Just After Sunset

by Stephen King

  She knew who I was. Talked freely. Yes, it was suicide. His car. The garage. Towels laid along the bottoms of the doors, and I am sure an even number of them. Ten or twenty; both good numbers, according to N. Thirty not so good, but do people--especially men living on their own--have as many as thirty towels in their homes? I'm pretty sure they don't. I know I don't.

  There will be an inquest, she said. They will find drugs--the very ones I prescribed, I have no doubt--in his system, but probably not in lethal amounts. Not that it matters, I suppose; N. is just as dead, no matter what the cause.

  She asked me if I would come to the funeral. I was touched. To the point of tears, in fact. I said I would, if the family would have me. Sounding surprised, she said of course they would...why not?

  "Because in the end I couldn't help him," I said.

  "You tried," she said. "That's the important thing." And I felt the stinging in my eyes again. Her kindness.

  Before hanging up, I asked her if he left a note. She said yes. Three words. Am so tired.

  He should have added his name. That would have made four.

  July 7, 2007

  At both the church and cemetery, N.'s people--especially C.--took me in and made me welcome. The miracle of family, which can open its circle even at such critical times. Even to take in a stranger. There were close to a hundred people, many from the extended family of his professional life. I wept at the graveside. Am neither surprised nor ashamed: identification between analyst and patient can be a powerful thing. C. took my hand, hugged me, and thanked me for trying to help her father. I told her she was welcome, but I felt like an imposter, a failure.

  Beautiful summer day. What mockery.

  Tonight I have been playing the tapes of our sessions. I think I will transcribe them. There is surely at least an article in N.'s story--a small addition to the literature of obsessive-compulsive disorder--and perhaps something larger. A book. Yet I am hesitant. What holds me back is knowing I'd have to visit that field, and compare N.'s fantasy to the reality. His world to mine. That the field exists I am quite sure. And the stones? Yes, probably there are stones. With no meaning beyond those his compulsions lent them.

  Beautiful red sunset this evening.

  July 17, 2007

  I took the day off and went out to Motton. It has been on my mind, and in the end I saw no reason not to go. I was "dither-dathering," our mother would have said. If I intend to write up N.'s case, such dither-dathering must stop. No excuses. With markers from my childhood to guide me--the Bale Road Bridge (which Sheila and I used to call, for reasons I can no longer remember, the Fail Road Bridge), Boy Hill, and especially the Serenity Ridge Cemetery--I thought I would find N.'s road without too much trouble, and I did. There could be little question, because it was the only dirt track with a chain across it and a NO TRESPASSING sign.

  I parked in the cemetery lot, as N. had done before me. Although it was a bright hot summer midday, I could hear only a few birds singing, and those very distant. No cars passed on Route 117, only one overloaded pulp-truck that went droning past at seventy miles an hour, blowing my hair back from my forehead in a blast of hot air and oily exhaust. After that it was just me. I thought of childhood walks taken to the Fail Road Bridge with my little Zebco fishing rod propped on my shoulder like a soldier's carbine. I was never afraid then, and told myself I wasn't afraid on this day.

  But I was. Nor do I count that fear as completely irrational. Back-trailing a patient's mental illness to its source is never comfortable.

  I stood at the chain, asking myself if I really wanted to do this--if I wanted to trespass, not just on land that wasn't mine, but on an obsessive-compulsive fantasy that had very likely killed its possessor. (Or--this is probably closer--its possessed.) The choice didn't seem as clear as it had in the morning, when I put on my jeans and old red hiking boots. This morning it seemed simple: "Go out and compare the reality to N.'s fantasy, or give up the idea of the article (or book)." But what is reality? Who am I to insist that the world perceived by Dr. B.'s senses is more "real" than that which was perceived by those of the late Accountant N.?

  The answer to that seemed clear enough: Dr. B. is a man who has not committed suicide, a man who does not count, touch, or place, a man who believes that numbers, whether odd or even, are just numbers. Dr. B. is a man who is able to cope with the world. Ultimately, Accountant N. was not. Therefore, Dr. B.'s perception of reality is more viable than Accountant N.'s.

  But once I was there, and sensed the quiet power of the place (even at the foot of the road, while still outside the chain), it occurred to me that the choice was really much simpler: walk up that deserted road to Ackerman's Field or turn around and walk back down the blacktop to my car. Drive away. Forget the possible book, forget the rather more probable article. Forget N. and get on with my own life.

  Except. Except.

  Driving away might (I only say might) mean that on some level, one deep in my subconscious, where all the old superstitions still live (going hand in hand with all the old red urges), I had accepted N.'s belief that Ackerman's Field contains a thin place protected by magic ringstones, and that if I were to go there, I might re-activate some terrible process, some terrible struggle, which N. felt his suicide could halt (at least temporarily). It would mean I had accepted (in that same deep part of me where we are all nearly as similar as ants toiling in an underground nest) the idea that I was to be the next guardian. That I had been called. And if I gave in to such notions...

  "My life would never be the same." I said that aloud. "I could never look at the world in the same way."

