Salem's Lot

2

Sandy McDougall knew’ something was wrong when she woke up, but couldn’t tell what. The other side of the bed was empty; it was Roy’s day off, and he had gone fishing with some friends. Would be back around noon. Nothing was burning and she didn’t hurt anywhere. So what could be wrong?

The sun. The sun was wrong.

It was high up on the wallpaper, dancing through the shadows cast by the maple outside the window. But Randy always woke her before the sun got up high enough to throw the maple’s shadow on the wall -

Her startled eyes jumped to the clock on the dresser. It was ten minutes after nine.

Trepidation rose in her throat.

‘Randy?’ she called, her dressing gown blowing out behind her as she flew down the narrow hall of the trailer. ‘Randy, honey?’

The baby’s bedroom was bathed in submerged light from the one small window above the crib… open. But she had closed it when she went to bed. She always closed it.

The crib was empty.

‘Randy?’ she whispered.

And saw him.

The small body, still clad in wash-faded Dr Dentons, had been flung into the corner like a piece of garbage. One leg stuck up grotesquely, like an inverted exclamation point.

‘Randy!’

She fell on her knees by the body, her face marked with the harsh lines of shock. She cradled the child. The body was cool to the touch ‘

‘Randy, honey-baby, wake up, Randy, Randy, wake up-’

The bruises were gone. All gone. They had faded overnight, leaving the small face and form flawless. His color was good. For the only time since his coming she found him beautiful, and she screamed at the sight of the beauty-a horrible, desolate sound.

‘Randy! Wake up! Randy? Randy? Randy?’

She got up with him and ran back down the hall, the dressing gown slipping off one shoulder. The high chair still stood in the kitchen, the tray encrusted with Randy’s supper of the night before. She slipped Randy into the chair, which stood in a patch of morning sunlight. Randy’s head lolled against his chest and he slid sideways with a slow and terrible finality until he was lodged in the angle between the tray and one of the chair’s high arms.

‘Randy?’ she said, smiling. Her eyes bulged from their sockets like flawed blue marbles. She patted his cheeks. ‘Wake up now, Randy. Breakfast, Randy. Is oo hungwy? Please-oh Jesus, please-’

She whirled away from him and pulled open one of the cabinets over the stove and pawed through it, spilling a box of Rice Chex, a can of Chef Boy-ar-dee ravioli, a bottle of Wesson oil. The Wesson oil bottle shattered, spraying heavy liquid across the stove and floor. She found a small jar of Gerber’s chocolate custard and grabbed one of the plastic Dairy Queen spoons out of the dish drainer.

‘Look, Randy. Your favorite. Wake up and see the nice custard. Chocka, Randy. Chocka, chocka.’ Rage and terror swept her darkly. ‘Wake up!’ she screamed at him, her spittle beading the translucent skin of his brow and cheeks. ‘Wake up wake up for the love of God you little shit WAKE UP!’

She pulled the cover off the jar and spooned out some of the chocolate-flavored custard. Her hand, which knew the truth already, was shaking so badly that most of it spilled. She pushed what was left between the small slack lips, and more fell off onto the tray making horrid plopping sounds. The spoon clashed against his teeth.

‘Randy,’ she pleaded. ‘Stop fooling your momma.’

Her other hand stretched out, and she pulled his mouth open with a hooked finger and pushed the rest of the custard into his mouth.

‘There, said Sandy McDougall. A smile, indescribable in its cracked hope, touched her lips. She settled back in her kitchen chair, relaxing muscle by muscle. Now it would be all right. Now he would know she still loved him and he would stop this cruel trickery.

‘Good?’ she murmured. ‘Chocka good, Wandyl Will Oo make a smile for Mommy? Be Mommy’s good boy and give her a smile.’

She reached out with trembling fingers and pushed up the corners of Randy’s mouth.

The chocolate fell out onto the tray-plop.

She began to scream.