoken in a distant room. I hardly think such an allegation is at issue. I am speaking of actions following Never mind, Grayle said. Never mind what you were speaking of. This girl, Carietta White, was called a dumb pudding and was told to plug it up and was subjected to various obscene gestures. She has not been in school this week at all. Does that sound like physical and verbal abuse to you? It does to me. I don't intend, Hargensen said, to sit here and listen to a tissue of halftruths or your standard schoolmaster lecture, Mr. Grayle. I know my daughter well enough to Here. Grayle reached into the wire IN basket beside the blotter and tossed a sheaf of pink cards across the desk. I doubt very much if you know the daughter represented in these cards half so well as you think you do. If you did, you might realize that it was about time for a trip to the woodshed. It's time you snubbed her close before she does someone a major damage. You aren't Ewen, four years, Grayle overrode him. Graduation slated June seventynine; next month. Tested I.Q. of a hundred and forty. Eightythree average. Nonetheless, I see she's been accepted at Oberlin. I'd guess someoneprobably you, Mr. Hargensenhas been yanking some pretty long strings. Seventyfour assigned detentions. Twenty of those have been for harassment of misfit pupils, I might add. Fifth wheels. I understand that Chris's clique calls them Mortimer Snerds. They find it all quite hilarious. She skipped out on fiftyone of those assigned detentions. At Chamberlain Junior High, one suspension for putting a firecracker in a girl's shoe . . . the note on the card says that little prank almost cost a little girl named Irma Swope two toes. The Swope girl has a harelip, I understand. I'm talking about your daughter, Mr. Hargensen. Does that tell you anything? Yes, Hargensen said, rising. A thin flush had suffused his features. It tells me I'll see you in court. And when I'm done with you, you'll be lucky to get a job selling encyclopedias door to door. Grayle also rose, angrily, and the two men faced each other across the desk. Let it be court, then, Grayle said. He noted a faint flick of surprise on Hargensen's face, crossed his fingers, and went in for what he hoped would be a knockoutor at least a TKO that would save Desjardin's job and take this silkass son of a bitch down a notch. You apparently haven't realized all the implications of in loco parentis in this matter, Mr. Hargensen. The same umbrella that covers your daughter also covers Carrie White. And the minute you file for damages on the grounds of physical and verbal abuse, we will crossfile against your daughter on those same grounds for Carrie White. Hargensen's mouth dropped open, then closed. You can't get away with a cheap gimmick like that, you Shyster lawyer? Is that the phrase you were looking for? Grayle smiled grimly. I believe you know your way out, Mr. Hargensen. The sanctions against your daughter stand. If you care to take the matter further, that is your right. Hargensen crossed the room stiffly, paused as if to add something, then left, barely restraining himself from the satisfaction of a hard doorslam. Grayle blew out breath. It wasn't hard to see where Chris Hargensen came by her selfwilled stubbornness. A. P. Morton entered a minute later. How did it go? Time'll tell, Morty, Grayle said. Grimacing, he looked at the twisted pile of paper clips. He was good for seven clips, anyway. That's some kind of record. Is he going to make it a civil matter? Don't know. It rocked him when I said we'd crosssue. I bet it did. Morton glanced at the phone on Grayle's desk. It's time we let the superintendent in on this bag of garbage, isn't it? Yes, Grayle said, picking up the phone. Thank God my unemployment insurance is paid up. Me too, Morton said loyally. From The Shadow Exploded (Appendix III) Carietta White passed in the following short verse as a poetry assignment in the seventh grade. Mr. Edwin King, who had Carrie for grade seven English, says I don't know why I saved it. She certainly doesn't stick out in my mind as a superior pupil, and this isn't a superior verse. She was very quiet and I can't remember her ever raising her hand even once in class. But something in this seemed to cry out. Jesus watches from the wall, But his face is cold as stone, And if he loves me As she tells me Why do I feel so all alone? The border of the paper on which this little verse is written is decorated with a great many cruciform figures which almost seem to dance. . . . Tommy was at baseball practice Monday afternoon, and Sue went down to the Kelly Fruit Company in The Center to wait for him. Kelly's was the closest thing to a high school hangout the loosely sprawled community of Chamberlain could boast since Sheriff Doyle had closed the rec center following a large drug bust. It was run by a morose fat man named Hubert Kelly who dyed his hair black and complained constantly that his electronic pacemaker was on the verge of electrocuting him. The place was a combination grocery, soda fountain, and gas stationthere was a rusted Jenny gas pump out front that Hubie had never bothered to change when the company merged. He also sold beer, cheap wine, dirty books, and a wide selection of obscure cigarettes such as Murads, King Sano, and Marvel Straights. The soda fountain was a slab of real marble, and there were four or five booths for kids unlucky enough or friendless enough to have no place to go and get drunk or stoned. An ancient pinball machine that always tilted on the third ball stuttered lights on and off in the back beside the rack of dirty books. When Sue walked in she saw Chris Hargensen immediately. She was sitting in one of the back booths. Her current amour, Billy Nolan, was looking through the latest issue of Popular Mechanics at the magazine rack. Sue didn't know what a rich, Popular girl like Chris saw in Nolan, who was like some strange time traveler from the 1950s with his greased hair, zipperbejeweled black leather jacket, and manifoldbubbling Chevrolet road machine. Sue! Chris hailed. Come on over! Sue nodded and raised a hand, although dislike rose in her throat like a paper snake. Looking at Chris was like looking through a slanted doorway to a place where Carrie White crouched with hands over her head. Predictably, she found her own hypocrisy (inherent in the wave and the nod) incomprehensible and sickening. Why couldn't she just cut her dead? A dime root beer, she told Hubie. Hubie had genuine draft root beer, and he served it in huge, frosted 1890s mugs. She had been looking forward to tipping a long one while she read a paper novel and waited for Tommyin spite of the havoc the root beers raised with her complexion, she was hooked. But she wasn't surprised to find she'd lost her taste for this one. How's your heart, Hubie? she asked. You kids, Hubie said, scraping the head off Sue's beer with a table knife and filling the mug the rest of the way. You don't understand nothing. I plugged in my electric razor this morning and got a hundred and ten volts right through this pacemaker. You kids don't know what that's like, am I right? I guess not. No. Christ Jesus forbid you should ever have to find out. How long can my old ticker take it? You kids'll all find out when I buy the farm and those urban renewal poops turn this place into a parking lot. That's a dime. She pushed her dime across the marble. Fifty million volts right up the old tubes, Hubie said darkly, and stared down at the small bulge in his breast pocket. Sue went over and slid carefully into the vacant side of Chris's booth. She was looking exceptionally pretty, her black hair held by a shamrockgreen band and a tight basque blouse that accentuated her firm, upthrust breasts. How are you, Chris? Bitchin' good, Chris said a little too blithely. You heard the latest? I'm out of the prom. I bet that cocksucker Grayle loses his job, though. Sue had heard the latest. Along with everyone at Ewen. Daddy's suing them, Chris went on. Over her shoulder Billeee! Come over here and say hi to Sue. He dropped his magazine and sauntered over, thumbs hooked into his sidehitched garrison belt, fingers dangling limply toward the stuffed crotch of his pegged levis. Sue felt a wave of unreality surge over her and fought an urge to put her hands to her face and giggle madly. Hi, Suze, Billy said. He slid in beside Chris and immediately began to massage her shoulder. His face was utterly blank. He might have been testing a cut of beef. I think we're going to crash the prom anyway, Chris said. As a protest or something. Is that right? Sue was frankly startled. No, Chris replied, dismissing it. I don't know. Her face suddenly twisted into an expression of fury, as abrupt and surprising as a tornado funnel. That goddamned Carrie White! I wish she'd take her goddam holy joe routine and stuff it straight up her ass! You'll get over it, Sue said. If only the rest of you had walked out with me . . . Jesus, Sue, why didn't you? We could have had them by the balls. I never figured you for an establishment pawn. Sue felt her face grow hot. I don't know about anyone else, but I wasn't being anybody's pawn. I took the punishment because I thought I earned it. We did a suckoff thing. End of statement. Bullshit. That fucking Carrie runs around saying everyone but her and her giltedged momma are going to hell and you can stick up for her? We should have taken those rags and stuffed them down her throat. Sure. Yeah. See you around, Chris. She pushed out of the booth. This time it was Chris who colored; the blood slammed to her face in a sudden rush, as if a red cloud had passed over some inner sun. Aren't you getting to be the Joan of Arc around here! I seem to remember you were in there pitching with the rest of us. Yes, Sue said, trembling. But I stopped. Oh, aren't you just it? Chris marveled. Oh my yes. Take your root beer with you. I'm afraid I might touch it and turn to gold. She didn't take her root beer. She turned and halfwalked, halfstumbled out. The upset inside her was very great, too great yet for either tears or anger. She was a getalong girl, and it was the first fight she had been in, physical or verbal, since gradeschool pigtail pulling. And it was the first time in her life that she had actively espoused a Principle. And of course Chris had hit her in just the right place, had hit her exactly where she was most vulnerable She was being a hypocrite, there seemed no way to avoid that, and deeply, sheathed within her and hateful, was the knowledge that one of the reasons she had gone to Miss Desjardin's hour of calisthenics and sweating runs around the gym floor had nothing to do with nobility. She wasn't going to miss her last Spring Ball for anything. Not for anything. Tommy was nowhere in sight. She began to walk back toward the school, her stomach churning unhappily. Little Miss Sorority. Suzy Creemcheese. The Nice Girl who only does It with the boy she plans to marrywith the proper Sunday supplement coverage, of course. Two kids. Beat the living shit out of them if they show any signs of honesty screwing, fighting, or refusing to grin each time some mythic honcho yelled frog. Spring Ball. Blue gown. Corsage kept all the afternoon in the fridge. Tommy in a white dinner jacket, cummerbund, black pants, black shoes. Parents taking photos posed by the livingroom sofa with Kodak Starflashes and Polaroid BigShots. Crepe masking the stark gymnasium girders. Two bands one rock, one mellow. No fifth wheels need apply. Mortimer Snerd, please keep out. Aspiring country club members and future residents of Kleen Korners only. The tears finally came and she began to run. From The Shadow Exploded (p. 60) The following excerpt is from a letter to Donna Kellogg from Christine Hargensen. The Kellogg girl moved from Chamberlain to Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 1978. She was apparently one of Chris Hargersen's few close friends and a confidante. The letter is postmarked May 17, 1979 So I'm out of the Prom and my yellowguts father says he won't give them what they deserve. But they're not going to get away with it. I don't know exactly what I'm going to do yet, but I guarantee you everyone is going to get a big fucking surprise . . . It was the seventeenth. May seventeenth. She crossed the day off the calendar in her room as soon as she slipped into her long white nightgown. She crossed off each day as it passed with a heavy black felt pen, and she supposed it expressed a very bad attitude toward life. She didn't really care. The only thing she really cared about was knowing that Momma was going to make her go back to school tomorrow and she would have to face all of Them. She sat down in the small Boston rocker (bought and paid for with her own money) beside the window, closed her eyes, and swept Them and all the clutter of her conscious thoughts from her mind. It was like sweeping a floor. Lift the rug of your subconscious and sweep all the dirt under. Goodbye. She opened her eyes. She looked at the hairbrush on her bureau. Flex. She was lifting the hairbrush. It was heavy. It was like lifting a barbell with very weak arms. Oh. Grunt. The hairbrush slid to the edge of the bureau, slid out past the point where gravity should have toppled it, and then dangled, as if on an invisible string. Carrie's eyes had closed to slits. Veins pulsed in her temples. A doctor might have been interested in what her body was doing at that instant; it made no rational sense. Respiration had fallen to sixteen breaths per minute. Blood pressure up to 190100. Heartbeat up to 140higher than astronauts under the heavy gload of liftoff. Temperature down to 94.3. Her body was burning energy that seemed to be coming from nowhere and seemed to be going nowhere. An electroencephalogram would have shown alpha waves that were no longer waves at all, but great, jagged spikes. She let the hairbrush down carefully. Good. Last night she had dropped it. Lose all your points, go to jail. She closed her eyes again and rocked. Physical functions began to revert to the norm; her respiration speeded until she was nearly panting. The rocker had a slight squeak. Wasn't annoying, though. Was soothing. Rock, rock. Clear your mind. Carrie? Her mother's voice, slightly disturbed, floated up. (she's getting interference like the radio when you turn on the blender good good) Have you said your prayers, Carrie? I'm saying them, she called back. Yes. She was saying them, all right. She looked at her small studio bed. Flex. Tremendous weight. Huge. Unbearable. The bed trembled and then the end came up perhaps three inches. It dropped with a crash. She waited, a small smile playing about her lips, for Momma to call upstairs angrily. She didn't. So Carrie got up, went to her bed, and slid between the cool sheets. Her head ached and she felt giddy, as she always did after these exercise sessions. Her heart was pounding in a fierce, scary way. She reached over, turned off the light, and lay back. No pillow. Momma didn't allow her a pillow. She thought of imps and familiars and witches (am i a witch momma the devil's whore) riding through the night, souring milk, overturning butter churns, blighting crops while They huddled inside their houses with hex signs scrawled on Their doors. She closed her eyes, slept, and dreamed of huge, living stones crashing through the night, seeking out Momma, seeking out Them. They were trying to run, trying to hide. But the rock would not hide them; the dead tree gave no shelter. From My Name Is Susan Snell by Susan Snell (New York Simon Schuster, 1986), pp. iiv There's one thing no one has understood about what happened in Chamberlain on Prom Night. The press hasn't understood it, the scientists at Duke University haven't understood it, David Congress hasn't understood italthough his The Shadow Exploded is probably the only halfdecent book written on the subjectand certainly the White Commission, which used me as a handy scapegoat, did not understand it. This one thing is the most fundamental fact We were kids. Carrie was seventeen, Chris Hargensen was seventeen, I was seventeen, Tommy Ross was eighteen, Billy Nolan (who spent a year repeating the ninth grade, presumably before he learned how to shoot his cuffs during examinations) was nineteen. . . . Older kids react in more socially acceptable ways than younger kids, but they still have a way of making bad decisions, of overreacting, of underestimating. In the first section which follows this introduction I must show these tendencies in myself as well as I am able. Yet the matter which I am going to discuss is at the root of my involvement in Prom Night, and if I am to clear my name, I must begin by recalling scenes which I find particularly painful. . . . I have told this story before, most notoriously before the White Commission, which received it with incredulity. In the wake of two hundred deaths and the destruction of an entire town, it is so easy to forget one thing We were kids. We were kids. We were kids trying to do our best. . . . You must be crazy. He blinked at her, not willing to believe that he had actually heard it. They were at his house, and the television was on but forgotten. His mother had gone over to visit Mrs. Klein across the street. His father was in the cellar workroom making a birdhouse. Sue looked uncomfortable but determined. It's the way I want it, Tommy. Well it's not the way I want it. I think it's the craziest goddam thing I ever heard. Like something you might do on a bet. Her face tightened. Oh? I thought you were the one making the big speeches the other night. But when it comes to putting your money where your big fat mouth is Wait, whoa. He was unoffended, grinning. I didn't say no, did I? Not yet, anyway. You Wait. Just wait. Let me talk. You want me to ask Carrie White to the Spring Ball. Okay, I got that. But there's a couple of things I don't understand. Name them. She leaned forward. First, what good would it do? And second, what makes you think she'd say yes if I asked her? Not say yes! Why She floundered. You're . . . everybody likes you and We both know Carrie's got no reason to care much for people that everybody likes. She'd go with you. Why? Pressed, she looked defiant and proud at the same time. I've seen the way she looks at you. She's got a crush. Like half the girls at Ewen. He rolled his eyes. Well, I'm just telling you, Sue said defensively. She won't be able to say no. Suppose I believe you, he said. What about the other thing? You mean what good will it do? Why . . . it'll bring her out of her shell, of course. Make her . . . She trailed off. A part of things? Come on, Suze. You don't believe that bullshit. All right, she said. Maybe I don't. But maybe I still think I've got something to make up for. The shower room? A lot more than that. Maybe if that was all I could let it go, but the mean tricks have been going on ever since grammar school. I wasn't in on many of them, but I was on some. If I'd been in Carrie's groups, I bet I would have been in on even more. It seemed like . . . oh, a big laugh. Girls can be catmean about that sort of thing, and boys don't really understand. The boys would tease Carrie for a little while and then forget, but the girls . . . it went on and on and on and I can't even remember where it started any more. If I were Carrie, I couldn't even face showing myself to the world. I'd just find a big rock and hide under it. You were kids, he said. Kids don't know what they're doing. Kids don't even know their reactions really, actually, hurt other people. They have no, uh, empathy. Dig? She found herself struggling to express the thought this called up in her, for it suddenly seemed basic, bulking over the showerroom incident the way sky bulks over mountains. But hardly anybody ever finds out that their actions really, actually, hurt other people! People don't get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it. Lots of kids say they feel sorry for Carrie Whitemostly girls, and that's a laughbut I bet none of them understand what it's like to be Carrie White, every second of every day. And they don't really care. Do you? I don't know! she cried. But someone ought to try and be sorry in a way that counts . . . in a way that means something. All right. I'll ask her. You will? The statement came out in a flat, surprised way. She had not thought he actually would. Yes. But I think she'll say no. You've overestimated my boxoffice appeal. That popularity stuff is bullshit. You've got a bee in your bonnet about that. Thank you, she said, and it sounded odd, as if she had thanked an Inquisitor for torture. I love you, he said. She looked at him, startled. It was the first time he had said it. From My Name Is Susan Snell (p. 6) There are lots of peoplemostly menwho aren't surprised that I asked Tommy to take Carrie to the Spring Ball. They are surprised that he did it, though, which shows you that the male mind expects very little in the way of altruism from its fellows. Tommy took her because he loved me and because it was what I wanted. How, asks the skeptic from the balcony, did you know he loved you? Because he told me so, mister. And if you'd known him, that would have been good enough for you, too. . . . He asked her on Thursday, after lunch, and found himself as nervous as a kid going to his first icecream party. She sat four rows over from him in Period Five study hall, and when it was over he cut across to her through the mass of rushing bodies. At the teacher's desk Mr. Stephens, a tall man just beginning to run to fat, was folding papers abstractedly back into his ratty brown briefcase. Carrie? Ohuh? She looked up from her books with a startled wince, as if expecting a blow. The day was overcast and the bank of fluorescents embedded in the ceiling was not particularly kind to her pale complexion. But he saw for the first time (because it was the first time he had really looked) that she was far from repulsive. Her face was round rather than oval, and the eyes were so dark that they seemed to cast shadows beneath them, like bruises. Her hair was darkish blonde, slightly wiry, pulled back in a bun that was not becoming to her. The lips were full, almost lush, the teeth naturally white. Her body, for the most part, was indeterminate. A baggy sweater concealed her breasts except for token nubs. The skirt was colorful but awful all the same It fell to a 1958 midshin hem in an odd and clumsy Aline. The calves were strong and rounded (the attempt to conceal these with heathery kneesocks was bizarre but unsuccessful) and handsome. She was looking up with an expression that was slightly fearful, slightly something else. He was quite sure he knew what the something else was. Sue had been right, and being right, he had just time to wonder if this was doing a kindness or making things even worse. If you don't have a date for the Ball, would you want to go with me? Now she blinked, and as she did so, a strange thing happened. The time it took to happen could have been no more than the doorway to a second, but afterward he had no trouble recalling it, as one does with dreams or the sensation of dj vu. He felt a dizziness as if his mind was no longer controlling his bodythe miserable, outofcontrol feeling he associated with drinking too much and then coming to the vomiting point. Then it was gone. What? What? She wasn't angry, at least. He had expected a brief gust of rage and then a sweeping retreat. But she wasn't angry; she seemed unable to cope with what he had said at all. They were alone in the study hall now, perfectly between the ebb of old students and the flow of new ones. The Spring Ball, he said, a little shaken. It's next Friday and I know this is late notice but I don't like to be tricked, she said softly, and lowered her head. She hesitated for just a second and then passed him by. She stopped and turned and he suddenly saw dignity in her, something so natural that he doubted if she was even aware of it. Do You People think you can just go on tricking me forever? I know who you go around with. I don't go around with anyone I don't want to, Tommy said patiently. I'm asking you because I want to ask you. Ultimately, he knew this to be the truth. If Sue was making a gesture of atonement, she was doing it only at secondhand. The Period Six students were coming in now, and some of them were looking over curiously. Dale Ullman said something to a boy Tommy didn't know and both of them snickered. Come on, Tommy said. They walked out into the hall. They were halfway to Wing Fourhis class was the other waywalking together but perhaps only by accident, when she said, almost too quietly to hear I'd love to. Love to. He was perceptive enough to know it was not an acceptance, and again doubt assailed him. Still, it was started. Do it, then. It will be all right. For both of us. We'll see to it. No, she said, and in her sudden pensiveness she could have been mistaken for beautiful. It will be a nightmare. I don't have tickets, he said, as if he hadn't heard. This is the last day they sell them. Hey, Tommy, you're going the wrong way! Brent Gillian yelled. She stopped. You're going to be late. Will you? Your class, she said, distraught. Your class. The bell is going to ring. Will you? Yes, she said with angry helplessness. You knew I would. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. No, he said. But now I do. I'll pick you up at seventhirty. Fine, she whispered. Thank you. She looked as if she might swoon. And then, more uncertain than ever, he touched her hand. From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 7476) Probably no other aspect of the Carrie White affair has been so misunderstood, secondguessed, and shrouded in mystery as the part played by Thomas Everett Ross, Carrie's illstarred escort to the Ewen High School Spring Ball. Morton Cratzchbarken, in an admittedly sensationalized address to The National Colloquium on Psychic Phenomena last year, said that the two most stunning events of the twentieth century have been the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the destruction that came to Chamberlain, Maine, in May of 1979. Cratzchbarken points out that both events were driven home to the citizenry by mass media, and both events have almost shouted the frightening fact that, while something had ended, something else had been irrevocably set in motion, for good or ill. If the comparison can be made, then Thomas Ross played the part of a Lee Harvey Oswaldtrigger man in a catastrophe. The question that still remains is Did he do so wittingly or unwittingly? Susan Snell, by her own admission, was to have been escorted by Ross to the annual event. She claims that she suggested Ross take Carrie to make up for her part in the showerroom incident. Those who oppose this story, most lately led by George Jerome of Harvard, claim that this is either a highly romantic distortion or an outright lie. Jerome argues with great force and eloquence that it is hardly typical of highschoolage adolescents to feel that they have to atone for anythingparticularly for an offense against a peer who has been ostracized from existing cliques. It would be uplifting if we could believe that adolescent human nature is capable of salvaging the pride and selfimage of the low bird in the pecking order with such a gesture, Jerome has said in a recent issue of The Atlantic Monthly, but we know better. The low bird is not picked tenderly out of the dust by its fellows; rather, it is dispatched quickly and without mercy. Jerome, of course, is absolutely rightabout birds, at any rateand his eloquence is undoubtedly responsible in large part for the advancement of the practical joker theory, which the White Commission approached but did not actually state. This theory hypothesizes that Ross and Christine Hargensen (see pp. 1018) were at the center of a loose conspiracy to get Carrie White to the Spring Ball, and, once there, complete her humiliation. Some theorists (mostly crime writers) also claim that Sue Snell was an active part of this conspiracy. This casts the mysterious Mr. Ross in the worst possible light, that of a practical joker deliberately maneuvering an unstable girl into a situation of extreme stress. This author doesn't believe that likely in light of Mr. Ross's character. This is a facet which has remained largely unexplored by his detractors, who have painted him as a rather dull cliquecentered athlete; the phrase dumb jock expresses this view of Tommy Ross perfectly. It is true that Ross was an athlete of aboveaverage ability. His best sport was baseball, and he was a member of the Ewen varsity squad from his Sophomore year. Dick O'Connell, general manager of the Boston Red Sox, has indicated that Ross would have been offered a fairly large bonus for signing a contract, had he lived. But Ross was also a straightA student (hardly fitting the dumb jock image), and his parents have both said that he had decided pro baseball would have to wait until he had finished college, where he planned to study for an English degree. His interests included writing poetry, and a poem written six months prior to his death was published in an established little magazine called Everleaf. This is available in Appendix V. His surviving classmates also give him high marks, and this is significant. There were only twelve survivors of what has become known in the popular press as Prom Night. Those who were not in attendance were largely the unpopular members of the Junior and Senior classes. If these outs remember Ross as a friendly, goodnatured fellow (many referred to him as a hell of a good shit), does not Professor Jerome's thesis suffer accordingly? Ross's school recordswhich cannot, according to state law, be photostated herewhen taken with classmates' recollections and the comments of relatives, neighbors, and teachers, form a picture of an extraordinary young man. This is a fact that jells very badly with Professor Jerome's picture of a peerworshiping, sly young tough. He apparently had a high enough tolerance to verbal abuse and enough independence from his peer group to ask Carrie in the first place. In fact, Thomas Ross appears to have been something of a rarity a socially conscious young man. No case will be made here for his sainthood. There is none to be made. But intensive research has satisfied me that neither was he a human chicken in a publicschool barnyard, joining mindlessly in the ruin of a weaker hen . . . She lay (i am not afraid not afraid of her) on her bed with an arm thrown over her eyes. It was Saturday night. If she was to make the dress she had in mind, she would have to start tomorrow at the (i'm not afraid momma) latest.

She had already bought the material at John's in Westover. The heavy, crumpled velvet richness of it frightened her. The price had also frightened her, and she had been intimidated by the size of the place, the chic ladies wandering here and there in their light spring dresses, examining bolts of cloth. There was an echoing strangeness in the atmosphere and it was worlds from the Chamberlain Woolworth's, where she usually bought her material. She was intimidated but not stopped. Because, if she wanted to, she could send them all screaming into the streets. Mannequins toppling over, light fixtures falling, bolts of cloth shooting through the air in unwinding streamers. Like Samson in the temple, she could rain destruction on their heads if she so desired. (i am not afraid) The package was now hidden on a dry shelf down in the cellar, and she was going to bring it up. Tonight. She opened her eyes. Flex. The bureau rose into the air, trembled for a moment, and then rose until it nearly touched the ceiling. She lowered it. Lifted it. Lowered it. Now the bed, complete with her weight. Up. Down. Up. Down. Just like an elevator. She was hardly tired at all. Well, a little. Not much. The ability, almost lost two weeks ago, was in full flower. It had progressed at a speed that was Well, almost terrifying. And now, seemingly unbiddenlike the knowledge of menstruationa score of memories had come, as if some mental dam had been knocked down so that strange waters could gush forth. They were cloudy, distorted littlegirl memories, but very real for all that. Making the pictures dance on the walls; turning on the water faucets from across the room; Momma asking her (carrie shut the windows it's going to rain) to do something and windows suddenly banging down all over the house; giving Miss Macaferty four flat tires all at once by unscrewing the valves in the tires of her Volkswagen; the stones (!!!!!!! no no no no no !!!!!!!) but now there was no denying the memory, no more than there could be a denying of the monthly flow, and that memory was not cloudy, no, not that one; it was harsh and brilliant, like jagged strokes of lightning the little girl (momma stop momma don't i can't breathe o my throat o momma i'm sorry i looked momma o my tongue blood in my mouth) the poor little girl (screaming little slut o i know how it is with you i see what has to be done) the poor little girl lying half in the closet and half out of it, seeing black stars dancing in front of everything, a sweet, faraway buzzing, swollen tongue lolling between her lips, throat circled with a bracelet of puffed, abraded flesh where Momma had throttled her and then Momma coming back, coming for her, Momma holding Daddy Ralph's long butcher knife (cut it out i have to cut out the evil the nastiness sins of the flesh o i know about that the eyes cut out your eyes) in her right hand, Momma's face twisted and working, drool on her chin, holding Daddy Ralph's Bible in her other hand (you'll never look at that naked wickedness again) and something flexed, not flex but FLEX, something huge and unformed and titanic, a wellspring of power that was not hers now and never would be again and then something fell on the roof and Momma screamed and dropped Daddy Ralph's Bible and that was good, and then more bumps and thumps and then the house began to throw its furnishings around and Momma dropped the knife and got on her knees and began to pray, holding up her hands and swaying on her knees while chairs whistled down the hall and the beds upstairs fell over and the dining room table tried to jam itself through a window and then Momma's eyes growing huge and crazed, bulging, her finger pointing at the little girl (it's you it's you devilspawn witch imp of the devil it's you doing it) and then the stones and Momma had fainted as their roof cracked and thumped as if with the footfalls of God and then Then she had fainted herself. And after that there were no more memories. Momma did not speak of it. The butcher knife was back in its drawer. Momma dressed the huge black and blue bruises on her neck and Carrie thought she could remember asking Momma how she had gotten them and Momma tightening her lips and saying nothing. Little by little it was forgotten. The eye of memory opened only in dreams. The pictures no longer danced on the walls. The windows did not shut themselves. Carrie did not remember a time when things had been different. Not until now. She lay on her bed, looking at the ceiling, sweating. Carrie! Supper! Thank you, (i am not afraid) Momma. She got up and fixed her hair with a darkblue headband. Then she went downstairs. From The Shadow Exploded (p. 59) How apparent was Carrie's wild talent and what did Margaret White, with her extreme Christian ethic, think of it? We shall probably never know. But one is tempted to believe that Mrs. White's reaction must have been extreme . . . You haven't touched your pie, Carrie. Momma looked up from the tract she had been perusing while she drank her Constant Comment. It's homemade. It makes me have pimples, Momma. Your pimples are the Lord's way of chastising you. Now eat your pie. Momma? Yes? Carrie plunged. I've been invited to the Spring Ball next Friday by Tommy Ross The tract was forgotten. Momma was staring at her with wide myearsaredeceivingme eyes. Her nostrils flared like those of a horse that has heard the dry rattle of a snake. Carrie tried to swallow an obstruction and only (i am not afraid o yes i am) got rid of part of it. and he's a very nice boy. He's promised to stop in and meet you before and No. to have me in by eleven. I've No, no, no! accepted. Momma, please see that I have to start to . . . to try and get along with the world. I'm not like you. I'm funnyI mean, the kids think I'm funny. I don't want to be. I want to try and be a whole person before it's too late to Mrs. White threw her tea in Carrie's face. It was only lukewarm, but it could not have shut off Carrie's words more suddenly if it had been scalding. She sat numbly, the amber fluid dripping from her chin and cheeks onto her white blouse, spreading. It was sticky and smelled like cinnamon. Mrs. White sat trembling, her face frozen except for her nostrils, which continued to flare. Abruptly she threw back her head and screamed at the ceiling. God! God! God! Her jaw snapped brutally over each syllable. Carrie sat without moving. Mrs. White got up and came around the table. Her hands were hooked into shaking claws. Her face bore a halfmad expression of compassion mixed with hate. The closet, she said. Go to your closet and pray. No, Momma. Boys. Yes, boys come next. After the blood the boys come. Like sniffing dogs, grinning and slobbering, trying to find out where that smell is. That . . . smell! She swung her whole arm into the blow, and the sound of her palm against Carrie's face (o god i am so afraid now) was like that flat sound of a leather belt being snapped in air. Carrie remained seated, although her upper body swayed. The mark on her cheek was first white, then blood red. The mark, Mrs. White said. Her eyes were large but blank; she was breathing in rapid, snatching gulps of air. She seemed to be talking to herself as the claw hand descended onto Carrie's shoulder and pulled her out of her chair. I've seen it, all right. Oh yes. But. I. Never. Did. But for him. He. Took. Me . . . She paused, her eyes wandering vaguely toward the ceiling. Carrie was terrified. Momma seemed in the throes of some great revelation which might destroy her. Momma In cars. Oh, I know where they take you in their cars. City limits. Roadhouses. Whiskey. Smelling . . . oh they smell it on you! Her voice rose to a scream. Tendons stood out on her neck, and her head twisted in a questing upward rotation. Momma, you better stop. This seemed to snap her back to some kind of hazy reality. Her lips twitched in a kind of elementary surprise and she halted, as if groping for old bearings in a new world. The closet, she muttered. Go to your closet and pray. No. Momma raised her hand to strike. No! The hand stopped in the dead air. Momma stared up at it, as if to confirm that it was still there, and whole. The pie pan suddenly rose from the trivet on the table and hurled itself across the room to impact beside the livingroom door in a splash of blueberry drool. I'm going, Momma! Momma's overturned teacup rose and flew past her head to shatter above the stove. Momma shrieked and dropped to her knees with her hands over her head. Devil's child, she moaned. Devil's child, Satan spawn Momma, stand up. Lust and licentiousness, the cravings of the flesh Stand up! Momma's voice failed her but she did stand up, with her hands still on her head, like a prisoner of war. Her lips moved. To Carrie she seemed to be reciting the Lord's Prayer. I don't want to fight with you, Momma, Carrie said, and her voice almost broke from her and dissolved. She struggled to control it. I only want to be let to live my own life. I . . . I don't like yours. She stopped, horrified in spite of herself. The ultimate blasphemy had been spoken, and it was a thousand times worse than the Eff Word. Witch, Momma whispered. It says in the Lord's Book Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' Your father did the Lord's work I don't want to talk about that, Carrie said. It always disturbed her to hear Momma talk about her father. I just want you to understand that things are going to change around here, Momma. Her eyes gleamed. They better understand it, too. But Momma was whispering to herself again. Unsatisfied, with a feeling of anticlimax in her throat and the dismal roiling of emotional upset in her belly, she went to the cellar to get her dress material. It was better than the closet. There was that. Anything was better than the closet with its blue light and the overpowering stench of sweat and her own sin. Anything. Everything. She stood with the wrapped package hugged against her breast and closed her eyes, shutting out the weak glow of the cellar's bare, cobwebfestooned bulb. Tommy Ross didn't love her; she knew that. This was some strange kind of atonement, and she could understand that and respond to it. She had lain cheek and jowl with the concept of penance since she had been old enough to reason. He had said it would be goodthat they would see to it. Well, she would see to it. They better not start anything. They just better not. She did not know if her gift had come from the lord of light or of darkness, and now, finally finding that she did not care which, she was overcome with an almost indescribable relief, as if a huge weight, long carried, had slipped from her shoulders. Upstairs, Momma continued to whisper. It was not the Lord's Prayer. It was the Prayer of Exorcism from Deuteronomy. From My Name Is Susan Snell (p. 23) They finally even made a movie about it. I saw it last April. When I came out, I was sick. Whenever anything important happens in America, they have to goldplate it, like baby shoes. That way you can forget it. And forgetting Carrie White may be a bigger mistake than anyone realizes. . . . Monday morning; Principal Grayle and his understudy, Pete Morton, were having coffee in Grayle's office. No word from Hargensen yet? Morty asked. His lips curled into a John Wayne leer that was a little frightened around the edges. Not a peep. And Christine has stopped lipping off about how her father is going to send us down the road. Grayle blew on his coffee with a long face. You don't exactly seem to be turning cartwheels. I'm not. Did you know Carrie White is going to the prom? Morty blinked. With who? The Beak? The Beak was Freddy Holt, another of Ewen's misfits. He weighed perhaps one hundred pounds soaking wet, and the casual observer might be tempted to believe that sixty of it was nose. No, Grayle said. With Tommy Ross. Morty swallowed his coffee the wrong way and went into a coughing fit. That's the way I felt, Grayle said. What about his girl friend? The little Snell girl? I think she put him up to it, Grayle said. She certainly seemed guilty enough about what happened to Carrie when I talked to her. Now she's on the Decoration Committee, happy as a clam, just as if not going to her Senior prom was nothing at all. Oh, Morty said wisely. And HargensenI think he must have talked to some people and discovered we really could sue him on behalf of Carrie White if we wanted to. I think he's cut his losses. It's the daughter that's worrying me. Do you think there's going to be an incident Friday night? I don't know. I do know Chris has got a lot of friends who are going to be there. And she's going around with that Billy Nolan mess; he's got a zooful of friends, too. The kind that make a career out of scaring pregnant ladies. Chris Hargensen has him tied around her finger, from what I've heard. Are you afraid of anything specific? Grayle made a restless gesture. Specific? No. But I've been in the game long enough to know it's a bad situation. Do you remember the Stadler game in seventysix? Morty nodded. It would take more than the passage of three years to obscure the memory of the EwenStadler game. Bruce Trevor had been a marginal student but a fantastic basketball player. Coach Gaines didn't like him, but Trevor was going to put Ewen in the area tournament for the first time in ten years. He was cut from the team a week before Ewen's last mustwin game against the Stadler Bobcats. A regular announced locker inspection had uncovered a kilo of marijuana behind Trevor's civics book. Ewen lost the gameand their shot at the tourney10448. But no one remembered that; what they remembered was the riot that had interrupted the game in the fourth period. Led by Bruce Trevor, who righteously claimed he had been bum rapped, it resulted in four hospital admissions. One of them had been the Stadler coach, who had been hit over the head with a firstaid kit. I've got that kind of feeling, Grayle said. A hunch. Someone's going to come with rotten apples or something. Maybe you're psychic, Morty said. From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 9293) It is now generally agreed that the TK phenomenon is a geneticrecessive occurrencebut the opposite of a disease like hemophilia, which becomes overt only in males. In that disease, once called King's Evil, the gene is recessive in the female and is carried harmlessly. Male offspring, however, are bleeders. This disease is generated only if an afflicted male marries a woman carrying the recessive gene. If the offspring of such union is male, the result will be a hemophiliac son. If the offspring is female, the result will be a daughter who is a carrier. It should be emphasized that the hemophilia gene may be carried recessively in the male as a part of his genetic makeup. But if he marries a woman with the same outlaw gene, the result will be hemophilia if the offspring is male. In the case of royal families, where intermarriage was common, the chance of the gene reproducing once it entered the family tree were highthus the name King's Evil. Hemophilia also showed up in significant quantities in Appalachia during the earlier part of this century, and is commonly noticed in those cultures where incest and the marriage of first cousins is common. With the TK phenomenon, the male appears to be the carrier; the TK gene may be recessive in the female, but dominates only in the female. It appears that Ralph White carried the gene. Margaret Brigham, by purest chance, also carried the outlaw gene sign, but we may be fairly confident that it was recessive, as no information has ever been found to indicate that she had telekinetic powers resembling her daughter's. Investigations are now being conducted into the life of Margaret Brigham's grandmother, Sadie Cochranfor, if the dominant recessive pattern obtains with TK as it does with hemophilia, Mrs. Cochran may have been TK dominant. If the issue of the White marriage had been male, the result would have been another carrier. Chances that the mutation would have died with him would have been excellent, as neither side of the Ralph WhiteMargaret Brigham alliance had cousins of a comparable age for the theoretical male ottspring to marry. And the chances of meeting and marrying another woman with the TK gene at random would be small. None of the teams working on the problem have yet isolated the gene. Surely no one can doubt, in light of the Maine holocaust, that isolating this gene must become one of medicine's numberone priorities. The hemophiliac, or H gene, produces male issue with a lack of blood platelets. The telekinetic, or TK gene, produces female Typhoid Marys capable of destroying almost at will. . . . Wednesday afternoon. Susan and fourteen other studentsThe Spring Ball Decoration Committee, no lesswere working on the huge mural that would hang behind the twin bandstands on Friday night. The theme was Springtime in Venice (who picked these hokey themes, Sue wondered. She had been a student at Ewen for four years, had attended two Balls, and she still didn't know. Why did the goddam thing need a theme, anyway? Why not just have a sock hop and be done with it?); George Chizmar, Ewen's most artistic student, had done a small chalk sketch of gondolas on a canal at sunset and a gondolier in a huge straw fedora leaning against the tiller as a gorgeous panoply of pinks and reds and oranges stained both sky and water. It was beautiful, no doubt about that. He had redrawn it in silhouette on a huge fourteenbytwentyfoot canvas flat, numbering the various sections to go with the various chalk hues. Now the Committee was patiently coloring it in, like children crawling over a huge page in a giant's coloring book. Still, Sue thought, looking at her hands and forearms, both heavily dusted with pink chalk, it was going to be the prettiest prom ever. Next to her, Helen Shyres sat up on her haunches, stretched, and groaned as her back popped. She brushed a hank of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a rosecolored smear. How in hell did you talk me into this? You want it to be nice, don't you? Sue mimicked Miss Geer, the spinster chairman (apt enough term for Miss Mustache) of the Decoration Committee. Yeah, but why not the Refreshment Committee or the Entertainment Committee? Less back, more mind. The mind, that's my area. Besides, you're not even She bit down on the words. Going? Susan shrugged and picked up her chalk again. She had a monstrous writer's cramp. No, but I still want it to be nice. She added shyly Tommy's going. They worked in silence for a bit, and then Helen stopped again. No one was near them; the closest was Holly Marshall, on the other end of the mural, coloring the gondola's keel. Can I ask you about it, Sue? Helen asked finally. God, everybody's talking. Sure. Sue stopped coloring and flexed her hand. Maybe I ought to tell someone, just so the story stays straight. I asked Tommy to take Carrie. I'm hoping it'll bring her out of herself a little . . . knock down some of the barriers. I think I owe her that much. Where does that put the rest of us? Helen asked without rancor. Sue shrugged. You have to make up your own mind about what we did, Helen. I'm in no position to throw stones. But I don't want people to think I'm, uh . . . Playing martyr? Something like that. And Tommy went along with it? This was the part that most fascinated her. Yes, Sue said, and did not elaborate. After a pause I suppose the other kids think I'm stuck up. Helen thought it over. Well . . . they're all talking about it. But most of them still think you're okay. Like you said, you make your own decisions. There is, however, a small dissenting faction. She snickered dolefully. The Chris Hargensen people? And the Billy Nolan people. God, he's scuzzy. She doesn't like me much? Sue said, making it a question. Susie, she hates your guts. Susan nodded, surprised to find the thought both distressed and excited her. I heard her father was going to sue the School Department and then he changed his mind, she said. Helen shrugged. She hasn't made any friends out of this, she said. I don't know what got into us, any of us. It makes me feel like I don't even know my own mind. They worked on in silence. Across the room, Don Barrett was putting up an extension ladder preparatory to gilding the overhead steel beams with crepe paper. Look, Helen said. There goes Chris now. Susan looked up just in time to see her walking into the cubbyhole office to the left of the gym entrance. She was wearing winecolored velvet hot pants and a silky white blouseno bra, from the way things were jiggling up fronta dirty old man's dream, Sue thought sourly, and then wondered what Chris could want in where the Prom Committee had set up shop. Of course Tina Blake was on the Committee and the two of them were thicker than thieves. Stop it, she scolded herself. Do you want her in sackcloth and ashes? Yes, she admitted. A part of her wanted just that. Helen? Hmmmm? Are they going to do something? Helen's face took on an unwilling masklike quality. I don't know. The voice was light, overinnocent. Oh, Sue said noncommittally. (you know you know something accept something goddammit if it's only yourself tell me) They continued to color, and neither spoke. She knew it wasn't as all right as Helen had said. It couldn't be; she would never be quite the same golden girl again in the eyes of her mates. She had done an ungovernable, dangerous thingshe had broken cover and shown her face. The late afternoon sunlight, warm as oil and sweet as childhood, slanted through the high, bright gymnasium windows. From My Name Is Susan Snell (p. 40) I can understand some of what must have led up to the prom. Awful as it was, I can understand how someone like Billy Nolan could go along, for instance. Chris Hargensen led him by the noseat least, most of the time. His friends were just as easily led by Billy himself. Kenny Garson, who dropped out of high school when he was eighteen, had a tested thirdgrade reading level. In the clinical sense, Steve Deighan was little more than an idiot. Some of the others had police records; one of them, Jackie Talbot, was first busted at the age of nine for stealing hubcaps. If you've got a socialworker mentality, you can even regard these people as unfortunate victims. But what can you say for Chris Hargensen herself? It seems to me that from first to last, her one and only object in view was the complete and total destruction of Carrie White. . . . I'm not supposed to, Tina Blake said uneasily. She was a small, pretty girl with a billow of red hair. A pencil was pushed importantly in it. And if Norma comes back, she'll spill. She's in the crapper, Chris said. Come on. Tina, a little shocked, giggled in spite of herself. Still, she offered token resistance Why do you want to see, anyway? You can't go. Never mind, Chris said. As always, she seemed to bubble with dark humor. Here, Tina said, and pushed a sheet enclosed in limp plastic across the desk. I'm going out for a Coke. If that bitchy Norma Watson comes back and catches you, I never saw you. Okay, Chris murmured, already absorbed in the floor plan. She didn't hear the door close. George Chizmar had also done the floor plan, so it was perfect. The dance floor was clearly marked. Twin bandstands. The stage where the King and Queen would be crowned (i'd like to crown that fucking snell bitch carrie too) at the end of the evening. Ranged along the three sides of the floor were the promgoers' tables. Card tables, actually, but covered with a froth of crepe and ribbon, each holding party favors, prom programs, and ballots for King and Queen. She ran a lacquered, spadeshaped fingernail down the tables to the right of the dance floor, then the left. There Tommy R. Carrie W. They were really going through with it. She could hardly believe it. Outrage made her tremble. Did they really think they would be allowed to get away with it? Her lips tautened grimly. She looked over her shoulder. Norma Watson was still nowhere in sight. Chris put the seating chart back and riffled quickly through the rest of the papers on the pitted and initialscarred desk. Invoices (mostly for crepe paper and ha'penny nails), a list of parents who had loaned card tables, pettycash vouchers, a bill from Star Printers, who had run off the prom tickets, a sample King and Queen ballot Ballot! She snatched it up. No one was supposed to see the actual King and Queen ballot until Friday, when the whole student body would hear the candidates announced over the school's intercom. The King and Queen would be voted in by those attending the prom, but blank nomination ballots had been circulated to home rooms almost a month earlier. The results were supposed to be top secret. There was a gaining student move afoot to do away with the King and Queen business all togethersome of the girls claimed it was sexist, the boys thought it was just plain stupid and a little embarrassing. Chances were good that this would be the last year the dance would be so formal or traditional. But for Chris, this was the only year that counted. She stared at the ballot with greedy intensity. George and Frieda. No way. Frieda Jason was a Jew. Peter and Myra. No way here, either. Myra was one of the female clique dedicated to erasing the whole horse race. She wouldn't serve even if elected. Besides, she was about as goodlooking as the assend of old drayhorse Ethel. Frank and Jessica. Quite possible. Frank Grier had made the All New England football team this year, but Jessica was another little sparrowfart with more pimples than brains. Don and Helen. Forget it. Helen Shyres couldn't get elected dog catcher. And the last pairing Tommy and Sue. Only Sue, of course, had been crossed out, and Carrie's name had been written in. There was a pairing to conjure with! A kind of strange, shuffling laughter came over her, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to hold it in. Tina scurried back in. Jesus, Chris, you still here? She's coming! Don't sweat it, doll, Chris said, and put the papers back on the desk. She was still grinning as she walked out, pausing to raise a mocking hand to Sue Snell, who was slaving her skinny butt off on that stupid mural. In the outer hall, she fumbled a dime from her bag, dropped it into the pay phone, and called Billy Nolan. From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 1001) One wonders just how much planning went into the ruination of Carrie Whitewas it a carefully made plan, rehearsed and gone over many times, or just something that happened in a bumbling sort of way? . . . I favor the latter idea. I suspect that Christine Hargensen was the brains of the affair, but that she herself had only the most nebulous of ideas on how one might get a girl like Carrie. I rather suspect it was she who suggested that William Nolan and his friends make the trip to Irwin Henty's farm in North Chamberlain. The thought of that trip's imagined result would have appealed to a warped sense of poetic justice, I am sure. . .. The car screamed up the rutted Stack End Road in North Chamberlain at a sixtyfive that was dangerous to life and limb on the washboard unpaved hardpan. A lowhanging branch, lush with May leaves, occasionally scraped the roof of the '61 Biscayne, which was fenderdented, rusted out, jacked in the back, and equipped with dual glasspack mufflers. One headlight was out; the other flickered in the midnight dark when the car struck a particularly rough bump. Billy Nolan was at the pink fuzzcovered wheel. Jackie Talbot, Henry Blake, Steve Deighan, and the Garson brothers, Kenny and Lou, were also squeezed in. Three joints were going, passing through the inner dark like the lambent eyes of some rotating Cerberus. You sure Henty ain't around? Henry asked. I got no urge to go back up, ole Sweet William. They feed you shit. Kenny Garson, who was wrecked to the fifth power, found this unutterably funny and emitted a slipstream of highpitched giggles. He ain't around, Billy said. Even those few words seemed to slip out grudgingly, against his will. Funeral. Chris had found this out accidentally. Old man Henty ran one of the few successful independent farms in the Chamberlain area. Unlike the crotchety old farmer with a heart of gold that is one of the staples of pastoral literature, old man Henty was as mean as cat dirt. He did not load his shotgun with rock salt at greenapple time, but with birdshot. He had also prosecuted several fellows for pilferage. One of them had been a friend of these boys, a luckless bastard named Freddy Overlock. Freddy had been caught redhanded in old man Henty's henhouse, and had received a double dose of numbersix bird where the good Lord had split him. Good ole Fred had spent four raving, cursing hours on his belly in an Emergency Wing examining room while a jovial intern picked tiny pellets out of his butt and dropped them into a steel pan. To add insult to injury, he had been fined two hundred dollars for larceny and trespass. There was no love lost between Irwin Henty and the Chamberlain greaser squad. What about Red? Steve asked. He's trying to get into some new waitress at The Cavalier, Billy said, swinging the wheel and pulling the Biscayne through a juddering racing drift and onto the Henty Road. Red Trelawney was ole man Henty's hired hand. He was a heavy drinker and just as handy with the birdshot as his employer. He won't be back until they close up. Hell of a risk for a joke, Jackie Talbot grumbled. Billy stiffened. You want out? No, uhuh, Jackie said hastily. Billy had produced an ounce of good grass to split among the five of themand besides, it was nine miles back to town. It's a good joke, Billy. Kenny opened the glove compartment, took out an ornate scrolled roach clip (Chris's), and fixed the smoldering buttend of a joint in it. This operation struck him as highly amusing, and he let out his highpitched giggle again. Now they were flashing past No Trespassing signs on either side of the road, barbed wire, newly turned fields. The smell of fresh earth was heavy and gravid and sweet on the warm May air. Billy popped the headlights off as they breasted the next hill, dropped the gearshift into neutral and killed the ignition. They rolled, a silent hulk of metal, toward the Henty driveway. Billy negotiated the turn with no trouble, and most of their speed bled away as they breasted another small rise and passed the dark and empty house. Now they could see the huge bulk of barn and beyond it, moonlight glittering dreamily on the cow pond and the apple orchard. In the pigpen, two sows poked their flat snouts through the bars. In the barn, one cow lowed softly, perhaps in sleep. Billy stopped the car with the emergency brakenot really necessary since the ignition was off, but it was a nice Commando touchand they got out. Lou Garson reached past Kenny and got something out of the glove compartment. Billy and Henry went around to the trunk and opened it. The bastard is going to shit where he stands when he comes back and gets a look, Steve said with soft glee. For Freddy, Henry said, taking the hammer out of the trunk. Billy said nothing, but of course it was not for Freddy Overlock, who was an asshole. It was for Chris Hargensen, just as everything was for Chris, and had been since the day she swept down from her lofty collegecourse Olympus and made herself vulnerable to him. He would have done murder for her, and more. Henry was swinging the ninepound sledge experimentally in one hand. The heavy block of its business end made a portentous swishing noise in the night air, and the other boys gathered around as Billy opened the lid of the ice chest and took out the two galvanized steel pails. They were numbingly cold to the touch, lightly traced with frost. Okay, he said. The six of them walked quickly to the hogpen, their respiration shortening with excitement.

The two sows were both as tame as tabbies, and the old boar lay asleep on his side at the far end. Henry swung the sledge once more through the air, but this time with no conviction. He handed it to Billy. I can't, he said sickly. You. Billy took it and looked questioningly at Lou, who held the broad butcher knife he had taken from the glove compartment. Don't worry, he said, and touched the ball of his thumb to the honed edge. The throat, Billy reminded. I know. Kenny was crooning and grinning as he fed the remains of a crumpled bag of potato chips to the pigs. Doan worry, piggies, doan worry, big Bill's gonna bash your fuckin heads in and you woan have to worry about the bomb any more. He scratched their bristly chins, and the pigs grunted and munched contentedly. Here it comes, Billy remarked, and the sledge flashed down. There was a sound that reminded him of the time he and Henry had dropped a pumpkin off Claridge Road overpass which crossed 495 west of town. One of the sows dropped dead with its tongue protruding, eyes still open, potato chip crumbs around its snout. Kenny giggled. She didn't even have time to burp. Do it quick, Lou, Billy said. Kenny's brother slid between the slats, lifted the pig's head toward the moonthe glazing eyes regarded the crescent with rapt blanknessand slashed. The flow of blood was immediate and startling. Several of the boys were splattered and jumped back with little cries of disgust. Billy leaned through and put one of the buckets under the main flow. The pail filled up rapidly, and he set it aside. The second was half full when the flow trickled and died. The other one, he said. Jesus, Billy, Jackie whined. Isn't that en The other one, Billy repeated. Sooee, pigpigpig, Kenny called, grinning and rattling the empty potatochip bag. After a pause, the sow returned to the fence. The sledge flashed. The second bucket was filled and the remainder of the blood allowed to flow into the ground. A rank, coppery smell hung on the air. Billy found he was slimed in pig blood to the forearms. Carrying the pails back to the trunk, his mind made a dim, symbolic connection. Pig blood. That was good. Chris was right. It was really good. It made everything solidify. Pig blood for a pig. He nestled the galvanized steel pails into the crushed ice, capped them, and slammed the lid of the chest. Let's go, he said. Billy got behind the wheel and released the emergency brake. The five boys got behind, put their shoulders into it, and the car turned in a tight, noiseless circle and trundled up past the barn to the crest of the hill across from Henty's house. When the car began to roll on its own, they trotted up beside the doors and climbed in, puffing and panting. The car gained speed enough to slew a little as Billy whipped it out of the long driveway and onto the Henty Road. At the bottom of the hill he dropped the transmission into third and popped the clutch. The engine hitched and grunted into life. Pig blood for a pig. Yes, that was good, all right. That was really good. He smiled, and Lou Garson felt a start of surprise and fear. He was not sure he could recall ever having seen Billy Nolan smile before. There had not even been rumors. Whose funeral did ole man Henty go to? Steve asked. His mother's, Billy said. His mother? Jackie Talbot said, stunned. Jesus Christ, she musta been older'n God. Kenny's highpitched cackle drifted back on the redolent darkness that trembled at the edge of summer. She put the dress on for the first time on the morning of May 27, in her room. She had bought a special brassiere to go with it, which gave her breasts the proper uplift (not that they actually needed it) but left their top halves uncovered. Wearing it gave her a weird, dreamy feeling that was half shame and half defiant excitement. The dress itself was nearly floor length. The skirt was loose, but the waist was snug, the material rich and unfamiliar against her skin, which was used to only cotton and wool. The hang of it seemed to be rightor would be, with the new shoes. She slipped them on, adjusted the neckline, and went to the window. She could see only a maddening ghost image of herself, but everything seemed to be right. Maybe later she could The door swung open behind her with only a soft snick of the latch, and Carrie turned to look at her mother. She was dressed for work, wearing her white sweater and holding her black pocketbook in one hand. In the other she was holding Daddy Ralph's Bible. They looked at each other. Hardly conscious of it, Carrie felt her back straighten until she stood straight in the patch of early spring sunshine that fell through the window. Red, Momma murmured. I might have known it would be red. Carrie said nothing. I can see your dirtypillows. Everyone will. They'll be looking at your body. The Book says Those are my breasts, Momma. Every woman has them. Take off that dress, Momma said. No. Take it off, Carrie. We'll go down and burn it in the incinerator together, and then pray for forgiveness. We'll do penance. Her eyes began to sparkle with the strange, disconnected zeal that came over her at events which she considered to be tests of faith. I'll stay home from work and you'll stay home from school. We'll pray. We'll ask for a Sign. We'll get us down on our knees and ask for the Pentecostal Fire. No, Momma. Her mother reached up and pinched her own face. It left a red mark. She looked to Carrie for reaction, saw none, hooked her right hand into claws and ripped it across her own cheek, bringing thin blood. She whined and rocked back on her heels. Her eyes glowed with exaltation. Stop hurting yourself, Momma. That's not going to make me stop either. Momma screamed. She made her right hand a fist and struck herself in the mouth, bringing blood. She dabbled her fingers in it, looked at it dreamily, and daubed a spot on the cover of the Bible. Washed in the Blood of the Lamb, she whispered. Many times. Many times he and I Go away, Momma. She looked up at Carrie, her eyes glowing. There was a terrifying expression of righteous anger graven on her face. The Lord is not mocked, she whispered. Be sure your sin will find you out. Burn it, Carrie! Cast that devil's red from you and burn it! Burn it! Burn it! Burn it! The door slammed open by itself. Go away, Momma. Momma smiled. Her bloody mouth made the smile grotesque, twisted. As Jezebel fell from the tower, let it be with you, she said. And the dogs came and licked up the blood. It's in the Bible! It's Her feet began to slip along the floor and she looked down at them, bewildered. The wood might have turned to ice. Stop that! she screamed. She was in the hall now. She caught the doorjamb and held on for a moment; then her fingers were torn loose, seemingly by nothing. I love you, Momma, Carrie said steadily. I'm sorry. She envisioned the door swinging shut, and the door did just that, as if moved by a light breeze. Carefully, so as not to hurt her, she disengaged the mental hands she had pushed her mother with. A moment later, Margaret was pounding on the door. Carrie held it shut, her lips trembling. There's going to be a judgment! Margaret White raved. I wash my hands of it! I tried! Pilate said that, Carrie said. Her mother went away. A minute later Carrie saw her go down the walk and cross the street on her way to work. Momma, she said softly, and put her forehead on the glass. From The Shadow Exploded (p. 129) Before turning to a more detailed analysis of Prom Night itself, it might be well to sum up what we know of Carrie White the person. We know that Carrie was the victim of her mother's religious mania. We know that she possessed a latent telekinetic talent, commonly referred to as TK. We know that this socalled wild talent is really a hereditary trait, produced by a gene that is usually recessive, if present at all. We suspect that the TK ability may be glandular in nature. We know that Carrie produced at least one demonstration of her ability as a small girl when she was put into an extreme situation of guilt and stress. We know that a second extreme situation of guilt and stress arose from a showerroom hazing incident. It has been theorized (especially by William G. Throneberry and Julia Givens, Berkeley) that resurgence of the TK ability at this point was caused by both psychological factors (i.e., the reaction of the other girls and Carrie herself to their first menstrual period) and physiological factors (i.e., the advent of puberty). And finally, we know that on Prom Night, a third stress situation arose, causing the terrible events which we now must begin to discuss. We will begin with . . . (i am not nervous not a bit nervous) Tommy had called earlier with her corsage, and now she was pinning it to the shoulder of her gown herself. There was no momma, of course, to do it for her and make sure it was in the right place. Momma had locked herself in the chapel and had been in there for the last two hours, praying hysterically. Her voice rose and fell in frightening, incoherent cycles. (i'm sorry momma but I can't be sorry) When she had it fixed to her satisfaction, she dropped her hands and stood quietly for a moment with her eyes closed. There was no fulllength mirror in the house, (vanity vanity all is vanity) but she thought she was all right. She had to be. She She opened her eyes again. The Black Forest cuckoo clock, bought with Green Stamps, said seventen. (he'll be here in twenty minutes) Would he? Maybe it was all just an elaborate joke, the final crusher, the ultimate punch line. To leave her sitting here half the night in her crushedvelvet prom gown with its princess waistline, juliet sleeves and simple straight skirtand her tea roses pinned to her left shoulder. From the other room, on the rise now . . . in hallowed earth! We know thou bring'st the Eye That Watcheth, the hideous threelobed Eye, and the sound of black trumpets. We most heartily repent Carrie did not think anyone could understand the brute courage it had taken to reconcile herself to this, to leave herself open to whatever fearsome possibilities the night might realize. Being stood up could hardly be the worst of them. In fact, in a kind of sneaking, wishful way she thought it might be for the best if (no stop that) Of course it would be easier to stay here with Momma. Safer. She knew what They thought of Momma. Well, maybe Momma was a fanatic, a freak, but at least she was predictable. The house was predictable. She never came home to laughing, shrieking girls who threw things. And if he didn't come, if she drew back and gave up? High school would be over in a month. Then what? A creeping, subterranean existence in this house, supported by Momma, watching game shows and soap operas all day on television at Mrs. Garrison's house when she had Carrie In To Visit (Mrs. Garrison was eightysix), walking down to the Center to get a malted after supper at the Kelly Fruit when it was deserted, getting fatter, losing hope, losing even the power to think? No. Oh dear God, please no. (please let it be a happy ending) protect us from he with the split foot who waits in the alleys and in the parking lots of roadhouses, O Saviour Seven twentyfive. Restlessly, without thinking, she began to lift objects with her mind and put them back down, the way a nervous woman awaiting someone in a restaurant will fold and unfold her napkin. She could dangle half a dozen objects in air at one time, and not a sign of tiredness or headache. She kept waiting for the power to abate, but it remained at high water with no sign of waning. The other night on her way home from school, she had rolled a parked car (oh please god let it not be a joke) twenty feet down the main street curb with no strain at all. The courthouse idlers had stared at it as if their eyes would pop out, and of course she stared too, but she was smiling inside. The cuckoo popped out of the clock and spoke once. Seventhirty. She had grown a little wary of the terrific strain using the power seemed to put on her heart and lungs and internal thermostat. She suspected it would be all too possible for her heart to literally burst with the strain. It was like being in another's body and forcing her to run and run and run. You would not pay the cost yourself; the other body would. She was beginning to realize that her power was perhaps not so different from the powers of Indian fakirs, who stroll across hot coals, run needles into their eyes, or blithely bury themselves for periods up to six weeks. Mind over matter in any form is a terrific drain on the body's resources. Seven thirtytwo. (he's not coming) (don't think about it a watched pot doesn't boil he'll come) (no he won't he's out laughing at you with his friends and after a little bit they'll drive by in one of their fast noisy cars laughing and hooting and yelling) Miserably, she began lifting the sewing machine up and down, swinging it in widening arcs through the air. and protect us also from rebellious daughters imbued with the willfulness of the Wicked One Shut up! Carrie screamed suddenly. There was startled silence for a moment, and then the babbling chant began again. Seven thirtythree. Not coming. (then i'll wreck the house) The thought came to her naturally and cleanly. First the sewing machine, driven through the livingroom wall. The couch through a window. Tables, chairs, books and tracts all flying. The plumbing ripped loose and still spurting, like arteries ripped free of flesh. The roof itself, if that were within her power, shingles exploding upward into the night like startled pigeons Lights splashed gaudily across the window. Others cars had gone by, making her heart leap a little, but this one was going much more slowly. (o) She ran to the window, unable to restrain herself, and it was him, Tommy, just climbing out of his car, and even under the street light he was handsome and alive and almost . . . crackling. The odd word made her want to giggle. Momma had stopped praying. She grabbed her light silken wrap from where it had lain across the back of her chair and put it around her bare shoulders. She bit her lip, touched her hair, and would have sold her soul for a mirror. The buzzer in the hall made its harsh cry. She made herself wait, controlling the twitch in her hands, for the second buzz. Then she went slowly, with silken swish. She opened the door and he was there, nearly blinding in white dinner jacket and dark dress pants. They looked at each other, and neither said a word. She felt that her heart would break if he uttered so much as the wrong sound, and if he laughed she would die. She feltactually, physicallyher whole miserable life narrow to a point that might be an end or the beginning of a widening beam. Finally, helpless, she said Do you like me? He said You're beautiful. She was. From The Shadow Exploded (p. 131) While those going to the Ewen Spring Ball were gathering at the high school or just leaving preProm buffets, Christine Hargensen and William Nolan had met in a room above a local townlimits tavern called The Cavalier. We know that they had been meeting there for some time; that is in the records of the White Commission. What we don't know is whether their plans were complete and irrevocable or if they went ahead almost on whim . . . Is it time yet? she asked in the darkness. He looked at his watch. No. Faintly, through the board floor, came the thump of the juke playing She's Got To Be a Saint, by Ray Price. The Cavalier, Chris reflected, hadn't changed their records since the first time she'd been here with a forged ID two years ago. Of course then she'd been down in the taprooms, not in one of Sam Deveaux's specials. Billy's cigarette winked fitfully in the dark, like the eye of an uneasy demon. She watched it introspectively. She hadn't let him sleep with her until last Monday, when he had promised that he and his greaser friends would help her pull the string on Carrie White if she actually dared to go to the prom with Tommy Ross. But they had been here before, and had had some pretty hot necking sessionswhat she thought of as Scotch love and what he would call, in his unfailing ability to pinpoint the vulgar, the dry humps. She had meant to make him wait until he had actually done something (but of course he did he got the blood) but it had all begun to slip out of her hands, and it made her uneasy. If she had not given in willingly on Monday, he would have taken her by force. Billy had not been her first lover, but he was the first she could not dance and dandle at her whim. Before him her boys had been clever marionettes with clear, pimplefree faces and parents with connections and countryclub memberships. They drove their own VWs or Javelins or Dodge Chargers. They went to UMass or Boston College. They wore fraternity windbreakers in the fall and muscleshirts with bright stripes in the summer. They smoked marijuana a great deal and talked about the funny things that happened to them when they were wrecked. They began by treating her with patronizing good fellowship (all high school girls, no matter how goodlooking, were Bush League) and always ended up trotting after her with panting, doglike lust. If they trotted long enough and spent enough in the process, she usually let them go to bed with her. Quite often she lay passively beneath them, not helping or hindering, until it was over. Later, she achieved her own solitary climax while viewing the incident as a single closed loop of memory. She had met Billy Nolan following a drug bust at a Portland apartment. Four students, including Chris's date for the evening, had been busted for possession. Chris and the other girls were charged with being present there. Her father took care of it with quiet efficiency, and asked her if she knew what would happen to his image and his practice if his daughter was taken up on a drug charge. She told him that she doubted if anything could hurt either one, and he took her car away. Billy offered her a ride home from school one afternoon a week later and she accepted. He was what the other kids called a whitesoxer or a machineshop Chuck. Yet something about him excited her and now, lying drowsily in this illicit bed (but with an awakening sense of excitement and pleasurable fear), she thought it might have been his carat least at the start. It was a million miles from the machinestamped, anonymous vehicles of her fraternity dates with their ventless windows, foldup steering wheels, and vaguely unpleasant smell of plastic seat covers and windshield solvent. Billy's car was old, dark, somehow sinister. The windshield was milky around the edges, as if a cataract was beginning to form. The seats were loose and unanchored. Beer bottles clicked and rolled in the back (her fraternity dates drank Budweiser; Billy and his friends drank Rheingold), and she had to place her feet around a huge, greaseclotted Craftsman toolkit without a lid. The tools inside were of many different makes, and she suspected that many of them were stolen. The car smelled of oil and gas. The sound of straight pipes came loudly and exhilaratingly through the thin floorboards. A row of dials slung under the dash registered amps, oil pressure, and tach (whatever that was). The back wheels were jacked and the hood seemed to point at the road. And of course he drove fast. On the third ride home one of the bald front tires blew at sixty miles an hour. The car went into a screaming slide and she shrieked aloud, suddenly positive of her own death. An image of her broken, bloody corpse, thrown against the base of a telephone pole like a pile of rags, flashed through her mind like a tabloid photograph. Billy cursed and whipped the fuzzcovered steering wheel from side to side. They came to a stop on the lefthand shoulder, and when she got out of the car on knees that threatened to buckle at every step, she saw that they had left a looping trail of scorched rubber for seventy feet. Billy was already opening the trunk, pulling out a jack and muttering to himself. Not a hair was out of place. He passed her, a cigarette already dangling from the corner of his mouth. Bring that toolkit, babe. She was flabbergasted. Her mouth opened and closed twice, like a beached fish, before she could get the words out. II will not! You almost kyoualmostyou crazy bastard! Besides, it's dirty! He turned around and looked at her, his eyes flat. You bring it or I ain't taking you to the fuckin fights tomorrow night. I hate the fights! She had never been, but her anger and outrage required absolutes. Her fraternity dates took her to rock concerts, which she hated. They always ended up next to someone who hadn't bathed in weeks. He shrugged, went back to the front end, and began jacking. She brought the toolkit, getting grease all over a brandnew sweater. He grunted without turning around. His tee shirt had pulled out of his jeans, and the flesh of his back was smooth, tanned, alive with muscles. It fascinated her, and she felt her tongue creep into the corner of her mouth. She helped him pull the tire off the wheel, getting her hands black. The car rocked alarmingly on the jack, and the spare was down to the canvas in two places. When the job was finished and she got back in, there were heavy smears of grease across both the sweater and the expensive red skirt she was wearing. If you think she began as he got behind the wheel. He slid across the seat and kissed her, his hands moving heavily on her, from waist to breasts. His breath was redolent of tobacco; there was the smell of Brylcreem and sweat. She broke it at last and stared down at herself, gasping for breath. The sweater was blotted with road grease and dirt now. Twentysevenfifty in Jordan Marsh and it was beyond anything but the garbage can. She was intensely, almost painfully excited. How are you going to explain that? he asked, and kissed her again. His mouth felt as if he might be grinning. Feel me, she said in his ear. Feel me all over. Get me dirty. He did. One nylon split like a gaping mouth. Her skirt, short to begin with, was pushed rudely up to her waist. He groped greedily with no finesse at all. And somethingperhaps that, perhaps the sudden brush with deathbrought her to sudden, jolting orgasm. She had gone to the fights with him. Quarter of eight, he said, and sat up in bed. He put on the lamp and began to dress. His body still fascinated her. She thought of last Monday night, and how it had been. He had (no) Time enough to think of that later, maybe, when it would do something for her besides cause useless arousal. She swung her own legs over the edge of the bed and slid into gossamer panties. Maybe it's a bad idea, she said, not sure if she was testing him or herself. Maybe we ought to just get back into bed and It's a good idea, he said, and a shadow of humor crossed his face. Pig blood for a pig. What? Nothing. Come on. Get dressed. She did, and when they left by the back stairs she could feel a large excitement blooming, like a rapacious and nightflowering vine, in her belly. From My Name Is Susan Snell (p. 45). You know, I'm not as sorry about all of it as people seem to think I should be. Not that they say it right out; they're the ones who always say how dreadfully sorry they are. That's usually just before they ask for my autograph. But they expect you to be sorry. They expect you to get weepy, to wear a lot of black, to drink a little too much or take drugs. They say things like Oh, it's such a shame. But you know what happened to her and blah, blah, blah. But sorry is the KoolAid of human emotions. It's what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutterball when you're bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love. I'm not sorry that Tommy is dead any more. He seems too much like a daydream I once had. You probably think that's cruel, but there's been a lot of water under the bridge since Prom Night. And I'm not sorry for my appearance before the White Commission. I told the truthas much of it as I knew. But I am sorry for Carrie. They've forgotten her, you know. They've made her into some kind of a symbol and forgotten that she was a human being, as real as you reading this, with hopes and dreams and blah, blah, blah. Useless to tell you that,I suppose. Nothing can change her back now from something made out of newsprint into a person. But she was, and she hurt. More than any of us probably know, she hurt. And so I'm sorry and I hope it was good for her, that prom. Until the terror began, I hope it was good and fine and wonderful and magic. . . . Tommy pulled into the parking lot beside the high school's new wing, let the motor idle for just a second, and then switched it off. Carrie sat on her side of the seat, holding her wrap around her bare shoulders. It suddenly seemed to her that she was living in a dream of hidden intentions and had just become aware of the fact. What could she be doing? She had left Momma alone. Nervous? he asked, and she jumped. Yes. He laughed and got out. She was about to open her door when he opened it for her. Don't be nervous, he said. You're like Galatea. Who? Galatea. We read about her in Mr. Evers' class. She turned from a drudge into a beautiful woman and nobody even knew her. She considered it. I want them to know me, she said finally. I don't blame you. Come on. George Dawson and Frieda Jason were standing by the Coke machine. Frieda was in an orange tulle concoction, and looked a little like a tuba. Donna Thibodeau was taking tickets at the door along with David Bracken. They were both National Honor Society members, part of Miss Geer's personal Gestapo, and they wore white slacks and red blazersthe school colors. Tina Blake and Norma Watson were handing out programs and seating people inside according to their chart. Both of them were dressed in black, and Carrie supposed they thought they were very chic, but to her they looked like cigarette girls in an old gangster movie. All of them turned to look at Tommy and Carrie when they came in, and for a moment there was a stiff, awkward silence. Carrie felt a strong urge to wet her lips and controlled it. Then George Dawson said Gawd, you look queer, Ross. Tommy smiled. When did you come out of the treetops, Bomba? Dawson lurched forward with his fists up, and for a moment Carrie felt stark terror. In her keyedup state, she came within an ace of picking George up and throwing him across the lobby. Then she realized it was an old game, often played, wellloved. The two of them sparred in a growling circle. Then George, who had been tagged twice in the ribs, began to gobble and yell Kill them Congs! Get them Gooks! Pongee sticks! Tiger cages! and Tommy collapsed his guard, laughing. Don't let it bother you, Frieda said, tilting her letteropener nose and strolling over. If they kill each other, I'll dance with you. They look too stupid to kill, Carrie ventured. Like dinosaurs. And when Frieda grinned, she felt something very old and rusty loosen inside her. A warmth came with it. Relief. Ease. Where'd you buy your dress? Frieda asked. I love it. I made it. Made it? Frieda's eyes opened in unaffected surprise. No shit! Carrie felt herself blushing furiously. Yes I did. I . . . I like to sew. I got the material at John's in Westover. The pattern is really quite easy. Come on, George said to all of them in general. Band's gonna start. He rolled his eyes and went through a limber, satiric buckandwing. Vibes, vibes, vibes. Us Gooks love them big Fender viyyybrations. When they went in, George was doing impressions of Flash Bobby Pickett and mugging, Carrie was telling Frieda about her dress, and Tommy was grinning, hands stuffed in his pockets. Spoiled the lines of his dinner jacket Sue would be telling him, but fuck it, it seem to be working. So far it was working fine. He and George and Frieda had less than two hours to live. From The Shadow Exploded (p. 132) The White Commission's stand on the trigger of the whole affairtwo buckets of pig blood on a beam over the stageseems to be overly weak and vacillating, even in light of the scant concrete proof. If one chooses to believe the hearsay evidence of Nolan's immediate circle of friends (and to be brutally frank, they do not seem intelligent enough to lie convincingly), then Nolan took this part of the conspiracy entirely out of Christine Hargensen's hands and acted on his own initiative . . . He didn't talk when he drove; he liked to drive. The operation gave him a feeling of power that nothing could rival, not even fucking. The road unrolled before them in photographic blacks and whites, and the speedometer trembled just past seventy. He came from a broken home; his father had taken off after the failure of a badly managed gasstation venture when Billy was twelve, and his mother had four boy friends at last count. Brucie was in greatest favor right now. He was a Seagrams 7 man. She was turning into one ugly bag, too. But the car the car fed him power and glory from its own mystic lines of force. It made him someone to be reckoned with, someone with mana. It was not by accident that he had done most of his balling in the back seat. The car was his slave and his god. It gave, and it could take away. Billy had used it to take away many times. On long, sleepless nights when his mother and Brucie were fighting, Billy made popcorn and went out cruising for stray dogs. Some mornings he let the car roll, engine dead, into the garage he had constructed behind the house with its front bumper dripping. She knew his habits well enough by now and did not bother making conversation that would simply be ignored anyway. She sat beside him with one leg curled under her, gnawing a knuckle. The lights of the cars streaking past them on 302 gleamed softly in her hair, streaking it silver. He wondered how long she would last. Maybe not long after tonight. Somehow it had all led to this, even the early part, and when it was done the glue that had held them together would be thin and might dissolve, leaving them to wonder how it could have been in the first place. He thought she would start to look less like a goddess and more like the typical society bitch again, and that would make him want to belt her around a little. Or maybe a lot. Rub her nose in it. They breasted the Brickyard Hill and there was the high school below them, the parking lot filled with plump, glistening daddies' cars. He felt the familiar gorge of disgust and hate rise in his throat. We'll give them something (a night to remember) all right. We can do that. The classroom wings were dark and silent and deserted; the lobby was lit with a standard yellow glow, and the bank of glass that was the gymnasium's east side glowed with a soft, orangey light that was ethereal, almost ghostly. Again the bitter taste, and the urge to throw rocks. I see the lights, I see the party lights, he murmured. Huh? She turned to him, startled out of her own thoughts. Nothing. He touched the nape of her neck. I think I'm gonna let you pull the string. Billy did it by himself, because he knew perfectly well that he could trust nobody else. That had been a hard lesson, much harder than the ones they taught you in school, but he had learned it well. The boys who had gone with him to Henty's place the night before had not even known what he wanted the blood for. They probably suspected Chris was involved, but they could not even be sure of that. He drove to the school minutes after Thursday night had become Friday morning and cruised by twice to make sure it was deserted and neither of Chamberlain's two police cars was in the area. He drove into the parking lot with his lights off and swung around in back of the building. Further back, the football field glimmered beneath a thin membrane of ground fog. He opened the trunk and unlocked the ice chest.

The blood had frozen solid, but that was all right. It would have the next twentytwo hours to thaw. He put the buckets on the ground, then got a number of tools from his kit. He stuck them in his back pocket and grabbed a brown bag from the seat. Screws clinked inside. He worked without hurry, with the easeful concentration of one who is unable to conceive of interruption. The gym where the dance was to be held was also the school auditorium, and the small row of windows looking toward where he had parked opened on the backstage storage area. He selected a flat tool with a spatulate end and slid it through the small jointure between the upper and lower panes of one window. It was a good tool. He had made it himself in the Chamberlain metal shop. He wiggled it until the window's slip lock came free. He pushed the window up and slid in. It was very dark. The predominant odor was of old paint from the Dramatics Club canvas flats. The gaunt shadows of Band Society music stands and instrument cases stood around like sentinels. Mr. Downer's piano stood in one corner. Billy took a small flashlight out of the bag and made his way to the stage and stepped through the red velvet curtains. The gym floor, with its painted basketball lines and highly varnished surface, glimmered at him like an amber lagoon. He shone his light on the apron in front of the curtain. There, in ghostly chalk lines, someone had drawn the floor silhouette of the King and Queen thrones which would be placed the following day. Then the entire apron would be strewn with paper flowers . . . why, Christ only knew. He craned his neck and shone the beam of his light up into the shadows. Overhead, girders crisscrossed in shadowy lines. The girders over the dance floor had been sheathed in crepe paper, but the area directly over the apron hadn't been decorated. A short draw curtain obscured the girders up there, and they were invisible from the gym floor. The draw curtain also hid a bank of lights that would highlight the gondola mural. Billy turned off the flashlight, walked to the lefthand edge of the apron, and mounted a steelrunged ladder bolted to the wall. The contents of his brown bag, which he had tucked into his shirt for safety, jingled with a strange, hollow jolliness in the deserted gymnasium. At the top of the ladder was a small platform. Now, as he faced outward toward the apron, the stage flies were to his right, the gym itself on his left. In the flies the Dramatics Club props were stored, some of them dating back to the 1920s. A bust of Pallas, used in some ancient dramatic version of Poe's The Raven, stared at Billy with blind, floating eyes from atop a rusting bedspring. Straight ahead, a steel girder ran out over the apron. Lights to be used against the mural were bolted to the bottom of it. He stepped out onto it and walked effortlessly, without fear, out over the drop. He was humming a popular tune under his breath. The beam was inchthick with dust, and he left long, shuffling tracks. Halfway out he stopped, dropped to his knees, and peered down. Yes. With the help of his light he could make out the chalk lines on the apron directly below. He made a soundless whistling. (bombs away) He X'd the precise spot in the dust, then beamwalked back to the platform. No one would be up here between now and the Ball; the lights that shone on the mural and on the apron where the King and Queen would be crowned (they'll get crowned all right) were controlled from a box backstage. Anyone looking up from directly below would be blinded by those same lights. His arrangements would be noticed only if someone went up into the flies for something. He didn't believe anyone would. It was an acceptable risk. He opened the brown bag and took out a pair of Playtex rubber gloves, put them on, and then took out one of two small pullies he had purchased yesterday. He had gotten them at a hardware store in Lewiston, just to be safe. He popped a number of nails into his mouth like cigarettes and got the hammer. Still humming around his mouthful of nails, he fixed the pulley neatly in the corner a foot above the platform. Beside it he fixed a small eyehole screw. He went back down the ladder, crossed backstage, and climbed another ladder not far from where he had come in. He was in the loftsort of a catchall school attic. Here there were stacks of old yearbooks, motheaten athletic uniforms, and ancient textbooks that had been nibbled by mice. Looking left, he could shine his light over the stage flies and spotlight the pulley he had just put up. Turning right, cool night air played on his face from a vent in the wall. Still humming, he took out the second pulley and nailed it up. He went back down, crawled out the window he had forced, and got the two buckets of pig blood. He had been about his business for a half hour, but it showed no signs of thawing. He picked the buckets up and walked back to the window, silhouetted in the darkness like a farmer coming back from the first milking. He lifted them inside and went in after. Beamwalking was easier with a bucket in each hand for balance. When he reached his dustmarked X, he put the buckets down, peered at the chalk marks on the apron once more, nodded, and walked back to the platform. He thought about wiping the buckets on his last trip out to themKenny's prints would be on them, Don's and Steve's as wellbut it was better not to. Maybe they would have a little surprise on Saturday morning. The thought made his lips quirk. The last item in the bag was a coil of jute twine. He walked back out to the buckets and tied the handles of both with running slipknots. He threaded the screw, then the pulley. He threw the uncoiling twine across to the loft, and then threaded that one. He probably would not have been amused to know that, in the gloom of the auditorium, covered and streaked with decadesold dust, gray kitties flying dreamily about his crow'snest hair, he looked like a hunched, halfmad Rube Goldberg intent upon creating the better mousetrap. He piled the slack twine on top of a stack of crates within reach of the vent. He climbed down for the last time and dusted off his hands. The thing was done. He looked out the window, then wriggled through and thumped to the ground. He closed the window, reinserted his jimmy, and closed the lock as far as he could. Then he went back to his car. Chris said chances were good that Tommy Ross and the White bitch would be the ones under the buckets; she had been doing a little quiet promoting among her friends. That would be good, if it happened. But, for Billy, any of the others would be all right too. He was beginning to think that it would be all right if it was Chris herself. He drove away. From My Name Is Susan Snell (p. 48) Carrie went to see Tommy the day before the prom. She was waiting outside one of his classes and he said she looked really wretched, as if she thought he'd yell at her to stop hanging around and stop bugging him. She said she had to be in by eleventhirty at the latest, or her momma would be worried. She said she wasn't going to spoil his time or anything, but it wouldn't be fair to worry her momma. Tommy suggested they stop at the Kelly Fruit after and grab a root beer and a burger. All the other kids would be going to Westover or Lewiston, and they would have the place to themselves. Carrie's face lit up, he said. She told him that would be fine. Just fine. This is the girl they keep calling a monster. I want you to keep that firmly in mind. The girl who could be satisfied with a hamburger and a dime root beer after her only school dance so her momma wouldn't be worried . . . The first thing that struck Carrie when they walked in was Glamor. Not glamor but Glamor. Beautiful shadows rustled about in chiffon, lace, silk, satin. The air was redolent with the odor of flowers; the nose was constantly amazed by it. Girls in dresses with low backs, with scooped bodices showing actual cleavage, with Empire waists. Long skirts, pumps. Blinding white dinner jackets, cummerbunds, black shoes that had been spitshined. A few people were on the dance floor, not many yet, and in the soft revolving gloom they were wraiths without substance. She did not really want to see them as her classmates. She wanted them to be beautiful strangers. Tommy's hand was firm on her elbow. The mural's nice, he said. Yes, she agreed faintly. It had taken on a soft nether light under the orange spots, the boatman leaning with eternal indolence against his tiller while the sunset blazed around him and the buildings conspired together over urban waters. She knew with suddenness and ease that this moment would be with her always, within hand's reach of memory. She doubted if they all sensed itthey had seen the worldbut even George was silent for a minute as they looked, and the scene, the smell, even the sound of the band playing a faintly recognizable movie theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace. Her soul knew a moment's calm, as if it had been uncrumpled and smoothed under an iron. Viiiiiybes, George yelled suddenly, and led Frieda out onto the floor. He began to do a sarcastic jitterbug to the oldtimey bigband music, and someone catcalled over to him. George blabbered, leered, and went into a brief armscrossed Cossack routine that nearly landed him on his butt. Carrie smiled. George is funny, she said. Sure he is. He's a good guy. There are lots of good people around. Want to sit down? Yes, she said gratefully. He went back to the door and returned with Norma Watson, whose hair had been pulled into a huge, teased explosion for the affair. It's on the other SIDE, she said, and her bright gerbel's eyes picked Carrie up and down, looking for an exposed strap, an eruption of pimples, any news to carry back to the door when her errand was done. That's a LOVELY dress, Carrie. Where did you EVER get it? Carrie told her while Norma led them around the dance floor to their table. She exuded odors of Avon soap, Woolworth's perfume, and Juicy Fruit gum. There were two folding chairs at the table (looped and beribboned with the inevitable crepe paper), and the table itself was decked with crepe paper in the school colors. On top was a candle in a wine bottle, a dance program, a tiny gilded pencil, and two party favorsgondolas filled with Planters Mixed Nuts. I can't get OVER it, Norma was saying. You look so DIFFERENT. She cast an odd, furtive look at Carrie's face and it made her feel nervous. You're positively GLOWING. What's your SECRET? I'm Don MacLean's secret lover, Carrie said. Tommy sniggered and quickly smothered it. Norma's smile slipped a notch, and Carrie was amazed by her own witand audacity. That's what you looked like when the joke was on you. As though a bee had stung your rear end. Carrie found she liked Norma to look that way. It was distinctly unchristian. Well, I have to get back, she said. Isn't it EXCITING, Tommy? Her smile was sympathetic Wouldn't it be exciting if? Cold sweat is running down my thighs in rivers, Tommy said gravely. Norma left with an odd, puzzled smile. It had not gone the way things were supposed to go. Everyone knew how things were supposed to go with Carrie. Tommy sniggered again. Would you like to dance? he asked. She didn't know how, but wasn't ready to admit to that yet. Let's just sit down for a minute. While he held out her chair, she saw the candle and asked Tommy if he would light it. He did. Their eyes met over its flame. He reached out and took her hand. And the band played on. From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 13334) Perhaps a complete study of Carrie's mother will be undertaken someday, when the subject of Carrie herself becomes more academic. I myself might attempt it, if only to gain access to the Brigham family tree. It might be extremely interesting to know what odd occurrences one might come across two or three generations back . . . And there is, of course, the knowledge that Carrie went home on Prom Night. Why? It is hard to tell just how sane Carrie's motives were by that time. She may have gone for absolution and forgiveness, or she may have gone for the express purpose of committing matricide. In any event, the physical evidence seems to indicate that Margaret White was waiting for her. . . . The house was completely silent. She was gone. At night. Gone. Margaret White walked slowly from her bedroom into the living room. First had come the flow of blood and the filthy fantasies the Devil sent with it. Then this hellish Power the Devil had given to her. It came at the time of the blood and the time of hair on the body, of course. Oh, she knew the Devil's Power. Her own grandmother had it. She had been able to light the fireplace without even stirring from her rocker by the window. It made her eyes glow with (thou shalt not suffer a witch to live) a kind of witch's light. And sometimes, at the supper table the sugar bowl would whirl madly like a dervish. Whenever it happened, Gram would cackle crazily and drool and make the sign of the Evil Eye all around her. Sometimes she panted like a dog on a hot day, and when she died of a heart attack at sixtysix, senile to the point of idiocy even at that early age, Carrie had not even been a year old. Margaret had gone into her bedroom not four weeks after Gram's funeral and there her girlchild had lain in her crib, laughing and gurgling, watching a bottle that was dangling in thin air over her head. Margaret had almost killed her then. Ralph had stopped her. She should not have let him stop her. Now Margaret White stood in the middle of the living room. Christ on Calvary looked down at her with his wounded, suffering, reproachful eyes. The Black Forest cuckoo clock ticked. It was ten minutes after eight. She had been able to feel, actually feel, the Devil's Power working in Carrie. It crawled all over you, lifting and pulling like evil, tickling little fingers. She had set out to do her duty again when Carrie was three, when she had caught her looking in sin at the Devil's slut in the next yard over. Then the stones had come, and she had weakened. And the power had risen again, after thirteen years. God was not mocked. First the blood, then the power, (you sign your name you sign it in blood) now a boy and dancing and he would take her to a roadhouse after, take her into the parking lot, take her into the back seat, take her Blood, fresh blood. Blood was always at the root of it, and only blood could expiate it. She was a big woman with massive upper arms that had dwarfed her elbows to dimples, but her head was surprisingly small on the end of her strong, corded neck. It had once been a beautiful face. It was still beautiful in a weird, zealous way. But the eyes had taken on a strange, wandering cast, and the lines had deepened cruelly around the denying but oddly weak mouth. Her hair, which had been almost all black a year ago, was now almost white. The only way to kill sin, true black sin, was to drown it in the blood of (she must be sacrificed) a repentant heart. Surely God understood that, and had laid His finger upon her. Had not God Himself commanded Abraham to take his son Isaac up upon the mountain? She shuffled out into the kitchen in her old and splayed slippers, and opened the kitchen utensil drawer. The knife they used for carving was long and sharp and arched in the middle from constant honing. She sat down on the high stool by the counter, found the sliver of whetstone in its small aluminum dish, and began to scrub it along the gleaming edge of the blade with the apathetic, fixated attention of the damned. The Black Forest cuckoo clock ticked and ticked and finally the bird jumped out to call once and announce eightthirty. In her mouth she tasted olives. THE SENIOR CLASS PRESENTS SPRING BALL 79 May 27, 1979 Music by The Billy Bosnan Band Music by Josie and the Moonglows ENTERTAINMENT CabaretBaton Twirling by Sandra Stenchfield 500 Miles Lemon Tree Mr. Tambourine Man Folk Music by John Swithen and Maureen Cowan The Street Where You Live Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head Bridge Over Troubled Waters Ewen High School Chorus CHAPERONES Mr. Stephens, Miss Geer, Mr. and Mrs. Lublin, Miss Desjardin Coronation at 1000 P.M. Remember, it's YOUR prom; make it one to remember always! When he asked her the third time, Carrie had to admit that she didn't know how to dance. She didn't add that, now that the rock band had taken over for a halfhour set, she would feel out of place gyrating on the floor, (and sinful) yes, and sinful. Tommy nodded, then smiled. He leaned forward and told her that he hated to dance. Would she like to go around and visit some of the other tables? Trepidation rose thickly in her throat, but she nodded. Yes, that would be nice. He was seeing to her. She must see to him (even if he really did not expect it); that was part of the deal. And she felt dusted over with the enchantment of the evening. She was suddenly hopeful that no one would stick out a foot or slyly paste a kickmehard sign on her back or suddenly squirt water in her face from a novelty carnation and retreat cackling while everyone laughed and pointed and catcalled. And if there was enchantment, it was not divine but pagan (momma untie your apron strings i'm getting big) and she wanted it that way. Look, he said as they got up. Two or three stagehands were sliding the King and Queen thrones from the wings while Mr. Lavoie, the head custodian, directed them with hand motions toward preset marks on the apron. She thought they looked quite Arthurian, those thrones, dressed all in blinding white, strewn with real flowers as well as huge crepe banners. They're beautiful, she said. You're beautiful, Tommy said, and she became quite sure that nothing bad could happen this nightperhaps they themselves might even be voted King and Queen of the Prom. She smiled at her own folly. It was nine o'clock. Carrie? a voice said hesitantly. She had been so wrapped up in watching the band and the dance floor and the other tables that she hadn't seen anyone coming at all. Tommy had gone to get them punch. She turned around and saw Miss Desjardin. For a moment the two of them merely looked at each other, and the memory traveled between them, communicated (she saw me she saw me naked and screaming and bloody) without words or thought. It was in the eyes. Then Carrie said shyly You look very pretty, Miss Desjardin. She did. She was dressed in a glimmering silver sheath, a perfect complement to her blonde hair, which was up. A simple pendant hung around her neck. She looked very young, young enough to be attending rather than chaperoning. Thank you. She hesitated, then put a gloved hand on Carrie's arm. You are beautiful, she said, and each word carried a peculiar emphasis. Carrie felt herself blushing again and dropped her eyes to the table. It's awfully nice of you to say so. I know I'm not . . . not really. . . but thank you anyway. It's true, Desjardin said. Carrie, anything that happened before . . . well, it's all forgotten. I wanted you to know that. I can't forget it, Carrie said. She looked up. The words that rose to her lips were I don't blame anyone any more. She bit them off. It was a lie. She blamed them all and always would, and she wanted more than anything else to be honest. But it's over with. Now it's over with. Miss Desjardin smiled, and her eyes seemed to catch and hold the soft mix of lights in an almost liquid sparkling. She looked across toward the dance floor, and Carrie followed her gaze. I remember my own prom, Desjardin said softly. I was two inches taller than the boy I went with when I was in my heels. He gave me a corsage that clashed with my gown. The tailpipe was broken on his car and the engine made . . . oh, an awful racket. But it was magic. I don't know why. But I've never had a date like it, ever again. She looked at Carrie. Is it like that for you? It's very nice, Carrie said. And is that all? No. There's more. I couldn't tell it all. Not to anybody. Desjardin smiled and squeezed her arm. You'll never forget it, she said. Never. I think you're right. Have a lovely time, Carrie. Thank you. Tommy came up with two Dixie cups of punch as Desjardin left, walking around the dance floor toward the chaperones' table. What did she want? he asked, putting the Dixie cups down carefully. Carrie, looking after her, said I think she wanted to say she was sorry. Sue Snell sat quietly in the living room of her house, hemming a dress and listening to the Jefferson Airplane Long John Silver album. It was old and badly scratched, but soothing. Her mother and father had gone out for the evening. They knew what was going on, she was sure of that, but they had spared her the bumbling talks about how proud they were of Their Girl, or how glad they were that she was finally Growing Up. She was glad they had decided to leave her alone, because she was still uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply, lest she discover a jewel of selfishness glowing and winking at her from the black velvet of her subconscious. She had done it; that was enough; she was satisfied. (maybe he'll fall in love with her) She looked up as if someone had spoken from the hallway, a startled smile curving her lips. That would be a fairytale ending, all right. The Prince bends over the Sleeping Beauty, touches his lips to hers. Sue, I don't know how to tell you this but The smile faded. Her period was late. Almost a week late. And she had always been as regular as an almanac. The record changer clicked; another record dropped down. In the sudden, brief silence, she heard something within her turn over. Perhaps only her soul. It was ninefifteen. Billy drove to the far end of the parking lot and pulled into a stall that faced the asphalt ramp leading to the highway. Chris started to get out and he jerked her back. His eyes glowed ferally in the dark. What? she said with angry nervousness. They use a P.A. system to announce the King and Queen, he said. Then one of the bands will play the school song. That means they're sitting there in those thrones, on target. I know all that. Let go of me. You're hurting. He squeezed her wrist tighter still and felt small bones grind. It gave him a grim pleasure. Still, she didn't cry out. She was pretty good. You listen to me. I want you to know what you're getting into. Pull the rope when the song is playing. Pull it hard. There will be a little slack between the pulleys, but not much. When you pull it and feel those buckets go, run. You don't stick around to hear the screams or anything else. This is out of the cutelittlejoke league. This is criminal assault, you know? They don't fine you. They put you in jail and throw the key over their shoulder. It was an enormous speech for him. Her eyes only glared at him, full of defiant anger. Dig it? Yes. All right. When the buckets go, I'm going to run. When I get to the car, I'm going to drive away. If you're there, you can come. If you're not, I'll leave you. If I leave you and you spill your guts, I'll kill you. Do you believe me? Yes. Take your fucking hand off me. He did. An unwilling shadowgrin touched his face. Okay. It's going to be good. They got out of the car. It was almost ninethirty. Vic Mooney, President of the Senior Class, was calling jovially into the mike All right, ladies and gentlemen. Take your seats, please. It's time for the voting. We're going to vote for the King and Queen. This contest insults women! Myra Crewes called with uneasy good nature. It insults men, too! George Dawson called back, and there was general laughter. Myra was silent. She had made her token protest. Take your seats, please! Vic was smiling into the mike, smiling and blushing furiously, fingering a pimple on his chin. The huge Venetian boatman behind him looked dreamily over Vic's shoulder. Time to vote. Carrie and Tommy sat down. Tina Blake and Norma Watson were circulating mimeographed ballots, and when Norma dropped one at their table and breathed Good LUCK! Carrie picked up the ballot and studied it. Her mouth popped open. Tommy, we're on here! Yeah, I saw that, he said. The school votes for single candidates and their dates get sort of shanghaied into it. Welcome aboard. Shallwe decline? She bit her lip and looked at him. Do you want to decline? Hell, no, he said cheerfully. If you win, all you do is sit up there for the school song and one dance and wave a scepter and look like a goddam idiot. They take your picture for the yearbook so everyone can see you looked like a goddam idiot. Who do we vote for? She looked doubtfully from the ballot to the tiny pencil by her boatful of nuts. They're more your crowd than mine. A little chuckle escaped her. In fact, I don't really have a crowd. He shrugged. Let's vote for ourselves. To the devil with false modesty. She laughed out loud, then clapped a hand over her mouth. The sound was almost entirely foreign to her. Before she could think, she circled their names, third from the top. The tiny pencil broke in her hand, and she gasped. A splinter had scratched the pad of one finger, and a small bead of blood welled. You hurt yourself? No. She smiled, but suddenly it was difficult to smile. The sight of the blood was distasteful to her. She blotted it away with her napkin. But I broke the pencil and it was a souvenir. Stupid me. There's your boat, he said, and pushed it toward her. Toot, toot. Her throat closed, and she felt sure she would weep and then be ashamed. She did not, but her eyes glimmered like prisms and she lowered her head so he would not see. The band was playing catchy fillin music while the Honor Society ushers collected the foldedover ballots. They were taken to the chaperones' table by the door, where Vic and Mr. Stephens and the Lublins counted them. Miss Geer surveyed it all with grim gimlet eyes. Carrie felt an unwilling tension worm into her, tightening muscles in her stomach and back. She held Tommy's hand tightly. It was absurd, of course. No one was going to vote for them. The stallion, perhaps, but not when harnessed in tandem with a sheox. It would be Frank and Jessica or maybe Don Farnham and Helen Shyres. Orhell! Two piles were growing larger than the others. Mr. Stephens finished dividing the slips and all four of them took turns at counting the large piles, which looked about the same. They put their heads together, conferred, and counted once more. Mr. Stephens nodded, thumbed the ballots once more like a man about to deal a hand of poker, and gave them back to Vic. He climbed back on stage and approached the mike. The Billy Bosnan Band played a flourish. Vic smiled nervously, harrumphed into the mike, and blinked at the sudden feedback whine. He nearly dropped the ballots to the floor, which was covered with heavy electrical cables, and somebody snickered. We've sort of hit a snag, Vic said artlessly. Mr. Lublin says this is the first time in the history of the Spring Ball How far does he go back? someone behind Tommy grumbled. Eighteen hundred? We've got a tie. This got a murmur from the crowd. Polka dots or striped? George Dawson called, and there was some laughter. Vic gave a twitchy little smile and almost dropped the ballots again. Sixtythree votes for Frank Grier and Jessica MacLean, and sixtythree votes for Thomas Ross and Carrie White. This was followed by a moment of silence, and then sudden, swelling applause. Tommy looked across at his date. Her head was lowered, as if in shame, but he had a sudden feeling (carrie carrie carrie) not unlike the one he had had when he asked her to the prom. His mind felt as if something alien was moving in there, calling Carrie's name over and over again. As if Attention! Vic was calling. If I could have your attention, please. The applause quieted. We're going to have a runoff ballot. When the people passing out the slips of paper get to you, please write the couple you favor on it. He left the mike, looking relieved. The ballots were circulated; they had been hastily torn from leftover prom programs. The band played unnoticed and people talked excitedly. They weren't applauding for us, Carrie said, looking up. The thing he had felt (or thought he had felt) was gone. It couldn't have been for us. Maybe it was for you. She looked at him, mute. What's taking it so long? she hissed at him. I heard them clap. Maybe that was it. If you fucked up The length of jute cord hung between them limply, untouched since Billy had poked a screwdriver through the vent and lifted it out. Don't worry, he said calmly. They'll play the school song. They always do. But Shut up. You talk too fucking much. The tip of his cigarette winked peacefully in the dark. She shut. But (oh when this is over you're going to get it buddy maybe you'll go to bed with lover's nuts tonight) her mind ran furiously over his words, storing them. People did not speak to her in such a manner. Her father was a lawyer. It was seven minutes of ten. He was holding the broken pencil in his hand, ready to write, when she touched his wrist lightly, tentatively. Don't . . . What? Don't vote for us, she said finally. He raised his eyebrows quizzically. Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound. That's what my mother always says. (mother) A picture rose in her mind instantly, her mother droning endless prayers to a towering, faceless, columnar God who prowled roadhouse parking lots with a sword of fire in one hand. Terror rose in her blackly, and she had to fight with all her spirit to hold it back. She could not explain her dread, her sense of premonition. She could only smile helplessly and repeat Don't. Please. The Honor Society ushers were coming back, collecting folded slips. He hesitated a moment longer, then suddenly scrawled Tommy and Carrie on the ragged slip of paper. For you, he said. Tonight you go firstclass. She could not reply, for the premonition was on her her mother's face. The knife slipped from the whetstone, and in an instant it had sliced the cup of her palm below the thumb. She looked at the cut. It bled slowly, thickly, from the open lips of the wound, running out of her hand and spotting the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor. Good, then. It was good. The blade had tasted flesh and let blood. She did not bandage it but tipped the flow over the cutting edge, letting the blood dull the blade's sharp glimmer. Then she began to sharpen again, heedless of the droplets which splattered her dress. If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out. If it was a hard scripture, it was also sweet and good. A fitting scripture for those who lurked in the doorway shadows of onenight hotels and in the weeds behind bowling alleys. Pluck it out (oh and the nasty music they play) Pluck it (the girls show their underwear how it sweats how it sweats blood) out The Black Forest cuckoo clock began to strike ten and (cut her guts out on the floor) if thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out The dress was done and she could not watch the television or take out her books or call Nancy on the phone. There was nothing to do but sit on the sofa facing the blackness of the kitchen window and feel some nameless sort of fear growing in her like an infant coming to dreadful term. With a sigh she began to massage her arms absently. They were cold and prickly. It was twelve after ten and there was no reason, really no reason, to feel that the world was coming to an end. The stacks were higher this time, but they still looked exactly the same. Again, three counts were taken to make sure. Then Vic Mooney went to the mike again. He paused a moment, relishing the blue feel of tension in the air, and then announced simply Tommy and Carrie win. By one vote. Dead silence for a moment. Then applause filled the hall again, some of it not without satiric overtones.

Carrie drew in a startled, smothered gasp, and Tommy again felt (but for only a second) that weird vertigo in his mind (carrie carrie carrie carrie) that seemed to blank out all thought but the name and image of this strange girl he was with. For a fleeting second he was literally scared shitless. Something fell on the floor with a clink, and at the same instant the candle between them whiffed out. Then Josie and the Moonglows were playing a rock version of Pomp and Circumstance, the ushers appeared at their table (almost magically; all this had been rehearsed meticulously by Miss Geer who, according to rumor, ate slow and clumsy ushers for lunch), a scepter wrapped in aluminum foil was thrust into Tommy's hand, a robe with a lush dogfur collar was thrown over Carrie's shoulders, and they were being led down the center aisle by a boy and a girl in white blazers. The band blared. The audience applauded. Miss Geer looked vindicated. Tommy Ross was grinning bemusedly. They were ushered up the steps to the apron, led across to the thrones, and seated. Still the applause swelled. The sarcasm in it was lost now; it was honest and deep, a little frightening. Carrie was glad to sit down. It was all happening too fast. Her legs were trembling under her and suddenly, even with the comparatively high neck of her gown, her breasts (dirtypillows) felt dreadfully exposed. The sound of the applause in her ears made her feel woozy, almost punchdrunk. Part of her was actually convinced that all this was a dream from which she would wake with mixed feelings of loss and relief. Vic boomed into the mike The King and Queen of the 1979 Spring BallTommy ROSS and Carrie WHITE! Still applause, swelling and booming and crackling. Tommy Ross, in the fading moments of his life now, took Carrie's hand and grinned at her, thinking that Suzie's intuition had been very right. Somehow she grinned back. Tommy (she was right and i love her well i love this one too this carrie she is she is beautiful and it's right and i love all of them the light the light in her eyes) and Carrie (can't see them the lights are too bright i can hear them but can't see them the shower remember the shower o momma it's too high i think i want to get down o are they laughing and ready to throw things to point and scream with laughter i can't see them i can't see them it's all too bright) and the beam above them. Both bands, in a sudden and serendipitous coalition of rock and brass, swung into the school song. The audience rose to its feet and began to sing, still applauding. It was tenoseven. Billy had just flexed his knees to make the joints pop. Chris Hargensen stood next to him with increasing signs of nervousness. Her hands played aimlessly along the seams of the jeans she had worn and she was biting the softness of her lower lip, chewing at it, making it a little ragged. You think they'll vote for them? Billy said softly. They will, she said. I set it up. It won't even be close. Why do they keep applauding? What's going on in there? Don't ask me, babe. I The school song suddenly roared out, full and strong on the soft May air, and Chris jumped as if stung. A soft gasp of surprise escaped her. All rise high for Thomas Ewen Hiiiiyyygh . . . Go on, he said. They're there. His eyes glowed softly in the dark. The odd halfgrin had touched his features. She licked her lips. They both stared at the length of jute cord. We'll raise your banners to the skyyyyyy . . . Shut up, she whispered. She was trembling, and he thought that her body had never looked so lush or exciting. When this was over he was going to have her until every other time she'd been had was like two pumps with a fag's little finger. He was going on her like a raw cob through butter. No guts, babe? He leaned forward. I won't pull it for you, babe. It can sit there till hell freezes. With pride we wear the red and whiiyyyyte . . . A sudden smothered sound that might have been a halfscream came from her mouth, and she leaned forward and pulled violently on the cord with both hands. It came loose with slack for a moment, making her think that Billy had been having her on all this time, that the rope was attached to nothing but thin air. Then it snubbed tight, held for a second, and then came through her palms harshly, leaving a thin burn. I she began. The music inside came to a jangling, discordant halt. For a moment ragged voices continued oblivious, and then they stopped. There was a beat of silence, and then someone screamed. Silence again. They stared at each other in the dark, frozen by the actual act as thought never could have done. Her very breath turned to glass in her throat. Then, inside, the laughter began. It was ten twentyfive, and the feeling had been getting worse and worse. Sue stood in front of the gas range on one foot, waiting for the milk to begin steaming so she could dump in the Nestl's. Twice she had begun to go upstairs and put on a nightgown and twice she had stopped, drawn for no reason at all to the kitchen window that looked down Brickyard Hill and the spiral of Route 6 that led into town. Now, as the whistle mounted atop the town hall on Main Street suddenly began to shriek into the night, rising and falling in cycles of panic, she did not even turn immediately to the window, but only turned the heat off under the milk so it would not burn. The town hall whistle went off every day at twelve noon and that was all, except to call the volunteer fire department during grassfire season in August and September. It was strictly for major disasters, and its sound was dreamy and terrifying in the empty house. She went to the window, but slowly. The shrieking of the whistle rose and fell, rose and fell. Somewhere, horns were beginning to blat, as if for a wedding. She could see her reflection in the darkened glass, lips parted, eyes wide, and then the condensation of her breath obscured it. A memory, halfforgotten, came to her. As children in grammar school, they had practiced airraid drills. When the teacher clapped her hands and said, The town whistle is blowing, you were supposed to crawl under your desk and put your hands over your head and wait, either for the allclear or for enemy missiles to blow you to powder. Now, in her mind, as clearly as a leaf pressed in plastic, (the town whistle is blowing) she heard the words clang in her mind. Far below, to the left, where the high school parking lot wasthe ring of sodium arc lamps made it a sure landmark, although the school building itself was invisible in the darka spark glowed as if God had struck a flintandsteel. (that's where the oil tanks are) The spark hesitated, then bloomed orange. Now you could see the school, and it was on fire. She was already on her way to the closet to get her coat when the first dull, booming explosion shook the floor under her feet and made her mother's china rattle in the cupboards. From We Survived the Black Prom, by Norma Watson (Published in the August, 1980, issue of The Reader's Digest as a Drama in Real Life article) . . . and it happened so quickly that no one really knew what was happening. We were all standing and applauding and singing the school song. ThenI was at the ushers' table just inside the main doors, looking at the stagethere was a sparkle as the big lights over the stage apron reflected on something metallic. I was standing with Tina Blake and Stella Horan, and I think they saw it, too. All at once there was a huge red splash in the air. Some of it hit the mural and ran in long drips. I knew right away, even before it hit them, that it was blood. Stella Horan thought it was paint, but I had a premonition, just like the time my brother got hit by a hay truck. They were drenched. Carrie got it the worst. She looked exactly like she had been dipped in a bucket of red paint. She just sat there. She never moved. The band that was closest to the stage, Josie and the Moonglows, got splattered. The lead guitarist had a white instrument, and it splattered all over it. I said My God, that's blood! When I said that, Tina screamed. It was very loud, and it rang out clearly in the auditorium. People had stopped singing and everything was completely quiet. I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot. I looked up and there were two buckets dangling high over the thrones, swinging and banging together. They were still dripping. All of a sudden they fell, with a lot of loose string paying out behind them. One of them hit Tommy Ross on the head. It made a very loud noise, like a gong. That made someone laugh. I don't know who it was, but it wasn't the way a person laughs when they see something funny and gay. It was raw and hysterical and awful. At that same instant, Carrie opened her eyes wide. That was when they all started laughing. I did too, God help me. It was so . . . so weird. When I was a little girl I had a Walt Disney storybook called Song of the South, and it had that Uncle Remus story about the tarbaby in it. There was a picture of the tarbaby sitting in the middle of the road, looking like one of those oldtime Negro minstrels with the blackface and great big white eyes. When Carrie opened her eyes it was like that. They were the only part of her that wasn't completely red. And the light had gotten in them and made them glassy. God help me, but she looked for all the world like Eddie Cantor doing that popeyed act of his. That was what made people laugh. We couldn't help it. It was one of those things where you laugh or go crazy. Carrie had been the butt of every joke for so long, and we all felt that we were part of something special that night. It was as if we were watching a person rejoin the human race, and I for one thanked the Lord for it. And that happened. That horror. And so there was nothing else to do. It was either laugh or cry, and who could bring himself to cry over Carrie after all those years? She just sat there, staring out at them, and the laughter kept swelling, getting louder and louder. People were holding their bellies and doubling up and pointing at her. Tommy was the only one who wasn't looking at her. He was sort of slumped over in his seat as if he'd gone to sleep. You couldn't tell he was hurt, though; he was splashed too bad. And then her face . . . broke. I don't know how else to describe it. She put her hands up to her face and halfstaggered to her feet. She almost got tangled in her own feet and fell over, and that made people laugh even more. Then she sort of . . . hopped off the stage. It was like watching a big red frog hopping off a lily pad. She almost fell again, but kept on her feet. Miss Desjardin came running over to her, and she wasn't laughing any more. She was holding out her arms to her. But then she veered off and hit the wall beside the stage. It was the strangest thing. She didn't stumble or anything. It was as if someone had pushed her, but there was no one there. Carrie ran through the crowd with her hands clutching her face, and somebody put his foot out. I don't know who it was, but she went sprawling on her face, leaving a long red streak on the floor. And she said, Oof! I remember that. It made me laugh even harder, hearing Carrie say Oof like that. She started to crawl along the floor and then she got up and ran out. She ran right past me. You could smell the blood. It smelled like something sick and rotted. She went down the stairs two at a time and then out the doors. And was gone. The laughter just sort of faded off, a little at a time. Some people were still hitching and snorting. Lennie Brock had taken out a big white handkerchief and was wiping his eyes. Sally McManus looked all white, like she was going to throw up, but she was still giggling and she couldn't seem to stop. Billy Bosnan was just standing there with his little conductor's stick in his hand and shaking his head. Mr. Lublin was sitting by Miss Desjardin and calling for a Kleenex. She had a bloody nose. You have to understand that all this happened in no more than two minutes. Nobody could put it all together. We were stunned. Some of them were wandering around, talking a little, but not much. Helen Shyres burst into tears, and that made some of the others start up. Then someone yelled Call a doctor! Hey, call a doctor quick! It was Josie Vreck. He was up on the stage, kneeling by Tommy Ross, and his face was white as paper. He tried to pick him up, and the throne fell over and Tommy rolled onto the floor. Nobody moved. They were all just staring. I felt like I was frozen in ice. My God, was all I could think. My God, my God, my God. And then this other thought crept in, and it was as if it wasn't my own at all. I was thinking about Carrie. And about God. It was all twisted up together, and it was awful. Stella looked over at me and said Carrie's back. And I said Yes, that's right. The lobby doors all slammed shut. The sound was like hands clapping. Somebody in the back screamed, and that started the stampede. They ran for the doors in a rush. I just stood there, not believing it. And when I looked, just before the first of them got there and started to push, I saw Carrie looking in, her face all smeared, like an Indian with war paint on. She was smiling. They were pushing at the doors, hammering on them, but they wouldn't budge. As more of them crowded up against them, I could see the first ones to get there being battered against them, grunting and wheezing. They wouldn't open. And those doors are never locked. It's a state law. Mr. Stephens and Mr. Lublin waded in, and began to pull them away, grabbing jackets, skirts, anything. They were all screaming and burrowing like cattle. Mr. Stephens slapped a couple of girls and punched Vic Mooney in the eye. They were yelling for them to go out the back fire doors. Some did. Those were the ones who lived. That's when it started to rain . . . at least, that's what I thought it was at first. There was water falling all over the place. I looked up and all the sprinklers were on, all over the gym. Water was hitting the basketball court and splashing. Josie Vreck was yelling for the guys in his band to turn off the electric amps and mikes quick, but they were all gone. He jumped down from the stage. The panic at the doors stopped. People backed away, looking up at the ceiling. I heard somebodyDon Farnham, I thinksay This is gonna wreck the basketball court. A few other people started to go over and look at Tommy Ross. All at once I knew I wanted to get out of there. I took Tina Blake's hand and said, Let's run. Quick. To get to the fire doors, you had to go down a short corridor to the left of the stage. There were sprinklers there too, but they weren't on. And the doors were openI could see a few people running out. But most of them were just standing around in little groups, blinking at each other. Some of them were looking at the smear of blood where Carrie fell down. The water was washing it away. I took Tina's arm and started to pull her toward the exit sign. At that same instant there was a huge flash of light, a scream, and a horrible feedback whine. I looked around and saw Josie Vreck holding onto one of the mike stands. He couldn't let go. His eyes were bugging out and his hair was on end and it looked like he was dancing. His feet were sliding around in the water and smoke started to come out of his shirt. He fell over on one of the ampsthey were big ones, five or six feet highand it fell into the water. The feedback went up to a scream that was headsplitting, and then there was another sizzling flash and it stopped. Josie's shirt was on fire. Run! Tina yelled at me. Come on, Norma. Please! We ran out into the hallway, and something exploded backstagethe main power switches, I guess. For just a second I looked back. You could see right out onto the stage, where Tommy's body was, because the curtain was up. All the heavy light cables were in the air, flowing and jerking and writhing like snakes out of an Indian fakir's basket. Then one of them pulled in two. There was a violet flash when it hit the water, and then everybody was screaming at once. Then we were out the door and running across the parking lot. I think I was screaming. I don't remember very well. I don't remember anything very well after they started screaming. After those highvoltage cables hit that watercovered floor . . . For Tommy Ross, age eighteen, the end came swiftly and mercifully and almost without pain. He was never even aware that something of importance was happening. There was a clanging, clashing noise that he associated momentarily with (there go the milk buckets) a childhood memory of his Uncle Galen's farm and then with (somebody dropped something) the band below him. He caught a glimpse of Josie Vreck looking over his head (what have i got a halo or something) and then the quarterfull bucket of blood struck him. The raised lip along the bottom of the rim struck him on top of the head and (hey that hur) he went swiftly down into unconsciousness. He was still sprawled on the stage when the fire originating in the electrical equipment of Josie and the Moonglows spread to the mural of the Venetian boatman, and then to the rat warren of old uniforms, books, and papers backstage and overhead. He was dead when the oil tank exploded a half hour later. From the New England AP ticker, 1046 P.M. CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP) A FIRE IS RAGING OUT OF CONTROL AT EWEN (UWIN) CONSOLIDATED HIGH SCHOOL AT THIS TIME. A SCHOOL DANCE WAS IN PROGRESS AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK WHICH IS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN ELECTRICAL IN ORIGIN. WITNESSES SAY THAT THE SCHOOL'S SPRINKLER SYSTEM WENT ON WITHOUT WARNING, CAUSING A SHORTCIRCUIT IN THE EQUIPMENT OF A ROCK BAND. SOME WITNESSES ALSO REPORT BREAKS IN MAIN POWER CABLES. IT IS BELIEVED THAT AS MANY AS ONE HUNDRED AND TEN PERSONS MAY BE TRAPPED IN THE BLAZING SCHOOL GYMNASIUM. FIRE FIGHTING EQUIPMENT FROM THE NEIGHBORING TOWNS OF WESTOVER, MOTTON, AND LEWISTON HAVE REPORTEDLY RECEIVED REQUESTS FOR ASSISTANCE AND ARE NOW OR SHORTLY WILL BE EN ROUTE. AS YET, NO CASUALTIES HAVE BEEN REPORTED. ENDS. 1046 PM MAY 27 6904D AP From the New England AP ticker, 1122 P.M. URGENT CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP) A TREMENDOUS EXPLOSION HAS ROCKED THOMAS EWIN (UWIN) CONSOLIDATED HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SMALL MAINE TOWN OF CHAMBERLAIN. THREE CHAMBERLAIN FIRE TRUCKS, DISPATCHED EARLIER TO FIGHT A BLAZE AT THE GYMNASIUM WHERE A SCHOOL PROM WAS TAKING PLACE, HAVE ARRIVED TO NO AVAIL. ALL FIRE HYDRANTS IN THE AREA HAVE BEEN VANDALIZED, AND WATER PRESSURE FROM CITY MAINS IN THE AREA FROM SPRING STREET TO GRASS PLAZA IS REPORTED TO BE NIL. ONE FIRE OFFICIAL SAID THE DAMN THINGS WERE STRIPPED OF THEIR NOZZLES. THEY MUST HAVE SPOUTED LIKE GUSHERS WHILE THOSE KIDS WERE BURNING. THREE BODIES HAVE BEEN RECOVERED SO FAR. ONE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS THOMAS B. MEARS, A CHAMBERLAIN FIREMAN. THE TWO OTHERS WERE APPARENT PROMGOERS. THREE MORE CHAMBERLAIN FIREMEN HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO MOTTON RECEIVING HOSPITAL SUFFERING FROM MINOR BURNS AND SMOKE INHALATION. IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE EXPLOSION OCCURRED WHEN THE FIRE REACHED THE SCHOOL'S FUELOIL TANKS, WHICH ARE SITUATED NEAR THE GYMNASIUM. THE FIRE ITSELF IS BELIEVED TO HAVE STARTED IN POORLY INSULATED ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT FOLLOWING A SPRINKLER SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. ENDS. 1122 PM MAY 27 70119E AP Sue had only a driver's permit, but she took the keys to her mother's car from the pegboard beside the refrigerator and ran to the garage. The kitchen clock read exactly 1100. She flooded the car on her first try, and forced herself to wait before trying again. This time the motor coughed and caught, and she roared out of the garage heedlessly, dinging one fender. She turned around, and the rear wheels splurted gravel. Her mother's '77 Plymouth swerved onto the road, almost fishtailing onto the shoulder and making her feel sick to her stomach. It was only at this point that she realized she was moaning deep in her throat, like an animal in a trap. She did not pause at the stop sign that marked the intersection of Route 6 and the Back Chamberlain Road. Fire sirens filled the night in the east, where Chamberlain bordered Westover, and from the south behind herMotton. She was almost at the base of the hill when the school exploded. She jammed on the power brakes with both feet and was thrown into the steering wheel like a rag doll. The tires wailed on the pavement. Somehow she fumbled the door open and was out, shading her eyes against the glare. A gout of flame had ripped skyward, trailing a nimbus of fluttering steel roof panels, wood, and paper. The smell was thick and oily. Main Street was lit as if by a flashgun. In that terrible hallway between seconds, she saw that the entire gymnasium wing of Ewen High was a gutted, flaming ruin. Concussion struck a moment later, knocking her backward. Road litter blew past her in a sudden and tremendous rush, along with a blast of warm air that reminded her fleetingly of (the smell of subways) a trip she had taken to Boston the year before. The windows of Bill's Home Drugstore and the Kelly Fruit Company jingled and fell inward. She had fallen on her side, and the fire lit the street with hellish noonday. What happened next happened in slow motion as her mind ran steadily onward (dead are they all dead carrie why think carrie) at its own clip. Cars were rushing toward the scene, and some people were running in robes, nightshirts, pajamas. She saw a man come out of the front door of Chamberlain's combined police station and courthouse. He was moving slowly. The cars were moving slowly. Even the people running were moving slowly. She saw the man on the policestation steps cup his hand around his mouth and scream something; unclear over the shrieking town whistle, the fire sirens, the monstermouth of the fire. Sounded like Heyret! Don't hey that ass! The street was all wet down there. The light danced on the water. Down by Teddy's Amoco station. hey, that's And then the world exploded. From the sworn testimony of Thomas K. Quillan, taken before The State Investigatory Board of Maine in connection with the events of May 2728 in Chamberlain, Maine (abridged version which follows is from Black Prom The White Commission Report, Signet Books New York, 1980) Q. Mr. Quillan. are you a resident of Chamberlain? A. Yes. Q. What is your address? A. I got a room over the pool hall. That's where I work. I mop the floors, vacuum the tables, work on the machinespinball machines, you know. Q. Where were you on the night of May twentyseventh at 1030 P.M., Mr. Quillan? A. Well . . . actually, I was in a detention cell at the police station. I get paid on Thursdays, see. And I always go out and get bombed. I go out to The Cavalier, drink some Schlitz, play a little poker out back. But I get mean when I drink. Feels like the Roller Derby's going on in my head. Bummer, huh? Once I conked a guy over the head with a chair and Q. Was it your habit to go to the police station when you felt these fits of temper coming on? A. Yeah. Big Otis, he's a friend of mine. Q. Are you referring to Sheriff Otis Doyle of this county? A. Yeah. He told me to pop in any time I started feeling mean. The night before the prom, a bunch of us guys were in the back room down at The Cavalier playing stud poker and I got to thinking Fast Marcel Dubay was cheating. I would have known better sobera Frenchman's idea of pullin' a fast one is to look at his own cardsbut that got me going. I'd had a couple of beers, you know, so I folded my hand and went on down to the station. Plessy was catching, and he locked me right up in Holding Cell Number 1. Plessy's a good boy. I knew his mom, but that was many years ago. Q. Mr. Quillan, do you suppose we could discuss the night of the twentyseventh? 1030 P.M.? A. Ain't we? Q. I devoutly hope so. Continue. A. Well, Plessy locked me up around quarter of two on Friday morning, and I popped right off to sleep. Passed out, you might say. Woke up around four o'clock the next afternoon, took three AlkaSeltzers, and went back to sleep. I got a knack that way. I can sleep until my hangover's all gone. Big Otis says I should find out how I do it and take out a patent. He says I could save the world a lot of pain. Q. I'm sure you could, Mr. Quillan. Now when did you wake up again? A. Around ten o'clock on Friday night. I was pretty hungry, so I decided to go get some chow down at the diner. Q. They left you all alone in an open cell? A. Sure. I'm a fantastic guy when I'm sober. In fact, one time Q. Just tell the Committee what happened when you left the cell. A. The fire whistle went off, that's what happened. Scared the bejesus out of me. I ain't heard that whistle at night since the Viet Nam war ended. So I ran upstairs and sonofabitch, there's no one in the office. I say to myself, hot damn, Plessy's gonna get it for this. There's always supposed to be somebody catching, in case there's a callin. So I went over to the window and looked out. Q. Could the school be seen from that window? A. Sure. It's on the other side of the street, a block and a half down. People were running around and yelling. And that's when I saw Carrie White. Q. Had you ever seen Carrie White before? A. Nope. Q. Then how did you know it was she? A. That's hard to explain. Q. Could you see her clearly? A. She was standing under a street light, by the fire hydrant on the corner of Main and Spring. Q. Did something happen? A. I guess to Christ. The whole top of the hydrant exploded off three different ways. Left, right, and straight up to heaven. Q. What time did this . . . uh . . . malfunction occur? A. Around twenty to eleven. Couldn't have been no later. Q. What happened then? A. She started downtown. Mister, she looked awful. She was wearing some kind of party dress, what was left of it, and she was all wet from that hydrant and covered with blood. She looked like she just crawled out of a car accident. But she was grinning. I never saw such a grin. It was like a death's head. And she kept looking at her hands and rubbing them on her dress, trying to get the blood off and thinking she'd never get it off and how she was going to pour blood on the whole town and make them pay. It was awful stuff. Q. How would you have any idea what she was thinking? A. I don't know. I can't explain. Q. For the remainder of your testimony, I wish you would stick to what you saw, Mr. Quillan. A. Okay. There was a hydrant on the corner of Grass Plaza, and that one went, too. I could see that one better. The big lug nuts on the sides were unscrewing themselves. I saw that happening. It blew, just like the other one. And she was happy. She was saying to herself, that'll give 'em a shower, that'll . . . whoops, sorry. The fire trucks started to go by then, and I lost track of her. The new pumper pulled up to the school and they started on those hydrants and saw they wasn't going to get no water. Chief Burton was hollering at them, and that's when the school exploded. Jesus. Q. Did you leave the police station? A. Yeah. I wanted to find Plessy and tell him about that crazy broad and the fire hydrants. I glanced over at Teddy's Amoco, and I seen something that made my blood run cold. All six gas pumps was off their hooks. Teddy Duchamp's been dead since 1968, God love him, but his boy locked those pumps up every night just like Teddy himself used to do. Every one of them Yale padlocks was hanging busted by their hasps. The nozzles were laying on the tarmac, and the automatic feeds was set on every one. Gas was pouring out onto the sidewalk and into the street. Holy mother of God, when I seen that, my balls drew right up. Then I saw this guy running along with a lighted cigarette. Q. What did you do? A. Hollered at him. Something like Hey! Watch that cigarette! Hey don't, that's gas! He never heard me. Fire sirens and the town whistle and cars ripassing up and down the street, I don't wonder. I saw he was going to pitch it, so I started to duck back inside. Q. What happened next? A. Next? Why, next thing, the Devil came to Chamberlain . . . When the buckets fell, she was at first only aware of a loud, metallic clang cutting through the music, and then she was deluged in warmth and wetness. She closed her eyes instinctively. There was a grunt from beside her, and in the part of her mind that had come so recently awake, she sensed brief pain. (tommy) The music came to a crashing, discordant halt, a few voices hanging on after it like broken strings, and in the sudden deadness of anticipation, filling the gap between event and realization, like doom, she heard someone say quite clearly My God, that's blood. A moment later, as if to ram the truth of it home, to make it utterly and exactly clear, someone screamed. Carrie sat with her eyes closed and felt the black bulge of terror rising in her mind. Momma had been right, after all. They had taken her again, gulled her again, made her the butt again. The horror of it should have been monotonous, but it was not; they had gotten her up here, up here in front of the whole school, and had repeated the showerroom scene . . . only the voice had said (my god that's blood) something too awful to be contemplated. If she opened her eyes and it was true, oh, what then? What then? Someone began to laugh, a solitary, affrighted hyena sound, and she did open her eyes, opened them to see who it was and it was true, the final nightmare, she was red and dripping with it, they had drenched her in the very secretness of blood, in front of all of them and her thought (oh . . . i . . . COVERED . . . with it) was colored a ghastly purple with her revulsion and her shame. She could smell herself and it was the stink of blood, the awful wet, coppery smell. In a flickering kaleidoscope of images she saw the blood running thickly down her naked thighs, heard the constant beating of the shower on the tiles, felt the soft patter of tampons and napkins against her skin as voices exhorted her to plug it UP, tasted the plump, fulsome bitterness of horror. They had finally given her the shower they wanted. A second voice joined the first, and was followed by a thirdgirl's soprano gigglea fourth, a fifth, six, a dozen, all of them, all laughing. Vic Mooney was laughing. She could see him. His face was utterly frozen, shocked, but that laughter issued forth just the same. She sat quite still, letting the noise wash over her like surf. They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil. In this one she would bite a poison apple, be attacked by trolls, be eaten by tigers. They were laughing at her again. And suddenly it broke. The horrible realization of how badly she had been cheated came over her, and a horrible, soundless cry (they're LOOKING at me) tried to come out of her. She put her hands over her face to hide it and staggered out of the chair. Her only thought was to run, to get out of the light, to let the darkness have her and hide her. But it was like trying to run through molasses. Her traitor mind had slowed time to a crawl; it was as if God had switched the whole scene from 78 rpm to 33 13. Even the laughter seemed to have deepened and slowed to a sinister bass rumble. Her feet tangled in each other, and she almost fell off the edge of the stage. She recovered herself, bent down, and hopped down to the floor. The grinding laughter swelled louder. It was like rocks rubbing together. She wanted not to see, but she did see; the lights were too bright and she could see all their faces. Their mouths, their teeth, their eyes. She could see her own gorestreaked hands in front of her face. Miss Desjardin was running toward her, and Miss Desjardin's face was filled with lying compassion. Carrie could see beneath the surface to where the real Miss Desjardin was giggling and chuckling with rancid oldmaid ribaldry.

Miss Desjardin's mouth opened and her voice issued forth, horrible and slow and deep Let me help you, dear. Oh I am so sor She struck out at her (flex) and Miss Desjardin went flying to rattle off the wall at the side of the stage and fall into a heap. Carrie ran. She ran through the middle of them. Her hands were to her face but she could see through the prison of her fingers, could see them, how they were, beautiful, wrapped in light, swathed in the bright, angelic robes of Acceptance. The shined shoes, the clear faces, the careful beautyparlor hairdos, the glittery gowns. They stepped back from her as if she was plague, but they kept laughing. Then a foot was stuck slyly out (o yes that comes next o yes) and she fell over on her hands and knees and began to crawl, to crawl along the floor with her bloodclotted hair hanging in her face, crawling like St. Paul on the Damascus Road, whose eyes had been blinded by the light. Next someone would kick her ass. But no one did and then she was scrabbling to her feet again. Things began to speed up. She was out through the door, out into the lobby, then flying down the stairs that she and Tommy had swept up so grandly two hours ago. (tommy's dead full price paid full price for bringing a plague into the place of light) She went down them in great, awkward leaps, with the sound of the laughter flapping around her like black birds. Then, darkness. She fled across the school's wide front lawn, losing both of her prom slippers and fleeing barefoot. The closely cut school lawn was like velvet, lightly dusted with dewfall, and the laughter was behind her. She began to calm slightly. Then her feet did tangle and she fell at full length out by the flagpole. She lay quiescent, breathing raggedly, her hot face buried in the cool grass. The tears of shame began to flow, as hot and as heavy as that first flow of menstrual blood had been. They had beaten her, bested her, once and for all time. It was over. She would pick herself up very soon now, and sneak home by the back streets, keeping to the shadows in case someone came looking for her, find Momma, admit she had been wrong (!! NO !!) The steel in herand there was a great deal of itsuddenly rose up and cried the word out strongly. The closet? The endless, wandering prayers? The tracts and the cross and only the mechanical bird in the Black Forest cuckoo clock to mark off the rest of the hours and days and years and decades of her life? Suddenly, as if a videotape machine had been turned on in her mind, she saw Miss Desjardin running toward her, and saw her thrown out of her way like a rag doll as she used her mind on her, without even consciously thinking of it. She rolled over on her back, eyes staring wildly at the stars from her painted face. She was forgetting (!! THE POWER!!) It was time to teach them a lesson. Time to show them a thing or two. She giggled hysterically. It was one of Momma's pet phrases. (momma coming home putting her purse down eyeglasses flashing well i guess i showed that elt a thing or two at the shop today) There was the sprinkler system. She could turn it on, turn it on easily. She giggled again and got up, began to walk barefoot back toward the lobby doors. Turn on the sprinkler system and close all the doors. Look in and let them see her looking in, watching and laughing while the shower ruined their dresses and their hairdos and took the shine off their shoes. Her only regret was that it couldn't be blood. The lobby was empty. She paused halfway up the stairs and FLEX, the doors all slammed shut under the concentrated force she directed at them, the pneumatic doorclosers snapping off. She heard some of them scream and it was music, sweet soul music. For a moment nothing changed and then she could feel them pushing against the doors, wanting them to open. The pressure was negligible. They were trapped (trapped) and the word echoed intoxicatingly in her mind. They were under her thumb, in her power. Power! What a word that was! She went the rest of the way up and looked in and George Dawson was smashed up against the glass, struggling, pushing, his face distorted with effort. There were others behind him, and they all looked like fish in an aquarium. She glanced up and yes, there were the sprinkler pipes, with their tiny nozzles like metal daisies. The pipes went through small holes in the green cinderblock wall. There were a great many inside, she remembered. Fire laws, or something. Fire laws. In a flash her mind recalled (black thick cords like snakes) the power cords strung all over the stage. They were out of the audience's sight, hidden by the footlights, but she had had to step carefully over them to get to the throne. Tommy had been holding her arm. (fire and water) She reached up with her mind, felt the pipes, traced them. Cold, full of water. She tasted iron in her mouth, cold wet metal, the taste of water drunk from the nozzle of a garden hose. Flex. For a moment nothing happened. Then they began to back away from the doors, looking around. She walked to the small oblong of glass in the middle door and looked inside. It was raining in the gym. Carrie began to smile. She hadn't gotten all of them, only some. But she found that by looking up at the sprinkler system with her eyes, she could trace its course more easily with her mind. She began to turn on more of the nozzles, and more. Yet it wasn't enough. They weren't crying yet, so it wasn't enough. (hurt them then hurt them) There was a boy up on stage by Tommy, gesturing wildly and shouting something. As she watched, he climbed down and ran toward the rock band's equipment. He caught hold of one of the microphone stands and was transfixed. Carrie watched, amazed, as his body went through a nearly motionless dance of electricity. His feet shuffled in the water, his hair stood up in spikes, and his mouth jerked open, like the mouth of a fish. He looked funny. She began to laugh. (by christ then let them all look funny) And in a sudden, blind thrust, she yanked at all the power she could feel. Some of the lights puffed out. There was a dazzling flash somewhere as a live power cord hit a puddle of water. There were dull thumps in her mind as circuit breakers went into hopeless operation. The boy who had been holding the mike stand fell over on one of his amps and there was an explosion of purple sparks and then the crepe bunting that faced the stage was burning. Just below the thrones, a live 220volt electricity cable was crackling on the floor and beside it Rhonda Simard was doing a crazed puppet dance in her green tulle formal. Its full skirt suddenly blazed into flame and she fell forward, still jerking. It might have been at that moment that Carrie went over the edge. She leaned against the doors, her heart pumping wildly, yet her body as cold as ice cubes. Her face was livid, but dull red fever spots stood on each cheek. Her head throbbed thickly, and conscious thought was lost. She reeled away from the doors, still holding them shut, doing it without thought or plan. Inside the fire was brightening and she realized dimly that the mural must have caught on fire. She collapsed on the top step and put her head down on her knees, trying to slow her breathing. They were trying to get out the doors again, but she held them shut easilythat alone was no strain. Some obscure sense told her that a few were getting out the fire doors, but let them. She would get them later. She would get all of them. Every last one. She went down the stairs slowly and out the front doors, still holding the gymnasium doors closed. It was easy. All you had to do was see them in your mind. The town whistle went off suddenly, making her scream and put her hands in front of her face (the whistle it's just the fire whistle) for a moment. Her mind's eye lost sight of the gymnasium doors and some of them almost got out. No, no. Naughty. She slammed them shut again, catching somebody's fingersit felt like Dale Norbertin the jamb and severing one of them. She began to reel across the lawn again, a scarecrow figure with bulging eyes, toward Main Street. On her right was downtownthe department store, the Kelly Fruit, the beauty parlor and barbershop, gas stations, police station, fire station (they'll put out my fire) But they wouldn't. She began to giggle and it was an insane sound triumphant, lost, victorious, terrified. She came to the first hydrant and tried to twist the huge painted lug nut on the side. (ohuh) It was heavy. It was very heavy. Metal twisted tight to balk her. Didn't matter. She twisted harder and felt it give. Then the other side. Then the top. Then she twisted all three at once, standing back, and they unscrewed in a flash. Water exploded outward and upward, one of the lug nuts flying five feet in front of her at suicidal speed. It hit the street, caromed high into the air, and was gone. Water gushed with white pressure in a cruciform pattern. Smiling, staggering, her heart beating at over two hundred per minute, she began to walk down toward Grass Plaza. She was unaware that she was scrubbing her bloodied hands against her dress like Lady Macbeth, or that she was weeping even as she laughed, or that one hidden part of her mind was keening over her final and utter ruin. Because she was going to take them with her, and there was going to be a great burning, until the land was full of its stink. She opened the hydrant at Grass Plaza, and then began to walk down to Teddy's Amoco. It happened to the first gas station she came to, but it was not the last. From the sworn testimony of Sheriff Otis Doyle, taken before The State Investigatory Board of Maine (from The White Commission Report), p. 2931 Q. Sheriff, where were you on the night of May twentyseventh? A. I was on Route 179, known as Old Bentown Road, investigating an automobile accident. This was actually over the Chamberlain town line and into Durham, but I was assisting Mel Crager, who is the Durham constable. Q. When were you first informed that trouble had broken out at Ewen High School? A. I received a radio transmission from Officer Jacob Plessy at 1021. Q. What was the nature of the radio call? A. Officer Plessy said there was trouble at the school, but he didn't know if it was serious or not. There was a lot of shouting going on, he said, and someone had pulled a couple of fire alarms. He said he was going over to try and determine the nature of the trouble. Q. Did he say the school was on fire? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ask him to report back to you? A. I did. Q. Did Officer Plessy report back? A. No. He was killed in the subsequent explosion of Teddy's Amoco gas station on the corner of Main and Summer. Q. When did you next have a radio communication concerning Chamberlain? A. At 1042. I was at that time returning to Chamberlain with a suspect in the back of my cara drunk driver. As I have said, the case was actually in Mel Crager's town, but Durham has no jail. When I got him to Chamberlain, we didn't have much of one, either. Q. What communication did you receive at 1042? A. I got a call from the State Police that had been relayed from the Motton Fire Department. The State Police dispatcher said there was a fire and an apparent riot at Ewen High School, and a probable explosion. No one was sure of anything at that time. Remember, it all happened in a space of forty minutes. Q. We understand that, Sheriff. What happened then? A. I drove back to Chamberlain with siren and flasher. I was trying to raise Jake Plessy and not having any luck. That's when Tom Quillan came on and started to babble about the whole town going up in flames and no water. Q. Do you know what time that was? A. Yes, sir. I was keeping a record by then. It was 1058. Q. Quillan claims the Amoco station exploded at 1100. A. I'd take the average, sir. Call it 1059. Q. At what time did you arrive in Chamberlain? A. At 1110 P.M. Q. What was your immediate impression upon arriving, Sheriff Doyle? A. I was stunned. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Q. What exactly were you seeing? A. The entire upper half of the town's business section was burning. The Amoco station was gone. Woolworth's was nothing but a blazing frame. The fire had spread to three wooden store fronts next to thatDuffy's Bar and Grille, the Kelly Fruit Company, and the billiard parlor. The heat was ferocious. Sparks were flying onto the roofs of the Maitland Real Estate Agency and Doug Brann's Western Auto Store. Fire trucks were coming in, but they could do very little. Every fire hydrant on that side of the street was stripped. The only trucks doing any business at all were two old volunteer fire department pumpers from Westover, and about all they could do was wet the roofs of the surrounding buildings. And of course the high school. It was just. . . gone. Of course it's fairly isolatednothing close enough to it to burnbut my God, all those kids inside. . . all those kids. . . Q. Did you meet Susan Snell upon entering town? A. Yes, sir. She flagged me down. Q. What time was this? A. Just as I entered town . . . 1112, no later. Q. What did she say? A. She was distraught. She'd been in a minor car accidentskiddingand she was barely making sense. She asked me if Tommy was dead. I asked her who Tommy was, but she didn't answer. She asked me if we had caught Carrie yet. Q. The Commission is extremely interested in this part of your testimony, Sheriff Doyle. A. Yes, sir, I know that. Q. How did you respond to her question? A. Well, there's only one Carrie in town as far as I know, and that's Margaret White's daughter. I asked her if Carrie had something to do with the fires. Miss Snell told me Carrie had done it. Those were her words. Carrie did it. Carrie did it. She said it twice. Q. Did she say anything else? A. Yes, sir. She said They've hurt Carrie for the last time. Q. Sheriff, are you sure she didn't say We've hurt Carrie for the last time? A. I am quite sure. Q. Are you positive? One hundred per cent? A. Sir, the town was burning around our heads. I Q. Had she been drinking? A. I beg pardon? Q. Had she been drinking? You said she had been involved in a car smash. A. I believe I said a minor skidding accident. Q. And you can't be sure she didn't say we instead of they? A. I guess she might have, but Q. What did Miss Snell do then? A. She burst into tears. I slapped her. Q. Why did you do that? A. She seemed hysterical. Q. Did she quiet eventually? A. Yes, sir. She quieted down and got control of herself pretty well, in light of the fact that her boy friend was probably dead. Q. Did you interrogate her? A. Well, not the way you'd interrogate a criminal, if that's what you mean. I asked her if she knew anything about what had happened. She repeated what she had already said, but in a calmer way. I asked her where she had been when the trouble began, and she told me that she had been at home. Q. Did you interrogate her further? A. No, sir. Q. Did she say anything else to you? A. Yes, sir. She asked mebegged meto find Carrie White. Q. What was your reaction to that? A. I told her to go home. Q. Thank you, Sheriff Doyle. Vic Mooney lurched out of the shadows near the Bankers Trust drivein office with a grin on his face. It was a huge and awful grin, a Cheshire cat grin, floating dreamily in the fireshot darkness like a trace memory of lunacy. His hair, carefully slicked down for his emcee duties, was now sticking up in a crow's nest. Tiny drops of blood were branded across his forehead from some unremembered fall in his mad flight from the Spring Ball. One eye was swelled purple and screwed shut. He walked into Sheriff Doyle's squad car, bounced back like a pool ball, and grinned in at the drunk driver dozing in the back. Then he turned to Doyle, who had just finished with Sue Snell. The fire cast wavering shadows of light across everything, turning the world into the maroon tones of dried blood. As Doyle turned, Vic Mooney clutched him. He clutched Doyle as an amorous swain might clutch his lady in a hug dance. He clutched Doyle with both arms and squeezed him, all the while goggling upward into Doyle's face with his great crazed grin. Vic Doyle began. She pulled all the plugs, Vic said lightly, grinning. Pulled all the plugs and turned on the water and buzz, buzz, buzz. Vic We can't let 'em. Oh no. NoNoNo. We can't. Carrie pulled all the plugs. Rhonda Simard burnt up. Oh Jeeeeeeeeeesuuuuuuuuussss Doyle slapped him twice, callused palm cracking flatly on the boy's face. The scream died with shocking suddenness, but the grin remained, like an echo of evil. It was loose and terrible. What happened? Doyle said roughly. What happened at the school? Carrie, Vic muttered. Carrie happened at the school. She . . . He trailed off and grinned at the ground. Doyle gave him three brisk shakes. Vic's teeth clicked together like castanets. What about Carrie? Queen of the Prom, Vic muttered. They dumped blood on her and Tommy. What It was 1115. Tony's Citgo on Summer Street suddenly exploded with a great, coughing roar. The street went daylight that made them both stagger back against the police car and shield their eyes. A huge, oily cloud of fire climbed over the elms in Courthouse Park, lighting the duck pond and the Little League diamond in scarlet. Amid the hungry crackling roar that followed, Doyle could hear glass and wood and hunks of gasstation cinderblock rattling back to earth. A secondary explosion followed, making them wince again. He still couldn't get it straight (my town this is happening in my town) that this was happening in Chamberlain, in Chamberlain, for God's sake, where he drank iced tea on his mother's sun porch and refereed PAL basketball and made one last cruise out Route 6 past The Cavalier before turning in at 230 every morning. His town was burning up. Tom Quillan came out of the police station and ran down the sidewalk to Doyle's cruiser. His hair was standing up every which way, he was dressed in dirty green work fatigues and an undershirt and he had his loafers on the wrong feet, but Doyle thought he had never been so glad to see anyone in his life. Tom Quillan was as much Chamberlain as anything, and he was hereintact. Holy God, he panted. Did you see that? What's been happening? Doyle asked curtly. I been monitorin' the radio, Quillan said. Motton and Westover wanted to know if they should send ambulances and I said hell yes, send everything. Hearses too. Did I do right? Yes. Doyle ran his hands through his hair. Have you seen Harry Block? Block was the town's Commissioner of Public Utilities, and that included water. Nope. But Chief Deighan says they got water in the old Rennett Block across town. They're laying hose now. I collared some kids, and they're settin' up a hospital in the police station. They're good boys, but they're gonna get blood on your floor, Otis. Otis Doyle felt unreality surge over him. Surely this conversation couldn't be happening in Chamberlain. Couldn't. That's all right, Tommy. You did right. You go back there and start calling every doctor in the phone book. I'm going over to Summer Street. Okay, Otis. If you see that crazy broad, be careful. Who? Doyle was not a barking man, but now he did. Tom Quillan flinched back. Carrie. Carrie White. Who? How do you know? Quillan blinked slowly. I dunno. It just sort of . . . came to me. From the national AP ticker, 1146 P.M. CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP) A DISASTER OF MAJOR PROPORTIONS HAS STRUCK THE TOWN OF CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE, TONIGHT. A FIRE, BELIEVED TO HAVE BEGUN AT EWEN (UWIN) HIGH SCHOOL DURING A SCHOOL DANCE, HAS SPREAD TO THE DOWNTOWN AREA, RESULTING IN MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS THAT HAVE LEVELED MUCH OF THE DOWNTOWN AREA. A RESIDENTIAL AREA TO THE WEST OF THE DOWNTOWN AREA IS ALSO REPORTED TO BE BURNING. HOWEVER, MOST CONCERN AT THIS TIME IS OVER THE HIGH SCHOOL WHERE A JUNIORSENIOR PROM WAS BEING HELD. IT IS BELIEVED THAT MANY OF THE PROMGOERS WERE TRAPPED INSIDE. A WESTOVER FIRE OFFICIAL SUMMONED TO THE SCENE SAID THE KNOWN TOTAL OF DEAD STOOD AT SIXTYSEVEN, MOST OF THEM HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. ASKED HOW HIGH THE TOTAL MIGHT GO HE SAID WE DON'T KNOW. WE'RE AFRAID TO GUESS. THIS IS GOING TO BE WORSE THAN THE COCONUT GROVE. AT LAST REPORT THREE FIRES WERE RAGING OUT OF CONTROL IN THE TOWN. REPORTS OF POSSIBLE ARSON ARE UNCONFIRMED. ENDS. 1146 PM MAY 27 8943F AP There were no more AP reports from Chamberlain. At 1206 A.M., a Jackson Avenue gas main was opened. At 1217, an ambulance attendant from Motton tossed out a cigarette butt as the rescue vehicle sped toward Summer Street. The explosion destroyed nearly half a block at a stroke, including the offices of the Chamberlain Clarion. By 1218 A.M., Chamberlain was cut off from the country that slept in reason beyond. At 1210, still seven minutes before the gasmain explosion, the telephone exchange experienced a softer explosion a complete jam of every town phone line still in operation. The three harried girls on duty stayed at their posts but were utterly unable to cope. They worked with expressions of wooden horror on their faces, trying to place unplaceable calls. And so Chamberlain drifted into the streets. They came like an invasion from the graveyard that lay in the elbow crook formed by the intersection of the Bellsqueeze Road and Route 6; they came in white nightgowns and in robes, as if in winding shrouds. They came in pajamas and curlers (Mrs. Dawson, she of the nowdeceased son who had been a very funny fellow, came in a mudpack as if dressed for a minstrel show); they came to see what happened to their town, to see if it was indeed lying burned and bleeding. Many of them also came to die. Carlin Street was thronged with them, a riptide of them, moving downtown through the hectic light in the sky, when Carrie came out of the Carlin Street Congregational Church, where she had been praying. She had gone in only five minutes before, after opening the gas main (it had been easy; as soon as she pictured it lying there under the street it had been easy), but it seemed like hours. She had prayed long and deeply, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently. Her heart thudded and labored. The veins on her face and neck bulged. Her mind was filled with the huge knowledge of POWERS, and of an ABYSS. She prayed in front of the altar, kneeling in her wet and torn and bloody gown, her feet bare and dirty and bleeding from a broken bottle she had stepped on. Her breath sobbed in and out of her throat, and the church was filled with groanings and swayings and sunderings as psychic energy sprang from her. Pews fell, hymnals flew, and a silver Communion set cruised silently across the vaulted darkness of the nave to crash into the far wall. She prayed and there was no answer. No one was thereor if there was, HeIt was cowering from her. God had turned His face away, and why not? This horror was as much His doing as hers. And so she left the church, left it to go home and find her momma and make destruction complete. She paused on the lower step, looking at the flocks of people streaming toward the center of town. Animals. Let them burn, then. Let the streets be filled with the smell of their sacrifice. Let this place be called racca, ichabod, wormwood. Flex. And power transformers atop lightpoles bloomed into nacreous purple light, spitting catherinewheel sparks. Hightension wires fell into the streets in pickupsticks tangles and some of them ran, and that was bad for them because now the whole street was littered with wires and the stink began, the burning began. People began to scream and back away and some touched the cables and went into jerky electrical dances. Some had already slumped into the street, their robes and pajamas smoldering. Carrie turned back and looked fixedly at the church she had just left. The heavy door suddenly swung shut, as if in a hurricane wind. Carrie turned toward home. From the sworn testimony of Mrs. Cora Simard, taken before The State Investigatory Board (from The White Commission Report), pp. 21718 Q. Mrs. Simard, the Board understands that you lost your daughter on Prom Night, and we sympathize with you deeply. We will make this as brief as possible. A. Thank you. I want to help if I can, of course. Q. Were you on Carlin Street at approximately 1212, when Carietta White came out of the First Congregational Church on that street? A. Yes. Q. Why were you there? A. My husband had to be in Boston over the weekend on business and Rhonda was at the Spring Ball. I was home alone watching TV and waiting up for her. I was watching the Friday Night Movie when the town hall whistle went off, but I didn't connect that with the dance. But then the explosion . . . I didn't know what to do. I tried to call the police but got a busy signal after the first three numbers. I . . . I . . . Then . . . Q. Take your time, Mrs. Simard. All the time you need. A. I was getting frantic. There was a second explosionTeddy's Amoco station, I know nowand I decided to go downtown and see what was happening. There was a glow in the sky, an awful glow. That was when Mrs. Shyres pounded on the door. Q. Mrs. Georgette Shyres? A. Yes, they live around the corner. 217 Willow. That's just off Carlin Street. She was pounding and calling Cora, are you in there? Are you in there? I went to the door. She was in her bathrobe and slippers. Her feet looked cold. She said they had called Westover to see if they knew anything and they told her the school was on fire. I said Oh dear God, Rhonda's at the dance. Q. Is this when you decided to go downtown with Mrs. Shyres? A. We didn't decide anything. We just went. I put on a pair of slippersRhonda's, I think. They had little white puffballs on them. I should have worn my shoes, but I wasn't thinking. I guess I'm not thinking now. What do you want to hear about my shoes for? Q. You tell it in your own way, Mrs. Simard. A. TThank you. I gave Mrs. Shyres some old jacket that was around, and we went. Q. Were there many people walking down Carlin Street? A. I don't know. I was too upset. Maybe thirty. Maybe more. Q. What happened? A. Georgette and I were walking toward Main Street, holding hands just like two little girls walking across a meadow after dark. Georgette's teeth were clicking. I remember that. I wanted to ask her to stop clicking her teeth, but I thought it would be impolite. A block and a half from the Congo Church, I saw the door open and I thought Someone has gone in to ask God's help. But a second later I knew that wasn't true. Q. How did you know? It would be logical to assume just what you first assumed, wouldn't it? A. I just knew. Q. Did you know the person who came out of the church? A. Yes. It was Carrie White. Q. Had you ever seen Carrie White before? A. No. She was not one of my daughter's friends. Q. Had you ever seen a picture of Carrie White? A. No. Q. And in any case, it was dark and you were a block and a half from the church. A. Yes, sir. Q. Mrs. Simard, how did you know it was Carrie White? A. I just knew. Q. This knowing, Mrs. Simard was it like a light going on in your head? A. No, sir. Q. What was it like? A. I can't tell you. It faded away the way a dream does. An hour after you get up you can only remember you had a dream. But I knew. Q. Was there an emotional feeling that went with this knowledge? A. Yes. Horror. Q. What did you do then? A. I turned to Georgette and said There she is. Georgette said Yes, that's her. She started to say something else, and then the whole street was lit up by a bright glow and there were crackling noises and then the power lines started to fall into the street, some of them spitting live sparks. One of them hit a man in front of us and he bburst into flames. Another man started to run and he stepped on one of them and his body just . . . arched backward, as if his back had turned into elastic. And then he fell down. Other people were screaming and running, just running blindly, and more and more cables fell. They were strung all over the place like snakes. And she was glad about it. Glad! I could feel her being glad. I knew I had to keep my head. The people who were running were getting electrocuted. Georgette said Quick, Cora. Oh God, I don't want to get burned alive. I said Stop that. We have to use our heads, Georgette, or we'll never use them again. Something foolish like that. But she wouldn't listen. She let go of my hand and started to run for the sidewalk. I screamed at her to stopthere was one of those heavy main cables broken off right in front of usbut she didn't listen. And she . . . she . . . oh, I could smell her when she started to burn. Smoke just seemed to burst out of her clothes and I thought that's what it must be like when someone gets electrocuted. The smell was sweet, like pork. Have any of you ever smelled that? Sometimes I smell it in my dreams. I stood dead still, watching Georgette Shyres turn black. There was a big explosion over in the West Endthe gas main, I supposebut I never even noticed it. I looked around and I was all alone. Everyone else had either run away or was burning. I saw maybe six bodies. They were like piles of old rags. One of the cables had fallen onto the porch of a house to the left, and it was catching on fire. I could hear the oldfashioned shake shingles popping like corn. It seemed like I stood there a long time, telling myself to keep my head. It seemed like hours. I began to be afraid that I would faint and fall on one of the cables, or that I would panic and start to run. Like . . . like Georgette. So I started to walk. One step at a time. The street got even brighter, because of the burning house. I stepped over two live wires and went around a body that wasn't much more than a puddle. III had to look to see where I was going. There was a wedding ring on the body's hand, but it was all black. All black. Jesus, I was thinking. Oh dear Lord. I stepped over another cable and then there were three, all at once. I just stood there looking at them. I thought if I got over those I'd be all right but . . . I didn't dare. Do you know what I kept thinking of? That game you play when you're kids. Giant Step. A voice in my mind was saying, Cora, take one giant step over the live wires in the street. And I was thinking May I? May I? One of them was still spitting a few sparks, but the other two looked dead. But you can't tell. The third rail looks dead too. So I stood there, waiting for someone to come and nobody did. The house was still burning and the flames had spread to the lawn and the trees and the hedge beside it. But no fire trucks came. Of course they didn't. The whole west side was burning up by that time. And I felt so faint And at last I knew it was take the giant step or faint and so I took it, as big a giant step as I could, and the heel of my slipper came down not an inch from the last wire. Then I got over and went around the end of one more wire and then I started to run. And that's all I remember. When morning came I was lying on a blanket in the police station with a lot of other people. Some of thema fewwere kids in their prom getups and I started to ask them if they had seen Rhonda. And they said . . . they sssaid . . . (A short recess) Q. You are personally sure that Carrie White did this? A. Yes. Q. Thank you, Mrs. Simard. A. I'd like to ask a question, if you please. Q. Of course. A. What happens if there are others like her? What happens to the world? From The Shadow Exploded (p. 151) By 1245 on the morning of May 28, the situation in Chamberlain was critical. The school had burned itself out on a fairly isolated piece of ground, but the entire downtown area was ablaze. Almost all the city water in that area had been tapped, but enough was available (at low pressure) from Deighan Street water mains to save the business buildings below the intersection of Main and Oak streets.

