Four Past Midnight (91 page)

Thdeadeeeeeeeeeee!
the Library Wolf whisper-screams as the janitor goes out the door and into the rest of his orderly universe without looking around. The Wolf thrusts even further forward and for one agonized second the pain becomes so bad Little White Walking Sam is sure his belly will explode, that whatever it is the Library Cop has stuck up his bottom will simply come raving out the front of him, pushing his guts ahead of it.

The Library Cop collapses against him in a smear of rancid sweat, panting harshly, and Sam slips to his knees under his weight. As he does, the massive object—no longer quite so massive—pulls out of him, but Sam can feel wetness all over his bottom. He is afraid to put his hands back there. He is afraid that when they come back he will discover he has become Little Red Bleeding Sam.

The Library Cop suddenly grasps Sam's arm and pulls him around to face him. His face is redder than ever, flushed in puffy, hectic bands like warpaint across his cheeks and forehead.

Look at you!
the Library Cop says. His face pulls together in a knot of contempt and disgust.
Look at you with your panth down and your little dingle out! You liked it, didn't you? You LIKED it!

Sam cannot reply. He can only weep. He pulls his underwear and his pants up together, as they were pulled down. He can feel mulch inside them, prickling his violated bottom, but he doesn't care. He squirms backward from the Library Cop until his back is to the Library's red brick wall. He can feel tough branches of ivy, like the bones of a large, fleshless hand, poking into his back. He doesn't care about this, either. All he cares about is the shame and terror and the sense of worthlessness that now abide in him, and of these three the shame is the greatest. The shame is beyond comprehension.

Dirty boy!
the Library Cop spits at him.
Dirty little boy!

I really have to go home now,
Little White Walking Sam says, and the words come out minced into segments by his hoarse sobs:
Is my fine paid?

The Library Cop crawls toward Sam on his hands and knees, his little round black eyes peering into Sam's face like the blind eyes of a mole, and this is somehow the final grotesquerie. Sam thinks,
He is going to punish me again
, and at this idea something in his mind, some overstressed strut or armature, gives way with a soggy snap he can almost hear. He does not cry or protest; he is now past that. He only looks at the Library Cop with silent apathy.

No
, the Library Cop says.
I'm letting you go, thatth all. I'm taking pity on you, but if you ever tell anyone ... ever ... I'll come back and do it again. I'll do it until the fine is paid. And don't you ever let me catch you around here again, son. Do you underthand?

Yes, Sam says. Of course he will come back and do it again if Sam tells. He will be in the closet late at night; under the bed; perched in a tree like some gigantic, misshapen crow. When Sam looks up into a troubled sky, he will see the Library Policeman's twisted, contemptuous face in the clouds. He will be anywhere; he will be everywhere.

This thought makes Sam tired, and he closes his eyes against that lunatic mole-face, against everything.

The Library Cop grabs him, shakes him again.
Yeth, what?
he hisses.
Yeth
what,
son?

Yes, I understand,
Sam tells him without opening his eyes.

The Library Policeman withdraws his hand. Good, he says.
You better not forget. When bad boys and girls forget, I kill them.

Little White Walking Sam sits against the wall with his eyes closed for a long time, waiting for the Library Cop to begin punishing him again, or to simply kill him. He wants to cry, but there are no tears. It will be years before he cries again, over anything. At last he opens his eyes and sees he is alone in the Library Cop's den in the bushes. The Library Cop is gone. There is only Sam, and his copy of
The Black Arrow,
lying open on its spine.

Sam begins to crawl toward daylight on his hands and knees. Leaves tickle his sweaty, tear-streaked face, branches scrape his back and spank against his hurt bottom. He takes
The Black Arrow
with him, but he will not bring it into the Library. He will never go into the Library, any library, ever again: this is the promise he makes to himself as he crawls away from the place of his punishment. He makes another promise, as well: nobody will ever find out about this terrible thing, because he intends to forget it ever happened. He senses he can do this. He can do it if he tries very, very hard, and he intends to start trying very, very hard right now.

