Gramma was dead.
George realized with relief and some surprise that he could feel sorry for her now. Maybe she had been a witch. Maybe not. Maybe she had only thought she was a witch. However it had been, she was gone now. He realized with an adult's comprehension that questions of concrete reality became not unimportant but less vital when they were examined in the mute bland face of mortal remains. He realized this with an adult's comprehension and accepted with an adult's relief. This was a passing footprint, the shape of a shoe, in his mind. So are all the child's adult impressions; it is only in later years that the child realizes that he was being made; formed; shaped by random experiences; all that remains in the instant beyond the footprint is that bitter gunpowder smell which is the ignition of an idea beyond a child's given years.
He returned the mirror to the bathroom, then went back through her room, glancing at the body on his way by. The setting sun had painted the old dead face with barbaric, orange-red colors, and George looked away quickly.
He went through the entry and crossed the kitchen to the telephone, determined to do everything right. Already in his mind he saw a certain advantage over Buddy; whenever Buddy started to tease him, he would simply say: I was all by myself in the house when Gramma died, and I did everything right.
Call Dr. Arlinder, that was first. Call him and say, 'My Gramma just died. Can you tell me what I should do? Cover her up or something?' No.
'I think my Gramma just died.' Yes. Yes, that was better. Nobody thought a little kid knew anything anyway, so that was better.
Or how about:
'I'm pretty sure my Gramma just died—' Sure! That was best of all.
And tell about the mirror and the death rattle and all. And the doctor would come right away, and when he was done examining Gramma he would say, 'I pronounce you dead, Gramma,' and then say to George, 'You laid extremely chilly in a tough situation, George. I want to congratulate you.' And George would say something appropriately modest.
George looked at Arlinder's number and took a couple of slow deep breaths before grabbing the phone. His heart was beating fast, but that painful spike-iron thud was gone now.
Gramma had died. The worst had happened, and somehow it wasn't as bad as waiting for her to start bellowing for Mom to bring her tea.
The phone was dead.
He listened to the blankness, his mouth still formed around the words I'm sorry, Missus Dodd, but this is George Bruckner and I have to call the doctor for my Gramma. No voices. No dial tone. Just dead blankness. Like the dead blankness in the bed in there.
Gramma is——IS—(oh she is) Gramma is laying chilly.
Gooseflesh again, painful and marbling. His eyes fixed on the Pyrex teakettle on the stove, the cup on the counter with the herbal tea bag in it. No more tea for Gramma. Not ever.
(laying so chiflyj George shuddered.
He stuttered his finger up and down on the Princess phone's cutoff button, but the phone was dead. Just as dead as—(just as chilly as) He slammed the handset down hard and the bell tinged faintly inside and he picked it up in a hurry to see if that meant it had magically gone right again. But there was nothing, and this time he put it back slowly.
His heart was thudding harder again.
I'm alone in this house with her dead body.
He crossed the kitchen slowly, stood by the table for a minute, and then turned on the light. It was getting dark in the house. Soon the sun would be gone; night would be here.
Wait. That's all I got to do. Just wait until Mom gets back. This is better, really. If the phone went out, it's better that she just died instead of maybe having a fit or something, foaming at the mouth, maybe falling out of bed—Ah, that was bad. He could have done very nicely without that horse-pucky.
Like being alone in the dark and thinking of dead things that were still lively—seeing shapes in the shadows on the walls and thinking of death, thinking of the dead, those things, the way they would stink and the way they would move toward you in the black: thinking this: thinking that: thinking of bugs turning in flesh: burrowing in flesh: eyes that moved in the dark.
Yeah. That most of all. Thinking of eyes that moved in the dark and the creak of floorboards as something came across the room through the zebra-stripes of shadows from the light outside.
Yeah.
In the dark your thoughts had a perfect circularity, and no matter what you tried to think of—flowers or Jesus or baseball or winning the gold in the 440 at the Olympics—it somehow led back to the form in the shadows with the claws and the unblinking eyes.
'Shittabrick!' he hissed, and suddenly slapped his own face. And hard. He was giving himself the whim-whams, it was time to stop it. He wasn't six anymore. She was dead, that was all, dead. There was no more thought inside her now than there was in a marble or a floorboard or a doorknob or a radio dial or— And a strong alien unprepared-for voice, perhaps only the unforgiving unbidden voice of simple survival, inside him cried: Shut up Georgie and get about your goddam business!
Yeah, okay. Okay, but—He went back to the door of her bedroom to make sure.
There lay Gramma, one hand out of bed and touching the floor, her mouth hinged agape.
Gramma was part of the furniture now. You could put her hand back in bed or pull her hair or pop a water glass into her mouth or put earphones on her head and play Chuck Berry into them full-tilt boogie and it would be all the
