thesis, Newt Berringer only tucked it absently back in and went on trying to get his dead wife's makeup to spread evenly on his disappearing face.
Tuesday, August 9th:
Old Doc Warwick slowly pulled the sheet up over Tommy Jacklin and let it drop. It billowed slightly, then settled. The shape of Tommy's nose was clearly defined. He'd been a handsome kid, but he'd had a big nose, just like his dad.
His dad, Bobbi Anderson thought sickly. Someone's going to have to tell his dad, and guess who's going to be elected? Such things shouldn't bother her anymore, she knew-things like the Jacklin boy's death, things like knowing she would have to get rid of Gard when they reached the ship's hatchway-but they sometimes still did.
She supposed that would burn away in time.
A few more trips to the shed. That was all it would take.
She brushed aimlessly at her shirt and sneezed.
Except for the sound of the sneeze and the stertorous breathing of Hester Brookline in the other bed of the makeshift little clinic the doc had set up in his sitting-cum-examination room, there was only shocked silence for a moment.
Kyle: He's really dead?
No, I just like to cover “em up that way sometimes for a joke, Warwick said crossly. Shit, man! I knew he was going at four o'clock. That's why I called you all here. After all, you're the town fathers now, ain't you?
His eyes fixed for a moment on Hazel and Bobbi.
Excuse me. And two town mothers.
Bobbi smiled with no humor. Soon there was going to be only one sex in Haven. No mothers; no fathers. Just another Burma-Shave sign, you might say, on the Great Road of “Becoming.”
She looked from Kyle to Dick to Newt to Hazel and saw that the others looked as shocked as she felt. Thank God she was not alone, then. Tommy and Hester had gotten back all right-ahead of schedule, actually, because when Tommy started to feel really ill only three hours after they had driven out of the Haven-Troy area, he had begun to push it, moving as fast as he could.
The damn kid was really a hero, Bobbi thought. I guess the best we can do for him is a plot in Homeland, but he was still a hero.
She looked toward where Hester lay, pallid as a wax cameo, breathing dryly, eyes closed. They could have-maybe should have-come back when they felt the headaches coming on, when their gums began to bleed, but they hadn't even discussed it. And it wasn't only their gums. Hester, who had been menstruating lightly all during the “becoming” (unlike older women, teenage girls didn't ever seem to stop… or hadn't yet, anyway), made Tommy stop at the Troy General Store so she could buy heavier sanitary napkins. She had begun to flow copiously. By the time they had bought three car batteries and a good used truck battery in the NewportDerry Town Line Auto Supply on Route 7, she had soaked four Stayfree Maxi-pads.
Their heads began to ache, Tommy's worse than Hester's. By the time they had gotten half a dozen Allstate batteries at the Sears store and well over a hundred C, D, and doubleand triple-A cells at the Derry Tru-Value Hardware
(which had just gotten a new shipment in), they both knew they had to get back… quick. Tommy had begun to hallucinate; as he drove up Wentworth Street, he thought he saw a clown grinning up at him from an open sewer manhole-a clown with shiny silver dollars for eyes and a clenched white glove filled with balloons.
Eight miles or so out of Derry, headed back toward Haven on Route 9, Tommy's rectum began to bleed.
He pulled over, and, face flaming with embarrassment, asked Hester if he could have some of her pads. He was able to explain why when she asked, but not to look at her while he did so. She gave him a handful and he went into the bushes for a minute. He came back to the car weaving like a drunk, one hand outstretched.
“You got to drive, Hester,” he said. “I'm not seeing so hot.”
By the time they got back to the town line, the front seat of the car was splashed with gore and Tommy was unconscious. By then Hester herself was able to see only through a dark curtain; she knew it was four of a bright summer's afternoon, but Doc Warwick seemed to come to her out of a thundery purple twilight. She knew he was opening the door, touching her hands, saying It's all right, my darling, you are back, you can let go of the wheel now, you are back in Haven. She was able to give a more or less coherent account of their afternoon as she lay in the protective circle of Hazel McCready's arms, but she had joined Tommy in unconsciousness long before they got to the doc's, even though Doc was doing an unheard-of sixty-five, his white hair flying in the wind.
Adley McKeen whispered: What about the girl?
Well, her blood pressure's dropping, Warwick said. The bleeding's stopped. She is young and tough. Good country stock. I knew her parents and her grandparents. She'll pull through. He looked around at them grimly, his watery old blue eyes not deceived by their makeup, which in this light made them look like half a dozen ghastly suntanned clowns.
But I don't think she'll ever regain her sight.
There was a numb silence. Bobbi broke it:
That's not so.
Doc Warwick turned to look at her.
She'll see again, Bobbi said. When the “becoming” is finished, she'll see. We'll all see with one eye then.
