by Stephen King
I guess the miracle of healing goes on even when you’re old, because Professor Burkett was down to only one cane and moving pretty well. Not apt to be running in the NYC Marathon again (if he ever had), but he gave Mom a hug at the door and I wasn’t afraid he was going to face-plant when he shook my hand. He gave me a keen look, I gave him a slight nod, and he smiled. We understood each other.
Mom bustled around, setting out the croissants and pats of butter and the tiny pots of jam that came with them. We ate in the kitchen with the mid-morning sun slanting in. It was a nice little meal. When we were done, Mom transferred the remains of the casserole (which was most of it; I guess old folks don’t eat much) to a Tupperware and washed her dish. She set it to dry and then excused herself to use the bathroom.
As soon as she was gone, Professor Burkett leaned across the table. “What happened?”
“He was in the foyer when I came out of the elevator yesterday. I didn’t think about it, just rushed forward and grabbed him.”
“He was there? This Therriault? You saw him? Felt him?” Still half-convinced it was all in my mind, you know. I could see it on his face, and really, who could blame him?
“Yeah. But it’s not Therriault, not anymore. The thing inside, it’s a light, tried to get away but I held on. It was scary, but I knew it would be bad for me if I let go. Finally, when it saw that Therriault was fading out, it—”
“Fading out? What do you mean?”
The toilet flushed. Mom wouldn’t come back until she’d washed her hands, but that wouldn’t take long.
“I told it what you told me to say, Professor. That if I whistled, it had to come to me. That it was my turn to haunt it. It agreed. I made it say it out loud, and it did.”
My mother came back before he could ask any more questions, but I could see he looked troubled and was still thinking the whole confrontation had been in my mind. I got that but I was a little pissed just the same—I mean, he knew stuff, about the rings and Mr. Thomas’s book—but looking back on it, I understand. Belief is a high hurdle to get over and I think it’s even higher for smart people. Smart people know a lot, and maybe that makes them think they know everything.
“We ought to go, Jamie,” Mom said. “I’ve got a manuscript to finish.”
“You always have a manuscript to finish,” I said, which made her laugh because it was true. There were to-read stacks in both the agency office and her home office, and both of them were always piled high. “Before we go, tell the professor what happened in our building yesterday.”
She turned to Professor Burkett. “That was so strange, Marty. Every circuit breaker in the building blew out. All at once! Mr. Provenza—he’s the super—said there must have been some kind of power surge. He said he’d never seen anything like it.”
The professor looked startled. “Only your building?”
“Just ours,” she agreed. “Come on, Jamie. Let’s get out of here and let Marty rest.”
Going out was an almost exact replay of going in. Professor Burkett gave me a keen look and I gave him a slight nod.
We understood each other.
46
That night I got an email from him, sent from his iPad. He was the only person of my acquaintance who ever used a salutation when he sent one, and wrote actual letters instead of stuff like How r u and ROFL and IMHO.
Dear Jamie,
After you and your mother left this morning, I did some research concerning the discovery of the bomb at the Eastport supermarket, a thing I should have done earlier. What I found was interesting. Elizabeth Dutton did not figure prominently in any of the news stories. The Bomb Squad got most of the credit (especially the dogs, because people love dogs; I believe the mayor may have actually given a dog a medal). She was mentioned only as “a detective who received a tip from an old source.” I found it peculiar that she did not take part in the press conference following the successful defusing of the bomb, and that she did not receive an official commendation. She has, however, managed to keep her job. That may have been all the reward she wanted and all her superiors felt she deserved.
Given my research on this matter, plus the strange power outage in your building at the time of your confrontation with Therriault, plus other matters of which you have made me aware, I find myself unable to disbelieve the things you’ve told me.
I must add a word of caution. I did not care for the look of confidence on your face when you said it was your turn to haunt it, or that you could whistle for it and it would come. Perhaps it would, BUT I URGE YOU NOT TO DO IT. Tightrope walkers sometimes fall. Lion tamers can be mauled by cats they believed to be completely tamed. Under certain conditions, even the best dog may turn and bite his master.
My advice to you, Jamie, is to leave this thing alone.
With every good wish from your friend,
Prof. Martin Burkett (Marty)
PS: I am very curious to know the exact details of your extraordinary experience. If you can come and see me, I would listen with great interest. I am assuming you still do not want to burden your mother with the story, since it seems that matters have come to a successful conclusion.
I wrote back right away. My response was much shorter, but I made sure to compose it as he had, like a snail-mail letter.
Dear Professor Burkett,
I’d be glad to do that, but I can’t until Wednesday because of a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday and intramural volleyball, boys against the girls, on Tuesday. If Wednesday is okay, I will come after school, like around 3:30, but I can only stay for an hour or so. I’ll tell my mother I just wanted to visit you, which is true.
Yours in friendship,
James Conklin
Professor Burkett must have had his iPad in his lap (I could picture him sitting in his living room, with all its framed pictures of old times), because he replied at once.