The explosion of Tony's Citgo on upper Summer Street had resulted in a ferocious fire that was not to be controlled until nearly ten o'clock that morning. There was water on Summer Street; there simply were no firemen or firefighting equipment to utilize it. Equipment was then on its way from Lewiston, Auburn, Lisbon, and Brunswick, but nothing arrived until one o'clock. On Carlin Street, an electrical fire, caused by downed power lines, had begun. It was to eventually gut the entire north side of the street, including the bungalow where Margaret White gave birth to her daughter. On the West End of town, just below what is commonly called Brickyard Hill, the worst disaster had taken place the explosion of a gas main and a resulting fire that raged out of control through most of the next day. And if we look at these flash points on a municipal map (see page facing), we can pick out Carrie's routea wandering, looping path of destruction through the town, but one with an almost certain destination home. . . . Something toppled over in the living room, and Margaret White straightened up, cocking her head to one side. The butcher knife glittered dully in the light of the flames. The electric power had gone off sometime before, and the only light in the house came from the fire up the street. One of the pictures fell from the wall with a thump. A moment later the Black Forest cuckoo clock fell. The mechanical bird gave a small, strangled squawk and was still. From the town the sirens whooped endlessly, but she could still hear the footsteps when they turned up the walk. The door blew open. Steps in the hall. She heard the plaster plaques in the living room (CHRIST, THE UNSEEN GUEST; WHAT WOULD JESUS DO; THE HOUR DRAWETH NIGH IF TONIGHT BECAME JUDGMENT, WOULD YOU BE READY) explode one after the other, like plaster birds in a shooting gallery. (o i've been there and seen the harlots shimmy on wooden stages) She sat up on her stool like a very bright scholar who has gone to the head of the class. But her eyes were deranged. The livingroom windows blew outward. The kitchen door slammed and Carrie walked in. Her body seemed to have become twisted, shrunken, cronelike. The prom dress was in tatters and flaps, and the pig blood had began to clot and streak. There was a smudge of grease on her forehead, and both knees were scraped and rawlooking. Momma, she whispered. Her eyes were preternaturally bright, hawklike, but her mouth was trembling. If someone had been there to watch, he would have been struck by the resemblance between them. Margaret White sat on her kitchen stool, the carving knife hidden among the folds of her dress in her lap. I should have killed myself when he put it in me, she said clearly. After the first time, before we were married, he promised. Never again. He said we just . . . slipped. I believed him. I fell down and I lost the baby and that was God's judgment. I felt that the sin had been expiated. By blood. But sin never dies. Sin . . . never . . . dies. Her eyes glittered. Momma, I At first it was all right. We lived sinlessly. We slept in the same bed, belly to belly sometimes, and o, I could feel the presence of the Serpent, but we. never. did. until. She began to grin, and it was a hard, terrible grin. And that night I could see him looking at me That Way. We got down on our knees to pray for strength and he . . . touched me. In that place. That woman place. And I sent him out of the house. He was gone for hours, and I prayed for him. I could see him in my mind's eye, walking the midnight streets, wrestling with the devil as Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord. And when he came back, my heart was filled with thanksgiving. She paused, grinning her dry, spitless grin into the shifting shadows of the room. Momma, I don't want to hear it! Plates began to explode in the cupboards like clay pigeons. It wasn't until he came in that I smelled the whiskey on his breath. And he took me. Took me! With the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey still on him he took me . . . and I liked it! She screamed out the last words at the ceiling. I liked it o all that dirty fucking and his hands on me ALL OVER ME! MOMMA! (!! MOMMA !!) She broke off as if slapped and blinked at her daughter. I almost killed myself, she said in a more normal tone of voice. And Ralph wept and talked about atonement and I didn't and then he was dead and then I thought God had visited me with cancer; that He was turning my female parts into something as black and rotten as my sinning soul. But that would have been too easy. The Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. I see that now. When the pains began I went and got a knifethis knife she held it up and waited for you to come so I could make my sacrifice. But I was weak and backsliding. I took this knife in hand again when you were three, and I backslid again. So now the devil has come home. She held the knife up, and her eyes fastened hypnotically on the glittering hook of its blade. Carrie took a slow, blundering step forward. I came to kill you, Momma. And you were waiting here to kill me. Momma, I . . . it's not right, Momma. It's not . . . Let's pray, Momma said softly. Her eyes fixed on Carrie's and there was a crazed, awful compasssion in them. The firelight was brighter now, dancing on the walls like dervishes. For the last time, let us pray. Oh Momma help me! Carrie cried out. She fell forward on her knees, head down, hands raised in supplication. Momma leaned forward, and the knife came down in a shining arc. Carrie, perhaps seeing out of the tail of her eye, jerked back, and instead of penetrating her back, the knife went into her shoulder to the hilt. Momma's feet tangled in the legs of her chair, and she collapsed in a sitting sprawl. They stared at each other in silent tableau. Blood began to ooze from around the handle of the knife and to splash onto the floor. Then Carrie said softly I'm going to give you a present, Momma. Margaret tried to get up, staggered, and fell back on her hands and knees. What are you doing? she croaked hoarsely. I'm picturing your heart, Momma, Carrie said. It's easier when you see things in your mind. Your heart is a big red muscle. Mine goes faster when I use my power. But yours is going a little slower now. A little slower. Margaret tried to get up again, failed, and forked the sign of the evil eye at her daughter. A little slower, Momma. Do you know what the present is, Momma? What you always wanted. Darkness. And whatever God lives there. Margaret White whispered Our Father, Who art in heaven Slower, Momma. Slower. hallowed be Thy name I can see the blood draining back into you. Slower. Thy kingdom come Your feet and hands like marble, like alabaster. White. Thy will be done My will, Momma. Slower. on earth Slower. as . . . as . . . as it . . . She collapsed forward, hands twitching. as it is in heaven. Carrie whispered Full stop. She looked down at herself, and put her hands weakly around the haft of the knife. (no o no that hurts that's too much hurt) She tried to get up, failed, then pulled herself up by Momma's stool. Dizziness and nausea washed over her. She could taste blood, bright and slick, in the back of her throat. Smoke, acrid and choking, was drifting in through the windows now. The flames had reached next door; even now sparks would be lighting softly on the roof that rocks had punched brutally through a thousand years before. Carrie went out the back door, staggered across the lawn, and rested (where's my momma) against a tree. There was something she was supposed to do. Something about (roadhouses parking lots) the Angel with the Sword. The Fiery Sword. Never mind. It would come to her. She crossed by back yards to Willow Street and then crawled up the embankment to Route 6. It was 115 A.M. It was 1120 P.M. when Christine Hargensen and Billy Nolan got back to The Cavalier. They went up the back stairs, down the hall, and before she could do more than turn on the lights, he was yanking at her blouse. For God's sake let me unbutton it To hell with that. He ripped it suddenly down the back. The cloth tore with a sudden hard sound. One button popped free and winked on the bare wood floor. Honkytonkin' music came faintly up to them, and the building vibrated subtly with the clumsyenthusiastic dancing of farmers and truckers and millworkers and waitresses and hairdressers, of the greasers and their townie girl friends from Westover and Lewiston. Hey Be quiet. He slapped her, rocking her head back. Her eyes took on a flat and deadly shine. This is the end, Billy. She backed away from him, breasts swelling into her bra, flat stomach pumping, legs long and tapering in her jeans; but she backed toward the bed. It's over. Sure, he said. He lunged for her and she punched him, a surprisingly hard punch that landed on his cheek. He straightened and twitched his head a little. You gave me a shiner, you bitch. I'll give you more. You're goddam right you will. They stared at each other, panting, glaring. Then he began to unbutton his shirt, a little grin beginning on his face. We got it on, Charlie. We really got it on. He called her Charlie whenever he was pleased with her. It seemed to be, she thought with a cold blink of humor, a generic term for good cunt. She felt a little smile come to her own face, relaxed a little, and that was when he whipped his shirt across her face and came in low, butting her in the stomach like a goat, tipping her onto the bed. The springs screamed. She pounded her fists helplessly on his back. Get off me! Get off me! Get off me! You fucking greaseball, get off me! He was grinning at her, and with one quick, hard yank her zipper was broken, her hips free. Call your daddy? he was grunting. That what you gonna do? Huh? Huh? That it, ole Chuckie? Call big ole legal beagle daddy? Huh? I woulda done it to you, you know that? I woulda dumped it all over your fuckin squash. You know it? Huh? Know it? Pig blood for pigs, right? Right on your motherfuckin squash. You She had suddenly ceased to resist. He paused, staring down at her, and she had an odd smile on her face. You wanted it this way all along, didn't you? You miserable little scumbag. That's right, isn't it? You creepy little onenut lowcock dinkless wonder. His grin was slow, crazed. It doesn't matter. No, she said. It doesn't. Her smile suddenly vanished, the cords on her neck stood out as she hawked backand spit in his face. They descended into a red, thrashing unconsciousness. Downstairs the music thumped and wheezed (I'm poppin little white pills an my eyes are open wideSix days on the road, and I'm gonna make it home tonight), cw, full throttle, very loud, very bad, fiveman band wearing sequined cowboy shirts and new pegged jeans with bright rivets, occasionally wiping mixed sweat and Vitalis from their brows, lead guitar, rhythm, steel, dobro guitar, drums no one heard the town whistle, or the first explosion, or the second; and when the gas main blew and the music stopped and someone drove into the parking lot and began to yell the news, Chris and Billy were asleep. Chris woke suddenly and the clock on the night table said five minutes of one. Someone was pounding on the door. Billy! the voice was yelling. Get up! Hey! Hey! Billy stirred, rolled over, and knocked the cheap alarm clock onto the floor. What the Christ? he said thickly, and sat up. His back stung. The bitch had covered it with long scratches. He'd barely noticed it at the time, but now he decided he was going to have to send her home bowlegged. Just to show her who was b Silence struck him. Silence. The Cavalier did not close until two; as a matter of fact, he could still see the neon twinkling and flicking through the dusty garret window. Except for the steady pounding (something happened) the place was a graveyard. Billy, you in there? Hey! Who is it? Chris whispered. Her eyes were glittering and watchful in the intermittent neon. Jackie Talbot, he said absently, then raised his voice. What? Lemme in, Billy. I got to talk to you! Billy got up and padded to the door, naked. He unlocked the oldfashioned hookandeye and opened it. Jackie Talbot burst in. His eyes were wild and his face was smeared with soot. He had been drinking it up with Steve and Henry when the news came at ten minutes of twelve. They had gone back to town in Henry's elderly Dodge convertible, and had seen the Jackson Avenue gas main explode from the vantage point of Brickyard Hill. When Jackie had borrowed the Dodge and started to drive back at 1230, the town was a panicky shambles. Chamberlain's burning up, he said to Billy. Whole fuckin town. The school's gone. The Center's gone. West End blew upgas. And Carlin Street's on fire. And they're saying Carrie White did it! Oh God, Chris said. She started to get out of bed and grope for her clothes. What did Shut up, Billy said mildly, or I'll kick your ass. He looked at Jackie again and nodded for him to go on. They seen her. Lots of people seen her. Billy, they say she's all covered with blood. She was at that fuckin prom tonight . . . Steve and Henry didn't get it but . . . Billy, did you . . . that pig blood . . . was it Yeah, Billy said. Oh, no. Jackie stumbled back against the doorframe. His face was a sickly yellow in the light of the one hall lightbulb. Oh Jesus, Billy, the whole town Carrie trashed the whole town? Carrie White? You're full of shit. He said it calmly, almost serenely. Behind him, Chris was dressing rapidly. Go look out the window, Jackie said. Billy went over and looked out. The entire eastern horizon had gone crimson, and the sky was alight with it. Even as he looked, three fire trucks screamed by. He could make out the names on them in the glow of the street light that marked The Cavalier's parking lot. Son of a whore, he said. Those trucks are from Brunswick. Brunswick? Chris said. That's forty miles away. That can't be . . . Billy turned back to Jackie Talbot. All right. What happened? Jackie shook his head. Nobody knows, not yet. It started at the high school. Carrie and Tommy Ross got the King and Queen, and then somebody dumped a couple of buckets of blood on them and she ran out. Then the school caught on fire, and they say nobody got out. Then Teddy's Amoco blew up, then that Mobil station on Summer Street Citgo, Billy corrected. It's a Citgo. Who the fuck cares? Jackie screamed. It was her, every place something happened it was her! And those buckets . . . none of us wore gloves. . . . I'll take care of it, Billy said. You don't get it, Billy. Carrie is Get out. Billy Get out or I'll break your arm and feed it to you. Jackie backed out of the door warily. Go home. Don't talk to nobody. I'm going to take care of everything. All right, Jackie said. Okay. Billy, I just thought Billy slammed the door. Chris was on him in a second. Billy what are we going to do that bitch Carrie oh my Lord what are we going to Billy slapped her, getting his whole arm into it, and knocked her onto the floor. Chris sat sprawled in stunned silence for a moment, and then held her face and began to sob. Billy put on his pants, his tee shirt, his boots. Then he went to the chipped porcelain washstand in the corner, clicked on the light, wet his head, and began to comb his hair, bending down to see his reflection in the spotted, ancient mirror. Behind him, wavy and distorted, Chris Hargensen sat on the floor, wiping blood from her split lip. I'll tell you what we're going to do, he said. We're going into town and watch the fires. Then we're coming home. You're going to tell your dear old daddy that we were out to The Cavalier drinking beers when it happened. I'm gonna tell my dear ole mummy the same thing. Dig? Billy, your fingerprints, she said. Her voice was muffled, but respectful. Their fingerprints, he said. I wore gloves. Would they tell? she asked. If the police took them in and questioned them Sure, he said. They'd tell. The loops and swirls were almost right. They glistened in the light of the dull, flyspecked globe like eddies in deep water. His face was calm, reposeful. The comb he used was a battered old Ace, clotted with grease. His father had given it to him on his eleventh birthday, and not one tooth was broken in it. Not one. Maybe they'll never find the buckets, he said. If they do, maybe the fingerprints will all be burnt off. I don't know. But if Doyle takes any of 'em in, I'm heading for California. You do what you want. Would you take me with you? she asked. She looked at him from the floor, her lip puffed to negroid size, her eyes pleading. He smiled. Maybe. But he wouldn't. Not any more. Come on. We're going to town. They went downstairs and through the empty dance hall, where chairs were still pushed back and beers were standing flat on the tables. As they went out through the fire door Billy said This place sucks, anyway. They got into his car, and he started it up. When he popped on the headlights, Chris began to scream, hands in fists up to her cheeks. Billy felt it at the same time Something in his mind, (carrie carrie carrie carrie) a presence. Carrie was standing in front of them, perhaps seventy feet away. The high beams picked her out in ghastly horrormovie blacks and whites, dripping and clotted with blood. Now much of it was her own. The hilt of the butcher knife still protruded from her shoulder, and her gown was covered with dirt and grass stain. She had crawled much of the distance from Carlin Street, half fainting, to destroy this roadhouseperhaps the very one where the doom of her creation had begun. She stood swaying, her arms thrown out like the arms of a stage hypnotist, and she began to totter toward them. It happened in the blink of a second. Chris had not had time to expend her first scream. Billy's reflexes were very good and his reaction was instantaneous. He shifted into low, popped the clutch, and floored it. The Chevrolet's tires screamed against the asphalt, and the car sprang forward like some old and terrible maneater. The figure swelled in the windshield and as it did the presence became louder (CARRIE CARRIE CARRIE) and louder (CARRIE CARRIE CARRIE) like a radio being turned up to full volume. Time seemed to close around them in a frame and for a moment they were frozen even in motion Billy (CARRIE just like the dogs CARRIE just like the goddam dogs CARRIE brucie i wish it could CARRIE be CARRIE you) and Chris (CARRIE jesus not to kill her CARRIE didn't mean to kill her CARRIE billy i don't CARRIE want to CARRIE see it CA) and Carrie herself. (see the wheel car wheel gas pedal wheel i see the WHEEL o god my heart my heart my heart) And Billy suddenly felt his car turn traitor, come alive, slither in his hands. The Chevvy dug around in a smoking halfcircle, straight pipes racketing, and suddenly the clapboard side of The Cavalier was swelling, swelling, swelling and (this is) they slammed into it at forty, still accelerating, and wood sprayed up in a neontinted detonation. Billy was thrown forward and the steering column speared him. Chris was thrown into the dashboard. The gas tank split open, and fuel began to puddle around the rear of the car. Part of one straight pipe fell into it, and the gas bloomed into flame. Carrie lay on her side, eyes closed, panting thickly. Her chest was on fire. She began to drag herself across the parking lot, going nowhere. (momma i'm sorry it all went wrong o momma o please o please i hurt so bad momma what do i do) And suddenly it didn't seem to matter any more, nothing would matter if she could turn over, turn over and see the stars, turn over and look once and die. And that was how Sue found her at two o'clock. When Sheriff Doyle left her, Sue walked down the street and sat on the steps of the Chamberlain UWashIt. She stared at the burning sky without seeing it. Tommy was dead. She knew it was true and accepted it with an ease that was dreadful. And Carrie had done it. She had no idea how she knew it, but the conviction was as pure and right as arithmetic. Time passed. It didn't matter. Macbeth hath murdered sleep and Carrie hath murdered time. Pretty good. A bon mot. Sue smiled dolefully. Can this be the end of our heroine, Miss Sweet Little Sixteen? No worries about the country club and Kleen Korners now. Not ever. Gone. Burned out. Someone ran past, blabbering that Carlin Street was on fire. Good for Carlin Street. Tommy was gone. And Carrie had gone home to murder her mother. (?????????) She sat bolt upright, staring into the darkness. (?????????) She didn't know how she knew. It bore no relationship to anything she had ever read about telepathy. There were no pictures in her head, no great white flashes of revelation, only prosaic knowledge; the way you know summer follows spring, that cancer can kill you, that Carrie's mother was dead already, that (!!!!!) Her heart rose thickly in her chest. Dead? She examined her knowledge of the incident, trying to disregard the insistent weirdness of knowing from nothing. Yes, Margaret White was dead. Something to do with her heart. But she had stabbed Carrie. Carrie was badly hurt. She was There was nothing more. She got up and ran back to her mother's car. Ten minutes later she parked on the corner of Branch and Carlin Street, which was on fire. No trucks were available to fight the blaze yet, but sawhorses had been put across both ends of the street, and greasily smoking road pots lit a sign which said DANGER! LIVE WIRES! Sue cut through two back yards and forced her way through a budding hedge that scraped at her with short, stiff bristles. She came out one yard from the Whites' house and crossed over. The house was in flames, the roof blazing. It was impossible to even think about getting close enough to look in. But in the strong firelight she saw something better the splashed trail of Carrie's blood. She followed it with her head down, past the larger spots where Carrie had rested, through another hedge, across a Willow Street back yard, and then through an undeveloped tangle of scrub pine and oak. Beyond that, a short, unpaved spurlittle more than a footpathwound up the rise of land to the right, angling away from Route 6. She stopped suddenly as doubt struck her with vicious and corrosive force. Suppose she could find her? What then? Heart failure? Set on fire? Controlled and forced to walk in front of an oncoming car or fire engine? Her peculiar knowledge told her Carrie would be capable of all these things. (find a policeman) She giggled a little at that one and sat down in the grass, which was silked with dew. She had already found a policeman. And even supposing Otis Doyle had believed her, what then? A mental picture came to her of a hundred desperate manhunters surrounding Carrie, demanding her to hand over her weapons and give up. Carrie obediently raises her hands and plucks her head from her shoulders. Hands it to Sheriff Doyle, who solemnly puts it in a wicker basket marked People's Exhibit A. (and tommy's dead) Well, well. She began to cry. She put her hands over her face and sobbed into them. A soft breeze snuffled through the juniper bushes on top of the hill. More fire engines screamed by on Route 6 like huge red hounds in the night. (the town's burning down o well) She had no idea how long she sat there, crying in a grainy halfdoze. She was not even aware that she was following Carrie's progress toward The Cavalier, no more than she was aware of the process of respiration unless she thought about it. Carrie was hurt very badly, was going on brute determination alone at this point. It was three miles out to The Cavalier, even cross country, as Carrie was going. Sue (watched? thought? doesn't matter) as Carrie fell in a brook and dragged herself out, icy and shivering. It was really amazing that she kept going. But of course it was for Momma. Momma wanted her to be the Angel's Fiery Sword, to destroy (she's going to destroy that too) She got up and began to run clumsily, not bothering to follow the trail of blood. She didn't need to follow it any more. From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 16465) Whatever any of us may think of the Carrie White affair, it is over. It's time to turn to the future. As Dean McGuffin points out, in his excellent Science Yearbook article, if we refuse to do this, we will almost certainly have to pay the piperand the price is apt to be a high one. A thorny moral question is raised here. Progress is already being made toward complete isolation of the TK gene. It is more or less assumed in the scientific community (see, for instance, Bourke and Hannegan's A View Toward Isolation of the TK Gene with Specific Recommendations for Control Parameters in Microbiology Annual, Berkeley 1982) that when a testing procedure is established, all schoolage children will undergo the test as routinely as they now undergo the TB skinpatch. Yet TK is not a germ; it is as much a part of the afflicted person as the color of his eyes. If overt TK ability occurs as a part of puberty, and if this hypothetical TK test is performed on children entering the first grade, we shall certainly be forewarned. But in this case, is forewarned forearmed? If the TB test shows positive, a child can be treated or isolated. If the TK test shows positive, we have no treatment except a bullet in the head. And how is it possible to isolate a person who will eventually have the power to knock down all walls? And even if isolation could be made successful, would the American people allow a small pretty girlchild to be ripped away from her parents at the first sign of puberty to be locked in a bank vault for the rest of her life? I doubt it. Especially when the White Commission has worked so hard to convince the public that the nightmare in Chamberlain was a complete fluke. Indeed, we seem to have returned to Square One . . . From the sworn testimony of Susan Snell, taken before The State Investigatory Board of Maine (from The White Commission Report), pp. 306472 Q. Now, Miss Snell, the Board would like to go through your testimony concerning your alleged meeting with Carrie White in The Cavalier parking lot A. Why do you keep asking the same questions over and over? I've told you twice already. Q. We want to make sure the record is correct in every A. You want to catch me in a lie, isn't that what you really mean? You don't think I'm telling the truth, do you? Q. You say you came upon Carrie at A. Will you answer me? Q. at approximately 200 on the morning of May 28th. Is that correct? A. I'm not going to answer any more questions until you answer the one I just asked. Q. Miss Snell, this body is empowered to cite you for contempt if you refuse to answer on any other grounds than Constitutional ones. A. I don't care what you're empowered to do. I've lost someone I love. Go and throw me in jail. I don't care. IIOh, go to hell. All of you, go to hell. You're trying to . . . to . . . I don't know, crucify me or something. Just lay off me! (A short recess) Q. Miss Snell, are you willing to continue your testimony at this time? A. Yes. But I won't be badgered, Mr. Chairman. Q. Of course not, young lady. No one wants to badger you. Now you claim to have come upon Carrie in the parking lot of this tavern at about 200. Is that correct? A. Yes. Q. You knew the time. A. I was wearing the watch you see on my wrist right now. Q. To be sure. Isn't The Cavalier better than six miles from where you left your mother's car? A. It is by the road. It's closer to three as the crow flies. Q. You walked this distance? A. Yes. Q. Now you testified earlier that you knew you were getting close to Carrie. Can you explain this? A. No. Q. Could you smell her? A. What? Q. Did you follow your nose? (Laughter in the galleries) A. Are you playing games with me? Q. Answer the question, please. A. No. I didn't follow my nose. Q. Could you see her? A. No. Q. Hear her? A. No. Q. Then how could you possibly know she was there? A. How did Tom Quillan know? Or Cora Simard? Or poor Vic Mooney? How did any of them know? Q. Answer the question, miss. This is hardly the place or the time for impertinence. A. But they did say they just knew, didn't they? I read Mrs. Simard's testimony in the paper! And what about the fire hydrants that opened themselves? And the gas pumps that broke their own locks and turned themselves on? The power lines that climbed down off their poles! And Q. Miss Snell, please A. Those things are in the record of this Commission's proceedings! Q. That is not an issue here. A. Then what is? Are you looking for the truth or just a scapegoat? Q. You deny you had prior knowledge of Carrie White's whereabouts? A. Of course I do. It's an absurd idea. Q. Oh? And why is it absurd? A. Well, if you're suggesting some kind of conspiracy, it's absurd because Carrie was dying when I found her. It could not have been an easy way to die. Q. If you had no prior knowledge of her whereabouts, how could you go directly to her location? A. Oh, you stupid man! Have you listened to anything that's been said here? Everybody knew it was Carrie! Anyone could have found her if they had put their minds to it. Q. But not just anyone found her. You did. Can you tell us why people did not show up from all over, like iron filings drawn to a magnet? A. She was weakening rapidly. I think that perhaps the . . . the zone of her influence was shrinking. Q. I think you will agree that that is a relatively uninformed supposition. A. Of course it is. On the subject of Carrie White, we're all relatively uninformed. Q. Have it your way, Miss Snell. Now if we could turn to . . . At first, when she climbed up the embankment between Henry Drain's meadow and the parking lot of The Cavalier, she thought Carrie was dead. Her figure was halfway across the parking lot, and she looked oddly shrunken and crumpled. Sue was reminded of dead animals she had seen on 95woodchucks, groundhogs, skunksthat had been crushed by speeding trucks and station wagons. But the presence was still in her mind, vibrating stubbornly, repeating the call letters of Carrie White's personality over and over. An essence of Carrie, a gestalt. Muted now, not strident, not announcing itself with a clarion, but waxing and waning in steady oscillations. Unconscious. Sue climbed over the guard rail that bordered the parking lot, feeling the heat of the fire against her face. The Cavalier was a wooden frame building, and it was burning briskly. The charred remains of a car were limned in flame to the right of the back door. Carrie had done that, then. She did not go to look and see if anyone had been in it. It didn't matter, not now. She walked over to where Carrie lay on her side, unable to hear her own footsteps under the hungry crackle of the fire. She looked down at the curledup figure with a bemused and bitter pity. The knife hilt protruded cruelly from her shoulder, and she was lying in a small pool of bloodsome of it was trickling from her mouth. She looked as if she had been trying to turn herself over when unconsciousness had taken her. Able to start fires, pull down electric cables, able to kill almost by thought alone; lying here unable to turn herself over. Sue knelt, took her by one arm and the unhurt shoulder, and gently turned her onto her back. Carrie moaned thickly, and her eyes fluttered. The perception of her in Sue's mind sharpened, as if a mental picture was coming into focus. (who's there) And Sue, without thought, spoke in the same fashion (me sue snell) Only there was no need to think of her name. The thought of herself as herself was neither words nor pictures. The realization suddenly brought everything up close, made it real, and compassion for Carrie broke through the dullness of her shock.

And Carrie, with faraway, dumb reproach (you tricked me you all tricked me) (carrie i don't even know what happened is tommy) (you tricked me that happened trick trick trick o dirty trick) The mixture of image and emotion was staggering, indescribable. Blood. Sadness. Fear. The latest dirty trick in a long series of dirty tricks they flashed by in a dizzying shuffle that made Sue's mind reel helplessly, hopelessly. They shared the awful totality of perfect knowledge. (carrie don't don't don't hurts me) Now girls throwing sanitary napkins, chanting, laughing, Sue's face mirrored in her own mind ugly, caricatured, all mouth, cruelly beautiful. (see the dirty tricks see my whole life one long dirty trick) (look carrie look inside me) And Carrie looked. The sensation was terrifying. Her mind and nervous system had become a library. Someone in desperate need ran through her, fingers trailing lightly over shelves of books, lifting some out, scanning them, putting them back, letting some fall, leaving the pages to flutter wildly (glimpses that's me as a kid hate him daddy o mommy wide lips o teeth bobby pushed me o my knee car want to ride in the car we're going to see aunt cecily mommy come quick i made pee) in the wind of memory; and still on and on, finally reaching a shelf marked TOMMY, subheaded PROM. Books thrown open, flashes of experience, marginal notations in all the hieroglyphs of emotion, more complex than the Rosetta Stone. Looking. Finding more than Sue herself had suspectedlove for Tommy, jealousy, selfishness, a need to subjugate him to her will on the matter of taking Carrie, disgust for Carrie herself, (she could take better care of herself she does look just like a GODDAM TOAD) hate for Miss Desjardin, hate for herself. But no ill will for Carrie personally, no plan to get her in front of everyone and undo her. The feverish feeling of being raped in her most secret corridors began to fade. She felt Carrie pulling back, weak and exhausted. (why didn't you just leave me alone) (carrie i) (momma would be alive i killed my momma i want her o it hurts my chest hurts my shoulder o o o i want my momma) (carrie i) And there was no way to finish that thought, nothing there to complete it with. Sue was suddenly overwhelmed with terror, the worse because she could put no name to it The bleeding freak on this oilstained asphalt suddenly seemed meaningless and awful in its pain and dying. (o momma i'm scared momma MOMMA) Sue tried to pull away, to disengage her mind, to allow Carrie at least the privacy of her dying, and was unable to. She felt that she was dying herself and did not want to see this preview of her own eventual end. (carrie let me GO) (Momma Momma Momma oooooooooooooo OOOOOOOOOO) The mental scream reached a flaring, unbelievable crescendo and then suddenly faded. For a moment Sue felt as if she were watching a candle flame disappear down a long, black tunnel at a tremendous speed. (she's dying o my god i'm feeling her die) And then the light was gone, and the last conscious thought had been (momma i'm sorry where) and it broke up and Sue was tuned in only on the blank, idiot frequency of the physical nerve endings that would take hours to die. She stumbled away from it, holding her arms out in front of her like a blind woman, toward the edge of the parking lot. She tripped over the kneehigh guard rail and tumbled down the embankment. She got to her feet and stumbled into the field, which was filling with mystic white pockets of ground mist. Crickets chirruped mindlessly and a whippoorwill (whippoorwill somebody's dying) called in the great stillness of morning. She began to run, breathing deep in her chest, running from Tommy, from the fires and explosions, from Carrie, but mostly from the final horrorthat last lighted thought carried swiftly down into the black tunnel of eternity, followed by the blank, idiot hum of prosaic electricity. The afterimage began to fade reluctantly, leaving a blessed, cool darkness in her mind that knew nothing. She slowed, halted, and became aware that something had begun to happen. She stood in the middle of the great and misty field, waiting for realization. Her rapid breathing slowed, slowed, caught suddenly as if on a thorn And suddenly vented itself in one howling, cheated scream. As she felt the slow course of dark menstrual blood down her thighs. From the national AP ticker, Friday, June 5, 1979 CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP) STATE OFFICIALS SAY THAT THE DEATH TOLL IN CHAMBERLAIN STANDS AT 409, WITH 49 STILL LISTED AS MISSING. INVESTIGATION CONCERNING CARIETTA WHITE AND THE SOCALLED TK PHENOMENA CONTINUES AMID PERSISTENT RUMORS THAT AN AUTOPSY ON THE WHITE GIRL HAS UNCOVERED CERTAIN UNUSUAL FORMATIONS IN THE CEREBRUM AND CEREBELLUM OF THE BRAIN. THIS STATE'S GOVERNOR HAS APPOINTED A BLUERIBBON COMMITTEE TO STUDY THE ENTIRE TRAGEDY. ENDS. FINAL JUNE 5 0303N AP From The Lewiston Daily Sun, Sunday, September 7 (p. 3) The Legacy of TK Scorched Earth and Scorched Hearts CHAMBERLAINProm Night is history now. Pundits have been saying for centuries that time heals all wounds, but the hurt of this small western Maine town may be mortal. The residential streets are still there on the town's East Side, guarded by graceful oaks that have stood for two hundred years. The trim saltboxes and ranch styles on Morin Street and Brickyard Hill are still neat and undamaged. But this New England pastoral lies on the rim of a blackened and shattered hub, and many of the neat houses have FOR SALE signs on their front lawns. Those still occupied are marked by black wreaths on front doors. Brightyellow Allied vans and orange UHauls of varying sizes are a common sight on Chamberlain's streets these days. The town's major industry, Chamberlain Mills and Weaving, still stands, untouched by the fire that raged over much of the town on those two days in May. But it has only been running one shift since June 4th, and according to mill president William A. Chamblis, further layoffs are a strong possibility. We have the orders, Chamblis said, but you can't run a mill without people to punch the time clock. We don't have them. I've gotten notice from thirtyfour men since August 15th. The only thing we can see to do now is close up the dye house and job our work out. We'd hate to let the men go, but this thing is getting down to a matter of financial survival. Roger Fearon has lived in Chamberlain for twentytwo years, and has been with the mail for eighteen of those years. He has risen during that time from a thirdfloor bagger making seventythree cents an hour to dyehouse foreman; yet he seems strangely unmoved by the possibility of losing his job. I'd lose a damned good wage, Fearon said. It's not something you take lightly. The wife and I have talked it over. We could sell the houseit's worth 20,000 easyand although we probably won't realize half of that, we'll probably go ahead and put it up. Doesn't matter. We don't really want to live in Chamberlain any more. Call it what you want, but Chamberlain has gone bad for us. Fearon is not alone. Henry Kelly, proprietor of a tobacco shop and soda fountain called the Kelly Fruit until Prom Night leveled it, has no plans to rebuild. The kids are gone, he shrugs. If I opened up again, there'd be too many ghosts in too many corners. I'm going to take the insurance money and retire to St. Petersburg. A week after the tornado of '54 had cut its path of death and destruction through Worcester, the air was filled with the sound of hammers, the smell of new timber, and a feeling of optimism and human resilience. There is none of that in Chamberlain this fall. The main road has been cleared of rubble and that is about the extent of it. The faces that you meet are full of dull hopelessness. Men drink beer without talking in Frank's Bar on the corner of Sullivan Street, and women exchange tales of grief and loss in back yards. Chamberlain has been declared a disaster area, and money is available to help put the town back on its feet and begin rebuilding the business district. But the main business of Chamberlain in the last four months has been funerals. Four hundred and forty are now known dead, eighteen more still unaccounted for. And sixtyseven of the dead were Ewen High School Seniors on the verge of graduation. It is this, perhaps, more than anythng else, that has taken the guts out of Chamberlain. They were buried on June 1 and 2 in three mass ceremonies. A memorial service was held on June 3 in the town square. It was the most moving ceremony that this reporter has ever witnessed. Attendance was in the thousands, and the entire assemblage was still as the school band, stripped from fiftysix to a bare forty, played the school song and taps. There was a somber graduation ceremony the following week at neighboring Motton Academy, but there were only fiftytwo Seniors left to graduate. The valedictorian, Henry Stampel, broke into tears halfway through his speech and could not continue. There were no Graduation Night parties following the ceremony; the Seniors merely took their diplomas and went home. And still, as the summer progressed, the hearses continued to roll as more bodies were discovered. To some residents it seemed that each day the scab was ripped off again, so that the wound could bleed afresh. If you are one of the many curiosityseekers who have been through Chamberlain in the last week, you have seen a town that may be suffering from terminal cancer of the spirit. A few people, looking lost, wander through the aisles of the AP. The Congregational Church on Carlin Street is gone, swept away by fire, but the brick Catholic Church still stands on Elm Street, and the trim Methodist Church on outer Main Street, although singed by fire, is unhurt. Yet attendance has been poor. The old men still sit on the benches in Courthouse Square, but there is little interest in the checkerboards or even in conversation. The overall impression is one of a town that is waiting to die. It is not enough, these days, to say that Chamberlain will never be the same. It may be closer to the truth to say that Chamberlain will simply never again be. Excerpt from a letter dated June ninth from Principal Henry Grayle to Peter Philpott, Superintendent of Schools . . . and so I feel I can no longer continue in my present position, feeling, as I do, that such a tragedy might have been averted if I had only had more foresight. I would like you to accept my resignation effective as of July 1, if this is agreeable to you and your staff. . . . Excerpt from a letter dated June eleventh from Rita Desjardin, instructor of Physical Education, to Principal Henry Grayle . . . am returning my contract to you at this time. I feel that I would kill myself before ever teaching again. Late at night I keep thinking If I had only reached out to that girl, if only, if only . . . Found painted on the lawn of the house lot where the White bungalow had been located CARRIE WHITE IS BURNING FOR HER SINS JESUS NEVER FAILS From Telekinesis Analysis and Aftermath (Science Yearbook, 1981), by Dean D. L. McGuffin In conclusion, I would like to point out the grave risk authorities are taking by burying the Carrie White affair under the bureaucratic matand I am speaking specifically of the socalled White Commission. The desire among politicians to regard TK as a onceinalifetime phenomenon seems very strong, and while this may be understandable it is not acceptable. The possibility of a recurrence, genetically speaking, is 99 per cent. It's time we planned now for what may be. . . . From Slang Terms Explained A Parents' Guide, by John R. Coombs (New York The Lighthouse Press, 1985), p. 73 to rip off a Carrie To cause either violence or destruction; mayhem, confusion; (2) to commit arson (from Carrie White, 19631979) From The Shadow Exploded (p. 201) Elsewhere in this book mention is made of a page in one of Carrie White's school notebooks where a line from a famous rock poet of the '60s, Bob Dylan, was written repeatedly, as if in desperation. It might not be amiss to close this book with a few lines from another Bob Dylan song, lines that might serve as Carrie's epitaph I wish I could write you a melody so plainThat would save you, dear lady, from going insaneThat would ease you and cool you and cease the painOf your useless and pointless knowledge . . .2 From My Name Is Susan Snell (p. 98) This little book is done now. I hope it sells well so I can go someplace where nobody knows me. I want to think things over, decide what I'm going to do between now and the time when my light is carried down that long tunnel into blackness. . . . From the conclusion of The State Investigatory Board of Maine in connection with the events of May 2728 in Chamberlain, Maine . . . and so we must conclude that, while an autopsy performed on the subject indicates some cellular changes which may indicate the presence of some paranormal power, we find no reason to believe that a recurrence is likely or even possible . . . Excerpt from a letter dated May 3, 1988, from Amelia Jenks, Royal Knob, Tennessee, to Sandra Jenks, Macon, Georgia . . . and your little neece is growin like a weed, awfull big for only 2. She has blue eyes like her daddy and my blond hair but that will porubly go dark. Still she is awfull pretty I think sometimes when she is asleep how she looks like our momma. The other day wile she was playin in the dirt beside the house I sneeked around and saw the funnyest thing. Annie was playin with her brothers marbles only they was mooving around all by themselfs. Annie was giggeling and laffing but I was a little skared. Some of them marbles was going right up down. It remined me of gramma, do you remember when the law came up that time after Pete and there guns flew out of there hands and grammie just laffed and laffed. And she use to be able to make her rocker go even when she wasen in it. It gave me a reel bad turn to think on it. I shure hope she don't get heartspels like grammie did, remember? Well I must go do a wash so give my best to Rich and take care to send us some pitchers when you can. Still our Annie is awfull pretty her eyes are as brite as buttons. I bet she'll be a worldbeeter someday. All my love, Melia PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036 DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. www.doubleday.com LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 739037 Copyright 1974 by Stephen King ALL RIGHTS RESERVED eISBN 9780385528832 v3.0 This is for Tabby, who got me into it and then bailed me out of it. CARRIE Footnotes To return to the corresponding text, click on the reference number or "Return to text." 1 Lyrics from JUST LIKE A WOMAN by Bob Dylan. Copyright 1966 Dwarf Music. Used by permission of Dwarf Music. Return to text. 2 Lyrics from TOMBSTONE BLUES by Bob Dylan. Copyright 1965 M. Witmark Sons. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission of WARNER BROS. MUSIC. Return to text. PART ONE BLOOD SPORT PART TWO PROM NIGHT PART THREE WRECKAGE Contents Title Page Dedication Part One Blood Sport News item from the Westover. . . Part Two Prom Night She put the dress on for the first. . . Part Three Wreckage Westover Mercy HospitalReport of Decease From the national AP ticker . . . By Stephen King Copyright

"MASTERFUL, CHILLING, JUICILY HORRIBLE . . . FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO TAKE THEIR SCARE STRAIGHT." The New York Times Book Review The Creeds. An ideal family. Physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son. Close, loving, wonderfully alive. When they found the old house and enchanting grounds in rural Maine, it seemed too good to be true. It was. For the truth was bloodchillingsomething more horrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. . . . PET SEMATARY "A STUNNER . . . A GUARANTEED BLOCKBUSTER . . . King gets you to believe the unbelievable . . . reaches out and touches the dread ... it scared the starch out of me." Detroit News "FOR SHEER HORROR, Stephen King wins skeleton hands down. A bunch more as good as Pet Sematary and King will outdistance even Poe" Cosmopolitan "UNRELENTING, CONVINCING . . . AWESOME POWER ... HIS BEST YET!" Pittsburgh Press Critics from coast to coast rave about Pet Sematary and Stephen King; please turn page. . . . "WHY, SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME, WAS I HOLDING ON TO THIS BOOK SO HARD THAT MY KNUCKLES HAD BEGUN TO TURN WHITE?" Christopher LehmannHaupt, The New York Times "THE KING OF HORROR WEAVES HIS SCARIEST TALE EVER ... turn on all the lights while engrossed in it, turn up the radio for company, call friends and ask them to call you back to make sure you are still able to answer the phone . . . YES, IT'S THAT SCARY. YES, IT'S THAT GOOD." Cincinnati Enquirer "VIVID, POWERFUL, DISTURBING . . . offers the rare exhilaration of being scared within the safe limits of art. It is little wonder that so many readers have embraced the imaginative talents of Stephen King." Washington Post Book World "King once said his greatest ambition was to write a book that was too frightening to finish. . . . There may be many a reader, left whiteknuckled by this novel, who hope he doesn't come any closer." Pittsburgh Press "THE MOST FRIGHTENING NOVEL STEPHEN KING HAS EVER WRITTEN . . . SPELLBINDING . . . TERRIFYING!" Publishers Weekly "STEPHEN KING'S NEWEST REIGN OF TERROR IS A HAIRRAISER ... he oozes Nameless Dread right into your shoes in waves of unspeakable gore . . . and are you trapped! Ayiee. . . . You'll be scared!" Chicago SunTimes "POWERFUL, HARROWING, plumbs the depths of darkness King never reached before ... a great read . . . recommended!" Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Review "TERRIFYING! Stephen King goes on record as saying Pet Sematary is the one story that scared even him. . . . It is a perfect gem of a horror story . . . one that you'll spend many a dream trying to erase." New York Daily News "HORROR OOZES FROM THE PAGES, and the anticipation of the most terrifying moments is unnerving, creeping up on the reader with an eerie quality that is unsurpassed in horror fiction." Richmond Times Dispatch "Luckily for those of us hooked on King's wonderfully warped imagination . . . this is his most satisfying work . . . produces goosebumps and screams." Newsday "VIVID, MASTERFUL ... A HUMDINGER TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL." United Press International PUBLISHER'S NOTE This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. AUTHOR'S NOTE Special thanks are in order to Russ Dorr and Steve Wentworth of Bridgton, Maine. Russ provided medical information and Steve provided information on American funeral and burial customs and some insight into the nature of grief. Copyright 1983 by Stephen King All rights reserved. For information address Doubleday Company, Inc., 245 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10167. This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by Doubleday Company, Inc. SIGNET TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN CHICAGO. U S A SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSIC, MENTOR, PLUME, MERIDIAN AND NAL BOOKS are published by New American Library, 1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019 First Signet Printing, November, 1984 123456789 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA For Kirby McCauley Contents PART ONE The Pet Sematary PART TWO The Micmac Burying Ground PART THREE Oz the Gweat and Tewwible Here are some people who have written books, telling what they did and why they did those things John Dean. Henry Kissinger. Adolph Hitler. Caryl Chessman. Jeb Magruder. Napoleon. Talleyrand. Disraeli. Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan. Locke. Charlton Heston. Errol Flynn. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Gandhi. Charles Olson. Charles Colson. A Victorian Gentleman. Dr. X. Most people also believe that God has written a Book, or Books, telling what He did and whyat least to a degreeHe did those things, and since most of these people also believe that humans were made in the image of God, then He also may be regarded as a person . . . or, more properly, as a Person. Here are some people who have not written books, telling what they did . . . and what they saw The man who buried Hitler. The man who performed the autopsy on John Wilkes Booth. The man who embalmed Elvis Presley. The man who embalmedbadly, most undertakers say Pope John XXIII. The twoscore undertakers who cleaned up Jonestown, carrying body bags, spearing paper cups with those spikes custodians carry in city parks, waving away the flies. The man who cremated William Holden. The man who encased the body of Alexander the Great in gold so it would not rot. The men who mummified the Pharaohs. Death is a mystery, and burial is a secret. PART ONE The Pet Sematary Jesus said to them, Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go, that I may awake him out of his sleep. Then the disciples looked at each other, and some smiled because they did not know Jesus had spoken in a figure. Lord. if he sleeps, he shall do well. So then Jesus spoke to them more plainly, Lazarus is dead, yes . . . nevertheless let us go to him. JOHNS GOSPEL (paraphrase) 1 Louis Creed, who had lost his father at three and who had never known a grandfather, never expected to find a father as he entered his middle age, but that was exactly what happened . . . although he called this man a friend, as a grown man must do. when he finds the man who should have been his father relatively late in life. He met this man on the evening he and his wife and his two children moved into the big white frame house in Ludlow. Winston Churchill moved in with them. Church was his daughter Eileens cat. The search committee at the university had moved slowly, the hunt for a house within commuting distance of the university had been hairraising, and by the time they neared the place where he believed the house to beall the landmarks are right . . . like the astrological signs the night before Caesar was assassinated, Louis thought morbidlythey were all tired and tense and on edge. Gage was cutting teeth and fussed almost ceaselessly. He would not sleep, no matter how much Rachel sang to him. She offered him the breast even though it was off his schedule. Gage knew his dining schedule as well as shebetter, maybeand he promptly bit her with his new teeth. Rachel, still not entirely sure about this move to Maine from Chicago, where she had lived her whole life, burst into tears. Eileen promptly joined her. In the back of the station wagon, Church continued to pace restlessly as he had done for the last three days it had taken them to drive here from Chicago. His yowling from the cat kennel had been bad, but his restless pacing after they finally gave up and set him free in the car had been almost as unnerving. Louis himself felt a little like crying. A wild but not Unattractive idea suddenly came to him He would suggest that they go back to Bangor for something to eat while they waited for the moving van, and when his three hostages to fortune got out, he would floor the accelerator and drive away without so much as a look back, foot to the mat, the wagons huge fourbarrel carburetor gobbling expensive gasoline. He would drive south, all the way to Orlando, Florida, where he would get a job at Disney World as a medic, under a new name. But before he hit the turnpikebig old 95 southboundhe would stop by the side of the road and put the fucking cat out too. Then they rounded a final curve, and there was the house that only he had seen up until now. He had flown out and looked at each of the seven possibles they had picked from photos once the position at the University of Maine was solidly his, and this was the one he had chosen a big old New England colonial (but newly sided and insulated; the heating costs, while horrible enough, were not out of line in terms of consumption), three big rooms downstairs, four more up, a long shed that might be converted to more rooms later onall of it surrounded by a luxuriant sprawl of lawn, lushly green even in this August heat.. Beyond the house was a large field for the children to play in, and beyond the field were woods that went on damn near forever. The property abutted state lands, the realtor had explained, and there would be no development in the foreseeable future. The remains of the Micmac Indian tribe had laid claim to nearly eight thousand acres in Ludlow and in the towns east of Ludlow, and the complicated litigation, involving the federal government as well as that of the state, might stretch into the next century. Rachel stopped crying abruptly. She sat up. Is that Thats it, Louis said. He felt apprehensiveno, he felt scared. In fact he felt terrified. He had mortgaged twelve years of their lives for this; it wouldnt be paid off until Eileen was seventeen. He swallowed. What do you think? I think its beautiful, Rachel said, and that was a huge weight off his chestand off his mind. She wasnt kidding, he saw; it was in the way she was looking at it as they turned in the asphalted driveway that curved around to the shed in back, her eyes sweeping the blank windows, her mind already ticking away at such matters as curtains and oilcloth for the cupboards, and God knew what else. Daddy? Ellie said from the back seat. She had stopped crying as well. Even Gage had stopped fussing. Louis savored the silence. What, love? Her eyes, brown under darkish blond hair in the rearview mirror, also surveyed the house, the lawn, the roof of another house off to the left in the distance, and the big field stretching up to the woods. Is this home? Its going to be, honey, he said. Hooray! she shouted, almost taking his ear off. And Louis, who could sometimes become very irritated with Ellie, decided he didnt care if he ever clapped an eye on Disney World in Orlando. He parked in front of the shed and turned off the wagons motor. The engine ticked. In the silence, which seemed very big after Chicago and the bustle of State Street and the Loop, a bird sang sweetly in the late afternoon. Home, Rachel said softly, still looking at the house. Home, Gage said complacently on her lap. Louis and Rachel stared at each other. In the rearview mirror, Eileens eyes widened. Did you Did he Was that They all spoke together, then all laughed together. Gage took no notice; he only continued to suck his thumb. He had been saying Ma for almost a month now and had taken a stab or two at something that might have been Daaa or only wishful thinking on Louiss part. But this, either by accident of imitation, had been a real Word Home. Louis plucked Gage from his wifes lap and hugged him. That was how they came to Ludlow. 2 In Louis Creeds memory that one moment always held a magical qualitypartly, perhaps, because it really was magical, but mostly because the rest of the evening was so wild. In the next three hours, neither peace nor magic made an appearance. Louis had stored the house keys away neatly (he was a neat and methodical man, was Louis Creed) in a small manila envelope which he had labeled Ludlow Housekeys received June 29. He had put the keys away in the Fairlanes glove compartment. He was absolutely sure of that. Now they werent there. While he hunted for them, growing increasingly irritated, Rachel hoisted Gage onto her hip and followed Eileen over to the tree in the field. He was checking under the seats for the third time when his daughter screamed and then began to cry. Louis! Rachel called. Shes cut herself! Eileen had fallen from the tire swing and hit a rock with her knee. The cut was shallow, but she was screaming like someone who had just lost a leg, Louis thought (a bit ungenerously). He glanced at the house across the road, where a light burned in the living room. All right, Ellie, he said. Thats enough. Those people over there will think someones being murdered. But it hurrrrts! Louis struggled with his temper and went silently back to the wagon. The keys were gone, but the firstaid kit was still in the glove compartment. He got it and came back. When Ellie saw it, she began to scream louder than ever. No! Not the stingy stuff I dont want the stingy stuff Daddy! No Eileen, its just Mercurochrome, and it doesnt sting Be a big girl, Rachel said. Its just Nonononono You want to stop that or your ass will sting, Louis said. Shes tired, Lou, Rachel said quietly. Yeah, I know the feeling. Hold her leg out. Rachel put Gage down and held Eileens leg, which Louis painted with Mercurochrome in spite of her increasingly hysterical wails. Someone just came out on the porch of that house across the street, Rachel said. She picked Gage up. He had started to crawl away through the grass. Wonderful, Louis muttered. Lou, shes Tired, I know. He capped the Mercurochrome and looked grimly at his daughter. There. And it really didnt hurt a bit. Fess up, Ellie. it does! It does hurt! It hurrrr His hand itched to slap her and he grabbed his leg hard. Did you find the keys? Rachel asked. Not yet, Louis said, snapping the firstaid kit closed and getting up. Ill Gage began to scream. He was not fussing or crying but really screaming, writhing in Rachels arms. Whats wrong with him? Rachel cried, thrusting him almost blindly at Louis. It was, he supposed, one of the advantages of having married a doctoryou could shove the kid at your husband whenever the kid seemed to be dying. Louis! Whats The baby was grabbing frantically at his neck, screaming wildly. Louis flipped him over and saw an angry white knob rising on the side of Gages neck. And there was also something on the. strap of his jumper, something fuzzy, squirming weakly. Eileen, who had become quieter, began to scream again, Bee! Bee! BEEEEEE! She jumped back, tripped over the same protruding rock on which she had already come a cropper, sat down hard, and began to cry again in mingled pain, surprise, and fear. Im going crazy, Louis thought wonderingly. Wheeeeee! Do something, Louis! Cant you do something? Got to get the stinger out, a voice behind them drawled. Thats the ticket. Get the stinger out and put some baking Soda on it. Bumpll go down. But the voice was so thick With Down East accent that for a moment Louiss tired, confused mind refused to translate the dialect Got tget the stinga out n put some bakin soda ont. Tll go daown. He turned and saw an old man of perhaps seventya hale and healthy seventystanding there on the grass. He wore a biballs over a blue chambray shirt that showed his thickly folded and wrinkled neck. His face was sunburned, and he was smoking an unfiltered cigarette. As Louis looked at him, the old man pinched the cigarette out between his thumb and forefinger and pocketed it neatly. He held out his hands and smiled crookedly . . . a smile Louis liked at onceand he was not a man who took to people. Not to tell you ybusiness, Doc, he said. And that was how Louis met Judson Crandall, the man who should have been his father. 3 He had watched them arrive from across the street and had come across to see if he could help when it seemed they were in a bit of a tight, as he put it. While Louis held the baby on his shoulder, Crandall stepped near, looked at the swelling on Gages neck, and reached out with one blocky, twisted hand. Rachel opened her mouth to protesthis hand looked terribly clumsy and almost as big as Gages headbut before she could say a word, the old mans fingers had made a single decisive movement, as apt and deft as the fingers of a man walking cards across his knuckles or sending coins into conjurers limbo. And the stinger lay in his palm. Big un, he remarked. No prizewinner, but itd do for a ribbon, I guess. Louis burst out laughing. Crandall regarded him with that crooked smile and said, Ayuh, corker, aint she? What did he say, Mommy? Eileen asked, and then Rachel burst out laughing too. Of course it was terribly impolite, but somehow it was okay. Crandall pulled out a deck of Chesterfield Kings, poked one into the seamed corner of his mouth, nodded at them pleasantly as they laughed even Gage was chortling now, in spite of the swelling of the bee stingand popped a wooden match alight with his thumbnail. The old have their tricks, Louis thought. Small ones, but some of them are good ones. He stopped laughing and held out the hand that wasnt supporting Gages bottomGages decidedly damp bottom. Im pleased to meet you, Mr. Jud Crandall, he said and shook. Youre the doc, I guess. Yes. Louis Creed. This is my wife Rachel, my daughter Ellie, and the kid with the bee sting is Gage. Nice to know all of you. I didnt mean to laugh . . . that is, we didnt mean to laugh . . . its just that were . . . a little tired. Thatthe understatement of itcaused him to giggle again. He felt totally exhausted. Crandall nodded. Course you are, he said, which came out Coss you aaa. He glanced at Rachel. Why dont you take your little boy and your daughter over to the house for a minute, Missus Creed? We can put some bakin soda on a washrag and cool that off some. My wife would like to say hello too. She dont get out too much. Arthritis got bad the last two or three years. Rachel glanced at Louis, who nodded. That would be very kind of you, Mr. Crandall. Oh, I just answer to Jud, he said. There was a sudden loud honk, a motor winding down, and then the big blue moving van was turninglumberinginto the driveway. Oh Christ, and I dont know where the keys are, Louis said. Thats okay, Crandall said. I got a set. Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland...they that lived here before yougave me a set, oh, must have been fourteen, fifteen years ago. They lived here a long time. Joan Cleveland was my wifes best friend. She died two years ago. Bill went to that old folks apartment complex over in Orrington. Ill bring em back over. They belong to you now, anyway. Youre very kind, Mr. Crandall, Rachel said. Not at all, he said. Lookin forward to having young uns around again. Except that the sound of this, as exotic to their Midwestern ears as a foreign language, was yowwuns You just want to watch em around the road, Missus Creed Lots of big trucks on that road. Now there was the sound of slamming doors as the moving men hopped out of the cab and came toward them. Ellie had wandered away a little, and now she said, Daddy whats this? Louis, who had started to meet the moving men, glanced back. At the edge of the field, where the lawn stopped and high summer grass took over, a path about four feet wide had been cut, smooth and close. It wound up the hill, curved through a low stand of bushes and a copse of birches, and out of sight. Looks like a path of some kind, Louis said. Oh, ayuh, Crandall said, smiling. Tell you about it sometime, missy. You want to come over and well fix your baby brother up? Sure, Ellie said and then added with a certain hopefulness Does baking soda sting? 4 Crandall brought back the keys, but by then Louis found his set. There was a space at the top of the glove compartment and the small envelope had slipped down into the wiring. He fished it out and let the movers in. Crandall gave him the extra set. They were on an old, tarnished fob. Louis thanked him and slipped them absently into his pocket, watching the movers take in boxes and dressers and bureaus and all the other things they had collected over the ten years of their marriage. Seeing them this way, out of their accustomed places, diminished them. Just a bunch of stuff in boxes, he thought, and suddenly he felt sad and depressedhe guessed he was feeling what people called homesickness. Uprooted and transplanted, Crandall said, suddenly beside him, and Louis jumped a little. You sound like you know the feeling, he said. No, actually I dont. Crandall lit a cigarettepop! went the match, flaring brightly in the first early evening shadows. My dad built that house across the way. Brought his wife there, and she was taken with child there, and that child was me, born in the very year 1900. That makes you Eightythree, Crandall said, and Louis was mildly relieved that he didnt add years young, a phrase he cordially detested. You look a lot younger than that. Crandall shrugged. Anyway, Ive always lived there. I joined up when we fought the Great War, but the closest I got to Europe was Bayonne, New Jersey. Nasty place. Even in 1917 it was a nasty place. I was just as glad to come back here. Got married to my Norma, put in my time on the railroad, and here we still are. But Ive seen a lot of life right here in Ludlow. I sure have. The moving men stopped by the shed entrance, holding the box spring that went under the big double bed he and Rachel shared. Where do you want this, Mr. Creed? Upstairs . . . just a minute, Ill show you. He started toward them, then paused for a moment and glanced back at Crandall. You go on, Crandall said, smiling. Ill see how y folksre makin out. Send em back over and get out of your way. But movin ins mighty thirsty work. I usually sit out on my porch about nine and have a couple of beers. In warm Weather I like to watch the night come on. Sometimes Norma Joins me. You come over, if youre a mind. Well, maybe I will, Louis said, not intending to at all. The next thing would be an informal (and free) diagnosis of Normas arthritis on the porch. He liked Crandall, liked his Crooked grin, his offhand way of talking, his Yankee accent, which was not hardedged at all but so soft it was almost a drawl. A good man, Louis thought, but doctors became leery of people fast. It was unfortunate, but sooner or later even your best friends wanted medical advice. And with old people there was no end to it. But dont look for me, or stay upweve had a hell of a day. Just so long as you know you dont need no engraved invitation, Crandall saidand there was something in the mans crooked grin that made Louis feel that Crandall knew exactly what Louis was thinking. He watched the old guy for a moment before joining the movers. Crandall walked straight and easily, like a man of sixty instead of over eighty. Louis felt that first faint tug of affection. 5 By nine oclock the movers were gone. Ellie and Gage, both exhausted, were sleeping in their new rooms, Gage in his crib, Ellie on a mattress on the floor surrounded by a foothill of boxesher billions of Crayolas, whole, broken, and blunted; her Sesame Street posters; her picture books; her clothes; heaven knew what else. And of course Church was with her, also sleeping and growling rustily in the back of his throat. That rusty growl seemed the closest the big torn could come to purring. Rachel had prowled the house restlessly with Gage in her arms earlier, secondguessing the places where Louis had told. the movers to leave things, getting them to rearrange, change, or restack. Louis had not lost their check; it was still in his breast pocket, along with the five tendollar bills he had put aside for a tip. When the van was finally emptied, he handed both the check and the cash over, nodded at their thanks, signed the bill of receipt, and stood on the porch, watching them head back to their big truck. He supposed they would probably stop over in Bangor and have a few beers to lay the dust. A couple of beers would go down well right now. That made him think of Jud Crandall again. He and Rachel sat at the kitchen table, and he saw the circles under her eyes. You, he said, go to bed. Doctors orders? she asked, smiling a little. Yeah. Okay, she said, standing. Im beat. And Gage is apt to be up in the night. You coming? He hesitated. I dont think so, just yet. That old fella across the street Road. You call it a road, out in the country. Or if youre Judson Crandall, I guess you call it a rud. Okay, across the rud. He invited me over for a beer. I think Im going to take him up on it. Im tired, but Im too jivedup to sleep. Rachel smiled. Youll end up getting Norma Crandall to tell you where it hurts and what kind of mattress she sleeps on. Louis laughed, thinking how funnyfunny and scaryit was, the way wives could read their husbands minds after a while. He was here when we needed him, he said. I can do him a favor, I guess. Barter system? He shrugged, unwilling and unsure how to tell her that he had taken a liking to Crandall on short notice. Hows his wife? Very sweet, Rachel said. Gage sat on her lap. I was surprised because hes had a hard day, and you know he doesnt take very well to new people on short notice under the best of circumstances. And she had a dolly she let Eileen play with. How bad would you say her arthritis is? Quite bad. In a wheelchair? No . . . but she walks very slowly, and her fingers . . Rachel held her own slim fingers up and hooked them into claws to demonstrate. Louis nodded. Anyway, dont be late, Lou. I get the creeps in strange houses. It wont be strange for long, Louis said and kissed her. 6 Louis came back later feeling small. No one asked him to examine Norma Crandall; when he crossed the street (rud, he reminded himself, smiling), the lady had already retired for the night. Jud was a vague silhouette behind the screens of the enclosed porch. There was the comfortable squeak of a rocker on old linoleum. Louis knocked on the screen door, which rattled companionably against its frame. Crandalls cigarette glowed like a large, peaceable firefly in the summer darkness. From a radio, low, came the voice of a Red Sox game, and all of it gave Louis Creed the oddest feeling of coming home. Doc, Crandall said. I thought that was you. Hope you meant it about the beer, Louis said, coming in. Oh, about beer I never lie, Crandall said. A man who lies about beer makes enemies. Sit down, Doc. I put an extra couple on ice, just in case. The porch was long and narrow, furnished with rattan chairs and sofas. Louis sank into one and was surprised at how comfortable it was. At his left hand was a tin pail filled with ice cubes and a few cans of Black Label. He took one. Thank you, he said and opened it. The first two swallows hit his throat like a blessing. Moren welcome, Crandall said. I hope your time here will be a happy one, Doc. Amen, Louis said. Say! If you want crackers or somethin, I could get some. I got a wedge of rat thats just about ripe. A wedge of what? Rat cheese. Crandall sounded faintly amused. Thanks, but just the beer will do me. Well then, well just let her go. Crandall belched contentedly. Your wife gone to bed? Louis asked, wondering why he was opening the door like this. Ayuh. Sometimes she stays up. Sometimes she dont. Her arthritis is quite painful, isnt it? You ever see a case that wasnt? Crandall asked. Louis shook his head. I guess its tolerable, Crandall said. She dont complain much. Shes a good old girl, my Norma. There was a great and simple weight of affection in his voice. Out on Route 15, a tanker truck droned by, one so big and long that for a moment Louis couldnt see his house across the road. Written on the side, just visible in the last light, was the word ORINCO. One hell of a big truck, Louis commented. Orincos near Orrington, Crandall said. Chemical fertilizer factry. They come and go, all right. And the oil tankers, and the dump trucks, and the people who go to work in Bangor or Brewer and come home at night. He shook his head. Thats the one thing about Ludlow I dont like anymore. That frigging road. No peace from it. They go all day and all night. Wake Norma up sometimes. Hell, wake me up sometimes, and I sleep like a goddam log. Louis, who thought this strange Maine landscape almost eerily quiet after the constant roar of Chicago, only nodded his head. One day soon the Arabs will pull the plug, and theyll be able to grow African violets right down the yellow line, Crandall said. You might be right. Louis tilted his can back and was surprised to find it empty. Crandall laughed. You just grab yourself one to grow on, Doc. Louis hesitated and then said, All right, but just one more. I have to be getting back. Sure you do. Aint moving a bitch? It is, Louis agreed, and then for a time they were silent. The silence was a comfortable one, as if they had known each other for a long time. This was a feeling about which Louis had read in books, but which he had never experienced until now. He felt ashamed of his casual thoughts about free medical advice earlier. On the road a semi roared by, its running lights twinkling like earthstars. Thats one mean road, all right, Crandall repeated thoughtfully, almost vaguely, and then turned to Louis. There was a peculiar little smile on his seamed mouth. He poked a Chesterfield into one corner of the smile and popped a match with his thumbnail. You remember the path there that your little girl commented on? For a moment Louis didnt; Ellie had commented on a whole catalogue of things before finally collapsing for the night. Then he did remember. That wide mown patch winding up through the copse of trees and over the hill. "Yes, I do. You promised to tell her about it sometime. I did, and I will, Crandall said. That path goes up into the woods about a mile and a half. The local kids around Route 15 and Middle Drive keep it nice because they use it. Kids come and go . . . theres a lot more moving around than there used to be when I was a boy; then you picked a place out and stuck to it. But they seem to tell each other, and every spring a bunch of them mows that path. They keep it nice all the summer long. Not all of the adults in town know its therea lot of them do, of course, but not all, not by a long chalkbut all of the kids do. Id bet on it. Know whats there? The pet cemetery, Crandall said. Pet cemetery, Louis repeated, bemused. Its not as odd as it probly sounds, Crandall said, smoking and rocking. Its the road. It uses up a lot of animals, that road does. Dogs and cats, mostly, but that aint all. One of those big Orinco trucks run down the pet raccoon the Ryder children used to keep. That was backChrist, must have been in 73, maybe earlier. Before the state made keeping a coon or even a denatured skunk illegal, anyway. Why did they do that? Rabies, Crandall said. Lot of rabies in Maine now. There was a big old St. Bernard went rabid downstate a couple of years ago and killed four people. That was a hell of a thing. Dog hadnt had his shots. If those foolish people had seen that dog had had its shots, it never would have happened. But a coon or a skunk, you can vaccinate it twice a year and still it dont always take. But that coon the Ryder boys had, that was what the oldtimers used to call a sweet coon. Itd waddle right up to yougorry, want he fat!and lick your face like a dog. Their dad even paid a vet to spay him and declaw him. That must have cost him a country fortune! Ryder, he worked for IBM in Bangor. They went out to Colorado five years ago . . . or maybe it was six. Funny to think of those two almost old enough to drive. Were they broken up over that coon? I guess they were. Matty Ryder cried so long his mom got scared and wanted to take him to the doctor. I spose hes over it now, but they never forget. When a good animal gets run down in the road, a kid never forgets.

Louiss mind turned to Ellie as he had last seen her tonight, fast asleep with Church purring rustily on the foot of the mattress. My daughters got a cat, he said. Winston Churchill. We call him Church for short. Do they climb when he walks? I beg your pardon? Louis had no idea what he was talking about. He still got his balls or has he been fixed? No, Louis said. No, he hasnt been fixed. In fact there had been some trouble over that back in Chicago. Rachel had wanted to get Church spayed, had even made the appointment with the vet. Louis canceled it. Even now he wasnt really sure why. it wasnt anything as simple or as stupid as equating his masculinity with that of his daughters tom, nor even his resentment at the idea that Church would have to be castrated so the fat housewife next door wouldnt need to be troubled with twisting down the lids of her plastic garbage cansthose things had been part of it, but most of it had been a vague but strong feeling that it Would destroy something in Church that he himself valuedthat it would put out the gotohell look in the cats green eyes. Finally he had pointed out to Rachel that they were moving to the country, and it shouldnt be a problem. Now here was Judson Crandall, pointing out that part of country living in Ludlow consisted of dealing with Route 15, and asked him if the cat was fixed. Try a little irony, Dr. Creedits good for your blood. Id get him fixed, Crandall said, crushing his smoke between his thumb and forefinger. A fixed cat dont tend to wander as much. But if its all the time crossing back and forth, its luck will run out, and itll end up there with the Ryder kids coon and little Timmy Desslers cocker spaniel and Missus Bradleighs parakeet. Not that the parakeet got run over in the road, you understand. It just went feet up one day. Ill take it under advisement, Louis said. You do that, Crandall said and stood up. Hows that beer doing? I believe Ill go in for a slice of old Mr. Rat after all. Beers gone, Louis said, also standing, and I ought to go, too. Big day tomorrow. Starting in at the university? Louis nodded. The kids dont come back for two weeks, but by then I ought to know what Im doing, dont you think? Yeah, if you dont know where the pills are, I guess youll have trouble. Crandall offered his hand and Louis shook it, mindful again of the fact that old bones pained easily. Come on over any evening, he said. Want you to meet my Norma. Think shed enjoy you. Ill do that, Louis said. Nice to meet you, Jud. Same goes both ways. Youll settle in. May even stay awhile. I hope we do. Louis walked down the crazypaved path to the shoulder of the road and had to pause while yet anothertruck, this one followed by a line of five cars headed in the direction of Bucksport, passed by. Then, raising his hand in a short salute, he crossed the street (road, he reminded himself again) and let himself into his new house. It was quiet with the sounds of sleep. Ellie appeared not to have moved at all, and Gage was still in his crib, sleeping in typical Gage fashion, spreadeagled on his back, a bottle within easy reach. Louis paused there looking in at his son, his heart abruptly filling with a love for the boy so strong that it seemed almost dangerous. He supposed part of it was simply homesickness for all the familiar Chicago places and Chicago faces that were now gone, erased so efficiently by the miles that they might never have been at all. Theres a lot more moving around than there used to be . . . used to be you picked a place out and stuck to it. There was some truth in that. He went to his son, and because there was no one there to see him do it, not even Rachel, he kissed his fingers and then pressed them lightly and briefly to Gages cheek through the bars of the crib. Gage clucked and turned over on his side. Sleep well, baby, Louis said. He undressed quietly and slipped into his half of the bed that was for now just two single mattresses pushed together on the floor. He felt the strain of the day beginning to pass. Rachel didnt stir. Unpacked boxes bulked ghostly in the mom. Just before sleep, Louis hiked himself up on one elbow and looked out the window. Their room was at the front of the house, and he could look across the road at the Crandall place. It was too dark to see shapeson a moonlit night it would not have beenbut he could see the cigarette ember over there. Still up, he thought. Hell maybe be up for a long rime. The old sleep poorly. Perhaps they stand watch. Against what? Louis was thinking about that when he slipped into sleep. He dreamed he was in Disney World, driving a bright white van with a red cross on the side. Gage was beside him, and in the dream Gage was at least ten years old. Church was on the white vans dashboard, looking at Louis with his bright green eyes, and out on Main Street by the l890s train station, Mickey Mouse was shaking hands with the children clustered around him, his big white cartoon gloves swallowing their small, trusting hands. 7 The next two weeks were busy ones for the family. Little by little Louiss new job began to shake down for him (how it would be when ten thousand students, many of them drug and liquor abusers, some afflicted with social diseases, some anxious about grades or depressed about leaving home for the first time, a dozen of themgirls, mostlyanorexic... how it would be when all of them converged on the campus at once would be something else again). And while Louis began getting a handle on his job as head of University Medical Services, Rachel began to get a handle on the house. Gage was busy taking the bumps and spills that went with getting used to his new environment, and for a while his nighttime schedule was badly out of whack, but by the middle of their second week in Ludlow, he had begun to sleep through again. Only Ellie, with the prospect of beginning kindergarten in a new place before her, seemed always overexcited and on a hairtrigger. She was apt to go into prolonged giggling fits or periods of almost menopausal depression or temper tantrums at the drop of a word. Rachel said Ellie would get over it when she saw that school was not the great red devil she had made it out to be in her own mind, and Louis thought Rachel was right. Most of the time, Ellie was what she had always beena dear. His evening beer or two with Jud Crandall became something of a habit. Around the time Gage began sleeping through again, Louis began bringing his own sixpack over every second or third night. He met Norma Crandall, a sweetly pleasant woman who had rheumatoid arthritisfilthy old rheurnatoid arthritis, which kills so much of what could be good in the old ages of men and women who are otherwise healthy but her attitude was good. She would not surrender to the pain; there would be no white flags. Let it take her if it could. Louis thought she might have another five to seven productive if not terribly comfortable years ahead of her. Going completely against his own established customs, he examined her at his own instigation, inventoried the prescriptions her own doctor had given her, and found them to be completely in order. He felt a nagging disappointment that there was nothing else he could do or suggest for her, but her Dr. Weybridge had things as under control as they were ever going to be for Norma Crandallbarring some sudden breakthrough, which was possible but not to be counted upon. You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas. Rachel liked her, and they had sealed their friendship by exchanging recipes the way small boys trade baseball cards, beginning with Norma Crandalls deepdish apple pie for Rachels beef stroganoff. Norma was taken with both of the Creed childrenparticularly with Ellie, who, she said, was going to be an oldtime beauty. At least, Louis told Rachel that night in bed, Norma hadnt said Ellie was going to grow into a real sweet coon. Rachel laughed so hard she broke explosive wind, and then both of them laughed so long and loudly that they woke up Gage in the next room. The first day of kindergarten arrived. Louis, who felt pretty well in control of the infirmary and the medicalsupport facilities now, took the day off. (Besides, the infirmary was currently dead empty; the last patient, a summer student who had broken her leg on the Student Union steps, had been discharged a week before.) He stood on the lawn beside Rachel with Gage in his arms, as the big yellow bus made the turn from Middle Drive and lumbered to a stop in front of their house. The doors at the front folded open; the babble and squawk of many children drifted out on the mild September air. Ellie cast a strange, vulnerable glance back over her shoulder, as if to ask them if there might not yet be time to abort this inevitable process, and perhaps what she saw on the faces of her parents convinced her that the time was gone, and everything which would follow this first day was simply inevitable like the progress of Norma Crandalls arthritis. She turned away from them and mounted the steps of the bus. The doors folded shut with a gasp of dragons breath. The bus pulled away. Rachel burst into tears. Dont, for Christs sake, Louis said. He wasnt crying. Only damn near. Its only half a day. Half a day is bad enough, Rachel answered in a scolding voice and began to cry harder. Louis held her, and Gage slipped an arm comfortably around each parents neck. When Rachel cried, Gage usually cried too. But not this time. He has us to himself. Louis thought, and he damn well knows it. They waited with some trepidation for Ellie to return, drinking too much coffee, speculating on how it was going for her. Louis went out into the back room that was going to be his study and messed about idly, moving papers from one place to another but not doing much else. Rachel began lunch absurdly early. When the phone rang at a quarter past ten, Rachel raced for it and answered with a breathless Hello? before it could ring a second time. Louis stood in the doorway between his office and the kitchen, sure it would be Elliss teacher telling them that she bad decided Ellie couldnt hack it; the stomach of public education had found her indigestible and was spitting her back. But it was only Norma Crandall, calling to tell them that Jud had picked the last of the corn and they were welcome to a dozen ears if they wanted it. Louis went over with a shopping bag and scolded Jud for not letting him help pick it. Most of it aint worth a tin shit anyway, Jud said. Youll kindly spare that talk while Im around, Norma said. She came out on the porch with iced tea on an antique CocaCola tray. Sorry, my Love. He aint sorry a bit, Norma said to Louis and sat down with a wince. Saw Ellie get on the bus, Jud said, lighting a Chesterfield. Shell be fine, Norma said. They almost always are. Almost, Louis thought morbidly. But Ellie was fine. She came home at noon smiling and sunny, her blue firstdayofschool dress belling gracefully around her scabbed shins (and there was a new scrape on one knee to marvel over), a picture of what might have been two children or perhaps two walking gantries in one hand, one shoe untied, one ribbon missing from her hair, shouting, We sang Old MacDonald! Mommy! Daddy! We sang Old MacDonald! Same one as in the Carstairs Street School! Rachel glanced over at Louis, who was sitting in the window seat with Gage on his lap. The baby was almost asleep. There was something sad in Rachels glance, and although she looked away quickly, Louis felt a moment of terrible panic. Were really going to get old, be thought. Its really true. No ones going to make an exception for us. Shes on her way . . . and so are we. Ellie ran over to him, trying to show him her picture, her new scrape, and tell him about Old MacDonald and Mrs. Berryman all at the same time. Church was twining in and out between her legs, purring loudly, and Ellie was somehow, almost miraculously, not tripping over him. Shh, Louis said and kissed her. Gage had gone to sleep, unmindful of all the excitement. Just let me put the baby to bed and then Ill listen to everything. He took Gage up the stairs, walking through hot slanting September sunshine, and as he reached the landing, such a premonition of horror and darkness struck him that he stopped stopped coldand looked around in surprise, wondering what could possibly have come over him. He held the baby tighter, almost clutching him, and Gage stirred uncomfortably. Louiss arms and back had broken out in great rashes of gooseflesh. Whats wrong? he wondered, confused and frightened. His heart was racing; his scalp felt cool and abruptly too small to cover his skull; he could feel the surge of adrenaline behind his eyes. Human eyes really did bug out when fear was extreme, he knew; they did not just widen but actually bulged as blood pressure climbed and the hydrostatic pressure of the cranial fluids increased. What the hell is it? Ghosts? Christ, it really feels as if something just brushed by me in this hallway, something I almost saw. Downstairs the screen door whacked against its frame. Louis Creed jumped, almost screamed, and then laughed. It was simply one of those psychological cold pockets people Sometimes passed throughno more, no less. A momentary fugue. They happened; that was all. What had Scrooge said to the ghost of Jacob Marley? You may be no more than an underdone bit of potato. Theres more gravy than grave to you. And that was more correctphysiologically as well as psychologicallythan Charles Dickens had probably known. There were no ghosts, at least not in his experience. He had pronounced two dozen people dead in his career and had never once felt the passage of a soul. He took Gage into his room and laid him in his crib. As he pulled the blanket up over his son, though, a shudder twisted up his back, and he thought suddenly of his Uncle Carls showroom. No new cars there, no televisions with all the modem features, no dishwashers with glass fronts so you could watch the magical sudsing action. Only boxes with their lids up, a carefully hidden spotlight over each. His fathers brother was an undertaker. Good God, what gave you the horrors? Let it go! Dump it! He kissed his son and went down to listen to Ellie tell about her first day at the big kids school. 8 That Saturday, after Ellie had completed her first week of school and just before the college kids came back to campus, Jud Crandall came across the road and walked over to where the Creed family sat on their lawn. Ellie had gotten off her bike and was drinking a glass of iced tea. Gage was crawling in the grass, examining bugs, perhaps even eating a few; Gage was not particular where his protein came from. Jud, Louis said, getting up. Let me get you a chair. No need. Jud was wearing jeans, an openthroated work shirt, and a pair of green boots. He looked at Ellie. You still want to see where yon path goes, Ellie? Yes! Ellie said, getting up immediately. Her eyes sparkled. George Buck at school told me it was the pet cemetery, and I told Mommy, but she said to wait for you because you knew where it was. I do, too, Jud said. If its okay with your folks, well take us a stroll up there. Youll want a pair of boots though. Grounds a bit squishy in places. Ellie rushed into the house. Jud looked after her with amused affection. Maybe youd like to come too, Louis. I would, Louis said. He looked at Rachel. You want to come, honey? What about Gage? I thought it was a mile. Ill put him in the Gerrypack. Rachel laughed. Okay . . . but its your back, mister. They started off ten minutes later, all of them but Gage wearing boots. Gage was sitting up in the Gerrypack and looking at everything over Louiss shoulder, goggleeyed. Ellie ranged ahead constantly, chasing butterflies and picking flowers. The grass in the back field was almost waist high, and now there was goldenrod, that latesummer gossip which comes to tattle on autumn every year. But there was no autumn in the air today; today the sun was still all August, although calendar August was almost two weeks gone. By the time they had reached the top of the first hill, walking strung out along the mown path, there were big patches of sweat under Louiss arms. Jud paused. At first Louis thought it might be because the old man was windedthen he saw the view that had opened Out behind them. Pretty up here, Jud said, putting a piece of timothy grass between his teeth. Louis thought he had just heard the quintessential Yankee understatement. Its gorgeous, Rachel breathed and then turned to Louis, almost accusingly. How come you didnt tell me about this? Because! didnt know it was here, Louis said, and was a little ashamed. They were still on their own property; he had just never found time to climb the hill in back of the house until today. Ellie had been a good way ahead. Now she came back also gazing with frank wonder. Church padded at her heels. The hill was not a high one, but it did not need to be. To the east, heavy woods blocked any view, but looking this way, west, the land fell away in a golden and dozy late summer dream. Everything was still, hazed, silent. There was not even an Orinco tanker on the highway to break the quiet. It was the river valley they were looking into, of course; the Penobscot, where loggers had once floated their timber from the northeast down to Bangor and Derry. But they were south of Bangor and a bit north of Deny here. The river flowed wide and peacefully, as if in its own deep dream. Louis could make out Hampden and Winterport on the far side, and over here he fancied he could trace the black, riverparalleling snake of Route 15 nearly all the way Bucksport. They looked over the river, its lush hem of trees, the roads, the fields. The spire of the North Ludlow Baptist Church. poked through one canopy of old elms, and to the right he could see the square brick sturdiness of Ellies school. Overhead, white clouds moved slowly toward a horizon the color of faded denim. And everywhere were the latesummer fields, used up at the end of the cycle, dormant but not dead, an incredible tawny color. Gorgeous is the right word, Louis said finally. They used to call it Prospect Hill back in the old days, Jud said. He put a cigarette in the corner of his mouth but did not light it. Theres a few that still do, but now that younger people have moved into town, its mostly been forgot. I dont think theres very many people that even come up here. It dont look like you could see much because the hills not very high. But you can see He gestured with one hand and fell silent. You can see everything, Rachel said in a low, awed voice. She turned to Louis. Honey, do we own this? And before Louis could answer, Jud said Its part of the property, oh yes. Which wasnt, Louis thought, quite the same thing. It was cooler in the woods, perhaps by as much as eight or ten degrees. The path, still wide and occasionally marked with flowers in pots or in coffee cans (most of them wilted), was now floored with dry pine needles. They had gone about a quarter of a mile, moving downhill now, when Jud called Ellie back. This is a good walk for a little girl, Jud said kindly, but I want you to promise your mom and dad that if you come up here, youll always stay on the path. I promise, Ellie said promptly Why? He glanced at Louis, who had stopped to. rest. Toting Gage, even in the shade of these old pines and spruces, was heavy work. Do you know where you are? Jud asked Louis. Louis considered and rejected answers Ludlow, North Ludlow, behind my house, between Route 15 and Middle Drive. He shook his head. Jud jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. Plenty of stuff that way, he said. Thats town. This way, nothing but woods for fifty miles or more. The North Ludlow Woods they call it here, but it hits a little corner of Orrington, then goes over to Rockford. Ends up going onto those state lands I told you about, the ones the Indians want back. I know it sounds funny to say your nice little house there on the main road, with its phone and electric lights and cable TV and all, is on the edge of a wilderness, but it is. He looked back at Ellie. All Im saying is that you dont want to get messing around in these woods, Ellie. You might lose the path, and God knows where you might end up then. I wont, Mr. Crandall. Ellie was suitably impressed, even awed, but not afraid, Louis saw. Rachel, however, was looking at Jud uneasily, and Louis felt a little uneasy himself. It was, he supposed, the citybreds almost instinctive fear of the woods. Louis hadnt held a compass in his hand since Boy Scouts, twenty years before, and his memories of how to find your way by things like the North Star or which side of the trees moss grew on were as vague as his memories of how to tie a sheepshank or a half hitch. Jud looked them over and smiled a little. Now, we aint lost nobody in these woods since 1934, he said. At least, nobody local. The last one was Will Jeppsonno great loss. Except for Stanny Bouchard, I guess Will was the biggest tosspot this side of Bucksport. You said nobody local, Rachel remarked in a voice that was not quite casual, and Louis could almost read her mind Were not local. At least, not yet. Jud paused and then nodded. We do lose one of the tourists every two or three years because they think you cant get lost right off the main road. But we never lost even one of them for good, missus. Dont you fret. Are there moose? Rachel asked apprehensively, and Louis smiled. If Rachel wanted to fret, she would jolly well fret. Well, you might see a moose, Jud said, but he wouldnt give you any trouble, Rachel. During mating season they get a little irritated, but otherwise they do no more than look. Only people they take after out of their rutting time are people from Massachusetts. I dont know why thats so, but it is. Louis thought the man was joking but could not be sure; Jud looked utterly serious. Ive seen it time and time again. Some fella from Saugus or Milton or Weston up a tree, yelling about a herd of moose, every damn one of em as big as a motorhome. Seems like moose can smell Massachusetts on a man or a woman. Or maybe its just all those new clothes from L. L. Beans they smellI dunno. Id like to see one of those animal husbandry students from the college do a paper on it, but I spose none ever will. Whats rutting time? Ellie asked. Never mind, Rachel said. I dont want you up here unless youre with a grownup, Ellie. Rachel moved a step closer to Louis. Jud looked pained. I didnt want to scare you, Rachelyou or your daughter. No need to be scared in these woods. This is a good path; it gets a little buggy in the spring and its a little sloppy all the timeexcept for 55, which was the driest summer I can rememberbut hell, thereisnt even any poison ivy or poison oak, which there is at the back of the schoolyard, and you want to stay away from it, Ellie, if you dont want to spend three weeks of your life takin starch baths. Ellie covered her mouth and giggled. Its a safe path, Jud said earnestly to Rachel, who still didnt look convinced. Why, I bet even Gage could follow it, and the town kids come up here a lot, I already told you that. They keep it nice. Nobody tells them to; they just do it. I wouldnt want to spoil that for Ellie. He bent over her and winked. Its like many other things in life, Ellie. You keep on the path and alls well. You get off it and the next thing you know youre lost if youre not lucky. And then someone has to send out a searchin party. They walked on. Louis began to get a dull cramp of pain in his back from the baby carrier. Every now and then Gage would grab a double handful of his hair and tug enthusiastically or administer a cheerful kick to Louiss kidneys. Late mosquitoes cruised around his face and neck, making their eyewatering hum. The path curved down, bending in and out between very old firs, and then cut widely through a brambly, tangled patch of undergrowth. The going was soupy here, and Louiss boots squelched in mud and some standing water. At one point they stepped over a marshy spot using a pair of goodsized tussocks as stepping stones. That was the worst of it. They started to climb again and the trees reasserted themselves. Gage seemed to have magically put on ten pounds, and the day had, with some similar magic, warmed up ten degrees. Sweat poured down Louiss face. How you doing, hon? Rachel asked. Want me to carry him for a while? No, Im fine, he said, and it was true, although his heart was larruping along at a good speed in his chest. He was more used to prescribing physical exercise than he was to doing it. Jud was walking with Ellie by his side; her lemonyellow slacks and red blouse were bright splashes of color in the shady browngreen gloom. Lou, does he really know where hes going, do you think? Rachel asked in a low, slightly worried tone. Sure, Louis said. Jud called back cheerily over his shoulder Not much farther now . . . you bearin up, Louis? My God, Louis thought, the mans well past eighty, but I dont think hes even broken a sweat. Im fine, he called back a little aggressively. Pride probably would have led him to say the same thing even if he had felt the onset of a coronary. He grinned, hitched the straps of the Gerrypack up a bit, and went on. They topped the second hill, and then the path sloped through a headhigh swatch of bushes and tangled underbrush. It narrowed and then, just ahead, Louis saw Ellie and Jud go under an arch made of old weather stained boards. Written on these in faded black paint, only just legible, were the words PET SEMATARY. He and Rachel exchanged an amused glance and stepped under the arch, instinctively reaching out and grasping each others hands as they did so, as if they had come here to be married. For the second time that morning Louis was surprised into wonder. There was no carpet of needles here. Here was an almost perfect circle of mown grass, perhaps as large as forty feet in diameter. It was bounded by thickly interlaced underbrush on three sides and an old blowdown on the fourth, a jackstraw jumble of fallen trees that looked both sinister and dangerous. A man trying so pick his way through that or to climb over it would do well to put on a steel jock, Louis thought. The clearing was crowded with markers, obviously made by children from whatever materials they could beg or borrowthe slats of crates, scrapwood, pieces of beaten tin. And yet, seen against the perimeter of low bushes and straggly trees that fought for living space and sunlight here, the very fact of their clumsy manufacture, and the fact that humans were responsible for what was here, seemed to emphasize what symmetry they had. The forested backdrop lent the place a crazy sort of profundity, a charm that was not Christian but pagan. Its lovely, Rachel said, not sounding as if she meant it. Wow! Ellie cried. Louis unshouldered Gage and pulled him out of the baby carrier so he could crawl. Louiss back sighed with relief. Ellie ran from one monument to the next, exclaiming over each. Louis followed her while Rachel kept an eye on the baby. Jud sat down crosslegged, his back against a protruding rock, and smoked. Louis noticed that the place did not just seem to have a sense of order, a pattern; the memorials had arranged in rough concentric circles. SMUCKY THE CAT, one crateboard marker proclaimed. The hand was childish but careful. HE WAS OBEDIANT. And below this 19711974. A little way around the outer circle he came to a piece of natural slate with a name written on it in fading but perfectly legible red paint BIFFER. And below this a bit of verse BIFFER, BIFFER. A HELLUVA SNIFFER UNTIL HE DIED HE MADE US RICHER. Buffer was the Desslers cocker spaniel, Jud said. He had dug a bald place in the earth with the heel of his shoe and was carefully tapping all his ashes into it. Got run over by a dumpster last year. Aint that some poime? It is, Louis agreed. Some of the graves were marked with flowers, some fresh, most old, not a few almost totally decomposed. Over half of the painted and penciled inscriptions that Louis tried to read had faded away to partial or total illegibility. Others bore no discernible mark at all, and Louis guessed that the writing on these might have been done with chalk or crayon. Mom! Ellie yelled. Heres a goldfishie! Come and see! Ill pass, Rachel said, and Louis glanced at her. She was standing by herself, outside the outermost circle, looking more uncomfortable than ever. Louis thought Even here shes upset. She never had been easy around the appearances of death (not, he supposed, that anyone really was), probably because of her sister. Rachels sister had died very young, and it had left a scar which Louis had learned early in their marriage not to touch. Her name had been Zelda, and her death had been from spinal meningitis. Her mortal Illness had probably been long and painful and ugly, and Rachel would have been at an impressionable age. If she Wanted to forget it, he thought there could be no harm in that. Louis tipped her a wink, and Rachel smiled gratefully at him. Louis looked up. They were in a natural clearing. He supposed that explained how well the grass did; the sun could get through. Nevertheless it would have taken watering and careful tending. That meant cans of water lugged up here or maybe Indian pumps even heavier than Gage in his Gerrypack carried on small backs. He thought again that it was an odd thing for children to have kept up for so long. His own memory of childhood enthusiasms, reinforced by his dealings with Ellie, was that they tended to bum like newsprintfast... hot . . . and quick to die. Moving inward, the pet graves became older; fewer and fewer of the inscriptions could be read, but those that could yielded a rough timeline extending into the past. Here was TRIXIE. KILT ON THE HIGHWAY SEPT 15, 1968. in the same circle was a wide flat board planted deep in the earth. Frost and thaw had warped it and canted it to one side, but Louis could still make Out IN MEMORY OF MARTA OUR PET RABIT DYED MARCH 1 1965. A row farther in was GEN. PATTON (OUR! GOOD! DOG! the inscription amplified), who had died in 1958; and POLYNESIA (who would have been a parrot, if Louis remembered his Doctor Doolittle correctly), who had squawked her last Polly want a cracker in the summer of 1953. There was nothing readable in the next two rows, and then, still a long way in from the center, chiseled roughly on a piece of sandstone, was HANNAH THE BEST DOG THAT EVER LIVED 19291939. Although sandstone was relatively softas a result the inscription was now little more than a ghostLouis found it hard to conceive of the hours some child must have spent impressing those nine words on the stone. The commitment of love and grief seemed to him staggering; this was something parents did not even do for their own parents or for their children if they died young. Boy, this does go back some, he said to Jud, who had strolled over to join him. Jud nodded. Come here, Louis. Want to show you something. They walked to a row only three back from the center. Here the circular pattern, perceived as an almost haphazard coincidence in the outer rows, was very evident. Jud stopped before a small piece of slate that had fallen over. Kneeling carefully, the old man set it up again. Used to be words here, Jud said. I chiseled em myself, but its worn away now. I buried my first dog here. Spot. He died of old age in 1914, the year the Great War begun. Bemused by the thought that here was a graveyard that went farther back than many graveyards for people, Louis walked toward the center and examined several of the markers. None of them were readable, and most had been almost reclaimed by the forest floor.

The grass had almost entirely overgrown one, and when he set it back up, there was a small tearing, protesting sound from the earth. Blind beetles scurried over the section he had exposed. He felt a small chill and thought, Boot Hill for animals. Im not sure I really like it. How far do these go back? Gorry, I dont know, Jud said, putting his hands deep in his pockets. Place was here when Spot died, of course. I had a whole gang of friends in those days. They helped me dig the hole for Spot. Digging here aint that easy, either grounds awful stony, you know, hard to turn. And I helped them sometimes. He pointed here and there with a horny finger. That there was Pete LaVasseurs dog, if I remember right, and theres three of Albion Groatleys barncats buried right in a row there. Old Man Fritchie kept racing pigeons. Me and Al Groatley and Carl Hannah buried one of them that a dog got. Hes right there. He paused thoughtfully. Im the last of that bunch left, you know. All dead now, my gang. All gone. Louis said nothing, only stood looking at the pet graves with his hands in his pockets. Grounds stony, Jud repeated. Couldnt plant nothing here but corpses anyway, I guess. Across the way, Gage began to cry thinly, and Rachel brought him over, toting him on her hip. Hes hungry, she said. I think we ought to go back, Lou. Please, okay? her eyes asked. Sure, he said. He shouldered the Gerrypack again and turned around so Rachel could pop Gage in. Ellie! Hey Ellie, where are you? There she is, Rachel said and pointed toward the blowdown. Ellie was climbing as if the blowdown was a bastard cousin to the monkeybars at school. Oh, honey, you want to come dawn off there! Jud called over, alarmed. You stick your foot in the wrong hole and those old trees shift, youll break your ankle. Ellie jumped down. Ow! she cried and came toward them, rubbing her hip. The skin wasnt broken, but a stiff dead branch had torn her slacks. You see what I mean, Jud said, ruffling her hair. Old blowdown like this, even someone wise about the woods wont try to climb over it if he can go around. Trees that all fall down in a pile get mean. Theyll bite you if they can. Really? Ellie asked. Really. Theyre piled up like straws, you see. And if you was to step on the right one, they might all come down in an avalanche. Ellie looked at Louis. Is that true, Daddy? I think so, hon. Yuck! She looked back at the blowdown and yelled You tore my pants, you cruddy trees! All three of the grownups laughed. The blowdown did not. It merely sat whitening in the sun as it had done for decades. To Louis it looked like the skeletal remains of some longdead monster, something slain by a parfait good and gentil knight, perchance. A dragons bones, left here in a giant cairn. It occurred to him even then that there was something too Convenient about that blowdown and the way it stood between the pet cemetery and the depths of woods beyond, woods which Jud Crandall later sometimes referred to absently as the Indian woods. Its very randomness seemed too artful, too perfect for a work of nature. It Then Gage grabbed one of his ears and twisted it, crowing happily, and Louis forgot all about the blowdown in the. woods beyond the pet cemetery. It was time to go home. 9 Ellie came to him the next day, looking troubled. Louis was working on a model in his study. This one was a 1917 RollsRoyce Silver Ghost680 pieces, over 50 moving parts. It was nearly done, and be could almost imagine the liveried chauffeur, direct descendant of eighteenth and nineteenthcentury English coachmen, sitting imperially behind the wheel. He had been modelcrazy since his tenth year. He had begun with a World War I Sped that his Uncle Carl had bought him, had worked his way through most of the Revell airplanes, and had moved on to bigger and better things in his teens and twenties. There had been a boatsinbottles phase and a warmachines phase and even a phase in which he had built guns so realistic it was hard to believe they wouldnt fire when you pulled the triggerColts and Winchesters and Lugers, even a Buntline Special. Over the last five years or so, it had been the big cruise ships. A model of the Lusitania and one of the Titanic sat on his shelves at his university office, and the Andrea Doria, completed just before they left Chicago, was currently cruising the mantelpiece in their living room. Now he had moved on to classic cars, and if previous patterns held true, he supposed it would be four or five years before the urge to do something new struck him. Rachel looked on this, his only real hobby, with a wifely indulgence that held, he supposed, some elements of contempt; even after ten years of marriage she probably thought he would grow out of it. Perhaps some of this attitude came from her father, who believed just as much now as at the time Louis and Rachel had married that he had gotten an asshole for a soninlaw. Maybe, he thought, Rachel is right. Maybe Ill just wake up one morning at the age of thirtyseven, put all these models up in the attic, and take up hang gliding. Meanwhile Ellie looked serious. Far away, drifting in the clear air, he could hear that perfect Sunday morning sound of churchbells calling worshippers. Hi, Dad, she said. Hello, pumpkin. Wass happenin? Oh, nothing, she said, but her face said differently; her face said that plenty was up, andnone of it was so hot, thank you very much. Her hair was fleshly washed and fell loose to her shoulders. In this light it was still more blond than the brown it was inevitably becoming. She was wearing a dress, and it occurred to Louis that his daughter almost always put on a dress on Sundays, although they did not attend church. What are you building? Carefully gluing on a mudguard, he told her. Look at this, he said, carefully banding her a hubcap. See those linked Rs? Thats a nice detail, huh? If we fly back to Shytown for Thanksgiving and we get on an L10l 1, you look Out at the jet engines and youll see those same Rs. Hubcap, big deal. She handed it back. Please, he said. If you own a RollsRoyce, you call that a wheel covering. If youre rich enough to own a Rolls, you can strut a little. When I make my second million, Im going to buy myself one. RollsRoyce Corniche. Then when Gage gets carsick, he can throw up into real leather. And just by the way, Ellie, whats on your mind? But it didnt work that way with Ellie. You didnt ask things right out. She was wary of giving too much of herself away. It was a trait Louis admired. Are we rich, Daddy? No, he said, but were not going away to starve either. Michael Burns at school says all doctors are rich. Well, you tell Michael Burns at school that lots of doctors get rich, but it takes twenty years. . and you dont get rich running a university infirmary. You get rich being a specialist. A gynecologist or an orthopedist or a neurologist. They get rich quicker. For utility infielders like me, it takes longer. Then why dont you be a specialist, Daddy? Louis thought of his models again and ofthe way he had one day just not wanted to build any more warplanes, the way he had likewise gotten tired of Tiger tanks and gun emplacements, the way he had come to believe (almost overnight, it seemed in retrospect) that building boats in bottles was pretty dumb; and then he thought of what it would be like to spend your whole life inspecting childrens feet for hammertoe or putting on the thin Latex gloves so you could grope along some womans vaginal canal with one educated finger, feeling for bumps or lesions. I just wouldnt like it, he said. Church came into the office, paused, inspected the situation with his bright green eyes. He leaped silently onto the windowsill and appeared to go to sleep. Ellie glanced at him and frowned, which struck Louis as exceedingly odd. Usually Ellie looked at Church with an expression of love so sappy it was almost painful. She began to walk around the office, looking at various models, and in a voice that was nearly casual, she said, Boy, there were a lot of graves up in the Pet Sematary, werent there? Ah, heres the nub, Louis thought but did not look around; after examining his instructions, he began putting the carriage lamps on the Rolls. There were, he said. Better than a hundred, Id say. Daddy, why dont pets live as long as people? Well, some animals do live about as long, he said, and some live much longer. Elephants live a very long time, and there are some sea turtles so old that people really dont know how old they are . . . or maybe they do, and they just cant believe it. Ellie dismissed these simply enough. Elephants and sea turtles arent pets. Pets dont live very long at all. Michael Burns says that every year a dog lives, its like nine of our years. Seven, Louis corrected automatically. I see what youre getting at, honey, and there some truth to it. A dog who lives to be twelve is an old dog. See, theres this thing called metabolism, and what metabolism seems to do is tell time. Oh, it does other stuff toosome people can eat a lot and stay thin because of their metabolism, like your mother. Other peopleme, for instancejust cant eat as much without getting fat. Our metabolisms are different, thats all. But what metabolism seems to do most of all is to serve living things as a body clock. Dogs have a fairly rapid metabolism. The metabolism of human beings is much slower. We live to be about seventytwo, most of us. And believe me, seventytwo years is a very long time. Because Ellie looked really worried, he hoped he sounded more sincere than he actually felt. He was thirtyfive, and it seemed to him that those years had passed as quickly and ephemerally as a momentary draft under a door. Sea turtles, now, have an even slower metabo What about cats? Ellie asked and looked at Church again. Well, cats live as long as dogs, he said, mostly, anyway. This was a lie, and he knew it. Cats lived violent lives and often died bloody deaths, always just below the usual range of human sight. Here was Church, dozing in the sun (or appearing to), Church who slept peacefully on his daughters bed every night, Church who had been so cute as a kitten, all tangled up in a ball of string. And yet Louis had seen him stalk a bird with a broken wing, his green eyes sparkling with curiosity andyes, Louis would have sworn itcold delight. He rarely killed what he stalked, but there had been one notable exceptiona large rat, probably caught in the alley between their apartment house and the next. Church had really put the blocks to that baby. It had been so bloody and goreflecked that Rachel, then in her sixth month with Gage, had had to run into the bathroom and vomit. Violent lives, violent deaths. A dog got them and ripped them open instead of just chasing them like the bumbling, easily fooled dogs in the TV cartoons, or another torn got them, or a poisoned bait, or a passing car. Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire. But those were maybe not things to tell your fiveyearold daughter, who was for the first time examining the facts of death. I mean, he said, Church is only three now, and youre five. He might still be alive when youre fifteen, a sophomore in high school. And thats a long time away. It doesnt seem long to me, Ellie said, and now her voice trembled. Not long at all. Louis gave up the pretense of working on his model and gestured for her to come. She sat on his lap, and he was again struck by her beauty, which was emphasized now by her emotional upset. She was darkskinned, almost Levantine. Tony Benton, one of the doctors he had worked with in Chicago, used to call her the Indian Princess. Honey, he said, if it was up to me, Id let Church live to be a hundred. But I dont make the rules. Who does? she asked, and then, with infinite scorn God, I suppose. Louis stifled the urge to laugh. It was too serious. God or Somebody, he said. Clocks run downthats all I know. There are no guarantees, babe. I dont want Church to be like all those dead pets! she burst out, suddenly tearful and furious. I dont want Church to ever be dead! Hes my cat! Hes not Gods cat! Let God have His own cat! Let God have all the damn old cats He wants, and kill them all! Church is mine! There were footsteps across the kitchen, and Rachel looked in, startled. Ellie was now weeping against Louiss chest. The horror had been articulated; it was out; its face had been drawn and could be regarded. Now, even if it could not be changed, it could at least be wept over. Ellie, he said, rocking her, Ellie, Ellie, Church isnt dead; hes right over there, sleeping. But he could be, she wept. He could be, any time. He held her and rocked her, believing, rightly or wrongly, that Ellie wept for the very intractability of death, its imperviousness to argument or to a little girls tears; that she wept over its cruel unpredictability; and that she wept because of the human beings wonderful, deadly ability to translate symbols into conclusions that were either fine and noble or blackly terrifying. If all those animals had died and been buried, then Church could die (any time!) and be buried; and if that could happen to Church, it could happen to her mother, her father, her baby brother. To herself. Death was a vague idea; the Pet Sematary was real. In the texture of those rude markers were truths which even a childs hands could feel. It would be easy to lie at this point, the way he had lied earlier about the life expectancy of tomcats. But a lie would be remembered later and perhaps finally totted up on the report card all children hand in to themselves on their parents. His own mother had told him such a lie, an innocuous one about women finding babies in the dewy grass when they really wanted them, and as innocuous as the lie had been, Louis had never forgiven his mother for telling itor himself for believing it. Honey, he said, it happens. Its a part of life. Its a bad part! she cried. Its a really bad part! There was no answer for this. She wept. Eventually her tears would stop. It was a necessary first step on the way to. making an uneasy peace with a truth that was never going to go away. He held his daughter and listened to church bells on Sunday morning, floating across the September fields; and it was some time after her tears had stopped before he realized that, like Church, she had gone to sleep. He put her up in her bed and then, came downstairs to the kitchen, where Rachel was beating cake batter too hard. He mentioned his surprise that Ellie should just cork off like that in the middle of the morning; it wasnt like her. No, Rachel said, setting the bowl down on the counter with a decisive thump. It isnt, but I think she was awake most of last night. I heard her tossing around, and Church cried to go out around three. He only does that when shes restless. Why would she . . . ? Oh, you know why! Rachel said, angrily. That damned pet cemetery is why! It really upset her, Lou. It was the first cemetery of any kind for her, and it just . . . upset her. I dont think Ill write your friend Jud Crandall any thankyou notes for that little hike. All at once hes my friend, Louis thought, bemused and distressed at the same time. Rachel And I dont want her going up there again. Rachel, what Jud said about the path is true. Its not the path and you know it, Rachel said. She picked up the bowl again and began beating the cake batter even faster. its that damned place. Its unhealthy. Kids going up there and tending the graves, keeping the path . . . fucking morbid is what it is. Whatever disease the kids in this town have got, I dont want Ellie to catch it. Louis stared at her, nonplussed. He more than half suspected that one of the things which had kept their marriage together when it seemed as if each year brought the news that two or three of their friends marriages had collapsed was their respect of the mysterythe halfgrasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a fullfledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clearair turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another. Honey, its just a pet cemetery, he said. The way she was crying in there just now, Rachel said, gesturing toward the door to his office with a battercovered spoon, do you think its just a pet cemetery to her? Its going to leave a scar, Lou. No. Shes not going up there anymore. Its not the path, its the place. Here she is already thinking Church is going to die. For a moment Louis had the crazy impression that he was still talking to Ellie; she had simply donned stilts, one of her mothers dresses, and a very clever, very realistic Rachel mask. Even the expression was the sameset and a bit sullen on top, but wounded beneath. He groped, because suddenly the issue seemed large to him, not a thing to be simply passed over in deference to that mystery . . . or that aloneness. He groped because it seemed to him that she was missing something so large it nearly filled the landscape, and you couldnt do that unless you were deliberately closing your eyes to it. Rachel, he said, Church is going to die. She stared at him angrily. That is hardly the point, she said, enunciating each word carefully, speaking as one might speak to a backward child. Church is not going to die today, or tomorrow I tried to tell her that Or the day after that, or probably for years Honey, we cant be sure of th Of course we can! she shouted. We take good care .of him, hes not going to die, no one is going to die around here, and so why do you want to go and get a little girl all upset about something she cant understand until shes much older? Rachel, listen. But Rachel had no intention of listening. She was blazing. Its bad enough to try and cope with a deatha pet or a friend or a relativewhen it happens, without turning it into a . . . a goddam tourist attraction . . . a FFForest Lawn for aanimals . . . Tears were running down her cheeks. Rachel, he said and tried to put his hands on her shoulders. She shrugged them off in a quick, hard gesture. Never mind, she said. You dont have the slightest idea what Im talking about. He sighed. I feel like I fell through a hidden trapdoor and into a giant Mixmaster, he said, hoping for a smile. He got none; only her eyes, locked on his, black and blazing. She was furious, he realized; not just angry, but absolutely furious. Rachel, he said suddenly, not fully sure what he was going to say until it was out, how did you sleep last night? Oh boy, she said scornfully, turning awaybut not before he had seen a wounded flicker in her eyes. Thats really intelligent. Really intelligent. You never change, Louis. When something isnt going right, blame Rachel, right? Rachels just having one of her weird emotional reactions. Thats not fair. No? She took the bowl of cake batter over to the far counter by the stove and set it down with another bang. She began to grease a cake tin, her lips pressed tightly together. He said patiently, Theres nothing wrong with a child finding out something about death, Rachel. In fact, Id call it a necessary thing. Ellies reactionher cryingthat seemed perfectly natural to me. It Oh, it sounded natural, Rachel said, whirling on him again. It sounded very natural to hear her weeping her heart out over her cat which is perfectly fine Stop it, he said. Youre not making any sense. I dont want to discuss it anymore. Yes, but were going to, he said, angry himself now. You had your atbatshow about giving me mine? Shes not going up there anymore. And as far as Im concerned, the subject is closed. Ellie has known where babies come from since last year, Louis said deliberately. We got her the Myers book and talked to her about it, do you remember that? We both agreed that children ought to know where they come from. That has nothing to do with It does, though! he said roughly. When I was talking to her in my office, about Church, I got thinking about my mother and how she spun me that old cabbageleaf story when I asked her where women got babies. Ive never forgotten that lie. I dont think children ever forget the lies their parents tell them. Where babies come from has nothing to do with a goddam pet cemetery! Rachel cried at him, and what her eyes said to him was Talk about the parallels all night and all day, if you want to, Louis; talk until you turn blue, but I wont accept it. Still, he tried. She knows about babies; that place up in the woods just made her want to know something about the other end of things. Its perfectly natural. In fact, I think its the most natural thing in the w Will you stop saying that! she screamed suddenlyreally screamed and Louis recoiled, startled. His elbow struck the open bag of flour on the counter. It tumbled off the edge and struck the floor, splitting open. Hour puffed up in a dry white cloud. Oh fuck, he said dismally. In an upstairs room, Gage began to cry. Thats nice, she said, also crying now. You woke the baby up too. Thanks for a nice, quiet, stressless Sunday morning. She started by him and Louis put a hand on her arm. Let me ask you something, he said, because I know that anythingliterally anythingcan happen to physical beings. As a doctor I know that. Do you want to be the one to explain to her what happened if her cat gets distemper or leukemia cats are very prone to leukemia, you knowor if he gets run over in that road? Do you want to be the one, Rachel? Let me go, she nearly hissed. The anger in her voice, however, was overmatched by the hurt and bewildered terror in her eyesI dont want to talk about this, Louis, and you cant make me, that look said. Let me go, I want to get Gage before he falls out of his cr Because maybe you ought to be the one, he said. You can tell her we dont talk about it, nice people dont talk about it, they just bury itoops! but dont say buried, youll give her a complex. I hate you! Rachel sobbed and tore away from him. Then he was of course sorry, and it was of course too late. Rachel She pushed by him roughly, crying harder. Leave me alone. Youve done enough. She paused in the kitchen doorway, turning toward him, the tears coursing down her cheeks. I dont want this discussed in front of Ellie anymore, Lou. I mean it. Theres nothing natural about death. Nothing. You as a doctor should know that. She whirled and was gone, leaving Louis in the empty kitchen, which still vibrated with their voices. At last he went to the pantry to get the broom. As he swept, he reflected on the last thing she had said and on the enormity of this difference of opinion, which had gone undiscovered for so long. Because, as a doctor, he knew that death was, except perhaps for childbirth, the most natural thing in the world. Taxes were not so sure; human conflicts were not; the conflicts of society were not; boom and bust were not. In the end there was only the clock, and the markers, which became eroded and nameless in the passage of time. Even sea turtles and the giant sequoias had to buy out someday. Zelda, he said aloud. Christ, that must have been bad for her. The question was should he just let it ride or should he try to do something about it? He tilted the dustpan over the wastebasket, and flour slid out with a soft foom, powdering the castout cartons and usedup cans. 10 Hope Ellie didnt take it too hard, Jud Crandall said. Not for the first time Louis thought that the man had a peculiar and rather uncomfortableability to put his finger gently on whatever the sore spot was. He and Jud and Norma Crandall now sat on the Crandalls porch in the cool of the evening, drinking iced tea instead of beer. On 15, goinghomeaftertheweekend traffic was fairly heavypeople recognized that every good latesummer weekend now might be the last one, Louis supposed. Tomorrow he took up his full duties at the University of Maine infirmary All day yesterday and today students had been arriving, filling apartments in Orono and dorms on campus, making beds, renewing acquaintances, and no doubt groaning over another year of eight oclock classes and commons food. Rachel had been cool to him all dayno, freezing was more like itand when he went back across the road tonight, he knew that she would already be in bed, Gage sleeping with her more than likely, the two of them so far over to her side that the baby would be in danger of falling off. His half of the bed would have grown to three quarters, all of it looking like a big, sterile desert. I said I hoped Sorry, Louis said. Woolgathering. She was a little upset, yeah. How did you guess that? Seen em come and go, like I said. Jud took his wifes hand gently and grinned at her. Havent we, dear? Packs and packs of them, Norma Crandall said. We. love the children. Sometimes that pet cemetery is their first eyeballtoeyeball with death, Jud said. They see people die on TV, but they know thats pretend, like the old Westerns they used to have at the movies on Saturday afternoons. On TV and in the Western movies, they just hold their stomachs or their chests and fall over. Place up on that hill seems a lot more real to most of em than all those movies and TV shows put together, dont you know. Louis nodded, thinking Tell my wife that, why dont you? Some kids it dont affect at all, at least not so you can see it, although Id guess most of em kinda . . . kinda take it home in their pockets to look over later, like all the other stuff they collect. Most of em are fine. But some . . you remember the little Holloway boy, Norma? She nodded. Ice chattered softly in the glass she held. Her glasses hung on her chest, and the headlights of a passing car illuminated the chain briefly. He had such nightmares, she said. Dreams about corpses coming out of the ground and I dont know what all. Then his dog diedate some poisoned bait was all anyone in town could figure, wasnt it, Jud? Poisoned bait, Jud said, nodding. Thats what most people thought, ayuh. That was 1925. Billy Holloway was maybe ten then. Went on to become a state senator. Ran for the U.S. House of Representatives later on, but he lost. That was just before Korea. He and some of his friends had a funeral for the dog, Norma remembered. It was just a mongrel, but he loved it well. I remember his parents were a little against the burying, because of the bad dreams and all, but it went off fine. Two of the bigger boys made a coffin, didnt they, Jud? Jud nodded and drained his iced tea. Dean and Dana Hall, he said. Them and that other kid Billy chummed withI cant remember his first name, but Im sure he was one of the Bowie kids. You remember the Bowies that used to live up on Middle Drive in the old Brochette house, Norma? Yes! Norma said, as excited as if it had happened yesterday . . . and perhaps in her mind, it seemed that way. It was a Bowie! Alan or Burt Or maybe it was Kendall, Jud agreed. Anyways, I remember they had a pretty good argument about who was going to be pallbearers. The dog wasnt very big, and so there wasnt room but for two. The Hall boys said they ought to be the ones to do it since they made the coffin, and also because they were twinssort of a matched set, ysee. Billy said they didnt know Bowserthat was the dogwell enough to be the pallbearers. My dad says only close friends get to be pallbearers, was his argument, not jest any carpenter. Jud and Norma both laughed at this, and Louis grinned. They was just about ready to fight over it when Mandy Holloway, Billys sister, fetched out the fourth volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Jud said. Her dad, Stephen Holloway, was the only doctor this side of Bangor and that side of Bucksport in those days, Louis, and they was the only family in Ludlow that could afford a set of encyclopedia. They were also the first to have electric lights, Norma broke in. Anyway, Jud resumed, Mandy come out all aflukin, head up and tail over a splashboard, all of eight years old, petticoats flyin, that big book in her arms. Billy and the Bowie kidI think it must have been Kendall, him that crashed and burned up in Pensacola where they was trainin fighter pilots in early 1942they was gettin ready to take on the Hall twins over the privilege of toting that poor old poisoned mutt up to the boneyard. Louis started giggling. Soon he was laughing out loud. He could feel the daysold residue of tension left from the bitter argument with Rachel beginning to loosen. So she says, Wait! Wait! Looka this! And they all stop and look. And goddam if she aint Jud, Norma said warningly. Sorry, dear; I get carried away yarning, you know that. I guess you do, she said. And darned if she aint got that book open to FUNERALS, and theres a picture of Queen Victoria getting her final sendoff and bon voyage, and there are about fortyeleven people on each side of her coffin, some sweatin and strainin to lift the bugger, some just standin around in their funeral coats and ruffled collars like they was waitin for someone to call post time at the racetrack. And Mandy says, When its a ceremonial funeral of state, you can have as many as you want! The book says so! That solved it? Louis asked. That did the trick. They ended up with about twenty kids, and damn if they didnt look just like the picture Mandy had found, except maybe for the ruffles and tall hats. Mandy took charge, she did. Got em lined up and gave each of em a wildflowera dandelion or a ladys slipper or a daisyand off they went., By the gee, I always thought the country missed a bet when Mandy Holloway never got voted to the U.S. Congress. He laughed and shook his head. Anyway, that was the end of Billys bad dreams about the Pet Sematary. He mourned his dog and finished his mourning and got on. Which is what we all do, I guess. Louis thought again of Rachels nearhysteria. Your Ellie will get over it, Norma said and shifted position. You must be thinking that death is all we talk about around here, Louis. Jud and I are getting on, but I hope neither of us has gotten to the gorecrow stage yet No, of course not, dont be silly, Louis said. But its not such a bad idea to be on nodding acquaintance with it. These days . . . I dont know . . . no one wants to talk about it or think about it, it seems. They took it off the TV because they thought it might hurt the children some way hurt their minds. . and people want closed coffins so they dont have to look at the remains or say goodbye . . . it just seems like people want to forget it. And at the same time they brought in the cable TV with all those movies showing peopleJud looked at Norma and cleared his throatshowing people doing what people usually do with their shades pulled down, he finished. Queer how things change from one generation to the next, isnt it? Yes, Louis said. I suppose it is. Well, we come from a different time, Jud said, sounding almost apologetic We was on closer terms with death. We saw the flu epidemic after the Great War, and mothers dying with child, and children dying of infection and fevers that it seems like doctors just wave a magic wand over these days. In the time when me and Norma was young, if you got cancer, why, that was your death warrant, right there.

No radiation treatments back in the 1920s! Two wars, murders, suicides . . He fell silent for a moment. We knew it as a friend and as an enemy, he said finally. My brother Pete died of a burst appendix in 1912, back when Taft was President. Pete was just fourteen, and he could hit a baseball farther than any kid in town. In those days you didnt need to take a course in college to study death, hotspice, or whatever they call it. In those days it came into the house and said howdy and sometimes it took supper with you and sometimes you could feel it bite your ass. This time Norma didnt correct him; instead she nodded silently. Louis stood up, stretched. I have to go, he said. Big day tomorrow. Yes, the merrygoround starts for you tomorrow, dont it? Jud said, also standing. Jud saw Norma was also trying to get up and gave her a hand. She rose with a grimace. Bad tonight, is it? Louis asked. Not so bad, she said. Put some heat on it when you go to bed. I will, Norma said. I always do. And Louis. . dont fret about Ellie. Shell be too busy gettin to know her new friends this fall to worry much about that old place. Maybe someday all of emll go up and repaint some of the signs, or pull weeds, or plant flowers. Sometimes they do, when the notion takes them. And shell feel better about it. Shell start to get that nodding acquaintance. Not if my wife has anything to say about it. Come on over tomorrow night and tell me how it went up at the college, if you get the chance, Jud said. Ill whup you at cribbage. Well, maybe Ill get you drunk first, Louis said. Doubleskunk you. Doc, Jud said with great sincerity, the day I get doubleskunked at cribbage would be the day Id let a quack like you treat me. He left on their laughter and crossed the road to his own house in the latesummer dark. Rachel was sleeping with the baby, curled up on her side of the bed in a fetal, protective position. He supposed she would get over itthere had been other arguments and times of coldness in their marriage, but this one was surely the worst of the lot. He felt sad and angry and unhappy all at the same time, wanting to make it up but not sure how, not even sure that the first move should come from him. It was all so pointlessonly a capful of wind somehow blown up to hurricane proportions by a trick of the mind. Other fights and arguments, yes, sure, but only a few as bitter as the one over Ellies tears and questions. He supposed it didnt take a great many blows like that before the marriage sustained structural damage and then one day, instead of reading about it in a note from a friend (Well, I suppose I ought to tell you before you hear it from someone else, Lou; Maggie and I are splitting . . .) or in the newspaper, it was you. He undressed to his shorts quietly and set the alarm for 6 A.M. Then he showered, washed his hair, shaved, and crunched up a Rolaid before brushing his teethNormas iced tea had given him acid indigestion. Or maybe it was coming home and seeing Rachel way over on her side of the bed. Territory is that which defines all else, hadnt he read that in some college history course? Everything done, the evening put neatly away, he went to bed . . . but couldnt sleep. There was something else, something that nagged at him. The last two days went around and around in his head as he listened to Rachel and Gage breathing nearly in tandem. GEN. PATTON . . . HANNAH THE BEST DOG THAT EVER LIVED . . . MARIA OUR PET RABIT . . . Ellie, furious. I dont want Church to ever be dead! . . . Hes not Gods cat! Let God have His own cat! Rachel, equally furious. You as a doctor should know . . . Norma Crandall saying It just seems like people want to forget it . . . And Jud, his voice terribly sure, terribly certain, a voice from another age Sometimes it took supper with you and sometimes you could feel it bite your ass. And that voice merged with the voice of his mother, who had lied to Louis Creed about sex at four but told him the truth about death at twelve, when his cousin Ruthie had been killed in a stupid car accident. She had been crushed in her fathers car by a kid who had found the keys in a Public Works Department payloader and decided to take it for a cruise and then found out he didnt know how to stop it. The kid suffered only minor cuts and contusions; his Uncle Carls Fairlane was demolished. She cant be dead, he had replied in answer to his mothers bald statement. He had heard the words, but he couldnt seem to get the sense of them. What do you mean, shes dead? What are you talking about? And then, as an afterthought Whos going to bury her? For although Ruthies father, Louiss uncle, was an undertaker, he couldnt imagine that Uncle Carl would possibly be the one to do it. In his confusion and mounting fear, he had seized upon this as the most important question. It was a genuine conundrum, like who cut the town barbers hair. I imagine that Donny Donahue will do it, his mother replied. Her eyes were redrimmed; most of all she had looked tired. His mother had looked almost ill with weariness. Hes your uncles best pal in the business. Oh, but Louis. Sweet little Ruthie . . . I cant stand to think she suffered . . . pray with me. will you, Louis? Pray with me for Ruthie. I need you to help me. So they had gotten down on their knees in the kitchen, he and his mother, and they prayed, and it was the praying that finally brought it home to him; if his mother was praying for Ruthie Creeds soul, then it meant that her body was gone. Before his closed eyes rose a terrible image of Ruthie coming to his thirteenth birthday party with her decaying eyeballs hanging on her cheeks and blue mould growing in her red hair, and this image provoked not just sickening horror but an awful doomed love. He cried out in the greatest mental agony of his life, She cant be dead! MOMMA, SHE CANT BE DEADI LOVE HER! And his mothers reply, her voice flat and yet full of images dead fields under a November sky, scattered rose petals brown and turning up at the edges, empty pools scummed with algae, rot, decomposition, dust She is, my darling. Im sorry, but she is. Ruthie is gone. Louis shuddered, thinking, Dead is deadwhat else do you need? Suddenly Louis knew what it was he had forgotten to do, why he was still awake on this night before the first day of his new job, hashing over old griefs. He got up, headed for the stairs, and suddenly detoured down the hall to Ellies room. She was sleeping peacefully, mouth open, wearing her blue babydoll pajamas that she had really outgrown. My God, Ellie, he thought, youre sprouting like corn. Church lay between her splayed ankles, also dead to the world. You should pardon the pun. Downstairs there was a bulletin board on the wall by the phone with various messages, memos, and bills tacked to it. Written across the top in Rachels neat caps was THINGS TO PUT OFF AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Louis got the telephone book, looked up a number, and jotted it on a blank memo sheet. Below the number he wrote Quentin L. Jolander, D.V.M.call for appointment re Churchif Jolander doesnt neuter animals, he will refer. He looked at the note, wondering if it was time, knowing that it was. Something concrete had to come out of all this bad feeling, and he had decided sometime between this morning and tonightwithout even knowing he was deciding that he didnt want Church crossing the road anymore if he could help it. His old feelings on the subject rose up in him, the idea that neutering would lessen the cat, would turn him into a fat old tom before his time, content to just sleep on the radiator until someone put something into his dish. He didnt want Church like that. He liked Church the way he was, lean and mean. Outside in the dark, a big semi droned by on Route 15, and that decided him. He tacked the memo up and went to bed. 11 The next morning at breakfast, Ellie saw the new memo on the bulletin board and asked him what it meant. It means hes going to have a very small operation, Louis said. Hell probably have to stay over at the vets for one night afterward. And when he comes home, hell stay in our yard and not want to roam around so much. Or cross the road? Ellie asked. She may be only five, Louis thought, but shes sure no slouch. Or cross the road, he agreed. Yay! Ellie said, and that was the end of the subject. Louis, who had been prepared for a bitter and perhaps hysterical argument about Church being out of the house for even one night, was mildly stunned by the ease with which she had acquiesced. And he realized how worried she must have been. Perhaps Rachel had not been entirely wrong about the effect the Pet Sematary had had on her. Rachel herself, who was feeding Gage his breakfast egg, shot him a grateful approving look, and Louis felt something loosen in his chest. The look told him that the chill was over; this particular hatchet had been buried. Forever, he hoped. Later, after the big yellow school bus had gobbled Ellie up for the morning, Rachel came to him, put her arms around his neck, and kissed his mouth gently. You were very sweet to do that, she said, and Im sorry I was such a bitch. Louis returned her kiss, feeling a little uncomfortable nonetheless. It occurred to him that the Im sorry I was such a bitch statement, while by no means a standard, was not exactly something hed never heard before either. It usually came after Rachel had gotten her way. Gage, meanwhile, had toddled unsteadily over to the front door and was looking out the lowest pane of glass at the empty road. Bus, he said, hitching nonchalantly at his sagging diapers. Elliebus. Hes growing up fast, Louis said. Rachel nodded. Too fast to suit me, I think. Wait until hes out of diapers, Louis said. Then he can stop. She laughed, and it was all right between them again completely all right. She stood back, made a minute adjustment to his tie, and looked him up and down critically. Do I pass muster, Sarge? he asked. You look very nice. Yeah, I know. But do I look like a heart surgeon? A twohundredthousanddollarayear man? No, just old Lou Creed, she said and giggled. The rockandroll animal. Louis glanced at his watch. The rockandroll animal has got to put on his boogie shoes and go, he said. Are you nervous? Yeah, a little. Dont be, she said. Its sixtyseven thousand dollars a year for putting on Ace bandages, prescribing for the flu and for hangovers, giving girls the pill Dont forget the crabandlouse lotion, Louis said, smiling again. One of the things that had surprised him on his first tour of the infirmary had been the supplies of Quell, which seemed to him enormousmore fitted to an army base infirmary than to one on a middlesized university campus. Miss Charlton, the head nurse, had smiled cynically. Off campus apartments in the area are pretty tacky. Youll see. He supposed he would. Have a good day, she said and kissed him again, lingeringly. But when she pulled away, she was mockstem. And for Christs sake remember that youre an administrator, not an intern or a secondyear resident! Yes, Doctor, Louis said humbly, and they both laughed again. For a moment he thought of asking Was it Zelda, babe? is that whats got under your skin? Is that the zone of low pressure? Zelda and how she died? But he wasnt going to ask her that, not now. As a doctor he knew a lot of things, and while the fact that death was just as natural as childbirth might be the greatest of them, the fact that you dont monkey with a wound that has finally started to heal was far from the least of them. So instead of asking, he only kissed her again and went out. It was a good start, a good day. Maine was putting on a latesummer show, the sky was blue and cloudless, the temperature pegged at an utterly perfect seventytwo degrees. Rolling to the end of the driveway and checking for traffic, Louis mused that so far he hadnt seen so much as a trace of the fall foliage that was supposed to be so spectacular. But he could wait. He pointed the Honda Civic they had picked up as a second car toward the university and let it roll. Rachel would call the vet this morning, they would get Church fixed, and that would put this whole nonsense of Pet Semataries (it was funny how that misspelling got into your head and began to seem right) and death fears behind them. There was no need to be thinking about death on a beautiful September morning like this one. Louis turned on the radio and dialed until he found the Ramones belting out Rockaway Beach. He turned it up and sang alongnot well but with lusty enjoyment. 12 The first thing he noticed turning into the university grounds was how suddenly and spectacularly the traffic swelled. There was car traffic, bike traffic, there were joggers by the score. He had to stop quickly to avoid two of the latter coming from the direction of Dunn Hall. Louis braked hard enough to lock his shoulder belt and honked. He was always annoyed at the way joggers (bicyclers had the same irritating habit) seemed to automatically assumed that their responsibility lapsed completely at the moment they began to run. They were, after all, exercising. One of them gave Louis the finger without ever looking around. Louis sighed and drove on. The second thing was that the ambulance was gone from its slot in the small infirmary parking lot, and that gave him a nasty start. The infirmary was equipped to treat almost any illness or accident on a shortterm basis; there were three wellequipped examinationandtreatment rooms opening off the big foyer, and beyond this were two wards with fifteen beds each. But there was no operating theater, nor anything even resembling one. In case of serious accidents, there was the ambulance, which would rush an injured or seriously ill person to the Eastern Maine Medical Center. Steve Masterton, the physicians assistant who had given Louis his first tour of the facility, had shown Louis the log from the previous two academic years with justifiable pride; there had only been thirtyeight ambulance runs in that time . . . not bad when you considered that the student population here was over ten thousand and the total university population was almost seventeen thousand. And here he was, on his first real day of work, with the ambulance gone. He parked in the slot headed with a freshly painted sign reading RESERVED FOR DR. CREED and hurried in. He found Charlton, a graying but lithe woman of about fifty, in the first examining room, taking the temperature of a girl who was wearing jeans and a halter top. The girl had gotten a bad sunburn not too long ago, Louis observed; the peeling was well advanced. Good morning, Joan, he said. Wheres the ambulance? Oh, we had a real tragedy, all right, Charlton said, taking the thermometer out of the students mouth and reading it. Steve Masterton came in this morning at seven and saw a great big puddle under the engine and the front wheels. Radiator let go. They hauled it away. Great, Louis said, but he felt relieved nonetheless. At least it wasnt out on a run, which was what he had first feared; When do we get it back? Joan Chariton laughed. Knowing the University Motor Pool, she said, itll come back around December fifteenth wrapped in Christmas ribbon. She glanced at the student. Youve got half a degree of fever, she said. Take two aspirins and stay out of bars and dark alleys. The girl got down. She gave Louis a quick appraising glance and then went out. Our first customer of the new semester, Charlton said sourly. She began to shake the thermometer down with brisk snaps. You dont seem too pleased about it. I know the type, she said. Oh, we get the other type tooathletes who go on playing with bone chips and tendonitis and everything else because they dont want to be benched, they got to be macho men, not let the ream down, even if theyre jeopardizing pro careers later on. Then youve got little Miss HalfDegree of Fever She jerked her head toward the window, where Louis could see the girl with the peeling sunburn walking in the direction of the Gannett CumberlandAndroscoggin complex of dorms. In the examining room the girl had given the impression of being someone who did not feel well at all but was trying not to let on. Now she was walking briskly, her hips swinging prettily, noticing and being noticed. Your basic college hypochondriac. Charlton dropped the thermometer into a sterilizer. Well see her two dozen times this year. Her visits will be more frequent before each round of prelims. A week or so before finals, shell be convinced she has either mono or pneumonia. Bronchitis is the fallback position. Shell get out of four or five teststhe ones where the instructors are wimps, to use the word they useand get easier makeups. They always get sicker if they know the prelim or final is going to be an objective test rather than an essay exam. My, arent we cynical this morning, Louis said. He was, in fact, a little nonplussed. She tipped him a wink that made him grin. I dont take it to heart. Doctor. Neither should you Wheres Stephen now? In your office, answering mail and trying to figure out the latest ton of bureaucratic bullshit from Blue CrossBlue Shield, she said. Louis went in. Charltons cynicism notwithstanding, he felt comfortably in harness. Looking back on it, Louis would thinkwhen he could bear to think about it at allthat the nightmare really began when they brought the dying boy, Victor Pascow, into the infirmary around ten that morning. Until then, things were very quiet. At nine, half an hour after Louis arrived, the two candystripers who would be working the ninetothree shift came in. Louis gave them each a doughnut and a cup of coffee and talked to them for about fifteen minutes, outlining their duties, and what was perhaps more important, what was beyond the scope of their duties. Then Charlton took over. As she led them out of Louis's office, Louis heard her ask Either of you allergic to shit or puke? Youll see a lot of both here. Oh God, Louis murmured and covered his eyes. But he was smiling. A tough old babe like Charlton was not always a liability. Louis began filling out the long Blue CrossBlue Shield forms, which amounted to a complete inventory of drug stock and medical equipment (Every year, Steve Masterton said in an aggrieved voice. Every goddam year the same thing. Why dont you write down Complete heart transplant facility, approx. value eight million dollars. Louis? Thatll foozle em!), and he was totally engrossed, thinking only marginally that a cup of coffee would go down well, when Masterton screamed from the direction of the foyerwaiting room Louis! Hey, Louis, get out here! We got a mess! The nearpanic in Mastertons voice got Louis going in a hurry. He bolted out of his chair almost as if he had, in some subconscious way, been expecting this. A shriek, as thin and sharp as a shard of broken glass, arose from the direction of Mastertons shout. It was followed by a sharp slap and Chariton saying, Stop that or get the hell out of here! Stop it right now! Louis burst into the waiting room and was first only conscious of the bloodthere was a lot of blood. One of the candystripers was sobbing. The other, pale as cream, had put her fisted hands to the corners of her mouth, pulling her lips into a big revolted grin. Masterton was kneeling down, trying to hold the head of the boy sprawled on the floor. Steve looked up at Louis, eyes grim and wide and frightened He tried to speak. Nothing came out. People were congregating at the Student Medical Centers big glass doors, peering in, their hands cupped around their faces to cut out the glare. Louiss mind conjured up an insanely appropriate image sitting in the living room as a kid of no more than six with his mother in the morning before she went to work. watching the television. Watching the old Today show, with Dave Garroway. People were outside, gaping in at Dave and Frank Blair and good old J. Fred Muggs. He looked around and saw other people standing at the windows. He couldnt do anything about the doors, but "Shut the drapes, he snapped at the candystriper who had screamed. When she didnt move immediately, Charlton slapped her can. Do it, girl! The candystriper got in gear. A moment later green drapes were jerked across the windows. Chariton and Steve Masterton moved instinctively between the boy or. the floor and the doors, cutting off the view as best they could. Hard stretcher, Doctor? Chariton asked. If we need it, get it, Louis said, squatting beside Masterton. I havent even had a chance to look at him. Come on, Chariton said to the girl who had closed the drapes. She was pulling the corners of her mouth with her fists again, making that humorless, screaming grin. She looked at Charlton and moaned, Oh, ag, Yeah, oh, ag is right. Come on. She gave the girl a hard yank and got her moving, her red and white pinstriped skirt swishing against her legs. Louis bent over his first patient at the University of Maine at Orono. He was a young man, age approximately twenty, and it took Louis less than three seconds to make the only diagnosis that mattered The young man was suing to die. Half of his head was crushed. His neck had been Broken. One collarbone jutted from his swelled and twisted right shoulder. From his head, blood and a yellow, pussy fluid seeped sluggishly into the carpet. Louis could see the mans brain, whitishgray and pulsing through a shattered section of skull. It was like looking through a broken window. The incursion was perhaps five centimeters wide; if he had had a baby in his skull, he could almost have birthed it, like Zeus delivering from his forehead. That he was still alive at all was incredible. In his mind suddenly he heard Jud Crandall saying sometimes you could feel it bite your ass. And his mother dead is dead. He felt a crazy urge to laugh. Dead was dead, all right. Thats affirmative, good buddy. Holler for the ambulance, he snapped at Masterton. Louis, the ambulance is Oh Christ, Louis said, slapping his own forehead. He shifted his gaze to Charlton. Joan, what do you do in a case like this? Call Campus Security or the EMMC? Joan looked flustered and upsetan extreme rarity with her, Louis guessed. But her voice was composed enough as she replied. Doctor, I dont know. Weve never had a situation like this before in my time at the Medical Center. Louis thought as fast as he could. Call the campus police. We cant wait for EMMC to send out their own ambulance. If they have to, they can take him up to Bangor in one of the fire engines. At least it has a siren, flashers. Go do it, Joan. She went but not before he caught her deeply sympathetic glance and interpreted it. This young man, who was deeply tanned and wellmuscledperhaps from a summer working on a roadcrew somewhere, or painting houses, or giving tennis lessonsand dressed now only in red gym shorts with white piping, was going to die no matter what they did. He would be just as dead even if their ambulance had been parked out front with the motor idling when the patient was brought in. Incredibly, the dying man was moving. His eyes fluttered and opened. Blue eyes, the irises ringed with blood. They stared vacantly around, seeing nothing. He tried to move his head, and Louis exerted pressure to keep him from doing so, mindful of the broken neck. The cranial trauma did not preclude the possibility of pain. The hole in his head, oh Christ, the hole in his head. What happened to him? he asked Steve, aware that it was, under the circumstances, a stupid and pointless question. The question of a bystander. But the hole in the mans head confirmed his status; a bystander was all he was. Did the police bring him? Some students brought him in a blanket sling. I dont know what the circumstances were. There was what happened next to be thought of. That was his responsibility too. Go out and find them, Louis said. Take them around to the other door. I want them handy, but I dont want them to see any more of this than they already have. Masterton, looking relieved to be away from what was happening in here, went to the door and opened it, letting in a babble of excited, curious, confused conversation. Louis could also hear the warble of a police siren. Campus Security was here then. Louis felt a kind of miserable relief. The dying man was making a gurgling sound in his throat. He tried to speak. Louis heard syllablesphonetics, at least but the words themselves were slurred and unclear. Louis leaned over him and said, Youre going to be all right, fella. He thought of Rachel and Ellie as he said it, and his stomach gave a great, unlovely lurch. He put a hand over his mouth and stifled a burp. Caaa, the young man said. Gaaaaaa Louis looked around and saw that he was momentarily alone with the dying man. Dimly he could hear Joan Charlton yelling at the candystripers that the hard stretcher was in the supply closet off Room Two. Louis doubted if they knew Room Two from a frogs gonads; it was, after all, their first day on the job. They had gotten a hell of an introduction to the world of medicine. The green walltowall carpet was now soaked a muddy purple in an expanding circle around the young mans ruined head; the leakage of intercranial fluid had, mercifully, stopped. In the Pet Sematary, the young man croaked .. . and he began to grin. This grin was remarkably like the mirthless hysterical grin of the candystriper who had closed the drapes. Louis stared down at him, at first refusing to credit what he had heard. Then Louis thought he must have had an auditory hallucination. He made some more of those phonetic sounds and my subconscious made them into something coherent, crosspatched the sounds into my own experience. But that was not what had happened, and a moment later he was forced to realize it. A swooning, mad terror struck him and his flesh began to creep avidly, seeming to actually move up and down his arms and along his belly in waves . . . but even then he simply refused to believe it Yes, the syllables had been on the bloody lips of the man on the carpet as well as in Louiss ears, but that only meant the hallucination had been visual as well as auditory. What did you say? he whispered. And this time, as clear as the words of a speaking parrot or a crow whose tongue had been split, the words were unmistakable Its not the real cemetery. The eyes were vacant, notseeing, rimmed with blood the mouth grinning the large grin of a dead carp. Horror rolled through Louis, gripping his warm heart in its cold hands, squeezing. It reduced him, made him less and less, until he felt like taking to his heels and running from this bloody, twisted, speaking head on the floor of the infirmary waiting room. He was a man with no deep religious training, no bent toward the superstitious or the occult. He was illprepared for this . . . whatever it was. Fighting the urge to run with everything in him, be forced himself to lean even closer. What did you say? he asked a second time. The grin. That was bad. The soil of a mans heart is stonier, Louis, the dying man whispered. A man grows what he can and tends it. Louis. he thought, hearing nothing with his conscious mind after his own name. Oh my God he called me by my name. Who are you? Louis asked in a trembling, papery voice. Who are you? Injun bring my fish. How did you know my Keep clear, us. Know You Caa, the young man said, and now Louis fancied he could smell death on his breath, internal injuries, lost rhythm, failure, rein. What? A crazy urge came to shake him. Gaaaaaaaa The young man in the red gym shorts began to shudder all over. Suddenly he seemed to freeze with every muscle locked. His eyes lost their vacant expression momentarily and seemed to find Louiss eyes. Then everything let go at once. There was a bad stink. Louis thought he would, must speak again. Then the eyes resumed their vacant expression . . . and began to glaze. The man was dead. Louis sat back, vaguely aware that all his clothes were sticking to him; he was drenched with sweat. Darkness bloomed, spreading a wing softly over his eyes, and the world began to swing sickeningly sideways. Recognizing what was happening, he halfturned from the dead man, thrust his head down between his knees, and pressed the nails of his left thumb and left forefinger into his gums hard enough to bring blood. After a moment the world began to clear again. 13 Then the room filled up with people, as if they were all only actors, waiting for their cue. This added to Louiss feeling of unreality and disorientationthe strength of these feelings, which he had studied in psychology classes but never actually experienced, frightened him badly. It was, he supposed, the way a person would feel shortly after someone had slipped a powerful dose of LSD into his drink. Like a play staged only for my benefit, he thought. The room is first conveniently cleared so the dying Sibyl can speak a few lines of oblique prophecy to me and me alone, and as soon as hes dead, everyone comes back. The candystripers bungled in, one on each end of the hard stretcher, the one they used for people with spinal or neck injuries. Joan Charlton followed them, saying that the campus police were on their way. The young man had been struck by a car while jogging. Louis thought of the joggers who had run in front of his car that morning and his guts rolled. Behind Charlton came Steve Masterton with two Campus Security cops. Louis, the people who brought Pascow in are . . . He broke off and said sharply, Louis, are you all right? Im okay, he said and got up. Faintness washed over him again and then withdrew. He groped. Pascow is his name? One of the campus cops said, Victor Pascow, according to the girl he was jogging with. Louis glanced at his watch and subtracted two minutes. From the room where Masterton had sequestered the people who had brought Pascow in, he could hear a girl sobbing wildly. Welcome back to school, little lady, he thought. Have a nice semester. Mr. Pascow died at 1009 A.M., he said. One of the cops wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Masterton said again, Louis, are you really okay? You look terrible. Louis opened his mouth to answer, and one of the candy stripers abruptly dropped her end of the hard stretcher and ran out, vomiting down the front of her pinafore. A phone began to ring. The girl who had been sobbing now began to scream the dead mans nameVic! Vic! Vic!over and over. Bedlam. Confusion. One of the cops was asking Charlton if they could have a blanket to cover him up, and Chariton was saying she didnt know if she had the authority to requisition one, and Louis found himself thinking of a line from Maurice Sendak Let the wild rumpus start! Those rotten giggles rose in his throat again, and somehow he managed to bottle them up. Had this Pascow really said the words Pet Sematary? Had this Pascow really spoken his name? Those were the things that were knocking him off kilter, the things that had sent him wobbling out of orbit. But already his mind seemed to be wrapping those few moments in a protective filmsculpting, changing, disconnecting. Surely he had said something else (if he had indeed spoken at all), and in the shock and unhappy passion of the moment, Louis had misinterpreted it. More likely, Pascow had only mouthed sounds, as he had at first thought. Louis groped for himself, for that part of himself that had caused the administration to give him this job over the other fiftythree applicants for the position. There was no one in command here, no forward motion; the room was full of milling people. Steve, go give that girl a trank, he said, and just saying the words made him feel better. It was as if he were in a rocketship under power now, puffing away from a tiny moonlet. Said moonlet being, of course, that irrational moment when Pascow had spoken. Louis had been hired to take charge; he was going to do it. Joan. Give the cop a blanket.

Doctor, we havent inventoried Give it to him anyway. Then check on that candystriper. He looked at the other girl, who still held her end of the hard stretcher. She was staring at Pascows remains with a kind of hypnotized fascination. Candystriper! Louis said harshly, and her eyes jerked away from the body. WWWh Whats the other girls name? WWho? The one who puked, he said with deliberate harshness. JuhJuhJudy. Judy DeLessio. Your name? Carla. Now the girl sounded a little more steady. Carla, you go check on Judy. And get that blanket. Youll find a pile of them in the little utility closet off Examining Room One. Go, all of you. Lets look a little professional here. They got moving. Very shortly the screaming in the other room quieted. The phone, which had stopped ringing, now began again. Louis pushed the hold button without picking up the receiver off its cradle. The older campus cop looked more together, and Louis spoke to him. Who do we notify? Can you give me a list? The cop nodded and said, We havent had one of these in six years. Its a bad way to start the semester. It sure is, Louis said. He picked up the phone and punched off the hold button. Hello? Who is an excited voice began, and Louis cut it off. He began to make his calls. 14 Things did not slow down until nearly four that afternoon, after Louis and Richard Irving, the head of Campus Security, made a statement to the press. The young man, Victor Pascow, had been jogging with two friends, one of them his fiance. A car driven by Tremont Withers, twentythree, of Haven, Maine, had come up the road leading from the Lengyll Womens Gymnasium toward the center of campus at an excessive speed. Witherss car had struck Pascow and driven him headfirst into a tree. Pascow had been brought to the infirmary in a blanket by his friends and two passersby. He had died minutes later. Withers was being held pending charges of reckless driving, driving under the influence, and vehicular manslaughter. The editor of the campus newspaper asked if he could say that Pascow had died of head injuries. Louis, thinking of that broken window through which the brain itself could be seen, said he would rather let the Penobscot County coroner announce the cause of death. The editor then asked if the four young people who had brought Pascow to the infirmary in the blanket might not have inadvertently caused his death. No, Louis replied. Not at all. Unhappily, Mr. Pascow was in my opinion, mortally wounded upon being struck. There were other questionsa fewbut that answer really ended the press conference. Now Louis sat in his office (Steve Masterton had gone home an hour before, immediately following the press conferenceto catch himself on the evening news Louis suspected) trying to pick up the shards of the dayor maybe he was just trying to cover what had happened, to paint a thin coating of routine over it. He and Charlton were going over the cards in the front filethose students who were pushing grimly through their college years in spite of some disability There were twentythree diabetics in the front file, fifteen epileptics, fourteen paraplegics, and assorted others students with leukemia, students with cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy blind students, two mute students, and one case of sicklecell anemia, which Louis had never even seen. Perhaps the lowest point of the afternoon had come just after Steve left. Charlton came in and laid a pink memo slip on Louiss desk. Bangor Carpet will be here at 900 tomorrow, it read. Carpet? he had asked. It will have to be replaced, she said apologetically. No way the stains going to come out, Doctor. Of course not. At that point Louis had gone into the dispensary and taken a Tuinalwhat his first med school roommate had called Tooners. Hop up on the Toonerville Trolley, Louis, hed say, and Ill put on some Creedence. More often than not Louis had declined the ride on the fabled Toonerville, and that was maybe just as well; his roomie had flunked out halfway through his third semester and had ridden the Toonerville Trolley all the way to Vietnam as a medical corpsman. Louis sometimes pictured him over there, stoned to the eyeballs, listening to Creedence do Run Through the Jungle. But he needed something. If he was going to have to see that pink slip about the carpet on his noteminder board every time he glanced up from the front file spread out in front of them, he needed something. He was cruising fairly well when Mrs. Baillings, the night nurse poked in her head and said, Your wife, Dr. Creed. Line one. Louis glanced at his watch and saw it was nearly fivethirty; he had meant to be out of here an hour and a half ago. "Okay, Nancy. Thanks." He picked up the phone and punched line one. "Hi, honey. Just on my" "Louis, are you all right?" "Yeah, fine." "I heard about it on the news. Lou, I'm so sorry." She paused a moment. "It was on the radio news. They had you on, answering some question. You sounded fine." "Did I? Good." "Are you sure you're all right?" "Yes, Rachel. I'm fine." "Come home," she said. "Yes," he said. Home sounded good to him. 15 She met him at the door, and his jaw dropped. She was wearing the net bra he liked, a pair of semitransparent panties, and nothing else. "You look delicious," he said. "Where are the kids?" "Missy Dandridge took them. We're on our own until eightthirty . . . which gives us two and a half hours. Let's not waste it." She pressed against him. He could smell a faint, lovely scentwas it attar of roses? His arms went around her, first around her waist, and then his hands found her buttocks as her tongue danced lightly over his lips and then into his mouth, licking and darting. At last their kiss broke, and he asked her a bit hoarsely, "Are you for dinner?" "Dessert," she said and then began to rotate her lower body slowly and sensuously against his groin and abdomen. "But I promise you you don't have to eat anything you don't like." He reached for her, but she slipped out of his arms and took his hand. "Upstairs first," she said. She drew him an extremely warm bath, then undressed him slowly and shooed him into the water. She donned the slightly rough spongeglove that usually hung unused on the shower head, soaped his body gently, then rinsed it. He could feel the daythis horrible first dayslipping slowly off him. She had gotten quite wet, and her panties clung like a second skin. Louis started to get out of the tub, and she pushed him back gently. "What" Now the spongeglove gripped him gentlygently but with almost unbearable friction, moving slowly up and down. "Rachel" Sweat had broken all over him, and not just from the heat of the tub. "Shush." It seemed to go on almost eternallyhe would near climax, and the hand in the spongeglove would slow, almost stop. Then it didn't stop but squeezed, loosened, squeezed again, until he came so strongly that he felt his eardrums bulge. "My God," he said shakily when he could speak again. "Where did you learn that?" "Girl Scouts," she said primly. She had made a stroganoff which had been simmering during the bathtub episode, and Louis, who would have sworn at four o'clock that he would next want to eat sometime around Halloween, ate two helpings. Then she led him upstairs again. "Now," she said, "let's see what you can do for me." All things considered, Louis thought he rose to the occasion quite well. Afterward, Rachel dressed in her old blue pajamas. Louis pulled on a flannel shirt and nearly shapeless corduroy pants what Rachel called his grubsand went after the kids. Missy Dandridge wanted to know about the accident, and Louis sketched it in for her, giving her less than she would probably read in the Bangor Daily News the following day. He didn't like doing itit made him feel like the most rancid sort of gossipbut Missy would accept no money for sitting, and he was grateful to her for the evening he and Rachel had shared. Gage was fast asleep before Louis had gotten the mile between Missys house and their own; even Ellie was yawning and glassyeyed. He put Gage into fresh diapers, poured him into his sleeper suit, and popped him into his crib. Then he read Ellie a storybook. As usual, she clamored for Where the Wild Things Are, being a veteran wild thing herself. Louis convinced her to settle for The Cat in the Hat. She was asleep five minutes after he carried her up, and Rachel tucked her in. When he came downstairs again, Rachel was sitting in the living room with a glass of milk. A Dorothy Sayers mystery was open on one long thigh. Louis, are you really all right? Honey, Im fine, he said. And thanks. For everything. We aim to please, she said with a curving, slightly saucy smile. Are you going over to Juds for a beer? He shook his head. Not tonight. Im totally bushed. I hope I had something to do with that. I think you did. Then grab yourself a glass of milk, Doctor, and lets go to bed. He thought perhaps he would lie awake, as he often had when he was interning, and days that were particularly hairy would play over and over in his mind. But he slid smoothly toward sleep, as if on a slightly inclined, frictionless board. He had read somewhere that it takes the average human being just seven minutes to turn off all the switches and uncouple from the day. Seven minutes for conscious and subconscious to revolve, like the trick wall in an amusementpark haunted house. Something a little eerie in that. He was almost there when he heard Rachel say, as if from a great distance, . . . day after tomorrow. Ummmmmm? Jolander. The vet. Hes taking Church the day after tomorrow. Oh. Church. Treasure your cojnes while you got em, Church, old boy. Then he slipped away from everything, down a hole, sleeping deeply and without dreams. 16 Something woke him much later, a crash loud enough to cause him to sit up in bed, wondering if Ellie had fallen onto the floor or if maybe Gages crib had collapsed. Then the moon sailed out from behind a cloud, flooding the room with cold white light, and he saw Victor Pascow standing in the doorway. The crash had been Pascow throwing open the door. He stood there with his head bashed in behind the left temple. The blood had dried on his face in maroon stripes like Indian warpaint. His collarbone jutted whitely. He was grinning. Come on, Doctor, Pascow said. We got places to go. Louis looked around. His wife was a vague hump under her yellow comforter, sleeping deeply. He looked back at Pascow, who was dead but somehow not dead. Yet Louis felt no fear. He realized why almost at once. Its a dream, he thought, and it was only in his relief that he realized he had been frightened after all. The dead do not return; it is physiologically impossible. This young man is in an autopsy drawer in Bangor with the pathologists tattooa Ycut stitched back upon him. The pathologist probably tossed his brain into his chest cavity after taking a tissue sample and filled up the skull cavity with brown paper to prevent leakingsimpler than trying to fit the brain back into the skull like a jigsaw piece into a puzzle. Uncle Carl, father of the unfortunate Ruthie, had told him that pathologists did that, and all sorts of other random information that he supposed would give Rachel, with her death phobia, the screaming horrors. But Pascow was not hereno way, baby. Pascow was in a refrigerated locker with a tag around his toe. And he is most certainly not wearing those red jogging shorts in there. Yet the compulsion to get up was strong. Pascows eyes were upon him. He threw back the covers and swung his feet onto the floor. The hooked ruga wedding present from Rachels grandmother long agopressed cold nubbles into the balls of his feet. The dream had a remarkable reality. It was so real that he would not follow Pascow until Pascow had turned and begun to go back down the stairs. The compulsion to follow was strong, but he did not want to be touched, even in a dream, by a walking corpse. But he did follow. Pascows jogging shorts glimmered. They crossed the living room, dining room, kitchen. Louis expected Pascow to turn the lock and then lift the latch on the door which connected the kitchen to the shed where he garaged the station wagon and the Civic, but Pascow did no such thing. Instead of opening the door, he simply passed through it. And Louis, watching, thought with mild amazement Is that how its done? Remarkable! Anyone could do that! He tried it himselfand was a little amused to meet only unyielding wood. Apparently he was a hardheaded realist, even in his dreams. Louis twisted the knob on the Yale lock, lifted the latch, and let himself into the shedgarage. Pascow was not there. Louis wondered briefly if Pascow had just ceased to exist. Figures in dreams often did just that. So did locationsfirst you were standing nude by a swimming pool with a raging hardon, discussing the possibilities of wife swapping with, say, Roger and Missy Dandridge; then you blinked and you were climbing the side of a Hawaiian volcano. Maybe he had lost Pascow because this was the beginning of Act II. But when Louis emerged from the garage, he saw him again, standing in the faint moonlight at the back of the lawnat the head of the path. Now fear came, entering softly, sifting through the hollow places of his body and filling them up with dirty smoke. He didnt want to go up there. He halted. Pascow glanced back over his shoulder, and in the moonlight his eyes were silver. Louis felt a hopeless crawl of horror in his belly. That jutting bone, those dried clots of blood. But it was hopeless to resist those eyes. This was apparently a dream about being hypnotized, being dominated . . . being unable to change things, perhaps, the way he had been unable to change the fact of Pascows death. You could go to school for twenty years and you still couldnt do a thing when they brought a guy in who had been rammed into a tree hard enough to open a window in his skull. They might as well have called a plumber, a rainmaker, or the Man from Glad. And even as these thoughts passed through his mind, he was drawn forward onto the path. He followed the jogging shorts, as maroon in this light as the dried blood on Pascows face. He didnt like this dream. Oh God, not at all. It was too real. The cold nubbles in the rug, the way he had not been able to pass through the shed door when a person could (or should) be able to walk through doors and walls in any selfrespecting dream . . . and now the cool brush of dew on his bare feet, and the feel of the night wind, just a breath of it, on his body, which was naked except for his Jockey shorts. Once under the trees, pine needles stuck to the soles of his feet . . . another little detail that was just a bit more real than it needed to be. Never mind. Never mind. I am home in my own bed. Its just a dream, no matter how vivid, and like all other dreams, it will seem ridiculous in the morning. My waking mind will discover its inconsistencies. The small branch of a dead tree poked his bicep rudely and he winced. Up ahead, Pascow was only a moving shadow, and now Louiss terror seemed to have crystallized into a bright sculpture in his mind I am following a dead man into the woods, I am following a dead man up to the Pet Sematary, and this is no dream. God help me, this is no dream. This is happening. They walked down the far side of the wooded hill. The path curved in lazy Sshapes between the trees and then plunged into the underbrush. No boots now. The ground dissolved into cold jelly under his feet, grabbing and holding, letting go only reluctantly. There were ugly sucking noises. He could feel the mud oozing between his toes, trying to separate them. He tried desperately to hold on to the dream idea. It wouldnt wash. They reached the clearing, and the moon sailed free of its reef of clouds again, bathing the graveyard with ghastly effulgence. The leaning markersbits of board and tin cans that had been cut with a fathers tinsnips and then hammered into rude squares, chipped chunks of shale and slatestood out with threedimensional clarity, casting shadows perfectly black and defined. Pascow stopped near SMUCKY THE CAT, HE WAS OBEDIANT and turned back toward Louis. The horror, the terrorhe felt these things would grow in him until his body blew apart under their soft yet implacable pressure. Pascow was grinning. His bloody lips were wrinkled back from his teeth, and his healthy roadcrew tan in the moons bony light had become overlaid with the white of a corpse about to be sewn into its winding shroud. He lifted one arm and pointed. Louis looked in that direction and moaned. His eyes grew wide, and he crammed his knuckles against his mouth. There was coolness on his cheeks, and he realized that in the extremity of his terror he had begun to weep. The deadfall from which Jud Crandall had called Ellie in alarm had become a heap of bones. The bones were moving. They writhed and clicked together, mandibles and femurs and ulnas and molars and incisors; he saw the grinning skulls of humans and animals. Fingerbones clittered. Here the remains of a foot flexed its pallid joints. Ah, it was moving; it was creeping Pascow was walking toward him now, his bloody face grim in the moonlight, and the last of Louiss coherent mind began to slip away in a yammering, cyclic thought You got to scream yourself awake doesnt matter if you scare Rachel Ellie Gage wake the whole household the whole neighborhood got to scream yourself awake screamscreamscreamyourselfawakeawakeawake But only a thin whisper of air would come. It was the sound of a little kid sitting on a stoop somewhere and trying to teach himself to whistle. Pascow came closer and then spoke. The door must not be opened, Pascow said. He was looking down at Louis because Louis had fallen to his knees. There was a look on his face which Louis at first mistook for compassion. It wasnt really compassion at all; only a dreadful kind of patience. Still he pointed at the moving pile of bones. Dont go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to, Doctor. The barrier was not made to be broken. Remember this there is more power here than you know. It is old and always restless. Remember. Louis tried again to scream. He could not. I come as a friend, Pascow saidbut was friend actually the word Pascow had used? Louis thought not. It was as if Pascow had spoken in a foreign language which Louis could understand through some dream magic . . . and friend was as close to whatever word Pascow had actually used that Louiss struggling mind could come. Your destruction and the destruction of all you love is very near, Doctor. He was close enough for Louis to be able to smell death on him. Pascow, reaching for him. The soft, maddening click of the bones. Louis began to overbalance in his effort to get away from that hand. His own hand struck a monument and tilted it into the earth. Pascows face, leaning down, filled the sky. Doctorremember. Louis tried to scream, and the world whirled awaybut still he heard the click of moving bones in the moonlit crypt of the night. 17 It takes the average human seven minutes to go to sleep, but according to Hands Human Physiology, it takes the same average human fifteen to twenty minutes to wake up. It is as if sleep is a pool from which emerging is more difficult than entering. When the sleeper wakes, he or she comes up by degrees, from deep sleep to light sleep to what is sometimes called waking sleep, a state in which the sleeper can hear sounds and will even respond to questions without being aware of it later . . . except perhaps as fragments of dream. Louis heard the click and rattle of bones, but gradually this sound became sharper, more metallic. There was a bang. A yell. More metallic sounds . . . something rolling? Sure, his drifting mind agreed. Roll dem bones. He heard his daughter calling Get it, Cage! Go get it! This was followed by Gages crow of delight, the sound to which Louis opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of his own bedroom. He held himself perfectly still, waiting for the reality, the good reality, the blessed reality, to come home all the way. All a dream. No matter how terrible, how real, it had all been dream. Only a fossil in the mind under his mind. The metallic sound came again. It was one of Gages toy cars being rolled along the upstairs hail. Get it, Gage! Get it! Gage yelled. Get itget itget it! Thumpathumpathumpa. Gages small bare feet thundering along the hallway runner. He and Ellie were giggling. Louis looked to his right. Rachels side of the bed was empty, the covers thrown back. The sun was well up. He glanced at his watch and saw it was nearly eight oclock. Rachel had let him oversleep . . . probably on purpose. Ordinarily this would have irritated him, but this morning it did not. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, content for the moment to lie here with a bar of sunlight slanting in through the window, feeling the unmistakable texture of the real world. Dustmotes danced in the sunlight. Rachel called upstairs Better come down and get your snack and go out for the bus, El! Okay! The louder clackclack of her feet. Heres your car, Gage. I got to go to school. Gage began to yell indignantly. Although it was garbledthe only clear words being Gage, car, geddit, and Elliebus, his text seemed clear enough Ellie should stay. Public education could go hang for the day. Rachels voice again, Give your dad a shake before you come clown, El. Ellie came in, her hair done up in a ponytail, wearing her red dress. Im awake, babe, he said. Go on and get your bus. Okay, Daddy. She came over, kissed his slightly scruffy cheek, and bolted for the stairs. The dream was beginning to fade, to lose its coherence. A damn good thing too. Gage! he yelled. Come give your dad a kiss! Gage ignored this. He was following Ellie downstairs as rapidly as he could, yelling Get it! GetitgetitGETIT! at the top of his lungs. Louis caught just a glimpse of his sturdy little kids body, clad only in diapers and rubber pants. Rachel called up again, Louis, was that you? You awake? Yeah, he said, sitting up. Told you he was! Ellie called. Im goin. Bye! The slam of the front door and Gages outraged bellow punctuated this. One egg or two? Rachel called. Louis pushed back the blankets and swung his feet out onto the nubs of the hooked rug, ready to tell her hed skip the eggs, just a bowl of cereal and hed run . . . and the words died in his throat. His feet were filthy with dirt and pine needles. His heart leaped up in his throat like a crazy jackinthebox. Moving fast, eyes bulging, teeth clamped unfeelingly on his tongue, he kicked the covers all the way back. The foot of the bed was littered with needles. The sheets were mucky and dirty. Louis? He saw a few errant pine needles on his knees, and suddenly he looked at his right arm. There was a scratch there on the bicep, a fresh scratch, exactly where the dead branch had poked him . . . in the dream. Im going to scream. I can feel it. And he could too; it was roaring up from inside, nothing but a big cold bullet of fear. Reality shimmered. Realitythe real reality, he thoughtwas those needles, the filth on the sheets, the bloody scratch on his bare arm. Im going to scream and then Ill go crazy and I wont have to worry about it anymore Louis? Rachel was coming up the stairs. Louis, did you go back to sleep? He grappled for himself in those two or three seconds; he fought grimly for himself just as he had done in those moments of roaring confusion after Pascow had been brought into the Medical Center, dying in a blanket. He won. The thought which tipped the scales was that she must not see him this way, his feet muddy and coated with needles, the blankets tossed back onto the floor to reveal the mucksplashed ground sheet. Im awake, he called cheerfully. His tongue was bleeding from the sudden, involuntary bite he had given it. His mind swirled, and somewhere deep inside, away from the action, he wondered if he had always been within touching distance of such mad irrationalities; if everyone was. One egg or two? She had stopped on the second or third riser. Thank God. Two, he said, barely aware of what he was saying. Scrambled. Good for you, she said, and went back downstairs again. He closed his eyes briefly in relief, but in the darkness he saw Pascows silver eyes. His eyes flew open again. Louis began to move rapidly, putting off any further thought. He jerked the bedclothes off the bed. The blankets were okay. He separated out the two sheets, balled them up, took them into the hallway, and dumped them down the laundry chute. Almost running, he entered the bathroom, jerked the shower handle on, and stepped under water so hot it was nearly scalding, unmindful. He washed the dirt from his feet and legs. He began to feel better, more in control. Drying off, it struck him that this was how murderers must feel when they believe they have gotten rid of all the evidence. He began to laugh. He went on drying himself, but he also went on laughing. He couldnt seem to stop. Hey, up there! Rachel called. Whats so funny? Private joke, Louis called back, still laughing. He was frightened, but the fright didnt stop the laughter. The laughter came, rising from a belly that was as hard as stones mortared into a wall. It occurred to him that shoving the sheets down the laundry chute was absolutely the best thing he could have done. Missy Dandridge came in five days a week to vacuum, clean . . . and do the laundry. Rachel would never see those sheets at all until she put them back on the bed . . . clean. He supposed it was possible that Missy would mention it to Rachel, but he didnt think so. She would probably whisper to her husband that the Creeds were playing some strange sex game that involved mud and pine needles instead of body paints. This thought made Louis laugh all the harder. The last of the giggles and chuckles dried up as he was dressing, and he realized that he felt a little better. How that could be he didnt know, but he did. The room looked normal now except for the stripped bed. He had gotten rid of the poison. Maybe evidence was actually the word he was looking for, but in his mind it felt like poison. Perhaps this is what people do with the inexplicable, he thought. This is what they do with the irrational that refuses to be broken down into the normal causes and effects that run the Western world. Maybe this was how your mind coped with the flying saucer you saw hovering silently over your back field one morning, casting its own tight little pool of shadow; the rain of frogs; the hand from under the bed that stroked your bare foot in the dead of night. There was a giggling fit or a crying fit . . . and since it was its own inviolable self and would not break down, you simply passed terror intact, like a kidney stone. Gage was in his chair, eating Cocoa Bears and decorating the table with it. He was decorating the plastic mat under his high chair with Cocoa Bears and apparently shampooing with it. Rachel came out of the kitchen with his eggs and a cup of coffee. What was the big joke, Lou? You were laughing like a loon up there. Scared me a little. Louis opened his mouth with no idea of what he was going to say, and what came out was a joke he had heard the week before at the corner market down the roadsomething about a Jewish tailor who bought a parrot whose only line was Ariel Sharon jerks off. By the time he finished, Rachel was laughing tooso was Cage for that matter. Fine. Our hero has taken care of all the evidenceto wit the muddy sheets and the loony laughter in the bathroom. Our hero will now read the morning paperor at least look at itputting the seal of normality on the morning. So thinking, Louis opened the paper. Thats what you do, all right, he thought with immeasurable relief. You pass it like a stone, and thats the end of it . . . unless there comes a campfire some night with friends when the wind is high and the talk turns to inexplicable events. Because on campfire nights when the wind is high, talk is cheap. He ate his eggs. He kissed Rachel and Gage. He glanced at the square, whitepainted laundry cabinet at the foot of the chute only as he left. Everything was okay. It was another knockout of a morning. Late summer showed every sign of just going on forever, and everything was okay. He glanced at the path as he backed the car out of the garage, but that was okay too. Never turned a hair. You passed it like a stone. Everything was okay until he had gotten ten miles down the road, and then the shakes hit him so hard that he had to pull off Route z and into the morningdeserted parking lot of Sings, the Chinese restaurant not far from the Eastern Maine Medical Center . . . where Pascows body would have been taken. The EMMC, that is, not Sings. Vic Pascow was never going to eat another helping of moo goo gai pan, haha. The shakes twisted his body, ripped at it, had their way with it. Louis felt helpless and terrifiednot terrified of anything supernatural, not in this bright sunshine, but simply terrified of the possibility that he might be losing his mind. It felt as if a long, invisible wire was being twirled through his head. No more, he said. Please, no more. He fumbled for the radio and got Joan Baez singing about diamonds and rust. Her sweet, cool voice soothed him, and by the time she had finished, Louis felt that he could drive on. When he got to the Medical Center, he called hello to Charlton and then ducked into the bathroom, believing that he must look like hell. Not so. He was a little hollow under the eyes, but not even Rachel had noticed that. He slapped some cold water on his face, dried off, combed his hair, and went into his office. Steve Masterton and the Indian doctor, Surrendra Hardu, were in there, drinking coffee and continuing to go over the front file. Morning, Lou, Steve said. Morning. Lets hope it is not like last morning, Hardu said. Thats right, you missed all the excitement. Surrendra had plenty of excitement himself last night, Masterton said, grinning. Tell him, Surrendra. Hardu polished his glasses, smiling. Two boys bring in their Jady friend around one oclock in the morning, he said. She is very happily drunk, celebrating the return to university, you understand. She has cut one thigh quite badly, and I tell her it will be at least four stitches, no scar. Stitch away, she tells me, and so I do, bending over like this Hardu demonstrated, salaaming over an invisible thigh. Louis began to grin, sensing what was coming. And as I am suturing, she vomits on my head. Masterton broke up. So did Louis. Hardu smiled calmly, as if this had happened to him thousands of times in thousands of lives. Surrendra, how long have you been on duty? Louis asked, when the laughter died. Since midnight, Hardu said. I am just leaving. But I wanted to stay long enough to say hello again. Well, hello, Louis said, shaking his small, brown hand. Now go home and go to sleep. Were almost through with the front file, Masterton said. Say hallelujah, Surrendra. I decline, Hardu said, smiling. I am not a Christian. Then sing the chorus of Instant Karma or something. May you both shine on, Hardu said, still smiling, and glided out the door. Louis and Steve Masterton looked after him for a moment, Silent, and then looked at each other. They broke out laughing. To Louis, no laugh had ever felt so good . . . so normal. Just as well we got the file finished up, Steve said. Todays the day we put the welcome mat out for the dope pushers. Louis nodded.. The first of the drug salesmen would begin arriving at ten. As Steve liked to crack, Wednesday might be Prince Spaghetti Day, but at UMO every Tuesday was Dday. The D stood for Darvon, the alltime favorite. A word of advice, O Great Boss, Steve said.

