Four Past Midnight (84 page)

“They'd all drop their heads at the same instant. It was like they were dead. The first time I seen it happen, I waited about two minutes after she took some little girl out of the room, and then I got up and went over to the circle. I went to Willy Klemmart first.

“ ‘Willy!' I whispered, and poked him in the shoulder. ‘You okay, Will?'

“He never moved, so I poked him harder and said his name again. He still didn't move. I could hear him breathin—kinda snotty and snory, the way kids are so much of the time, always runnin around with colds like they do—but it was still like he was dead. His eyelids were partway open, but I could only see the whites, and this long thread of spit was hangin off his lower lip. I got scared and went to three or four of the others, but wouldn't none of them look up at me or make a sound.”

“You're saying she enchanted them, aren't you?” Sam asked. “That they were like Snow White after she ate the poisoned apple.”

“Yes,” Dave agreed. “That's what they were like. In a different kind of way, that's what I was like, too. Then, just as I was gettin ready to take hold of Willy Klemmart and shake the shit out of him, I heard her comin back from the bathroom. I ran to my seat so she wouldn't catch me. Because I was more scared of what she might do to me than anything she might have done to them.

“She came in, and that little girl, who'd been as gray as a dirty sheet and half unconscious when Ardelia took her out, looked like somebody had just filled her up with the finest nerve-tonic in the world. She was wide awake, with roses in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye. Ardelia patted her on the bottom and she ran for her seat. Then Ardelia clapped her hands together and said, ‘All Good Babies lift your heads up! Sonja feels much better, and she wants us to finish the story, don't you, Sonja?'

“ ‘Yes, ma'am,‘ Sonja pipes up, just as pert as a robin in a birdbath. And their heads all came up. You never would have known that two seconds before that room looked like it was full of dead kids.

“The third or fourth time this happened, I let her get out of the room and then I followed her. I knew she was scarin them on purpose, you see, and I had an idea there was a reason for it. I was scared almost to death myself, but I wanted to see what it was.

“That time it was Willy Klemmart she'd taken down to the bathroom. He'd started havin hysterics during Ardelia's version of ‘Hansel and Gretel.' I opened the door real easy and quiet, and I seen Ardelia kneelin in front of Willy down by where the washbasin was. He had stopped cryin, but beyond that I couldn't tell anything. Her back was to me, you see, and Willy was so short she blocked him right out of my view, even on her knees. I could see his hands were on the shoulders of the jumper she was wearin, and I could see one sleeve of his red sweater, but that was all. Then I heard somethin—a thick suckin sound, like a straw makes when you've gotten just about all of your milkshake out of the glass. I had an idea then she was ... you know, molestin him, and she was, but not the way I thought.

“I walked in a little further, and slipped over to the right, walkin high up on the toes of my shoes so the heels wouldn't clack. I expected her to hear me just the same, though ... she had ears like goddam radar dishes, and I kept waitin for her to turn around and pin me with those red eyes of hers. But I couldn't stop. I
had
to see. And little by little, as I angled over to the right, I began to.

“Willy's face came into my sight over her shoulder, a little piece at a time, like a moon coming out of a ‘clipse. At first all I could see of her was her blonde hair—there was masses of it, all in curls and ringlets—but then I began to see
her
face, as well. And I seen what she was doin. All the strength ran out of my legs just like water down a pipe. There was no way they were goin to see me, not unless I reached up and started hammerin on one of the overhead pipes. Their eyes were closed, but that wasn't the reason. They were lost in what they were doin, you see, and they were both lost in the same place, because they were hooked together.

“Ardelia's face wasn't human anymore. It had run like warm taffy and made itself into this funnel shape that flattened her nose and pulled her eyesockets all long and Chinese to the sides and made her look like some kind of insect ... a fly, maybe, or a bee. Her mouth was gone again. It had turned into that thing I started to see just after she killed Mr. Lavin, the night we were layin in the hammock. It had turned into the narrow part of the funnel. I could see these funny red streaks on it, and at first I thought it was blood, or maybe veins under her skin, and then I realized it was lipstick. She didn't
have
lips anymore, but that red paint marked where her lips had been.

