Meggie stood beside Jessie’s shoulder for a moment, waiting to be acknowledged, then uttered a low “Humph!” and left the room. Forty-five minutes or so later, Jessie glanced to the left and saw the toasted cheese sandwich. It was now cold, the cheese coagulated into lumps, but she wolfed it nevertheless in five quick bites. Then she turned back to the Mac. The cursor began to dance ahead once more, leading her steadily deeper into the forest.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

That eased my mind a little bit but then I thought, “He could be crouched down back there so the mirror doesn’t show him.” So I managed to get turned around, although I could hardly believe how weak I was. Even the slightest bump made my hand feel like someone was jabbing it with a red-hot poker. No one was there, of course, and I tried to tell myself that the last time I saw him, he really was just shadows… shadows and my mind working overtime.

But I couldn’t quite believe it, Ruth-not even with the sun coming up and me out of the handcuffs, out of the house, and locked inside my own car. I got the idea that it he wasn’t in the back seat he was in the trunk, and if he wasn’t in the trunk, he was crouched down by the back bumper. I got the idea that he was still with me, in other words, and he’s been with me ever since. That’s what I need to make you-you or somebody-understand; that’s what I really need to say. He has been with me ever since. Even when my rational mind decided that he’d probably been shadows and moonlight every time I saw him, he was with me. Or maybe I should say it was with me. My visitor is “the man with the white face” when the sun is up, you see, but he’s “the thing with the white face” when it’s down. Either way, him or it, my rational mind was eventually able to give him up, but I have found that is nowhere near enough. Because every time a board creaks in the house at night I know that it’s come back, every time a funny shadow dances on the wall I know it’s come back, every time I hear an unfamiliar step coming up the walk I know it’s come back-come back to finish the job. It was there in the Mercedes that morning when I woke up, and it’s been here in my house on Eastern Prom almost every night, maybe hiding behind the drapes or standing in the closet with its wicker case between its feet. There is no magic stake to drive through the hearts of the real monsters, and oh Ruth, it makes me so tired.

Jessie paused long enough to dump the overflowing ashtray and light a fresh cigarette. She did this slowly and deliberately. Her hands had picked up a small but discernible shake, and she didn’t want to burn herself When the cigarette was going, she took a deep drag, exhaled, stuck it in the ashtray, and returned to the Mac.

I don’t know what I would have done if the car battery had been dead-sat there until someone came along, I guess, even if it meant sitting there all day but it wasn’t, and the motor started on the first crank. I backed away from the tree I’d hit and managed to get the car pointed down the lane again. I kept wanting to look in the rearview mirror, but I was afraid to do it. I was afraid I might see him. Not because he was there, you understand-I knew he wasn’t-but because my mind might make me see him.

Finally, just as I got to Bay Lane, I did look up. I couldn’t help it. There was nothing in the mirror but the back seat, of course, and that made the rest of the trip a little easier. I drove out to 117 and then up to Dakin’s Country Store-it’s one of those places where the locals hang out when they’re too broke to go over to Rangeley or to one of the bars in Motton. They mostly sit at the lunch counter, eating doughnuts and swapping lies about what they did on Saturday night. I pulled in behind the gas pumps and just sat there for five minutes or so, watching the loggers and the caretakers and the power company guys go in and come back out. I couldn’t believe they were real-isn’t that a hoot? I kept thinking they were ghosts, that pretty soon my eyes would adjust to the daylight and I’d be able to see right through them. I was thirsty again, and every time someone came out with one of those little white Styrofoam cups of coffee, I’d get thirstier, but I still couldn’t quite bring myself to get out of the car… to go among the ghosts, you might say.

I suppose I would have, eventually, but before I could muster enough courage to do more than pull up the master-lock, Jimmy Eggart pulled in and parked beside me. Jimmy’s a retired CPA from Boston who lives at the lake year-round since his wife died back in 1987 or “88. He got out of his Bronco, looked at me, recognized me, and started to smile. Then his face changed, first to concern and then to horror. He came to the Mercedes and bent down to look through the window, and he was so surprised that all the wrinkles were pulled out of his face. I remember that very clearly: how surprise made Jimmy Eggart look young.

I saw his mouth forming the words “Jessie, are you all right?” I wanted to open the door, but all at once I didn’t quite dare. This crazy idea came into my head. That the thing I’d been calling the space cowboy had been in Jimmy’s house, too, only Jimmy hadn’t been as lucky as I had been. it had killed him, and cut off his face, and then put it on like a Halloween mask. I knew it was a crazy idea, but knowing that didn’t help much, because I couldn’t stop thinking it. I couldn’t make myself open the fucking car door, either,

I don’t know how bad I looked that morning and don’t want to know, but it must have been bad, because pretty soon Jimmy Eggart didn’t look surprised anymore. He looked scared enough to run and sick enough to puke. He didn’t do either one, God bless him. What he did was open the car door and ask me what had happened, had it been an accident or had someone hurt me.

I only had to take one look down to get an idea what had put a buzz under him. At some point the wound in my wrist must have opened up again, because the sanitary pad I’d taped around it was entirely soaked. The front of my skirt was soaked, too, as if I’d had the world’s worst period. I was sitting in blood, there was blood on the steering wheel, blood on the console, blood on the shift-lever… there were even splatters on the windshield. Most of it had dried to that awful maroon color blood gets-to me it looks like chocolate milk-but some of it was still red and wet. Until you see something like that, Ruth, you just don’t have any idea how much blood there really is in a person. It’s no wonder Jimmy freaked.

I tried to get out-I think I wanted to show him I could do it under my own power, and that would reassure him-but I bumped my right hand on the steering wheel and everything went white and gray. I didn’t pass out completely, but it was as if the last bunch of wires between my head and my body had been cut. I felt myself failing forward and I remember thinking I was going to finish my adventures by knocking most of my teeth out on the asphalt… and after spending a fortune to get the top ones capped just last year. Then Jimmy caught me… right by the boobs, as a matter of fact, I heard him yelling at the store-'Hey! Hey! I need a little help out here!'-in a high shrieky old man’s voice that made me feel like laughing… only I was too tired to laugh. I laid the side of my head against his shirt and panted for breath. I could feel my heart going fast but hardly seeming to beat at all, as if it had nothing to beat on. Some light and color started to come back into the day, though, and I saw half a dozen men coming out to see what was wrong. Lonnie Dakin was one of them. He was eating a muffin and wearing a pink tee-shirt that said there’s no town drunk here, we just all take turns. Funny what you remember when you think you’re getting ready to die, isn’t it?