I dont know what dese guys were like out in Chicago, but around here theyll stoop to just about anything, from allexpensespaid hunting junkets into the Allagash in November to free bowling at Family Fun Lanes in Bangor. I had one guy try to give me one of those inflatable Judy dolls. Me! And Im only a P.A.! If they cant sell you drugs, theyll drive you to them. Should have taken the Judy doll. Nah, she was a redhead. Not my type. Well, I agree with Surrendra, Louis said. Just as long as its not like yesterday. 18 When the rep from Upjohn didnt turn up promptly at ten, Louis gave in and called the registrars office. He spoke with a Mrs. Stapleton, who said she would send over a copy of Victor Pascows records immediately. When Louis hung up, the Upjohn guy was there. He didnt try to give Louis anything, only asked him if he had any interest in buying a season ticket to the New England Patriots games at a discount. Nope, Louis said. I didnt think you would, the Upjohn guy said glumly and left. At noon Louis walked up to the Bears Den and got a tuna fish sandwich and a Coke. He brought them back to his office and ate lunch while going over Pascows records. He was looking for some connection with himself or with North Ludlow, where the Pet Sematary was . . . a vague belief, he supposed, that there must be some sort of rational explanation even for such a weird occurrence as this. Maybe the guy had grown up in Ludlow had, maybe, even buried a dog or a cat up there. He didnt find the connection he was looking for. Pascow was from Bergenfield, New Jersey, and had come to UMO to study electrical engineering. In those few typed sheets, Louis could see no possible connection between himself and the young man who had died in the reception roomother than the mortal one, of course. He sucked the last Coke out of his cup, listening to the straw crackle in the bottom, and then tossed all his trash into the wastebasket. Lunch had been light, but he had eaten it with good appetite. Nothing much wrong with the way he felt, really. Not now. There had been no recurrence of the shakes, and now even that mornings horror began to seem more like a nasty, pointless surprise, dreamlike itself, of no consequence. He drummed his fingers on his blotter, shrugged, and picked up the phone again. He dialed the EMMC and asked for the morgue. After he was connected with the pathology clerk, he identified himself and said, You have one of our students there, a Victor Pascow Not anymore, the voice at the other end said. Hes gone. Louiss throat closed. At last he managed, What? His body was flown back to his parents late last night. Guy from BrookingsSmith Mortuary came and took custody. They put him on Delta, uhpapers rifflingDelta Flight 109. Where did you think he went? Out dancing at the Show Ring? No, Louis said. No, of course not. Its just . . . It was just what? What the Christ was he doing pursuing this, anyway? There was no sane way to deal with it. It had to be let go, marked off, forgotten. Anything else was asking for a lot of pointless trouble. Its just that it seemed very quick, he finished lamely. Well, he was autopsied yesterday afternoonthat faint riffle of papers againat around threetwenty by Dr. Rynzwyck. By then his father had made all the arrangements. I imagine the body got to Newark by two in the morning. Oh. Well, in that case Unless one of the carriers screwed up and sent it somewhere else, the pathology clerk said brightly. Weve had that happen, you know, although never with Delta. Deltas actually pretty good. We had a guy who died on a fishing trip way up in Aroostook County, in one of those little towns that just have a couple of map coordinates for a name. Asshole strangled on a poptop while he was chugging a can of beer. Took his buddies two days to buck him out of the wilderness, and you know that by then its a tossup whether or not the Forever Goop will take. But they shoved it in and hoped for the best. Sent him home to Grand Falls, Minnesota, in the cargo compartment of some airliner. But there was a screwup. They shipped him first to Miami, then to Des Moines, then to Fargo, North Dakota. Finally somebody wised up, but by then another three days had gone by. Nothing took. They might as well have injected him with KoolAid instead of Jaundaflo. The guy was totally black and smelled like a spoiled pork roast. Thats what I heard, anyway. Six baggage handlers got sick. The voice on the other end of the line laughed heartily. Louis closed his eyes and said, Well, thank you I can give you Dr. Rynzwycks home phone if you want it, Doctor, but he usually plays golf up in Orono in the morning. Thats okay, Louis said. He hung up the telephone. Let that put paid to it, he thought. When you were having that crazy dream, or whatever it was, Pascows body was almost certainly in a Bergenfield funeral home. That closes it off; let that be the end of it. Driving home that afternoon, a simple explanation of the filth at the foot of the bed finally occurred to him, flooding him with relief. He had experienced an isolated incident of sleepwalking, brought on by the unexpected and extremely upsetting happenstance of having a student mortally injured and then dying in his infirmary during his first real day on the job. It explained everything. The dream had seemed extremely real because large parts of it were realthe feel of the carpet, the cold dew, and, of course, the dead branch that had scratched his arm. It explained why Pascow had been able to walk through the door and he had not. A picture rose in his mind, a picture of Rachel coming downstairs last night and catching him bumping against the back door, trying in his sleep to walk through it. The thought made him grin. It would have given her a hell of a turn, all right. With the sleepwalking hypothesis in mind, he was able to analyze the causes of the dreamand he did so with a certain eagerness. He had walked to the Pet Sematary because it had become associated with another moment of recent stress. It had in fact been the cause of a serious argument between him and his wife . . . and also, he thought with growing excitement, it was associated in his mind with his daughters first encounter with the idea of deathsomething his own subconscious must have been grappling with last night when he went to bed. Damn lucky I got back to the house okayI dont even remember that part. Must have come back on autopilot. It was a good thing he had. He couldnt imagine what it would have been like to have awakened this morning by the grave of Smucky the Cat, disoriented, covered with dew, and probably scared shitlessas Rachel also would have been, undoubtedly. But it was over now. Put paid to it, Louis thought with immeasurable relief. Yes, but what about the things he said when he was dying?, his mind tried to ask, and Louis shut it up fast. That evening, with Rachel ironing and Ellie and Gage sitting in the same chair, both of them engrossed with The Muppet Show, Louis told Rachel casually that he believed he might go for a short walkto get a little air. Will you be back in time to help me put Gage to bed? she asked without looking up from her ironing. You know he goes better when youre there. Sure, he said. Where you going, Daddy? Ellie asked, not looking away from the TV. Kermit was about to be punched in the eye by Miss Piggy. Just out back, hon. Louis went out. Fifteen minutes later he was in the Pet Sematary, looking around curiously and coping with a strong feeling of dj vu. That he had been here was beyond doubt the little grave marker put up to honor the memory of Smucky the Cat was knocked over. He had done that when the vision of Pascow approached, near the end of what he could remember of the dream. Louis righted it absently and walked over to the deadfall. He didnt like it. The memory of all these weatherwhitened branches and dead trees turning into a pile of bones still had the power to chill. He forced himself to reach out and touch one. Balanced precariously on the jackstraw pile, it rolled and fell, bouncing down the side of the heap. Louis jumped back a step before it could touch his shoe. He walked along the deadfall, first to the left, then to the right. On both sides the underbrush closed in so thickly as to be impenetrable. Nor was it the kind of brush youd try to push your way throughnot if you were smart, Louis thought. There were lush masses of poison ivy growing close to the ground (all his life Louis had heard people boast that they were immune to the stuff, but he knew that almost no one really was), and farther in were some of the biggest, most wickedlooking thorns he had ever seen. Louis strolled back to the rough center of the deadfall. He looked at it, hands stuck in the back pockets of his jeans. Youre not going to try to climb that, are you? Not me, boss. Why would I want to do a stupid thing like that? Great. Had me worried for just a minute there, Lou. Looks like a good way to land in your own infirmary with a broken ankle, doesnt it? Sure does! Also, its getting dark. Sure that he was all together and in total agreement with himself, Louis began to climb the deadfall. He was halfway up when he felt it shift under his feet with a peculiar creaking sound. Roll dem bones, Doc. When the pile shifted again, Louis began to clamber back down. The tail of his shirt had pulled out of his pants. He reached solid ground without incident and dusted crumbled bits of bark off his hands. He walked back to the head of the path which would return him to his houseto his children who would want a story before bed, to Church, who was enjoying his last day as a cardcarrying tomcat and ladykiller, to tea in the kitchen with his wife after the kids were down. He surveyed the clearing again before leaving, struck by its green silence. Tendrils of ground fog had appeared from nowhere and were beginning, to wind around the markers. Those concentric circles . . . as if, all unknowing, the childish hands of North Ludlows generations had built a kind of scalemodel Stonehenge. But, Louis, is this all? Although he had gotten only the barest glimpse over the top of the deadfall before the shifting sensation had made him nervous, he could have sworn there was a path beyond, leading deeper into the woods. No business of yours, Louis. Youve got to let this go. Okay, boss. Louis turned and headed home. He stayed up that night an hour after Rachel went to bed, reading a stack of medical journals he had already been through, refusing to admit that the thought of going to bedgoing to sleepmade him nervous. He had never had an episode of somnambulism before, and there was no way to be sure it was an isolated incident . . . until it did or didnt happen again. He heard Rachel get out of bed, and then she called down softly, Lou? Hon? You coming up? Just was, he said, turning out the lamp over his study desk and getting up. It took a good deal longer than seven minutes to shut the machine down that night. Listening to Rachel draw the long, calm breaths of deep sleep beside him, the apparition of Victor Pascow seemed less dreamlike. He would close his eyes and see the door crashing open and there he was, Our Special Guest Star, Victor Pascow, standing there in his jogging shorts, pallid under his summer tan, his collarbone poking up. He would slide down toward sleep, think about how it would be to come fully, coldly awake in the Pet Sematary, to see those roughly concentric circles litten by moonlight, to have to walk back, awake, along the path through the woods. He would think these things and then snap fully awake again. It was sometime after midnight when sleep finally crept up on his blind side and bagged him. There were no dreams. He woke up promptly at seventhirty, to the sound of cold autumn rain beating against the window. He threw the sheets back with some apprehension. The ground sheet on his bed was flawless. No purist would describe his feet, with their rings of heel calluses, that way, but they were at least clean. Louis caught himself whistling in the shower. 19 Missy Dandridge kept Gage while Rachel ran Winston Churchill to the vets office. That night Ellie stayed awake until after eleven, complaining querulously that she couldnt sleep without Church and calling for glass after glass of water. Finally Louis refused to let her have any more on the grounds that she would wet the bed. This caused a crying tantrum of such ferocity that Rachel and Louis stared at each other blankly, eyebrows raised. Shes scared for Church, Rachel said. Let her work it out, Lou. She cant keep it up at that pitch for long, Louis said. I hope. He was right. Ellies hoarse, angry cries became hitches and hiccups and moans. Finally there was silence. When Louis went up to check on her, he found she was sleeping on the floor with her arms wrapped tightly around the cat bed that Church hardly even deigned to sleep in. He removed it from her arms, put her back in bed, brushed her hair back from her sweaty brow gently, and kissed her, On impulse he went into the small room that served as Rachels office, wrote a quick note in large block letters on a sheet of paper I WILL BE BACK TOMORROW, LOVE, CHURCHand pinned it to the cushion on the bottom of the cat bed. Then he went into his bedroom, looking for Rachel. Rachel was there. They made love and fell asleep in each others arms. Church returned home on the Friday of Louiss first full week of work; Ellie made much of him, used part of her allowance to buy him a box of cat treats, and nearly slapped Gage once for trying to touch him. This made Cage cry in a way mere parental discipline could never have done. Receiving a rebuke from Ellie was like receiving a rebuke from Cod. Looking at Church made Louis feel sad. It was ridiculous, but that didnt change the emotion. There was no sign of Churchs former feistiness. No more did he walk like a gunslinger; now his walk was the slow, careful walk of the convalescent. He allowed Ellie to handfeed him. He showed no sign of wanting to go outside, not even to the garage. He had changed. Perhaps it was ultimately for the better that he had changed. Neither Rachel nor Ellie seemed to notice. 20 Indian summer came and went. Brazen color came into the trees, rioted briefly, and then faded. After one cold, driving rain in midOctober, the leaves started to fall. Ellie began to arrive home laden with Halloween decorations she had made at school and entertained Gage with the story of the Headless Horseman. Gage spent that evening babbling happily about somebody named Itchybod Brain. Rachel got giggling and couldnt stop. It was a good time for them, that early autumn. Louiss work at the university had settled into a demanding but pleasant routine. He saw patients, he attended meetings of the Council of Colleges, he wrote the obligatory letters to the student newspaper, advising the universitys coed population of the confidentiality of the infirmarys treatment for VD and exhorting the student population to get flu boosters, as the Atype was apt to be prevalent again that winter. He sat on panels. He chaired panels. During the second week in October, he went to the New England Conference on College and University Medicine in Providence and presented a paper on the legal ramifications of student treatment. Victor Pascow was mentioned in his paper under the fictitious name of Henry Montez. The paper was well received. He began working up the infirmary budget for the next academic year. His evenings fell into a routine kids after supper, a beer or two with Jud Crandall later. Sometimes Rachel came over with him if Missy was available to sit for an hour, and sometimes Norma joined them, but mostly it was just Louis and Jud. Louis found the old man as comfortable as an old slipper, and he would talk about Ludlow history going back three hundred years almost as though he had lived all of it. He talked but never rambled. He never bored Louis, although he had seen Rachel yawning under her hand on more than one occasion. He would cross the road to his house again before ten on most evenings, and, like as not, he and Rachel would make love. Never since the first year of their marriage had they made love so often, and never so successfully and pleasurably. Rachel said she believed it was something in the artesian well water; Louis opted for the Maine air. The nasty death of Victor Pascow on the first day of the fall semester began to fade in the memory of the student body and in Louiss own; Pascows family no doubt still grieved. Louis had spoken to the tearful, mercifully faceless voice of Pascows father on the telephone; the father had only wanted assurance that Louis had done everything he could, and Louis had assured him that everyone involved had. He did not tell him of the confusion, the spreading stain on the carpet, and how his son had been dead almost from the instant he was brought in, although these were things that Louis thought he himself would never forget. But for those to whom Pascow was only a casualty, he had already dimmed. Louis still remembered the dream and the sleepwalking incident that had accompanied it, but it now seemed almost as if it had happened to someone else, or on a television show he had once watched. His one visit to a whore in Chicago six years ago seemed like that flow; they were equally unimportant, side trips which held a false resonance, like sounds produced in an echo chamber. He did not think at all about what the dying Pascow had or had not said. There was a hard frost on Halloween night. Louis and Ellie began at the Crandalls. Ellie cackled satisfyingly, pretended to ride her broom around Normas kitchen, and was duly pronounced Just the cutest thing I ever saw . . . isnt she, Jud? Jud agreed that she was and lit a cigarette. Wheres Gage, Louis? Thought youd have him dressed up too. They had indeed planned on taking Gage aroundRachel in particular had been looking forward to it because she and Missy Dandridge had whomped together a sort of bug costume with twisted coat hangers wrapped in crepe paper for feelersbut Gage had come down with a troublesome, bronchial cold, and after listening to his lungs, which sounded a bit rattly, and consulting the thermometer outside the window, which read only forty degrees at six oclock, Louis had nixed it. Rachel, although disappointed, had agreed. Ellie had promised to give Gage some of her candy, but the exaggerated quality of her sorrow made Louis wonder if she wasnt just a bit glad that Gage wouldnt be along to slow her down . . . or steal part of the limelight. Poor Gage, she had said in tones usually reserved for those suffering terminal illness. Gage, unaware of what he was missing, sat on the sofa watching Zoom with Church snoozing beside him. Elliewitch, Gage had replied without a great deal of interest and went back to the TV. Poor Gage, Ellie had said again, fetching another sigh. Louis thought of crocodile tears and grinned. Ellie grabbed his hand and started pulling him. Lets go, Daddy. Lets golets golets go. Gage has got a touch of the croup, Louis said to Jud now. Well, thats a real shame, Norma said, but it will mean more to him next year. Hold out your bag, Ellie . . . whoops! She had taken an apple and a bitesized Snickers bar out of the treat bowl on the table, but both of them had fallen out of her hand. Louis was a little shocked at how clawlike that hand looked. He bent over and picked up the apple as it rolled across the floor. Jud got the Snickers and dropped it into Ellies bag. Oh, let me get you another apple, honey, Norma said. That one will bruise. Its fine, Louis said, trying to drop it into Ellies bag, but Ellie stepped away, holding her bag protectively shut. I dont want a bruised apple, Daddy, she said, looking at her father as if he might have gone mad. Brown spots . . . yuck! Ellie, thats damned impolite! Dont scold her for telling the truth, Louis, Norma said. Only children tell the whole truth, you know. Thats what makes them children. The brown spots are yucky. Thank you, Mrs. Crandall, Ellie said, casting a vindicated eye on her father. Youre very welcome, honey, Norma said. Jud escorted them out to the porch. Two little ghosts were coming up the walk, and Ellie recognized them both as friends from school. She took them back to the kitchen, and for a moment Jud and Louis were alone on the porch. Her arthritis has gotten worse, Louis said. Jud nodded and pinched out his cigarette over an ashtray. Yeah. Its come down harder on her every fall and winter, but this is the worst its ever been. What does her doctor say? Nothing. He cant say nothing because Norma hasnt been back to see him. What? Why not? Jud looked at Louis, and in the light cast by the headlamps of the station wagon waiting for the ghosts, he looked oddly defenseless. Id meant to ask you this at a better time, Louis, but I guess there isnt no good time to impose on a friendship. Would you examine her? From the kitchen, Louis could hear the two ghosts boooing and Ellie going into her cackleswhich she had been practicing all weekagain. It all sounded very fine and Halloweenish. What else is wrong with Norma? he asked. Is she afraid of something else, Jud? Shes been having pains in her chest, Jud said in a low voice. She wont go see Dr. Weybridge anymore. Im a little worried. Is Norma worried? Jud hesitated and then said, I think shes scared. I think thats why she doesnt want to go to the doctor. One of her oldest friends, Betty Coslaw, died in the EMMC just last month. Cancer. She and Norma were of an age. Shes scared. Id be happy to examine her, Louis said. No problem at all. Thanks, Louis, Jud said gratefully. If we catch her one night, gang up on her, I think Jud broke off, head cocking quizzically to one side. His eyes met Louiss. Louis couldnt remember later exactly how one emotion slipped into the next. Trying to analyze it only made him feel dizzy. All he could remember for sure was that curiosity changed swiftly into a feeling that somewhere something had gone badly wrong. His eyes met Juds, both unguarded. It was a moment before he could find a way to act. Hoooohoooo, the Halloween ghosts in the kitchen chanted. Hooohooo. And then suddenly the hsound was gone arid the cry rose louder, genuinely frightening ooooOOOOOO And then one of the ghosts began to scream. Daddy! Ellies voice was wild and tight with alarm. Daddy! Missus Crandall fell down! Ah, Jesus, Jud almost moaned. Ellie came running out onto the porch, her black dress flapping. She clutched her broom in one hand. Her green face, now pulled long in dismay, looked like the face of a pygmy wino in the last stages of alcohol poisoning. The two little ghosts followed her, crying. Jud lunged through the door, amazingly spry for a man of over eighty. No, more than spry. Again, almost lithe. He was calling his wifes name. Louis bent and put his hands on Ellies shoulders. Stay right here on the porch, Ellie. Understand? Daddy, Im scared, she whispered. The two ghosts barrelled past them and ran down the walk, candy bags rattling, screaming their mothers name. Louis ran down the front hall and into the kitchen, ignoring Ellie, who was calling for him to come back. Norma lay on the hilly linoleum by the table in a litter of apples and small Snickers bars. Apparently she had caught the bowl with her hand going down and had overturned it. It lay nearby like a small Pyrex flying saucer. Jud was chafing one of her wrists, and he looked up at Louis with a strained face. Help me, Louis, he said. Help Norma. Shes dying, I think. Move to one side, Louis said. He kneeled and came down on a Spy, crushing it. He felt juice bleed through the knee of his old cords, and the cidery smell of apple suddenly filled the kitchen. Here it is, Pascow all over again, Louis thought and then shoved the thought out of his mind so fast that it might have been on wheels. He felt for her pulse and got something that was weak, thready, and rapidnot really a beat but only simple spasms. Extreme arrhythmia, well on the way to full cardiac arrest. You and Elvis Presley, Norma, he thought. He opened her dress, exposing a creamy yellow silk slip. Moving with his own rhythm now, he turned her head to one side and began administering CPR. Jud, listen to me, he said. Heel of the left hand one third of the way up the breastbonefour centimeters above the xyphoid process. Right hand gripping the left wrist, bracing, lending pressure. Keep it firm, but lets take it easy on the old ribsno need to panic yet. And for Christs sake, dont collapse the old lungs. Im here, Jud said. Take Ellie, he said. Go across the street. Carefullydont get hit by a car. Tell Rachel whats happened. Tell her I want my bag. Not the one in the study, but the one on the high shelf in the upstairs bathroom. Shell know the one. Tell her to call Bangor MedCu and to send an ambulance. Bucksports closer, Jud said. Bangors faster. Go. Dont you call; let Rachel do that. I need that bag. And once she knows the situation here, Louis thought, I dont think shell bring it over. Jud went. Louis heard the screen door bang. He was alone with Norma Crandall and the smell of apples. From the living room came the steady tick of the sevenday clock. Norma suddenly uttered a long, snoring breath. Her eyelids fluttered. And Louis was suddenly doused with a cold, horrid certainty. Shes going to open her eyes . . . oh Christ shes going to open her eyes and start talking about the Pet Sematary. But she only looked at Louis with a muddled sort of recognition, and then her eyes closed again. Louis was ashamed of himself and this stupid fear that was so unlike him. At the same time he felt hope and relief. There had been some pain in her eyes but not agony. His first guess was that this had not been a grave seizure. Louis was breathing hard now and sweating. No one but TV paramedics could make CPR look easy. A good steady closedchest massage popped a lot of calories, and the webbing between his arms and shoulders would ache tomorrow. Can I do anything? He looked around. A woman dressed in slacks and a brown sweater stood hesitantly in the doorway, one hand clutched into a fist between her breasts. The mother of the ghosts, Louis thought. No, he said, and then Yes. Wet a cloth, please. Wring it out. Put it on her forehead. She moved to do it. Louis looked down, Normas eyes were open again. Louis, I fell down, she whispered. Think I fainted. Youve had some sort of coronary event, Louis said. Doesnt look too serious. Now relax and dont talk, Norma. He rested for a moment and then took her pulse again. The beat was too fast. She was Morsecoding her heart would beat regularly, then run briefly in a series of beats that was almost but not quite fibrillation, and then begin to beat regularly again. Beatbeatbeat, WHACKWHACKWHACK, beatbeatbeatbeatbeat. It was not good, but it was marginally better than cardiac arrhythmia. The woman came over with the cloth and put it on Normas forehead. She stepped away uncertainly. Jud came back in with Louiss bag. Louis? Shes going to be fine, Louis said, looking at Jud but actually speaking to Norma. MedCu coming? Your wife is calling them, Jud said. I didnt stay around. No . . . hospital, Norma whispered. Yes, hospital, Louis said. Five days observation, medication, then home with your feet up, Norma my girl. And if you say anything else, Ill make you eat all these apples. Cores and all. She smiled wanly, then closed her eyes again. Louis opened his bag, rummaged, found the Isodil, and shook one of the pills, so tiny it easily would have fit on the moon of one fingernail, into the palm of his hand. He recapped the bottle and pinched the pill between his fingers. Norma, can you hear me? Yes. Want you to open your mouth. You did your trick, now you get your treat. Im going to put a pill under your tongue. Just a small one. I want you to hold it there until it dissolves. Its going to taste a little bitter but never mind that. All right? She opened her mouth. Stale denture breath wafted out, and Louis felt a moment of aching sorrow for her, lying here on her kitchen floor in a litter of apples and Halloween candy. It occurred to him that once she had been seventeen, her breasts eyed with great interest by the young men of the neighborhood, all her teeth her own, and the heart under her shirtwaist a tough little ponyengine. She settled her tongue over the pill and grimaced a little. The pill tasted a little bitter, all right. It always did. But she was no Victor Pascow, beyond help and beyond reach. He thought Norma was going to live to fight another day. Her hand groped in the air, and Jud took it gently. Louis got up then, found the overturned bowl, and began to pick up the treats. The woman, who introduced herself as Mrs. Buddinger from down the road, helped him and then said she thought she had better go back to the car. Her two boys were frightened. Thank you for your help, Mrs. Buddinger, Louis said. I didnt do anything, she said flatly. But Ill go down on my knees tonight and thank God you were here, Dr. Creed. Louis waved a hand, embarrassed. That goes for me, too, Jud said. His eyes found Louiss and held them. They were steady. He was in control again. His brief moment of confusion and fear had passed. I owe you one, Louis. Get off it, Louis said and tipped a finger toward Mrs. Buddinger as she left. She smiled and waved back. Louis found an apple and began to eat it. The Spy was so sweet that Louiss taste buds cramped momentarily . . . but that was not a totally unpleasurable sensation. Won one tonight, Lou, he thought and worked on the apple with relish. He was ravenous. I do though, Jud said. When you need a favor, Louis, you see me first. All right, Louis said, Ill do that. The ambulance from Bangor MedCu arrived twenty minutes later. As Louis stood outside watching the orderlies load Norma into the back, he saw Rachel looking out the living room window. He waved to her. She lifted a hand in return. He and Jud stood together and watched the ambulance pull away, lights flashing, siren silent. Guess Ill go on up to the hospital now, Jud said. They wont let you see her tonight, Jud. Theyll want to run an EKG on her and then put her in intensive care. No visitors for the first twelve hours. Is she going to be okay, Louis? Really okay? Louis shrugged. No one can guarantee that. It was a heart attack. For whatever its worth, I think shes going to be fine. Maybe better than ever, once she gets on some medication. Ayuh, Jud said, lighting a Chesterfield. Louis smiled and glanced at his watch. He was amazed to see it was only ten minutes to eight. It seemed that a great deal more time had gone by. Jud, I want to go get Ellie so she can finish her trickortreating. Yeah, course you do. This came out as Cossydo. Tell her to get all the treats she can, Louis. I will, Louis promised. Ellie was still in her witch costume when Louis got home. Rachel had tried to persuade her into her nightie, but Ellie had resisted, holding out for the possibility that the game, suspended because of heart attack, might yet be played out. When Louis told her to put her coat back on, Ellie whooped and clapped. Its going to be awfully late for her, Louis. Well take the car, he said. Come on, Rachel. Shes been looking forward to this for a month. Well . . . She smiled. Ellie saw it and shouted again. She ran for the coat closet. Is Norma all right? I think so. He felt good. Tired but good. It was a small one. Shes going to have to be careful, but when youre seventyfive you have to recognize that your polevaulting days are done anyway. Its lucky you were there. Almost Gods providence. Ill settle for luck. He grinned as Ellie came back. You ready, Witch Hazel? Im ready, she said.

Come oncome oncome on! On the way home with half a bag of candy an hour later (Ellie protested when Louis finally called a halt, but not too much; she was tired), his daughter startled him by saying Did I make Missus Crandall have the heart attack, Daddy? When I wouldnt take the apple with the bruise on it? Louis looked at her, startled, wondering where children got such funny, halfsuperstitious ideas. Step on a crack, break your mothers back. Loves me, loves me not. Daddys stomach, Daddys head, smile at midnight, Daddys dead. That made him think of the Pet Sematary again and those crude circles. He wanted to smile at himself and was not quite able. No, honey, he said. When you were in with those two ghosts Those werent ghosts, just the Buddinger twins. Well, when you were in with them, Mr. Crandall was telling me that his wife had been having little chest pains. In fact, you might have been responsible for saving her life or at least for keeping it from being much worse. Now it was Ellies turn to look startled. Louis nodded. She needed a doctor, honey. Im a doctor. But I was only there because it was your night to go trickortreating. Ellie considered this for a long time and then nodded. But shell probably die anyway, she said matteroffactly. People who have heart attacks usually die. Even if they live, pretty soon they have another one and another one and another one until ...boom! And where did you learn these words of wisdom, may I ask? Ellie only shruggeda very Louislike shrug, he was amused to see. She allowed him to carry in her bag of candyan almost ultimate sign of trustand Louis pondered her attitude. The thought of Churchs death had brought on nearhysteria. But the thought of grandmotherly Norma Crandall dying . . . that Ellie seemed to take calmly, a matter of course, a given. What had she said? Another one and another one, until . . . boom! The kitchen was empty, but Louis could hear Rachel moving around upstairs. He set Ellies candy down on the counter and said, It doesnt necessarily work that way, Ellie. Normas heart attack was a very small one, and I was able to administer the treatment right away. I doubt if her heart was damaged much at all. She Oh, I know, Ellie agreed, almost cheerfully. But shes old, and shell die pretty soon anyway. Mr. Crandall too. Can I have an apple before I go to bed, Daddy? No, he said, looking at her thoughtfully. Go up and brush your teeth, babe. Does anyone really think they understand kids? he wondered. When the house was settled and they were in their sidebyside twin beds, Rachel asked softly, Was it very bad for Ellie, Lou? Was she upset? No, he thought. She knows old people croak at regular intervals, just like she knows to let the grasshopper go when it spits like she knows that if you stumble on the number thirteen when youre skipping rope, your best friend will die . . . like she knows that you put the graves in diminishing circles up in the Pet Sematary. Nope, he said. She handled herself very well. Lets go to sleep, Rachel, okay? That night, as they slept in their house and as Jud lay wakeful in his, there was another hard frost. The wind rose in the early morning, ripping most of the remaining leaves, which were now an uninteresting brown, from the trees. The wind awoke Louis, and he started up on his elbows, mostly asleep and confused. There were steps on the stairs . . . slow, dragging steps. Pascow had come back. Only now, he thought, two months had passed. When the door opened he would see a rotting horror, the jogging shorts caked with mould, the flesh fallen away in great holes, the brain decayed to paste. Only the eyes would be alive . . . hellishly bright and alive. Pascow would not speak this time; his vocal cords would be too decayed to produce sounds. But his eyes . . . they would beckon him to come. No, he breathed, and the steps died out. He got up, went to the door, and pulled it open, his lips drawn back in a grimace of fear and resolution, his flesh cringing. Pascow would be there, and with his raised arms he would look like a longdead conductor about to call for the first thundering phrase of Walpurgisnacht. No such thing, as Jud might have said. The landing was empty . . . silent. There was no sound but the wind. Louis went back to bed and slept. 21 The next day Louis called the intensive care unit at the EMMC. Normas condition was still listed as critical; that was standard operating procedure for the first twentyfour hours following a heart attack. Louis got a cheerier assessment from Weybridge, her doctor, however. I wouldnt even call it a minor myocardial infarction, he said. No scarring. She owes you a hell of a lot, Dr. Creed. On impulse, Louis stopped by the hospital later that week with a bouquet of flowers, and found that Norma had been moved to a semiprivate room downstairsa very good sign. Jud was with her. Norma exclaimed over the flowers and buzzed a nurse for a vase. Then she directed Jud until they were in water, arranged to her specifications, and placed on the dresser in the corner. Mothers feeling ever smuch better, Jud said dryly after he had fiddled with the flowers for the third time. Dont be smart, Judson, Norma said. No, maam. At last Norma looked at Louis. I want to thank you for what you did, she said with a shyness that was utterly unaffected and thus doubly touching. Jud says I owe you my life. Embarrassed, Louis said, Jud exaggerates. Not very damn much, he dont, Jud said. He squinted at Louis, almost smiling but not quite. Didnt your mother tell you never to slip a thankyou, Louis? She hadnt said anything about that, at least not that Louis could remember, but he believed she had said something once about false modesty being half the sin of pride. Norma, he said, anything I could do, I was pleased to do. Youre a dear man, Norma said. You take this man of mine out somewhere and let him buy you a glass of beer. Im feeling sleepy again, and I cant seem to get rid of him. Jud stood up with alacrity. Hot damn! Ill go for that, Louis. Quick, before she changes her mind. The first snow came a week before Thanksgiving. They got another four inches on the twentysecond of November, but the day before the holiday itself was clear and blue and cold. Louis took his family to Bangor International Airport and saw them off on the first leg of their trip back to Chicago for a visit with Rachels parents. Its not right, Rachel said for perhaps the twentieth time since discussions on this matter had commenced in earnest a month ago. I dont like thinking of you rattling around the house alone on Thanksgiving Day. Thats supposed to be a family holiday, Louis. Louis shifted Gage, who looked gigantic and wideeyed in his first bigboy parka, to his other arm. Ellie was at one of the big windows, watching an Air Force helicopter take off. Im not exactly going to be crying in my beer, Louis said. Jud and Norma are going to have me over for turkey and all the trimmings. Hell, Im the one who feels guilty. Ive never liked these big holiday group gropes anyway. I start drinking in front of some football game at three in the afternoon and fall asleep at seven, and the next day it feels like the Dallas Cowgirls are dancing around and yelling boolaboola inside my head. I just dont like sending you off with the two kids. Ill be fine, she said. Flying first class, I feel like a princess. And Gage will sleep on the flight from Logan to OHare. You hope, he said, and they both laughed. The flight was called, and Ellie scampered over. Thats us, Mommy. Come oncome oncome on. Theyll leave without us. No they wont, Rachel said. She was clutching her three pink boarding cards in one hand. She was wearing her fur coat, some fake stuff that was a luxuriant brown . . . probably it was supposed to look like muskrat, Louis thought. Whatever it was supposed to look like, it made her look absolutely lovely. Perhaps something of what he felt showed in his eyes because she hugged him impulsively, semicrushing Gage between them. Gage looked surprised but not terribly upset. Louis Creed, I love you, she said. Momeee, Ellie said, now in a fever of impatience. some oncome onc Oh, all right, she said. Be good, Louis. Tell you what, he said, grinning, Ill be careful. Say hello to your folks, Rachel. Oh, you, she said and wrinkled her nose at him. Rachel was not fooled; she knew perfectly well why Louis was skipping this trip. Funnee. He watched them enter the boarding ramp . . . and disappear from sight for the next week. He already felt homesick and lonely for them. He moved over to the window where Ellie had been, hands stuffed in his coat pockets, watching the baggage handlers loading the hold. The truth was simple. Not only Mr. but also Mrs. Irwin Goldman of Lake Forest had disliked Louis from the beginning. He came from the wrong side of the tracks, but that was just for starters. Worse, he fully expected their daughter to support him while he went to medical school, where he would almost surely flunk out. Louis could have handled all this, in fact had been doing so. Then something had happened which Rachel did not know about and never would . . . not from Louis, anyway. Irwin Goldman had offered to pay Louiss entire tuition through med school. The price of this scholarship (Goldmans word) was that Louis should break off his engagement with Rachel at once. Louis Creed had not been at the optimum time of life to deal with such an outrage, but such melodramatic proposals (or bribes, to call a spade a spade) are rarely made to those who are at an optimum timewhich might be around the age of eightyfive. He was tired, for one thing. He was spending eighteen hours a week in classes, another twenty hitting the books, another fifteen waiting tables in a deepdish pizza joint down the block from the Whitehall Hotel. He was also nervous. Mr. Goldmans oddly jovial manner that evening had contrasted completely with his previous cold behavior, and Louis thought that when Goldman invited him into the study for a cigar, a look had passed from him to his wife. Latermuch later, when time had lent a little perspectiveLouis would reflect that horses must feel much the same freefloating anxiety when they smell the first smoke of a prairie fire. He began expecting Goldman to reveal at any moment that he knew Louis had been sleeping with his daughter. When Goldman instead made his incredible offereven going so far as to take his checkbook from the pocket of his smoking jacket like a rake in a Nol Coward farceLouis had blown up. He accused Goldman of trying to keep his daughter like an exhibit in a museum, of having no regard for anyone but himself, and of being an overbearing, thoughtless bastard. It would be a long time before he would admit to himself that part of his rage had been relief. All of these little insights into Irwin Goldmans character, though perhaps true, had no redeeming touch of diplomacy in them. Any semblance of Nol Coward departed; if there was humor in the rest of the conversation, it was of a much more vulgar sort. Goldman told him to get out and that if he ever saw Louis on his doorstep again, he would shoot him like a yellow dog. Louis told Goldman to take his checkbook and plug up his ass with it. Goldman said he had seen bums in the gutter who had more potential than Louis Creed. Louis told Goldman he could also shove his goddam BankAmericard and his American Express Gold Card right up there beside his checkbook. None of this had been a promising first step toward good relations with the future inlaws. In the end Rachel had brought them around (after each man had had a chance to repent of the things he had said, although neither of them had ever changed his mind in the slightest about the other). There was no more melodrama, certainly no dismally theatrical fromthisdayforwardIhavenodaughter scene. Goldman would have probably suffered through Rachels marriage to the Creature from the Black Lagoon before denying her. Nevertheless the face rising above the collar of Irwin Goldmans morning coat on the day Louis married Rachel had greatly resembled the faces sometimes seen carved on Egyptian sarcophagi. Their wedding present had been a sixplace setting of Spode china and a microwave oven. No money. For most of Louiss harumscarum med school days, Rachel had worked as a clerk in a womens apparel store. And from that day to this day, Rachel only knew that things had been and continued to be tense between her husband and her parents . . . particularly between Louis and her father. Louis could have gone to Chicago with his family, although the university schedule would have meant flying back three days earlier than Rachel and the kids. That was no great hardship. On the other hand, four days with ImHoTep and his wife the Sphinx would have been. The children had melted his inlaws a good deal, as children often do. Louis suspected that he himself could have completed the rapprochement simply by pretending he had forgotten that evening in Goldmans study. It wouldnt even matter that Goldman knew he was pretending. But the fact was (and he at least had the guts to be up front about it with himself) that he did not quite want to make the rapprochement. Ten years was a long time, but it was not quite long enough to take away the slimy taste that had come into his mouth when, in Goldmans study over glasses of brandy, the old man had opened one side of that idiotic smoking jacket and removed the checkbook residing within. Yes, he had felt relief that the nightsfive of them in all that he and Rachel had spent in his narrow, sagging apartment bed had not been discovered, but that surprised disgust had been quite its own thing, and the years between then and now had not changed it. He could have come, but he preferred to send his fatherinlaw his grandchildren, his daughter, and a message. The Delta 727 pulled away from the rampway, turned . . . and he saw Ellie at one of the front windows, waving frantically. Louis waved back, smiling, and then someoneEllie or Rachel hiked Gage into the window. Louis waved, and Gage waved backperhaps seeing him, perhaps only imitating Ellie. Fly my people safe, he muttered, then zipped his coat and went out to the parking lot. Here the wind whined and zoomed with force enough to almost tear his hunters cap off his head, and he clapped a hand to it. He fumbled with his keys to unlock the drivers side door of his car and then turned as the jet rose beyond the terminal building, its nose tilted upward into the hard blue, its turbos thundering. Feeling very lonely indeed nowridiculously close to tears Louis waved again. He was still feeling blue that evening when he recrossed Route 15 after a couple of beers with Jud and NormaNorma had drunk a glass of wine, something she was allowed, even encouraged to have, by Dr. Weybridge. They had moved into the kitchen tonight in deference to the season. Jud had stoked up the small Marek stove, and they had sat around it, the beer cold, the heat good, and Jud had talked about how the Micmac Indians had staved off a British landing at Machiss two hundred years ago. In those days the Micmacs had been pretty fearsome, he said, and then added that he guessed there were a few state and federal land lawyers who thought they still were. It should have been a fine evening, but Louis was aware of the empty house waiting for him. Crossing the lawn and feeling the frost crunching under his shoes, he heard the telephone begin to ring in the house. He broke into a run, got through the front door, sprinted through the living room (knocking over a magazine stand), and then slid most of the way across the kitchen, his frosty shoes skidding over the linoleum. He snared the phone. Hello? Louis? Rachels voice, a little distant but absolutely fine. Were here. We made it. No problems. Great! he said and sat down to talk to her, thinking I wish to God you were here. 22 The Thanksgiving dinner Jud and Norma put on was a fine one. When it was over, Louis went home feeling full and sleepy. He went upstairs to the bedroom, relishing the quiet a little, flipped off his loafers, and lay down. It was just after three oclock; the day outside was lit with thin, wintry sunshine. I'll just doze a little, he thought and fell fast asleep. It was the bedroom extension that woke him up. He groped for it, trying to pull himself together, disoriented by the fact that it was almost dark outside. He could hear the wind whining around the corners of the house and the faint, husky mutter of the furnace. Hello, he said. It would be Rachel, calling from Chicago again to wish him a happy Thanksgiving. She would put Ellie on and Ellie would talk and then Gage would get on and Gage would babbleand how the hell had he managed to sleep all afternoon when he had meant to watch the football game . . . But it wasnt Rachel. It was Jud. Louis? Fraid maybe youve got a little spot of trouble. He swung out of bed, still trying to scrub the sleep out of his mind. Jud? What trouble? Well, theres a dead cat over here on our lawn, Jud said. I think it might be your daughters. Church? Louis asked. There was a sudden sinking in his belly. Are you sure, Jud?" No, I aint one hundred percent sure, Jud said, but it sure looks like him. Oh. Oh shit. Ill be right over, Jud. All right, Louis. He hung up and just sat there for a minute longer. Then he went in and used the bathroom, put his shoes on, and went downstairs. Well, maybe it isnt Church. Jud himself said he wasnt one hundred percent sure. Christ, the cat doesnt even want to go upstairs anymore unless someone carries him . . . why would he cross the road? But in his heart he felt sure that it was Church . . . and if Rachel called this evening as she almost certainly would, what was he going to say to Ellie? Crazily, he heard himself saying to Rachel I know that anything, literally anything, can happen to physical beings. As a doctor I know that . . . do you want to be the one to explain to her what happened if he gets run over in the road? But he hadnt really believed anything was going to happen to Church, had he? He remembered one of the guys he played poker with, Wickes Sullivan, asking him once how he could get horny for his wife and not get horny for the naked women he saw day in and day out. Louis had tried to explain to him that it wasnt the way people imagined in their fantasiesa woman coming in to get a Pap smear or to learn how to give herself a breast selfexamination didnt suddenly drop a sheet and stand there like Venus on the halfshell. You saw a breast, a vulva, a thigh. The rest was draped in a sheet, and there was a nurse in attendance, more to protect the doctors reputation than anything else. Wicky wasnt buying it. A tit is a tit, was Wickys thesis, and a twat is a twat. You should either be horny all the time or none of the time. All Louis could respond was that your wifes tit was different. Just like your familys supposed to be different, he thought now. Church wasnt supposed to get killed because he was inside the magic circle of the family. What he hadnt been able to make Wicky understand was that doctors compartmentalized just as cheerfully and blindly as anyone else. A tit wasnt a tit unless it was your wifes tit. In the office, a tit was a case. You could stand up in front of a medical colloquium and cite leukemia figures in children until you were blue in the face and still not believe it if one of your own kids got a call on the BonePhone. My kid? My kids cat, even? Doctor, you must be joking. Never mind. Take this one step at a time. But that was hard when he remembered how hysterical Ellie had gotten at the prospect of Church someday dying. Stupid fucking cat, why did we ever have to get a fucking cat, anyway? But he wasnt fucking anymore. That was supposed to keep him alive. Church? he called, but there was only the furnace, muttering and muttering, burning up dollars. The couch in the living room, where Church had recently spent most of his time, was empty. He was not lying on any of the radiators. Louis rattled the cats dish, the one thing absolutely guaranteed to bring Church running if he was in earshot, but no cat came running this time . . . and never would again, he was afraid. He put on his coat and hat and started for the door. Then he came back. Giving in to what his heart told him, he opened the cupboard under the sink and squatted down. There were two kinds of plastic bags in theresmall white ones for the household trash baskets and big green garbagecan liners. Louis took one of the latter. Church had put on weight since he had been fixed. He poked the bag into one of the side pockets of his jacket, not liking the slick, cool way the plastic felt under his fingers. Then he let himself out the front door and crossed the street to Juds house. It was about fivethirty. Twilight was ending. The landscape had a dead look. The remainder of sunset was a strange orange line on the horizon across the river. The wind bowled straight down Route 15, numbing Louiss cheeks and whipping away the white plume of his breath. He shuddered, but not from the cold. It was a feeling of aloneness that made him shudder. It was strong and persuasive. There seemed no way to concretize it with a metaphor. It was faceless. He just felt by himself, untouched and untouching. He saw Jud across the road, bundled up in his big green duffle coat, his face lost in the shadow cast by the furfringed hood. Standing on his frozen lawn, he looked like a piece of statuary, just another dead thing in this twilight landscape where no bird sang. Louis started across, and then Jud movedwaved him back. Shouted something Louis could not make out over the pervasive whine of the wind. Louis stepped back, realizing suddenly that the winds whine had deepened and sharpened. A moment later an airhorn blatted and an Orinco truck roared past close enough to make his pants and jacket flap. Damned if he hadnt almost walked right out in front of the thing. This time he checked both ways before crossing. There was only the tankers taillights, dwindling into the twilight. Thought that Rinco truck was gonna get you, Jud said. Have a care, Louis. Even this close, Louis couldnt see Juds face, and the uncomfortable feeling persisted that this could have been anyone . . . anyone at all. Wheres Norma? he asked, still not looking down at the sprawled bundle of fur by Juds foot. Went to the Thanksgiving church service, he said. Shell stay to the supper, I guess, although I dont think shell eat nothing. Shes gotten peckish. The wind gusted, shifting the hood back momentarily, and Louis saw that it was indeed Judwho else would it have been? Its mostly an excuse for a hen paaaty, Jud said. They dont eat much but sanwidges after the big meal at noon. Shell be back around eight. Louis knelt down to look at the cat. Dont let it be Church, he wished fervently, as he turned its head gently on its neck with gloved fingers. Let it be someone elses cat, let Jud be wrong. But of course it was Church. He was in no way mangled or disfigured; he had not been run over by one of the big tankers or semis that cruised Route 15 (just what was that Orinco truck doing out on Thanksgiving? he wondered randomly). Churchs eyes were halfopen, as glazed as green marbles. A small flow of blood had come from his mouth, which was also open. Not a great deal of blood; just enough to stain the white bib on his chest. Yours, Louis? Mine, he agreed and sighed. He was aware for the first time that he had loved Churchmaybe not as fervently as Ellie but in his own absent way. In the weeks following his castration, Church had changed, had gotten fat and slow, had established aroutine that took him between Ellies bed, the couch, and his dish but rarely out of the house. Now, in death, he looked to Louis like the old Church. The mouth so small and bloody, filled with needlesharp cats teeth, was frozen in a shooters snarl. The dead eyes seemed furious. It was as if after the short and placid stupidity of his life as a neuter, Church had rediscovered his real nature in dying. Yeah, its Church, he said. Ill be damned if I know how Im going to tell Ellie about it. Suddenly he had an idea. He would bury Church up in the Pet Sematary with no marker or any of that foolishness. He would say nothing to Ellie on the phone tonight about Church; tomorrow he would mention casually that he hadnt seen Church around; the day after he would suggest that perhaps Church had wandered off. Cats did that sometimes. Ellie would be upset, sure, but there would be none of the finality . . . no reprise of Rachels upsetting refusal to deal with death . . . just a withering away. Coward, part of his mind pronounced. Yes . . . no argument. But who needs this hassle? Loves that cat pretty well, doesnt she? Jud asked. Yes, Louis said absently. He moved Churchs head again. The cat had begun to stiffen, but the head still moved much more easily than it should have. Broken neck. Yeah. Given that, he thought he could reconstruct what had happened. Church had been crossing the roadfor what reason God alone knewand a car or truck had hit him, breaking his neck and throwing him aside onto Jud Crandalls lawn. Or perhaps the cats neck had been broken when he struck the frozen ground. It didnt matter. Either way the remains remained the same. Church was dead. He glanced up at Jud, about to tell him his conclusions, but Jud was looking away toward that fading orange line of light at the horizon. His hood had fallen back halfway, and his face seemed thoughtful and stern . . . harsh, even. Louis pulled the green garbage bag out of his pocket and unfolded it, holding it tightly to keep the wind from whipping it away. The brisk crackling sound of the bag seemed to bring Jud back to this here and now. Yes, I guess she loves it pretty well, Jud said. His use of the present tense felt slightly eerie . . . the whole setting, with the fading light, the cold, and the wind, struck him as eerie and gothic. Heres Heathcliff out on the desolate moors, Louis thought, grimacing against the cold. Getting ready to pop the family cat into a Hefty Bag. Yowza. He grabbed Churchs tail, spread the mouth of the bag, and lifted the cat. He pulled a disgusted, unhappy face at the sound the cats body made coming uprrrriiippp as he pulled it out of the frost it had set into. The cat seemed almost unbelievably heavy, as if death had settled into it like a physical weight. Christ, he feels like a bucket of sand. Jud held the other side of the bag, and Louis dropped Church in, glad to be rid of that strange, unpleasant weight. What are you going to do with it now? Jud asked. Put him in the garage, I guess, Louis said. Bury him in the morning. In the Pet Sematary? Louis shrugged. Suppose so. Going to tell Ellie? I . . . Ill have to mull that one over awhile. Jud was quiet a moment longer, and then he seemed to reach a decision. Wait here a minute or two, Louis. Jud moved away, with no apparent thought that Louis might not want to wait just a minute on this bitter night. He moved away with assurance and that lithe ease which was so strange in a man of his age. And Louis found he had nothing to say anyway. He didnt feel much like himself. He watched Jud go, quite content to stand here. He raised his face into the wind after the door had clicked closed, the garbage bag with Churchs body in it riffling between his feet. Content. Yes, he was. For the first time since they had moved to Maine, he felt that he was in his place, that he was home. Standing here by himself in the afterglow of the day, standing on the rim of winter, he felt unhappy and yet oddly exhilarated and strangely wholewhole in a way he had not been, or could not remember feeling that he had been, since childhood. Something gonna happen here, Bubba. Something pretty weird, I think. He tilted his head back and saw cold winter stars in a blackening sky. How long he stood like that he did not know, although it could not have been long in terms of seconds and minutes. Then a light flickered on Juds porch, bobbed, approached the porch door, and descended the steps. It was Jud behind a big fourcell flashlight. In his other hand he held what Louis at first thought was a large X . . . and then he saw that it was a pick and shovel. He handed the shovel to Louis, who took it in his free hand. Jud, what the hell are you up to? We cant bury him tonight. Yeah, we can. And were gonna. Juds face was lost behind the glaring circle of the flashlight. Jud, its dark. Its late. And cold Come on, Jud said. Lets get it done. Louis shook his head and tried to begin again, but the words came hardthe words of explanation and reason. They seemed so meaningless against the low shriek of the wind, the seedling bed of stars in the black. It can wait till tomorrow when we can see Does she love the cat? Yes, but Juds voice, soft and somehow logical And do you love her? Of course I love her, shes my dau Then come on. Louis went. Twicemaybe three timeson the walk up to the Pet Sematary that night Louis tried to talk to Jud, but Jud didnt answer. Louis gave up. That feeling of contentment, odd under the circumstances but a pure fact, persisted. It seemed to come from everywhere. The steady ache in his muscles from carrying Church in one hand and the shovel in the other was a part of it. The wind, deadly cold, numbing exposed skin, was a part of it; it wound steadily in the trees. Once they got into the woods, there was no snow to speak of. The bobbing light of Juds flash was a part of it. He felt the pervasive, undeniable, magnetic presence of some secret. Some dark secret. The shadows fell away and there was a feeling of space. Snow shone pallidly. Rest here, Jud said, and Louis set the bag down. He wiped sweat off his forehead with his arm. Rest here? But they were here. He could see the markers in the moving, aimless sweep of Juds light as Jud sat down in the thin snow and put his face between his arms. Jud? Are you all right? Fine. Need to catch my breath a bit, thats all. Louis sat down next to him and deepbreathed half a dozen times. You know, he said, I feel better than I have in maybe six years. I know thats a crazy thing to say when youre burying your daughters cat, but its the flat truth, Jud. I feel good. Jud breathed deeply once or twice himself. Yeah, I know, he said. It is that way once in a while. You dont pick your times for feeling good, any more than you do for the other. And the place has something to do with it too, but you dont want to trust that. Heroin makes dope addicts feel good when theyre putting it in their arms, but all the time its poisoning them. Poisoning their bodies and poisoning their way of thinking. This place can be like that, Louis, and dont you ever forget it. I hope to God Im doing right. I think I am, but I cant be sure. Sometimes my head gets muddled. Its senility coming, I think. I dont know what youre talking about. This place has power, Louis. Not so much here, but . . . the place were going. Jud Come on, Jud said and was on his feet again. The flashlights beam illuminated the deadfall. Jud was walking toward it. Louis suddenly remembered his episode of somnambulism. What was it Pascow had said in the dream that had accompanied it? Dont go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to, Doctor. The barrier was not made to be broken. But now, tonight, that dream or warning or whatever it had been seemed years rather than months distant. Louis felt fine and fey and alive, ready to cope with anything, and yet full of wonder. It occurred to him that this was very much like a dream.

Then Jud turned toward him, the hood seeming to surround a blankness, and for one moment Louis imagined that it was Pascow himself who now stood before him, that the shining light would be reversed, trained on a grinning, gibbering skull framed in fur, and his fear returned like a dash of cold water. Jud, he said, we cant climb over that. Well each break a leg and then probably freeze to death trying to get back. Just follow me, Jud said. Follow me and dont look down. Dont hesitate and dont look down. I know the way through, but it has to be done quick and sure. Louis began to think that perhaps it was a dream, that he had simply never awakened from his afternoon nap. If I was awake, he thought, Id no more head up that deadfall than Id get drunk and go skydiving. But Im going to do it. I really think I am. So I must be dreaming. Right? Jud angled slightly left, away from the center of the deadfall. The flashs beam centered brightly on the jumbled heap of (bones) fallen trees and old logs. The circle of light grew smaller and even brighter as they approached. Without the slightest pause, without even a brief scan to assure himself that he was in the right place, Jud started up. He did not scramble; he did not climb bent over, the way a man will climb a rocky hillside or a sandy slope. He simply mounted, as if climbing a set of stairs. He walked like a man who knows exactly where his next step is coming from. Louis followed in the same way. He did not look down or search for footholds. It came to him with a strange but total surety that the deadfall could not harm him unless he allowed it to. It was a piece of utter assholery of course, like the stupid confidence of a man who believes its safe to drive when totally shitfaced as long as hes wearing his St. Christophers medallion. But it worked, There was no pistolshot snap of an old branch giving way, no sickening plunge into a hole lined with jutting, weatherwhitened splinters, each one ready to cut and gore and mangle. His shoes (Hush Puppy loafershardly recommended for climbing deadfalls) did not slip on the old dry moss which had overgrown many of the fallen trees. He pitched neither forward nor backward. The wind sang wildly through the fir trees all around them. For a moment he saw Jud standing on top of the deadfall, and then he began down the far side, calves dropping out of sight, then thighs, then hips and waist. The light bounced randomly off the whipping branches of the trees on the other side of the . . . the barrier. Yes, thats what it waswhy try to pretend it wasnt? The barrier. Louis reached the top himself and paused there momentarily, right foot planted on an old fallen tree that was canted up at a thirtyfivedegree angle, left foot on something springiera mesh of old fir branches? He didnt look down to see, but only switched the heavy trashbag with Churchs body in it from his right hand to his left, exchanging it for the lighter shovel. He turned his face up into the wind and felt it sweep past him in an endless current, lifting his hair. It was so cold, so clean . . . so constant. Moving casually, almost sauntering, he started down again. Once a branch that felt to be the thickness of a brawny mans wrist snapped loudly under his foot, but he felt no concern at alland his plunging foot was stopped firmly by a heavier branch some four inches down. Louis hardly staggered. He supposed that now he could understand how company commanders in World War I had been able to stroll along the top of the trenches with bullets snapping all around them, whistling Tipperary. It was crazy, but the very craziness made it tremendously exhilarating. He walked down, looking straight ahead at the bright circle of Juds light. Jud was standing there, waiting for him. Then he reached the bottom, and the exhilaration flared up in him like a shot of coal oil on embers. We made it! he shouted. He put the shovel down and clapped Jud on the shoulder. He remembered climbing an apple tree to the top fork where it swayed in the wind like a ships mast. He had not felt so young or so viscerally alive in twenty years or more. Jud, we made it! Did you think we wouldnt? Jud asked. Louis opened his mouth to say somethingThink we wouldnt? Were damn lucky we didnt kill ourselves!and then he shut it again. He had never really questioned at all, not from the moment Jud approached the deadfall. And he was not worried about getting back over again. I guess not, he said. Come on. Cot a piece to walk yet. Three miles or more. They walked. The path did indeed go on. In places it seemed very wide, although the moving light revealed little clearly; it was mostly a feeling of space, a feeling that the trees had drawn back. Once or twice Louis looked up and saw stars wheeling between the massed dark border of trees. Once something loped across the path ahead of them, and the light picked up the reflection of greenish eyesthere and then gone. At other times the path closed in until underbrush scratched stiff fingers across the shoulders of Louiss coat. He switched the bag and the shovel more often, but the ache in his shoulders was now constant. He fell into a rhythm of walking and became almost hypnotized with it. There was power here, yes, he felt it. He remembered a time when he had been a senior in high school. He and his girl and some other couple had gone way out in the boonies and had ended up necking at the end of a deadend dirt road near a power station. They hadnt been there long before Louiss girl said that she wanted to go home, or at least to another place, because all her teeth (all the ones with fillings, anyway, and that was most of them) were aching. Louis had been glad to leave himself. The air around the power station had made him feel nervous and too awake. This was like that, but it was stronger. Stronger but not unpleasant at all. It was Jud had stopped at the base of a long slope. Louis ran into him. Jud turned toward him. Were almost where were going now, he said calmly. This next bit is like the deadfallyou got to walk steady and easy. Just follow me and dont look down. You felt us going downhill? Yes. This is the edge of what the Micmacs used to call Little Cod Swamp. The fur traders who came through called it Dead Mans Bog, and most of them who came once and got out never came gain. Is there quicksand? Oh, ayuh, quicksand aplenty! Streams that bubble up through a big deposit of quartz sand left over from the glacier. Silica sand, we always called it, although theres probably a proper name for it. Jud looked at him, and for a moment Louis thought he saw something bright and not completely pleasant in the old mans eyes. Then Jud shifted the flashlight and that look was gone. Theres a lot of funny things down this way, Louis. The airs heavier . . . more electrical . . . or somethin. Louis started. Whats wrong? Nothing, Louis said, thinking of that night on the deadend road. You might see St. Elmos firewhat the sailors call foolights. It makes funny shapes, but its nothing. If you should see some of those shapes and they bother you, just look the other way. You may hear sounds like voices, but they are the loons down south toward Prospect. The sound carries. Its funny. Loons? Louis said doubtfully. This time of year? Oh, ayuh, Jud said again, and his voice was terribly bland and totally unreadable. For a moment Louis wished desperately he could see the old mans face again. That look Jud, where are we going? What the hell are we doing out here in the back of the beyond? Ill tell you when we get there. Jud turned away. Mind the tussocks. They began to walk again, stepping from one broad hummock to the next. Louis did not feel for them. His feet seemed to find them automatically, with no effort from him. He slipped only once, his left shoe breaking through a thin scum of ice and dipping into cold and somehow slimy standing water. He pulled it out quickly and went on, following Juds bobbing light. That light, floating through the woods, brought back memories of the pirate tales he had liked to read as a boy. Evil men off to bury gold doubloons by the dark of the moon . . . and of course one of them would be tumbled into the pit on top of the chest, a bullet in his heart, because the pirates had believedor so the authors of these lurid tales solemnly attestedthat the dead comrades ghost would remain there to guard the swag. Except its not treasure weve come to bury. Just my daughters castrated cat. He felt wild laughter bubble up inside and stifled it. He did not hear any sounds like voices, nor did he see any St. Elmos fire, but after stepping over half a dozen tussocks, he looked down and saw that his feet, calves, knees, and lower thighs had disappeared into a ground fog that was perfectly smooth, perfectly white, and perfectly opaque. It was like moving through the worlds lightest drift of snow. The air seemed to have a quality of light in it now, and it was warmer, he could have sworn it. He could see Jud before him, moving steadily along, the blunt end of the pick hooked over his shoulder. The pick enhanced the illusion of a man intent on burying treasure. That crazy sense of exhilaration persisted, and he suddenly wondered if maybe Rachel was trying to call him; if, back in the house, the phone was ringing and ringing, making its rational, prosaic sound. If He almost walked into Juds back again. The old man had stopped in the middle of the path. His head was cocked to one side. His mouth was pursed and tense. Jud? Whats Shhh! Louis hushed, looking around uneasily. Here the ground mist was thinner, but he still couldnt see his own shoes. Then he heard crackling underbrush and breaking branches. Something was moving out theresomething big. He opened his mouth to ask Jud if it was a moose (bear was the thought that actually crossed his mind), and then he closed it again. The sound carries, Jud had said. He cocked his head to one side in unconscious imitation of Jud, unaware that he was doing it, and listened. The sound seemed at first distant, then very close; moving away arid then moving ominously toward them. Louis felt the sweat on his forehead begin to trickle down his chapped cheeks. He shifted the Hefty Bag with Churchs body in it from one hand to the other. His palm had dampened, and the green plastic seemed greasy, wanting to slide through his fist. Now the thing out there seemed so close that Louis expected to see its shape at any moment, rising up on two legs, perhaps, blotting out the stars with some unthoughtof, immense and shaggy body. Bear was no longer what he was thinking of. Now he didnt know just what he was thinking of. Then it moved away and disappeared. Louis opened his mouth again, the words What was that? already on his tongue. Then a shrill, maniacal laugh came out of the darkness, rising and falling in hysterical cycles, loud, piercing, chilling. To Louis it seemed that every joint in his body had frozen solid and that he had somehow gained weight, so much weight that if he turned to run he would plunge down and out of sight in the swampy ground. The laughter rose, split into dry cackles like some rottenly friable chunk of rock along many fault lines; it reached the pitch of a scream, then sank into a guttural chuckling that might have become sobs before it faded out altogether. Somewhere there was a drip of water and above them, like a steady river in a bed of sky, the monotonous whine of the wind. Otherwise Little God Swamp was silent. Louis began to shudder all over. His fleshparticularly that of his lower bellybegan to creep. Yes, creep was the right word; his flesh actually seemed to be moving on his body. His mouth was totally dry. There seemed to be no spit at all left in it. Yet that feeling of exhilaration persisted, an unshakable lunacy. What in Christs name? he whispered hoarsely to Jud. Jud turned to look at him, and in the dim light Louis thought the old man looked a hundred and twenty. There was no sign of that odd, dancing light in his eyes now. His face was drawn, and there was stark terror in his eyes. But when he spoke, his voice was steady enough. Just a loon, he said. Come on. Almost there. They went on. The tussocks became firm ground again. For a few moments Louis had a sensation of open space, although that dim glow in the air had now faded, and it was all he could do to make out Juds back three feet in front of him. Short grass stiff with frost was underfoot. It broke like glass at every step. Then they were in the trees again. He could smell aromatic fir, feel needles. Occasionally a twig or a branch scraped against him. Louis had lost all sense of time or direction, but they did not walk long before Jud stopped again and turned toward him. Steps here, he said. Cut into rock. Fortytwo or fortyfour, I disremember which. Just follow me. We get to the top and were there. He began to climb again, and again Louis followed. The stone steps were wide enough, but the sense of the ground dropping away was unsettling. Here and there his shoe gritted on a strew of pebbles and stone fragments. Twelve . . . thirteen . . . fourteen. The wind was sharper, colder, quickly numbing his face. Are we above the treeline? he wondered. He looked up and saw a billion stars, cold lights in the darkness. Never in his life had the stars made him feel so completely small, infinitesimal, without meaning. He asked himself the old questionis there anything intelligent out there?and instead of wonder, the thought brought a horrid cold feeling, as if he had asked himself what it might be like to eat a handful of squirming bugs. twentysix . . . twentyseven . . . twentyeight. Who carved these, anyway? Indians? The Micmacs? Were they toolbearing Indians? I'll have to ask Jud. Toolbearing Indians made him think of furbearing animals, and that made him think of that thing that had been moving near them in the woods. One foot stumbled, and he raked a gloved hand along the rock wall to his left for balance. The wall felt old, chipped and channeled and wrinkled. Like dry skin thats almost worn out, he thought. You all right, Louis? Jud murmured. Im okay, he said, although he was nearly out of breath and his muscles throbbed from the weight of Church in the bag. fortytwo . . . fortythree . . . fortyfour. Fortyfive, Jud said. Ive forgot. Havent been up here in twelve years, I guess. Dont suppose Ill ever have a reason to come again. Here . . . up you come and up you get. He grabbed Louiss arm and helped him up the last step. Were here, Jud said. Louis looked around. He could see well enough; the starlight was dim but adequate. They were standing on a rocky, rubble strewn plate of rock which slid out of the thin earth directly ahead like a dark tongue. Looking the other way, he could see the tops of the fir trees they had come through in order to reach the steps. They had apparently climbed to the top of some weird, flattopped mesa, a geological anomaly that would have seemed far more normal in Arizona or New Mexico. Because the grassedover top of the mesaor hill, or truncated mountain, or whatever it waswas bare of trees, the sun had melted the snow here. Turning back to Jud, Louis saw dry grasses bending before the steady wind that blew coldly in his face, and saw that it was a hill, not an isolated mesa. Ahead of them the ground rose again toward trees. But this flatness was so obvious, and so odd in the context of New Englands low and somehow tired hills Toolbearing Indians, his mind suddenly spoke up. Come on, Jud said and led him twentyfive yards toward the trees. The wind blew hard up here, but it felt clean. Louis saw a number of shapes just under the gloom cast by the treestrees which were the oldest, tallest firs he had ever seen. The whole effect of this high, lonely place was emptinessbut an emptiness which vibrated. The dark shapes were cairns of stones. Micmacs sanded off the top of the hill here, Jud said. No one knows how, no more than anyone knows how the Mayans built their pyramids. And the Micmacs have forgot themselves, just like the Mayans have. Why? Why did they do it? This was their burying ground, Jud said. I brought you here so you could bury Ellies cat here. The Micmacs didnt discriminate, you know. They buried their pets right alongside their owners. This made Louis think of the Egyptians, who had gone that one better they had slaughtered the pets of royalty so that the souls of the pets might go along to whatever afterlife there might be with the souls of their masters. He remembered reading about the slaughter of more than ten thousand domestic animals following the decease of one pharaohs daughterincluded in the tally had been six hundred pigs and two thousand peacocks. The pigs had been scented with attar of roses, the dead ladys favorite perfume, before their throats were cut. And they built pyramids too. No one knows for sure what the Mayan pyramids are fornavigation and chronography, some say, like Stonehengebut we know damn well what the Egyptian pyramids were and are . . . great monuments to death, the worlds biggest gravestones. Here Lies Ramses II, He Was Obedient, Louis thought and uttered a wild, helpless cackle. Jud looked at him, unsurprised. Go on and bury your animal, he said. Im gonna have a smoke. Id help you, but you got to do it yourself. Each buries his own. Thats the way it was done then. Jud, whats this all about? Why did you bring me here? Because you saved Normas life, Jud said, and although he sounded sincereand Louis was positive he believed himself sincerehe had a sudden, overpowering sense that the man was lying . . . or that he was being lied to and then passing the lie on to Louis. He remembered that look he had seen, or thought he had seen, in Juds eye. But up here none of that seemed to matter. The wind mattered more, pushing freely around him in that steady river, lifting his hair from his brow and off his ears. Jud sat down with his back against one of the trees, cupped his hands around a match, and lit a Chesterfield. You want to rest a bit before you start? No, Im okay, Louis said. He could have pursued the questions, but he found he didnt really care to. This felt wrong but it also felt right, and he decided to let that be enough . . . for now. There was really only one thing he needed to know. Will I really be able to dig him a grave? The soil looks thin. Louis nodded toward the place where the rock pushed out of the ground at the edge of the steps. Jud nodded slowly. Ayuh, he said. Soils thin, all right. But soil deep enough to grow grass is generally deep enough to bury in, Louis. And people have been burying here for a long, long time. You wont find it any too easy, though. Nor did he. The ground was stony and hard, and very quickly he saw that he was going to need the pick to dig the grave deep enough to hold Church. So he began to alternate, first using the pick to loosen the hard earth and stones, then the shovel to dig out what he had loosened. His hands began to hurt. His body began to warm up again. He felt a strong, unquestionable need to do a good job. He began to hum under his breath, something he sometimes did when suturing a wound. Sometimes the pick would strike a rock hard enough to flash sparks, and the shiver would travel up the wooden haft to vibrate in his hands. He could feel blisters forming on his palms and didnt care, although he was, like most doctors, usually careful of his hands. Above and around him, the wind sang and sang, playing a treenote melody. Counterpointing this he heard the soft drop and chunk of rock. He looked over his shoulder and saw Jud, hunkered down and pulling out the bigger rocks he had dug up, making a heap of them. For your cairn, he said when he saw Louis looking. Oh, Louis said and went back to work. He made the grave about two feet wide and three feet longa Cadillac of a grave for a damn cat, he thoughtand when it was perhaps thirty inches deep and the pick was flashing sparks up from almost every stroke, he tossed it and the shovel aside and asked Jud if it was okay. Jud got up and took a cursory look. Seems fine to me, he said. Anyway, its what you think that counts. Will you tell me now what this is about? Jud smiled a little. The Micmacs believed this hill was a magic place, he said. Believed this whole forest, from the swamp on north and east, was magic. They made this place, and they buried their dead here, away from everything else. Other tribes steered clear of itthe Penobscots said these woods were full of ghosts. Later on, the fur trappers started saying pretty much the same thing. I suppose some of them saw the foofire in Little God Swamp and thought they were seeing ghosts. Jud smiled, and Louis thought That isnt what you think at all. Later on, not even the Micmacs themselves would come here. One of them claimed he saw a Wendigo here and that the ground had gone sour. They had a big powwow about it . . . or so I heard the tale in my green years, Louis, but I heard it from that old tosspot Stanny B.which is what we all called Stanley Bouchardand what Stanny B. didnt know, hed make up. Louis, who knew only that the Wendigo was supposed to be a spirit of the north country, said, Do you think the grounds gone sour? Jud smiledor at least his lips slanted. I think its a dangerous place, he said softly, but not for cats or dogs or pet hamsters. Go on and bury your animal, Louis. Louis lowered the Hefty Bag into the hole and slowly shoveled the dirt back in. He was cold now and tired. The patter of the earth on the plastic was a depressing sound, and while he did not regret coming up here, that sense of exhilaration was fading, and he had begun to wish the adventure over. It was a long walk back home. The pattering sound muffled, then stoppedthere was only the whump of dirt on more dirt. He scraped the last bit into the hole with the blade of his shovel (theres never enough, he thought, recalling something his undertaker uncle had said to him at least a thousand years ago, never enough to fill the hole up again) arid then turned to Jud. Your cairn, Jud said. Look, Jud, Im pretty tired and Its Ellies cat, Jud said, and his voice, although soft, was implacable. Shed want you to do it right. Louis sighed. I suppose she would, he said. It took another ten minutes to pile up the rocks Jud handed him, one by one. When it was done, there was a low, conical pile of stones on Churchs grave, and Louis did indeed feel a small, tired pleasure. It looked right, somehow, rising with the others in the starlight. He supposed Ellie would never see itthe thought of taking her through that patch of swamp where there was quicksand would make Rachels hair turn whitebut he had seen it, and it was good. Most of these have fallen over, he said to Jud, standing and brushing at the knees of his pants. He was seeing more clearly now, and in several places he could clearly make out scattered strews of loose stones. But Jud had seen to it that he built his own cairn only from stones taken from the grave he himself had dug. Ayuh, Jud said. Told you the place is old. Are we done now? Ayuh. He clapped Louis on the shoulder. You did good, Louis. I knew you would. Lets go home. Jud he began again, but Jud only grabbed the pick and walked off toward the steps. Louis got the shovel, had to trot to catch up, and then saved his breath for walking. He looked back once, but the cairn marking the grave of his daughters cat Winston Churchill had melted into the shadows, and he could not pick it out. We just ran the film backward, Louis thought tiredly as they emerged from the woods and into the field overlooking his own house some time later. He did not know how much later; he had taken off his watch when he had lain down to doze that afternoon, and it would still be there on the windowsill by his bed. He only knew that he was beat, used up, done in. He could not remember feeling so kickeddog weary since his first day on Chicagos rubbishdisposal crew one highschool summer sixteen or seventeen years ago. They came back the same way they had gone, but he could remember very little about the trip. He stumbled on the deadfall, he remembered thatlurching forward and thinking absurdly of Peter Panoh Jesus, I lost my happy thoughts and down I come and then Juds hand had been there, firm and hard, and a few moments later they had been trudging past the final resting places of Smucky the Cat and Trixie and Marta Our Pet Rabit and onto the path he had once walked not only with Jud but with his whole family. It seemed that in some weary way he had pondered the dream of Victor Pascow, the one which had resulted in his somnambulistic episode, but any connection between that night walk and this had eluded him. It had also occurred to him that the whole adventure had been dangerousnot in any melodramatic Wilkie Collins sense but in a very real one. That he had outrageously blistered his hands while in a state that was nearly somnambulistic was really the least of it. He could have killed himself on the deadfall. Both of them could have. It was hard to square such behavior with sobriety. In his current exhaustion, he was willing to ascribe it to confusion and emotional upset over the death of a pet the whole family had loved. And after a time, there they were, home again. They walked toward it together, not speaking, and stopped again in Louiss driveway. The wind moaned and whined. Wordlessly, Louis handed Jud his pick. Id best get across, Jud said at last. Louella Bisson or Ruthie Parks will be bringin Norma home and shell wonder where the hell I am. Do you have the time? Louis asked. He was surprised that Norma wasnt home yet; in his muscles it seemed to him that midnight must have struck. Oh, ayuh, Jud said. I keep the time as long as Im dressed and then I let her go. He fished a watch out of his pants pocket and flicked the scrolled cover back from its face. Its gone eightthirty, he said and snapped the cover closed again. Eightthirty? Louis repeated stupidly. Thats all? How late did you think it was? Jud asked. Later than that, Louis said. Ill see you tomorrow, Louis, Jud said and began to move away. He turned toward Louis, mildly questioning. Jud, what did we do tonight? Why, we buried your daughters cat. Is that all we did? Nothing but that, Jud said. Youre a good man, Louis, but you ask too many questions. Sometimes people have to do things that just seem right. That seem right in their hearts, I mean. And if they do those things and then end up not feeling right, full of questions and sort of like they got indigestion, only inside their heads instead of in their guts, they think they made a mistake. Do you know what I mean? Yes, Louis said, thinking that Jud must have been reading his mind as the two of them walked downhill through the field and toward the house lights. What they dont think is that maybe they should be questioning those feelings of doubt before they question their own hearts, Jud said, looking at him closely. What do you think, Louis? I think, Louis said slowly, that you might be right. And the things that are in a mans heartit dont do him much good to talk about those things, does it? Well No, Jud said, as if Louis had simply agreed. It dont. And in his calm voice that was so sure and so implacable, in that voice which somehow put the chill through Louis, he said They are secret things. Women are supposed to be the ones good at keeping secrets, and I guess they do keep a few, but any woman who knows anything at all would tell you shes never really seen into any mans heart. The soil of a mans heart is stonier, Louislike the soil up there in the old Micmac burying ground. Bedrocks close. A man grows what he can . . . and he tends it. Jud Dont question, Louis. Accept whats done and follow your heart. But But nothing. Accept whats done, Louis, and follow your heart. We did what was right this time . . . at least, I hope to Christ it was right. Another time it could be wrongwrong as hell. Will you at least answer one question? Well, lets hear what it is, and then well see. How did you know about that place? This question had also occurred to Louis on the way back, along with the suspicion that Jud himself might be part Micmacalthough he did not look like it; he looked as if every one of his ancestors had been one hundred percent cardcarrying Anglos. Why, from Stanny B., he said, looking surprised. He just told you? No, Jud said. It isnt the kind of place you just tell somebody about. I buried my dog Spot up there when I was ten. He was chasing a rabbit, and he run on some rusty barbed wire. The wounds infected and it killed him. There was something wrong about that, something that didnt fit with something Louis had been previously told, but he was too tired to puzzle out the discontinuity. Jud said no more; only looked at him from his inscrutable old mans eyes. Goodnight, Jud, Louis said. Goodnight. The old man crossed the road, carrying his pick and shovel. Thanks! Louis called impulsively. Jud didnt turn; he only raised one hand to indicate he had heard. And in the house, suddenly, the telephone began to ring. Louis ran, wincing at the aches that flared in his upper thighs and lower back, but by the time he had gotten into the warm kitchen, the phone had already rung six or seven times. It stopped ringing just as he put his hand on it. He picked it up anyway and said hello, but there was only the open hum. That was Rachel, he thought. I'll call her back. But suddenly it seemed like too much work to dial the number, to dance clumsily with her motheror worse, her checkbookbrandishing fatherto be passed on to Rachel . . . and then to Ellie. Ellie would still be up of course; it was an hour earlier in Chicago. Ellie would ask him how Church was doing. Great, hes fine. Got hit by an Orinco truck. Somehow Im absolutely positive it was an Orinco truck. Anything else would lack dramatic unity, if you know what I mean. You dont? Well, never mind. The truck killed him but didnt mark him up hardly at all. Jud and I planted him up in the old Micmac burying ground sort of an annex to the Pet Sematary, if you know what I mean. Amazing walk, punkin. Ill take you up there sometime and well put flowers by his markerexcuse me, his cairn. After the quicksand's frozen over, that is, and the bears go to sleep for the winter. He rehung the telephone, crossed to the sink, and filled it with hot water. He removed his shirt and washed. He had been sweating like a pig in spite of the cold, and a pig was exactly what he smelled like. There was some leftover meatloaf in the refrigerator. Louis cut it into slabs, put them on a slice of Roman Meal bread, and added two thick rounds of Bermuda onion. He contemplated this for a moment before dousing it with ketchup and slamming down another slice of bread. If Rachel and Ellie had been around, they would have wrinkled their noses in identical gestures of distaste yuck, gross. Well, you missed it, ladies, Louis thought with undeniable satisfaction and gobbled his sandwich. It tasted great. Confucius say he who smell like pig eat like wolf, he thought and smiled. He chased the sandwich with several long swallows of milk directly from the cartonanother habit Rachel frowned on strenuously and then he went upstairs, undressed, and got into bed without even washing his teeth. His aches and pains had faded to one low throb that was almost comforting. His watch was there where he had left it, and he looked at it. Ten minutes of nine. It really was incredible. Louis turned off the light, turned over on his side, and slept.

He woke up sometime after three the next morning and shuffled to the bathroom, He was standing there urinating, blinking owlishly in the bright white fluorescent bathroom light, when the discrepancy suddenly showed up in his mind, and his eyes widenedit was as if two pieces of something which should have fitted together perfectly had instead thudded against one another and rebounded. Tonight Jud had told him that his dog had died when he was tenhad died of infection after being scraped up in a snarl of rusty barbed wire. But on the latesummer day when all of them had walked up to the Pet Sematary together, Jud said that his dog had died of old age and was buried therehe had even pointed out the marker, although the years had worn the inscription away. Louis flushed the toilet, turned out the light, and went back to bed. Something else was wrong, as welland in a moment he had it. Jud had been born with the century, and that day at the Pet Sematary he had told Louis his dog had died during the first year of the Great War. That would have been when Jud was fourteen, if he had meant when the war actually started in Europe. When he was seventeen, if he had meant when America entered the war. But tonight he had said that Spot died when he, Jud, was ten. Well, hes an old man, and old men get confused in their memories, he thought uneasily. Hes said himself that hes noticed signs of increasing forgetfulnessgroping for names and addresses that used to come to him easily, sometimes getting up in the morning and having no memory of the chores he planned to do just the night before. For a man of his age, hes getting off pretty goddamned light . . . senilitys probably too strong a word for it in Juds case; forgetfulness is actually better, more accurate. Nothing too surprising about a man forgetting when a dog died some seventy years ago. Or the circumstances in which it died, for that matter. Forget it, Louis. But he wasnt able to fall asleep again right away; for a long while he lay awake, too conscious of the empty house and the wind that whined around the eaves outside it. At some point he slept without even being aware that he had gone over the edge; it must have been so, because as he slipped away, it seemed to him that he heard bare feet slowly climbing the stairs and that he thought, Let me alone, Pascow, let me alone, whats done is done and whats dead is deadand the steps faded away. And although a great many other inexplicable things happened as that year darkened, Louis was never bothered by the specter of Victor Pascow again, either waking or dreaming. 23 He awoke at nine the next morning. Bright sunshine streamed in the bedrooms east windows. The telephone was ringing. Louis reached up and snared it. Hello? Hi! Rachel said. Did I wake you up? Hope so. You woke me up, you bitch, he said, smiling. Ooooh, such nasty language, you bad old bear, she said. I tried to call you last night. Were you over at Juds? He hesitated for only the tiniest fraction of a moment. Yes, he said. Had a few beers. Norma was up at some sort of Thanksgiving supper. I thought about giving you a ring, but . . you know. They chatted awhile. Rachel updated him on her family, something he could have done without, although he took a small, mean satisfaction in the news that her fathers bald spot seemed to be expanding at a faster rate. You want to talk to Gage? Rachel asked. Louis grinned. Yeah, I guess so, he said. Dont let him hang up the phone like he did the other time. Much rattling at the other end. Dimly he heard Rachel cajoling the kid to say hi, Daddy. At last Gage said, Hi, Dayee. Hi, Gage, Louis said cheerfully. How you doing? Hows your life? Did you pull over your granddas pipe rack again? I certainly hope so. Maybe this time you can trash his stamp collection as well. Gage babbled on happily for thirty seconds or so, interspersing his gobbles and grunts with a few recognizable words from his growing vocabularymommy, Ellie, grandda, grandma, car (pronounced in the best Yankee tradition as kaaa, Louis was amused to note), twuck, and shit. At last Rachel pried the phone away from him to Gages wail of indignation and Louiss measured reliefhe loved his son and missed him like mad, but holding a conversation with a notquitetwoyearold was a little bit like trying to play cribbage with a lunatic; the cards kept going everywhere and sometimes you found yourself pegging backwards. So hows everything there? Rachel asked. Okay, Louis said, with no hesitation at all this timebut he was aware he had crossed a line, back when Rachel had asked him if he had gone over to Juds last night and he told her he had. In his mind he suddenly heard Jud Crandall saying, The soil of a mans heart is stonier, Louis . . . a man grows what he can and he tends it. Well . . . a little dull, if you want to know the Gods honest. Miss you. You actually mean to tell me youre not enjoying your vacation from this sideshow? Oh, I like the quiet, he admitted, sure. But it gets strange after the first twentyfour hours or so. Can I talk to Daddy? It was Ellie in the background. Louis? Ellies here. Okay, put her on. He talked to Ellie for almost five minutes. She prattled on about the doll Grandma had gotten her, about the trip she and Grandda had taken to the stockyards (Boy, do they stink, Daddy, Ellie said, and Louis thought, Your granddas no rose, either, sweetie), about how she had helped make bread, and about how Gage had gotten away from Rachel while she was changing him. Gage had run down the hallway and pooped right in the doorway leading into Granddas study (Atta boy, Gage! Louis thought, a big grin spreading over his face). He actually thought he was going to get awayat least for this morningand was getting ready to ask Ellie for her mother again so he could say goodbye to her when Ellie asked, Hows Church, Daddy? Does he miss me? The grin faded from Louiss mouth, but he answered readily. and with the perfect note of offhanded casualness Hes fine, I guess. I gave him the leftover beef stew last night and then put him out. Havent seen him this morning, but I just woke up. Oh boy, you would have made a great murderercool as a cucumber. Dr. Creed, when did you last see the deceased? He came in for supper. Had a plate of beef stew, in fact. I havent seen him since then. Well, give him a kiss for me. Yuck, kiss your own cat, Louis said, and Ellie giggled. You want to talk to Mommy again, Daddy? Sure. Put her on. Then it was over. He talked to Rachel for another couple of minutes; the subject of Church was not touched upon. He and his wife exchanged loveyous, and Louis hung up. Thats that, he said to the empty, sunny room, and maybe the worst thing about it was that he didnt feel bad, didnt feel guilty at all. 24 Steve Masterton called around ninethirty and asked if Louis would like to come up to the university and play some racket ballthe place was deserted, he said gleefully, and they could play the whole goddam day if they wanted to. Louis could understand the gleewhen the university was in session, the waiting list for a racket ball court was sometimes two days longbut he declined all the same, telling Steve he wanted to work on an article he was writing for The Magazine of College Medicine. You sure? Steve asked. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy, you know. Check me later, Louis said. Maybe Ill be up for it. Steve said he would and hung up. Louis had told only a halflie this time; he did plan to work on his article, which concerned itself with treating contagious ailments such as chickenpox and mononucleosis in the infirmary environment, but the main reason he had turned down Steves offer was that he was a mass of aches and pains. He had discovered this as soon as he finished talking to Rachel and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. His back muscles creaked and groaned, his shoulders were sore from lugging the cat in that damned garbage bag, and the hamstrings in back of his knees felt like guitar strings tuned three octaves past their normal pitch. Christ, he thought, and you had the stupid idea you were in some kind of shape. He would have looked cute trying to play racket ball with Steve, lumbering around like an arthritic old man. And speaking of old men, he hadnt made that hike into the woods the night before by himself; he had gone with a guy who was closing in on eightyfive. He wondered if Jud was hurting as badly as he was this morning. He spent an hour and a half working on his article, but it did not march very well. The emptiness and the silence began to get on his nerves, and at last he stacked his yellow legal pads and the offprints he had ordered from Johns Hopkins on the shelf above his typewriter, put on his parka, and crossed the road. Jud and Norma werent there, but there was an envelope tacked to the porch door with his name written across the front of it. He took it down and opened the flap with his thumb. Louis, The good wife and me are off to Bucksport to do some shopping and to look at a welsh dresser at the Emporium Galorium that Normas had her eye on for about a hundred years, it seems like. Probably well have a spot of lunch at McLeods while were there and come back in the late afternoon. Come on over for a beer or two tonight, if you want. Your family is your family. I dont want to be no buttinsky, but if Ellie were my daughter, I wouldnt rush to tell her that her cat got killed on the highwaywhy not let her enjoy her holiday? By the way, Louis, I wouldnt talk about what we did last night either, not around North Ludlow. There are other people who know about that old Micmac burying ground, and there are other people in town who have buried their animals there . . . you might say its another part of the Pet Sematary. Believe it or not, there is even a bull buried up there! Old Zack McGovern, who used to live out on Stack pole Road, buried his prize bull Hanratty in the Micmac burying ground back in 1967 or 68. Ha, ha! He told me that he and his two boys had taken that bull out there and 1 laughed until I thought 1 would rupture myself! But people around here dont like to talk about it, and they dont like people they consider to be outsiders to know about it, not because some of these old superstitions go back three hundred years or more (although they do), but because they sort of believe in those superstitions, and they think any outsider who knows that they do must be laughing at them. Does that make any sense? I suspect itdoesnt, but nevertheless thats how it is. So just do me a favor and keep shut on the subject, will you? We will talk more about this, probably tonight, and by then you will understand more, but in the meantime I want to tell you that you did yourself proud. I knew you would. Jud PSNorma doesnt know what this note saysI told her something differentand I would just as soon keep it that way if its all the same to you. I've told Norma more than one lie in the fiftyeight years weve been married, and Id guess that most men tell their wives a smart of lies, but you know, most of them could stand before God and confess them without dropping their eyes from His. Well, drop over tonight and well do a little boozing. J. Louis stood on the top step leading to Jud and Normas porch now bare, its comfortable rattan furniture stored to wait for another springfrowning over this note. Dont tell Ellie the cat had been killedhe hadnt. Other animals buried there? Superstitions going back three hundred years? . . . and by then you will understand more. He touched this line lightly with his finger, and for the first time allowed his mind to deliberately turn back to what they had done the night before. It was blurred in his memory, it had the melting, cottoncandy texture of dreams or of waking actions performed under a light haze of drugs. He could recall climbing the deadfall and the odd, brighter quality of light in the bogthat and the way it had felt ten or twenty degrees warmer therebut all of it was like the conversation you had with the anesthetist just before he or she put you out like a light. . . . and Id guess most men tell their wives a smart of lies . . . Wives and daughters as well, Louis thoughtbut it was eerie, the way Jud seemed almost to know what had transpired this morning, both on the telephone and in his own head. Slowly he refolded the note, which had been written on a sheet of lined paper like that in a schoolboys Blue Horse tablet, and put it back into the envelope. He put the envelope into his hip pocket and crossed the road again. 25 It was around one oclock that afternoon when Church came back like the cat in the nursery rhyme. Louis was in the garage, where he had been working off and on for the last six weeks on a fairly ambitious set of shelves; he wanted to put all of the dangerous garage stuff such as bottles of windshieldwiper fluid, antifreeze, and sharp tools on these shelves, where they would be out of Gages reach. He was hammering in a nail when Church strolled in, his tail high. Louis did not drop the hammer or even slam his thumbhis heart jogged in his chest but did not leap; a hot wire seemed to glow momentarily in his stomach and then cool immediately, like the filament of a light bulb that glows overbrightly for a moment and then burns out. It was as if, he told himself later, he had spent that entire sunny postThanksgiving Friday morning waiting for Church to come back; as if he had known in some deeper, more primitive part of his mind what their night hike up to the Micmac burying ground had meant all along. He put the hammer down carefully, spat the nails he had been holding in his mouth back into his palm, and then dumped them into the pockets of his workmans apron. He went to Church and picked the cat up. Live weight, he thought with a kind of sick excitement. He weighs what he did before he was hit. This is live weight. He was heavier in the bag. He was heavier when he was dead. His heart took a bigger jog this timealmost a leapand for a moment the garage seemed to swim in front of his eyes. Church laid his ears back and allowed himself to be held. Louis carried him out into the sunlight and sat down on the back steps. The cat tried to get down then, but Louis stroked him and held him on his lap. His heart seemed to be taking regular jogs now. He probed gently into the heavy ruff of fur at Churchs neck, remembering the sick, boneless way Churchs head had swiveled on his broken neck the night before. He felt nothing now but good muscle and tendon. He held Church up and looked at the cats muzzle closely. What he saw there caused him to drop the cat onto the grass quickly and to cover his face with one hand, his eyes shut. The whole world was swimming now, and his head was full of a tottery, sick vertigoit was the sort of feeling he could remember from the bitter end of long drunks, just before the puking started. There was dried blood caked on Churchs muzzle, and caught in his long whiskers were two tiny shreds of green plastic. Bits of Hefty Bag. We will talk more about this and by then you will understand more . . . Oh Christ, he understood more than he wanted to right now. Give me a chance, Louis thought, and Ill understand myself right into the nearest mental asylum. He let Church into the house, got his blue dish, and opened a tunaandliver cat dinner. As he spooned the graybrown mess out of the can, Church purred unevenly and rubbed back and forth along Louiss ankles. The feel of the cat caused Louis to break out in gooseflesh, and he had to clench his teeth grimly to keep from kicking him away. His furry sides felt somehow too slick, too thickin a word, loathsome. Louis found he didnt care if he never touched Church again. When he bent and put the dish on the floor, Church streaked past him to get it, and Louis could have sworn he smelled sour earthas if it had been ground into the cats fur. He stood back, watching the cat eat. He could hear him smackinghad Church smacked over his food that way before? Perhaps he had, and Louis had just never noticed. Either way, it was a disgusting sound. Gross, Ellie would have said. Abruptly Louis turned and went upstairs. He started at a walk, but by the time he got to the upper hallway, he was almost running. He undressed, tossing all of his clothes in the laundry hamper although he had put them on fresh from the underwear out that morning. He drew himself a hot. bath, as hot as he could take it, and plopped in. The steam rose around him, and he could feel the hot water working on his muscles, loosening them. The bath was also working on his head, loosening that. By the time the water had begun to cool, he was feeling dozy and pretty much all right again. The cat came back, just like the cat in the nursery rhyme, all right, so what, big deal. It had all been a mistake. Hadnt he thought to himself yesterday evening that Church looked remarkably whole and unmarked for an animal that had been struck by a car? Think of all the woodchucks and cats and dogs youve seen strewn all over the highway, he thought, their bodies burst, their guts everywhere. Technicolor, as Loudon Wainwright says on that record about the dead skunk. It was obvious now. Church had been struck hard and stunned. The cat he had carried up to Juds old Micmac burying ground had been unconscious, not dead. Didnt they say cats had nine lives? Thank God he hadnt said anything to Ellie! She wouldnt ever have to know how close Church had come. The blood on his mouth and ruff . . . the way his neck turned . . . But he was a doctor, not a vet. He had made a misdiagnosis that was all. It had hardly been under the best circumstances for close examination, squatting on Juds lawn in twentydegree temperatures, the light almost gone from the sky. And he had been wearing gloves. That could have A bloated, misshapen shadow rose on the tiled bathroom wall, like the head of a small dragon or of some monstrous snake; something touched his bare shoulder lightly and skidded. Louis jerked upward galvanically, splashing water out of the tub and soaking the bathmat. He turned, cringing back at the same time, and stared into the muddy yellowgreen eyes of his daughters cat, who was perched on the lowered seat of the toilet. Church was swaying slowly back and forth as if drunk. Louis watched, his body crawling with revulsion, a scream barely held back in his mouth by his clamped teeth. Church had never looked like thishad never swayed, like a snake trying to hypnotize its preynot before he was fixed and not afterward. For the first and last time he played with the idea that this was a different cat, one that just looked like Ellies, a cat that had just wandered into his garage while he was putting up those shelves, and that the real Church was still buried under that cairn on the bluff in the woods. But the markings were the same . . . and the one ragged, ear . . . and the paw that had that funny chewed look. Ellie had slammed that paw in the back door of their little suburban house when Church was little more than a kitten. It was Church, all right. Get out of here, Louis whispered hoarsely at him. Church stared at him a moment longerGod, his eyes were different, somehow they were differentand then leaped down from the toilet seat. He landed with none of the uncanny grace cats usually display. He staggered awkwardly, haunches thudding against the tub, and then he was gone. It, Louis thought. Not he; it. Remember, its been spayed. He got out of the tub and dried off quickly, jerkily. He was shaved and mostly dressed when the phone rang, shrill in the empty house. When it sounded, Louis whirled, eyes wide, hands going up. He lowered them slowly. His heart was racing. His muscles felt full of adrenaline. It was Steve Masterton, checking back about racket ball, and Louis agreed to meet him at the Memorial Gym in an hour. He could not really afford the time, and racket ball was the last thing in the world he felt like right now, but he had to get out. He wanted to get away from the cat, that weird cat which had no business being here at all. He hurried, tucking in his shirt quickly, stuffing a pair of shorts, a tshirt, and a towel into his zipper bag, and trotting down the stairs. Church was lying on the fourth riser from the bottom. Louis tripped over the cat and almost fell. He managed to grab the bannister and barely save himself from what could have been a nasty fall. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, breathing in snatches, his heart racing, the adrenaline whipping unpleasantly through his body. Church stood up, stretched . . . and seemed to grin at him. Louis left. He should have put the cat out, he knew that, but he didnt. At that particular moment he didnt think he could bring himself to touch it. 26 Jud lit a cigarette with a wooden kitchen match, shook it out, and tossed the stub into a tin ashtray with a barely readable Jim Beam advertisement painted on its bottom. Ayuh, it was Stanley Bouchard who told me about the place. He paused, thinking. Barely touched glasses of beer stood before them on the checked oilcloth that covered the kitchen table. Behind them, the barrel of range oil clamped to the wall gurgled three times, deliberately, and was still. Louis had caught a pickup supper with Stevesubmarine sandwiches in the mostly deserted Bears Den. He had found out early that if you asked for a hoagie or a grinder or a gyro in Maine, they didnt know what you were talking about. Ask for a sub or a Wopburger, and you were in business. With some food in him, Louis began to feel better about Churchs return, felt that he had things more in perspective, but he was still not anxious to return to his dark, empty house where the cat could belets face it, ganganywhere at all. Norma sat with them for quite a while, watching TV and working on a sampler that showed the sun going down behind a small county meeting house. The cross on the roof tree was silhouetted black against the setting sun. Something to sell, she said, at the church sale the week before Christmas. Always a big event. Her fingers moved well, pushing the needle through the cloth, pulling it up through the steel circle. Her arthritis was barely noticeable tonight. Louis supposed it might be the weather, which had been cold but very dry. She had recovered nicely from her heart attack, and on that evening less than ten weeks before a cerebral accident would kill her, he thought that she looked less haggard and actually younger. On that evening he could see the girl she had been. At a quarter to ten she said goodnight, and now he sat here with Jud, who had ceased speaking and seemed only to be following his cigarette smoke up and up, like a kid watching a barber pole to see where the stripes go. Stanny B., Louis prompted gently. Jud blinked and seemed to come back to himself. Oh, ayuh, he said. Everyone in Ludlowround Bucksport and Prospect and Orrington too, I guessjust called him Stanny B. That year my dog Spot died1910 I mean, the first time he diedStanny was already an old man and more than a little crazy. There was others around these parts that knew the Micmac burying ground was there, but it was Stanny B. I heard it from, and he knew about it from his father and his father before him. A whole family of proper Canucks, they were. Jud laughed and sipped his beer. I can still hear him talking in that broken English of his. He found me sitting behind the livery stable that used to stand on Route 15except it was just the BangorBucksport Road back thenright about where the Orinco plant is now. Spot wasnt dead but he was going, and my dad sent me away to check on some chickenfeed, which old Yorky sold back then. We didnt need chickenfeed any more than a cow needs a blackboard, and I knew well enough why he sent me down there. He was going to kill the dog? He knew how tenderly I felt about Spot, so he sent me away while he did it. I saw about the chickenfeed, and while old Yorky set it out for me I went around back and sat down on the old grindstone that used to be there and just bawled. Jud shook his head slowly and gently, still smiling a little. And along comes old Stanny B., he said. Half the people in town thought he was soft, and the other half thought he might be dangerous. His grandfather was a big fur trapper and trader in the early 1800s. Stannys grandda would go all the way from the Maritimes to Bangor and Derry, sometimes as far south as Skowhegan to buy pelts, or so Ive heard. He drove a big wagon covered with rawhide strips like something out of a medicine show. He had crosses all over it, for he was a proper Christian and would preach on the Resurrection when he was drunk enough this is what Stanny said, he loved to talk about his granddabut he had pagan Indian signs all over it as well because he believed that all Indians, no matter what the tribe, belonged to one big tribethat lost one of Israel the Bible talks about. He said he believed all Indians were hellbound, but that their magic worked because they were Christians all the same, in some queer, damned way. Stannys grandda bought from the Micmacs and did a good business with them long after most of the other trappers and traders had given up or gone west because he traded with them at a fair price and because, Stanny said, he knew the whole Bible by heart, and the Micmacs liked to hear him speak the words the blackrobes had spoken to them in the years before the buckskin men and woodsmen came. He fell silent. Louis waited. The Micmacs told Stanny B.s grandda about the burying ground which they didnt use anymore because the Wendigo had soured the ground, and about Little God Swamp, and the steps, and all the rest. The Wendigo story, now, that was something you could hear in those days all over the north country. It was a story they had to have, the same way I guess we have to have some of our Christian stories. Norma would damn me for a profaner if she heard me say that, but Louis, its true. Sometimes, if the winter was long and hard and the food was short, there were north country Indians who would finally get down to the bad place where it was starve or . . . or do something else. Cannibalism? Jud shrugged. Maybe. Maybe theyd pick out someone who was old and used up, and then there would be stew for a while. And the story they worked out would be that the Wendigo had walked through their village or encampment while they were sleepin and touched them. And the Wendigo was supposed to give those it touched a taste for the flesh of their own kind. Louis nodded. Saying the devil made them do it. Sure. My own guess is that the Micmacs around here had to do it at some point and that they buried the bones of whoever they ateone or two, maybe even ten or a dozenup there in their burying ground. And then decided the ground had gone sour, Louis muttered. So heres Stanny B., come out in back of the livery to get his jug, I guess, Jud said, already halfcrocked, he was. His grandfather was worth maybe a million dollars when he diedor so people saidand Stanny B. was nothing but the local ragman. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him. He saw Id been bawling, and he told me there was a way it could be fixed up, if I was brave and sure I wanted it fixed up. I said Id give anything to have Spot well again, and I asked him if he knew a vet that could do it. Dont know no vet, me, Stanny said, but I know how to fix your dog, boy. You go home now and tell your dad to put that dog in a grain sack, but you aint gonna bury him, no! You gonna drag him up to the Pet Sematary and you gonna put him in the shade by that big deadfall. Then you gonna come back and say its done. I asked him what good that would do, and Stanny told me to stay awake that night and come out when he threw a stone against my window. And it be midnight, boy, so if you forget Stanny B. and go to sleep, Stanny B. gonna forget you, and its goodbye dog, let him go straight to Hell! Jud looked at Louis and lit another cigarette. It went just the way Stanny set it up. When I got back, my dad said hed put a bullet in Spots head to spare him any more suffering. I didnt even have to say anything about the Pet Sematary; my dad asked me if I didnt think Spot would want me to bury him up there, and I said I guessed he would. So off I went, dragging my dog in a grain sack. My dad asked me if I wanted help, and I said no because I remembered what Stanny B. said. I laid awake that nightforever, seemed like. You know how time is for kids. It would seem to me I must have stayed awake right around until morning, and then the clock would only chime ten or eleven. A couple of times I almost nodded off, but each time I snapped wide awake again. It was almost as if someone had shaken me and said, Wake up, Jud! Wake up! Like something wanted to make sure I stayed awake. Louis raised his eyebrows at that, and Jud shrugged. When the clock in the downstairs hall chimed twelve, I got right up and sat there dressed on my bed with the moon shinin in the window. Next I know, the clock is chimin the halfhour, then one oclock, and still no Stanny B. Hes forgot all about me, that dumb Frenchman, I think to myself, and Im gettin ready to take my clothes off again when these two pebbles whap off the window, damn near hard enough to break the glass. One of them did put a crack in a pane, but I never noticed it until the next morning, and my mother didnt see it until the next winter, and by then she thought the frost done it. I just about flew across to that window and heaved it up. It grated and rumbled against the frame, the way they only seem to do when youre a kid and you want to get out after midnight Louis laughed, even though he could not remember ever having wanted to get out of the house at some dark hour when he was a boy of ten. Still, if he had wanted to, he was sure that windows which had never creaked in the daytime would creak then. I figured my folks must have thought burglars were trying to break in, but when my heart quieted down I could hear my dad still sawin wood in the bedroom on the first floor. I looked out and there was Stanny B., standin in our driveway and lookin up, swayin like there was a high wind when there wasnt so much as a puff of breeze. I dont think he ever would have come, Louis, except that hed gotten to that stage of drunkenness where youre as wide awake as an owl with diarrhea and you just dont give a care about anything. And he sort of yells up at meonly I guess he thought he was whisperingYou comin down, boy, or am I comin up to get you? Shh! I says, scared to death now that my dad will wake up and give me the whopping of my young life. Whatd you say? Stanny says, even louder than before. If my parents had been around on the road side of this house, Louis, I would have been a goner. But they had the bedroom that belongs to Norma and me now, with the river view. I bet you got down those stairs in one hell of a hurry, Louis said. Have you got another beer, Jud? He was already two past his usual limit, but tonight that seemed okay. Tonight that seemed almost mandatory. I do, and you know where theyre kept, Jud said and lit a fresh smoke. He waited until Louis was seated again. No, I wouldnt have dared to try the stairs. They went past my parents bedroom. I went down the ivy trellis, hand over hand, just as quick as I could. I was some scared, I can tell you, but I think I was more scared of my dad just then than I was of going up to the Pet Sematary with Stanny B. He crushed out his smoke. We went up there, the two of us, and I guess Stanny B. must have fallen down half a dozen times if he fell down once. He was really far gone; smelled like hed fallen into a vat of corn. One time he damn near put a stick through his throat. But he had a pick and shovel with him. When we got to the Pet Sematary, I kind of expected hed sling me the pick and shovel and just pass out while I dug the hole.

Instead he seemed to sober up a little. He told me we was goin on, up over the deadfall and deeper into the woods, where there was another burial place. I looked at Stanny, who was so drunk he could barely keep his feet, and I looked at that deadfall, and I said, You cant climb that, Stanny B., youll break your neck. And he said, I aint gonna break my neck, me, and neither are you. I can walk and you can lug your dog. And he was right. He sailed up over that deadfall just as smooth as silk, never even looking down, and I lugged Spot all the way up there, although he must have weighed thirtyfive pounds or so and I only went about ninety myself. I want to tell you, though, Louis, I was some sore and sprung the next day. How do you feel today? Louis didnt answer, only nodded. We walked and we walked, Jud said. It seemed to me we was gonna walk forever. The woods were spookier in those days. More birds calling from the trees, and you didnt know what any of em was. Animals moving around out there. Deer, most likely, but back then there were moose too and bears and catamounts. I dragged Spot. After a while I started to get the funny idea that old Stanny B. was gone and I was following an Indian. Following an Indian and somewhere farther along hed turn around, all grinning and blackeyed, his face streaked up with that stinking paint they made from bearfat; that hed have a tommyhawk made out of a wedge of slate and a hake of ashwood all tied together with rawhide, and hed grab me by the back of the neck and whack off my hairalong with the top of my skull. Stanny wasnt staggerin or fallin anymore; he just walked straight and easy, with his head up, and that sort of helped to feed the idea. But when we got to the edge of the Little God Swamp and he turned around to talk to me, I seen it was Stanny, all right, and the reason he wasnt staggerin or fallin anymore was because he was scared. Scairt himself sober, he did. He told me the same things I told you last nightabout the loons, and the St. Elmos fire, and how I wasnt to take any notice of anything I saw or heard. Most of all, he said, dont speak to anything if it should speak to you. Then we started across the swamp. And I did see something. I aint going to tell you what, only that Ive been up there maybe five times since that time when I was ten, and Ive never seen anything like it again. Nor will I, Louis, because my trip to the Micmac burial place last night was my last trip. Im not sitting here believing all of this, am I? Louis asked himself almost conversationallythe three beers helped him to sound conversational, at least to his own minds ear. I am not sitting here believing this story of old Frenchmen and Indian burying grounds and something called the Wendigo and pets that come back to life, am I? For Christs sake, the cat was stunned, thats all, a car hit it and stunned itno big deal. This is a senile old mans maunderings. Except that it wasnt, and Louis knew it wasnt, and three beers wasnt going to cure that knowing, and thirtythree beers wouldnt. Church had been dead, that was one thing; he was alive now and that was another; there was something fundamentally different, fundamentally wrong about him, and that was a third. Something had happened. Jud had repaid what he saw as a favor . . . but the medicine available at the Micmac burying ground was perhaps not such good medicine, and Louis now saw something in Juds eyes that told him the old man knew it. Louis thought of what he had seenor thought he had seenin Juds eyes the night before. That capering, gleeful thing. He remembered thinking that Juds decision to take Louis and Ellies cat on that particular night journey had not entirely been Juds own. If not his, then whose? his mind asked. And because he had no answer, Louis swept the uncomfortable question away. I buried Spot and built the cairn, Jud went on flatly, and by the time I was done, Stanny B. was fast asleep. I had to shake the hell out of him to get him going again, but by the time we got down those fortyfour stairs Fortyfive, Louis murmured. Jud nodded. Yeah, thats right, aint it? Fortyfive. By the time we got down those fortyfive stairs, he was walking as steady as if he was sober again. We went back through the swamp and the woods and over the deadfall, and finally we crossed the road and we was at my house again. It seemed to me like ten hours must have gone past, but it was still full dark. What happens now? I ask Stanny B. Now you wait and see what may happen, Stanny says, and off he walks, staggering and lurching again. I imagine he slept out in back of the livery that night, and as things turned out, my dog Spot outlived Stanny B. by two years. His liver went bad and poisoned him, and two little kids found him in the road on July 4, 1912, stiff as a poker. But me, that night, I just climbed back up the ivy and got into bed and fell asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow. Next morning 1 didnt get up until almost nine oclock, and then my mother was calling me. My dad worked on the railroad, and he would have been gone since six. Jud paused, thinking. My mother wasnt just calling me, Louis. She was screaming for me. Jud went to the fridge, got himself a Millers, and opened it on the drawer handle below the breadbox and toaster. His face looked yellow in the overhead light, the color of nicotine. He drained half his beer, uttered a belch like a gunshot, and then glanced down the hail toward the room where Norma slept. He looked back at Louis. This is hard for me to talk about, he said. I have turned it over in my mind, years and years, but Ive never told anyone about it. Others knew what had happened, but they never talked to me about it. The way it is about sex, I guess. Im telling you, Louis, because youve got a different kind of pet now. Not necessarily a dangerous one, but . . . different. Do you find thats true? Louis thought of Church jumping awkwardly off the toilet seat, his haunches thudding against the side of the tub; he thought of those muddy eyes that were almost but not quite stupid staring into his own. At last he nodded. When I got downstairs, my mother was backed into a corner in the pantry between our icebox and one of the counters. There was a bunch of white stuff on the floorcurtains shed been meaning to hang. Standing in the doorway of the pantry was Spot, my dog. There was dirt all over him and mud splashed clear up his legs. The fur on his belly was filthy, all knotted and snarled. He was just standing therenot growling or nothing just standing there, but it was pretty clear that he had backed her into a corner, whether he meant to or not. She was in terror, Louis. I dont know how you felt about your parents, but I know how I felt about mineI loved them both dearly. Knowing Id done something to put my own mother in terror took away any joy I might have felt when I saw Spot standing there. I didnt even seem to feel surprised that he was there. I know the feeling, Louis said. When I saw Church this morning, I just . . . it seemed like something that was He paused a moment. Perfectly natural? Those were the words that came immediately to mind, but they were not the right words. Like something that was meant. Yes, Jud said. He lit a fresh cigarette. His hands were shaking the smallest bit. And my mother seen me there, still in my underwear, and she screamed at me, Feed your dog, Jud! Your dog needs to be fed, get him out of here before he messes the curtains! So I found him some scraps and called him, and at first he didnt come, at first it was like he didnt know his own name, and I almost thought, well, this aint Spot at all, its some stray that looks like Spot, thats all Yes! Louis exclaimed. Jud nodded. But the second or third time I called him, he came. He sort of jerked toward me, and when I led him out onto the porch, damned if he didnt run right into the side of the door and just about fall over. He ate the scraps though, just wolfed them down. By then I was over my first fright and was starting to get an idea of what had happened. I got on my knees and hugged him, I was so glad to see him. Then he licked my face, and . . . Jud shuddered and finished his beer. Louis, his tongue was cold. Being licked by Spot was like getting rubbed up the side of your face with a dead carp. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Louis said, Go on. He ate, and when he was done, I got an old tub we kept for him out from under the back porch, and I gave him a bath. Spot always hated to have a bath; usually it took both me and my dad to do it, and wed end up with our shirts off and our pants soaked, my dad cussing and Spot looking sort of ashamedthe way dogs do. And more likely than not hed roll around in the dirt right after and then go over by my mothers clothesline to shake off and put dirt all over the sheets she had hung and shed scream at both of us that she was going to shoot that dog for a stranger before she got much older. But that day Spot just sat in the tub and let me wash him. He never moved at all. I didnt like it. It was like . . . like washing meat. I got an old piece of towel after I gave him his bath and dried him all off. I could see the places where the barbed wire had hooked himthere was no fur in any of those places, and the flesh looked dimpled in. It is the way an old wound looks after its been healed five years and more. Louis nodded. In his line of work, he had seen such things from time to time. The wound never seemed to fill in completely, and that made him think of graves and his days as an undertaker's apprentice, and how there was never enough dirt to fill them in again. Then I saw his head. There was another of those dimples there, but the fur had grown back white in a little circle. It was near his ear. Where your father shot him, Louis said. Jud nodded. Shooting a man or an animal in the head isnt as surefire as it sounds, Jud. There are wouldbe suicides in vegetable wards or even walking around right as rain who didnt know that a bullet can strike the skull plate and travel right around it in a semicircle, exiting the other side without ever penetrating the brain. I personally saw one case where a fellow shot himself above the right ear and died because the bullet went around his head and tore open his jugular vein on the other side of his head. That bullet path looked like a county roadmap. Jud smiled and nodded. I remember reading somethin like that in one of Normas newspapers, the Star or the Enquirerone of those. But if my pop said Spot was gone, Louis, he was gone. All right, Louis said. If you say thats how it was, that is how it was. Was your daughters cat gone? I sure thought it was, Louis said. You got to do better than that. Youre a doctor. You make it sound like You got to do better than that, Louis, youre God. Im not God. It was dark Sure, it was dark, and his head swiveled on his neck like it was full of ball bearings, and when you moved him, he pulled out of the frost, Louissounded like a piece of sticky tape comin off a letter. Live things dont do that. You only stop meltin the frost under where youre layin when youre dead. In the other room, the clock struck tenthirty. What did your father say when he came home and saw the dog? Louis asked. I was out in the driveway, shooting marbles in the dirt, more or less waitin for him. I felt like I always felt when Id done something wrong and knew I was probably gonna get a spankin. He come in through the gateposts about eight oclock, wearin his bib overalls and his pillowtick cap . . . you ever seen one of those? Louis nodded, then stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. Yeah, gettin late, Jud said. Got to finish this up. Its not that late, Louis said. Im just a few beers ahead of my usual pace. Go on, Jud. Take your time. I want to hear this. My dad had an old lard tin he kept his dinner in, Jud said, and he come in through the gate swingin it, empty, by the handle, you know. Whisflin somethin. It was gettin dark, but he seen me there in the gloom and he says, Hi there, Judkins! like he would do, and then, Wheres your He got that far, and then here comes Spot out of the dark, not runnin like he usually did, ready to jump all over him he was so glad to see him, but just walkin, waggin his tail, and my dad dropped that lard bucket and stepped back. I dont know bwhat he would have turned tail and run except his back hit the picket fence and then he just stood there, looking at the dog. And when Spot did jump up, Dad just caught his paws and held them, like you might hold a ladys hands you was gettin ready to dance with. He looked at the dog for a long time and then he looked at me, and he said, He needs a bath, Jud. He stinks of the ground you buried him in. And then he went in the house. What did you do? Louis asked. Gave him another bath. He just sat there in the tub and took it again. And when I went in the house, my mother had gone to bed, even though it wasnt even nine oclock. My dad said, We got to talk, Judkins. And I set down across from him, and he talked to me like a man for the first time in my life with the smell of the honeysuckle coming across the road from whats your house now and the smell of the wild roses from our own house. Jud Crandall sighed. I had always thought it would be good to have him talk to me that way, but it wasnt. It wasnt a bit good. All this tonight, Louisits like when you look into a mirror thats been set up right across from another mirror, and you can see yourself going down a whole hail of mirrors. How many times has this story been passed along, I wonder? A story thats just the same, except for the names? And thats like the sex thing too, isnt it? Your dad knew all about it. Ayuh. Who took you up there, Jud? he asked me, and I told him. He just nodded like it was what he would have expected. I guess it probly was, although I found out later that there were six or eight people in Ludlow at that time that could have taken me up there. I guess he knew that Stanny B. was the only one crazy enough to have actually done it. Did you ask him why he didnt take you, Jud? I did, Jud said. Somewhere during that long talk I did ask him that. And he said it was a bad place, by and large, and that it didnt often do anything good for people who had lost their animals or for the animals themselves. He asked me if I liked Spot the way he was, and do you know, Louis, I had the hardest time answering that. . and its important that I tell you my feelings on that, because sooner or later youre going to ask me why I led you up there with your daughters cat if it was a bad thing to do. Isnt that so? Louis nodded. What was Ellie going to think about Church when she got back? That had been much on his mind while he and Steve Masterton had been playing racket ball that afternoon. Maybe I did it because kids need to know that sometimes dead is better, Jud said with some difficulty. Thats somethin your Ellie dont know, and I got a feelin that maybe she dont know because your wife dont know. Now, you go ahead and tell me if Im wrong, and well leave it. Louis opened his mouth and then closed it again. Jud went on, now speaking very slowly, appearing to move from word to word as they had moved from hummock to hummock in Little God Swamp the night before. Ive seen it happen over the years, he said. I guess I told you that Lester Morgan buried his prize bull up there. Black Angus named Hanratty. Aint that a silly name for a bull? Died of some sort of ulcer inside, and Lester dragged him all the way up there on a sledge. How he did ithow he got over the deadfall there I dunnobut its said that what you want to do, you can. And at least as far as that burying ground goes, Id say its true. Well, Hanratty came back, but Lester shot him dead two weeks later. That bull turned mean, really mean. But hes the only animal I ever heard of that did. Most of them just seem . . . a little stupid . . . a little slow . . . a little . . . A little dead? Yeah, Jud said. A little dead. Like they had been . . . somewhere . . . and came back . . . but not all the way. Now, your daughter isnt going to know that, Louis. Not that her cat was hit by a car, and killed, and came back. So you could say you cant teach a child a lesson unless the child knows theres a lesson to be learned. Except . . Except sometimes you can, Louis said, more to himself than to Jud. Yes, Jud agreed, sometimes you can. Maybe shell learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life, but the end of pain. You dont tell her those things; she will figure them out on her own. And if shes anything like me, shell go on loving her pet. It wont turn vicious, or bite, or anything like that. Shell go on loving it . . . but shell draw her own conclusions . . . and shell breathe a sigh of relief when it finally dies. Thats why you took me up there, Louis said. He felt better now. He had an explanation. It was diffuse, it relied more upon the logic of the nerve endings than the logic of the rational mind, but under the circumstances, he found he could accept that. And it meant he could forget the expression he thought he had seen on Juds face briefly last nightthat dark, capering glee. Okay, thats Abruptly, almost shockingly, Jud covered his face with both hands. For one moment Louis thought he had been struck by a sudden pain, and he halfrose, concerned, until he saw the convulsive heave of the chest and realized that the old man was struggling not to cry. Thats why, but it aint why, he said in a strangled, choked voice. I did it for the same reason Stanny B. did it and for the same reason Lester Morgan did it. Lester took Linda Lavesque up there after her dog got run over in the road. He took her up there even though he had to put his goddam bull out of its misery for chasing kids through its pasture like it was mad. He did it anyway, he did it anyway, Louis, Jud almost moaned, and what the Christ do you make of that! Jud, what are you talking about? Louis asked, alarmed. Lester did it and Stanny did it for the same reason I did it. You do it because it gets hold of you. You do it because that burial place is a secret place, and you want to share the secret, and when you find a reason that seems good enough, why . . . Jud took his hands away from his face and looked at Louis with eyes that seemed incredibly ancient, incredibly haggard. Why then you just go ahead and do it. You make up reasons . . . they seem like good reasons . . . but mostly you do it because you want to. Or because you have to. My dad, he didnt take me up there because hed heard about it but hed never been. Stanny B. had been up there . . . and he took me . . . and seventy years go by . . . and then . . . all at once . . . Jud shook his head and coughed dryly into the palm of his hand. Listen, he said. Listen, Louis. Lesters bull was the only damn animal I ever knew of that turned really mean. I blieve that Missus Lavesques little chow might have bit the postman once, after, and I heard a few other things . . . animals that got a little nasty . . but Spot was always a good dog. He always smelled like dirt, it didnt matter how many times you washed him, he always smelled like dirtbut he was a good dog. My mother would never touch him afterward, but he was a good dog just the same. But Louis, if you was to take your cat out tonight and kill it, I would never say a word. That place . . . all at once it gets hold of you . . . and you make up the sweetestsmelling reasons in the world . . . but I could have been wrong, Louis. That's all Im saying. Lester could have been wrong. Stanny B. could have been wrong. Hell, I aint God either. But bringing the dead back to life . . . thats about as close to playing God as you can get, aint it? Louis opened his mouth again, then closed it again. What would have come out would have sounded wrong, wrong and cruel Jud, I didnt go through all that just to kill the damn cat again. Jud drained his beer and then put it carefully aside with the other empties. I guess thats it, he said. I am talked out. Can I ask you one other question? Louis asked. I guess so, Jud said. Louis said Has anyone ever buried a person up there? Juds arm jerked convulsively; two of the beer bottles fell off the table, and one of them shattered. Christ on His throne, he said to Louis. No! And who ever would? You dont even want to talk about such things, Louis! I was just curious, Louis said uneasily. Some things it dont pay to be curious about, Jud Crandall said, and for the first time he looked really old and infirm to Louis Creed, as if he were standing somewhere in the neighborhood of his own freshly prepared grave. And later, at home, something else occurred to him about how Jud had looked at that moment. He had looked like he was lying. 27 Louis didnt really know he was drunk until he got back in his own garage. Outside there was starlight and a chilly rind of moon. Not enough light to cast a shadow, but enough to see by. Once he got in the garage, he was blind. There was a light switch somewhere, but he was damned if he could remember anymore just where it was. He felt his way along slowly, shuffling his feet, his head swimming, anticipating a painful crack on the knee or a toy that he would stumble over, frightening himself with its crash, perhaps falling over himself. Ellies little Schwinn with its red training wheels. Gages CrawlyGator. Where was the eat? Had he left him in? Somehow he sailed off course and ran into the wall. A splinter whispered into one palm and he cried out Shit! to the darkness, realizing after the word was out that it sounded more seared than mad. The whole garage seemed to have taken a stealthy halfturn. Now it wasnt just the light switch; now he didnt know where the fuck anything was, and that included the door into the kitchen. He began walking again, moving slowly, his palm stinging. This is what it would be like to be blind, he thought, and that made him think of a Stevie Wonder concert he and Rachel had gone towhen? Six years ago? As impossible as it seemed, it had to be. She had been pregnant with Ellie then. Two guys had led Wonder to his synthesizer, guiding him over the cables that snaked across the stage so he wouldnt stumble. And later, when he had gotten up to dance with one of the backup singers, she had led him carefully to a clear place on the floor. He had danced well, Louis remembered thinking. He had danced well, but he had needed a hand to lead him to the space where he could do it. How about a hand right now to lead me to my kitchen door? he thought . . . and abruptly shuddered. If a hand came out of the darkness now to lead him, how he would screamscream and scream and scream. He stood still, heart thudding. Come on, he told himself. Stop this shit, come on, come on Where was that fucking cat? Then he did slam into something, the rear bumper of the station wagon, and the pain sang up his body from his barked shin, making his eyes water. He grabbed his leg and rubbed it, standing onelegged like a heron, but at least he knew where he was now, the geography of the garage fixed firmly in his mind again, and besides, his night vision was coming, good old visual purple. He had left the cat in, he remembered that now, hadnt really wanted to touch it, to pick it up and put it out and And that was when Churchs hot, furry body oiled against his ankle like a low eddy of water, followed by its loathsome tail, curling against his calf like a clutching snake, and then Louis did scream; he opened his mouth wide and screamed. 28 Daddy! Ellie screamed. She ran up the jet way toward him, weaving in and out between deplaning passengers like a quarterback on a keeper play. Most of them stood aside, grinning. Louis was a little embarrassed by her ardor, but he felt a large, stupid grin spreading across his own face just the same. Rachel was carrying Gage in her arms, and he saw Louis when Ellie shouted. Dayeee! he yelled exuberantly and began to wriggle in Rachels arms. She smiled (a trifle wearily, Louis thought) and set him on his feet. He began to run after Ellie, his legs pumping busily. Dayeee! Dayeee! Louis had time to notice that Gage was wearing a jumper he had never seen beforeit looked like more of Granddas work to Louis. Then Ellie hurtled into him and shinnied up him like a tree. Hi, Daddy! she bellowed and smacked his cheek heartily. Hi, hon, he said and bent over to catch Gage. He pulled him up into the crook of his arm and hugged them both. Im glad to see you back. Rachel came up then, her traveling bag and pocketbook slung over one arm, Gages diaper bag slung over the other. ILL BE A BIG BOY SOON was printed on the side of the diaper bag, a sentiment probably meant more to cheer up the parents than the diaperwearing child. She looked like a professional photographer at the end of a long, grueling assignment. Louis bent between his two kids and planted a kiss on her mouth. Hi. Hi, Doe, she said, and smiled. You look beat. I am beat. We got as far as Boston with no problem. We changed planes with no problem. We took off with no problem. But as the plane is banking over the city, Gage looks down and says, Pretty, pretty, and then whoopses all over himself. Oh, Jesus. I got him changed in the toilet, she said. I dont think its a virus or anything. He was just airsick. Come on home, Louis said. Ive got chili on the stove. Chili! Chili! Ellie screamed in Louiss ear, transported with delight and excitement. Chiwwi! Chiwwi! Gage screamed in Louiss other ear, which at least equalized the ringing. on, Louis said. Lets get your suitcases and blow this joint. Daddy, hows Church? Ellie asked as he set her down. It was a question Louis had expected, but not Ellies anxious face, and the deep worry line that appeared between her dark blue eyes. Louis frowned and then glanced at Rachel. She woke up screaming over the weekend, Rachel said quietly. She had a nightmare. I dreamed that Church got run over, Ellie said. Too many turkey sandwiches after the big day, thats my guess, Rachel said. She had a bout of diarrhea too. Set her mind at rest, Louis, and lets get out of this airport. Ive seen enough airports in the last week to last me for at least five years. Why, Church is fine, honey, Louis said slowly. Yes, hes fine. He lies around the house all day long and looks at me with those strange, muddy eyesas if hed seen something that had blasted away most of whatever intelligence a cat has. Hes just great. I put him out with a broom at night because I dont like to touch him. I just kind of sweep at him with it and he goes. And the other day when I opened the door, Ellie, he had a mouseor what was left of it. Hed strewed the guts hell to breakfast. And speaking of breakfast, I skipped mine that morning. Otherwise Hes just fine. Oh, Ellie said, and that furrow between her eyes smoothed out. Oh, thats good. When I had that dream, I was sure he was dead. Were you? Louis asked, and smiled. Dreams are funny, arent they? Dweems!" Cage holleredhe had reached the parrot stage that Louis remembered from Ellies development. Dweeeeeems! He gave Louiss hair a hearty tug. Come on, gang, Louis said, and they started down to the baggage area. They had gotten as far as the station wagon in the parking lot when Gage began saying Pretty, pretty, in a strange, hiccupping voice. This time he whoopsed all over Louis, who had put on a new pair of doubleknit slacks for the planemeeting occasion. Apparently Gage thought pretty was the code word for Ive got to throw up now, so sorry, stand clear. It turned out to be a virus after all. By the time they had driven the seventeen miles from the Bangor airport to their house in Ludlow, Gage had begun to show signs of fever and had fallen into an uncomfortable doze. Louis backed into the garage, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Church slink along one wall, tail up, strange eyes fixed on the car. It disappeared into the dying glow of the day, and a moment later Louis saw a disemboweled mouse lying beside a stack of four summer tireshe had had the snows put on while Rachel and the kids were gone. The mouses innards glowed pink and raw in the garages gloom. Louis got out quickly and purposely bumped against the pile of tires, which were stacked up like black checkers. The top two fell over and covered the mouse. Ooops, he said. Youre a spaz, Daddy, Ellie said, not unkindly. Thats right, Louis said with a kind of hectic cheer. He felt a little like saying Pretty, pretty and blowing his groceries all over everything. Daddys a spaz. He could remember Church killing only a single rat before his queer resurrection; he sometimes cornered mice and played with them in that deadly cat way that ultimately ended in destruction, but he or Ellie or Rachel had always intervened before the end. And once cats were fixed, he knew, few of them would do more than give a mouse an interested stare, at least as long as they were wellfed. Are you going to stand there dreaming or help me with this kid? Rachel asked. Come back from Planet Mongo, Dr. Creed. Earth people need you. She sounded tired and irritable. Im sorry, babe, Louis said. He came around to get Gage, who was now as hot as the coals in a banked stove. So only the three of them ate Louiss famous South Side Chili that night; Gage reclined on the living room sofa, feverish and apathetic, drinking a bottle filled with lukewarm chicken broth and watching a cartoon show on TV. After dinner Ellie went to the garage door and called Church. Louis, who was doing the dishes while Rachel unpacked upstairs, hoped the cat wouldnt come, but he didhe came in walking in his new slow lurch, and he came almost at once, as if heas if it had been lurking out there. Lurking. The word came immediately to mind. Church! Ellie cried. Hi, Church! She picked the cat up and hugged it. Louis watched out of the corner of his eye; his hands, which had been groping on the bottom of the sink for any leftover silverware, were still. He saw Ellies happy face change slowly to puzzlement. The cat lay quiet in her arms, its ears laid back, its eyes on hers. After a long momentit seemed very long to Louisshe put Church down. The cat padded away toward the dining room without looking back. Executioner of small mice, Louis thought randomly. Christ, what did we do that night? He tried honestly to remember, but it already seemed far away, dim and distant, like the messy death of Victor Pascow on the floor of the infirmarys reception room. He could remember carriages of wind passing in the sky and the white glimmer of snow in the back field which rose to the woods. That was all. Daddy? Ellie said in a low, subdued voice. What, Ellie? Church smells funny. Does he? Louis asked, his voice carefully neutral. Yes! Ellie said, distressed. Yes, he does! He never smelled funny before! He smells like . . . he smells like kaka! Well, maybe he rolled in something bad, honey, Louis said. Whatever that bad smell is, hell lose it. I certainly hope so, Ellie said in a comical dowagers voice. She walked off. Louis found the last fork, washed it, and pulled the plug. He stood at the sink, looking out into the night while the soapy water ran down the drain with a thick chuckling sound. When the sound from the drain was gone he could hear the wind outside, thin and wild, coming from the north, bringing down winter, and he realized he was afraid, simply, stupidly afraid, the way you are afraid when a cloud suddenly sails across the sun and somewhere you hear a ticking sound you cant account for. A hundred and three? Rachel asked. Jesus, Lou! Are you sure? Its a virus, Louis said. He tried not to let Rachels voice, which seemed almost accusatory, grate on him. She was tired. It had been a long day for her; she had crossed half the country with her kids today.

Here it was eleven oclock, and the day wasnt over yet. Ellie was deeply asleep in her room. Gage was on their bed in a state that could best be described as semiconscious. Louis had started him on Liquiprin an hour ago. The aspirin will bring his fever down by morning, hon. Arent you going to give him ampicillin or anything? Patiently, Louis said, If he had the flu or a strep infection, I would. He doesnt. Hes got a virus, and that stuff doesnt do doodlysquat for viruses. It would just give him the runs and dehydrate him more. Are you sure its a virus? Well, if you want a second opinion, Louis snapped, be my guest. You dont have to shout at me! Rachel shouted. I wasnt shouting! Louis shouted back. You were, Rachel began, you were shuhshuhshouting And then her mouth began to quiver and she put a hand up to her face. Louis saw there were deep graybrown pockets under her eyes and felt badly ashamed of himself. Im sorry, he said, and sat down beside her. Christ, I dont know whats the matter with me. I apologize, Rachel. Never complain, never explain, she said, smiling wanly. Isnt that what you told me once? The trip was a bitch. And Ive been afraid youd hit the roof when you looked in Gages dresser drawers. I guess maybe I ought to tell you now, while youre feeling sorry for me. Whats to hit the roof about? She smiled wanly. My mother and father bought him ten new outfits. He was wearing one of them today. I noticed he had on something new, he said shortly. I noticed you noticing, she replied and pulled a comic scowl that made him laugh, although he didnt feel much like laughing. And six new dresses for Ellie. Six dresses! he said, strangling the urge to yell. He was suddenly furioussickly furious and hurt in a way he couldnt explain. Rachel, why? Why did you let him do that? We dont need . . . we can buy . . . He ceased. His rage had made him inarticulate, and for a moment he saw himself carrying Ellies dead cat through the woods, shifting the plastic bag from one hand to the other . . . and all the while Irwin Goldman, that dirty old fuck from Lake Forest, had been busy trying to buy his daughters affection by unlimbering the worldfamous checkbook and the worldfamous fountain pen. For one moment he felt himself on the verge of shouting He bought her six dresses and I brought her goddam cat back from the dead, so who loves her more? He clamped down on the words. He would never say anything like that. Never. She touched his neck gently. Louis, she said. It was both of them together. Please try to see. Please. They love the children, and they dont see them much. And theyre getting old. Louis, youd hardly recognize my father. Really. Id recognize him, Louis muttered. Please, honey. Try to see. Try to be kind. It doesnt hurt you. He looked at her for a long time. It does though, he said finally. Maybe it shouldnt, but it does. She opened her mouth to reply, and then Ellie called out from her room Daddy! Mommy! Somebody! Rachel started to get up, and Louis pulled her back down. Stay with Gage. Ill go. He thought he knew what the trouble was. But he had put the cat out, damn it; after Ellie had gone to bed, he had caught it in the kitchen sniffing around its dish and had put it out. He didnt want the cat sleeping with her. Not anymore. Odd thoughts of disease, mingled with memories of Uncle Carls funeral parlor, had come to him when he thought of Church sleeping on Ellies bed. Shes going to know that somethings wrong and Church was better before. He had put the cat out, but when he went in, Ellie was sitting up in bed, more asleep than awake, and Church was spread out on the counterpane, a batlike shadow. The cats eyes were open and stupidly gleaming in the light from the hail. Daddy, put him out, Ellie almost groaned. He stinks so bad. Shhh, Ellie, go to sleep, Louis said, astounded by the calmness of his own voice. It made him think of the morning after his sleepwalking incident, the day after Pascow had died. Getting to the infirmary and ducking into the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror, convinced that he must look like hell. But he had looked pretty much all right. It was enough to make you wonder how many people were going around with dreadful secrets bottled up inside. Its not a secret, goddammit! Its just the cat! But Ellie was right. It stank to high heaven. He took the cat out of her room and carried it downstairs, trying to breathe through his mouth. There were worse smells; shit was worse, if you wanted to be perfectly blunt. A month ago theyd had a goround with the septic tank, and as Jud had said when he came over to watch Puffer and Sons pump the tank, That aint Chanel Number Five, is it, Louis? The smell of a gangrenous woundwhat old Doctor Bracermunn at med school had called hot fleshwas worse too. Even the smell which came from the Civics catalytic converter when it had been idling in the garage for a while was worse. But this smell was pretty damn bad. And how had the cat gotten in, anyway? He had put it out earlier, sweeping it out with the broom while all three of themhis peoplewere upstairs. This was the first time he had actually held the cat since the day it had come back, almost a week ago. It lay hotly in his arms, like a quiescent disease, and Louis wondered, What bolthole did you find, you bastard? He thought suddenly of his dream that other nightPascow simply passing through the door between the kitchen and the garage. Maybe there was no bolthole. Maybe it had just passed through the door, like a ghost. Bag that, he whispered aloud, and his voice was slightly hoarse. Louis became suddenly sure that the cat would begin to struggle in his arms, that it would scratch him. But Church lay totally still, radiating that stupid heat and that dirty stink, looking at Louiss face as if it could read the thoughts going on behind Louiss eyes. He opened the door and tossed the cat out into the garage, maybe a little too hard. Go on, he said. Kill another mouse or something. Church landed awkwardly, its hindquarters bunching beneath it and momentarily collapsing. It seemed to shoot Louis a look of green, ugly hate. Then it strolled drunkenly off and was gone. Christ, Jud, he thought, but I wish youd kept your mouth shut. He went to the sink and washed his hands and forearms vigorously, as if scrubbing for an operation. You do it because it gets hold of you . . . you make up reasons . . . they seem like good reasons . . . but mostly you do it because once youve been up there, its your place, and you belong to it . . . and you make up the sweetestsmelling reasons in the world. No, he couldnt blame Jud. He had gone of his own free will and he couldnt blame Jud. He turned off the water and began to dry his hands and arms. Suddenly the towel stopped moving and he stared straight ahead, looking out into the little piece of night framed in the window over the sink. Does that mean its my place now? That its mine too? No. Not if I dont want it to be. He slung the towel over the rack and went upstairs. Rachel was in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, and Gage was tucked in neatly beside her. She looked at Louis apologetically. Would you mind, hon? Just for tonight? Id feel better having him with me. Hes so hot. No, Louis said. Thats fine. Ill pull out the hideabed downstairs. You really dont mind? No. It wont hurt Cage, and itll make you feel better. He paused, then smiled. Youre going to pick up his virus, though. That comes almost guaranteed. I dont suppose that changes your mind, does it? She smiled back and shook her head. What was Ellie fussing about? Church. She wanted me to take Church away. Ellie wanted Church taken away? Thats a switch. Yeah, it is, Louis agreed and then added, She said he smelled bad, and I did think he was a little fragrant. Maybe he rolled in a pile of someones mulch, or something. Thats too bad, Rachel said, rolling over on her side. I really think Ellie missed Church as much as she missed you. Uhhuh, Louis said. He bent and kissed her mouth softly. Go to sleep, Rachel. I love you, Lou. Im glad to be home. And Im sorry about the couch. Its okay, Louis said, and turned out the light. Downstairs, he stacked the couch cushions, pulled out the hideabed, and tried to prepare himself mentally for a night of having the rod under the thin mattress dig into the small of his back. The bed was sheeted, at least; he wouldnt have to make it up from scratch. Louis got two blankets from the top shelf in the front hail closet and spread them on the bed. He began to undress, then paused. You think Church is in again? Fine. Take a walk around and have a look. As you told Rachel, it wont hurt. May even help. And checking to make sure all the doors are on the latch wont even catch you a virus. He took a deliberate tour of the entire downstairs, checking the locks on doors and windows. He had done everything right the first time, and Church was nowhere to be seen. There, he said. Lets see you get in tonight, you dumb cat. He followed this with a mental wish that Church would freeze its balls off. Except that Church of course no longer had any. He switched off the lights and got into bed. The rod started to press into his back almost immediately, and Louis was thinking he would be awake half the night when he fell asleep. He fell asleep resting uncomfortably on his side in the hideabed, but when he woke up he was . . . . . . in the burying ground beyond the Pet Sematary again. This time he was alone. He had killed Church himself this time and then had decided for some reason to bring him back to life a second time. God knew why; Louis didnt. He had buried Church deeper this time, though, and Church couldnt dig his way out. Louis could hear the cat crying somewhere under the earth, making a sound like a weeping child. The sound came up through the pores of the ground, through its stony fleshthe sound and the smell, that awful sickishsweet smell of rot and decay. Just breathing it in made his chest feel heavy, as if a weight was on it. The crying . . . the crying . . . . . . the crying was still going on . . . . . . and the weight was still on his chest . . . Louis! It was Rachel, and she sounded alarmed. Louis, can you come? She sounded more than alarmed; she sounded scared, and the crying had a choked, desperate quality to it. It was Cage. He opened his eyes and stared into Churchs greenishyellow eyes. They were less than four inches from his own. The cat was on his chest, neatly curled up there like something from an old wives tale of breathstealing. The stink came off it in slow, noxious waves. It was purring. Louis uttered a cry of disgust and surprise. He shot both hands out in a primitive wardingoff gesture. Church thumped off the bed, landed on its side, and walked away in that stumbling lurch. Jesus! Jesus! It was on me! Oh God, it was right on me! His disgust could not have been greater if he had awakened to find a spider in his mouth. For a moment he thought he was going to throw up. Louis! He pushed the blankets back and stumbled to the stairs. Faint light spilled from their bedroom. Rachel was standing at the head of the stairs in her nightgown. Louis, hes vomiting again . . . choking on it . . . Im scared. Im here, he said and came up to her, thinking It got in. Somehow it got in. From the cellar, probably. Maybe theres a broken cellar window. In fact there must be a broken window down there. Ill check it tomorrow when 1 get home. Hell, before I go to work. Ill Gage stopped crying and began to make an ugly, gargling choking sound. Louis! Rachel screamed. Louis moved fast. Gage was on his side and vomit was trickling out of his mouth onto an old towel Rachel had spread beside him. He was vomiting, yes, but not enough. Most of it was inside, and Gage was blushing with the onset of asphyxiation. Louis grabbed the boy under the arms, aware in a distant way of how hot his sons armpits were under the Dr. Denton suit, and put him up on his shoulder as if to burp him. Then Louis snapped himself backward, jerking Cage with him. Gages neck whiplashed. He uttered a loud bark that was not quite a belch, and an amazing flag of almost solid vomit flew from his mouth and spattered on the floor and the dresser. Cage began to cry again, a solid, bawling sound that was music to Louiss ears. To cry like that you had to be getting an unlimited supply of oxygen. Rachels knees buckled and she collapsed onto the bed, head supported in her hands. She was shaking violently. He almost died, didnt he, Louis? He almost chchchoh my God Louis walked around the room with his son in his arms. Gages cries were tapering off to whimperings; he was already almost asleep again. The chances are fifty to one he would have cleared it himself, Rachel. I just gave him a hand. But he was close, she said. She looked up at him, and her whiteringed eyes were stunned and unbelieving. Louis, he was so close. Suddenly he remembered her shouting at him in the sunny kitchen Hes not going to die, no one is going to die around here . . . Honey, Louis said, were all close. All the time. It was milk that had almost surely caused the fresh round of vomiting. Gage had awakened around midnight, she said, an hour or so after Louis had gone to sleep, with his hungry cry, and Rachel had gotten him a bottle. She had drowsed off again herself while he was still taking it. About an hour later, the choking spell began. No more milk, Louis said, and Rachel had agreed, almost humbly. No more milk. Louis got back downstairs at around a quarter of two and spent fifteen minutes hunting up the cat. During his search, he found the door which communicated between the kitchen and basement standing ajar, as he suspected he would. He remembered his mother telling him about a cat that had gotten quite good at pawing open oldfashioned latches, such as the one on their cellar door. The cat would just climb the edge of the door, shed said, and pat the thumb plate of the latch with its paw until the door opened. A cute enough trick, Louis thought, but not one he intended to allow Church to practice often. There was, after all, a lock on the cellar door, too. He found Church dozing under the stove and tossed it out the front door without ceremony. On his way back to the hideabed, he closed the cellar door again. And this time shot the bolt. 29 In the morning, Gages temperature was almost normal. His cheeks were chapped, but otherwise he was brighteyed and full of beans. All at once, in the course of a week it seemed, his meaningless gabble had turned into a slew of words; he would imitate almost anything you said. What Ellie wanted him to say was shit. Say shit, Gage, Ellie said over her oatmeal. ShitGage, Gage responded agreeably over his own cereal. Louis allowed the cereal on condition that Gage eat it with only a little sugar. And, as usual, Gage seemed to be shampooing with it rather than actually eating it. Ellie dissolved into giggles. Say farts, Gage, she said. FarzGage, Gage said, grinning through the oatmeal spread across his face. Farznshit. Ellie and Louis broke up. It was impossible not to. Rachel was not so amused. Thats enough vulgar talk for one morning, I think, she said, handing Louis his eggs. Shitnfarznfarznshit, Gage sang cheerily, and Ellie hid her giggles in her hands. Rachels mouth twitched a little, and Louis thought she was looking a hundred percent better in spite of her broken rest. A lot of it was relief, Louis supposed. Gage was better and she was home. Dont say that, Gage, Rachel said. Pretty, Gage said as a change of pace and threw up all the cereal he had eaten into his bowl. Oh, grossOUT! Ellie screamed and fled the table. Louis broke up completely then. He couldnt help it. He laughed until he was crying and cried until he was laughing again. Rachel and Gage stared at him as if he had gone crazy. No, Louis could have told them. Ive been crazy, but I think Im going to be all right now. I really think I am. He didnt know if it was over or not, but it felt over; perhaps that would be enough. And for a while, at least, it was. 30 Gages virus hung on for a week, then cleared up. A week later he came down with a bout of bronchitis. Ellie also caught this and then Rachel; during the period before Christmas, the three of them went around hacking like very old and wheezy hunting dogs. Louis didnt catch it, and Rachel seemed to hold this against him. The final week of classes at the university was a hectic one for Louis, Steve, Surrendra, and Charlton. There was no fluat least not yetbut plenty of bronchitis and several cases of mononucleosis and walking pneumonia. Two days before classes broke for Christmas, six moaning, drunken fraternity boys were brought in by their concerned friends. There were a few moments of confusion gruesomely reminiscent of the Pascow affair. All six of the damned fools had crammed onto one mediumlength toboggan (the sixth had actually been sitting on the shoulders of the tail man, from what Louis could piece together) and had set off to ride the toboggan down the hill above the steam plant. Hilarious. Except that after gaining a lot of speed, the toboggan had wandered off course and struck one of the Civil War cannons. The score was two broken arms, a broken wrist, a total of seven broken ribs, a concussion, plus contusions far too numerous to count. Only the boy riding on the shoulders of the tailender had escaped completely unscathed, When the toboggan hit the cannon, this fortunate soul flew over it and landed headfirst in a snowbank. Cleaning up the human wreckage hadnt been fun, and Louis had scored all of the boys liberally with his tongue as he stitched and bandaged and stared into pupils, but telling Rachel about it later, he had again laughed until he cried. Rachel had looked at him strangely, not understanding what was so funny, and Louis couldnt tell her that it had been a stupid accident, and people had been hurt, but they would all walk away from it. His laughter was partly relief, but it was partly triumph toowon one today, Louis. The cases of bronchitis in his own family began to clear up around the time that Ellies school broke for the holidays on December 16, and the four of them settled down to spend a happy and oldfashioned country Christmas. The house in North Ludlow, which had seemed so strange on that day in August when they pulled into the driveway (strange and even hostile, what with Effie cutting herself out back and Gage getting stung by a bee at almost the same time), had never seemed more like home. After the kids were finally asleep on Christmas Eve, Louis and Rachel stole downstairs from the attic like thieves, their arms full of brightly colored boxesa set of Matchbox racers for Gage, who had recently discovered the joys of toy cars, Barbie and Ken dolls for Ellie, a Turn n Go, an oversized trike, doll clothes, a play oven with a light bulb inside, other stuff. The two of them sat side by side in the glow of lights from the tree, fussing the stuff together, Rachel in a pair of silk lounging pajamas, Louis in his robe. He could not remember a more pleasant evening. There was a fire in the fireplace, and every now and then one or the other of them would rise and throw in another chunk of split birch. Winston Churchill brushed by Louis once, and he pushed the cat away with an almost absent feeling of distastethat smell. Later he saw Church try to settle down next to Rachels leg, and Rachel also gave it a push and an impatient Scat! A moment later Louis saw his wife rubbing her palm on one silkclad thigh, the way you sometimes do when you feel you might have touched something nasty or germy. He didnt think Rachel was even aware she was doing it. Church ambled over to the brick hearth and collapsed in front of the fire gracelessly. The cat had no grace at all now, it seemed; it had lost it all on that night Louis rarely allowed himself to think about. And Church had lost something else as well. Louis had been aware of it, but it had taken him a full month to pinpoint it exactly. The cat never purred anymore, and it used to have one of the loudest motors going, particularly when Church was sleeping. There had been nights when Louis had had to get up and close Ellies door so he could get to sleep himself. Now the cat slept like a stone. Like the dead. No, he reminded himself, there was one exception. The night he had awakened on the hideabed with Church curled up on his chest like a stinking blanket . . . Church had been purring that night. It had been making some sound, anyway. But as Jud Crandall had knownor guessedit had not been all bad. Louis found a broken window downcellar behind the furnace, and when the glazier fixed it, he had saved them yea bucks in wasted heating oil. For calling his attention to the broken pane, which he might not have discovered for weeksmonths, maybehe supposed he even owed Church a vote of thanks. Ellie no longer wanted Church to sleep with her, that was true, but sometimes when she was watching TV, she would let the cat hop up on her lap and go to sleep. But just as often, he thought, hunting through the bag of plastic widgets that were supposed to hold Ellies BatCycle together, she would push him down after a few minutes, saying, Go on, Church, you stink. She fed him regularly and with love, and even Gage was not above giving old Church an occasional tail tug . . . more in the spirit of friendliness than in one of meanness, Louis was convinced; he was like a tiny monk yanking a furry bell rope. At these times Church would crawl lackadaisically under one of the radiators where Gage couldnt get him. We might have noticed more differences with a dog, Louis thought, but cats are such goddam independent animals anyway. Independent and odd. Fey even. It didnt surprise him that the old Egyptian queens and pharaohs had wanted their cats mummified and popped into their triangular tombs with them in order to serve as spirit guides in the next world. Cats were weird. How you doing with that BatCycle, Chief? He held out the finished product. Tada! Rachel pointed at the bag, which still had three or four plastic widgets in it. What are those? Spares, Louis said, smiling guiltily. You better hope theyre spares. The kid will break her rotten little neck. That comes later, Louis said maliciously. When shes twelve and showing off on her new skateboard. She groaned. Come on, Doc, have a heart! Louis stood up, put his hands on the small of his back, and twisted his torso. His spine crackled. Thats all the toys. And theyre all together. Remember last year? She giggled and Louis smiled. Last year seemingly everything theyd gotten had to be assembled, and theyd been up until almost four oclock Christmas morning, both of them finishing grouchy and out of sorts. And by midafternoon of Christmas, Ellie had decided the boxes were more fun than the toys. GrossOUT! Louis said, imitating Ellie. Well, come on to bed, Rachel said, and Ill give you a present early. Woman, Louis said, drawing himself up to his full height, that is mine by right. Dont you wish, she said and laughed through her hands. In that moment she looked amazingly like Ellie . . . and like Gage. Just a minute, he said. Theres one other thing I gotta do. He hurried into the front hail closet and brought back one of his boots. He removed the fire screen from in front of the dying fire. Louis, what are you Youll see. On the left side of the hearth the fire was out and there was a thick bed of fluffy gray ashes. Louis stamped the boot into them, leaving a deep track. Then he tromped the boot down on the outer bricks, using it like a big rubber stamp. There, he said, after he had put the boot away in the closet again. You like? Rachel was giggling again. Louis, Ellies going to go nuts. During the last two weeks of school, Ellie had picked up a disquieting rumor around kindergarten, to wit, that Santa Claus was really parents. This idea had been reinforced by a rather skinny Santa at the Bangor Mall, whom Ellie had glimpsed in the Deering Ice Cream Parlor a few days ago. Santa had been sitting on a counter stool, his beard pulled to one side so he could eat a cheeseburger. This had troubled Ellie mightily (it seemed to be the cheeseburger, somehow, even more than the false beard), in spite of Rachels assurances that the department store and Salvation Army Santas were really helpers, sent out by the real Santa, who was far too busy completing inventory and reading childrens lastminute letters up north to be boogying around the world on public relations jaunts. Louis replaced the fire screen carefully. Now there were two clear boot tracks in their fireplace, one in the ashes and one on the hearth. They both pointed toward the Christmas tree, as if Santa had hit bottom on one foot and immediately stepped out to leave the goodies assigned to the Creed household. The illusion was perfect unless you happened to notice that they were both left feet . . . and Louis doubted if Ellie was that analytical. Louis Creed, I love you, Rachel said and kissed him. You married a winner, baby, Louis said, smiling sincerely. Stick with me and Ill make you a star. They started for the stairs. He pointed at the card table Ellie had set up in front of the TV. There were oatmeal cookies and two RingDings on it. Also a can of Micheloeb. FOR YOU, SANNA, the note said in Ellies large, sticklike printing. You want a cookie or a RingDing? RingDing, she said and ate half of it. Louis popped the tab on the beer. A beer this late is going to give me acid indigestion, he said. Crap, she said goodhumoredly. Come on, Doe. Louis put down the can of beer and suddenly grasped the pocket of his robe as if he had forgotten somethingalthough he had been aware of that small packet of weight all evening long. Here, he said. For you. You can open it now. Its after midnight. Merry Christmas, babe. She turned the little box, wrapped up in silver paper and tied with wide satinyblue ribbon, in her hands. Louis, what is it? He shrugged. Soap. Shampoo sample. I forget, exactly. She opened it on the stairs, saw the Tiffany box, and squealed. She pulled out the cotton batting and then just stood there, her mouth slightly agape. Well? he asked anxiously. He had never bought her a real piece of jewelry before, and he was nervous. Do you like it? She took it out, draped the fine gold chain over her tented fingers, and held the tiny sapphire up to the hail light. It twirled lazily, seeming to shoot off cool blue rays. Oh Louis, its so damn beautiful He saw she was crying a little and felt both touched and alarmed. Hey, babe, dont do that, he said. Put it on. Louis, we cant affordyou cant afford Shhh, he said. I socked some money away off and on since last Christmas . . . and it wasnt as much as you might think. How much was it? Ill never tell you that, Rachel, he said solemnly. An army of Chinese torturers couldnt get it out of me. Two thousand dollars. Two thousand! She hugged him so suddenly and so tightly that he almost fell down the stairs. Louis, youre crazy! Put it on, he said again. She did. He helped her with the clasp, and then she turned around to look at him. I want to go up and look at it, she said. I think I want to preen. Preen away, he said. Ill put out the cat and get the lights. When we make it, she said, looking directly into his eyes, I want to take everything off except this. Preen in a hurry, then, Louis said, and she laughed. He grabbed Church and draped it over his armhe didnt bother much with the broom these days. He supposed that, in spite of everything, he had almost gotten used to the cat again. He went toward the entryway door, turning off lights as he went. When he opened the door communicating between the kitchen and garage, an eddy of cold air swirled around his ankles. Have a merry Christmas, Ch He broke off. Lying on the welcome mat was a dead crow. Its head was mangled. One wing had been ripped off and lay behind the body like a charred piece of paper. Church immediately squirmed out of Louiss arms and began to nuzzle the frozen corpse eagerly. As Louis watched, the cats head darted forward, its ears laid back, and before he could turn his head, Church had ripped out one of the crows milky, glazed eyes. Church strikes again, Louis thought a little sickly, and turned his headnot, however, before he had seen the bloody, gaping socket where the crows eye had been. Shouldnt bother me, shouldnt, Ive seen worse, oh yeah, Pascow, for instance, Pascow was worse, a lot worse But it did bother him. His stomach turned over. The warm build of sexual excitement had suddenly deflated. Christ, that birds damn near as big as he is. Must have caught it with its guard down. Way, way down. This would have to be cleaned up. Nobody needed this sort of present on Christmas morning. And it was his responsibility, wasnt it? Sure was. His and nobody elses. He had recognized that much in a subconscious way even on the evening of his family's return, when he had purposely spilled the tires over the tattered body of the mouse Church had killed. The soil of a mans heart is stonier, Louis. This thought was so clear, somehow so threedimensional and auditory, that Louis jerked a little, as if Jud had materialized at his shoulder and spoken aloud. A man grows what he can . . . and tends it. Church was still hunched greedily over the dead bird. He was working at the other wing now. There was a tenebrous rustling sound as Church pulled it back and forth, back and forth. Never get it off the ground, Orville. Thats right, Wilbur, fucking birds just as dead as dogshit, might as well feed it to the cat, might as well Louis suddenly kicked Church, kicked him hard. The cats hindquarters rose and came down splayfooted. It walked away, sparing him another of its ugly yellowgreen glances. Eat me, Louis hissed at it, catlike himself. Louis? Rachels voice came faintly from their bedroom. Coming to bed? Be right there, he called back. Ive just got this little mess to clean up, Rachel, okay? Because its my mess. He fumbled for the switch that controlled the garage light. He went quickly back to the cupboard under the kitchen sink and got a green Hefty Bag. He took the bag back into the garage and took the shovel down from its nail on the garage wall. He scraped up the crow and dropped it into the bag. Then he shoveled up the severed wing and slipped that in. He tied a knot in the top of the bag and dropped it into the bin on the far side of the Civic. By the time he had finished, his ankles were growing numb. Church was standing by the garage doorway. Louis made a threatening gesture at the cat with the shovel, and it was gone like black water. Upstairs, Rachel was lying on her bed, wearing nothing but the sapphire on its chain . . . as promised. She smiled at him lazily. What took you so long, Chief? The light over the sink was out, Louis said. I changed the bulb. Come here, she said and tugged him gently toward her. Not by the hand. He knows if youve been sleeping, she sang softly; a little smile curved up the corners of her lips. He knows if youre awake . . . oh my, Louis dear, whats this? Something that just woke up, I think, Louis said, slipping off his robe. Maybe we ought to see if we can get it to sleep before Santa comes, what do you think? She rose on one elbow; he felt her breath, warm and sweet. He knows if youve been bad or good . . . so be good . . . for goodness sake . . . Have you been a good boy, Louis? I think so, he said. His voice was not quite steady. Lets see if you taste as good as you look, she said. The sex was good, but Louis did not find himself simply slipping off afterward as he usually did when the sex was goodslipping off easy with himself, his wife, his life.

