He began telling Herbert-or-Harold about the town of Momson, Vermont, whose history he had just been reading. He bad found it particularly interesting because he thought the story, if true, might be a precursor of the Lot’s fate.
‘Everyone disappeared,’ he told Herbert-or-Harold, who was listening with polite but not very well masked boredom. ‘Just a small town in the upcountry of northern Vermont, accessible by Interstate Route 2 and Vermont Route 19. Population of 312 in the census of 1920. In August of 1923 a woman in New York got worried because her sister hadn’t written her for two months. She and her husband took a ride out there, and they were the first to break the story to the newspapers, although I don’t doubt that the locals in the surrounding area had known about the disappearance for some time. The sister and her husband were gone, all right, and so was everyone else in Momson. The houses and the barns were all standing, and in one place supper had been put on the table. The case was rather sensational at the time. I don’t believe that I would care to stay there overnight. The author of this book claims the people in the neighboring townships tell some odd stories… ha’ants and goblins and all that. Several of the outlying barns have hex signs and large crosses painted on them, even to this day. Look, here’s a photograph of the general store and ethyl station and feed-and-grain store-what served in Momson as downtown. What do you suppose ever happened there?’
Herbert-or-Harold looked at the picture politely. Just a little town with a few stores and a few houses. Some of them were falling down, probably from the weight of snow in the winter. Could be any town in the country. Driving through most of them, you wouldn’t know if anyone was alive after eight o’clock when they rolled up the sidewalks. The old man had certainly gone dotty in his old age. Herbert-or-Harold thought about an old aunt of his who had become convinced in the last two years of her life that her daughter had killed her pet parakeet and was feeding it to her in the meat loaf. Old people got funny ideas.
‘Very interesting,’ he said, looking up. ‘But I don’t think… Mr Burke? Mr Burke, is something wrong? Are you… nurse! Hey,
Matt’s eyes had grown very fixed. One hand gripped the top sheet of the bed. The other was pressed against his chest. His face had gone pallid, and a pulse beat in the center of his forehead.
Pain, smashing into him in waves, driving him down into darkness. Dimly he thought:
Then, falling.
Herbert-or-Harold ran out of the room, knocking over his chair and spilling a pile of books. The nurse was already coming, nearly running herself.
‘It’s Mr Burke,’ Herbert-or-Harold told her. He was still holding the book, with his index finger inserted at the picture of Momson, Vermont.
The nurse nodded curtly and entered the room. Matt was lying with his head half off the bed, his eyes closed.
‘Is he-?’ Herbert-or-Harold asked timidly. It was a complete question.
‘Yes, I think so,’ the nurse answered, at the same time pushing the button that would summon the ECV unit. ‘You’ll have to leave now.’
She was calm again now that all was known, and had time to regret her lunch, left half-eaten.
40
‘But there’s no pool hall in the Lot,’ Mark said. ‘The closest one is over in Gates Falls. Would he go there?’
‘No,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t. But some people have pool tables or billiard tables in their houses.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
‘There’s something else,’ Jimmy said. ‘I can almost get it.’
He leaned back, closed his eyes, and put his hands over them. There was something else, and in his mind he associated it with plastic. Why plastic? There were plastic toys and plastic utensils for picnics and plastic drop covers to put over your boat when winter came -
And suddenly a picture of a pool table draped in a large plastic dust cover formed in his mind, complete with sound track, a voiceover that was saying,
He opened his eyes. ‘I know where he is,’ he said. ‘I know where Barlow is. He’s in the basement of Eva Miller’s boardinghouse.’ And it was true; he knew it was. It felt incontrovertibly right in his mind.
Mark’s eyes flashed brilliantly. ‘Let’s go get him.’
‘Wait.’
He went to the phone, found Eva’s number in the book, and dialed it swiftly. It rang with no answer. Ten rings, eleven, a dozen. He put it back in its cradle, frightened. There had been at least ten roomers at Eva’s, many of them old men, retired. There was always someone around. Always before this.
He looked at his watch. It was quarter after three and time was racing, racing.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘What about Ben?’
Jimmy said grimly, ‘We can’t call. The line’s out at your house. If we go straight to Eva’s, there’ll be plenty of daylight left if we’re wrong. If we’re right, we’ll come back and get Ben and stop his fucking clock.’
‘Let me put my shirt on again,’ Mark said, and ran down the hall to the bathroom.