  All at once the business seemed very serious. Sometimes we drift, do we not? Into places where the choices are no longer simple, and the consequences of picking the wrong option become grave. Perhaps life-or sanity-threatening.

  Or...what if they aren't choices at all? What if they only look like choices?

  I pushed the idea aside and squeezed past one of the posts holding the chains. I have been called a witch-doctor both by patients and (jokingly, I assume) by my peers, but I had no wish to think of myself that way; to look at myself in the shaving-mirror and think, There is a man who was influenced at a critical moment not by his own thought-processes but by a dead patient's delusion.

  There were no trees across the road, but I saw several--birches and pines, mostly--lying in the ditch on the uphill side. They might have fallen this year and been dragged aside, or last year, or the year before. It was impossible for me to tell. I'm no woodsman.

  I came to a rising hill and saw the woods pull away on either side, opening a vast stretch of hot summer sky. It was like walking into N.'s head. I stopped halfway up the hill, not because I was out of breath, but to ask myself one final time if this was what I wanted. Then I continued on.

  I wish I hadn't.

  The field was there, and the view opening to the west was every bit as spectacular as N. had suggested--breathtaking, really. Even with the sun high and yellow instead of sitting red above the horizon. The stones were there, too, about forty yards down the slope. And yes, they do suggest circularity, although they are in no sense the sort of circle one sees at Stonehenge. I counted them. There were eight, just as N. said.

  (Except when he said there were seven.)

  The grass inside that rough grouping did look a bit patchy and yellow compared to the thigh-high greenery in the rest of the field (it stretches down to a wide acreage of mixed oaks, firs, and birches), but it was by no means dead. What caught my attention closer by was a little cluster of sumac bushes. Those weren't dead, either--at least I don't think so, but the leaves were black instead of green-streaked-with-red, and they had no shape. They were ill-formed things, somehow hard to look at. They offended the order the eye expected. I can't put it any better than that.

  About ten yards down from where I stood, I saw something white caught in one of those bushes. I walked toward it, saw it was an envelope, and knew N. had left it for me. If not on t
he day of his suicide, then not long before. I felt a terrible sinking in my stomach. A clear sense that in deciding to come here (if I did decide), I had made the wrong choice. That I had been certain to make the wrong choice, in fact, having been educated to trust my intellect over my instincts.

  Rubbish. I know I shouldn't be thinking this way.

  Of course (here's a point!), N. knew, too, and went on thinking that way just the same. No doubt counting the towels even as he prepared for his own...

  To make sure it was an even number.

  Shit. The mind gets up to funny tricks, doesn't it? Shadows grow faces.

  The envelope was wrapped in a clear plastic Baggie to keep it dry. The printing on the front was perfectly firm, perfectly clear: DR. JOHN BONSAINT.

  I took it out of the Baggie, then looked down the slope at the stones again. Still eight. Of course there were. But not a bird sang, not a cricket creaked. The day held its breath. Every shadow was carved. I know now what N. meant about feeling cast back in time.

  There was something in the envelope; I could feel it sliding back and forth, and my fingers knew it for what it was even before I tore off the end of the envelope and dumped it into the palm of my hand. A key.

  Also a note. Just two words. Sorry, Doc. And his name, of course. First name only. That makes three words, in all. Not a good number. At least according to N.

  I put the key in my pocket and stood beside a sumac bush that didn't look like a sumac bush--black leaves, branches twisted until they almost looked like runes, or letters...

  Not CTHUN!

  ...and decided, Time to leave. That's enough. If something has mutated the bushes, some environmental condition that's poisoned the ground, so be it. The bushes are not the important part of this landscape; the stones are the important part. There are eight. You have tested the world and found it as you hoped it would be, as you knew it would be, as it always was. If this field seems too quiet--fraught, somehow--that is undoubtedly the lingering effect of N.'s story on your own mind. Not to mention his suicide. Now go back to your life. Never mind the silence, or the sense--in your mind like a thundercloud--that something is lurking in that silence. Go back to your life, Dr. B.

  Go back while you still can.

  I returned to the end of the road. The high green hay whickering against my jeans like a low, gasping voice. The sun beating on my neck and shoulders.

  I felt an urge to turn and look again. Strong urge. I fought it and lost.

  When I turned around I saw seven stones. Not eight, but seven. I counted them twice to make sure. And it did seem darker inside the stones, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. One so small it made shade only in that place. Only it didn't look like a shadow. It looked like a particular darkness, one that was moving over the yellow, matted grass, circling in on itself and then belling out again toward the gap where, I was sure (almost sure; that's the hell of it) an eighth stone had been standing when I arrived.

  I thought, I have no camera to look through and make it come back.

  I thought, I have to make this stop while I can still tell myself nothing is happening. Right or wrong, I was less concerned with the fate of the world than with losing hold of my own perceptions; losing hold of my idea of the world. I did not believe in N.'s delusion for even a moment, but that darkness...

  I didn't want it to get a foothold, do you see? Not even a toehold.

  I had put the key back into the torn envelope and tucked the envelope into my hip pocket, but I was still holding the Baggie. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I raised it in front of my eyes and looked at the stones through it. They were a little distorted, a little bleary even when I pulled the plastic tight, but still clear enough. There were eight again, right enough, and that perceived darkness...

