Four Past Midnight

'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, thunderstuck. 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 shopping bag to make a Halloween mask.

'What was comin out of the corners 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.'

5

'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.'

6

'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,