Song of Susannah (24 page)

“A story about vampires.”

“Ayuh, I heard him talkin about it on the radio. Said he got the idea from
Dracula.
”

“You heard the writer on the radio,” Eddie said. He was having that through-the-looking-glass, down-the-rabbit-hole, off-on-a-comet feeling again, and tried to ascribe it to the Percodan. It wouldn’t work. All at once he felt strangely unreal to himself, a shade you could almost see through, as thin as . . . well, as thin as a page in a book. It was no help to realize that this world, lying in the summer of 1977 on time’s beam, seemed real in a way all the other wheres and whens—including his own—did not. And that feeling was totally subjective, wasn’t it? When you came right down to it, how did anyone know they weren’t a character in some writer’s story, or a transient thought in some bus-riding schmoe’s head, or a momentary mote in God’s eye? Thinking about such stuff was crazy, and enough such thinking could
drive
you crazy.

And yet . . .

Dad-a-chum, dad-a-chee, not to worry, you’ve got the key.

Keys, my specialty,
Eddie thought. And then:
King’s a key, isn’t he? Calla, Callahan. Crimson King, Stephen King. Is Stephen King the Crimson King of this world?

Roland had settled. Eddie was sure it hadn’t been easy for him, but the difficult had ever been Roland’s specialty. “If you have questions to ask, have at it.” And made the twirling gesture with his right hand.

“Roland, I hardly know where to start. The ideas I’ve got are so big . . . so . . . I don’t know, so fundamentally fucking
scary . . .
”

“Best to keep it simple, then.” Roland took the ball when Eddie tossed it to him but now looked more than a little impatient with the game of toss. “We really
do
have to move on.”

How Eddie knew it. He would have asked his questions while they were rolling, if they all could have ridden in the same vehicle. But they couldn’t, and Roland had never driven a motor vehicle, which made it impossible for Eddie and Cullum to ride in the same one.

“All right,” he said. “Who is he? Let’s start with that. Who is Stephen King?”

“A writer,” Cullum said, and gave Eddie a look that said,
Are you a fool, son?
“He lives over in Bridgton with his family. Nice enough fella, from what I’ve heard.”

“How far away is Bridgton?”

“Oh . . . twenty, twenty-five miles.”

“How old is he?” Eddie was groping, maddeningly aware that the right questions might be out there, but he had no clear idea of what they were.

John Cullum squinted an eye and seemed to calculate. “Not that old, I sh’d think. If he’s thirty, he just got there.”

“This book . . .
’Salem’s Lot
. . . was it a bestseller?”

“Dunno,” Cullum said. “Lots of people around here read it, tell you that much. Because it’s set in Maine. And because of the ads they had on TV, you know. Also there was a movie made out of his first book, but I never went to see it. Looked too bloody.”

“What was it called?”

Cullum thought, then shook his head. “Can’t quite remember. ’Twas just one word, and I’m pretty sure it was a girl’s name, but that’s the best I can do. Maybe it’ll come to me.”

“He’s not a walk-in, you don’t think?”

Cullum laughed. “Born and raised right here in the state of Maine. Guess that makes him a
live
-in.”

Roland was looking at Eddie with increasing impatience, and Eddie decided to give up. This was worse than playing Twenty Questions. But goddammit, Pere Callahan was
real
and he was also in a book of fiction written by this man King, and King lived in an area that was a magnet for what Cullum called walk-ins. One of those walk-ins had sounded very much to Eddie like a servant of the Crimson King. A woman with a bald head who seemed to have a bleeding eye in the center of her forehead, John had said.

Time to drop this for now and get to Tower. Irritating he might be, but Calvin Tower owned a certain vacant lot where the most precious rose in
the universe was growing wild. Also, he knew all sorts of stuff about rare books and the folks who had written them. Very likely he knew more about the author of
’Salem’s Lot
than sai Cullum. Time to let it go. But—

“Okay,” he said, tossing the ball back to the caretaker. “Lock that thing up and we’ll head off to the Dimity Road, if it does ya. Just a couple more questions.”

Cullum shrugged and put the Yaz ball back into the case. “It’s your nickel.”

“I know,” Eddie said . . . and suddenly, for the second time since he’d come through the door, Susannah seemed weirdly close. He saw her sitting in a room filled with antiquey-looking science and surveillance equipment. Jake’s Dogan, for sure . . . only as Susannah must have imagined it. He saw her speaking into a mike, and although he couldn’t hear her, he could see her swollen belly and her frightened face. Now
very
pregnant, wherever she was. Pregnant and ready to pop. He knew well enough what she was saying:
Come, Eddie, save me, Eddie, save both of us, do it before it’s too late.

“Eddie?” Roland said. “You’ve come over all gray. Is it your leg?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, although right now his leg didn’t hurt at all. He thought again of whittling the key. The dreadful responsibility of knowing it had to be just right. And here he was again, in much the same situation. He had hold of something, he knew he did . . . but what? “Yeah, my leg.”

He armed sweat from his forehead.

“John, about the name of the book.
’Salem’s Lot.
That’s actually Jerusalem’s Lot, right?”

“Ayuh.”

“It’s the name of the town in the book.”

“Ayuh.”

“Stephen King’s second book.”

“Ayuh.”

“His second
novel.
”

“Eddie,” Roland said, “surely that’s enough.”

Eddie waved him aside, then winced at the pain in his arm. His attention was fixed on John Cullum. “There
is
no Jerusalem’s Lot, right?”

