'Salem's Lot(61)

'How are you doing, Mike?' Matt poured himself a glass of beer, controlling his hands ' which wanted to shake.

His life had always been one of sweet evenness, a graph with modulate highs and lows (and even those had sunk to foothills since the death of his mother thirteen years before), and one of the things that disturbed it was the miserable ends some of his students came to. Billy Royko dying in a Vietnam helicopter crash two months before the cease-fire; Sally Greer, one of the brightest and most vivacious girls he had ever had, killed by her drunken boy friend when she told him she wanted to break up; Gary Coleman, who had gone blind due to some mysterious optic nerve degeneration; Buddy Mayberry's brother Doug, the only good kid in that whole half-bright clan, drowning at Old Orchard Beach; and drugs, the little death. Not all of them who waded into the waters of Lethe found it necessary to take a bath in it, but there were enough - kids who had made dreams their protein.

'Doing?' Mike said slowly. 'I don't know, Mr Burke. Not so good.'

'What kind of shit are you on, Mike?' Matt asked gently.

Mike looked at him uncomprehendingly.

'Dope,' Matt said. 'Bennies? Reds? Coke? Or is it - '

'I'm not on dope,' Mike said. 'I guess I'm sick.'

'Is that the truth?'

'I never did no heavy dope in my life,' Mike said, and the words seemed to be costing him a dreadful effort. 'Just grass, and I ain't had any of that for four months. I'm sick . . . been sick since Monday, I think it was. I fell asleep out at Harmony Hill Sunday night, see. Never even woke up until Monday morning.' He shook his head slowly. 'I felt crappy. I've felt crappy ever since. Worse every day, it seems like.' He sighed, and the whistle of air seemed to shake his frame like a dead leaf on a November maple.

Matt leaned forward, concerned. 'This happened after Danny Glick's funeral?'

'Yeah.' Mike looked at him again. 'I came back to finish up after everybody went home but that f**king - excuse me, Mr Burke - that Royal Snow never showed up. I waited for him a long time, and that's when I must have started to get sick, because everything after that is . . . oh, it hurts my head. It's hard to think.'

'What do you remember, Mike?'

'Remember?' Mike looked into the golden depths of his beer glass and watched the bubbles detaching themselves from the sides and floating to the surface to release their gas.

'I remember singing,' he said. 'The sweetest singing I ever heard. And a feeling like . . . like drowning. Only it was nice. Except for the eyes. The eyes.'

He clutched his elbows and shuddered.

'Whose eyes?' Matt asked, leaning forward.

'They were red. Oh, scary eyes.'

'Whose?'

'I don't remember. No eyes. I dreamed it all.' He pushed it away from himself. Matt could almost see him do it. 'I don't remember anything else about Sunday night. I woke up Monday morning on the ground, and at first I couldn't even get up I was so tired. But I finally did. The sun was coming up and I was afraid I'd get a sunburn. So I went down in the woods by the brook. Tired me out. Oh, awful tired. So I went back to sleep. Slept till . . . oh, four or five o'clock.' He offered a papery little chuckle. 'I was all covered with leaves when I woke up. I felt a little better, though. I got up and went back to my truck.' He passed a slow hand over his face. 'I must have finished up with the little Glick boy Sunday night, though. Funny. I don't even remember.'

'Finished up?'

'Grave was all filled in, Royal or no Royal. Sods tamped in and all. A good job. Don't remember doing it. Must have been really sick.'

'Where did you spend Monday night?'

'At my place. Where else?'

'How did you feel Tuesday morning?'

'I never woke up Tuesday morning. Slept through the whole day. Never woke up until Tuesday night.'

'How did you feel then?'

'Terrible. Legs like rubber. I tried to go get a drink of water and almost fell down. I had to go into the kitchen holding on to things. Weak as a kitten.' He frowned. 'I had a can of stew for my dinner - you know, that Dinty Moore stuff - but I couldn't eat it. Seemed like just looking at it made me feel sick to my stomach. Like when you've got an awful hangover and someone shows you food.'

'You didn't eat anything?'

'I tried, but I threw it up. But I felt a little better. I went out and walked around for a while. Then I went back to bed.' His fingers traced old beer rings on the table. 'I got scared before I went to bed. Just like a little kid afraid of the Allamagoosalum. I went around and made sure all the windows were locked. And I went to sleep with all the lights on.'

'And yesterday morning?'

'Hmmm? No . . . never got up until nine o'clock last night.' He offered the papery little chuckle again. 'I remember thinking if it kept up I'd be sleeping the clock right around. And that's what you do when you're dead.' Matt regarded him somberly. Floyd Tibbits got up and put a quarter in the juke and began to punch up songs.

'Funny,' Mike said. 'My bedroom window was open when I got up. I must have done it myself. I had a dream . . . someone was at the window and I got up . . . got up to let him in. Like you'd get up to let in an old friend who was cold or . . . or hungry.'