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.She was relieved, and a littleashamed of herself.She turned the TV on.The eye filled with static, but she could hear the female newscaster s flat, almost apathetic voice. & the federal government has reported increased progress with the so-called  zombie epidemic&  Then this grainy, washed-out bit of stockfootage came on the screen: men in hunters clothing and surplus fatigues shooting zombies in the head from a safe distance.Shooting them andthen moving along calmly down a dirt road.The newscaster appeared on the screen again: silent, emotionless, makeup perfect, her head rolling upinto the top of the cabinet.It was after four in the morning.Betty had handled the ward by herself all night and would need some relief.Elaine dressed quickly and headedupstairs.Betty wasn t at the nurse s station.Elaine started down the dim-lit corridor, peeking into each room.In the beds dark shadows shook and movedtheir heads no no no, even in their dreams.But no sign of Betty.The last room was Tom s, and he wasn t there.She could hear a steady padding of feet up ahead, in the dark tunnel that led to the new wing.Shetried the light switch, but apparently it wasn t connected.Out of her pocket she pulled the penlight that she used for making chart notations inpatients darkened rooms.It made a small, distorted circle of illumination.She started down the darkened tunnel, flashing her small light now andthen on the uncompleted ceiling, the holes in the walls where they d run electrical conduit, the tile floor streaked white with plaster dust, litteredwith wire, pipe, and lumber.She came out into a giant open area that hadn t yet been divided into rooms.Cable snaked out of large holes in the ceiling, dangled by her face.Streetlight filtered through the tall, narrow windows, striping piles of ceiling tile, paint cans, and metal posts.They were supposed to be finishedwith all this by next month.She wondered if they would even bother, given how things were in the city.The wing looked more like a structure theywere stripping, demolishing, than one they were constructing.Like a building under autopsy, she thought.She could no longer hear the otherfootsteps ahead of her.She heard her own steps, crunching the grit under foot, and her own ragged breath.She flashed her light overhead, and something flashed back.A couple of cameras projected from a metal beam.Blind, their wires wrappeduselessly around the beam.She walked on, following the connections with her light.There were a series of blank television monitors, theirenormous gray eyes staring down at her.Someone cried softly in the darkness ahead.Elaine aimed her light there, but all she could see were crates, paneling leaned against the wall andfile:///C|/.prehensive%20collection/Anthologies/Book%20of%20The%20Dead/Stephen%20King%20-%20Book%20of%20the%20Dead.htm[3/19/2010 4:15:02 PM]stacked on the floor, metal supports and crosspieces.A tangle of sharp angles.But then there was that cry again. Betty? Tom?A pale face loomed into the blurred, yellowed beam.A soft shake of the face, side to side.The eyes were too white, and had a distant stare. Betty? The face shook and shook again.Betty stumbled out of a jumble of cardboard boxes, construction and stored medical supplies breakingbeneath her stumbling feet. No&  Betty s mouth moved as if in slow-motion.Her lipstick looked too bright, her mascara too dark. No, she said again, and something darkdripped out of her eyes as her head began to shake.Elaine s light picked up a glint in Betty s right hand. Betty? Betty stumbled forward and fell, keeping that right hand out in front of her.Elainestepped closer thinking to help Betty up, but then saw that Betty s right arm was swinging slowly side to side, a scalpel clutched tightly in herhand. Betty! Let me help you! No! Betty screamed.Her head began to thrash back and forth on the litter-covered floor.Her cheeks rolled again and again over broken glass.Blood welled, smeared, and stained her face as her head moved no no no.She struggled to control the hand holding the scalpel.Then she suddenlyplunged it into her throat.Her left hand came up jerkily and helped her pull the scalpel through muscle and skin.Elaine fell to her knees, grabbed paper and cloth, anything at hand to dam the dark flow from Betty s throat.After a minute or two she stopped andturned away.There were more noises off in the darkness.At the back of the room where she d first seen Betty, Elaine found a doorless passage to another room.Her light now had a vague reddish tinge.She wondered hazily if there was blood on the flashlight lens, or blood in her eyes.But the light stillshowed the way.She followed it, hearing a harsh, wet sound.For just a moment she thought that maybe Betty might still be alive.She started to goback when she heard it again; it was definitely in the room ahead of her.She tried not to think of Betty as she made her way through the darkness.That wasn t Betty.That was just her body.Elaine s mother used tobabble things like that to her all the time.Spiritual things.Elaine didn t know what she herself felt.Someone dies, you don t know them anymore.You can t imagine what they might be thinking.The room had the sharp smell of fresh paint.Drop cloths had been piled in the center of the floor.The windows were crisscrossed by long stretchesof masking tape, and outside lights left odd patterns like angular spiderwebs on all the objects in the room.A heavy cord dropped out of the ceiling to a small switch box on the floor, which was in turn connected to a large mercury lamp the constructioncrew must have been using.Elaine bent over and flipped the switch.The light was like an explosion.It created strange, skeletal shadows in the drop cloths, as if she were suddenly seeing through them.She walkedsteadily toward the pile, keeping an eye on those shadows.Elaine reached out her hand and several of the cloths flew away.My god, Betty killed him! Betty killed him and cut off that awful, shaking head! The head was a small, sad mound by the boy s filthy, naked body.A soft whispering seemed to enter Elaine s ear, which brought her attention back to that head [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]