'Salem's Lot (Illustrated) by King Stephen

Author:King, Stephen [King, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780450031069
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2008-06-23T07:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

He flicked on the overhead bar of fluorescents and turned to look at Jimmy, but Jimmy was already on his feet, holding his hands to the side of his neck. The fingers were sparkling scarlet.

“She bit me!” Jimmy howled. “Oh God-Jesus, she bit me!”

Ben went to him, tried to take him in his arms, and Jimmy pushed him away. His eyes rolled madly in their sockets.

“Don’t touch me. I’m unclean.”

“Jimmy—”

“Give me my bag. Jesus, Ben, I can feel it in there. I can feel it working in me. For Christ’s sake, give me my bag!”

It was in the corner. Ben got it, and Jimmy snatched it. He went to the mortician’s table and set the bag on it. His face was death pale, shining with sweat. The blood pulsed remorselessly from the torn gash in the side of his neck. He sat down on the table and opened the bag and swept through it, his breath coming in whining gasps through his open mouth.

“She bit me,” he muttered into the bag. “Her mouth…oh God, her dirty filthy mouth…”

He pulled a bottle of disinfectant out of the bag and sent the cap spinning across the tiled floor. He leaned back, supporting himself on one arm, and upended the bottle over his throat, and it splashed the wound, his slacks, the table. Blood washed away in threads. His eyes closed and he screamed once, then again. The bottle never wavered.

“Jimmy, what can I—”

“In a minute,” Jimmy muttered. “Wait. It’s better, I think. Wait, just wait—”

He tossed the bottle away and it shattered on the floor. The wound, washed clean of the tainted blood, was clearly visible. Ben saw there was not one but two puncture wounds not far from the jugular, one of them horribly mangled.

Jimmy had pulled an ampoule and a hypo from the bag. He stripped the protective covering from the needle and jabbed it through the ampoule. His hands were shaking so badly he had to make two thrusts at it. He filled the needle and held it out to Ben.

“Tetanus,” he said. “Give it to me. Here.” He held his arm out, rotated to expose the armpit.

“Jimmy, that’ll knock you out.”

“No. No, it won’t. Do it.”

Ben took the needle and looked questioningly into Jimmy’s eyes. He nodded. Ben injected the needle.

Jimmy’s body tensed like spring steel. For a moment he was a sculpture in agony, every tendon pulled out into sharp relief. Little by little he began to relax. His body shuddered in reaction, and Ben saw that tears had mixed with the sweat on his face.

“Put the cross on me,” he said. “If I’m still dirty from her, it’ll…it’ll do something to me.”

“Will it?”

“I’m sure it will. When you were going after her, I looked up and I wanted to go after you. God help me, I did. And I looked at that cross and I…my belly wanted to heave up.”

Ben put the cross on his neck. Nothing happened. Its glow—if there had been a glow at all—was entirely gone.

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