When he reaches the edge of the bushes, he looks out like a small hunted animal. He sees kids crossing the lawn. He doesn't see the Library Cop, but of course this doesn't matter; the Library Cop sees
him.
From today on, the Library Cop will always be close.

At last the lawn is empty. A small, dishevelled boy, Little White Crawling Sam, wriggles out of the bushes with leaves in his hair and dirt on his face. His untucked shirt billows behind him. His eyes are wide and staring and no longer completely sane. He sidles over to the concrete steps, casts one cringing, terrified look up at the cryptic Latin motto inscribed over the door, and then lays his book down on one of the steps with all the care and terror of an orphan girl leaving her nameless child on some stranger's doorstep. Then Little White Walking Sam becomes Little White Running Sam: he runs across the lawn, he sets the Briggs Avenue Branch of the St. Louis Public Library to his back and runs, but it doesn't matter how fast he runs because he can't outrun the taste of red licorice on his tongue and down his throat, sweet and sugar-slimy, and no matter how fast he runs the Library Wolf of course runs with him, the Library Wolf is just behind his shoulder where he cannot see, and the Library Wolf is whispering
Come with me
,
son
...
I'm a poleethman
, and he will
always
whisper that, through all the years he will whisper that, in those dark dreams Sam dares not remember he will whisper that, Sam will always run from that voice screaming
Is it paid yet? Is the fine paid yet? Oh dear God please, is MY FINE PAID YET?
And the answer which comes back is always the same:
It will never be paid, son; it will never be paid.

The final approach to the dirt runway which Stan called the Proverbia Airport was bumpy and scary. The Navajo came down, feeling its way through stacks of angry air, and landed with a final jarring thump. When it did, Sam uttered a pinched scream. His eyes flew open.

Naomi had been waiting patiently for something like this. She leaned forward at once, ignoring the seatbelt which cut into her middle, and put her arms around him. She ignored his raised arms and first instinctive drawing away, just as she ignored the first hot and unpleasant outrush of horrified breath. She had comforted a great many drunks in the grip of the d.t.'s; this wasn't much different. She could feel his heart as she pressed against him. It seemed to leap and skitter just below his shirt.

“It's okay. Sam, it's okay—it's just me, and you're back. It was a dream. You're back.”

For a moment he continued trying to push himself into his seat. Then he collapsed, limp. His hands came up and hugged her with panicky tightness.

“Naomi,” he said in a harsh, choked voice. “Naomi, oh Naomi, oh dear Jesus, what a nightmare I had, what a terrible dream.”

Stan had radioed ahead, and someone had come out to turn on the runway landing lights. They were taxiing between them toward the end of the runway now. They had not beaten the rain after all; it drummed hollowly on the body of the plane. Up front, Stan Soames was bellowing out something which might have been “Camptown Races.”

“Was it a nightmare?” Naomi asked, drawing back from Sam so she could look into his bloodshot eyes.

“Yes. But it was also true. All true.”

“Was it the Library Policeman, Sam? Your Library Policeman?”

“Yes,” he whispered, and pressed his face into her hair.

“Do you know who he is? Do you know who he is now, Sam?”

After a long, long moment, Sam whispered: “I know.”

Stan Soames took a look at Sam's face as he and Naomi stepped from the plane and was instantly contrite. “Sorry it was so rough. I really thought we'd beat the rain. It's just that with a headwind—”

“I'll be okay,” Sam said. He was, in fact, looking better already.

“Yes,” Naomi said. “He'll be fine. Thank you, Stan. Thank you so much. And Dave thanks you, too.”

“Well, as long as you got what you needed—”

“We did,” Sam assured him. “We really did.”

“Let's walk around the end of the runway,” Stan told them. “That boggy place'd suck you right in to your waist if you tried the shortcut this evening. Come on into the house. We'll have coffee. There's some apple pie, too, I think.”

