Four Past Midnight

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'I got as far as the five-and-dime. It's gone now, but in those days it was the last business on O'Kane Street before you got into the residential district again. I had less than four blocks to go, and I thought that when I got to the Power's house, I'd see Tansy in the yard. She'd be alone . and the woods weren't far.

'Only I looked into the five-and-dime show window and what I saw stopped me cold. It was a pile of dead children, all staring eyes, tangled arms, and busted legs. I let out a little scream and clapped my hands against my mouth. I closed my eyes tight. When I looked again, I saw it was a bunch of dolls old Mrs Seger was gettin ready to make into a display. She saw me and flapped one of em at me - get away, you old drunk. But I didn't. I kept lookin in at those dolls. I tried to tell myself dolls were all they were; anyone could see that. But when I closed my eyes tight and then opened em again, they were dead bodies again. Mrs Seger was settin up a bunch of little corpses in the window of the five-and-dime and didn't even know it. It came to me that someone was tryin to send me a message, and that maybe the message was that it wasn't too late, even then. Maybe I couldn't stop Ardelia, but maybe I could. And even if I couldn't, maybe I could keep from bein dragged into the pit after her.

'That was the first time I really prayed, Sarah. I prayed for strength. I didn't want to kill Tansy Power, but it was more than that - I wanted to save them all if I could.

'I started back toward the Texaco station a block down - it was where the Piggly Wiggly is now. On the way I stopped and picked a few pebbles out of the gutter. There was a phone booth by the side of the station - and it's still there today, now that I think of it. I got there and then realized I didn't have a cent. As a last resort, I felt in the coin return. There was a dime in there. Ever since that morning, when somebody tells me they don't believe there's a God, I think of how I felt when I poked my fingers into that coin-return slot and found that ten-cent piece.

'I thought about calling Mrs Power, then decided it'd be better to call the Sheriff's Office. Someone would pass the message on to John Power, and if he was as suspicious as Ardelia seemed to think, he might take the proper steps. I closed the door of the booth and looked up the number - this was back in the days when you could sometimes still find a telephone book in a telephone booth, if you were lucky - and then, before I dialled it, I stuck the pebbles I'd picked up in my mouth.

'John Power himself answered the phone, and I think now that's why Patsy

Harrigan and Tom Gibson died ... why John Power himself died ... and why Ardelia wasn't stopped then and there. I expected the dispatcher, you see - it was Hannah Verrill in those days - and I'd tell her what I had to say, and she'd pass it on to the deputy.

'Instead, I beard this hard don't-fuck-with-me voice say, 'Sheriffs Office, Deputy Power speaking, how can I help you?' I almost swallowed the mouthful of pebbles I had, and for a minute I couldn't say anything.

'He goes 'Damn kids,' and I knew he was gettin ready to hang up.

' 'Wait!' I says. The pebbles made it sound like I was talkin through a mouthful of cotton. 'Don't hang up, Deputy!'

'Who is this?' he asked.

'Never mind,' I says back. 'Get your daughter out of town, if you value her, and whatever you do, don't let her near the Library. It's serious. She's in danger.'

'And then I hung up. just like that. If Hannah had answered, I think I would have told more. I would have spoken names - Tansy's, Tom's, Patsy's ... and Ardelia's, too. But he scared me - I felt like if I stayed on that line, he'd be able to look right through it and see me on the other end, standin in that booth and stinkin like a bag of used-up peaches.

'I spat the pebbles out into my palm and got out of the booth in a hurry. Her power over me was broken - makin the call had done that much, anyway - but I was in a panic. Did you ever see a bird that's flown into a garage and goes swoopin around, bashin itself against the walls, it's so crazy to get out? That's what I was like. All of a sudden I wasn't worryin about Patsy Harrigan, or Tom Gibson, or even Tansy Power. I felt like Ardelia was the one who was lookin at me, that Ardelia knew what I'd done, and she'd be after me.