He lay in the darkness of Christmas morning, listening to Rachels breathing slow and deep, and he thought about the dead bird on the doorstep Churchs Christmas present to him. Keep me in mind, Dr. Creed. I was alive and then I was dead and now Im alive again. Ive made the circuit and Im here to tell you that you come out the other side with your purrbox broken and a taste for the hunt, Im here to tell you that a man grows what he can and tends it. Dont forget that, Dr. Creed, Im part of what your heart will grow now, theres your wife and your daughter and your son . . . and theres me. Remember the secret and tend your garden well. At some point Louis slept. 31 Their winter passed. Ellies faith in Santa Claus was restored temporarily at leastby the footprints in the hearth. Gage opened his presents splendidly, pausing every now and then to munch a particularly tastylooking piece of wrapping paper. And that year, both kids had decided by midafternoon that the boxes were more fun than the toys. The Crandalls came over on New Years Eve for Rachels eggnog, and Louis found himself mentally examining Norma. She had a pale and somehow transparent look that he had seen before. His grandmother would have said Norma was beginning to fail, and that was perhaps not such a bad word for it. All at once her hands, so swollen and misshapen by arthritis, seemed covered with liver Spots. Her hair looked thinner. The Crandalls went home around ten, and the Creeds saw the New Year in together in front of the TV. It was the last time Norma was in their house. Most of Louiss semester break was sloppy and rainy. In terms of heating costs, he was grateful for the thaw, but the weather was still depressing and dismal. He worked around the house, building bookshelves and cupboards for his wife, and a model Porsche in his study for himself. By the time classes resumed on January 23, Louis was happy to go back to the university. The flu finally arriveda fairly serious outbreak struck the campus less than a week after the spring semester had begun, and he had his hands fullhe found himself working ten and sometimes twelve hours a day and going home utterly whipped . . . but not really unhappy. The warm spell broke on January 29 with a roar. There was a blizzard followed by a week of numbing subzero weather. Louis was checking the mending broken arm of a young man who was hoping desperatelyand fruitlessly, in Louiss opinionthat he would be able to play baseball that spring when one of the candystripers poked her head in and told him his wife was on the telephone. Louis went into his office to take the call. Rachel was crying, and he was instantly alarmed. Ellie, he thought. Shes fallen off her sled and broken her arm. Or fractured her skull. He thought with alarm of the crazed fraternity boys and their toboggan. It isnt one of the kids, is it? he asked. Rachel? No, no, she said, crying harder. Not one of the kids. Its Norma, Lou. Norma Crandall. She died this morning. Around eight oclock, right after breakfast, Jud said. He came over to see if you were here and I told him youd left half an hour ago. He oh Lou, he just seemed so lost and so dazed . . . so old . . . thank God Ellie was gone and Gage is too young to understand . . . Louiss brow furrowed, and in spite of this terrible news he found it was Rachel his mind was going out to, seeking, trying to find. Because here it was again. Nothing you could quite put your finger on, because it was so much an overall attitudinal fix. That death was a secret, a terror, and it was to be kept from the children, above all to be kept from the children, the way that Victorian ladies and gentlemen had believed the nasty, grotty truth about sexual relations must be kept from the children. Jesus, he said. Was it her heart? I dont know, she said. She was no longer crying, but her voice was choked and hoarse. Could you come, Louis? Youre his friend, and I think he needs you. Youre his friend. Well I am, Louis thought with a small touch of surprise. I never expected to have an eightyyearold man for a buddy, but I guess I do. And then it occurred to him that they had better be friends, considering what was between them. And considering that, he supposed that Jud had known they were friends long before Louis had. Jud had stood by him on that one, and in spite of what had happened since, in spite of the mice, in spite of the birds, Louis felt that Juds decision had probably been the right one . . . or, if not the right one, at least the compassionate one. He would do what he could for Jud now, and if it meant being best man at the death of his wife, he would be that. On my way, he said and hung up. 32 It had not been a heart attack. It had been a cerebral accident, sudden and probably painless. When Louis called Steve Masterton that afternoon and told him what was going on, Steve said that he wouldnt mind going out just that way. Sometimes God dillies and dailies, Steve said, and sometimes He just points at you and tells you to hang up your jock. Rachel did not want to talk about it at all and would not allow Louis to talk to her of it. Ellie was not so much upset as she was surprised and interestedit was what Louis thought a thoroughly healthy six yearold reaction should be. She wanted to know if Mrs. Crandall had died with her eyes shut or open. Louis said he didnt know. Jud took hold as well as could have been expected, considering the fact that the lady had been sharing bed and board with him for almost sixty years. Louis found the old manand on this day he looked very much like an old man of eightythreesitting alone at the kitchen table, smoking a Chesterfield, drinking a bottle of beer, and staring blankly into the living room. He looked up when Louis came in and said, Well, shes gone, Louis. He said this in such a clear and matteroffact way that Louis thought it must not have really cleared through all the circuits yethadnt hit him yet where he lived. Then Juds mouth began to work and he covered his eyes with one arm. Louis went to him and put an arm around him. Jud gave in and wept. It had cleared the circuits, all right. Jud understood perfectly. His wife had died. Thats good, Louis said. Thats good, Jud, she would want you to cry a little, I think. Probably be pissed off if you didnt. He had started to cry a little himself. Jud hugged him tightly, and Louis hugged him back. Jud cried for ten minutes or so, and then the storm passed. Louis listened to the things Jud said then with great carehe listened as a doctor as well as a friend. He listened for any circularity in Juds conversation; he listened to see if Juds grasp of when was clear (no need to check him on where; that would prove nothing because for Jud Crandall the where had always been Ludlow, Maine); he listened most of all for any use of Normas name in the present tense. He found little or no sign that Jud was losing his grip. Louis was aware that it was not uncommon for two old married people to go almost handinhand, a month, a week, even a day apart. The shock, he supposed, or maybe even some deep inner urge to catch up with the one gone (that was a thought he would not have had before Church; he found that many of his thoughts concerning the spiritual and the supernatural had undergone a quiet but nonetheless deep seachange). His conclusion was that Jud was grieving hard but that he was still compos mentis. He sensed in Jud none of that transparent frailty that had seemed to surround Norma on New Years Eve, when the four of them had sat in the Creed living room, drinking eggnog. Jud brought him a beer from the fridge, his face still red and blotchy from crying. A bit early in the day, he said, but the suns over the yardarm somewhere in the world and under the circumstances . . . Say no more, Louis told him and opened the beer. He looked at Jud. Shall we drink to her? I guess we better, Jud said. You should have seen her when she was sixteen, Louis, coming back from church with her jacket unbuttoned . . . your eyes would have popped. She could have made the devil swear off drinking. Thank Christ she never asked me to do it. Louis nodded and raised his beer a little. To Norma, he said. Jud clinked his bottle against Louiss. He was crying again but he was also smiling. He nodded. May she have peace, and let there be no frigging arthritis wherever she is. Amen, Louis said, and they drank. It was the only time Louis saw Jud progress beyond a mild tipsiness, and even so he did not become incapacitated. He reminisced; a constant stream of warm memories and anecdotes, colorful and clear and sometimes arresting, flowed from him. Yet between the stories of the past, Jud dealt with the present in a way Louis could only admire; if it had been Rachel who had simply dropped dead after her grapefruit and morning cereal, he wondered if he could have done half so well. Jud called the BrookingsSmith Mortuary in Bangor and made as many of the arrangements as he could by telephone; he made an appointment to come in the following day and make the rest. Yes, he would have her embalmed; he wanted her in a dress, which he would provide; yes, he would pick out underwear; no, he did not want the mortuary to supply the special shoes which laced up the back. Would they have someone wash her hair? he asked. She washed it last on Monday night, and so it had been dirty when she died. He listened, and Louis, whose uncle had been in what those in the business called the quiet trade, knew the undertaker was telling Jud that a final wash and set was part of the service rendered. Jud nodded and thanked the man he was talking to, then listened again. Yes, he said, he would have her cosmeticized, but it was to be a lightly applied layer. Shes dead and people know it, he said, lighting a Chesterfield. No need to tart her up. The coffin would be closed during the funeral, he told the director with calm authority, but open during the visiting hours the day before. She was to be buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, where they had bought plots in 1951. He had the papers in hand and gave the mortician the plot number so that preparations could begin out there H101. He himself had H102, he told Louis later on. He hung up, looked at Louis, and said, Prettiest cemetery in the world is right there in Bangor, as far as Im concerned. Crack yourself another beer, if you want, Louis. All of this is going to take awhile. Louis was about to refusehe was feeling a little tiddlywhen a grotesque image arose unbidden behind his eyes Jud pulling Normas corpse on a pagan litter through the woods. Toward the Micmac burying ground beyond the Pet Sematary. It had the effect of a slap on him. Without a word, he got up and got another beer out of the fridge. Jud nodded at him and dialed the telephone again. By three that afternoon, when Louis went home for a sandwich and a bowl of soup, Jud had progressed a long way toward organizing his wifes final rites; he moved from one thing to the next like a man planning a dinner party of some importance. He called the North Ludlow Methodist Church, where the actual funeral would take place, and the Cemetery Administration Office at Mount Hope; these were both calls the undertaker at BrookingsSmith would be making, but Jud called first as a courtesy. It was a step few bereaved ever thought of . . . or if they thought of it, one they could rarely bring themselves to take. Louis admired Jud all the more for it. Later he called Normas few surviving relatives and his own, paging through an old and tattered address book with a leather cover to find the numbers. And between calls, he drank beer and remembered the past. Louis felt great admiration for him . . . and love? Yes, his heart confirmed. And love. When Ellie came down that night in her pajamas to be kissed, she asked Louis if Mrs. Crandall would go to heaven. She almost whispered the question to Louis, as if she understood it would be better if they were not overheard. Rachel was in the kitchen making a chicken pie, which she intended to take over to Jud the next day. Across the street, all the lights were on in the Crandall house. Cars were parked in Juds driveway and up and down the shoulder of the highway on that side for a hundred feet in either direction. The official viewing hours would be tomorrow, at the mortuary, but tonight people had come to comfort Jud as well as they could, and to help him remember, and to celebrate Normas passingwhat Jud had referred to once that afternoon as the foregoing. Between that house and this, a frigid February wind blew. The road was patched with black ice. The coldest part of the Maine winter was now upon them. Well, I dont really know, honey, Louis said, taking Ellie on his lap. On the TV, a running gunfight was in progress. A man spun and dropped, unremarked upon by either of them. Louis was awareuncomfortably sothat Ellie probably knew a hell of a lot more about Ronald McDonald and Spiderman and the Burger King than she did about Moses, Jesus, and St. Paul. She was the daughter of a woman who was a nonpracticing Jew and a man who was a lapsed Methodist, and he supposed her ideas about the whole spiritus mundi were of the vaguest sortnot myths, not dreams, but dreams of dreams. Its late for that, he thought randomly. Shes only five, but its late for that. Jesus Christ, it gets late so fast. But Ellie was looking at him, and he ought to say something. People believe all sorts of things about what happens to us when we die, he said. Some people think we go to heaven or hell. Some people believe were born again as little children Sure, carnation. Like what happened to Audrey Rose in that movie on TV. You never saw that! Rachel, he thought, would have her own cerebral accident if she thought Ellie had seen Audrey Rose. Marie told me at school, Ellie said. Marie was Ellies selfproclaimed best friend, a malnourished, dirty little girl who always looked as if she might be on the edge of impetigo, or ringworm, or perhaps even scurvy. Both Louis and Rachel encouraged the friendship as well as they could, but Rachel had once confessed to Louis that after Marie left, she always felt an urge to check Ellies head for flits and head lice. Louis had laughed and nodded. Maries mommy lets her watch all the shows. There was an implied criticism in this that Louis chose to ignore. Well, its reincarnation, but I guess youve got the idea. The Catholics believe in heaven and hell, but they also believe theres a place called limbo and one called purgatory. And the Hindus and Buddhists believe in Nirvana There was a shadow on the dining room wall. Rachel. Listening. Louis went on more slowly. There are probably lots more too. But what it comes down to, Ellie, is this no one knows. People say they know, but when they say that, what they mean is that they believe because of faith. Do you know what faith is? Well . . . Here we are, sitting in my chair, Louis said. Do you think my chair will still be here tomorrow? Yeah, sure. Then you have faith it will be here. As it so happens, I do, too. Faith is believing a thing will be, or is. Get it? Yes. Ellie nodded positively. But we dont know itll be here. After all, some crazed chair burglar might break in and take it, right? Ellie giggled. Louis smiled. We just have faith that wont happen. Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I dont believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they dont. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If we dont, its just blotto. The end. Like going to sleep? He considered this and then said, More like having ether, I think. Which do you have faith in, Daddy? The shadow on the wall moved and came to rest again. For most of his adult lifesince college days, he supposedhe had believed that death was the end. He had been present at many deathbeds and had never felt a soul bullet past him on its way to . . . wherever; hadnt this very thought occurred to him upon the death of Victor Pascow? He had agreed with his Psychology I teacher that the lifeafterlife experiences reported in scholarly journals and then vulgarized in the popular press probably indicated a lastditch mental stand against the onrush of deaththe endlessly inventive human mind, staving off insanity to the very end by constructing a hallucination of immortality. He had likewise agreed with an acquaintance in the dorm who had said, during an allnight bull session during Louiss sophomore year at Chicago, that the Bible was suspiciously full of miracles which had ceased almost completely during the age of rationality (totally ceased, he had said at first but had been forced backward at least one step by others who claimed with some authority that there were still plenty of weird things going on, little pockets of perplexity in a world that had become by and large a clean, welllighted placethere was, for instance, the Shroud of Turin, which had survived every effort to debunk it). So Christ brought Lazarus back from the dead, this acquaintancewho had gone on to become a highly thoughtof o.b. man in Dearborn, Michiganhad said. Thats fine with me. If I have to swallow it, I will. I mean, I had to buy the concept that the fetus of one twin can sometimes swallow the fetus of the other in utero, like some kind of unborn cannibal, and then show up with teeth in his testes or in his lungs twenty or thirty years later to prove that he did it, and I suppose if I can buy that I can buy anything. But I wanna see the death certificateyou dig what Im saying? Im not questioning that he came out of the tomb. But I wanna see the original death certificate. Im like Thomas saying hed only believe Jesus had risen when he could look through the nail holes and stick his hands in the guys side. As far as Im concerned, he was the real physician of the bunch, not Luke. No, he had never really believed in survival. At least, not until Church. I believe that we go on, he told his daughter slowly. But as to what its like, I have no opinion. It may be that its different for different people. It may be that you get what you believed all your life. But I believe we go on, and I believe that Mrs. Crandall is probably someplace where she can be happy. You have faith in that, Ellie said. It was not a question. She sounded awed. Louis smiled, a little pleased and a little embarrassed. I suppose so. And I have faith that its time for you to go to bed. Like ten minutes ago. He kissed her twice, once on the lips and once on the nose. Do you think animals go on? Yes, he said, without thinking, and for a moment he almost added, Especially cats. The words had actually trembled on his lips for a moment, and his skin felt gray and cold. Okay, she said and slid down. Gotta go kiss Mommy. Right on. He watched her go. At the dining room doorway, she turned back and said, I was really silly about Church that day, wasnt I? Crying like that. No, hon, he said. I dont think you were silly. If he died now, I could take it, she said and then seemed to consider the thought she had just spoken aloud, as if mildly startled. Then she said, as if agreeing with herself Sure I could. And went to find Rachel. Later, in bed, Rachel said, I heard what you were talking about with her. And you dont approve? Louis asked. He had decided that maybe it would be best to have this out, if that was what Rachel wanted. No, Rachel said, with a hesitance that was not much like her. No, Louis, its not like that. I just get . . . scared. And you know me. When I get scared, I get defensive. Louis could not remember ever hearing Rachel speak with such effort, and suddenly he felt more cautious than he had with Ellie earlier. He felt that he was in a mine field. Scared of what? Dying? Not myself, she said. I hardly even think of that . . . anymore. But when I was a kid, I thought of it a lot. Lost a lot of sleep. Dreamed of monsters coming to eat me up in my bed, and all of the monsters looked like my sister Zelda. Yes, Louis thought. Here it is; at last, after all the time weve been married, here it is. You dont talk about her much, he said. Rachel smiled and touched his face. Youre sweet, Louis. I never talk about her. I try never to think about her. I always assumed you had your reasons. I did. I do. She paused, thinking. I know she died . . . spinal meningitis . . . Spinal meningitis, she repeated. There are no pictures of her in the house anymore. Theres a picture of a young girl in your fathers In his study. Yes, I forgot that one. And my mother carries one in her wallet still, I think. She was two years older than I was. She caught it . . . and she was in the back bedroom . . . she was in the back bedroom like a dirty secret, Louis, she was dying in there, my sister died in the back bedroom and thats what she was, a dirty secretshe was always a dirty secret! Rachel suddenly broke down completely, and in the loud, rising quality of her sobs, Louis sensed the onset of hysteria and became alarmed. He reached for her and caught a shoulder, which was pulled away from him as soon as he touched it. He could feel the whisper of her nightdress under his fingertips. Rachelbabedont Dont tell me dont, she said. Dont stop me, Louis. Ive only got the strength to tell this once, and then I dont want to ever talk about it again. I probably wont sleep tonight as it is. Was it that horrible? he asked, knowing the answer already. It explained so much, and even things he had never connected before or only suspected vaguely suddenly came together in his mind, She had never attended a funeral with him, he realized not even that of Al Locke, a fellow med student who had been killed when his motorcycle had collided with a city bus. Al had been a regular visitor at their apartment, and Rachel had always liked him. Yet she had not gone to his funeral. She was sick that day, Louis remembered suddenly. Got the flu or something. Looked serious. But the next day she was okay again. After the funeral she was all right again, he corrected himself. He remembered thinking even then that her sickness might just be psychosomatic. It was horrible, all right. Worse than you can ever imagine. Louis, we watched her degenerate day by day, and there was nothing anyone could do. She was in constant pain. Her body seemed to shrivel . . . pull in on itself . . . her shoulders hunched up and her face pulled down until it was like a mask. Her hands were like birds feet. I had to feed her sometimes. I hated it, but I did it and never said boo about it. When the pain got bad enough, they started giving her drugsmild ones at first and then ones that would have left her a junkie if she had lived. But of course everyone knew she wasnt going to live. I guess thats why shes such a. . secret to all of us. Because we wanted her to die, Louis, we wished for her to die, and it wasnt just so she wouldnt feel any more pain, it was so we wouldnt feel any more pain, it was because she was starting to look like a monster, and she was starting to be a monster . . . oh Christ I know how awful that must sound . . . She put her face in her hands. Louis touched her gently. Rachel, it doesnt sound awful at all. It does! she cried. It does! It just sounds true, he said. Victims of long illnesses often become demanding, unpleasant monsters. The idea of the saintlike, longsuffering patient is a big romantic fiction. By the time the first set of sores crops up on a bedbound patients butt, he or shehas started to snipe and cut and spread the misery. They cant help it, but that doesnt help the people in the situation. She looked at him, amazed . . . almost hopeful. Then distrust stole back into her face. Youre making that up. He smiled grimly. Want me to show you the textbooks? How about the suicide statistics? Want to see those? In families where a terminal patient has been nursed at home, the suicide statistics spike right up into the stratosphere in the six months following the patients death. Suicide! They swallow pills, or sniff a pipe, or blow their brains out. Their hate . . . their weariness . . . their disgust . . . their sorrow . . . He shrugged and brought his closed fists gently together. The survivors start feeling as if theyd committed murder. So they step out. A crazy, wounded kind of relief had crept into Rachels puffy face. She was demanding . . . hateful. Sometimes shed piss in her bed deliberately. My mother would ask her if she wanted help getting to the bathroom . . . and later, when she couldnt get up anymore, if she wanted the bedpan . . . and Zelda would say no . . . and then shed piss the bed so my mother or my mother and I would have to change the sheets . . . and shed say it was an accident, but you could see the smile in her eyes, Louis. You could see it. The room always smelled of piss and her drugs she had bottles of some dope that smelled like Smith Brothers Wild Cherry cough drops and that smell was always there . . . some nights I wake up . . . even now I wake up and I think I can smell Wild Cherry cough drops . . . and I think . . . if Im not really awake . . . I think Is Zelda dead yet? Is she?. . . I think . . . Rachel caught her breath. Louis took her hand and she squeezed his fingers with savage, brilliant tightness. When we changed her you could see the way her back was twisting and knotting. Near the end, Louis, near the end it seemed like her . . . like her ass had somehow gotten all the way up to the middle of her back. Now Rachels wet eyes had taken on the glassy, horrified look of a child remembering a recurrent nightmare of terrible power. And sometimes shed touch me with her . . . her hands . . . her birdy hands . . . and sometimes Id almost scream and ask her not to, and once I spilled some of her soup on my arm when she touched my face and I burned myself and that time I did scream . . . and I cried and I could see the smile in her eyes then, too. Near the end the drugs stopped working. She was the one who would scream then, and none of us could remember the way she was before, not even my mother. She was just this foul, hateful, screaming thing in the back bedroom . . . our dirty secret. Rachel swallowed. Her throat clicked. My parents were gone when she finally . . . when she . . . you know, when she . . . With terrible, wrenching effort, Rachel brought it out. When she died, my parents were gone. They were gone but I was with her. It was Passover season, and they went out for a while to see some friends. Just for a few minutes. I was reading a magazine in the kitchen. Well, I was looking at it, anyway. I was waiting for it to be time to give her some more medicine because she was screaming. Shed been screaming ever since my folks left, almost. I couldnt read with her screaming that way. And then see . . . what happened was . . . well . . . Zelda stopped screaming. Louis, I was eight . . . bad dreams every night . . . I had started to think she hated me because my back was straight, because I didnt have the constant pain, because I could walk, because I was going to live . . . I started to imagine she wanted to kill me. Only, even now tonight, Louis, I dont really think it was all my imagination. I do think she hated me. I dont really think she would have killed me, but if she could have taken over my body some way . . . turned me out of it like in a fairy story . . . I think she would have done that. But when she stopped screaming, I went in to see if everything was all right . . . to see if she had fallen over on her side or slipped off her pillows. I got in and I looked at her and I thought she must have swallowed her own tongue and she was choking to death. LouisRachels voice rose again, teary and frighteningly childish, as if she were regressing, reliving the experienceLouis, I didnt know what to do! I was eight! No, of course you didnt, Louis said. He turned to her and hugged her, and Rachel gripped him with the panicky strength of a poor swimmer whose boat has suddenly overturned in the middle of a large lake. Did someone actually give you a hard time about it, babe? No, she said, no one blamed me. But nobody could make it better either. No one could change it. No one could make it an unhappening, Louis. She hadnt swallowed her tongue. She started making a sound, a kind of, I dont knowgaaaaaalike that In her distressed, total recall of that day she did a more than creditable imitation of the way her sister Zelda must have sounded, and Louiss mind Bashed to Victor Pascow. His grip on his wife tightened. and there was spit, spit coming down her chin Rachel, thats enough, he said, not quite steadily. I am aware of the symptoms. Im explaining, she said stubbornly. Im explaining why I cant go to poor Normas funeral, for one thing, and why we had that stupid fight that day Shhthats forgotten. Not by me, it isnt, she said. I remember it well, Louis. I remember it as well as I remember my sister Zelda choking to death in her bed on April 14, 1965. For a long moment there was silence in the room. I turned her over on her belly and thumped her back, Rachel went on at last. Its all I knew to do. Her feet were beating up and down . . . and her twisted legs . . . and I remember there was a sound like farting . . . I thought she was farting or I was, but it wasnt farts, it was the seams under both arms of my blouse ripping out when I turned her over. She started to . . . to convulse . . . and I saw that her face was turned sideways, turned into the pillows, and I thought, oh, shes choking, Zeldas choking, and theyll come home and say I murdered her by choking, theyll say you hated her, Rachel, and that was true, and theyll say you wanted her to be dead, and that was true too. Because, Louis, see, the first thought that went through my mind when she started to go up and down in the bed like that, I remember it, my first thought was Oh good, finally, Zeldas choking and this is going to be over. So I turned her over again and her face had gone black, Louis, and her eyes were bulging and her neck was swelled up. Then she died. I backed across the room. I guess I wanted to back out the door, but I hit the wall and a picture fell downit was a picture from one of the Oz books that Zelda liked before she got sick with the meningitis, when she was well, it was a picture of Oz the Great and Terrible, only Zelda always called him Oz the Gweat and Tewwible because she couldnt make that sound, and so she sounded like Elmer Fudd. My mother got that picture framed because . . . because Zelda liked it most of all Oz the Gweat and Tewwible . . . and it fell down and hit the floor and the glass in the frame shattered and I started to scream because I knew she was dead and I thought . . . I guess I thought it was her ghost, coming back to get me, and I knew that her ghost would hate me like she did, but her ghost wouldnt be stuck in bed, so I screamed . . . I screamed and I ran out of the house screaming Zeldas dead! Zeldas dead! Zeldas dead! And the neighbors . . . they came and they looked . . . they saw me running down the street with my blouse all ripped out under the arms . . . I was yelling Zeldas dead! Louis, and I guess maybe they thought I was crying but I think . . . I think maybe I was laughing, Louis. I think maybe thats what I was doing. If you were, I salute you for it, Louis said. You dont mean that, though, Rachel said with the utter surety of one who has been over a point and over it and over it. He let it go. He thought she might eventually get rid of this awful, rancid memory that had haunted her for so longmost of it, anywaybut never this part. Never completely.

Louis Creed was no psychiatrist, but he knew that there are rusty, halfburied things in the terrain of any life and that human beings seem compelled to go back to these things and pull at them, even though they cut. Tonight Rachel had pulled almost all of it out, like some grotesque and stinking rotten tooth, its crown black, its nerves infected, its roots fetid. It was out. Let that last noxious cell remain; if God was good it would remain dormant except in her deepest dreams. That she had been able to remove as much as she had was well nigh incredibleit did not just speak of her courage; it clarioned it. Louis was in awe of her. He felt like cheering. He sat up now and turned on the light. Yes, he said, I salute you for it. And if I needed another reason to . . . to really dislike your mother and father, Ive got it now. You never should have been left alone with her, Rachel. Never. Like a childthe child of eight she had been when this dirty, incredible thing had happenedshe reprimanded him, Lou, it was Passover season I dont care if it was judgment trump, Louis said with a sudden low and hoarse savagery that caused her to pull back a little. He was remembering the student nurses, those two candy stripers whose evil luck it had been to be in attendance on the morning Pascow had been brought in dying. One of them, a tough little lady named Carla Shavers, had returned the next day and had worked out so well that even Chariton was impressed. The other they had never seen again. Louis was not surprised and did not blame her. Where was the nurse? There should have been an R.N. in attendance . . . they went out, they actually went out and left an eightyearold kid in charge of her dying sister, who was probably clinically insane by then. Why? Because it was Passover season. And because elegant Dory Goldman couldnt stand the stink that particular morning and had to get away from it for just a little while. So Rachel got the duty. Right, friends and neighbors? Rachel got the duty. Eight years old, pigtails, middy blouse. Rachel got the duty. Rachel could stay and put up with the stink. What did they send her to Camp Sunset in Vermont for six weeks every year, if not to put up with the stink of her dying, insane sister? Ten new shirtandjumper combinations for Gage and six new dresses for Ellie and Ill pay your way through medical school if youll stay away from my daughter . . . but where was the overflowing checkbook when your daughter was dying of spinal meningitis and your other daughter was alone with her, you bastard? Where was the RfuckingN? Louis sat up, got out of bed. Where are you going? Rachel asked, alarmed. To get you a Valium. You know I dont Tonight you do, he said. She took the pill and then told him the rest. Her voice remained calm throughout. The tranquilizer was doing its job. The nextdoor neighbor had retrieved eightyearold Rachel from behind a tree where she was crouching and screaming Zeldas dead! over and over. Rachels nose had been bleeding. She had blood all over her. The same neighbor had called the ambulance and then her parents; after getting Rachels nosebleed stopped and calming her with a cup of hot tea and two aspirins, she was able to get the location of her parents out of herthey were visiting Mr. and Mrs. Cabron across town; Peter Cabron was an accountant in her fathers business. By that evening, great changes had taken place in the Goldman household. Zelda was gone. Her room had been cleaned and fumigated. All of the furniture was gone. The room was a bare box. Latermuch laterit had become Dory Goldmans sewing room. The first of the nightmares had come to Rachel that night, and when Rachel woke up at two oclock in the morning, screaming for her mother, she had been horrified to discover that she could barely get out of bed. Her back was in agony. She had strained it moving Zelda. In her spurt of adrenalinepowered strength, she had, after all, lifted Zelda with enough force to pull her own blouse apart. That she had strained herself trying to keep Zelda from choking was simple, obvious, elementarymydearWatson. To everyone, that was, except Rachel herself. Rachel had been sure that this was Zeldas revenge from beyond the grave. Zelda knew that Rachel was glad she was dead; Zelda knew that when Rachel burst from the house telling all and sundry Zeldas dead, Zeldas dead at the top of her voice, she had been laughing, not screaming; Zelda knew she had been murdered and so had given Rachel spinal meningitis, and soon Rachels back would start to twist and change and she too would have to lie in bed, slowly but surely turning into a monster, her hands hooking into claws. After a while she would begin screaming with the pain, as Zelda had done, and then she would start wetting the bed, and finally she would choke to death on her own tongue. It was Zeldas revenge. No one could talk Rachel out of this beliefnot her mother, her father, or Dr. Murray, who diagnosed a mild backsprain and then told Rachel brusquely (cruelly, someLouis, for instancewould have said) to stop behaving so badly. She ought to remember that her sister had just died, Dr. Murray told her; her parents were prostrate with grief and this was not the time for Rachel to make a childish play for attention. Only the slowly abating pain had been able to convince her that she was neither the victim of Zeldas supernatural vengeance nor Gods just punishment of the wicked. For months (or so she told Louis; it had actually been years, eight of them) afterward she would awaken from nightmares in which her sister died over and over again, and in the dark Rachels hands would fly to her back to make sure it was all right. In the frightful aftermath of these dreams she often thought that the closet door would bang open and Zelda would lurch out, blue and twisted, her eyes rolled up to shiny whites, her black tongue puffing out through her lips, her hands hooked into claws to murder the murderer cowering in her bed with her hands jammed into the small of her back . . . She had not attended Zeldas funeral or any funeral since. If youd told me this before, Louis said, it would have explained a hell of a lot. Lou, I couldnt, she said simply. She sounded very sleepy now. Since then Ive been . . . I guess a little phobic on the subject. Just a little phobic, Louis thought. Yeah, right. I cant . . . seem to help it. In my mind I know you're right, that death is perfectly naturalgood, evenbut what my mind knows and what happens . . . inside me. . Yeah, he said. That day I blew up at you, she said, I knew that Ellie was just crying over the idea . . . a way of getting used to it . . . but I couldnt help it. Im sorry, Louis. No apology needed, he said, stroking her hair. But what the hell, I accept it anyway, if itll make you feel better. She smiled. It does, you know. And I feel better. I feel as if I just sicked up something thats poisoned part of me for years. Maybe you have. Rachels eyes slipped closed and then opened again . slowly. And dont blame it all on my father, Louis. Please. That was a terrible time for them. The billsZeldas billswere skyhigh. My dad had missed his chance to expand into the suburbs, and the sales in the downtown store were off. On top of that, my mother was halfcrazy herself. Well, it all worked out. It was as if Zeldas death was the signal for good times to come around again. There had been a recession, but then the money loosened up and Daddy got his loan, and since then hes never looked back. But thats why theyve always been possessive of me, I think. Its not just because Im the only one left Its guilt, Louis said. Yes, I suppose. And you wont be mad at me if Im sick when they bury Norma? No, honey, I wont be mad. He paused and then took her hand. May I take Ellie? Her hand tightened in his. Oh, Louis, I dont know, she said. Shes so young Shes known where babies come from for a year or more, he reminded her again. She was quiet for a long time, looking up at the ceiling and biting her lips. If you think its best, she said finally. If you think it wont . . . wont hurt her. Come over here, Rachel, he said, and that night they slept backtostomach in Louiss bed, and when she woke up trembling in the middle of the night, the Valium worn off, he soothed her with his hands and whispered in her ear that everything was okay, and she slept again. 33 For manand womanis like the flowers in the valley, which bloom today and are tomorrow cast into the oven the time of man is but a season; it cometh, and so it passeth away. Let us pray. Ellie, resplendent in a navy blue dress bought especially for the occasion, dropped her head so abruptly that Louis, sitting next to her in the pew, heard her neck creak. Ellie had been in few churches, and of course it was her first funeral; the combination had awed her to unaccustomed silence. For Louis, it had been a rare occasion with his daughter. Mostly blinded by his love for her, as he was by his love for Gage, he rarely observed her in a detached way; but today he thought he was seeing what was almost a textbook case of the child nearing the end of lifes first great developmental stage; an organism of almost pure curiosity, storing up information madly in almost endless circuits. Ellie had been quiet even when Jud, looking strange but elegant in his black suit and laceup shoes (Louis believed it was the first time he had ever seen him in anything but loafers or green rubber boots), had bent over, kissed her, and said Glad you could come, honey. And I bet Norma is too. Ellie had gazed at him, wideeyed. Now the Methodist minister, Reverend Laughlin, was pronouncing the benediction, asking God to lift up His countenance upon them and give them peace. Will the pallbearers come forward? he asked. Louis started to rise, and Ellie halted him, tugging his arm frantically. She looked scared. Daddy! she stagewhispered. Where are you going? Im one of the pallbearers, honey, Louis said, sitting down beside her again for a moment and putting an arm around her shoulders. That means Im going to help carry Norma out. There are four of us that are going to do itme and two of Juds nephews and Normas brother. Where will I find you? Louis glanced down front. The other three pallbearers had assembled there, along with Jud. The rest of the congregation was filing out, some of them weeping. If you just go out on the steps, Ill meet you there, he said. All right, Ellie? Yes, she said. Just dont forget me. No, I wont. He got up again, and she tugged his hand again. Daddy? What, babe? Dont drop her, Ellie whispered. Louis joined the others, and Jud introduced him to the nephews, who were really second or third cousins . . . descendants of Juds fathers brother. They were big fellows in their twenties with a strong facial resemblance. Normas brother was somewhere in his late fifties, Louis guessed, and while the strain of a death in the family was on his face, he seemed to be bearing up well. Pleased to meet you all, Louis said. He felt a trifle uncomfortablean outsider in the family circle. They nodded at him. Ellie okay? Jud asked and nodded to her. She was lingering in the vestibule, watching. Sureshe just wants to make sure I dont go up in a puff of smoke, Louis thought and almost smiled. But then that thought called up another one Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. And the smile died. Yes, I think so, Louis said and raised a hand to her. She raised hers in return and went outside then in a swirl of navy blue dress. For a moment Louis was uneasily struck by how adult she looked. It was the sort of illusion, no matter how fleeting, that could give a man pause. You guys ready? one of the nephews asked. Louis nodded; so did Normas younger brother. Take it easy with her, Jud said. His voice had roughened. Then he turned away and walked slowly up the aisle with his head down. Louis moved to the back left corner of the steelgray American Eternal coffin Jud had chosen for his wife. He laid hold of his runner and the four of them slowly carried Normas coffin out into the bright still cold of February first. Someonethe church custodian, he supposedhad laid down a good bed of cinders over the slippery path of tamped snow. At the curb a Cadillac hearse idled white exhaust into the winter air. The funeral director and his husky son stood beside it, watching them, ready to lend a hand if anyone (her brother, perhaps) should slip or flag. Jud stood beside him and watched as they slid the coffin inside. Goodbye, Norma, he said and lit a cigarette. Ill see you in a while, old girl. Louis slipped an arm around Juds shoulders, and Normas brother stood close by on his other side, crowding the mortician and his son into the background. The burly nephews (or second cousins, or whatever they were) had already done a fade, the simple job of lifting and carrying done. They had grown distant from this part of the family; they had known the womans face from photographs and a few duty visits perhapslong afternoons spent in the parlor eating Normas cookies and drinking Juds beer, perhaps not really minding the old stories of times they had not lived through and people they had not known, but aware of things they could have been doing all the same (a car that could have been washed and Turtlewaxed, a league bowling practice, maybe just sitting around the TV and watching a boxing match with some friends), and glad to be away when the duty was done. Juds part of the family was in the past now, as far as they were concerned; it was like an eroded planetoid drifting away from the main mass, dwindling, little more than a speck. The past. Pictures in an album. Old stories told in rooms that perhaps seemed too hot to themthey were not old; there was no arthritis in their joints; their blood had not thinned. The past was runners to be gripped and hefted and later let go. After all, if the human body was an envelope to hold the human soulGods letters to the universeas most churches taught, then the American Eternal coffin was an envelope to hold the human body, and to these husky young cousins or nephews or whatever they were, the past was just a dead letter to be filed away. God save the past, Louis thought and shivered for no good reason other than that the day would come when he would be every bit unfamiliar to his own bloodhis own grandchildren if Ellie or Gage produced kids and he lived to see them. The focus shifted. Family lines degenerated. Young faces looking out of old photographs. God save the past, he thought again and tightened his grip around the old mans shoulders. The ushers put the flowers into the back of the hearse. The electric rear window rose and thumped home in its socket. Louis went back to where his daughter was, and they walked to the station wagon together, Louis holding Ellies arm so she wouldnt slip in her good shoes with the leather soles. Car engines were starting up. Why are they putting on their lights, Daddy? Ellie asked with mild wonder. Why are they putting on their lights in the middle of the day? They do it, Louis began and heard the thickness in his own voice, to honor the dead, Ellie. He pulled out the knob that turned on the wagons headlights. Come on. They were going home at last, the graveside ceremony over actually it was held at the small Mount Hope Chapel; no grave would be dug for Norma until springwhen Ellie suddenly burst into tears. Louis glanced at her, surprised but not particularly alarmed. Ellie, what is it? No more cookies, Ellie sobbed. She made the best oatmeal cookies I ever ate. But she wont make them anymore because shes dead. Daddy, why do people have to be dead? I dont really know, Louis said. To make room for all the new people, I guess. Little people like you and your brother Gage. Im never going to get married or do sex and have babies! Ellie declared, crying harder than ever. Then maybe itll never happen to me! Its awful! Its mmmean! But its an end to suffering, Louis said quietly. And as a doctor I see a lot of suffering. One of the reasons I wanted the job at the university was because I got sick of looking at it day in and day out. Young people quite often have pain . . . bad pain, even . . . but thats not quite the same as suffering. He paused. Believe it or not, honey, when people get very old, death doesnt always look so bad or so scary as it seems to you. And you have years and years and years ahead of you. Ellie cried, and then she sniffed, and then she stopped. Before they got home, she asked if she could play the radio. Louis said yes, and she found Shakin Stevens singing This Ole House on WACZ. Soon she was singing along. When they got home she went to her mother and prattled about the funeral; to Rachels credit, she listened quietly, sympathetically, and supportively . . . although Louis thought she looked pale and thoughtful. Then Ellie asked her if she knew how to make oatmeal cookies, and Rachel put away the piece of knitting shed been doing and rose at once, as if she had been waiting for this or something like it. Yes, she said. Want to make a batch? Yay! Ellie shouted. Can we really, Mom? We can if your father will watch Gage for an hour. Ill watch him, Louis said. With pleasure. Louis spent the evening reading and making notes on a long article in The Duquesne Medical Digest; the old controversy concerning dissolving sutures had begun again. In the small world of those relatively few humans on earth concerned with stitching minor wounds, it appeared to be as endless as that old psychological squabbling point, nature versus nurture. He intended writing a dissenting letter this very night, proving that the writers main contentions were specious, his case examples selfserving, his research almost criminally sloppy. In short, Louis was looking forwardwith high good humorto blowing the stupid fuck right off the map. He was hunting around in the study bookcase for his copy of Troutmans Treatment of Wounds when Rachel came halfway down the stairs. Coming up, Lou? Ill be a while. He glanced up at her. Everything all right? Theyre deep asleep, both of them. Louis looked at her closely. Them, yeah. Youre not. Im fine. Been reading. Youre okay? Really? Yes, she said and smiled. I love you, Louis. Love you too, babe. He glanced at the bookcase, and there was Troutman, right where he had been all along. Louis put his hand on the textbook. Church brought a rat into the house while you and Ellie were gone, she said and tried to smile. Yuck, what a mess. Jeez, Rachel, Im sorry. He hoped he did not sound as guilty as, at that moment, he felt. It was bad? Rachel sat down on the stairs. In her pink flannel nightgown, her face cleaned of makeup and her forehead shining, her hair tied back into a short ponytail with a rubber band, she looked like a child. I took care of it, she said, but do you know, I had to beat that dumb cat out the door with the vacuum cleaner attachment before it would stop guarding the . . . the corpse? It growled at me. Church never growled at me before in his life. He seems different lately. Do you think he might have distemper or something, Louis? No, Louis said slowly, but Ill take him to the vet, if you want. I guess its all right, she said and then looked at him nakedly. But would you come up? I just . . . I know youre working, but . . . Of course, he said, getting up as though it were nothing important at all. And, really, it wasntexcept he knew that now the letter would never be written because the parade has a way of moving on, and tomorrow would bring something new. But he had bought that rat, hadnt he? The rat that Church had brought in, surely clawed to bloody ribbons, its intestines dragging, its head perhaps gone. Yes. He had bought it. It was his rat. Lets go to bed, he said, turning off the lights. He and Rachel went up the stairs together. Louis put his arm around her waist and loved her the best he could . . . but even as he entered into her, hard and erect, he was listening to the winter whine outside the frosttraced windows, wondering about Church, the cat that used to belong to his daughter and now belonged to him, wondering where it was and what it was stalking or killing. The soil of a mans heart is stonier, he thought, and the wind sang its bitter black song, and not so many miles distant, Norma Crandall, who had once knitted his daughter and son matching caps, lay in her gray steel American Eternal coffin on a stone slab in a Mount Hope crypt; by now the white cotton the mortician would have used to stuff her cheeks would be turning black. 34 Ellie turned six. She came home from kindergarten on her birthday with a paper hat askew on her head, several pictures friends had drawn of her (in the best of them Ellie looked like a friendly scarecrow), and baleful stories about spankings in the schoolyard during recess. The flu epidemic passed. They had to send two students to the EMMC in Bangor, and Surrendra Hardu probably saved the life of one woefully sick freshman boy with the terrible name of Peter Humperton, who went into convulsions shortly after being admitted. Rachel developed a mild infatuation with the blond bag boy at the A P in Brewer and rhapsodized to Louis at night about how packed his jeans looked. Its probably just toilet paper, she added. Squeeze it sometime, Louis suggested. If he screams, its probably not. Rachel had laughed until she cried. The blue, still, subzero miniseason of February passed and brought on the alternating rains and freezes of March, potholes, and those orange roadside signs which pay homage to the Great God BUMP. The immediate, personal, and most agonizing grief of Jud Crandall passed, that grief which the psychologists say begins about three days after the death of a loved one and holds hard from four to six weeks in most cases like that period of time New Englanders sometimes call deep winter. But time passes, and time welds one state of human feeling into another until they become something like a rainbow. Strong grief becomes a softer, more mellow grief; mellow grief becomes mourning; mourning at last becomes remembrancea process that may take from six months to three years and still be considered normal. The day of Gages first haircut came and passed, and when Louis saw his sons hair growing in darker, he joked about it and did his own mourningbut only in his heart. Spring came, and it stayed awhile. 35 Louis Creed came to believe that the last really happy day of his life was March 24, 1984. The things that were to come, poised above them like a killing sashweight, were still over seven weeks in the future, but looking over those seven weeks he found nothing which stood out with the same color. He supposed that even if none of those terrible things had happened, he would have remembered the day forever. Days which seem genuinely good good all the way throughare rare enough anyway, he thought. It might be that there was less than a month of really good ones in any natural mans life in the best of circumstances. It came to seem to Louis that God, in His infinite wisdom, seemed much more generous when it came to doling out pain. That day was a Saturday, and he was home minding Gage in the afternoon while Rachel and Ellie went after groceries. They had gone with Jud in his old and rattling 59 IH pickup not because the station wagon wasnt running but because the old man genuinely liked their company. Rachel asked Louis if he would be okay with Gage, and he told her that of course he would. He was glad to see her get out; after a winter in Maine, most of it in Ludlow, he thought that she needed all the getting out she could lay her hands on. She had been an unremittingly good sport about it, but she did seem to him to be getting a little stir crazy. Gage got up from his nap around two oclock, scratchy and out of sorts. He had discovered the Terrible Twos and made them his own. Louis tried several ineffectual gambits to amuse the kid, and Gage turned them all down. To make matters worse, the rotten kid had an enormous bowel movement, the artistic quality of which was not improved for Louis when he saw a blue marble sitting in the middle of it. It was one of Ellies marbles. The kid could have choked. He decided the marbles were going to go everything Gage got hold of went right to his mouthbut that decision, while undoubtedly laudable, didnt do a thing about keeping the kid amused until his mother got back. Louis listened to the early spring wind gust around the house, sending big blinkers of light and shadow across Mrs. Vintons field next door, and he suddenly thought of the Vulture he had bought on a whim five or six weeks before, while on his way home from the university. Had he bought twine as well? He had, by God! Gage! he said. Gage had found a green Crayola under the couch and was currently scribbling in one of Ellies favorite bookssomething else to feed the fires of sibling rivalry, Louis thought and grinned. If Ellie got really pissy about the scribbles Gage had managed to put in Where the Wild Things Are before Louis could get it away from him, Louis would simply mention the unique treasure he had uncovered in Gages Pampers. What! Gage responded smartly. He was talking pretty well now; Louis had decided the kid might actually be halfbright. You wanna go out? Wanna go out! Gage agreed excitedly. Wanna go out. Where my neeks, Daddy? This sentence, if reproduced phonetically, would have looked something like this Weh ma neeks, Dahdee? The translation was Where are my sneakers, Father? Louis was often struck by Gages speech, not because it was cute, but because he thought that small children all sounded like immigrants learning a foreign language in some helterskelter but fairly amiable way. He knew that babies make all the sounds the human voice box is capable of . . . the liquid trill that proves so difficult for firstyear French students, the glottal grunts and clicks of the Australian bush people, the thickened, abrupt consonants of German. They lose the capability as they learn English, and Louis wondered now (and not for the first time) if childhood was not more a period of forgetting than of learning. Gages neeks were finally found . . . they were also under the couch. One of Louiss other beliefs was that in families with small children, the area under living room couches begins after a while to develop a strong and mysterious electromagnetic force that eventually sucks in all sorts of littereverything from bottles and diaper pins to green Crayolas and old issues of Sesame Street magazine with food mouldering between the pages. Gages jacket, however, wasnt under the couchit was halfway down the stairs. His Red Sox cap, without which Gage refused to leave the house, was the most difficult of all to find because it was where it belongedin the closet. That was, naturally, the last place they looked. Where goin, Daddy? Gage asked companionably, giving his father his hand. Going over in Mrs. Vintons field, he said. Gonna go fly a kite, my man. Kiiiyte? Gage asked doubtfully. Youll like it, Louis said. Wait a minute, kiddo. They were in the garage now. Louis found his keyring, unlocked the little storage closet, and turned on the light. He rummaged through the closet and found the Vulture, still in its store bag with the sales slip stapled to it. He had bought it in the depths of midFebruary, when his soul had cried out for some hope. Dat? Gage asked. This was Gageese for Whatever in the world might you have there, Father? Its the kite, Louis said and pulled it out of the bag. Gage watched, interested, as Louis unfurled the Vulture, which spread its wings over perhaps five feet of tough plastic. Its bulgy, bloodshot eyes stared out at them from its small head atop its scrawny, pinkly naked neck. Birt! Gage yelled. Birt, Daddy! Got a birt! Yeah, its a bird, Louis agreed, slipping the sticks into the pockets at the back of the kite and rummaging again for the five hundred feet of kite twine that he had bought the same day. He looked back over his shoulder and repeated to Gage Youre gonna like it, big guy. Gage liked it. They took the kite over into Mrs. Vintons field and Louis got it up into the blowy lateMarch sky first shot, although he had not flown a kite since he was . . . what? Twelve? Nineteen years ago? God, that was horrible. Mrs. Vinton was a woman of almost Juds age but immeasurably more frail. She lived in a brick house at the head of her field, but now she came out only rarely. Behind the house, the field ended and the woods beganthe woods that led first to the Pet Sematary and then to the Micmac burying ground beyond it. Kites flyne, Daddy! Gage screamed. Yeah, look at it go! Louis bellowed back, laughing and excited. He payed out kite twine so fast that the string grew hot and branded thin fire across his palm. Look at that Vulture, Gage! Shes goin to beat shit! Beatshit! Gage cried and laughed, high and joyously. The sun sailed out from behind a fat gray spring cloud, and the temperature seemed to go up five degrees almost at once. They stood in the bright, unreliable warmth of March straining to be April in the high dead grass of Mrs. Vintons field; above them the Vulture soared up toward the blue, higher, its plastic wings spread taut against that steady current of air, still higher, and as he had done as a child, Louis felt himself going up to it, going into it, staring down as the world took on its actual shape, the one cartographers must see in their dreams; Mrs. Vintons field, as white and still as cobwebs following the retreat of the snow, not just a field now but a large parallelogram bounded by rock walls on two of its sides, and then the road at the bottom, a straight black seam, and the river valleythe Vulture saw it all with its soaring, bloodshot eyes. It saw the river like a cool gray band of steel, chunks of ice still floating in it; on the other side it saw Hampden, Newburgh, Winterport, with a ship at dock; perhaps it saw the St. Regis Mill at Bucksport below its steaming fume of cloud, or even lands end itself, where the Atlantic pounded the naked rock. Look at her go, Gage! Louis yelled, laughing. Gage was leaning so far back he was in danger of toppling over. A huge grin covered his face. He was waving to the kite. Louis got some slack and told Gage to hold out one of his hands. Gage did, not even looking around. He couldnt take his eyes from the kite, which swung and danced in the wind and raced its shadow back and forth across the field. Louis wound kite string twice around Gages hand and now he did look down, comically amazed at the strong tug and pull. What! he said. Youre flying it, Louis said. You got the hammer, my man. Its your kite. Gage flyne it? Cage said, as if asking not his father but himself for confirmation. He pulled the string experimentally; the kite nodded in the windy sky. Gage pulled the string harder; the kite swooped. Louis and his son laughed together. Gage reached out his free hand, groping, and Louis took it in his own. They stood together that way in the middle of Mrs. Vintons field, looking up at the Vulture. It was a moment with his son that Louis never forgot. As he had gone up and into the kite as a child himself, he now found himself going into Gage, his son. He felt himself shrink until he was within Gages tiny house, looking out of the windows that were his eyeslooking out at a world that was so huge and bright, a world where Mrs. Vintons field was nearly as big as the Bonneville Salt Flats, where the kite soared miles above him, the string drumming in his fist like a live thing as the wind blew around him, tumbling his hair. Kite flyne! Gage cried out to his father, and Louis put his arm around Cages shoulders and kissed the boys cheek, in which the wind had bloomed a wild rose. 1 love you, Gage, he saidit was between the two of them, and that was all right.

And Gage, who now had less than two months to live, laughed shrilly and joyously. Kite flyne! Kite flyne, Daddy! They were still flying the kite when Rachel and Ellie came home. He and Gage had gotten it so high that they had nearly run out the string, and the face of the Vulture had been lost; it was only a small black silhouette in the sky. Louis was glad to see the two of them, and be roared with laughter when Ellie dropped the string momentarily and chased it through the grass, catching it just before the tumbling, unraveling core tube gave up the last of its twine. But having them around also changed things a little, and he was not terribly sorry to go in when, twenty minutes later, Rachel said she believed Gage had had enough of the wind. She was afraid he would get a chill. So the kite was pulled back in, fighting for the sky at every turn of the twine, at last surrendering. Louis tucked it, black wings, buggy bloodshot eyes, and all, under his arm and imprisoned it in the storage closet again. That night Gage ate an enormous supper of hot dogs and beans, and while Rachel was dressing him in his Dr. Dentons for bed, Louis took Ellie aside and had a hearttoheart talk with her about leaving her marbles around. Under other circumstances, he might have ended up shouting at her because Ellie could turn quite haughtyinsulting, evenwhen accused of some mistake. It was only her way of dealing with criticism, but that did not keep it from infuriating Louis when she laid it on too thick or when he was particularly tired. But this night the kite flying had left him in a fine mood, and Ellie was inclined to be reasonable. She agreed to be more careful and then went downstairs to watch TV until 830, a Saturday indulgence she treasured. Okay, thats out of the way, and it might even do some good, Louis thought, not knowing that marbles were really not the problem, and chills were really not the problem, that a large Orinco truck was going to be the problem, that the road was going to be the problem . . . as Jud Crandall had warned them it might be on that first day of August. He went upstairs that night about fifteen minutes after Cage had been put to bed. He found his son quiet but still awake, drinking the last of a bottle of milk and looking contemplatively up at the ceiling. Louis took one of Gages feet in one hand and raised it up. He kissed it, lowered it. Goodnight, Gage, he said. Kite flyne, Daddy, Gage said. It really did fly, didnt it? Louis said, and for no reason at all he felt tears behind his eyes. Right up to the sky, my man. Kite flyne, Cage said. Up to the kye. He rolled over on his side, closed his eyes, and slept. Just like that. Louis was stepping into the hail when he glanced back and saw yellowygreen, disembodied eyes staring out at him from Gages closet. The closet door was open . . . just a crack. His heart took a lurch into his throat, and his mouth pulled back and down in a grimace. He opened the closet door, thinking (Zelda its Zelda in the closet her black tongue puffing out between her lips) he wasnt sure what, but of course it was only Church, the cat was in the closet, and when it saw Louis it arched its back like a cat on a Halloween card. It hissed at him, its mouth partly open, revealing its needlesharp teeth. Get out of there, Louis whispered. Church hissed again. It did not move. Get out, I said. He picked up the first thing that came to hand in the litter of Gages toys, a bright plastic ChuggyChuggyChooChoo which in this dim light was the maroon color of dried blood. He brandished it at Church; the cat not only stood its ground but hissed again. And suddenly, without even thinking, Louis threw the toy at the cat, not playing, not goofing around; he pegged the toy at the cat as hard as he could, furious at it, and scared of it too, that it should hide here in the darkened closet of his sons room and refuse to leave, as if it had a right to be there. The toy locomotive struck the cat dead center. Church uttered a squawk and fled, displaying its usual grace by slamming into the door and almost falling over on its way out. Cage stirred, muttered something, shifted position, and was still again. Louis felt a little sick. There was sweat standing out in beads on his forehead. Louis? Rachel, from downstairs, sounding alarmed. Did Gage fall out of his crib? Hes fine, honey. Church knocked over a couple of his toys. Oh, all right. He feltirrationally or otherwisethe way he might have felt if he had looked in on his son and found a snake crawling over him or a big rat perched on the bookshelf over Gages crib. Of course it was irrational. But when it had hissed at him from the closet like that. (Zelda did you think Zelda did you think Oz the Gweat and Tewwible?) He closed Gages closet door, sweeping a number of toys back in with its moving foot. He listened to the tiny click of the latch. After a moments further hesitation, he turned the closets thumbbolt. He went back to Gages crib. In shifting around, the kid had kicked his two blankets down around his knees. Louis disentangled him, pulled the blankets up, and then merely stood there, watching his son, for a long time. PART TWO THE MICMAC BURYING GROUND When Jesus came to Bethany, he found that Lazarus had lain in the grave four days already. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she hurried to meet him. Lord, she said, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But now you are here, and I know that whatever you ask of God, God will grant. Jesus answered her Your brother shall rise again. JOHNS GOSPEL (paraphrase) Heyho, lets go. THE RAMONES 36 Its probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness fallsas little as one may like to admit it, human experience tends, in a good many ways, to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything. And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which ones sense of humor begins to reassert itself. Louis Creed might have harbored such thoughts if he had been thinking rationally following the funeral of his son, Gage William Creed, on the seventeenth of May, but any rational thoughtor attempt at itceased at the funeral parlor, where a fistfight with his fatherinlaw (bad enough) resulted in an event even more terriblea final bit of outrageous gothic melodrama which shattered whatever remained of Rachels fragile selfcontrol. That days penny dreadful events were only complete when she was pulled, screaming, from the East Room of the BrookingsSmith Mortuary, where Gage lay in his closed coffin, and sedated in the foyer by Surrendra Hardu. The irony of it was that she would not have experienced that final episode at all, that extravagance of horror, one might say, if the fistfight between Louis Creed and Mr. Irwin Goldman of Dearborn had taken place at the morning visiting hours (10 to 1130 A.M.) instead of at the afternoon visiting hours (2 to 330 P.M.). Rachel had not been in attendance at the morning visiting hours; she simply had not been able to come. She sat at home with Jud Crandall and Steve Masterton. Louis had no idea how he ever could have gotten through the previous fortyeight hours or so without Jud and Steve. It was well for Louiswell for all three of the remaining family membersthat Steve had shown up as promptly as he had, because Louis was at least temporarily unable to make any kind of decision, even one so minor as giving his wife a shot to mute her deep grief. Louis hadnt even noticed that Rachel had apparently meant to go to the morning viewing in her housecoat, which she had misbuttoned. Her hair was uncombed, unwashed, tangled. Her eyes, blank brown orbits, bulged from sockets so sunken that they had almost become the eyes of a living skull. Her flesh was doughy. It hung from her face. She sat at the breakfast table that morning, munching unbuttered toast and talking in disjointed phrases that made no sense at all. At one point she had said abruptly, About that Winnebago you want to buy, Lou Louis had last spoken about buying a Winnebago in 1981. Louis only nodded and went on eating his own breakfast. He was having a bowl of Cocoa Bears. Cocoa Bears had been one of Gages favorite cereals, and this morning Louis wanted them. The taste of them was appalling, but he still wanted them. He was neatly turned out in his best suitnot black, he didnt have a black suit, but it was at least a deep charcoal gray. He had shaved, showered, and combed his hair. He looked fine, although he was lost in shock. Ellie was dressed in blue jeans and a yellow blouse. She had brought a picture to the breakfast table with her. This picture, an enlargement of a Polaroid Rachel had taken with the SX70 Louis and the kids had given her for her last birthday, showed Gage, grinning from the depths of his Sears skiparka, sitting on her Speedaway sled as Ellie pulled him. Rachel had caught Ellie looking back over her shoulder and smiling at Gage. Gage was grinning back at her. Ellie carried the picture, but she didnt talk much. Louis was unable to see the condition of either his wife or his daughter; he ate his breakfast and his mind replayed the accident over and over and over, except in this mindmovie the conclusion was different. In the mindmovie he was quicker, and all that happened was that Gage got a spanking for not stopping when they yelled. It was Steve who really saw how it was going with Rachel and with Ellie as well. He forbade Rachel to go to the morning viewing (although viewing was really a misnomer because of the closed coffin; if it was open, Louis thought, theyd all run screaming from the room, me included) and forbade Ellie to go at all. Rachel protested. Ellie only sat, silent and grave, with the picture of her and Gage in one hand. It was Steve who gave Rachel the shot she needed and who gave Ellie a teaspoon of a colorless liquid to drink. Ellie usually whined and protested about taking medicineany kind of medicinebut she drank this silently and without a grimace. By ten oclock that morning she was asleep in her bed (the picture of her and Gage still held in her hand) and Rachel was sitting in front of the television set, watching Wheel of Fortune. Her responses to Steves questions were slow. She was stoned, but her face had lost that thoughtful look of madness which had so worriedand frightenedthe P.A. when he came in that morning at a quarter past eight. Jud, of course, had made all the arrangements. He made them with the same calm efficiency that he had made them for his wife three months before. But it was Steve Masterton who took Louis aside just before Louis left for the funeral home. Ill see that shes there this afternoon, if she seems capable of handling it, he told Louis. Okay. The shot will have worn off by then. Your friend Mr. Crandall says hell stay with Ellie during the afternoon viewing hours Right. and play Monopoly or something with her Uhhuh. But Right. Steve stopped. They were standing in the garage, Churchs stomping ground, the place where he brought his dead birds and dead rats. The ones that Louis owned. Outside was May sunshine, and a robin bopped across the head of the driveway, as if it had important business somewhere. Maybe it did. Louis, Steve said, youve got to get hold of yourself. Louis looked at Steve, politely questioning. Not much of what Steve had said had gotten throughhe had been thinking that if he had been a little quicker he could have saved his sons life but a little of this last registered. I dont think youve noticed, Steve said, but Ellie isnt vocalizing. And Rachel has had such a bad shock that her very conception of time seems to have been twisted out of shape. Right! Louis said. More force in reply seemed to be indicated here. He wasnt sure why. Steve put a hand on Louiss shoulder. Lou, he said, they need you more now than they ever have in their life. More than they ever will again, maybe. Please, man . . . I can give your wife a shot, but . . . you . . . see, Louis, you gotta . . . oh, Christ, Louis, what a cockknocking, motherfucking mess this is! Louis saw with something like alarm that Steve was starting to cry. Sure, he said, and in his mind he saw Gage running across the lawn toward the road. They were yelling at Gage to come back, but he wouldntlately the game had been to run away from MommyDaddyand then they were chasing him, Louis quickly outdistancing Rachel, but Gage had a big lead, Gage was laughing, Gage was running away from Daddythat was the gameand Louis was closing the distance but too slowly, Gage was running down the mild slope of the lawn now to the verge of Route 15, and Louis prayed to God that Gage would fall down when little kids ran fast, they almost always fell down because a persons control over his legs didnt get really cool until he was maybe seven or eight. Louis prayed to God that Gage would fall down, fall down, yes, fall down bloody his nose crack his skull need stitches whatever, because now he could hear the drone of a truck coming toward them, one of those big tenwheelers that went back and forth endlessly between Bangor and the Orinco plant in Bucksport, and he had screamed Gages name then, and he believed that Gage had heard him and tried to stop. Gage seemed to realize that the game was over, that your parents didnt scream at you when it was just a game, and he had tried to put on the brakes, and by then the sound of the truck was very loud, the sound of it filled the world. It was thundering. Louis had thrown himself forward in a long flying tackle, his shadow tracking the ground beneath him as the shadow of the Vulture had tracked the white latewinter grass of Mrs. Vintons field that day in March, and he believed that the tips of his fingers had actually brushed the back of the light jacket Gage had been wearing, and then Gages forward motion had carried him out into the road, and the truck had been thunder, the truck had been sunlight on high chrome, the truck had been the deepthroated, shrieking bellow of an air horn, and that had been Saturday, that had been three days ago. Im okay, he said to Steve. I ought to go now. If you can get yourself together and help them, Steve said, swiping at his eyes with the arm of his jacket, youll be helping yourself too. The three of you have got to get through it together, Louis. Thats the only way. Thats all anybody knows. Thats right, Louis agreed, and in his mind it all started to happen again, only this time he leaped two feet farther right at the end, and snagged the back of Gages jacket, and none of this was happening. At the time the scene in the East Room happened, Ellie was pushing her Monopoly marker aimlesslyand silentlyaround the board with Jud Crandall. She shook the dice with one hand and clutched the Polaroid of her pulling Gage on her Speedaway sled with the other. Steve Masterton had decided it would be all right for Rachel to attend the afternoon viewingin light of later developments, it was a decision he came to deeply regret. The Goldmans had flown into Bangor that morning and were staying at the Holiday Inn. Her father had called four times by noon, and Steve had to be increasingly firmalmost threatening, by call fourwith the old man. Irwin Goldman wanted to come out and not all the dogs of hell could keep him from his daughter in her time of need, he said. Steve responded that Rachel needed this time before going to the funeral parlor to get over as much of her initial shock as she could. He didnt know about all the dogs of hell, he said, but he knew one SwedishAmerican physician's assistant that had no intention of allowing anyone into the Creed home until Rachel had appeared in public, of her own volition. After the viewing in the afternoon, Steve said, he would be more than happy to let the relatives support system take over. Until then, he wanted her left alone. The old man swore at him in Yiddish and banged the phone down at his end, breaking the connection. Steve waited to see if Goldman would indeed show up, but Goldman had apparently decided to wait. By noon Rachel did seem a little better. She was at least aware of the time frame she was in, and she had gone out to the kitchen to see if there were sandwich makings or anything for after. People would probably want to come back to the house after, wouldnt they? she asked Steve. Steve nodded. There was no bologna or cold roast beef, but there was a Butterball turkey in the freezer, and she put it on the drainboard to thaw. Steve looked into the kitchen a few minutes later and saw her standing by the sink, looking fixedly at the turkey on the drainboard and weeping. Rachel? She looked toward Steve. Gage really liked these. He especially liked the white meat. It was just occurring to me that he was never going to eat another Butterball turkey. Steve sent her upstairs to dressthe final test of her ability to cope, reallyand when she came down wearing a simple black dress belted at the waist and carrying a small black clutch bag (an evening bag, really), Steve decided she was all right, and Jud concurred. Steve drove her into town. He stood with Surrendra Hardu in the lobby of the East Room and watched Rachel drift down the aisle toward the flowerburied coffin like a wraith. How is it going, Steve? Surrendra asked quietly. Going fucking terrible, Steve said in a low, harsh voice. How did you think it was going? I thought it was probably going fucking terrible, Surrendra said and sighed. The trouble really began at the morning viewing, when Irwin Goldman refused to shake hands with his soninlaw. The sight of so many friends and relatives had actually forced Louis out of the web of shock a little, had forced him to notice what was going on and be outward. He had reached that stage of malleable grief that funeral directors are so used to handling and turning to its best advantage. Louis was moved around like a counter in a Parcheesi game. Outside the East Room was a small foyer where people could smoke and sit in overstuffed easy chairs. The chairs looked as if they might have come directly from a distress sale at some old English mens club that had gone broke. Beside the door leading into the viewing room was a small easel, black metal chased with gold, and on this easel was a small sign which said simply CAGE WILLIAM CREED. If you went across this spacious white building that looked misleadingly like a comfortable old house, you came to an identical foyer, this one outside the West Room, where the sign on the easel read ALBERTA BURNHAM NEDEAU. At the back of the house was the Riverfront Room. The easel to the left of the door between the foyer and this room was blank; it was not in use on this Tuesday morning. Downstairs was the coffin showroom, each model lit by a baby spotlight mounted on the ceiling. If you looked upLouis had, and the funeral director had frowned severely at himit looked as if there were a lot of strange animals roosting up there. Jud had come with him on Sunday, the day after Gage had died, to pick out a coffin. They had gone downstairs, and instead of immediately turning right into the coffin showroom, Louis, dazed, had continued straight on down the hallway toward a plain white swinging door, the sort you see communicating between restaurant dining rooms and the kitchen. Both Jud and the funeral director had said quickly and simultaneously, Not that way, and Louis had followed them away from that swinging door obediently. He knew what was behind that door though. His uncle had been an undertaker. The East Room was furnished with neat rows of folding chairsthe expensive ones with plushy seats and backs. At the front, in an area that seemed a combination nave and bower, was Cages coffin. Louis had picked the American Casket Companys rosewood modelEternal Rest, it was called. It was lined with plushy pink silk. The mortician agreed that it was really a beautiful coffin and apologized that he did not have one with a blue lining. Louis responded that he and Rachel had never made such distinctions. The mortician had nodded. The mortician asked Louis if he had thought about how he would defray the expenses of Cages funeral. If not, he said, he could take Louis into his office and quickly go over three of their more popular plans In Louiss mind, an announcer suddenly spoke up cheerfully I got my kids coffin free, for Raleigh coupons! Feeling like a creature in a dream, he said, Im going to pay for everything with my MasterCard. Fine, the mortician said. The coffin was no more than four feet longa dwarf coffin. Nonetheless its price was slightly over six hundred dollars. Louis supposed it rested on trestles, but the flowers made it difficult to see, and he hadnt wanted to go too close. The smell of all those flowers made him want to gag. At the head of the aisle, just inside the door giving onto the foyerlounge, was a book on a stand. Chained to the stand was a ballpoint pen. It was here that the funeral director positioned Louis, so he could greet his friends and relatives. The friends and relatives were supposed to sign the book with their names and addresses. Louis had never had the slightest idea what the purpose of this mad custom might be, and he did not ask now. He supposed that when the funeral was over, he and Rachel would get to keep the book. That seemed the maddest thing of all. Somewhere he had a high school yearbook and a college yearbook and a med school yearbook; there was also a wedding book, with MY WEDDING DAY stamped on the imitation leather in imitation gold leaf, beginning with a photo of Rachel trying on her bridal veil before the mirror that morning with her mothers help and ending with a photo of two pairs of shoes outside a closed hotel door. There was also a baby book for Ellie they had tired of adding to it rather quickly though; that one with its spaces for MY FIRST HAIRCUT (add a lock of babys hair) and WHOOPS! (add a picture of baby falling on her ass) had been just too relentlessly cute. Now, added to all the others, this one. What do we call it? Louis wondered as he stood numbly beside the stand waiting for the party to begin. MY DEATHBOOK? FUNERAL AUTOGRAPHS? THE DAY WE PLANTED GAGE? Or maybe something more dignified, like A DEATH IN THE FAMILY? He turned the book back to its cover, which, like the cover to the MY WEDDING DAY book, was imitation leather. The cover was blank. Almost predictably, Missy Dandridge had been the first to arrive that morning, goodhearted Missy who had sat with Ellie and Gage on dozens of occasions. Louis found himself remembering that it had been Missy who had taken the kids on the evening of the day Victor Pascow had died. She had taken the kids, and Rachel had made love to him, first in the tub, then in bed. Missy had been crying, crying hard, and at the sight of Louiss calm, still face, she burst into fresh tears and reached for him seemed to grope for him. Louis embraced her, realizing that this was the way it worked or the way it was supposed to work, anywaysome kind of human charge that went back and forth, loosening up the hard earth of loss, venting it, breaking up the rocky path of shock with the heat of sorrow. Im so sorry, Missy was saying, brushing her dark blond hair back from her pallid face. Such a dear sweet little boy. I loved him so much, Louis, Im so sorry, its an awful road, I hope they put that truck driver in jail forever, he was going much too fast, he was so sweet, so dear, so bright, why would Cod take Gage, I dont know, we cant understand, can we, but Im sorry, sorry, so sorry. Louis comforted her, held her and comforted her. He felt her tears on his collar, the press of her breasts against him. She wanted to know where Rachel was, and Louis told her that Rachel was resting. Missy promised to go see her and that she would sit with Ellie anytime, for as long as they needed her. Louis thanked her. She had started away, still sniffing, her eyes redder than ever above her black handkerchief. She was moving toward the coffin when Louis called her back. The funeral director, whose name Louis could not even remember, had told him to have them sign the book, and damned if he wasnt going to have them do it. Mystery guest, sign in please, he thought and came very close to going off into cackles of bright, hysterical laughter. It was Missys woeful, heartbroken eyes that drove the laughter away. Missy, would you sign the book? he asked her, and because something else seemed to be needed, he added, For Rachel. Of course, she said. Poor Louis and poor Rachel. And suddenly Louis knew what she was going to say next, and for some reason he dreaded it; yet it was coming, unavoidable, like a black bullet of a large caliber from a killers gun, and he knew that he would be struck over and over by this bullet in the next interminable ninety minutes, and then again in the afternoon, while the wounds of the morning were still trickling blood Thank God he didnt suffer, Louis. At least it was quick. Yes, it was quick, all right, he thought about saying to herah, how that would shatter her face all over again, and he felt a vicious urge to do it, to simply spray the words into her face. It was quick, no doubt about that, thats why the coffins closed, nothing could have been done about Gage even if Rachel and I approved of dressing up dead relatives in their best like department store mannequins and rouging and powdering and painting their faces. It was quick, Missymydear, one minute he was there on the road and the next minute he was lying in it, but way down by the Ringers house. It hit him and killed him and then it dragged him and you better believe it was quick. A hundred yards or more all told, the length of a football field. I ran after him, Missy, I was screaming his name over and over again, almost as if I expected he would still be alive, me, a doctor. I ran ten yards and there was his baseball cap and I ran twenty yards and there was one of his Star Wars sneakers, I ran forty yards and by then the truck had run off the road and the box had jackknifed in that field beyond the Ringers barn. People were coming out of their houses and I went on screaming his name, Missy, and at the fiftyyard line there was his jumper, it was turned insideout, and on the seventyyard line there was the other sneaker, and then there was Gage. Abruptly the world went dove gray. Everything passed out of his view. Dimly he could feel the corner of the stand which held the book digging into his palm, but that was all. Louis? Missys voice. Distant. The mystery sound of pigeons in his ears. Louis? Closer now. Alarmed. The world swam back into focus. You all right? He smiled. Fine, he said. Im okay, Missy. She signed for herself and her husbandMr. and Mrs. David Dandridgein round Palmermethod script; to this she added their addressRural Box 67, Old Bucksport Roadand then raised her eyes to Louiss and quickly dropped them, as if her very address on the road where Gage had died constituted a crime. Be well, Louis, she whispered. David Dandridge shook his hand and muttered something inarticulate, his prominent, arrowheadshaped adams apple bobbing up and down. Then he followed his wife hurriedly down the aisle for the ritual examination of a coffin which had been made in Storyville, Ohio, a place where Gage had never been and where he was not known. Following the Dandridges they all came, moving in a shuffling line, and Louis received them, their handshakes, their hugs, their tears. His collar and the upper sleeve of his dark gray suit coat soon became quite damp. The smell of the flowers began to reach even the back of the room and to permeate the place with the smell of funeral. It was a smell he remembered from his childhoodthat sweet, thick, mortuary smell of flowers. Louis was told how merciful it was that Gage hadnt suffered thirtytwo times by his own inner count. He was told that God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform twentyfive times. Bringing up the rear was hes with the angels now, a total of twelve times. It began to get to him. Instead of losing what marginal sense these little aphorisms had (the way your own name will lose its sense and identity if you repeat it over and over again), they seemed to punch deeper each time, angling in toward the vitals. By the time his motherinlaw and fatherinlaw put in their inevitable appearance, he had begun to feel like a hardtagged fighter. His first thought was that Rachel had been rightand how. Irwin Goldman had indeed aged. He waswhat? Fiftyeight, fiftynine? Today he looked a graven and composed seventy. He looked almost absurdly like Israels Prime Minister Menachem Begin with his bald head and Cokebottle glasses. Rachel had told Louis Goldman had aged when she came back from her Thanksgiving trip, but Louis had not expected this. Of course, he thought, maybe it hadnt been this bad at Thanksgiving. The old man hadnt lost one of his two grandchildren at Thanksgiving. Dory walked beside him, her face all but invisible under two possibly threelayers of heavy black netting. Her hair was fashionably blue, the color favored by elderly ladies of an upperclass American persuasion. She held her husbands ann. All Louis could really see behind the veil was the glitter of her tears. Suddenly he decided it was time to let bygones be bygones. He could not hold the old grudge any longer. Suddenly it was too heavy. Perhaps it was the cumulative weight of all those platitudes. Irwin. Dory, he murmured. Thank you for coming. He made a gesture with his arms, as if to shake hands with Rachels father and hug her mother simultaneously, or perhaps even to hug them both. Either way he felt his own tears start for the first time, and for an instant he had the crazy idea that they could mend all their fences, that Gage would do that much for them in his dying, as if this were some romantic ladies novel he had stepped into where the wages of death were reconciliation, where it could cause something more constructive than this endless, stupid, grinding ache which just went on and on and on. Dory started toward him, making a gesture, beginning, perhaps, to hold out her own arms. She said somethingOh, Louis . . . and something else that was garbledand then Goldman pulled his wife back. For a moment the three of them stood in a tableau that no one noticed except themselves (unless perhaps the funeral director, standing unobtrusively in the far corner of the East Room, sawLouis supposed that Uncle Carl would have seen), Louis with his arms partly outstretched, Irwin and Dory Goldman standing as stiff and straight as a couple on a wedding cake. Louis saw that there were no tears in his fatherinlaws eyes; they were bright and clear with hate (does he think I killed Gage to spite him? Louis wondered). Those eyes seemed to measure Louis, to find him the same small and pointless man who had kidnapped his daughter and brought her to this sorrow . . . and then to dismiss him. His eyes shifted to Louiss leftto Gages coffin, in factand only then did they soften. Still Louis made a final effort. Irwin, he said. Dory. Please. We have to get together on this.

Louis, Dory said againkindly, Louis thoughtand then they were past him, Irwin Goldman perhaps pulling his wife along, not looking to the left or the right, certainly not looking at Louis Creed. They approached the coffin, and Goldman fumbled a small black skullcap out of his suit coat pocket. You didnt sign the book, Louis thought, and then a silent belch of such malignantly acidic content rose through his digestive works that his face clenched in pain. The morning viewing ended at last. Louis called home. Jud answered and asked him how it had gone. All right, Louis said. He asked Jud if he could talk to Steve. If she can dress herself, Im going to let her come this afternoon, Steve said. Okay by you? Yes, Louis said. How are you, Lou? No bullshit and straight onhow are you? All right, Louis said briefly. Coping. I had all of them sign the book. All of them except Dory and Irwin, and they wouldnt. All right, Steve said. Look, shall we meet you for lunch? Lunch. Meeting for lunch. This seemed such an alien idea that Louis thought of the science fiction novels he had read as a teenagernovels by Robert A. Heinlein, Murray Leinster, Gordon R. Dickson. The natives here on Planet Quark have an odd custom when one of their children dies, Lieutenant Abelson they meet for lunch. I know how grotesque and barbaric that sounds, but remember, this planet has not been terraformed yet. Sure, Louis said. Whats a good restaurant for half time between funeral viewings, Steve? Take it easy, Lou, Steve said, but he didnt seem entirely displeased. In this state of crazy calm, Louis felt better able to see into people than ever before in his life. Perhaps it was an illusion, but right now he suspected Steve was thinking that even a sudden spate of sarcasm, squirted out like an abrupt mouthful of bile, was preferable to his earlier state of disconnection. Dont worry, he said to Steve now. What about Benjamin's? Sure, Steve said. Benjamins would be fine. He had made the call from the office of the funeral director. Now, as Louis passed the East Room on his way out, he saw that the room was almost empty, but Irwin and Dory Goldman sat down in the front row, heads bowed. They looked to Louis as if they might sit there forever. Benjamins was the right choice. Bangor was an earlylunch town, and around one oclock it was nearly deserted. Jud had come along with Steve and Rachel, and the four of them ate fried chicken. At one point Rachel went to the ladies room and remained in there so long that Steve became nervous. He was on the verge of asking a waitress to check on her when she came back to the table, her eyes red. Louis picked at his chicken and drank a lot of Schlitz beer. Jud matched him bottle for bottle, not talking much. Their four meals went back almost uneaten, and with his preternatural insight, Louis saw the waitress, a fat girl with a pretty face, debating with herself about whether or not to ask them if their meals had been all right, finally taking another look at Rachels redrimmed eyes and deciding it would be the wrong question. Over coffee Rachel said something so suddenly and so baldly that it rather shocked them allparticularly Louis, who at last was becoming sleepy with the beer. Im going to give his clothes to the Salvation Army. Are you? Steve said after a moment. Yes, Rachel said. Theres a lot of wear in them yet. All his jumpers . . . his corduroy pants . . . his shirts. Someone will be glad to get them. Theyre all very serviceable. Except for the ones he was wearing, of course. Theyre . . . ruined. The last word became a miserable choke. She tried to drink coffee, but that was no good. A moment later she was sobbing into her hands. There was a queer moment then. There were crossing lines of tension then. They all seemed to focus on Louis. He felt this with the same preternatural insight hed had all this day, and of them all, this was the clearest and surest. Even the waitress felt those converging lines of awareness. He saw her pause at a table near the back where she was laying placemats and silver. For a moment Louis was puzzled, and then he understood they were waiting for him to comfort his wife. He couldnt do it. He wanted to do it. He understood it was his responsibility to do it. All the same, he couldnt. It was the cat that got in his way. Suddenly and with no rime or reason. The cat. The fucking cat. Church with his ripped mice and the birds he had grounded forever. When he found them, Louis had cleaned up the messes promptly, with no complaint or comment, certainly without protest. He had, after all, bought them. But had he bought this? He saw his fingers. Louis saw his fingers. He saw his fingers lightly skating over the back of Gages jacket. Then Gages jacket had been gone. Then Gage had been gone. He looked into his coffee cup and let his wife cry beside him, uncomforted. After a momentin terms of clock time probably quite short, but both then and in retrospect it seemed longSteve put an arm around her and hugged her gently. His eyes on Louiss were reproachful and angry. Louis turned from them toward Jud, but Jud was looking down, as if in shame. There was no help there. 37 I knew something like this would happen, Irwin Goldman said. That was how the trouble started. I knew it when she married you. Youll have all the grief you can stand and more, I said. And look at this. Look at this . . . this mess. Louis looked slowly around at his fatherinlaw, who had appeared before him like some malign jackinthebox in a skullcap; and then, instinctively, he looked around at where Rachel had been, by the book on the standthe afternoon shift was hers by defaultbut Rachel was gone. The afternoon viewing had been less crowded, and after half an hour or so, Louis had gone down to the front row of seats and sat there on the aisle, aware of very little (only peripherally aware of the cloying stink of the flowers) except the fact that he was very tired and sleepy. It was only partly the beer, he supposed. His mind was finally ready to shut down. Probably a good thing. Perhaps, after twelve or sixteen hours of sleep, he would be able to comfort Rachel a little. After a while his head had sunk until he was looking at his hands, loosely linked between his knees. The hum of voices near the back was soothing. He had been relieved to see that Irwin and Dory werent here when the four of them returned from lunch, but he should have known their continued absence was too good to be true. Wheres Rachel? Louis asked now. With her mother. Where she should be. Goldman spoke with the studied triumph of a man who has closed a big deal. There was Scotch on his breath. A lot of it. He stood before Louis like a banty little district attorney before a man in the bar of justice, a man who is patently guilty. He was unsteady on his feet. What did you say to her? Louis said, feeling the beginnings of alarm now. He knew Goldman had said something. It was in the mans face. Nothing but the truth. I told her this is what it gets you, marrying against your parents wishes. I told her Did you say that? Louis asked incredulously. You didnt really say that, did you? That and more, Irwin Goldman said, I always knew it would come to thisthis or something like it. I knew what kind of a man you were the first time I saw you. He leaned forward, exhaling Scotch fumes. I saw through you, you prancing little fraud of a doctor. You enticed my daughter into a stupid, feckless marriage and then you turned her into a scullery maid and then you let her son be run down in the highway like a . . . a chipmunk. Most of this went over Louiss head. He was still groping with the idea that this stupid little man could have You said that to her? he repeated. You said it? I hope you rot in hell! Goldman said, and heads turned sharply toward the sound of his voice. Tears began to squeeze out of Irwin Goldmans bloodshot brown eyes. His bald head glowed under the muted fluorescent lights. You made my wonderful daughter into a scullery maid . . . destroyed her future took her away . . . and let my grandson die a dirty death in a country road. His voice rose to a hectoring scream. Where were you? Sitting on your ass while he was playing in the road? Thinking about your stupid medical articles? What were you doing, you shit? You stinking shit! Killer of children! K There they were. There they were at the front of the East Room. There they were, and Louis saw his arm go out. He saw the sleeve of his suit coat pull back from the cuff of his white shirt. He saw the mellow gleam of one cufflink. Rachel had given him the set for their third wedding anniversary, never knowing that her husband would someday wear these cufflinks to the funeral ceremonies of their thenunborn son. His fist was just something tied to the end of his arm. It connected with Goldmans mouth. He felt the old mans lips squash and splay back. It was a sickening feeling, reallysquashing a slug with your fist might feel something like that. There was no satisfaction in it. Beneath the flesh of his fatherinlaws lips he could feel the stern, unyielding regularity of his dentures. Goldman went stumbling backward. His arm came down against Gages coffin, knocking it aslant. One of the vases, topheavy with flowers, fell over with a crash. Someone screamed. It was Rachel, struggling with her mother, who was trying to hold her back. The people who were thereten or fifteen in all seemed frozen between fright and embarrassment. Steve had taken Jud back to Ludlow, and Louis was dimly grateful for that. This was not a scene he would have wished Jud to witness. It was unseemly. Dont hurt him! Rachel screamed. Louis, dont hurt my father! You like to hit old men, do you? Irwin Goldman of the overflowing checkbook cried out shrilly. He was grinning through a mouthful of blood. You like to hit old men? I am not surprised, you stinking bastard. That does not surprise me at all. Louis turned toward him, and Goldman struck him in the neck. It was a clumsy, sidehanded, chopping blow, but Louis was unprepared for it. A paralyzing pain that would make it hard for him to swallow for the next two hours exploded in his throat. His head rocked back, and he fell to one knee in the aisle. First the flowers, now me, he thought. What is it the Ramones say? Heyho, lets go! He thought he wanted to laugh, but there was no laugh in him. What came out of his hurt throat was a little groan. Rachel screamed again. Irwin Goldman, his mouth dripping blood, marched over to where his soninlaw kneeled and kicked Louis smartly in the kidneys. The pain was a bright flare of agony. He put his hands down on the rug runner to keep from going flop on his belly. You dont do so good even against old men, sonny! Goldman cried with cracked excitement. He kicked out at Louis again, missing the kidney this time, getting Louis on the high part of the left buttock with one black old mans shoe. Louis grunted in pain, and this time he did go down on the carpet. His chin hit with an audible crack. He bit his tongue. There! Goldman cried. Theres the kick in the ass I should have given you the first time you came sucking around, you bastard. There! He kicked Louis in the ass again, this time connecting with the other buttock. He was weeping and grinning. Louis saw for the first time that Goldman was unshavena sign of mourning. The funeral director raced toward them. Rachel had broken Mrs. Goldmans hold and was also racing toward them, screaming. Louis rolled clumsily over on his side and sat up. His fatherinlaw kicked out at him again and Louis caught his shoe in both handsit thwapped solidly into his palms like a wellcaught footballand shoved backward as hard as he could. Bellowing, Goldman flew backward at an angle, pinwheeling his arms for balance. He fell on Gages Eternal Rest casket, which had been manufactured in the town of Storyville, Ohio, and which had not come cheap. Oz the Gweat and Tewwible has just fallen on top of my sons coffin, Louis thought dazedly. The casket fell from the trestle with a huge crash. The left end fell first, then the right. The latch snapped. Even over the screams and the crying, even over the bellows of Goldman, who after all was only playing a childrens party game of Pin the Blame on the Donkey, Louis heard the lock snap. The coffin did not actually open and spill Gages sad, hurt remains out onto the floor for all of them to gawp at, but Louis was sickly aware that they had only been spared that by the way the coffin had fallenon its bottom instead of on its side. It easily could have fallen that other way. Nonetheless in that split instant before the lid slammed shut on its broken latch again, he saw a flash of graythe suit they had bought to put in the ground around Gages body. And a bit of pink. Gages hand, maybe. Sitting there on the floor, Louis put his face in his hands and began to weep. He had lost all interest in his fatherinlaw, in the MX missile, in permanent versus dissolving sutures, in the heat death of the universe. At that moment, Louis Creed wished he were dead. And suddenly, weirdly, an image rose in his mind Gage in Mickey Mouse ears, Gage laughing and shaking hands with a great big Goofy on Main Street, in Disney World. He saw this with utter clarity. One of the trestle supports had fallen over; the other leaned with drunken casualness against the low dais where a minister might stand to offer a eulogy. Sprawled in the flowers was Goldman, also weeping. Water from the overturned vases trickled. The flowers, some of them crushed and mangled, gave off their turgid scent even more strongly. Rachel was screaming and screaming. Louis could not respond to her screams. The image of Gage in Mickey Mouse ears was fading, but not before he heard a voice announcing there would be fireworks later that evening. He sat with his face in his hands, not wanting them to see him anymore, his tearstained face, his loss, his guilt, his pain, his shame, most of all his cowardly wish to be dead and out of this blackness. The funeral director and Dory Goldman led Rachel out. She was still screaming. Later on, in another room (one that Louis assumed was reserved especially for those overcome with grief the Hysterics Parlor, perhaps) she became very silent. Louis himself, dazed but sane and in control, sedated her this time, after insisting that the two of them be left alone. At home he led her up to bed and gave her another shot. Then he pulled the covers up to her chin and regarded her waxy, pallid face. Rachel, Im sorry, he said. Id give anything in the world to take that back. Its all right, she said in a strange, flat voice and then rolled over on her side, turning away from him. He heard the tired old question Are you all right? rising to his lips and pushed it back. It wasnt a true question; it wasnt what he really wanted to know. How bad are you? he asked finally. Pretty bad, Louis, she said and then uttered a sound that could have been a laugh. I am terrible, in fact. Something more seemed required, but Louis could not supply it. He felt suddenly resentful of her, of Steve Masterton, of Missy Dandridge and her husband with his arrowheadshaped adams apple, of the whole damned crew. Why should he have to be the eternal supplier? What sort of shit was that? He turned off the light and left. He found that he could not give much more to his daughter. For one wild moment, regarding her in her shadowy room, he thought she was Gagethe thought came to him that the whole thing had been a hideous nightmare, like his dream of Pascow leading him into the woods, and for a moment his tired mind grasped at it. The shadows helpedthere was only the shifting light of the portable TV that Jud had taken up for her to pass the hours. The long, long hours. But it wasnt Gage, of course; it was Ellie, who was now not only grasping the picture in which she was pulling Gage on the sled, but sitting in Cages chair. She had taken it out of his room and brought it into hers. It was a small directors chair with a canvas seat and a canvas strip across the back. Stenciled across that strip was GAGE. Rachel had mailordered four of these chairs. Each member of the family had one with his or her name stenciled on the back. Ellie was too big for Gages chair. She was crammed into it, and the canvas bottom bulged downward dangerously. She held the Polaroid picture to her chest and stared at the TV, where some movie was showing. Ellie, he said, snapping off the TV, bedtime. She worked her way out of the chair, then folded it up. She apparently meant to take the chair into bed with her. Louis hesitated, wanting to say something about the chair, and finally settled on, Do you want me to tuck you in? Yes, please, she said. Do you . . . would you want to sleep with Mommy tonight? No, thanks. You sure? She smiled a little. Yes. She steals the covers. Louis smiled back. Come on then. Instead of trying to put the chair in bed with her, Ellie unfolded it by the head of the bed, and an absurd image came to Louishere was the consulting room of the worlds smallest psychiatrist. She undressed, putting the picture of her and Gage on her pillow to do it. She put on her baby doll pajamas, picked up the picture, went into the bathroom, put it down to wash up, brush, floss, and to take her fluoride tablet. Then she picked it up again and got into bed with it. Louis sat down beside her and said, I want you to know, Ellie, that if we keep on loving each other, we can get through this. Each word was like moving a handcar loaded with wet bales, and the total effort left Louis feeling exhausted. Im going to wish really hard, Ellie said calmly, and pray to God for Gage to come back. Ellie God can take it back if He wants to, Ellie said. He can do anything He wants to. Ellie, God doesnt do things like that, Louis said uneasily, and in his minds eye he saw Church squatting on the closed lid of the toilet, staring at him with those muddy eyes as Louis lay in the tub. He does so, she said. In Sunday School the teacher told us about this guy Lazarus. He was dead, and Jesus brought him back to life. He said Lazarus, come forth, and the teacher said if hed just said Come forth, probably everybody in that graveyard would have come out, and Jesus only wanted Lazarus. An absurdity popped out of his mouth (but the day had sung and gibbered with absurdity) That was a long time ago, Ellie. Im going to keep things ready for him, she said. Ive got his picture, and Im going to sit in his chair Ellie, youre too big for Gages chair, Louis said, taking her hot, feverish hand. Youll break it. God will help it not to break, Ellie said. Her voice was serene, but Louis observed the brown halfmoons under her eyes. Looking at her made his heart ache so badly that he turned away from her. Maybe when Gages chair broke, she would begin to understand what had happened a little better. Im going to carry the picture and sit in his chair, she said. Im going to eat his breakfast too. Gage and Ellie had each had their own breakfast cereals; Gages, Ellie had once claimed, tasted like dead boogers. If Cocoa Bears was the only cereal in the house, Ellie would sometimes eat a boiled egg . . . or nothing at all. Ill eat lima beans even though I hate them, and Ill read all of Gages picturebooks and Ill . . . Ill . . . you know . . . get things ready . . . in case . . . She was crying now. Louis did not try to comfort her but only brushed her hair back from her forehead. What she was talking about made a certain crazed sense. Keeping the lines open. Keeping things current. Keeping Gage in the present, in the Hot One Hundred, refusing to let him recede; remember when Gage did this . . . or that . . . yeah, that was great . . . good old Gage, wotta kid. When it started not to hurt, it started not to matter. She understood, perhaps, Louis thought, how easy it would be to let Gage be dead. Ellie, dont cry anymore, he said. This isnt forever. She cried forever . . . for fifteen minutes. She actually fell asleep before her tears stopped. But eventually she slept, and downstairs the clock struck ten in the quiet house. Keep him alive, Ellie, if thats what you want, he thought and kissed her. The shrinks would probably say its as unhealthy as hell, but Im for it. Because I know the day will comemaybe as soon as this Fridaywhen you forget to carry the picture and Ill see it lying on your bed in this empty room while you ride your bike around the driveway or walk in the field behind the house or go over to Kathy McGowns house to make clothes with her Sew Perfect. Gage wont be with you, and thats when Gage drops off whatever Hot One Hundred there is that exists in little girls hearts and starts to become Something That Happened in 1984. A blast from the past. Louis left the room and stood for a moment at the head of the stairs, thinkingnot seriouslyabout going to bed. He knew what he needed and went downstairs to get it. Louis Albert Creed set methodically about getting drunk. Downstairs in the cellar were five cases of Schlitz Light beer. Louis drank beer, Jud drank it, Steve Masterton drank it, Missy Dandridge would occasionally have a beer or two while watching the kids (kid, Louis reminded himself, going down the cellar stairs). Even Chariton, on the few occasions she had come over to the house, preferred a beeras long as it was a light beerto a glass of wine. So one day last winter Rachel had gone out and bought a staggering ten cases when Schlitz Light went on sale at the Brewer A P. Stop you running down to Julios in Orrington every time somebody drops in, she had said. And youre always quoting Robert Parker to me, loveany beer thats in the refrigerator after the stores close is good beer, right? So drink this and think about the dough youre saving. Last winter. When things had been okay. When things had been okay. It was funny, how quickly and easily your mind made that crucial division. Louis brought up a case of beer and shoved the cans into the fridge. Then he took one can, closed the fridge door, and opened the beer. Church came oiling slowly and rustily out of the pantry at the sound of the refrigerator door and stared inquiringly up at Louis. The cat did not come too close; Louis had perhaps kicked it too many times. Nothing for you, he told the cat. You had your can of Calo today. If you want something else, go kill a bird. Church stood there, looking up at him. Louis drank off half the can of beer and felt it go to his head almost at once. You dont even eat them, do you? he asked. Just killing them is enough for you. Church strolled into the living room, apparently deciding there was going to be no food, and after a moment Louis followed it. He thought again randomly, Heyho, lets go. Louis sat down in his chair and looked at Church again. The cat was reclining on the rug by the TV stand, watching Louis carefully, probably ready to run if Louis should suddenly become aggressive and decide to put his kickingfoot in gear. Instead Louis raised his beer. To Gage, he said. To my son, who might have been an artist or an Olympic swimmer or the motherfucking President of the United States. What do you say, asshole? Church regarded him with those dull, strange eyes. Louis drank off the rest of his beer in big gulps that hurt his tender throat, arose, went to the fridge, and got a second one. By the time Louis had finished three beers, he felt that he had some sort of equilibrium for the first time that day. By the time he had gotten through the first sixpack, he felt that sleep might actually be possible in another hour or so. He came back from the fridge with his eighth or ninth (he had really lost count by then and was walking on a slant), and his eyes fell on Church; the cat was dozingor pretending toon the rug now. The thought came so naturally that it surely must have been there all along, simply waiting its time to come forward from the back of his mind When are you going to do it? When are you going to bury Gage in the annex to the Pet Sematary? And on the heels of that Lazarus, come forth. Ellies sleepy, dazed voice The teacher said if hed just said Come forth, probably everybody in that graveyard would have come out. A chill of such elemental force struck him that Louis clutched himself as the shudder twisted through his body. He suddenly found himself remembering Ellies first day of school, how Gage had gone to sleep on his lap while he and Rachel were listening to Ellie prattle on about Old MacDonald and Mrs. Berryman; he had said Just let me put the baby to bed, and when he took Gage upstairs a horrible premonition had struck him, and now he understood Back in September part of him had known Gage was going to die soon. Part of him had known that Oz the Gweat and Tewwible was at hand. It was nonsense, it was rot, it was superstitious bullshit of the purest ray serene . . . and it was true. He had known. Louis spilled some of his beer on his shirt, and Church looked up wearily to see if this was a signal that the evening's catkicking festivities were about to commence. Louis suddenly remembered the question he had asked Jud; he remembered the way Juds arm had jerked, knocking two empty beer bottles off the table. One of them had shattered. You dont even want to talk about such things, Louis! But he did want to talk about themor at least think about them. The Pet Sematary. What was beyond the Pet Sematary. The idea had a deadly attraction. It made a balance of logic which was impossible to deny. Church had been killed in the road; Gage had been killed in the road. Here was Church changed of course, distasteful in some waysbut here. Ellie, Gage, and Rachel all had a working relationship with him. He killed birds, true, and had turned a few mice inside out, but killing small animals was a cat thing to do. Church had by no means turned into Frankencat. He was, in many ways, as good as ever. Youre rationalizing, a voice whispered. Hes not as good as ever. Hes spooky. The crow, Louis . . . remember the crow? Good God, Louis said aloud in a shaky, distracted voice he was barely able to recognize as his own. God, oh yes, fine, sure. If there had ever been a time to invoke the name of God outside of a novel about ghosts or vampires, this was it. So just whatwhat in the name of Godwas he thinking about? He was thinking about a dark blasphemy which he was even now not wholly able to credit. Worse, he was telling himself lies. Not just rationalizing, but outright lying. So whats the truth? You want the truth so fucking bad, whats the truth? That Church wasnt really a cat anymore at allstart with that. He looked like a cat, and he acted like a cat, but he was really only a poor imitation. People couldnt actually see through that imitation, but they could feel through it. He remembered a night when Chariton had been at the house. The occasion had been a small preChristmas dinner party. Theyd been sitting in here, talking after the meal, and Church had jumped up in her lap. Chariton had pushed the cat off immediately, a quick and instinctive moue of distaste puckering her mouth. It had been no big deal. No one had even commented on it. But . . . it was there. Chariton had felt what the cat wasnt. Louis killed his beer and went back for another. If Gage came back changed in such a way, that would be an obscenity. He popped the top and drank deeply. He was drunk now, drunk for fair, and there would be a big head for him to deal with tomorrow. How I Went to My Sons Funeral with a Hangover by Louis Creed, author of How I Just Missed Him at the Crucial Moment and numerous other works. Drunk. Sure. And he suspected now that the reason he had gotten drunk was so he could consider this crazy idea soberly. In spite of everything, the idea had that deadly attraction, that sick luster, that glamour. Yes, that above all elseit had glamour. Jud was back, speaking in his mind You do it because it gets hold of you. You do it because that burial place is a secret place, and you want to share the secret . . . you make up reasons . . . they seem like good reasons . . . but mostly you do it because you want to. Or because you have to. Juds voice, low and drawling with Yankee intonation, Juds voice chilling his flesh, bringing out the goosebumps, making the hackles on the back of his neck rise. These are secret things, Louis . . . the soil of a mans heart is stonier . . . like the soil up in the old Micmac burying ground. A man grows what he can . . . and he tends it. Louis began to go over the other things Jud had told him about the Micmac burying ground. He began to collate the data, to sort through it, to compress ithe proceeded in exactly the same way he had once readied himself for big exams. The dog. Spot. I could see all the places where the barbed wire had hooked himthere was no fur in any of those places, and the flesh looked dimpled in. The bull. Another file turned over in Louiss mind. Lester Morgan buried his prize hull up there. Black Angus bull, named Hanratty . . . Lester dragged him all the way up there on a sledge . . . shot him dead two weeks later. That bull turned mean, really mean. But hes the only animal I ever heard of that did. He turned mean. The soil of a mans heart is stonier. He turned really mean. Hes the only animal I ever heard of that did. Mostly you do it because once youve been up there, its your place. The flesh looked dimpled in. Hanratty, aint that a silly name for a bull? A man grows what he can . . . and tends it. Theyre my rats. And my birds. I bought the fuckers. Its your place, a secret place, and it belongs to you, and you belong to it. He turned mean, but hes the only animal I ever heard of that did. What do you want to buy next, Louis, when the wind blows hard at night and the moon lays a white path through the woods to that place? Want to climb those stairs again? When theyre watching a horror movie, everyone in the audience knows the hero or the heroine is stupid to go up those stairs, but in real life they always dothey smoke, they dont wear seat belts, they move their family in beside a busy highway where the big rigs drone back and forth all day and all night. So, Louis, what do you say? Want to climb the stairs? Would you like to keep your dead son or go for whats behind Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three? Heyho, lets go. Turned mean . . . only animal . . . the flesh looked . . . a man . . . yours . . . his . . . Louis dumped the rest of the beer down the sink, feeling suddenly that he was going to vomit. The room was moving around in great swinging motions. There was a knock at the door. For a long timeit seemed like a long time, anywayhe believed it was only in his head, a hallucination. But the knocking just went on and on, patient, implacable. And suddenly Louis found himself thinking of the story of the monkeys paw, and a cold terror slipped into him. He seemed to feel it with total physical realityit was like a dead hand that had been kept in a refrigerator, a dead hand which had suddenly taken on its own disembodied life and slipped inside his shirt to clutch the flesh over his heart. It was a silly image, fulsome and silly, but oh, it didnt feel silly. No. Louis went to the door on feet he could not feel and lifted the latch with nerveless fingers. And as he swung it open, he thought Itll be Pascow. Like they said about Jim Morrison, back from the dead and bigger than ever. Pascow standing there in his jogging shorts, big as life and as mouldy as monthold bread, Pascow with his horribly ruined head, Pascow bringing the warning again Dont go up there. What was that old song by the Animals? Baby please dont go, baby PLEASE dont go, you know I love you so, baby please dont go . . .

The door swung open and standing there on his front step in the blowing dark of this midnight, between the day of the funeral parlor visitation and the day of his sons burial, was Jud Crandall. His thin white hair blew randomly in the chilly dark. Louis tried to laugh. Time seemed to have turned cleverly back on itself. It was Thanksgiving again. Soon they would put the stiff, unnaturally thickened body of Ellies cat Winston Churchill into a plastic garbage bag and start off. Oh, do not ask what is it; let us go and make our visit. Can I come in, Louis? Jud asked. He took a pack of Chesterfields from his shirt pocket and poked one into his mouth. Tell you what, Louis said. Its late and Ive been drinking a pile of beer. Ayuh, I could smell it, Jud said. He struck a match. The wind snuffed it. He struck another around cupped hands, but the hands trembled and betrayed the match to the wind again. He got a third match, prepared to strike it, and then looked up at Louis standing in the doorway. I cant get this thing lit, Jud said. Gonna let me in or not, Louis? Louis stepped aside and let Jud walk in. 38 They sat at the kitchen table over beersfirst time weve ever tipped one in our kitchen, Louis thought, a little surprised. Halfway across the living room, Ellie had cried out in her sleep, and both of them had frozen like statues in a childrens game. The cry had not been repeated. Okay, Louis said, what are you doing over here at quarter past twelve on the morning my son gets buried? Youre a friend, Jud, but this is stretching it. Jud drank, wiped his mouth with the heel of his hand, and looked directly at Louis. There was something clear and positive in his eyes, and Louis at last looked down from it. You know why Im here, Jud said. Youre thinking about things that are not to be thought of, Louis. Worse still, I fear youre considering them. I wasnt thinking about anything but going up to bed, Louis said. I have a burying to go to tomorrow. Im responsible for more pain in your heart than you should have tonight, Jud said softly. For all I know, I may even have been responsible for the death of your son. Louis looked up, startled. What? Jud, dont talk crazy! You are thinking of trying to put him up there, Jud said. Dont you deny the thought has crossed your mind, Louis. Louis did not reply. How far does its influence extend? Jud said. Can you tell me that? No. I cant answer that question myself, and Ive lived my whole life in this patch of the world. I know about the Micmacs, and that place was always considered to be a kind of holy place to them . . . but not in a good way. Stanny B. told me that. My father told me toolater on. After Spot died the second time. Now the Micmacs, the state of Maine, and the government of the United States are arguing in court about who owns that land. Who does own it? No one really knows, Louis. Not anymore. Different people laid claim to it at one time or another, but no claim ever stuck. Anson Ludlow, the greatgrandson of this towns founding father, for one. His claim was maybe the best for a white man, since Joseph Ludlow the Elder had the whole shebang as a grant from Good King Georgie back when Maine was just a big province of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. But even then he would have been in a hell of a court fight because there was crossclaims to the land by other Ludlows and by a fellow named Peter Dimmart, who claimed he could prove pretty convincingly that he was a Ludlow on the other side of the sheets. And Joseph Ludlow the Elder was moneypoor but landrich toward the end of his life, and every now and then hed just gift somebody with two or four hundred acres when he got into his cups. Were none of those deeds recorded? Louis asked, fascinated in spite of himself. Oh, they were regular bears for recording deeds, were our grandfathers, Jud said, lighting a new cigarette from the butt of the old one. The original grant on your land goes like this. Jud closed his eyes and quoted, From the great old maple which stands atop Quinceberry Ridge to the verge of Orrington Stream; thus runneth the tract from north until south. Jud grinned without much humor. But the great old maple fell down in 1882, lets say, and was rotted to moss by the year 1900, and Orrington Stream silted up and turned to marsh in the ten years between the end of the Great War and the crash of the stock market. A nice mess it made! It ended up not mattering to old Anson, anyways. He was struck and killed by lightning in 1921, right up around where that burying ground is. Louis stared at Jud. Jud sipped his beer. It dont matter. Theres lots of places where the history of ownership is so tangled it never gets unraveled, only the lawyers end up makin money. Hell, Dickens knew that. I suppose the Indians will get it back in the end, and I think thats the way it should be. But that dont really matter, Louis. I came over here tonight to tell you about Timmy Baterman and his dad. Whos Timmy Baterman? Timmy Baterman was one of the twenty or so boys from Ludlow that went overseas to fight Hitler. He left in 1942. He come back in a box with a flag on the top of it in 1943. He died in Italy. His daddy, Bill Baterman, lived his whole life in this town. He about went crazy when he got the telegram . . . and then he quieted right down. He knew about the Micmac burying ground. you see. And hed decided what he wanted to do. The chill was back. Louis stared at Jud for a long time, trying to read the lie in the old mans eyes. It was not there. But the fact of this story surfacing just now was damned convenient. Why didnt you tell me this that other night? he said finally. After we . . . after we did the cat? When I asked you if anyone had ever buried a person up there, you said no one ever had. Because you didnt need to know, Jud said. Now you do. Louis was silent for a long time. Was he the only one? The only one I know of personally, Jud said gravely. The only one to ever try it? I doubt that, Louis. I doubt it very much. Im kind of like the preacher in ClesiastesI dont believe that theres anything new under the sun. Oh, sometimes the glitter they sprinkle over the top of a thing changes, but thats all. Whats been tried once has been tried once before . . . and before . . . and before. He looked down at his liverspotted hands. In the living room, the clock softly chimed twelvethirty. I decided that a man in your profession is used to looking at symptoms and seeing the diseases underneath . . . and I decided I had to talk straight to you when Mortonson down at the funeral home told me youd ordered a grave liner instead of a sealing vault. Louis looked at Jud for a long time, saying nothing. Jud flushed deeply but didnt look away. Finally Louis said Sounds like maybe you did a little snooping, Jud. I am sorry because of it. I didnt ask him which you bought. Not right out, maybe. But Jud did not reply, and although his blush had deepened even morehis complexion was approaching a plum color nowhis eyes still didnt waver. At last, Louis sighed. He felt unutterably tired. Oh, fuck it. I dont care. Maybe youre even right. Maybe it was on my mind. If it was, it was on the downside of it. I didnt think much about what I was ordering. I was thinking about Gage. I know you were thinking about Gage. But you knew the difference. Your uncle was an undertaker. Yes, he had known the difference. A sealing vault was a piece of construction work, something which was meant to last a long, long time. Concrete was poured into a rectangular mould reinforced with steel rods, and then, after the graveside services were over, a crane lowered a slightly curved concrete top into place. The lid was sealed with a substance like the hotpatch highway departments used to fill potholes. Uncle Carl had told Louis that sealanttradenamed EverLockgot itself a fearsome grip after all that weight had been on it for a while. Uncle Carl, who liked to yarn as much as anyone (at least when he was with his own kind, and Louis, who had worked with him summers for a while, qualified as a sort of apprentice undertaker), told his nephew of an exhumation order hed gotten once from the Cook County D.A.s office. Uncle Carl went out to Groveland to oversee the exhumation. They could be tricky things, he saidpeople whose only ideas concerning disinterral came from those horror movies starring Boris Karloff as Dr. Frankensteins monster and Dwight Frye as Igor had an entirely wrong impression. Opening a sealing vault was no job for two men with picks and shovelsnot unless they had about six weeks to spend on the job. This one went all right . . . at first. The grave was opened, and the crane grappled onto the top of the vault. Only the top didnt just pull off, as it was supposed to do. The whole vault, its concrete sides already a little wet and discolored, started to rise out of the ground instead. Uncle Carl screamed for the crane operator to back off. Uncle Carl wanted to go back to the mortuary and get some stuff that would weaken the sealants grip a bit. The crane operator either didnt hear or wanted to go for the whole thing, like a little kid playing with a toy crane and junk prizes in a penny arcade. Uncle Carl said that the damned fool almost got it too. The vault was three quarters of the way out Uncle Carl and his assistant could hear water pattering from the underside of the vault onto the floor of the grave (it had been a wet week in Chicagoland) when the crane just tipped over and went kerplunk into the grave. The crane operator crashed into the windshield and broke his nose. That days festivities cost Cook County roughly 3,0002,100 over the usual price of such gay goingson. The real point of the story for Uncle Carl was that the crane operator had been elected president of the Chicago local of the Teamsters six years later. Grave liners were simpler matters. Such a liner was no more than a humble concrete box, open at the top. It was set into the grave on the morning of a funeral. Following the services, the coffin was lowered into it. The sextons then brought on the top, which was usually in two segments. These segments were lowered vertically into the ends of the grave, where they stood up like bookends. Iron rings were embedded into the concrete at the ends of each segment. The sextons would run lengths of chain through them and lower them gently onto the top of the grave liner. Each section would weigh sixty, perhaps seventy pounds eighty, tops. And no sealer was used. It was easy enough for a man to open a grave liner; thats what Jud was implying. Easy enough for a man to disinter the body of his son and bury it someplace else. Shhhhh . . . shhhh. We will not speak of such things. These are secret things. Yes, I guess I knew the difference between a sealing vault and a grave liner, Louis said. But I wasnt thinking about about what you think I was thinking about. Louis Its late, Louis said. Its late, Im drunk, and my heart aches. If you feel like you have to tell me this story, then tell me and lets get it over with. Maybe I should have started with martinis, he thought. Then I could have been safely passed out when he came knocking. All right, Louis. Thank you. Just go on. Jud paused a moment, thinking, then began to speak. 39 In those daysback during the war, I meanthe train still stopped in Orrington, and Bill Baterman had a funeral hack there at the loading depot to meet the freight carrying the body of his son Timmy. The coffin was unloaded by four railroad men. I was one of them. There was an army fellow on board from Graves and Registrationthat was the armys wartime version of undertakers, Louisbut he never got off the train. He was sitting drunk in a boxcar that still had twelve coffins in it. We put Timmy into the back of a mortuary Cadillacin those days it still wasnt uncommon to hear such things called hurryup wagons because in the old days, the major concern was to get them into the ground before they rotted. Bill Baterman stood by, his face stony and kinda . . . I dunno . . . kinda dry, I guess youd say. He wept no tears. Huey Garber was driving the train that day, and he said that army fella had really had a tour for himself. Huey said theyd flown in a whole shitload of those coffins to Limestone in Presque Isle, at which point both the coffins and their keeper entrained for points south. The army fella comes walking up to Huey, and he takes a fifth of rye whiskey out of his uniform blouse, and he says in this soft, drawly Dixie voice, Well, Mr. Engineer, youre driving a mystery train today, did you know that? Huey shakes his head. Well, you are. At least, thats what they call a funeral train down in Alabama. Huey says the fella took a list out of his pocket and squinted at it. Were going to start by dropping two of those coffins off in Houlton, and then Ive got one for Passadumkeag, two for Bangor, one for Derry, one for Ludlow, and so on. I feel like a fugging milkman. You want a drink? Well, Huey declines the drink on the grounds that the Bangor and Aroostook is pretty fussy on the subject of train drivers with rye on their breaths, and the fella from Graves and Registration dont hold it against Huey, any more than Huey holds the fact of the army fellas drunkenness against him. They even shook on her, Huey said. So off they go, dropping those flagcovered coffins every other stop or two. Eighteen or twenty of em in all. Huey said it went on all the way to Boston, and there was weeping and wailing relatives at every stop except Ludlow . . . and at Ludlow he was treated to the sight of Bill Baterman, who, he said, looked like he was dead inside and just waiting for his soul to stink. When he got off that train, he said he woke up that army fella, and they hit some spotsfifteen or twentyand Huey got drunker than he had ever been and went to a whore, which hed never done in his whole life, and woke up with a set of crabs so big and mean they gave him the shivers, and he said that if that was what they called a mystery train, he never wanted to drive no mystery train again. Timmys body was taken up to the Greenspan Funeral Home on Fern Streetit used to be across from where the New Franklin Laundry stands nowand two days later he was buried in Pleasantview Cemetery with full military honors. Well, I tell you, Louis Missus Baterman was dead ten years then, along with the second child she tried to bring into the world, and that had a lot to do with what happened. A second child might have helped to ease the pain, dont you think? A second child might have reminded old Bill that theres others that feel the pain and have to be helped through. I guess in that way, youre luckierhaving another child and all, I mean. A child and a wife who are both alive and well. According to the letter Bill got from the lieutenant in charge of his boys platoon, Timmy was shot down on the road to Rome on July 15, 1943. His body was shipped home two days later, and it got to Limestone on the nineteenth. It was put aboard Huey Garbers mystery train the very next day. Most of the GIs who got killed in Europe were buried in Europe, but all of the boys who went home on that train were specialTimmy had died charging a machinegun nest, and he had won the Silver Star posthumously. Timmy was burieddont hold me to this, but I think it was on July 22. It was four or five days later that Marjorie Washburn, who was the mailwoman in those days, saw Timmy walking up the road toward Yorks Livery Stable. Well, Margie damn near drove right off the road, and you can understand why. She went back to the post office, tossed her leather bag with all her undelivered mail still in it on George Andersons desk, and told him she was going home and to bed right then. Margie, are you sick? George asks. You are just as white as a gulls wing. Ive had the fright of my life, and I dont want to talk to you about it, Margie Washburn says. I aint going to talk to Brian about it, or my mom, or anybody. When I get up to heaven, if Jesus asks me to talk to Him about it, maybe I will. But I dont believe it. And out she goes. Everybody knew Timmy was dead; there was his bituary in the Bangor Daily News and the Ellsworth American just the week before, picture and all, and half the town turned out for his funeral up to the city. And here Margie seen him, walking up the roadlurching up the road, she finally told old George Andersononly this was twenty years later, and she was dying, and George told me it seemed to him like she wanted to tell somebody what shed seen. George said it seemed to him like it preyed on her mind, you know. Pale he was, she said, and dressed in an old pair of chino pants and a faded flannel hunting shirt, although it must have been ninety degrees in the shade that day. Margie said all his hair was sticking up in the back. His eyes were like raisins stuck in bread dough. I saw a ghost that day, George. Thats what scared me so. I never thought Id see such a thing, but there it was. Well, word got around. Pretty soon some other people saw Timmy, too. Missus Strattonwell, we called her missus, but so far as anyone knew she could have been single or divorced or grasswidowed; she had a little tworoom house down where the Pedersen Road joins the Hancock Road, and she had a lot of jazz records, and sometimes shed be willing to throw you a little party if you had a tendollar bill that wasnt working too hard. Well, she saw him from her porch, and she said he walked right up to the edge of the road and stopped there. He just stood there, she said, his hands dangling at his sides and his head pushed forward, lookin like a boxer whos ready to eat him some canvas. She said she stood there on her porch, heart goin like sixty, too scared to move. Then she said he turned around, and it was like watching a drunk man try to do an aboutface. One leg went way out and the other foot turned, and he just about fell over. She said he looked right at her and all the strength just run out of her hands and she dropped the basket of washing she had, and the clothes fell out and got smutty all over again. She said his eyes . . . she said they looked as dead and dusty as marbles, Louis. But he saw her . . . and he grinned . . . and she said he talked to her. Asked her if she still had those records because he wouldnt mind cutting a rug with her. Maybe that very night. And Missus Stratton went back inside, and she wouldnt come out for most of a week, and by then it was over anyway. Lot of people saw Timmy Baterman. Many of them are dead nowMissus Stratton is, for one, and others have moved on, but there are a few old crocks like me left around wholl tell you. if you ask em right. We saw him, I tell you, walking back and forth along the Pedersen Road, a mile east of his daddys house and a mile west. Back and forth he went, back and forth all day, and for all anyone knew, all night. Shirt untucked, pale face, hair all stuck up in spikes, fly unzipped sometimes, and this look on his face . . . this look . . . Jud paused to light a cigarette, then shook the match out, and looked at Louis through the haze of drifting blue smoke. And although the story was, of course, utterly mad, there was no lie in Juds eyes. You know, they have these stories and these moviesI dont know if theyre trueabout zombies down in Haiti. In the movies they just sort of shamble along, with their dead eyes starin straight ahead, real slow and sort of clumsy. Timmy Baterman was like that, Louis, like a zombie in a movie, but he wasnt. There was somethin more. There was somethin goin on behind his eyes, and sometimes you could see it and sometimes you couldnt see it. Somethin behind his eyes, Louis. I dont think that thinkin is what I want to call it. I dont know what in the hell I want to call it. It was sly, that was one thing. Like him tellin Missus Stratton he wanted to cut a rug with her. There was somethin goin on in there, Louis, but I dont think it was thinkin and I dont think it had muchmaybe nothing at allto do with Timmy Baterman. It was more like a . . . a radio signal that was comin from somewhere else. You looked at him and you thought, If he touches me, Im gonna scream. Like that. Back and forth he went, up and down the road, and one day after I got home from workthis must have been, oh, Im going to say it was July 30 or sohere is George Anderson, the postmaster, dont you know, sitting on my back porch, drinking iced tea with Hannibal Benson, who was then our second selectman, and Alan Purinton, who was fire chief. Norma sat there too but never said a thing. George kept rubbing the stump at the top of his right leg. Lost most of that leg working on the railroad, he did, and the stump used to bother him something fierce on those hot and muggy days. But here he was, misery or not. This has gone far enough, George says to me. I got a mailwoman who wont deliver out on the Pedersen Roadthats one thing. Its starting to raise Cain with the government, and thats something else. What do you mean, its raising Cain with the government? I asked Hannibal said hed had a call from the War Department. Some lieutenant named Kinsman whose job it was to sort out malicious mischief from plain old tomfoolery. Four or five people have written anonymous letters to the War Department, Hannibal says, and this Lieutenant Kinsman is starting to get a little bit concerned. If it was just one fellow who had written one letter, theyd laugh it off. If it was just one fellow writing a whole bunch of letters, Kinsman says hed call the state police up in Derry Barracks and tell em they might have a psychopath with a hate on against the Baterman family in Ludlow. But these letters all came from different people. He said you could tell that by the handwriting, name or no name, and they all say the same crazy thingthat if Timothy Baterman is dead, he makes one hell of a lively corpse walking up and down Pedersen Road with his bare face hanging out. This Kinsman is going to send a fellow out or come himself if this dont settle down, Hannibal finishes up. They want to know if Timmys dead, or AWOL, or what because they dont like to think their records are all at sixes and sevens. Also theyre gonna want to know who was buried in Timmy Batermans box, if he wasnt. Well, you can see what kind of a mess it was, Louis. We sat there most of an hour, drinking iced tea and talking it over. Norma asked us if we wanted sandwidges, but no one did. We talked it around and talked it around, and finally we decided we had to go out there to the Baterman place. Ill never forget that night, not if I live to be twice as olds I am now. It was hot, hotter than the hinges of hell, with the sun going down like a bucket of guts behind the clouds. There was none of us wanted to go, but we had to. Norma knew it before any of us. She got me inside on some pretext or other and said, Dont you let them dither around and put this off, Judson. You got to get this taken care of. Its an abomination. Jud measured Louis evenly with his eyes. That was what she called it, Louis. It was her word. Abomination. And she kind of whispers in my ear, If anything happens, Jud, you just run. Never mind these others; theyll have to look out for themselves. You remember me and bust your hump right out of there if anything happens. We drove over in Hannibal Bensons carthat son of a bitch got all the Acoupons he wanted, I dont know how. Nobody said much, but all four of us was smokin like chimblies. We was scared, Louis, just as scared as we could be. But the only one who really said anything was Alan Purinton. He says to George, Bill Baterman has been up to dickens in that woods north of Route 15, and Ill put my warrant to that. Nobody answered, but I remember George noddin his head. Well, we got there, and Alan knocked, but nobody answered, so we went around to the back and there the two of them were. Bill Baterman was sitting there on his back stoop with a pitcher of beer, and Timmy was at the back of the yard, just staring up at that red, bloody sun as it went down. His whole face was orange with it, like hed been flayed alive. And Bill . . . he looked like the devil had gotten him after his seven years of highfalutin. He was floatin in his clothes, and I judged hed lost forty pounds. His eyes had gone back in their sockets until they were like little animals in a pair of caves . . . and his mouth kep goin tickticktick on the left side. Jud paused, seemed to consider, and then nodded imperceptibly. Louis, he looked damned. Timmy looked around at us and grinned. Just seeing him grin made you want to scream. Then he turned and went back to looking at the sun go down. Bill says, I didnt hear you boys knock, which was a baldfaced lie, of course, since Alan laid on that door loud enough to wake the . . . to wake up a deaf man. No one seemed like they was going to say anything, so I says, Bill, I heard your boy was killed over in Italy. That was a mistake, he says, looking right at me. Was it? I says. You see him standin right there, dont you? he says. So who do you reckon was in that coffin you had buried out at Pleasantview? Alan Purinton asks him. Be damned if I know, Bill says, and be damned if I care. He goes to get a cigarette and spills them all over the back porch, then breaks two or three trying to pick them up. Probably have to be an exhumation, Hannibal says. You know that, dont you? I had a call from the goddam War Department, Bill. They are going to want to know if they buried some other mothers son under Timmys name. Well, what in the hell of it? Bill says in a loud voice. Thats nothing to me, is it? I got my boy. Timmy come home the other day. Hes been shellshocked or something. Hes a little strange now, but hell come around. Lets quit this, Bill, I says, and all at once I was pretty mad at him. If and when they dig up that army coffin, theyre gonna find it dead empty, unless you went to the trouble of filling it up with rocks after you took your boy out of it, and I dont think you did. I know what happened, Hannibal and George and Alan here know what happened, and you know what happened too. You been foolin around up in the woods, Bill, and you have caused yourself and this town a lot of trouble. You fellas know your way out, I guess, he says. I dont have to explain myself to you, or justify myself to you, or nothing. When I got that telegram, the life ran right out of me. I felt her go, just like piss down the inside of my leg. Well, I got my boy back. They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen. He was all I had left of his dear mother, and it was illfuckinlegal. So fuck the army, and fuck the War Department, and fuck the United States of America, and fuck you boys too. I got him back. Hell come around. And thats all I got to say. Now you all just march your boots back where you came from. And his mouth is tickticktickin, and theres sweat all over his forehead in big drops, and that was when I saw he was crazy. It would have driven me crazy too. Living with that . . . that thing. Louis was feeling sick to his stomach. He had drunk too much beer too fast. Pretty soon it was all going to come up on him. The heavy, loaded feeling in his stomach told him it would be coming up soon. Well, there wasnt much else we could do. We got ready to go. Hannibal says, Bill, God help you. Bill says, God never helped me. I helped myself. That was when Timmy walked over to us. He even walked wrong, Louis. He walked like an old, old man. Hed put one foot high up and then bring it down and then kind of shuffle and then lift the other one. It was like watchin a crab walk. His hands dangled down by his legs. And when he got close enough, you could see red marks across his face on the slant, like pimples or little burns. I reckon thats where the Kraut machine gun got him. Must have damn near blowed his head off. And he stank of the grave. It was a black smell, like everything inside him was just lying there, spoiled. I saw Alan Purinton put a hand up to cover his nose and mouth. The stench was just awful. You almost expected to see grave maggots squirming around in his hair Stop, Louis said hoarsely. Ive heard enough. You aint, Jud said. He spoke with haggard earnestness. Thats it, you aint. And I cant even make it as bad as it was. Nobody could understand how bad it was unless they was there. He was dead, Louis. But he was alive too. And he . . . he . . . he knew things. Knew things? Louis sat forward. Ayuh. He looked at Alan for a long time, kind of grinning you could see his teeth, anywayand then he spoke in this low voice; you felt like you had to strain forward to hear it. It sounded like he had gravel down in his tubes. Your wife is fucking that man she works with down at the drugstore, Purinton. What do you think of that? She screams when she comes. What do you think of that? Alan, he kind of gasped, and you could see it had hit him. Alans in a nursing home up in Gardener now, or was the last I heardhe must be pushing ninety. Back when all this happened, he was forty or so, and there had been some talk around about his second wife. She was his second cousin, and she had come to live with Alan and Alans first wife, Lucy, just before the war. Well, Lucy died, and a year and a half later Alan up and married this girl. Laurine, her name was. She was no more than twentyfour when they married. And there had been some talk about her, you know. If you were a man, you might have called her ways sort of free and easy and let it go at that. But the women thought she might be loose. And maybe Alan had had a few thoughts in that direction too because he says, Shut up! Shut up or Ill knock you down, whatever you are! Shush now, Timmy, Bill says, and he looks worse than ever, you know, like maybe hes going to puke or faint dead away, or do both. You shush, Timmy. But Timmy didnt take no notice. He looks around at George Anderson and he says, That grandson you set such a store by is just waiting for you to die, old man. The money is all he wants, the money he thinks you got socked away in your lockbox at the Bangor Eastern Bank. Thats why he makes up to you, but behind your back he makes fun of you, him and his sister. Old woodenleg, thats what they call you, Timmy says, and Louis, his voiceit changed. It got mean. It sounded like the way that grandson of Georges would have sounded if . . . you know, if the things Timmy was saying was true. Old woodenleg, Timmy says, and wont they shit when they find out youre poor as a church mouse because you lost it all in 1938? Wont they shit, George? Wont they just shit? George, he backed away then, and his wooden leg buckled under him, and he fell back on Bills porch and upsat his pitcher of beer, and he was as white as your undershirt, Louis. Bill, he gets him back on his feet somehow, and hes roarin at his boy, Timmy, you stop it! You stop it! But Timmy wouldnt. He said somethin bad about Hannibal, and then he said something bad about me too, and by then he was . . . ravin, Id say. Yeah, he was ravin, all right. Screamin. And we started to back away, and then we started to run, draggin George along the best we could by the arms because hed gotten the straps and harnesses on that fake leg twisted somehow, and it was all off to one side with the shoe turned around backward and draggin on the grass. The last I seen of Timmy Baterman, he was on the back lawn by the clothesline, his face all red in the settin sun, those marks standin out on his face, his hair all crazy and dusty somehow . . . and he was laughin and screechin over and over again Old woodenleg! Old woodenleg! And the cuckold! And the whoremaster! Goodbye, gentlemen! Goodbye! Goodbye! And then he laughed, but it was screaming, really . . . something inside him . . . screaming . . . and screaming . . . and screaming. Jud stopped. His chest moved up and down rapidly. Jud, Louis said.

The thing this Timmy Baterman told you . . . was it true? It was true, Jud muttered. Christ! It was true. I used to go to a whorehouse in Bangor betimes. Nothing many a man hasnt done, although I spose there are plenty that walk the straight and narrow. I just would get the urgethe compulsion, maybe to sink it into strange flesh now and then. Or pay some woman to do the things a man cant bring himself to ask his wife to do. Men keep their gardens too, Louis. It wasnt a terrible thing, what I done, and all of that has been behind me for the last eight or nine years, and Norma would not have left me if she had known. But something in her would have died forever. Something dear and sweet. Juds eyes were red and swollen and bleary. The tears of the old are singularly unlovely, Louis thought. But when Jud groped across the table for Louiss hand, Louis took it firmly. He told us only the bad, he said after a moment. Only the bad. God knows there is enough of that in any human beings life, isnt there? Two or three days later, Laurine Purinton left Ludlow for good, and folks in town who saw her before she got on the train said she was sporting two shiners and had cotton stuffed up both bores of her pump. Alan, he would never talk about it. George died in 1950, and if he left anything to that grandson and granddaughter of his, I never heard about it. Hannibal got kicked out of office because of something that was just like what Timmy Baterman accused him of. I wont tell you exactly what it wasyou dont need to knowbut misappropriation of town funds for his own use comes close enough to cover it, I reckon. There was even talk of trying him on embezzlement charges, but it never came to much. Losing the post was enough punishment for him anyway; his whole life was playing the big cheese. But there was good in those men too. Thats what I mean; thats what folks always find it so hard to remember. It was Hannibal got the fund started for the Eastern General Hospital, right before the war. Alan Purinton was one of the most generous, openhanded men I ever knew. And old George Anderson only wanted to go on running the post office forever. It was only the bad it wanted to talk about though. It was only the bad it wanted us to remember because it was bad . . . and because it knew we meant danger for it. The Timmy Baterman that went off to fight the war was a nice, ordinary kid, Louis, maybe a little dull but goodhearted. The thing we saw that night, lookin up into that red sun . . . that was a monster. Maybe it was a zombie or a dybbuk or a demon. Maybe theres no name for such a thing as that, but the Micmacs would have known what it was, name or no. What? Louis said numbly. Something that had been touched by the Wendigo, Jud said evenly. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, let it out, and looked at his watch. Welladay. The hours late, Louis. Ive talked nine times as much as I meant to. I doubt that, Louis said. Youve been very eloquent. Tell me how it came out. There was a fire at the Baterman place two nights later, Jud said. The house burned flat. Alan Purinton said there was no doubt about the fire being set. Range oil had been splashed from one end of that little house to the other. You could smell the reek of it for three days after the fire was out. So they both burned up. Oh, ayuh, they burned. But they was dead beforehand. Timmy was shot twice in the chest with a pistol Bill Baterman kept handy, an old Colts. They found it in Bills hand. What hed done, or so it looked like, was to kill his boy, lay him on the bed, and then spill out that range oil. Then he sat down in his easy chair by the radio, flicked a match, and ate the barrel of that Colt .45. Jesus, Louis said. They were pretty well charred, but the county medical examiner said it looked to him like Timmy Baterman had been dead two or three weeks. Silence, ticking out. Jud got up. I wasnt exaggerating when I said I might have killed your boy, Louis, or had a hand in it. The Micmacs knew that place, but that doesnt necessarily mean they made it what it was. The Micmacs werent always here. They came maybe from Canada, maybe from Russia, maybe from Asia way back in the beginning. They stayed here in Maine for a thousand years, or maybe it was two thousandits hard to tell, because they did not leave their mark deep on the land. And now they are gone again . . . same way well be gone, someday, although I guess our mark will go deeper, for better or worse. But the place will stay no matter whos here, Louis. It isnt as though someone owned it and could take its secret when they moved on. Its an evil, curdled place, and I had no business taking you up there to bury that cat. I know that now. It has a power youll beware of if you know whats good for your family and whats good for you. I wasnt strong enough to fight it. You saved Normas life, and I wanted to do something for you, and that place turned my good wish to its own evil purpose. It has a power . . . and I think that power goes through phases, same as the moon. Its been full of power before, and Im ascared its coming around to full again. Im ascared it used me to get at you through your son. Do you see, Louis, what Im getting at? His eyes pleaded with Louis. Youre saying the place knew Gage was going to die, I think, Louis said. No, I am saying the place might have made Gage die because I introduced you to the power in the place. I am saying I may have murdered your son with good intentions, Louis. I dont believe it, Louis said at last, shakily. Didnt; wouldnt. Couldnt. He held Juds hand tightly. Were burying Gage tomorrow. In Bangor. And in Bangor he will stay. I dont plan to go up there to the Pet Sematary or beyond it ever again. Promise me! Jud said harshly. Promise. I promise, Louis said. But in the back of his mind, contemplation remaineda dancing flicker of promise that would not quite go away. 40 But none of those things happened. All of themthe droning Orinco truck, the fingers that just touched the back of Cages jumper and then slid off, Rachel preparing to go to the viewing in her housecoat, Ellie carrying Gages picture and putting his chair next to her bed, Steve Mastertons tears, the fight with Irwin Goldman, Jud Crandalls terrible story of Timmy Batermanall of them existed only in Louis Creeds mind during the few seconds that passed while he raced his laughing son to the road. Behind him, Rachel screamed againGage, come back, dont RUN!but Louis did not waste his breath. It was going to be close, very close, and yes, one of those things really happened from somewhere up the road he could hear the drone of the oncoming truck and somewhere inside a memory circuit opened and he could hear Jud Crandall speaking to Rachel on that very first day in Ludlow You want to watch em around the road, Missus Greed. Its a bad road for kids and pets. Now Gage was running down the gentle slope of lawn that merged with the soft shoulder of Route 15, his husky little legs pumping, and by all the rights of the world he should have fallen over sprawling but he just kept going and now the sound of the truck was very loud indeed, it was that low, snoring sound that Louis sometimes heard from his bed as he floated just beyond the rim of sleep. Then it seemed a comforting sound, but now it terrified him. Oh my dear God oh my dear Jesus let me catch him dont let him get into the road! Louis put on a final burst of speed and leaped, throwing himself out straight and parallel to the ground like a football player about to make a tackle; he could see his shadow tracking along on the grass below him in the lowest periphery of his vision, and he thought of the kite, the Vulture, printing its shadow all the way across Mrs. Vintons field, and just as Gages forward motion carried him into the road, Louiss fingers brushed the back of his jacket . . . and then snagged it. He yanked Gage backward and landed on the ground at the same instant, crashing his face into the rough gravel of the shoulder, giving himself a bloody nose. His balls signaled a much more serious flash of painOhhh, if lda known I was gonna be playing football, I woulda worn my jockbut both the pain in his nose and the driving agony in his testes were lost in the swelling relief of hearing Gages wail of pain and outrage as his bottom landed on the shoulder and he fell over backward onto the edge of the lawn, thumping his head. A moment later his wails were drowned by the roar of the passing truck and the almost regal blat of its air horn. Louis managed to get up in spite of the lead ball sitting in his lower stomach and cradled his son in his arms. A moment later Rachel joined them, also weeping, crying out to Gage, Never run in the road, Gage! Never, never, never! The road is bad! Bad! And Gage was so astonished at this tearful lecture that he left off crying and goggled up at his mother. Louis, your nose is bleeding, she said and then hugged him so suddenly and strongly that for a moment he could barely breathe. That isnt the worst of it, he said. I think Im sterile, Rachel. Oh boy, the pain. And she laughed so hysterically that for a few moments he was frightened for her, and the thought crossed his mind If Gage really had been killed, I believe it would have driven her crazy. But Gage was not killed; all of that had only been a hellishly detailed moment of imagination as Louis outraced his sons death across a green lawn on a sunshiny May afternoon. Gage went to grammar school, and at the age of seven he began going to camp, where he showed a wonderful and surprising aptitude for swimming. He also gave his parents a rather glum surprise by proving himself able to handle a months separation with no noticeable psychic trauma. By the time he was ten, he was spending the entire summer away at Camp Agawam in Raymond, and at eleven he won two blue ribbons and a red one at the Four Camps Swimathon that ended the summers activities. He grew tall, and yet through it all he was the same Gage, sweet and rather surprised at the things the world held out . . . and for Gage, the fruit was somehow never bitter or rotten. He was an honors student in high school and a member of the swimming team at John Bapst, the parochial school he had insisted on attending because of its swimming facilities. Rachel was upset, Louis not particularly surprised when, at seventeen, Gage announced his intention to convert to Catholicism. Rachel believed that all of it was because of the girl Gage was going out with; she saw marriage in his immediate future (if that little slut with the St. Christophers medal isnt balling him, Ill eat your shorts, Louis, she said), the wreckage of his college plans and his Olympic hopes, and nine or ten little Catholics running around by the time Gage was forty. By then he would be (according to Rachel, anyway) a cigarsmoking truck driver with a beer belly, OurFathering and HailMarying his way into precardiac oblivion. Louis suspected his sons motives were rather more pure, and although Gage converted (and on the day he actually did the deed, Louis sent an unabashedly nasty postcard to Irwin Goldman; it read, Perhaps youll have a Jesuit grandson yet. Your goy soninlaw, Louis), he did not marry the rather nice (and decidedly unslutty) girl he had dated through most of his senior year. He went on to Johns Hopkins, made the Olympic swimming team, and on one long, dazzling, and incredibly proud afternoon sixteen years after Louis had raced an Orinco truck for his sons life, he and Rachelwho had now gone almost entirely gray, although she covered it with a rinsewatched their son win a gold medal for the U.S.A. When the NBC cameras moved in for a closeup of him, standing with his dripping, sealsleek head back, his eyes open and calm and fixed on the flag as the national anthem played, the ribbon around his neck, and the gold lying against the smooth skin of his chest, Louis wept. He and Rachel both wept. I guess this caps everything, he said huskily and turned to embrace his wife. But she was looking at him with dawning horror, her face seeming to age before his eyes as if whipped by days and months and years of evil time; the sound of the national anthem faded and when Louis looked back at the TV he saw a different boy there, a black boy with a head of tight curls in which gems of water still gleamed. This caps everything. His cap. His cap is . . . . . . oh dear God, his cap is full of blood. Louis woke up in the cold dead light of a rainy seven oclock, clutching his pillow in his arms. His head thumped monstrously with his heartbeat; the ache swelled and faded, swelled and faded. He burped acid that tasted like old beer, and his stomach heaved miserably. He had been weeping; the pillow was wet with his tears, as if he had somehow stumbled in and then out of one of those hokey countryandwestern laments in his sleep. Even in the dream, he thought, some part of him had known the truth and had cried for it. He got up and stumbled to the bathroom, heart racing threadily in his chest, consciousness itself fragmented by the fierceness of his hangover. He reached the toilet bowl barely in time and threw up a glut of last nights beer. He kneeled on the floor, eyes closed, until he felt capable of actually making it to his feet. He groped for the handle and flushed the john. He went to the mirror to see how badly bloodshot his eyes were, but the glass had been covered with a square of sheeting. Then he recalled. Drawing almost randomly on a past she professed to barely remember, Rachel had covered all the mirrors in the house, and she took off her shoes before entering through the door. No Olympic swimming team, Louis thought dully as he walked back to his bed and sat down on it. The sour taste of beer coated his mouth and throat, and he swore to himself (not for the first time or the last) that he would never touch that poison again. No Olympic swimming team, no 3.0 in college, no little Catholic girlfriend or conversion, no Camp Agawam, no nothing. His sneakers had been torn off; his jumper turned inside out; his sweet little boys body, so tough and sturdy, nearly dismembered. His cap had been full of blood. Now, sitting on his bed in the grip of this numbing hangover, rainwater spilling its lazy courses down the window beside him, his grief came for him fully, like some gray matron from Ward Nine in purgatory. It came and dissolved him, unmanned him, took away whatever defenses remained, and he put his face in his hands and cried, rocking back and forth on his bed, thinking he would do anything to have a second chance, anything at all. 41 Gage was buried at two oclock that afternoon. By then the rain had stopped. Tattered clouds still moved overhead, and most of the mourners arrived carrying black umbrellas provided by the undertaker. At Rachels request, the funeral director, who officiated at the short, nonsectarian graveside service, read the passage from Matthew which begins Suffer the little children to come unto Me. Louis, standing on one side of the grave, looked across at his fatherinlaw. For a moment Goldman looked back at him, and then he dropped his eyes. There was no fight left in him today. The pouches under his eyes now resembled mailbags, and around his black silk skullcap, hair as fine and white as tattered spiderwebs flew randomly in the breeze. With his grayishblack beard scragging his cheeks, he looked more like a wino than ever. He gave Louis the impression of a man who did not really know where he was. Louis tried but could still find no pity in his heart for him. Gages small white coffin, its latch presumably repaired, sat on a pair of chromed runners over the grave liner. The verges of the grave had been carpeted with Astroturf so violently green it hurt Louiss eyes. Several baskets of flowers had been set on top of this artificial and strangely gay surface. Louiss eyes looked over the funeral directors shoulder. Here was a low hill, covered with graves, family plots, one Romanesque monument with the name PHIPPS engraved on it. Just above the sloping roof of PHIPPS, he could see a sliver of yellow. Louis looked at this, pondering it. He continued to look at it even after the funeral director said, Let us bow our heads for a moment of silent prayer. It took Louis a few minutes, but he got it. It was a payloader. A payloader parked over the hill where the mourners wouldnt have to look at it. And, when the funeral was over, Oz would crush his cigarette on the heel of his tewwible workboot, put it in whatever container he carried around with him (in a cemetery, sextons caught depositing their butts on the ground were almost always summarily firedit looked bad; too many of the clientele had died of lung cancer), jump in the payloader, fire that sucker up, and cut his son off from the sun forever . . . or at least until the day of the Resurrection. Resurrection . . . ah, theres a word (that you should put right the fuck out of your mind and you know it). When the funeral director said Amen, Louis took Rachels arm and guided her away. Rachel murmured some protestshe wanted to stay a bit longer, please, Louisbut Louis was firm. They approached the cars. He saw the funeral director taking umbrellas with the homes name discreetly printed on the handles from the mourners who passed and handing them to an assistant. The assistant put them in an umbrella stand which looked surreal, standing there on the dewy turf. He held Rachels arm with his right hand and Ellies whitegloved hand with his left. Ellie was wearing the same dress she had worn to Norma Crandalls funeral. Jud came over as Louis handed his ladies into the car. Jud also looked as if hed had a hard night. You okay, Louis? Louis nodded. Jud bent to look into the car. How are you, Rachel? he asked. Im all right, Jud, she whispered. Jud touched her shoulder gently and then looked at Ellie. How about you, dear one?" Im fine, Ellie said and produced a hideous smile of sharklike proportions to show him how fine she was. Whats that picture you got there? For a moment Louis thought she would hold it, refuse to show him, and then with a painful shyness she passed it to Jud. He held it in his big fingers, fingers that were so splayed and somehow clumsylooking, fingers that looked fit mostly for grappling with the transmissions of big road machines or making couplings on the B M Linebut they were also the fingers that had pulled a bee stinger from Gages neck with all the offhand skill of a magician . . . or a surgeon. Why, thats real nice, Jud said. You pullin him on a sled. Bet he liked that, didnt he, Ellie? Beginning to weep, Ellie nodded. Rachel began to say something, but Louis squeezed her armbe still awhile. I used to pull im a lot, Ellie said, weeping, and hed laugh and laugh. Then wed go in and Mommy would fix us cocoa and say, Put your boots away, and Gage would grab them all up and scream Boots! Boots! so loud it hurt your ears. Remember that, Mom? Rachel nodded. Yeah, I bet that was a good time, all right, Jud said, handing the picture back. And he may be dead now, Ellie, but you can keep your memories of him. Im going to, she said, wiping at her face. I loved Gage, Mr. Crandall. I know you did, dear. He leaned in and kissed her, and when he withdrew, his eyes swept Louis and Rachel stonily. Rachel met his gaze, puzzled and a little hurt, not understanding. But Louis understood well enough What are you doing for her? Juds eyes asked. Your son is dead, but your daughter is not. What are you doing for her? Louis looked away. There was nothing he could do for her, not yet. She would have to swim in her grief as best she could. His thoughts were too full of his son. 42 By evening a fresh rack of clouds had come in and a strong west wind had begun to blow. Louis put on his light jacket, zipped it up, and took the Civic keys from the peg on the wall. Where you going, Lou? Rachel asked. She spoke without much interest. After supper she had begun crying again, and although her weeping was gentle, she had seemed incapable of stopping. Louis had forced her to take a Valium. Now she sat with the paper folded open to the barely started crossword puzzle. In the other room, Ellie sat silently watching Little House on the Prairie with Gages picture on her lap. I thought Id pick up a pizza. Didnt you get enough to eat earlier? I just didnt seem hungry then, he said, telling the truth and then adding a lie I am now. That afternoon, between three and six, the final rite of Gages funeral had taken place at the Ludlow house. This was the rite of food. Steve Masterton and his wife had come with a hamburgerandnoodle casserole. Charlton had appeared with a quiche. It will keep until you want it, if it doesnt all get eaten, she told Rachel. Quiche is easy to warm up. The Dannikers from up the road brought a baked ham. The Goldmans appearedneither of them would speak to Louis or even come close to him, for which he was not sorrywith a variety of cold cuts and cheeses. Jud also brought cheesea large wheel of his old favorite, Mr. Rat. Missy Dandridge brought a key lime pie. And Surrendra Hardu brought apples. The rite of food apparently transcended religious differences. This was the funeral party, and although it was quiet, it was not quite subdued. There was rather less drinking than at an ordinary party, but there was some. After a few beers (only the night before he had sworn he would never touch the stuff again, but in the cold afternoon light the previous evening had seemed impossibly long ago) Louis thought to pass on a few little funerary anecdotes his Uncle Carl had told himthat at Sicilian funerals unmarried women sometimes snipped a piece of the deceased's shroud and slept with it under their pillows, believing it would bring them luck in love; that at Irish funerals mock weddings were sometimes performed, and the toes of the dead were tied together because of an ancient Celtic belief that it kept the deceaseds ghost from walking. Uncle Carl said that the custom of tying D.O.A. tags to the great toes of corpses had begun in New York, and since all of the early morgue keepers had been Irish, he believed this to be a survival of that old superstition. Then, looking at their faces, he had decided such tales would be taken wrong. Rachel had broken down only once, and her mother was there to comfort her. Rachel clung to Dory Goldman and sobbed against her shoulder in an open, letitallgo way that had been so far impossible for her with Louis, perhaps because she saw them both as culpable in Gages death or perhaps because Louis, lost in the peculiar halfworld of his own fancies, had not encouraged her grief. Either way, she had turned to her mother for comfort, and Dory was there to give it, mingling her tears with her daughter's. Irwin Goldman stood behind them, his hand on Rachels shoulder, and looked with sickly triumph across the room at Louis. Ellie circulated with a silver tray loaded with canaps, little rolls with a feathered toothpick poked through each one. Her picture of Gage was tucked firmly under her arm. Louis received condolences. He nodded and thanked the condolers. And if his eyes seemed distant, his manner a little cold, people supposed he was thinking of the past, of the accident, of the Gageless life ahead; none (perhaps not even Jud) would have suspected that Louis had begun to think about the strategies of grave robbing . . . only in an academic way, of course; it was not that he intended to do anything. It was only a way to keep his mind occupied. It was not as if he intended to do anything. Louis stopped at the Orrington Corner Store, bought two sixpacks of cold beer, and called ahead to Napolis for a pepperoniandmushroom pizza. Want to give me a name on that, sir? Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, Louis thought. Lou Creed. Okay, Lou, were real busy, so itll be maybe fortyfive minutes that okay for you? Sure, Louis said and hung up. As he got back into the Civic and keyed the engine, it occurred to him that although there were maybe twenty pizza joints in the Bangor area, he had picked the one closest to Pleasantview, where Gage was buried. Well, what the hell? he thought uneasily. They make good pizza. No frozen dough. Throw it up and catch it on their fists, right there where you can watch, and Gage used to laugh He cut that thought off. He drove past Napolis to Pleasantview. He supposed he had known that he would do that, but what harm? None. He parked across the street and crossed the road to the wroughtiron gates, which glimmered in the final light of day. Above them, in a semicircle, were wroughtiron letters spelling PLEASANTVIEW. The view was, in Louiss mind, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. The cemetery was nicely landscaped on several rolling hills; there were long aisles of trees (ah, but in these last few minutes of fading daylight, the shadows those trees threw seemed deeply pooled and as blackly unpleasant as still quarry water) and a few isolated weeping willows. It wasnt quiet. The turnpike was nearthe drone of traffic came on the steady, chill windand the glow in the darkening sky was Bangor International Airport. He stretched his hand out to the gate, thinking, Theyll be locked, but they were not. Perhaps it was too early to lock them, and if they locked them at all it would only be to protect the place against drunks, vandals, and teenage neckers. The days of the Dickensian Resurrection Men (theres that word again) were over. The righthand gate swung in with a faint screeing noise, and after a glance over his shoulder to make sure he was unobserved, Louis stepped through. He closed the gate behind him and heard the click of the latch. He stood in this modest suburb of the dead, looking around. A fine and private place, he thought, but none, I think, do there embrace. Who? Andrew Marvel? And why did the human mind store up such amazing middens of useless junk, anyway? Juds voice spoke up in his mind then, worried andfrightened? Yes. Frightened. Louis, what are you doing here? Youre looking up a road you dont want to travel. He pushed the voice aside. If he was torturing anyone, it was only himself. No one need know he had been here as the daylight wound down to the dark. He began to walk toward Gages grave, taking one of the winding paths. In a moment he was in a lane of trees; they rustled their new leaves mysteriously over his head. His heart was thudding too loudly in his chest. The graves and monuments were in rough rows. Somewhere there would be a caretakers building, and in it would be a map of Pleasantviews twenty or so acres, neatly and sanely divided into quadrants, each quadrant showing the occupied graves and the unsold plots. Real estate for sale. Oneroom apartments. Sleepers. Not much like the Pet Sematary, he thought, and this caused him to stop and consider for a moment, surprised. No, it wasnt. The Pet Sematary had given him an impression of order rising almost unknown out of chaos. Those rough, concentric circles moving inward to the center, rude slates, crosses made out of boards. As if the children who buried their pets there had created the pattern out of their own collective unconsciousness, as if . . . For a moment Louis saw the Pet Sematary as a kind of advertisement . . . a comeon, like the kind they gave you on freak alley at the carnival. Theyd bring out the fireeater and you got to watch his show for free because the owners knew you wouldnt buy the steak unless you saw the sizzle, you wouldnt cough up the cash if you didnt see the flash Those graves, those graves in their almost Druidic circles. The graves in the Pet Sematary mimed the most ancient religious symbol of all diminishing circles indicating a spiral leading down, not to a point, but to infinity; order from chaos or chaos from order, depending on which way your mind worked. It was a symbol the Egyptians had chiseled on the tombs of the Pharaohs, a symbol the Phoenicians had drawn on the barrows of their fallen kings; it was found on cave walls in ancient Mycenae; the guildkings of Stonehenge had created it as a clock to time the universe; it appeared in the JudeoChristian Bible as the whirlwind from which God had spoken to Job. The spiral was the oldest sign of power in the world, mans oldest symbol of that twisty bridge which may exist between the world and the Gulf. Louis reached Gages grave at last. The payloader was gone. The Astroturf had been removed, rolled up by some whistling workman with his mind on an afterwork beer at the Fairmount Lounge, stored in an equipment shed somewhere. Where Gage lay there was a neat rectangle of bare, raked earth, perhaps five feet by three feet. The headstone had not been set up yet. Louis kneeled. The wind blew through his hair, tumbling it. The sky was almost entirely dark now. It raced with clouds. No one has shone a light in my face and asked me what Im doing here. No watchdog has barked. The gate was unlocked. The days of the Resurrection Men are past. If I came up here with a pick and a shovel He came back to himself with a jerk. He was only playing a dangerous mind game with himself if he pretended that Pleasantview stood unwatched during the night hours. Suppose he was discovered bellydeep in his sons new grave by the caretaker or the watchman? It might not get into the papers, but then again it might. He might be charged with a crime. What crime? Grave robbing? Unlikely. Malicious mischief or vandalism would be more likely. And in the paper or out of it, the word would get around. People would talk; it was a story too juicy not to be told Local doctor is discovered digging up his twoyearold son, recently killed in a tragic road accident. He would lose his job. Even if not, Rachel would be chilled by the wind of such tales, and Ellie might be harried by them at school until her life was a misery of chanting children. There might be the humiliation of a sanity test in exchange for dropping charges. But I could bring Gage back to life! Gage could live again! Did he really, actually believe that? The fact was that he did. He had told himself time and time again, both before Gages death and after it, that Church had not really been dead, only stunned. That Church had dug his way out and come home. A kiddie story with gruesome undertonesWinnie the Poe. Master unwittingly piles a cairn of stones over a living animal. Faithful beast digs itself out and comes home. Fine. Except it was not true. Church had been dead. The Micmac burying ground had brought it back to life. He sat by Gages grave, trying to place all the known components in an order as rational and logical as this dark magic would allow. Timmy Baterman, now. First, did he believe the story? And second, did it make a difference? In spite of its convenience, he believed most of it. It was undeniable that if a place like the Micmac burying ground existed (as it did) and if people knew of it (as a few of the older Ludlowites did), then sooner or later someone would try the experiment. Human nature as Louis understood it made it more difficult to believe that it had stopped at a few pets and valuable breed animals. All right, thendid he also believe that Timmy Baterman had been transformed into some sort of allknowing daemon? That was a more difficult question, and he was wary of it because he didnt want to believe it, and he had seen the results of that sort of mindset before. No, he did not want to believe Timmy Baterman had been a daemon, but he would notabsolutely could notallow himself to let what he wanted cloud his judgment. Louis thought about Hanratty, the bull. Hanratty, Jud said, had turned mean. So, in his way, had Timmy Baterman. Hanratty had later been put down by the same man who had somehow dragged the bulls body up to the Micmac burying ground on a sledge. Timmy Baterman had been put down by his father.