“She was usin that sucker thing to drink from Willy's eyes.”

Sam looked at Dave, thunderstruck. He wondered for a moment if the man had lost his mind. Ghosts were one thing; this was something else. He didn't have the slightest idea what
this
was. And yet sincerity and honesty shone on Dave's face like a lamp, and Sam thought:
If he's lying, he doesn't know it.

“Dave, are you saying Ardelia Lortz was drinking his tears?” Naomi asked hesitantly.

“Yes ... and no. It was his
special
tears she was drinkin. Her face was all stretched out to him, it was beatin like a heart, and her features were drawn out flat. She looked like a face you might draw on a shoppin bag to make a Halloween mask.

“What was comin out of the comers of Willy's eyes was gummy and pink, like bloody snot, or chunks of flesh that have almost liquefied. She sucked it in with that slurpin sound. It was his
fear
she was drinkin. She had made it real, somehow, and made it so big that it had to come out in those awful tears or kill him.”

“You're saying that Ardelia was some kind of vampire, aren't you?” Sam asked.

Dave looked relieved. “Yes. That's right. When I've thought of that day since—when I've
dared
to think of it—I believe that's
just
what she was. All those old stories about vampires sinking their teeth into people's throats and drinkin their blood are wrong. Not by much, but in this business, close is not good enough. They drink, but not from the neck; they grow fat and healthy on what they take from their victims, but what they take isn't blood. Maybe the stuff they take is redder,
bloodier,
when the victims are grownups. Maybe she took it from Mr. Lavin. I think she did. But it's not blood.

“It's fear.”

“I dunno how long I stood there, watchin her, but it couldn't have been too long—she was never gone much more than five minutes. After awhile, the stuff comin from the corners of Willy's eyes started to get paler and paler, and there was less and less of it. I could see that ... you know, that thing of hers ... ”

“Proboscis,” Naomi said quietly. “I think it must have been a proboscis.”

“Is it? All right. I could see that probos-thing stretchin further and further out, not wanting to miss any, wanting to get every last bit, and I knew she was almost done. And when she was, they'd wake up and she'd see me. And when she did, I thought she'd probably kill me.

“I started to back up, slow, one step at a time. I didn't think I was going to make it, but at last my butt bumped the bathroom door. I almost screamed when that happened, because I thought she'd got behind me somehow. I was sure of that even though I could see her kneelin there right in front of me.

“I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep the scream in and pushed out through the door. I stood there while it swung shut on the pneumatic hinge. It seemed to take forever. When it was closed, I started for the main door. I was half crazy; all I wanted to do was get out of there and never go back. I wanted to run forever.

“I got down into the foyer, where she'd put up that sign you saw, Sam—the one that just said SILENCE!—and then I caught hold of myself. If she led Willy back to the Children's Room and saw I was gone, she'd know I'd seen. She'd chase me, and she'd catch me, too. I didn't even think she'd have to try hard. I kept rememberin that day in the corn, and how she'd run rings all around me and never even worked up a sweat.

“So I turned around and walked back to my seat in the Children's Room instead. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but somehow I managed to do it. My ass wasn't on the chair two seconds before I heard them coming. And of course Willy was all happy and smilin and full of beans, and so was she. Ardelia looked ready to go three fast rounds with Carmen Basilio and whip him solid.

“ ‘All Good Babies lift your heads up!' she called, and clapped her hands. They all raised their heads and looked at her. ‘Willy feels lots better, and he wants me to finish the story. Don't you, Willy?'

“ ‘Yes, ma'am,‘ Willy said. She kissed him and he ran back to his seat. She went on with the story. I sat there and listened. And when that Story Hour was done, I started drinkin. And from then until the end, I never really stopped.”

“How
did
it end?” Sam asked. “What do you know about that?”

