Salem's Lot

36

They took the dust cover from the couch in the living room and covered them with that. Ben tried not to look at or think about what they were doing, but it was impossible. When the job was done, one hand-the cultivated, lacquered nails revealed it to be June Petrie’s-protruded from under the gaily patterned dust cover, and he poked it underneath with his toe, grimacing in an effort to keep his stomach under control. The shapes of the bodies under the cover were undeniable and unmistakable, making him think of news photos from Vietnam - battlefield dead and soldiers carrying dreadful burdens in black rubber sacks that looked absurdly like golf bags.

They went downstairs, each with an armload of yellow ash stove lengths.

The cellar had been Henry Petrie’s domain, and it reflected his personality perfectly: Three high-intensity lights had been hung in a straight line over the work area, each shaded with a wide metal shell that allowed the light to fall with strong brilliance on the planer, the jigsaw, the bench saw, the lathe, the electric sander. Ben saw that he had been building a bird hotel, probably to place in the back yard next spring, and the blueprint he had been working from was neatly laid out and held at each corner with machined metal paperweights. He had been doing a competent but uninspired job, and now it would never be finished. The floor was neatly swept, but a pleasantly nostalgic odor of sawdust hung in the air.

‘This isn’t going to work at all,’ Jimmy said.

‘I know that,’ Ben said.

‘The woodpile,’ Jimmy snorted, and let the wood fall from his arms in a lumbering crash. The stove lengths rolled wildly on the floor like jackstraws. He uttered a high, hysterical laugh.

‘Jimmy-’

But his laugh cut across Ben’s attempt to speak like jags of piano wire. ‘We’re going to go out and end the scourge with a pile of wood from Henry Petrie’s back lot. How about some chair legs or baseball bats?’

‘Jimmy, what else can we do?’

Jimmy looked at him and got himself under control with a visible effort. ‘Some treasure hunt,’ he said. ‘Go forty paces into Charles Griffen’s north pasture and look under the large rock. Ha. Jesus. We can get out of town. We can do that.’

‘Do you want to quit? Is that what you want?’

‘No. But it isn’t going to be just today, Ben. It’s going to be weeks before we get them all, if we ever do. Can you stand that? Can you stand doing… doing what you did to Susan a thousand times? Pulling them out of their closets and their stinking little bolt holes screaming and struggling, only to pound a stake into their chest cavities and smash their hearts? Can you keep that up until November without going nuts?’

Ben thought about it and met a blank wall: utter incomprehension.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Well, what about the kid? Do you think he can take it? He’ll be ready for the fucking nut hatch. And Matt will be dead. I’ll guarantee you that. And what do we do when the state cops start nosing around to find out what in hell happened to ‘salem’s Lot? What do we tell them? "Pardon me while I stake this bloodsucker"? What about that, Ben?’

‘How the hell should I know? Who’s had a chance to stop and think this thing out?’

They realized simultaneously that they were standing nose to nose, yelling at each other. ‘Hey,’ Jimmy said. ‘Hey.’

Ben dropped his eyes. ‘I’m sorry-’

‘No, my fault. We’re under pressure… what Barlow would undoubtedly call an end game.’ He ran a hand through his carroty hair and looked around aimlessly. His eye suddenly lit on something beside Petrie’s blueprint and he picked it up. It was a black grease pencil.

‘Maybe this is the best way,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘You stay here, Ben. Start turning out stakes. If we’re going to do this, it’s got to be scientific. You’re the production department. Mark and I will be research. We’ll go through the town, looking for them. We’ll find them, too, just the way we found Mike. I can mark the locations with this grease pencil. Then, tomorrow, the stakes.’

‘Won’t they see the marks and move?’

‘I don’t think so. Mrs Glick didn’t look as though she was connecting too well. I think they move more on instinct than real thought. They might wise up after a while, start hiding better, but I think at first it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.’

‘Why don’t I go?’

‘Because I know the town, and the town knows me-like they knew my father. The live ones in the Lot are hiding in their houses today. If you come knocking, they won’t answer. If I come, most of them will. I know some of the hiding places. I know where the winos shack up out in the Marshes and where the pulp roads go. You don’t. Can you run that lathe?’

‘Yes,’ Ben said.

Jimmy was right, of course. Yet the relief he felt at not having to go out and face them made him feel guilty.

‘Okay. Get going. It’s after noon now.’

Ben turned to the lathe, then paused. ‘If you want to wait a half hour, I can give you maybe half a dozen stakes to take with you.’

Jimmy paused a moment, then dropped his eyes. ‘Uh, I think tomorrow… tomorrow would be…’

‘Okay,’ Ben said. ‘Go on. Listen, why don’t you come back around three? Things ought to be quiet enough around that school by then so we can check it out.’

‘Good.’

Jimmy stepped away from Petrie’s shop area and started for the stairs. Something-a half thought or perhaps inspiration-made him turn. He saw Ben across the basement, working under the bright glare of those three lights, hung neatly in a row.

Something… and it was gone.

He walked back.

Ben shut off the lathe and looked at him. ‘Something else?’

‘Yeah,’ Jimmy said. ‘On the tip of my tongue. But it’s stuck there.’

Ben raised his eyebrows.

‘When I looked back from the stairs and saw you, something clicked. It’s gone now.’

‘Important?’

‘I don’t know.’ He shuffled his feet purposelessly, wanting it to come back. Something about the image Ben had made, standing under those work lights, bent over the lathe. No good. Thinking about it only made it seem more distant.

He went up the stairs, but paused once more to look back. The image was hauntingly familiar, but it wouldn’t come. He went through the kitchen and out to the car. The rain had faded to drizzle.