Salem's Lot

23

They had seen two nurses run past the door toward the elevators and heard a vague shout down the stairwell. Ben glanced at Jimmy and Jimmy shrugged imperceptibly. Matt was dozing with his mouth open.

Ben closed the door and turned off the lights. Jimmy crouched by the foot of Matt’s bed, and when they heard footsteps hesitate outside the door, Ben stood beside it, ready. When it opened and a head poked through, he grabbed it in a half nelson and jammed the cross he held in the other hand into the face.

‘Let me go!’

A hand reached up and beat futilely at his chest. A moment later the overhead light went on. Matt was sitting up in bed, blinking at Mark Petrie, who was struggling in Ben’s arms.

Jimmy came out of his crouch and ran across the room. He seemed almost ready to embrace the boy when he hesitated. ‘Lift your chin.’

Mark did, showing all three of them his unmarked neck.

Jimmy relaxed. ‘Boy, I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life. Where’s the Father?’

‘Don’t know,’ Mark said somberly. ‘Barlow caught me… killed my folks. They’re dead. My folks are dead. He beat their heads together. He killed my folks. Then he had me and he said to Father Callahan that he would let me go if Father Callahan would promise to throw away his cross. He promised. I ran. But before I ran, I spit on him. I spit on him and I’m going to kill him.’

He swayed in the doorway. There were bramble marks on his forehead and cheeks. He had run through the forest along the path where Danny Glick and his brother had come to grief so long before. His pants were wet to the knees from his flight through Taggart Stream. He had hitched a ride, but couldn’t remember who he had hitched it with. The radio had been playing, he remembered that.

Ben’s tongue was frozen. He did not know what to say.

‘You poor boy,’ Matt said softly. ‘You poor, brave boy.’

Mark’s face began to break up. His eyes closed and his mouth twisted and strained. ‘My muh-muh-mother-’ He staggered blindly and Ben caught him in his arms, enfolded him, rocked him as the tears came and raged against his shirt.