“Not as much as I would have known if I hadn't been so dog-drunk all the time, but more than I wish I knew. That last part of it, I'm not even sure how long it was. About four months, I think, but it might have been six, or even eight. By then I wasn't even noticin the seasons much. When a drunk like me really starts to slide, Sam, the only weather he notices is inside of a bottle. I know two things, though, and they are really the only two things that matter. Somebody
did
start to catch onto her, that was one thing. And it was time for her to go back to sleep. To change. That was the other.

“I remember one night at her house—she never came to mine, not once—she said to me, ‘I'm getting sleepy, Dave. All the time now I'm sleepy. Soon it will be time for a long rest. When that time comes, I want you to sleep with me. I've grown fond of you, you see.'

“I was drunk, of course, but what she said still gave me a chill. I thought I knew what she was talkin about, but when I asked her, she only laughed.

“ ‘No, not
that,'
she said, and gave me a scornful, amused kind of look. ‘I'm talking about
sleep,
not death. But you'll need to feed with me.'

“That sobered me up in a hurry. She didn't think I knew what she was talkin about, but I did. I'd seen.

“After that, she began to ask me questions about the kids. About which ones I didn't like, which ones I thought were sneaky, which ones were too loud, which ones were the brattiest. ‘They're Bad Babies, and they don't deserve to live,' she'd say. ‘They're rude, they're destructive, they bring their books back with pencil marks in them and ripped pages. Which ones do
you
think deserve to die, Davey?'

“That was when I knew I had to get away from her, and if killin myself was the only way, I'd have to take that way out. Something was happenin to her, you see. Her hair was gettin dull, and her skin, which had always been perfect, started to show up with blemishes. And there was something else—I could see that
thing,
that thing her mouth turned into—all the time, just under the surface of her skin. But it was starting to look all wrinkled and dewlapped, and there were strings like cobwebs on it.

“One night while we were in bed she saw me lookin at her hair and said, ‘You see the change in me, don't you, Davey?' She patted my face. ‘It's all right; it's perfectly natural. It's always this way when I'm getting ready to go to sleep again. I will have to do it soon, and if you mean to come with me, you will have to take one of the children soon. Or two. Or three. The more the merrier!' She laughed in the crazy way she had, and when she looked back at me, her eyes had gone red again. ‘In any case, I don't mean to leave you behind. All else aside, it wouldn't be safe. You know that, don't you?'

“I said I did.

“ ‘So if you don't want to die, Davey, it has to be soon. Very soon. And if you've made up your mind not to, you should tell me now. We can end our time together pleasantly and painlessly, tonight.'

“She leaned over me and I could smell her breath. It was like spoiled dogfood, and I couldn't believe I'd ever kissed the mouth that smell was coming out of, sober or drunk. But there was some part of me—some little part—that must have still wanted to live, because I told her I
did
want to come with her, but I needed a little more time to get ready. To prepare my mind.

“ ‘To drink, you mean,' she said. ‘You ought to get down on your knees and thank your miserable, unlucky stars for me, Dave Duncan. If not for me, you'd be dead in the gutter in a year, or even less. With me, you can live almost forever.'

“Her mouth stretched out for just a second, stretched out until it touched my cheek. And somehow I managed to keep from screaming.”

Dave looked at them with his deep, haunted eyes. Then he smiled. Sam Peebles never forgot the eldritch quality of that smile; it haunted his dreams ever after.

“But that's all right,” he said. “Somewhere, down deep inside of me, I have been screaming ever since.”

“I'd like to say that in the end I broke her hold over me, but that'd be a lie. It was just happenstance—or what Program people call a higher power. You have to understand that by 1960, I was entirely cut off from the rest of the town. Remember me tellin you that once I was a member of the Rotary Club, Sam? Well, by February of ‘60, those boys wouldn't have hired me to clean the urinals in their john. As far as Junction City was concerned, I was just another Bad Baby livin the life of a bum. People I'd known all my life would cross the street to get out of my way when they saw me comin. I had the constitution of a brass eagle in those days, but the booze was rustin me out just the same, and what the booze wasn't takin, Ardelia Lortz was.