Dear Jamie,
Wednesday will be fine. I will look for you at three-thirty and will supply raisin cookies. Would you prefer tea or a soft drink to go with them?
Yours,
Marty Burkett
I didn’t bother making my reply look like a snail-mail letter, just typed I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee. After thinking about that, I added It’s OK with my mom. Which wasn’t a total lie, and he actually sent me an emoji in return: a thumbs-up. I thought that was pretty hip.
I did speak with Professor Burkett again, but there were no drinks or snacks. He no longer used those things, because he was dead.
47
On Tuesday morning, I got another email from him. My mother got the same one, and so did several other people.
Dear friends and associates,
I have received some bad news. David Robertson—old friend, colleague, and former department head—suffered a stroke at his retirement home on Siesta Key in Florida last evening and is now in Sarasota Memorial Hospital. He is not expected to live, or even to regain consciousness, but I have known Dave and his lovely wife Marie for over forty years and must make the trip, little as I want to, if only to offer comfort to his wife and attend the funeral, should it come to that. I will reschedule such appointments as I have upon my return.
I will be in residence at Bentley’s Boutique Hotel (such a name!) in Osprey for the length of my stay, and you can reach me there, but the best way to get in touch with me is still email. As most of you know, I do not carry a personal phone. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Sincerely yours,
Prof. Martin F. Burkett (Emeritus)
“He’s old school,” I said to Mom as we ate our breakfast: grapefruit and yogurt for her, Cheerios for me.
She nodded. “He is, and there aren’t many of his kind left. To rush to the bedside of a dying friend at his age…” She shook her head. “Remarkable. Admirable. And that email!”
“Professor Burkett doesn’t write emails,” I said. “He writes letters.”
“True, but not what I was thinking of. Really, how many appointme
nts and scheduled visitors do you think he has at his age?”
Well, there was one, I thought, but didn’t say.
48
I don’t know if the professor’s old friend died or not. I only know that the professor did. He had a heart attack on the flight and was dead in his seat when the plane landed. He had another old friend who was his lawyer—he was one of the recipients of the professor’s final email—and he was the one who got the call. He took charge of getting the body shipped back, but it was my mom who stepped up after that. She closed the office and made the funeral arrangements. I was proud of her for that. She cried and was sad because she had lost a friend. I was just as sad because I’d made her friend my own. With Liz gone, he’d been my only grown-up friend.
The funeral was at the Presbyterian church on Park Avenue, same as Mona Burkett’s had been seven years before. My mother was outraged that the daughter—the one on the west coast—didn’t attend. Later, just out of curiosity, I called up that last email from Professor Burkett and saw she hadn’t been one of the recipients. The only three women who’d gotten it were my mother, Mrs. Richards (an old lady he was friendly with on the fourth floor of the Palace on Park), and Dolores Magowan, the woman Mrs. Burkett had mistakenly predicted her widower husband would soon be asking out to lunch.
I looked for the professor at the church service, thinking that if his wife had attended hers, he might attend his. He wasn’t there, but this time we went to the cemetery service as well and I saw him sitting on a gravestone twenty or thirty feet away from the mourners but close enough to hear what was being said. During the prayer, I raised my hand and gave him a discreet wave. Not much more than a twiddle of the fingers, but he saw it, and smiled, and waved back. He was a regular dead person, not a monster like Kenneth Therriault, and I started to cry.
My mother put her arm around me.
49
That was on a Monday, so I never did get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my class. I got the day off school to go to the funeral, and when we got back, I told my mother I wanted to go for a walk. That I needed to think.
“That’s fine…if you’re okay. Are you okay, Jamie?”
“Yes,” I said, and gave her a smile to prove it.
“Be back by five or I’ll worry.”
“I will be.”
I got as far as the door before she asked me the question I’d been waiting for. “Was he there?”
I had thought about lying, like maybe that would spare her feelings, but maybe it would make her feel better, instead. “Yes. Not at the church but at the cemetery.”
“How…how did he look?”
I told her he looked okay, and that was the truth. They’re always wearing the clothes they had on when they died, which in Professor Burkett’s case was a brown suit that was a little too big for him but still looked quite cool, in my humble opinion. I liked that he’d put on a suit for the plane ride, because it was another part of being old school. And he didn’t have his cane, possibly because he wasn’t holding it when he died or because he dropped it when the heart attack struck.
“Jamie? Could your old mom have a hug before you go out on your walk?”
I hugged her a long time.
50
I walked to the Palace on Park, much older and taller than the little boy who’d come from his school one fall day holding his mother’s hand on one side and his green turkey on the other. Older, taller, and maybe even wiser, but still that same person. We change, and we don’t. I can’t explain it. It’s a mystery.
I couldn’t go inside the building, I had no key, but I didn’t need to, because Professor Burkett was sitting on the steps in his brown traveling suit. I sat down beside him. An old lady walked by with a little fluffy dog. The dog looked at the professor. The old lady didn’t.