But because Hanratty had gone bad, did that mean that all animals went bad? No. Hanratty the bull did not prove the general case; Hanratty was in fact an exception to the general case. Look back at the other animalsJuds dog Spot, the old womans parakeet, Church himself. They had all come back changed, and the change had been noticeable in all cases, but in the case of Spot, at least, the change hadnt been so great that Jud had forborne to recommend the process of . . . of . . . (resurrection) Yes, of resurrection to a friend years later. Of course, farther down the line he had tried to justify and hem and haw, and had spouted a lot of ominous, confused bullshit that could not even rightly be called philosophy. How could he refuse to take the chance available to himthis one, unbelievable chanceon the basis of the Timmy Baterman story? One swallow did not a summer make. Youre slanting all the evidence in favor of the conclusion you want to produce, his mind protested. At least tell yourself the goddamned truth about the change in Church. Even if you want to disqualify the animalsthe mice and the birdswhat about the way he is? Muddled . . . thats the best word of all, that sums it up. The day we were out with the kite. You remember how Gage was that day? How vibrant and alive he was, reacting to everything? Wouldnt it be better to remember him that way? Do you want to resurrect a zombie from a gradeB horror picture? Or even something so prosaic as a retarded little boy? A boy who eats with his fingers and stares blankly at images on the TV screen and who will never learn to write his own name? What did Jud say about his dog? It was like washing a piece of meat. Is that what you want? A piece of breathing meat? And even if youre able to be satisfied with that, how do you explain the return of your son from the dead to your wife? To your daughter? To Steve Masterton? To the world? What happens the first time Missy Dandridge pulls into the driveway and sees Gage riding his trike in the yard? Cant you hear her screams, Louis? Cant you see her harrowing her face with her fingernails? What do you say to the reporters? What do you say when a film crew from Real People turns up on your doorstep, wanting to shoot film of your resurrected son? Did any of this really matter, or was it only the voice of cowardice? Did he believe these things could not be dealt With? That Rachel would greet her dead son with anything but tears of joy? Yes, he supposed there was a real possibility that Gage might return . . . well . . . diminished. But would that change the quality of his love? Parents loved children who were born blind, children born as Siamese twins, children who were born with their guts abysmally rearranged. Parents pled for judicial mercy or executive clemency on behalf of children who had grown up to commit rape and murder and the torture of the innocent. Did he believe it would be impossible for him to love Gage even if Gage had to go on wearing diapers until he was eight? If he did not master the firstgrade primer until he was twelve? If he never mastered it at all? Could he simply dismiss his son as a . . . a sort of divine abortion, when there was another recourse? But, Louis, my God, you dont live in a vacuum! People will say He cut that thought off with rude, angry force. Of all the things not to consider now, public notice was probably the greatest of them. Louis glanced down at the raked dirt of Gages grave and felt a wave of awe and horror course through him. Unknowing, moving by themselves, his fingers had drawn a pattern in the dirthe had drawn a spiral. He swept the fingers of both hands through the dirt, rubbing the pattern out. Then he left Pleasantview, hurrying, feeling very much a trespasser now, believing that he would be seen, stopped, questioned at every turn of the path. He was late collecting his pizza, and although it had been left on top of one of the big ovens, it was semicold and greasy and every bit as tasty as cooked clay. Louis ate one piece and then tossed the rest out the window, box and all, as he headed back to Ludlow. He wasnt a litterbug by nature, but he did not want Rachel to see a mostly uneaten pizza at home in the wastebasket. It might raise a surmise in her mindthat a pizza wasnt really what hed had in mind when he went to Bangor. Louis now began to think about the time and circumstance. Time. Time might be of extreme, even crucial, importance. Timmy Baterman had been dead a good while before his father could get him up to the Micmac burying ground. Timmy was shot the nineteenth . . . Timmy was burieddont hold me to this, but I think it was July twentysecond. It was four or five days later that Marjorie Washburn . . . saw Timmy walking up the road. All right, say that Bill Baterman had done it four days after his sons original interral . . . no. If he was going to err, let him err on the side of conservatism. Say three days. For the sake of argument, assume that Timmy Baterman returned from the dead on July twentyfifth. That made six days between the boys death and his return, and that was a conservative estimate. It might have been as long as ten days. For Gage, it had now been four days. Time had already gotten away from him to a degree, but it was still possible to cut Billy Batermans best time considerably. If . . . If he could bring about circumstances similar to those which had made the resurrection of Church possible. Because Church had died at the best possible time, hadnt he? His family had been away when Church was struck and killed. No one was the wiser, except for him and Jud. His family had been in Chicago. For Louis, the final piece fell into place with a neat little click. You want us to what? Rachel asked, staring at him, astounded. It was a quarter of ten. Ellie had gone to bed. Rachel had taken another Valium after cleaning up the detritus of the funeral party (funeral party was another of those horrible phrases full of unstated paradox, like visiting hours, but there seemed no other phrase for the way they had spent their afternoon) and had seemed dazed and quiet ever since he returned from Bangor . . . but this had gotten through. To go back to Chicago with your mother and father, Louis repeated patiently. Theyll be going tomorrow. If you call them now and Delta right after, you may be able to get on the same plane with them. Louis, have you lost your mind? After the fight you had with my father Louis found himself speaking with a quick glibness that was totally unlike him. It afforded him a cheesy sort of exhilaration. He felt like a football sub who suddenly gets the ball and makes a seventyyard touchdown run, cutting and weaving, outthinking potential tacklers with a delirious onetimeonly ease. He had never been a particularly good liar, and he had not planned this encounter in any detail at all, but now a string of plausible lies, halftruths, and inspired justification poured out of him. The fight we had is one of the reasons I want you and Ellie to go back with them. Its time we sewed up this wound, Rachel. I knew that . . . felt it . . . at the funeral parlor. When the fight started, I was trying to patch things up. But this trip . . . I dont think its a good idea at all, Louis. We need you. And you need us. Her eyes measured him doubtfully. At least, I hope you need us. And neither of us are in any shape to in any kind of shape to stay here, Louis said forcefully. He felt as if he might be coming down with a fever. Im glad you need me, and I do need you and Ellie. But right now this is the worst damn place in the world for you, honey. Gage is everywhere in this house, around every corner. For you and me, sure. But its even worse for Ellie, I think. He saw pain flicker in her eyes and knew he had touched her. Some part of himself felt shame at this cheap victory. All the textbooks hed read on the subject of death told him that the bereaveds first strong impulse is to get away from the place where it happened . . . and that to succumb to such an impulse may turn out to be the most harmful course of action because it allows the bereaved the dubious luxury of refusing to come to terms with the new reality. The books said it was best to remain where you were, to battle grief on its home ground until it subsided into remembrance. But Louis simply did not dare make the experiment with his family at home. He had to get rid of them, at least for a while. I know, she said. It just . . . hits you all over the place. I moved the couch while you were in Bangor . . . I thought running the vacuum around would take my mind off . . . off things . . . and I found four of his little Matchbox cars under there . . . as if they were waiting for him to come back and . . . you know, play with them . . . Her voice, already wavering, now broke. Tears spilled down her cheeks. And thats when I took the second Valium because I started crying again, the way Im crying now . . . oh what a fucking soap opera all of this is . . . hold me, Lou, will you hold me? He did hold her, and he did it well, but he felt like an imposter. His mind spun with ways to turn these tears to his further benefit. Some nice guy, all right. Heyho, lets go. How long does it go on? she wept. Does it ever end? If only we could have him back, Louis, I swear Id watch him better, it would never happen, and just because that driver was going too fast that doesnt let meusoff the hook. I didnt know there could ever be hurt like this, and thats the truth. It comes, over and over it comes, and it hurts so much, Louis, theres no rest from it even when I go to sleep, when I go to sleep I dream it, over and over again, I see him running to the road . . . and I scream to him . . . Shhh, he said. Rachel, shhhh. She lifted her puffy face to him. It wasnt even as if he were being bad, Louis. It was just a game to him . . . the truck came at the wrong time . . . and Missy Dandridge called while I was still crying . . . and said she read in the Ellsworth American that the driver tried to kill himself. What? He tried to hang himself in his garage. Hes in shock and deep depression, the paper said . . . Too fucking bad he didnt make good on it, Louis said savagely, but his voice sounded distant to his own ears, and he felt a chill spreading through. The place has a power, Louis . . . its been full of power before, and Im ascared its coming round to full again. My boys dead and hes out on a thousand dollars bail and hell go on feeling depressed and suicidal until some judge takes away his license for ninety days and gives him a slaponthewrist fine. Missy says his wife has taken the kids and left him, Rachel said dully. She didnt get that from the paper, but from somebody who knows somebody down Ellsworth way. He wasnt drunk. He wasnt on drugs. He didnt have any previous speeding violations. He said that when he got to Ludlow, he just felt like putting the pedal to the metal. He said he didnt even know why. So around and around it goes. He just felt like putting the pedal to the metal. The place has a power . . . Louis thrust these thoughts away. He gripped his wifes forearm gently. Call your mother and father. Do it now. Theres no need for you and Ellie to be in this house another day. Not another day. Not without you, she said. Louis, I want us . . . I need us to stick together. Ill follow you in three daysfour at the most. If things went well, Rachel and Ellie might be back here in fortyeight hours. Ive got to find someone to fill in for me, on a parttime basis, at least, at the university. Ive got sick time and vacation time coming, but I dont want to leave Surrendra on the hot seat. Jud can watch the house while were gone, but Ill want to cut off the electricity and store what weve got in the Dandridges deep freeze, Ellies school . . . The hell with it. Its out in three weeks, anyway. Theyll understand, the circumstances being what they are. Theyll arrange an early dismissal. Itll all work just Louis? He broke off. What? What are you hiding? Hiding? He looked at her openly, clearly. I dont know what youre talking about. Dont you? No. I dont. Never mind. Ill call them right now . . . if thats what you really want. It is, he said, and the words seemed to echo in his mind with an iron clang. It might even be best. . for Ellie. She looked at him with her redrimmed eyes, still slightly glazed from Valium. You look feverish, Louis. As if you might be coming down with something. She went to the telephone and called the motel where her parents were staying before Louis could reply. The Goldmans were overjoyed at Rachels proposal. They were not so wild about the idea of Louis joining them in three or four days, but in the end they wouldnt have to worry about it all, of course. Louis had not the slightest intention of going to Chicago. He had suspected that if there was to be a snag, it would be getting air reservations this late. But luck was with him there too. There were still available seats on Deltas Bangor to Cincinnati run, and a quick check showed two cancellations on a Cincinnati to Chicago flight. It meant that Rachel and Ellie would be able to travel with the Goldmans only as far as Cincinnati, but they would get to Chicago less than an hour after. Its almost like magic, Louis thought, hanging up the telephone, and Juds voice responded promptly, Its been full of power before, and Im ascared . . . Oh, get fucked, he told Juds voice rudely. Ive learned to accept a great many strange things in the last ten months, my good old friend. But am I ready to believe that a haunted patch of ground can influence airline ticketing? I dont think so. Ill have to pack, Rachel said. She was looking at the flight information Louis had jotted down on the pad by the phone. Take just the one big suitcase, Louis said. She looked at, him wideeyed, mildly startled. For both of us? Louis, youre joking. All right, take a couple of tote bags too. But dont exhaust yourself packing a different outfit for the next three weeks, he said, thinking, Especially since you may be back in Ludlow very soon. Take enough for a week, ten days. Youve got the checkbook and the credit cards. Buy what you need. But we cant afford she began doubtfully. She seemed doubtful about everything now, malleable, easily confused. He remembered her odd, dangling comment about the Winnebago he had once spoken idly about buying. We have the money, he said. Well . . . I suppose we could use Gages college fund if we needed to, although it would take a day or two to process the savings account and a week to get the treasury bills cashed Her face began to crumple and dissolve again. Louis held her. Shes right. It just keeps right on hitting you, it never lets up. Rachel, dont, he said. Dont cry. But of course she didshe had to. While she was upstairs packing, the phone rang. Louis sprang for it, thinking it would be someone from Delta ticketing, saying a mistake had been made, no flights were available. I should have known everything was going too smoothly. But it wasnt Delta ticketing. It was Irwin Goldman. Ill get Rachel, Louis said. No. For a moment there was nothing else, only silence. Hes probably sitting there and trying to decide which name to call you first. When Goldman spoke again, his voice was strained. He seemed to be pushing the words out against some great inner resistance. Its you I want to talk to. Dory wanted me to call and apologize for my . . . for my behavior. I guess . . . Louis, I guess I wanted to apologize too. Why, Irwin! How big of you! My God, I think I just wet my pants! You dont need to apologize, Louis said. His voice was dry and mechanical. What I did was inexcusable, Goldman said. Now he did not just seem to be pushing the words out; he seemed to be coughing them out. You suggesting that Rachel and Eileen come out has made me see what a big man you have been about this . . . and how small I have been. There was something very familiar in this rap, something eerily familiar Then he got it, and his mouth suddenly pulled together in a tight pucker, as if he had bitten straight through a plump yellow lemon. Rachels wayshe was completely unaware of it, Louis was sureof saying contritely, Louis, Im sorry I was such a bitch, after her bitchiness had gotten her her own way about something she really wanted. Here was that voicerobbed of Rachels liveliness and merriness, truebut that same voice saying, Im sorry 1 was such a bastard, Louis. The old man was getting his daughter and granddaughter back; they were running home from Maine to Daddy. Courtesy of Delta and United, they were coming back to where they belonged, back to where Irwin Goldman wanted them. Now he could afford to be magnanimous. As far as old Irwin knew, he had won. So lets just forget that I took a swing at you over your dead sons body, Louis, or that I kicked you when you were down, or that I knocked his coffin off its bier and snapped the latch so you could seeor think you sawthat one last flash of your childs hand. Lets forget all of that. Let bygones be bygones. Terrible as it may be, Irwin, you old prick, Id wish for you to drop dead right this second, if it wouldnt screw up my plans. Thats all right, Mr. Goldman, he said evenly. It was . . . well . . . an emotional day for all of us. It was not all right, he persisted, and Louis realized although he did not want tothat Goldman was not just being political, was not just saying that he was sorry he had been such a bastard now that he was getting his own way. The man was nearly weeping, and he was speaking with a slow and trembling urgency. It was a terrible day for all of us. Thanks to me. Thanks to a stupid, bullheaded old man. I hurt my daughter when she needed my help . . . I hurt you, and maybe you needed my help too, Louis. That you do this . . . behave this way after I behaved that way . . . it makes me feel like garbage. And I think that is just the way I should feel. Oh let him stop this, let him stop before 1 start to scream at him and blow the whole deal. Rachels probably told you, Louis, we had another daughter Zelda, Louis said. Yes, she told me about Zelda. It was difficult, Goldman said in that trembling voice. Difficult for all of us. Most difficult for Rachel, perhapsRachel was there when Zelda diedbut difficult for Dory and me too. Dory almost had a breakdown What do you think Rachel had? Louis wanted to shout. Do you think a kid cant have a nervous breakdown? Twenty years later shes still jumping at deaths shadow. And now this happens. This miserable, awful thing. Its a minor miracle that she isnt in the fucking hospital, being fed through an I.V. tube. So dont talk to me about how difficult it was for you and your wife, you bastard. Ever since Zelda died, we have . . . I suppose we have clung to Rachel . . . always wanting to protect her . . . and to make it up to her. Make up for the problems she had with her . . . her back . . . for years afterward. Make up for not being there. Yes, the old man was really crying. Why did he have to be crying? It made it harder for Louis to hold on to his clean, pure hate. More difficult, but not impossible. He deliberately called up the image of Goldman reaching into the pocket of his smoking jacket for his overflowing checkbook . . . but he suddenly saw Zelda Goldman in the background, an unquiet ghost in a stinking bed, her cheesy face full of spite and agony, her hands pulled into claws. The Goldman ghost. Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. Please, he said. Please, Mr. Goldman. Irwin. No more. Lets not make things any worse than they have to be, okay? I believe now that you are a good man and that I misjudged you, Louis. Oh, listen, I know what you think. Am I that stupid? No. Stupid, but not that stupid. You think Im saying all of this because now I can, youre thinking oh yeah, hes getting what he wants and once he tried to buy me off, but . . . but Louis, I swear . . . No more, Louis said gently. I cant . . . I really cant take any more. Now his voice was trembling as well. Okay? All right, Goldman said and sighed. Louis thought it was a sigh of relief. But let me say again that I apologize. You dont have to accept it. But that is what I called to say, Louis. I apologize. All right, Louis said. He closed his eyes. His head was thudding. Thank you, Irwin. Your apology is accepted. Thank you, Goldman said. And thank you . . . for letting them come. Perhaps it is what they both need. Well wait for them at the airport. Fine, Louis said, and an idea suddenly occurred to him. It was crazy and attractive in its very sanity. He would let bygones be bygones . . . and he would let Gage lie in his Pleasantview grave. Instead of trying to reopen a door that had swung shut, he would latch it and doublebolt it and throw away the key. He would do just what he had told his wife he was going to do tidy up their affairs here and catch a plane back to Shytown. They would perhaps spend the entire summer there, he and his wife and his goodhearted daughter. They would go to the zoo and the planetarium and boating on the lake. He would take Ellie to the top of the Sears Tower and show her the Midwest stretching away like a great fiat gameboard, rich and dreaming. Then when midAugust came, they would come back to this house which now seemed so sad and so shadowy, and perhaps it would be like starting over again. Perhaps they could begin weaving from fresh thread. What was on the Creed loom right now was ugly, splattered with drying blood. But would that not be the same as murdering his son? Killing him a second time? A voice inside tried to argue that this was not so, but he would not listen. He shut the voice up briskly. Irwin, I ought to go now. I want to make sure Rachels got what she needs and then get her to bed. All right. Goodbye, Louis. And once more If he says hes sorry one more time, Ill fucking scream. Goodbye, Irwin, he said and hung up the phone. Rachel was deep in a litter of clothes when he came upstairs. Blouses on the beds, bras hung over the backs of chairs, slacks on hangers that had been hung over the doorknob. Shoes were lined up like soldiers under the window. She appeared to be packing slowly but competently. Louis could see it was going to take her at least three suitcases (maybe four), but he could also see no sense in arguing with her about it. Instead he pitched in and helped. Louis, she said as they closed the last suitcase (he had to sit on it before Rachel could snap the catches), are you sure theres nothing you want to tell me? For Gods sake, hon, what is this? I dont know what it is, she replied evenly. Thats why Im asking. What do you think Im going to do? Creep off to a bordello? Join the circus? What? I dont know. But this feels wrong. It feels as if youre trying to get rid of us. Rachel, thats ridiculous! He said this with a vehemence that was partly exasperation. Even in such straits as these, he felt a certain pique in being seen through so easily. She smiled wanly. You never were a very good liar, Lou. He began to protest again, and she cut him off. Ellie dreamed you were dead, she said. Last night. She woke up crying, and I went in to her. I slept with her for two or three hours and then came back in with you. She said that in her dream you were sitting at the kitchen table and your eyes were open, but she knew you were dead. She said she could hear Steve Masterton screaming. Louis looked at her, dismayed. Rachel, he said at last, her brother just died. Its normal enough for her to dream that other members of her family Yes, I surmised that much for myself. But the way she told it . . . the elements . . . it seemed to me to have a quality of prophecy. She laughed weakly. Or maybe you had to be there. Yes, maybe so, Louis said. It seemed to me to have a quality of prophecy. Come to bed with me, Rachel said. The Valiums all worn off, and I dont want to take any more. But Im afraid. Ive been having my own dreams . . . Dreams of what? Of Zelda, she said simply. The last few nights since Gage died, when I go to sleep, Zeldas there, She says shes coming for me, and this time shell get me. That both she and Gage will get me. For letting them die. Rachel, thats I know. Just a dream. Normal enough. But come to bed with me and keep the dreams away if you can, Louis. They lay together in the dark, crowded into Louiss single. Rachel? You still awake? Yes. I want to ask you something. Go ahead. He hesitated, not wanting to cause her even more pain but needing to know. Do you remember the scare we had with him when he was nine months old? he asked finally. Yes. Yes, of course I do. Why? By the time Gage was nine months old, Louis had become deeply concerned about his sons cranial size. It was right off Louiss Berterier Chart, which showed the normal range of infant head sizes on a permonth basis. At four months, Gages skull size had begun to drift toward the highest part of the curve, and then it began to go even higher than that. He wasnt having any trouble holding his head upthat would have been a dead giveaway but Louis had nevertheless taken him to George Tardiff, who was perhaps the best neurologist in the Midwest. Rachel had wanted to know what was wrong, and Louis had told her the truth he was worried that Gage might be hydrocephalic. Rachels face had grown very white, but she had remained calm. He seems normal to me, she said. Louis nodded. He does to me too. But I dont want to ignore this, babe. No, you mustnt, she said. We mustnt. Tardiff had measured Gages skull and frowned. Tardiff poked two fingers at Gages face, Three Stooges style. Gage flinched. Tardiff smiled. Louiss heart thawed out a little. Tardiff gave Gage a ball to hold. Gage held it for a while and then dropped it. Tardiff retrieved the ball and bounced it, watching Cages eyes. Gages eyes tracked the ball. Id say theres a fiftyfifty chance hes hydrocephalic, Tardiff said to Louis in his office later. Nothe odds may actually be a bit higher than that. If so, its mild. He seems very alert. The new shunt operation should take care of the problem easily . . . if there is a problem. A shunt means brain surgery, Louis said. Minor brain surgery. Louis had studied the process not long after he began to worry about the size of Gages head, and the shunt operation, designed to drain excess fluid, had not looked very minor to him. But he kept his mouth shut, telling himself just to be grateful the operation existed at all. Of course, Tardiff went on, theres still a large possibility that your kid just has a real big head for a ninemonthold. I think a CATscan is the best place to start. Do you agree? Louis had agreed. Gage spent a night in Our Sisters of Charity Hospital and underwent general anesthesia. His sleeping head was stuck into a gadget that looked like a giant clothes dryer. Rachel and Louis waited downstairs while Ellie spent the day at Grandma and Granddas, watching Sesame Street nonstop on Granddas new video recorder. For Louis, those had been long, gray hours in which he found himself totting up sums of varying ugliness and comparing results. Death under general anesthesia, death during a shunt operation, mild retardation as a result of hydrocephalus, cataclysmic retardation as a result of same, epilepsy, blindness . . . oh, there were all sorts of possibilities. For really complete disaster maps, Louis remembered thinking, see your local doctor. Tardiff had come into the waiting room around five oclock. He had three cigars. He plugged one into Louiss mouth, one into Rachels (she was too flabbergasted to protest), and one into his own. The kid is fine. No hydrocephalus. Light this thing, Rachel had said, weeping and laughing at the same time. Im going to smoke it till I puke. Grinning, Tardiff lit their cigars. God was saving him for Route 15, Dr. Tardiff, Louis thought now. Rachel, if he had been hydrocephalic, and if the shunt hadnt worked . . . could you have still loved him? What a weird question, Louis! Could you? Yes, of course. I would have loved Gage no matter what. Even if he was retarded? Yes. Would you have wanted him institutionalized? No, I dont think so, she said slowly. I suppose, with the money youre making now, we could afford that . . . a really good place, I mean . . . but I think Id want him with us if we could . . . Louis, why do you ask? Why, I suppose I was still thinking of your sister Zelda, he said. He was still astonished at this eerie glibness. Wondering if you could have gone through that again. It wouldnt have been the same, she said, sounding almost amused. Gage was . . . well, Gage was Gage. He was our son. That would have made all the difference. It would have been hard, I guess, but . . . would you have wanted him in an institution? A place like Pineland? Lets go to sleep. Thats a good idea. I feel like I can sleep now, she said. I want to put this day behind me. Amen to that, Louis said. A long time later she said drowsily, Youre right, Louis . . . just dreams and vapors . . . Sure, he said, and kissed her earlobe. Now sleep. It seemed to me to have a quality of prophecy. He did not sleep for a long time, and before he did, the curved bone of the moon looked in the window at him. 43 The following day was overcast but very warm, and Louis was sweating heavily by the time he had checked Rachels and Ellies baggage through and gotten their tickets out of the computer. He supposed just being able to keep busy was something of a gift, and he felt only a small, aching comparison to the last time he had put his family on a plane to Chicago, at Thanksgiving. Ellie seemed distant and a trifle odd. Several times that morning Louis had looked up and seen an expression of peculiar speculation on her face. Conspirators complex working overtime, boyo, he told himself. She said nothing when told they were all going to Chicago, she and Mommy first, perhaps for the whole summer, and only went on eating her breakfast (Cocoa Bears). After breakfast she went silently upstairs and got into the dress and shoes Rachel had laid out for her. She had brought the picture of her pulling Gage on her sled to the airport with her, and she sat calmly in one of the plastic contour seats in the lower lobby while Louis stood in line for their tickets and the loudspeaker blared intelligence of arriving and departing flights. Mr. and Mrs. Goldman showed up forty minutes before flight time. Irwin Goldman was natty (and apparently sweatless) in a cashmere topcoat in spite of the sixtydegree temperatures; he went over to the Avis desk to check his car in while Dory Goldman sat with Rachel and Effie. Louis and Goldman joined the others at the same time. Louis was a bit afraid that there might be a reprise of the my son, my son playlet, but he was spared. Goldman contented himself with a rather limp handshake and a muttered hello. The quick, embarrassed glance he afforded his soninlaw confirmed the certainty Louis had awakened with this morning the man must have been drunk. They went upstairs on the escalator and sat in the boarding lounge, not talking much. Dory Goldman thumbed nervously at her copy of an Erica Jong novel but did not open it. She kept glancing, a little nervously, at the picture Ellie was holding. Louis asked his daughter if she would like to walk over to the bookstore with him and pick out something to read on the plane. Ellie had been looking at him in that speculative way again. Louis didnt like it. It made him nervous. Will you be good at Grandma and Granddas? he asked her as they walked over. Yes, she said. Daddy, will the truant officer get me? Andy Pasioca says theres a truant officer and he gets school skippers. Dont you worry about the truant officer, he said. Ill take care of the school, and you can start again in the fall with no trouble. I hope Ill be okay in the fall, Ellie said. I never was in a grade before. Only kindergarten.

I dont know what kids do in grades. Homework, probably. Youll be fine. Daddy, are you still pissed off at Grandda? He gaped at her. Why in the world would you think I was . . . that I didnt like your grandda, Effie? She shrugged as if the topic held no particular interest for her. When you talk about him, you always look pissed off. Ellie, thats vulgar. Sorry. She gave him that strange, fey look and then drifted off to look at the racks of kid booksMercer Meyer and Maurice Sendak and Richard Scarry and Beatrix Potter and that famous old standby, Dr. Seuss. How do they find this stuff out? Or do they just know? How much does Ellie know? Hows it affecting her? Ellie, whats behind that pale little face? Pissed off at himChrist! Can I have these, Daddy? She was holding out a Dr. Seuss and a book Louis hadnt seen since his own childhoodthe story of Little Black Sambo and how the tigers had gotten his clothes one fine day. I thought theyd made that one an unbook, Louis thought, bemused. Yes, he said, and they stood in a short line at the cash register. Your grandda and I like each other fine, he said and thought again of his mothers story of how when a woman really wanted a baby, she found one. He remembered his own foolish promises to himself that he would never lie to his own children. Over the last few days he had developed into quite a promising liar, he felt, but he would not let himself think about it now. Oh, she said and fell silent. The silence made him uneasy. To break it he said, So do you think youll have a good time in Chicago? No. No? Why not? She looked up at him with that fey expression. Im scared. He put his hand on her head. Scared? Honey, what for? Youre not scared of the plane, are you? No, she said. I dont know what Im scared of. Daddy, I dreamed we were at Gages funeral and the funeral man opened his coffin and it was empty. Then I dreamed I was home and I looked in Gages crib and that was empty too. But there was dirt in it. Lazarus, come forth. For the first time in months he remembered the dream he had had after Pascows deaththe dream, and then waking up to find his feet dirty and the foot of the bed caked with pine needles and muck. The hairs at the nape of his neck stirred. Just dreams, he said to Ellie, and his voice sounded, to his ears at least, perfectly normal. Theyll pass. I wish you were coming with us, she said, or that we were staying here. Can we stay, Daddy? Please? I dont want to go to Grandma and Granddas . . . I just want to go back to school. Okay? Just for a little while, Ellie, he said. Ive gothe swalloweda few things to do here, and then Ill be with you. We can decide what to do next. He expected an argument, perhaps even an Elliestyle tantrum. He might even have welcomed ita known quantity, as that look was not. But there was only that pallid, disquieting silence which seemed so deep. He could have asked her more but found he didnt dare; she had already told him more than he perhaps wanted to hear. Shortly after he and Ellie returned to the boarding lounge, the flight was called. Boarding passes were produced, and the four of them got in line. Louis embraced his wife and kissed her hard. She clung to him for a moment and then let him go so he could pick Ellie up and buss her cheek. Ellie gazed at him solemnly with her sibyls eyes. I dont want to go, she said again but so low oniy Louis could really hear over the shuffle and murmur of the boarding passengers. I dont want Mommy to go either. Ellie, come on, Louis said. Youll be fine. Ill be fine, she said, but what about you? Daddy, what about you? The line had begun to move now. People were walking down the jetway to the 727. Rachel pulled Ellies hand and for a moment she resisted, holding up the line, her eyes fixed on her fatherand Louis found himself remembering her impatience last time, her cries of come oncome oncome on. Daddy? Go now, Ellie. Please. Rachel looked at Ellie and saw that dark, dreamy look for the first time. Ellie? she said, startled and, Louis thought, a little afraid. Youre holding up the line, baby. Ellies lips trembled and grew white. Then she allowed herself to be led into the jetway. She looked back at him, and he saw naked terror in her face. He raised his hand to her in false cheeriness. Ellie did not wave back. 44 As Louis left the BIA terminal building, a cold cloak fell over his mind. He became aware that he meant to go through with this. His mind, which had been sharp enough to get him through med school mostly on a scholarship and what his wife could earn pushing coffeeanddanish on the 5 to 11 A.M. shift six days a week, had taken the problem over and broken it down into components, as if this was just another prelimthe biggest one he had ever taken. And he intended to pass it with an A plus, one hundred percent. He drove to Brewer, the little city across the Penobscot River from Bangor. He found a parking spot across the street from Watsons Hardware. Can I help you? the clerk asked. Yes, Louis said. Id like a heavy flashlightone of the square onesand something I can hood it with. The clerk was a small slim man with a high forehead and sharp eves. He smiled now, but his smile was not particularly pleasant. Going jacking, good buddy? I beg your pardon? Gonna jacklight a few deer tonight? Not at all, Louis said, unsmiling. I havent a license to jack. The clerk blinked and then decided to laugh. In other words, mind my own business, huh? Well, lookyou cant hood one of those big lights, but you can get a piece of felt and poke a hole in the middle of it. Cut the beam clown to a penlight. That sounds fine, Louis said. Thanks. Surely. Anything else for you today? Yes indeed, Louis said. I need a pick, a shovel, and a spade. Shorthandled shovel, longhandled spade. A stout length of rope, eight feet long. A pair of work gloves. A canvas tarpaulin, maybe eight by eight. I can do all that, the clerk said. Ive got a septic tank to dig up, Louis said. It looks like Im in violation of the zoning ordinances, and Ive got some very nosy neighbors. I dont know if hooding my light will do any good or not, but I thought I might give it a try. I could get a pretty good fine. Ohoh, the clerk said, better get a clothespin for your nose while youre at it. Louis laughed dutifully. His purchases came to 58.60. He paid cash. As gas prices went up, they had used the big station wagon less and less. For some time it had had a bad wheelbearing, but Louis had kept putting off the repair job. This was partly because he didnt want to part with the two hundred it was likely to cost, hut mostly because it was a nuisance. Now, when he could have really used the big old dinosaur, lie didnt dare chance it. The Civic was a hatchback, and Louis was nervous about going back to Ludlow with the pick, shovel, and spade in there. Jud Crandalls eyes were sharp, and there was nothing wrong with his brains either. He would know what was up. Then it occurred to him that there was no real reason to go back to Ludlow anyway. Louis recrossed the Chamberlain Bridge into Bangor and checked into the Howard Johnsons Motor Lodge on the Odlin Roadonce again near the airport, once again near Pleasantview Cemetery where his son was buried. He checked in under the name Dee Dee Ramone and paid cash for his room. He tried to nap, reasoning that he would be glad of the rest before tomorrow morning. In the words of some Victorian novel or other, there was wild work ahead of him tonightenough wild work to last a lifetime. But his brain simply would not shut down. He lay on the anonymous motel bed beneath a nondescript motel print of picturesque boats at dock beside a picturesque old wharf in a picturesque New England harbor, fully dressed except for his shoes, his wallet, coins, and keys on the night table beside him, his hands behind his head. That feeling of coldness still held; he felt totally unplugged from his people, the places that had become so familiar to him, even his work. This could have been any Howard Johnsons in the worldin San Diego or Duluth or Bangkok or Charlotte Amalie. He was nowhere, and now and then a thought of surpassing oddity struck him before he saw any of those familiar places and faces again, he would see his son. His plan kept unreeling in his mind. He looked at it from all angles, poked it, prodded it, looked for holes or soft places. And he felt that in truth he was walking along a narrow beam over a gulf of insanity. Madness was all around him, softly fluttering as the wings of nighthunting owls with great golden eyes he was heading into madness. The voice of Tom Rush echoed dreamily in his head O death your hands are clammy . . . I feel them on my knees . . . you came and took my mother . . . wont you come back after me? Madness. Madness all around, close, hunting him. He walked the balance beam of rationality; he studied his plan. Tonight, around eleven oclock, he would dig up his sons grave, remove the body from the coffin in which it lay, wrap Gage in a cutdown piece of the tarpaulin, and put it in the trunk of the Civic. He would replace the coffin and refill the grave. He would drive to Ludlow, take Gages body from the trunk . . . and take a walk. Yes, he would take a walk. If Gage returned, the single path forked into two possibilities. Along one, he saw Gage returning as Gage, perhaps stunned or slow or even retarded (only in the deepest recesses of his mind did Louis allow himself to hope that Gage would return whole, and just as he had beenbut surely even that was possible, wasnt it?), but still his son, Rachels son, Ellies brother. Along the other, he saw some sort of monster emerging from the woods behind the house. He had accepted so much that he did not balk at the idea of monsters, or even of daemons, discorporeal beings of evil from the outerworid which might well take charge of a reanimated body from which the original soul had fled. Either way, he and his son would be alone. And he would . . . I will make a diagnosis. Yes. That is what he would do. I will make a diagnosis, not only of his body but of his spirit. I will make allowances for the trauma of the accident itself, which he may or may not remember. Keeping the example of Church before me, I will expect retardation, perhaps mild, perhaps profound. I will judge our ability to reintegrate Gage into our family on the basis of what I see over a period of from twentyfour to seventytwo hours. And if the loss is too greator if he comes back as Timmy Baterman apparently came back, as a thing of evilI will kill him. As a doctor, he felt he could kill Gage, if Gage was only the vessel containing some other being, quite easily. He would not allow himself to be swayed by its pleadings or its wiles. He would kill it as he would kill a rat carrying bubonic plague. There need be no melodrama about it. A pill in solution, perhaps two or three of them. If necessary, a shot. There was morphine in his bag. The following night, he would return the lifeless clay to Pleasantview and reenter it, simply trusting that his luck would hold a second time (you dont even know if it will hold once, he reminded himself). He had considered the easier and safer alternative of the Pet Sematary, but he would not have his son up there. There were a lot of reasons. A child burying his pet five years or ten years or even twenty years later might stumble on the remains that was one reason. But the most compelling one was simpler. The Pet Sematary might be . . . too close. The reinterment completed, he would fly to Chicago and join his family. Neither Rachel nor Ellie would ever need to know about his failed experiment. Then, looking along the other paththe path he hoped for blindly with all his love for his son he and Gage would leave the house when the examination period was over, would leave at night. He would take certain papers with him and plan never to return to Ludlow again. He and Gage would check into a motelperhaps this very one in which he now lay. The following morning he would cash every account they had, converting everything into American Express travelers checks (dont leave home with your resurrected son without them, he thought) and flat cash. He and Gage would fly somewhere Florida, most likely. From there he would call Rachel, tell her where he was, tell her to take Ellie and catch a plane without telling her mother and father where she was going. Louis believed he could convince her to do this. Ask no questions, Rachel. Just come. Come now. This minute. He would tell her where he (they) were staying. Some motel. She and Ellie would arrive in a rental car. He would bring Gage to the door when they knocked. Perhaps Gage would be wearing a bathing suit. And then Ah, but beyond that he did not dare go; instead he turned back to the plans beginning and began to go over it again. He supposed that if things worked out, it would mean accumulating the identification minutae of whole new lives so that Irwin Goldman could not use his overflowing checkbook to trace them. Such things could be done. Vaguely, he remembered arriving at the Ludlow house, tense, tired, and more than a little scared, and having some fantasy about just driving down to Orlando and hiring on as a medic at Disney World. Maybe that wasnt so farfetched after all. He saw himself, dressed in white, resuscitating a pregnant woman who had foolishly gone on the Magic Mountain ride and had fainted. Stand back, stand back, give her some air, he heard himself saying, and the woman opened her eyes and smiled gratefully at him. As his mind spun out this not disagreeable fantasy, Louis fell asleep. He slept as his daughter awoke in an airplane somewhere above Niagara Falls, screaming from a nightmare of clutching hands and stupid yet merciless eyes; he slept as the stewardess rushed down the aisle to see what was wrong; he slept as Rachel, totally unnerved, tried to soothe her; he slept as Ellie cried over and over again Its Gage! Mommy! Its Gage! its Gage! Gage is alive! Gage has got the knife from Daddys bag! Dont let him get me! Dont let him get Daddy! He slept as Ellie quieted at last and lay shuddering against her mothers breast, her eyes wide and tearless, and as Dory Goldman thought what an awful thing all of this had been for Eileen, and how much she reminded Dory of Rachel after Zelda had died. He slept and woke up at a quarter past five, with the afternoon light beginning to slant down toward the coming night. Wild work, he thought stupidly and got up. 45 By the time United Airlines flight 419 touched down at OHare Airport and offloaded its passengers at ten minutes past three, central standard time, Ellie Creed was in a state of low hysteria, and Rachel was very frightened. If you touched Ellie casually on the shoulder, she jumped and stared around at you with big walleyes, and her whole body quivered steadily and without letup. It was as if she were full of electricity. The nightmare on the airplane had been bad enough, but this . . . Rachel simply didnt know how to cope with it. Going into the terminal, Ellie tripped over her own feet and fell down. She did not get up but merely lay there on the carpet with people passing around her (or looking down at her with that mildly sympathetic but disconnected glance of people who are in transit and cannot be bothered) until Rachel picked her up in her arms. Ellie, whats wrong with you? Rachel asked. But Ellie would not answer. They moved across the lobby toward the luggage carousels, and Rachel saw her mother and father waiting there for them. She waved at them with her free hand, and they came over. They told us not to go to the gate and wait for you, Dory said, so we thought . . . Rachel? Hows Eileen? Not good. "Is there a ladies room, Mommy? Im going to throw up. Oh, God, Rachel said despairingly and took her by the hand. There was a ladies room across the lobby, and she led Ellie toward it quickly. Rachel, shall I corner Dory called. No, get the luggage, you know what it looks like. Were okay. Mercifully the ladies room was deserted. Rachel led Ellie to one of the stalls, fumbling in her purse for a dime, and then she sawthank Godthat the locks on three of them were broken. Over one broken lock, someone had written in grease pencil SIR JOHN CRAPPER WAS A SEXIST PIG! Rachel pulled the door open quickly; Ellie was now moaning and holding her stomach. She retched twice, but there was no vomiting; they were the dry heaves of total nervous exhaustion. When Ellie told her she felt a little better, Rachel took her over to the basins and washed her daughters face. Ellie was wretchedly white, and there were circles under her eyes. Ellie, what is wrong? Cant you tell me? I dont know whats wrong, she said. But I knew something was wrong ever since Daddy told me about the trip. Because something was wrong with him. Louis, what are you hiding? You were hiding something. I could see it; even Ellie could see it. It occurred to her that she had also been nervous all day, as though waiting for a blow to fall. She felt the way she did in the two or three days before her period, tense and on edge, ready to laugh or cry or get a headache that would come bulleting through like a fast express, there and then gone three hours later. What? she said now to Ellies reflection in the mirror. Honey, what could be wrong with Daddy? I dont know, Ellie said. It was the dream. Something about Gage. Or maybe it was Church. I dont remember. I dont know. Ellie, what was your dream? I dreamed I was in the Pet Sematary, Ellie said. "Paxcow took me to the Pet Sematary and said Daddy was going to go there and something terrible was going to happen. Paxcow? A bolt of terror both sharp and yet undefined struck her. What was that name, and why did it seem familiar? It seemed that she had heard that nameor one like itbut she could not for the life of her remember where. You dreamed someone named Paxcow took you to the Pet Sematary? Yes, thats what he said his name was. And Her eyes suddenly widened. Do you remember something else? He said that he was sent to warn but that he couldnt interfere. He said that he was . . . I dont know . . . that he was near Daddy because they were together when his soul was disdisI cant remember! she wailed. Honey, Rachel said, I think you dreamed about the Pet Sematary because youre still thinking about Gage. And Im sure Daddy is fine. Do you feel any better now? No, Ellie whispered. Mommy, Im scared. Arent you scared? Huhuh, Rachel said, with a brisk little shake of her head and a smilebut she was, she was scared; and that name, Faxcow, haunted her with its familiarity. She felt she had heard it in some dreadful context months or even years ago, and that nervy feeling would not leave her. She felt somethingsomething pregnant, swollen, and waiting to burst. Something terrible that needed to be averted. But what? What? Im sure everything is fine, she told Ellie. Want to go back to Grandma and Grandda? I guess so, Ellie said listlessly. A Puerto Rican woman led her very young son into the ladies, scolding him. A large wet stain had spread on the crotch of the little boys Bermudas and Rachel found herself reminded of Gage with a kind of paralyzing poignancy. This fresh sorrow was like novocaine, smothering her jitters. Come on, she said. Well call Daddy from Granddas house. He was wearing shorts, Ellie said suddenly, looking back at the little boy. Who was, honey? Paxcow, Ellie said. He was wearing red shorts in my dream. That brought the name momentarily into focus, and Rachel felt that kneeweakening fear again . . . then it danced away. They could not get close to the luggage carousel; Rachel could just see the top of her fathers hat, the one with the feather. Dory Goldman was holding two seats against the wall for them and waving. Rachel brought Ellie over. Are you feeling any better, dear? Dory asked. A little bit, Ellie said. Mommy She turned to Rachel and broke off. Rachel was sitting bolt upright, her hand clapped to her mouth, her face white. She had it. It had suddenly gone through with a terrible thud. Of course she should have known at once, but she had tried to put it out of her mind. Of course. Mommy? Rachel turned slowly to her daughter, and Ellie could hear the tendons in her neck creak. She took her hand away from her mouth. Did the man in your dream tell you his first name, Eileen? Mommy, are you all Did the man in your dream tell you his first name? Dory was looking at her daughter and granddaughter as if they might have both gone crazy. Yes, but I cant remember . . . Mommy, youre hurrrrting me Rachel looked down and saw that her free hand was clamped around Ellies lower forearm like a manacle. Was it Victor? Ellie drew sharp breath. Yes, Victor! He said his name was Victor! Mommy, did you dream of him too? Not Paxcow, Rachel said. Pascow. Thats what I said. Paxcow. Rachel, whats wrong? Dory said. She took Rachels free hand and winced at its chill. And whats wrong with Eileen? Its not Eileen, Rachel said. Its Louis, I think. Something is wrong with Louis. Or something is going to be wrong. Sit with Ellie, Mom. I want to call home. She got up and crossed to the telephones, digging in her purse for a quarter. She made the call collect, but there was no one to accept the charges. The phone simply rang. Will you try your call later? the operator asked her. Yes, Rachel said and hung up. She stood there, staring at the phone. He said that he was sent to warn but that he couldnt interfere. He said that he was . . . that he was near Daddy because they were together when his soul was disdisI cant remember! Discorporated, Rachel whispered. Her fingers dug at the fabric of her handbag. Oh my God, was that the word? She tried to catch at her thoughts, to arrange them. Was something going on here, something beyond their natural upset at Gages death and this queer crosscountry trip that was so much like flight? How much had Ellie known about the young man who had died on Louiss first day at work? Nothing, her mind answered inexorably. You kept it from her, the way you tried to keep anything from her that had to do with deatheven the possible death of her cat, remember the dumb, stupid argument we had that day in the pantry? You kept it from her. Because you were scared then and youre scared now. His name was Pascow, Victor Pascow, and how desperate is the situation now, Rachel? How bad is this? What in the name of God is happening? Her hands were trembling so badly that it took her two tries to redeposit her quarter. This time she called the infirmary at the university and got Chariton, who accepted the call, a little mystified. No, she hadnt seen Louis and would have been surprised if he had come in today. That said, she offered her sympathies to Rachel again. Rachel accepted them and then asked Chariton to have Louis call her at her folks house if he did come in. Yes, he had the number, she answered Charltons question, not wanting to tell the nurse (who probably knew anyway; she had a feeling that Chariton didnt miss much) that her folks house was half the continent away. She hung up, feeling hot and trembly. She heard Pascows name somewhere else, thats all. My God, you dont raise a kid in a glass box like a . . . a hamster or something. She heard an item about it on the radio. Or some kid mentioned it to her at school, and her mind stored it away. Even that word she couldnt saysuppose it was a jawbreaker like discorporated or discorporeal, so what? That proves nothing except that the subconscious is exactly the kind of sticky flypaper the Sunday supplements say it is. She remembered a college psych instructor who had asserted that under the right conditions, your memory could play back the names of every person to whom you had ever been introduced, every meal you had ever eaten, the weather conditions which had obtained on every day of your life. He made a persuasive case for this incredible assertion, telling them that the human mind was a computer with staggering numbers of memory chipsnot 16K, or 32K, or 64K, but perhaps as much as one billion K literally, a thousand billion. And how much might each of these organic chips be capable of storing? No one knew. But there were so many of them, he said, that there was no need for any of them to be erasable so they could be reused. In fact the conscious mind had to turn down the lights on some of them as a protection against informational insanity. You might not be able to remember where you keep your socks, the psych instructor had said, if the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica was stored in the adjacent two or three memory cells. This had produced dutiful laughter from the class. But this isnt a psych class under good fluorescent lights with all that comforting jargon written on the board and some smartass assistant prof cheerfully blueskying his way through the last fifteen minutes of the period. Something is dreadfully wrong here and you know ityou feel it. I dont know what it has to do with Pascow, or Gage, or Church, but it has something to do with Louis. What? Is it Suddenly a thought as cold as a handful of jelly struck her. She picked up the telephone receiver again and groped in the coinreturn for her dime. Was Louis contemplating suicide? Was that why he had gotten rid of them, nearly pushed them out the door? Had Ellie somehow had a . . . a . . . oh, fuck psychology! Had she had a psychic flash of some sort? This time she made the call collect to Jud Crandall. It rang five times . . . six . . . seven. She was about to hang up when his voice, breathless, answered. Hlo? Jud! Jud, this is Just a minute, madam, the operator said. Will you accept a collect call from Mrs. Louis Creed? Ayuh, Jud said. Pardon, sir, is that yes or no? I guess I will, Jud said. There was a doubtful pause as the operator translated Yankee into American. Then Thank you. Go ahead, maam. Jud, have you seen Louis today? Today? I cant say I have, Rachel. But I was away to Brewer this mornin, gettin my groceries. Been out in the garden this afternoon, behind the house. Why? Oh, its probably nothing, but Ellie had a bad dream on the plane and I just thought Id set her mind at ease if I could. Plane? Juds voice seemed to sharpen a trifle. Where are you, Rachel? Chicago, she said. Ellie and I came back to spend some time with my parents. Louis didnt go with you? Hes going to join us by the end of the week, Rachel said, and now it was a struggle to keep her voice even. There was something in Juds voice she didnt like. Was it his idea that you should go out there? Well . . . yes. Jud, whats wrong? Something is wrong, isnt it? And you know something about it. Maybe you ought to tell me the childs dream, Jud said after a long pause. I wish you would. 46 After he and Rachel were done talking, Jud put on his light coatthe day had clouded up and the wind had begun to blowand crossed the road to Louiss house, pausing on his side of the road to look carefully for trucks before crossing. It was the trucks that had been the cause of all this. The damned trucks. Except it wasnt. He could feel the Pet Sematary pulling at himand something beyond. Where once its voice had been a kind of seductive lullabye, the voice of possible comfort and a dreamy sort of power, it was now lower and more than ominousit was threatening and grim. Stay out of this, you. But he would not stay out of it. His responsibility went back too far. He saw that Louiss Honda Civic was gone from the garage. There was only the big Ford wagon, looking dusty and unused. He tried the back door of the house and found it open. Louis? he called, knowing that Louis was not going to answer, but needing to cut across the heavy silence of this house somehow. Oh, getting old was starting to be a pain in the asshis limbs felt heavy and clumsy most of the time, his back was a misery to him after a mere two hours in the garden, and it felt as if there was a screw auger planted in his left hip. He began to go through the house methodically, looking for the signs he had to look forworlds oldest housebreaker, he thought without much humor and went right on looking. He found none of the things that would have seriously upset him boxes of toys held back from the Salvation Army, clothes for a small boy put aside behind a door or in the closet or under a bed . . . perhaps worst of all, the crib carefully set up in Gages room again. There were absolutely none of the signs, but the house still had an unpleasant blank feel, as if it were waiting to be filled with . . . well, something. Praps I ought to take a little run out to Pleasantview Cemetery. See if anythings doing out there. Might even run into Louis Creed. I could buy him a dinner, or somethin. But it wasnt at Pleasantview Cemetery in Bangor that there was danger; the danger was here, in this house, and beyond it. Jud left again and crossed the road to his own house. He pulled a sixpack of beer out of the kitchen fridge and took it into the living room. He sat down in front of the bay window that looked out on the Creed house, cracked a beer, and lit a cigarette. The afternoon drew down around him, and as it did so often these last few years, he found his mind turning back and back in a widening gyre. If he had known the run of Rachel Creeds earlier thoughts he could have told her that what her psych teacher had told her was maybe the truth, but when you got older that dimming function of the memory broke down little by little, the same way that everything else in your body broke down, and you found yourself recalling places and faces and events with an eerie surety. Sepiatoned memories grew bright again, the colors trueing up, the voices losing that tinny echo of time and regaining their original resonance. It wasnt informational breakdown at all, Jud could have told him. The name for it was senility. In his mind Jud again saw Lester Morgans bull Hanratty, his eyes rimmed with red, charging at everything in sight, everything that moved. Charging at trees when the wind jigged the leaves. Before Lester gave up and called it off, every tree in Hanrattys fenced meadow was gored with his brainless fury and his horns were splintered and his head was bleeding. When Lester put Hanratty down, Lester had been sick with dreadthe way Jud himself was right now. He drank beer and smoked. Daylight faded. He did not put on the light. Gradually the tip of his cigarette became a small red pip in the darkness. He sat and drank beer and watched Louis Creeds driveway. He believed that when Louis came home from wherever he was, he would go over and have a little talk with him. Make sure Louis wasnt planning to do anything he shouldnt. And still he felt the soft tug of whatever it was, whatever sick power it was that inhabited that devils place, reaching down from its bluff of rotted stone where all those cairns had been built. Stay out of this, you. Stay out of it or youre going to be very, very sorry. Ignoring it as best he could, Jud sat and smoked and drank beer. And waited. 47 While Jud Crandall was sitting in the ladderbacked rocker and watching for him out of his bay window, Louis was eating a big tasteless dinner in the Howard Johnsons dining room. The food was plentiful and dullexactly what his body seemed to want. Outside it had grown dark. The headlights of the passing cars probed like fingers. He shoveled the food in. A steak. A baked potato. A side dish of beans which were a bright green nature had never intended. A wedge of apple pie with a scoop of ice cream on top of it melting into a soft drool. He ate at a corner table, watching people come and go, wondering if he might not see someone he knew. In a vague way, he rather hoped that would happen.

It would lead to questionswheres Rachel, what are you doing here, hows it going? and perhaps the questions would lead to complications, and maybe complications were what he really wanted. A way out. And as a matter of fact, a couple that he did know came in just as he was finishing his apple pie and his second cup of coffee. Rob Grinnell, a Bangor doctor, and his pretty wife Barbara. He waited for them to see him, sitting here in the corner at his table for one, but the hostess led them to the booths on the far side of the room, and Louis lost sight of them entirely except for an occasional glimpse of Grinnells prematurely graying hair. The waitress brought Louis his check. He signed for it, jotting his room number under his signature, and left by the side door. Outside the wind had risen to neargale force. It was a steady droning presence, making the electrical wires hum oddly. He could see no stars but had a sense of clouds rushing past overhead at high speed. Louis stood on the walk for a moment, hands in pockets, face tilted into that wind. Then he turned back and went up to his room and turned on the television. It was too early to do anything serious, and that nightwind was too full of possibilities. It made him nervous. He watched four hours of TV, eight backtoback halfhour comedy programs. He realized it had been a very long time since he had watched so much TV in a steady, uninterrupted stream. He thought that all the female leads on the sitcoms were what he and his friends had called cockteasers back in high school. In Chicago, Dory Goldman was wailing, Fly back? Honey, why do you want to fly back? You just got here! In Ludlow, Jud Crandall sat by his bay window, smoking and drinking beer, motionless, examining the mental scrapbook of his own past and waiting for Louis to come home. Sooner or later Louis would come home, just like Lassie in that old movie. There were other ways up to the Pet Sematary and the place beyond, but Louis didnt know them. If he intended to do it, he would begin from his own dooryard. Unaware of these other happenings, like slowmoving projectiles aimed not at where he was, but rather in the best ballistics tradition at the place where he would be, Louis sat and watched the HoJo color television set. He had never seen any of these programs before, but he had heard vague rumors of them a black family, a white family, a little kid who was smarter than the rich grownups he lived with, a woman who was single, a woman who was married, a woman who was divorced. He watched it all, sitting in the HoJo chair and glancing out every now and then at the blowy night. When the eleven oclock news came on, he turned the television set off and went out to do what he had decided to do perhaps at the very moment he had seen Gages baseball cap lying in the road, full of blood. The coldness was on him again, stronger than ever, but there was something beneath itan ember of eagerness, or passion, or perhaps lust. No matter. It warmed him against the cold and kept him together in the wind. As he started the Hondas engine, he thought that perhaps Jud was right about the growing power of that place, for surely he felt it around him now, leading (or pushing) him on, and he wondered Could I stop? Could I stop even if I wanted to? 48 You want to what? Dory asked again. Rachel . . . youre upset . . . a nights sleep . . . Rachel only shook her head. She could not explain to her mother why she had to go back. The feeling had risen in her the way a wind risesan early stirring of the grasses, hardly noticed; then the air begins to move faster and harder, and there is no calm left; then the gusts become hard enough to make eerie screaming noises around the eaves; then they are shaking the house and you realize that this is something like a hurricane and if the wind gets much higher, things are going to fall down. It was six oclock in Chicago. In Bangor, Louis was just sitting down to his big, tasteless meal. Rachel and Ellie had done no more than pick at their dinners. Rachel kept raising her eyes from her plate to find her daughters dark glance upon her, asking her what she was going to do about whatever trouble Daddy was in, asking her what she was going to do. She waited for the telephone to ring, for Jud to call and tell her that Louis had come home, and once it did ringshe jumped, and Ellie almost spilled her glass of milkbut it was only a lady from Dorys bridge club, wanting to know if she had gotten home all right. They were having their coffee when Rachel had abruptly tossed down her napkin and said, Daddy . . . Mom . . . Im sorry, but I have to go home. If I can get a plane, Im going tonight. Her mother and father had gaped at her, but Ellie had closed her eyes in an adult expression of reliefit would have been funny if not for the waxy, stretched quality of her skin. They did not understand, and Rachel could no more explain than she could have explained how those tiny puffs of wind, so faint they can barely stir the tips of short grass, can gradually grow in power until they can knock a steel building flat. She did not believe that Ellie had heard a news item about the death of Victor Pascow and filed it away in her subconscious. Rachel. Honey. Her father spoke slowly, kindly, the way one might speak to someone in the grip of a transitory but dangerous hysteria. This is all just a reaction to your sons death. You and Ellie are both reacting strongly to that, and who could blame you? But youll just collapse if you try to Rachel did not answer him. She went to the telephone in the hall, found AIRLINES in the Yellow Pages and dialed Deltas number while Dory stood close by, telling her they ought to just think about this, didnt she think, they ought to talk about it, perhaps make a list . . . and beyond her Ellie stood, her face still dark but now it was lit by enough hope to give Rachel some courage. Delta Airlines, the voice on the other end said brightly. This is Kim, may I help you? I hope so, Rachel said. Its extremely important that I get from Chicago to Bangor tonight. Its . . . its a bit of an emergency, Im afraid. Can you check the connections for me? Dubiously Yes, maam, but this is very short notice. Well, please check, Rachel said, her voice cracking a little. Ill take standby, anything. All right, maam. Please hold. The line became smoothly silent. Rachel closed her eyes, and after a moment she felt a cool hand on her arm. She opened her eyes and saw that Ellie had moved next to her. Irwin and Dory stood together, talking quietly and looking at them. The way you look at people you suspect of being lunatics, Rachel thought wearily. She mustered a smile for Ellie. Dont let them stop you, Mommy, Ellie said in a low voice. Please. No way, big sister, Rachel said and then wincedit was what they had called her ever since Gage had been born. But she was no ones big sister anymore, was she? Thank you, Ellie said. Its very important, isnt it? Ellie nodded. Honey, I believe that it is. But you could help me if you could tell me more. Is it just the dream? No, Ellie said. Its . . . its everything now. Its running all through me now. Cant you feel it, Mommy? Something like a Something like a wind. Ellie sighed shakily. But you dont know what it is? You dont remember anything more about your dream? Ellie thought hard and then shook her head reluctantly. Daddy. Church. And Gage. Thats all I remember. But I dont remember how they go together, Mommy! Rachel hugged her tightly. It will be all right, she said, but the weight on her heart did not lessen. Hello, maam, the reservations clerk said. Hello? Rachel tightened her grip on both Ellie and the phone. I think I can get you to Bangor, maambut youre going to be getting in very late. That doesnt matter, Rachel said. Do you have a pen? Its complicated. Yes, right here, Rachel said, getting a stub of pencil out of the drawer. She found the back of an envelope to write on. Rachel listened carefully, writing down everything. When the airline clerk finished, Rachel smiled a little and made an O with her thumb and forefinger to show Ellie that it was going to work. Probably going to work, she amended. Some of the connections looked very, very tight . . . especially in Boston. Please book it all, Rachel said. And thank you. Kim took Rachels name and credit card number. Rachel hung up at last, limp but relieved. She looked at her father. Daddy, will you drive me to the airport? Maybe I ought to say no, Goldman said. I think I might have a responsibility to put a stop to this craziness. Dont you dare! Ellie cried shrilly. Its not crazy! Its not! Goldman blinked and stepped back at this small but ferocious outburst. Drive her, Irwin, Dory said quietly into the silence that followed. Ive begun to feel nervous too. Ill feel better if I know Louis is all right. Goldman stared at his wife and at last turned to Rachel. Ill drive you, if it is what you want, he said. I . . . Rachel, Ill come with you, if you want that. Rachel shook her head. Thank you, Daddy, but I got all the last seats. Its as if God saved them for me. Irwin Goldman sighed. At that moment he looked very old, and it suddenly occurred to Rachel that her father looked like Jud Crandall. You have time to pack a bag, if you want, he said. We can be at the airport in forty minutes, if I drive the way I used to when your mother and I were first married. Find her your tote bag, Dory. Mommy, Ellie said. Rachel turned toward her. Ellies face was now sheened with light sweat. What, honey? Be careful, Mommy, Ellie said. 49 The trees were only moving shapes against a cloudy sky backlit by the glow from the airport not too far distant. Louis parked the Honda on Mason Street. Mason bordered Pleasantview on its south side, and here the wind was almost strong enough to rip the car door out of his hand. He had to push hard to shut it. The wind rippled at his jacket as he opened the Hondas hatch and took out the piece of tarpaulin he had cut and wrapped around his tools. He was in a wing of darkness between two streetlights, standing on the curb with the canvaswrapped bundle cradled in his arms, looking carefully for traffic before crossing to the wroughtiron fence which marked the boundary of the graveyard. He did not want to be seen at all, if he could help it, not even by someone who would notice him and forget him the next second. Beside him, the branches of an old elm groaned restlessly in the wind, making Louis think of jackleg necktie parties. God, he was so scared. This wasnt wild work; it was mad work. No traffic. On the Mason Street side, the streetlamps marched away in perfect white circles, casting spotlights on the sidewalk where, during the days after Fairmount Grammar School let out, boys would ride bikes and girls would jump rope and play hopscotch, never noticing the nearby graveyard, except perhaps at Halloween, when it would acquire a certain spooky charm. Perhaps they would dare to cross their suburban street and hang a paper skeleton on the wroughtiron bars of the high fence, giggling at the old jokes its the most popular place in town; people are dying to get in. Why is it wrong to laugh in the grave yard? Because everyone who lives there is always in a grave mood. Gage, he muttered. Gage was in there, behind that wroughtiron fence, unjustly imprisoned under a blanket of dark earth, and that was no joke. Gonna break you out, Gage, he thought. Gonna break you out, big guy, or die trying. Louis crossed the street with his heavy bundle in his arms, stepped up on the other curb, glanced both ways again, and tossed the canvas roll over the fence. It clinked softly as it struck the ground on the far side. Dusting his hands, Louis walked away. He had marked the place in his mind. Even if he forgot, all he really had to do was follow the fence on the inside until he was standing opposite his Civic, and he would fall over it. But would the gate be open this late? He walked down Mason Street to the stop sign, the wind chasing him and worrying his heels. Moving shadows danced and twined on the roadway. He turned the corner onto Pleasant Street, still following the fence. Car headlights splashed up the street, and Louis stepped casually behind an elm tree. It wasnt a cop car, he saw, only a van moving toward Hammond Street and, probably, the turnpike. When it was well past him, Louis walked on. Of course it will be unlocked. Its got to be. He reached the gate, which formed a cathedral shape in wrought iron, slim and graceful in the moving wind shadows thrown by the streetlights. He reached out and tried it. Locked. You stupid fool, of course its lockeddid you really think anyone would leave a cemetery inside the municipal city limits of any American city unlocked after eleven oclock? No one is that trusting, dear man, not anymore. So what do you do now? Now he would have to climb and just hope no one happened to glance away from the Carson Show long enough to see him monkeying up the wrought iron like the worlds oldest, slowest kid. Hey, police? I just saw the worlds oldest, slowest kid climbing into Pleasantview Cemetery. Looked like he was dying to get in. Yeah, looked like a grave matter to me. Kidding? Oh no, Im in dead earnest. Maybe you ought to dig into it. Louis continued up Pleasant Street and turned right at the next intersection. The high iron fence marched along beside him relentlessly. The wind cooled and evaporated the drops of sweat on his forehead and in the hollows of his temples. His shadow waxed and waned in the streetlights. Every now and then he glanced at the fence, and then he stopped and forced himself to really look at it. Youre going to climb that baby? Dont make me laugh. Louis Creed was a fairly tall man, standing a bit over sixtwo, but the fence was easily nine feet high, each wroughtiron stave ending in a decorative, arrowlike point. Decorative, that is, until you happened to slip while swinging your leg over and the force of your suddenly dropping two hundred pounds drove one of those arrow points into your groin, exploding your testicles. And there you would be, skewered like a pig at a barbecue, hollering until someone called for the police and they came and pulled you off and took you to the hospital. The sweat continued to flow, sticking his shirt to his back. All was silent except for the faint hum of late traffic on Hammond Street. There had to be a way to get in there. Had to be. Come on, Louis, face the facts. You may be crazy, hut youre not that crazy. Maybe you could shinny up to the top of that fence, but it would take a trained gymnast to swing over those points without sticking himself on them. And even supposing you can get in, how are you going to get yourself and Gages body out? He went on walking, vaguely aware that he was circling the cemetery but not doing anything constructive. All right, heres the answer. Ill just go on home to Ludlow tonight and come back tomorrow, in the late afternoon.. Ill go in through the gate around four oclock and find a place to hole up until its midnight or a little later. I will, in other words, put off until tomorrow what I should have been smart enough to think of today. Good idea, O Great Swami Louis . . . and in the meantime, what do I do about that great big bundle of stuff 1 threw over the wall? Pick, shovel, flashlight . . . you might as well stamp GRAVEROBBING EQUIPMENT on every damn piece of it. It landed in the bushes. Whos going to find it, for Chrissake? On measure that made sense. But this was no sensible errand he was on, and his heart told him quietly and absolutely that he couldnt come back tomorrow. If he didnt do it tonight, he would never do it. He would never be able to screw himself up to this crazy pitch again. This was the moment, the only time for it he was ever going to have. There were fewer houses up this wayan occasional square of yellow light gleamed on the other side of the street, and once he saw the grayblue flicker of a blackandwhite TVand looking through the fence he saw that the graves were older here, more rounded, sometimes leaning forward or backward with the freezes and thaws of many seasons. There was another stop sign up ahead, and another right turn would put him on a street roughly parallel to Mason Street, where he had begun. And when he got back to the beginning, what did he do? Collect two hundred dollars and go around again? Admit defeat? Car headlights turned down the street. Louis stepped behind another tree, waiting for it to pass. This car was moving very slowly, and after a moment a white spotlight stabbed out from the passenger side and ran flickering along the wroughtiron fence. His heart squeezed painfully in his chest. It was a police car, checking the cemetery. He pressed himself tight against the tree, the rough bark against his cheek, hoping madly that it was big enough to shield him. The spotlight ran toward him. Louis put his head down, trying to shield the white blur of his face. The spotlight reached the tree, disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared on Louiss right. He slipped around the tree a little. He had a momentary glimpse of the dark bubbles on the cruisers roof. He waited for the taillights to flare a brighter red, for the doors to open, for the spotlight to suddenly turn back on its ball joint, hunting for him like a big white finger. Hey, you! You behind that tree! Come on out where we can see you, and we want to see both hands empty! Come out NOW! The police car kept on going. It reached the corner, signaled with sedate propriety, and turned left. Louis collapsed back against the tree, breathing fast, his mouth sour and dry. He supposed they would cruise past his parked Honda, but that didnt really matter. Parking from 6 P.M. to 7 A.M. was legal on Mason Street. There were plenty of other cars parked along it. Their owners would belong to the scattering of apartment buildings on the other side of the street. Louis found himself glancing up at the tree he had hidden behind. Just above his head, the tree forked. He supposed he could Without allowing himself to think about it further, he reached into the fork and pulled himself up, scrambling with his tennis shoes for purchase, sending a little shower of bark down to the sidewalk. He got a knee up and a moment later he had one foot planted solidly in the crotch of the elm. If the police car should happen to come back, their spotlight would find an extremely peculiar bird in this tree. He ought to move quickly. He pulled himself up onto a higher branch, one which overhung the very top of the fence. He felt absurdly like the twelveyearold he supposed he had once been. The tree was not still; it rocked easily, almost soothingly, in the steady wind. Its leaves rustled and murmured. Louis assessed the situation and then, before he could get cold feet, he dropped off into space, holding on to the branch with his hands laced together over it. The branch was perhaps a little thicker than a brawny mans forearm. With his sneakers dangling about eight feet over the sidewalk, he pulled himself hand for hand toward the fence. The branch dipped but showed no sign of breaking. He was faintly aware of his shadow following along on the cement sidewalk below him, an amorphous black apeshape. The wind chilled his hot armpits, and he found himself shivering in spite of the sweat running down his face and neck. The branch dipped and swayed with his movements. The farther out he moved, the more pronounced the dip became. His hands and wrists were getting tired now, and he was afraid that his sweatgreasy palms might slip. He reached the fence. His tennis shoes dangled perhaps a foot below the arrow tips. The tips did not look blunt at all from this angle. They looked very sharp. Sharp or not, he suddenly realized it was not just his balls that were at risk here. If he fell and hit one of those things dead on, his weight would be enough to drive it all the way up into his lungs. The returning cops would find an early and extremely grisly Halloween decoration on the Pleasantview fence. Breathing fast, not quite gasping, he groped for the fence points with his feet, needing a moments rest. For a moment he hung there, his feet moving in an air dance, searching but not finding. Light touched him and grew. Oh Christ, thats a car, theres a car coming! He tried to shuffle his hands forward, but his palms slipped. His interlaced fingers were coming apart. Still groping for purchase, he turned his head to the left, looking under his straining arm. It was a car, but it shot through the intersection up the street without slowing. Lucky. If it had His hands slipped again. He felt bark sift down onto his hair. One foot found purchase, but now his other pants leg had caught on one of the arrow points. And Christ, he wasnt going to be able to hang on much longer. Desperately, Louis jerked his leg. The branch dipped. His hands slipped again. There was a mutter of tearing cloth, and then he was standing on two of the arrow points. They dug into the soles of his tennis shoes, and the pressure quickly became painful, but Louis stood on them anyway. The relief in his hands and arms was greater than the pain in his feet. What a figure I must cut, Louis thought with dim and dismal amusement. Holding the branch with his left hand, he wiped his right hand across his jacket. Then he wiped off the left while he held with the right. He stood on the points for a moment longer and then slipped his hands forward along the branch. It was slim enough for him to be able to lace his fingers together comfortably now. He swung forward like Tarzan, feet leaving the arrow points. The branch dipped alarmingly, and he heard an ominous cracking sound. He let go, dropping on faith. He landed badly. One knee thudded against a gravestone, sending a lance of pain up his thigh. He rolled over on the grass, holding the knee, lips skinned back in something like a grin, hoping that he hadnt shattered his kneecap. At last the pain began to fade a little, and he found that he could flex the joint. It would be all right if he kept moving and didnt allow it to stiffen up on him. Maybe. He got to his feet and started to walk along the fence back toward Mason Street and his equipment. His knee was bad at first, and he limped, but the pain smoothed out to a dull ache as he went. There was aspirin in the Hondas firstaid kit. He should have remembered to bring that with him. Too late now. He kept an eye out for cars and faded back deeper into the cemetery when one came. On the Mason Street side, which was apt to be better traveled, he kept well back from the fence until he was opposite the Civic. He was about to trot down to the fence and pull his bundle out of the bushes when he heard footfalls on the sidewalk and a womans low laughter. He sat down behind a large grave marker it hurt his knee too much to squatand watched a couple walk up the far side of Mason Street. They were walking with their arms about each others waists, and something about their movement from one white pool of light to the next made Louis think of some old TV show. In a moment he had it The Jimmy Durante Hour. What would they do if he rose up now, a wavering shadow in this silent city of the dead, and cried hollowly across to them Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are! They stopped in the pool of light just beyond his car and embraced. Watching them, Louis felt a kind of sick wonder and selfloathing. Here he was, crouched behind a tombstone like a subhuman character in some cheap comicbook story, watching lovers. Is the line so thin, then? he wondered, and that thought also had a ring of familiarity. So thin you can simply step over it with this little fuss, muss, and bother? Climb a tree, shinny along a branch, drop into a graveyard, watch lovers . . . dig holes? That simple? Is it lunacy? I spent eight years becoming a doctor, but Ive become a grave robber in one simple stepwhat I suppose people would call a ghoul. He crammed his fists against his mouth to stop some sound from coming out and felt for that interior coldness, that sense of disconnection. It was there, and Louis drew it gratefully around him. When the couple finally walked on, Louis watched them with nothing but impatience. They climbed the steps of one of the apartment buildings. The man felt for a key, and a moment later they were inside. The street was silent again except for the constant beat of the wind, rustling the trees and tumbling his sweaty hair over his forehead. Louis ran down to the fence, bent low, and felt through the brush for his canvas bundle. Here it was, rough under his fingers. He picked it up, listening to the muffled clank from inside. He carried it over to the broad graveled drive that led in through the gates and paused to orient himself. Straight up here, go left at the fork. No problem. He walked along the edge of the drive, wanting to be able to go farther into the shadow of the elms if there did happen to be a fulltime caretaker and if he happened to be out. He bore left at the fork, approaching Cages grave now, and suddenly, appallingly, realized he could not remember what his son had looked like. He paused, staring off into the rows of graves, the frowning faades of the monuments, and tried to summon him up. Individual features came to himhis blond hair, still so fine and light, his slanting eyes, his small, white teeth, the little twist of scar on his chin from the time he had fallen down the back steps of their place in Chicago. He could see these things but could not integrate them into a coherent whole. He saw Gage running toward the road, running toward his appointment with the Orinco truck, but Gages face was turned away. He tried to summon up Cage as he had been in his crib on the night of the kiteflying day and could see only darkness in his minds eye. Gage, where are you? Have you ever thought, Louis, that you may not be doing your son any good service? Perhaps hes happy where he is . . . maybe all of that isnt the bullshit you always thought it was. Maybe hes with the angels or maybe hes just sleeping. And if hes sleeping, do you really know what it is you might wake up? Oh Gage, where are you? I want you home with us. But was he really controlling his own actions? Why couldnt he summon up Gages face, and why was he going against everyones warningJuds, the dream of Pascow, the trepidation of his own troubled heart? He thought of the grave markers in the Pet Sematary, those rude circles, spiraling down into the Mystery, and then the coldness came over him again. Why was he standing here, trying to summon up Gages face anyway? He would be seeing it soon enough. The headstone was here now; it read simply GAGE WILLIAM CREED, followed by the two dates. Someone had been here today to pay his or her respects, he saw; there were fresh flowers. Who would that have been? Missy Dandridge? His heart beat heavily but slowly in his chest. This was it then; if he was going to do it, he had better start. There was only so much night ahead, and then the day would come. Louis glanced into his heart one final time and saw that yes, he did intend to go ahead with this. He nodded his head almost imperceptibly and fished for his pocketknife. He had cinched his bundle with Scotch strapping tape, and now he cut it. He unrolled the tarp at the foot of Gages grave like a bedroll and then arranged items in exactly the same way he would have arranged instruments to suture a cut or to perform a small inoffice operation. Here was the flashlight with its lens felted as the hardware store clerk had suggested. The felt was also secured with strapping tape. He had made a small circle in the middle by placing a penny on the felt and cutting around it with a scalpel. Here was the shorthandled pick which he should not have to usehe had brought it only as a contingency. He would have no sealed cap to deal with, and he shouldnt run into any rocks in a newly filled grave. Here was the shovel, the spade, the length of rope, the work gloves. He put the gloves on, grabbed the spade, and started. The ground was soft, the digging easy. The graves shape was well defined, the dirt he was throwing out softer than the earth at the verge. His mind made a kind of automatic comparison between the ease of this dig and the rocky, unforgiving ground of the place where, if all went well, he would be reburying his son later on this night. Up there he would need the pick. Then he tried to stop thinking altogether. It only got in the way. He threw the dirt on the ground to the left of the grave, working into a steady rhythm that only became more difficult to maintain as the hole deepened. He stepped into the grave, smelling that dank aroma of fresh dirt, a smell he remembered from his summers with Uncle Carl. Digger, he thought and stopped to wipe sweat from his brow. Uncle Carl had told him that was the nickname for every graveyard sexton in America. Their friends called them Digger. He started in again. He stopped only once more, and that was to check his watch. It was twenty minutes past twelve. He felt time slipping through his fist like something that had been greased. Forty minutes later, the spade gritted across something, and Louiss teeth came down on his upper lip hard enough to bring blood. He got the flashlight and shone it down. Here was more dirt, and scrawled across it in a diagonal slash, a grayishsilver line. It was the top of the grave liner. Louis got most of the dirt off, but he was wary of making too much noise, and nothing was much louder than a shovel scraping across concrete in the dead of night. He climbed out of the grave and got the rope. This he threaded through the iron rings on one half of the segmented graveliner top. He got out of the grave again, spread out the tarpaulin, lay down on it, and grasped the ends of the rope. Louis, I think this is it. Your last chance. Youre right. Its my last chance and Im damned well taking it. He wound the ends of the rope around his hands and pulled. The square of concrete came up easily, gritting on the pivot end. It stood neatly upright over a square of blackness, now a vertical tombstone instead of a horizontal grave cover. Louis pulled the rope out of the rings and tossed it aside. He wouldnt need it for the other hail; he could stand on the sides of the grave liner and pull it up. He got down into the grave again, moving carefully, not wanting to overturn the cement slab he had already pulled up and mash his toes or break the damned thing, which was quite thin. Pebbles rattled down into the hole, and he heard several of them chip hollowly off Gages coffin. Bending, he grasped the other half of the graveliner top and pulled upward. As he did so, he felt something squelch coldly under his fingers. When he had this second half of the top standing on end, he looked down at his hand and saw a fat earthworm wriggling feebly there. With a choked cry of disgust, Louis wiped it off on the earthen sidewall of his sons grave. Then he shone his flashlight downward. Here was the coffin he had last seen resting on chrome runners over the grave at the funeral service, surrounded by that ghastly green Astroturf. This was the safetydeposit box in which he was supposed to bury all his hopes for his son. Fury, clean and white hot, the antithesis of his former coldness, rose up in him. Idiotic! The answer was no! Louis groped for the spade and found it. He raised it over his shoulder and brought it down on the coffins latch once, twice, a third time, a fourth. His lips were drawn back in a furious grimace. Going to break you out, Gage, see if I dont! The latch had splintered on the first stroke and probably no more were necessary, but he went on, not wanting just to open the coffin but to hurt it.

Some kind of sanity finally returned, and he stopped with the spade raised for another blow. The blade was bent and scratched. He tossed it aside and scrambled out of the grave on legs that felt weak and rubbery. He felt sick to his stomach, and the anger had gone as quickly as it had come. In its place the coldness flooded back in, and never in his life had his mind felt so alone and disconnected; he felt like an astronaut who has floated away from his ship during an EVA and now only drifts in a great blackness, breathing on borrowed time. Did Bill Baterman feel like this? he wondered. He lay on the ground, on his back this time, waiting to see if he was under control and ready to proceed. When the rubbery feeling had left his legs, he sat up and slipped back down into the grave. He shone the flashlight on the latch and saw it was not just broken, but demolished. He had swung the spade in a blind fury, but every blow he had struck had gone directly there, bulls eye, as if guided. The wood around it had splintered. Louis slipped the flashlight into his armpit. He squatted down slightly. His hands groped, like the hands of a catcher in a troupe of circus flyers, waiting to perform his part in a mortal docking. He found the groove in the lid, and he slipped his fingers into it. He paused for a momentone could not rightly call it a hesitationand then he opened his sons coffin. 50 Rachel Creed almost made her flight from Boston to Portland. Almost. Her Chicago plane left on time (a miracle in itself), was cleared straight into LaGuardia (another), and left New York only five minutes behind schedule. It got to the gate in Boston fifteen minutes lateat 1112 P.M. That left her with thirteen minutes. She still might have made her connecting flight, but the shuttle bus which makes a circle around the Logan terminals was late. Rachel waited, now in a kind of constant lowgrade panic, shifting from foot to foot as if she needed to go to the bathroom, switching the travel bag her mother had loaned her from one shoulder to the other. When the shuttle still hadnt come at 1125, she began to run. Her heels were low but still high enough to cause her problems. One of her ankles buckled painfully, and she paused long enough to take off the shoes. Then she ran on in her pantyhose, past Allegheny and Eastern Airlines, breathing hard now, getting the beginnings of a stitch in her side. Her breath was hot in her throat, that tuck in her side deeper and more painful. Now she was running past the international terminal, and there, up ahead, was Deltas triangular sign. She burst in through the doors, almost dropped one shoe, juggled it, caught it. It was 1137. One of the two clerks on duty glanced up at her. Flight 104, she panted. The Portland flight. Has it left? The clerk glanced behind him at the monitor. Still at the gate it says here, he said, but they called for final boarding five minutes ago. Ill call ahead. Bags to check? No, Rachel gasped, and brushed her sweaty hair out of her eyes. Her heart was galloping in her chest. Then dont wait for me to call. I willbut I advise you to run very fast. Rachel didnt run very fastshe was no longer able. But she did as well as she could. The escalator had been turned off for the night, and she pounded up the stairs, tasting copper shavings in her mouth. She reached the security checkpoint and almost threw the tote bag at the startled female guard, then waited for it to come through on the conveyor belt, her hands clenching and unclenching. It was barely out of the Xray chamber before she had snatched it by the strap and ran again, the bag flying out behind her and then banging her on the hip. She looked up at one of the monitors as she ran. FLIGHT 104 PORTLAND SCHED 1125P GATE 31 BOARDING Gate 31 was at the far end of the concourseand even as she snatched her glance at the monitor, BOARDING in steady letters changed to DEPARTING, blinking rapidly. A frustrated cry burst from her. She ran into the gate area just in time to see the gate attendant removing the strips which read FLIGHT 104 BOSTONPORTLAND 1125. Its gone? she asked incredulously. Its really gone? The attendant looked at her sympathetically. It rolled out of the jetway at 1140. Im sorry, maam. You made a helluva good try, if thats any consolation. He pointed out the wide glass windows. Rachel could see a big 727 with Delta markings, its running lights Christmastree bright, starting its takeoff roll. Christ, didnt anyone tell you I was coming? Rachel cried. When they called up here from downstairs, 104 was on an active taxiway. If Id called her back, she would have gotten caught in the parade going out to Runway 30, and that pilot would have had my beehind on a platter. Not to mention the hundred or so passengers on board. Im very sorry. If youd been even four minutes sooner She walked away, not listening to the rest. She was halfway back to the security checkpoint when waves of faintness rode over her. She stumbled into another gate area and sat down until the darkness had passed. Then she slipped her shoes back on, picking a squashed Lark cigarette butt off the tattered sole of one stocking first. My feet are dirty and I dont give a fuck, she thought disconsolately. She walked back toward the terminal. The security guard eyed her sympathetically. Missed it? I missed it, all right, Rachel said. Where were you headed? Portland. Then Bangor. Well, why dont you rent a car? If you really have to be there, that is? Ordinarily Id advise a hotel close to the airport, but if I ever saw a lady who looked like she really had to be there, you are that lady. Im that lady, all right, Rachel said. She thought about it. Yes, I suppose I could do that, couldnt I? If any of the agencies has a car. The security guard laughed. Oh, theyll have cars. Only time they dont have cars at Logan is when the airports fogged in. Which is a lot of the time. Rachel barely heard her. In her mind she was already trying to calculate it. She couldnt get to Portland in time to catch her Bangor flight even if she bulleted up the turnpike at a suicidal pace. So figure driving straight through. How long? That depended on how far. Two hundred and fifty miles, that was the figure which came to mind. Something Jud had said maybe. It was going to be at least a quarter past twelve before she got going, probably closer to 1230 A.M. It was all turnpike. She thought that her chances of going the whole distance at sixtyfive without getting hauled down for speeding were reasonably good. She ran the figures quickly in her head, dividing sixtyfive into two hundred and fifty. Not quite four hours. Well . . . say four even. She would have to stop once and go to the bathroom. And although sleep seemed impossibly distant now, she knew her own resources well enough to believe she would also have to stop for a great big black coffee. Still she could be back in Ludlow before first light. Mulling all this over, she started for the stairsthe car rental desks were one level down from the concourses. Good luck, honey, the security guard called. Take care. Thanks, Rachel said. She felt that she deserved some good luck. 51 The smell hit him first, and Louis recoiled, gagging. He hung on the edge of the grave, breathing hard, and just when he thought he had his gorge under control, his entire big, tasteless meal came up in a spurt. He threw up on the far side of the grave and then put his head against the ground, panting. At last the nausea passed. Teeth clamped together, he took the flashlight out of his armpit and shone it down into the open coffin. A deep horror that was very nearly awe stole over himit was the sort of feeling usually reserved for the worst nightmares, the ones you can barely remember upon awakening. Gages head was gone. Louiss hands were trembling so badly he had to hold the flashlight with both hands, gripping it the way a policeman is taught to grip his service revolver on the target range. Still the beam jittered back and forth and it was a moment before he could train the pencilthin beam back into the grave. Its impossible, he told himself, just remember that what you thought you saw is impossible. He slowly moved the narrow beam up Gages threefoot length, from the new shoes to the suit pants, the little coat (ah, Christ, no twoyearold was ever meant to wear a suit), to the open collar, to His breath caught in a harsh sound that was too outraged to be a gasp, and all his fury at Gages death came back in a rush, drowning fears of the supernatural, the paranatural, his growing certainty that he had crossed over into the country of the mad. Louis scrabbled in his back pocket for his handkerchief and pulled it out. Holding the light in one hand, he leaned into the grave again, almost past the point of balance. If one of the segments of grave liner had fallen now, it would have surely broken his neck. Gently he used his handkerchief to wipe away the damp moss that was growing on Gages skinmoss so dark that he had been momentarily fooled into thinking Gages whole head was gone. The moss was damp but no more than a scum. He should have expected it; there had been rain, and a grave liner was not watertight. Flashing his light to either side, Louis saw that the coffin was lying in a thin puddle. Beneath the light slime of growth, he saw his son. The mortician, aware that the coffin could not be opened after such a terrible accident, had nonetheless done the best he couldmorticians almost always did. Looking at his son was like looking at a badly made doll. Gages head bulged in strange directions. His eyes had sunken deep behind closed lids. Something white protruded from his mouth like an albino tongue, and Louis thought at first that they had, perhaps, used too much embalming fluid. It was tricky stuff at best, and with a child it was next to impossible to tell how much was enough or too much. Then he realized it was only cotton. He reached in and plucked it out of the boys mouth. Gages lips, oddly lax and seeming somehow too dark and too wide, closed with a faint but audible plip! He threw the cotton into the grave where it floated in the shallow puddle and gleamed a loathsome white. Now one of Gages cheeks had a hollow oldmans look. Gage, he whispered, going to take you out now, okay? He prayed no one would come along now, a caretaker making a 1230 swing through the cemetery, something like that. But it was no longer a matter of not being caught; if someone elses flashlight beam speared him as he stood here in the grave going about his grim work, he would seize the bent, scarred spade and put it through the intruders skull. He worked his arms under Gage. The body lolled bonelessly from side to side, and a sudden, awful certainty came over him when he lifted Gage, Gages body would break apart and he would be left with the pieces. He would be left standing with his feet on the sides of the grave liner with the pieces, screaming. And that was how they would find him. Go on, you chicken, go on and do it! He got Gage under the arms, aware of the fetid dampness, and lifted him that way, as he had lifted him so often from his evening tub. Gages head lolled all the way to the middle of his back. Louis saw the grinning circlet of stitches which held Gages head onto his shoulders. Somehow, panting, his stomach spasming from the smell and from the boneless loose feel of his sons miserably smashed body, Louis wrestled the body out of the coffin. At last he sat on the verge of the grave with the body in his lap, his feet dangling in the hole, his face a horrible livid color, his eyes black holes, his mouth drawn down in a trembling bow of horror and pity and sorrow. Gage, he said and began to rock the boy in his arms. Gages hair lay against Louiss wrist, as lifeless as wire. Gage, It will be all right, I swear, Gage, it will be all right, this will end, this is just the night, please, Gage, I love you, Daddy loves you. Louis rocked his son. By quarter of two, Louis was ready to leave the cemetery. Actually handling the body had been the worst of itthat was the point at which that interior astronaut, his mind, seemed to float the farthest into the void. And yet now, resting, his back a throbbing hurt in which exhausted muscles jumped and twitched, he felt it might be possible to get back. All the way back. He put Gages body on the tarpaulin and wrapped it up. He cinched it with long strips of strapping tape, then cut the length of rope in two and tied off the ends neatly. Once more he might have had a rolledup rug, no more. He closed the coffin, then after a moments thought, he reopened it and put the bent spade in. Let Pleasantview have that relic; it would not have his son. He closed the coffin and then lowered half of the cement graveliner top. He considered simply dropping the other half but was afraid it would shatter. After a moments consideration, he threaded his belt through the iron rings and used it to lower the cement square gently into place. Then he used the shovel to fill in the hole. There was not enough dirt to bring it up even with the ground again. The graves swaybacked look might be noticed. It might not. It might be noticed and disregarded. He would not allow himself to think about it, or worry about it tonighttoo much still lay ahead of him. More wild work. And he was very tired. Heyho, lets go. Indeed, Louis muttered. The wind rose, shrieking briefly through the trees and making him look around uneasily. He laid the shovel, the pick he had yet had to use, the gloves, and the flashlight beside the bundle. Using the light was a temptation, but he resisted it. Leaving the body and the tools, Louis walked back the way he had come and arrived at the high wroughtiron fence about five minutes later. There, across the street, was his Civic, parked neatly at the curb. So near and yet so far. Louis looked at it for a moment and then struck off in a different direction. This time he moved away from the gate, walking along the wroughtiron fence until it turned away from Mason Street at a neat right angle. There was a drainage ditch here, and Louis looked into it. What he saw made him shudder. There were masses of rotting flowers here, layer upon layer of them, washed down by seasons of rain and snow. Christ. No, not Christ. These leavings were made in propitiation of a much older God than the Christian one. People have called Him different things at different times, hut Rachels sister gave Him a perfectly good name, I think Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, God of dead things left in the ground, God of rotting flowers in drainage ditches, God of the Mystery. Louis stared down into the ditch as if hypnotized. At last he dragged his gaze away with a little gaspthe gasp of one who has come to, or who has been called from a mesmerists trance by the final number in a count of ten. He went on. He hadnt walked far before he found what he was looking for, and he suspected that his mind had neatly stored this bit of information on the day of Gages burial. Here, looming in the windy dark, was the cemeterys crypt. Coffins were stored there in the winter when it was too cold for even the payloaders to dig in the frozen earth. It was also used when there was a rush of business. There were such rushes of cold custom from time to time, Louis knew; in any given population there were times when, for no reason anyone could understand, lots of people died. It all balances out, Uncle Carl told him. If I have a twoweek period in May when nobody dies, Lou, I can count on a twoweek period in November when Ill have ten funerals. Only its rarely November, and its never around Christmas, although people always think thats when a lot of people die. That stuff about Christmas depression is just a load of bullshit. Just ask any funeral director. Most people are real happy around Christmas, and they want to live. So they do live. Its usually February when we get a big bulge. The flu gets the old people and theres pneumonia, of coursebut thats not all. Therell be people whove been battling cancer like mad bastards for a year, sixteen months. Then bad old February comes around and it seems as if they get tired and the cancer just rolls them up like a rug. On January 31 theyre in remission, and they feel as if theyre in the pink. Come February 24 theyre planted. People have heart attacks in February, strokes in February, renal failure in February. Its a bad month. People get tired in February. Were used to it, in the business. But then, for no reason, the same thing will happen in June or in October. Never in August. Augusts a slow month. Unless a gas main explodes or a city bus goes off a bridge, you never fill up a cemetery crypt in August. But there have been Februarys when weve had caskets stacked up three deep, hoping like hell for a thaw so we can plant some of them before we have to rent a frigging apartment. Uncle Carl had laughed. And Louis, feeling a party to something not even his instructors in med school knew, had laughed too. The crypts double doors were set into a grassy rise of hill, a shape as natural and attractive as the swell of a womans breast. This hill (which Louis suspected was landscaped rather than natural) crested only a foot or two below the decorative arrow tips of the wroughtiron fence, which remained even at the top rather than rising with the contour. Louis glanced around, then scrambled up the slope. On the other side was an empty square of ground, perhaps two acres in all. No . . . not quite empty. There was a single outbuilding, like a disconnected shed. Probably belongs to the cemetery, Louis thought. That would be where they kept their grounds equipment. The streetlights shone through the moving leaves of a belt of treesold elms and maplesthat screened this area from Mason Street. Louis saw no other movement. He slid back down on his butt, afraid of falling and reinjuring his knee, and returned to his sons grave. He almost stumbled over the roll of the tarpaulin. He saw he would have to make two trips, one with the body and another for the tools. He bent, grimacing at his backs protest, and got the stiff canvas roll in his arms. He could feel the shift of Gages body within and steadfastly ignored that part of his mind which whispered constantly that he had gone mad. He carried the body over to the hill which housed Pleasantviews crypt with its two steel sliding doors (the doors made it look queerly like a twocar garage). He saw what would have to be done if he were going to get his fortypound bundle up that steep slope now that his rope was gone and prepared to do it. He backed up and then ran at the slope, leaning forward, letting his forward motion carry him as far as it would. He got almost to the top before his feet skidded out from under him on the short, slick grass, and he tossed the canvas roll as far as he could as he came down. It landed almost at the crest of the hill. He scrambled the rest of the way up, looked around again, saw no one, and laid the rolledup tarp against the fence. Then he went back for the rest of his things. He gained the top of the hill again, put the gloves on, and piled the flashlight, pick, and shovel next to the tarp. Then he rested, back against the staves of the fence, hands propped on his knees. The new digital watch Rachel had given him for Christmas informed him that it was now 201. He gave himself five minutes to regroup and then tossed the shovel over the fence. He heard it thud in the grass. He tried to stuff the flashlight into his pants, but it just wouldnt go. He slipped it through two of the iron staves and listened to it roll down the hill, hoping it would not hit a stone and break. He wished he had worn a packsack. He removed his dispenser of strapping tape from the pocket of his jacket and bound the businessend of the pick to the canvas roll, going around and around, drawing the tape tight over the picks metal arms and tight under the canvas. He did this until the tape was gone and then tucked the empty dispenser back in his pocket. He lifted the bundle and hoisted it over the fence (his back screamed in protest; he would pay for this night all the following week, he suspected) and then let it drop, wincing at the soft thud. Now he swung one leg over the fence, grasped two of the decorative arrow points, and swung his other leg over. He skidded down, digging in at the earth between the staves of the fence with the toes of his shoes, and dropped to the ground. He made his way down the far side of the hill and felt through the grass. He found the shovel right awaymuted as the glow from the streetlights was through the trees, it reflected a faint gleam from the blade. He had a couple of bad moments when he was unable to find the flashlighthow far could it have rolled in this grass? He got down on his hands and knees and felt through the thick plush, his breath and heartbeat loud in his own ears. At last he spotted it, a thin black shadow some five feet from where he had guessed it would belike the hill masking the cemetery crypt, the regularity of its shape gave it away. He grabbed it, cupped a hand over its felted lens, and pushed the little rubber nipple that hid the switch. His palm lit up briefly, and he switched the flashlight off. It was okay. He used his pocketknife to cut the pick free from the canvas roll and took the tools through the grass to the trees. He stood behind the biggest, looking both ways along Mason Street. It was utterly deserted now. He saw only one light on the entire street a square of yellowgold in an upstairs room. An insomniac, perhaps, or an invalid. Moving quickly but not running, Louis stepped out onto the sidewalk. After the dimness of the cemetery, he felt horribly exposed under the streetlights; here he stood, only yards away from Bangors secondlargest boneyard, a pick, shovel, and flashlight cradled in his arms. If someone saw him now, the inference would be too clear to miss. He crossed the street rapidly, heels clicking. There was his Civic, only fifty yards down the street. To Louis, it looked like five miles. Sweating, he walked toward it, alert for the sound of an approaching car engine, footfalls other than his own, perhaps the rasp of a window going up. He got to his Honda, leaned the pick and shovel against the side, and fumbled for his keys. They werent there, not in either pocket. Fresh sweat began to break on his face. His heart began to run again, and his teeth were clenched together against the panic that wanted to leap free. He had lost them, most likely when he had dropped from the tree limb, hit the grave marker with his knee, and rolled over. His keys were lying somewhere in the grass, and if he had had trouble finding his flashlight, how could he hope to recover his keys? It was over. One piece of bad luck and it was over. Now wait, wait just a goddam minute. Go through your pockets again. Your change is thereand if your change didnt fall out, your keys didnt fall out either. This time he went through his pockets more slowly, removing the change, even turning the pockets themselves inside out. No keys. Louis leaned against the car, wondering what to do next. He would have to climb back in, he supposed. Leave his son where he was, take the flashlight, climb back in, and spend the rest of the night in a fruitless hunt for Light suddenly broke in his tired mind. He bent down and stared into the Civic. There were his keys dangling from the ignition switch. A soft grunt escaped him, and then he ran around to the drivers side, snatched the door open, and took the keys out. In his mind he suddenly heard the authoritative voice of that grim father figure Karl Malden, he of the potato nose and the archaic snapbrim hat Lock your car. Take your keys. Dont help a good boy go bad. He went around to the rear of the Civic and opened the hatchback. He put in the pick, shovel, and flashlight, then slammed it. He had gotten twenty or thirty feet down the sidewalk when he remembered his keys. This time he had left them dangling from the hatchback lock. Stupid! he railed at himself. If youre going to be so goddam stupid, you better forget the whole thing! He went back and got his keys. He had gotten Gage in his arms and was most of the way back to Mason Street when a dog began to bark somewhere. Noit didnt just begin to bark. It began to howl, its gruff voice filling the street. AugggghROOOO! AugggghROOOOOO! He stood behind one of the trees, wondering what could possibly happen next, wondering what to do next. He stood there expecting lights to start going on all up and down the street. In fact only one light did go on, at the side of a house just opposite where Louis stood in the shadows. A moment later a hoarse voice cried, Shut up, Fred! AugggghROOOOOO! Fred responded. Shut him up, Scanlon, or Im calling the police! someone yelled from the side of the street Louis was on, making him jump, making him realize just how false the illusion of emptiness and desertion was. There were people all around him, hundreds of eyes, and that dog was attacking sleep, his only friend. Goddam you, Fred, he thought. Oh, goddam you. Fred began another chorus; he got well into the Auggggh, but before he could do more than get started on a good solid ROOOOOO, there was a hard whacking sound followed by a series of low whimpers and yips. Silence followed by the faint slam of a door. The light at the side of Freds house stayed on for a moment, then clicked off. Louis felt strongly inclined to stay in the shadows, to wait; surely it would be better to wait until the ruckus had died down. But time was getting away from him. He crossed the street with his bundle and walked back down to the Civic, seeing no one at all. Fred held his peace. He clutched his bundle in one hand, got his keys, opened the hatchback. Gage would not fit. Louis tried the bundle vertically, then horizontally, then diagonally. The Civics back compartment was too small. He could have bent and crushed the bundle in thereGage would not have mindedbut Louis could simply not bring himself to do it. Come on, come on, come on, lets get out of here, lets not push it any further. But lie stood, nonplussed, out of ideas, the bundle containing his sons corpse in his arms. Then he heard the sound of an approaching car, and without really thinking at all, he took the bundle around to the passenger side, opened the door, and slipped the bundle into the seat. He shut the door, ran around to the rear of the Civic, and slammed the hatchback. The car went right through the intersection, and Louis heard the whoop of drunken voices. He got behind the wheel, started his car, and was reaching for the headlight switch when a horrible thought struck him. What if Gage were facing backward, sitting there with those joints at knee and hip bending the wrong way, his sunken eyes looking toward the rear window instead of out through the windshield? It doesnt matter, his mind responded with a shrill fury born of exhaustion. Will you get that through your head? it just doesnt matter! But it does. it does matter. Its Gage in there, not a bundle of towels! He reached over and gently began to press his hands against the canvas tarpaulin, feeling for the contours underneath. He looked like a blind man trying to determine what a specific object might be. At last he came upon a protuberance that could only be Gages nosefacing in the right direction. Only then could he bring himself to put the Civic in gear and start the twentyfive minute drive back to Ludlow. 52 At one oclock that morning, Jud Crandalls telephone rang, shrilling in the empty house, starting him awake. In his doze he was dreaming, and in the dream he was twentythree again, sitting on a bench in the B A coupling shed with George Chapin and Ren Michaud, the three of them passing around a bottle of Georgia Charger whiskeyjumpedup moonshine with a revenue stamp on itwhile outside a noreaster blew its randy shriek over the world, silencing all that moved, including the rolling stock of the B A railroad. So they sat and drank around the potbellied Defiant, watching the red glow of the coals shift and change behind the cloudy isinglass, casting diamondshaped flame shadows across the floor, telling the stories which men hold inside for years like the junk treasures boys store under their beds, the stories they store up for nights such as this. Like the glow of the Defiant, these were dark stories with a glow of red at the center of each and the wind to wrap them around. He was twentythree, and Norma was very much alive (although in bed now, he had no doubt; she would not expect him home this wild night), and Ren Michaud was telling a story about a Jew peddler in Bucksport who That was when the phone began to ring and he jerked up in his chair, wincing at the stiffness in his neck, feeling a sour heaviness drop into him like a stoneit was, he thought, all those years between twentythree and eightythree, all sixty of them, dropping into him at once. And on the heels of that thought You been sleepin, boyo. Thats no way to run this railroad . . . not tonight. He got up, holding himself straight against the stiffness that had also settled into his back, and crossed to the phone. It was Rachel. Jud? Has he come home? No, Jud said. Rachel, where are you? You sound closer. I am closer, Rachel said. And although she did sound closer somehow, there was a distant humming on the wire. It was the sound of the wind, somewhere between here and wherever she was. The wind was high tonight. That sound that always made Jud think of dead voices, sighing in chorus, maybe singing something just a little too far away to be made out. Im at the rest area at Biddeford on the Maine Turnpike. "Biddeford! I couldnt stay in Chicago. It was getting to me, too whatever it was that got Ellie, it was getting me too. And you feel it. Its in your voice. Ayuh. He picked a Chesterfield out of his pack and slipped it into the corner of his mouth. He popped a wooden match alight and watched it flicker as his hand trembled. His hands hadnt tremblednot before this nightmare had commenced anyway. Outside, he heard that dark wind gust. It took the house in its hand and shook it. Powers growing. I can feel it. Dim terror in his old bones. It was like spun glass, fine and fragile. Jud, please tell me whats going on! He supposed she had a right to knowa need to know. And he supposed he would tell her. Eventually he would tell her the whole story. He would show her the chain that had been forged link by link. Normas heart attack, the death of the cat, Louiss questionhas anyone ever buried a person up there?Cages death . . . and God alone knew what further link Louis might be forging right now. Eventually he would tell her. But not over the phone. Rachel, how come you to be on the turnpike instead of in a plane? She explained how she had missed her connecting flight at Boston. I got an Avis car, but Im not making the time I thought I would. I got a little bit lost corning from Logan to the turnpike, and Ive only got into Maine. I dont think I can get there until dawn. But Jud . . . please. Please tell me whats happening. Im so scared, and I dont even know why. Rachel, listen to me, Jud said, you drive on up to Portland and lay over, do you hear me? Check into a motel there and get some Jud, I cant do th and get some sleep. Feel no fret, Rachel. Something may be happening here tonight, or something may not. If something isif its what I thinkthen you wouldnt want to be here anyway. I can take care of it, I think. I better be able to take care of it because whats happening is my fault. If nothings happening, then you get here this afternoon, and that will be fine. I imagine Louis will be real glad to see you. I couldnt sleep tonight, Jud.

Yes, he said, reflecting that he had believed the same thing hell, Peter had probably believed the same thing on the night Jesus had been taken into custody. Sleeping on sentry duty. Yes, you can. Rachel, if you doze off behind the wheel of that damn rentacar and go off the road and get yourself killed, whats going to happen to Louis then? And Ellie? Tell me whats going on! If you tell me that, Jud, maybe Ill take your advice. But I have to know! When you get to Ludlow, I want you to come here, Jud said. Not over to your house. Come here first. Ill tell you everything I know, Rachel. And I am watching for Louis. Tell me, she said. No, maam. Not over the phone. I wont. Rachel, I cant. You go on now. Drive up to Portland and lay over. There was a long, considering pause. All right, she said at last. Maybe youre right. Jud, tell me one thing. Tell me how bad it is. I can handle it, Jud said calmly. Things have got as bad as theyre going to get. Outside the headlights of a car appeared, moving slowly. Jud hallstood, watching it, and then sat down again when it accelerated past the Creed house and out of sight. All right, she said. I guess. The rest of this drive has seemed like a stone on my head. Let the stone roll off, my dear, Jud said. Please. Save yourself for tomorrow. Things here will be all right. You promise youll tell me the whole story? Yes. Well have us a beer, and Ill tell you the whole thing. Goodbye, then, Rachel said, for now. For now, Jud agreed. Ill see you tomorrow, Rachel. Before she could say anything else, Jud hung up the telephone. He thought there were caffeine pills in the medicine cabinet, but he could not find them. He put the rest of the beer back in the refrigeratornot without regretand settled for a cup of black coffee. He took it back to the bow window and sat down again, sipping and watching. The coffeeand the conversation with Rachelkept him awake and alert for three quarters of an hour, but then he began to nod once more. No sleeping on sentry duty, old man. You let it get hold of you; you bought something, and now you have to pay for it. So no sleeping on sentry duty. He lit a fresh cigarette, drew deep, and coughed an old mans rasping cough. He put the cigarette on the groove of the ashtray and rubbed his eyes with both hands. Outside a tenwheeler blasted by, running lights glaring, cutting through the windy, uneasy night. He caught himself dozing off again, snapped awake, and abruptly slapped himself across the face, forehand and backhand, causing his ears to ring. Now terror awakened in his heart, a stealthy visitor who had broken into that secret place. Its puttin me to sleep . . . hypnotizin me . . . somethin. It doesnt want me awake. Because hell be comin back pretty soon. Yeah, I feel that. And it wants me out of the way. No, he said grimly. No way at all. You hear me? Im puttin a stop to this. This has gone far enough. The wind whined around the eaves, and the trees on the other side of the road shook their leaves in hypnotic patterns. His mind went back to that night around the Defiant stove in the coupling shed, which had stood right where the Evarts Furniture Mart stood in Brewer now. They had talked the night away, he and George and Ren Michaud, and now he was the only one left Ren crushed between two boxcars on a stormy night in March of 1939, George Chapin dead of a heart attack just last year. Of so many, he was the only one left, and the old get stupid. Sometimes the stupidity masquerades as kindness, and sometimes it masquerades as pridea need to tell old secrets, to pass things on, to pour from the old glass to the new one, to . . . So dis Jew peddler come in and he say I got sumpin you never seen before. These poscards, dey jus look like wimmin in bathin suits until you rub dem wit a wet cloth, and den Juds head nodded. His chin settled slowly, gently, against his chest. deys as nakid as the day dey was born! But when dey dry, the cloes, dey come back on! And dat aint all! I got Ren telling this story in the coupling shed, leaning forward, smiling, and Jud holds the bottlehe feels the bottle and his hand closes around it on thin air. In the ashtray, the cigarette ash on the end of the cigarette grew longer. At last it tipped forward into the ashtray and burned out, its shape recalled in the neat roll of ash like a rune. Jud slept. And when the taillights flashed outside and Louis turned the Honda Civic into his driveway some forty minutes later and drove it into the garage, Jud did not hear, stir, or awaken, any more than Peter awoke when the Roman soldiers came to take a tramp named Jesus into their custody. 53 Louis found a fresh dispenser of strapping tape in one of the kitchen drawers, and there was a coil of rope in the corner of the garage near last winters snow tires. He used the tape to bind the pick and shovel together in a single neat bundle and the rope to fashion a rough sling. Tools in the sling. Gage in his arms. He looped the sling over his back, then opened the passenger door of the Civic, pulling the bundle out. Gage was much heavier than Church had been. He might well be crawling by the time he got his boy up to the Micmac burying groundand he would still have the grave to dig, lighting his way through that stony, unforgiving soil. Well, he would manage. Somehow. Louis Creed stepped out of his garage, pausing to thumb off the light switch with his elbow, and stood for a moment at the place where asphalt gave way to grass. Ahead of him he could see the path leading to the Pet Sematary well enough in spite of the blackness; the path, with its short grass, glowed with a kind of luminescence. The wind pushed and pulled its fingers through his hair, and for a moment the old, childlike fear of the dark rushed through him, making him feel weak and small and terrorized. Was he really going into the woods with this corpse in his arms, passing under the trees where the wind walked, from darkness into darkness? And alone this time? Dont think about it. Just do it. Louis got walking. By the time he got to the Pet Sematary twenty minutes later, his arms and legs were trembling with exhaustion, and he collapsed with the rolledup tarpaulin across his knees, gasping. He rested there for another twenty minutes, almost dozing, no longer fearfulexhaustion had driven fear out, it seemed. Finally he got to his feet again, not really believing he could climb the deadfall, only knowing in some numb sort of way that he must try. The bundle in his arms seemed to weigh two hundred pounds instead of forty. But what had happened before happened again; it was like suddenly, vividly remembering a dream., No, not remembering; reliving. When he placed his foot on the first dead treetrunk, that queer sensation rushed through him again, a feeling that was almost exultation. The weariness did not leave him, but it became bearableunimportant, really. Just follow me. Follow me and dont look down, Louis. Dont hesitate and dont look down. I know the way through, but it has to be done quick and sure. Quick and sure, yesthe way Jud had removed the stinger. I know the way through. But there was only one way through, Louis thought. Either it let you through or it did not. Once before, he had tried to climb the deadfall by himself and hadnt been able to. This time he mounted it quickly and surely, as he had on the night Jud had shown him the way. Up and up, not looking down, his sons body in its canvas shroud cradled in his arms. Up until the wind funneled secret passages and chambers through his hair again, flipping it, parting it widdershins. He stood on the top for a moment and then descended quickly, as if going down a set of stairs. The pick and shovel rattled and clinked dully against his back. In no more than a minute, he was standing on the springy, needlecovered ground of the path again, the deadfall bulking behind him, higher than the graveyard fence had been. He moved up the path with his son, listening to the wind moan in the trees. The sound held no terror for him now. The nights work was almost done. 54 Rachel Creed passed the sign reading EXIT 8 KEEP RIGHT FOR PORTLAND WESTBROOK, put on her blinker, and guided the Avis Chevette toward the exit ramp. She could see a green Holiday Inn sign clearly against the night sky. A bed, sleep. An end to this constant, racking, sourceless tension. Also an endfor a little while, at leastto her grieving emptiness for the child who was no longer there. This grief, she had discovered, was like a massive tooth extraction. There was numbness at first, but even through the numbness you felt pain curled up like a cat swishing its tail, pain waiting to happen. And when the novocaine wore off, oh boy, you sure werent disappointed. He told her that he was sent to warn . . . but that he couldnt interfere. He told her he was near Daddy because they were together when his soul was discorporated. Jud knows, but he wont tell. Something is going on. Something. But what? Suicide? Is it suicide? Not Louis; I cant believe that. But he was lying about something. It was in his eyes . . . oh shit, it was all over his face, almost as if he wanted me to see the lie . . . see it and put a stop to it . . . because part of him was scared so scared. Scared? Louis is never scared! Suddenly she jerked the Chevettes steering wheel hard over to the left, and the ear responded with the abrupt suddenness that small cars have, the tires wailing. For a moment she thought it was going to turn over. But it didnt, and she was moving north again, exit 8 with its comforting Holiday Inn sign slipping behind her. A new sign came in view, reflective paint twinkling eerily. NEXT EXIT ROUTE 12 CUMBERLAND CUMBERLAND CENTER JERUSALEMS LOT FALMOUTH FALMOUTH FORESIDE. Jerusalems Lot, she thought randomly, what an odd name. Not a pleasant name, for some reason . . . Come and sleep in Jerusalem. But there would be no sleep for her tonight; Juds advice notwithstanding, she now meant to drive straight through. Jud knew what was wrong and had promised her he would put a stop to it, but the man was eightysome years old and had lost his wife only three months before. She would not put her trust in Jud. She should never have allowed Louis to bulldoze her out of the house the way he had, but she had been weakened by Gages death. Ellie with her Polaroid picture of Gage and her pinched faceit had been the face of a child who has survived a tornado or a sudden divebombing from a clear blue sky. There had been times in the dark watches of the night when she had longed to hate Louis for the grief he had fathered inside her, and for not giving her the comfort she needed (or allowing her to give the comfort she needed to give), but she could not. She loved him too much still, and his face had been so pale . . . so watchful . . . The Chevettes speedometer needle hung poised just a bit to the right of sixty miles an hour. A mile a minute. Two hours and a quarter to Ludlow maybe. Maybe she could still beat the sunrise. She fumbled with the radio, turned it on, found a rockandroll station out of Portland. She turned up the volume and sang along, trying to keep herself awake. The station began to fade in and out half an hour later, and she retuned to an Augusta station, rolled the window down, and let the restless night air blow in on her. She wondered if this night would ever end. 55 Louis had rediscovered his dream and was in its grip; every few moments he looked down to make sure it was a body in a tarpaulin he was carrying and not one in a green Hefty Bag. He remembered how on awakening the morning after Jud had taken him up there with Church he had been barely able to remember what they had donebut now he also remembered how vivid those sensations had been, how alive each of his senses had felt, how they had seemed to reach out, touching the woods as if they were alive and in some kind of telepathic contact with himself. He followed the path up and down, rediscovering the places where it seemed as wide as Route 15, the places where it narrowed until he had to turn sideways to keep the head and foot of his bundle from getting tangled in the underbrush, the places where the path wound through great cathedral stands of trees. He could smell the clear tang of pine resin, and he could hear that strange crumpcrump of the needles underfoota sensation that is really more feeling than sound. At last the path began to slant downward more steeply and constantly. A short time later one foot splashed through thin water and became mired in the sludgy stuff underneath . . . the quicksand, if Jud was to be believed. Louis looked down and could see the standing water between growths of reeds and low, ugly bushes with leaves so broad they were almost tropical. He remembered that the light had seemed brighter that other night too. More electrical. This next bit is like the deadfallyou got to walk steady and easy. Just follow me and dont look down. Yes, okay . . . and just by the bye, have you ever seen plants like these in Maine before? In Maine or anywhere else? What in Christs name are they? Never mind, Louis. Just . . . lets go. He began to walk again, looking at the wet, marshy undergrowth just long enough to sight the first tussock and then only looking ahead of himself, his feet moving from one grassy hump to the nextfaith is accepting gravity as a postulate, he thought; nothing he had been told in a college theology or philosophy course, but something his high school physics instructor had once tossed off near the end of a period . . . something Louis had never forgotten. He accepted the ability of the Micmac burying ground to resurrect the dead and walked into Little God Swamp with his son in his arms, not looking down or back. These marshy bottoms were noisier now than they had been at the tag end of autumn. Peepers sang constantly in the reeds, a shrill chorus which Louis found alien and uninviting. An occasional frog twanged a deep elastic somewhere in its throat. Twenty paces or so into Little God Swamp he was buzzbombed by some shape . . . a bat, perhaps. The groundmist began to swirl around him, first covering his shoes, then his shins, finally enclosing him in a glowing white capsule. It seemed to him that the light was brighter, a pulsing effulgence like the beat of some strange heart. He had never before felt so strongly the presence of nature as a kind of coalescing force, a real being . . . possibly sentient. The swamp was alive, but not with the sound of music. If asked to define either the sense or the nature of that aliveness, he would have been unable. He only knew that it was rich with possibility and textured with strength. Inside it, Louis felt very small and very mortal. Then there was a sound, and he remembered this from the last time as well a high, gobbling laugh that became a sob. There was silence for a moment and then the laugh came again, this time rising to a maniacal shriek that froze Louiss blood. The mist drifted dreamily around him. The laughter faded, leaving only the drone of the wind, heard but no longer felt. Of course not; this had to be some sort of geological cup in the earth. If the wind could have penetrated here, it would have torn this mist to tatters . . . and Louis wasnt sure he would want to see what might have been revealed. You may hear sounds like voices, but they are the loons down south toward Prospect. The sound carries. Its funny. Loons, Louis said and barely recognized the cracked, somehow ghastly sound of his own voice. But he sounded amused. God help him, he actually sounded amused. He hesitated briefly and then moved on again. As if to punish him for his brief pause, his foot slipped from the next tussock, and he almost lost his shoe, pulling it free from the grasping ooze under the shallow water. The voiceif that was what it wascame again, this time from the left. Moments later it came from behind him . . . from directly behind him, it seemed, as if he could have turned and seen some blooddrenched thing less than a foot from his back, all bared teeth and glittering eyes . . . but this time Louis did not slow. He looked straight ahead and kept walking. Suddenly the mist lost its light and Louis realized that a face was hanging in the air ahead of him, leering and gibbering. Its eyes, tilted up like the eyes in a classical Chinese painting, were a rich yellowishgray, sunken, gleaming. The mouth was drawn down in a rictus; the lower lip was turned inside out, revealing teeth stained blackishbrown and worn down almost to nubs. But what struck Louis were the ears, which were not ears at all but curving horns . . . they were not like devils horns; they were rams horns. This grisly, floating head seemed to be speakinglaughing. Its mouth moved, although that turneddown lower lip never came back to its natural shape and place. Veins in there pulsed black. Its nostrils flared, as if with breath and life, and blew out white vapors. As Louis drew closer, the floating heads tongue lolled out. It was long and pointed, dirty yellow in color. It was coated with peeling scales and as Louis watched, one of these flipped up and over like a manhole cover and a white worm oozed out. The tongues tip skittered lazily on the air somewhere below where its adams apple should have been . . . it was laughing. He clutched Gage closer to him, hugging him, as if to protect him, and his feet faltered and began to slip on the grassy tussocks where they held slim purchase. You might see St. Elmos fire, what the sailors call foolights. It can make funny shapes, but its nothing. If you should see some of those shapes and they bother you, just look the other way . . . Juds voice in his head gave him a measure of resolve. He began to move steadily forward again, lurching at first, then finding his balance. He didnt look away but noticed that the faceif that was what it was and not just a shape made by the mist and his own mindseemed to always remain the same distance away from him. And seconds or minutes later, it simply dissolved into drifting mist. That was not St. Elmos fire. No, of course it wasnt. This place was thick with spirits; it was tenebrous with them. You could look around and see something that would send you raving mad. He would not think about it. There was no need to think about it. There was no need to Something was coming. Louis came to a total halt, listening to that sound . . . that inexorable, approaching sound. His mouth fell open, every tendon that held his jaw shut simply giving up. It was a sound like nothing he had ever heard in his lifea living sound, a big sound. Somewhere nearby, growing closer, branches were snapping off. There was a crackle of underbrush breaking under unimaginable feet. The jellylike ground under Louiss feet began to shake in sympathetic vibration. He became aware that he was moaning (oh my God oh my dear God what is that what is coming through this fog?) and once more clutching Gage to his chest; he became aware that the peepers and frogs had fallen silent, he became aware that the wet, damp air had taken on an eldritch, sickening smell like warm, spoiled pork. Whatever it was, it was huge. Louiss wondering, terrified face tilted up and up, like a man following the trajectory of a launched rocket. The thing thudded toward him, and there was the ratcheting sound of a treenot a branch, but a whole treefalling over somewhere close by. Louis saw something. The mist stained to a dull slategray for a moment, but this diffuse, illdefined watermark was better than sixty feet high. It was no shade, no insubstantial ghost; he could feel the displaced air of its passage, could hear the mammoth thud of its feet coming down, the suck of mud as it moved on. For a moment he believed he saw twin yelloworange sparks high above him. Sparks like eyes. Then the sound began to fade. As it went away, a peeper called hesitantlyone. It was answered by another. A third joined the conversation; a fourth made it a bull session; a fifth and sixth made it a peeper convention. The sounds of the things progress (slow but not blundering; perhaps that was the worst of it, that feeling of sentient progress) were moving away to the north. Little . . . less . . . gone. At last Louis began to move again. His shoulders and back were a frozen ache of torment. He wore an undergarment of sweat from neck to ankles. The seasons first mosquitoes, newhatched and hungry, found him and sat down to a late snack. The Wendigo, dear Christ, that was the Wendigothe creature that moves through the north country, the creature that can touch you and turn you into a cannibal. That was it. The Wendigo has just passed within sixty yards of me. He told himself not to be ridiculous, to be like Jud and avoid ideas about what might be seen or heard beyond the Pet Sematarythey were loons, they were St. Elmos fire, they were the members of the New York Yankees bullpen. Let them be anything but the creatures which leap and crawl and slither and shamble in the world between. Let there be God, let there be Sunday morning, let there be smiling Episcopalian ministers in shining white surplices . . . but let there not be these dark and draggling horrors on the nightside of the universe. Louis walked on with his son, and the ground began to firm up again under his feet. Only moments later he came to a felled tree, its crown visible in the fading mist like a graygreen feather duster dropped by a giants housekeeper. The tree was broken offsplintered offand the break was so fresh that the yellowishwhite pulp still bled sap that was warm to Louiss touch as he climbed over . . . and on the other side was a monstrous indentation out of which he had to scramble and climb, and although juniper and low pumplaurel bushes had been stamped right into the earth, he would not let himself believe it was a footprint. He could have looked back to see if it had any such configuration once he had climbed beyond and above it, but he would not. He only walked on, skin cold, mouth hot and arid, heart flying. The squelch of mud under his feet soon ceased. For a while there was the faint cereal sound of pine needles again. Then there was rock. He had nearly reached the end. The ground began to rise faster. He barked his shin painfully on an outcropping. But this was not just a rock. Louis reached out clumsily with one hand (the strap of his elbow, which had grown numb, screamed briefly) and touched it. Steps here. Cut into the rock. Just follow me. We get to the top and were there. So he began to climb and the exhilaration returned, once more beating exhaustion back . . . at least a little way. His mind tolled off the steps as he rose into the chill, as he climbed back into that ceaseless river of wind, stronger now, rippling his clothes, making the piece of canvas tarp Gage was wrapped in stutter gunshot sounds like a lifted sail. He cocked his head back once and saw the mad sprawl of the stars. There were no constellations he recognized, and he looked away again, disturbed. Beside him was the rock wall, not smooth but splintered and gouged and friable, taking here the shape of a boat, here the shape of a badger, here the shape of a mans face with hooded, frowning eyes. Only the steps that had been carved from the rock were smooth. Louis gained the top and only stood there with his head down, swaying, sobbing breath in and out of his lungs. They felt like cruelly punched bladders, and there seemed to be a large splinter sticking into his side. The wind ran through his hair like a dancer, roared in his ears like a dragon. The light was brighter this night; had it been overcast the other time or had he just not been looking? It didnt matter. But he could see, and that was enough to start another chill worming down his back. It was just like the Pet Sematary. Of course you knew that, his mind whispered as he surveyed the piles of rocks that had once been cairns. You knew that, or should have known itnot concentric circles but the spiral . . . Yes. Here on top of this rock table, its face turned up to cold starlight and to the black distances between the stars, was a gigantic spiral, made by what the oldtimers would have called Various Hands. But there were no real cairns, Louis saw; every one of them had been burst apart as something buried beneath returned to life . . . and clawed its way out. Yet the rocks themselves had fallen in such a way that the shape of the spiral was apparent. Has anyone ever seen this from the air? Louis wondered randomly and thought of those desert drawings that one tribe of Indians or another had made in South America. Has anyone ever seen it from the air, and if they did, what did they think, I wonder? He kneeled and set Gages body on the ground with a groan of relief. At last his consciousness began to come back. He used his pocketknife to cut the tape holding the pick and shovel slung over his back. They fell to the ground with a clink. Louis rolled over and lay down for a moment, spreadeagled, staring blankly at the stars. What was that thing in the woods? Louis, Louis, do you really think anything good can come at the climax of a play where something like that is among the cast of characters? But now it was too late to back out, and he knew it. Besides, he gibbered to himself, it may still come out all right; there is no gain without risk, perhaps no risk without love. Theres still my bag, not the one downstairs but the one in our bathroom on the high shelf, the one I sent Jud for the night Norma had her heart attack. There are syringes, and if something happens . . . something bad . . . no one has to know but me. His thoughts dissolved into the inarticulate, droning mutter of prayer even as his hands groped for the pick . . . and still on his knees, Louis began to dig into the earth. Each time he brought the pick down he collapsed over the end of it, like an old Roman falling on his sword. Yet little by little the hole took shape and deepened. He clawed the rocks out, and most he simply pushed aside along with the growing pile of stony dirt. But some of them he saved. For the cairn. 56 Rachel slapped her face until it began to tingle, and still she kept nodding off. Once she snapped fully awake (she was in Pittsfield now and had the turnpike all to herself), and it seemed to her for a split second that dozens of silvery, merciless eyes were looking at her, twinkling like cold, hungry fire. Then they resolved themselves into the small reflectors on the guardrail posts. The Chevette had drifted far over into the breakdown lane. She wrenched the wheel to the left again, the tires wailing, and she believed she heard a faint tick! that might have been her right front bumper just kissing off one of those guardrail posts. Her heart leaped in her chest and began to bang so hard between her ribs that she saw small specks before her eyes, growing and shrinking in time with its beat. And yet a moment later, in spite of her close shave, her scare, and Robert Gordon shouting Red Hot on the radio, she was drowsing off again. A crazy, paranoid thought came to her. Paranoid, all right, she muttered under the rock and roll. She tried to laughbut she couldnt. Not quite. Because the thought remained, and in the eye of the night, it gained a spooky kind of credibility. She began to feel like a cartoon figure who has run into the rubber band of a gigantic slingshot. Poor guy finds forward motion harder and harder, until at last the potential energy of the rubber band equalizes the actual energy of the runner . . . inertia becomes . . . what? . . . elementary physics . . . something trying to hold her back . . . stay out of this, you . . . and a body at rest tends to remain at rest . . . Gages body, for instance . . . once set in motion . . . This time the scream of tires was louder, the shave a lot closer; for a moment there was the queeling, grailing sound of the Chevette running along the guardrail cables, scraping paint down to the twinkling metal, and for a moment the wheel didnt answer, and then Rachel was standing on the brake, sobbing; she had been asleep this time, not just dozing but asleep and dreaming at sixty miles an hour, and if there had been no guardrail . . . or if there had been an overpass stanchion . . . She pulled over and put the car in park and wept into her hands, bewildered and afraid. Something is trying to keep me away from him. When she felt she had control of herself, she began to drive againthe little cars steering did not seem impaired, but she supposed the Avis company would have some serious questions for her when she returned their car to BIA tomorrow. Never mind. One thing at a time. Got to get some coffee into methats the first thing. When the Pittsfield exit came up, Rachel took it. About a mile down the road she came to bright arcsodium lights and the steady muttergrowl of diesel engines. She pulled in, had the Chevette filled up (Somebody put a pretty good ding along the side of her, the gas jockey said in an almost admiring voice), and then went into the diner, which smelled of deepfat grease, vulcanized eggs . . . and, blessedly, of good strong coffee. Rachel had three cups, one after another, like medicineblack, sweetened with a lot of sugar. A few truckers sat at the counter or in the booths, kidding the waitresses, who somehow all managed to look like tired nurses filled with bad news under these fluorescent lights burning in the nights little hours. She paid her check and went back out to where she had parked the Chevette. It wouldnt start. The key, when turned, would cause the solenoid to utter a dry click, but that was all. Rachel began to beat her fists slowly and forcelessly against the steering wheel. Something was trying to stop her. There was no reason for this car, brandnew and with less than five thousand miles on its odometer, to have died like this, but it had. Somehow it had, and here she was, stranded in Pittsfield, still almost fifty miles from home. She listened to the steady drone of the big trucks, and it came to her with a sudden, vicious certainty that the truck which had killed her son was here among them . . . not muttering but chuckling. Rachel lowered her head and began to cry. 57 Louis stumbled over something and fell fulllength on the ground. For a moment he didnt think he would be able to get upgetting up was far beyond himhe would simply lie here, listening to the chorus of peepers from Little God Swamp somewhere behind him and feeling the chorus of aches and pains inside his own body. He would lie here until he went to sleep. Or died. Probably the latter. He could remember slipping the canvas bundle into the hole he had dug, and pushing most of the earth back into the hole with his bare hands. And he believed he could remember piling the rocks up, building from a broad base to a point . . . From then to now he remembered very little. He had obviously gotten back down the steps again or he wouldnt be here, which was . . . where? Looking around, he thought he recognized one of the groves of great old pines not far beyond the deadfall. Could he have made it all the way back through Little God Swamp without knowing it? He supposed it was possible. Just. This is far enough. I'll just sleep here. But it was that thought, so falsely comforting, that got him to his feet and moving again. Because if he stayed here, that thing might find him . . . that thing might be in the woods and looking for him right this moment. He scrubbed his hand up to his face, palm first, and was stupidly surprised to see blood on his hand . . . at some point hed given himself a nosebleed. Who gives a fuck? he muttered hoarsely and grubbed apathetically around him until he had found the pick and shovel again. Ten minutes later the deadfall loomed ahead. Louis climbed it, stumbling repeatedly but somehow not falling until he was almost down.

Then he glanced at his feet, a branch promptly snapped (dont look down, Jud had said), another branch tumbled, spilling his foot outward, and he fell with a thud on his side, the wind knocked out of him. Ill be goddamned if this isnt the second graveyard Ive fallen into tonight . . . and Ill be goddamned if two isnt enough. He began to feel around for the pick and shovel again, and laid his hands on them at last. For a moment he surveyed his surroundings, visible by starlight. Nearby was the grave of SMUCKY. He was obediant, Louis thought wearily. And TRIXIE, KILT ON THE HIGHWAY. The wind still blew strongly, and he could hear the faint tingtingting of a piece of metalperhaps it had once been a Del Monte can, cut laboriously by a grieving pet owner with his fathers tinsnips and then flattened out with a hammer and nailed to a stickand that brought the fear back again. He was too tired now to feel it as more than a somehow sickening pulsebeat. He had done it. That steady tingtingting sound coming out of the darkness brought it home to him more than anything else. He walked through the Pet Sematary, past the grave of MARTA OUR PET RABIT who had DYED MARCH 1 1965, and near the barrow of GEN. PATTON; he stepped over the ragged chunk of board that marked the final resting place of POLYNESIA. The tick of metal was louder now, and he paused, looking down. Here atop a slightly leaning board that had been driven into the ground, was a tin rectangle, and by starlight Louis read, RINGO OUR HAMSTER, 19641965. It was this piece of tin that was ticking repeatedly off the boards of the Pet Sematarys entry arch. Louis reached down to bend the piece of tin back . . . and then froze, scalp crawling. Something was moving back there. Something was moving on the other side of the deadfall. What he heard was a stealthy kind of soundthe furtive crackle of pine needles, the dry pop of a twig, the rattle of underbrush. They were almost lost under the sough of the wind through the pines. Gage? Louis called hoarsely. The very realization of what he was doingstanding here in the dark and calling his dead sonpulled his scalp stiff and brought his hair up on end. He began to shudder helplessly and steadily, as if with a sick and killing fever. Gage? The sounds had died away. Not yet; its too early. Dont ask me how I know, but I do. That isnt Gage over there. Thats . . . something else. He suddenly thought of Ellie telling him, He called Lazarus, come forth . . . because if He hadnt called for Lazarus by name, everyone in that graveyard would have risen. On the other side of the deadfall, those sounds had begun again. On the other side of the barrier. Almostbut not quite hidden under the wind. As if something blind were stalking him with ancient instincts. His dreadfully overstimulated brain conjured horrible, sickening pictures a giant mole, a great bat that flopped through the underbrush rather than flying. Louis backed out of the Pet Sematary, not turning his back to the deadfallthat ghostlike glimmer, a livid scar on the darkuntil he was well down the path. Then he began to hurry, and perhaps a quarter of a mile before the path ran out of the woods and into the field behind his house, he found enough left inside him to run. Louis slung the pick and shovel indifferently inside the garage and stood for a moment at the head of his driveway, looking first back the way he had come and then up at the sky. It was quarter past four in the morning, and he supposed dawn could not be so far away. Light would already be three quarters of the way across the Atlantic, but for now, here in Ludlow, the night held hard. The wind blew steadily. He went into the house, feeling his way along the side of the garage and unlocking the back door. He went through the kitchen without turning on a light and stepped into the small bathroom between the kitchen and the dining room. Here he did snap on a light, and the first thing he saw was Church, curled up on top of the toilet tank, staring at him with those muddy yellowgreen eyes. Church, he said. I thought someone put you out. Church only looked at him from atop the toilet tank. Yes, someone had put Church out; he had done it himself. He remembered that very clearly. Just as he remembered replacing the window pane downcellar that time and then telling himself that that had taken care of the problem. But exactly whom had he been kidding? When Church wanted to get in, church got in. Because Church was different now. It didnt matter. In this dull, exhausted aftermath, nothing seemed to matter. He felt like something less than human now, one of George Romeros stupid, lurching moviezombies, or maybe someone who had escaped from T. S. Eliots poem about the hollow men. I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling through Little God Swamp and up to the Micmac burying ground, he thought and uttered a dry chuckle. Headpiece full of straw, Church, he said in his croaking voice. He was unbuttoning his shirt now. Thats me. You better believe it. There was a nice bruise coming on his left side, about halfway up his ribcage, and when he shucked his pants he saw that the knee he had banged on the gravestone was swelling up like a balloon. It had already turned a rotten purpleblack, and he supposed that as soon as he stopped flexing it, the joint would become stiff and painfully obdurateas if it had been dipped in cement. It looked like one of those injuries that might want to converse with him on rainy days for the rest of his life. He reached out a hand to stroke Church, wanting some sort of comfort, but the cat leaped down from the toilet tank, staggering in that drunken and weirdly unfeline way, and left for some other place. It spared Louis one flat, yellow glance as it went. There was BenGay in the medicine cabinet. Louis lowered the toilet seat, sat down, and smeared a gob on his bad knee. Then he rubbed some more on the small of his backa clumsy operation. He left the toilet and walked into the living room. He turned on the hall light and stood there at the foot of the stairs for a moment, looking stupidly around. How strange it all seemed! Here was where he had stood on Christmas Eve when he had given Rachel the sapphire. It had been in the pocket of his robe. There was his chair, where he had done his best to explain the facts of death to Ellie after Norma Crandalls fatal heart attackfacts he had found ultimately unacceptable to himself. The Christmas tree had stood in that corner, Ellies constructionpaper turkey the one that had reminded Louis of some sort of futuristic crow had been Scotchtaped in that window, and much earlier the entire room had been empty except for the United Van Lines boxes, filled with their family possessions and trucked across half the country from the Midwest. He remembered thinking that their things looked very insignificant, boxed up like thata small enough bulwark between his family and the coldness of all the outer world where their names and their family customs were not known. How strange it all seemed . . . and how he wished they had never heard of the University of Maine, or Ludlow, or Jud and Norma Crandall, or any of it. He went upstairs in his skivvies, and in the bathroom at the top he got the stool, stood on it, and took down the small black bag from on top of the medicine cabinet. He took this into the master bedroom, sat down, and began to rummage through it. Yes, there were syringes in case he needed one, and amid the rolls of surgical tape and surgical scissors and neatly wrapped papers of surgical gut were several ampules of very deadly stuff. If needed. Louis snapped the bag shut and put it by the bed. He turned off the overhead light, then lay down, hands behind his head. To lie here on his back, at rest, was exquisite. His thoughts turned to Disney World again. He saw himself in a plain white uniform, driving a white van with the mouseears logo on itnothing to indicate it was a rescue unit on the outside, of course, nothing to scare the paying customers. Gage was sitting beside him, his skin deeply tanned, the whites of his eyes bluish with health. Here, just to the left, was Goofy, shaking hands with a little boy; the kid was in a trance of wonder. Here was Winnie the Pooh posing with two laughing grandmas in pants suits so a third laughing grandma could snap their pictures; here was a little girl in her best dress crying, I love you, Tigger! I love you, Tigger! He and his son were on patrol. He and his son were the sentries in this magic land, and they cruised endlessly in their white van with the red dashboard flasher neatly and sensibly covered. They were not looking for trouble, not they, but they were ready for it should it show its face. That it was lurking even here, in a place dedicated to such innocent pleasures, could not be denied; some grinning man buying film along Main Street could clutch his chest as the heart attack struck, a pregnant woman might suddenly feel the labor pains start as she walked down the steps from the Sky Chariot, a teenage girl as pretty as a Norman Rockwell cover might suddenly collapse in a flopping epileptic fit, loafers rattling out a jagged backbeat on the cement as the signals in her brain suddenly jammed up. There were sunstroke and heatstroke and brainstroke, and perhaps at the end of some sultry Orlando summer afternoon there might even be a stroke of lightfling; there was, even, Oz the Gweat and Tewwible himself here he might be glimpsed walking around near the monorails point of egress into the Magic Kingdom or peering down from one of the flying Dumbos with his flat and stupid gazedown here Louis and Gage had come to know him as just another amusement park figure like Goofy or Mickey or Tigger or the estimable Mr. D. Duck. He was the one, however, with whom no one wanted his or her picture taken, the one to whom no one wanted to introduce his son or daughter. Louis and Gage knew him; they had met him and faced him down in New England, some time ago. He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a drycleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boogie of electricityAvailable at Your Nearest Switchplate or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of cigarettes. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nurdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there tooShower with a Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Whos out there? you howled into the dark when you were frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back Dont be afraid, its just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Heyho, lets go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar blue cast of the fingernails following asphyxiationin its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all the oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my names Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you wanthell, were old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; cant stay, got to see a woman about a breach birth, then Ive got a little smokeinhalation job to do in Omaha. And that thin voice is crying, I love you, Tigger! I love you! I believe in you, Tigger! I will always love you and believe in you, and I will stay young, and the only Oz to ever live in my heart will be that gentle faker from Nebraska! I love you . . . We cruise . . . my son and I . . . because the essence of it isnt war or sex but only that sickening, noble, hopeless battle against Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. He and I, in our white van under this bright Florida sky, we cruise. And the red flasher is hooded, but it is there if we need it . . . and none need know but us because the soil of a mans heart is stonier; a man grows what he can . . . and tends it. Thinking such troubled halfdreaming thoughts, Louis Creed slipped away, unplugging his connections to waking reality line by line, until all thoughts ceased and exhaustion dragged him down to black dreamless unconsciousness. Just before the first signs of dawn touched the sky in the east, there were footsteps on the stairs. They were slow and clumsy but purposeful. A shadow moved in the shadows of the hail. A smell came with ita stench. Louis, even in his thick sleep, muttered and turned away from that smell. There was the steady pull and release of respiration. The shape stood outside the master bedroom door for some little time, not moving. Then it came inside. Louiss face was buried in his pillow. White hands reached out, and there was a click as the black doctors bag by the bed was opened. A low clink and shift as the things inside were moved. The hands explored, pushing aside drugs and ampules and syringes with no interest at all. Now they found something and held it up. In the first dim light there was a gleam of silver. The shadowy thing left the room. PART THREE OZ THE GWEAT AND TEWWIBLE Jesus therefore, groaning inside of himself and full of trouble, came to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone had been raised against the mouth. Roll away the stone, Jesus said. Martha said, Lord, by this time he will have begun to rot. He has been dead four days. . . . And when he had prayed awhile, Jesus raised his voice and cried, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them, Loose him and let him go. JOHNS GOSPEL (paraphrase) I only just thought of it, she said hysterically. Why didnt I think of it before? Why didnt you think of it? Think of what? he questioned. The other two wishes, she replied rapidly. Weve only had one. Was that not enough? he demanded fiercely. No, she cried triumphantly well have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again. W. W. JACOBS (The Monkeys Paw) 58 Jud Crandall came awake with a sudden jerk, almost falling out of his chair. He had no idea how long he had slept; it could have been fifteen minutes or three hours. He looked at his watch and saw that it was five minutes of five. There was a feeling that everything in the room had been subtly shifted out of position, and there was a line of pain across his back from sleeping sitting up. Oh you stupid old man, look what you gone and done! But he knew better; in his heart, he knew better. It wasnt just him. He hadnt simply fallen asleep on watch; he had been put to sleep. That frightened him, but one thing frightened him more what had awakened him? He was under the impression that there had been some sound, some He held his breath, listening over the papery rustle of his heart. Here was a soundnot the same one that had awakened him, but something. The faint creak of hinges. Jud knew every sound in this housewhich floorboards creaked, which stair levels squeaked, where along the gutters the wind was apt to hoot and sing when it was drunkenly high, as it had been last night. He knew this sound as well as any of those. The heavy front door, the one that communicated between his porch and the front hail, had just swung open. And with that information to go on, his mind was able to remember the sound that had awakened him. It had been the slow expansion of the spring on the screen door communicating between the porch and the front walk. Louis? he called but with no real hope. That wasnt Louis out there. Whatever was out there had been sent to punish an old man for his pride and vanity. Footsteps moved slowly up the hail toward the living room. Louis? he tried to call again, but only a faint croak actually emerged because now he could smell the thing which had come into his house here at the end of the night. It was a dirty, low smellthe smell of poisoned tidal flats. Jud could make out bulking shapes in the gloomNormas armoire, the Welsh dresser, the highboybut no details. He tried to get to his feet on legs that had gone to water, his mind screaming that he needed more time, that he was too old to face this again without more time; Timmy Baterman had been bad enough, and Jud had been young then. The swing door opened and let in shadows. One of the shadows was more substantial than the others. Dear God, that stink. Shuffling steps in the darkness. Gage? Jud gained his feet at last. From one corner of his eye he saw the neat roll of cigarette ash in the Jim Beam ashtray. Gage, is that y A hideous mewling sound now arose, and for a moment all of Juds bones turned to white ice. It was not Louiss son returned from the grave but some hideous monster. No. It was neither. It was Church, crouched in the hail doorway, making that sound. The cats eyes flared like dirty lamps. Then his eyes moved in the other direction and fixed on the thing which had come in with the cat. Jud began to back up, trying to catch at his thoughts, trying to hold on to his reason in the face of that smell. Oh, it was cold in herethe thing had brought its chill with it. Jud rocked unsteadily on his feetit was the cat, twining around his legs, making him totter. It was purring. Jud kicked at it, driving it away. It bared its teeth at him and hissed. Think! Oh, think, you stupid old man, it maynt be too late, even yet it maynt be too late . . . its back but it can he killed again . . . if you can only do it . . . if you can only think . . . He backed away toward the kitchen, and he suddenly remembered the utensil drawer beside the sink. There was a meat cleaver in that drawer. His thin shanks struck the swinging door that led into the kitchen and he pushed it open. The thing that had come into his house was still indistinct, but Jud could hear it breathing. He could see one white hand swinging back and forththere was something in that hand, but he could not make out what. The door swung back as he entered the kitchen, and Jud at last turned his back and ran to the utensil drawer. He jerked it open and found the cleavers worn hardwood handle. He snatched it up and turned toward the door again; he even took a step or two toward it. Some of his courage had come back. Remember, it aint a kid. It may scream or somethin when it sees youve got its number; it may cry. But you aint gonna be fooled. You been fooled too many times already, old man. This is your last chance. The swing door opened again, but at first only the cat came through. Juds eye followed it for a moment and then he looked up again. The kitchen faced east, and dawns first light came in through the windows, faint and milky white. Not much light but enough. Too much. Gage Creed came in, dressed in his burial suit. Moss was growing on the suits shoulders and lapels. Moss had fouled his white shirt. His fine blond hair was caked with dirt. One eye had gone to the wall; it stared off into space with terrible concentration. The other was fixed on Jud. Gage was grinning at him. Hello, Jud, Gage piped in a babyish but perfectly understandable voice. Ive come to send your rotten, stinking old soul straight to hell. You fucked with me once. Did you think I wouldnt come back sooner or later and fuck with you? Jud raised the cleaver. Come on and get your pecker out then, whatever you are. Well see who fucks with who. Normas dead, and therell be no one to mourn you, Gage said. What a cheap slut she was. She fucked every one of your friends, Jud. She let them put it up her ass. Thats how she liked it best. Shes burning down in hell, arthritis and all. I saw her there, Jud. I saw her there. It lurched two steps toward him, shoes leaving muddy tracks on the worn linoleum. It held one hand out in front of it as if to shake with him; the other hand was curled behind its back. Listen, Jud, it whisperedand then its mouth hung open, baring small milk teeth, and although the lips did not move, Normas voice issued forth. I laughed at you! We all laughed at you! How we laaaaaauuughed Stop it! The cleaver jittered in his hand. We did it in our bed, Herk and I did it, I did it with George, I did it with all of them, I knew about your whores but you never knew you married a whore and how we laughed, Jud! We rutted together and we laaaaaaaaaughed at STOP IT! Jud screamed. He sprang at the tiny, swaying figure in its dirty burial suit, and that was when the cat arrowed out of the darkness under the butcher block where it had been crouched. It was hissing, its ears laid back along the bullet of its skull, and it tripped Jud up just as neat as you please. The cleaver flew out of his hand. It skittered across the humped and faded linoleum, blade and handle swiftly changing places as it whirled. It struck the baseboard with a thin clang and slid under the refrigerator. Jud realized that he had been fooled again, and the only consolation was that it was for the final time. The cat was on his legs, mouth open, eyes blazing, hissing like a teakettle. And then Gage was on him, grinning a happy black grin, eyes moonshaped, rimmed with red, and his right hand came out from behind his back, and Jud saw that what he had been holding when he came in was a scalpel from Louiss black bag. Oh m dear Jesus, Jud managed and put his right hand up to block the blow. And here was an optical illusion; surely his mind had snapped because it appeared that the scalpel was on both sides of his palm at the same time. Then something warm began to drizzle down on his face, and he understood. Im gonna fuck with you, old man! the Gagething chortled, blowing its poisoned breath in his face. Im gonna fuck with you! Im gonna fuck with you all . . . I . . . want! Jud flailed and got hold of Gages wrist. Skin peeled off like parchment in his hand. The scalpel was yanked out of his hand, leaving a vertical mouth. ALL . . . I . . .WANT! The scalpel came down again. And again. And again. 59 Try it now, maam, the truck driver said. He was looking into the engine cavity of Rachels rented car. She turned the key. The Chevettes engine roared into life. The truck driver slammed the hood down and came around to her window, wiping his hands on a big blue handkerchief. He had a pleasant, ruddy face. A Dysarts TruckStop cap was tilted back on his head. Thank you so much, Rachel said, on the verge of tears. I just didnt know what I was going to do. Aw, a kid could have fixed that, the trucker said. But it was funny. Never seen something like that go wrong on such a new car, anyway. Why? What was it? One of your battery cables come right off. Wasnt nobody frigging with it, was there? No, Rachel said, and she thought again of that feeling shed had, that feeling of running into the rubber band of the worlds biggest slingshot. Must have jogged her loose just ridin along, I guess. But you wont have no more trouble with your cables anyway. I tightened em up real good. Could I give you some money? Rachel asked timidly. The trucker roared with laughter. Not me, lady, he said. Us guys are the knights of the road, remember? She smiled. Well . . . thank you. Moren welcome. He gave her a good grin, incongruously full of sunshine at this hour of the morning. Rachel smiled back and drove carefully across the parking lot to the feeder road. She glanced both ways for traffic and five minutes later was back on the turnpike again, headed north. The coffee had helped more than she would have believed. She felt totally awake now, not the slightest bit dozy, her eyes as big as doorknobs, That feather of unease touched her again, that absurd feeling that she was being manipulated. The battery cable coming off the terminal post like that . . . So she could be held up just long enough for . . . She laughed nervously. Long enough for what? For something irrevocable to happen. That was stupid. Ridiculous. But Rachel began to push the little car along faster nonetheless. At five oclock, as Jud was trying to ward off a scalpel stolen from the black bag of his good friend Dr. Louis Creed, and as her daughter was awakening boltupright in bed, screaming in the grip of a nightmare which she could mercifully not remember, Rachel left the turnpike, drove the Hammond Street Cutoff close to the cemetery where a spade was now the only thing buried in her sons coffin, and crossed the BangorBrewer Bridge. By quarter past five, she was on Route 15 and headed for Ludlow. She had decided to go directly to Juds; she would make good on at least that much of her promise. The Civic was not in their driveway, anyway, and although she supposed it might be in the garage, their house had a sleeping, unoccupied look. No intuition suggested to her that Louis might be home. Rachel parked behind Juds pickup and got out of the Chevette, looking around carefully. The grass was heavy with dew, sparkling in this clear, new light. Somewhere a bird sang and then was silent. On the few occasions since her preteenage years when she had been awake and alone at dawn without some responsibility to fulfill as the reason, she had a lonely but somehow uplifted feelinga paradoxical sense of newness and continuity. This morning she felt nothing so clean and good. There was only a dragging sense of unease which she could not entirely charge off to the terrible twentyfour hours just gone by and her recent bereavement. She mounted the porch steps and opened the screen door, meaning to use the oldfashioned bell on the front door. She had been charmed by that bell the first time she and Louis came over together; you twisted it clockwise, and it uttered a loud but musical cry that was anachronistic and delightful. She reached for it now, then glanced down at the porch floor and frowned. There were muddy tracks on the mat. Looking around, she saw that they led from the screen door to this one. Very small tracks. A childs tracks, by the look of them. But she had been driving all night, and there had been no rain. Wind, but no rain. She looked at the tracks for a long timetoo long, reallyand discovered she had to force her hand back to the turn bell. She grasped it . . . and then her hand fell away again. Im anticipating, thats all. Anticipating the sound of that bell in this stillness. Hes probably gone to sleep after all and it will startle him awake . . . But that wasnt what she was afraid of. She had been nervous, scared in some deep and diffuse way ever since she had found it so hard to stay awake, but this sharp fear was something new, something which had solely to do with those small tracks. Tracks that were the size Her mind tried to block this thought, but it was too tired, too slow. of Gages feet. Oh stop it, cant you stop it? She reached out and twisted the bell. Its sound was even louder than she remembered, but not so musicalit was a harsh, choked scream in the stillness. Rachel jumped back, uttering a nervous little laugh that had absolutely no humor in it at all. She waited for Juds footsteps, but his footsteps did not come. There was silence, and more silence, and she was beginning to debate in her own mind whether or not she could bring herself to twist that ironbutterfly shape again, when a sound did come from behind the door, a sound she would not have expected in her wildest surmises. Waow! . . . Waow! . . . Waow! Church? she asked, startled and puzzled. She bent forward, but it was of course impossible to see in; the doors glass panel had been covered with a neat white curtain. Normas work. Church, is that you? Waow! Rachel tried the door. It was unlocked. Church was there, sitting in the hallway with its tail coiled neatly around its feet. The cats fur was streaked with something dark. Mud, Rachel thought, and then saw that the beads of liquid caught in Churchs whiskers were red. He raised one paw and began to lick it, his eyes never leaving her face. Jud? she called out, really alarmed now. She stepped just inside the door. The house gave back no answer; only silence. Rachel tried to think, but all at once images of her sister Zelda had begun to creep into her mind, blurring thought. How her hands had twisted. How she used to slam her head against the wall sometimes when she was angrythe paper had been all torn there, the plaster beneath torn and broken. This was no time to think of Zelda, not when Jud might be hurt. Suppose he had fallen down? He was an old man. Think about that, not about the dreams you had as a kid, dreams of opening the closet and having Zelda spring out at you with her blackened, grinning face, dreams of being in the bathtub and seeing Zeldas eyes peering out of the drain, dreams of Zelda lurking in the basement behind the furnace, dreams Church opened his mouth, exposing his sharp teeth and cried Waow! again. Louis was right, we never should have had him fixed, hes never seemed right since then. But Louis said it would take away all of his aggressive instincts. He was wrong about that, anyway; Church still hunts. He Waow! Church cried again, then turned and darted up the stairs. Jud? she called again. Are you up there? Waow! Church cried from the top of the stairs, as if to confirm the fact, and then he disappeared down the hall. How did he get in, anyway? Did Jud let him in? Why? Rachel shifted from one foot to the other, wondering what to do next. The worst of it was that all of this seemed . . . seemed somehow managed, as if something wanted her to be here, and And then there was a groan from upstairs, low and filled with painJuds voice, surely Juds voice. Hes fallen in the bathroom or maybe tripped, broken a leg, or sprained his hip, maybe, the bones of the old are brittle, and what in the name of God are you thinking of, girl, standing down here and shifting back and forth like you had to go to the bathroom, that was blood on Church, blood, Juds hurt and youre just standing here! Whats wrong with you? Jud! The groan came again, and she ran up the stairs. She had never been up here before, and because the hails only window faced west, toward the river, it was still very dark. The hallway ran straight and wide beside the stairwell and toward the back of the house, the cherrywood rail gleaming with mellow elegance. There was a picture of the Acropolis on the wall and (its Zelda all these years shes been after you and now its her time open the right door and shell be there with her humped and twisted back smelling of piss and death its Zelda its her time and finally she caught up with you) the groan came again, low, from behind the second door on the right. Rachel began to walk toward that door, her heels clacking on the boards. It seemed to her that she was going through some sort of warpnot a time warp or a space warp but a size warp. She was getting smaller. The picture of the Acropolis was floating higher and higher, and that cutglass doorknob would soon be at eye level. Her hand stretched out for it . . . and before she could even touch it, the door was snatched open. Zelda stood there. She was hunched and twisted, her body so cruelly deformed that she had actually become a dwarf, little more than two feet high; and for some reason Zelda was wearing the suit they had buried Gage in.

