Salem's Lot

‘Wherever did you get that idea? Vampires and things like that?’

He said somberly, ‘A vampire tried to get me last night. It almost did, too.’

‘That’s absurd. A big boy like you should know better than to make up-’

‘It was Danny Glick.’

She recoiled, her eyes wincing as if he had thrown a mock punch instead of words. She groped out, found his arm, and held it. Their eyes locked. ‘Are you making this up, Mark?’

‘No,’ he said, and told his story in a few simple sentences.

‘And you came here alone?’ she asked when he had finished. ‘You believed it and came up here alone?’

‘Believed it?’ He looked at her, honestly puzzled. ‘Sure I believed it. I saw it, didn’t I?’

There was no response to that, and suddenly she was ashamed of her instant doubt (no, doubt was too kind a word) of Matt’s story and of Ben’s tentative acceptance.

‘How come you’re here?’

She hesitated a moment and then said, ‘There are some men in town who suspect that there is a man in that house whom no one has seen. That he might be a… a…’ Still she could not say the word, but he nodded his understanding. Even on short acquaintance, he seemed quite an extraordinary little boy.

Abridging all that she might have added, she said simply, ‘So I came to look and find out.’

He nodded at the stake. ‘And brought that to pound through him?’

‘I don’t know if I could do that.’

‘I could,’ he said calmly. ‘After what I saw last night. Danny was outside my window, holding on like a great big fly. And his teeth…’ He shook his head, dismissing the nightmare as a businessman might dismiss a bankrupt client.

‘Do your parents know you’re here?’ she asked, knowing they must not.

‘No,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Sunday is their nature day. They go on bird walks in the mornings and do other things in the afternoon. Sometimes I go and sometimes I don’t. Today they went for a ride up the coast.’

‘You’re quite a boy,’ she said.

‘No, I’m not,’ he said, his composure unruffled by the praise. ‘But I’m going to get rid of him.’ He looked up at the house.

‘Are you sure-’

‘Sure I am. So’re you. Can’t you feel how bad he is? Doesn’t that house make you afraid, just looking at it?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply, giving in to him. His logic was the logic of nerve endings, and unlike Ben’s or Matt’s, it was resistless.

‘How are we going to do it?’ she asked, automatically giving over the leadership of the venture to him.

‘Just go up there and break in,’ he said. ‘Find him, pound the stake-my stake-through his heart, and get out again. He’s probably down cellar. They like dark places. Did you bring a flashlight?’

‘No.’

‘Damn it, neither did I.’ He shuffled his sneakered feet aimlessly in the leaves for a moment. ‘Probably didn’t bring a cross either, did you?’

‘Yes, I did,’ Susan said. She pulled the link chain out of her blouse and showed him. He nodded and then pulled a chain out of his own shirt.

‘I hope I can get this back before my folks come home,’ he said gloomily. ‘I crooked it from my mother’s jewelry box. I’ll catch hell if she finds out.’ He looked around. The shadows had lengthened even as they talked, and they both felt an impulse to delay and delay.

‘When we find him, don’t look in his eyes,’ Mark told her. ‘He can’t move out of his coffin, not until dark, but he can still book you with his eyes. Do you know anything religious by heart?’

They had started through the bushes between the woods and the unkempt lawn of the Marsten House.

‘Well, the Lord’s Prayer-’

‘Sure, that’s good. I know that one, too. We’ll both say it while I pound the stake in.’

He saw her expression, revolted and half flagging, and he took her hand and squeezed it. His self-possession was disconcerting. ‘Listen, we have to. I bet he’s got half the town after last night. If we wait any longer, he’ll have it all. It will go fast, now.’

‘After last night?’

‘I dreamed it,’ Mark said. His voice was still calm, but his eyes were dark. ‘I dreamed of them going to houses and calling on phones and begging to be let in. Some people knew, way down deep they knew, but they let them in just the same. Because it was easier to do that than to think something so bad might be real.’

‘Just a dream,’ she said uneasily.

‘I bet there’s a lot of people lying around in bed today with the curtains closed or the shades drawn, wondering if they’ve got a cold or the flu or something. They feel all weak and fuzzy-headed. They don’t want to eat. The idea of eating makes them want to puke.’

‘How do you know so much?’

‘I read the monster magazines,’ he said, ‘and go to see the movies when I can. Usually I have to tell my mom