“Hello, Professor.”
“Hello, Jamie.”
It had been five days since he died on the airplane, and his voice was doing that fade-out thing they do. As if he was talking to me from far away and getting farther all the time. And while he seemed as kind as ever, he also seemed sort of, I don’t know, disconnected. Most of them do. Even Mrs. Burkett was that way, although she was chattier than most (and some don’t talk at all, unless you ask them a question). Because they are watching the parade instead of marching in it? That’s close, but still not quite right. It’s as if they’ve got other, more important things on their minds, and for the first time I realized that my voice must be fading for him, as well. The whole world must be fading.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did it hurt? The heart attack?”
“Yes, but it was over soon.” He was looking out at the street, not at me. As if storing it up.
“Is there anything you need me to do?”
“Only one thing. Never call for Therriault. Because Therriault is gone. What would come is the thing that possessed him. I believe that in the literature, that sort of entity is called a walk-in.”
“I won’t, I promise. Professor, why could it even possess him in the first place? Because Therriault was evil to start with? Is that why?”
“I don’t know, but it seems likely.”
“Do you still want to hear what happened when I grabbed him?” I thought of his email. “The details?”
“No.” This disappointed me but didn’t surprise me. Dead people lose interest in the lives of the living. “Just remember what I’ve told you.”
“I will, don’t worry.”
A faint shadow of irritation came into his voice. “I wonder. You were incredibly brave, but you were also incredibly lucky. You don’t understand because you’re just a child, but take my word for it. That thing is from outside the universe. There are horrors there that no man can conceive of. If you truck with it you risk death, or madness, or the destruction of your very soul.”
I had never heard anyone talk about trucking with something—I suppose it was another of the professor’s old-school words, like icebox for refrigerator, but I got the gist. And if he meant to scare me, he had succeeded. The destruction of my soul? Jesus!
“I won’t,” I said. “I really won’t.”
He didn’t reply. Just looked out at the street with his hands on his knees.
“I’ll miss you, professor.”
“All right.” His voice was growing fainter all the time. Pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to hear him at all, I’d only be able to see his lips moving.
“Can I ask you one more thing?” Stupid question. When you ask, they have to answer, although you might not always like what you hear.
“Yes.”
I asked my question.
51
When I got home, my mother was making salmon the way we like it, wrapped in wet paper towels and steamed in the microwave. You wouldn’t think anything so easy could taste good, but it does.
“Right on time,” she said. “There’s a bag-salad Caesar. Will you put it together for me?”
“Okay.” I got it out of the fridge—the icebox—and opened the bag.
“Don’t forget to wash it. The bag says it’s already been washed, but I never trust that. Use the colander.”
I got the colander, dumped in the lettuce, and used the sprayer. “I went to our old building,” I said. I wasn’t looking at her, I was concentrating on my job.
“I kind of thought you might. Was he there?”
“Yes. I asked him why his daughter never came to visit him and didn’t even come to the funeral.” I turned off the water. “She’s in a mental institution, Mom. He says she’ll be there for the rest of her life. She killed her baby, and then tried to kill herself.”
My mother was getting ready to put the salmon in the microwave, but she set it on the counter instead and plopped down on one of the stools. “Oh my God. Mona told me she was an assistant in a biology lab at Caltech. She seemed so proud.”
“Professor Burkett said she’s cata-whatsit.”
“Catatonic.”
“Yeah. That.”
My mother was looking down at our dinner-to-be, the salmon’s pink flesh kind of glimmering through its shroud of paper towels. She seemed to be thinking very deeply. Then the vertical line between her eyebrows smoothed out.
“So now we know something we probably shouldn’t. It’s done and can’t be undone. Everybody has secrets, Jamie. You’ll find that out for yourself in time.”
Thanks to Liz and Kenneth Therriault, I had found that out already, and I found out my mother’s secret, too.
Later.
52
Kenneth Therriault disappeared from the news, replaced by other monsters. And because he had stopped haunting me, he also disappeared from the forefront of my mind. As that fall chilled into winter, I still had a tendency to step back from the elevator doors when they opened, but by the time I turned fourteen, that little tic had disappeared.
I saw other dead people from time to time (and there were probably some I missed, since they looked like normal people unless they died of injuries or you got right up close). I’ll tell you about one, although it has nothing to do with my main story. He was a little boy no older than I had been on the day I saw Mrs. Burkett. He was standing on the divider that runs down the middle of Park Avenue, dressed in red shorts and a Star Wars tee-shirt. He was paper pale. His lips were blue. And I think he was trying to cry, although there were no tears. Because he looked vaguely familiar, I crossed the downtown side of Park and asked him what was wrong. You know, besides being dead.
“I can’t find my way home!”
“Do you know your address?”
“I live at 490 Second Avenue Apartment 16B.” He ran it off like a recording.
“Okay,” I said, “that’s pretty close. Come on, kid. I’ll take you there.”
