Salem's Lot

‘Ma’am, if you-’

Ann Norton drew the.38 from the pocket of her wrapper like some creaky gunslinger from beyond time. She pointed it at the duty nurse’s head and told her, ‘Turn around.’ The nurse’s mouth worked silently. She drew in breath with a convulsive heave.

‘Don’t scream. I’ll kill you if you do.’

The air wheezed out. The nurse had gone very pale.

‘Turn around now.’

The nurse got up slowly and turned around. Ann Norton reversed the.38 and prepared to bring the butt down on the nurse’s head with all the strength she had.

At that precise moment, her feet were kicked out from under her.

22

The gun went flying.

The woman in the ragged yellow dressing gown did not scream but began to make a high whining noise in her throat, almost keening. She scrambled after it like a crab, and the man who was behind her, looking bewildered and frightened, also darted after it. When he saw that she would get to it first, he kicked it across the lobby rug.

‘Hey!’ he yelled. ‘Hey, help!’

Ann Norton looked over her shoulder and hissed at him, her faced pulled into a cheated scrawl of hate, and then scrambled after the gun again. The orderly had come back, on the run. He looked at the scene with blank amazement for a moment, and then picked up the gun that lay almost at his feet.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘This thing is load-’

She attacked him. Her hands, hooked into claws, pin-wheeled across his face, dragging red stripes across the surprised orderly’s forehead and right cheek. He held the gun up out of her reach. Still keening, she clawed for it.

The bewildered man came up from behind and grabbed her. He would say later that it was like grabbing a bag of snakes. The body beneath the dressing gown was hot and repulsive, every muscle twitching and writhing.

As she struggled to get free, the orderly popped her one flush on the jaw. Her eyes rolled up to the whites and she collapsed.

The orderly and the bewildered man looked at each other.

The nurse at the reception desk was screaming. Her hands were clapped to her mouth, giving the screams a unique foghorn effect.

‘What kind of a hospital do you people run here, anyhow?’ the bewildered man asked.

‘Christ if I know,’ the orderly said. ‘What the hell happened?’

‘I was just coming in to visit my sister. She had a baby. And this kid walks up to me and says a woman just went in with a gun. And-’

‘What kid?’

The bewildered man who had come to visit his sister looked around. The lobby was filling with people, but all of them were above drinking age.

‘I don’t see him now. But he was here. That gun loaded?’

‘It sure is,’ the orderly said.

‘What kind of a hospital do you people run here, anyhow?’ the bewildered man asked again.

23

They had seen two nurses run past the door toward the elevators and heard a vague shout down the stairwell. Ben glanced at Jimmy and Jimmy shrugged imperceptibly. Matt was dozing with his mouth open.

Ben closed the door and turned off the lights. Jimmy crouched by the foot of Matt’s bed, and when they heard footsteps hesitate outside the door, Ben stood beside it, ready. When it opened and a head poked through, he grabbed it in a half nelson and jammed the cross he held in the other hand into the face.

‘Let me go!’

A hand reached up and beat futilely at his chest. A moment later the overhead light went on. Matt was sitting up in bed, blinking at Mark Petrie, who was struggling in Ben’s arms.

Jimmy came out of his crouch and ran across the room. He seemed almost ready to embrace the boy when he hesitated. ‘Lift your chin.’

Mark did, showing all three of them his unmarked neck.

Jimmy relaxed. ‘Boy, I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life. Where’s the Father?’

‘Don’t know,’ Mark said somberly. ‘Barlow caught me… killed my folks. They’re dead. My folks are dead. He beat their heads together. He killed my folks. Then he had me and he said to Father Callahan that he would let me go if Father Callahan would promise to throw away his cross. He promised. I ran. But before I ran, I spit on him. I spit on him and I’m going to kill him.’

He swayed in the doorway. There were bramble marks on his forehead and cheeks. He had run through the