But it was Zelda, all right, her eyes alight with an insane glee, her face a raddled purple; it was Zelda screaming, I finally came back for you, Rachel, Im going to twist your back like mine and youll never get out of bed again never get out of bed again NEVER GET OUT OF BED AGAIN Church was perched on one of her shoulders and Zeldas face swam and changed, and Rachel saw with spiraling, sickening horror that it really wasnt Zelda at allhow could she have made such a stupid mistake? It was Cage. His face was not black but dirty, smeared with blood. And it was swollen, as if he had been terribly hurt and then put back together again by crude, uncaring hands. She cried his name and held her arms out. He ran to her and climbed into them, and all the time one hand remained behind his back, as if with a bunch of posies picked in someones back meadow. I brought you something, Mommy! he screamed. I brought you something, Mommy! I brought you something, I brought you something! 60 Louis Creed woke up with the sun blazing full in his eyes. He tried to get up and grimaced at the stab of pain in his back. It was huge. He fell back on the pillow and glanced down at himself. Still fully dressed. Christ. He lay there for a long moment, steeling himself against the stiffness that had settled into every muscle, and then he sat up. Oh, shit, he whispered. For a few seconds the room seesawed gently but perceptibly. His back throbbed like a bad tooth, and when he moved his head, it felt as if the tendons in his neck had been replaced by rusty bandsaw blades. But his knee was really the worst. The BenGay hadnt done a thing for it. He should have given himself a fucking cortisone shot. His pants were drawn tightly against the knee by the swelling; it looked like there was a balloon under there. Really jobbed it, he muttered. Boy, oh boy, did I ever. He bent it very slowly so he could sit on the edge of the bed, lips pressed so tightly together that they were white. Then he began to flex it a bit, listening to the pain talk, trying to decide just how bad it really was, if it might be Gage! Is Gage back? That got him on his feet in spite of the pain. He lurched across the room like Matt Dillons old sidekick Chester. He went through the door and across the hail into Gages room. He looked around wildly, his sons name trembling on his lips. But the room was empty. He limped down to Ellies room, which was also empty, and then into the spare room. That room, which faced the highway, was also empty. But There was a strange car across the road. Parked behind Juds truck. So what? So a strange vehicle over there could mean trouble, that was so what. Louis drew the curtain aside and examined the vehicle more closely. It was a small blue car, a Chevette. And curled up on top of it, apparently sleeping, was Church. He looked for a long time before letting the curtain go. Jud had company, that was allso what? And it was maybe too early to worry about what was or was not going to happen with Gage; Church hadnt come back until almost one oclock, and it was only nine oclock now. Nine oclock on a beautiful May morning. He would simply go downstairs and make some coffee, get out the heating pad and wrap it around his knee, and and whats Church doing on top of that car? Oh, come on, he said aloud and began to limp back down the hall. Cats slept anywhere and everywhere; it was the nature of the beast. Except Church doesnt cross the road anymore, remember? Forget it, he muttered and paused halfway down the stairs (which he was working his way down almost sidesaddle). Talking to himself, that was bad. That was What was that thing in the woods last night? The thought came to him unbidden, making him tighten his lips the way the pain in his knee had done when he swung it out of bed. He had dreamed about the thing in the woods last night. His dreams of Disney World had seemed to blend naturally and with a deadly ease into dreams of that thing. He dreamed that it had touched him, spoiling all good dreams forever, rotting all good intentions. It was the Wendigo, and it had turned him into not just a cannibal but the father of cannibals. In his dream he had been in the Pet Sematary again but not alone. Bill and Timmy Baterman had been there. Jud had been there, looking ghostly and dead, holding his dog Spot on a clothesrope leash. Lester Morgan was there with Hanratty the bull on a length of cartowing chain. Hanratty was lying on his side, looking around with a stupid, drugged fury. And for some reason Rachel was there too, and shed had some sort of accident at the dinner table spilled a bottle of catsup or maybe dropped a dish of cranberry jelly, maybe, because her dress was splattered with red stains. And then, rising behind the deadfall to a titanic height, its skin a cracked reptilian yellow, its eyes great hooded foglamps, its ears not ears at all but massive curling horns, was the Wendigo, a beast that looked like a lizard born of a woman. It pointed its horny, nailed finger at all of them as they craned their necks up and up to watch it . . . Stop, he whispered and shuddered at the sound of his own voice. He would go out into the kitchen, he decided, and make himself breakfast just as if it were any ordinary day. A bachelor breakfast, full of comforting cholesterol. A couple of friedegg sandwiches with mayo and a slice of Bermuda onion on each one. He smelled sweaty and dirty and cruddy, but he would save the shower for later; right now getting undressed seemed like too much work, and he was afraid he might have to get the scalpel out of his bag and actually cut the leg of the pants open in order to allow his bloated knee to escape. A hell of a way to treat good instruments, but none of the knives in the house would cut the heavy jeans fabric, and Rachels sewing scissors certainly would not do the trick. But first, breakfast. So he crossed the living room and then detoured into the front entry and looked out at the small blue car in Juds driveway. It was covered with dewfall, which meant it had been there for some time. Church was still on the roof but not sleeping. He appeared to be staring right at Louis with his ugly yellowgreen eyes. Louis stepped back hurriedly, as if someone had caught him peeking. He went into the kitchen, rattled out a frying pan, put it on the stove, got eggs from the fridge. The kitchen was bright and crisp and clear. He tried to whistlea whistle would bring the morning into its proper focusbut he could not. Things looked right, but they werent right. The house seemed dreadfully empty, and last nights work weighed on him. Things were wrong, awry; he felt a shadow hovering, and he was afraid. He limped into the bathroom and took a couple of aspirin with a glass of orange juice. He was working his way back to the stove when the telephone rang. He did not answer it immediately but turned and looked at it, feeling slow and stupid, a sucker in some game which he was only now realizing he did not understand in the least. Dont answer that, you dont want to answer that because thats the bad news, thats the end of the leash that leads around the corner and into the darkness, and I dont think you want to see whats on the other end of that leash, Louis, I really dont think you do, so dont answer that phone, run, run now, the cars in the garage, get in it and take off, but dont answer that phone He crossed the room and picked it up, standing there with one hand on the dryer as he had so many times before, and it was Irwin Goldman, and even as Irwin said hello Louis saw the tracks crossing the kitchensmall, muddy tracksand his heart seemed to freeze in his chest, and he believed he could feel his eyeballs swelling in his head, starting from their sockets; he believed that if he could have seen himself in a mirror at that moment he would have seen a face out of a seventeenthcentury painting of a lunatic asylum. They were Gages tracks, Gage had been here, he had been here in the night, and so where was he now? Its Irwin, Louis . . . Louis? Are you there? Hello? Hello, Irwin, he said, and already he knew what Irwin was going to say. He understood the blue car. He understood everything. The leash . . . the leash going into the darkness . . . he was moving fast along it now, hand over hand. Ah, if he could drop it before he saw what was at the end! But it was his leash. He had bought it. For a moment I thought wed been cut off, Goldman was saying. No, the phone slipped out of my hand, Louis said. His voice was calm. Did Rachel make it home last night? Oh yes, Louis said, thinking of the blue car, Church perched on top of it, the blue car that was so still. His eye traced the muddy footprints on the floor. I ought to speak to her, Goldman said. Right away. Its about Eileen. Ellie? What about Ellie? I really think Rachel Rachels not here right now, Louis said harshly. Shes gone to the store for bread and milk. What about Ellie? Come on, Irwin! We had to take her to the hospital, Goldman said reluctantly. She had a bad dream or a whole series of them. She was hysterical and wouldnt come out of it. She Did they sedate her? What? Sedation, Louis said impatiently, did they give her sedation? Yes, oh yes. They gave her a pill, and she went back to sleep. Did she say anything? What scared her so badly? He was gripping the phone whiteknuckled now. Silence from Irwin Goldmans enda long silence. This time Louis did not interrupt, much as he would have liked to. That was what scared Dory so badly, Irwin said finally. She babbled a lot before she got . . . before she was crying too hard to understand. Dory herself was almost . . . you know. What did she say? She said Oz the Great and Terrible had killed her mother. Only she didnt say it that way. She said . . . she said Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, which was the way our other daughter always used to say it. Our daughter Zelda. Louis, believe me when I say I would much rather have asked Rachel this question, but how much have you and she told Eileen about Zelda and how she died? Louis had closed his eyes; the world seemed to be rocking gently under his feet, and Goldmans voice had the lost quality of a voice coming through thick mists. You may hear sounds like voices, but they are only the loons down south toward Prospect. The sound carries. Louis, are you there? Is she going to be all right? Louis asked, his own voice distant. Is Ellie going to be all right? Did you get a prognosis? Delayed shock from the funeral, Goldman said. My own doctor came. Lathrop. A good man. Said she had a degree of fever and that when she woke up this afternoon, she might not even remember. But I think Rachel should come back. Louis, I am frightened. I think you should come back too. Louis did not respond. The eye of God was on the sparrow; so said good King James. Louis, however, was a lesser being, and his eye was on those muddy footprints. Louis, Gage is dead, Goldman was saying. I know that must be hard to acceptfor you and Rachel bothbut your daughter is very much alive, and she needs you. Yes, I accept that. You may be a stupid old fart, Irwin, but perhaps the nightmare that passed between your two daughters on that April day in 1965 taught you something about sensitivity. She needs me, but I cant come, because Im afraidso terribly afraidthat my hands are filthy with her mothers blood. Louis regarded those hands. Louis regarded the dirt under his nails, which was so like the dirt which comprised those footprints on the kitchen floor. All right, he said, I understand. Well be there as soon as we can, Irwin. By tonight, if thats possible. Thank you. We did the best we could, Goldman said. Maybe were too old. Maybe, Louis, maybe we always were. Did she say anything else? Louis asked. Goldmans reply was like the toll of a funeral bell against the wall of his heart. A lot, but only one other thing I could make out Paxcow says its too late. He hung up the telephone and moved back toward the stove in a daze, apparently meaning to continue on with breakfast or put the things away, he didnt know which, and about halfway across the kitchen a wave of faintness poured over him, floating gray overcame his sight, and he swooned to the floorswoon was the right word because it seemed to take forever. He fell down and down through cloudy depths; it seemed to him that he turned over and over, looped the loop, did a dipsy doodle or two, slipped an Immelmann. Then he struck on his bad knee and the chromium bolt of pain through his head brought him back with a scream of agony. For a moment he could only crouch, the tears starting from his eyes. At last he made it back to his feet and stood there, swaying. But his head was clear again. That was something. wasnt it? The urge to flee came on him again for the last time, stronger than everhe actually felt the comforting bulge of his car keys in his pocket. He would get in the Civic and drive to Chicago. He would get Ellie and go on from there. Of course by then Goldman would know something was wrong, that something was dreadfully amiss, but he would get her anyway . . . snatch her, if he had to. Then his hand fell away from the bulge of the keys. What killed the urge was not a sense of futility, not guilt, not despair or the deep weariness inside him. It was the sight of those muddy footprints on the kitchen floor. In his minds eye he could see them tracing a path across the entire countryfirst to Illinois, then to Floridaacross the entire world, if necessary. What you bought, you owned, and what you owned eventually came home to you. There would come a day when he would open a door and there would be Gage, a demented parody of his former self, grinning a sunken grin, his clear blue eyes gone yellow and smartstupid. Or Ellie would open the bathroom door for her morning shower, and there would be Gage in the tub, his body crisscrossed with the faded scars and bulges of his fatal accident, clean but stinking of the grave. Oh yes, that day would comehe didnt doubt it a bit. How could I have been so stupid? he said to the empty room, talking to himself again, not caring. How? Grief, not stupidity, Louis. There is a difference . . . small, but vital. The battery that burying ground survives on. Growing in power, Jud said, and of course he was rightand youre part of its power now. It has fed on your grief . . . no, more than that. Its doubled it, cubed it, raised it to the nth power. And it isnt just grief it feeds on. Sanity. Its eaten your sanity. The flaw is only the inability to accept, not uncommon. Its cost you your wife, and its almost surely cost you your best friend as well as your son. This is it. What comes when youre too slow wishing away the thing that knocks on your door in the middle of the night is simple enough total darkness. I would commit suicide now, he thought, and I suppose its in the cards, isnt it? I have the equipment in my bag. It has managed everything, managed it from the first. The burying ground, the Wendigo, whatever it is. It forced our cat into the road, and perhaps it forced Gage into the road as well, it brought Rachel home, but only in its own good time. Surely Im meant to do that . . . and I want to. But things have to be put right, dont they? Yes. They did. There was Gage to think about. Gage was still out there. Somewhere. He followed the footprints through the dining room and the living room and back up the stairs. They were smudged there because he had walked over them on his way down without seeing them. They led into the bedroom. He was here, Louis thought wonderingly, he was right here, and then he saw that his medical bag was unsnapped. The contents inside, which he always arranged with careful neatness, were now in jumbled disorder. But it did not take Louis long to see that his scalpel was missing, and he put his hands over his face and sat that way for some time, a faint, despairing noise coming from his throat. At last he opened the bag again and began to look through it. Downstairs again. The sound of the pantry door being opened. The sound of a cupboard being opened, then slammed shut. The busy whine of the can opener. Last the sound of the garage door opening and closing. And then the house stood empty in the May sunshine, as it had stood empty on that August day the year before, waiting for the new people to arrive . . . as it would wait for other new people to arrive at some future date. A young married couple perhaps, with no children (but with hopes and plans). Bright young marrieds with a taste for Mondavi wine and Lwenbru beerhe would be in charge of the Northeast Banks credit department perhaps, she with a dental hygienists credential or maybe three years experience as an optometrists assistant. He would split half a cord of wood for the fireplace, she would wear highwaisted corduroy pants and walk in Mrs. Vintons field, collecting Novembers fall grasses for a table centerpiece, her hair in a ponytail, the brightest thing under the gray skies, totally unaware that an invisible Vulture rode the air currents overhead. They would congratulate themselves on their lack of superstition, on their hardheadedness in snaring the house in spite of its historythey would tell their friends that it had been firesalepriced and joke about the ghost in the attic, and all of them would have another Lwenbru or another glass of Mondavi, and they would play backgammon or Mile Bourne. And perhaps they would have a dog. 61 Louis paused on the soft shoulder to let an Orinco truck loaded with chemical fertilizer blast by him, and then he crossed the street to Juds house, trailing his shadow to the west behind him. He held an open can of Cab catfood in one hand. Church saw him coming and sat up, his eyes watchful. Hi, Church, Louis said, surveying the silent house. Want some grub? He put the can of catfood down on the trunk of the Chevette and watched as Church leaped lightly down from its roof and began to eat. Louis put his hand in his jacket pocket. Church looked around at him, tensing, as if reading his mind. Louis smiled and stepped away from the car. Church began to eat again, and Louis took a syringe from his pocket. He stripped the paper covering from it and filled it with 75 milligrams of morphine. He put the multidose vial back in his jacket and walked over to Church, who looked around again mistrustfully. Louis smiled at the cat and said, Go on, eat up, Church. Heyho, lets go, right? He stroked the cat, felt its back arch, and when Church went back to his meal again, Louis seized it around its stinking guts and sank the needle deep into its haunch. Church went electric in his grip, struggling against him, spitting and clawing, but Louis held on and depressed the plunger all the way. Only then did he let go. The cat leaped off the Chevette, hissing like a teakettle, yellowgreen eyes wild and baleful. The needle and syringe dangled from its haunch as it leaped, then fell out and broke. Louis was indifferent. He had more of everything. The cat started for the road, then turned back toward the house, as if remembering something. It got halfway there and then began to weave drunkenly. It made the steps, leaped up to the first one, then fell off. It lay on the bare patch at the foot of the porch steps on its side, breathing weakly. Louis glanced into the Chevette. If he had needed more confirmation than the stone that had replaced his heart, he had it Rachels purse on the seat, her scarf, and a clutch of plane tickets spilling out of a Delta Airlines folder. When he turned around again to walk to the porch, Churchs side had ceased its rapid, fluttery movement. Church was dead. Again. Louis stepped over it and mounted the porch steps. Gage? It was cool in the front hall. Cool and dark. The single word fell into the silence like a stone down a deepdrilled well. Louis threw another. Gage? Nothing. Even the tick of the clock in the parlor had ceased. This morning there had been no one to wind it. But there were tracks on the floor. Louis went into the living room. There was the smell of cigarettes, stale and long since burned out. He saw Juds chair by the window. It was pushed askew, as if he had gotten up suddenly. There was an ashtray on the windowsill, and in it a neat roll of cigarette ash. Jud sat here watching. Watching for what? For me of course, watching for me to come home. Only he missed me. Somehow he missed me. Louis glanced at the four beer cans lined up in a neat row. Not enough to put him to sleep, but maybe he had gotten up to go to the bathroom. However it had been, it was just a little bit too good to have been perfectly accidental, wasnt it? The muddy tracks approached the chair by the window. Mixed among the human tracks were a few faded, ghostly catprints. As if Church had walked in and out of the gravedirt left by Gages small shoes. Then the tracks made for the swinging door leading into the kitchen. Heart thudding, Louis followed the tracks. He pushed the door open and saw Juds splayed feet, his old green workpants, his checked flannel shirt. The old man was lying sprawled in a wide pool of drying blood. Louis clapped his hands to his face, as if to blight his own vision. But there was no way to do that; he saw eyes, Juds eyes, open, accusing him, perhaps even accusing himself for setting this in motion. But did he? Louis wondered. Did he really do that? Jud had been told by Stanny B., and Stanny B. had been told by his father, and Stanny B.s father had been told by his father, the last trader to the Indians, a Frenchman from the north country in the days when Franklin Pierce had been a living President. Oh Jud, Im so sorry, he whispered. Juds blank eyes stared at him. So sorry, Louis repeated. His feet seemed to move by themselves, and he was suddenly back to last Thanksgiving in his mind, not to that night when he and Jud had taken the cat up to the Pet Sematary and beyond, but to the turkey dinner Norma had put on the table, all of them laughing and talking, the two men drinking beer and Norma with a glass of white wine, and she had taken the white lawn tablecloth from the lower drawer as he was taking it now, but she had put it on the table and then anchored it with lovely pewter candlestick holders, while he Louis watched it billow down over Juds body like a collapsing parachute, mercifully covering that dead face. Almost immediately, tiny rosepetals of deepest, darkest scarlet began to stain the white lawn. Im sorry, he said for a third time. So sor Then something moved overhead, something scraped, and the word broke off between his lips. It had been soft, it had been stealthy, but it had been deliberate. Oh yes, he was convinced of that. A sound he had been meant to hear. His hands wanted to tremble, but he would not allow them. He stepped over to the kitchen table with its checkered oilcloth covering and reached into his pocket. He removed three more BectonDickson syringes, stripped them of their paper coverings, and laid them out in a neat row. He removed three more multidose vials and filled each of the syringes with enough morphine to kill a horseor Hanratty the bull, if it came to that. He put them in his pocket again. He left the kitchen, crossed the living room, and stood at the base of the stairs. Cage? From somewhere in the shadows above there came a gigglinga cold and sunless laughter that made the skin on Louiss back prickle. He started up. It was a long walk to the top of those stairs. He could well imagine a condemned man taking a walk almost as long (and as horribly short) to the platform of a scaffold with his hands tied behind his back, knowing that he would piss when he could no longer whistle. He reached the top at last, one hand in his pocket, staring only at the wall. How long did he stand that way? He did not know. He could now feel his sanity beginning to give way. This was an actual sensation, a true thing. It was interesting. He imagined a tree overloaded with ice in a terrible storm would feel this way if trees could feel anythingshortly before toppling. It was interesting . . . and it was sort of amusing. Gage, want to go to Florida with me? That giggle again. Louis turned and was greeted by the sight of his wife, to whom he had once carried a rose in his teeth, lying halfway down the hall, dead. Her legs were splayed out as Juds had been. Her back and head were cocked at an angle against the wall. She looked like a woman who has gone to sleep while reading in bed. He walked down toward her. Hello, darling, he thought, you came home. Blood had splashed the wallpaper in idiot shapes. She had been stabbed a dozen times, two dozen, who knew? His scalpel had done this work. Suddenly he saw her, really saw her, and Louis Creed began to scream. His screams echoed and racketed shrilly through this house where now only death lived and walked. Eyes bulging, face livid, hair standing on end, he screamed; the sounds came from his swollen throat like the bells of hell, terrible shrieks that signaled the end not of love but of sanity; in his mind all the hideous images were suddenly unloosed at once. Victor Pascow dying on the infirmary carpet, Church coming back with bits of green plastic in his whiskers, Gages baseball cap lying in the road, full of blood, but most of all that thing he had seen near Little Cod Swamp, the thing that had pushed the tree over, the thing with the yellow eyes, the Wendigo, creature of the north country, the dead thing whose touch awakens unspeakable appetites. Rachel had not just been killed. Something had been . . . something had been at her. (! CLICK !) That click was in his head. It was the sound of some relay fusing and burning out forever, the sound of lightning stroking down in a direct hit, the sound of a door opening. He looked up numbly, the scream still shivering in his throat and here was Cage at last, his mouth smeared with blood, his chin dripping, his lips pulled back in a hellish grin. In one hand he held Louiss scalpel. As he brought it down, Louis pulled back with no real thought at all. The scalpel whickered past his face, and Gage overbalanced. He is as clumsy as Church, Louis thought. Louis kicked his feet from under him. Gage fell awkwardly, and Louis was on him before he could get up, straddling him, one knee pinning the hand which held the scalpel. No, the thing under him panted. Its face twisted and writhed. Its eyes were baleful, insectile in their stupid hate. No, no, no Louis clawed for one of the hypos, got it out. He would have to be quick. The thing under him was like a greased fish and it would not let go of the scalpel no matter how hard he bore down on its wrist. And its face seemed to ripple and change even as he looked at it. It was Juds face, dead and staring; it was the dented, ruined face of Victor Pascow, eyes rolling mindlessly; it was, mirrorlike, Louiss own, so dreadfully pale and lunatic. Then it changed again and became the face of that creature in the woodsthe low brow, the dead yellow eyes, the tongue long and pointed and bifurcated, grinning and hissing. No, no, nonono It bucked beneath him. The hypo flew out of Louiss hand and rolled a short way down the hall. He groped for another, brought it out, and jammed it straight down into the small of Gages back. It screamed beneath him, body straining and sunfishing, nearly throwing him off. Grunting, Louis got the third syringe and jammed this one home in Gages arm, depressing the plunger all the way. He got off then and began to back slowly down the hallway. Cage got slowly to his feet and began to stagger toward him. Five steps and the scalpel fell from its hand. It struck the floor blade first and stuck itself in the wood, quivering. Ten steps and that strange yellow light in its eyes began to fade. A dozen and it fell to its knees. Now Cage looked up at him and for a moment Louis saw his sonhis real sonhis face unhappy and filled with pain. Daddy! he cried, and then fell forward on his face. Louis stood there for a moment, then went to Gage, moving carefully, expecting some trick. But there was no trick, no sudden leap with clawed hands. He slid his fingers expertly down Gages throat, found the pulse, and held it. He was then a doctor for the last time in his life, monitoring the pulse, monitoring until there was nothing, nothing inside, nothing outside. When it was gone at last, Louis got up and sauntered down the hail to a far corner. He crouched there, pulling himself into a ball, cramming himself into the corner, tighter and tighter. He found he could make himself smaller if he put a thumb in his mouth and so he did that. He remained that way for better than two hours . . . and then, little by little, a dark and ohsoplausible idea came to him. He pulled his thumb from his mouth. It made a small pop. Louis got himself (heyho lets go) going again. In the room where Gage had hidden, he stripped the sheet from the bed and took it out into the hail. He wrapped his wifes body in it, gently, with love. He was humming but did not realize it. He found gasoline in Juds garage. Five gallons of it in a red can next to the Lawnboy. More than enough. He began in the kitchen where Jud still lay under the Thanksgiving tablecloth. He drenched that, then moved into the living room with the can still upended, spraying amber gas over the rug, the sofa, the magazine rack, the chairs, and so out into the downstairs hail and toward the back bedroom. The smell of gas was strong and rich. Juds matches were by the chair where he had kept his fruitless watch, on top of his cigarettes. Louis took them. At the front door he tossed a lighted match back over his shoulder and stepped out. The blast of the heat was immediate and savage, making the skin on his neck feel too small. He shut the door neatly and only stood on the porch for a moment, watching the orange flickers behind Normas curtains. Then he crossed the porch, pausing for a moment, remembering the beers he and Jud had drunk here a million years ago, listening to the soft, gathering roar of fire within the house. Then he stepped out. 62 Steve Masterton came around the curve just before Louiss house and saw the smoke immediatelynot from Louiss place, but from the house that belonged to the old duck across the street. He had come out this morning because he had been worried about Louisdeeply worried. Chariton had told him about Rachels call of the day before, and that had set him to wondering just where Louis was . . . and what he was up to. His worry was vague, but it itched at his mindhe wasnt going to feel right until he had gone out there and checked to see if things were okay . . . or as okay as they could be under the circumstances. The spring weather had emptied the infirmary like white magic, and Surrendra had told him to go ahead; he could handle whatever came up. So Steve had jumped onto his Honda, which he had liberated from the garage only last weekend, and headed out for Ludlow. Maybe he pushed the cycle a little faster than was strictly necessary, but the worry was there; it gnawed. And with it came the absurd feeling that he was already too late. Stupid, of course, but in the pit of his stomach there was a feeling similar to the one hed had there last fall when that Pascow thing cropped upa feeling of miserable surprise and almost leaden disillusion. He was by no means a religious man (in college Steve had been a member of the Atheists Society for two semesters and had dropped out only when his advisor had told himprivately and very much off the recordthat it might hurt his chances to obtain a med school scholarship later on), but he supposed he fell as much heir to whatever biological or biorhythmic conditions passed for premonitions as any other human being, and the death of Pascow had seemed to set a tone for the year which followed, somehow. Not a good year by any means.

Two of Surrendras relatives had been clapped in jail back home, some political thing, and Surrendra had told him that he believed one of theman uncle he cared for very muchmight well now be dead. Surrendra had wept, and the tears from the usually benign Indian had frightened Steve. And Charltons mother had had a radical mastectomy. The tough nurse was not very optimistic about her mothers chances for joining the FiveYear Club. Steve himself had attended four funerals since the death of Victor Pascowhis wifes sister, killed in a car crash; a cousin, killed in a freak accident as the result of a barroom bet (he had been electrocuted while proving he could shinny all the way to the top of a power pole); a grandparent; and of course Louiss little boy. He liked Louis enormously, and he wanted to make sure Louis was all right. Louis had been through hell lately. When he saw the billows of smoke, his first thought was that this was something else to lay at the door of Victor Pascow, who seemed, in his dying, to have removed some sort of crash barrier between these ordinary people and an extraordinary run of bad luck. But that was stupid, and Louiss house was the proof. It stood calm and white, a little piece of cleanlimbed New England architecture in the midmorning sun. People were running toward the old ducks house, and as Steve banked his bike across the road and pulled into Louiss driveway, he saw a man dash up onto the old ducks porch, approach the front door, and then retreat. It was well that he did; a moment later the glass pane in the center of the door blew out, and flames boiled through the opening. If the fool actually had gotten the door open, the blowout would have cooked him like a lobster. Steve dismounted and put the Honda on its kickstand, Louis momentarily forgotten. He was drawn by all the old mystery of fire. Maybe half a dozen people had gathered; except for the wouldbe hero, who lingered on the Crandalls lawn, they kept a respectful distance. Now the windows between the porch and the house blew out. Glass danced in the air. The wouldbe hero ducked and ran for it. Flames ran up the inner wail of the porch like groping hands, blistering the white paint. As Steve watched, one of the rattan easy chairs smouldered and then exploded into flame. Over the crackling sounds, he heard the wouldbe hero cry out with a shrill and absurd sort of optimism Gonna lose her! Gonna lose her sure! If Juds in there, hes a gone goose! Told im about the creosote in that chimbly a hunnert times! Steve opened his mouth to holler across and ask if the fire department had been called, but just then he heard the faint wail of sirens, approaching. A lot of them. They had been called, but the wouldbe hero was right the house was going. Flames probed through half a dozen broken windows now, and the front eave had grown an almost transparent membrane of fire over its bright green shingles. He turned back, then, remembering Louisbut if Louis were here, wouldnt he be with the others across the street? Steve caught something then, just barely caught it with the tail of his eye. Beyond the head of Louiss hottopped driveway there was a field that stretched up a long, gently rising hill. The timothy grass, although still green, had grown high already this May, but Steve could see a path, almost as neatly mowed as a putting green on a golf course. It wound and meandered its way up the slope of the field, rising to meet the woods that began, thick and green, just below the horizon. It was here, where the pale green of the timothy grass met the thicker, denser green of the woods, that Steve had seen movementa flash of bright white that seemed to be moving. It was gone almost as soon as his eye registered it, but it had seemed to him for that brief moment that he had seen a man carrying a white bundle. That was Louis, his mind told him with sudden irrational certainty. That was Louis, and you better get to him quick because something damn bad has happened and pretty quick something even more damn bad is going to happen if you dont stop him. He stood indecisively at the head of the driveway, shifting one foot for the other, his weight jittery between the two of them. Steve baby, youre scared shitless just about now, arent you? Yes. He was. He was scared shitless and for no reason at all. But there was also a certain . . . a certain (attraction) yes, a certain attraction here, something about that path, that path leading up the hill and perhaps continuing on into the woodssurely that path had to go somewhere., didnt it? Yes, of course it did. All paths eventually went somewhere. Louis. Dont forget about Louis, you dummy! Louis was the man you came out to see, remember? You didnt come out to Ludlow to go exploring the goddam woods. What you got there, Randy? the wouldbe hero cried. His voice, still shrill and somehow optimistic, carried well. Randys reply was almost but not quite obscured by the growing wail of the fire sirens. Dead cat. Burnt up? Dont look burnt, Randy returned. Just looks dead. And Steves mind returned implacably, as if the exchange across the street had something to do with what he had seenor what he thought he had seen That was Louis. He started to move then, trotting up the path toward the woods, leaving the fire behind him. He had worked up a good sweat by the time he reached the edge of the woods, and the shade felt cool and good. There was the sweet aroma of pine and spruce, bark and sap. Once into the woods he broke into an allout run, not sure why he was running, not sure why his heart was beating double time. His breath whistled in and out. He was able to lengthen his run to a sprint going downhillthe path was admirably clearbut he reached the arch that marked the entrance to the Pet Sematary at little more than a fast walk. There was a hot stitch high in his right side, just under the armpit. His eyes barely registered the circles of gravesthe beaten tin squares, the bits of board and slate. His gaze was fixed on the bizarre sight at the far side of the circular clearing. It was fixed on Louis, who was climbing a deadfall, seemingly in outright defiance of gravity. He mounted the steep fall step by step, his eyes straight ahead, like a man who has been mesmerized or who is sleepwalking. In his arms was the white thing that Steve had seen from the tail of his eye. This close, its configuration was undeniableit was a body. One foot, clad in a black shoe with a low heel, protruded. And Steve knew with a sudden and sickening certainty that Louis was carrying Rachels body. Louiss hair had gone white. Louis! Steve screamed. Louis didnt hesitate, didnt pause. He reached the top of the deadfall and began down the far side. Hell fall, Steve thought incoherently. Hes been damned lucky, incredibly lucky, but pretty soon hes going to fall and if his legs the only thing he breaks But Louis did not fall. He reached the other side of the deadfall, was temporarily out of Steves sight, and then reappeared as he walked toward the woods again. Louis! Steve yelled again. This time Louis stopped and turned back. Steve was struck dumb by what he saw. Besides the white hair, Louiss face was that of an old, old man. At first there was no recognition at all in Louiss face. It dawned little by little, as if someone was turning a rheostat up in his brain. Louiss mouth was twitching. After a while Steve realized that Louis was trying to smile. Steve, he said in a cracked, uncertain voice. Hello, Steve. Im going to bury her. Have to do it with my bare hands, I guess. It may take until dark. The soil up there is very stony. I dont suppose youd want to give me a hand? Steve opened his mouth, but no words came out. In spite of his surprise, in spite of his horror, he did want to give Louis a hand. Somehow, up here in the woods, it seemed very right, very . . . very natural. Louis, he managed to croak at last, what happened? Good Christ, what happened? Was she . . . was she in the fire? I waited too long with Gage, Louis said. Something got into him because I waited too long. But it will be different with Rachel, Steve. I know it will. He staggered a little, and Steve saw that Louis had gone insanehe saw this quite clearly. Louis was insane and abysmally weary. But somehow only the latter seemed to carry weight in his own bewildered mind. I could use some help, Louis said. Louis, even if I wanted to help you, I couldnt climb over that pile of wood. Oh yes, Louis said. You could. If you just move steadily and dont look down. Thats the secret, Steve. He turned then, and although Steve called his name, Louis moved off into the woods. For a few moments Steve could see the white of the sheet flickering through the trees. Then it was gone. He ran across to the deadfall and began to climb it with no thought at all, at first feeling with his hands for good holds, attempting to crawl up it, and then gaining his feet. As he did so, a crazy daredevil exhilaration swept over himit was like hitting on pure oxygen. He believed he could do itand he did. Moving swiftly and surely, he reached the top. He stood there for a moment, swaying, watching Louis move along the paththe path which continued on the far side of the deadfall. Louis turned and looked back at Steve. He held his wife, wrapped in a bloody sheet, in his arms. You may hear sounds, Louis said. Sounds like voices. But they are just the loons, down south toward Prospect. The sound carries. Its funny. Louis But Louis had turned away. For a moment Steve almost followed himit was very, very close. I could help him, if thats what he wants . . . and I want to help him, yes. Thats the truth because theres more going on here than meets the eye and I want to know what it is. It seems very . . . well . . . very important. It seems like a secret. Like a mystery. Then a branch snapped under one of his canted feet. It made a dry, dusty sound like a track starters gun. It brought him back to exactly where he was and what he was doing. Terror leaped into him and he turned around in a clumsy circle, arms held out for balance, his tongue and throat oily with fright, his face bearing the dismayed grimace of a man who wakes up only to find he has sleepwalked his way onto a high skyscraper ledge. Shes dead and I think that maybe Louis has killed her, Louis has gone mad, utterly mad, but But there was something worse than madness heresomething much, much worse. It was as if there was a magnet somewhere out in those woods and he could feel it pulling at something in his brain. Pulling him toward that place where Louis was taking Rachel. Come on, walk the path . . . walk the path and see where It goes. We got stuff to show you out here, Steverino, stuff they never told you about in the Atheists Society back in Lake Forest. And then, perhaps simply because it had enough for one day to feed on and lost interest in him, the call of the place in his mind simply ceased. Steve took two plunging, drunken steps back down the side of the deadfall. Then more branches let go with a grinding rattle and his left foot plunged into the tangled deadwood; harsh sharp splinters pulled off his sneaker and then tore into his flesh as he yanked free. He fell forward into the Pet Sematary, barely missing a piece of orange crate that could easily have punched into his stomach. He got to his feet, staring around, bewildered, wondering what had happened to him . . . or if anything had happened to him. Already it had begun to seem like a dream. Then, from the deep woods behind the deadfall, woods so deep that the light looked green and tarnished even on the brightest days, a low, chuckling laugh arose. The sound was huge. Steve could not even begin to imagine what sort of creature could have made such a sound. He ran, one shoe off and one shoe on, trying to shriek but unable. He was still running when he reached Louiss house, and still trying to shriek when he finally got his bike started and slued out onto Route 15. He very nearly sideswiped an arriving fire engine from Brewer. Inside his Bell helmet, his hair was standing on end. By the time he got back to his apartment in Orono, he could not precisely remember having gone to Ludlow at all. He called in sick at the infirmary, took a pill, and went to bed. Steve Masterton never really remembered that day . . . except in deep dreams, those that come in the small hours of the morning. And in these dreams he would sense that something huge had shrugged by himsomething which had reached out to touch him . . . and had then withdrawn its inhuman hand at the very last second. Something with great yellow eyes which gleamed like foglamps. Steve sometimes awoke shrieking from these dreams, his eyes wide and bulging, and he would think You think you are screaming, but its only the sound of the loons, down south, in Prospect. The sound carries. Its funny. But he did not know, could not remember, what such a thought might mean. The following year he took a job halfway across the country, in St. Louis. In the time between his last sight of Louis Creed and his departure for the Midwest, Steve never went into the town of Ludlow again. EPILOGUE The police came late that afternoon. They asked questions but voiced no suspicions. The ashes were still hot; they had not yet been raked. Louis answered their questions. They seemed satisfied. They spoke outside and he wore a hat. That was good. If they had seen his gray hair, they might have asked more questions. That would have been bad. He wore his gardening gloves, and that was good too. His hands were bloody and ruined. He played solitaire that night until long after midnight. He was just dealing a fresh hand when he heard the back door open. What you buy is what you own, and sooner or later what you own will come back to you, Louis Creed thought. He did not turn around but only looked at his cards as the slow, gritting footsteps approached. He saw the queen of spades. He put his hand on it. The steps ended directly behind him. Silence. A cold hand fell on Louiss shoulder. Rachels voice was grating, full of dirt. Darling, it said. February 1979December 1982 About the Author Stephen King grew up in Maine and has lived most of his adult life there, both in Bangor and in the Portland area. He and his wife, Tabitha, also a novelist, live in a Victorian mansion with their three childrenNaomi, Joe, and Owen Philip. He is the author of the bestselling books CARRIE, SALEMS LOT, THE SHINING, NIGHT SHIFT, THE STAND, THE DEAD ZONE, FIRESTARTER, CUJO, CREEPSHOW, and CHRISTINE, all published by New American Library. Table of Contents PET SEMATARY Dedication Contents PART ONE The Pet Sematary 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 PART TWO The Micmac Burying Ground 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 PART THREE Oz the Gweat and Tewwible 58 59 60 61 62 EPILOGUE About the Author Praise PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Table of Contents Title Page Dedication PART 1 THE SHADOW BEFORE CHAPTER 1 After the Flood (1957) CHAPTER 2 After the Festival (1984) CHAPTER 3 Six Phone Calls (1985) DERRY THE FIRST INTERLUDE PART 2 JUNE OF 1958 CHAPTER 4 Ben Hanscom Takes a Fall CHAPTER 5 Bill Denbrough Beats the Devil (I) CHAPTER 6 One of the Missing A Tale from the Summer of 58 CHAPTER 7 The Dam in the Barrens CHAPTER 8 Georgies Room and the House on Neibolt Street CHAPTER 9 Cleaning Up DERRY THE SECOND INTERLUDE PART 3 GROWNUPS CHAPTER 10 The Reunion CHAPTER 11 Walking Tours CHAPTER 12 Three Uninvited Guests DERRY THE THIRD INTERLUDE PART 4 JULY OF 1958 CHAPTER 13 The Apocalyptic Rockfight CHAPTER 14 The Album CHAPTER 15 The SmokeHole CHAPTER 16 Eddies Bad Break CHAPTER 17 Another One of the Missing The Death of Patrick Hockstetter CHAPTER 18 The Bullseye DERRY THE FOURTH INTERLUDE PART 5 THE RITUAL OF CHD CHAPTER 19 In the Watches of the Night CHAPTER 20 The Circle Closes CHAPTER 21 Under the City CHAPTER 22 The Ritual of Chd CHAPTER 23 Out DERRY THE LAST INTERLUDE EPILOGUE Copyright Page Welcome to Derry, Maine. . . . It Its a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry, the haunting is real.... They were just kids when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grownup men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name. It will overwhelm you. . . . Characters so real you feel you are reading about yourself . . . scenes to be read in a welllit room only! Los Angeles Times a cognizant original v5 release november 13 2010 AMERICA LOVES THE BACHMAN BOOKS Fascinating. Philadelphia Inquirer CARRIE Horrifying. Chicago Tribune CHRISTINE Riveting. Playboy CUJO Gutwrenching. Newport News Daily Press THE DARK HALF Scary. Kirkus Reviews THE DARK TOWER THE GUNSLINGER Brilliant. Booklist THE DARK TOWER II THE DRAWING OF THE THREE Superb. Chicago HeraldWheaton THE DARK TOWER III THE WASTE LANDS Gripping. Chicago SunTimes THE DEAD ZONE Frightening. Cosmopolitan DIFFERENT SEASONS Hypnotic. New York Times Book Review DOLORES CLAIBORNE Unforgettable San Francisco Chronicle THE EYES OF THE DRAGON Masterful. Cincinnati Post FIRESTARTER Terrifying. Miami Herald STEPHEN KING FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT Chilling. Milwaukee Journal GERALDS GAME Terrific USAToday IT Mesmerizing. Washington Post Book World MISERY Wonderful. Houston Chronicle NEEDFUL THINGS Demonic. Kirkus Reviews NIGHT SHIFT Macabre. Dallas TimesHerald PET SEMATARY Unrelenting. Pittsburgh Press SALEMS LOT Tremendous. Kirkus Reviews THE SHINING Spellbinding. Pittsburgh Press SKELETON CREW Diabolical. Associated Press THE STAND Great. New York Times Book Review THINNER Extraordinary. Booklist THE TOMMYKNOCKERS Marvelous. Boston Globe WORKS BY STEPHEN KING NOVELS Carrie Salems Lot The Shining The Stand The Dead Zone Firestarter Cujo THE DARK TOWER I The Gunslinger Christine Pet Sematary Cycle of the Werewolf The Talisman (with Peter Straub) It The Eyes of the Dragon Misery The Tommyknockers THE DARK TOWER II The Drawing of the Three THE DARK TOWER III The Waste Lands The Dark Half Needful Things Geralds Game Dolores Claiborne Insomnia Rose Madder Desperation The Green Mile THE DARK TOWER IV Wizard and Glass Bag of Bones Hearts in Atlantis The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Dreamcatcher Black House (with Peter Straub) From a Buick 8 AS RICHARD BACHMAN The Long Walk Roadwork The Running Man Thinner The Regulators COLLECTIONS Night Shift Different Seasons Skeleton Crew Four Past Midnight Nightmares and Dreamscapes Everythings Eventual NONFICTION Danse Macabre On Writing SCREENPLAYS Creepshow Cats Eye Silver Bullet Maximum Overdrive Pet Sematary Golden Years Sleepwalkers The Stand The Shining Storm of the Century Rose Red SIGNET Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England First Signet Printing, August 1981 Copyright Stephen King, 1980 All rights reserved Pages 109193 constitute an extension of this copyright page. REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHERS NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty Web sites or their content. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. eISBN 9781101138113 httpus.penguingroup.com This book is gratefully dedicated to my children. My mother and my wife taught me how to be a man. My children taught me how to be free. NAOMI RACHEL KING, at fourteen; JOSEPH HILLSTROM KING, at twelve; OWEN PHILIP KING, at seven. Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough the magic exists. S.K. This old town been home long as I remember This town gonna be here long after Im gone. East side west side take a close look round her You been down but youre still in my bones. The Michael Stanley Band Old friend, what are you looking for? After those many years abroad you come With images you tended Under foreign skies Far away from your own land. George Seferis Out of the blue and into the black. Neil Young PART 1 THE SHADOW BEFORE They begin! The perfections are sharpened The flower spreads its colored petals wide in the sun But the tongue of the bee misses them They sink back into the loam crying out you may call it a cry that creeps over them, a shiver as they wilt and disappear. . . . William Carlos Williams, Paterson Born down in a dead mans town. Bruce Springsteen CHAPTER 1 After the Flood (1957) 1 The terror, which would not end for another twentyeight yearsif it ever did endbegan, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain. The boat bobbed, listed, righted itself again, dived bravely through treacherous whirlpools, and continued on its way down Witcham Street toward the traffic light which marked the intersection of Witcham and Jackson. The three vertical lenses on all sides of the traffic light were dark this afternoon in the fall of 1957, and the houses were all dark, too. There had been steady rain for a week now, and two days ago the winds had come as well. Most sections of Derry had lost their power then, and it was not back on yet. A small boy in a yellow slicker and red galoshes ran cheerfully along beside the newspaper boat. The rain had not stopped, but it was finally slackening. It tapped on the yellow hood of the boys slicker, sounding to his ears like rain on a shed roof ... a comfortable, almost cozy sound. The boy in the yellow slicker was George Denbrough. He was six. His brother, William, known to most of the kids at Derry Elementary School (and even to the teachers, who would never have used the nickname to his face) as Stuttering Bill, was at home, hacking out the last of a nasty case of influenza. In that autumn of 1957, eight months before the real horrors began and twentyeight years before the final showdown, Stuttering Bill was ten years old. Bill had made the boat beside which George now ran. He had made it sitting up in bed, his back propped against a pile of pillows, while their mother played Fr Elise on the piano in the parlor and rain swept restlessly against his bedroom window. About threequarters of the way down the block as one headed toward the intersection and the dead traffic light, Witcham Street was blocked to motor traffic by smudgepots and four orange sawhorses. Stencilled across each of the horses was DERRY DEPT. OF PUBLIC WORKS. Beyond them, the rain had spilled out of gutters clogged with branches and rocks and big sticky piles of autumn leaves. The water had first pried fingerholds in the paving and then snatched whole greedy handfulsall of this by the third day of the rains. By noon of the fourth day, big chunks of the streets surface were boating through the intersection of Jackson and Witcham like miniature whitewater rafts. By that time, many people in Derry had begun to make nervous jokes about arks. The Public Works Department had managed to keep Jackson Street open, but Witcham was impassable from the sawhorses all the way to the center of town. But everyone agreed, the worst was over. The Kenduskeag Stream had crested just below its banks in the Barrens and bare inches below the concrete sides of the Canal which channelled it tightly as it passed through downtown. Right now a gang of menZack Denbrough, Georges and Bills father, among themwere removing the sandbags they had thrown up the day before with such panicky haste. Yesterday overflow and expensive flood damage had seemed almost inevitable. God knew it had happened beforethe flooding in 1931 had been a disaster which had cost millions of dollars and almost two dozen lives. That was a long time ago, but there were still enough people around who remembered it to scare the rest. One of the flood victims had been found twentyfive miles east, in Bucksport. The fish had eaten this unfortunate gentlemans eyes, three of his fingers, his penis, and most of his left foot. Clutched in what remained of his hands had been a Ford steering wheel. Now, though, the river was receding, and when the new Bangor Hydro dam went in upstream, the river would cease to be a threat. Or so said Zack Denbrough, who worked for Bangor Hydroelectric. As for the restwell, future floods could take care of themselves. The thing was to get through this one, to get the power back on, and then to forget it. In Derry such forgetting of tragedy and disaster was almost an art, as Bill Denbrough would come to discover in the course of time. George paused just beyond the sawhorses at the edge of a deep ravine that had been cut through the tar surface of Witcham Street. This ravine ran on an almost exact diagonal. It ended on the far side of the street, roughly forty feet farther down the hill from where he now stood, on the right. He laughed aloudthe sound of solitary, childish glee a bright runner in that gray afternoonas a vagary of the flowing water took his paper boat into a scalemodel rapids which had been formed by the break in the tar. The urgent water had cut a channel which ran along the diagonal, and so his boat travelled from one side of Witcham Street to the other, the current carrying it so fast that George had to sprint to keep up with it. Water sprayed out from beneath his galoshes in muddy sheets. Their buckles made a jolly jingling as George Denbrough ran toward his strange death. And the feeling which filled him at that moment was clear and simple love for his brother Bill ... love and a touch of regret that Bill couldnt be here to see this and be a part of it. Of course he would try to describe it to Bill when he got home, but he knew he wouldnt be able to make Bill see it, the way Bill would have been able to make him see it if their positions had been reversed. Bill was good at reading and writing, but even at his age George was wise enough to know that wasnt the only reason why Bill got all As on his report cards, or why his teachers liked his compositions so well. Telling was only part of it. Bill was good at seeing. The boat nearly whistled along the diagonal channel, just a page torn from the Classified section of the Derry News, but now George imagined it as a PT boat in a war movie, like the ones he sometimes saw down at the Derry Theater with Bill at Saturday matinees. A war picture with John Wayne fighting the Japs. The prow of the newspaper boat threw sprays of water to either side as it rushed along, and then it reached the gutter on the left side of Witcham Street. A fresh streamlet rushed over the break in the tar at this point, creating a fairly large whirlpool, and it seemed to him that the boat must be swamped and capsize. It leaned alarmingly, and then George cheered as it righted itself, turned, and went racing on down toward the intersection. George sprinted to catch up. Over his head, a grim gust of October wind rattled the trees, now almost completely unburdened of their freight of colored leaves by the storm, which had been this year a reaper of the most ruthless sort. 2 Sitting up in bed, his cheeks still flushed with heat (but his fever, like the Kenduskeag, finally receding), Bill had finished the boatbut when George reached for it, Bill held it out of reach. NNow get me the ppparaffin. Whats that? Where is it? Its on the cellar shuhshuhshelf as you go ddownstairs, Bill said. In a box that says GuhGuhhulf . . . Gulf. Bring that to me, and a knife, and a bbowl. And a puhpack of muhmuhmatches. George had gone obediently to get these things. He could hear his mother playing the piano, not Fr Elise now but something else he didnt like so wellsomething that sounded dry and fussy; he could hear rain flicking steadily against the kitchen windows. These were comfortable sounds, but the thought of the cellar was not a bit comfortable. He did not like the cellar, and he did not like going down the cellar stairs, because he always imagined there was something down there in the dark. That was silly, of course, his father said so and his mother said so and, even more important, Bill said so, but still He did not even like opening the door to flick on the light because he always had the ideathis was so exquisitely stupid he didnt dare tell anyonethat while he was feeling for the light switch, some horrible clawed paw would settle lightly over his wrist ... and then jerk him down into the darkness that smelled of dirt and wet and dim rotted vegetables. Stupid! There were no things with claws, all hairy and full of killing spite. Every now and then someone went crazy and killed a lot of peoplesometimes Chet Huntley told about such things on the evening newsand of course there were Commies, but there was no weirdo monster living down in their cellar. Still, this idea lingered. In those interminable moments while he was groping for the switch with his right hand (his left arm curled around the doorjamb in a deathgrip), that cellar smell seemed to intensify until it filled the world. Smells of dirt and wet and longgone vegetables would merge into one unmistakable ineluctable smell, the smell of the monster, the apotheosis of all monsters. It was the smell of something for which he had no name the smell of It, crouched and lurking and ready to spring. A creature which would eat anything but which was especially hungry for boymeat. He had opened the door that morning and had groped interminably for the switch, holding the jamb in his usual deathgrip, his eyes squinched shut, the tip of his tongue poked from the corner of his mouth like an agonized rootlet searching for water in a place of drought. Funny? Sure! You betcha! Lookit you, Georgie! Georgies scared of the dark! What a baby! The sound of the piano came from what his father called the living room and what his mother called the parlor. It sounded like music from another world, far away, the way talk and laughter on a summercrowded beach must sound to an exhausted swimmer who struggles with the undertow. His fingers found the switch! Ah! They snapped it and nothing. No light. Oh, cripes! The power! George snatched his arm back as if from a basket filled with snakes. He stepped back from the open cellar door, his heart hurrying in his chest. The power was out, of coursehe had forgotten the power was out. Jeezlycrow! What now? Go back and tell Bill he couldnt get the box of paraffin because the power was out and he was afraid that something might get him as he stood on the cellar stairs, something that wasnt a Commie or a mass murderer but a creature much worse than either? That it would simply slither part of its rotted self up between the stair risers and grab his ankle? That would go over big, wouldnt it? Others might laugh at such a fancy, but Bill wouldnt laugh. Bill would be mad. Bill would say, Grow up, Georgie ... do you want this boat or not? As if this thought were his cue, Bill called from his bedroom Did you dddie out there, JuhGeorgie? No, Im gettin it, Bill, George called back at once. He rubbed at his arms, trying to make the guilty gooseflesh disappear and be smooth skin again. I just stopped to get a drink of water. Well, hhurry up! So be walked down the four steps to the cellar shelf, his heart a warm, beating hammer in his throat, the hair on the nape of his neck standing at attention, his eyes hot, his hands cold, sure that at any moment the cellar door would swing shut on its own, closing off the white light falling through the kitchen windows, and then he would hear It, something worse than all the Commies and murderers in the world, worse than the Japs, worse than Attila the Hun, worse than the somethings in a hundred horror movies. It, growling deeplyhe would hear the growl in those lunatic seconds before it pounced on him and unzipped his guts. The cellarsmell was worse than ever today, because of the flood. Their house was high on Witcham Street, near the crest of the hill, and they had escaped the worst of it, but there was still standing water down there that had seeped in through the old rock foundations. The smell was low and unpleasant, making you want to take only the shallowest breaths. George sifted through the junk on the shelf as fast as he coutdold cans of Kiwi shoepolish and shoepolish rags, a broken kerosene lamp, two mostly empty bottles of Windex, an old flat can of Turtle wax. For some reason this can struck him, and he spent nearly thirty seconds looking at the turtle on the lid with a kind of hypnotic wonder. Then he tossed it back ... and here it was at last, a square box with the word GULF on it. George snatched it and ran up the stairs as fast as he could, suddenly aware that his shirttail was out and suddenly sure that his shirttail would be his undoing the thing in the cellar would allow him to get almost all the way out, and then it would grab the tail of his shirt and snatch him back and He reached the kitchen and swept the door shut behind him. It banged gustily. He leaned back against it with his eyes closed, sweat popped out on his arms and forehead, the box of paraffin gripped tightly in one hand. The piano had come to a stop, and his moms voice floated to him Georgie, cant you slam that door a little harder next time? Maybe you could break some of the plates in the Welsh dresser, if you really tried. Sorry, Mom, he called back. Georgie, you waste, Bill said from his bedroom. He pitched his voice low so their mother would not hear. George snickered a little. His fear was already gone; it had slipped away from him as easily as a nightmare slips away from a man who awakes, coldskinned and gasping, from its grip; who feels his body and stares at his surroundings to make sure that none of it ever happened and who then begins at once to forget it. Half is gone by the time his feet hit the floor; threequarters of it by the time he emerges from the shower and begins to towel off; all of it by the time he finishes his breakfast. All gone ... until the next time, when, in the grip of the nightmare, all fears will be remembered. That turtle, George thought, going to the counter drawer where the matches were kept. Where did I see a turtle like that before? But no answer came, and he dismissed the question. He got a pack of matches from the drawer, a knife from the rack (holding the sharp edge studiously away from his body, as his dad had taught him), and a small bowl from the Welsh dresser in the dining room. Then he went back into Bills room. WWhat an ahole you are, JuhGeorgie, Bill said, amiably enough, and pushed back some of the sickstuff on his nighttable an empty glass, a pitcher of water, Kleenex, books, a bottle of Vicks VapoRubthe smell of which Bill would associate all his life with thick, phlegmy chests and snotty noses. The old Philco radio was there, too, playing not Chopin or Bach but a Little Richard tune ... very softly, however, so softly that Little Richard was robbed of all his raw and elemental power. Their mother, who had studied classical piano at Juilliard, hated rock and roll. She did not merely dislike it; she abominated it. Im no ahole, George said, sitting on the edge of Bills bed and putting the things he had gathered on the nighttable. Yes you are, Bill said. Nothing but a great big brown ahole, thats you. George tried to imagine a kid who was nothing but a great big ahole on legs and began to giggle. Your ahole is bigger than Augusta, Bill said, beginning to giggle, too. Your ahole is bigger than the whole state, George replied. This broke both boys up for nearly two minutes. There followed a whispered conversation of the sort which means very little to anyone save small boys accusations of who was the biggest ahole, who had the biggest ahole, which ahole was the brownest, and so on. Finally Bill said one of the forbidden wordshe accused George of being a big brown shitty aholeand they both got laughing hard. Bills laughter turned into a coughing fit. As it finally began to taper off (by then Bills face had gone a plummy shade which George regarded with some alarm), the piano stopped again. They both looked in the direction of the parlor, listening for the pianobench to scrape back, listening for their mothers impatient footsteps. Bill buried his mouth in the crook of his elbow, stifling the last of the coughs, pointing at the pitcher at the same time. George poured him a glass of water, which he drank off. The piano began once moreFr Elise again. Stuttering Bill never forgot that piece, and even many years later it never failed to bring gooseflesh to his arms and back; his heart would drop and he would remember My mother was playing that the day Georgie died. You gonna cough anymore, Bill? No. Bill pulled a Kleenex from the box, made a rumbling sound in his chest, spat phlegm into the tissue, screwed it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket by his bed, which was filled with similar twists of tissue. Then he opened the box of paraffin and dropped a waxy cube of the stuff into his palm. George watched him closely, but without speaking or questioning. Bill didnt like George talking to him while he did stuff, but George had learned that if he just kept his mouth shut, Bill would usually explain what he was doing. Bill used the knife to cut off a small piece of the paraffin cube. He put the piece in the bowl, then struck a match and put it on top of the paraffin. The two boys watched the small yellow flame as the dying wind drove rain against the window in occasional spatters. Got to waterproof the boat or itll just get wet and sink, Bill said. When he was with George, his stutter was lightsometimes he didnt stutter at all. In school, however, it could become so bad that talking became impossible for him. Communication would cease and Bills schoolmates would look somewhere else while Bill clutched the sides of his desk, his face growing almost as red as his hair, his eyes squeezed into slits as he tried to winch some word out of his stubborn throat. Sometimesmost timesthe word would come. Other times it simply refused. He had been hit by a car when he was three and knocked into the side of a building; he had remained unconscious for seven hours. Mom said it was that accident which had caused the stutter. George sometimes got the feeling that his dadand Bill himselfwas not so sure. The piece of paraffin in the bowl was almost entirely melted. The matchflame guttered lower, growing blue as it hugged the cardboard stick, and then it went out. Bill dipped his finger into the liquid, jerked it out with a faint hiss. He smiled apologetically at George. Hot, he said. After a few seconds he dipped his finger in again and began to smear the wax along the sides of the boat, where it quickly dried to a milky haze. Can I do some? George asked. Okay. Just dont get any on the blankets or Momll kill you. George dipped his finger into the paraffin, which was now very warm but no longer hot, and began to spread it along the other side of the boat. Dont put on so much, you ahole! Bill said. You want to sink it on its mmaiden cruise? Im sorry. Thats all right. Just ggo easy. George finished the other side, then held the boat in his hands. It felt a little heavier, but not much. Too cool, he said. Im gonna go out and sail it. Yeah, you do that, Bill said. He suddenly looked tiredtired and still not very well. I wish you could come, George said. He really did. Bill sometimes got bossy after awhile, but he always had the coolest ideas and he hardly ever hit. Its your boat, really. She, Bill said. You call boats shshe. She, then. I wish I could come, too, Bill said glumly. Well ... George shifted from one foot to the other, the boat in his hands. You put on your rainstuff, Bill said, or youll wind up with the fluhhu like me. Probably catch it anyway, from my juhgerms. Thanks, Bill. Its a neat boat. And he did something he hadnt done for a long time, something Bill never forgot he leaned over and kissed his brothers cheek. Youll catch it for sure now, you ahole, Bill said, but he seemed cheered up all the same. He smiled at George. Put all this stuff back, too. Or Momll have a bbird. Sure. He gathered up the waterproofing equipment and crossed the room, the boat perched precariously on top of the paraffin box, which was sitting askew in the little bowl. JuhJuhGeorgie? George turned back to look at his brother. Be ccareful. Sure. His brow creased a little. That was something your Mom said, not your big brother. It was as strange as him giving Bill a kiss. Sure I will. He went out. Bill never saw him again. 3 Now here he was, chasing his boat down the left side of Witcham Street. He was running fast but the water was running faster and his boat was pulling ahead. He heard a deepening roar and saw that fifty yards farther down the hill the water in the gutter was cascading into a stormdrain that was still open. It was a long dark semicircle cut into the curbing, and as George watched, a stripped branch, its bark as dark and glistening as sealskin, shot into the stormdrains maw. It hung up there for a moment and then slipped down inside. That was where his boat was headed. Oh shit and Shinola! he yelled, dismayed. He put on speed, and for a moment he thought he would catch the boat. Then one of his feet slipped and he went sprawling, skinning one knee and crying out in pain. From his new pavementlevel perspective he watched his boat swing around twice, momentarily caught in another whirlpool, and then disappear. Shit and Shinola! he yelled again, and slammed his fist down on the pavement. That hurt too, and he began to cry a little. What a stupid way to lose the boat! He got up and walked over to the stormdrain. He dropped to his knees and peered in. The water made a dank hollow sound as it fell into the darkness. It was a spooky sound. It reminded him of Huh! The sound was jerked out of him as if on a string, and he recoiled. There were yellow eyes in there the sort of eyes he had always imagined but never actually seen down in the basement. Its an animal, he thought incoherently, thats all it is, some animal, maybe a housecat that got stuck down in there Still, he was ready to runwould run in a second or two, when his mental switchboard had dealt with the shock those two shiny yellow eyes had given him. He felt the rough surface of the macadam under his fingers, and the thin sheet of cold water flowing around them. He saw himself getting up and backing away, and that was when a voicea perfectly reasonable and rather pleasant voicespoke to him from inside the stormdrain. Hi, Georgie, it said. George blinked and looked again. He could barely credit what he saw; it was like something from a madeup story, or a movie where you know the animals will talk and dance. If he had been ten years older, he would not have believed what he was seeing, but he was not sixteen. He was six. There was a clown in the stormdrain. The light in there was far from good, but it was good enough so that George Denbrough was sure of what he was seeing. It was a clown, like in the circus or on TV. In fact he looked like a cross between Bozo and Clarabell, who talked by honking his (or was it her?George was never really sure of the gender) horn on Howdy Doody Saturday morningsBuffalo Bob was just about the only one who could understand Clarabell, and that always cracked George up. The face of the clown in the stormdrain was white, there were funny tufts of red hair on either side of his bald head, and there was a big clownsmile painted over his mouth. If George had been inhabiting a later year, he would have surely thought of Ronald McDonald before Bozo or Clarabell. The clown held a bunch of balloons, all colors, like gorgeous ripe fruit in one hand. In the other he held Georges newspaper boat. Want your boat, Georgie? The clown smiled. George smiled back. He couldnt help it; it was the kind of smile you just had to answer. I sure do, he said. The clown laughed. I sure do. Thats good! Thats very good! And how about a balloon? Well . . . sure! He reached forward ... and then drew his hand reluctantly back. Im not supposed to take stuff from strangers. My dad said so. Very wise of your dad, the clown in the stormdrain said, smiling. How, George wondered, could I have thought his eyes were yellow? They were a bright, dancing blue, the color of his moms eyes, and Bills. Very wise indeed. Therefore I will introduce myself. I, Georgie, am Mr. Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise, meet George Denbrough. George, meet Pennywise. And now we know each other. Im not a stranger to you, and youre not a stranger to me. Keerect? George giggled. I guess so. He reached forward again . . . and drew his hand back again. How did you get down there? Storm just bleeeew me away, Pennywise the Dancing Clown said. It blew the whole circus away. Can you smell the circus, Georgie? George leaned forward.

Suddenly he could smell peanuts! Hot roasted peanuts! And vinegar! The white kind you put on your french fries through a hole in the cap! He could smell cotton candy and frying doughboys and the faint but thunderous odor of wildanimal shit. He could smell the cheery aroma of midway sawdust. And yet ... And yet under it all was the smell of flood and decomposing leaves and dark stormdrain shadows. That smell was wet and rotten. The cellarsmell. But the other smells were stronger. You bet I can smell it, he said. Want your boat, Georgie? Pennywise asked. I only repeat myself because you really do not seem that eager. He held it up, smiling. He was wearing a baggy silk suit with great big orange buttons. A bright tie, electricblue, flopped down his front, and on his hands were big white gloves, like the kind Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck always wore. Yes, sure, George said, looking into the stormdrain. And a balloon? Ive got red and green and yellow and blue. . . . Do they float? Float? The clowns grin widened. Oh yes, indeed they do. They float! And theres cotton candy. . . . George reached. The clown seized his arm. And George saw the clowns face change. What he saw then was terrible enough to make his worst imaginings of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams; what he saw destroyed his sanity in one clawing stroke. They float, the thing in the drain crooned in a clotted, chuckling voice. It held Georges arm in its thick and wormy grip, it pulled George toward that terrible darkness where the water rushed and roared and bellowed as it bore its cargo of storm debris toward the sea. George craned his neck away from that final blackness and began to scream into the rain, to scream mindlessly into the white autumn sky which curved above Derry on that day in the fall of 1957. His screams were shrill and piercing, and all up and down Witcham Street people came to their windows or bolted out onto their porches. They float, it growled, they float, Georgie, and when youre down here with me, youll float, too Georges shoulder socked against the cement of the curb and Dave Gardener, who had stayed home from his job at The Shoeboat that day because of the flood, saw only a small boy in a yellow rainslicker, a small boy who was screaming and writhing in the gutter with muddy water surfing over his face and making his screams sound bubbly. Everything down here floats, that chuckling, rotten voice whispered, and suddenly there was a ripping noise and a flaring sheet of agony, and George Denbrough knew no more. Dave Gardener was the first to get there, and although he arrived only fortyfive seconds after the first scream, George Denbrough was already dead. Gardener grabbed him by the back of the slicker, pulled him into the street . . . and began to scream himself as Georges body turned over in his hands. The left side of Georges slicker was now bright red. Blood flowed into the stormdrain from the tattered hole where the left arm had been. A knob of bone, horribly bright, peeked through the torn cloth. The boys eyes stared up into the white sky, and as Dave staggered away toward the others already running pellmell down the street, they began to fill up with rain. 4 Somewhere below, in the stormdrain that was already filled nearly to capacity with runoff (there could have been no one down there, the County Sheriff would later exclaim to a Derry News reporter with a frustrated fury so great it was almost agony; Hercules himself would have been swept away in that driving current), Georges newspaper boat shot onward through nighted chambers and long concrete hallways that roared and chimed with water. For awhile it ran neckandneck with a dead chicken that floated with its yellowy, reptilian toes pointed at the dripping ceiling; then, at some junction east of town, the chicken was swept off to the left while Georges boat went straight. An hour later, while Georges mother was being sedated in the Emergency Room at Derry Home Hospital and while Stuttering Bill sat stunned and white and silent in his bed, listening to his father sob hoarsely in the parlor where his mother had been playing Fr Elise when George went out, the boat shot out through a concrete loophole like a bullet exiting the muzzle of a gun and ran at speed down a sluiceway and into an unnamed stream. When it joined the boiling, swollen Penobscot River twenty minutes later, the first rifts of blue had begun to show in the sky overhead. The storm was over. The boat dipped and swayed and sometimes took on water, but it did not sink; the two brothers had waterproofed it well. I do not know where it finally fetched up, if ever it did; perhaps it reached the sea and sails there forever, like a magic boat in a fairytale. All I know is that it was still afloat and still running on the breast of the flood when it passed the incorporated town limits of Derry, Maine, and there it passes out of this tale forever. CHAPTER 2 After the Festival (1984) 1 The reason Adrian was wearing the hat, his sobbing boyfriend would later tell the police, was because he had won it at the Pitch Til U Win stall on the Bassey Park fairgrounds just six days before his death. He was proud of it. He was wearing it because he loved this shitty little town! the boyfriend, Don Hagarty, screamed at the cops. Now, nowtheres no need for that sort of language, Officer Harold Gardener told Hagarty. Harold Gardener was one of Dave Gardeners four sons. On the day his father had discovered the lifeless, onearmed body of George Denbrough, Harold Gardener had been five. On this day, almost twentyseven years later, he was thirtytwo and balding. Harold Gardener recognized the reality of Don Hagartys grief and pain, and at the same time found it impossible to take seriously. This manif you want to call him a manwas wearing lipstick and satin pants so tight you could almost read the wrinkles in his cock. Grief or no grief, pain or no pain, he was, after all, just a queer. Like his friend, the late Adrian Mellon. Lets go through it again, Harolds partner, Jeffrey Reeves, said. The two of you came out of the Falcon and turned toward the Canal. Then what? How many times do I have to tell you idiots? Hagarty was still screaming. They killed him! They pushed him over the side! Just another day in Macho City for them! Don Hagarty began to cry. One more time, Reeves repeated patiently. You came out of the Falcon. Then what? 2 In an interrogation room just down the hall, two Derry cops were speaking with Steve Dubay, seventeen; in the Clerk of Probates office upstairs, two more were questioning John Webby Garton, eighteen; and in the Chief of Polices office on the fifth floor, Chief Andrew Rademacher and Assistant District Attorney Tom Boutillier were questioning fifteenyearold Christopher Unwin. Unwin, who wore faded jeans, a greasesmeared teeshirt, and blocky engineer boots, was weeping. Rademacher and Boutillier had taken him because they had quite accurately assessed him as the weak link in the chain. Lets go through it again, Boutillier said in this office just as Jeffrey Reeves was saying the same thing two floors down. We didnt mean to kill him, Unwin blubbered. It was the hat. We couldnt believe he was still wearing the hat after, you know, after what Webby said the first time. And I guess we wanted to scare him. For what he said, Chief Rademacher interjected. Yes. To John Garton, on the afternoon of the 17th. Yes, to Webby. Unwin burst into fresh tears. But we tried to save him when we saw he was in trouble ... at least me and Stevie Dubay did ... we didnt mean to kill him! Come on, Chris, dont shit us, Boutillier said. You threw the little queer into the Canal. Yes, but And the three of you came in to make a clean breast of things. Chief Rademacher and I appreciate that, dont we, Andy? You bet. It takes a man to own up to what he did, Chris. So dont fuck yourself up by lying now. You meant to throw him over the minute you saw him and his fag buddy coming out of the Falcon, didnt you? No! Chris Unwin protested vehemently. Boutillier took a pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket and stuck one in his mouth. He offered the pack to Unwin. Cigarette? Unwin took one. Boutillier had to chase the tip with a match in order to give him a light because of the way Unwins mouth was trembling. But when you saw he was wearing the hat? Rademacher asked. Unwin dragged deep, lowered his head so that his greasy hair fell in his eyes, and jetted smoke from his nose, which was littered with blackheads. Yeah, he said, almost too softly to be heard. Boutillier leaned forward, brown eyes gleaming. His face was predatory but his voice was gentle. What, Chris? I said yes. I guess so. To throw him in. But not to kill him. He looked up at them, face frantic and miserable and still unable to comprehend the stupendous changes which had taken place in his life since he left the house to take in the last night of Derrys Canal Days Festival with two of his buddies at seventhirty the previous evening. Not to kill him! he repeated. And that guy under the bridge ... I still dont know who he was. What guy was that? Rademacher asked, but without much interest. They had heard this part before as well, and neither of them believed itsooner or later men accused of murder almost always drag out that mysterious other guy. Boutillier even had a name for it he called it the OneArmed Man Syndrome, after that old TV series The Fugitive. The guy in the clown suit, Chris Unwin said, and shivered. The guy with the balloons. 3 The Canal Days Festival, which ran from July 15th to July 21st, had been a rousing success, most Derry residents agreed a great thing for the citys morale, image ... and pocketbook. The weeklong festival was pegged to mark the centenary of the opening of the Canal which ran through the middle of downtown. It had been the Canal which had fully opened Derry to the lumber trade in the years 1884 to 1910; it had been the Canal which had birthed Derrys boom years. The town was spruced up from east to west and north to south. Potholes which some residents swore hadnt been patched for ten years or more were neatly filled with hottop and rolled smooth. The town buildings were refurbished on the inside, repainted on the outside. The worst of the graffiti in Bassey Parkmuch of it coolly logical antigay statements such as KILL ALL QUEERS and AIDS FROM GOD YOU HELLBOUND HOMOS!!was sanded off the benches and wooden walls of the little covered walkway over the Canal known as the Kissing Bridge. A Canal Days Museum was installed in three empty storefronts downtown, and filled with exhibits by Michael Hanlon, a local librarian and amateur historian. The towns oldest families loaned freely of their almost priceless treasures, and during the week of the festival nearly forty thousand visitors paid a quarter each to look at eatinghouse menus from the 1890s, loggers bitts, axes, and peaveys from the 1880s, childrens toys from the 1920s, and over two thousand photographs and nine reels of movie film of life as it had been in Derry over the last hundred years. The museum was sponsored by the Derry Ladies Society, which vetoed some of Hanlons proposed exhibits (such as the notorious trampchair from the 1930s) and photographs (such as those of the Bradley Gang after the notorious shootout). But all agreed it was a great success, and no one really wanted to see those gory old things anyway. It was so much better to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, as the old song said. There was a huge striped refreshment tent in Derry Park, and band concerts there every night. In Bassey Park there was a carnival with rides by Smokeys Greater Shows and games run by local townfolk. A special tramcar circled the historic sections of the town every hour on the hour and ended up at this gaudy and amiable moneymachine. It was here that Adrian Mellon won the hat which would get him killed, the paper tophat with the flower and the band which said IDERRY! 4 Im tired, John Webby Garton said. Like his two friends, he was dressed in unconscious imitation of Bruce Springsteen, although if asked he would probably call Springsteen a wimp or a fagola and would instead profess admiration for such bitchin heavymetal groups as Def Leppard, Twisted Sister, or Judas Priest. The sleeves of his plain blue teeshirt were torn off, showing his heavily muscled arms. His thick brown hair fell over one eyethis touch was more John Cougar Mellencamp than Springsteen. There were blue tattoos on his armsarcane symbols which looked as if they had been drawn by a child. I dont want to talk no more. Just tell us about Tuesday afternoon at the fair, Paul Hughes said. Hughes was tired and shocked and dismayed by this whole sordid business. He thought again and again that it was as if Derry Canal Days ended with one final event which everyone had somehow known about but which no one had quite dared to put down on the Daily Program of Events. If they had, it would have looked like this Saturday, 900 P.M. Final band concert featuring the Derry High School Band and the Barber Shop MelloMen. Saturday, 1000 P.M. Giant fireworks show. Saturday, 1035 P.M. Ritual sacrifice of Adrian Mellon officially ends Canal Days. Fuck the fair, Webby replied. Just what you said to Mellon and what he said to you. Oh Christ. Webby rolled his eyes. Come on, Webby, Hughess partner said. Webby Garton rolled his eyes and began again. 5 Garton saw the two of them, Mellon and Hagarty, mincing along with their arms about each others waists and giggling like a couple of girls. At first he actually thought they were a couple of girls. Then he recognized Mellon, who had been pointed out to him before. As he looked, he saw Mellon turn to Hagarty ... and they kissed briefly. Oh, man, Im gonna barf! Webby cried, disgusted. Chris Unwin and Steve Dubay were with him. When Webby pointed out Mellon, Steve Dubay said he thought the other fag was named Don somebody, and that hed picked up a kid from Derry High hitching and then tried to put a few moves on him. Mellon and Hagarty began to move toward the three boys again, walking away from the Pitch Til U Win and toward the carnys exit. Webby Garton would later tell Officers Hughes and Conley that his civic pride had been wounded by seeing a fucking faggot wearing a hat which said IDERRY. It was a silly thing, that hata paper imitation of a top hat with a great big flower sticking up from the top and nodding about in every direction. The silliness of the hat apparently wounded Webbys civic pride even more. As Mellon and Hagarty passed, each with his arm linked about the others waist, Webby Garton yelled out I ought to make you eat that hat, you fucking assbandit! Mellon turned toward Garton, fluttered his eyes flirtatiously, and said If you want something to eat, hon, I can find something much tastier than my hat. At this point Webby Garton decided he was going to rearrange the faggots face. In the geography of Mellons face, mountains would rise and continents would drift. Nobody suggested he sucked the root. Nobody. He started toward Mellon. Mellons friend Hagarty, alarmed, attempted to pull Mellon away, but Mellon stood his ground, smiling. Garton would later tell Officers Hughes and Conley that he was pretty sure Mellon was high on something. So he was, Hagarty would agree when this idea was passed on to him by Officers Gardener and Reeves. He was high on two fried doughboys smeared with honey, on the carnival, on the whole day. He had been consequently unable to recognize the real menace which Webby Garton represented. But that was Adrian, Don said, using a tissue to wipe his eyes and smearing the spangled eyeshadow he was wearing. He didnt have much in the way of protective coloration. He was one of those fools who think things really are going to turn out all right. He might have been badly hurt there and then if Garton hadnt felt something tap his elbow. It was a nightstick. He turned his head to see Officer Frank Machen, another member of Derrys Finest. Never mind, little buddy, Machen told Garton. Mind your business and leave those little gay boyos alone. Have some fun. Did you hear what he called me? Garton asked hotly. He was now joined by Unwin and Dubaythe two of them, smelling trouble, tried to urge Garton on up the midway, but Garton shrugged them away, would have turned on them with his fists if they had persisted. His masculinity had borne an insult which he felt must be avenged. Nobody suggested he sucked the root. Nobody. I dont believe he called you anything, Machen replied. And you spoke to him first, I believe. Now move on, sonny. I dont want to have to tell you again. He called me a queer! Are you worried you might be, then? Machen asked, seeming to be honestly interested, and Garton flushed a deep ugly red. During this exchange, Hagarty was trying with increasing desperation to pull Adrian Mellon away from the scene. Now, at last, Mellon was going. Tata, love! Adrian called cheekily over his shoulder. Shut up, candyass, Machen said. Get out of here. Garton made a lunge at Mellon, and Machen grabbed him. I can run you in, my friend, Machen said, and the way youre acting, it might not be such a bad idea. Next time I see you Im gonna hurtyou! Garton bellowed after the departing pair, and heads turned to stare at him. And if youre wearing that hat, Im gonna kill you! This town dont need no faggots like you! Without turning, Mellon waggled the fingers of his left handthe nails were painted ceriseand put an extra little wiggle in his walk. Garton lunged again. One more word or one more move and in you go, Machen said mildly. Trust me, my boy, for I mean exactly what I say. Come on, Webby, Chris Unwin said uneasily. Mellow out. You like guys like that? Webby asked Machen, ignoring Chris and Steve completely. Huh? About the bumpunchers Im neutral, Machen said. What Im really in favor of is peace and quiet, and you are upsetting what I like, pizza face. Now do you want to go a round with me or what? Come on, Webby, Steve Dubay said quietly. Lets go get some hot dogs. Webby went, straightening his shirt with exaggerated moves and brushing the hair out of his eyes. Machen, who also gave a statement on the morning following Adrian Mellons death, said The last thing I heard him say as him and his buddies walked off was, Next time I see him hes going to be in serious hurt. 6 Please, I got to talk to my mother, Steve Dubay said for the third time. Ive got to get her to mellow out my stepfather, or there is going to be one hell of a punchingmatch when I get home. In a little while, Officer Charles Avarino told him. Both Avarino and his partner, Barney Morrison, knew that Steve Dubay would not be going home tonight and maybe not for many nights to come. The boy did not seem to realize just how heavy this particular bust was, and Avarino would not be surprised when he learned, later on, that Dubay had left school at age sixteen. At that time he had still been in Water Street Junior High. His IQ was 68, according to the Wechsler he had taken during one of his three trips through the seventh grade. Tell us what happened when you saw Mellon coming out of the Falcon, Morrison invited. No, man, I better not. Well, why not? Avarino asked. I already talked too much, maybe. You came in to talk, Avarino said. Isnt that right? Well . . . yeah ... but ... Listen, Morrison said warmly, sitting down next to Dubay and shooting him a cigarette. You think me and Chick here like fags? I dont know Do we look like we like fags? No, but . . . Were your friends, Steveo, Morrison said solemnly. And believe me, you and Chris and Webby need all the friends you can get just about now. Because tomorrow every bleeding heart in this town is going to be screaming for you guyss blood. Steve Dubay looked dimly alarmed. Avarino, who could almost read this hairbags pussy little mind, suspected he was thinking about his stepfather again. And although Avarino had no liking for Derrys small gay communitylike every other cop on the force, he would enjoy seeing the Falcon shut up foreverhe would have been delighted to drive Dubay home himself. He would, in fact, have been delighted to hold Dubays arms while Dubays stepfather beat the creep to oatmeal. Avarino did not like gays, but this did not mean he believed they should be tortured and murdered. Mellon had been savaged. When they brought him up from under the Canal bridge, his eyes had been open, bulging with terror. And this guy here had absolutely no idea of what he had helped do. We didnt mean to hurt im, Steve repeated. This was his fallback position when he became even slightly confused. Thats why you want to get out front with us, Avarino said earnestly. Get the true facts of the matter out in front, and this maybe wont amount to a pisshole in the snow. Isnt that right, Barney? As rain, Morrison agreed. One more time, what do you say? Avarino coaxed. Well ... Steve said, and then, slowly, began to talk. 7 When the Falcon was opened in 1973, Elmer Curtie thought his clientele would consist mostly of busridersthe terminal next door serviced three different lines Trailways, Greyhound, and Aroostook County. What he failed to realize was how many of the passengers who ride buses are women or families with small children in tow. Many of the others kept their bottles in brown bags and never got off the bus at all. Those who did were usually soldiers or sailors who wanted no more than a quick beer or twoyou couldnt very well go on a bender during a tenminute reststop. Curtie had begun to realize some of these home truths by 1977, but by then it was too late he was up to his tits in bills and there was no way that he could see out of the red ink. The idea of burning the place down for the insurance occurred to him, but unless he hired a professional to torch it, he supposed he would be caught ... and he had no idea where professional arsonists hung out, anyway. He decided in February of that year that he would give it until July 4th; if things didnt look as if they were turning around by then, he would simply walk next door, get on a hound, and see how things looked down in Florida. But in the next five months, an amazing quiet sort of prosperity came to the bar, which was painted black and gold inside and decorated with stuffed birds (Elmer Curties brother had been an amateur taxidermist who specialized in birds, and Elmer had inherited the stuff when he died). Suddenly, instead of drawing sixty beers and pouring maybe twenty drinks a night, Elmer was drawing eighty beers and pouring a hundred drinks ... a hundred and twenty ... sometimes a hundred and sixty. His clientele was young, polite, almost exclusively male. Many of them dressed outrageously, but those were years when outrageous dress was still almost the norm, and Elmer Curtie did not realize that his patrons were just about almost exclusively gay until 1981 or so. If Derry residents had heard him say this, they would have laughed and said that Elmer Curtie must think they had all been born yesterdaybut his claim was perfectly true. Like the with the cheating wife, he was practically the last to know . . . by the time he did, he didnt care. The bar was making money, and while there were four other bars in Derry which turned a profit, the Falcon was the only one where rambunctious patrons did not regularly demolish the whole place. There were no women to fight over, for one thing, and these men, fags or not, seemed to have learned a secret of getting along with each other which their heterosexual counterparts did not know. Once he became aware of the sexual preference of his regulars, he seemed to hear lurid stories about the Falcon everywherethese stories had been circulating for years, but until 81 Curtie simply hadnt heard them. The most enthusiastic tellers of these tales, he came to realize, were men who wouldnt be dragged into the Falcon with a chainfall for fear all the muscles would go out of their wrists, or something. Yet they seemed privy to all sorts of information. According to the stories, you could go in there any night and see men closedancing, rubbing their cocks together right out on the dancefloor; men frenchkissing at the bar; men getting blowjobs in the bathrooms. There was supposedly a room out back where you went if you wanted to spend a little time on the Tower of Powerthere was a big old fellow in a Nazi uniform back there who kept his arm greased most of the way to the shoulder and who would be happy to take care of you. In fact, none of these things were true. When folks with a thirst did come in from the bus station for a beer or a highball, they sensed nothing out of the ordinary in the Falcon at allthere were a lot of guys, sure, but that was no different than thousands of workingmens bars all across the country. The clientele was gay, but gay was not a synonym for stupid. If they wanted a little outrageousness, they went to Portland. If they wanted a lot of outrageousnessRamrodstyle outrageousness or Pecks Big Boystyle outrageousnessthey went down to New York or Boston. Derry was small, Derry was provincial, and Derrys small gay community understood the shadow under which it existed quite well. Don Hagarty had been coming into the Falcon for two or three years on the night in March of 1984 when he first showed up with Adrian Mellon. Before then, Hagarty had been the sort who plays the field, rarely showing up with the same escort half a dozen times. But by late April it had become obvious even to Elmer Curtie, who cared very little about such things, that Hagarty and Mellon had a steady thing going. Hagarty was a draftsman with an engineering firm in Bangor. Adrian Mellon was a freelance writer who published anywhere and everywhere he couldairline magazines, confession magazines, regional magazines, Sunday supplements, sexletter magazines. He had been working on a novel, but maybe that wasnt serioushe had been working on it since his third year of college, and that had been twelve years ago. He had come to Derry to write a piece about the Canalhe was on assignment from New England Byways, a glossy bimonthly that was published in Concord. Adrian Mellon had taken the assignment because he could squeeze Byways for three weeks worth of expense money, including a nice room at the Derry Town House, and gather all the material he needed for the piece in maybe five days. During the other two weeks he could gather enough material for maybe four other regional pieces. But during that threeweek period he met Don Hagarty, and instead of going back to Portland when his three weeks on the cuff were over, he found himself a small apartment on Kossuth Lane. He lived there for only six weeks. Then he moved in with Don Hagarty. 8 That summer, Hagarty told Harold Gardener and Jeff Reeves, was the happiest summer of his lifehe should have been on the lookout, he said; he should have known that God only puts a rug under guys like him in order to jerk it out from under their feet. The only shadow, he said, was Adrians extravagantly partisan reaction to Derry. He had a teeshirt which said MAINE AINT BAD BUT DERRYS GREAT! He had a Derry Tigers highschool jacket. And of course there was the hat. He claimed to find the atmosphere vital and creatively invigorating. Perhaps there was something to this he had taken his languishing novel out of the trunk for the first time in nearly a year. Was he really working on it, then? Gardener asked Hagarty, not really caring but wanting to keep Hagarty primed. Yeshe was busting pages. He said it might be a terrible novel, but it was no longer going to be a terrible unfinished novel. He expected to finish it by his birthday, in October. Of course, he didnt know what Derry was really like. He thought he did, but he hadnt been here long enough to get a whiff of the real Derry. I kept trying to tell him, but he wouldnt listen. And whats Derry really like, Don? Reeves asked. Its a lot like a dead strumpet with maggots squirming out of her cooze, Don Hagarty said. The two cops stared in silent amazement. Its a bad place, Hagarty said. Its a sewer. You mean you two guys dont know that? You two guys have lived here all of your lives and you dont know that? Neither of them answered. After a little while, Hagarty went on. 9 Until Adrian Mellon entered his life, Don had been planning to leave Derry. He had been there for three years, mostly because he had agreed to a longterm lease on an apartment with the worlds most fantastic riverview, but now the lease was almost up and Don was glad. No more long commute back and forth to Bangor. No more weird vibesin Derry, he once told Adrian, it always felt like thirteen oclock. Adrian might think Derry was a great place, but it scared Don. It was not just the towns tightly homophobic attitude, an attitude as clearly expressed by the towns preachers as by the graffiti in Bassey Park, but that was one thing he had been able to put his finger on. Adrian had laughed. Don, every town in America has a contingent that hates the gayfolk, he said. Dont tell me you dont know that. This is, after all, the era of Ronnie Moron and Phyllis Housefly. Come down to Bassey Park with me, Don had replied, after seeing that Adrian really meant what he was sayingand what he was really saying was that Derry was no worse than any other fairsized town in the hinterlands. I want to show you something, my love. They drove to Bassey Parkthis had been in midJune, about a month before Adrians murder, Hagarty told the cops. He took Adrian into the dark, vaguely unpleasantsmelling shadows of the Kissing Bridge. He pointed out one of the graffiti. Adrian had to strike a match and hold it below the writing in order to read it. SHOW ME YOUR COCK QUEER AND ILL CUT IT OFF YOU. I know how people feel about gays, Don said quietly. I got beaten up at a truckstop in Dayton when I was a teenager; some fellows in Portland set my shoes on fire outside of a sandwich shop while this fatassed old cop sat inside his cruiser and laughed. Ive seen a lot . . . but Ive never seen anything quite like this. Look over here. Check it out. Another match revealed STICK NAILS IN EYES OF ALL FAGOTS (FOR GOD)! Whoever writes these little homilies has got a case of the deepdown crazies. Id feel better if I thought it was just one person, one isolated sickie, but ... Don swept his arm vaguely down the length of the Kissing Bridge. Theres a lot of this stuff ... and I just dont think one person did it all. Thats why I want to leave Derry, Ade. Too many places and too many people seem to have the deepdown crazies. Well, wait until I finish my novel, okay? Please? October, I promise, no later. The airs better here. He didnt know it was the water he was going to have to watch out for, Don Hagarty said bitterly. 10 Tom Boutillier and Chief Rademacher leaned forward, neither of them speaking. Chris Unwin sat with his head down, talking monotonously to the floor. This was the part they wanted to hear; this was the part that was going to send at least two of these assholes to Thomaston. The fair wasnt no good, Unwin said. They was already takin down all the bitchin rides, you know, like the Devil Dish and the Parachute Drop. They already had a sign on the Bumper Cars that said closed. Wasnt nothing open but baby rides. So we went down by the games and Webby saw the Pitch Til U Win and he paid fifty cents and he seen that hat the queer was wearing and he pitched at that, but he kept missing it, and every time he missed he got more in a bad mood, you know? And Stevehes the guy who usually goes around saying mellow out, like mellow out this and mellow out that and why dont you fuckin mellow out, you know? Only he was in a real pissuparope mood because he took this pill, you know? I dont know what kind of a pill. A red pill. Maybe it was even legal.

But he keeps after Webby until I thought Webby was gonna hit him, you know. He goes, You cant even win that queers hat. You must be really wasted if you cant even win that queers hat. So finally the lady gives im a prize even though the ring wasnt over it, cause I think she wanted to get rid of us. I dont know. Maybe she didnt. But I think she did. It was this noisemaker thing, you know? You blow it and it puffs up and unrolls and makes a noise like a fart, you know? I used to have one of those. I got it for Halloween or New Years or some fuckin holiday, I thought it was pretty good, only I lost it. Or maybe somebody hawked it out of my pocket in the fuckin playyard at school, you know? So then the fairs closin and were walkin out and Steves still on Webby about not bein able to win that queers hat, you know, and Webby aint sayin much, and I know thats a bad sign but I was pretty faced, you know? So I knew I ought to like change the subject only I couldnt think of no subject, you know? So when we get into the parkin lot Steve says, Where you want to go? Home? And Webby goes, Lets cruise by the Falcon first and see if that queers around. Boutillier and Rademacher exchanged a glance. Boutillier raised a single finger and tapped it against his cheek although this doofus in the engineer boots didnt know it, he was now talking about firstdegree murder. So I goes no, I gotta get home, and Webby goes, You scared to go by that queerbar? And I go, Fuck no! And Steves still high or something, and he says, Lets go grease some queermeat! Lets go grease some queermeat! Lets go grease . . . 11 The timing was just right enough so that things worked out wrong for everyone. Adrian Mellon and Don Hagarty came out of the Falcon after two beers, walked up past the bus station, and then linked hands. Neither of them thought about it; it was just something they did. It was tentwenty. They reached the corner and turned left. The Kissing Bridge was almost half a mile upriver from here; they meant to cross Main Street Bridge, which was much less picturesque. The Kenduskeag was summerlow, no more than four feet of water sliding listlessly around the concrete pilings. When the Duster drew abreast of them (Steve Dubay had spotted the two of them coming out of the Falcon and gleefully pointed them out), they were on the edge of the span. Cut in! Cut in! Webby Garton screamed. The two men had just passed under a streetlight and he had spotted the fact that they were holding hands. This infuriated him ... but not as much as the hat infuriated him. The big paper flower was nodding crazily this way and that. Cut in, goddammit! And Steve did. Chris Unwin would deny active participation in what followed, but Don Hagarty told a different story. He said that Garton was out of the car almost before it stopped,and that the other two quickly followed. There was talk. Not good talk. There was no attempt at flippancy or false coquetry on Adrians part this night; he recognized that they were in a lot of trouble. Give me that hat, Garton said. Give it to me, queer. If I do, will you leave us alone? Adrian was wheezing with fright, almost crying, looking from Unwin to Dubay to Garton with terrified eyes. Just give me the fucker! Adrian handed it over. Garton produced a switchknife from the left front pocket of his jeans and cut it into two pieces. He rubbed the pieces against the seat of his jeans. Then he dropped them to his feet and stomped them. Don Hagarty backed away a little while their attention was divided between Adrian and the hathe was looking, he said, for a cop. Now will you let us al Adrian Mellon began, and that was when Garton punched him in the face, driving him back against the waisthigh pedestrian railing of the bridge. Adrian screamed, clapping his hands to his mouth. Blood poured through his fingers. Ade! Hagarty cried, and ran forward again. Dubay tripped him. Garton booted him in the stomach, knocking him off the sidewalk and into the roadway. A car passed. Hagarty rose to his knees and screamed at it. It didnt slow. The driver, he told Gardener and Reeves, never even looked around. Shut up, queer! Dubay said, and kicked him in the side of the face. Hagarty fell on his side in the gutter, semiconscious. A few moments later he heard a voiceChris Unwinstelling him to get away before he got what his friend was getting. In his own statement Unwin verified giving this warning. Hagarty could hear thudding blows and the sound of his lover screaming. Adrian sounded like a rabbit in a snare, he told the police. Hagarty crawled back toward the intersection and the bright lights of the bus station, and when he was a distance away he turned back to look. Adrian Mellon, who stood about fivefive and might have weighed a hundred and thirtyfive pounds soaking wet, was being pushed from Garton to Dubay to Unwin in a kind of triple play. His body jittered and flopped like the body of a rag doll. They were punching him, pummelling him, ripping at his clothes. As he watched, he said, Garton punched Adrian in the crotch. Adrians hair hung in his face. Blood poured out of his mouth and soaked his shirt. Webby Garton wore two heavy rings on his right hand one was a Derry High School ring, the other one he had made in shop classan intertwined brass DB stood out three inches from this latter. The letters stood for the Dead Bugs, a metal band he particularly admired. The rings had torn Adrians upper lip open and shattered three of his upper teeth at the gum line. Help! Hagarty shrieked. Help! Help! Theyre killing him! Help! The buildings of Main Street loomed dark and secret. No one came to helpnot even from the one white island of light which marked the bus station, and Hagarty did not see how that could be there were people in there. He had seen them when he and Ade walked past. Would none of them come to help? None at all? HELP! HELP! THEYRE KILLING HIM, HELP, PLEASE, FOR GODS SAKE! Help, a very small voice whispered from Don Hagartys left . . . and then there was a giggle. Bums rush! Garton was yelling now ... yelling and laughing. All three of them, Hagarty told Gardener and Reeves, had been laughing while they beat Adrian up. Bums rush! Over the side! Bums rush! Bums rush! Bums rush! Dubay chanted, laughing. Help, the small voice said again, and although the voice was grave, that little giggle followed againit was like the voice of a child who cannot help itself. Hagarty looked down and saw the clownand it was at this point that Gardener and Reeves began to discount everything that Hagarty said, because the rest was the raving of a lunatic. Later, however, Harold Gardener found himself wondering. Later, when he found that the Unwin boy had also seen a clownor said he hadhe began to have second thoughts. His partner either never had them or would never admit to them. The clown, Hagarty said, looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and that old TV clown, Bozoor so he thought at first. It was the wild tufts of orange hair that brought such comparisons to mind. But later consideration had caused him to think the clown really looked like neither. The smile painted over the white pancake was red, not orange, and the eyes were a weird shiny silver. Contact lenses, perhaps . . . but a part of him thought then and continued to think that maybe that silver had been the real color of those eyes. He wore a baggy suit with big orangepompom buttons; on his hands were cartoon gloves. If you need help, Don, the clown said, help yourself to a balloon. And it offered the bunch it held in one hand. They float, the clown said. Down here we all float; pretty soon your friend will float, too. 12 This clown called you by name, Jeff Reeves said in a totally expressionless voice. He looked over Hagartys bent head at Harold Gardener, and one eye drew down in a wink. Yes, Hagarty said, not looking up. I know how it sounds. 13 So then you threw him over, Boutillier said. Bums rush. Not me! Unwin said, looking up. He flicked the hair out of his eyes with one hand and stared at them urgently. When I saw they really meant to do it, I tried to pull Steve away, because I knew the guy might get banged up.... It was like ten feet to the water.... It was twentythree. One of Chief Rademachers patrolmen had already measured. But it was like he was crazy. The two of them kept yelling Bums rush! Bums rush! and they picked him up. Webby had him under the arms and Steve had him by the seat of the pants, and . . . and . . . 14 When Hagarty saw what they were doing, he rushed back toward them, screaming No! No! No! at the top of his voice. Chris Unwin pushed him backward and Hagarty landed in a teethrattling heap on the sidewalk. Do you want to go over, too? he whispered. You run, baby! They threw Adrian Mellon over the bridge and into the water then. Hagarty heard the splash. Lets get out of here, Steve Dubay said. He and Webby were backing toward the car. Chris Unwin went to the railing and looked over. He saw Hagarty first, sliding and clawing his way down the weedy, trashlittered embankment to the water. Then he saw the clown. The clown was dragging Adrian out on the far side with one arm; its balloons were in its other hand. Adrian was dripping wet, choking, moaning. The clown twisted its head and grinned up at Chris. Chris said he saw its shining silver eyes and its bared teethgreat big teeth, he said. Like the lion in the circus, man, he said. I mean, they were that big. Then, he said, he saw the clown shove one of Adrian Mellons arms back so it lay over his head. Then what, Chris? Boutillier said. He was bored with this part. Fairytales had bored him since the age of eight on. I dunno, Chris said. That was when Steve grabbed me and hauled me into the car. But ... I think it bit into his armpit. He looked up at them again, uncertain now. I think thats what it did. Bit into his armpit. Like it wanted to eat him, man. Like it wanted to eat his heart. 15 No, Hagarty said when he was presented with Chris Unwins story in the form of questions. The clown did not drag Ade up on the far bank, at least not that he sawand he would grant that he had been something less than a disinterested observer by that point; by that point he had been out of his fucking mind. The clown, he said, was standing near the far bank with Adrians dripping body clutched in its arms. Ades right arm was stuck stiffly out behind the clowns head, and the clowns face was indeed in Ades right armpit, but it was not biting it was smiling. Hagarty could see it looking out from beneath Ades arm and smiling. The clowns arms tightened, and Hagarty heard ribs splinter. Ade shrieked. Float with us, Don, the clown said out of its grinning red mouth, and then pointed with one of its whitegloved hands under the bridge. Balloons floated against the underside of the bridgenot a dozen or a dozen dozens but thousands, red and blue and green and yellow, and printed on the side of each was IDERRY! 16 Well now, that surely does sound like a lot of balloons, Reeves said, and tipped Harold Gardener another wink. I know how it sounds, Hagarty reiterated in the same dreary voice. You saw those balloons, Gardener said. Don Hagarty slowly held his hands up in front of his face. I saw them as clearly as I can see my own fingers at this moment. Thousands of them. You couldnt even see the underside of the bridgethere were too many of them. They were rippling a little, and sort of bouncing up and down. There was a sound. A funny low squealing noise. That was their sides rubbing together. And strings. There was a forest of white strings hanging down. They looked like white strands of spiderweb. The clown took Ade under there. I could see its suit brushing through those strings. Ade was making awful choking sounds. I started after him ... and the clown looked back. I saw its eyes, and all at once I understood who it was. Who was it, Don? Harold Gardener asked softly. It was Derry, Don Hagarty said. It was this town. And what did you do then? It was Reeves. I ran, you dumb shit, Hagarty said, and burst into tears. 17 Harold Gardener kept his peace until November 13th, the day before John Garton and Steven Dubay were to go on trial in Derry District Court for the murder of Adrian Mellon. Then he went to see Tom Boutillier. He wanted to talk about the clown. Boutillier didntbut when he saw Gardener might do something stupid without a little guidance, he did. There was no clown, Harold. The only clowns out that night were those three kids. You know that as well as I do. We have two witnesses Oh, thats crap. Unwin decided to bring on the OneArmed Man, as in We didnt kill the poor little faggot, it was the onearmed man, as soon as he understood hed really gotten his buns into some hot water this time. Hagarty was hysterical. He stood by and watched those kids murder his best friend. It wouldnt have surprised me if hed seen flying saucers. But Boutillier knew better. Gardener could see it in his eyes, and the Assistant D.A.s ducking and dodging irritated him. Come on, he said. Were talking about independent witnesses here. Dont bullshit me. Oh, you want to talk bullshit? Are you telling me you believe there was a vampire clown under the Main Street Bridge? Because thats my idea of bullshit. No, not exactly, but Or that Hagarty saw a billion balloons under there, each imprinted with exactly the same thing as what was written on his lovers hat? Because that is also my idea of bullshit. No, but Then why are you bothering with this? Stop crossexamining me! Gardener roared. They both described it the same and neither knew what the other one was saying! Boutillier had been sitting at his desk, playing with a pencil. Now he put the pencil down, got up, and walked over to Harold Gardener. Boutillier was five inches shorter, but Gardener retreated a step before the mans anger. Do you want us to lose this case, Harold? No. Of course n Do you want those running sores to walk free? No! Okay. Good. Since we both agree on the basics, Ill tell you exactly what I think. Yes, there was probably a man under the bridge that night. Maybe he was even wearing a clown suit, although Ive dealt with enough witnesses to guess maybe it was just a stewbum or a transient wearing a bunch of castoff clothes. I think he was probably down there scrounging for dropped change or roadmeathalf a burger someone chucked over the side, or maybe the crumbs from the bottom of a Frito bag. Their eyes did the rest, Harold. Now is that possible? I dont know, Harold said. He wanted to be convinced, but given the exact tally of the two descriptions ... no. He didnt think it was possible. Heres the bottom line. I dont care if it was Kinko the Klown or a guy in an Uncle Sam suit on stilts or Hubert the Happy Homo. If we introduce this fellow into the case, their lawyer is going to be on it before you can say Jack Robinson. Hes going to say those two little innocent lambs out there with their fresh haircuts and new suits didnt do anything but toss that gay fellow Mellon over the side of the bridge for a joke. Hell point out that Mellon was still alive after he took the fall; they have Hagartys testimony as well as Unwins for that. His clients didnt commit murder, oh no! It was a psycho in a clown suit. If we introduce this, thats going to happen and you know it. Unwins going to tell that story anyhow. But Hagarty isnt, Boutillier said. Because he understands. Without Hagarty, whos going to believe Unwin? Well, theres us, Harold Gardener said with a bitterness that surprised even himself, but I guess were not telling. Oh, give me a break! Boutillier roared, throwing up his hands. They killed him! They didnt just throw him over the sideGarton had a switchblade. Mellon was stabbed seven times, including once in the left lung and twice in the testicles. The wounds match the blade. Four of his ribs were brokenDubay did that, bearhugging him. He was bitten, all right. There were bites on his arms, his left cheek, his neck. I think that was Unwin and Garton, although weve only got one clear match, and that ones probably not clear enough to stand up in court. And so all right, there was a big chunk of meat gone from his right armpit, so what? One of them really liked to bite. Probably even got himself a pretty good boneon while he was doing it. Im betting Garton, although well never prove it. And Mellons earlobe was gone. Boutillier stopped, glaring at Harold. If we let in this clown story well never bring it home to them. Do you want that? No, I told you. The guy was a fruit, but he wasnt hurting anyone, Boutillier said. So hihothedairyo, along come these three pusholes in their engineer boots and they steal his life. Im going to put them in the slam, my friend, and if I hear they got their puckery little assholes cored down there at Thomaston, Im gonna send them cards saying I hope whoever did it had AIDS. Very fiery, Gardener thought. And the convictions will also look very good on your record when you run for the top spot in two years. But he left without saying more, because he also wanted to see them put away. 18 John Webber Garton was convicted of firstdegree manslaughter and sentenced to ten to twenty years in Thomaston State Prison. Steven Bishoff Dubay was convicted of firstdegree manslaughter and sentenced to fifteen years in Shawshank State Prison. Christopher Philip Unwin was tried separately as a juvenile and convicted of seconddegree manslaughter. He was sentenced to six months at the South Windham Boys Training Facility, sentence suspended. At the time of this writing, all three sentences are under appeal; Garton and Dubay may be seen on any given day girlwatching or playing Penny Pitch in Bassey Park, not far from where Mellons torn body was found floating against one of the pilings of the Main Street Bridge. Don Hagarty and Chris Unwin have left town. At the major trialthat of Garton and Dubayno one mentioned a clown. CHAPTER 3 Six Phone Calls (1985) 1 Stanley Uris Takes a Bath Patricia Uris later told her mother she should have known something was wrong. She should have known it, she said, because Stanley never took baths in the early evening. He showered early each morning and sometimes soaked late at night (with a magazine in one hand and a cold beer in the other), but baths at 700 P.M. were not his style. And then there was the thing about the books. It should have delighted him; instead, in some obscure way she did not understand, it seemed to have upset and depressed him. About three months before that terrible night, Stanley had discovered that a childhood friend of his had turned out to be a writernot a real writer, Patricia told her mother, but a novelist. The name on the books was William Denbrough, but Stanley had sometimes called him Stuttering Bill. He had worked his way through almost all of the mans books; had, in fact, been reading the last on the night of the baththe night of May 28th, 1985. Patty herself had picked up one of the earlier ones, out of curiosity. She had put it down after just three chapters. It had not just been a novel, she told her mother later; it had been a horrorbook. She said it just that way, all one word, the way she would have said sexbook. Patty was a sweet, kind woman, but not terribly articulateshe had wanted to tell her mother how much that book had frightened her and why it had upset her, but had not been able. It was full of monsters, she said. Full of monsters chasing after little children. There were killings, and ... I dont know ... bad feelings and hurt. Stuff like that. It had, in fact, struck her as almost pornographic; that was the word which kept eluding her, probably because she had never in her life spoken it, although she knew what it meant. But Stan felt as if hed rediscovered one of his childhood chums. .. He talked about writing to him, but I knew he wouldnt. ... I knew those stories made him feel bad, too ... and ... and ... And then Patty Uris began to cry. That night, lacking roughly six months of being twentyeight years from the day in 1957 when George Denbrough had met Pennywise the Clown, Stanley and Patty had been sitting in the den of their home in a suburb of Atlanta. The TV was on. Patty was sitting in the loveseat in front of it, dividing her attention between a pile of sewing and her favorite gameshow, Family Feud. She simply adored Richard Dawson and thought the watchchain he always wore was terribly sexy, although wild horses would not have drawn this admission out of her. She also liked the show because she almost always got the most popular answers (there were no right answers on Family Feud, exactly; only the most popular ones). She had once asked Stan why the questions that seemed so easy to her usually seemed so hard to the families on the show. Its probably a lot tougher when youre up there under those lights, Stanley had replied, and it seemed to her that a shadow had drifted over his face. Everythings a lot tougher when its for real. Thats when you choke. When its for real. That was probably very true, she decided. Stanley had really fine insights into human nature sometimes. Much finer, she considered, than his old friend William Denbrough, who had gotten rich writing a bunch of horrorbooks which appealed to peoples baser natures. Not that the Urises were doing so badly themselves! The suburb where they lived was a fine one, and the home which they had purchased for 87,000 in 1979 would probably now sell quickly and painlessly for 165,000not that she wanted to sell, but such things were good to know. She sometimes drove back from the Fox Run Mall in her Volvo (Stanley drove a Mercedes diesetteasing him, she called it Sedanley) and saw her house, set tastefully back behind low yew hedges, and thought Who lives there? Why, Ido! Mrs. Stanley Uris does! This was not an entirely happy thought; mixed with it was a pride so fierce that it sometimes made her feel a bit ill. Once upon a time, you see, there had been a lonely eighteenyearold girl named Patricia Blum who had been refused entry to the afterprom party that was held at the country club in the upstate town of Glointon, New York. She had been refused admission, of course, because her last name rhymed with plum. That was her, just a skinny little kike plum, 1967 that had been, and such discrimination was against the law, of course, hardeharharhar, and besides, it was all over now. Except that for part of her it was never going to be over. Part of her would always be walking back to the car with Michael Rosenblatt, listening to the crushed gravel under her pumps and his rented formal shoes, back to his fathers car, which Michael had borrowed for the evening, and which he had spent the afternoon waxing. Part of her would always be walking next to Michael in his rented white dinner jackethow it had glimmered in the soft spring night! She had been in a pale green evening gown which her mother declared made her look like a mermaid, and the idea of a kike mermaid was pretty funny, hardeharharhar. They had walked with their heads up and she had not weptnot thenbut she had understood they werent walking back, no, not really; what they had been doing was slinking back, slinking, rhymes with stinking, both of them feeling more Jewish than they had ever felt in their lives, feeling like pawnbrokers, feeling like cattlecar riders, feeling oily, longnosed, sallowskinned; feeling like mockies sheenies kikes; wanting to feel angry and not being able to feel angrythe anger came only later, when it didnt matter. At that moment she had only been able to feel ashamed, had only been able to ache. And then someone had laughed. A high shrill tittering laugh like a fast run of notes on a piano, and in the car she had been able to weep, oh you bet, here is the kike mermaid whose name rhymes with plum just weeping away like crazy. Mike Rosenblatt had put a clumsy, comforting hand on the back of her neck and she had twisted away from it, feeling ashamed, feeling dirty, feeling Jewish. The house set so tastefully back behind the yew hedges made that better ... but not all better. The hurt and shame were still there, and not even being accepted in this quiet, sleekly welltodo neighborhood could quite make that endless walk with the sound of grating stones beneath their shoes stop happening. Not even being members of this country club, where the matre d always greeted them with a quietly respectful Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Uris. She would come home, cradled in her 1984 Volvo, and she would look at her house sitting on its expanse of green lawn, and she would oftenall too often, she supposedthink of that shrill titter. And she would hope that the girl who had tittered was living in a shitty tract house with a goy husband who beat her, that she had been pregnant three times and had miscarried each time, that her husband cheated on her with diseased women, that she had slipped discs and fallen arches and cysts on her dirty tittering tongue. She would hate herself for these thoughts, these uncharitable thoughts, and promise to do betterto stop drinking these bitter gallandwormwood cocktails. Months would go by when she did not think such thoughts. She would think Maybe all of that is finally past me. I am not that girl of eighteen anymore. I am a woman of thirtysix; the girl who heard the endless click and grate of those driveway stones, the girl who twisted away from Mike Rosenblatts hand when he tried to comfort her because it was a Jewish hand, was half a life ago. That silly little mermaid is dead. I can forget her now and just be myself. Okay. Good. Great. But then she would be somewhereat the supermarket, maybeand she would hear sudden tittering laughter from the next aisle and her back would prickle, her nipples would go hard and hurtful, her hands would tighten on the bar of the shopping cart or just on each other, and she would think Someone just told someone else that Im Jewish, that Im nothing but a bignose mockie kike, that Stanleys nothing but a bignose mockie kike, hes an accountant, sure, Jews are good with numbers, we let them into the country club, we had to, back in 1981 when that bignose mockie gynecologist won his suit, but we laugh at them, we laugh and laugh and laugh. Or she would simply hear the phantom click and grate of stones and think Mermaid! Mermaid! Then the hate and shame would come flooding back like a migraine headache and she would despair not only for herself but for the whole human race. Werewolves. The book by Denbroughthe one she had tried to read and then put asidewas about werewolves. Werewolves, shit. What did a man like that know about werewolves? Most of the time, however, she felt better than thatfelt she was better than that. She loved her man, she loved her house, and she was usually able to love her life and herself. Things were good. They had not always been that way, of coursewere things ever? When she accepted Stanleys engagement ring, her parents had been both angry and unhappy. She had met him at a sorority party. He had come over to her school from New York State University, where he was a scholarship student. They had been introduced by a mutual friend, and by the time the evening was over, she suspected that she loved him. By the midterm break, she was sure. When spring came around and Stanley offered her a small diamond ring with a daisy pushed through it, she had accepted it. In the end, in spite of their qualms, her parents had accepted it as well. There was little else they could do, although Stanley Uris would soon be sallying forth into a jobmarket glutted with young accountantsand when he went into that jungle, he would do so with no family finances to backstop him, and with their only daughter as his hostage to fortune. But Patty was twentytwo, a woman now, and would herself soon graduate with a B.A. Ill be supporting that foureyed son of a bitch for the rest of my life, Patty had heard her father say one night. Her mother and father had gone out for dinner, and her father had drunk a little too much. Shh, shell hear you, Ruth Blum said. Patty had lain awake that night until long after midnight, dryeyed, alternately hot and cold, hating them both. She had spent the next two years trying to get rid of that hate; there was too much hate inside her already. Sometimes when she looked into the mirror she could see the things it was doing to her face, the fine lines it was drawing there. That was a battle she won. Stanley had helped her. His own parents had been equally concerned about the marriage. They did not, of course, believe their Stanley was destined for a life of squalor and poverty, but they thought the kids were being hasty. Donald Uris and Andrea Bertoly had themselves married in their early twenties, but they seemed to have forgotten the fact. Only Stanley had seemed sure of himself, confident of the future, unconcerned with the pitfalls their parents saw strewn all about the kids. And in the end it was his confidence rather than their fears which had been justified. In July of 1972, with the ink barely dry on her diploma, Patty had landed a job teaching shorthand and business English in Traynor, a small town forty miles south of Atlanta. When she thought of how she had come by that job, it always struck her as a littlewell, eerie. She had made a list of forty possibles from the ads in the teachers journals, then had written forty letters over five nightseight each eveningrequesting further information on the job, and an application for each. Twentytwo replies indicated that the positions had been filled. In other cases, a more detailed explanation of the skills needed made it clear she wasnt in the running; applying would only be a waste of her time and theirs. She had finished with a dozen possibles. Each looked as likely as any other. Stanley had come in while she was puzzling over them and wondering if she could possibly manage to fill out a dozen teaching applications without going totally bonkers. He looked at the strew of papers on the table and then tapped the letter from the Traynor Superintendent of Schools, a letter which to her looked no more or less encouraging than any of the others. There, he said. She looked up at him, startled by the simple certainty in his voice. Do you know something about Georgia that I dont? Nope. Only time I was ever there was at the movies. She looked at him, an eyebrow cocked. Gone with the Wind. Vivien Leigh. Clark Gable. I will think about it tomorrow, for tomorrow is anothah day. Do I sound like I come from the South, Patty? Yes. South Bronx. If you dont know anything about Georgia and youve never been there, then why Because its right. You cant know that, Stanley. Sure I can, he said simply. I do. Looking at him, she had seen he wasnt joking he really meant it. She had felt a ripple of unease go up her back. How do you know? He had been smiling a little. Now the smile faltered, and for a moment he had seemed puzzled. His eyes had darkened, as if he looked inward, consulting some interior device which ticked and whirred correctly but which, ultimately, he understood no more than the average man understands the workings of the watch on his wrist. The turtle couldnt help us, he said suddenly. He said that quite clearly. She heard it. That inward lookthat look of surprised musingwas still on his face, and it was starting to scare her. Stanley? What are you talking about? Stanley? He jerked. She had been eating peaches as she went over the applications, and his hand struck the dish. It fell on the floor and broke. His eyes seemed to clear. Oh, shit! Im sorry. Its all right. Stanleywhat were you talking about? I forget, he said. But I think we ought to think Georgia, babylove. But Trust me, he said, so she did. Her interview had gone smashingly. She had known she had the job when she got on the train back to New York.

The head of the Business Department had taken an instant liking to Patty, and she to him; she had almost heard the click. The confirming letter had come a week later. The Traynor Consolidated School Department could offer her 9,200 and a probationary contract. You are going to starve, Herbert Blum said when his daughter told him she intended to take the job. And you will be hot while you starve. Fiddledeedee, Scarlett, Stanley said when she told him what her father had said. She had been furious, near tears, but now she began to giggle, and Stanley swept her into his arms. Hot they had been; starved they had not. They were married on August 19th, 1972. Patty Uris had gone to her marriage bed a virgin. She had slipped naked between cool sheets at a resort hotel in the Poconos, her mood turbulent and stormylightningflares of wanting and delicious lust, dark clouds of fright. When Stanley slid into bed beside her, ropy with muscle, his penis an exclamation point rising from gingery pubic hair, she had whispered Dont hurt me, dear. I will never hurt you, he said as he took her in his arms, and it was a promise he had kept faithfully until May 28th, 1985the night of the bath. Her teaching had gone well. Stanley got a job driving a bakery truck for one hundred dollars a week. In November of that year, when the Traynor Flats Shopping Center opened, he got a job with the H R Block office out there for a hundred and fifty. Their combined income was then 17,000 a yearthis seemed a kings ransom to them, in those days when gas sold for thirtyfive cents a gallon and a loaf of white bread could be had for a nickel less than that. In March of 1973, with no fuss and no fanfare, Patty Uris had thrown away her birthcontrol pills. In 1975 Stanley quit H R Block and opened his own business. All four inlaws agreed that this was a foolhardy move. Not that Stanley should not have his own businessGod forbid he should not have his own business! But it was too early, all of them agreed, and it put too much of the financial burden on Patty. (At least until the pisher knocks her up, Herbert Blum told his brother morosely after a night of drinking in the kitchen, and then Ill be expected to carry them.) The consensus of inlaw opinion on the matter was that a man should not even think about going into business for himself until he had reached a more serene and mature ageseventyeight, say. Again, Stanley seemed almost preternaturally confident. He was young, personable, bright, apt. He had made contacts working for Block. All of these things were givens. But he could not have known that Corridor Video, a pioneer in the nascent videotape business, was about to settle on a huge patch of farmedout land less than ten miles from the suburb to which the Urises had eventually moved in 1979, nor could he have known that Corridor would be in the market for an independent marketing survey less than a year after its move to Traynor. Even if Stan had been privy to some of this information, he surely could not have believed they would give the job to a young, bespectacled Jew who also happened to be a damyankeea Jew with an easy grin, a hipshot way of walking, a taste for bellbottomed jeans on his days off, and the last ghosts of his adolescent acne still on his face. Yet they had. They had. And it seemed that Stan had known it all along. His work for CV led to an offer of a fulltime position with the companystarting salary, 30,000 a year. And that really is only the start, Stanley told Patty in bed that night. They are going to grow like corn in August, my dear. If no one blows up the world in the next ten years or so, they are going to be right up there on the big board along with Kodak and Sony and RCA. So what are you going to do? she asked, already knowing. I am going to tell them what a pleasure it was to do business with them, he said, and laughed, and drew her close, and kissed her. Moments later he mounted her, and there were climaxesone, two, and three, like bright rockets going off in a night sky ... but there was no baby. His work with Corridor Video had brought him into contact with some of Atlantas richest and most powerful menand they were both astonished to find that these men were mostly okay. In them they found a degree of acceptance and broadminded kindliness that was almost unknown in the North. Patty remembered Stanley once writing home to his mother and father The best rich men in America live in Atlanta, Georgia. I am going to help make some of them richer, and they are going to make me richer, and no one is going to own me except my wife, Patricia, and since I already own her, I guess that is safe enough. By the time they moved from Traynor, Stanley was incorporated and employed six people. In 1983 their income had entered unknown territoryterritory of which Patty had heard only the dimmest rumors. This was the fabled land of SIX FIGURES. And it had all happened with the casual ease of slipping into a pair of sneakers on Saturday morning. This sometimes frightened her. Once she had made an uneasy joke about deals with the devil. Stanley had laughed until he almost choked, but to her it hadnt seemed that funny, and she supposed it never would. The turtle couldnt help us. Sometimes, for no reason at all, she would wake up with this thought in her mind like the last fragment of an otherwise forgotten dream, and she would turn to Stanley, needing to touch him, needing to make sure he was still there. Twas a good lifethere was no wild drinking, no outside sex, no drugs, no boredom, no bitter arguments about what to do next. There was only a single cloud. It was her mother who first mentioned the presence of this cloud. That her mother would be the one to finally do so seemed, in retrospect, preordained. It finally came out as a question in one of Ruth Blums letters. She wrote Patty once a week, and that particular letter had arrived in the early fall of 1979. It came forwarded from the old Traynor address and Patty read it in a living room filled with cardboard liquorstore cartons from which spilled their possessions, looking forlorn and uprooted and dispossessed. In most ways it was the usual Ruth Blum Letter from Home four closely written blue pages, each one headed JUST A NOTE FROM RUTH. Her scrawl was nearly illegible, and Stanley had once complained he could not read a single word his motherinlaw wrote. Why would you want to? Patty had responded. This one was full of Moms usual brand of news; for Ruth Blum recollection was a broad delta, spreading out from the moving point of the now in an everwidening fan of interlocking relationships. Many of the people of whom her mother wrote were beginning to fade in Pattys memory like photographs in an old album, but to Ruth all of them remained fresh. Her concerns for their health and her curiosity about their various doings never seemed to wane, and her prognoses were unfailingly dire. Her father was still having too many stomachaches. He was sure it was just dyspepsia; the idea that he might have an ulcer, she wrote, would not cross his mind until he actually began coughing up blood and probably not even then. You know your father, dearhe works like a mule, and he also thinks like one sometimes, God should forgive me for saying so. Randi Harlengen had gotten her tubes tied, they took cysts as big as golfballs out of her ovaries, no malignancy, thank God, but twentyseven ovarian cysts, could you die? It was the water in New York City, she was quite sure of thatthe city air was dirty, too, but she was convinced it was the water that really got to you after awhile. It built up deposits inside a person. She doubted if Patty knew how often she had thanked God that you kids were out in the country, where both air and water but particularly the waterwere healthier (to Ruth all of the South, including Atlanta and Birmingham, was the country). Aunt Margaret was feuding with the power company again. Stella Flanagan had gotten married again, some people never learned. Richie Huber had been fired again. And in the middle of this chattyand often cattyoutpouring, in the middle of a paragraph, apropos of nothing which had gone before or which came after, Ruth Blum had casually asked the Dreaded Question So when are you and Stan going to make us grandparents? Were all ready to start spoiling him (or her) rotten. And in case you hadnt noticed, Patsy, were not getting any younger. And then on to the Bruckner girl from down the block who had been sent home from school because she was wearing no bra and a blouse that you could see right through. Feeling low and homesick for their old place in Traynor, feeling unsure and more than a little afraid of what might be ahead, Patty had gone into what was to become their bedroom and had lain down upon the mattress (the box spring was still out in the garage, and the mattress, lying all by itself on the big carpetless floor, looked like an artifact cast up on a strange yellow beach). She put her head in her arms and lay there weeping for nearly twenty minutes. She supposed that cry had been coming anyway. Her mothers letter had just brought it on sooner, the way dust hurries the tickle in your nose into a sneeze. Stanley wanted kids. She wanted kids. They were as compatible on that subject as they were on their enjoyment of Woody Allens films, their more or less regular attendance at synagogue, their political leanings, their dislike of marijuana, a hundred other things both great and small. There had been an extra room in the Traynor house, which they had split evenly down the middle. On the left he had a desk for working and a chair for reading; on the right she had a sewing machine and a cardtable where she did jigsaw puzzles. There had been an agreement between them about that room so strong they rarely spoke of itit was simply there, like their noses or the wedding rings on their left hands. Someday that room would belong to Andy or to Jenny. But where was that child? The sewing machine and the baskets of fabric and the cardtable and the desk and the LaZBoy all kept their places, seeming each month to solidify their holds on their respective positions in the room and to further establish their legitimacy. So she thought, although she never could quite crystallize the thought; like the word pornographic, it was a concept that danced just beyond her ability to quantify. But she did remember one time when she got her period, sliding open the cupboard under the bathroom sink to get a sanitary napkin; she remembered looking at the box of Stayfree pads and thinking that the box looked almost smug, seemed almost to be saying Hello, Patty! We are your children. We are the only children you will ever have, and we are hungry. Nurse us. Nurse us on blood. In 1976, three years after she had thrown away the last cycle of Ovral tablets, they saw a doctor named Harkavay in Atlanta. We want to know if there is something wrong, Stanley said, and we want to know if we can do anything about it if there is. They took the tests. They showed that Stanleys sperm was perky, that Pattys eggs were fertile, that all the channels that were supposed to be open were open. Harkavay, who wore no wedding ring and who had the open, pleasant, ruddy face of a college grad student just back from a midterm skiing vacation in Colorado, told them that maybe it was just nerves. He told them that such a problem was by no means uncommon. He told them that there seemed to be a psychological correlative in such cases that was in some ways similar to sexual impotencythe more you wanted to, the less you could. They would have to relax. They ought, if they could, to forget all about procreation when they had sex. Stan was grumpy on the way home. Patty asked him why. I never do, he said. Do what? Think of procreation during. She began to giggle, even though she was by then feeling a bit lonesome and frightened. And that night, lying in bed, long after she believed that Stanley must be asleep, he had frightened her by speaking out of the dark. His voice was flat but nevertheless choked with tears. Its me, he said. Its my fault. She rolled toward him, groped for him, held him. Dont be a stupid, she said. But her heart was beating fastmuch too fast. It wasnt just that he had startled her; it was as if he had looked into her mind and read a secret conviction she held there but of which she had not known until this minute. With no rhyme, no reason, she feltknew that he was right. There was something wrong, and it wasnt her. It was him. Something in him. Dont be such a klutz, she whispered fiercely against his shoulder. He was sweating lightly and she became suddenly aware that he was afraid. The fear was coming off him in cold waves; lying naked with him was suddenly like lying naked in front of an open refrigerator. Im not a klutz and Im not being stupid, he said in that same voice, which was simultaneously flat and choked with emotion, and you know it. Its me. But I dont know why. You cant know any such thing. Her voice was harsh, scoldingher mothers voice when her mother was afraid. And even as she scolded him a shudder ran through her body, twisting it like a whip. Stanley felt it and his arms tightened around her. Sometimes, he said, sometimes I think I know why. Sometimes I have a dream, a bad dream, and I wake up and I think, I know now. I know whats wrong. Not just you not catching pregnanteverything. Everything thats wrong with my life. Stanley, nothings wrong with your life! I dont mean from inside, he said. From inside is fine. Im talking about outside. Something that should be over and isnt. I wake up from these dreams and think, My whole pleasant life has been nothing but the eye of some storm I dont understand. Im afraid. But then it just ... fades. The way dreams do. She knew that he sometimes dreamed uneasily. On half a dozen occasions he had awakened her, thrashing and moaning. Probably there had been other times when she had slept through his dark interludes. Whenever she reached for him, asked him, he said the same thing I cant remember. Then he would reach for his cigarettes and smoke sitting up in bed, waiting for the residue of the dream to pass through his pores like bad sweat. No kids. On the night of May 28th, 1985the night of the baththeir assorted inlaws were still waiting to be grandparents. The extra room was still an extra room; the Stayfree Maxis and Stayfree Minis still occupied their accustomed places in the cupboard under the bathroom sink; the cardinal still paid its monthly visit. Her mother, who was much occupied with her own affairs but not entirely oblivious to her daughters pain, had stopped asking in her letters and when Stanley and Patty made their twiceyearly trips back to New York. There were no more humorous remarks about whether or not they were taking their vitamin E. Stanley had also stopped mentioning babies, but sometimes, when she didnt know he was looking, she saw a shadow on his face. Some shadow. As if he were trying desperately to remember something. Other than that one cloud, their lives were pleasant enough until the phone rang during the middle of Family Feud on the night of May 28th. Patty had six of Stans shirts, two of her blouses, her sewing kit, and her oddbutton box; Stan had the new William Denbrough novel, not even out in paperback yet, in his hands. There was a snarling beast on the front of this book. On the back was a bald man wearing glasses. Stan was sitting nearer the phone. He picked it up and said, HelloUrisresidence. He listened, and a frown line delved between his eyebrows. Who did you say? Patty felt an instant of fright. Later, shame would cause her to lie and tell her parents that she had known something was wrong from the instant the telephone had rung, but in reality there had only been that one instant, that one quick look up from her sewing. But maybe that was all right. Maybe they had both suspected that something was coming long before that phone call, something that didnt fit with the nice house set tastefully back behind the low yew hedges, something so much a given that it really didnt need much of an acknowledgment ... that one sharp instant of fright, like the stab of a quickly withdrawn icepick, was enough. Is it Mom?she mouthed at him in that instant, thinking that perhaps her father, twenty pounds overweight and prone to what he called the bellyache since his early forties, had had a heart attack. Stan shook his head at her, and then smiled a bit at something the voice on the phone was saying. You ... you! Well, Ill be goddamned! Mike! How did y He fell silent again, listening. As his smile faded she recognizedor thought she didhis analytic expression, the one which said someone was unfolding a problem or explaining a sudden change in an ongoing situation or telling him something strange and interesting. This last was probably the case, she gathered. A new client? An old friend? Perhaps. She turned her attention back to the TV, where a woman was flinging her arms around Richard Dawson and kissing him madly. She thought that Richard Dawson must get kissed even more than the Blarney stone. She also thought she wouldnt mind kissing him herself. As she began searching for a black button to match the ones on Stanleys blue denim shirt, Patty was vaguely aware that the conversation was settling into a smoother grooveStanley grunted occasionally, and once he asked Are you sure, Mike? Finally, after a very long pause, he said, All right, I understand. Yes, I ... Yes. Yes, everything. I have the picture. I ... what? ... No, I cant absolutely promise that, but Ill consider it carefully. You know that ... oh? ... He did? ... Well, you bet! Of course I do. Yes ... sure ... thank you ... yes. Byebye. He hung up. Patty glanced at him and saw him staring blankly into space over the TV set. On her show, the audience was applauding the Ryan family, which had just scored two hundred and eighty points, most of them by guessing that the audience survey would answer math in response to the question What class will people say Junior hates most in school? The Ryans were jumping up and down and screaming joyfully. Stanley, however, was frowning. She would later tell her parents she thought Stanleys face had looked a little offcolor, and so she did, but she neglected to tell them she had dismissed it at the time as only a trick of the tablelamp, with its green glass shade. Who was that, Stan? Hmmmm? He looked around at her. She thought the look on his face was one of gentle abstraction, perhaps mixed with minor annoyance. It was only later, replaying the scene in her mind again and again, that she began to believe it was the expression of a man who was methodically unplugging himself from reality, one cord at a time. The face of a man who was heading out of the blue and into the black. Who was that on the phone? No one, he said. No one, really. I think Ill take a bath. He stood up. What, at seven oclock? He didnt answer, only left the room. She might have asked him if something was wrong, might even have gone after him and asked him if he was sick to his stomachhe was sexually uninhibited, but he could be oddly prim about other things, and it wouldnt be at all unlike him to say he was going to take a bath when what he really had to do was whoops something which hadnt agreed with him. But now a new family, the Piscapos, were being introduced, and Patty just knew Richard Dawson would find something funny to say about that name, and besides, she was having the devils own time finding a black button, although she knew there were loads of them in the button box. They hid, of course; that was the only explanation.... So she let him go and did not think of him again until the creditcrawl, when she looked up and saw his empty chair. She had heard the water running into the tub upstairs and had heard it stop five or ten minutes later ... but now she realized she had never heard the fridge door open and close, and that meant he was up there without a can of beer. Someone had called him up and dropped a big fat problem in his lap, and had she offered him a single word of commiseration ? No. Tried to draw him out a little about it? No. Even noticed that something was wrong? For the third time, no. All because of that stupid TV showshe couldnt even really blame the buttons; they were only an excuse. Okayshed take him up a can of Dixie, and sit beside him on the edge of the tub, scrub his back, play Geisha and wash his hair if he wanted her to, and find out just what the problem was ... or who it was. She got a can of beer out of the fridge and went upstairs with it. The first real disquiet stirred in her when she saw that the bathroom door was shut. Not just partway closed but shut tight. Stanley never closed the door when he was taking a bath. It was something of a joke between themthe closed door meant he was doing something his mother had taught him, the open door meant he would not be averse to doing something the teaching of which his mother had quite properly left to others. Patty tapped on the door with her nails, suddenly aware, too aware, of the reptilian clicking sound they made on the wood. And surely tapping on the bathroom door, knocking like a guest, was something she had never done before in her married lifenot here, not on any other door in the house. The disquiet suddenly grew strong in her, and she thought of Carson Lake, where she had gone swimming often as a girl. By the first of August the lake was as warm as a tub ... but then youd hit a cold pocket that would shiver you with surprise and delight. One minute you were warm; the next moment it felt as if the temperature had plummeted twenty degrees below your hips. Minus the delight, that was how she felt nowas if she had just struck a cold pocket. Only this cold pocket was not below her hips, chilling her long teenagers legs in the black depths of Carson Lake. This one was around her heart. Stanley? Stan? This time she did more than tap with her nails. She rapped on the door. When there was still no answer, she hammered on it. Stanley? Her heart. Her heart wasnt in her chest anymore. It was beating in her throat, making it hard to breathe. Stanley! In the silence following her shout (and just the sound of herself shouting up here, less than thirty feet from the place where she laid her head down and went to sleep each night, frightened her even more), she heard a sound which brought panic up from the belowstairs part of her mind like an unwelcome guest. Such a small sound, really. It was only the sound of dripping water. Plink ... pause. Plink ... pause. Plink ... pause. Plink ... She could see the drops forming on the snout of the faucet, growing heavy and fat there, growing pregnant there, and then falling off plink. Just that sound. No other. And she was suddenly, terribly sure that it had been Stanley, not her father, who had been stricken with a heart attack tonight. With a moan, she gripped the cutglass doorknob and turned it. Yet still the door would not move it was locked. And suddenly three nevers occurred to Patty Uris in rapid succession Stanley never took a bath in the early evening, Stanley never closed the door unless he was using the toilet, and Stanley had never locked the door against her at all. Was it possible, she wondered crazily, to prepare for a heart attack? Patty ran her tongue over her lipsit produced a sound in her head like fine sandpaper sliding along a boardand called his name again. There was still no answer except the steady, deliberate drip of the faucet. She looked down and saw she still held the can of Dixie beer in one hand. She gazed at it stupidly, her heart running like a rabbit in her throat; she gazed at it as if she had never seen a can of beer in her whole life before this minute. And indeed it seemed she never had, or at least never one like this, because when she blinked her eyes it turned into a telephone handset, as black and as threatening as a snake. May I help you, maam? Do you have a problem? the snake spat at her. Patty slammed it down in its cradle and stepped away, rubbing the hand which had held it. She looked around and saw she was back in the TV room and understood that the panic which had come into the front of her mind like a prowler walking quietly up a flight of stairs had had its way with her. Now she could remember dropping the beer can outside the bathroom door and pelting headlong back down the stairs, thinking vaguely This is all a mistake of some kind and well laugh about it later. He filled up the tub and then remembered he didnt have cigarettes and went out to get them before he took his clothes off Yes. Only he had already locked the bathroom door from the inside and because it was too much of a bother to unlock it again he had simply opened the window over the tub and gone down the side of the house like a fly crawling down a wall. Sure, of course, sure Panic was rising in her mind againit was like bitter black coffee threatening to overflow the rim of a cup. She closed her eyes and fought against it. She stood there, perfectly still, a pale statue with a pulse beating in its throat. Now she could remember running back down here, feet stuttering on the stairlevels, running for the phone, oh yes, oh sure, but who had she meant to call? Crazily, she thought I would call the turtle, but the turtle couldnt help us. It didnt matter anyway. She had gotten as far as 0 and she must have said something not quite standard, because the operator had asked if she had a problem. She had one, all right, but how did you tell that faceless voice that Stanley had locked himself in the bathroom and didnt answer her, that the steady sound of the water dripping into the tub was killing her heart? Someone had to help her. Someone She put the back of her hand into her mouth and deliberately bit down on it. She tried to think, tried to force herself to think. The spare keys. The spare keys in the kitchen cupboard. She got going, and one slippered foot kicked the bag of buttons resting beside her chair. Some of the buttons spilled out, glittering like glazed eyes in the lamplight. She saw at least half a dozen black ones. Mounted inside the door of the cupboard over the doublebasin sink was a large varnished board in the shape of a keyone of Stans clients had made it in his workshop and given it to him two Christmases ago. The keyboard was studded with small hooks, and swinging on these were all the keys the house took, two duplicates of each to a hook. Beneath each hook was a strip of Mystik tape, each strip lettered in Stans small, neat printing GARAGE, ATTIC, DSTAIRS BATH, UPSTAIRS BATH, FRONT DOOR, BACK DOOR. Off to one side were ignitionkey dupes labelled MB and VOLVO. Patty snatched the key marked UPSTAIRS BATH, began to run for the stairs, and then made herself walk. Running made the panic want to come back, and the panic was too close to the surface as it was. Also, if she just walked, maybe nothing would be wrong. Or, if there was something wrong, God could look down, see she was just walking, and think Oh, goodpulled a hell of a boner, but Ive got time to take it all back. Walking as sedately as a woman on her way to a Ladies Book Circle meeting, she went up the stairs and down to the closed bathroom door. Stanley? she called, trying the door again at the same time, suddenly more afraid than ever, not wanting to use the key because having to use the key was somehow too final. If God hadnt taken it back by the time she used the key, then He never would. The age of miracles, after all, was past. But the door was still locked; the deliberate plink ... pause of dripping water was her only answer. Her hand was shaking, and the key chattered all the way around the plate before finding its way into the keyhole and socking itself home. She turned it and heard the lock snap back. She fumbled for the cutglass knob. It tried to slide through her hand againnot because the door was locked this time but because her palm was wet with sweat. She firmed her grip and made it turn. She pushed the door open. Stanley? Stanley? St She looked at the tub with its blue shower curtain bunched at the far end of the stainless steel rod and forgot how to finish her husbands name. She simply stared at the tub, her face as solemn as the face of a child on her first day at school. In a moment she would begin to scream, and Anita MacKenzie next door would hear her, and it would be Anita MacKenzie who would call the police, convinced that someone had broken into the Uris house and that people were being killed over there. But for now, this one moment, Patty Uris simply stood silent with her hands clasped in front of her against her dark cotton skirt, her face solemn, her eyes huge. And now the look of almost holy solemnity began to transform itself into something else. The huge eyes began to bulge. Her mouth pulled back into a dreadful grin of horror. She wanted to scream and couldnt. The screams were too big to come out. The bathroom was lit by fluorescent tubes. It was very bright. There were no shadows. You could see everything, whether you wanted to or not. The water in the tub was bright pink. Stanley lay with his back propped against the rear of the tub. His head had rolled so far back on his neck that strands of his short black hair brushed the skin between his shoulderblades. If his staring eyes had still been capable of seeing, she would have looked upside down to him. His mouth hung open like a sprung door. His expression was one of abysmal, frozen horror. A package of Gillette Platinum Plus razor blades lay on the rim of the tub. He had slit his inner forearms open from wrist to the crook of the elbow, and then had crossed each of these cuts just below the Bracelets of Fortune, making a pair of bloody capital Ts. The gashes glared redpurple in the harsh white light. She thought the exposed tendons and ligaments looked like cuts of cheap beef. A drop of water gathered at the lip of the shiny chromium faucet. It grew fat. Grew pregnant, you might say. It sparkled. It dropped. Plink. He had dipped his right forefinger in his own blood and had written a single word on the blue tiles above the tub, written it in two huge, staggering letters. A zigzagging bloody fingermark fell away from the second letter of this wordhis finger had made that mark, she saw, as his hand fell into the tub, where it now floated. She thought Stanley must have made that markhis final impression on the worldas he lost consciousness. It seemed to cry out at her Another drop fell into the tub. Plink. That did it. Patty Uris at last found her voice. Staring into her husbands dead and sparkling eyes, she began to scream. 2 Richard Tozier Takes a Powder Rich felt like he was doing pretty good until the vomiting started. He had listened to everything Mike Hanlon told him, said all the right things, answered Mikes questions, even asked a few of his own. He was vaguely aware that he was doing one of his Voicesnot a strange and outrageous one, like those he sometimes did on the radio (Kinky Briefcase, Sexual Accountant was his own personal favorite, at least for the time being, and positive listener response on Kinky was almost as high as for his listeners alltime favorite, Colonel Buford Kissdrivel), but a warm, rich, confident Voice. An ImAllRight Voice. It sounded great, but it was a lie. Just like all the other Voices were lies. How much do you remember, Rich? Mike asked him. Very little, Rich said, and then paused. Enough, I suppose. Will you come? Ill come, Rich said, and hung up. He sat in his study for a moment, leaning back in the chair behind his desk, looking out at the Pacific Ocean. A couple of kids were down on the left, horsing around on their surfboards, not really riding them. There wasnt much surf to ride. The clock on the deskan expensive L.

E.D. quartz that had been a gift from a record company repsaid that it was 509 P.M. on May 28th, 1985. It would, of course, be three hours later where Mike was calling from. Dark already. He felt a prickle of gooseflesh at that and he began to move, to do things. First, of course, he put on a recordnot hunting, just grabbing blindly among the thousands racked on the shelves. Rock and roll was almost as much a part of his life as the Voices, and it was hard for him to do anything without music playingand the louder the better. The record he grabbed turned out to be a Motown retrospective. Marvin Gaye, one of the newer members of what Rich sometimes called The AllDead Band, came on singing I Heard It Through the Grapevine. Ooohhoo, I bet youre wondrin how I knew.... Not bad, Rich said. He even smiled a little. This was bad, and it had admittedly knocked him for a loop, but he felt that he was going to be able to handle it. No sweat. He began getting ready to go back home. And at some point during the next hour it occurred to him that it was as if he had died and had yet been allowed to make all of his own final business dispositions ... not to mention his own funeral arrangements. And he felt as if he was doing pretty good. He tried the travel agent he used, thinking she would probably be on the freeway and headed home by now but taking a shot on the offchance. For a wonder, he caught her in. He told her what he needed and she asked him for fifteen minutes. I owe you one, Carol, he said. They had progressed from Mr. Tozier and Ms. Feeny to Rich and Carol over the last three yearspretty chummy, considering they had never met face to face. All right, pay off, she said. Can you do Kinky Briefcase for me? Without even pausingif you had to pause to find your Voice, there was usually no Voice there to be foundRich said Kinky Briefcase, Sexual Accountant, hereI had a fellow come in the other day who wanted to know what the worst thing was about getting AIDS. His voice had dropped slightly; at the same time its rhythm had speeded up and become jauntyit was clearly an American voice and yet it somehow conjured up images of a wealthy British colonial chappie who was as charming, in his muddled way, as he was addled. Rich hadnt the slightest idea who Kinky Briefcase really was, but he was sure he always wore white suits, read Esquire, and drank things which came in tall glasses and smelled like coconutscented shampoo. I told him right awaytrying to explain to your mother how you picked it up from a Haitian girl. Until next time, this is Kinky Briefcase, Sexual Accountant, saying You need my card if you cant get hard. Carol Feeny screamed with laughter. Thats perfect! Perfect! My boyfriend says he doesnt believe you can just do those voices, he says its got to be a voicefilter gadget or something Just talent, my dear, Rich said. Kinky Briefcase was gone. W. C. Fields, top hat, red nose, golfbags and all, was here. Im so stuffed with talent I have to plug up all my bodily orifices to keep it from just running out like ... well, just running out. She went off into another screamy gale of laughter, and Rich closed his eyes. He could feel the beginnings of a headache. Be a dear and see what you can do, would you? he asked, still being W. C. Fields, and hung up on her laughter. Now he had to go back to being himself, and that was hardit got harder to do that every year. It was easier to be brave when you were someone else. He was trying to pick out a pair of good loafers and had about decided to stick with sneakers when the phone rang again. It was Carol Feeny, back in record time. He felt an instant urge to fall into the Buford Kissdrivel Voice and fought it off. She had been able to get him a firstclass seat on the American Airlines redeye nonstop from LAX to Boston. He would leave L.A. at 903 P.M. and arrive at Logan about five oclock tomorrow morning. Delta would fly him out of Boston at 730 A.M. and into Bangor, Maine, at 820. She had gotten him a fullsized sedan from Avis, and it was only twentysix miles from the Avis counter at Bangor International Airport to the Derry town line. Only twentysix miles? Rich thought. Is that all, Carol? Well, maybe it isin miles, anyway. But you dont have the slightest idea how far it really is to Derry, and I dont, either. But oh God, oh dear God, I am going to find out. I didnt try for a room because you didnt tell me how long youd be there, she said. Do you Nolet me take care of that, Rich said, and then Buford Kissdrivel took over. Youve been a peach, my deah. A Jawja peach, a cawse. He hung up gently on heralways leave em laughingand then dialed 2075551212 for State of Maine Directory Assistance. He wanted a number for the Derry Town House. God, there was a name from the past. He hadnt thought of the Derry Town House inwhat?ten years? twenty? twentyfive years, even? Crazy as it seemed, he guessed it had been at least twentyfive years, and if Mike hadnt called, he supposed he might never have thought of it again in his life. And yet there had been a time in his life when he had walked past that great red brick pile every dayand on more than one occasion he had run past it, with Henry Bowers and Belch Huggins and that other big boy, Victor SomebodyorOther, in hot pursuit, all of them yelling little pleasantries like Were gonna getcha, fuckface! Gonna getcha, you little smartass! Gonna getcha, you foureyed faggot! Had they ever gotten him? Before Rich could remember, an operator was asking him what city, please. In Derry, operator Derry! God! Even the word felt strange and forgotten in his mouth; saying it was like kissing an antique. do you have a number for the Derry Town House? One moment, sir. No way. Itll be gone. Razed in an urbanrenewal program. Changed into an Elks Hall or a BowlaDrome or an Electric Dreamscape Video Arcade. Or maybe burned down one night when the odds finally ran out on some drunk shoe salesman smoking in bed. All gone, Richiejust like the glasses Henry Bowers always used to rag you about. Whats that Springsteen song say? Glory days... gone in the wink of a young girls eye. What young girl? Why, Bev, of course. Bev ... Changed the Town House might be, but gone it apparently was not, because a blank, robotic voice now came on the line and said The ... number ... is ... 9 ... 4 ... I...8...2...8...2. Repeat ... the... number ... is ... But Rich had gotten it the first time. It was a pleasure to hang up on that droning voiceit was too easy to imagine some great globular Directory Assistance monster buried somewhere in the earth, sweating rivets and holding thousands of telephones in thousands of jointed chromium tentaclesthe Ma Bell version of Spideys nemesis, Dr. Octopus. Each year the world Rich lived in felt more and more like a huge electronic haunted house in which digital ghosts and frightened human beings lived in uneasy coexistence. Still standing. To paraphrase Paul Simon, still standing after all these years. He dialed the hotel he had last seen through the hornrimmed spectacles of his childhood. Dialing that number, 12079418282, was fatally easy. He held the telephone to his ear, looking out his studys wide picture window. The surfers were gone; a couple was walking slowly up the beach, hand in hand, where they had been. The couple could have been a poster on the wall of the travel agency where Carol Feeny worked, that was how perfect they were. Except, that was, for the fact they were both wearing glasses. Gonna getcha, fuckface! Gonna break your glasses! Criss, his mind sent up abruptly. His last name was Criss. Victor Criss. Oh Christ, that was nothing he wanted to know, not at this late date, but it didnt seem to matter in the slightest. Something was happening down there in the vaults, down there where Rich Tozier kept his own personal collection of Golden Oldies. Doors were opening. Only theyre not records down there, are they? Down there youre not Rich Records Tozier, hotshot KLAD deejay and the Man of a Thousand Voices, are you? And those things that are opening ... they arent exactly doors, are they? He tried to shake these thoughts off. Thing to remember is that Im okay. Im okay, youre okay, Rich Toziers okay. Could use a cigarette, is all. He had quit four years ago but he could use one now, all right. Theyre not records but dead bodies. You buried them deep but now theres some kind of crazy earthquake going on and the ground is spitting them up to the surface. Youre not Rich Records Tozier down there; down there youre just Richie FourEyes Tozier and youre with your buddies and youre so scared it feels like your balls are turning into Welchs grape jelly. Those arent doors, and theyre not opening. Those are crypts, Richie. Theyre cracking open and the vampires you thought were dead are all flying out again. A cigarette, just one. Even a Carlton would do, for Christs sweet sake. Gonna getcha, foureyes! Gonna make you EAT that fuckin bookbag! Town House, a male voice with a Yankee tang said; it had travelled all the way across New England, the Midwest, and under the casinos of Las Vegas to reach his ear. Rich asked the voice if he could reserve a suite of rooms at the Town House, beginning tomorrow. The voice told him he could, and then asked him for how long. I cant say. Ive got He paused briefly, minutely. What did he have, exactly? In his minds eye he saw a boy with a tartan bookbag running from the tough guys; he saw a boy who wore glasses, a thin boy with a pale face that had somehow seemed to scream Hit me! Go on and hit me! in some mysterious way to every passing bully. Heres my lips! Mash them back against my teeth! Heres my nose! Bloody it for sure and break it if you can! Box an ear so it swells up like a cauliflower! Split an eyebrow! Heres my chin, go for the knockout button! Here are my eyes, so blue and so magnified behind these hateful, hateful glasses, these hornrimmed specs one bow of which is held on with adhesive tape. Break the specs! Drive a shard of glass into one of these eyes and close it forever! What the hell! He closed his eyes and said Ive got business in Derry, you see. I dont know how long the transaction will take. How about three days, with an option to renew? An option to renew? the deskclerk asked doubtfully, and Rich waited patiently for the fellow to work it over in his mind. Oh, I get you! Thats very good! Thank you, and I... ah ... hope you can vote for us in Novembah, John F. Kennedy said. Jackie wants to ... ah ... do ovuh the ... ah ... Oval Office, and Ive got a job all lined up for my ... ah ... brothah Bobby. Mr. Tozier? Yes. Okay ... somebody else got on the line there for a few seconds. Just an old pol from the D.O.P., Rich thought. Thats Dead Old Party, in case you should wonder. Dont worry about it. A shudder worked through him, and he told himself again, almost desperately Youre okay, Rich. I heard it, too, Rich said. Must have been a line crossover. How we looking on that room? Oh, theres no problem with that, the clerk said. We do business here in Derry, but it really never booms. Is that so? Oh, ayuh, the clerk agreed, and Rich shuddered again. He had forgotten that, toothat simple northern New Englandism for yes. Oh, ayuh. Gonna getcha, creep! the ghostly voice of Henry Bowers screamed, and he felt more crypts cracking open inside of him; the stench he smelled was not decayed bodies but decayed memories, and that was somehow worse. He gave the Town House clerk his American Express number and hung up. Then he called Steve Covall, the KLAD program director. Whats up, Rich? Steve asked. The last Arbitron ratings had shown KLAD at the top of the cannibalistic Los Angeles FMrock market, and ever since then Steve had been in an excellent moodthank God for small favors. Well, you might be sorry you asked, he told Steve. Im taking a powder. Taking He could hear the frown in Steves voice. I dont think I get you, Rich. I have to put on my boogie shoes. Im going away. What do you mean, going away? According to the log I have right here in front of me, youre on the air tomorrow from two in the afternoon until six P.M., just like always. In fact, youre interviewing Clarence Clemons in the studio at four. You know Clarence Clemons, Rich? As in Come on and blow, Big Man? Clemons can talk to Mike OHara as well as he can to me. Clarence doesnt want to talk to Mike, Rich. Clarence doesnt want to talk to Bobby Russell. He doesnt want to talk to me. Clarence is a big fan of Buford Kissdrivel and Wyatt the Homicidal BagBoy. He wants to talk to you, my friend. And I have no interest in having a pissedoff twohundredandfiftypound saxophone player who was once almost drafted by a pro football team running amok in my studio. I dont think he has a history of running amok, Rich said. I mean, were talking Clarence Clemons here, not Keith Moon. There was silence on the line. Rich waited patiently. Youre not serious, are you? Steve finally asked. He sounded plaintive. I mean, unless your mother just died or youve got to have a brain tumor out or something, this is called crapping out. I have to go, Steve. Is your mother sick? Did she Godforbid die? She died ten years ago. Have you got a brain tumor? Not even a rectal polyp. This is not funny, Rich. No. Youre being a fucking busher, and I dont like it. I dont like it either, but I have to go. Where? Why? What is this? Talk to me, Rich! Someone called me. Someone I used to know a long time ago. In another place. Back then something happened. I made a promise. We all promised that we would go back if the something started happening again. And I guess it has. What something are we talking about, Rich? Id just as soon not say. Also, youll think Im crazy if I tell you the truth I dont remember. When did you make this famous promise? A long time ago. In the summer of 1958. There was another long pause, and he knew Steve Covall was trying to decide if Rich Records Tozier, aka Buford Kissdrivel, aka Wyatt the Homicidal BagBoy, etc., etc., was having him on or was having some kind of mental breakdown. You would have been just a kid, Steve said flatly. Eleven. Going on twelve. Another long pause. Rich waited patiently. All right, Steve said. Ill shift the rotationput Mike in for you. I can call Chuck Foster to pull a few shifts, I guess, if I can find what Chinese restaurant hes currently holed up in. Ill do it because we go back a long way together. But Im never going to forget you bushed out on me, Rich. Oh, get down off it, Rich said, but the headache was getting worse. He knew what he was doing; did Steve really think he didnt? I need a few days off, is all. Youre acting like I took a shit on our FCC charter. A few days off for what? The reunion of your Cub Scout pack in Shithouse Falls, North Dakota, or Pussyhump City, West Virginia? Actually I think Shithouse Falls is in Arkansas, bo, Buford Kissdrivel said in his big hollowbarrel Voice, but Steve was not to be diverted. Because you made a promise when you were eleven? Kids dont make serious promises when theyre eleven, for Christs sake! And its not even that, Rich, and you know it. This is not an insurance company; this is not a law office. This is showbusiness, be it ever so humble, and you fucking well know it. If you had given me a weeks notice, I wouldnt be holding this phone in one hand and a bottle of Mylanta in the other. You are putting my balls to the wall, and you know it, so dont you insult my intelligence! Steve was nearly screaming now, and Rich closed his eyes. Im never going to forget it, Steve had said, and Rich supposed he never would. But Steve had also said kids didnt make serious promises when they were eleven, and that wasnt true at all. Rich couldnt remember what the promise had beenwasnt sure he wanted to rememberbut it had been plenty serious. Steve, I have to. Yeah. And I told you I could handle it. So go ahead. Go ahead, you busher. Steve, this is rid But Steve had already hung up. Rich put the phone down. He had barely started away from it when it began to ring again, and he knew without picking it up that it was Steve again, madder than ever. Talking to him at this point would do no good; things would just get uglier. He slid the switch on the side of the phone to the right, cutting it off in midring. He went upstairs, pulled two suitcases out of the closet, and filled them with a barely glancedat conglomeration of clothesjeans, shirts, underwear, socks. It would not occur to him until later that he had taken nothing but kidclothes. He carried the suitcases back downstairs. On the den wall was a blackandwhite Ansel Adams photograph of Big Sur. Rich swung it back on hidden hinges, exposing a barrel safe. He opened it, pawed his way past the paperworkthe house here, poised cozily between the faultline and the brushfire zone, twenty acres of timberland in Idaho, a bunch of stocks. He had bought the stocks seemingly at randomwhen his broker saw Rich coming, he immediately clutched his headbut the stocks had all risen steadily over the years. He was sometimes surprised by the thought that he was almostnot quite, but almosta rich man. All courtesy of rockandroll music ... and the Voices, of course. House, acres, stocks, insurance policy, even a copy of his last will and testament. The strings that bind you tight to the map of your life, he thought. There was a sudden wild impulse to whip out his Zippo and light it up, the whole whores combine of wherefores and knowyeallmenbythesepresents and thebearerofthiscertificateisentitleds. And he could do it, too. The papers in his safe had suddenly ceased to signify anything. The first real terror struck him then, and there was nothing at all supernatural about it. It was only a realization of how easy it was to trash your life. That was what was so scary. You just dragged the fan up to everything you had spent the years raking together and turned the motherfucker on. Easy. Burn it up or blow it away, then just take a powder. Behind the papers, which were only currencys second cousins, was the real stuff. The cash. Four thousand dollars in tens, twenties, and fifties. Taking it now, stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans, he wondered if he hadnt somehow known what he was doing when he put the money in herefifty bucks one month, a hundred and twenty the next, maybe only ten the month after that. Rathole money. Takingapowder money. Man, thats scary, he said, barely aware he had spoken. He was looking blankly out the big window at the beach. It was deserted now, the surfers gone, the honeymooners (if that was what they had been) gone, too. Ah, yes, docitall comes back to me now. Remember Stanley Uris, for instance? Bet your fur I do.... Remember how we used to say that, and think it was so cool? Stanley Urine, the big kids called him. Hey, Urine! Hey, you fuckin Christkiller! Where ya goin? One of ya fag friends gonna give you a bee jay? He slammed the safe door shut and swung the picture back into place. When had he last thought of Stan Uris? Five years ago? Ten? Twenty? Rich and his family had moved away from Derry in the spring of 1960, and how fast all of their faces faded, his gang, that pitiful bunch of losers with their little clubhouse in what had been known then as the Barrensfunny name for an area as lush with growth as that place had been. Kidding themselves that they were jungle explorers, or Seabees carving out a landing strip on a Pacific atoll while they held off the Japs, kidding themselves that they were dambuilders, cowboys, spacemen on a jungle world, you name it, but whatever you name it, dont lets forget what it really was it was hiding. Hiding from the big kids. Hiding from Henry Bowers and Victor Criss and Belch Huggins and the rest of them. What a bunch of losers they had beenStan Uris with his big Jewboy nose, Bill Denbrough who could say nothing but Hiyo, Silver! without stuttering so badly that it drove you almost dogshit, Beverly Marsh with her bruises and her cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of her blouse, Ben Hanscom who had been so big he looked like a human version of Moby Dick, and Richie Tozier with his thick glasses and his A averages and his wise mouth and his face which just begged to be pounded into new and exciting shapes. Was there a word for what they had been? Oh yes. There always was. Le mot juste. In this case lemot juste was wimps. How it came back, how all of it came back ... and now he stood here in his den shivering as helplessly as a homeless mutt caught in a thunderstorm, shivering because the guys he had run with werent all he remembered. There were other things, things he hadnt thought of in years, trembling just below the surface. Bloody things. A darkness. Some darkness. The house on Neibolt Street, and Bill screaming You kkilled my brother, you fuhfuhfucker! Did he remember? Just enough not to want to remember any more, and you could bet your fur on that. A smell of garbage, a smell of shit, and a smell of something else. Something worse than either. It was the stink of the beast, the stink of It, down there in the darkness under Derry where the machines thundered on and on. He remembered George But that was too much and he ran for the bathroom, blundering into his Eames chair on his way and almost falling. He made it ... barely. He slid across the slick tiles to the toilet on his knees like some weird breakdancer, gripped the edges, and vomited everything in his guts. Even then it wouldnt stop; suddenly he could see Georgie Denbrough as if he had last seen him yesterday, Georgie who had been the start of it all, Georgie who had been murdered in the fall of 1957. Georgie had died right after the flood, one of his arms had been ripped from its socket, and Rich had blocked all of that out of his memory. But sometimes those things come back, oh yes indeedy, they come back, sometimes they come back. The spasm passed and Rich groped blindly for the flush. Water roared. His early supper, regurgitated in hot chunks, vanished tastefully down the drain. Into the sewers. Into the pound and stink and darkness of the sewers. He closed the lid, laid his forehead against it, and began to cry. It was the first time he had cried since his mother died in 1975. Without even thinking of what he was doing, he cupped his hands under his eyes, and the contact lenses he wore slipped out and lay glistening in his palms. Forty minutes later, feeling huskedout and somehow cleansed, he threw his suitcases into the trunk of his MG and backed it out of the garage. The light was fading. He looked at his house with the new plantings, he looked at the beach, at the water, which had taken on the cast of pale emeralds broken by a narrow track of beaten gold. And a conviction stole over him that he would never see any of this again, that he was a dead man walking. Going home now, Rich Tozier whispered to himself. Going home, God help me, going home. He put the car in gear and went, feeling again how easy it had been to slip through an unsuspected fissure in what he had considered a solid lifehow easy it was to get over onto the dark side, to sail out of the blue and into the black. Out of the blue and into the black, yes, that was it. Where anything might be waiting. 3 Ben Hanscom Takes a Drink If, on that night of May 28th, 1985, you had wanted to find the man Time magazine had called perhaps the most promising young architect in America (Urban Energy Conservation and the Young Turks, Time, October 15, 1984), you would have had to drive west out of Omaha on Interstate 80 to do it. Youd have taken the Swedholm exit and then Highway 81 to downtown Swedholm (of which there isnt much). There youd turn off on Highway 92 at Buckys HiHat EatEmUp (Chicken Fried Steak Our Specialty) and once out in the country again youd hang a right on Highway 63, which runs straight as a string through the deserted little town of Gatlin and finally into Hemingford Home. Downtown Hemingford Home made downtown Swedholm look like New York City; the business district consisted of eight buildings, five on one side and three on the other. There was the Kleen Kut barber shop (propped in the window a yellowing handlettered sign fully fifteen years old read IF YOUR A HIPPY GET YOUR HAIR CUT SOMEWHERES ELSE), the secondrun movie house, the fiveanddime. There was a branch of the Nebraska Homeowners Bank, a 76 gas station, a Rexall Drug, and the National Farmstead Hardware Supplywhich was the only business in town which looked halfway prosperous. And, near the end of the main drag, set off a little way from the other buildings like a pariah and resting on the edge of the big empty, you had your basic roadhousethe Red Wheel. If you had gotten that far, you would have seen in the potholed dirt parking lot an aging 1968 Cadillac convertible with double CB antennas on the back. The vanity plate on the front read simply BENS CADDY. And inside, walking toward the bar, you would have found your manlanky, sunburned, dressed in a chambray shirt, faded jeans, and a pair of scuffed engineer boots. There were faint squintlines around the comers of his eyes, but nowhere else. He looked perhaps ten years younger than his actual age, which was thirtyeight. Hello, Mr. Hanscom, Ricky Lee said, putting a paper napkin on the bar as Ben sat down. Ricky Lee sounded a trifle surprised, and he was. He had never seen Hanscom in the Wheel on a weeknight before. He came in regularly every Friday night for two beers, and every Saturday night for four or five; he always asked after Ricky Lees three boys; he always left the same fivedollar tip under his beer stein when he took off. In terms of both professional conversation and personal regard, he was far and away Ricky Lees favorite customer. The ten dollars a week (and the fifty left under the stein at each Christmastime over the last five years) was fine enough, but the mans company was worth far more. Worthwhile company was always a rarity, but in a honkytonk like this, where talk always came cheap, it was scarcer than hens teeth. Although Hanscoms roots were in New England and he had gone to college in California, there was more than a touch of the extravagant Texan about him. Ricky Lee counted on Ben Hanscoms FridaySaturdaynight stops, because he had learned over the years that he could count on them. Mr. Hanscom might be building a skyscraper in New York (where he already had three of the most talkedabout buildings in the city), a new art gallery in Redondo Beach, or a business building in Salt Lake City, but come Friday night the door leading to the parking lot would open sometime between eight oclock and ninethirty and in he would stroll, as if he lived no farther than the other side of town and had decided to drop in because there was nothing good on TV. He had his own Learjet and a private landing strip on his farm in Junkins. Two years ago he had been in London, first designing and then overseeing the construction of the new BBC communications centera building that was still hotly debated pro and con in the British press (the Guardian Perhaps the most beautiful building to be constructed in London over the last twenty years; the Mirror Other than the face of my motherinlaw after a pubcrawl, the ugliest thing I have ever seen). When Mr. Hanscom took that job, Ricky Lee had thought, Well, Ill see him again sometime. Or maybe hell just forget all about us. And indeed, the Friday night after Ben Hanscom left for England had come and gone with no sign of him, although Ricky Lee found himself looking up quickly every time the door opened between eight and ninethirty. Well, Ill see him again sometime. Maybe. Sometime turned out to be the next night. The door had opened at quarter past nine and in he had ambled, wearing jeans and a GO BAMA teeshirt and his old engineer boots, looking like hed come from no farther away than crosstown. And when Ricky Lee cried almost joyfully Hey, Mr. Hanscom! Christ! What are you doin here?, Mr. Hanscom had looked mildly surprised, as if there was nothing in the least unusual about his being here. Nor had that been a oneshot; he had showed up every Saturday during the twoyear course of his active involvement in the BBC job. He left London each Saturday morning at 1100 A.M. on the Concorde, he told a fascinated Ricky Lee, and arrived at Kennedy in New York at 1015 A.M.fortyfive minutes before he left London, at least by the clock (God, its like time travel, aint it? an impressed Ricky Lee had said). A limousine was standing by to take him over to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, a trip which usually took no more than an hour on Saturday morning. He could be in the cockpit of his Lear before noon with no trouble at all, and touching down in Junkins by twothirty. If you head west fast enough, he told Ricky, the day just seems to go on forever. He would take a twohour nap, spend an hour with his foreman and half an hour with his secretary. He would eat supper and then come on over to the Red Wheel for an hour and a half or so. He always came in alone, he always sat at the bar, and he always left the way he had come in, although God knew there were plenty of women in this part of Nebraska who would have been happy to screw the socks off him. Back at the farm he would catch six hours of sleep and then the whole process would reverse itself. Ricky had never had a customer who failed to be impressed with this story. Maybe hes gay, a woman had told him once. Ricky Lee glanced at her briefly, taking in the carefully styled hair, the carefully tailored clothes which undoubtedly had designer labels, the diamond chips at her ears, the look in her eyes, and knew she was from somewhere back east, probably New York, out here on a brief duty visit to a relative or maybe an old school chum, and couldnt wait to get out again. No, he had replied. Mr. Hanscom aint no sissy. She had taken a pack of Doral cigarettes from her purse and held one between her red, glistening lips until he lit it for her. How do you know? she had asked, smiling a little. I just do, he said. And he did. He thought of saying to her I think hes the most Godawful lonely man I ever met in my life. But he wasnt going to say any such thing to this New York woman who was looking at him like he was some new and amusing type of life. Tonight Mr. Hanscom looked a little pale, a little distracted. Hello, Ricky Lee, he said, sitting down, and then fell to studying his hands. Ricky Lee knew he was slated to spend the next six or eight months in Colorado Springs, overseeing the start of the Mountain States Cultural Center, a sprawling sixbuilding complex which would be cut into the side of a mountain. When its done people are going to say it looks like a giantkid left his toy blocks all over a flight of stairs, Ben had told Ricky Lee. Some will, anyway, and theyll be at least halfright. But I think its going to work. Its the biggest thing Ive ever tried and putting it up is going to be scary as hell, but I think its going to work. Ricky Lee supposed it was possible that Mr. Hanscom had a little touch of stage fright. Nothing surprising about that, and nothing wrong about it, either. When you got big enough to be noticed, you got big enough to come gunning for. Or maybe he just had a touch of the bug. There was a hell of a lively one going around. Ricky Lee got a beer stein from the backbar and reached for the Olympia tap. Dont do that, Ricky Lee. Ricky Lee turned back, surprisedand when Ben Hanscom looked up from his hands, he was suddenly frightened. Because Mr. Hanscom didnt look like he had stage fright, or the virus that was going around, or anything like that. He looked like he had just taken a terrible blow and was still trying to understand whatever it was that had hit him. Someone died. He aint married but every mans got a fambly, and someone in his just bit the dust. Thats what happened, just as sure as shit rolls downhill from a privy.

