Salem's Lot

38

They stood in the rain, I trembling, looking at each other. ‘Next door?’ Mark asked.

‘Yes. They’d be the logical ones for the McDougalls to attack first.’

They went across, and this time their nostrils picked up the telltale odor of rot in the dooryard. The name below the doorbell was Evans. Jimmy nodded. David Evans and family. He worked as a mechanic in the auto department of Sears in Gates Falls. He had treated him a couple of years ago, for a cyst or something.

This time the bell worked, but there was no response. They found Mrs Evans in bed. The two children were in a bunk bed in a single bedroom, dressed in identical pajamas that featured characters from the Pooh stories. It took longer to find Dave Evans. He had hidden himself away in the unfinished storage space over the small garage.

Jimmy marked a check inside a circle on the front door and the garage door. ‘We’re doing good,’ he said. ‘Two for two.’

Mark said diffidently, ‘Could you hold on a minute or two? I’d like to wash my hands.’

‘Sure,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’d like that, too. The Evanses won’t mind if we use their bathroom.’

They went inside, and Jimmy sat down in one of the living room chairs and closed his eyes. Soon he heard Mark running water in the bathroom.

On the darkened screen of his eyes he saw the mortician’s table, saw the sheet covering Marjorie Glick’s body start to tremble, saw her hand fall out and begin its delicate toe dance on the air- He opened his eyes.

This trailer was in nicer condition than the McDougalls’, neater, taken care of. He had never met Mrs Evans, but it seemed she must have taken pride in her home. There was a neat pile of the dead children’s toys in a small storage room, a room that had probably been called the laundry room in the mobile home dealer’s original brochure. Poor kids, he hoped they’d enjoyed the toys while there had still been bright days and sunshine to enjoy them in. There was a tricycle, several large plastic trucks and a play gas station, one of those caterpillars on wheels (there must have been some dandy fights over that), a toy pool table.

He started to look away and then looked back, startled.

Blue chalk.

Three shaded lights in a row.

Men walking around the green table under the bright lights, cueing up, brushing the grains of blue chalk off their fingertips -

‘Mark!’ he shouted, sitting bolt upright in the chair. ‘Mark!’ And Mark came running with his shirt off, to see what the matter was.