Cullum looked at Eddie as if he were crazy. “Course not,” he said. “It’s a made-up story about made-up folks in a made-up town. It’s about
vampires.
”

Yes,
Eddie thought,
and if I told you I have reason to believe that vampires are real . . . not to mention invisible demons, magic balls, and witches . . . you’d be absolutely positive I was nuts, wouldn’t you?

“Do you happen to know if Stephen King has been living in this Bridgton town his whole life?”

“No, he hasn’t. He ’n his family moved down here two, maybe three years ago. I b’lieve they lived in Windham first when they got down from the northern part of the state. Or maybe ’twas Raymond. One of the towns on Big Sebago, anyway.”

“Would it be fair to say that these walk-ins you mentioned have been turning up since the guy moved into the area?”

Cullum’s bushy eyebrows went up, then knitted
together. A loud and rhythmic hooting began to come to them from over the water, a sound like a foghorn.

“You know,” Cullum said, “you might have somethin there, son. It might only be coincidence, but maybe not.”

Eddie nodded. He felt emotionally wrung out, like a lawyer at the end of a long and difficult cross-examination. “Let’s blow this pop-shop,” he said to Roland.

“Might be a good idea,” Cullum said, and tipped his head in the direction of the rhythmic foghorn blasts. “That’s Teddy Wilson’s boat. He’s the county constable. Also a game warden.” This time he tossed Eddie a set of car-keys instead of a baseball. “I’m givin you the automatic transmission,” he said. “Just in case you’re a little rusty. The truck’s a stick shift. You follow me, and if you get in trouble, honk the horn.”

“I will, believe me,” Eddie said.

As they followed Cullum out, Roland said: “Was it Susannah again? Is that why you lost all the color out of your face?”

Eddie nodded.

“We’ll help her if we can,” Roland said, “but this may be our only way back to her.”

Eddie knew that. He also knew that by the time they got to her, it might be too late.

STAVE:
Commala-ka-kate

You’re in the hands of fate.

No matter if you’re real or not,

The hour groweth late.

RESPONSE:
Commala-come-eight!

The hour groweth late!

No matter what the shade ya cast

You’re in the hands of fate.

Pere Callahan had made a brief visit to the East Stoneham Post Office almost two weeks before the shootout at Chip McAvoy’s store, and there the former Jerusalem’s Lot parish priest had written a hurried note. Although addressed to both Aaron Deepneau and Calvin Tower, the note inside the envelope had been aimed at the latter, and its tone had not been particularly friendly:

6/27/77

Tower—

I’m a friend of the guy who helped you with Andolini. Wherever you are, you need to move right away. Find a barn, unused camp, even an abandoned shed if it comes down to that. You probably won’t be comfortable but remember that the alternative is being dead.
I mean every word I say!
Leave some lights on where you are staying now and leave your car in the garage or driveway. Hide a note with directions to your new
location under the driver’s-side floor-mat, or under the back-porch step. We’ll be in touch. Remember that we are the only ones who can relieve you of the burden you carry. But if we are to help you, you must help us.

Callahan, of the Eld

And make this trip to the post office your LAST! How stupid can you be???

Callahan had risked his life to leave that note, and Eddie, under the spell of Black Thirteen, had nearly lost his. And the net result of those risks and close calls? Why, Calvin Tower had gone jaunting merrily around the western Maine countryside, looking for buys on rare and out-of-print books.

Following John Cullum up Route 5 with Roland sitting silently beside him, then turning to follow Cullum onto the Dimity Road, Eddie felt his temper edging up into the red zone.

Gonna have to put my hands in my pockets and bite my tongue
, he thought, but in this case he wasn’t sure even those old reliables would work.

About two miles from Route 5, Cullum’s Ford F-150 made a right off Dimity Road. The turn was marked by two signs on a rusty pole. The top one said
ROCKET RD
. Below it was another (rustier still) which promised
LAKESIDE CABINS BY THE WK MO OR SEAS
. Rocket Road was little more than a trail
winding through the trees, and Eddie hung well behind Cullum to avoid the rooster-tail of dust their new friend’s old truck was kicking up. The “cartomobile” was another Ford, some anonymous two-door model Eddie couldn’t have named without looking at the chrome on the back or in the owner’s manual. But it felt most religiously fine to be driving again, with not a single horse between his legs but several hundred of them ready to run at the slightest motion of his right foot. It was also good to hear the sound of the sirens fading farther and farther behind.

The shadows of overhanging trees swallowed them. The smell of fir and pinesap was simultaneously sweet and sharp. “Pretty country,” the gunslinger said. “A man could take his long ease here.” It was his only comment.

Cullum’s truck began to pass numbered driveways. Below each number was a small legend reading
JAFFORDS RENTALS
. Eddie thought of pointing out to Roland that they’d known a Jaffords in the Calla, known him very well, and then didn’t. It would have been belaboring the obvious.

They passed 15, 16, and 17. Cullum paused briefly to consider at 18, then stuck his arm out the cab’s window and motioned them on again. Eddie had been ready to move on even before the gesture, knowing perfectly well that Cabin 18 wasn’t the one they wanted.

Cullum turned in at the next drive. Eddie followed, the tires of the sedan now whispering on a thick bed of fallen pine needles. Winks of blue once more began to appear between the trees, but when they finally
reached Cabin 19 and a view of the water, Eddie saw that this, unlike Keywadin, was a true pond. Probably not much wider than a football field. The cabin itself looked like a two-room job. There was a screened-in porch facing the water with a couple of tatty but comfortable-looking rockers on it. A tin stovestack poked up from the roof. There was no garage and no car parked in front of the cabin, although Eddie thought he could see where one had been. With the cover of duff, it was hard to tell for sure.