'Salem's Lot(30)

'I bring you this.'

It became unspeakable.

Chapter Four DANNY GLICK AND OTHERS

1

Danny and Ralphie Glick had gone out to see Mark Petrie with orders to be in by nine, and when they hadn't come home by ten past, Marjorie Glick called the Petrie house. No, Mrs Petrie said, the boys weren't there. Hadn't been there. Maybe your husband had better talk to Henry. Mrs Glick handed the phone to her husband, feeling the lightness of fear in her belly.

The men talked it over. Yes, the boys had gone by the woods path. No, the little brook was very shallow at this time of year, especially after the fine weather. No more than ankle-deep. Henry suggested that he start from his end of the path with a high-powered flashlight and Mr Glick start from his. Perhaps the boys had found a woodchuck burrow or were smoking cigarettes or something. Tony agreed and thanked Mr Petrie for his trouble. Mr Petrie said it was no trouble at all. Tony hung up and comforted his wife a little; she was frightened. He had mentally decided that neither of the boys was going to be able to sit down for a week when he found them.

But before he had even left the yard, Danny stumbled out from the trees and collapsed beside the back yard barbecue. He was dazed and slow-spoken, responding to questions ploddingly and not always sensibly. There was grass in his cuffs and a few autumn leaves in his hair.

He told his father that he and Ralphie had gone down the path through the woods, had crossed Crockett Brook by the stepping stones, and bad gotten up the other bank with no trouble. Then Ralphie began to talk about a ghost in the woods (Danny neglected to mention he had put this idea in his brother's head). Ralphie said he could see a face. Danny began to be frightened. He didn't believe in ghosts or in any kid stuff like the bogeyman, but he did think he had heard something in the dark.

What did they do then?

Danny thought they had started to walk again, holding hands. He wasn't sure. Ralphie had been whimpering about the ghost. Danny told him not to cry, because soon they would be able to see the streetlights of Jointner Avenue. It was only two hundred steps, maybe less. Then something bad had happened.

What? What was the bad thing?

Danny didn't know.

They argued with him, grew excited, expostulated. Danny only shook his head slowly and uncomprehend?ingly. Yes, he knew he should remember, but he couldn't. Honestly, he couldn't. No, he didn't remember failing over anything. Just . . . everything was dark. Very dark. And the next thing he remembered was lying on the path by himself. Ralphie was gone.

Parkins Gillespie said there was no point in sending men into the woods that night. Too many deadfalls. Probably the boy had just wandered off the path. He and Nolly Gardener and Tony Glick and Henry Petrie went up and down the path and along the shoulders of both South Jointner and Brock streets, hailing with battery-powered bullhorns.

Early the next morning, both the Cumberland and the state police began a coordinated search of the wood lot. When they found nothing, the search was widened. They beat the bushes for four days, and Mr and Mrs Glick wandered through the woods and fields, picking their way around the deadfalls left by the ancient fire, calling their son's name with endless and wrenching hope.

When there was no result, Taggart Stream and the Royal River were dragged. No result.

On the Morning of the fifth day, Marjorie Glick woke her husband at 4:00 A.M., terrified and hysterical. Danny had collapsed in the upstairs hallway, apparently on his way to the bathroom. An ambulance bore him away to Central Maine General Hospital. The preliminary diag?nosis was severe and delayed emotional shock.

The doctor in charge, a man named Gorby, took Mr Glick aside.

'Has your boy ever been subject to asthma attacks?'

Mr Glick, blinking rapidly, shook his head. He had aged ten years in less than a week.

'Any history of rheumatic fever?'

'Danny? No . . . not Danny.'

'Has he had a TB skin patch during the last year?'

'TB? My boy got TB?'

'Mr Glick, we're only trying to find out - '

'Marge! Margie, come down here!'

Marjorie Glick got up and walked slowly down the corridor. Her face was pale, her hair absently combed. She looked like a woman in the grip of a deep migraine headache.

'Did Danny have a TB skin patch at school this year?'

'Yes,' she said dully. 'When he started school. No reac?tion.'

Gorby asked, 'Does he cough in the night?'

'No.'

'Complain of aches in the chest or joints?'

'No.'

'Painful urination?'

'No.'

'Any abnormal bleeding? Bloody-nose or bloody stool or even an abnormal number of scrapes and bruises?'

'No.'

Gordy smiled and nodded. 'We'd like to keep him for tests, if we may.'

'Sure,' Tony said. 'Sure. I got Blue Cross.'

'His reactions are very slow,' the doctor said. 'We're going to do some X rays, a marrow test, a white count - '

Marjorie Glick's eyes had slowly been widening. 'Has Danny got leukemia?' she whispered.

'Mrs Glick, that's hardly - '

But she had fainted.

2

Ben Mears was one of the 'salem's Lot volunteers who beat the bushes for Ralphie Glick, and he got nothing for his pains other than pants cuffs full of cockleburs and an aggravated case of hay fever brought on by late summer goldenrod.