Stephen King - Dolores Claiborne

“What?” she caws down at me. “What did you say, Dolores Claiborne?”

“I said someone must be spreadin manure in their garden,” I says, “because I smell a lot more bullshit around here than usual.”

“Are you being smart, Dolores?” she calls back in her cracked, wavery voice.

She sounded about like she did on any day when a few more sunbeams than usual was findin their way into her attic. I knew she might get up to mischief later on, but I didn’t much care—right then I was just glad to hear her makin as much sense as she was. To tell you the truth, it seemed like old times. She’d been number’n a pounded thumb for the last three or four months, and it was sorta nice to have her back… or as much of the old Vera as was ever gonna come back, if you see what I mean.

“No, Vera,” I called up to her. “If I’d been smart, I’d’ve gotten done workin for you a long time ago.”

I expected her to yell somethin else down at me then, but she never. So I went on hangin up her sheets n her diapers n her warshcloths n all the rest. Then, with half the basket still to do, I stopped. I had a bad feeling. I can’t say why, or even where it started. All at once it was just there. And for just a moment the strangest thought came to me: “That girl’s in trouble… the one I saw on the day of the eclipse, the one who saw me. She’s all grown up now, almost Selena’s age, but she’s in terrible trouble.”

I turned around n looked up, almost expectin to see the grownup version of that little girl in her bright striped dress n pink lipstick, but I didn’t see nobody, and that was wrong. It was wrong because Vera should have been there, just about hangin out onto the roof to make sure I used the right number of clothespins. But she was gone, and I didn’t understand how that could be, because I’d put her in her chair myself, and then set the brake once I had it by the window the way she liked.

Then I heard her scream.

“Duh-lorrrrr-isss!”

Such a chill ran up my back when I heard that, Andy! It was like Joe had come back. For a moment I was just frozen to the spot. Then she screamed again, and that second time I recognized it was her.

“Duh-lorrr-isss! It’s dust bunnies! They’re everywhere! Oh-dear-God! Oh-dear-God! Duh-lorrr-iss, help! Help me!”

I turned to run for the house, tripped over the damned laundry-basket, and went sprawlin over it n into the sheets I’d just hung. I got tangled up in em somehow n had to fight my way out. For just a minute it was like the sheets had grown hands and were tryin to strangle me, or just hold me back. And all the while that was goin on, Vera kep screamin, and I thought of the dream I’d had that one time, the dream of the dust-head with all the long snaggly dust-teeth. Only what I saw in my mind’s eye was Joe’s face on that head, and the eyes were all dark n blank, like someone had pushed two lumps of coal into a cloud of dust, and there they hung n floated.

“Dolores, oh please come quick! Oh please come quick! The dust bunnies! THE DUST BUNNIES ARE EVERYWHERE!”

Then she just screamed. It was horrible. You’d never in your wildest dreams have thought a fat old bitch like Vera Donovan could scream that loud. It was like fire n flood n the end of the world all rolled up into one.

I fought my way clear of the sheets somehow, and as I got up I felt one of my slip-straps pop, just like on the day of the eclipse, when Joe almost killed me before I managed to get shut of him. And you know that feelin you get when it seems like you’ve been someplace before, and know all the things people are gonna say before they say em? That feelin came over me so strong it was like there were ghosts all around me, ticklin me with fingers I couldn’t quite see.

And you know somethin else? They felt like dusty ghosts.

I ran in the kitchen door n pelted up the back stairs as fast as my legs’d carry me, and all the time she was screamin, screamin, screamin. My slip started to slide down, and when I got to the back landin I looked around, sure I was gonna see Joe stumblin up right behind me n snatchin at the hem.

Then I looked back the other way, and I seen Vera. She was three-quarters of the way down the hall toward the front staircase, waddlin along with her back to me n screamin as she went. There was a big brown stain on the seat of her nightgown where she’d soiled herself—not out of meanness or bitchiness that last time, but out of plain cold fear.

Her wheelchair was stuck crosswise in her bedroom door. She must’ve released the brake when she saw whatever it was that had scared her so.

Always before when she come down with a case of the horrors, the only thing she could do was sit or lay where she was n bawl for help, and there’ll be plenty of people who’ll tell you she couldn’t move under her own power, but she did yesterday; I swear she did. She released the brake on her chair, turned it, wheeled it across the room, then somehow got out of it when it got stuck in the doorway n went staggerin off down the hall.

I stood there, just frozen to the spot for the first second or two, watchin her lurch along and wonderin what she’d seen that was terrible enough to get her to do what she was doin, to walk after her days of walkin should have been over—what that thing was that she could only think to call the dust bunnies.

But I seen where she was headed—right for the front stairs.

“Vera!” I yelled at her. “Vera, you just stop this foolishness! You’re going to fall! Stop!”

Then I ran just as fast as I could. That feelin that all this was happenin for the second time rolled over me again, only this time it felt like I was Joe, that I was the one tryin to catch up n catch hold.

I don’t know if she didn’t hear me, or if she did n thought in her poor addled brain that I was in front of her instead of behind. All I know for sure is that she went on screamin—“ Dolores , help! Help me, Dolores! The dust bunnies!” —and lurched on a little faster.

She’d just about used the hallway up. I raced past the door to her room n clipped my ankle a goddam good one on one of the wheelchair’s footrests—here, you can see the bruise. I ran as fast’s I could, shoutin, “ Stop, Vera! Stop!” until my throat was raw.

She crossed the landin and stuck one foot out into space. I couldn’t’ve saved her then, no matter what—all I coulda done was pull myself over with her—but in a situation like that, you don’t have time to think or count the cost. I jumped for her just as that foot of hers come down on thin air and she started to tilt forward. I had one last little glimpse of her face. I don’t think she knew she was goin over; there wasn’t nothing there but bug-eyed panic. I’d seen the look before, although never that deep, and I can tell you it didn’t have nothing to do with fear of fallin. She was thinkin about what was behind her, not what was ahead.

I snatched at the air and didn’t get nothing but the littlest fold of her nightie between the second n third fingers of my left hand. It slipped through em like a whisper.

“Duh-lorrrrr — ” she screamed, and then there was a solid, meaty thud. It turns my blood cold to remember that sound; it was just like the one Joe made when he hit the bottom of the well. I seen her do a cartwheel n then heard somethin snap. The sound was as clear n harsh as a stick of kindlin when you break it over your knee. I saw blood squirt out of the side of her head n that was all I wanted to see. I turned away so fast my feet tangled in each other and I went to my knees. I was starin back down the hallway toward her room, and what I saw made me scream. It was Joe. For a few seconds I saw him as clear as I see you now, Andy; I saw his dusty, grinnin face peekin out at me from under her wheelchair, lookin through the wire spokes of the wheel that had got caught in the door.