Стивен Кинг - If It Bleeds

But there was nothing. The room was empty.

It was small, circular, no more than fourteen feet in diameter, maybe less. On the far side was a single wide window, caked with the dirt of years. Although the day was sunny, the light it let in was bleary and diffuse. Standing on the threshold, Chuck put out a foot and toed the boards like a boy testing the water of a pond to see if it was cold. There was no creak, no give. He stepped in, ready to leap back the moment he felt the floor start to sag, but it was solid. He walked across to the window, leaving footprints in the thick fall of dust.

Grandpa had been lying about the rotted floor, but about the view he had been dead-on. It really wasn’t much. Chuck could see the shopping center beyond the greenbelt, and beyond that, an Amtrak train moving toward the city, pulling a stumptail of five passenger cars. At this time of day, with the morning commuter rush over, there would be few riders.

Chuck stood at the window until the train was gone, then followed his footprints back to the door. As he turned to close it, he saw a bed in the middle of the circular room. It was a hospital bed. There was a man in it. He appeared to be unconscious. There were no machines, but Chuck could hear one just the same, going bip… bip… bip . A heart monitor, maybe. There was a table beside the bed. On it were various lotions and a pair of black-framed glasses. The man’s eyes were closed. One hand lay outside the coverlet, and Chuck observed the crescent-shaped scar on the back of it with no surprise.

In this room, Chuck’s grandpa—his zaydee—had seen his wife lying dead, the loaves of bread she would pull off the shelves when she went down scattered all around her. It’s the waiting, Chucky, he’d said. That’s the hard part.

Now his own waiting would begin. How long would that wait be? How old was the man in the hospital bed?

Chuck started back into the cupola for a closer look, but the vision was gone. No man, no hospital bed, no table. There was one final faint bip from the unseen monitor, then that was gone, too. The man did not fade, as ghostly apparitions did in movies; he was just gone, insisting he had never been there in the first place.

He wasn’t, Chuck thought. I will insist that he wasn’t, and I will live my life until my life runs out. I am wonderful, I deserve to be wonderful, and I contain multitudes.

He closed the door and snapped the lock shut.

In January of 2021, a small padded envelope addressed to Detective Ralph Anderson is delivered to the Conrads, the Andersons’ next-door neighbors. The Anderson family is on an extended vacation in the Bahamas, thanks to an endless teachers’ strike in the Andersons’ home county. (Ralph insisted that his son Derek bring his books, which Derek termed “a grotesque bummer.”) The Conrads have agreed to forward their mail until the Andersons return to Flint City, but printed on this envelope, in large letters, is DO NOT FORWARD HOLD FOR ARRIVAL. When Ralph opens the package, he finds a flash drive titled If It Bleeds , presumably referring to the old news trope which proclaims “If it bleeds, it leads.” The drive holds two items. One is a folder containing photographs and audio spectrograms. The other is a kind of report, or spoken-word diary, from Holly Gibney, with whom the detective shared a case that began in Oklahoma and ended in a Texas cave. It was a case that changed Ralph Anderson’s perception of reality forever. The final words of Holly’s audio report are from an entry dated December 19th, 2020. She sounds out of breath.

I have done the best I can, Ralph, but it may not be enough. In spite of all my planning there’s a chance I won’t come out of this alive. If that’s the case, I need you to know how much your friendship has meant to me. If I do die, and you choose to continue what I’ve started, please be careful. You have a wife and son.

[ This is where the report ends. ]

Pineborough Township is a community not far from Pittsburgh. Although much of western Pennsylvania is farm country, Pineborough boasts a thriving downtown and just shy of 40,000 residents. As you enter the municipal city limits, you pass a gigantic bronze creation of dubious cultural merit (although the residents seem to like it). This is, according to the sign, THE WORLD’S LARGEST PINE CONE! There is a turnout for people who want to picnic and take pictures. Many do, some posing their younger children on the cone’s scales. (A small sign reads “No children over 50 lbs on the Pine Cone, please.”) On this day it’s too cold for picnics, the Porta John has been taken away for the season, and the bronze creation of dubious cultural merit is decked out in blinking Christmas lights.

Not far beyond the giant cone, close to where the first traffic light marks the beginning of downtown Pineborough, is Albert Macready Middle School, where almost five hundred students attend grades seven, eight, and nine—no teachers’ strike here.

At quarter to ten on the 8th, a Pennsy Speed Delivery truck pulls into the school’s circular drive. The delivery guy gets out and stands in front of his truck for a minute or two, consulting his clipboard. Then he pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his narrow nose, gives his little mustache a stroke, and goes around to the back. He rummages and retrieves a square package about three feet on all sides. He carries it easily enough, so it can’t be too heavy.

At the door is an admonishment reading ALL SCHOOL VISITORS MUST BE ANNOUNCED AND APPROVED. The driver pushes the button on the intercom below the sign and Mrs. Keller, the school secretary, asks him how she can help.

“Got a package here for something called…” He bends to look at the label. “Boy-howdy. Looks like Latin. It’s for the Nemo… Nemo Impune… or maybe you say Impuny…”

Mrs. Keller helps him out. “The Nemo Me Impune Lacessit Society, right?”

On her video monitor, the delivery guy looks relieved. “If you say so. The last word is Society , for sure. What does it mean?”

“Tell you inside.”

Mrs. Keller is smiling as the delivery guy walks through the metal detector, enters the main office, and puts the package on the counter. It’s plastered with stickers, a few of Christmas trees and holly and Santas, many more of Scottish guys in kilts and Black Watch caps honking on bagpipes.

“So,” he says, taking his reader off his belt and aiming it at the address label. “What’s Nemo Me Impuny when it’s home with its shoes off?”

“The Scottish national motto,” she says. “It means No one provokes me with impunity . Mr. Griswold’s Current Affairs class has a partner school in Scotland, near Edinburgh. They email and Facebook and send pictures to each other and things like that. The Scottish kids root for the Pittsburgh Pirates, our kids for the Buckie Thistle Football Club. The Current Affairs kids watch the games on YouTube. Calling themselves the Nemo Me Impune Lacessit Society was probably Griswold’s idea.” She peers at the return address on the label. “Yup, Renhill Secondary School, that’s the one. Customs stamp and everything.”

“Christmas presents, I bet,” the delivery guy says. “Gotta be. Because look here.” He tips the box up, showing her DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 18 DECEMBER, carefully printed and bookended by two more bagpipe-blowing Scots.

Mrs. Keller nods. “That’s the last day of school before the Christmas break. God, I hope Griswold’s kids sent them something.”

“What kind of presents do Scottish kids send American kids, do you think?”