Just After Sunset: Stories by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: King, American Novel And Short Story, Horror, Stephen - Prose & Criticism, Short Stories (single author), General, Literary, American, Psychological, Fiction - General, Horror fiction, Fiction, Short stories, Horror tales
ISBN: 9781416586654
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2009-09-22T07:00:00+00:00

N.

1. The Letter

May 28, 2008

Dear Charlie,

It seems both strange and perfectly natural to call you that, although when I last saw you I was nearly half the age I am now. I was sixteen and had a terrible crush on you. (Did you know? Of course you did.) Now I’m a happily married woman with a little boy, and I see you all the time on CNN, talking about Things Medical. You are as handsome now (well, almost!) as you were “back in the day,” when the three of us used to go fishing and to movies at The Railroad in Freeport.

Those summers seem like a long time ago-you and Johnny inseparable, me tagging along whenever you’d let me. Which was probably more often than I deserved! Yet your note of condolence brought it all back to me, and how I cried. Not just for Johnny, but for all three of us. And, I suppose, for how simple and uncomplicated life seemed. How golden we were!

You saw his obituary, of course. “Accidental death” can cover such a multitude of sins, can’t it? In the news story, Johnny’s death was reported as the result of a fall, and of course he did fall-at a spot we all knew well, one he had asked me about only last Christmas-but it was no accident. There was a good deal of sedative in his bloodstream. Not nearly enough to kill him, but according to the coroner it could have been enough to disorient him, especially if he was looking over the railing. Hence, “accidental death.”

But I know it was suicide.

There was no note at home or on his body, but that might have been Johnny’s idea of a kindness. And you, as a doctor yourself, will know that psychiatrists have an extremely high rate of suicide. It’s as if the patients’ woes are a kind of acid, eating away at the psychic defenses of their therapists. In the majority of cases, those defenses are thick enough to remain intact. In Johnny’s? I think not…thanks to one unusual patient. And he wasn’t sleeping much during the last two or three months of his life; such terrible dark circles under his eyes! Also, he was canceling appointments right left. Going on long drives. He would not say where, but I think I may know.

That brings me to the enclosure, which I hope you will look at when you finish this letter. I know you are busy, but-if it will help!-think of me as the love-struck girl I was, with my hair tied back in a ponytail that was always coming loose, forever tagging along!

Although Johnny was on his own, he had formed a loose affiliation with two other “shrinks” in the last four years of his life. His current case files (not many, due to his cutting back) went to one of these Drs. following his death. Those files were in his office. But when I was cleaning out his study at home, I came upon the little manuscript I have enclosed.

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