'Salem's Lot(116)

She sat, looking pensively at the telephone. She felt that some great disaster was in the wind - perhaps something as terrible as the fire of '51.

At last she picked up the phone again and called Mabel Werts, who was filled with the gossip of the hour and eager for more. The town hadn't known such a weekend in years.

4

Ben drove aimlessly and without direction as Mark told his story. He told it well, beginning with the night Danny Glick had come to his window and ending with his noctur?nal visitor early this morning.

'Are you sure it was Susan?' he asked. Mark Petrie nodded.

Ben pulled an abrupt U-turn and accelerated back up Jointner Avenue.

'Where are you going? To the - '

'Not there. Not yet.

5

'Wait. Stop.'

Ben pulled over and they got-out together. They had been driving slowly down the Brooks Road, at the bottom of Marsten's Hill. The wood-road where Homer McCaslin had spotted Susan's Vega. They had both caught the glint of sun on metal. They walked up the disused road together, not speaking. There were deep and dusty wheel ruts, and the grass grew high between them. A bird twitted somewhere.

They found the car shortly.

Ben hesitated, then halted. He felt sick to his stomach again. The sweat on his arms was old.

'Go look,' he said.

Mark went down to the car and leaned in the driver's side window. 'Keys are in it,' he called back.  

Ben began to walk toward the car and his foot kicked something. He looked down and saw a .38 revolver lying in the dust. He kicked it up and turned it over in his hands. It looked very much like a police issue revolver.

'Whose gun?' Mark asked, walking toward him. He had Susan's keys in his hand.

'I don't know.' He checked the safety to be sure it was on, and then put the gun in his pocket.

Mark offered him the keys and Ben took them and walked toward the Vega, feeling like a man in a dream. His hands were shaking and he had to poke twice before he could get the right key into the trunk slot. He twisted it and pulled the back deck up without allowing himself to think.

They looked in together. The trunk held a spare tire, a jack, and nothing else. Ben felt his breath come out in a rush.

'Now?' Mark asked.

Ben didn't answer for a moment. When he felt that his voice would be under control, he said, 'We're going to see a friend of mine named Matt Burke, who is in the hospital. He's been researching vampires.'

The urgency in the boy's gaze remained. 'Do you believe me?'

'Yes,' Ben said, and hearing the word on the air seemed to confirm it and give it weight. It was beyond recall. 'Yes, I believe you.'

'Mr Burke is from the high school, isn't he? Does he know about this?'

'Yes. So does his doctor.'

'Dr Cody?'

'Yes.'

They were both looking at the car as they spoke, as if it were a relic of some dark, lost race which they had dis?covered in these sunny woods to the west of town. The trunk gaped open like a mouth, and as Ben slammed it shut, the dull thud of its latching echoed in his heart.

'And after we talk,' he said, 'we're going up to the Marsten House and get the son of a bitch who did this.' Mark looked at him without moving. 'It may not be as easy as you think. She will be there, too. She's his now.'

'He is going to wish he never saw 'salem's Lot,' he said softly. 'Come on.'

6

They arrived at the hospital at nine-thirty, and Jimmy Cody was in Matt's room. He looked at Ben, unsmiling, and then his eyes flicked to Mark Petrie with curiosity.

'I've got some bad news for you, Ben. Sue Norton has disappeared.'

'She's a vampire,' Ben said flatly, and Matt grunted from his bed.

'Are you sure of that?' Jimmy asked sharply.

Ben cocked his thumb at Mark Petrie and introduced him. 'Mark here had a little visit from Danny Glick on Saturday night. He can tell you the rest.'

Mark told it from beginning to end, just as he had told Ben earlier.

Matt spoke first when he had finished. 'Ben, there are no words to say how sorry I am.'

'I can give you something if you need it,' Jimmy said.

'I know what medicine I need, Jimmy. I want to move against this Barlow today. Now. Before dark.'

'All right,' Jimmy said. 'I've canceled all my calls. And I phoned the county sheriff s office. McCaslin is gone, too.'

'Maybe that explains this,' Ben said, and took the pistol out of his pocket and dropped it onto Matt's bedside table. It looked strange and out of place in the hospital room.

'Where did you get this?' Jimmy asked, picking it up.

'Out by Susan's car.'

'Then I can guess. McCaslin went to the Norton house sometime after he left us. He got the story on Susan, including the make, model, and license number of her car. Went out cruising some of the back roads, just on the off-chance. And - '

Broken silence in the room. None of them needed it filled.

'Foreman's is still closed,' Jimmy said. 'And a lot of the old men who hang around Crossen's have been complain?ing about the dump. No one has seen Dud Rogers for a week.'

They looked at each other bleakly.

'I spoke with Father Callahan last night,' Matt said. 'He has agreed to go along, providing you two - plus Mark, of course - will stop at this new shop and talk to Straker first.'