Stephen King - Gerald’s Game

She struggled briefly back to consciousness some time later, aware of only two things: the moon had made it around to the west windows, and she was terribly afraid… of what she at first didn’t know. Then it came to her: Daddy had been here, was perhaps here still. The creature hadn’t looked like him, that was true, but that was only because Daddy had been wearing his eclipse face.

Jessie struggled up, pushing with her feet so hard she shoved the coverlet down beneath her. She wasn’t able to do much with her arms, however. The Littering pins and needles had stolen away while she’d been unconscious, and they had no more feeling than a couple of chair-legs. She stared into the corner by the bureau with wide, moon-silvered eyes. The wind had died and the shadows were, at least for the time being, still. There was nothing in the corner. Her dark visitor had gone.

Maybe not, Jess-maybe he’s just changed location. Maybe he’s hiding ander the bed, how’s that for a thought? If he is, he, could reach up at any second and put one of his handf on your hip,

The wind stirred-only a puff, not a gust-and the back door banged weakly. Those were the only sounds. The dog had fallen silent, and it was this more than anything else which convinced her that the stranger was gone. She had the house to herself.

Jessie’s gaze dropped to the large dark blob on the floor.

Correction, she thought. There’s Gerald. Can’t forget about him.

She put her head back and closed her eyes, aware of a steady low pulse in her throat, not wanting to wake up enough for that pulse to transform itself into what it really was: thirst. She didn’t know if she could go from black unconsciousness to ordinary sleep or not, but she knew that was what she wanted; more than anything else-except perhaps for someone to drive down here and rescue her-she wanted to sleep.

There was no one here, Jessie-you know that, don’t you? It was, absurdity of absurdities, Ruth’s voice. Tough-talking Ruth, whose stated motto, cribbed from a Nancy Sinatra song, was “One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.” Ruth, who had been reduced to a pile of quivering jelly by the shape in the moonlight.

Go ahead, toots, Ruth said. Make fun of me all you want-maybe I even deserve it-but don’t kid yourself. There was no one here. Your imagination put on a little slide-show, that’s all. That’s all there was to it.

You’re wrong, Ruth, Goody responded calmly. Someone was here, all right, and Jessie and I both know who it was. It didn’t exactly look like Daddy, but that was only because he had his eclipse face on, The face wasn’t the important part, though, or how tall he looked-be might have had on hoots with special high heels, or maybe he was wearing shoes with lifts in them. For all I know, be could have been on stilts.

Stilts! Ruth cried, amazed. Oh dear God, now I’ve heard evvverything! Never mind the fact that the man died before Reagan’s Inauguration Day tux got back from the cleaners; Tom Mahout was so clumsy be should have had walking-downstairs insurance. Stilts? Oh babe, you have got to be putting me on!

That part doesn’t matter, Goody said with a kind of serene stubbornness. It was him. I’d know that smell anywhere-that thick, bloodwarm smell. Not the smell of oysters or pennies. Not even the smell of blood. The smell of…

The thought broke up and drifted away.

Jessie slept.

She ended up alone with her father at Sunset Trails on the afternoon of July 20th, 1963, for two reasons. One was a cover for the other. The cover was her claim that she was still a little frightened of Mrs Gilette, even though it had been at least five years (and probably closer to six) since the incident of the cookie and the slapped hand. The real reason was simple and uncomplicated: it was her Daddy she wanted to be with during such a special, once-in-a-lifetime event.

Her mother had suspected as much, and being moved around like a chesspiece by her husband and her ten-year-old daughter hadn’t pleased her, but by then the matter was practically afait accompli. Jessie had gone to her Daddy first. She was still four months away from her eleventh birthday, but that didn’t make her a fool. What Sally Mahout suspected was true: Jessie had launched a conscious, carefully thought-out campaign which would allow her to spend the day of the eclipse with her father. Much later Jessie would think that this was yet another reason to keep her mouth shut about what had happened on that day; there might be those-her mother, for instance-who would say that she had no right to complain; that she had in fact gotten about what she deserved.

On the day before the eclipse, Jessie had found her father sitting on the deck outside his den and reading a paperback copy of Profiles in Courage while his wife, son, and elder daughter laughed and swam in the lake below. He smiled at her when she took the seat next to him, and Jessie smiled back. She had brightened her mouth with lipstick for this interview-Peppermint Yum-Yum, in fact, a birthday present from Maddy. Jessie hadn’t liked it when she first tried it on-she thought it a baby shade, and that it tasted like Pepsodent-but Daddy had said he thought it was pretty, and that had transformed it into the most valuable of her few cosmetic resources, something to be treasured and used only on special occasions like this one.

He listened carefully and respectfully as she spoke, but he made no particular attempt to disguise the glint of amused skepticism in his eyes. Do you really mean to tell me you’re still afraid of Adrienne Gilette? he asked when she had finished rehashing the oft-told tale of how Mrs Gilette had slapped her hand when she had reached for the last cookie on the plate. That must have been back in… I don’t know, but I was still working for Dunninger, so it must have been before 1959. And you’re still spooked all these years later? How absolutely Freudian, my dear!

Well-Ill… you know… just a little. She widened her eyes, trying to communicate the idea that she was saying a little but meaning a lot. In truth she didn’t know if she was still scared of old Pooh-pooh Breath or not, but she did know she considered Mrs Gilette a boring old blue-haired booger, and she had no intention of spending the only total eclipse of the sun she’d probably ever see in her company if she could possibly work things around so she could watch it with her Daddy, whom she adored beyond the power of words to tell.

She evaluated his skepticism and concluded with relief that it was friendly, perhaps even conspiratorial. She smiled and added: But I also want to stay with you.

He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers like a French monsieur. He hadn’t shaved that day -he often didn’t when he was at camp-and the rough scrape of his whiskers sent a pleasurable shiver of goosebumps up her arms and back.

Comme tu es douce, he said. Ma j'olie mademoiselle. Je t'aime.

She giggled, not understanding his clumsy French but suddenly sure it was all going to work out just the way she had hoped it would.

It would be fun, she said happily. Just the two of us. I could make an early supper and we could eat it right here, on the deck.

He grinned. Eclipse Burgers a deux?