Someone dropped a quarter into the jukebox, and Barbara Mandrell started to sing about a drunk man and a lonely woman. You okay, Mr. Hanscom? Ben Hanscom looked at Ricky Lee out of eyes that suddenly looked tenno, twentyyears older than the rest of his face, and Ricky Lee was astonished to observe that Mr. Hanscoms hair was graying. He had never noticed any gray in his hair before. Hanscom smiled. The smile was ghastly, horrible. It was like watching a corpse smile. I dont think I am, Ricky Lee. No sir. Not tonight. Not at all. Ricky Lee set the stein down and walked back over to where Hanscom sat. The bar was as empty as a Mondaynight bar far outside of football season can get. There were fewer than twenty paying customers in the place. Annie was sitting by the door into the kitchen, playing cribbage with the shortorder cook. Bad news, Mr. Hanscom? Bad news, thats right. Bad news from home. He looked at Ricky Lee. He looked through Ricky Lee. Im sorry to hear that, Mr. Hanscom. Thank you, Ricky Lee. He fell silent and Ricky Lee was about to ask him if there was anything he could do when Hanscom said Whats your bar whiskey, Ricky Lee? For everyone else in this dump its Four Roses, Ricky Lee said. But for you I think its Wild Turkey. Hanscom smiled a little at that. Thats good of you, Ricky Lee. I think you better grab that stein after all. What you do is fill it up with Wild Turkey. Fill it? Ricky Lee asked, frankly astonished. Christ, Ill have to roll you out of here! Or call an ambulance, he thought. Not tonight, Hanscom said. I dont think so. Ricky Lee looked carefully into Mr. Hanscoms eyes to see if he could possibly be joking, and it took less than a second to see that he wasnt. So he got the stein from the backbar and the bottle of Wild Turkey from one of the shelves below. The neck of the bottle chattered against the rim of the stein as he began to pour. He watched the whiskey gurgle out, fascinated in spite of himself. Ricky Lee decided it was more than just a touch of the Texan that Mr. Hanscom had in him this had to be the biggest goddamned shot of whiskey he ever had poured or ever would pour in his life. Call an ambulance, my ass. He drinks this baby and Ill be calling Parker and Waters in Swedholm for their funeral hack. Nevertheless he brought it back and set it down in front of Hanscom; Ricky Lees father had once told him that if a man was in his right mind, you brought him what he paid for, be it piss or poison. Ricky Lee didnt know if that was good advice or bad, but he knew that if you tended bar for a living, it went a fair piece toward saving you from being chomped into gatorbait by your own conscience. Hanscom looked at the monster drink thoughtfully for a moment and then asked, What do I owe you for a shot like that, Ricky Lee? Ricky Lee shook his head slowly, eyes still on the steinful of whiskey, not wanting to look up and meet those socketed, staring eyes. No, he said. This one is on the house. Hanscom smiled again, this time more naturally. Why, I thank you, Ricky Lee. Now I am going to show you something I learned about in Peru, in 1978. I was working with a guy named Frank Billingsunderstudying with him, I guess youd say. Frank Billings was the best damned architect in the world, I think. He caught a fever and the doctors injected about a billion different antibiotics into him and not a single one of them touched it. He burned for two weeks and then he died. What Im going to show you I learned from the Indians who worked on the project. The local popskull is pretty potent. You take a slug and you think its going down pretty mellow, no problem, and then all at once its like someone lit a blowtorch in your mouth and aimed it down your throat. But the Indians drink it like CocaCola, and I rarely saw one drunk, and I never saw one with a hangover. Never had the sack to try it their way myself. But I think Ill give it a go tonight. Bring me some of those lemon wedges there. Ricky Lee brought him four and laid them out neatly on a fresh napkin next to the stein of whiskey. Hanscom picked one of them up, tilted his head back like a man about to administer eyedrops to himself, and then began to squeeze raw lemonjuice into his right nostril. Holy Jesus! Ricky Lee cried, horrified. Hanscoms throat worked. His face flushed ... and then Ricky Lee saw tears running down the flat planes of his face toward his ears. Now the Spinners were on the juke, singing about the rubberbandman. Oh Lord, I just dont know how much of this I can stand, the Spinners sang. Hanscom groped blindly on the bar, found another slice of lemon, and squeezed the juice into his other nostril. Youre gonna fucking kill yourself, Ricky Lee whispered. Hanscom tossed both of the wrungout lemon wedges onto the bar. His eyes were fiery red and he was breathing in hitching, wincing gasps. Clear lemonjuice dripped from both of his nostrils and trickled down to the comers of his mouth. He groped for the stein, raised it, and drank a third of it. Frozen, Ricky Lee watched his adams apple go up and down. Hanscom set the stein aside, shuddered twice, then nodded. He looked at Ricky Lee and smiled a little. His eyes were no longer red. Works about like they said it did. You are so fucking concerned about your nose that you never feel whats going down your throat at all. Youre crazy, Mr. Hanscom, Ricky Lee said. You bet your fur, Mr. Hanscom said. You remember that one, Ricky Lee? We used to say that when we were kids You bet your fur. Did I ever tell you I used to be fat? No sir, you never did, Ricky Lee whispered. He was now convinced that Mr. Hanscom had received some intelligence so dreadful that the man really had gone crazy ... or at least taken temporary leave of his senses. I was a regular butterball. Never played baseball or basketball, always got caught first when we played tag, couldnt keep out of my own way. I was fat, all right. And there were these fellows in my home town who used to take after me pretty regularly. There was a fellow named Reginald Huggins, only everyone called him Belch. A kid named Victor Criss. A few other guys. But the real brains of the combination was a fellow named Henry Bowers. If there has ever been a genuinely evil kid strutting across the skin of the world, Ricky Lee, Henry Bowers was that kid. I wasnt the only kid he used to take after; my problem was, I couldnt run as fast as some of the others. Hanscom unbuttoned his shirt and opened it. Leaning forward, Ricky Lee saw a funny, twisted scar on Mr. Hanscoms stomach, just above his navel. Puckered, white, and old. It was a letter, he saw. Someone had carved the letter H into the mans stomach, probably long before Mr. Hanscom had been a man. Henry Bowers did that to me. About a thousand years ago. Im lucky Im not wearing his whole damned name down there. Mr. Hanscom Hanscom took the other two lemonslices, one in each hand, tilted his head back, and took them like nosedrops. He shuddered wrackingly, put them aside, and took two big swallows from the stein. He shuddered again, took another gulp, and then groped for the padded edge of the bar with his eyes closed. For a moment he held on like a man on a sailboat clinging to the rail for support in a heavy sea. Then he opened his eyes again and smiled at Ricky Lee. I could ride this bull all night, he said. Mr. Hanscom, I wish you wouldnt do that anymore, Ricky Lee said nervously. Annie came over to the waitresses stand with her tray and called for a couple of Millers. Ricky Lee drew them and took them down to her. His legs felt rubbery. Is Mr. Hanscom all right, Ricky Lee? Annie asked. She was looking past Ricky Lee and he turned to follow her gaze. Mr. Hanscom was leaning over the bar, carefully picking lemonslices out of the caddy where Ricky Lee kept the drink garnishes. I dont know, he said. I dont think so. Well get your thumb out of your ass and do something about it. Annie was, like most other women, partial to Ben Hanscom. I dunno. My daddy always said that if a mans in his right mind Your daddy didnt have the brains God gave a gopher, Annie said. Never mind your daddy. You got to put a stop to that, Ricky Lee. Hes going to kill himself. Thus given his marching orders, Ricky Lee went back down to where Ben Hanscom sat. Mr. Hanscom, I really think youve had en Hanscom tilted his head back. Squeezed. Actually sniffed the lemonjuice back this time, as if it were cocaine. He gulped whiskey as if it were water. He looked at Ricky Lee solemnly. Bingbang, I saw the whole gang, dancing on my livingroom rug, he said, and then laughed. There was maybe two inches of whiskey left in the stein. That is enough, Ricky Lee said, and reached for the stein. Hanscom moved it gently out of his reach. Damage has been done, Ricky Lee, he said. The damage has been done, boy. Mr. Hanscom, please Ive got something for your kids, Ricky Lee. Damn if I didnt almost forget! He was wearing a faded denim vest, and now he reached something out of one of its pockets. Ricky Lee heard a muted clink. My dad died when I was four, Hanscom said. There was no slur at all in his voice. Left us a bunch of debts and these. I want your kiddos to have them, Ricky Lee. He put three cartwheel silver dollars on the bar, where they gleamed under the soft lights. Ricky Lee caught his breath. Mr. Hanscom, thats very kind, but I couldnt There used to be four, but I gave one of them to Stuttering Bill and the others. Bill Denbrough, that was his real name. Stuttering Bills just what we used to call him ... just a thing we used to say, like You bet your fur. He was one of the best friends I ever hadI did have a few, you know, even a fat kid like me had a few. Stuttering Bills a writer now. Ricky Lee barely heard him. He was looking at the cartwheels, fascinated. 1921, 1923, and 1924. God knew what they were worth now, just in terms of the pure silver they contained. I couldnt, he said again. But I insist. Mr. Hanscom took hold of the stein and drained it. He should have been flat on his keister, but his eyes never left Ricky Lees. Those eyes were watery, and very bloodshot, but Ricky Lee would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that they were also the eyes of a sober man. Youre scaring me a little, Mr. Hanscom, Ricky Lee said. Two years ago Gresham Arnold, a rumdum of some local repute, had come into the Red Wheel with a roll of quarters in his hand and a twentydollar bill stuck into the band of his hat. He handed the roll to Annie with instructions to feed the quarters into the jukebox by fours. He put the twenty on the bar and instructed Ricky Lee to set up drinks for the house. This rumdum, this Gresham Arnold, had long ago been a star basketball player for the Hemingford Rams, leading them to their first (and most likely last) highschool team championship. In 1961 that had been. An almost unlimited future seemed to lie ahead of the young man. But he had flunked out of L.S.U. his first semester, a victim of drink, drugs, and allnight parties. He came home, cracked up the yellow convertible his folks had given him as a graduation present, and got a job as head salesman in his daddys John Deere dealership. Five years passed. His father could not bear to fire him, and so he finally sold the dealership and retired to Arizona, a man haunted and made old before his time by the inexplicable and apparently irreversible degeneration of his son. While the dealership still belonged to his daddy and he was at least pretending to work, Arnold had made some effort to keep the booze at arms length; afterward, it got him completely. He could get mean, but he had been just as sweet as horehound candy the night he brought in the quarters and set up drinks for the house, and everyone had thanked him kindly, and Annie kept playing Moe Bandy songs because Gresham Arnold liked ole Moe Bandy. He sat there at the baron the very stool where Mr. Hanscom was sitting now, Ricky Lee realized with steadily deepening uneaseand drank three or four bourbonandbitters, and sang along with the juke, and caused no trouble, and went home when Ricky Lee closed the Wheel up, and hanged himself with his belt in an upstairs closet. Gresham Arnolds eyes that night had looked a little bit like Ben Hanscoms eyes looked right now. Scaring you a bit, am I? Hanscom asked, his eyes never leaving Ricky Lees. He pushed the stein away and then folded his hands neatly in front of those three silver cartwheels. I probably am. But youre not as scared as I am, Ricky Lee. Pray to Jesus you never are. Well, whats the matter? Ricky Lee asked. Maybe He wet his lips. Maybe I can give you a help. The matter? Ben Hanscom laughed. Why, not too much. I had a call from an old friend tonight. Guy named Mike Hanlon. Id forgotten all about him, Ricky Lee, but that didnt scare me much. After all, I was just a kid when I knew him, and kids forget things, dont they? Sure they do. You bet your fur. What scared me was getting about halfway over here and realizing that it wasnt just Mike Id forgotten aboutId forgotten everything about being a kid. Ricky Lee only looked at him. He had no idea what Mr. Hanscom was talking aboutbut the man was scared, all right. No question about that. It sat funny on Ben Hanscom, but it was real. I mean Id forgotten all about it, he said, and rapped his knuckles lightly on the bar for emphasis. Did you ever hear, Ricky Lee, of having an amnesia so complete you didnt even know you had amnesia? Ricky Lee shook his head. Me either. But there I was, tooling along in the Caddy tonight, and all of a sudden it hit me. I remembered Mike Hanlon, but only because he called me on the phone. I remembered Derry, but only because that was where he was calling from. Derry? But that was all. It hit me that I hadnt even thought about being a kid since ... since I dont even know when. And then, just like that, it all started to flood back in. Like what we did with the fourth silver dollar. What did you do with it, Mr. Hanscom? Hanscom looked at his watch, and suddenly slipped down from his stool. He staggered a bitthe slightest bit. That was all. Cant let the time get away from me, he said. Im flying tonight. Ricky Lee looked instantly alarmed, and Hanscom laughed. Flying but not driving the plane. Not this time. United Airlines, Ricky Lee. Oh. He supposed his relief showed on his face, but he didnt care. Where are you going? Hanscoms shirt was still open. He looked thoughtfully down at the puckered white lines of the old scar on his belly and then began to button the shirt over it. Thought I told you that, Ricky Lee. Home. Im going home. Give those cartwheels to your kids. He started toward the door, and something about the way he walked, even the way he hitched at the sides of his pants, terrified Ricky Lee. The resemblance to the late and mostly unlamented Gresham Arnold was suddenly so acute it was nearly like seeing a ghost. Mr. Hanscom! he cried in alarm. Hanscom turned back, and Ricky Lee stepped quickly backward. His ass hit the backbar and glassware gossiped briefly as the bottles knocked together. He stepped back because he was suddenly convinced that Ben Hanscom was dead. Yes, Ben Hanscom was lying dead someplace, in a ditch or an attic or possibly in a closet with a belt noosed around his neck and the toes of his fourhundreddollar cowboy boots dangling an inch or two above the floor, and this thing standing near the juke and staring back at him was a ghost. For a momentjust a moment, but it was plenty long enough to cover his working heart with a rime of icehe was convinced he could see tables and chairs right through the man. What is it, Ricky Lee? Nuhnnuh. Nothin. Ben Hanscom looked out at Ricky Lee from eyes which had darkpurple crescents beneath them. His cheeks burned with liquor; his nose looked red and sore. Nothin, Ricky Lee whispered again, but he couldnt take his eyes from that face, the face of a man who has died deep in sin and now stands hard by hells smoking side door. I was fat and we were poor, Ben Hanscom said. I remember that now. And I remember that either a girl named Beverly or Stuttering Bill saved my life with a silver dollar. Im scared almost insane by whatever else I may remember before tonights over, but how scared I am doesnt matter, because its going to come anyway. Its all there, like a great big bubble thats growing in my mind. But Im going, because all Ive ever gotten and all I have now is somehow due to what we did then, and you pay for what you get in this world. Maybe thats why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for ... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you. You gonna be back this weekend, though, aint you? Ricky Lee asked through numbed lips. In his increasing distress this was all he could find to hold on to. You gonna be back this weekend just like always, aint you? I dont know, Mr. Hanscom said, and smiled a terrible smile. Im going a lot farther than London this time, Ricky Lee. Mr. Hanscom! You give those cartwheels to your kids, he repeated, and slipped out into the night. What the blue hell? Annie asked, but Ricky Lee ignored her. He flipped up the bars partition and ran over to one of the windows which looked out on the parking lot. He saw the headlights of Mr. Hanscoms Caddy come on, heard the engine rev. It pulled out of the dirt lot, kicking up a roostertail of dust behind it. The taillights dwindled away to red points down Highway 63, and the Nebraska nightwind began to pull the hanging dust apart. He took on a boxcar full of booze and you let him get in that big car of his and drive away, Annie said. Way to go, Ricky Lee. Never mind. Hes going to kill himself. And although this had been Ricky Lees own thought less than five minutes ago, he turned to her when the taillights winked out of sight and shook his head. I dont think so, he said. Although the way he looked tonight, it might be better for him if he did. What did he say to you? He shook his head. It was all confused in his mind, and the sum total of it seemed to mean nothing. It doesnt matter. But I dont think were ever going to see that old boy again. 4 Eddie Kaspbrak Takes His Medicine If you would know all there is to know about an American man or woman of the middle class as the millennium nears its end, you would need only to look in his or her medicine cabinetor so it has been said. But dear Lord, get a look into this one as Eddie Kaspbrak slides it open, mercifully sliding aside his white face and wide, staring eyes. On the top shelf theres Anacin, Excedrin, Excedrin P.M., Contac, Gelusil, Tylenol, and a large blue jar of Vicks, looking like a bit of brooding deep twilight under glass. There is a bottle of Vivarin, a bottle of Serutan (Thats Natures spelled backwards, the ads on Lawrence Welk used to say when Eddie Kaspbrak was but a wee slip of a lad), and two bottles of Phillips Milk of Magnesiathe regular, which tastes like liquid chalk, and the new mint flavor, which tastes like mintflavored liquid chalk. Here is a large bottle of Rolaids standing chummily close to a large bottle of Turns. The Turns are standing next to a large bottle of orangeflavored DiGel tablets. The three of them look like a trio of strange piggybanks, stuffed with pills instead of dimes. Second shelf, and dig the vites you got your E, your C, your C with rosehips. You got Bsimple and Bcomplex and B12. Theres LLysine, which is supposed to do something about those embarrassing skin problems, and lecithin, which is supposed to do something about that embarrassing cholesterol buildup in and around the Big Pump. Theres iron, calcium, and cod liver oil. Theres OneADay multiples, Myadec multiples, Centrum multiples. And sitting up on top of the cabinet itself is a gigantic bottle of Geritol, just for good measure. Moving right along to Eddies third shelf, we find the utility infielders of the patentmedicine world. ExLax. Carters Little Pills. Those two keep Eddie Kaspbrak moving the mail. Here, nearby, is Kaopectate, PeptoBismol, and Preparation H in case the mail moves too fast or too painfully. Also some Tucks in a screwtop jar just to keep everything tidy after the mail has gone through, be it just an advertising circular or two addressed to OCCUPANT or a big old specialdelivery package. Here is Formula 44 for coughs, Nyquil and Dristan for colds, and a big bottle of castor oil. Theres a tin of Sucrets in case Eddies throat gets sore, and theres a quartet of mouthwashes Chloraseptic, Cpacol, Cpestat in the spray bottle, and of course good old Listerine, often imitated but never duplicated. Visine and Murine for the eyes. Cortaid and Neosporin ointment for the skin (the second line of defense if the LLysine doesnt live up to expectations), a tube of Oxy5 and a plastic bottle of OxyWash (because Eddie would definitely rather have a few less cents than a few more zits), and some tetracyline pills. And off to one side, clustered like bitter conspirators, are three bottles of coaltar shampoo. The bottom shelf is almost deserted, but the stuff which is here means serious businessyou could cruise on this stuff, okay. On this stuff you could fly higher than Ben Hanscoms jet and crash harder than Thurman Munsons. Theres Valium, Percodan, Elavil, and Darvon Complex. There is also another Sucrets box on this low shelf, but there are no Sucrets in it. If you opened that one you would find six Quaaludes. Eddie Kaspbrak believed in the Boy Scout motto. He was swinging a blue totebag as he came into the bathroom. He set it on the sink, unzipped it, and then, with trembling hands, he began to spill bottles and jars and tubes and squeezebottles and spraybottles into it. Under other circumstances he would have taken them out handful by careful handful, but there was no time for such niceties now. The choice, as Eddie saw it, was as simple as it was brutal get moving and keep moving or stand in one place long enough to start thinking about what all of this meant and simply die of fright. Eddie? Myra called up from downstairs. Eddie, what are you dooooing? Eddie dropped the Sucrets box containing the ludes into the bag. The medicine cabinet was now entirely empty except for Myras Midol and a small, almost usedup tube of Blistex. He paused for a moment and then grabbed the Blistex. He started to zip the bag closed, debated, and then threw in the Midol as well. She could always buy more. Eddie? from halfway up the stairs now. Eddie zipped the bag the rest of the way closed and then left the bathroom, swinging it by his side. He was a short man with a timid, rabbity sort of face. Much of his hair was gone; what was left grew in listless, piebald patches. The weight of the bag pulled him noticeably to one side. An extremely large woman was climbing slowly to the second floor. Eddie could hear the stairs creak protestingly under her. What are you DOOOOOOOOING? Eddie did not need a shrink to tell him that he had, in a sense, married his mother. Myra Kaspbrak was huge. She had only been big when Eddie married her five years ago, but he sometimes thought his subconscious had seen the potential for hugeness in her; God knew his own mother had been a whopper. And she looked somehow more huge than ever as she reached the secondfloor landing. She was wearing a white nightgown which swelled, comberlike, at bosom and hip. Her face, devoid of makeup, was white and shiny. She looked badly frightened. I have to go away for awhile, Eddie said. What do you mean, you have to go away? What was that telephone call? Nothing, he said, fleeing abruptly down the hallway to their walkin closet. He put the totebag down, opened the closets foldback door, and raked aside the halfdozen identical black suits which hung there, as conspicuous as a thundercloud among the other, more brightly colored, clothes. He always wore one of the black suits when he was working. He bent into the closet, smelling mothballs and wool, and pulled out one of the suitcases from the back. He opened it and began throwing clothes in. Her shadow fell over him. Whats this about, Eddie? Where are you going? You tell me! I cant tell you. She stood there, watching him, trying to decide what to say next, or what to do. The thought of simply bundling him into the closet and then standing with her back against the door until this madness had passed crossed her mind, but she was unable to bring herself to do it, although she certainly could have; she was three inches taller than Eddie and outweighed him by a hundred pounds. She couldnt think of what to do or say, because this was so utterly unlike him. She could not have been any more dismayed and frightened if she had walked into the television room and found their new bigscreen TV floating in the air. You cant go, she heard herself saying. You promised youd get me Al Pacinos autograph. It was an absurdityGod knew it wasbut at this point even an absurdity was better than nothing. Youll still get it, Eddie said. Youll have to drive him yourself. Oh, here was a new terror to join those already circling in her poor dazzled head. She uttered a small scream. I cantI never Youll have to, he said. He was examining his shoes now. Theres no one else. Neither of my uniforms fit anymore! Theyre too tight in the tits! Have Delores let one of them out, he said implacably. He threw two pairs of shoes back, found an empty shoebox, and popped a third pair into it. Good black shoes, plenty of use left in them still, but looking just a bit too worn to wear on the job. When you drove rich people around New York for a living, many of them famous rich people, everything had to look just right. These shoes no longer looked just right ... but he supposed they would do for where he was going. And for whatever he might have to do when he got there. Maybe Richie Tozier would But then the blackness threatened and he felt his throat beginning to close up. Eddie realized with real panic that he had packed the whole damned drugstore and had left the most important thing of allhis aspiratordownstairs on top of the stereo cabinet. He banged the suitcase closed and latched it. He looked around at Myra, who was standing there in the hallway with her hand pressed against the short thick column of her neck as if she were the one with the asthma. She was staring at him, her face full of perplexity and terror, and he might have felt sorry for her if his heart had not already been so filled with terror for himself. Whats happened, Eddie? Who was that on the telephone? Are you in trouble? You are, arent you? What kind of trouble are you in? He walked toward her, zipperbag in one hand and suitcase in the other, standing more or less straight now that he was more evenly weighted. She moved in front of him, blocking off the stairway, and at first he thought she would not give way. Then, when his face was about to crash into the soft roadblock of her breasts, she did give way ... fearfully. As he walked past, never slowing, she burst into miserable tears. I cant drive Al Pacino! she bawled. Ill smash into a stopsign or something, I know I will! Eddie Im scaaarrred! He looked at the Seth Thomas clock on the table by the stairs. Twenty past nine. The cannedsounding Delta clerk had told him he had already missed the last flight north to Mainethat one had left La Guardia at eighttwentyfive. He had called Amtrak and discovered there was a late train to Boston departing Penn Station at eleventhirty. It would drop him off at South Station, where he could take a cab to the offices of Cape Cod Limousine on Arlington Street. Cape Cod and Eddies company, Royal Crest, had worked out a useful and friendly reciprocal arrangement over the years. A quick call to Butch Carrington in Boston had taken care of his transportation northButch said he would have a Cadillac limo gassed and ready for him. So he would go in style, and with no painintheass client sitting in the back seat, stinking the air up with a big cigar and asking if Eddie knew where he could score a broad or a few grams of coke or both. Going in style, all right, he thought. Only way you could go in more style would be if you were going in a hearse. But dont worry, Eddiethats probably how youll come back. If theres enough of you left to pick up, that is. Eddie? Ninetwenty. Plenty of time to talk to her, plenty of time to be kind. Ah, but it would have been so much better if this had been her whist night, if he could have just slipped out, leaving a note under one of the magnets on the refrigerator door (the refrigerator door was where he left all his notes for Myra, because there she never missed them). Leaving that waylike a fugitivewould not have been good, but this was even worse. This was like having to leave home all over again, and that had been so hard hed had to do it three times. Sometimes home is where the heart is, Eddie thought randomly. I believe that. Old Bobby Frost said homes the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Unfortunately, its also the place where, once youre in there, they dont ever want to let you out. He stood at the head of the stairs, forward motion temporarily spent, filled with fear, breath wheezing noisily in and out of the pinhole his throat had become, and regarded his weeping wife. Come on downstairs with me and Ill tell you what I can, he said. Eddie put his two bagsclothes in one, medicine in the otherby the door in the front hall. He remembered something else then ... or rather the ghost of his mother, who had been dead many years but who still spoke frequently in his mind, remembered for him. You know when your feet get wet you always get a cold, Eddieyoure not like other people, you have a very weak system, you have to be careful. Thats why you must always wear your rubbers when it rains. It rained a lot in Derry. Eddie opened the fronthall closet, got his rubbers off the hook where they hung neatly in a plastic bag, and put them in his clothes suitcase. Thats a good boy, Eddie. He and Myra had been watching TV when the shit hit the fan. Eddie went into the television room and pushed the button which lowered the screen of the MuralVision TVits screen was so big that it made Freeman McNeil look like a visitor from Brobdingnag on Sunday afternoons. He picked up the telephone and called a taxi. The dispatcher told him it would probably be fifteen minutes. Eddie said that was no problem. He hung up and grabbed his aspirator off the top of their expensive Sony compactdisc player. I spent fifteen hundred bucks on a stateoftheart sound system so that Myra wouldnt miss a single golden note on her Barry Manilow records and her Supremes Greatest Hits, he thought, and then felt a flush of guilt. That wasnt fair, and he damn well knew it. Myra would have been just as happy with her old scratchy records as she was with the new 45rpmsized laser discs, just as she would have been happy to keep on living in the little fourroom house in Queens until they were both old and gray (and, if the truth were told, there was a little snow on Eddie Kaspbraks mountain already). He had bought the luxury sound system for the same reasons that he had bought this low fieldstone house on Long Island, where the two of them often rattled around like the last two peas in a can because he had been able to, and because they were ways of appeasing the soft, frightened, often bewildered, always implacable voice of his mother; they were ways of saying I made it, Ma! Look at all this! I made it! Now will you please for Christs sake shut up awhile? Eddie stuffed the aspirator into his mouth and, like a man miming suicide, pulled the trigger. A cloud of awful licorice taste roiled and boiled its way down his throat, and Eddie breathed deeply.

He could feel breathing passages which had almost closed start to open up again. The tightness in his chest started to ease, and suddenly he heard voices in his mind, ghostvoices. Didnt you get the note I sent you? I got it, Mrs. Kaspbrak, but Well, in case you cant read, Coach Black, let me tell you in person. Are you ready? Mrs. Kaspbrak Good. Here it comes, from my lips to your ears. Ready? My Eddie cannot take physical education. I repeat he can NOT take phys ed. Eddie is very delicate, and if he runs ... or jumps ... Mrs. Kaspbrak, I have the results of Eddies last physical on file in my officethats a state requirement. It says that Eddie is a little small for his age, but otherwise hes absolutely normal. So I called your family physician just to be sure and he confirmed Are you saying Im a liar, Coach Black? Is that it? Well, here he is! Heres Eddie, standing right beside me! Can you hear the way hes breathing? CAN you? Mom ... please ... Im all right ... Eddie, you know better than that. I taught you better than that. Dont interrupt your elders. I hear him, Mrs. Kaspbrak, but Do you? Good! I thought maybe you were deaf! He sounds like a truck going uphill in low gear, doesnt he? And if that isnt asthma Mom, Ill be Be quiet, Eddie, dont interrupt me again. If that isnt asthma, Coach Black, then Im Queen Elizabeth! Mrs. Kaspbrak, Eddie often seems very well and happy in his physicaleducation classes. He loves to play games, and he runs quite fast. In my conversation with Dr. Baynes, the word psychosomatic came up. I wonder if youve considered the possibility that that my son is crazy? Is that what youre trying to say? ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY THAT MY SON IS CRAZY???? No, but Hes delicate. Mrs. Kaspbrak My son is very delicate. Mrs. Kaspbrak, Dr. Baynes confirmed that he could find nothing at all physically wrong, Eddie finished. The memory of that humiliating encounter, his mother screaming at Coach Black in the Derry Elementary School gymnasium while he gasped and cringed at her side and the other kids huddled around one of the baskets and watched, had recurred to him tonight for the first time in years. Nor was that the only memory which Mike Hanlons call was going to bring back, he knew. He could feel many others, as bad or even worse, crowding and jostling like salemad shoppers bottlenecked in a departmentstore doorway. But soon the bottleneck would break and they would be along. He was quite sure of that. And what would they find on sale? His sanity? Could be. HalfPrice. Smoke and Water Damage. Everything Must Go. Nothing physically wrong, he repeated, took a deep shuddery breath, and stuffed the aspirator into his pocket. Eddie, Myra said. Please tell me what all of this is about! Teartracks shone on her chubby cheeks. Her hands twisted restlessly together like a pair of pink and hairless animals at play. Once, shortly before actually proposing marriage, he had taken a picture of Myra which she had given him and had put it next to one of his mother, who had died of congestive heartfailure at the age of sixtyfour. At the time of her death Eddies mother had topped the scales at over four hundred poundsfour hundred and six, to be exact. She had become something nearly monstrous by thenher body had seemed nothing more than boobs and butt and belly, all overtopped by her pasty, perpetually dismayed face. But the picture of her which he put next to Myras picture had been taken in 1944, two years before he had been born (You were a very sickly baby, the ghostmom now whispered in his ear. Many times we despaired of your life ...). In 1944 his mother had been a relatively svelte one hundred and eighty pounds. He had made that comparison, he supposed, in a lastditch effort to stop himself from committing psychological incest. He looked from Mother to Myra and back again to Mother. They could have been sisters. The resemblance was that close. Eddie looked at the two nearly identical pictures and promised himself he would not do this crazy thing. He knew that the boys at work were already making jokes about Jack Sprat and his wife, but they didnt know the half of it. The jokes and snide remarks he could take, but did he really want to be a clown in such a Freudian circus as this? No. He did not. He would break it off with Myra. He would let her down gently because she was really very sweet and had had even less experience with men than hed had with women. And then, after she had finally sailed over the horizon of his life, he could maybe take those tennis lessons hed been thinking of for such a long time (Eddie often seems very well and happy in his physicaleducation classes) or there were the pool memberships they were selling at the U.N. Plaza Hotel (Eddie loves to play games) not to mention that health club which had opened up on Third Avenue across from the garage ... (Eddie runs quite fast he runs quite fast when youre not here runs quite fast when theres nobody around to remind him of how delicate he is and I see in his face Mrs. Kaspbrak that he knows even now at the age of nine he knows that the biggest favor in the world he could do himself would be to run fast in any direction youre not going let him go Mrs. Kaspbrak let him RUN) But in the end he had married Myra anyway. In the end the old ways and the old habits had simply been too strong. Home was the place where, when you have to go there, they have to chain you up. Oh, he might have beaten his mothers ghost. It would have been hard but he was quite sure he could have done that much, if that had been all which needed doing. It was Myra herself who had ended up tipping the scales away from independence. Myra had condemned him with solicitude, had nailed him with concern, had chained him with sweetness. Myra, like his mother, had reached the final, fatal insight into his character Eddie was all the more delicate because he sometimes suspected he was not delicate at all; Eddie needed to be protected from his own dim intimations of possible bravery. On rainy days Myra always took his rubbers out of the plastic bag in the closet and put them by the coatrack next to the door. Beside his plate of unbuttered wheat toast each morning was a dish of what might have been taken at a casual glance for a multicolored presweetened childrens cereal, but which a closer look would have revealed to be a whole spectrum of vitamins (most of which Eddie had in his medicinebag right now). Myra, like Mother, understood, and there had really been no chance for him. As a young unmarried man he had left his mother three times and returned home to her three times. Then, four years after his mother had died in the front hall of her Queens apartment, blocking the front door so completely with her bulk that the Medcu guys (called by the people downstairs when they heard the monstrous thud of Mrs. Kaspbrak going down for the final count) had had to break in through the locked door between the apartments kitchen and the service stairwell, he had returned home for a fourth and final time. At least he had believed then it was for the final timehome again, home again, jiggetyjog; home again, home again, with Myra the hog. A hog she was, but she was a sweet hog, and he loved her, and there had really been no chance for him at all. She had drawn him to her with the fatal, hypnotizing snakes eye of understanding. Home again forever, he had thought then. But maybe I was wrong, he thought. Maybe this isnt home, nor ever wasmaybehome is where I have to go tonight. Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark. He shuddered helplessly, as if he had gone outside without his rubbers and caught a terrible chill. Eddie, please! She was beginning to weep again. Tears were her final defense, just as they had always been his mothers the soft weapon which paralyzes, which turns kindness and tenderness into fatal chinks in ones armor. Not that hed ever worn much armor anywaysuits of armor did not seem to fit him very well. Tears had been more than a defense for his mother; they had been a weapon. Myra had rarely used her own tears so cynically ... but, cynically or not, he realized she was trying to use them that way now ... and she was succeeding. He couldnt let her. It would be too easy to think of how lonely it was going to be, sitting in a seat on that train as it barrelled north toward Boston through the darkness, his suitcase overhead and his totebag full of nostrums between his feet, the fear sitting on his chest like a rancid Vickspack. Too easy to let Myra take him upstairs and make love to him with aspirins and an alcoholrub. And put him to bed, where they might or might not make a franker sort of love. But he had promised. Promised. Myra, listen to me, he said, making his voice purposely dry, purposely matteroffact. She looked at him with her wet, naked, terrified eyes. He thought he would try now to explainas best he could; he would tell her about how Mike Hanlon had called and told him that it had started again, and yes, he thought most of the others were coming. But what came out of his mouth was much saner stuff. Go down to the office first thing in the morning. Talk to Phil. Tell him I had to take off and that youll drive Pacino Eddie, I just cant! she wailed. Hes a big star! If I get lost hell shout at me, I know he will, hell shout, they all do when the driver gets lost ... and ... and Ill cry ... there could be an accident ... there probably will be an accident ... Eddie ... Eddie, you have to stay home.... For Gods sake! Stop it! She recoiled from his voice, hurt; although Eddie gripped his aspirator, he would not use it. She would see that as a weakness, one she could use against him. Dear God, if You are there, please believe me when I say I dont want to hurt Myra. I dont want to cut her, dont even want to bruise her. But I promised, we all promised, we swore in blood, please help me God because I have to do this.... I hate it when you shout at me, Eddie, she whispered. Myra, I hate it when I have to, he said, and she winced. There you go, Eddieyouhurt her again. Why dont you just punch her around the room a few times? That would probably be kinder. And quicker. Suddenlyprobably it was the thought of punching someone around the room which caused the image to comehe saw the face of Henry Bowers. It was the first time he had thought of Bowers in years, and it did nothing for his peace of mind. Nothing at all. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and said You wont get lost, and he wont shout at you. Mr. Pacino is very nice, very understanding. He had never driven Pacino before in his life, but contented himself with knowing that at least the law of averages was on the side of this lieaccording to popular myth most celebrities were shitheels, but Eddie had driven enough of them to know it usually wasnt true. There were, of course, exceptions to the ruleand in most cases the exceptions were real monstrosities. He hoped fervently for Myras sake that Pacino wasnt one of these. Is he? she asked timidly. Yes. He is. How do you know? Demetrios drove him two or three times when he worked at Manhattan Limousine, Eddie said glibly. He said Mr. Pacino always tipped at least fifty dollars. I wouldnt care if he only tipped me fifty cents, as long as he didnt shout at me. Myra, its all as easy as onetwothree. One, you make the pickup at the Saint Regis tomorrow at seven P.M. and take him over to the ABC Building. Theyre retaping the last act of this play Pacinos inAmerican Buffalo, I think its called. Two, you take him back to the Saint Regis around eleven. Three, you go back to the garage, turn in the car, and sign the greensheet. Thats all? Thats all. You can do it standing on your head, Marty. She usually giggled at this pet name, but now she only looked at him with a painful childlike solemnity. What if he wants to go out to dinner instead of back to the hotel? Or for drinks? Or for dancing? I dont think he will, but if he does, you take him. If it looks like hes going to party all night, you can call Phil Thomas on the radiophone after midnight. By then hell have a driver free to relieve you. Id never stick you with something like this in the first place if I had a driver who was free, but I got two guys out sick, Demetrios on vacation, and everyone else booked up solid. Youll be snug in your own bed by one in the morning, Martyone in the morning at the very, very latest. I applesolutely guarantee it. She didnt laugh at applesolutely, either. He cleared his throat and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Instantly the ghostmom whispered Dont sit that way, Eddie. Its bad for your posture, and it cramps your lungs. You have very delicate lungs. He sat up straight again, hardly aware he was doing it. This better be the only time I have to drive, she nearly moaned. Ive turned into such a horse in the last two years, and my uniforms look so bad now. Its the only time, I swear. Who called you, Eddie? As if on cue, lights swept across the wall; a horn honked once as the cab turned into the driveway. He felt a surge of relief. They had spent the fifteen minutes talking about Pacino instead of Derry and Mike Hanlon and Henry Bowers, and that was good. Good for Myra, and good for him as well. He did not want to spend any time thinking or talking about those things until he had to. Eddie stood up. Its my cab. She got up so fast she tripped over the hem of her own nightgown and fell forward. Eddie caught her, but for a moment the issue was in grave doubt she outweighed him by a hundred pounds. And she was beginning to blubber again. Eddie, you have to tell me! I cant. Theres no time. You never kept anything from me before, Eddie, she wept. And Im not now. Not really. I dont remember it all. At least, not yet. The man who called wasisan old friend. He Youll get sick, she said desperately, following him as he walked toward the front hall again. I know you will. Let me come, Eddie, please, Ill take care of you, Pacino can get a cab or something, it wont kill him, what do you say, okay? Her voice was rising, becoming frantic, and to Eddies horror she began to look more and more like his mother, his mother as she had looked in the last months before she died old and fat and crazy. Ill rub your back and see that you get your pills.... I ... Ill help you.... I wont talk if you dont want me to but you can tell me everything.... Eddie ... Eddie, please dont go! Eddie, please! Pleeeeeease! He was striding down the hall to the front door now, walking blind, head down, moving as a man moves against a high wind. He was wheezing again. When he picked up the bags each of them seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. He could feel her plump pink hands on him, touching, exploring, pulling with helpless desire but no real strength, trying to seduce him with her sweet tears of concern, trying to draw him back. Im not going to make it! he thought desperately. The asthma was worse now, worse than it had been since he was a kid. He reached for the doorknob but it seemed to be receding from him, receding into the blackness of outer space. If you stay Ill make you a sourcream coffeecake, she babbled. Well have popcorn.... Ill make your favorite turkey dinner.... Ill make it for breakfast tomorrow morning if you want ... Ill start right now ... and giblet gravy .... Eddie please Im scared youre scaring me so bad! She grabbed his collar and pulled him backward, like a beefy cop putting the grab on a suspicious fellow who is trying to flee. With a final fading effort, Eddie kept going ... and when he was at the absolute end of his strength and ability to resist, he felt her grip trail away. She gave one final wail. His fingers closed around the doorknobhow blessedly cool it was! He pulled the door open and saw a Checker cab sitting out there, an ambassador from the land of sanity. The night was clear. The stars were bright and lucid. He turned back to Myra, whistling and wheezing. You need to understand that this isnt something I want to do, he said. If I had a choiceany choice at allI wouldnt go. Please understand that, Marty. Im going but Ill be coming back. Oh but that felt like a lie. When? How long? A week. Or maybe ten days. Surely no longer than that. A week! she screamed, clutching at her bosom like a diva in a bad opera. A week! Ten days! Please, Eddie! Pleeeeeee Marty, stop. Okay? Just stop. For a wonder, she did stopped and stood looking at him with her wet, bruised eyes, not angry at him, only terrified for him and, coincidentally, for herself. And for perhaps the first time in all the years he had known her, he felt that he could love her safely. Was that part of the going away? He supposed it was. No ... you could flush the supposed. He knew it was. Already he felt like something living in the wrong end of a telescope. But it was maybe all right. Was that what he meant? That he had finally decided it was all right to love her? That it was all right even though she looked like his mother when his mother had been younger and even though she ate brownies in bed while watching Hardcastle and McCormick or Falcon Crest and the crumbs always got on his side and even though she wasnt all that bright and even though she understood and condoned his remedies in the medicine cabinet because she kept her own in the refrigerator? Or was it ... Could it be that ... These other ideas were all things he had considered in one way or another, at one time or another, during his oddly entwined lives as a son and a lover and a husband; now, on the point of leaving home for what felt like the absolutely last time, a new possibility came to him, and startled wonder brushed him like the wing of some large bird. Could it be that Myra was even more frightened than he was? Could it be that his mother had been? Another Derry memory came shooting up from his subconscious like a balefully fizzing firework. There had been a shoe store downtown on Center Street. The Shoeboat. His mother had taken him there one dayhe thought he could have been no more than five or sixand told him to sit still and be good while she got a pair of white pumps for a wedding. So he sat still and was good while his mother talked with Mr. Gardener, who was one of the shoeclerks, but he was only five (or maybe six), and after his mother had rejected the third pair of white pumps Mr. Gardener showed her, Eddie got bored and walked over to the far corner to look at something he had spotted there. At first he thought it was just a big crate standing on end. When he got closer he decided it was some kind of desk. But it sure was the kookiest desk he had ever seen. It was so narrow! It was made of bright polished wood with lots of curvy inlaid lines and carved doojiggers in it. Also, there was a little flight of three stairs leading up to it, and he had never seen a desk with stairs. When he got right up to it, he saw that there was a slot at the bottom of the deskthing, a button on one side, and on top of itentrancing!was something that looked exactly like Captain Videos Spacescope. Eddie walked around to the other side and there was a sign. He must have been at least six, because he had been able to read it, softly whispering each word aloud DO YOUR SHOES FIT RIGHT? CHECK AND SEE! He went back around, climbed the three steps to the little platform, and then stuck his foot into the slot at the bottom of the shoechecker. Did his shoes fit right? Eddie didnt know, but he was wild to check and see. He socked his face into the rubber faceguard and thumbed the button. Green light flooded his eyes. Eddie gasped. He could see a foot floating inside a shoe filled with green smoke. He wiggled his toes, and the toes he was looking at wiggled right backthey were his, all right, just as he had suspected. And then he realized it was not just his toes he could see; he could see his bones, too! The bones in his foot! He crossed his great toe over his second toe (as if sneakily warding off the consequences of telling a lie) and the eldritch bones in the scope made an X that was not white but goblingreen. He could see Then his mother shrieked, a rising sound of panic that cut through the quiet shoe store like a runaway reaperblade, like a firebell, like doom on horseback. He jerked his startled, dismayed face out of the viewer and saw her pelting toward him across the store in her stocking feet, her dress flying out behind her. She knocked a chair over and one of those shoemeasuring things that always tickled his feet went flying. Her bosom heaved. Her mouth was a scarlet O of horror. Faces turned to follow her progress. Eddie get off there! she screamed. Get off there! Those machines give you cancer! Get off there! Eddie! Eddieeeeeee He backed away as if the machine had suddenly grown redhot. In his startled panic he forgot the little flight of stairs behind him. His heels dropped over the top one and he stood there, slowly falling backward, his arms pinwheeling wildly in a losing battle to retain his departing balance. And hadnt he thought with a kind of mad joy Im going to fall! Im going to find out what it feels like to fall and bump my head! Goody for me! ... ? Hadnt he thought that? Or was it only the man imposing his own selfserving adult ideas over whatever his childs mind, always roaring with confused surmises and halfperceived images (images which lost their sense in their very brightness), had thought ... or tried to think? Either way, it was a moot question. He had not fallen. His mother had gotten there in time. His mother had caught him. He had burst into tears, but he had not fallen. Everyone had been looking at them. He remembered that. He remembered Mr. Gardener picking up the shoemeasuring thing and checking the little sliding gadgets on it to make sure they were still okay while another clerk righted the fallen chair and then flapped his arms once, in amused disgust, before putting on his pleasantly neutral salesmans face again. Mostly he remembered his mothers wet cheek and her hot, sour breath. He remembered her whispering over and over in his ear, Dont you ever do that again, dont you ever do that again, dont you ever. It was what his mother chanted to ward off trouble. She had chanted the same thing a year earlier when she discovered the babysitter had taken Eddie to the public pool in Derry Park one stiflingly hot summer daythis had been when the polio scare of the early fifties was just beginning to wind down. She had dragged him out of the pool, telling him he must never do that, never, never, and all the kids had looked as all the clerks and customers were looking now, and her breath had had that same sour tang. She dragged him out of The Shoeboat, shouting at the clerks that she would see them all in court if there was anything wrong with her boy. Eddies terrified tears had continued off and on for the rest of the morning, and his asthma had been particularly bad all day. That night he had lain awake for hours past the time he was usually asleep, wondering exactly what cancer was, if it was worse than polio, if it killed you, how long it took if it did, and how bad it hurt before you died. He also wondered if he would go to hell afterward. The threat had been serious, he knew that much. She had been so scared. That was how he knew. So terrified. Marty, he said across this gulf of years, would you give me a kiss? She kissed him and hugged him so tightly while she was doing it that the bones in his back groaned. If we were in water, he thought, shed drown us both. Dont be afraid, he whispered in her ear. I cant help it! she wailed. I know, he said, and realized that, even though she was hugging him with ribbreaking tightness, his asthma had eased. That whistling note in his breathing was gone. I know, Marty. The taxidriver honked again. Will you call? she asked him tremulously. If I can. Eddie, cant you please tell me what it is? And suppose he did? How far would it go toward setting her mind at rest? Marty, I got a call from Mike Hanlon tonight, and we talked for awhile, but everything we said boiled down to two things. Its started again, Mike said; Will you come? Mike said. And now Ive got a fever, Marty, only its a fever you cant damp down with aspirin, and Ive got a shortness of breath the goddamned aspirator wont touch, because that shortness of breath isnt in my throat or my lungsitis around my heart. Ill come back to you if I can, Marty, but I feel like a man standing at the mouth of an old mineshaft that is full of caveins waiting to happen, standing there and saying goodbye to the daylight. Yesmy, yes! That would surely set her mind at rest! No, he said. I guess I cant tell you what it is. And before she could say more, before she could begin again (Eddie, get out of that taxi! They give you cancer!), he was striding away from her, faster and faster. By the time he got to the cab he was almost running. She was still standing in the doorway when the cab backed into the street, still standing there when they started for the citya big black womanshadow cut out of the light spilling from their house. He waved, and thought she raised her hand in return. Where we headed tonight, my friend? the cabbie asked. Penn Station, Eddie said, and his hand relaxed on the aspirator. His asthma had gone to wherever it went to brood between its assaults on his bronchial tubes. He felt ... almost well. But he needed the aspirator worse than ever four hours later, coming out of a light doze all in a single spasmodic jerk that caused the fellow in the business suit across the way to lower his paper and look at him with faintly apprehensive curiosity. Im back, Eddie! the asthma yelled gleefully. Im back and oh, I dunno, this time I just might killya! Why not? Gotta do it sometime, you know! Cant fuck around with you forever! Eddies chest surged and pulled. He groped for the aspirator, found it, pointed it down his throat, and pulled the trigger. Then he sat back in the tall Amtrak seat, shivering, waiting for relief, thinking of the dream from which he had just awakened. Dream? Christ, if that was all. He was afraid it was more memory than dream. In it there had been a green light like the light inside a shoestore Xray machine, and a rotting leper had pursued a screaming boy named Eddie Kaspbrak through tunnels under the earth. He ran and ran (he runs quite fast Coach Black had told his mother and he ran plenty fast with that rotting thing after him oh yes you better believe it you bet your fur) in this dream where he was eleven years old, and then he had smelled something like the death of time, and someone lit a match and he had looked down and seen the decomposing face of a boy named Patrick Hockstetter, a boy who had disappeared in July of 1958, and there were worms crawling in and out of Patrick Hockstetters cheeks, and that gassy, awful smell was coming from inside of Patrick Hockstetter, and in that dream that was more memory than dream he had looked to one side and had seen two schoolbooks that were fat with moisture and overgrown with green mold Roads to Everywhere, and Understanding Our America. They were in their current condition because it was a foul wetness down here (How I Spent My Summer Vacation, a theme by Patrick HockstetterI spent it dead in a tunnel! Moss grew on my books and they swelled up to the size of Sears catalogues!). Eddie opened his mouth to scream and that was when the scabrous fingers of the leper clittered around his cheek and plunged themselves into his mouth and that was when he woke up with that backsnapping jerk to find himself not in the sewers under Derry, Maine, but in an Amtrak clubcar near the head of a train speeding across Rhode Island under a big white moon. The man across the aisle hesitated, almost thought better of speaking, and then did. Are you all right, sir? Oh yes, Eddie said. I fell asleep and had a bad dream. It got my asthma going. I see. The paper went up again. Eddie saw it was the paper his mother had sometimes referred to as The Jew York Times. Eddie looked out the window at a sleeping landscape lit only by the fairy moon. Here and there were houses, or sometimes clusters of them, most dark, a few showing lights. But the lights seemed little, and falsely mocking, compared to the moons ghostglow. He thought the moon talked to him, he thought suddenly. Henry Bowers. God, he was so crazy. He wondered where Henry Bowers was now. Dead? In prison? Drifting across empty plains somewhere in the middle of the country like an incurable virus, sticking up SevenElevens in the deep slumbrous hours between one and four in the morning or maybe killing some of the people stupid enough to slow down for his cocked thumb in order to transfer the dollars in their wallets to his own? Possible, possible. In a state asylum somewhere? Looking up at this moon, which was approaching the full? Talking to it, listening to answers which only he could hear? Eddie considered this somehow even more possible. He shivered. I am remembering my boyhood at last, he thought. I am remembering how I spent my own summer vacation in that dim dead year of 1958. He sensed that now he could fix upon almost any scene from that summer he wanted to, but he did not want to. Oh God if I could only forget it all again. He leaned his forehead against the dirty glass of the window, his aspirator clasped loosely in one hand like a religious artifact, watching as the night flew apart around the train. Going north, he thought, but that was wrong. Not going north. Because its not a train; its a time machine. Not north; back. Back in time. He thought he heard the moon mutter. Eddie Kaspbrak held his aspirator tightly and closed his eyes against sudden vertigo. 5 Beverly Rogan Takes a Whuppin Tom was nearly asleep when the phone rang. He struggled halfway up, leaning toward it, and then felt one of Beverlys breasts press against his shoulder as she reached over him to get it. He flopped back on his pillow, wondering dully who was calling on their unlisted home phone number at this hour of the night. He heard Beverly say hello, and then he drifted off again. He had put away nearly three sixpacks during the baseball game, and he was shagged. Then Beverlys voice, sharp and curiousWhaaat?drilled into his ear like an icepick and he opened his eyes again. He tried to sit up and the phone cord dug into his thick neck. Get that fucking thing off me, Beverly, he said, and she got up quickly and walked around the bed, holding the phone cord up with tented fingers. Her hair was a deep red, and it flowed over her nightgown in natural waves almost to her waist. Whores hair. Her eyes did not stutter to his face to read the emotional weather there, and Tom Rogan didnt like that. He sat up. His head was starting to ache. Shit, it had probably already been aching, but when you were asleep you didnt know it. He went into the bathroom, urinated for what felt like three hours, and then decided that as long as he was up he ought to get another beer and try to take the curse off the impending hangover. Passing back through the bedroom on his way to the stairs, a man in white boxer shorts that flapped like sails below his considerable belly, his arms like slabs (he looked more like a dockwalloper than the president and general manager of Beverly Fashions, Inc.), he looked over his shoulder and yelled crossly If its that bull dyke Lesley, tell her to go eat out some model and let us sleep! Beverly glanced up briefly, shook her head to indicate it wasnt Lesley, and then looked back at the phone. Tom felt the muscles at the back of his neck tighten up. It felt like a dismissal. Dismissed by Milady. Mifuckinlady. This was starting to look like it might turn into a situation. It might be that Beverly needed a short refresher course on who was in charge around here. It was possible. Sometimes she did. She was a slow learner.

He went downstairs and padded along the hall to the kitchen, absently picking the seat of his shorts out of the crack of his ass, and opened the refrigerator. His reaching hand closed on nothing more alcoholic than a blue Tupperware dish of leftover noodles Romanoff. All the beer was gone. Even the can he kept way in the back (much as he kept a twentydollar bill folded up behind his drivers license for emergencies) was gone. The game had gone fourteen innings, and all for nothing. The White Sox had lost. Bunch of candyasses this year. His eyes drifted to the bottles of hard stuff on the glassedin shelf over the kitchen bar and for a moment he saw himself pouring a splash of Beam over a single icecube. Then he walked back toward the stairs, knowing that was asking for even more trouble than his head was currently in. He glanced at the face of the antique pendulum clock at the foot of the stairs and saw it was past midnight. This intelligence did nothing to improve his temper, which was never very good even at the best of times. He climbed the stairs with slow deliberation, awaretoo awareof how hard his heart was working. Kaboom, kathud. Kaboom, kathud. Kaboom, kathud. It made him nervous when he could feel his heart beating in his ears and wrists as well as in his chest. Sometimes when that happened he would imagine it not as a squeezing and loosening organ but as a big dial on the left side of his chest with the needle edging ominously into the red zone. He did not like that shit; he did not need that shit. What he needed was a good nights sleep. But the numb cunt he was married to was still on the phone. I understand that, Mike.... yes ... yes, I am ... I know ... but . . . A longer pause. Bill Denbrough? she exclaimed, and that icepick drilled into his ear again. He stood outside the bedroom door until he got his breath back. Now it was kathud, kathud, kathud again the booming had stopped. He briefly imagined the needle edging out of the red and then willed the picture away. He was a man, for Christs sake, and a damned good one, not a furnace with a bad thermostat. He was in great shape. He was iron. And if she needed to relearn that, he would be happy to teach her. He started in, then thought better of it and stood where he was a moment longer, listening to her, not particularly caring about who she was talking to or what she said, only listening to the risingfalling tones of her voice. And what he felt was the old familiar dull rage. He had met her in a downtown Chicago singles bar four years ago. Conversation had been easy enough, because they both worked in the Standard Brands Building, and knew a few of the same people. Tom worked for King Landry, Public Relations, on fortytwo. Beverly Marshso she had been thenwas an assistant designer at Delia Fashions, on twelve. Delia, which would later enjoy a modest vogue in the Midwest, catered to young peopleDelia skirts and blouses and shawls and slacks were sold largely to what Delia Castleman called youthstores and what Tom called headshops. Tom Rogan knew two things about Beverly Marsh almost at once she was desirable and she was vulnerable. In less than a month he knew a third as well she was talented. Very talented. In her drawings of casual dresses and blouses he saw a moneymachine of almost scary potential. Not in the headshops, though, he thought, but did not say (at least not then). No more bad lighting, no more knockdown prices, no more shitty displays somewhere in the back of the store between the dope paraphernalia and the rockgroup teeshirts. Leave that shit for the smalltimers. He had known a great deal about her before she knew he had any real interest in her, and that was just the way Tom wanted it. He had been looking for someone like Beverly Marsh all his life, and he moved in with the speed of a lion making a run at a slow antelope. Not that her vulnerability showed on the surfaceyou looked and saw a gorgeous woman, slim but abundantly stacked. Hips werent so great, maybe, but she had a great ass and the best set of tits he had ever seen. Tom Rogan was a titman, always had been, and tall girls almost always had disappointing tits. They wore thin shirts and their nipples drove you crazy, but when you got those thin shirts off you discovered that nipples were really all they had. The tits themselves looked like the pullknobs on a bureau drawer. More than a handfuls wasted, his college roommate had been fond of saying, but as far as Tom was concerned his college roommate had been so full of shit he squeaked going into a turn. Oh, she had been some kind of finelooking, all right, with that dynamite body and that gorgeous fall of red wavy hair. But she was weak ... weak somehow. It was as if she was sending out radio signals which only he could receive. You could point to certain thingshow much she smoked (but he had almost cured her of that), the restless way her eyes moved, never quite meeting the eyes of whoever was talking to her, only touching them from time to time and then leaping nimbly away; her habit of lightly rubbing her elbows when she was nervous; the look of her fingernails, which were kept neat but brutally short. Tom noticed this latter the first time he met her. She picked up her glass of white wine, he saw her nails, and thought She keeps them short like that because she bites them. Lions may not think, at least not the way people think ... but they see. And when antelopes start away from a waterhole, alerted by that dustyrug scent of approaching death, the cats can observe which one falls to the rear of the pack, maybe because it has a lame leg, maybe because it is just naturally slower ... or maybe because its sense of danger is less developed. And it might even be possible that some antelopesand some womenwant to be brought down. Suddenly he heard a sound that jerked him rudely out of these memoriesthe snap of her cigarette lighter. The dull rage came again. His stomach filled with a heat which was not entirely unpleasant. Smoking. She was smoking. They had had a few of Tom Rogans Special Seminars on the subject. And here she was, doing it again. She was a slow learner, all right, but a good teacher is at his best with slow learners. Yes, she said now. Uhhuh. All right. Yes ... She listened, then uttered a strange, jagged laugh he had never heard before. Two things, since you askreserve me a room and say me a prayer. Yes, okay ... uhhuh ... me too. Goodnight. She was hanging up as he came in. He meant to come in hard, yelling at her to put it out, put it out now, RIGHT NOW!, but when he saw her the words died in his throat. He had seen her like this before, but only two or three times. Once before their first big show, once before the first private preview showing for national buyers, and once when they had gone to New York for the International Design Awards. She was moving across the bedroom in long strides, the white lace nightgown molded to her body, the cigarette clamped between her front teeth (God he hated the way she looked with a butt in her mouth) sending back a little white riband over her left shoulder like smoke from a locomotives stack. But it was her face that really gave him pause, that caused the planned shout to die in his throat. His heart lurchedkaBAMP! and he winced, telling himself that what he felt was not fear but only surprise at finding her this way. She was a woman who really came alive all the way only when the rhythm of her work spiked toward a climax. Each of those remembered occasions had of course been careerrelated. At those times he had seen a different woman from the one he knew so wella woman who fucked up his sensitive fearradar with wild bursts of static. The woman who came out in times of stress was strong but highstrung, fearless but unpredictable. There was lots of color in her cheeks now, a natural blush high on her cheekbones. Her eyes were wide and sparkly, not a trace of sleep left in them. Her hair flowed and streamed. And ... oh, looky here, friends and neighbors! Oh you just looky right here! Is she taking a suitcase out of the closet? A suitcase? By God, she is! Reserve me a room ... say me a prayer. Well, she wasnt going to need a room in any hotel, not in the foreseeable future, because little Beverly Rogan was going to be staying right here at home, thank you very much, and taking her meals standing up for the next three or four days. But she very well might need a prayer or two before he was through with her. She tossed the suitcase on the foot of the bed and then went to her bureau. She opened the top drawer and pulled out two pairs of jeans and a pair of cords. Tossed them into the suitcase. Back to the bureau, cigarette streaming smoke over her shoulder. She grabbed a sweater, a couple of teeshirts, one of the old Ship n Shore blouses that she looked so stupid in but refused to give up. Whoever had called her sure hadnt been a jetsetter. This was dull stuff, strictly JackieKennedyHyannisportweekend stuff. Not that he cared about who had called her or where she thought she was going, since she wasnt going anywhere. Those were not the things which pecked steadily at his mind, dull and achy from too much beer and not enough sleep. It was that cigarette. Supposedly she had thrown them all out. But she had held out on himthe proof was clamped between her teeth right now. And because she still had not noticed him standing in the doorway, he allowed himself the pleasure of remembering the two nights which had assured him of his complete control over her. I dont want you to smoke around me anymore, he told her as they headed home from a party in Lake Forest. October, that had been. I have to choke that shit down at parties and at the office, but I dont have to choke it down when Im with you. You know what its like? Im going to tell you the truthits unpleasant but its the truth. Its like having to eat someone elses snot. He thought this would bring some faint spark of protest, but she had only looked at him in her shy, wantingtoplease way. Her voice had been low and meek and obedient. All right, Tom. Pitch it then. She pitched it. Tom had been in a good humor for the rest of that night. A few weeks later, coming out of a movie, she unthinkingly lit a cigarette in the lobby and puffed it as they walked across the parking lot to the car. It had been a bitter November night, the wind chopping like a maniac at any exposed square inch of flesh it could find. Tom remembered he had been able to smell the lake, as you sometimes could on cold nightsa flat smell that was both fishy and somehow empty. He let her smoke the cigarette. He even opened her door for her when they got to the car. He got in behind the wheel, closed his own door, and then said Bev? She took the cigarette out of her mouth, turned toward him, inquiring, and he unloaded on her pretty good, his hard open hand striking across her cheek hard enough to make his palm tingle, hard enough to rock her head back against the headrest. Her eyes widened with surprise and pain ... and something else as well. Her own hand flew to her cheek to investigate the warmth and tingling numbness there. She cried out Owww! Tom! He looked at her, eyes narrowed, mouth smiling casually, completely alive, ready to see what would come next, how she would react. His cock was stiffening in his pants, but he barely noticed. That was for later. For now, school was in session. He replayed what had just happened. Her face. What had that third expression been, there for a bare instant and then gone? First the surprise. Then the pain. Then the (nostalgia) look of a memory ... of some memory. It had only been for a moment. He didnt think she even knew it had been there, on her face or in her mind. Now now. It would all be in the first thing she didnt say. He knew that as well as his own name. It wasnt You son of a bitch! It wasnt See you later, Macho City. It wasnt Were through, Tom. She only looked at him with her wounded, brimming hazel eyes and said Why did you do that? Then she tried to say something else and burst into tears instead. Throw it out. What? What, Tom? Her makeup was running down her face in muddy tracks. He didnt mind that. He kind of liked seeing her that way. It was messy, but there was something sexy about it, too. Slutty. Kind of exciting. The cigarette. Throw it out. Realization dawning. And with it, guilt. I just forgot! she cried. Thats all! Throw it out, Bev, or youre going to get another shot. She rolled the window down and pitched the cigarette. Then she turned back to him, her face pale and scared and somehow serene. You cant ... you arent supposed to hit me. Thats a bad basis for a ... a ... a lasting relationship. She was trying to find a tone, an adult rhythm of speech, and failing. He had regressed her. He was in this car with a child. Voluptuous and sexy as hell, but a child. Cant and arent are two different things, keed, he said. He kept his voice calm but inside he was jittering and jiving. And Ill be the one to decide what constitutes a lasting relationship and what doesnt. If you can live with that, fine. If you cant, you can take a walk. I wont stop you. I might kick you once in the ass as a goingaway present, but I wont stop you. Its a free country. What more can I say? Maybe youve already said enough, she whispered, and he hit her again, harder than the first time, because no broad was ever going to smart off to Tom Rogan. He would pop the Queen of England if she cracked smart to him. Her cheek banged the padded dashboard. Her hand groped for the doorhandle and then fell away. She only crouched in the corner like a rabbit, one hand over her mouth, her eyes large and wet and frightened. Tom looked at her for a moment and then he got out and walked around the back of the car. He opened her door. His breath was smoke in the black, windy November air and the smell of the lake was very clear. You want to get out, Bev? I saw you reaching for the doorhandle, so I guess you must want to get out. Okay. Thats all right. I asked you to do something and you said you would. Then you didnt. So you want to get out? Come on. Get out. What the fuck, right? Get out. You want to get out? No, she whispered. What? I cant hear you. No, I dont want to get out, she said a little louder. Whatthose cigarettes giving you emphysema? If you cant talk, Ill get you a fucking megaphone. This is your last chance, Beverly. You speak up so I can hear you do you want to get out of this car or do you want to come back with me? Want to come back with you, she said, and clasped her hands on her skirt like a little girl. She wouldnt look at him. Tears slipped down her cheeks. All right, he said. Fine. But first you say this for me, Bev. You say, I forgot about smoking in front of you, Tom. Now she looked at him, her eyes wounded, pleading, inarticulate. You can make me do this, her eyes said, but please dont. Dont, I love you, cant it be over? Noit could not. Because that was not the bottom of her wanting, and both of them knew it. Say it. I forgot about smoking in front of you, Tom. Good. Now say Im sorry. Im sorry, she repeated dully. The cigarette lay smoking on the pavement like a cut piece of fuse. People leaving the theater glanced over at them, the man standing by the open passenger door of a latemodel, fadeintothewoodwork Vega, the woman sitting inside, her hands clasped primly in her lap, her head down, the domelight outlining the soft fall of her hair in gold. He crushed the cigarette out. He smeared it against the blacktop. Now say Ill never do it again without your permission. Ill never ... Her voice began to hitch. . . . never . . . nnn Say it, Bev. ... never ddo it again. Without your ppermission. So he had slammed the door and gone back around to the drivers seat. He got behind the wheel and drove them back to his downtown apartment. Neither of them said a word. Half the relationship had been set in the parking lot; the second half was set forty minutes later, in Toms bed. She didnt want to make love, she said. He saw a different truth in her eyes and the strutty cock of her legs, however, and when he got her blouse off her nipples had been rock hard. She moaned when he brushed them, and cried out softly when he suckled first one and then the other, kneading them restlessly as he did so. She grabbed his hand and thrust it between her legs. I thought you didnt want to, he said, and she had turned her face away ... but she did not let go of his hand, and the rocking motion of her hips actually speeded up. He pushed her back on the bed ... and now he was gentle, not ripping her underwear but removing it with a careful consideration that was almost prissy. Sliding into her was like sliding into some exquisite oil. He moved with her, using her but letting her use him as well, and she came the first time almost at once, crying out and digging her nails into his back. Then they rocked together in long, slow strokes and somewhere in there he thought she came again. Tom would get close, and then he would think of White Sox batting averages or who was trying to undercut him for the Chesley account at work and he would be okay again. Then she began to speed up, her rhythm finally dissolving into an excited bucking. He looked at her face, the raccoon ringlets of mascara, the smeared lipstick, and he felt himself suddenly shooting deliriously toward the edge. She jerked her hips up harder and harderthere had been no beergut between them in those days and their bellies clapped hands in a quickening beat. Near the end she screamed and then bit his shoulder with her small, even teeth. How many times did you come? he asked her after they had showered. She turned her face away, and when she spoke her voice was so low he almost couldnt hear her. That isnt something youre supposed to ask. No? Who told you that? Mister Rogers? He took her face in one hand, thumb pressing deep into one cheek, fingers pressing into the other, palm cupping her chin in between. You talk to Tom, he said. You hear me, Bev? Talk to Papa. Three, she said reluctantly. Good, he said. You can have a cigarette. She looked at him distrustfully, her red hair spread over the pillows, wearing nothing but a pair of hiphugger panties. Just looking at her that way got his motor turning over again. He nodded. Go on, he said. Thats all right. They had been married in a civil ceremony three months later. Two of his friends had come; the only friend of hers to attend had been Kay McCall, whom Tom called that titsy womenslib bitch. All of these memories went through Toms mind in a space of seconds, like a speededup piece of film, as he stood in the doorway watching her. She had gone on to the bottom drawer of what she sometimes called her weekend bureau, and now she was tossing underwear into the suitcasenot the sort of stuff he liked, the slippery satins and smooth silks; this was cotton stuff, littlegirl stuff, most of it faded and with little puffs of popped elastic on the waistbands. A cotton nightie that looked like something out of Little House on the Prairie. She poked in the back of this bottom drawer to see what else might be lurking in there. Tom Rogan, meanwhile, moved across the shag rug toward his wardrobe. His feet were bare and his passage noiseless as a puff of breeze. It was the cigarette. That was what had really gotten him mad. It had been a long time since she had forgotten that first lesson. There had been other lessons to learn since, a great many, and there had been hot days when she had worn longsleeved blouses or even cardigan sweaters buttoned all the way to the neck. Gray days when she had worn sunglasses. But that first lesson had been so sudden and fundamental He had forgotten the telephone call that had wakened him out of his deepening sleep. It was the cigarette. If she was smoking now, then she had forgotten Tom Rogan. Temporarily, of course, only temporarily, but even temporarily was too damned long. What might have caused her to forget didnt matter. Such things were not to happen in his house for any reason. There was a wide black strip of leather hanging from a hook inside the closet door. There was no buckle on it; he had removed that long ago. It was doubled over at one end where a buckle would have gone, and this doubledover section formed a loop into which Tom Rogan now slipped his hand. Tom, you been bad! his mother had sometimes saidwell, sometimes was maybe not such a good word; maybe often would have been a better one. You come here, Tommy! I got to give you a whuppin. His life as a child had been punctuated by whuppins. He had finally escaped to Wichita State College, but apparently there was no such thing as a complete escape, because he continued to hear her voice in dreams Come here, Tommy. I got to give you a whuppin. Whuppin ... He had been the eldest of four. Three months after the youngest had been born, Ralph Rogan had diedwell, died was maybe not such a good word; maybe committed suicide would have been a better way to put it, since he had poured a generous quantity of lye into a tumbler of gin and quaffed this devils brew while sitting on the bathroom hopper. Mrs. Rogan had found work at the Ford plant. Tom, although only eleven, became the man of the family. And if he screwed upif the baby shat her didies after the sitter went home and the mess was still in them when Mom got home ... if he forgot to cross Megan on the Broad Street corner after her nursery school got out and that nosy Mrs. Gant saw ... if he happened to be watching American Bandstand while Joey made a mess in the kitchen ... if any of those things or a thousand others happened ... then, after the smaller children were in bed, the spanking stick would come out and she would call the invocation Come here, Tommy. I got to give you a whuppin. Better to be the whupper than the whupped. If he had learned nothing else on the great tollroad of life, he had learned that. So he flipped the loose end of the belt over once and pulled the loop snug. Then he closed his fist over it. It felt good. It made him feel like a grownup. The strip of leather hung from his clenched fist like a dead blacksnake. His headache was gone. She had found that one last thing in the back of the drawer an old white cotton bra with gunshell cups. The thought that this earlymorning call might have been from a lover surfaced briefly in his mind and then sank again. That was ridiculous. A woman going away to meet her lover did not pack her faded Ship n Shore blouses and her cotton KMart undies with the pops and snarls in the elastic. Also, she wouldnt dare. Beverly, he said softly, and she turned at once, startled, her eyes wide, her long hair swinging. The belt hesitated ... dropped a little. He stared at her, feeling that little bloom of uneasiness again. Yes, she had looked this way before the big shows, and then he hadnt gotten in her way, understanding that she was so filled with a mixture of fear and competitive aggressiveness that it was as if her head was full of illuminating gas a single spark and she would explode. She had seen the shows not as a chance to split off from Delia Fashions, to make a livingor even a fortuneon her own. If that had been all, she would have been fine. But if that were all, she also would not have been so ungodly talented. She had seen those shows as a kind of superexam on which she would be graded by fierce teachers. What she saw on those occasions was some creature without a face. It had no face, but it did have a nameAuthority. All of that wideeyed nerviness was on her face now. But not just there; it was all around her, an aura that seemed almost visible, a hightension charge which made her suddenly both more alluring and more dangerous than she had seemed to him in years. He was afraid because she was here, all here, the essential she as apart from the she Tom Rogan wanted her to be, the she he had made. Beverly looked shocked and frightened. She also looked almost madly exhilarated. Her cheeks glowed with hectic color, yet there were stark white patches below her lower lids which looked almost like a second pair of eyes. Her forehead glowed with a creamy resonance. And the cigarette was still jutting out of her mouth, now at a slight upangle, as if she thought she was goddam Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The cigarette! Just looking at it caused dull fury to wash over him again in a green wave. Faintly, far back in his mind, he remembered her saying something to him one night out of the dark, speaking in a dull and listless voice Someday youre going to kill me, Tom. Do you know that? Someday youre just going to go too far and that will be the end. Youll snap. He had answered You do it my way, Bev, and that day will never come. Now, before the rage blotted out everything, he wondered if that day hadnt come after all. The cigarette. Never mind the call, the packing, the weird look on her face. They would deal with the cigarette. Then he would fuck her. Then they could discuss the rest. By then it might even seem important. Tom, she said. Tom, I have to Youre smoking, he said. His voice seemed to come from a distance, as if over a pretty good radio. Looks like you forgot, babe. Where you been hiding them? Look, Ill put it out, she said, and went to the bathroom door. She flipped the cigaretteeven from here he could see the teethmarks driven deep into the filterinto the bowl of the john. Fsssss. She came back out. Tom, that was an old friend. An old old friend. I have to Shut up, thats what you have to do! he shouted at her. Just shut up! But the fear he wanted to seethe fear of himwas not on her face. There was fear, but it had come out of the telephone, and fear was not supposed to come to Beverly from that direction. It was almost as if she didnt see the belt, didnt see him, and Tom felt a trickle of unease. Was he here? It was a stupid question, but was he? This question was so terrible and so elemental that for a moment he felt in danger of coming completely unwrapped from the root of himself and just floating off like a tumbleweed in a high breeze. Then he caught hold of himself. He was here, all right, and that was quite enough fucking psychobabble for one night. He was here, he was Tom Rogan, Tom byGod Rogan, and if this dippy cunt didnt straighten up and fly right in the next thirty seconds or so, she was going to look like she got pushed out of a fastmoving boxcar by a mean railroad dick. Got to give you a whuppin, he said. Sorry about that, babe. He had seen that mixture of fear and aggressiveness before, yes. Now for the first time ever it flashed out at him. Put that thing down, she said. I have to get out to OHare as fast as I can. Are you here, Tom? Are you? He pushed the thought away. The strip of leather which had once been a belt swung slowly before him like a pendulum. His eyes flickered and then held fast to her face. Listen to me, Tom. Theres been some trouble back in my home town. Very bad trouble. I had a friend in those days. I guess he would have been my boyfriend, except we werent quite old enough for that. He was only an elevenyearold kid with a bad stutter back then. Hes a novelist now. You even read one of his books, I think ... The Black Rapids? She searched his face but his face gave no sign. There was only the belt penduluming back and forth, back and forth. He stood with his head lowered and his stocky legs slightly apart. Then she ran her hand restlessly through her hairdistractedlyas if she had many important things to think of and hadnt seen the belt at all, and that haunting, awful question resurfaced in his head again Are you there? Are you sure? That book laid around here for weeks and I never made the connection. Maybe I should have, but were all older and I haven even thought about Derry in a long, long time. Anyway, Bill had a brother, George, and George was killed before I really knew Bill. He was murdered. And then, the next summer But Tom had listened to enough craziness from within and from without. He moved in on her fast, cocking his right arm back over his shoulder like a man about to throw a javelin. The belt hissed a path through the air. Beverly saw it coming and tried to duck away, but her right shoulder struck the bathroom doorway and there was a meaty whap! as the belt struck her left forearm, leaving a red weal. Gonna whup you, Tom repeated. His voice was sane, even regretful, but his teeth showed in a white and frozen smile. He wanted to see that look in her eyes, that look of fear and terror and shame, that look that said Yes youre right I deserved it, that look that said Yes youre there all right, I feel your presence. Then love could come back, and that was right and good, because he did love her. They could even have a discussion, if she wanted it, of exactly who had called and what all this was about. But that must come later. For now, school was in session. The old onetwo. First the whuppin, then the fuckin. Sorry, babe. Tom, dont do th He swung the belt sidearm and saw it lick around her hip. There was a satisfying snap as it finished on her buttock. And ... And Jesus, she was grabbing at it! She was grabbing at the belt! For a moment Tom Rogan was so astounded by this unexpected act of insubordination that he almost lost his punisher, would have lost it except for the loop, which was tucked securely into his fist. He jerked it back. Dont you ever try to grab something away from me, he said hoarsely. You hear me? You ever do that again and youll spend a month pissing raspberry juice. Tom, stop it, she said, and her very tone infuriated himshe sounded like a playground monitor talking down to a tantrumy sixyearold. I have to go. This is no joke. People are dead, and I made a promise a long time ago Tom heard little of this. He bellowed and ran at her with his head down, the belt swinging blindly. He hit her with it, driving her away from the doorway and along the bedroom wall. He cocked his arm back, hit her, cocked his arm back, hit her, cocked his arm back, hit her. Later that morning he would not be able to raise the arm above eye level until he had swallowed three codeine tablets, but for now he was aware of nothing but the fact that she was defying him. She had not only been smoking, she had tried to grab the belt away from him, and oh folks, oh friends and neighbors, she had asked for it, and he would testify before the throne of God Almighty that she was going to get it. He drove her along the wall, swinging the belt, raining blows on her. Her hands were up to protect her face, but he had a clear shot at the rest of her. The belt made thick bullwhip cracks in the quiet room. But she did not scream, as she sometimes did, and she did not beg him to stop, as she usually did. Worst of all, she did not cry, as she always did. The only sounds were the belt and their breathing, his heavy and hoarse, hers quick and light. She broke for the bed and the vanity table on her side of it. Her shoulders were red from the belts blows. Her hair streamed fire. He lumbered after her, slower but big, very bighe had played squash until he had popped an Achilles tendon two years ago, and since then his weight had gotten out of hand a little bit (or maybe a lot would have been a better way to put it), but the muscle was still there, firm cordage sheathed in the fat. Still, he was a little alarmed at how out of breath he was. She reached the vanity and he thought she would crouch there, or maybe try to crawl under it. Instead she groped ... turned ... and suddenly the air was full of flying missiles. She was throwing cosmetics at him. A bottle of Chantilly struck him squarely between the nipples, fell to his feet, shattered. He was suddenly enveloped in the gagging scent of flowers. Quit it! he roared.

Quit it, you bitch! Instead of quitting it, her hands flew along the vanitys littered glass top, grabbing whatever they found, throwing it. He groped at his chest where the bottle of Chantilly had struck him, unable to believe she had hit him with something, even as other objects flew around him. The bottles glass stopper had cut him. It was not much of a cut, little more than a triangular scratch, but was there a certain redhaired lady who was going to see the sun come up from a hospital bed? Oh yes, there was. A certain lady who A jar of cream struck him above the right eyebrow with sudden, cracking force. He heard a dull thud seemingly inside his head. White light exploded over that eyes field of vision and he fell back a step, mouth dropping open. Now a tube of Nivea cream struck his belly with a small slapping sound and she waswas she? was it possible?yes! She was yelling at him! Im going to the airport, you son of a bitch! Do you hear me? I have business and Im going! You want to get out of my way because IM GOING! Blood ran into his right eye, stinging and hot. He knuckled it away. He stood there for a moment, staring at her as if he had never seen her before. In a way he never had. Her breasts heaved rapidly. Her face, all flush and livid pallor, blazed. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in a snarl. She had, however, denuded the top of the vanity table. The missile silo was empty. He could still read the fear in her eyes ... but it was still not fear of him. You put those clothes back, he said, struggling not to pant as he spoke. That would not sound good. That would sound weak. Then you put the suitcase back and get into bed. And if you do those things, maybe I wont beat you up too bad. Maybe youll be able to go out of the house in two days instead of two weeks. Tom, listen to me. She spoke slowly. Her gaze was very clear. If you come near me again, Ill kill you. Do you understand that, you tub of guts? Ill kill you. And suddenlymaybe it was because of the utter loathing on her face, the contempt, maybe because she had called him a tub of guts, or maybe only because of the rebellious way her breasts rose and fellthe fear was suffocating him. It was not a bud or a bloom but a whole goddam garden, the fear, the horrible fear that he was not here. Tom Rogan rushed at his wife, not bellowing this time. He came as silently as a torpedo cutting through the water. His intent now was probably not merely to beat and subjugate but to do to her what she had so rashly said she would do to him. He thought she would run. Probably for the bathroom. Maybe for the stairs. Instead, she stood her ground. Her hip whacked the wall as she threw her weight against the vanity table, pushing it up and toward him, ripping two fingernails down to the quick when the sweat on her palms caused her hands to slip. For a moment the table tottered on an angle and then she shoved herself forward again. The vanity waltzed on one leg, mirror catching the light and reflecting a brief swimmy aquarium shadow across the ceiling, and then it tilted forward and outward. Its leading edge slammed into Toms upper thighs and knocked him over. There was a musical jingle as bottles tipped over and shattered inside. He saw the mirror strike the floor on his left and threw an arm up to shield his eyes, losing the belt. Glass coughed across the floor, silver on the back. He felt some of it sting him, drawing blood. Now she was crying, her breath coming in high, screamy sobs. Time after time she had seen herself leaving him, leaving Toms tyranny as she had left that of her father, stealing away in the night, bags piled in the trunk of her Cutlass. She was not a stupid woman, certainly not stupid enough even now, standing on the rim of this incredible shambles, to believe that she had not loved Tom and did not in some way love him still. But that did not preclude her fear of him ... her hate of him ... and her contempt of herself for choosing him for dim reasons buried in the times that should be over. Her heart was not breaking; it seemed rather to be broiling in her chest, melting. She was afraid the heat from her heart might soon destroy her sanity in fire. But above all this, yammering steadily in the back of her mind, she could hear Mike Hanlons dry, steady voice Its come back, Beverly ... its come back ... and you promised... The vanity heaved up and down. Once. Twice. A third time. It looked as if it were breathing. Moving with careful agility, her mouth turned down at the corners and jerking as if in prelude to some sort of convulsion, she skirted the vanity, toestepping through the broken glass, and grabbed the belt just as Tom heaved the vanity off to one side. Then she backed up, sliding her hand into the loop. She shook her hair out of her eyes and watched to see what he would do. Tom got up. Some of the mirrorglass had cut one of his cheeks. A diagonal cut traced a line as fine as thread across his brow. He squinted at her as he rose slowly to his feet, and she saw drops of blood on his boxer shorts. You just give me that belt, he said. Instead she took two turns of it around her hand and looked at him defiantly. Quit it, Bev. Right now. If you come for me, Im going to strap the shit out of you. The words were coming out of her mouth but she couldnt believe it was her saying them. And just who was this caveman in the bloody undershorts, anyway? Her husband? Her father? The lover she had taken in college who had broken her nose one night, apparently on a whim? Oh God help me, she thought. God help me now. And still her mouth went on. I can do it, too. Youre fat and slow, Tom. Im going, and I think maybe Ill stay gone. I think maybe its over. Whos this guy Denbrough? Forget it. I was She realized almost too late that the question had been a distraction. He was coming for her before the last word was out of his mouth. She whickered the belt through the air in an arc and the sound it made when it smashed across his mouth was the sound of a stubborn cork coming out of a bottle. He squealed and clapped his hands to his mouth, his eyes huge, hurt and shocked. Blood began to pour between his fingers and over the backs of his hands. You broke my mouth, you bitch! he screamed, muffled. Ah God you broke my mouth! He came at her again, hands reaching, his mouth a wet red smear. His lips appeared to have burst in two places. The crown had been knocked from one of his front teeth. As she watched, he spit it to one side. Part of her was backing away from this scene, sick and moaning, wanting to shut her eyes. But that other Beverly felt the exultation of a deathrow convict freed in a freak earthquake. That Beverly liked all of this just fine. I wish youd swallowed it! that one thought. Wish youd choked on it! It was this latter Beverly who swung the belt for the last timethe belt he had used on her buttocks, her legs, her breasts. The belt he had used on her times without number over the last four years. How many strokes you got depended on how badly youd screwed up. Tom comes home and dinner is cold? Two with the belt. Bevs working late at the studio and forgets to call home? Three with the belt. Oh hey, look at thisBeverly got another parking ticket. One with the belt ... across the breasts. He was good. He rarely bruised. It didnt even hurt that much. Except for the humiliation. That hurt. And what hurt worse was knowing that part of her craved the hurt. Craved the humiliation. Last time pays for all, she thought, and swung. She brought the belt in low, brought it in sidearm, and it whacked across his balls with a brisk yet heavy sound, the sound of a woman striking a rug with a carpetbeater. That was all it took. All the fight promptly went out of Tom Rogan. He uttered a thin, strengthless shriek and fell on his knees as if to pray. His hands were between his legs. His head was thrown back. Cords stood out on his neck. His mouth was a tragedygrimace of pain. His left knee came down squarely on a heavy, pointed hook of shattered perfume bottle and he rolled silently over on one side like a whale. One hand left his balls to grab his squirting knee. The blood, she thought. Dear Lord, hes bleeding everywhere. Hell live, this new Beverlythe Beverly who seemed to have surfaced at Mike Hanlons phone callreplied coldly. Guys like him always live. You just get the hell out of here before he decides he wants to tango some more. Or before he decides to go down cellar and get his Winchester. She backed away and felt pain stab her foot as she stepped on a chunk of glass from the broken vanity mirror. She bent down to grab the handle of her suitcase. She never took her eyes off him. She backed out the door and she backed down the hall. She was holding the suitcase in front of her in both hands and it banged her shins as she backed. Her cut foot printed bloody heelprints. When she reached the stairs she turned around and went down quickly, not letting herself think. She suspected she had no coherent thoughts left inside anyway, at least for the time being. She felt a light pawing against her leg and screamed. She looked down and saw it was the end of the belt. It was still wrapped around her hand. In this dim light it looked more like a dead snake than ever. She threw it over the bannister, her face a wince of disgust, and saw it land in an S on the rug of the downstairs hallway. At the foot of the stairs she grasped the hem of her white lace nightgown crosshanded and pulled it over her head. It was bloody, and she would not wear it one second longer, no matter what. She tossed it aside and it billowed onto the rubberplant by the doorway to the living room like a lacy parachute. She bent, naked, to the suitcase. Her nipples were cold, hard as bullets. BEVERLY, YOU GET YOUR ASS UPSTAIRS! She gasped, jerked, then bent back to the suitcase. If he was strong enough to scream that loud, her time was a good deal shorter than she had thought. She opened the case and pawed out panties, a blouse, an old pair of Levis. She jerked these on standing by the door, her eyes never leaving the stairs. But Tom did not appear at the top of them. He bawled her name twice more, and each time she flinched away from that sound, her eyes hunted, her lips pulling back from her teeth in an unconscious snarl. She jabbed the buttons of the blouse through the holes as fast as she could. The top two buttons were gone (it was ironic how little of her own sewing ever got done) and she supposed she looked quite a bit like a parttime hooker looking for one last quickie before calling it a nightbut it would have to do. ILL KILL YOU, YOU BITCH! YOU FUCKING BITCH! She slammed the suitcase closed and latched it. The arm of a blouse poked out like a tongue. She looked around once, quickly, suspecting that she would never see this house again. She discovered only relief in the idea, and so opened the door and let herself out. She was three blocks away, walking with no clear sense of where she was going, when she realized her feet were still bare. The one she had cutthe leftthrobbed dully. She had to get something on her feet, and it was nearly two oclock in the morning. Her wallet and creditcards were at home. She felt in the pockets of the jeans and came up with nothing but a few puffs of lint. She didnt have a dime; not so much as a red penny. She looked around at the residential neighborhood she was innice homes, manicured lawns and plantings, dark windows. And suddenly she began to laugh. Beverly Rogan sat on a low stone wall, her suitcase between her dirty feet, and laughed. The stars were out, and how bright they were! She tilted her head back and laughed at them, that wild exhilaration washing through her again like a tidal wave that lifted and carried and cleansed, a force so powerful that any conscious thought was lost; only her blood thought and its one powerful voice spoke to her in some inarticulate way of desire, although what it was it desired she neither knew nor cared. It was enough to feel that warmth filling her up with its insistence. Desire, she thought, and inside her that tidal wave of exhilaration seemed to gather speed, rushing her onward toward some inevitable crash. She laughed at the stars, frightened but free, her terror as sharp as pain and as sweet as a ripe October apple, and when a light came on in an upstairs bedroom of the house this stone wall belonged to, she grabbed the handle of her suitcase and fled off into the night, still laughing. 6 Bill Denbrough Takes Time Out Leave? Audra repeated. She looked at him, puzzled, a bit afraid, and then tucked her bare feet up and under her. The floor was cold. The whole cottage was cold, come to that. The south of England had been experiencing an exceptionally dank spring, and more than once, on his regular morning and evening walks, Bill Denbrough had found himself thinking of Maine ... thinking in a surprised vague way of Derry. The cottage was supposed to have central heatingthe ad had said so, and there certainly was a furnace down there in the tidy little basement, tucked away in what had once been a coalbinbut he and Audra had discovered early on in the shoot that the British idea of central heating was not at all the same as the American one. It seemed the Brits believed you had central heating as long as you didnt have to piss away a scrim of ice in the toilet bowl when you got up in the morning. It was morning nowjust quarter of eight. Bill had hung the phone up five minutes ago. Bill, you cant just leave. You know that. I have to, he said. There was a hutch on the far side of the room. He went to it, took a bottle of Glenfiddich from the top shelf and poured himself a drink. Some of it slopped over the side of the glass. Fuck, he muttered. Who was that on the telephone? What are you scared of, Bill? Im not scared. Oh? Your hands always shake like that? You always have your first drink before breakfast? He came back to his chair, robe flapping around his ankles, and sat down. He tried to smile, but it was a poor effort and he gave it up. On the telly the BBC announcer was wrapping up this mornings batch of bad news before going on to last evenings football scores. When they had arrived in the small suburban village of Fleet a month before the shoot was scheduled to begin, they had both marvelled over the technical quality of British televisionon a good Pye color set, it really did look as though you could climb right inside. More lines or something, Bill had said. I dont know what it is, but its great, Audra had replied. That was before they discovered that much of the programming consisted of American shows such as Dallas and endless British sports events ranging from the arcane and boring (champion dartsthrowing in which all the participants looked like hypertensive sumo wrestlers) to the simply boring (British football was bad; cricket was even worse). Ive been thinking about home a lot lately, Bill said, and sipped his drink. Home? she said, and looked so honestly puzzled that he laughed. Poor Audra! Married almost eleven years to the guy and you dont know doodleysquat about him. What do you know about that? He laughed again and swallowed the rest of his drink. His laughter had a quality she cared for as little as seeing him with a glass of Scotch in his hand at this hour of the morning. The laugh sounded like something that really wanted to be a howl of pain. I wonder if any of the others have got husbands and wives who are just finding out how little they know. I suppose they must. Billy, I know that I love you, she said. For eleven years thats been enough. I know. He smiled at herthe smile was sweet, tired, and scared. Please. Please tell me what this is about. She looked at him with her lovely gray eyes, sitting there in a tatty leasedhouse chair with her feet curled beneath the hem of her nightgown, a woman he had loved, married, and still loved. He tried to see through her eyes, to see what she knew. He tried to see it as a story. He could, but he knew it would never sell. Here is a poor boy from the state of Maine who goes to the University on a scholarship. All his life he has wanted to be a writer, but when he enrolls in the writing courses he finds himself lost without a compass in a strange and frightening land. Theres one guy who wants to be Updike. Theres another one who wants to be a New England version of Faulkneronly he wants to write novels about the grim lives of the poor in blank verse. Theres a girl who admires Joyce Carol Oates but feels that because Oates was nurtured in a sexist society she is radioactive in a literary sense. Oates is unable to be clean, this girl says. She will be cleaner. Theres the short fat grad student who cant or wont speak above a mutter. This guy has written a play in which there are nine characters. Each of them says only a single word. Little by little the playgoers realize that when you put the single words together you come out with War is the tool of the sexist death merchants. This fellows play receives an A from the man who teaches Eh141 (Creative Writing Honors Seminar). This instructor has published four books of poetry and his masters thesis, all with the University Press. He smokes pot and wears a peace medallion. The fat mutterers play is produced by a guerrilla theater group during the strike to end the war which shuts down the campus in May of 1970. The instructor plays one of the characters. Bill Denbrough, meanwhile, has written one lockedroom mystery tale, three sciencefiction stories, and several horror tales which owe a great deal to Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and Richard Mathesonin later years he will say those stories resembled a mid1800s funeral hack equipped with a supercharger and painted DayGlo red. One of the sf tales earns him a B. This is better, the instructor writes on the title page. In the alien counterstrike we see the vicious circle in which violence begets violence; I particularly liked the needlenosed spacecraft as a symbol of sociosexual incursion. While this remains a slightly confused undertone throughout, it is interesting. All the others do no better than a C. Finally he stands up in class one day, after the discussion of a sallow young womans vignette about a cows examination of a discarded engine block in a deserted field (this may or may not be after a nuclear war) has gone on for seventy minutes or so. The sallow girl, who smokes one Winston after another and picks occasionally at the pimples which nestle in the hollows of her temples, insists that the vignette is a sociopolitical statement in the manner of the early Orwell. Most of the classand the instructoragree, but still the discussion drones on. When Bill stands up, the class looks at him. He is tall, and has a certain presence. Speaking carefully, not stuttering (he has not stuttered in better than five years), he says I dont understand this at all. I dont understand any of this. Why does a story have to be socioanything? Politics ... culture ... history ... arent those natural ingredients in any story, if its told well? I mean ... He looks around, sees hostile eyes, and realizes dimly that they see this as some sort of attack. Maybe it even is. They are thinking, he realizes, that maybe there is a sexist death merchant in their midst. I mean ... cant you guys just let a story be a story? No one replies. Silence spins out. He stands there looking from one cool set of eyes to the next. The sallow girl chuffs out smoke and snubs her cigarette in an ashtray she has brought along in her backpack. Finally the instructor says softly, as if to a child having an inexplicable tantrum, Do you believe William Faulkner was just telling stories? Do you believe Shakespeare was just interested in making a buck? Come now, Bill. Tell us what you think. I think thats pretty close to the truth, Bill says after a long moment in which he honestly considers the question, and in their eyes he reads a kind of damnation. I suggest, the instructor says, toying with his pen and smiling at Bill with halflidded eyes, that you have a great deal to learn. The applause starts somewhere in the back of the room. Bill leaves ... but returns the next week, determined to stick with it. In the time between he has written a story called The Dark, a tale about a small boy who discovers a monster in the cellar of his house. The little boy faces it, battles it, finally kills it. He feels a kind of holy exaltation as he goes about the business of writing this story; he even feels that he is not so much telling the story as he is allowing the story to flow through him. At one point he puts his pen down and takes his hot and aching hand out into tendegree December cold where it nearly smokes from the temperature change. He walks around, green cutoff boots squeaking in the snow like tiny shutterhinges which need oil, and his head seems to bulge with the story; it is a little scary, the way it needs to get out. He feels that if it cannot escape by way of his racing hand that it will pop his eyes out in its urgency to escape and be concrete. Going to knock the shit out of it, he confides to the blowing winter dark, and laughs a littlea shaky laugh. He is aware that he has finally discovered how to do just thatafter ten years of trying he has suddenly found the starter button on the vast dead bulldozer taking up so much space inside his head. It has started up. It is revving, revving. It is nothing pretty, this big machine. It was not made for taking pretty girls to proms. It is not a status symbol. It means business. It can knock things down. If he isnt careful, it will knock him down. He rushes inside and finishes The Dark at white heat, writing until four oclock in the morning and finally falling asleep over his ringbinder. If someone had suggested to him that he was really writing about his brother, George, he would have been surprised. He has not thought about George in yearsor so he honestly believes. The story comes back from the instructor with an F slashed into the title page. Two words are scrawled beneath, in capital letters. PULP, screams one. CRAP, screams the other. Bill takes the fifteenpage sheaf of manuscript over to the woodstove and opens the door. He is within a bare inch of tossing it in when the absurdity of what he is doing strikes him. He sits down in his rocking chair, looks at a Grateful Dead poster, and starts to laugh. Pulp? Fine! Let it be pulp! The woods were full of it! Let them fucking trees fall! Bill exclaims, and laughs until tears spurt from his eyes and roll down his face. He retypes the title page, the one with the instructors judgment on it, and sends it off to a mens magazine named White Tie (although from what Bill can see, it really should be titled Naked Girls Who Look Like Drug Users). Yet his battered Writers Market says they buy horror stories, and the two issues he has bought down at the local momandpop store have indeed contained four horror stories sandwiched between the naked girls and the ads for dirty movies and potency pills. One of them, by a man named Dennis Etchison, is actually quite good. He sends The Dark off with no real hopeshe has submitted a good many stories to magazines before with nothing to show for it but rejection slipsand is flabbergasted and delighted when the fiction editor of White Tie buys it for two hundred dollars, payment on publication. The assistant editor adds a short note which calls it the best damned horror story since Ray Bradburys The Jar. He adds, Too bad only about seventy people coast to coast will read it, but Bill Denbrough does not care. Two hundred dollars! He goes to his advisor with a drop card for Eh141. His advisor initials it. Bill Denbrough staples the drop card to the assistant fiction editors congratulatory note and tacks both to the bulletin board on the creativewriting instructors door. In the comer of the bulletin board he sees an antiwar cartoon. And suddenly, as if moving of its own accord, his fingers pluck his pen from his breast pocket and across the cartoon he writes this If fiction and politics ever really do become interchangeable, Im going to kill myself, because I wont know what else to do. You see, politics always change. Stories never do. He pauses, and then, feeling a bit small (but unable to help himself), he adds I suggest you have a lot to learn. His drop card comes back to him in the campus mail three days later. The instructor has initialed it. On the space marked GRADE AT TIME OF DROP, the instructor has not given him an incomplete or the low C to which his run of grades at that time would have entitled him; instead, another F is slashed angrily across the grade line. Below it the instructor has written Do you think money proves anything about anything, Denbrough? Well, actually, yes, Bill Denbrough says to his empty apartment, and once more begins to laugh crazily. In his senior year of college he dares to write a novel, because he has no idea what hes getting into. He escapes the experience scratched and frightened ... but alive, and with a manuscript nearly five hundred pages long. He sends it out to The Viking Press, knowing that it will be the first of many stops for his book, which is about ghosts ... but he likes Vikings ship logo, and that makes it as good a place to start as any. As it turns out, the first stop is also the last stop. Viking purchases the book ... and for Bill Denbrough the fairytale begins. The man who was once known as Stuttering Bill has become a success at the age of twentythree. Three years later and three thousand miles from northern New England, he attains a queer kind of celebrity by marrying a woman who is a moviestar and five years his senior at Hollywoods Church in the Pines. The gossip columnists give it seven months. The only bet, they say, is whether the end will come in a divorce or an annulment. Friends (and enemies) on both sides of the match feel about the same. The age difference apart, the disparities are startling. He is tall, already balding, already inclining a bit toward fat. He speaks slowly in company, and at times seems nearly inarticulate. Audra, on the other hand, is aubumhaired, statuesque, and gorgeousshe is less like an earthly woman than a creature from some semidivine superrace. He has been hired to do the screenplay of his second novel, The Black Rapids (mostly because the right to do at least the first draft of the screenplay was an immutable condition of sale, in spite of his agents moans that he was insane), and his draft has actually turned out pretty well. He has been invited out to Universal City for further rewrites and production meetings. His agent is a small woman named Susan Browne. She is exactly five feet tall. She is violently energetic and even more violently emphatic. Dont do it, Billy, she tells him. Kiss it off. Theyve got a lot of money tied up in it and theyll get someone good to do the screenplay. Maybe even Goldman. Who? William Goldman. The only good writer who ever went out there and did both. What are you talking about, Suze? He stayed there and he stayed good, she said. The odds on both are like the odds on beating lung cancerit can be done, but who wants to try? Youll burn out on sex and booze. Or some of the nifty new drugs. Susans crazily fascinating brown eyes sparkle vehemently up at him. And if it turns out to be some meatball who gets the assignment instead of someone like Goldman, so what? The books on the shelf there. They cant change a word. Susan Listen to me, Billy! Take the money and run. Youre young and strong. Thats what they like. You go out there and they will first separate you from your selfrespect and then from your ability to write a straight line from point A to point B. Last but not least, they will take your testes. You write like a grownup, but youre just a kid with a very high forehead. I have to go. Did someone just fart in here? she returns. Must have, because something sure stinks. But I do. I have to. Jesus! I have to get away from New England. He is afraid to say what comes nextits like mouthing a cursebut he owes it to her. I have to get away from Maine. Why, for Gods sake? I dont know. I just do. Are you telling me something real, Billy, or just talking like a writer? Its real. They are in bed together during this conversation. Her breasts are small like peaches, sweet like peaches. He loves her a lot, although not the way they both know would be a really good way to love. She sits up with a pool of sheet in her lap and lights a cigarette. Shes crying, but he doubts if she knows he knows. Its just this shine in her eyes. It would be tactful not to mention it, so he doesnt. He doesnt love her in that really good way, but he cares a mountain for her. Go on then, she says in a dry businesslike voice as she turns back to him. Give me a call when youre ready, and if you still have the strength. Ill come and pick up the pieces. If there are any left. The film version of The Black Rapids is called Pit of the Black Demon, and Audra Phillips is cast as the lead. The title is horrible, but the movie turns out to be quite good. And the only part of him he loses in Hollywood is his heart. Bill, Audra said again, bringing him out of these memories. He saw she had snapped off the TV. He glanced out the window and saw fog nuzzling against the panes. Ill explain as much as I can, he said. You deserve that. But first do two things for me. All right. Fix yourself another cup of tea and tell me what you know about me. Or what you think you know. She looked at him, puzzled, and then went to the highboy. I know youre from Maine, she said, making herself tea from the breakfast pot. She was not British, but just a touch of clipped British had crept into her voicea holdover from the part she played in Attic Room, the movie they had come over here to do. It was Bills first original screenplay. He had been offered the directorial shot as well. Thank God he had declined that; his leaving now would have completed the job of bitching things up. He knew what they would all say, the whole crew. Billy Denbrough finally shows his true colors. Just another fucking writer, crazier than a shithouse rat. God knew he felt crazy right about now. I know you had a brother and that you loved him very much and that he died, Audra went on. I know that you grew up in a town called Derry, moved to Bangor about two years after your brother died, and moved to Portland when you were fourteen. I know your dad died of lung cancer when you were seventeen. And you wrote a bestseller while you were still in college, paying your way with a scholarship and a parttime job in a textile mill. That must have seemed very strange to you ... the change in income. In prospects. She returned to his side of the room and he saw it in her face then the realization of the hidden spaces between them. I know that you wrote The Black Rapids a year later, and came out to Hollywood. And the week before shooting started on the movie, you met a very mixedup woman named Audra Phillips who knew a little bit about what you must have been throughthe crazy decompressionbecause she had been plain old Audrey Philpott five years before. And this woman was drowning Audra, dont. Her eyes were steady, holding his. Oh, why not? Let us tell the truth and shame the devil. I was drowning. I discovered poppers two years before I met you, and then a year later I discovered coke and that was even better. A popper in the morning, coke in the afternoon, wine at night, a Valium at bedtime. Audras vitamins. Too many important interviews, too many good parts. I was so much like a character in a Jacqueline Susann novel it was hilarious. Do you know how I think about that time now, Bill? No. She sipped her tea, her eyes never leaving his, and grinned. It was like running on the walkway at L.A. International.

You get it? Not exactly, no. Its a moving belt, she said. About a quarter of a mile long. I know the walkway, he said, but I dont see what youre You just stand there and it carries you all the way to the baggageclaim area. But if you want, you dont have to just stand there. You can walk on it. Or run. And it seems like youre just doing your normal walk or your normal jog or your normal run or your normal allout sprintwhateverbecause your body forgets that what youre really doing is topping the speed the walkways already making. Thats why they have those signs that say SLOW DOWN, MOVING RAMPWAY near the end. When I met you I felt as if Id run right off the end of that thing onto a floor that didnt move anymore. There I was, my body nine miles ahead of my feet. You cant keep your balance. Sooner or later you fall right on your face. Except I didnt. Because you caught me. She put her tea aside and lit a cigarette, her eyes never leaving him. He could only see that her hands were shaking in the minute jitter of the lighterflame, which darted first to the right of the cigaretteend and then to the left before finding it. She drew deep, blew out a fast jet of smoke. What do I know about you? I know you seemed to have it all under control. I know that. You never seemed to be in a hurry to get to the next drink or the next meeting or the next party. You seemed confident that all those things would be there ... if you wanted them. You talked slow. Part of it was the Maine drawl, I guess, but most of it was just you. You were the first man I ever met out there who dared to talk slow. I had to slow down to listen. I looked at you, Bill, and I saw someone who never ran on the walkway, because he knew it would get him there. You seemed utterly untouched by the hype and hysteria. You didnt lease a Rolls so you could drive down Rodeo Drive on Saturday afternoon with your own vanity plates on some glitzy rental companys car. You didnt have a press agent to plant items in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. Youd never done the Carson show. Writers cant unless they also do cardtricks or bend spoons, he said, smiling. Its like a national law. He thought she would smile, but she didnt. I know you were there when I needed you. When I came flying off the end of the walkway like O. J. Simpson in that old Hertz ad. Maybe you saved me from eating the wrong pill on top of too much booze. Or maybe I would have made it out the other side on my own and its all a big dramatization on my part. But ... it doesnt feel like that. Not inside, where I am. She snuffed the cigarette, only two puffs gone. I know youve been there ever since. And Ive been there for you. Were good in bed. That used to seem like a big deal to me. But were also good out of it, and now that seems like a bigger deal. I feel as if I could grow old with you and still be brave. I know you drink too much beer and dont get enough exercise; I know that some nights you dream badly He was startled. Nastily startled. Almost frightened. I never dream. She smiled. So you tell the interviewers when they ask where you get your ideas. But its not true. Unless its just indigestion when you start groaning in the night. And I dont believe that, Billy. Do I talk? he asked cautiously. He could remember no dreams. No dreams at all, good or bad. Audra nodded. Sometimes. But I can never make out what it is you say. And on a couple of occasions, you have wept. He looked at her blankly. There was a bad taste in his mouth; it trailed back along his tongue and down his throat like the taste of melted aspirin. So now you know how fear tastes, he thought. Time you found out, considering all youve written on the subject. He supposed it was a taste he would get used to. If he lived long enough. Memories were suddenly trying to crowd in. It was as if a black sac in his mind were bulging, threatening to spew noxious (dreams) images up from his subconscious and into the mental field of vision commanded by his rational waking mindand if that happened all at once, it would drive him mad. He tried to push them back, and succeeded, but not before he heard a voiceit was as if someone buried alive had cried out from the ground. It was Eddie Kaspbraks voice. You saved my life, Bill. Those big boys, they drive me bugshit. Sometimes I think they really want to kill me Your arms, Audra said. Bill looked down at them. The flesh there had humped into gooseflesh. Not little bumps but huge white knobs like insect eggs. They both stared, saying nothing, as if looking at an interesting museum exhibit. The goosebumps slowly melted away. In the silence that followed Audra said And I know one other thing. Someone called you this morning from the States and said you have to leave me. He got up, looked briefly at the liquor bottles, then went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of orange juice. He said You know I had a brother, and you know he died, but you dont know he was murdered. Audra took in a quick snatch of breath. Murdered! Oh, Bill, why didnt you ever Tell you? He laughed, that barking sound again. I dont know. What happened? We were living in Derry then. There had been a flood, but it was mostly over, and George was bored. I was sick in bed with the flu. He wanted me to make him a boat out of a sheet of newspaper. I knew how from daycamp the year before. He said he was going to sail it down the gutters on Witcham Street and Jackson Street, because they were still full of water. So I made him the boat and he thanked me and he went out and that was the last time I ever saw my brother George alive. If I hadnt had the flu, maybe I could have saved him. He paused, right palm rubbing at his left cheek, as if testing for beardstubble. His eyes, magnified by the lenses of his glasses, looked thoughtful ... but he was not looking at her. It happened right there on Witcham Street, not too far from the intersection with Jackson. Whoever killed him pulled his left arm off the way a secondgrader would pull a wing off a fly. Medical examiner said he either died of shock or bloodloss. Far as I could ever see, it didnt make a dimes worth of difference which it was. Christ, Bill! I imagine you wonder why I never told you. The truth is, I wonder myself. Here weve been married eleven years and until today you never knew what happened to Georgie. I know about your whole familyeven your aunts and uncles. I know your grandfather died in his garage in Iowa City frigging around with his chainsaw while he was drunk. I know those things because married people, no matter how busy they are, get to know almost everything after awhile. And if they get really bored and stop listening, they pick it up anywayby osmosis. Or do you think Im wrong? No, she said faintly. Youre not wrong, Bill. And weve always been able to talk to each other, havent we? I mean, neither of us got so bored it ever had to be osmosis, right? Well, she said, until today I always thought so. Come on, Audra. You know everything thats happened to me over the last eleven years of my life. Every deal, every idea, every cold, every friend, every guy that ever did me wrong or tried to. You know I slept with Susan Browne. You know that sometimes I get maudlin when I drink and play the records too loud. Especially the Grateful Dead, she said, and he laughed. This time she smiled back. You know the most important stuff, toothe things I hope for. Yes. I think so. But this ... She paused, shook her head, thought for a moment. How much does this call have to do with your brother, Bill? Let me get to it in my own way. Dont try to rush me into the center of it or youll have me committed. Its so big ... and so ... so quaintly awful ... that Im trying to sort of creep up on it. You see ... it never occurred to me to tell you about Georgie. She looked at him, frowned, shook her head faintlyI dont understand. What Im trying to tell you, Audra, is that I havent even thought of George in twenty years or more. But you told me you had a brother named I repeated a fact, he said. That was all. His name was a word. It cast no shadow at all in my mind. But I think maybe it cast a shadow over your dreams, Audra said. Her voice was very quiet. The groaning? The crying? She nodded. I suppose you could be right, he said. In fact, youre almost surely right. But dreams you dont remember dont really count, do they? Are you really telling me you never thought of him at all? Yes. I am. She shook her head, frankly disbelieving. Not even the horrible way he died? Not until today, Audra. She looked at him and shook her head again. You asked me before we were married if I had any brothers or sisters, and I said I had a brother who died when I was a kid. You knew my parents were gone, and youve got so much family that it took up your entire field of attention. But thats not all. What do you mean? It isnt just George thats been in that black hole. I havent thought of Derry itself in twenty years. Not the people I chummed withEddie Kaspbrak and Richie the Mouth, Stan Uris, Bev Marsh ... He ran his hands through his hair and laughed shakily. Its like having a case of amnesia so bad you dont know youve got it. And when Mike Hanlon called Whos Mike Hanlon? Another kid that we chummed withthat I chummed with after Georgie died. Of course hes no kid anymore. None of us are. That was Mike on the phone, transatlantic cable. He said, Hellohave I reached the Denbrough residence? and I said yes, and he said, Bill? Is that you? and I said yes, and he said, This is Mike Hanlon. It meant nothing to me, Audra. He might as well have been selling encyclopedias or Burl Ives records. Then he said, From Derry. And when he said that it was like a door opened inside me and some horrible light shined out, and I remembered who he was. I remembered Georgie. I remembered all the others. All this happened Bill snapped his fingers. Like that. And I knew he was going to ask me to come. Come back to Derry. Yeah. He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, looked at her. Never in her life had she seen a man who looked so frightened. Back to Derry. Because we promised, he said, and we did. We did. All of us. Us kids. We stood in the creek that ran through the Barrens, and we held hands in a circle, and we had cut our palms with a piece of glass so it was like a bunch of kids playing blood brothers, only it was real. He held his palms out to her, and in the center of each she could see a closeset ladder of white lines that could have been scartissue. She had held his handboth his handscountless times, but she had never noticed these scars across his palms before. They were faint, yes, but she would have believed And the party! That party! Not the one where they had met, although this second one formed a perfect bookend to that first one, because it had been the wrap party at the end of the Pit of the Black Demon shoot. It had been loud and drunk, every inch the Topanga Canyon do. Perhaps a little less bitchy than some of the other L.A. parties she had been to, because the shoot had gone better than they had any right to expect, and they all knew it. For Audra Phillips it had gone even better, because she had fallen in love with William Denbrough. What was the name of the selfproclaimed palmist? She couldnt remember now, only that she had been one of the makeup mans two assistants. She remembered the girl whipping off her blouse at some point in the party (revealing a very filmy bra beneath) and tying it over her head like a gypsys scarf. High on pot and wine, she had read palms for the rest of the evening ... or at least until she had passed out. Audra could not remember now if the girls readings had been good or bad, witty or stupid she had been pretty high herself that night. What she did remember was that at one point the girl had grabbed Bills palm and her own and had declared them perfectly matched. They were lifetwins, she said. She could remember watching, more than a little jealous, as the girl traced the lines on his palm with her exquisitely lacquered fingernailhow stupid that was, in the weird L.A. film subculture where men patted womens fannies as routinely as New York men pecked their cheeks! But there had been something intimate and lingering about that tracery. There had been no little white scars on Bills palms then. She had been watching the charade with a jealous lovers eye, and she was sure of the memory. Sure of the fact. She said so to Bill now. He nodded. Youre right. They werent there then. And although I cant absolutely swear to it, I dont think they were there last night, down at the Plow and Barrow. Ralph and I were handwrestling for beers again and I think I would have noticed. He grinned at her. The grin was dry, humorless, and scared. I think they came back when Mike Hanlon called. Thats what I think. Bill, that isnt possible. But she reached for her cigarettes. Bill was looking at his hands. Stan did it, he said. Cut our palms with a sliver of Coke bottle. I can remember it so clearly now. He looked up at Audra and behind his glasses his eyes were hurt and puzzled. I remember how that piece of glass flashed in the sun. It was one of the new clear ones. Before that Coke bottles used to be green, you remember that? She shook her head but he didnt see her. He was still studying his palms. I can remember Stan doing his own hands last, pretending he was going to slash his wrists instead of just cut his palms a little. I guess it was just some goof, but I almost made a move on him ... to stop him. Because for a second or two there he looked serious. Bill, dont, she said in a low voice. This time she had to steady the lighter in her right hand by grasping its wrist in her left, like a policeman holding a gun on a shooting range. Scars cant come back. They either are or arent. You saw them before, huh? Is that what youre telling me? Theyre very faint, Audra said, more sharply than she had intended. We were all bleeding, he said. We were standing in the water not far from where Eddie Kaspbrak and Ben Hanscom and I built the dam that time You dont mean the architect, do you? Is there one by that name? God, Bill, he built the new BBC communications center! Theyre still arguing whether its a dream or an abortion! Well, I dont know if its the same guy or not. It doesnt seem likely, but I guess it could be. The Ben I knew was great at building stuff. We all stood there, and I was holding Bev Marshs left hand in my right and Richie Toziers right hand in my left. We stood out there in the water like something out of a Southern baptism after a tent meeting, and I remember I could see the Derry Standpipe on the horizon. It looked as white as you imagine the robes of the archangels must be, and we promised, we swore, that if it wasnt over, that if it ever started to happen again ... wed go back. And wed do it again. And stop it. Forever. Stop what? she cried, suddenly furious with him. Stop what? What the fuck are you talking about? I wish you wouldnt aaask Bill began, and then stopped. She saw an expression of bemused horror spread over his face like a stain. Give me a cigarette. She passed him the pack. He lit one. She had never seen him smoke a cigarette. I used to stutter, too. You stuttered? Yes. Back then. You said I was the only man in L.A. you ever knew who dared to speak slowly. The truth is, I didnt dare talk fast. It wasnt reflection. It wasnt deliberation. It wasnt wisdom. All reformed stutterers speak very slowly. Its one of the tricks you learn, like thinking of your middle name just before you introduce yourself, because stutterers have more trouble with nouns than with any other words, and the one word in all the world that gives them the most trouble is their own first name. Stuttered. She smiled a small smile, as if he had told a joke and she had missed the point. Until Georgie died, I stuttered moderately, Bill said, and already he had begun to hear words double in his mind, as if they were infinitesimally separated in time; the words came out smoothly, in his ordinary slow and cadenced way, but in his mind he heard words like Georgie and moderately overlap, becoming JuhJuhGeorgie and mmoderately. I mean, I had some really bad momentsusually when I was called on in class, and especially if I really knew the answer and wanted to give itbut mostly I got by. After George died, it got a lot worse. Then, around the age of fourteen or fifteen, things started to get better again. I went to Chevrus High in Portland, and there was a speech therapist there, Mrs. Thomas, who was really great. She taught me some good tricks. Like thinking of my middle name just before I said Hi, Im Bill Denbrough out loud. I was taking French 1 and she taught me to switch to French if I got badly stuck on a word. So if youre standing there feeling like the worlds grandest asshole, saying thththis buhbuhbuhbuh over and over like a broken record, you switched over to French and ce livre would come flowing off your tongue. Worked every time. And as soon as you said it in French you could come back to English and say this book with no problem at all. If you got stuck on an sword like ship or skate or slum, you could lisp it thip, thkate, thlum. No stutter. All of that helped, but mostly it was just forgetting Derry and everything that happened there. Because thats when the forgetting happened. When we were living in Portland and I was going to Chevrus. I didnt forget everything at once, but looking back now Id have to say it happened over a remarkably short period of time. Maybe no more than four months. My stutter and my memories faded out together. Someone washed the blackboard and all the old equations went away. He drank what was left of his juice. When I stuttered on ask a few seconds ago, that was the first time in maybe twentyone years. He looked at her. First the scars, then the stuhhutter. Do you hhear it? Youre doing that on purpose! she said, badly frightened. No. I guess theres no way to convince a person of that, but its true. Stutterings funny, Audra. Spooky. On one level youre not even aware its happening. But ... its also something you can hear in your mind. Its like part of your head is working an instant ahead of the rest. Or one of those reverb systems kids used to put in their jalopies back in the fifties, when the sound in the rear speaker would come just a split second aafter the sound in the front sspeaker. He got up and walked restlessly around the room. He looked tired, and she thought with some unease of how hard he had worked over the last thirteen years or so, as if it might be possible to justify the moderateness of his talent by working furiously, almost nonstop. She found herself having a very uneasy thought and tried to push it away, but it wouldnt go. Suppose Bills call had really been from Ralph Foster, inviting him down to the Plow and Barrow for an hour of armwrestling or backgammon, or maybe from Freddie Firestone, the producer of Attic Room, on some problem or other? Perhaps even a wrongring, as the veddy British doctors wife down the lane put it? What did such thoughts lead to? Why, to the idea that all this DerryMike Hanlon business was nothing but a hallucination. A hallucination brought on by an incipient nervous breakdown. But the scars, Audrahowdo you explain the scars? Hes right. They werent there . . . and now they are. Thats the truth, and you know it. Tell me the rest, she said. Who killed your brother George? What did you and these other children do? What did you promise? He went to her, knelt before her like an oldfashioned suitor about to propose marriage, and took her hands. I think I could tell you, he said softly. I think that if I really wanted to, I could. Most of it I dont remember even now, but once I started talking it would come. I can sense those memories ... waiting to be born. Theyre like clouds filled with rain. Only this rain would be very dirty. The plants that grew after a rain like that would be monsters. Maybe I can face that with the others Do they know? Mike said he called them all. He thinks theyll all come ... except maybe for Stan. He said Stan sounded strange. It all sounds strange to me. Youre frightening me very badly, Bill. Im sorry, he said, and kissed her. It was like getting a kiss from an utter stranger. She found herself hating this man Mike Hanlon. I thought I ought to explain as much as I could; I thought that would be better than just creeping off into the night. I suppose some of them may do just that. But I have to go. And I think Stan will be there, no matter how strange he sounded. Or maybe thats just because I cant imagine not going myself. Because of your brother? Bill shook his head slowly. I could tell you that, but it would be a lie. I loved him. I know how strange that must sound after telling you I havent thought of him in twenty years or so, but I loved the hell out of that kid. He smiled a little. He was a spasmoid, but I loved him. You know? Audra, who had a younger sister, nodded. I know. But it isnt George. I cant explain what it is. I ... He looked out the window at the morning fog. I feel like a bird must feel when fall comes and it knows ... somehow it just knows it has to fly home. Its instinct, babe ... and I guess I believe instincts the iron skeleton under all our ideas of free will. Unless youre willing to take the pipe or eat the gun or take a long walk off a short dock, you cant say no to some things. You cant refuse to pick up your option because there is no option. You cant stop it from happening any more than you could stand at home plate with a bat in your hand and let a fastball hit you. I have to go. That promise ... its in my mind like a fuhfishhook. She stood up and walked herself carefully to him; she felt very fragile, as if she might break. She put a hand on his shoulder and turned him to her. Take me with you, then. The expression of horror that dawned on his face thennot horror of her but for herwas so naked that she stepped back, really afraid for the first time. No, he said. Dont think of that, Audra. Dont you ever think of that. Youre not going within three thousand miles of Derry. I think Derrys going to be a very bad place to be during the next couple of weeks. Youre going to stay here and carry on and make all the excuses for me you have to. Now promise me that! Should I promise? she asked, her eyes never leaving his. Should I, Bill? Audra Should I? You made a promise, and look what its got you into. And me as well, since Im your wife and I love you. His big hands tightened painfully on her shoulders. Promise me! Promise! PPuhPuhPruhhuh And she could not stand that, that broken word caught in his mouth like a gaffed and wriggling fish. I promise, okay? I promise! She burst into tears. Are you happy now? Jesus! Youre crazy, the whole thing is crazy, but I promise! He put an arm around her and led her to the couch. Brought her a brandy. She sipped at it, getting herself under control a little at a time. When do you go, then? Today, he said. Concorde. I can just make it if I drive to Heathrow instead of taking the train. Freddie wanted me onset after lunch. You go on ahead at nine, and you dont know anything you see? She nodded reluctantly. Ill be in New York before anything shows up funny. And in Derry before sundown, with the right ccconnections. And when do I see you again? she asked softly. He put an arm around her and held her tightly, but he never answered her question. DERRY THE FIRST INTERLUDE How many human eyes ... had snatched glimpses of their secret anatomies, down the passages of years? Clive Barker, Books of Blood The segment below and all other Interlude segments are drawn from Derry An Unauthorized Town History, by Michael Hanlon. This is an unpublished set of notes and accompanying fragments of manuscript (which read almost like diary entries) found in the Derry Public Library vault. The title given is the one written on the cover of the looseleaf binder in which these notes were kept prior to their appearance here. The author, however, refers to the work several times within his own notes as Derry A Look Through Hells Back Door. One supposes the thought of popular publication had done more than cross Mr. Hanlons mind. January 2nd, 1985 Can an entire city be haunted? Haunted as some houses are supposed to be haunted? Not just a single building in that city, or the corner of a single street, or a single basketball court in a single pocketpark, the netless basket jutting out at sunset like some obscure and bloody instrument of torture, not just one areabut everything. The whole works. Can that be? Listen Haunted Often visited by ghosts or spirits. Funk and Wagnalls. Haunting Persistently recurring to the mind; difficult to forget. Ditto Funk and Friend. To haunt To appear or recur often, especially as a ghost. Butand listen!Aplace often visited resort, den, hangout ... Italics are or course mine. And one more. This one, like the last, is a definition of haunt as a noun, and its the one that really scares me A feeding place for animals. Like the animals that beat up Adrian Mellon and then threw him over the bridge? Like the animal that was waiting underneath the bridge? A feeding place for animals. Whats feeding in Derry? Whats feeding on Derry? You know, its sort of interestingI didnt know it was possible for a man to become as frightened as I have become since the Adrian Mellon business and still live, let alone function. Its as if Ive fallen into a story, and everyone knows youre not supposed to feel this afraid until the end of the story, when the haunter of the dark finally comes out of the woodwork to feed ... on you, of course. On you. But if this is a story, its not one of those classic screamers by Lovecraft or Bradbury or Poe. I know, you seenot everything, but a lot. I didnt just start when I opened the Derry News one day last September, read the transcript of the Unwin boys preliminary hearing, and realized that the clown who killed George Denbrough might well be back again. I actually started around 1980I think that is when some part of me which had been asleep woke up ... knowing that Its time might be coming round again. What part? The watchman part, I suppose. Or maybe it was the voice of the Turtle. Yes ... I rather think it was that. I know its what Bill Denbrough would believe. I discovered news of old horrors in old books; read intelligence of old atrocities in old periodicals; always in the back of my mind, every day a bit louder, I heard the seashell drone of some growing, coalescing force; I seemed to smell the bitter ozone aroma of lightningstocome. I began making notes for a book I will almost certainly not live to write. And at the same time I went on with my life. On one level of my mind I was and am living with the most grotesque, capering horrors; on another I have continued to live the mundane life of a smallcity librarian. I shelve books; I make out library cards for new patrons; I turn off the microfilm readers careless users sometimes leave on; I joke with Carole Danner about how much I would like to go to bed with her, and she jokes back about how much shed like to go to bed with me, and both of us know that shes really joking and Im really not, just as both of us know that she wont stay in a little place like Derry for long and I will be here until I die, taping torn pages in Business Week, sitting down at monthly acquisition meetings with my pipe in one hand and a stack of Library Journals in the other ... and waking in the middle of the night with my fists jammed against my mouth to keep in the screams. The gothic conventions are all wrong. My hair has not turned white. I do not sleepwalk. I have not begun to make cryptic comments or to carry a planchette around in my sportcoat pocket. I think I laugh a little more, thats all, and sometimes it must seem a little shrill and strange, because sometimes people look at me oddly when I laugh. Part of methe part Bill would call the voice of the Turtlesays I should call them all, tonight. But am I, even now, completely sure? Do I want to be completely sure? Noof course not. But God, what happened to Adrian Mellon is so much like what happened to Stuttering Bills brother, George, in the fall of 1957. If it has started again, I will call them. Ill have to. But not yet. Its too early anyway. Last time it began slowly and didnt really get going until the summer of 1958. So ... I wait. And fill up the waiting with words in this notebook and long moments of looking into the mirror to see the stranger the boy became. The boys face was bookish and timid; the mans face is the face of a bank teller in a Western movie, the fellow who never has any lines, the one who just gets to put his hands up and look scared when the robbers come in. And if the script calls for anyone to get shot by the bad guys, hes the one. Same old Mike. A little starey in the eyes, maybe, and a little punchy from broken sleep, but not sos youd notice without a good close look ... like kissingdistance close, and I havent been that close to anyone in a very long time. If you took a casual glance at me you might think Hes been reading too many books, but thats all. I doubt youd guess how hard the man with the mild banktellers face is now struggling just to hold on, to hold on to his own mind.... If I have to make those calls, it may kill some of them. Thats one of the things Ive had to face on the long nights when sleep wont come, nights when I lie there in bed wearing my conservative blue pajamas, my spectacles neatly folded up and lying on the nighttable next to the glass of water I always put there in case I wake up thirsty in the night. I lie there in the dark and I take small sips of the water and I wonder how muchor how littlethey remember. I am somehow convinced that they dont remember any of it, because they dont need to remember. Im the only one that hears the voice of the Turtle, the only one who remembers, because Im the only one who stayed here in Derry. And because theyre scattered to the four winds, they have no way of knowing the identical patterns their lives have taken. To bring them back, to show them that pattern ... yes, it might kill some of them. It might kill all of them. So I go over it and over it in my mind; I go over them, trying to recreate them as they were and as they might now be, trying to decide which of them is the most vulnerable. Richie Trashmouth Tozier, I think sometimeshe was the one Criss, Huggins, and Bowers seemed to catch up with the most often, in spite of the fact that Ben was so fat. Bowers was the one Richie was the most scared ofthe one we were all the most scared ofbut the others used to really put the fear of God into him, too. If I call him out there in California would he see it as some horrible Return of the Big Bullies, two from the grave and one from the madhouse in Juniper Hill where he raves to this day? Sometimes I think Eddie was the weakest, Eddie with his domineering tank of a mother and his terrible case of asthma. Beverly? She always tried to talk so tough, but she was as scared as the rest of us. Stuttering Bill, faced with a horror that wont go away when he puts the cover on his typewriter? Stan Uris? Theres a guillotine blade hanging over their lives, razorsharp, but the more I think about it the more I think they dont know that blade is there. Im the one with my hand on the lever. I can pull it just by opening my telephone notebook and calling them, one after the other. Maybe I wont have to do it. I hold on to the waning hope that Ive mistaken the rabbity cries of my own timid mind for the deeper, truer voice of the Turtle. After all, what do I have? Mellon in July. A child found dead on Neibolt Street last October, another found in Memorial Park in early December, just before the first snowfall. Maybe it was a tramp, as the papers say.

Or a crazy whos since left Derry or killed himself out of remorse and selfdisgust, as some of the books say the real Jack the Ripper may have done. Maybe. But the Albrecht girl was found directly across the street from that damned old house on Neibolt Street ... and she was killed on the same day as George Denbrough was, twentyseven years before. And then the Johnson boy, found in Memorial Park with one of his legs missing below the knee. Memorial Park is, of course, the home of the Derry Standpipe, and the boy was found almost at its foot. The Standpipe is within a shout of the Barrens; the Standpipe is also where Stan Uris saw those boys. Those dead boys. Still, it could all be nothing but smoke and mirages. Could be. Or coincidence. Or perhaps something between the twoa kind of malefic echo. Could that be? I sense that it could be. Here in Derry, anything could be. I think what was here before is still herethe thing that was here in 1957 and 1958; the thing that was here in 1929 and in 1930 when the Black Spot was burned down by the Maine Legion of White Decency; the thing that was here in 1904 and 1905 and early 1906at least until the Kitchener Ironworks exploded; the thing that was here in 1876 and 1877, the thing that has shown up every twentyseven years or so. Sometimes it comes a little sooner, sometimes a little later ... but it always comes. As one goes back the wrong notes are harder and harder to find because the records grow poorer and the mothholes in the narrative history of the area grow bigger. But knowing where to lookand when to lookgoes a long way toward solving the problem. It always comes back, you see. It. Soyes I think Ill have to make those calls. I think it was meant to be us. Somehow, for some reason, were the ones who have been elected to stop it forever. Blind fate? Blind luck? Or is it that damned Turtle again? Does it perhaps command as well as speak? I dont know. And I doubt if it matters. All those years ago Bill said The Turtle cant help us, and if it was true then it must be true now. I think of us standing in the water, hands clasped, making that promise to come back if it ever started againstanding there almost like Druids in a ring, our hands bleeding their own promise, palm to palm. A ritual that is perhaps as old as mankind itself, an unknowing tap driven into the tree of all powerthe one that grows on the borderline between the land of all we know and that of all we suspect. Because the similarities But Im doing my own Bill Denbrough here, stuttering over the same ground again and again, reciting a few facts and a lot of unpleasant (and rather gaseous) suppositions, growing more and more obsessive with every paragraph. No good. Useless. Dangerous, even. But it is so very hard to wait on events. This notebook is supposed to be an effort to get beyond that obsession by widening the focus of my attentionafter all, there is more to this story than six boys and one girl, none of them happy, none of them accepted by their peers, who stumbled into a nightmare during one hot summer when Eisenhower was still President. It is an attempt to pull the camera back a little, if you willto see the whole city, a place where nearly thirtyfive thousand people work and eat and sleep and copulate and shop and drive around and walk and go to school and go to jail and sometimes disappear into the dark. To know what a place is, I really do believe one has to know what it was. And if I had to name a day when all of this really started again for me, it would be the day in the early spring of 1980 when I went to see Albert Carson, who died last summerat ninetyone, he was full of years as well as honors. He was head librarian here from 1914 to 1960, an incredible span (but he was an incredible man), and I felt that if anyone would know which history of this area was the best one to start with, Albert Carson would. I asked him my question as we sat on his porch and he gave me my answer, speaking in a croakhe was already fighting the throatcancer which would eventually kill him. Not one of them is worth a shit. As you damn well know. Then where should I start? Start what, for Christs sake? Researching the history of the area. Of Derry Township. Oh. Well. Start with the Fricke and the Michaud. Theyre supposed to be the best. And after I read those Read them? Christ, no! Throw em in the wastebasket! Thats your first step. Then read Buddinger. Branson Buddinger was a damned sloppy researcher and afflicted with a terminal boner, if half of what I heard when I was a kid was true, but when it came to Derry his heart was in the right place. He got most of the facts wrong, but he got them wrong with feeling, Hanlon. I laughed a little and Carson grinned with his leathery lipsan expression of good humor that was actually a little frightening. In that instant he looked like a vulture happily guarding a freshly killed animal, waiting for it to reach exactly the right stage of tasty decomposition before beginning to dine. When you finish with Buddinger, read Ives. Make notes on all the people he talked to. Sandy Ives is still at the University of Maine. Folklorist. After you read him, go see him. Buy him a dinner. Id take him to the Orinoka, because dinner at the Orinoka seems to never end. Pump him. Fill up a notebook with names and addresses. Talk to the oldtimers hes talked tothose that are still left; there are a few of us, ahhahhahhah!and get some more names from them. By then youll have all the place to stand youll need, if youre half as bright as I think you are. If you chase down enough people, youll find out a few things that arent in the histories. And you may find they disturb your sleep. Derry ... What about it? Derrys not right, is it? Right? he asked in that whispery croak. Whats right? What does that word mean? Is right pretty pictures of the Kenduskeag at sunset, Kodachrome by soandso, fstop suchandsuch? If so, then Derry is right, because there are pretty pictures of it by the score. Is right a damned committee of dryboxed old virgins to save the Governors Mansion or to put a commemorative plaque in front of the Standpipe? If thats right, then Derrys right as rain, because weve got more than our share of old kittycats minding everybodys business. Is right that ugly plastic statue of Paul Bunyan in front of City Center? Oh, if I had a truckful of napalm and my old Zippo lighter Id take care of that fucking thing, I assure you ... but if ones aesthetic is broad enough to include plastic statues, then Derry is right. The question is, what does right mean to you, Hanlon? Eh? More to the point, what does right not mean? I could only shake my head. He either knew or he didnt. He would either tell or he wouldnt. Do you mean the unpleasant stories you may hear, or the ones you already know? There are always unpleasant stories. A towns history is like a rambling old mansion filled with rooms and cubbyholes and laundrychutes and garrets and all sorts of eccentric little hiding places ... not to mention an occasional secret passage or two. If you go exploring Mansion Derry, youll find all sorts of things. Yes. You may be sorry later, but youll find them, and once a thing is found it cant be unfound, can it? Some of the rooms are locked, but there are keys ... there are keys. His eyes glinted at me with an old mans shrewdness. You may come to think youve stumbled on the worst of Derrys secrets ... but there is always one more. And one more. And one more. Do you I think I shall have to ask you to excuse me just now. My throat is very bad today. Its time for my medicine and my nap. In other words, here is a knife and a fork, my friend; go see what you can cut with them. I started with the Fricke history and the Michaud history. I followed Carsons advice and threw them in the wastebasket, but I read them first. They were as bad as he had suggested. I read the Buddinger history, copied out the footnotes, and chased them down. That was more satisfactory, but footnotes are peculiar things, you knowlike footpaths twisting through a wild and anarchic country. They split, then they split again; at any point you may take a wrong turn which leads you either to a bramblechoked dead end or into swampy quickmud. If you find a footnote, a libraryscience prof once told a class of which I was a part, step on its head and kill it before it can breed. They do breed, and sometimes the breeding is a good thing, but I think that more often it is not. Those in Buddingers stiffly written A History of Old Derry (Orono University of Maine Press, 1950) wander through one hundred years worth of forgotten books and dusty masters dissertations in the fields of history and folklore, through articles in defunct magazines, and amid brainnumbing stacks of town reports and ledgers. My conversations with Sandy Ives were more interesting. His sources crossed Buddingers from time to time, but a crossing was all it ever was. Ives had spent a good part of his lifetime setting down oral historiesyarns, in other wordsalmost verbatim, a practice Branson Buddinger would undoubtedly have seen as taking the low road. Ives had written a cycle of articles on Derry during the years 196366. Most of the oldtimers he talked to then were dead by the time I started my own investigations, but they had sons, daughters, nephews, cousins. And, of course, one of the great true facts of the world is this for every oldtimer who dies, theres a new oldtimer coming along. And a good story never dies; it is always passed down. I sat on a lot of porches and back stoops, drank a lot of tea, Black Label beer, homemade beer, homemade rootbeer, tapwater, springwater. I did a lot of listening, and the wheels of my tapeplayer turned. Both Buddinger and Ives agreed completely on one point the original party of white settlers numbered about three hundred. They were English. They had a charter and were formally known as the Derrie Company. The land granted them covered what is today Derry, most of Newport, and little slices of the surrounding towns. And in the year 1741 everyone in Derry Township just disappeared. They were there in June of that yeara community which at that time numbered about three hundred and forty soulsbut come October they were gone. The little village of wooden homes stood utterly deserted. One of them, which once stood roughly at the place where Witcham and Jackson Streets intersect today, was burned to the ground. The Michaud history states firmly that all of the villagers were slaughtered by Indians, but there is no basissave the one burned housefor that idea. More likely, someones stove just got too hot and the house went up in flames. Indian massacre? Doubtful. No bones, no bodies. Flood? Not that year. Disease? No word of it in the surrounding towns. They just disappeared. All of them. All three hundred and forty of them. Without a trace. So far as I know, the only case remotely like it in American history is the disappearance of the colonists on Roanoke Island, Virginia. Every schoolchild in the country knows about that one, but who knows about the Derry disappearance? Not even the people who live here, apparently. I quizzed several juniorhigh students who are taking the required Mainehistory course, and none of them knew a thing about it. Then I checked the text, Maine Then and Now. There are better than forty index entries for Derry, most of them concerning the boom years of the lumber industry. Nothing about the disappearance of the original colonists ... and yet thatwhat shall I call it?that quiet fits the pattern, too. There is a kind of curtain of quiet which cloaks much of what has happened here ... and yet people do talk. I guess nothing can stop people from talking. But you have to listen hard, and that is a rare skill. I flatter myself that Ive developed it over the last four years. If I havent, then my aptitude for the job must be poor indeed, because Ive had enough practice. An old man told me about how his wife had heard voices speaking to her from the drain of her kitchen sink in the three weeks before their daughter diedthat was in the early winter of 195758. The girl he spoke of was one of the early victims in the murderspree which began with George Denbrough and did not end until the following summer. A whole slew of voices, all of em babblin together, he told me. He owned a Gulf station on Kansas Street and talked in between slow, limping trips out to the pumps, where he filled gastanks, checked oillevels, and wiped windshields. Said she spoke back once, even though she was ascairt. Leaned right over the drain, she did, and hollered down into it. Who the hell are you? she calls. Whats your name? And all these voices answered back, she saidgrunts and babbles and howls and yips, screams and laughin, dont you know. And she said they were sayin what the possessed man said to Jesus Our name is Legion, they said. She wouldnt go near that sink for two years. For them two years Id spend twelve hours a day down here, bustin my hump, then have to go home and warsh all the damn dishes. He was drinking a can of Pepsi from the machine outside the office door, a man of seventytwo or three in faded gray work fatigues, rivers of wrinkles flowing down from the corners of his eyes and mouth. By now you probly think Im as crazy as a bedbug, he said, but Ill tell you sumpin else, if youll turn off ywhirlygig, there. I turned off my taperecorder and smiled at him. Considering some of the things Ive heard over the last couple of years, youd have to go a fair country distance to convince me youre crazy, I said. He smiled back, but there was no humor in it. I was doin the dishes one night, same as usualthis was in the fall of 58, after things had settled down again. My wife was upstair, sleepin. Betty was the only kid God ever saw fit to give us, and after she was killed my wife spent a lot of her time sleepin. Anyway, I pulled the plug and the water started runnin out of the sink. You know the sound real soapy water makes when it goes down the drain? Kind of a suckin sound, it is. It was makin that noise, but I wasnt thinkin about it, only about goin out and choppin some kindlin in the shed, and just as that sound started to die off, I heard my daughter down in there. I heard Betty somewhere down in those friggin pipes. Laughin. She was somewheres down there in the dark, laughin. Only it sounded more like she was screamin, once you listened a bit. Or both. Screamin and laughin down there in the pipes. Thats the only time I ever heard anything like that. Maybe I just imagined it. But ... I dont think so. He looked at me and I looked at him. The light falling through the dirty plateglass windows onto his face filled him up with years, made him look as ancient as Methuselah. I remember how cold I felt at that moment; how cold. You think Im storying you along? the old man asked me, the old man who would have been just about fortyfive in 1957, the old man to whom God had given a single daughter, Betty Ripsom by name. Betty had been found on Outer Jackson Street just after Christmas of that year, frozen, her remains ripped wide open. No, I said. I dont think youre just storying me along, Mr. Ripsom. And youre tellin the truth, too, he said with a kind of wonder. I can see it on yface. I think he meant to tell me something more then, but the bell behind us dinged sharply as a car rolled over the hose on the tarmac and pulled up to the pumps. When the bell rang, both of us jumped and I uttered a thin little cry. Ripsom got to his feet and limped out to the car, wiping his hands on a ball of waste. When he came back in, he looked at me as though I were a rather unsavory stranger who had just happened to wander in off the street. I made my goodbyes and left. Buddinger and Ives agree on something else things really are not right here in Derry; things in Derry have never been right. I saw Albert Carson for the last time a scant month before he died. His throat had gotten much worse; all he could manage was a hissing little whisper. Still thinking about writing a history of Derry, Hanlon? Still toying with the idea, I said, but I had of course never planned to write a history of the townshipnot exactlyand I think he knew it. It would take you twenty years, he whispered, and no one would read it. No one would want to read it. Let it go, Hanlon. He paused a moment and then added Buddinger committed suicide, you know. Of course I had known thatbut only because people always talk and I had learned to listen. The article in the News had called it a falling accident, and it was true that Branson Buddinger had taken a fall. What the News neglected to mention was that he fell from a stool in his closet and he had a noose around his neck at the time. You know about the cycle? I looked at him, startled. Oh yes, Carson whispered. I know. Every twentysix or twentyseven years. Buddinger knew, too. A lot of the oldtimers do, although that is one thing they wont talk about, even if you load them up with booze. Let it go, Hanlon. He reached out with one birdclaw hand. He closed it around my wrist and I could feel the hot cancer that was loose and raving through his body, eating anything and everything left that was still good to eatnot that there could have been much by that time; Albert Carsons cupboards were almost bare. Michaelthis is nothing you want to mess into. There are things here in Derry that bite. Let it go. Let it go. I cant. Then beware, he said. Suddenly the huge and frightened eyes of a child were looking out of his dying oldmans face. Beware. Derry. My home town. Named after the county of the same name in Ireland. Derry. I was born here, in Derry Home Hospital; attended Derry Elementary School; went to junior high at Ninth Street Middle School; to high school at Derry High. I went to the University of Maineaint in Derry, but its just down the rud, the oldtimers sayand then I came right back here. To the Derry Public Library. I am a smalltown man living a smalltown life, one among millions. But. But In 1879 a crew of lumberjacks found the remains of another crew that had spent the winter snowed in at a camp on the Upper Kenduskeagat the tip of what the kids still call the Barrens. There were nine of them in all, all nine hacked to pieces. Heads had rolled ... not to mention arms ... a foot or two ... and a mans penis had been nailed to one wall of the cabin. But In 1851 John Markson killed his entire family with poison and then, sitting in the middle of the circle he had made with their corpses, he gobbled an entire whitenightshade mushroom. His death agonies must have been intense. The town constable who found him wrote in his report that at first he believed the corpse was grinning at him; he wrote of Marksons awful white smile. The white smile was an entire mouthful of the killer mushroom; Markson had gone on eating even as the cramps and the excruciating muscle spasms must have been wracking his dying body. But On Easter Sunday 1906 the owners of the Kitchener Ironworks, which stood where the brandspankingnew Derry Mall now stands, held an Easteregg hunt for all the good children of Derry. The hunt took place in the huge Ironworks building. Dangerous areas were closed off, and employees volunteered their time to stand guard and make sure no adventurous boy or girl decided to duck under the barriers and explore. Five hundred chocolate Easter eggs wrapped in gay ribbons were hidden about the rest of the works. According to Buddinger, there was at least one child present for each of those eggs. They ran giggling and whooping and yelling through the Sundaysilent Ironworks, finding the eggs under the giant tippervats, inside the desk drawers of the foreman, balanced between the great rusty teeth of gearwheels, inside the molds on the third floor (in the old photographs these molds look like cupcake tins from some giants kitchen). Three generations of Kitcheners were there to watch the gay riot and to award prizes at the end of the hunt, which was to come at four oclock, whether all the eggs had been found or not. The end actually came fortyfive minutes early, at quarter past three. That was when the Ironworks exploded. Seventytwo people were pulled dead from the wreckage before the sun went down. The final toll was a hundred and two. Eightyeight of the dead were children. On the following Wednesday, while the city still lay in stunned silent contemplation of the tragedy, a woman found the head of nineyearold Robert Dohay caught in the limbs of her backyard apple tree. There was chocolate on the Dohay lads teeth and blood in his hair. He was the last of the known dead. Eight children and one adult were never accounted for. It was the worst tragedy in Derrys history, even worse than the fire at the Black Spot in 1930, and it was never explained. All four of the Ironworks boilers were shut down. Not just banked; shut down. But The murder rate in Derry is six times the murder rate of any other town of comparable size in New England. I found my tentative conclusions in this matter so difficult to believe that I turned my figures over to one of the highschool hackers, who spends what time he doesnt spend in front of his Commodore here in the library. He went several steps furtherscratch a hacker, find an overachieverby adding another dozen small cities to what he called the statpool and presenting me with a computergenerated bar graph where Derry sticks out like a sore thumb. People must have wicked short tempers here, Mr. Hanlon, was his only comment. I didnt reply. If I had, I might have told him that something in Derry has a wicked short temper, anyway. Here in Derry children disappear unexplained and unfound at the rate of forty to sixty a year. Most are teenagers. They are assumed to be runaways. I suppose some of them even are. And during what Albert Carson would undoubtedly have called the time of the cycle, the rate of disappearance shoots nearly out of sight. In the year 1930, for instancethe year the Black Spot burnedthere were better than one hundred and seventy child disappearances in Derryand you must remember that these are only the disappearances which were reported to the police and thus documented. Nothing surprising about it, the current Chief of Police told me when I showed him the statistic. It was the Depression. Most of em probably got tired of eating potato soup or going flat hungry at home and went off riding the rods, looking for something better. During 1958, a hundred and twentyseven children, ranging in age from three to nineteen, were reported missing in Derry. Was there a Depression in 1958? I asked Chief Rademacher. No, he said. But people move around a lot, Hanlon. Kids in particular get itchy feet. Have a fight with the folks about coming in late after a date and boom, theyre gone. I showed Chief Rademacher the picture of Chad Lowe which had appeared in the Derry News in April 1958. You think this one ran away after a fight with his folks about coming in late, Chief Rademacher? He was three and a half when he dropped out of sight. Rademacher fixed me with a sour glance and told me it sure had been nice talking with me, but if there was nothing else, he was busy. I left. Haunted, haunting, haunt. Often visited by ghosts or spirits, as in the pipes under the sink; to appear or recur often, as every twentyfive, twentysix, or twentyseven years; a feeding place for animals, as in the cases of George Denbrough, Adrian Mellon, Betty Ripsom, the Albrecht girl, the Johnson boy. A feeding place for animals. Yes, thats the one that haunts me. If anything else happensanything at allIll make the calls. Ill have to. In the meantime I have my suppositions, my broken rest, and my memoriesmy damned memories. Oh, and one other thingI have this notebook, dont I? The wall I wail to. And here I sit, my hand shaking so badly I can hardly write in it, here I sit in the deserted library after closing, listening to faint sounds in the dark stacks, watching the shadows thrown by the dim yellow globes to make sure they dont move ... dont change. Here I sit next to the telephone. I put my free hand on it ... let it slide down ... touch the holes in the dial that could put me in touch with all of them, my old pals. We went deep together. We went into the black together. Would we come out of the black if we went in a second time? I dont think so. Please God I dont have to call them. Please God. PART 2 JUNE OF 1958 My surface is myself. Under which to witness, youth is buried. Roots? Everybody has roots. William Carlos Williams, Paterson Sometimes I wonder what Im agonna do, There aint no cure for the summertime blues. Eddie Cochran CHAPTER 4 Ben Hanscom Takes a Fall 1 Around 1145 P.M., one of the stews serving first class on the OmahatoChicago runUnited Airlines flight 41gets one hell of a shock. She thinks for a few moments that the man in 1A has died. When he boarded at Omaha she thought to herselfOh boy, here comes trouble. Hes just as drunk as a lord. The stink of whiskey around his head reminded her fleetingly of the cloud of dust that always surrounds the dirty little boy in the Peanuts stripPig Pen, his name is. She was nervous about First Service, which is the booze service. She was sure he would ask for a drinkand probably a double. Then she would have to decide whether or not to serve him. Also, just to add to the fun, there have been thunderstorms all along the route tonight, and she is quite sure that at some point the man, a lanky guy dressed in jeans and chambray, would begin upchucking. But when First Service came along, the tall man ordered nothing more than a glass of club soda, just as polite as you could want. His service light has not gone on, and the stew forgets all about him soon enough, because the flight is a busy one. The flight is, in fact, the kind you want to forget as soon as its over, one of those during which you just mightifyou had timehave a few questions about the possibility of your own survival. United 41 slaloms between the ugly pockets of thunder and lightning like a good skier going downhill. The air is very rough. The passengers exclaim and make uneasy jokes about the lightning they can see flickering on and off in the thick pillars of cloud around the plane. Mommy, is God taking pictures of the angels? a little boy asks, and his mother, who is looking rather green, laughs shakily. First Service turns out to be the only service on 41 that night. The seatbelt sign goes on twenty minutes into the flight and stays on. All the same the stewardesses stay in the aisles, answering the callbuttons which go off like strings of politesociety firecrackers. Ralph is busy tonight, the head stew says to her as they pass in the aisle; the head stew is going back to tourist with a fresh supply of airsick bags. It is halfcode, halfjoke. Ralph is always busy on bumpy flights. The plane lurches, someone cries out softly, the stewardess turns a bit and puts out a hand to catch her balance, and looks directly into the staring, sightless eyes of the man in 1A. Oh my dear God hes dead, she thinks. The liquor before he got on ... then the bumps ... his heart ... scared to death. The lanky mans eyes are on hers, but they are not seeing her. They do not move. They are perfectly glazed. Surely they are the eyes of a dead man. The stew turns away from that awful gaze, her own heart pumping away in her throat at a runaway rate, wondering what to do, how to proceed, and thanking God that at least the man has no seatmate to perhaps scream and start a panic. She decides she will have to notify first the head stew and then the male crew up front. Perhaps they can wrap a blanket around him and close his eyes. The pilot will keep the belt light on even if the air smooths out so no one can come forward to use the john, and when the other passengers deplane theyll think hes just asleep These thoughts go through her mind rapidly, and she turns back for a confirming look. The dead, sightless eyes fix upon hers ... and then the corpse picks up his glass of club soda and sips from it. Just then the plane staggers again, tilts, and the stews little scream of surprise is lost in other, heartier, cries of fear. The mans eyes move thennot much, but enough so she understands that he is alive and seeing her. And she thinks Why, I thought when he got on that he was in his midfifties, but hes nowhere near that old, in spite of the graying hair. She goes to him, although she can hear the impatient chime of callbuttons behind her (Ralph is indeed busy tonight after their perfectly safe landing at OHare thirty minutes from now, the stews will dispose of over seventy airsick bags). Everything okay, sir? she asks, smiling. The smile feels false, unreal. Everything is fine and well, the lanky man says. She glances at the firstclass stub tacked into the little slot on his seatback and sees that his name is Hanscom. Fine and well. But its a bit bumpy tonight, isnt it? Youve got your work cut out for you, I think. Dont bother with me. Im He offers her a ghastly smile, a smile that makes her think of scarecrows flapping in dead November fields. Im fine and well. You looked (dead) a little under the weather. I was thinking of the old days, he says. I only realized earlier tonight that there were such things as old days, at least as far as I myself am concerned. More callbuttons chime. Pardon me, stewardess? someone calls nervously. Well, if youre quite sure youre all right I was thinking about a dam I built with some friends of mine, Ben Hanscom says. The first friends I ever had, I guess. They were building the dam when IHe stops, looks startled, then laughs. It is an honest laugh, almost the carefree laugh of a boy, and it sounds very odd in this jouncing, bucking plane. when I dropped in on them. And thats almost literally what I did. Anyhow, they were making a hellava mess with that dam. I remember that. Stewardess? Excuse me, sirIought to get about my appointed rounds again. Of course you should. She hurries away, glad to be rid of that gazethatdeadly, almost hypnotic gaze. Ben Hanscom turns his head to the window and looks out. Lightning goes off inside huge thunderheads nine miles off the starboard wing. In the stutterflashes of light, the clouds look like huge transparent brains filled with bad thoughts. He feels in the pocket of his vest, but the silver dollars are gone. Out of his pocket and into Ricky Lees. Suddenly he wishes he had saved at least one of them. It might have come in handy. Of course you could go down to any bankat least when you werent bumping around at twentyseven thousand feet you couldand get a handful of silver dollars, but you couldnt do anything with the lousy copper sandwiches the government was trying to pass off as real coins these days. And for werewolves and vampires and all manner of things that squirm by starlight, it was silver you wanted; honest silver. You needed silver to stop a monster. You needed He closed his eyes. The air around him was full of chimes. The plane rocked and rolled and bumped and the air was full of chimes. Chimes? No ... bells. It was bells, it was the bell, the bell of all bells, the one you waited for all year once the new wore off school again, and that always happened by the end of the first week. The bell, the one that signalled freedom again, the apotheosis of all school bells. Ben Hanscom sits in his firstclass seat, suspended amid the thunders at twentyseven thousand feet, his face turned to the window, and he feels the wall of time grow suddenly thin; some terriblewonderful peristalsis has begun to take place. He thinks My God, I am being digested by my own past. The lightning plays fitfully across his face, and although he does not know it, the day has just turned.