Warwick met her gaze for a moment, and then his own eyes dropped. Yes, he said. I guess. But it's a damned shame, anyway.
Bobbi agreed without heat. Bad for her. Worse for Tommy. No bed of roses for their folks. I have to go and see them. I could use company.
She looked at them, but their eyes dropped away from hers a pair at a time and their thoughts dulled into a smooth hum.
All right, Bobbi said, I'll manage. I guess.
Adley McKeen spoke up humbly. I guess I'll come with you if you want, Bobbi. Keep you company.
Bobbi gave him a tired yet somehow brilliant smile and squeezed his shoulder. Thank you, Ad. For the second time, thank you.
The two of them went out. The others watched them, and when they heard Bobbi's truck start, they turned toward where Hester Brookline lay unconscious, hooked up to a sophisticated life-support machine whose component parts had come from two radios, a turntable record-changer, the auto-tuning device from Doc's new Sony TV…
…and, of course, lots of batteries.
Wednesday, August 10th:
In spite of his tiredness, his confusion, his inability to stop playing Hamlet, and -worst of all-the persistent feeling that things in Haven were going wronger all the time, Jim Gardener had managed the booze pretty well since the day Bobbi had come back and they had lain together on the fragrant pine needles. Part of the reason was pure self-interest. Too many bloody noses, too many headaches. Some of this was undoubtedly the influence of the ship, he thought-he hadn't forgotten that he'd had one after Bobbi had repeatedly urged him to touch her find, and he had seized the leading edge of the ship and felt that rapid, numbing vibration-but he was wise enough to know that his steady drinking was doing its part, as well. There had been no blackouts per se, but there had been days when his nose had bled three and four times. He had always tended toward hypertension, and he had been told more than once that steady drinking could worsen what was a borderline condition.
So he was doing fairly well until he heard Bobbi sneezing.
That sound, so terribly familiar, called up a set of memories and a sudden terrible idea exploded in his mind like a bomb.
He went into the kitchen, opened the hamper and looked at a dress-the one she'd been wearing yesterday evening. Bobbi did not see this inspection; she was asleep. She had sneezed in her sleep.
Bobbi had gone out the previous evening with no explanation-she had seemed nervous and upset to Gardener, and although both of them had worked hard all day, Bobbi had eaten almost no supper. Then, near sundown, she had bathed, changed into the dress, and driven off into the hot, still, muggy evening. Gardener had heard her come back around midnight, had seen the brilliant flare of light as Bobbi went into the shed. He thought she came back in around first light, but wasn't sure.
All day today she had been morose, speaking only when spoken to, and then only in monosyllables. Gardener's clumsy efforts to cheer her up met with no success. Bobbi skipped supper again tonight, and just shook her head when Gardener suggested a few cribbage hands on the porch, just like in the old days.
Bobbi's eyes, looking out of that weird coating of flesh-colored makeup, had looked somber and wet. Even as Gardener noticed this, Bobbi yanked a handful of Kleenex from the table behind her and sneezed into them two or three times, rapidly.
“Summer cold, I guess. I'm just going to hit the rack, Gard. I'm sorry to be such a party-pooper, but I'm whipped.”
“Okay,” Gard said.
Something-some remembered familiarity-had been gnawing at him, and now he stood here with her dress in his hands, a light sleeveless summer cotton. In the old days it would have been washed this morning, hung on the line out back to dry, ironed after supper, and popped neatly back in the closet again long before bed. But these weren't the old days, these were the New and Improved Days, and they washed clothes only when they absolutely had to; after all, there were more important things to do, weren't there?
As if to confirm his idea, Bobbi sneezed twice, in her sleep.
“No,” Gard whispered. “Please.” He dropped the dress back into the hamper, no longer wanting to touch it. He slammed the lid and then stood stiffly, waiting to see if the sound would wake Bobbi.
She took the truck. Went to do something she didn't want to do. Something that upset her. Something formal enough to need a dress. She came back late and went right into the shed. Didn't come into the house to change. Went in like she needed to go in. Right away. Why?
But the answer, coupled with the sneezes and what he had found on her dress, seemed inevitable.
Comfort.
And when Bobbi, who lived alone, needed comfort, who had always been there to give it? Gard? Don't make me laugh, folks. Gard only showed up to take comfort, not give it.
He wanted to be drunk. He wanted that more than at any time since this crazy business had begun.
Forget it. As he turned to leave the kitchen, where Bobbi kept the alcoholic staples as well as the clothes hamper, something clitter-clicked to the boards.
He bent over, picked it up, examined it, bounced it thoughtfully on his hand. It was a tooth, of course. Big Number Two. He put a finger into his mouth, felt