Sam glanced at his watch. It was quarter past seven.

“We'll have to take a raincheck, Stan,” he said. “Naomi and I have to get these books into town right away.”

“You ought to at least come in and dry off. You're gonna be soaked by the time you get to your car.”

Naomi shook her head. “It's very important.”

“Yeah,” Stan said. “From the look of you two, I'd say it is. Just remember that you promised to tell me the story.”

“We will, too,” Sam said. He glanced at Naomi and saw his own thought reflected in her eyes: If we're still alive to tell it.

Sam drove, resisting an urge to tromp the gas pedal all the way to the floor. He was worried about Dave. Driving off the road and turning Naomi's car over in the ditch wasn't a very effective way of showing concern, however, and the rain in which they had landed was now a downpour driven by a freshening wind. The wipers could not keep up with it, even on high, and the headlights petered out after twenty feet. Sam dared drive no more than twenty-five. He glanced at his watch, then looked over at where Naomi sat, with the bookshop bag in her lap.

“I hope we can make it by eight,” he said, “but I don't know.”

“Just do the best you can, Sam.”

Headlights, wavery as the lights of an undersea diving bell, loomed ahead. Sam slowed to ten miles an hour and squeezed left as a ten-wheeler rumbled by—a half-glimpsed hulk in the rainy darkness.

“Can you talk about it? The dream you had?”

“I could, but I'm not going to,” he said. “Not now. It's the wrong time.”

Naomi considered this, then nodded her head. “All right.”

“I can tell you this much—Dave was right when he said children made the best meal, and he was right when he said that what she really lives on is fear.”

They had reached the outskirts of town. A block further on, they drove through their first light-controlled intersection. Through the Datsun's windshield, the signal was only a bright-green smear dancing in the air above them. A corresponding smear danced across the smooth wet hide of the pavement.

“I need to make one stop before we get to the Library,” Sam said. “The Piggly Wiggly's on the way, isn't it?”

“Yes, but if we're going to meet Dave behind the Library at eight, we really don't have much time to spare. Like it or not, this is go-slow weather.”

“I know—but this won't take long.”

“What do you need?”

“I'm not sure,” he said, “but I think I'll know it when I see it.”

She glanced at him, and for the second time he found himself amazed by the foxlike, fragile quality of her beauty, and unable to understand why he had never seen it before today.

Except he hadn't. He had dated her because she was pretty, presentable, unattached, and approximately his own age. He had dated her because bachelors in cities which were really just overgrown small towns were
supposed
to date ... if they were bachelors interested in making a place for themselves in the local business community, that was. If you didn't date, people ... some people ... might think you were

(
a poleethman
)

a little bit funny.

I WAS a little funny
, he thought.
On second thought, I was a toT funny. But whatever I was, I think I'm a little different now. And I am seeing her. There's that. I'm really SEEING her.

For Naomi's part, she was struck by the strained whiteness of his face and the look of tension around his eyes and mouth. He looked strange ... but he no longer looked terrified. Naomi thought:
He looks like a man who has been granted the opportunity to return to his worst nightmare ... with some powerful weapon in his hands.

She thought it was a face she might be falling in love with, and this made her deeply uneasy.

“This stop ... it's important, isn't it?”

“I think so, yes.”

Five minutes later he stopped in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly store. Sam was out at once and dashing for the door through the rain.

Halfway there, he stopped. A telephone booth stood at the side of the parking lot—the same booth, undoubtedly, where Dave had made his call to the Junction City Sheriff's Office all those years before. The call made from that booth had not killed Ardelia ... but it
had
driven her off for a good long while.

Sam stepped into it. The light went on. There was nothing to see; it was just a phone booth with numbers and graffiti scribbled on the steel walls. The telephone book was gone, and Sam remembered Dave saying,
This was back in the days when you could sometimes still find a telephone book in a telephone booth, if you were lucky.