Стивен Кинг - Later

It was stronger, so what? I’d owned it, had made it my bitch.

For the first time since Liz had picked me up from school that day and taken me hunting for Therriault, I felt good again. Like someone who’s had a serious illness and is finally on the mend.

I got back home around quarter past two, a little late but not where-have-you-been-I-was-so-worried late. I had a long scrape on one arm and the knee of my pants got torn when one of the high school boys bumped me and I went down hard, but I felt pretty damned fine just the same. Valeria wasn’t there, but two of her girlfriends were. One of them said Valeria liked me and the other one said I should talk to her, maybe sit with her at lunch.

God, the possibilities!

I let myself in and saw that someone—probably Mr. Provenza, the building super—had closed the mailboxes that had popped open when Therriault left. Or, to put it more accurately, when it fled the scene. Mr. Provenza had also cleaned up the broken glass, and put a sign in front of the elevator that said TEMPORARILY OUT OF ORDER. That made me remember the day Mom and I came home from school, me clutching my green turkey, and found the elevator at the Palace on Park out of order. Fuck this elevator , Mom had said. Then: You didn’t hear that, kiddo .

Old days.

I took the stairs and let myself in to find Mom had dragged her home office chair up to the living room window, where she was reading and drinking coffee. “I was just about to call you,” she said, and then, looking down, “Oh my God, that’s a new pair of jeans!”

“Sorry,” I said. “Maybe you can patch them up.”

“I have many skills, but sewing isn’t one of them. I’ll take them to Mrs. Abelson at Dandy Cleaners. What did you have for lunch?”

“A burger. With lettuce and tomato.”

“Is that true?”

“I cannot tell a lie,” I said, and of course that made me think of Therriault, and I gave a little shiver.

“Let me see your arm. Come over here where I can get a good look.” I came over and displayed my battle scar. “No need of a Band-Aid, I guess, but you need to put on some Neosporin.”

“Okay if I watch ESPN after I do that?”

“It would be if we had electricity. Why do you think I’m reading at the window instead of at my desk?”

“Oh. That must be why the elevator isn’t working.”

“Your powers of deduction stun me, Holmes.” This was one of my mom’s literary jokes. She has dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. “It’s just our building. Mr. Provenza says something blew out all the breakers. Some kind of power surge. He said he’s never seen anything like it. He’s going to try to get it fixed by tonight, but I’ve got an idea we’ll be running on candles and flashlights once it gets dark.”

Therriault , I thought, but of course it wasn’t. It was the deadlight thing that was now inhabiting Therriault. It blew the light fixture, it opened some of the mailboxes, and it fried the circuit breakers for good measure when it left.

I went into the bathroom to get the Neosporin. It was pretty dark in there, so I flipped the light switch. Habit’s a bitch, isn’t it? I sat on the sofa to spread antibiotic goo on my scrape, looking at the blank TV and wondering how many circuit breakers there were in an apartment building the size of ours, and how much power it would take to cook them all.

I could whistle for that thing. And if I did, would it come to the lad named Jamie Conklin? That was a lot of power for a kid who wouldn’t even be able to get a driver’s license for another three years.

“Mom?”

“What?”

“Do you think I’m old enough to have a girlfriend?”

“No, dear.” Without looking up from her manuscript.

“When will I be old enough?”

“How does twenty-five sound?”

She started laughing and I laughed with her. Maybe, I thought, when I was twenty-five or so I’d summon Therriault and ask him to bring me a glass of water. But on second thought, anything it brought might be poison. Maybe, just for shits and giggles, I’d ask it to stand on its Therriault head, do a split, maybe walk on the ceiling. Or I could let it go. Tell it to get buzzin’, cousin. Of course I didn’t have to wait until I was twenty-five, I could do that anytime. Only I didn’t want to. Let it be my prisoner for awhile. That nasty, horrible light reduced to little more than a firefly in a jar. See how it liked that.

The electricity came back on at ten o’clock, and all was right with the world.

On Sunday, Mom proposed a visit to Professor Burkett to see how he was doing and to retrieve the casserole dish. “Also, we could bring him some croissants from Haber’s.”

I said that sounded good. She gave him a call and he said he’d love to see us, so we walked to the bakery and then hailed a cab. My mother refused to use Uber. She said they weren’t New York. Taxis were New York.

I guess the miracle of healing goes on even when you’re old, because Professor Burkett was down to only one cane and moving pretty well. Not apt to be running in the NYC Marathon again (if he ever had), but he gave Mom a hug at the door and I wasn’t afraid he was going to face-plant when he shook my hand. He gave me a keen look, I gave him a slight nod, and he smiled. We understood each other.

Mom bustled around, setting out the croissants and pats of butter and the tiny pots of jam that came with them. We ate in the kitchen with the mid-morning sun slanting in. It was a nice little meal. When we were done, Mom transferred the remains of the casserole (which was most of it; I guess old folks don’t eat much) to a Tupperware and washed her dish. She set it to dry and then excused herself to use the bathroom.

As soon as she was gone, Professor Burkett leaned across the table. “What happened?”

“He was in the foyer when I came out of the elevator yesterday. I didn’t think about it, just rushed forward and grabbed him.”

“He was there? This Therriault? You saw him? Felt him?” Still half-convinced it was all in my mind, you know. I could see it on his face, and really, who could blame him?

“Yeah. But it’s not Therriault, not anymore. The thing inside, it’s a light, tried to get away but I held on. It was scary, but I knew it would be bad for me if I let go. Finally, when it saw that Therriault was fading out, it—”

“Fading out? What do you mean?”

The toilet flushed. Mom wouldn’t come back until she’d washed her hands, but that wouldn’t take long.

“I told it what you told me to say, Professor. That if I whistled, it had to come to me. That it was my turn to haunt it . It agreed. I made it say it out loud, and it did.”

My mother came back before he could ask any more questions, but I could see he looked troubled and was still thinking the whole confrontation had been in my mind. I got that but I was a little pissed just the same—I mean, he knew stuff, about the rings and Mr. Thomas’s book—but looking back on it, I understand. Belief is a high hurdle to get over and I think it’s even higher for smart people. Smart people know a lot, and maybe that makes them think they know everything.

“We ought to go, Jamie,” Mom said. “I’ve got a manuscript to finish.”

“You always have a manuscript to finish,” I said, which made her laugh because it was true. There were to-read stacks in both the agency office and her home office, and both of them were always piled high. “Before we go, tell the professor what happened in our building yesterday.”

She turned to Professor Burkett. “That was so strange, Marty. Every circuit breaker in the building blew out. All at once! Mr. Provenza—he’s the super—said there must have been some kind of power surge. He said he’d never seen anything like it.”