Стивен Кинг - If It Bleeds

Her bedroom is just the same, with the dark pink walls that always made her think of half-cooked flesh. Her stuffed animals are still on the shelf above her narrow bed, with Mr. Rabbit Trick holding pride of place. Mr. Rabbit Trick’s ears are ragged, because she used to nibble on them when she couldn’t sleep. The Sylvia Plath poster still hangs on the wall above the desk where Holly wrote her bad poetry and sometimes imagined committing suicide in the manner of her idol. As she undresses, she thinks she might have done it, or at least tried it, if their oven had been gas instead of electric.

It would be easy—much too easy—to think this childhood room has been waiting for her, like a monster in a horror story. She’s slept here several times in the sane ( relatively sane) years of her adulthood, and it has never eaten her. Her mother has never eaten her, either. There is a monster, but it’s not in this room or in this house. Holly knows she would do well to remember that, and to remember who she is. Not the child who nibbled Mr. Rabbit Trick’s ears. Not the adolescent who threw up her breakfast most days before school. She is the woman who, along with Bill and Jerome, saved those children at the Midwest Culture and Arts Complex. She is the woman who survived Brady Hartsfield. The one who faced another monster in a Texas cave. The girl who hid in this room and never wanted to come out is gone.

She kneels, says her nightly prayer, and gets into bed.

Charlotte, Holly, and Uncle Henry sit in one corner of the Rolling Hills common room, which has been decorated for the season. There are ribbons of tinsel and sweet-smelling swags of fir that almost overcome the more permanent aroma of pee and bleach. There’s a tree hung with lights and candy canes. Christmas music spills down from the speakers, tired tunes Holly could live happily without for the rest of her life.

The residents don’t seem exactly bursting with holiday spirit; most of them are watching an infomercial for something called the Ab Lounge, featuring a hot chick in an orange leotard. A few others are turned away from the tube, some silent, some holding conversations with each other, some talking to themselves. A wisp of an old lady in a green housecoat is bent over a huge jigsaw puzzle.

“That’s Mrs. Hatfield,” Uncle Henry says. “I don’t recall her first name.”

“Mrs. Braddock says you saved her from a bad fall,” Holly says.

“No, that was Julia,” Uncle Henry says. “Back at the ohhhh-ld swimmin hole.” He laughs as people do when they are remembering days of yore. Charlotte rolls her eyes. “I was sixteen, and I believe Julia was…” He trails off.

“Let me see your arm,” Charlotte commands.

Uncle Henry cocks his head. “My arm? Why?”

“Just let me see it.” She seizes it and pushes up his shirtsleeve. There’s a good-sized but not especially remarkable bruise there. To Holly it looks like a tattoo gone bad.

“If this is how they take care of people, we should sue them instead of paying them,” Charlotte says.

“Sue who?” Uncle Henry says. Then, with a laugh: “ Horton Hears a Who! The kids loved that one!”

Charlotte stands. “I’m going to get a coffee. Maybe one of those little tart things, as well. Holly?”

Holly shakes her head.

“You’re not eating again,” Charlotte says, and leaves before Holly can reply.

Henry watches her go. “She never lets up, does she?”

This time it’s Holly who laughs. She can’t help it. “No. She doesn’t.”

“No, never does. You’re not Janey.”

“No.” And waits.

“You’re…” She can almost hear rusty gears turning. “Holly.”

“That’s right.” She pats his hand.

“I’d like to go back to my room, but I don’t remember where it is.”

“I know the way,” Holly says. “I’ll take you.”

They walk slowly down the hall together.

“Who was Julia?” Holly asks.

“Pretty as the dawn,” Uncle Henry says. Holly decides that’s answer enough. Certainly a better line of poetry than she ever wrote.

In his room, she tries to guide him to the chair by the window, but he disengages his hand from hers and goes to the bed, where he sits with his hands clasped between his thighs. He looks like an elderly child. “I think I’ll lie down, sweetie. I’m tired. Charlotte makes me tired.”

“Sometimes she makes me tired, too,” Holly says. In the old days she never would have admitted this to Uncle Henry, who was all too often her mother’s co-conspirator, but this is a different man. In some ways a much gentler man. Besides, in five minutes he’ll forget she said it. In ten, he’ll forget she was here.

She bends to kiss his cheek, then stops with her lips just above his skin when he says, “What’s wrong? Why are you afraid?”

“I’m not—”

“Oh, you are. You are.”

“All right,” she says. “I am. I’m afraid.” Such a relief to admit it. To say it out loud.

“Your mother… my sister… it’s on the tip of my tongue…”

“Charlotte.”

“Yes. Charlie’s a coward. Always was, even when we were children. Wouldn’t go in the water at… the place… I can’t remember. You were a coward, but you grew out of it.”

She looks at him, amazed. Speechless.

“Grew out of it,” he repeats, then pushes off his slippers and swings his feet onto the bed. “I’m going to have a nap, Janey. This isn’t such a bad place, but I wish I had that thing… that thing you twist…” He closes his eyes.

Holly goes to the door with her head down. There are tears on her face. She takes a tissue from her pocket and wipes them away. She doesn’t want Charlotte to see them. “I wish you could remember saving that woman from falling down,” she says. “The nurses’ aide said you moved like lightning.”

But Uncle Henry doesn’t hear. Uncle Henry has gone to sleep.

From Holly Gibney’s report to Detective Ralph Anderson:

I expected to finish this last night in a Pennsylvania motel, but a family matter came up and I drove to my mother’s house instead. Being here is difficult. There are memories, many of them not so good. I will stay tonight, though. It’s better that I do. Mom is out now, buying things for an early Christmas dinner that will probably not be tasty. Cooking has never been one of her talents.

I hope to finish my business with Chet Ondowsky—the thing that calls itself that, anyway—tomorrow evening. I’m scared, no sense lying about that. He promised to never do anything again like the Macready School, promised it right away, without even thinking it over, and I don’t believe it. Bill wouldn’t, and I am sure you wouldn’t, either. He has a taste for it now. He may also have a taste for being the heroic rescuer, although he must know that calling attention to himself is a bad idea.

I phoned Dan Bell and told him I intended to put an end to Ondowsky. I felt that as ex-police himself he would understand and approve. He did, but told me to be careful. I will try to do that, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I have a very bad feeling about this. I also called my friend Barbara Robinson and told her I will be staying over at my mother’s on Saturday night. I need to make sure that she and her brother Jerome think I won’t be in the city tomorrow. No matter what happens to me, I need to know they will not be at risk.

Ondowsky is worried about what I may do with the information I’ve gotten, but he’s also confident. He’ll kill me if he can. I know this. What he doesn’t know is that I have been in these situations before, and won’t underestimate him.