'I wanted to hide - hell, I needed to hide. I started walkin down Main Street, and by the time I got to the end, I was almost runnin. By then Ardelia had gotten all mixed up in my mind with the Library Policeman and the dark man - the one who was drivin the steamroller, and the car with Simple Simon on it. I expected to see all three of them turn onto Main Street in the dark man's old Buick, lookin for me. I got out to the railway depot and crawled under the loadin platform again. I huddled up in there, shiverin and shakin, even cryin a little, waitin for her to show up and do for me. I kept thinkin I'd look up and I'd see her face pokin under the platform's concrete skirt, her eyes all red and glaring, her mouth turnin into that horn thing.

'I crawled all the way to the back, and I found half a jug of wine under a pile of dead leaves and old spiderwebs. I'd stashed it back there God knows when and forgot all about it. I drank the wine in about three long swallows. Then I started to crawl back to the front of that space under the platform, but halfway there I passed out. When I woke up again, I thought at first that no time at all had gone by, because the light and the shadows were just about the same. Only my headache was gone, and my belly was roarin for food.' 'You'd slept the clock around, hadn't you?' Naomi guessed.

'No - almost twice around. I'd made my call to the Sheriffs Office around ten o'clock on Monday mornin. When I came to under the loadin platform with that empty jug of wine still in my hand, it was just past seven on Wednesday morning. Only it wasn't sleep, not really. You have to remember that I hadn't been on an all-day drunk or even a week-long toot. I'd been roaring drunk for the best part of two years, and that wasn't all - there was Ardelia, and the Library, and the kids, and Story Hour. It was two years on a merrygo-round in hell. I think the part of my mind that still wanted to live and be sane decided the only thing to do was to pull the plug for awhile and shut down. And when I woke up, it was all over. They hadn't found the bodies of Patsy Harrigan and Tom Gibson yet, but it was over, just the same. And I knew it even before I poked my head out from under the loadin platform. There was an empty place in me, like an empty socket in your gum after a tooth falls out. Only that empty place was in my mind. And I understood. She was gone. Ardelia was gone.

'I crawled out from under and almost fainted again from hunger. I saw Brian Kelly, who used to be freightmaster back in those days. He was countin sacks of somethin on the other loadin platform and makin marks on a clipboard. I managed to walk over to him. He saw me, and an expression of disgust came over his face. There had been a time when we'd bought each other drinks in The Domino - a roadhouse that burned down long before your time, Sam - but those days were long gone. All he saw was a dirty, filthy drunk with leaves and dirt in his hair, a drunk that stank of piss and Old Duke.

' 'Get outta here, daddy-O, or I'll call the cops,' he says.

'That day was another first for me. One thing about bein a drunk - you're always breakin new ground. That was the first time I ever begged for money. I asked him if he could spare a quarter so I could get a cuppa joe and some toast at the Route 32 Diner. He dug into his pocket and brought out some change. He didn't hand it to me; he just tossed it in my general direction. I had to get down in the cinders and grub for it. I don't think he threw the money to shame me. He just didn't want to touch me. I don't blame him, either.

'When he saw I had the money he said, 'Get in the wind, daddy-O. And if I see you down here again, I will call the cops.'

' 'You bet,' I said, and went on my way. He never even knew who I was, and I'm glad.

'About halfway to the diner, I passed one of those newspaper boxes, and I seen that day's Gazette inside. That was when I realized I'd been out of it two days instead of just one. The date didn't mean much to me - by then I wasn't much interested in calendars - but I knew it was Monday morning when Ardelia booted me out of her bed for the last time and I made that call.

Then I saw the headlines. I'd slept through just about the biggest day for news in Junction City's history, it seemed like. SEARCH FOR MISSING CHILDREN CONTINUES, it said on one side. There was pictures of Tom Gibson and Patsy Harrigan. The headline on the other side read COUNTY CORONER SAYS DEPUTY DIED OF HEART ATTACK. Below that one there was a picture of John Power.

'I took one of the papers and left a nickel on top of the pile, which was how it was done back in the days when people still mostly trusted each other. Then I sat down, right there on the curb, and read both stories. The one about the kids was shorter. The thing was, nobody was very worried about em just yet - Sheriff Beeman was treatin