May 28th, 1985, has become May 29th over the dark and stormy country that is western Illinois tonight; farmers backsore with plantings sleep like the dead below and dream their quicksilver dreams and who knows what may move in their barns and their cellars and their fields as the lightning walks and the thunder talks? No one knows these things; they know only that power is loose in the night, and the air is crazy with the big volts of the storm. But its bells at twentyseven thousand feet as the plane breaks into the clear again, as its motion steadies again; it is bells; it is the bell as Ben Hanscom sleeps; and as he sleeps the wall between past and present disappears completely and he tumbles backward through years like a man falling down a deep wellWellss Time Traveller, perhaps, falling with a broken iron rung in one hand, down and down into the land of the Morlocks, where machines pound on and on in the tunnels of the night. Its 1981, 1977, 1969; and suddenly he is here, here in June of 1958; bright summerlight is everywhere and behind sleeping eyelids Ben Hanscoms pupils contract at the command of his dreaming brain, which sees not the darkness which lies over western Illinois but the bright sunlight of a June day in Derry, Maine, twentyseven years ago. Bells. The bell. School. School is. School is 2 out! The sound of the bell went burring up and down the halls of Derry School, a big brick building which stood on Jackson Street, and at its sound the children in Ben Hanscoms fifthgrade classroom raised a spontaneous cheerand Mrs. Douglas, usually the strictest of teachers, made no effort to quell them. Perhaps she knew it would have been impossible. Children! she called when the cheer died. May I have your attention for a final moment? Now a babble of excited chatter, mixed with a few groans, rose in the classroom. Mrs. Douglas was holding their report cards in her hand. I sure hope I pass! Sally Mueller said chirpily to Bev Marsh, who sat in the next row. Sally was bright, pretty, vivacious. Bev was also pretty, but there was nothing vivacious about her this afternoon, last day of school or not. She sat looking moodily down at her pennyloafers. There was a fading yellow bruise on one of her cheeks. I dont give a shit if I do or not, Bev said. Sally sniffed. Ladies dont use such language, the sniff said. Then she turned to Greta Bowie. It had probably only been the excitement of the bell signalling the end of another schoolyear that had caused Sally to slip and speak to Beverly anyhow, Ben thought. Sally Mueller and Greta Bowie both came from rich families with houses on West Broadway while Bev came to school from one of those slummy apartment buildings on Lower Main Street. Lower Main Street and West Broadway were only a mile and a half apart, but even a kid like Ben knew that the real distance was like the distance between Earth and the planet Pluto. All you had to do was look at Beverly Marshs cheap sweater, her toobig skirt that probably came from the Salvation Army thriftbox, and her scuffed pennyloafers to know just how far one was from the other. But Ben still liked Beverly bettera lot better. Sally and Greta had nice clothes, and he guessed they probably had their hair permed or waved or something every month or so, but he didnt think that changed the basic facts at all. They could get their hair permed every day and theyd still be a couple of conceited snots. He thought Beverly was nicer ... and much prettier, although he never in a million years would have dared say such a thing to her. But still, sometimes, in the heart of winter when the light outside seemed yellowsleepy, like a cat curled up on a sofa, when Mrs. Douglas was droning on about mathematics (how to carry down in long division or how to find the common denominator of two fractions so you could add them) or reading the questions from Shining Bridges or talking about tin deposits in Paraguay, on those days when it seemed that school would never end and it didnt matter if it didnt because all the world outside was slush ... on those days Ben would sometimes look sideways at Beverly, stealing her face, and his heart would both hurt desperately and somehow grow brighter at the same time. He supposed he had a crush on her, or was in love with her, and that was why it was always Beverly he thought of when the Penguins came on the radio singing Earth Angelmy darling dear love you all the time ... Yeah, it was stupid, all right, sloppy as a used Kleenex, but it was all right, too, because he would never tell. He thought that fat boys were probably only allowed to love pretty girls inside. If he told anyone how he felt (not that he had anyone to tell), that person would probably laugh until he had a heartattack. And if he ever told Beverly, she would either laugh herself (bad), or make retching noises of disgust (worse). Now please come up as soon as I call your name. Paul Anderson ... Carla Bordeaux ... Greta Bowie ... Calvin Clark ... Cissy Clark ... As she called their names, Mrs. Douglass fifthgrade class came forward one by one (except for the Clark twins, who came together as always, hand in hand, indistinguishable except for the length of their whiteblonde hair and the fact that she wore a dress while he wore jeans), took their buffcolored report cards with the American flag and the Pledge of Allegiance on the front and the Lords Prayer on the back, walked sedately out of the classroom ... and then pounded down the hall to where the big front doors had been chocked open. And then they simply ran out into summer and were gone some on bikes, some skipping, some riding invisible horses and slapping their hands against the sides of their thighs to manufacture hoofbeats, some with arms slung about each other, singing Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Marcia Fadden ... Frank Frick ... Ben Hanscom ... He rose, stealing his last glance at Beverly Marsh for the summer (or so he thought then), and went forward to Mrs. Douglass desk, an elevenyearold kid with a can roughly the size of New Mexicosaid can packed into a pair of horrid new bluejeans that shone little darts of light from the copper rivets and went whsshtwhsshtwhssht as his big thighs brushed together. His hips swung girlishly. His stomach slid from side to side. He was wearing a baggy sweatshirt although the day was warm. He almost always wore baggy sweatshirts because he was deeply ashamed of his chest and had been since the first day of school after the Christmas vacation, when he had worn one of the new Ivy League shirts his mother had given him, and Belch Huggins, who was a sixthgrader, had cawed Hey, you guys! Look it what Santy Claus brought Ben Hanscom for Christmas! A big set of titties! Belch had nearly collapsed with the deliciousness of his wit. Others had laughed as wella few of them girls. If a hole leading into the underworld had opened before him at that very moment, Ben would have dropped into it without a sound ... or perhaps with the faintest murmur of gratitude. Since that day he wore sweatshirts. He had four of themthe baggy brown, the baggy green, and two baggy blues. It was one of the few things on which he had managed to stand up to his mother, one of the few lines he had ever, in the course of his mostly complacent childhood, felt compelled to draw in the dust. If he had seen Beverly Marsh giggling with the others that day, he supposed he would have died. Its been a pleasure having you this year, Benjamin, Mrs. Douglas said as she handed him his report card. Thank you, Mrs. Douglas. A mocking falsetto wavered from somewhere at the back of the room Sankooo, Missus Dougwiss. It was Henry Bowers, of course. Henry was in Bens fifthgrade class instead of in the sixth grade with his friends Belch Huggins and Victor Criss because he had been kept back the year before. Ben had an idea that Bowers was going to stay back again. His name had not been called when Mrs. Douglas handed out the rankcards, and that meant trouble. Ben was uneasy about this, because if Henry did stay back again, Ben himself would be partly responsible ... and Henry knew it. During the years final tests the week before, Mrs. Douglas had reseated them at random by drawing their names from a hat on her desk. Ben had ended up sitting next to Henry Bowers in the last row. As always, Ben curled his arm around his paper and then bent close to it, feeling the somehow comforting press of his gut against his desk, licking his BeBop pencil occasionally for inspiration. About halfway through Tuesdays examination, which happened to be math, a whisper drifted across the aisle to Ben. It was as low and uncarrying and expert as the whisper of a veteran con passing a message in the prison exercise yard Let me copy. Ben had looked to his left and directly into the black and furious eyes of Henry Bowers. Henry was a big boy even for twelve. His arms and legs were thick with farmmuscle. His father, who was reputed to be crazy, had a little spread out at the end of Kansas Street, near the Newport town line, and Henry put in at least thirty hours a week hoeing, weeding, planting, digging rocks, cutting wood, and reaping, if there was anything to reap. Henrys hair was cut in an angrylooking flattop short enough for the white of his scalp to show through. He ButchWaxed the front with a tube he always carried in the hip pocket of his jeans, and as a result the hair just above his forehead looked like the teeth of an oncoming powermower. An odor of sweat and Juicy Fruit gum always hung about him. He wore a pink motorcycle jacket with an eagle on the back to school. Once a fourthgrader was unwise enough to laugh at that jacket. Henry had turned on the little squirt, limber as a weasel and quick as an adder, and doublepumped the squirt with one workgrimed fist. The squirt lost three front teeth. Henry got a twoweek vacation from school. Ben had hoped, with the unfocused yet burning hope of the downtrodden and terrorized, that Henry would be expelled instead of suspended. No such luck. Bad pennies always turned up. His suspension over, Henry had swaggered back into the schoolyard, balefully resplendent in his pink motorcycle jacket, hair ButchWaxed so heavily that it seemed to scream up from his skull. Both eyes bore the puffed, colorful traces of the beating his crazy father had administered for fighting in the playyard. The traces of the beating eventually faded; for the kids who had to somehow coexist with Henry at Derry, the lesson did not. To the best of Bens knowledge, no one had said anything about Henrys pink motorcycle jacket with the eagle on the back since then. When he whispered grimly at Ben to let him copy, three thoughts had gone skyrocketing through Bens mindwhich was every bit as lean and quick as his body was obesein a space of seconds. The first was that if Mrs. Douglas caught Henry cheating answers off his paper, both of them would get zeros on their tests. The second was that if he didnt let Henry copy, Henry would almost surely catch him after school and administer the fabled doublepump to him, probably with Huggins holding one of his arms and Criss holding the other. These were the thoughts of a child, and there was nothing surprising about that, because he was a child. The third and last thought, however, was more sophisticatedalmost adult. He might get me, all right. But maybe I can keep out of his way for the last week of school. Im pretty sure I can, if I really try. And hell forget over the summer, I think. Yeah. Hes pretty stupid. If he flunks this test, maybe hell stay back again. And if he stays back Ill get ahead of him. I wont be in the same room with him anymore.... Ill get to junior high before he does. I . . . I might be free. Let me copy, Henry whispered again. His black eyes were now blazing, demanding. Ben shook his head and curled his arm more tightly around his paper. Ill get you, fatboy, Henry whispered, a little louder now. His paper was so far an utter blank save for his name. He was desperate. If he flunked his exams and stayed back again, his father would beat his brains out. You let me copy or Ill get you bad. Ben shook his head again, his jowls quivering. He was scared, but he was also determined. He realized that for the first time in his life he had consciously committed himself to a course of action, and that also frightened him, although he didnt exactly know whyit would be long years before he would realize it was the coldbloodedness of his calculations, the careful and pragmatic counting of the cost, with its intimations of onrushing adulthood, that had scared him even more than Henry had scared him. Henry he might be able to dodge. Adulthood, where he would probably think in such a way almost all the time, would get him in the end. Is someone talking back there? Mrs. Douglas had said then, very clearly. If so, I want it to stop right now. Silence had prevailed for the next ten minutes; young heads remained studiously bent over examination sheets which smelled of fragrant purple mimeograph ink, and then Henrys whisper had floated across the aisle again, thin, just audible, chilling in the calm assurance of its promise Youre dead, fatboy. 3 Ben took his rankcard and escaped, grateful to whatever gods there are for elevenyearold fatboys that Henry Bowers had not, by virtue of alphabetical order, been allowed to escape the classroom first so he could lay for Ben outside. He did not run down the corridor like the other children. He could run, and quite fast for a kid his size, but he was acutely aware of how funny he looked when he did. He walked fast, though, and emerged from the cool booksmelling hall and into the bright June sunshine. He stood with his face turned up into that sunshine for a moment, grateful for its warmth and his freedom. September was a million years from today. The calendar might say something different, but what the calendar said was a lie. The summer would be much longer than the sum of its days, and it belonged to him. He felt as tall as the Standpipe and as wide as the whole town. Someone bumped himbumped him hard. Pleasant thoughts of the summer lying before him were driven from Bens mind as he tottered wildly for balance on the edge of the stone steps. He grabbed the iron railing just in time to save himself from a nasty tumble. Get out of my way, you tub of guts. It was Victor Criss, his hair combed back in an Elvis pompadour and gleaming with Brylcreem. He went down the steps and along the walk to the front gate, hands in the pockets of his jeans, shirtcollar turned up hoodstyle, cleats on his engineer boots dragging and tapping. Ben, his heart still beating rapidly from his fright, saw that Belch Huggins was standing across the street, having a butt. He raised a hand to Victor and passed him the cigarette when Victor joined him. Victor took a drag, handed it back to Belch, then pointed to where Ben stood, now halfway down the steps. He said something and they both broke up. Bens face flamed dully. They always got you. It was like fate or something. You like this place so well youre gonna stand here all day? a voice said at his elbow. Ben turned, and his face became hotter still. It was Beverly Marsh, her auburn hair a dazzling cloud around her head and upon her shoulders, her eyes a lovely graygreen. Her sweater, pushed to her elbows, was frayed around the neck and almost as baggy as Bens sweatshirt. Too baggy, certainly, to tell if she was getting any chestworks yet, but Ben didnt care; when love comes before puberty, it can come in waves so clear and so powerful that no one can stand against its simple imperative, and Ben made no effort to do so now. He simply gave in. He felt both foolish and exalted, as miserably embarrassed as he had ever been in his life ... and yet inarguably blessed. These hopeless emotions mixed in a heady brew that left him feeling both sick and joyful. No, he croaked. Guess not. A large grin spread across his face. He knew how idiotic it must look, but he could not seem to pull it back. Well, good. Cause schools out, you know. Thank God. Have ... Another croak. He had to clear his throat, and his blush deepened. Have a nice summer, Beverly. You too, Ben. See you next year. She went quickly down the steps and Ben saw everything with his lovers eye the bright tartan of her skirt, the bounce of her red hair against the back of her sweater, her milky complexion, a small healing cut across the back of one calf, and (for some reason this last caused another wave of feeling to sweep him so powerfully he had to grope for the railing again; the feeling was huge, inarticulate, mercifully brief; perhaps a sexual presignal, meaningless to his body, where the endocrine glands still slept almost without dreaming, yet as bright as summer heatlightning) a bright golden anklebracelet she wore just above her right loafer, winking back the sun in brilliant little flashes. A soundsome sort of soundescaped him. He went down the steps like a feeble old man and stood at the bottom, watching until she turned left and disappeared beyond the high hedge that separated the schoolyard from the sidewalk. 4 He only stood there for a moment, and then, while the kids were still streaming past in yelling, running groups, he remembered Henry Bowers and hurried around the building. He crossed the littlekids playground, running his fingers across the swingchains to make them jingle and stepping over the teetertotter boards. He went out the much smaller gate which gave on Charter Street and headed off to the left, never looking back at the stone pile where he had spent most of his weekdays over the last nine months. He stuffed his rankcard in his back pocket and started to whistle. He was wearing a pair of Keds, but so far as he could tell, their soles never touched the sidewalk for eight blocks or so. School had let out just past noon; his mother would not be home until at least six, because on Fridays she went right to the Shop n Save after work. The rest of the day was his. He went down to McCarron Park for awhile and sat under a tree, not doing anything but occasionally whispering I love Beverly Marsh under his breath, feeling more lightheaded and romantic each time he said it. At one point, as a bunch of boys drifted into the park and began choosing up sides for a scratch baseball game, he whispered the words Beverly Hanscom twice, and then had to put his face into the grass until it cooled his burning cheeks. Shortly after that he got up and headed across the park toward Costello Avenue. A walk of five more blocks would take him to the Public Library, which, he supposed, had been his destination all along. He was almost out of the park when a sixthgrader named Peter Gordon saw him and yelled Hey, tits! Wanna play? We need somebody to be rightfield! There was an explosion of laughter. Ben escaped it as fast as he could, hunching his neck down into his collar like a turtle drawing into its shell. Still, he considered himself lucky, all in all; on another day the boys might have chased him, maybe just to rank him out, maybe to roll him in the dirt and see if he would cry. Today they were too absorbed in getting the game goingwhether or not you could use fingers or get topsies when you threw the bat for first picks, which team would get their guaranteed last ups, all the rest. Ben happily left them to the arcana preceding the first ballgame of the summer and went on his way. Three blocks down Costello he spied something interesting, perhaps even profitable, under someones front hedge. Glass gleamed through the ripped side of an old paper bag. Ben hooked the bag out onto the sidewalk with his foot. It seemed his luck really was in. There were four beer bottles and four big soda bottles inside. The biggies were worth a nickel each, the Rheingolds two pennies. Twentyeight cents under someones hedge, just waiting for some kid to come along and scoff it up. Some lucky kid. Thats me, Ben said happily, having no idea what the rest of the day had in store. He got moving again, holding the bag by the bottom so it wouldnt break open. The Costello Avenue Market was a block farther down the street, and Ben turned in. He swapped the bottles for cash and most of the cash for candy. He stood at the pennycandy window, pointing, delighted as always by the ratcheting sound the sliding door made when the storekeeper slid it along its track, which was lined with ballbearings. He got five red licorice whips and five black, ten rootbeer barrels (two for a penny), a nickel strip of buttons (five to a row, five rows on a nickel strip, and you ate them right off the paper), a packet of Likem Ade, and a package of Pez for his PezGun at home. Ben walked out with a small brown paper sack of candy in his hand and four cents in the right front pocket of his new jeans. He looked at the brown bag with its load of sweetness and a thought suddenly tried to surface (you keep eating this way Beverly Marsh is never going to look at you) but it was an unpleasant thought and so he pushed it away. It went easily enough; this was a thought used to being banished. If someone had asked him, Ben, are you lonely?, he would have looked at that someone with real surprise. The question had never even occurred to him. He had no friends, but he had his books and his dreams; he had his Revell models; he had a gigantic set of Lincoln Logs and built all sorts of stuff with them. His mother had exclaimed more than once that Bens Lincoln Logs houses looked better than some real ones that came from blueprints. He had a pretty good Erector Set, too. He was hoping for the Super Set when his birthday came around in October. With that one you could build a clock that really told time and a car with real gears in it. Lonely? he might have asked in return, honestly foozled. Huh? What? A child blind from birth doesnt even know hes blind until someone tells him. Even then he has only the most academic idea of what blindness is; only the formerly sighted have a real grip on the thing. Ben Hanscom had no sense of being lonely because he had never been anything but. If the condition had been new, or more localized, he might have understood, but loneliness both encompassed his life and overreached it. It simply was, like his doublejointed thumb or the funny little jag inside one of his front teeth, the little jag his tongue began running over whenever he was nervous. Beverly was a sweet dream; the candy was a sweet reality. The candy was his friend. So he told the alien thought to take a hike, and it went quietly, without causing any fuss whatsoever. And between the Costello Avenue Market and the library, he gobbled all of the candy in the sack. He honestly meant to save the Pez for watching TV that nighthe liked to load them into the little plastic PezGuns handgrip one by one, liked to hear the accepting click of the small spring inside, and liked most of all to shoot them into his mouth one by one, like a kid committing suicide by sugar. Whirlybirds was on tonight, with Kenneth Tobey as the fearless helicopter pilot, and Dragnet, where the cases were true but the names had been changed to protect the innocent, and his favorite cop show of all time, Highway Patrol, which starred Broderick Crawford as Highway Patrolman Dan Matthews. Broderick Crawford was Bens personal hero. Broderick Crawford was fast, Broderick Crawford was mean, Broderick Crawford took absolutely no shit from nobody ... and best of all, Broderick Crawford was fat. He arrived at the corner of Costello and Kansas Street, where he crossed to the Public Library. It was really two buildingsthe old stone structure in front, built with lumberbaron money in 1890, and the new low sandstone building behind, which housed the Childrens Library. The adult library in front and the Childrens Library behind were connected by a glass corridor. This close to downtown, Kansas Street was oneway, so Ben only looked in one directionrightbefore crossing. If he had looked left, he would have gotten a nasty shock. Standing in the shade of a big old oak tree on the lawn of the Derry Community House a block down were Belch Huggins, Victor Criss, and Henry Bowers. 5 Lets get him Hank. Victor was almost panting. Henry watched the fat little prick scutter across the street; his belly bouncing, the cowlick at the back of his head springing back and forth like a goddam Slinky, his ass wiggling like a girls inside his new bluejeans. He estimated the distance between the three of them here on the Community House lawn and Hanscom, and between Hanscom and the safety of the library. He thought they could probably get him before he made it inside, but Hanscom might start screaming. He wouldnt put it past the little pansy. If he did, an adult might interfere, and Henry wanted no interference. The Douglas bitch had told Henry he had flunked both English and math. She was passing him, she said, but he would have to take four weeks of summer makeup. Henry would rather have stayed back. If hed stayed back, his father would have beaten him up once. With Henry at school four hours a day for four weeks of the farms busiest season, his father was apt to beat him up half a dozen times, maybe even more. He was reconciled to this grim future only because he intended to pass everything on to that fat little babyfag this afternoon. With interest. Yeah, lets go, Belch said. Well wait for him to come out. They watched Ben open one of the big double doors and go inside, and then they sat down and smoked cigarettes and told travellingsalesman jokes and waited for him to come back out. Eventually, Henry knew, he would. And when he did, Henry was going to make him sorry he was ever born. 6 Ben loved the library. He loved the way it was always cool, even on the hottest day of a long hot summer; he loved its murmuring quiet, broken only by occasional whispers, the faint thud of a librarian stamping books and cards, or the riffle of pages being turned in the Periodicals Room, where the old men hung out, reading newspapers which had been threaded into long sticks. He loved the quality of the light, which slanted through the high narrow windows in the afternoons or glowed in lazy pools thrown by the chainhung globes on winter evenings while the wind whined outside. He liked the smell of the booksa spicy smell, faintly fabulous. He would sometimes walk through the adult stacks, looking at the thousands of volumes and imagining a world of lives inside each one, the way he sometimes walked along his street in the burning smokehazed twilight of a lateOctober afternoon, the sun only a bitter orange line on the horizon, imagining the lives going on behind all the windowspeople laughing or arguing or arranging flowers or feeding kids or pets or their own faces while they watched the boobtube. He liked the way the glass corridor connecting the old building with the Childrens Library was always hot, even in the winter, unless there had been a couple of cloudy days; Mrs. Starrett, the head childrens librarian, told him that was caused by something called the greenhouse effect. Ben had been delighted with the idea. Years later he would build the hotly debated BBC communications center in London, and the arguments might rage for a thousand years and still no one would know (except for Ben himself) that the communications center was nothing but the glass corridor of the Derry Public Library stood on end. He liked the Childrens Library as well, although it had none of the shadowy charm he felt in the old library, with its globes and curving iron staircases too narrow for two people to pass upon themone always had to back up. The Childrens Library was bright and sunny, a little noisier in spite of the LETS BE QUIET, SHALL WE? signs that were posted around. Most of the noise usually came from Poohs Corner, where the little kids went to look at picturebooks. When Ben came in today, story hour had just begun there. Miss Davies, the pretty young librarian, was reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Who is that triptrapping upon my bridge? Miss Davies spoke in the low, growling tones of the troll in the story. Some of the little ones covered their mouths and giggled, but most only watched her solemnly, accepting the voice of the troll as they accepted the voices of their dreams, and their grave eyes reflected the eternal fascination of the fairytale would the monster be bested ... or would it feed? Bright posters were tacked everywhere. Here was a good cartoon kid who had brushed his teeth until his mouth foamed like the muzzle of a mad dog; here was a bad cartoon kid who was smoking cigarettes (WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE SICK A LOT, JUST LIKE MY DAD, it said underneath); here was a wonderful photograph of a billion tiny pinpoints of light flaring in darkness. The motto beneath said ONE IDEA LIGHTS A THOUSAND CANDLES. Ralph Waldo Emerson There were invitations to JOIN THE SCOUTING EXPERIENCE. A poster advancing the idea that THE GIRLS CLUBS OF TODAY BUILD THE WOMEN OF TOMORROW. There were softball signup sheets and Community House Childrens Theater signup sheets. And, of course, one inviting kids to JOIN THE SUMMER READING PROGRAM. Ben was a big fan of the summer reading program. You got a map of the United States when you signed up. Then, for every book you read and made a report on, you got a state sticker to lick and put on your map. The sticker came complete with info like the state bird, the state flower, the year admitted to the Union, and what presidents, if any, had ever come from that state. When you got all fortyeight stuck on your map, you got a free book. Helluva good deal. Ben planned to do just as the poster suggested Waste no time, sign up today. Conspicuous amid this bright and amiable riot of color was a simple stark poster taped to the checkout deskno cartoons or fancy photographs here, just black print on white posterpaper reading REMEMBER THE CURFEW. 7 P.M. DERRY POLICE DEPARTMENT Just looking at it gave Ben a chill. In the excitement of getting his rankcard, worrying about Henry Bowers, talking with Beverly, and starting summer vacation, he had forgotten all about the curfew, and the murders. People argued about how many there had been, but everyone agreed that there had been at least four since last winterfive if you counted George Denbrough (many held the opinion that the little Denbrough boys death must have been some kind of bizarre freak accident). The first everyone was sure of was Betty Ripsom, who had been found the day after Christmas in the area of turnpike construction on Outer Jackson Street. The girl, who was thirteen, had been found mutilated and frozen into the muddy earth. This had not been in the paper, nor was it a thing any adult had spoken of to Ben. It was just something he had picked up around the corners of overheard conversations. About three and a half months later, not long after the troutfishing season had begun, a fisherman working the bank of a stream twenty miles east of Derry had hooked onto something he believed at first to be a stick. It had turned out to be the hand, wrist, and first four inches of a girls forearm. His hook had snagged this awful trophy by the web of flesh between the thumb and first finger. The State Police had found the rest of Cheryl Lamonica seventy yards farther downstream, caught in a tree that had fallen across the stream the previous winter. It was only luck that the body had not been washed into the Penobscot and then out to sea in the spring runoff. The Lamonica girl had been sixteen. She was from Derry but did not attend school; three years before she had given birth to a daughter, Andrea. She and her daughter lived at home with Cheryls parents.

Cheryl was a little wild sometimes but she was a good girl at heart, her sobbing father had told police. Andi keeps asking Wheres my mommy? and I dont know what to tell her. The girl had been reported missing five weeks before the body was found. The police investigation of Cheryl Lamonicas death began with a logical enough assumption that she had been murdered by one of her boyfriends. She had lots of boyfriends. Many were from the air base up Bangor way. They were nice boys, most of them, Cheryls mother said. One of the nice boys had been a fortyyearold Air Force colonel with a wife and three children in New Mexico. Another was currently serving time in Shawshank for armed robbery. A boyfriend, the police thought. Or just possibly a stranger. A sexfiend. If it was a sexfiend, he was apparently a fiend for boys as well. In late April a juniorhigh teacher on a nature walk with his eighthgrade class had spied a pair of red sneakers and a pair of blue corduroy rompers protruding from the mouth of a culvert on Merit Street. That end of Merit had been blocked off with sawhorses. The asphalt had been bulldozed up the previous fall. The turnpike extension would cross there as well on its way north to Bangor. The body had been that of threeyearold Matthew Clements, reported missing by his parents only the day before (his picture had been on the front page of the Derry News, a darkhaired little kid grinning brashly into the camera, a Red Sox cap perched on his head). The Clements family lived on Kansas Street, all the way on the other side of town. His mother, so stunned by her grief that she seemed to exist in a glass ball of utter calm, told police that Matty had been riding his tricycle up and down the sidewalk beside the house, which stood on the comer of Kansas Street and Kossuth Lane. She went to put her washing in the drier, and when she next looked out the window to check on Matty, he was gone. There had only been his overturned trike on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. One of the back wheels was still spinning lazily. As she looked, it came to a stop. That was enough for Chief Borton. He proposed the seven oclock curfew at a special session of the City Council the following evening; it was adopted unanimously and went into effect the next day. Small children were to be watched by a qualified adult at all times, according to the story which reported the curfew in the News. At Bens school there had been a special assembly a month ago. The Chief went on stage, hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt, and assured the children they had nothing at all to worry about as long as they followed a few simple rules dont talk to strangers, dont accept rides with people unless you know them well, always remember that The Policeman Is Your Friend ... and obey the curfew. Two weeks ago a boy Ben knew only vaguely (he was in the other fifthgrade classroom at Derry Elementary) had looked into one of the stormdrains out by Neibolt Street and had seen what looked like a lot of hair floating around in there. This boy, whose name was either Frankie or Freddy Ross (or maybe Roth), had been out prospecting for goodies with a gadget of his own invention, which he called THE FABULOUS GUMSTICK. When he talked about it you could tell he thought about it like that, in capital letters (and maybe neon, as well). THE FABULOUS GUMSTICK was a birch branch with a big wad of bubblegum stuck on the tip. In his spare time Freddy (or Frankie) walked around Derry with it, peering into sewers and drains. Sometimes he saw money pennies mostly, but sometimes a dime or even a quarter (he referred to these latter, for some reason known only to him, as quaymonsters). Once the money was spotted, FrankieorFreddy and THE FABULOUS GUMSTICK would swing into action. One downward poke through the grating and the coin was as good as in his pocket. Ben had heard rumors of FrankieorFreddy and his gumstick long before the kid had vaulted into the limelight by discovering the body of Veronica Grogan. Hes really gross, a kid named Richie Tozier had confided to Ben one day during activity period. Tozier was a scrawny kid who wore glasses. Ben thought that without them Tozier probably saw every bit as well as Mr. Magoo; his magnified eyes swam behind the thick lenses with an expression of perpetual surprise. He also had huge front teeth that had earned him the nickname Bucky Beaver. He was in the same fifthgrade class as FreddyorFrankie. Pokes that gumstick of his down sewerdrains all day long and then chews the gum from the end of it at night. Oh gosh, thats bad! Ben had exclaimed. Dats wight, wabbit, Tozier said, and walked away. FrankieorFreddy had worked THE FABULOUS GUMSTICK back and forth through the grate of the stormdrain, believing hed found a wig. He thought maybe he could dry it out and give it to his mother for her birthday, or something. After a few minutes of poking and prodding, just as he was about to give up, a face had floated out of the murky water in the plugged drain, a face with dead leaves plastered to its white cheeks and dirt in its staring eyes. FreddyorFrankie ran home screaming. Veronica Grogan had been in the fourth grade at the Neibolt Street Church School, which was run by people Bens mother called the Christers. She was buried on what would have been her tenth birthday. After this most recent horror, Arlene Hanscom had taken Ben into the living room one evening and sat beside him on the couch. She picked up his hands and looked intently into his face. Ben looked back, feeling a little uneasy. Ben, she said presently, are you a fool? No, Mamma, Ben said, feeling more uneasy than ever. He hadnt the slightest idea what this was about. He could not remember ever seeing his mamma look so grave. No, she echoed. I dont believe you are. She fell silent for a long time then, not looking at Ben but pensively out the window. Ben wondered briefly if she had forgotten all about him. She was a young woman stillonly thirtytwobut raising a boy by herself had put a mark on her. She worked forty hours a week in the spoolandbale room at Starks Mills in Newport, and after workdays when the dust and lint had been particularly bad, she sometimes coughed so long and hard that Ben would become frightened. On those nights he would lie awake for a long time, looking through the window beside his bed into the darkness, wondering what would become of him if she died. He would be an orphan then, he supposed. He might become a State Kid (he thought that meant you had to go live with farmers who made you work from sunup to sunset), or he might be sent to the Bangor Orphan Asylum. He tried to tell himself it was foolish to worry about such things, but the telling did absolutely no good. Nor was it just himself he was worried about; he worried for her as well. She was a hard woman, his mamma, and she insisted on having her own way about most things, but she was a good mamma. He loved her very much. You know about these murders, she said, looking back at last. He nodded. At first people thought they were... She hesitated over the next word, never spoken in her sons presence before, but the circumstances were unusual and she forced herself. ... sex crimes. Maybe they were and maybe they werent. Maybe theyre over and maybe theyre not. No one can be sure of anything anymore, except that some crazy man who preys on little children is out there. Do you understand me, Ben? He nodded. And you know what I mean when I say they may have been sex crimes? He didntat least not exactlybut he nodded again. If his mother felt she had to talk to him about the birds and bees as well as this other business, he thought he would die of embarrassment. I worry about you, Ben. I worry that Im not doing right by you. Ben squirmed and said nothing. Youre on your own a lot. Too much, I guess. You Mamma Hush while Im talking to you, she said, and Ben hushed. You have to be careful, Benny. Summers coming and I dont want to spoil your vacation, but you have to be careful. I want you in by suppertime every day. What time do we eat supper? Six oclock. Right with Eversharp! So hear what Im saying if I set the table and pour your milk and see that theres no Ben washing his hands at the sink, Im going to go right away to the telephone and call the police and report you missing. Do you understand that? Yes, Mamma. And you believe I mean exactly what I say? Yes. It would probably turn out that I did it for nothing, if I ever had to do it at all. Im not entirely ignorant about the ways of boys. I know they get wrapped up in their own games and projects during summer vacationlining bees back to their hives or playing ball or kickthecan or whatever. I have a pretty good idea what you and your friends are up to, you see. Ben nodded soberly, thinking that if she didnt know he had no friends, she probably didnt know anywhere near as much about his boyhood as she thought she did. But he would never have dreamed of saying such a thing to her, not in ten thousand years of dreaming. She took something from the pocket of her housedress and handed it to him. It was a small plastic box. Ben opened it. When he saw what was inside, his mouth dropped open. Wow! he said, his admiration totally unaffected. Thanks! It was a Timex watch with small silver numbers and an imitationleather band. She had set it and wound it; he could hear it ticking. Jeez, its the coolest! He gave her an enthusiastic hug and a loud kiss on the cheek. She smiled, pleased that he was pleased, and nodded. Then she grew grave again. Put it on, keep it on, wear it, wind it, mind it, dont lose it. Okay. Now that you have a watch you have no reason to be late home. Remember what I said if youre not on time, the police will be looking for you on my behalf. At least until they catch the bastard who is killing children around here, dont you dare be a single minute late, or Ill be on that telephone. Yes, Mamma. One other thing. I dont want you going around alone. You know enough not to accept candy or rides from strangerswe both agree that youre no fooland youre big for your age, but a grown man, particularly a crazy one, can overpower a child if he really wants to. When you go to the park or the library, go with one of your friends. I will, Mamma. She looked out the window again and uttered a sigh that was full of trouble. Things have come to a pretty pass when a thing like this can go on. Theres something ugly about this town, anyway. Ive always thought so. She looked back at him, brows drawn down. Youre such a wanderer, Ben. You must know almost everyplace in Derry, dont you? The town part of it, at least. Ben didnt think he knew anywhere near all the places, but he did know a lot of them. And he was so thrilled by the unexpected gift of the Timex that he would have agreed with his mother that night if she had suggested John Wayne should play Adolf Hitler in a musical comedy about World War II. He nodded. Youve never seen anything, have you? she asked. Anything or anyone... well, suspicious? Anything out of the ordinary? Anything that scared you? And in his pleasure over the watch, his feeling of love for her, his smallboy gladness at her concern (which was at the same time a little frightening in its unhidden unabashed fierceness), he almost told her about the thing that had happened last January. He opened his mouth and then somethingsome powerful intuitionclosed it again. What was that something, exactly? Intuition. No more than that... and no less. Even children may intuit loves more complex responsibilities from time to time, and to sense that in some cases it may be kinder to remain quiet. That was part of the reason Ben closed his mouth. But there was something else as well, something not so noble. She could be hard, his mamma. She could be a boss. She never called him fat, she called him big (sometimes amplified to big for his age), and when there were leftovers from supper she would often bring them to him while he was watching TV or doing his homework, and he would eat them, although some dim part of him hated himself for doing so (but never his mamma for putting the food before himBen Hanscom would not have dared to hate his mamma; God would surely strike him dead for feeling such a brutish, ungrateful emotion even for a second). And perhaps some even dimmer part of himthe faroff Tibet of Bens deeper thoughtssuspected her motives in this constant feeding. Was it just love? Could it be anything else? Surely not. But ... he wondered. More to the point, she didnt know he had no friends. That lack of knowledge made him distrust her, made him unsure of what her reaction would be to his story of the thing which had happened to him in January. If anything had happened. Coming in at six and staying in was not so bad, maybe. He could read, watch TV, (eat) build stuff with his logs and Erector Set. But having to stay in all day as well would be very bad ... and if he told her what he had seenor thought he had seenin January, she might make him do just that. So, for a variety of reasons, Ben withheld the story. No, Mamma, he said. Just Mr. McKibbon rooting around in other peoples garbage. That made her laughshe didnt like Mr. McKibbon, who was a Republican as well as a Christerand her laugh closed the subject. That night Ben had lain awake late, but no thoughts of being cast adrift and parentless in a hard world troubled him. He felt loved and safe as he lay in his bed looking at the moonlight which came in through the window and spilled across the bed onto the floor. He alternately put his watch to his ear so he could listen to it tick and held it close to his eyes so he could admire its ghostly radium dial. He had finally fallen asleep and dreamed he was playing baseball with the other boys in the vacant lot behind Tracker Brothers Truck Depot. He had just hit a basesclearing home run, swinging from his heels and getting every inch of that little honey, and his cheering teammates met him in a mob at home plate. They pummelled him and clapped him on the back. They hoisted him onto their shoulders and carried him toward the place where their equipment was scattered. In the dream he was almost bursting with pride and happiness... and then he had looked out toward center field, where a chainlink fence marked the boundary between the cindery lot and the weedy ground beyond that sloped into the Barrens. A figure was standing in those tangled weeds and low bushes, almost out of sight. It held a clutch of balloonsred, yellow, blue, greenin one whitegloved hand. It beckoned with the other. He couldnt see the figures face, but he could see the baggy suit with the big orange pompombuttons down the front and the floppy yellow bowtie. It was a clown. Dats wight, wabbit, a phantom voice agreed. When Ben awoke the next morning he had forgotten the dream but his pillow was damp to the touch ... as if he had wept in the night. 7 He went up to the main desk in the Childrens Library, shaking the train of thought the curfew sign had begun as easily as a dog shakes water after a swim. Hullo, Benny, Mrs. Starrett said. Like Mrs. Douglas at school, she genuinely liked Ben. Grownups, especially those who sometimes needed to discipline children as part of their jobs, generally liked him, because he was polite, softspoken, thoughtful, sometimes even funny in a very quiet way. These were all the same reasons most kids thought he was a puke. You tired of summer vacation yet? Ben smiled. This was a standard witticism with Mrs. Starrett. Not yet, he said, since summer vacations only been going onhe looked at his watchone hour and seventeen minutes. Give me another hour. Mrs. Starrett laughed, covering her mouth so it wouldnt be too loud. She asked Ben if he wanted to sign up for the summer reading program, and Ben said he did. She gave him a map of the United States and Ben thanked her very much. He wandered off into the stacks, pulling a book here and there, looking at it, putting it back. Choosing books was serious business. You had to be careful. If you were a grownup you could have as many as you wanted, but kids could only take out three at a time. If you picked a dud, you were stuck with it. He finally picked out his threeBulldozer, The Black Stallion, and one that was sort of a shot in the dark a book called Hot Rod, by a man named Henry Gregor Felsen. You may not like this one, Mrs. Starrett remarked, stamping the book. Its extremely bloody. I urge it on the teenagers, especially the ones who have just got their driving licenses, because it gives them something to think about. I imagine it slows some of them down for a whole week. Well, Ill give it a whirl, Ben said, and took his books over to one of the tables away from Poohs Corner, where Big Billy Goat Gruff was in the process of giving a double dose of dickens to the troll under the bridge. He worked on Hot Rod for awhile, and it was not too shabby. Not too shabby at all. It was about a kid who was a really great driver, but there was this partypooper cop who was always trying to slow him down. Ben found out there were no speed limits in Iowa, where the book was set. That was sort of cool. He looked up after three chapters, and his eye was caught by a brandnew display. The poster on top (the library was gungho for posters, all right) showed a happy mailman delivering a letter to a happy kid. LIBRARIES ARE FOR WRITING, TOO, the poster said. WHY NOT WRITE A FRIEND TODAY? THE SMILES ARE GUARANTEED! Beneath the poster were slots filled with prestamped postcards, prestamped envelopes, and stationery with a drawing of the Derry Public Library on top in blue ink. The prestamped envelopes were a nickel each, the postcards three cents. The paper was two sheets for a penny. Ben felt in his pocket. The remaining four cents of his bottle money was still there. He marked his place in Hot Rod and went back to the desk. May I have one of those postcards, please? Certainly, Ben. As always, Mrs. Starrett was charmed by his grave politeness and a little saddened by his size. Her mother would have said the boy was digging his grave with a knife and fork. She gave him the card and watched him go back to his seat. It was a table that could seat six, but Ben was the only one there. She had never seen Ben with any of the other boys. It was too bad, because she believed Ben Hanscom had treasures buried inside. He would yield them up to a kind and patient prospector ... if one ever came along. 8 Ben took out his ballpoint pen, clicked the point down, and addressed the card simply enough Miss Beverly Marsh, Lower Main Street, Derry, Maine, Zone 2. He did not know the exact number of her building, but his mamma had told him that most postmen had a pretty good idea of who their customers were once theyd been on their beats a little while. If the postman who had Lower Main Street could deliver this card, that would be great. If not, it would just go to the deadletter office and he would be out three cents. It would certainly never come back to him, because he had no intention of putting his name and address on it. Carrying the card with the address turned inward (he was taking no chances, even though he didnt see anyone he recognized), he got a few square slips of paper from the wooden box by the cardfile. He took these back to his seat and began to scribble, to cross out, and then to scribble again. During the last week of school before exams, they had been reading and writing haiku in English class. Haiku was a Japanese form of poetry, brief, disciplined. A haiku, Mrs. Douglas said, could be just seventeen syllables longno more, no less. It usually concentrated on one clear image which was linked to one specific emotion sadness, joy, nostalgia, happiness ... love. Ben had been utterly charmed by the concept. He enjoyed his English classes, although mild enjoyment was generally as far as it went. He could do the work, but as a rule there was nothing in it which gripped him. Yet there was something in the concept of haiku that fired his imagination. The idea made him feel happy, the way Mrs. Starretts explanation of the greenhouse effect had made him happy. Haiku was good poetry, Ben felt, because it was structured poetry. There were no secret rules. Seventeen syllables, one image linked to one emotion, and you were out. Bingo. It was clean, it was utilitarian, it was entirely contained within and dependent upon its own rules. He even liked the word itself, a slide of air broken as if along a dotted line by the ksound at the very back of your mouth haiku. Her hair, he thought, and saw her going down the school steps again with it bouncing on her shoulders. The sun did not so much glint on it as seem to burn within it. Working carefully over a twentyminute period (with one break to go back and get more workslips), striking out words that were too long, changing, deleting, Ben came up with this Your hair is winter fire, January embers. My heart burns there, too. He wasnt crazy about it, but it was the best he could do. He was afraid that if he frigged around with it too long, worried it too much, he would end up getting the jitters and doing something much worse. Or not doing it at all. He didnt want that to happen. The moment she had taken to speak to him had been a striking moment for Ben. He wanted to mark it in his memory. Probably Beverly had a crush on some bigger boya sixth or maybe even a seventhgrader, and she would think that maybe that boy had sent the haiku. That would make her happy, and so the day she got it would be marked in her memory. And although she would never know it had been Ben Hanscom who marked it for her, that was all right; he would know. He copied his completed poem onto the back of the postcard (printing in block letters, as if copying out a ransom note rather than a love poem), clipped his pen back into his pocket, and stuck the card in the back of Hot Rod. He got up then, and said goodbye to Mrs. Starrett on his way out. Goodbye, Ben, Mrs. Starrett said. Enjoy your summer vacation, but dont forget about the curfew. I wont. He strolled through the glassedin passageway between the two buildings, enjoying the heat there (greenhouse effect, he thought smugly) followed by the cool of the adult library. An old man was reading the News in one of the ancient, comfortably overstuffed chairs in the Reading Room alcove. The headline just below the masthead blazed DULLES PLEDGES U.S. TROOPS TO HELP LEBANON IF NEEDED! There was also a photo of Ike, shaking hands with an Arab in the Rose Garden. Bens mamma said that when the country elected Hubert Humphrey President in 1960, maybe things would get moving again. Ben was vaguely aware that there was something called a recession going on, and his mamma was afraid she might get laid off. A smaller headline on the bottom half of page one read POLICE HUNT FOR PSYCHOPATH GOES ON. Ben pushed open the librarys big front door and stepped out. There was a mailbox at the foot of the walk. Ben fished the postcard from the back of the book and mailed it. He felt his heartbeat speed up a little as it slipped out of his fingers. What if she knows its me, somehow? Dont be a stupe, he responded, a little alarmed at how exciting that idea seemed to him. He walked off up Kansas Street, hardly aware of where he was going and not caring at all. A fantasy had begun to form in his mind. In it, Beverly Marsh walked up to him, her graygreen eyes wide, her auburn hair tied back in a ponytail. I want to ask you a question, Ben, this makebelieve girl said in his mind, and youve got to swear to tell the truth. She held up the postcard. Did you write this? This was a terrible fantasy. This was a wonderful fantasy. He wanted it to stop. He didnt want it to ever stop. His face was starting to burn again. Ben walked and dreamed and shifted his library books from one arm to the other and began to whistle. Youll probably think Im horrible, Beverly said, but I think I want to kiss you. Her lips parted slightly. Bens own lips were suddenly too dry to whistle. I think I want you to, he whispered, and smiled a dopey, dizzy, and absolutely beautiful grin. If he had looked down at the sidewalk just then, he would have seen that three other shadows had grown around his own; if he had been listening he would have heard the sound of Victors cleats as he, Belch, and Henry closed in. But he neither heard nor saw. Ben was far away, feeling Beverlys lips slip softly against his mouth, raising his timid hands to touch the dim Irish fire of her hair. 9 Like many cities, small and large, Derry had not been plannedlike Topsy, it just growed. City planners never would have located it where it was in the first place. Downtown Derry was in a valley formed by the Kenduskeag Stream, which ran through the business district on a diagonal from southwest to northeast. The rest of the town had swarmed up the sides of the surrounding hills. The valley the townships original settlers came to had been swampy and heavily grown over. The stream and the Penobscot River into which the Kenduskeag emptied were great things for traders, bad ones for those who sowed crops or built their houses too close to themthe Kenduskeag in particular, because it flooded every three or four years. The city was still prone to flooding in spite of the vast amounts of money spent over the last fifty years to control the problem. If the floods had been caused only by the stream itself, a system of dams might have taken care of things. There were, however, other factors. The Kenduskeags low banks were one. The entire areas logy drainage was another. Since the turn of the century there had been many serious floods in Derry and one disastrous one, in 1931. To make matters worse, the hills on which much of Derry was built were honeycombed with small streamsTorrault Stream, in which the body of Cheryl Lamonica had been found, was one of them. During periods of heavy rain, they were all apt to overflow their banks. If it rains two weeks the whole damn town gets a sinus infection, Stuttering Bills dad had said once. The Kenduskeag was caged in a concrete canal two miles long as it passed through downtown. This canal dived under Main Street at the intersection of Main and Canal, becoming an underground river for half a mile or so before surfacing again at Bassey Park. Canal Street, where most of Derrys bars were ranked like felons in a police lineup, paralleled the Canal on its way out of town, and every few weeks or so the police would have to fish some drunks car out of the water, which was polluted to dropdead levels by sewage and mill wastes. Fish were caught from time to time in the Canal, but they were inedible mutants. On the northeastern side of townthe Canal sidethe river had been managed to at least some degree. A thriving commerce went on all along it in spite of the occasional flooding. People walked beside the Canal, sometimes hand in hand (if the wind was right, that was; if it was wrong, the stench took much of the romance out of such strolling), and at Bassey Park, which faced the high school across the Canal, there were sometimes Boy Scout campouts and Cub Scout wiener roasts. In 1969 the citizens would be shocked and sickened to discover that hippies (one of them had actually sewed an American flag on the seat of his pants, and that pinkofaggot was busted before you could say Gene McCarthy) were smoking dope and trading pills up there. By 69 Bassey Park had become a regular openair pharmacy. You just wait, people said. Somebodyll get killed before they put a stop to it. And of course someone finally dida seventeenyearold boy had been found dead by the Canal, his veins full of almost pure heroinwhat the kids called a tight white rail. After that the druggies began to drift away from Bassey Park, and there were even stories that the kids ghost was haunting the area. The story was stupid, of course, but if it kept the speedfreaks and the nodders away, it was at least a useful stupid story. On the southwestern side of town the river presented even more of a problem. Here the hills had been deeply cut open by the passing of the great glacier and further wounded by the endless water erosion of the Kenduskeag and its webwork of tributaries; the bedrock showed through in many places like the halfunearthed bones of dinosaurs. Veteran employees of the Derry Public Works Department knew that, following the falls first hard frost, they could count on a good deal of sidewalk repair on the southwestern side of town. The concrete would contract and grow brittle and then the bedrock would suddenly shatter up through it, as if the earth meant to hatch something. What grew best in the shallow soil which remained was plants with shallow rootsystems and hardy naturesweeds and trashplants, in other words scruffy trees, thick low bushes, and virulent infestations of poison ivy and poison oak grew everywhere they were allowed a foothold. The southwest was where the land fell away steeply to the area that was known in Derry as the Barrens. The Barrenswhich were anything but barrenwere a messy tract of land about a mile and a half wide by three miles long. It was bounded by upper Kansas Street on one side and by Old Cape on the other. Old Cape was a lowincome housing development, and the drainage was so bad over there that there were stories of toilets and sewerpipes actually exploding. The Kenduskeag ran through the center of the Barrens. The city had grown up to the northeast and on both sides of it, but the only vestiges of the city down there were Derry Pumphouse 3 (the municipal sewagepumping station) and the City Dump. Seen from the air the Barrens looked like a big green dagger pointing at downtown. To Ben all this geography mated with geology meant was a vague awareness that there were no more houses on his right side now; the land had dropped away. A rickety whitewashed railing, about waisthigh, ran beside the sidewalk, a token gesture of protection. He could faintly hear running water; it was the soundtrack to his continuing fantasy. He paused and looked out over the Barrens, still imagining her eyes, the clean smell of her hair. From here the Kenduskeag was only a series of twinkles seen through breaks in the thick foliage. Some kids said that there were mosquitoes as big as sparrows down there at this time of year; others said there was quicksand as you approached the river. Ben didnt believe it about the mosquitoes, but the idea of quicksand scared him. Slightly to his left he could see a cloud of circling, diving seagulls the dump. Their cries reached him faintly. Across the way he could see Derry Heights, and the low roofs of the Old Cape houses closest to the Barrens. To the right of Old Cape, pointing skyward like a squat white finger, was the Derry Standpipe. Directly below him a rusty culvert stuck out of the earth, spilling discolored water down the hill in a glimmering little stream which disappeared into the tangled trees and bushes. Bens pleasant fantasy of Beverly was suddenly broken by one far more grim what if a dead hand flopped out of that culvert right now, right this second, while he was looking? And suppose that when he turned to find a phone and call the police, a clown was standing there? A funny clown wearing a baggy suit with big orange puffs for buttons? Suppose A hand fell on Bens shoulder, and he screamed. There was laughter. He whirled around, shrinking against the white fence separating the safe, sane sidewalk of Kansas Street from the wildly undisciplined Barrens (the railing creaked audibly), and saw Henry Bowers, Belch Huggins, and Victor Criss standing there. Hi, Tits, Henry said. What do you want? Ben asked, trying to sound brave. I want to beat you up, Henry said. He seemed to contemplate this prospect soberly, even gravely. But oh, his black eyes sparkled. I got to teach you something, Tits.

You wont mind. You like to learn new things, dont cha? He reached for Ben. Ben ducked away. Hold him, you guys. Belch and Victor seized his arms. Ben squealed. It was a cowardly sound, rabbity and weak, but he couldnt help it. Please God dont let them make me cry and dont let them break my watch, Ben thought wildly. He didnt know if they would get around to breaking his watch or not, but he was pretty sure he would cry. He was pretty sure he would cry plenty before they were through with him. Jeezum, he sounds just like a pig, Victor said. He twisted Bens wrist. Dont he sound like a pig? He sure do, Belch giggled. Ben lunged first one way and then the other. Belch and Victor went with him easily, letting him lunge, then yanking him back. Henry grabbed the front of Bens sweatshirt and yanked it upward, exposing his belly. It hung over his belt in a swollen droop. Lookit that gut! Henry cried in amazed disgust. Jesuspleaseus! Victor and Belch laughed some more. Ben looked around wildly for help. He could see no one. Behind him, down in the Barrens, crickets drowsed and seagulls screamed. You just better quit! he said. He wasnt blubbering yet but was close to it. You just better! Or what? Henry asked as if he was honestly interested. Or what, Tits? Or what, huh? Ben suddenly found himself thinking of Broderick Crawford, who played Dan Matthews on Highway Patrolthat bastard was tough, that bastard was mean, that bastard took zero shit from anybodyand then he burst into tears. Dan Matthews would have belted these guys right through the fence, down the embankment, and into the puckerbrush. He would have done it with his belly. Oh boy, lookit the baby! Victor chortled. Belch joined in. Henry smiled a little, but his face still held that grave, reflective castthat look that was somehow almost sad. It frightened Ben. It suggested he might be in for more than just a beating. As if to confirm this idea, Henry reached into his jeans pocket and brought out a Buck knife. Bens terror exploded. He had been whipsawing his body futilely to either side; now he suddenly lunged straight forward. There was an instant when he believed he was going to get away. He was sweating heavily, and the boys holding his arms had greasy grips at best. Belch managed to hold on to his right wrist, but just barely. He pulled entirely free of Victor. Another lunge Before he could make it, Henry stepped forward and gave him a shove. Ben flew backward. The railing creaked more loudly this time, and he felt it give a little under his weight. Belch and Victor grabbed him again. Now you hold him, Henry said. You hear me? Sure, Henry, Belch said. He sounded a trifle uneasy. He aint gonna get away. Dont worry. Henry stepped forward until his flat stomach almost touched Bens belly. Ben stared at him, tears spilling helplessly out of his wide eyes. Caught! Im caught! a part of his mind yammered. He tried to stop ithe couldnt think at all with that yammering going onbut it wouldnt stop. Caught! Caught! Caught! Henry pulled out the blade, which was long and wide and engraved with his name. The tip glittered in the afternoon sunshine. Im gonna test you now, Henry said in that same reflective voice. Its exam time, Tits, and you better be ready. Ben wept. His heart thundered madly in his chest. Snot ran out of his nose and collected on his upper lip. His library books lay in a scatter at his feet. Henry stepped on Bulldozer, glanced down, and dealt it into the gutter with a sideswipe of one black engineer boot. Heres the first question on your exam, Tits. When somebody says Let me copy during finals, what are you going to say? Yes! Ben exclaimed immediately. Im going to say yes! Sure! Okay! Copy all you want! The Bucks tip slid through two inches of air and pressed against Bens stomach. It was as cold as an icecube tray just out of the Frigidaire. Ben gasped his belly away from it. For a moment the world went gray. Henrys mouth was moving but Ben couldnt tell what he was saying. Henry was like a TV with the sound turned off and the world was swimming ... swimming... Dont you dare faint! the panicky voice shrieked. If you faint he may get mad enough to kill you! The world came back into some kind of focus. He saw that both Belch and Victor had stopped laughing. They looked nervous... almost scared. Seeing that had the effect of a headclearing slap on Ben. All of a sudden they dont know what hes going to do, or how far he might go. However bad you thought things were, thats how bad they really are ... maybe even a little worse. You got to think. If you never did before or never do again, you better think now. Because his eyes say theyre right to look nervous. His eyes say hes crazy as a bedbug. Thats the wrong answer, Tits, Henry said. If just anyone says Let me copy, I dont give a red fuck what you do. Got it? Yes, Ben said, his belly hitching with sobs. Yes, I got it. Well, okay. Thats one wrong, but the biggies are still coming up. You ready for the biggies? I... I guess so. A car came slowly toward them. It was a dusty 51 Ford with an old man and woman propped up in the front seat like a pair of neglected department store mannequins. Ben saw the old mans head turn slowly toward him. Henry stepped closer to Ben, hiding the knife. Ben could feel its point dimpling his flesh just above his bellybutton. It was still cold. He didnt see how that could be, but it was. Go ahead, yell, Henry said. Youll be pickin your fuckin guts off your sneakers. They were close enough to kiss. Ben could smell the sweet smell of Juicy Fruit gum on Henrys breath. The car passed and continued on down Kansas Street, as slow and serene as the pace car in the Tournament of Roses Parade. All right, Tits, heres the second question. If I say Let me copy during finals, what are you going to say? Yes. Ill say yes. Right away. Henry smiled. Thats good. You got that one right, Tits. Now heres the third question how am I going to be sure you never forget that? I ... I dont know, Ben whispered. Henry smiled. His face lit up and was for a moment almost handsome. I know! he said, as if he had discovered a great truth. I know, Tits! Ill carve my name on your big fat gut! Victor and Belch abruptly began laughing again. For a moment Ben felt a species of bewildered relief, thinking it had all been nothing but makebelievea little shuckandjive the three of them had whomped up to scare the living hell out of him. But Henry Bowers wasnt laughing, and Ben suddenly understood that Victor and Belch were laughing because they were relieved. It was obvious to both of them that Henry couldnt be serious. Except Henry was. The Buck knife slid upward, smooth as butter. Blood welled in a bright red line on Bens pallid skin. Hey! Victor cried. The word came out muffled, in a startled gulp. Hold him! Henry snarled. You just hold him, hear me? Now there was nothing grave and reflective on Henrys face; now it was the twisted face of a devil. Jeezumcrow Henry dont really cut im! Belch screamed, and his voice was high, almost a girls voice. Everything happened fast then, but to Ben Hanscom it all seemed slow; it all seemed to happen in a series of shutterclicks, like action stills in a Lifemagazine photoessay. His panic was gone. He had discovered something inside him suddenly, and because it had no use for panic, that something just ate the panic whole. In the first shutterclick, Henry had snatched his sweatshirt all the way up to his nipples. Blood was pouring from the shallow vertical cut above his bellybutton. In the second shutterclick, Henry drew the knife down again, operating fast, like a lunatic battlesurgeon under an aerial bombardment. Fresh blood flowed. Backward, Ben thought coldly as blood flowed down and pooled between the waistband of his jeans and his skin. Got to go backward. Thats the only direction I can get away in. Belch and Victor werent holding him anymore. In spite of Henrys command, they had drawn away. They had drawn away in horror. But if he ran, Bowers would catch him. In the third shutterclick, Henry connected the two vertical slashes with a short horizontal line. Ben could feel blood running into his underpants now, and a sticky snailtrail was creeping down his left thigh. Henry leaned back momentarily, frowning with the studied concentration of an artist painting a landscape. After H comes E, Ben thought, and that was all it took to get him moving. He pulled forward a little bit and Henry shoved him back again. Ben pushed with his legs, adding his own force to Henrys. He hit the whitewashed railing between Kansas Street and the drop into the Barrens. As he did, he raised his right foot and planted it in Henrys belly. This was not a retaliatory act; Ben only wanted to increase his backward force. And yet when he saw the expression of utter surprise on Henrys face, he was filled with a clear savage joya feeling so intense that for a split second he thought the top of his head was going to come off. Then there was a cracking, splintering sound from the railing. Ben saw Victor and Belch catch Henry before he could fall on his ass in the gutter next to the remains of Bulldozer, and then Ben was falling backward into space. He went with a scream that was half a laugh. Ben hit the slope on his back and buttocks just below the culvert he had spotted earlier. It was a good thing he landed below it; if he had landed on it, he might well have broken his back. As it was, he landed on a thick cushion of weeds and bracken and barely felt the impact. He did a backward somersault, feet and legs snapping over his head. He landed sitting up and went sliding down the slope backward like a kid on a big green ChutetheChute, his sweatshirt pulled up around his neck, his hands grabbing for purchase and doing nothing but yanking out tuft after tuft of bracken and witchgrass. He saw the top of the embankment (it seemed impossible that he had just been standing up there) receding with crazy cartoon speed. He saw Victor and Belch, their faces round white Os, staring down at him. He had time to mourn his library books. Then he fetched up against something with agonizing force and nearly bit his tongue in half. It was a downed tree, and it checked Bens fall by nearly breaking his left leg. He clawed his way back up the slope a little bit, pulling his leg free with a groan. The tree had stopped him about halfway down. Below, the bushes were thicker. Water falling from the culvert ran over his hands in thin streams. There was a shriek from above him. Ben looked up again and saw Henry Bowers come flying over the drop, his knife clenched between his teeth. He landed on both feet, body thrown backward at a steep angle so he would not overbalance. He skidded to the end of a gigantic set of footprints and then began to run down the embankment in a series of gangling kangaroo leaps. In goin oo kill ooo, Its! Henry was shrieking around the knife, and Ben didnt need a U.N. translator to tell him Henry was saying Im going to kill you, Tits. In goin 00 huckin kill 000! Now, with that cold generals eye he had discovered up above on the sidewalk, Ben saw what he had to do. He managed to gain his feet just before Henry arrived, the knife now in his hand and held straight out in front of him like a bayonet. Ben was peripherally aware that the left leg of his jeans was shredded, and his leg was bleeding much more heavily than his stomach ... but it was supporting him, and that meant it wasnt broken. At least he hoped thats what it meant. Ben crouched slightly to maintain his precarious balance, and as Henry grabbed at him with one hand and swept the knife in a long flat arc with the other, Ben stepped aside. He lost his balance, but as he fell down he stuck out his shredded left leg. Henrys shins struck it, and his legs were booted out from under him with great efficiency. For a moment Ben gaped, his terror overcome with a mixture of awe and admiration. Henry Bowers appeared to be flying exactly like Superman over the fallen tree where Ben had stopped. His arms were straight out in front of him, the way George Reeves held his arms out on the TV show. Only George Reeves always looked like flying was as natural as taking a bath or eating lunch on the back porch. Henry looked like someone had shoved a hot poker up his ass. His mouth was opening and closing. A string of saliva was shooting back from one corner of it, and as Ben watched, it splatted against the lobe of Henrys ear. Then Henry crashed back to earth. The knife flew out of his hand. He rolled over on one shoulder, landed on his back, and slid away into the bushes with his legs splayed into a V. There was a yell. A thud. And then silence. Ben sat, dazed, looking at the matted place in the bushes where Henry had done his disappearing act. Suddenly rocks and pebbles began to bounce by him. He looked up again. Victor and Belch were now descending the embankment. They were moving more carefully than Henry, and hence more slowly, but they would reach him in thirty seconds or less if he didnt do something. He moaned. Would this lunacy never end? Keeping his eye on them, he clambered over the downed tree and began to scramble down the embankment, panting harshly. He had a stitch in his side. His tongue hurt like hell. The bushes were now almost as tall as Ben himself. The randy green smell of stuff growing out of control filled his nose. He could hear running water somewhere close, chuckling over stones and rilling between them. His feet slipped and here he went again, rolling and sliding, smashing the back of his hand against a jutting rock, shooting through a patch of thorns that hooked bluegray puffs of cotton from his sweatshirt and little divots of meat from his hands and cheeks. He slammed to a jarring halt sitting up, with his feet in the water. Here was a little curving stream which wound its way into a thick stand of secondgrowth trees to his right; it looked as dark as a cave in there. He looked to his left and saw Henry Bowers lying on his back in the middle of the stream. His halfopen eyes showed only whites. Blood trickled from one ear and ran toward Ben in delicate threads. Oh my God I killed him! Oh my God Im a murderer! Oh my God! Forgetting that Belch and Victor were behind him (or perhaps understanding they would lose all interest in beating the shit out of him when they discovered their Fearless Leader was dead), Ben splashed twenty feet upstream to where Henry lay, his shirt in ribbons, his jeans soaked black, one shoe gone. Ben was vaguely aware that there was precious little left of his own clothes and that his body was one big rattletrap of aches and pains. His left ankle was the worst; it had already puffed tight against his soaking sneaker and he was favoring it so badly that he was really not walking but lurching like a sailor on shore for the first time after a long sea voyage. He bent over Henry Bowers. Henrys eyes popped wide open. He grabbed Bens calf with one scraped and bloody hand. His mouth worked, and although nothing but a series of whistling aspirations emerged, Ben could still make out what he was saying Kill you, you fat shit. Henry was trying to pull himself up, using Bens leg as a pole. Ben pulled backward frantically. Henrys hand slipped down, then off. Ben flew backward, whirling his arms, and fell on his ass for a recordbreaking third time in the last four minutes. He also bit his tongue again. Water splashed up around him. A rainbow glimmered for an instant in front of Bens eyes. Ben didnt give a fuck about the rainbow. He didnt give a fuck about finding a pot of gold. He would settle for his miserable fat life. Henry rolled over. Tried to stand. Fell back. Managed to get to his hands and knees. And finally tottered to his feet. He stared at Ben with those black eyes. The front of his flattop now leaned this way and that, like cornhusks after a high wind has passed through. Ben was suddenly angry. Nothis was more than being angry. He was infuriated. He had been walking with his library books under his arm, having an innocent little daydream about kissing Beverly Marsh, bothering nobody. And look at this. Just look. Pants shredded. Left ankle maybe broken, badly sprained for sure. Leg all cut up, tongue all cut up, Henry goddam Bowerss monogram on his stomach. How about all that happy crappy, sports fans? But it was probably the thought of his library books, for which he was liable, that drove him to charge Henry Bowers. His lost library books and his mental image of how reproachful Mrs. Starretts eyes would become when he told her. Whatever the reasoncuts, sprain, library books, or even the thought of the soggy and probably illegible rankcard in his back pocketit was enough to get him moving. He lumbered forward, squashy Keds spatting in the shallow water, and kicked Henry squarely in the balls. Henry uttered a horrid rusty scream that sent birds beating up from the trees. He stood spraddlelegged for a moment, hands clasping his crotch, staring unbelievingly at Ben. Ug, he said in a small voice. Right, Ben said. Ug, Henry said, in an even smaller voice. Right, Ben said again. Henry sank slowly back to his knees, not so much falling as folding up. He was still looking at Ben with those unbelieving black eyes. Ug. Damn right, Ben said. Henry fell on his side, still clutching his testicles, and began to roll slowly from side to side. Ug! Henry moaned. My balls. Ug! Oh you broke my balls. Ugug! He was now beginning to gain a little force, and Ben started to back away a step at a time. He was sickened by what he had done, but he was also filled with a kind of righteous, paralyzed fascination. Ug!my fuckin sackugUG!oh my fuckin BALLS! Ben might have remained in the area for an untold length of timeperhaps even until Henry recovered enough to come after himbut just then a rock struck him above the right ear with such a deep, drilling pain that, until he felt warm blood flowing again, Ben thought he had been stung by a wasp. He turned and saw the other two striding up the middle of the stream toward him. They each had a handful of waterrounded rocks. Victor pegged one and Ben heard it whistle past his ear. He ducked and another struck his right knee, making him yell with surprised hurt. A third bounced off his right cheekbone, and that eye filled with water. He scrambled for the far bank and climbed it as fast as he could, grabbing onto protruding roots and hauling on handfuls of bushes. He made it to the top (one final stone struck his buttock as he pulled himself up) and took a quick look back over his shoulder. Belch was kneeling beside Henry while Victor stood half a dozen feet away, firing stones; one the size of a baseball clipped through the manhigh bushes beside Ben. He had seen enough; in fact, he had seen much more than enough. Worst of all, Henry Bowers was getting up again. Like Bens own Timex watch, Henry could take a licking and keep on ticking. Ben turned and smashed his way into the bushes, lumbering along in a direction he hoped was west. If he could cross to the Old Cape side of the Barrens, he could beg a dime off somebody and take the bus home. And when he got there he would lock the door behind him and bury these tattered bloody clothes in the trash and this crazy dream would finally be over. Ben thought of himself sitting in his chair in the living room, freshly tubbed, wearing his fuzzy red bathrobe, watching Daffy Duck cartoons on The Mighty Ninety and drinking milk through a strawberry FlavRStraw. Hold that thought, he told himself grimly, and kept lumbering along. Bushes sprang into his face. Ben pushed them aside. Thorns reached and clawed. He tried to ignore them. He came to a flat area of ground that was black and mucky. A thick stand of bamboolike growth spread across it and a fetid smell rose from the earth. An ominous thought (quicksand) slipped across the foreground of his mind like a shadow as he looked at the sheen of standing water deeper into the grove of bamboostuff. He didnt want to go in there. Even if it wasnt quicksand, the mud would suck his sneakers off. He turned right instead, running along the front of the bamboogrove and finally into a patch of real woods. The trees, mostly firs, were thick, growing everywhere, battling each other for a little space and sun, but there was less undergrowth and he could move faster. He was no longer sure what direction he was moving in, but still thought he was, on measure, a little ahead of the game. The Barrens were enclosed by Derry on three sides and bounded by the halffinished turnpike extension on the fourth. Sooner or later he would come out somewhere. His stomach throbbed painfully, and he pulled up the remains of his sweatshirt for a look. He winced and drew a whistle of air in over his teeth. His belly looked like a grotesque Christmastree ball, all caked red blood and smeared green from his slide down the embankment. He pulled the sweatshirt down again. Looking at that mess made him feel like blowing lunch. Now he heard a low humming noise from aheadit was one steady note just above the low range of his hearing. An adult, intent only on getting the hell out of there (the mosquitoes had found Ben now, and while nowhere near as big as sparrows, they were pretty big), would have ignored it, or simply not heard it at all. But Ben was a boy, and he was already getting over his fright. He swerved to his left and pushed through some low laurel bushes. Beyond them, sticking out of the ground, were the top three feet of a cement cylinder about four feet wide. It was capped with a vented iron manhole cover. The cover was stamped with the words DERRY SEWER DEPT. The soundthis close it was more a drone than a humwas coming from someplace deep inside. Ben put one eye to a venthole but could see nothing. He could hear that drone, and water running down there someplace, but that was all. He took a breath, got a whiff of a sour smell that was both dank and shitty, and drew back with a wince. It was a sewer, that was all. Or maybe a combined sewer and drainagetunnelthere were plenty of those in floodconscious Derry. No big deal. But it had given him a funny sort of chill. Part of it was seeing the handiwork of man in all this overgrown jumble of wilderness, but he supposed part of it was the shape of the thing itselfthat concrete cylinder jutting out of the ground. Ben had read H. G. Wellss The Time Machine the year before, first the Classics Comics version and then the whole book. This cylinder with its vented iron cap reminded him of the wells which lead down into the country of the slumped and horrible Morlocks. He moved away from it quickly, trying to find west again. He got to a little clearing and turned until his shadow was as directly behind him as he could get it. Then he headed off in a straight line. Five minutes later he heard more running water ahead, and voices. Kids voices. He stopped to listen, and that was when he heard snapping branches and other voices behind him. They were perfectly recognizable. They belonged to Victor, Belch, and the one and only Henry Bowers. The nightmare was not over yet, it seemed. Ben looked around for a place to go to earth. 10 He came out of his hiding place about two hours later, dirtier than ever, but a little refreshed. Incredible as it seemed to him, he had dozed off. When he had heard the three of them behind him, coming after him still, Ben had come dangerously close to freezing up completely, like an animal caught in the headlamps of an oncoming truck. A paralytic drowsiness began to steal over him. The idea of simply lying down, curling up into a ball like a hedgehog, and letting them do whatever they felt they had to occurred to him. It was a crazy idea, but it also seemed like a strangely good idea. But instead Ben began to move toward the sound of the running water and those other kids. He tried to untangle their voices and get the sense of what they were sayinganything to shake off that scary paralysis of the spirit. Some project. They were talking about some project. One or two of the voices were even a little familiar. There was a splash, followed by a burst of goodnatured laughter. The laughter filled Ben with a kind of stupid longing, and made him more aware of his dangerous position than anything else had done. If he was going to be caught, there was no need to let these kids in for a dose of his medicine. Ben turned right again. Like many large people, he was remarkably lightfooted. He passed close enough to the boys to see their shadows moving back and forth between him and the bright water, but they neither saw him nor heard him. Gradually their voices began to fall behind. He came to a narrow path which had been beaten down to the bare earth. Ben considered it for a moment, then shook his head a little. He crossed it and plunged into the undergrowth again. He moved more slowly now, pushing bushes aside rather than stampeding through them. He was still moving roughly parallel to the stream the other kids had been playing beside. Even through the intervening bushes and trees he could see it was much wider than the one into which he and Henry had fallen. Here was another of those concrete cylinders, barely visible amid a snarl of blackberry creepers, humming quietly to itself. Beyond, an embankment dropped off to the stream, and here an old, gnarled elm tree leaned crookedly out over the water. Its roots, halfexposed by bank erosion, looked like a snarl of dirty hair. Hoping there wouldnt be bugs or snakes but too tired and numbly frightened to really care, Ben had worked his way between the roots and into a shallow cave beneath. He leaned back. A root jabbed him like an angry finger. He shifted his position a little and it supported him quite nicely. Here came Henry, Belch, and Victor. He had thought they might be fooled into following the path, but no such luck. They stood close by him for a momentany closer and he could have reached out of his hiding place and touched them. Bet them little snotholes back there saw him, Belch said. Well, lets go find out, Henry replied, and they headed back the way they had come. A few moments later Ben heard him roar What the fuck you kids doin here? There was some sort of reply, but Ben couldnt tell what it was the kids were too far away, and this close the riverit was the Kenduskeag, of coursewas too loud. But he thought the kid sounded scared. Ben could sympathize. Then Victor Criss bellowed something Ben hadnt understood at all What a fuckin baby dam! Baby dam? Baby damn? Or maybe Victor had said what a damn bunch of babies and Ben had misheard him. Lets break it! Belch proposed. There were yells of protest followed by a scream of pain. Someone began to cry. Yes, Ben could sympathize. They hadnt been able to catch him (or at least not yet), but here was another bunch of little kids for them to take out their mad on. Sure, break it, Henry said. Splashes. Yells. Big moronic gusts of laughter from Belch and Victor. An agonized infuriated cry from one of the little kids. Dont gimme any of your shit, you stuttering little freak, Henry Bowers said. I aint takin no more shit from nobody today. There was a splintering crack. The sound of running water downstream grew louder and roared briefly before quieting to its former placid chuckle. Ben suddenly understood. Baby dam, yes, that was what Victor had said. The kidstwo or three of them it had sounded like when he passed byhad been building a dam. Henry and his friends had just kicked it apart. Ben even thought he knew who one of the kids was. The only stuttering little freak he knew from Derry School was Bill Denbrough, who was in the other fifthgrade classroom. You didnt have to do that! a thin and fearful voice cried out, and Ben recognized that voice as well, although he could not immediately put a face with it. Why did you do that? Because I felt like it, fucknuts! Henry roared back. There was a meaty thud. It was followed by a scream of pain. The scream was followed by weeping. Shut up, Victor said. Shut up that crying, kid, or Ill pull your ears down and tie em under your chin. The crying became a series of choked snuffles. Were going, Henry said, but before we do, I want to know one thing. You seen a fat kid in the last ten minutes or so? Big fat kid all bloody and cut up? There was a reply too brief to be anything but no. You sure? Belch asked. You better be, mushmouth. IIIm shshsure, Bill Denbrough replied. Lets go, Henry said. He probably waded acrost back that way. Tata, boys, Victor Criss called. It was a real baby dam, believe me. Youre better off without it. Splashing sounds. Belchs voice came again, but farther away now. Ben couldnt make out the words. In fact, he didnt want to make out the words. Closer by, the boy who had been crying now resumed. There were comforting noises from the other boy. Ben had decided there was just the two of them, Stuttering Bill and the weeper. He halfsat, halflay where he was, listening to the two boys by the river and the fading sounds of Henry and his dinosaur friends crashing toward the far side of the Barrens. Sunlight flicked at his eyes and made little coins of light on the tangled roots above and around him. It was dirty in here, but it was also cozy ... safe. The sound of running water was soothing. Even the sound of the crying kid was sort of soothing. His aches and pains had faded to a dull throb, and the sound of the dinosaurs had faded out completely. He would wait awhile, just to be sure they werent coming back, and then he would make tracks. Ben could hear the throb of the drainage machinery coming through the earthcould even feel it a low, steady vibration that went from the ground to the root he was leaning against and then into his back. He thought of the Morlocks again, of their naked flesh; he imagined it would smell like the dank and shitty air that had come up through the ventholes of that iron cap. He thought of their wells driven deep into the earth, wells with rusty ladders bolted to their sides. He dozed, and at some point his thoughts became a dream. 11 It wasnt Morlocks he dreamed of. He dreamed of the thing which had happened to him in January, the thing which he hadnt quite been able to tell his mother. It had been the first day of school after the long Christmas break. Mrs. Douglas had asked for a volunteer to stay after and help her count the books that had been turned in just before the vacation. Ben had raised his hand. Thank you, Ben, Mrs. Douglas had said, favoring him with a smile of such brilliance that it warmed him down to his toes. Suckass, Henry Bowers remarked under his breath. It had been the sort of Maine winter day that is both the best and the worst cloudless, eyewateringly bright, but so cold it was a little frightening. To make the tendegree temperature worse, there was a strong wind to give the cold a bitter cutting edge. Ben counted books and called out numbers; Mrs. Douglas wrote them down (not bothering to doublecheck his work even on a random basis, he was proud to note), and then they both carried the books down to the storage room through halls where radiators clanked dreamily. At first the school had been full of sounds slamming locker doors, the clacketyclack of Mrs. Thomass typewriter in the office, the slightly offkey choral renditions of the glee club upstairs, the nervous thudthudthud of basketballs from the gym and the scrooch and thud of sneakers as players drove toward the baskets or cut turns on the polished wood floor. Little by little these sounds ceased, until, as the last set of books was totted up (one short, but it hardly mattered, Mrs. Douglas sighedthey were all holding together on a wing and a prayer), the only sounds were the radiators, the faint whisshwhissh of Mr. Fazios broom as he pushed colored sawdust up the hall floor, and the howl of the wind outside.

Ben looked toward the book rooms one narrow window and saw that the light was fading rapidly from the sky. It was four oclock and dusk was at hand. Membranes of dry snow blew around the icy jungle gym and swirled between the teetertotters, which were frozen solidly into the ground. Only the thaws of April would break those bitter winterwelds. He saw no one at all on Jackson Street. He looked a moment longer, expecting a car to roll through the JacksonWitcham intersection, but none did. Everyone in Derry save himself and Mrs. Douglas might be dead or fled, at least from what he could see from here. He looked toward her and saw, with a touch of real fright, that she was feeling almost exactly the same things he was feeling himself. He could tell by the look in her eyes. They were deep and thoughtful and far off, not the eyes of a schoolteacher in her forties but those of a child. Her hands were folded just below her breasts, as if in prayer. Im scared, Ben thought, and shes scared, too. But what are we really scared of? He didnt know. Then she looked at him and uttered a short, almost embarrassed laugh. Ive kept you too late, she said. Im sorry, Ben. Thats okay. He looked down at his shoes. He loved her a tittlenot with the frank unquestioning love he had lavished on Miss Thibodeau, his firstgrade teacher ... but he did love her. If I drove, Id give you a ride, she said, but I dont. My husbands going to pick me up around quarter past five. If youd care to wait, we could No thanks, Ben said. I ought to get home before then. This was not really the truth, but he felt a queer aversion to the idea of meeting Mrs. Douglass husband. Maybe your mother could She doesnt drive, either, Ben said. Ill be all right. Its only a mile home. A miles not far when its nice, but it can be a very long way in this weather. Youll go in somewhere if it gets too cold, wont you, Ben? Aw, sure. Ill go into Costellos Market and stand by the stove a little while, or something. Mr. Gedreau doesnt mind. And I got my snowpants. My new Christmas scarf, too. Mrs. Douglas looked a little reassured ... and then she glanced toward the window again. It just looks so cold out there, she said. So... so inimical. He didnt know the word but he knew exactly what she meant. Something just happenedwhat? He had seen her, he realized suddenly, as a person instead of just a teacher. That was what had happened. Suddenly he had seen her face in an entirely different way, and because he did, it became a new facethe face of a tired poet. He could see her going home with her husband, sitting beside him in the car with her hands folded as the heater hissed and he talked about his day. He could see her making them dinner. An odd thought crossed his mind and a cocktailparty question rose to his lips Do you have children, Mrs. Douglas? I often think at this time of the year that people really werent meant to live this far north of the equator, she said. At least not in this latitude. Then she smiled and some of the strangeness either went out of her face or his eyehe was able to see her, at least partially, as he always had. But youll never see her that way again, not completely, he thought, dismayed. Ill feel old until spring, and then Ill feel young again. Its that way every year. Are you sure youll be all right, Ben? Ill be fine. Yes, I suppose you will. Youre a good boy, Ben. He looked back at his toes, blushing, loving her more than ever. In the hallway Mr. Fazio said Be careful of de frosbite, boy, without looking up from his red sawdust. I will. He reached his locker, opened it, and yanked on his snowpants. He had been painfully unhappy when his mother insisted he wear them again this winter on especially cold days, thinking of them as baby clothes, but he was glad to have them this afternoon. He walked slowly toward the door, zipping his coat, yanking the drawstrings of his hood tight, pulling on his mittens. He went out and stood on the snowpacked top step of the front stairs for a moment, listening as the door snicked closedand lockedbehind him. Derry School brooded under a bruised skin of sky. The wind blew steadily. The snaphooks on the flagpole rope rattled a lonesome tattoo against the steel pole itself. That wind cut into the warm and unprepared flesh of Bens face at once, numbing his cheeks. Be careful of de frosbite, boy. He quickly pulled his scarf up until he looked like a small, pudgy caricature of Red Ryder. That darkening sky had a fantastical sort of beauty, but Ben did not pause to admire it; it was too cold for that. He got going. At first the wind was at his back and things didnt seem so bad; in fact, it actually seemed to be helping him along. At Canal Street, however, he had to turn right and almost fully into the wind. Now it seemed to be holding him back ... as if it had business with him. His scarf helped a little, but not enough. His eyes throbbed and the moisture in his nose froze to a crackglaze. His legs were going numb. Several times he stuck his mittened hands into his armpits to warm them up. The wind whooped and screamed, sometimes sounding almost human. Ben felt both frightened and exhilarated. Frightened because he could now understand stories he had read, such as Jack Londons To Build a Fire, where people actually froze to death. It would be all too possible to freeze to death on a night like this, a night when the temperature would drop to fifteen below. The exhilaration was hard to explain. It was a lonely feelinga somehow melancholy feeling. He was outside; he passed on the wings of the wind, and none of the people beyond the brightly lighted squares of their windows saw him. They were inside, inside where there was light and warmth. They didnt know he had passed them; only he knew. It was a secret thing. The moving air burned like needles, but it was fresh and clean. White smoke jetted from his nose in neat little streams. And as sundown came, the last of the day a cold yellowyorange line on the western horizon, the first stars cruel diamondchips glimmering in the sky overhead, he came to the Canal. He was only three blocks from home now, and eager to feel the heat on his face and legs, moving the blood again, making it tingle. Stillhe paused. The Canal was frozen in its concrete sluice like a frozen river of rosemilk, its surface humped and cracked and cloudy. It was moveless yet completely alive in this harshly puritanical winterlight; it had its own unique and difficult beauty. Ben turned the other waysouthwest. Toward the Barrens. When he looked in this direction, the wind was at his back again. It made his snowpants ripple and flap. The Canal ran straight between its concrete walls for perhaps half a mile; then the concrete was gone and the river sprawled its way into the Barrens, at this time of the year a skeletal world of icy brambles and jutting naked branches. A figure was standing on the ice down there. Ben stared at it and thought There may be a man down there, but can he be wearing what it looks like hes wearing? Its impossible, isnt it? The figure was dressed in what appeared to be a whitesilver clown suit. It rippled around him in the polar wind. There were oversized orange shoes on his feet. They matched the pompom buttons which ran down the front of his suit. One hand grasped a bundle of strings which rose to a bright bunch of balloons, and when Ben observed that the balloons were floating in his direction, he felt unreality wash over him more strongly. He closed his eyes, rubbed them, opened them. The balloons still appeared to be floating toward him. He heard Mr. Fazios voice in his head. Be careful of de frosbite, boy. It had to be a hallucination or a mirage brought on by some weird trick of the weather. There could be a man down there on the ice; he supposed it was even technically possible he could be wearing a clown suit. But the balloons couldnt be floating toward Ben, into the wind. Yet that was just what they appeared to be doing. Ben! the clown on the ice called. Ben thought that voice was only in his mind, although it seemed he heard it with his ears. Want a balloon, Ben? There was something so evil in that voice, so awful, that Ben wanted to run away as fast as he could, but his feet seemed as welded to this sidewalk as the teetertotters in the schoolyard were welded to the ground. They float, Ben! They all float! Try one and see! The clown began walking along the ice toward the Canal bridge where Ben stood. Ben watched him come, not moving; he watched as a bird watches an approaching snake. The balloons should have burst in the intense cold, but they did not; they floated above and ahead of the clown when they should have been streaming out behind him, trying to escape back into the Barrens... where, some part of Bens mind assured him, this creature had come from in the first place. Now Ben noticed something else. Although the last of the daylight had struck a rosy glow across the ice of the Canal, the clown cast no shadow. None at all. Youll like it here, Ben, the clown said. Now it was close enough so Ben could hear the cludclud sound its funny shoes made as they advanced over the uneven ice. Youll like it here, I promise, all the boys and girls I meet like it here because its like Pleasure Island in Pinocchio and NeverNever Land in Peter Pan; they never have to grow up and thats what all the kiddies want! So come on! See the sights, have a balloon, feed the elephants, ride the ChutetheChutes! Oh youll like it and oh Ben how youll float And in spite of his fear, Ben found that part of him did want a balloon. Who in all the world owned a balloon which would float into the wind? Who had even heard of such a thing? Yes ... he wanted a balloon, and he wanted to see the clowns face, which was bent down toward the ice, as if to keep it out of that killer wind. What might have happened if the five oclock whistle atop the Derry Town Hall hadnt blown just then Ben didnt know ... didnt want to know. The important thing was that it did blow, an icepick of sound drilling into the deep winter cold. The clown looked up, as if startled, and Ben saw its face. The mummy! Oh my God its the mummy! was his first thought, accompanied by a swoony horror that caused him to clamp his hands down viciously on the bridges railing to keep from fainting. Of course it hadnt been the mummy, couldnt have been the mummy. Oh, there were Egyptian mummies, plenty of them, he knew that, but his first thought had been that it was the mummythe dusty monster played by Boris Karloff in the old movie he had stayed up late to watch just last month on Shock Theater. No, it wasnt that mummy, couldnt be, movie monsters werent real, everyone knew that, even little kids. But It wasnt makeup the clown was wearing. Nor was the clown simply swaddled in a bunch of bandages. There were bandages, most of them around its neck and wrists, blowing back in the wind, but Ben could see the clowns face clearly. It was deeply lined, the skin a parchment map of wrinkles, tattered cheeks, arid flesh. The skin of its forehead was split but bloodless. Dead lips grinned back from a maw in which teeth leaned like tombstones. Its gums were pitted and black. Ben could see no eyes, but something glittered far back in the charcoal pits of those puckered sockets, something like the cold jewels in the eyes of Egyptian scarab beetles. And although the wind was the wrong way, it seemed to him that he could smell cinnamon and spice, rotting cerements treated with weird drugs, sand, blood so old it had dried to flakes and grains of rust ... We all float down here, the mummyclown croaked, and Ben realized with fresh horror that somehow it had reached the bridge, it was now just below him, reaching up with a dry and twisted hand from which flaps of skin rustled like pennons, a hand through which bone like yellow ivory showed. One almost fleshless finger caressed the tip of his boot. Bens paralysis broke. He pounded the rest of the way across the bridge with the five oclock whistle still shrieking in his ears; it only ceased as he reached the far side. It had to be a mirage, had to be. The clown simply could not have come so far during the whistles ten or fifteensecond blast. But his fear was not a mirage; neither were the hot tears which spurted from his eyes and froze on his cheeks a second after being shed. He ran, boots thudding on the sidewalk, and behind him he could hear the mummy in the clown suit climbing up from the Canal, ancient stony fingernails scraping across iron, old tendons creaking like dry hinges. He could hear the arid whistle of its breath pulling in and pushing out of nostrils as devoid of moisture as the tunnels under the Great Pyramid. He could smell its shroud of sandy spices and he knew that in a moment its hands, as fleshless as the geometrical constructions he made with his Erector Set, would descend upon his shoulders. They would turn him around and he would stare into that wrinkled, smiling face. The dead river of its breath would wash over him. Those black eyesockets with their deep glowing depths would bend over him. The toothless mouth would yawn, and he would have his balloon. Oh yes. All the balloons he wanted. But when he reached the corner of his own street, sobbing and winded, his heart slamming crazed, leaping beats into his ears, when he at last looked back over his shoulder, the street was empty. The arched bridge with its low concrete sides and its oldfashioned cobblestone paving was also empty. He could not see the Canal itself, but he felt that if he could, he would see nothing there, either. No; if the mummy had not been a hallucination or a mirage, if it had been real, it would be waiting under the bridgelike the troll in the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Under. Hiding under. Ben hurried home, looking back every few steps until the door was safely shut and locked behind him. He explained to his motherwho was so tired from a particularly hard day at the mill that she had not, in truth, much missed himthat he had been helping Mrs. Douglas count books. Then he sat down to a dinner of noodles and Sundays leftover turkey. He stuffed three helpings into himself, and the mummy seemed more distant and dreamlike with each helping. It was not real, those things were never real, they came fully to life only between the commercials of the latenight TV movies or during the Saturday matinees, where if you were lucky you could get two monsters for a quarterand if you had an extra quarter, you could buy all the popcorn you could eat. No, they were not real. TV monsters and movie monsters and comicbook monsters were not real. Not until you went to bed and couldnt sleep; not until the last four pieces of candy, wrapped in tissues and kept under your pillow against the evils of the night, were gobbled up; not until the bed itself turned into a lake of rancid dreams and the wind screamed outside and you were afraid to look at the window because there might be a face there, an ancient grinning face that had not rotted but simply dried like an old leaf, its eyes sunken diamonds pushed deep into dark sockets; not until you saw one ripped and clawlike hand holding out a bunch of balloons See the sights, have a balloon, feed the elephants, ride the ChutetheChutes! Ben, oh, Ben, how youll float 12 Ben awoke with a gasp, the dream of the mummy still on him, panicked by the close, vibrating dark all around him. He jerked, and the root stopped supporting him and poked him in the back again, as if in exasperation. He saw light and scrambled for it. He crawled out into afternoon sunlight and the babble of the stream, and everything fell into place again. It was summer, not winter. The mummy had not carried him away to its desert crypt; Ben had simply hidden from the big kids in a sandy hole under a halfuprooted tree. He was in the Barrens. Henry and his buddies had gone to town in a small way on a couple of kids playing downstream because they hadnt been able to find Ben and go to town on him in a big way. Tata, boys. It was a real baby dam, believe me. Youre better off without it. Ben looked glumly down at his ruined clothes. His mother was going to give him sixteen different flavors of holy old hell. He had slept just long enough to stiffen up. He slid down the embankment and then began to walk along the stream, wincing at every step. He was a medley of aches and pains; it felt like Spike Jones was playing a fast tune on broken glass inside most of his muscles. There seemed to be dried or drying blood on every inch of exposed skin. The dambuilding kids would be gone anyway, he consoled himself. He wasnt sure how long hed slept, but even if it had only been half an hour, the encounter with Henry and his friends would have convinced Denbrough and his pal that some other placelike Timbuktu, maybewould be better for their health. Ben plugged grimly along, knowing if the big kids came back now he would not stand a chance of outrunning them. He hardly cared. He rounded an elbowbend in the stream and just stood there for a moment, looking. The dambuilders were still there. One of them was indeed Stuttering Bill Denbrough. He was kneeling beside the other boy, who was propped against the streambank in a sitting position. This other kids head was thrown so far back that his adams apple stood out like a triangular plug. There was dried blood around his nose, on his chin, and painted along his neck in a couple of streams. He had something white clasped loosely in one hand. Stuttering Bill looked around sharply and saw Ben standing there. Ben saw with dismay that something was very wrong with the boy propped up on the bank; Denbrough was obviously scared to death. He thought miserably Wont this day ever end? I wonder if yuhyuhyou could help mmme, Bill Denbrough said. HHis ahahahasppirator is ehhempty. I think he mmight be His face froze, turned red. He dug at the word, stuttering like a machinegun. Spittle flew from his lips, and it took almost thirty seconds worth of dddd before Ben realized Denbrough was trying to say the other kid might be dying. CHAPTER 5 Bill Denbrough Beats the Devil (I) 1 Bill Denbrough thinksIm damned near spacetravelling; I might as well be inside a bullet shot from a gun. This thought, although perfectly true, is not one he finds especially comfortable. In fact, for the first hour following the Concordes takeoff (or perhaps liftoff would be a better way to put it) from Heathrow, he has been coping with a mild case of claustrophobia. The airplane is narrowunsettlingly so. The meal is just short of exquisite, but the flight attendants who serve it must twist and bend and squat to get the job done; they look like a troupe of gymnasts. Watching this strenuous service takes some of the pleasure out of the food for Bill, although his seatmate doesnt seem particularly bothered. The seatmate is another drawback. Hes fat and not particularly clean; it may be Ted Lapidus cologne on top of his skin, but beneath it Bill detects the unmistakable odors of dirt and sweat. Hes not being very particular about his left elbow, either; every now and then it strikes Bill with a soft thud. His eyes are drawn again and again to the digital readout at the front of the cabin. It shows how fast this British bullet is going. Now, as the Concorde reaches its cruising speed, it tops out at just over mach 2. Bill takes his pen from his shirt pocket and uses its tip to tap buttons on the computer watch Audra gave him last Christmas. If the machometer is rightand Bill has absolutely no reason to think it is notthen they are busting along at a speed of eighteen miles per minute. He is not sure this is anything he really wanted to know. Outside his window, which is as small and thick as the window in one of the old Mercury space capsules, he can see a sky which is not blue but the twilight purple of dusk, although it is the middle of the day. At the point where the sea and the sky meet, he can see that the horizonline is slightly bowed. I am sitting here, Bill thinks, a Bloody Mary in my hand and a dirty fat mans elbow poking into my bicep, observing the curvature of the earth. He smiles a little, thinking that a man who can face something like that shouldnt be afraid of anything. But he is afraid, and not just of flying at eighteen miles a minute in this narrow fragile shell. He can almost feel Derry rushing at him. And that is exactly the right expression for it. Eighteen miles a minute or not, the sensation is of being perfectly still while Derry rushes at him like some big carnivore which has lain in wait for a long time and has finally broken from cover. Derry, ah, Derry! Shall we write an ode to Derry? The stink of its mills and its rivers? The dignified quiet of its treelined streets? The library? The Standpipe? Bassey Park? Derry Elementary School? The Barrens? Lights are going on in his head big kliegs. Its like hes been sitting in a darkened theater for twentyseven years, waiting for something to happen, and now its finally begun. The set being revealed spot by spot and klieg by klieg is not, however, some harmless comedy like Arsenic and Old Lace; to Bill Denbrough it looks more like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. All those stories I wrote, he thinks with a stupid kind of amusement. All those novels. Derry is where they all came from; Derry was the wellspring. They came from what happened that summer, and from what happened to George the autumn before. All the interviewers that ever asked me THAT QUESTION ... I gave them the wrong answer. The fat mans elbow digs into him again, and he spills some of his drink. Bill almost says something, then thinks better of it. THAT QUESTION, of course, was Where do you get your ideas? It was a question Bill supposed all writers of fiction had to answeror pretend to answerat least twice a week, but a fellow like him, who made a living by writing of things which never were and never could be, had to answer itor pretend tomuch more often than that. All writers have a pipeline which goes down into the subconscious, he told them, neglecting to mention that he doubted more as each year passed if there even was such a thing as a subconscious. But the man or woman who writes horror stories has a pipeline that goes further, maybe ... into the subsubconscious, if you like. Elegant answer, that, but one he had never really believed. Subconscious? Well, there was something down there all right, but Bill thought people had made much too big a deal out of a function which was probably the mental equivalent of your eyes watering when dust got in them or breaking wind an hour or so after a big dinner. The second metaphor was probably the better of the two, but you couldnt very well tell interviewers that as far as you were concerned, such things as dreams and vague longings and sensations like djvu really came down to nothing more than a bunch of mental farts. But they seemed to need something, all those reporters with their notebooks and their little Japanese taperecorders, and Bill wanted to help them as much as he could. He knew that writing was a hard job, a damned hard job. There was no need to make theirs harder by telling them, My friend, you might as well ask me Who cut the cheese? and have done with it. He thought now You always knew they were asking the wrong question, even before Mike called; now you also know what the right question was. Not where do you get your ideas but why do you get your ideas. There was a pipeline, all right, but it wasnt either the Freudian or Jungian version of the subconscious that it came out of; no interior drainsystem of the mind, no subterranean cavern full of Morlocks waiting to happen. There was nothing at the other end of that pipe but Derry. Just Derry. And and whos that, triptrapping upon my bridge? He sits bolt upright suddenly, and this time its his elbow that goes wandering; it sinks deeply into his fat seatmates side for a moment. Watch yourself, buddy, the fat man says. Close quarters, you know. You stop whapping me with yours and Ill try to stop wuhwhapping you with mmine. The fat man gives him a sour, incredulous whatthehellyoutalkingabout look. Bill simply gazes at him until the fat man looks away, muttering. Whos there? Whos triptrapping over my bridge? He looks out the window again and thinks Were beating the devil. His arms and the nape of his neck prickle. He knocks back the rest of his drink in one swallow. Another of those big lights has gone on. Silver. His bike. That was what he had called it, after the Lone Rangers horse. A big Schwinn, twentyeight inches tall. Youll kill yourself on that, Billy, his father had said, but with no real concern in his tone. He had shown little concern for anything since Georges death. Before, he had been tough. Fair, but tough. Since, you could get around him. He would make fatherly gestures, go through fatherly motions, but motions and gestures were all they were. It was like he was always listening for George to come back into the house. Bill had seen it in the window of the Bike and Cycle Shoppe down on Center Street. It leaned gloomily on its kickstand, bigger than the biggest of the others on display, dull where they were shiny, straight in places where the others were curved, bent in places where the others were straight. Propped on its front tire had been a sign USED Make an Offer What actually happened was that Bill went in and the owner made him an offer, which Bill tookhe wouldnt have known how to dicker with the Cycle Shoppe owner if his life depended on it, and the pricetwentyfour dollarsthe man quoted seemed very fair to Bill; generous, even. He paid for Silver with money he had saved up over the last seven or eight monthsbirthday money, Christmas money, lawnmowing money. He had been noticing the bike in the window ever since Thanksgiving. He paid for it and wheeled it home as soon as the snow began to melt for good. It was funny, because hed never thought much about owning a bike before last year. The idea seemed to come into his mind all at once, perhaps on one of those endless days after George died. Was murdered. In the beginning, Bill almost did kill himself. The first ride on his new bike ended with Bill dumping it on purpose to keep from running smack into the board fence at the end of Kossuth Lane (he had not been so afraid of running into the fence as he had been of bashing right through it and falling sixty feet into the Barrens). He came away from that one with a fiveinch gash running between the wrist and elbow of his left arm. Not even a week later he had found himself unable to brake soon enough and had shot through the intersection of Witcham and Jackson at perhaps thirty five miles an hour, a little kid on a dusty gray mastodon of a bike (Silver was silver only by the most energetic reach of a willing imagination), playing cards machinegunning the spokes of the front and back wheels in a steady roar, and if a car had been coming he would have been dead meat. Just like Georgie. He got control of Silver little by little as the spring advanced. Neither of his parents noticed during that time that he was courting death by bicycle. He thought that, after the first few days, they had ceased to really see his bike at allto them it was just a relic with chipped paint which leaned against the garage wall oh rainy days. Silver was a lot more than some dusty old relic, though. He didnt look like much, but he went like the wind. Bills friendhis only real friendwas a kid named Eddie Kaspbrak, and Eddie was good with mechanical things. He had shown Bill how to get Silver in shapewhich bolts to tighten and check regularly, where to oil the sprockets, how to tighten the chain, how to put on a bike patch so it would stay if you got a flat. You oughtta paint it, he remembered Eddie saying one day, but Bill didnt want to paint Silver. For reasons he couldnt even explain to himself he wanted the Schwinn just the way it was. It looked like a real bowwow, the sort of bike a careless kid regularly left out on his lawn in the rain, a bike that would be all squeaks and shudders and slow friction. It looked like a bowwow but it went like the wind. It would It would beat the devil, he says aloud, and laughs. His fat seatmate looks at him sharply; the laugh has that howling quality that gave Audra the creeps earlier. Yes, it looked pretty shoddy, with its old paint and the oldfashioned package carrier mounted above the back wheel and the ancient oogahhorn with its black rubber bulbthat horn was permanently welded to the handlebars with a rusty bolt the size of a babys fist. Pretty shoddy. But could Silver go? Could he? Christ! And it was a damned good thing he could, because Silver had saved Bill Denbroughs life in the fourth week of June 1958the week after he met Ben Hanscom for the first time, the week after he and Ben and Eddie built the dam, the week that Ben and Richie Trashmouth Tozier and Beverly Marsh showed up in the Barrens after the Saturday matinee. Richie had been riding behind him, on Silvers package carrier, the day Silver had saved Bills life ... so he supposed Silver had saved Richies, too. And he remembered the house they had been running from, all right. He remembered that just fine. That damned house on Neibolt Street. He had raced to beat the devil that day, oh yeah, for sure, dont you just know it. Some devil with eyes as shiny as old deadly coins. Some hairy old devil with a mouthful of bloody teeth. But all that had come later. If Silver had saved Richies life and his own that day, then perhaps he had saved Eddie Kaspbraks on the day Bill and Eddie met Ben by the kickedapart remains of their dam in the Barrens. Henry Bowerswho looked a little bit like someone had run him through a Disposallhad mashed Eddies nose and then Eddies asthma had come on strong and his aspirator turned up empty. So it had been Silver that day too, Silver to the rescue. Bill Denbrough, who hasnt been on a bicycle in almost seventeen years, looks out the window of an airplane that would not have been creditedor even imagined, outside of a sciencefiction magazinein the year 1958. Hiyo Silver, AWAYYY! he thinks, and has to close his eyes against the sudden needling sting of tears. What happened to Silver? He cant remember. That part of the set is still dark; that klieg has yet to be turned on. Perhaps that is just as well. Perhaps that is a mercy. Hiyo. Hiyo Silver. Hiyo Silver 2 AWAYYY! he shouted. The wind tore the words back over his shoulder like a fluttering crepe streamer. They came out big and strong, those words, in a triumphant roar. They were the only ones that ever did. He pedaled down Kansas Street toward town, gaining speed slowly at first. Silver rolled once he got going, but getting going was a job and a half. Watching the gray bike pick up speed was a little like watching a big plane roll down the runway. At first you couldnt believe such a huge waddling gadget could ever actually leave the earththe idea was absurd. But then you could see its shadow beneath it, and before you even had time to wonder if it was a mirage, the shadow was trailing out long behind it and the plane was up, cutting its way through the air, as sleek and graceful as a dream in a satisfied mind. Silver was like that. Bill got a little downhill stretch and began to pedal faster, his legs pumping up and down as he stood forward over the bikes fork. He had learned very quicklyafter being bashed a couple of times by that fork in the worst place a boy can be bashedto yank his underpants up as high as he could before mounting Silver. Later that summer, observing this process, Richie would say, Bill does that because he thinks he might like to have some kids that live someday.

It seems like a bad idea to me, but hey! they might always take after his wife, right? He and Eddie had lowered the seat as far as it would go, and it now bumped and scraped against the small of his back as he worked the pedals. A woman digging weeds in her flowergarden shaded her eyes to watch him pass. She smiled a little. The boy on the huge bike reminded her of a monkey she had once seen riding a unicycle in the Barnum Bailey Circus. Hes apt to kill himself, though, she thought, turning back to her garden. That bike is too big for him. It was none of her problem, though. 3 Bill had had more sense than to argue with the big boys when they broke out of the bushes, looking like illtempered hunters on the track of a beast which had already mauled one of them. Eddie, however, had rashly opened his mouth and Henry Bowers had unloaded on him. Bill knew who they were, all right; Henry, Belch, and Victor were just about the worst kids in Derry School. They had beaten up on Richie Tozier, who Bill sometimes chummed with, a couple of times. The way Bill looked at it, this was partly Richies own fault; he was not known as Trashmouth for nothing. One day in April Richie had said something about their collars as the three of them passed by in the schoolyard. The collars had all been turned up, just like Vic Morrows in The Blackboard Jungle. Bill, who had been sitting against the building nearby and listlessly shooting a few marbles, hadnt really caught all of it. Neither did Henry and his friends... but they heard enough to turn in Richies direction. Bill supposed Richie had meant to say whatever he said in a low voice. The trouble was, Richie didnt really have a low voice. Whatd you say, you little foureyes geek? Victor Criss enquired. I didnt say nothing, Richie said, and that disclaimeralong with his face, which looked quite sensibly dismayed and scaredmight have ended it. Except that Richies mouth was like a halftamed horse that has a way of bolting for absolutely no reason at all. Now it suddenly added You ought to dig the wax out of your ears, big fella. Want some blasting powder? They stood looking at him incredulously for a moment, and then they took after him. Stuttering Bill had watched the unequal race from its start to its preordained conclusion from his place against the side of the building. No sense getting involved; those three galoots would be just as happy to beat up on two kids for the price of one. Richie ran diagonally across the littlekids playyard, leaping over the teetertotters and dodging among the swings, realizing he had run into a blind alley only when he struck the chainlink fence between the playyard and the park which abutted the school grounds. So he tried to go up the chainlink, all clutching fingers and pointing seeking sneakertoes, and he was maybe twothirds of the way to the top when Henry and Victor Criss hauled him back down again, Henry getting him by the back of the jacket and Victor grabbing the seat of his jeans. Richie was screaming when they peeled him off the fence. He hit the asphalt on his back. His glasses flew off. He reached for them and Belch Huggins kicked them away and that was why one of the bows was mended with adhesive tape this summer. Bill had winced and walked around to the front of the building. He had observed Mrs. Moran, one of the fourthgrade teachers, already hurrying over to break things up, but he knew they would get Richie hard before then, and by the time she actually arrived, Richie would be crying. Bawlbaby, bawlbaby, lookitthebabybawl. Bill had only had minor problems with them. They made fun of his stutter, of course. An occasional random cruelty came with the jibes; one rainy day as they were going to lunch in the gym, Belch Huggins had knocked Bills lunchbag out of his hand and had stomped it flat with one engineer boot, squishing everything inside. Oh, juhjuhgee! Belch cried in mock horror, raising his hands and fluttering them about his face. Suhsuhsorry about your 11lunch, fuhhuhhuckface! And he had strolled off down the hall toward where Victor Criss was leaning against the drinking fountain outside the boysroom door, just about laughing himself into a hernia. That hadnt been so bad, though; Bill had cadged half a PBJ off Eddie Kaspbrak, and Richie was happy to give him his devilled egg, one of which his mother packed in his lunch about every second day and which made him want to puke, he claimed. But you had to stay out of their way, and if you couldnt do that you had to try and be invisible. Eddie forgot the rules, so they creamed him. He hadnt been too bad until the big boys went downstream and splashed across to the other side, even though his nose was bleeding like a fountain. When Eddies snotrag was soaked through, Bill had given him his own and made him put a hand on the nape of his neck and lean his head back. Bill could remember his mother getting Georgie to do that, because Georgie sometimes got nosebleeds Oh but it hurt to think about George. It wasnt until the sound of the big boys buffalolike progress through the Barrens had died away completely, and Eddies nosebleed had actually stopped, that his asthma got bad. He started heaving for air, his hands opening and then snapping shut like weak traps, his respiration a fluting whistle in his throat. Shit! Eddie gasped. Asthma! Cripes! He scrambled for his aspirator and finally got it out of his pocket. It looked almost like a bottle of Windex, the kind with the sprayer attachment on top. He jammed it into his mouth and punched the trigger. Better? Bill asked anxiously. No. Its empty. Eddie looked at Bill with panicked eyes that said Im caught, Bill!Im caught! The empty aspirator rolled away from his hand. The stream chuckled on, not caring in the least that Eddie Kaspbrak could barely breathe. Bill thought randomly that the big boys had been right about one thing it had been a real baby dam. But they had been having fun, dammit, and he felt a sudden dull fury that it should have come to this. Tuhtuhtake it easy, EhEddie, he said. For the next forty minutes or so Bill sat next to him, his expectation that Eddies asthma attack would at any moment let up gradually fading into unease. By the time Ben Hanscom appeared, the unease had become real fear. It not only wasnt letting up; it was getting worse. And the Center Street Drug, where Eddie got his refills, was three miles away, almost. What if he went to get Eddies stuff and came back to find Eddie unconscious? Unconscious or (dont shit please dont think that) or even dead, his mind insisted implacably. (like Georgie dead like Georgie) Dont be such an asshole! Hes not going to die! No, probably not. But what if he came back and found Eddie in a comber? Bill knew all about combers; he had even deduced they were named after those great big waves guys surfed on in Hawaii, and that seemed right enoughafter all, what was a comber but a wave that drowned your brain? On doctor shows like Ben Casey, people were always going into combers, and sometimes they stayed there in spite of all Ben Caseys illtempered shouting. So he sat there, knowing he ought to go, he couldnt do Eddie any good staying here, but not wanting to leave him alone. An irrational, superstitious part of him felt sure Eddie would slip into a comber the minute he, Bill, turned his back. Then he looked upstream and saw Ben Hanscom standing there. He knew who Ben was, of course; the fattest kid in any school has his or her own sort of unhappy notoriety. Ben was in the other fifth grade. Bill sometimes saw him at recess, standing by himselfusually in a cornerlooking at a book and eating his lunch out of a bag about the size of a laundry sack. Looking at Ben now, Bill thought he looked even worse than Henry Bowers. It was hard to believe, but true. Bill could not begin to imagine the cataclysmic fight these two must have been in. Bens hair stood up in wild, dirtclotted spikes. His sweater or sweatshirtit was hard to tell which it had started the day as and it sure as shit didnt matter nowwas a matted ruin, smeared with a sicko mixture of blood and grass. His pants were out at the knees. He saw Bill looking at him and recoiled a bit, eyes going wary. Duhduhduhhont gggo! Bill cried. He put his empty hands up in the air, palms out, to show he was harmless. WWWe need some huhhuhhelp. Ben came closer, eyes still wary. He walked as if one or both of his legs was killing him. Are they gone? Bowers and those guys? YuhYes, Bill said. Listen, cuhhan yyyou stay with my fruhhend while I go get his muhmedicine? Hes got aaaa Asthma? Bill nodded. Ben came all the way down to the remains of the dam and dropped painfully to one knee beside Eddie, who was lying back with his eyes mostly closed and his chest heaving. Which one hit him? Ben asked finally. He looked up, and Bill saw the same frustrated anger he had been feeling himself on the fat kids face. Was it Henry Bowers? Bill nodded. It figures. Sure, go on. Ill stay with him. Thuhthuhhanks. Oh, dont thank me, Ben said. Im the reason they landed on you in the first place. Go on. Hurry it up. I have to be home for supper. Bill went without saying anything else. It would have been good to tell Ben not to take it to heartwhat had happened hadnt been Bens fault any more than it had been Eddies for stupidly opening his mouth. Guys like Henry and his buddies were an accident waiting to happen; the little kids version of floods or tornadoes or gallstones. It would have been good to say that, but he was so tightly wound right now it would have taken him about twenty minutes or so, and by then Eddie might have slipped into a comber (that was another thing Bill had learned from Drs. Casey and Kildare; you never went into a comber; you always slipped into one). He trotted downstream, glancing back once. He saw Ben Hanscom grimly collecting rocks from the edge of the water. For a moment Bill couldnt figure out what he was doing, and then he understood. It was an ammo dump. Just in case they came back. 4 The Barrens were no mystery to Bill. He had played here a lot this spring, sometimes with Richie, more frequently with Eddie, sometimes all by himself. He had by no means explored the whole area, but he could find his way back to Kansas Street from the Kenduskeag with no trouble, and now did. He came out at a wooden bridge where Kansas Street crossed one of the little noname streams that flowed out of the Derry drainage system and into the Kenduskeag down below. Silver was stashed under this bridge, his handlebars tied to one of the bridge supports with a hank of rope to keep his wheels out of the water. Bill untied the rope, stuck it in his shirt, and hauled Silver up to the sidewalk by main force, panting and sweating, losing his balance a couple of times and landing on his tail. But at last it was up. Bill swung his leg over the high fork. And as always, once he was on Silver he became someone else. 5 Hiyo Silver AWAYYY! The words came out deeper than his normal speaking voiceit was almost the voice of the man he would become. Silver gained speed slowly, the quickening clicketyclack of the Bicycle playing cards clothespinned to the spokes marking the increase. Bill stood on the pedals, his hands clamped on the bikegrips with the wrists turned up. He looked like a man trying to lift a stupendously heavy barbell. Cords stood out on his neck. Veins pulsed in his temples. His mouth was turned down in a trembling sneer of effort as he fought the familiar battle against weight and inertia, busting his brains to get Silver moving. As always, it was worth the effort. Silver began to roll along more briskly. Houses slid past smoothly instead of just poking by. On his left, where Kansas Street crossed Jackson, the unfettered Kenduskeag became the Canal. Past the intersection Kansas Street headed swiftly downhill toward Center and Main, Derrys business district. Streets crossed frequently here but they were all stopsigned in Bills favor, and the possibility that a driver might one day blow by one of those stop signs and flatten him to a bleeding shadow on the street had never crossed Bills mind. It is unlikely he would have changed his ways even if it had. He might have done so either earlier or later in his life, but this spring and early summer had been a strange thundery time for him. Ben would have been astounded if someone were to ask him if he was lonely; Bill would have been likewise astounded if someone asked him if he was courting death. Of cuhcuhcourse nnot! he would have responded immediately (and indignantly), but that did not change the fact that his runs down Kansas Street to town had become more and more like banzai charges as the weather warmed. This section of Kansas Street was known as UpMile Hill. Bill took it at full speed, bent over Silvers handlebars to cut down the wind resistance, one hand poised over the cracked rubber bulb of his oogahhorn to warn the unwary, his red hair blowing back from his head in a rippling wave. The click of the playing cards had mounted to a steady roar. The effortful sneer had become a big goofball grin. The residences on the right had given way to business buildings (warehouses and meatpacking plants, most of them) which blurred by in a scary but satisfying rush. To his left the Canal was a wink of fire in the comer of his eye. HI YO SILVER, AWAYYYY! he screamed triumphantly. Silver flew over the first curbing, and as they almost always did at that point, his feet lost contact with the pedals. He was freewheeling, now wholly in the lap of whatever god has been appointed the job of protecting small boys. He swerved into the street, doing maybe fifteen miles an hour over the posted speed of twentyfive. It was all behind him now his stutter, his dads blank hurt eyes as he puttered around his garage workshop, the terrible sight of the dust on the closed piano cover upstairsdusty because his mother didnt play anymore. The last time had been at Georges funeral, three Methodist hymns. George going out into the rain, wearing his yellow slicker, carrying the newspaper boat with its glaze of paraffin; Mr. Gardener coming up the street twenty minutes later with his body wrapped in a bloodstained quilt; his mothers agonized shriek. All behind him. He was the Lone Ranger, he was John Wayne, he was Bo Diddley, he was anybody he wanted to be and nobody who cried and got scared and wanted his muhmuhmother. Silver flew and Stuttering Bill Denbrough flew with him; their gantrylike shadow fled behind them. They raced down UpMile Hill together; the playing cards roared. Bills feet found the pedals again and he began to pump, wanting to go even faster, wanting to reach some hypothetical speednot of sound but of memoryand crash through the pain barrier. He raced on, bent over his handlebars; he raced to beat the devil. The threeway intersection of Kansas, Center, and Main was coming up fast. It was a horror of oneway traffic and conflicting signs and stoplights which were supposed to be timed but really werent. The result, a Derry News editorial had proclaimed the year before, was a trafficrotary conceived in hell. As always, Bills eyes flicked right and left, fast, gauging the traffic flow, looking for the holes. If his judgment was mistakenif he stuttered, you might sayhe would be badly hurt or killed. He arrowed into the slowmoving traffic which clogged the intersection, running a red light and fading to the right to avoid a lumbering portholed Buick. He shot a bullet of a glance back over his shoulder to make sure the middle lane was empty. He looked forward again and saw that in roughly five seconds he was going to crash into the rear end of a pickup truck that had stopped squarely in the middle of the intersection while the Uncle Ike type behind the wheel craned his neck to read all the signs and make sure he hadnt taken a wrong turn and somehow ended up in Miami Beach. The lane on Bills right was full of a DerryBangor intercity bus. He slipped in that direction just the same and shot the gap between the stopped pickup and the bus, still moving at forty miles an hour. At the last second he snapped his head hard to one side, like a soldier doing an overenthusiastic eyesright, to keep the mirror mounted on the passenger side of the pickup from rearranging his teeth. Hot diesel from the bus laced his throat like a kick of strong liquor. He heard a thin gasping squeal as one of his bikegrips kissed a line up the coachs aluminum side. He got just a glimpse of the bus driver, his face paperwhite under his peaked Hudson Bus Company cap. The driver was shaking his fist at Bill and shouting something. Bill doubted it was happy birthday. Here was a trio of old ladies crossing Main Street from the New England Bank side to The Shoeboat side. They heard the harsh burr of the playing cards and looked up. Their mouths dropped open as a boy on a huge bike passed within half a foot of them like a mirage. The worstand the bestof the trip was behind him now. He had looked at the very real possibility of his own death again and again had found himself able to look away. The bus had not crushed him; he had not killed himself and the three old ladies with their Freeses shopping bags and their Social Security checks; he had not been splattered across the tailgate of Uncle Ikes old Dodge pickup. He was going uphill again now, speed bleeding away. Somethingoh, call it desire, that was good enough, wasnt it?was bleeding away with it. All the thoughts and memories were catching uphi Bill, gee, we almost lost sight of you for awhile there, but here we arerejoining him, climbing up his shirt and jumping into his ear and whooshing into his brain like little kids going down a slide. He could feel them settling into their accustomed places, their feverish bodies jostling each other. Gosh! Wow! Here we are inside Bills head again! Lets think about George! Okay! Who wants to start? You think too much, Bill. Nothat wasnt the problem. The problem was, he imagined too much. He turned into Richards Alley and came out on Center Street a few moments later, pedaling slowly, feeling the sweat on his back and in his hair. He dismounted Silver in front of the Center Street Drug Store and went inside. 6 Before Georges death, Bill would have gotten the salient points across to Mr. Keene by speaking to him. The druggist was not exactly kindor at least Bill had an idea he was notbut he was patient enough, and he did not tease or make fun. But now Bills stutter was much worse, and he really was afraid something bad might happen to Eddie if he didnt move fast. So when Mr. Keene said, Hello, Billy Denbrough, can I help you?, Bill took a folder advertising vitamins, turned it over, and wrote on the back Eddie Kaspbrak and I were playing in the Barrens. Hes got a bad assmar attack, I mean he can hardly breath. Can you give me a refill on his asspirador? He pushed this note across the glasstopped counter to Mr. Keene, who read it, looked at Bills anxious blue eyes, and said, Of course. Wait right here, and dont be handling anything you shouldnt. Bill shifted impatiently from one foot to the other while Mr. Keene was behind the rear counter. Although he was back there less than five minutes, it seemed an age before he returned with one of Eddies plastic squeezebottles. He handed it over to Bill, smiled, and said, This should take care of the problem. Ththththanks, Bill said. I dont hhave aany mmmuhmuh Thats all right, son. Mrs. Kaspbrak has an account here. Ill just add this on. Im sure shell want to thank you for your kindness. Bill, much relieved, thanked Mr. Keene and left quickly. Mr. Keene came around the counter to watch him go. He saw Bill toss the aspirator into his bikebasket and mount clumsily. Can he actually ride a bike that big? Mr. Keene wondered. I doubt it. I doubt it very much. But the Denbrough kid somehow got it going without falling on his head, and pedaled slowly away. The bike, which looked to Mr. Keene like somebodys idea of a joke, wobbled madly from side to side. The aspirator rolled back and forth in the basket. Mr. Keene grinned a little. If Bill had seen that grin, it might have gone a good way toward confirming his idea that Mr. Keene was not exactly one of the worlds champion nice guys. It was sour, the grin of a man who has found much to wonder about but almost nothing to uplift in the human condition. Yeshe would add Eddies asthma medication to Sonia Kaspbraks bill, and as always she would be surprisedand suspicious rather than gratefulat how cheap the medication was. Other drugs were so dear, she said. Mrs. Kaspbrak, Mr. Keene knew, was one of those people who believed nothing cheap could do a person much good. He could really have soaked her for her sons HydrOx Mist, and there had been times when he had been tempted... but why should he make himself a party to the womans foolishness? It wasnt as though he were going to starve. Cheap? Oh my, yes. HydrOx Mist (Administer as needed typed neatly on the gummed label he pasted on each aspirator bottle) was wonderfully cheap, but even Mrs. Kaspbrak was willing to admit that it controlled her sons asthma quite well in spite of that fact. It was cheap because it was nothing but a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, with a dash of camphor added to give the mist a faint medicinal taste. In other words, Eddies asthma medicine was tapwater. 7 It took Bill longer to get back, because he was going uphill. In several places he had to dismount and push Silver. He simply didnt have the musclepower necessary to keep the bike going up more than mild slopes. By the time he had stashed his bike and made his way back to the stream, it was ten past four. All sorts of black suppositions were crossing his mind. The Hanscom kid would have deserted, leaving Eddie to die. Or the bullies could have backtracked and beaten the shit out of both of them. Or ... worst of all ... the man whose business was murdering kids might have gotten one or both of them. As he had gotten George. He knew there had been a great deal of gossip and speculation about that. Bill had a bad stutter, but he wasnt deafalthough people sometimes seemed to think he must be, since he spoke only when absolutely necessary. Some people felt that the murder of his brother wasnt related at all to the murders of Betty Ripsom, Cheryl Lamonica, Matthew Clements, and Veronica Grogan. Others claimed that George, Ripsom, and Lamonica had been killed by one man, and the other two were the work of a copycat killer. A third school of thought held that the boys had been killed by one man, the girls by another. Bill believed they had all been killed by the same person ... if it was a person. He sometimes wondered about that. As he sometimes wondered about his feelings concerning Derry this summer. Was it still the aftermath of Georges death, the way his parents seemed to ignore him now, so lost in their grief over their younger son that they couldnt see the simple fact that Bill was still alive, and might be hurting himself? Those things combined with the other murders? The voices that sometimes seemed to speak in his head now, whispering to him (and surely they were not variations of his own voice, for these voices did not stutterthey were quiet, but they were sure), advising him to do certain things but not others? Was it those things which made Derry seem somehow different now? Somehow threatening, with unexplored streets that did not invite but seemed instead to yawn in a kind of ominous silence? That made some faces look secret and frightened? He didnt know, but he believedas he believed all the murders were the work of a single agencythat Derry really had changed, and that his brothers death had signalled the beginning of that change. The black suppositions in his head came from the lurking idea that anything could happen in Derry now. Anything. But when he came around the last bend, all looked cool. Ben Hanscom was still there, sitting beside Eddie. Eddie himself was sitting up now, his hands dangling in his lap, head bent, still wheezing. The sun had sunk low enough to project long green shadows across the stream. Boy, that was quick, Ben said, standing up. I didnt expect you for another half an hour. I got a fffast bbike, Bill said with some pride. For a moment the two of them looked at each other cautiously, warily. Then Ben smiled tentatively, and Bill smiled back. The kid was fat, but he seemed okay. And he had stayed put. That must have taken some guts, with Henry and his j.d. friends maybe still wandering around out there someplace. Bill winked at Eddie, who was looking at him with dumb gratitude. HHere you ggo, EEEEddie. He tossed him the aspirator. Eddie plunged it into his open mouth, triggered it, and gasped convulsively. Then he leaned back, eyes shut. Ben watched this with concern. Jeez! Hes really got it bad, doesnt he? Bill nodded. I was scared there for awhile, Ben said in a low voice. I was wonderin what to do if he had a convulsion, or something. I kept tryin to remember the stuff they told us in that Red Cross assembly we had in April. All I could come up with was put a stick in his mouth so he wouldnt bite his tongue off. I think thats for ehehhepileptics. Oh. Yeah, I guess youre right. He wwont have a ccconvulsion, anyway, Bill said. That mmmedicine will ffix him right up. LuhLuhLook. Eddies labored breathing had eased. He opened his eyes and looked up at them. Thanks, Bill, he said. That one was a real pisswah. I guess it started when they creamed your nose, huh? Ben asked. Eddie laughed ruefully, stood up, and stuck the aspirator in his back pocket. Wasnt even thinking about my nose. Was thinking about my mom. Yeah? Really? Ben sounded surprised, but his hand went to the rags of his sweatshirt and began fiddling there nervously. Shes gonna take one look at the blood on my shirt and have me down to the Mergency Room at Derry Home in about five seconds. Why? Ben asked. It stopped, didnt it? Gee, I remember this kid I was in kindergarten with, Scooter Morgan, and he got a bloody nose when he fell off the monkey bars. They took him to the Mergency Room, but only because it kept bleeding. Yeah? Bill asked, interested. Did he dddie? No, but he was out of school a week. It doesnt matter if it stopped or not, Eddie said gloomily. Shell take me anyway. Shell think its broken and I got pieces of bone sticking in my brain, or something. CCCan you get bones in your buhbuhbrain? Bill asked. This was turning into the most interesting conversation hed had in weeks. I dont know. If you listen to my mother, you can get anything. Eddie turned to Ben again. She takes me down to the Mergency Room about once or twice a month. I hate that place. There was this orderly once? He told her they oughtta make her pay rent. She was really P.O.d. Wow, Ben said. He thought Eddies mother must be really weird. He was unconscious of the fact that now both of his hands were fiddling in the remains of his sweatshirt. Why dont you just say no? Say something like Hey Ma, I feel all right, I just want to stay home and watch Sea Hunt. Like that. Awww, Eddie said uncomfortably, and said no more. Youre Ben HHHHanscom, rright? Bill asked. Yeah. Youre Bill Denbrough. YuhYes. And this is EhEhEhhehEhEh Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie said. I hate it when you stutter my name, Bill. You sound like Elmer Fudd. Suhhorry. Well, Im pleased to meet you both, Ben said. It came out sounding prissy and a little lame. A silence fell amid the three of them. It was not an entirely uncomfortable silence. In it they became friends. Why were those guys chasing you? Eddie asked at last. Theyre aaalways chuhhasing ssomeone, Bill said. I hhate those fuckers. Ben was silent a momentmostly in admirationbefore Bills use of what Bens mother sometimes called The Really Bad Word. Ben had never said The Really Bad Word out loud in his whole life, although he had written it (in extremely small letters) on a telephone pole the Halloween before last. Bowers ended up sitting next to me during the exams, Ben said at last. He wanted to copy off my paper. I wouldnt let him. You must want to die young, kid, Eddie said admiringly. Stuttering Bill burst out laughing. Ben looked at him sharply, decided he wasnt being laughed at, exactly (it was hard to say how he knew it, but he did), and grinned. I guess I must, he said. Anyway, hes got to take summerschool, and he and those other two guys were laying for me, and thats what happened. YYou look like ttthey kuhhilled you, Bill said. I fell down here from Kansas Street. Down the side of the hill. He looked at Eddie. Ill probably see you in the Mergency Room, now that I think about it. When my mom gets a look at my clothes, shell put me there. Both Bill and Eddie burst out laughing this time, and Ben joined them. It hurt his stomach to laugh but he laughed anyway, shrilly and a little hysterically. Finally he had to sit down on the bank, and the plopping sound his butt made when it hit the dirt got him going all over again. He liked the way his laughter sounded with theirs. It was a sound he had never heard before not mingled laughterhe had heard that lots of timesbut mingled laughter of which his own was a part. He looked up at Bill Denbrough, their eyes met, and that was all it took to get both of them laughing again. Bill hitched up his pants, flipped up the collar of his shirt, and began to slouch around in a kind of moody, hoody strut. His voice dropped down low and he said, Im gonna killya, kid. Dont gimme no crap. Im dumb but Im big. I can crack walnuts with my forehead. I can piss vinegar and shit cement. My names Honeybunch Bowers and Im the boss prick round deseyere Derry parts. Eddie had collapsed to the streambank now and was rolling around, clutching his stomach and howling. Ben was doubled up, head between his knees, tears spouting from his eyes, snot hanging from his nose in long white runners, laughing like a hyena. Bill sat down with them, and little by little the three of them quieted. Theres one really good thing about it, Eddie said presently. If Bowers is in summer school, we wont see him much down here. You play in the Barrens a lot? Ben asked. It was an idea that never would have crossed his own mind in a thousand yearsnot with the reputation the Barrens hadbut now that he was down here, it didnt seem bad at all. In fact, this stretch of the low bank was very pleasant as the afternoon made its slow way toward dusk. SSSure. Its nneat. MMostly nnobody bbuhbothers uus down hhere. We guhguhhoof off a lot. BBBowers and those uhother gguys dont come ddown here ehehanyway. You and Eddie? RuhRuhRuh Bill shook his head. His face knotted up like a wet dishrag when he stuttered, Ben noticed, and suddenly an odd thought occurred to him Bill hadnt stuttered at all when he was mocking the way Henry Bowers talked. Richie! Bill exclaimed now, paused a moment, and then went on. Richie TTozier usually ccomes down, too. But hhim and his ddad were going to clean out their ahahah Attic, Eddie translated, and tossed a stone into the water. Plonk. Yeah, I know him, Ben said. You guys come down here a lot, huh? The idea fascinated himand made him feel a stupid sort of longing as well. PuhPuhPretty much, Bill said. WuhWhy ddont you cccome back down tuhhuhmorrow? MMe and EEEddie were tuhtrying to make a duhduhham. Ben could say nothing. He was astounded not only by the offer but by the simple and unstudied casualness with which it had come. Maybe we ought to do something else, Eddie said. The dam wasnt working so hot anyway. Ben got up and walked down to the stream, brushing the dirt from his huge hams. There were still matted piles of small branches at either side of the stream, but anything else theyd put together had washed away. You ought to have some boards, Ben said. Get boards and put em in a row ... facing each other ... like the bread of a sandwich.

Bill and Eddie were looking at him, puzzled. Ben dropped to one knee. Look, he said. Boards here and here. You stick em in the streambed facing each other. Okay? Then, before the water can wash them away, you fill up the space between them with rocks and sand WuhWuhWe, Bill said. Huh? WuhWe do it. Oh, Ben said, feeling (and looking, he was sure) extremely stupid. But he didnt care if he looked stupid, because he suddenly felt very happy. He couldnt even remember the last time he felt this happy. Yeah. We. Anyway, if youwefill up the space in between with rocks and stuff, itll stay. The upstream board will lean back against the rocks and dirt as the water piles up. The second board would tilt back and wash away after awhile, I guess, but if we had a third board ... well, look. He drew in the dirt with a stick. Bill and Eddie Kaspbrak leaned over and studied this little drawing with sober interest You ever built a dam before? Eddie asked. His tone was respectful, almost awed. Nope. Then hhhow do you know thisll wwwork? Ben looked at Bill, puzzled. Sure it will, he said. Why wouldnt it? But hhow do you nuhnuhknow? Bill asked. Ben recognized the tone of the question as one not of sarcastic disbelief but honest interest. HHow can yyou tell? I just know, Ben said. He looked down at his drawing in the dirt again as if to confirm it to himself. He had never seen a cofferdam in his life, either in diagram or in fact, and had no idea that he had just drawn a pretty fair representation of one. OOkay, Bill said, and clapped Ben on the back. SSee you tuhhuhmorrow. What time? MMe and EhEddiell gget here by eheheightththirty or so If me and my mom arent still waiting at the Mergency Room, Eddie said, and sighed. Ill bring some boards, Ben said. This old guy on the next blocks got a bunch of em. Ill hawk a few. Bring some supplies, too, Eddie said. Stuff to eat. You know, like sanwidges, RingDings, stuff like that. Okay. You gggot any guhguhguns? I got my Daisy air rifle, Ben said. My mom gave it to me for Christmas, but she gets mad if I shoot it off in the house. BBring it dddown, Bill said. Well play gguns, maybe. Okay, Ben said happily. Listen, I got to split for home, you guys. UhUs, too, Bill said. The three of them left the Barrens together. Ben helped Bill push Silver up the embankment. Eddie trailed behind them, wheezing again and looking unhappily at his bloodspotted shirt. Bill said goodbye and then pedaled off, shouting Hiyo Silver, AWAYYY! at the top of his lungs. Thats a gigantic bike, Ben said. Bet your fur, Eddie said. He had taken another gulp from his aspirator and was breathing normally again. He rides me double sometimes on the back. Goes so fast it just about scares the crap outta me. Hes a good man, Bill is. He said this last in an offhand way, but his eyes said something more emphatic. They were worshipful. You know about what happened to his brother, dont you? Nowhat about him? Got killed last fall. Some guy killed him. Pulled one of his arms right off, just like pulling a wing offn fly. Jeezumcrow ! Bill, he used to only stutter a little. Now its really bad. Did you notice that he stutters? Well ... a little. But his brains dont stutterget what I mean? Yeah. Anyway, I just told you because if you want Bill to be your friend, its better not to talk to him about his little brother. Dont ask him questions or anythin. Hes all frigged up about it. Man, I would be, too, Ben said. He remembered now, vaguely, about the little kid who had been killed the previous fall. He wondered if his mother had been thinking about George Denbrough when she gave him the watch he now wore, or only about the more recent killings. Did it happen right after the big flood? Yeah. They had reached the corner of Kansas and Jackson, where they would have to split up. Kids ran here and there, playing tag and throwing baseballs. One dorky little kid in big blue shorts went trotting selfimportantly past Ben and Eddie, wearing a Davy Crockett coonskin backward so that the tail hung down between his eyes. He was rolling a Hula Hoop and yelling Hooptag, you guys! Hooptag, wanna? The two bigger boys looked after him, amused, and then Eddie said Well, I gotta go. Wait a sec, Ben said. I got an idea, if you really dont want to go to the Mergency Room. Oh yeah? Eddie looked at Ben, doubtful but wanting to hope. You got a nickel? I got a dime. So what? Ben eyed the drying maroon splotches on Eddies shirt. Stop at the store and get a chocolate milk. Pour about half of it on your shirt. Then when you get home tell your mama you spilled all of it. Eddies eyes brightened. In the four years since his dad had died, his mothers eyesight had worsened considerably. For reasons of vanity (and because she didnt know how to drive a car), she refused to see an optometrist and get glasses. Dried bloodstains and chocolate milk stains looked about the same. Maybe ... That might work, he said. Just dont tell her it was my idea if she finds out. I wont, Eddie said. Seeya later, alligator. Okay. No, Eddie said patiently. When I say that youre supposed to say, After awhile, crocodile. Oh. After awhile, crocodile. You got it. Eddie smiled. You know something? Ben said. You guys are really cool. Eddie looked more than embarrassed; he looked almost nervous. Bill is, he said, and started off. Ben watched him go down Jackson Street, and then turned toward home. Three blocks up the street he saw three alltoofamiliar figures standing at the bus stop on the corner of Jackson and Main. They were mostly turned away from Ben, which was damned lucky for him. He ducked behind a hedge, his heart beating hard. Five minutes later the DerryNewportHaven interurban bus pulled up. Henry and his friends pitched their butts into the street and swung aboard. Ben waited until the bus was out of sight and then hurried home. 8 That night a terrible thing happened to Bill Denbrough. It happened for the second time. His mom and dad were downstairs watching TV, not talking much, sitting at either end of the couch like bookends. There had been a time when the TV room opening off the kitchen would have been full of talk and laughter, sometimes so much of both you couldnt hear the TV at all. Shut up, Georgie! Bill would roar. Stop hogging all the popcorn and I will, George would return. Ma, make Bill give me the popcorn. Bill, give him the popcorn. George, dont call me Ma. Mas a sound a sheep makes. Or his dad would tell a joke and they would all laugh, even Mom. George didnt always get the jokes, Bill knew, but he laughed because everyone else was laughing. In those days his mom and dad had also been bookends on the couch, but he and George had been the books. Bill had tried to be a book between them while they were watching TV since Georges death, but it was cold work. They sent the cold out from both directions and Bills defroster was simply not big enough to cope with it. He had to leave because that kind of cold always froze his cheeks and made his eyes water. WWant to hhear a joke I heard today in ssschool? he had tried once, some months ago. Silence from them. On television a criminal was begging his brother, who was a priest, to hide him. Bills dad glanced up from the True he was looking at and glanced at Bill with mild surprise. Then he looked back down at the magazine again. There was a picture of a hunter sprawled in a snowbank and staring up at a huge snarling polar bear. Mauled by the Killer from the White Wastes was the name of the article. Bill had thought, I know where theres some white wastesright between my dad and mom on this couch. His mother had never looked up at all. Its about hhow many FFFrenchmen it takes to sccherew in a luhhhhightbulb, Bill plunged ahead. He felt a fine mist of sweat spring out upon his forehead, as it sometimes did in school when he knew the teacher had ignored him as long as she safely could and must soon call on him. His voice was too loud, but he couldnt seem to lower it. The words echoed in his head like crazy chimes, echoing, jamming up, spilling out again. DDDo you know hhhow muhmuhmany? One to hold the bulb and four to turn the house, Zack Denbrough said absently, and turned the page of his magazine. Did you say something, dear? his mother asked, and on Four Star Playhouse the brother who was a priest told the brother who was a hoodlum to turn himself in and pray for forgiveness. Bill sat there, sweating but coldso cold. It was cold because he wasnt really the only book between those two ends; Georgie was still there, only now it was a Georgie he couldnt see, a Georgie who never demanded the popcorn or hollered that Bill was pinching. This new version of George never cut up dickens. It was a onearmed Georgie who was palely, thoughtfully silent in the Motorolas shadowy whiteandblue glow, and perhaps it was not from his parents but from George that the big chill was really coming; perhaps it was George who was the real killer from the white wastes. Finally Bill had fled from that cold, invisible brother and into his room, where he lay face down on his bed and cried into his pillow. Georges room was just as it had been on the day he died. Zack had put a bunch of Georges toys into a carton one day about two weeks after he was buried, meaning them for the Goodwill or the Salvation Army or someplace like that, Bill supposed. Sharon Denbrough had spotted him coming out with the box in his arms and her hands had flown to her head like startled white birds and plunged themselves deep into her hair where they locked themselves into pulling fists. Bill had seen this and had fallen against the wall, the strength suddenly running out of his legs. His mother looked as mad as Elsa Lanchester in The Bride of Frankenstein. Dont you DARE take his things! she had screeched. Zack flinched and then took the box of toys back into Georges room without a word. He even put them back in exactly the same places from which he had taken them. Bill came in and saw his father kneeling by Georges bed (which his mother still changed, although only once a week now instead of twice) with his head on his hairy muscular forearms. Bill saw his father was crying, and this increased his terror. A frightening possibility suddenly occurred to him maybe sometimes things didnt just go wrong and then stop; maybe sometimes they just kept going wronger and wronger until everything was totally fucked up. DDuhDad Go on, Bill, his father said. His voice was muffled and shaking. His back went up and down. Bill badly wanted to touch his fathers back, to see if perhaps his hand might be able to still that restless heaving. He did not quite dare. Go on, buzz off. He left and went creeping along the upstairs hall, hearing his mother doing her own crying down in the kitchen. The sound was shrill and helpless. Bill thought, Why are they crying so far apart? and then he shoved the thought away. 9 On the first night of summer vacation Bill went into Georgies room. His heart was beating heavily in his chest, and his legs felt stiff and awkward with tension. He came to Georges room often, but that didnt mean he liked it in here. The room was so full of Georges presence that it felt haunted. He came in and couldnt help thinking that the closet door might creak open at any moment and there would be Georgie among the shirts and pants still neatly hung in there, a Georgie dressed in a rainslicker covered with red splotches and streaks, a rainslicker with one dangling yellow arm. Georges eyes would be blank and terrible, the eyes of a zombie in a horror movie. When he came out of the closet his galoshes would make squishy sounds as he walked across the room toward where Bill sat on his bed, a frozen block of terror If the power had gone out some evening while he sat here on Georges bed, looking at the pictures on Georges wall or the models on top of Georges dresser, he felt sure a heart attack, probably fatal, would ensue in the next ten seconds or so. But he went anyway. Warring with his terror of Georgetheghost was a mute and grasping needa hungerto somehow get over Georges death and find a decent way to go on. Not to forget George but somehow to find a way to make him not so fucking gruesome. He understood that his parents were not succeeding very well with that, and if he was going to do it for himself, he would have to do it by himself. Nor was it just for himself that he came; he came for Georgie as well. He had loved George, and for brothers they had gotten along pretty well. Oh, they had their pissy momentsBill giving George a good old Indian ropeburn, George tattling on Bill when Bill snuck downstairs after lightsout and ate the rest of the lemoncream frostingbut mostly they got along. Bad enough that George should be dead. For him to turn George into some kind of horrormonster ... that was even worse. He missed the little kid, that was the truth. Missed his voice, his laughtermissed the way Georges eyes sometimes tipped confidently up to his own, sure that Bill would have whatever answers were required. And one surpassingly odd thing there were times when he felt he loved George best in his fear, because even in his fearhis uneasy feelings that a zombieGeorge might be lurking in the closet or under the bedhe could remember loving George better in here, and George loving him. In his effort to reconcile these two emotionshis love and his terrorBill felt that he was closest to finding where final acceptance lay. These were not things of which he could have spoken; to his mind the ideas were nothing but an incoherent jumble. But his warm and desiring heart understood, and that was all that mattered. Sometimes he looked through Georges books, sometimes he sifted through Georges toys. He hadnt looked in Georges photograph album since last December. Now, on the night after meeting Ben Hanscom, Bill opened the door of Georges closet (steeling himself as always to meet the sight of Georgie himself, standing in his bloody slicker amid the hanging clothes, expecting as always to see one pallid, fishfingered hand come pistoning out of the dark to grip his arm) and took the album down from the top shelf. MY PHOTOGRAPHS, the gold script on the front read. Below, Scotchtaped on (the tape was now slightly yellow and peeling), the carefully printed words GEORGE ELMER DENBROUGH, AGE 6. Bill took it back to the bed Georgie had slept in, his heart beating heavier than ever. He couldnt tell what had made him get the photograph album down again. After what had happened in December... A second look, thats all. Just to convince yourself that it wasnt real the first time. That the first time was just your head playing a trick on itself. Well, it was an idea, anyway. It might even be true. But Bill suspected it was just the album itself. It held a certain mad fascination for him. What he had seen, or what he thought he had seen He opened the album now. It was filled with pictures George had gotten his mother, father, aunts, and uncles to give him. George didnt care if they were pictures of people and places he knew or not; it was the idea of photography itself which fascinated him. When he had been unsuccessful at pestering anyone into giving him new photos to mount he would sit crosslegged on his bed where Bill was sitting now and look at the old ones, turning the pages carefully, studying the blackandwhite Kodaks. Here was their mother when she was young and impossibly gorgeous; here their father, no more than eighteen, one of a trio of smiling rifletoting young men standing over the openeyed corpse of a deer; Uncle Hoyt standing on some rocks and holding up a pickerel; Aunt Fortuna, at the Derry Agricultural Fair, kneeling proudly beside a basket of tomatoes she had raised; an old Buick automobile; a church; a house; a road that went from somewhere to somewhere. All these pictures, snapped by lost somebodies for lost reasons, locked up here in a dead boys album of photographs. Here Bill saw himself at three, propped up in a hospital bed with a turban of bandages covering his hair. Bandages went down his cheeks and under his fractured jaw. He had been struck by a car in the parking lot of the AP on Center Street. He remembered very little of his hospital stay, only that they had given him icecream milk shakes through a straw and his head had ached dreadfully for three days. Here was the whole family on the lawn of the house, Bill standing by his mother and holding her hand, and George, only a baby, sleeping in Zacks arms. And here It wasnt the end of the book, but it was the last page that mattered, because the following ones were all blank. The final picture was Georges school picture, taken in October of last year, less than ten days before he died. In it George was wearing a crewneck shirt. His flyaway hair was slicked down with water. He was grinning, revealing two empty slots in which new teeth would never growunless they keep on growing after you die, Bill thought, and shuddered. He looked at the picture fixedly for some time and was about to close the book when what had happened in December happened again. Georges eyes rolled in the picture. They turned up to meet Bills own. Georges artificial saycheese smile turned into a horrid leer. His right eye drooped closed in a wink See you soon, Bill. In my closet. Maybe tonight. Bill threw the book across the room. He clapped his hands over his mouth. The book struck the wall and fell to the floor, open. The pages turned, although there was no draft. The book opened itself to that awful picture again, the picture which said SCHOOL FRIENDS 195758 beneath it. Blood began to flow from the picture. Bill sat frozen, his tongue a swelling choking lump in his mouth, his skin crawling, his hair lifting. He wanted to scream but the tiny whimpering sounds crawling out of his throat seemed to be the best he could manage. The blood flowed across the page and began to drip onto the floor. Bill fled the room, slamming the door behind him. CHAPTER 6 One of the Missing A Tale from the Summer of 58 1 They werent all found. No; they werent all found. And from time to time wrong assumptions were made. 2 From the Derry News, June 21st, 1958 (page 1) MISSING BOY PROMPTS NEW FEARS Edward L. Corcoran, of 73 Charter Street, Derry, was reported missing last night by his mother, Monica Macklin, and his stepfather, Richard P. Macklin. The Corcoran boy is ten. His disappearance has prompted new fears that Derrys young people are being stalked by a killer. Mrs. Macklin said the boy had been missing since June 19th, when he failed to return home from school after the last day of classes before summer vacation. When asked why they had delayed over twentyfour hours before reporting their sons absence, Mr. and Mrs. Macklin refused comment. Police Chief Richard Borton also declined comment, but a Police Department source told the News that the Corcoran boys relationship with his stepfather was not a good one, and that he had spent nights out of the house before. The source speculated that the boys final grades may have played a part in the boys failure to turn up. Derry School Superintendent Harold Metcalf declined comment on the Corcoran boys grades, pointing out they are not a matter of public record. I hope the disappearance of this boy will not cause unnecessary fears, Chief Borton said last night. The mood of the community is understandably uneasy, but I want to emphasize that we log thirty to fifty missingpersons reports on minors each and every year. Most turn up alive and well within a week of the initial report. This will be the case with Edward Corcoran, God willing. Borton also reiterated his conviction that the murders of George Denbrough, Betty Ripsom, Cheryl Lamonica, Matthew Clements, and Veronica Grogan were not the work of one person. There are essential differences in each crime, Borton said, but declined to elaborate. He said that local police, working in close cooperation with the Maine State Attorney Generals office, are still following up a number of leads. Asked in a telephone interview last night how good these leads are, Chief Borton replied Very good. Asked if an arrest in any of the crimes was expected soon, Borton declined comment. From the Derry News, June 22nd, 1958 (page 1) COURT ORDERS SURPRISE EXHUMATION In a bizarre new twist to the disappearance of Edward Corcoran, Derry District Court Judge Erhardt K. Moulton ordered the exhumation of Corcorans younger brother, Dorsey, late yesterday. The court order followed a joint request from the County Attorney and the County Medical Examiner. Dorsey Corcoran, who also lived with his mother and stepfather at 73 Charter Street, died of what were reported to be accidental causes in May of 1957. The boy was brought into the Derry Home Hospital suffering from multiple fractures, including a fractured skull. Richard P. Macklin, the boys stepfather, was the admitting person. He stated that Dorsey Corcoran had been playing on a stepladder in the garage and had apparently fallen from the top. The boy died without recovering consciousness three days later. Edward Corcoran, ten, was reported missing late Wednesday. Asked if either Mr. or Mrs. Macklin was under suspicion in either the younger boys death or the older boys disappearance, Chief Richard Borton declined comment. From the Derry News, June 24th, 1958 (page 1) MACKLIN ARRESTED IN BEATING DEATH Under Suspicion in Unsolved Disappearance Chief Richard Borton of the Derry Police called a news conference yesterday to announce that Richard P. Macklin, of 73 Charter Street, had been arrested and charged with the murder of his stepson, Dorsey Corcoran. The Corcoran boy died in Derry Home Hospital of reported accidental causes on May 31st of last year. The medical examiners report shows that the boy was badly beaten, Borton said. Although Macklin claimed the boy had fallen from a stepladder while playing in the garage, Borton said the County Medical Examiners report showed that Dorsey Corcoran was severely beaten with some blunt instrument. When asked what sort of instrument, Borton said It might have been a hammer. Right now the important thing is the medical examiners conclusion that this boy was struck repeated blows with some object hard enough to break his bones. The wounds, particularly those in the skull, are not at all consistent with those which might be incurred in a fall. Dorsey Corcoran was beaten within an inch of his life and then dumped off at the Home Hospital emergency room to die. Asked if the doctors who treated the Corcoran boy might have been derelict in their duty when it came to reporting either an incidence of child abuse or the actual cause of death, Borton said, They will have serious questions to answer when Mr. Macklin comes to trial. Asked for an opinion on how these developments might bear on the recent disappearance of Dorsey Corcorans older brother, Edward, reported missing by Richard and Monica Macklin four days ago, Chief Borton answered I think it looks much more serious than we first supposed, dont you? From the Derry News, June 25th, 1958 (page 2) TEACHER SAYS EDWARD CORCORAN OFTEN BRUISED Henrietta Dumont, who teaches fifth grade at Derry Elementary School on Jackson Street, said that Edward Corcoran, who has now been missing for nearly a week, often came to school covered with bruises. Mrs. Dumont, who has taught one of Derrys two fifthgrade classes since the end of World War II, said that the Corcoran boy came to school one day about three weeks before his disappearance with both eyes nearly closed shut. When I asked him what happened, he said his father had taken him up for not eating his supper. When asked why she had not reported a beating of such obvious severity, Mrs. Dumont said, This isnt the first time Ive seen such a thing as this in my career as a teacher. The first few times I had a student with a parent who was confusing beatings with discipline, I tried to do something about it. I was told by the assistant principal, Gwendolyn Rayburn in those days, to stay out of it. She told me that when school employees get involved in cases of suspected child abuse, it always comes back to haunt the School Department at tax appropriation time. I went to the principal and he told me to forget it or I would be reprimanded. I asked him if a reprimand in a matter like that would go on my record. He said a reprimand did not have to be on a teachers record. I got the message. Asked if the attitude in the Derry school system remained the same now, Mrs. Dumont said, Well, what does it look like, in light of this current situation? And I might add that I would not be speaking to you now if I hadnt retired at the end of this school year. Mrs. Dumont went on, Since this thing came out I get down on my knees every night and pray that Eddie Corcoran just got fed up with that beast of a stepfather and ran away. I pray that when he reads in the paper or hears on the news that Macklin has been locked up, Eddie will come home. In a brief telephone interview Monica Macklin hotly refuted Mrs. Dumonts charges. Rich never beat Dorsey, and he never beat Eddie, either, she said. Im telling you that right now, and when I die Ill stand at the Throne of Judgment and look God right in the eye and tell Him the same thing. From the Derry News, June 28th, 1958 (page 2) DADDY HAD TO TAKE ME UP CAUSE IM BAD, TOT TOLD NURSERY TEACHER BEFORE BEATING DEATH A local nurseryschool teacher who declined to be identified told a Newsreporter yesterday that young Dorsey Corcoran came to his twiceweekly nurseryschool class with bad sprains of his right thumb and three fingers of his right hand less than a week before his death in a purported garage accident. It was hurting him enough so that the poor little guy couldnt color his Mr. Do safety poster, the teacher said. The fingers were swelled up like sausages. When I asked Dorsey what happened, he said that his father (stepfather Richard P. Macklin) had bent his fingers back because he had walked across a floor his mother had just washed and waxed. Daddy had to take me up cause Im bad was the way he put it. I felt like crying, looking at his poor, dear fingers. He really wanted to color his poster like the other children, so I gave him some baby aspirin and let him color while the others were having Story Time. He loved to color the Mr. Do postersthat was what he liked bestand now Im so glad I was able to help him have a little happiness that day. When he died it never crossed my mind to think it was anything but an accident. I guess at first I thought he must have fallen because he couldnt grip very well with that hand. Now I think I just couldnt believe an adult could do such a thing to a little person. I know better now. I wish to God I didnt. Dorsey Corcorans older brother, Edward, ten, is still missing. From his cell in Derry County Jail, Richard Macklin continues to deny any part in either the death of his younger stepson or the disappearance of the older boy. From the Derry News, June 30th, 1958 (page 5) MACKLIN QUESTIONED IN DEATHS OF GROGAN, CLEMENTS Produces Unshakable Alibis, Source Claims From the Derry News, July 6th, 1958 (page 1) MACKLIN TO BE CHARGED ONLY WITH MURDER OF STEPSON DORSEY, BORTON SAYS Edward Corcoran Still Missing From the Derry News, July 24th, 1958 (page 1) WEEPING STEPFATHER CONFESSES TO BLUDGEON DEATH OF STEPSON In a dramatic development in the District Court trial of Richard Macklin for the murder of his stepson Dorsey Corcoran, Macklin broke down under the stem crossexamination of County Attorney Bradley Whitsun and admitted he had beaten the fouryearold boy to death with a recoilless hammer, which he then buried at the far end of his wifes vegetable garden before taking the boy to Derry Home Hospitals emergency room. The courtroom was stunned and silent as the sobbing Macklin, who had previously admitted beating both of his stepsons occasionally, if they had it coming, for their own good, poured out his story. I dont know what came over me. I saw he was climbing on the damn ladder again and I grabbed the hammer from the bench where it was laying and I just started to use it on him. I didnt mean to kill him. With God as my witness I never meant to kill him. Did he say anything to you before he passed out? Whitsun asked. He said, Stop daddy, Im sorry, I love you, Macklin replied. Did you stop? Eventually, Macklin said. He then began to weep in such a hysterical manner that Judge Erhardt Moulton declared the court in recess. From the Derry News, September 18th, 1958 (page 16) WHERE IS EDWARD CORCORAN? His stepfather, sentenced to a term of two to ten years in Shawshank State Prison for the murder of his fouryearold brother, Dorsey, continues to claim he has no idea where Edward Corcoran is. His mother, who has instituted divorce proceedings against Richard P. Macklin, says she thinks her soontobe exhusband is lying. Is he? I, for one, really dont think so, says Father Ashley 0Brian, who serves the Catholic prisoners at Shawshank. Macklin began taking instruction in the Catholic faith shortly after beginning his prison term, and Father OBrian has spent a good deal of time with him. He is sincerely sorry for what he has done, Father OBrian goes on, adding that when he initially asked Macklin why he wanted to be a Catholic, Macklin replied, I hear they have an act of contrition and I need to do a lot of that or else Ill go to hell when I die. He knows what he did to the younger boy, Father OBrian said. If he also did something to the older one, he doesnt remember it. As far as Edward goes, he believes his hands are clean. How clean Macklins hands are in the matter of his stepson Edward is a question which continues to trouble Derry residents, but he has been convincingly cleared of the other childmurders which have taken place here. He was able to produce ironclad alibis for the first three, and he was in jail when seven others were committed in late June, July, and August. All ten murders remain unsolved. In an exclusive interview with the News last week Macklin again asserted that he knows nothing of Edward Corcorans whereabouts. I beat them both, he said in a painful monologue which was often halted by bouts of weeping. I loved them but I beat them. I dont know why, any more than I know why Monica let me, or why she covered up for me after Dorsey died. I guess I could have killed Eddie as easy as I did Dorsey, but I swear before God and Jesus and all the saints of heaven that I didnt. I know how it looks, but I didnt do it. I think he just ran away. If he did, thats one thing Ive got to thank God for. Asked if he is aware of any gaps in his memoryif he could have killed Edward and then blocked it out of his mindMacklin replied I aint aware of any gaps. I know only too well what I did. Ive given my life to Christ, and Im going to spend the rest of it trying to make up for it. From the Derry News, January 27th, 1960 (page 1) BODY NOT THAT OF CORCORAN YOUTH, BORTON ANNOUNCES Police Chief Richard Borton told reporters early today that the badly decomposed body of a boy about the age of Edward Corcoran, who disappeared from his Derry home in June of 1958, is definitely not that of the missing youth. The body was found in Aynesford, Massachusetts, buried in a gravel pit. Both Maine and Massachusetts State Police at first theorized that the body might be that of the Corcoran boy, believing that he might have been picked up by a child molester after running away from the Charter Street home where his younger brother had been beaten and killed. Dental charts showed conclusively that the boy found in Aynesford was not that of the Corcoran youth, who has now been missing for nineteen months. From the Portland PressHerald, July 19th, 1967 (page 3) CONVICTED MURDERER COMMITS SUICIDE IN FALMOUTH Richard P.