Free Revival by Stephen King Page A

she said, not hard, but when he bent to look into her face, his eyes were blazing. “ How bad? Laura, how badly are they hurt? ”
    My mother began to cry. “They’re dead, Charles. I am so sorry.”
    He let go of her and his arms dropped to his sides. “No they’re not,” he said. It was the voice of a man stating a simple fact.
    â€œI should have driven down,” my mother said. “I should have brought the station wagon, yes. I wasn’t thinking. I just came.”
    â€œThey’re not,” he said again. He turned from her and put his forehead against the wall. “No.” He banged his head hard enough to rattle a nearby picture of Jesus carrying a lamb. “No.” He banged it again and the picture fell off its hook.
    She took his arm. It was floppy and loose. “Charles, don’t do that.” And, as if he had been one of her children instead of a grown man: “Don’t, honey.”
    â€œNo.” He banged his forehead again. “No!” Yet again. “ No! ”
    This time she took hold of him with both hands and pulled him away from the wall. “Stop that! You stop it right now!”
    He looked at her, dazed. A bright red mark dashed across his brow.
    â€œSuch a look,” she told me years later, as she lay dying. “I couldn’t bear it, but I had to. Once a thing like that is started, you have to finish it.”
    â€œWalk back to the house with me,” she told him. “I’ll give you a drink of Dick’s whiskey, because you need something, and I know there’s nothing like that here—”
    He laughed. It was a shocking sound.
    â€œâ€”and then I’ll drive you to Gates Falls. They’re at Peabody’s.”
    â€œPeabody’s?”
    She waited for it to sink in. He knew what Peabody’s was as well as she did. By that time Reverend Jacobs had officiated at dozens of funerals.
    â€œPatsy can’t be dead,” he said in a patient, instructional tone of voice. “It’s Wednesday. Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day, that’s what Morrie says.”
    â€œCome with me, Charles.” She took him by the hand and tugged him first to the door and then into the gorgeous autumn sunshine. That morning he had awakened next to his wife, and had eaten breakfast across from his son. They talked about stuff, like people do. We never know. Any day could be the day we go down, and we never know.
    When they reached Route 9—sunwashed and silent, empty of traffic as it almost always was—he cocked his head, doglike, toward the sound of sirens in the direction of Sirois Hill. On the horizon was a smudge of smoke. He looked at my mother.
    â€œMorrie, too? You’re sure?”
    â€œCome on, Charlie.” (“It was the only time I ever called him that,” she told me.) “Come on, we’re in the middle of the road.”
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    They went to Gates Falls in our old Ford wagon, and they went by way of Castle Rock. It was at least twenty miles longer, but my mother was past the worst of her shock by then, and able to think clearly. She had no intention of driving past the scene of the crash, even if it meant going all the way around Robin Hood’s barn.
    Peabody’s Funeral Home was on Grand Street. The gray Cadillac hearse was already in the driveway, and several vehicles were parked at the curb. One of them was Reggie Kelton’s boat of a Buick. Another, she was enormously relieved to see, was a panel truck with MORTON FUEL OIL on the side.
    Dad and Mr. Kelton came out the front door while Mom was leading Reverend Jacobs up the walk, by then as docile as a child. He was looking up, Mom said, as if to gauge how far the foliage had to go before it would reach peak color.
    Dad hugged Jacobs, but Jacobs didn’t hug back. He just stood there with his hands at his sides, looking up at the leaves.
    â€œCharlie, I’m so sorry