  That funnel

  Or tunnel

  ...was gone. (Of course it was never there to begin with.) I lowered the Baggie--not without some trepidation, I admit it--and looked at the stones dead-on. Eight. Solid as the foundation of the Taj Mahal. Eight.

  I walked back down the road, successfully fighting the compulsion to take one more look. Why look again? Eight is eight. Let's get that straight. (My little joke.)

  I have decided against the article. Best to put the whole business of N. behind me. The important thing is that I actually went there, and faced--I am quite sure this is true--the insanity that is in all of us, the Dr. B.'s of the world as well as the N.'s. What did they call it in WWI? "Going to see the elephant." I went to see the elephant, but that does not mean I have to draw the elephant. Or in my case write a description of the elephant.

  And if I thought I saw more? If for a few seconds...

  Well, yes. But wait. That only shows the strength of the delusion that captured poor N. Explains his suicide in a way no note can. Yet some things are best left alone. This is probably just such a case. That darkness...

  That funnel-tunnel, that perceived--

  In any case, I'm done with N. No book, no article. "Turn the page." The key undoubtedly opens the lock on the chain at the end of the road, but I'll never use it. I threw it away.

  "And so to bed," as the late great Sammy Pepys used to say.

  Red sun tonight, sailor's delight shining over that field. Mist rising from the hay? Perhaps. From the green hay. Not the yellow.

  The Androscoggin will be red tonight, a long snake bleeding in a dead birth canal. (Fancy!) I would like to see that. For whatever reason. I admit it.

  This is just tiredness. It will be gone tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning I may even want to reconsider the article. Or the book. But not tonight.

  And so to bed.

  July 18, 2007

  Fished the key out of the trash this morning and put it in my desk drawer. Throwing it away seems too much like admitting something might be. You know.

  Well. And anyway: it's just a key.

  July 27, 2007

  All right, yes, I admit it. I have been counting a few things and making sure there are even numbers around me. Paper clips. Pencils in the jar. Things of that nature. Doing this is strangely soothing. I have caught N.'s cold for sure. (My little joke, but not a joke.)

  My mentor-psychiatrist is Dr. J. in Augusta, now Chief of Staff at Serenity Hill. I called him and we had a general discussion--which I framed as research for a paper I might deliver this winter at the Chicago convention--a lie, of course, but sometimes, you know, it's easier to--about the transitive nature of OCD symptoms, from patient to analyst. J. confirmed my own researches. The phenomena isn't common, but it's not a complete rarity, either.

  He said, "This doesn't have any personal concern for you, Johnny, does it?"

  Keen. Perceptive. Always was. And has lots of info about yours truly!

  "No," I said. "I've just gotten interested in the subject. In fact, it's become something of a compulsion."

  We ended the conversation laughing and then I went to the coffee table and counted the books there. Six. That's good. Six is a fix. (N.'s little rhyme.) I checked my desk to make sure the key was there and of course it is, where else would it be? One key. Is one good or bad? "The cheese stands alone," you know. Probably not germane, but something to think about!

  I started out of the room, then remembered there were magazines on the coffee table as well as books and counted those, as well. Seven! I took the People with Brad Pitt on the cover and threw it in the trash.

  Look, if it makes me feel better, what harm? And it was only Brad Pitt!

  And if this gets worse, I will come clean with J. This is a promise I make to myself.

  I think a Neurontin scrip might help. Although it's an anti-seizure medication, strictly speaking, in cases like mine it's been known to help. Of course...

  August 3, 2007

  Who am I kidding? There are no cases like this, and Neurontin doesn't help. Tits on a bull.

  But counting helps. Strangely soothing. And something else. The key was on the wrong side of the drawer I put it in! That w
as intuition but intuition is not to be SNEEZED AT. I moved it. Better. Then put another key (safe-deposit box) on the other side. Seems to balance it. Six is a fix but two is true (joke). Good sleep last night.

  Well, no. Nightmares. The Androscoggin at sunset. A red wound. A birth canal. But dead.

  August 10, 2007

  Something is wrong out there. The eighth stone is weakening. There is no sense telling myself this isn't so, because every nerve in my body--every cell in my skin!!--proclaims it's true. Counting books (and shoes, yes, that's true, N.'s intuition and not to be "sneezed at") helps, but does not fix THE BASIC PROBLEM. Not even Placing Diagonals helps too much, although it certainly...

  Toast crumbs on the kitchen counter, for instance. You line them up with the blade of a knife. Line of sugar on the table, HA! But who knows how many crumbs? How many grains of sugar? Too many to count!!

  This must end. I'm going out there.

  I will take a camera.

  August 11, 2007

  The darkness. Dear Christ. It was almost complete. And something else.

  The darkness had an eye.

  August 12

  Did I see anything? Actually?

  I don't know. I think I did, but I don't know.

  There are 23 words in this entry.

  26 is better.

  August 19

  I picked up the phone to call J., tell him what's going on with me, then put it down. What would I tell him? Besides: 1-207-555-1863=11. A bad number.

  Valium helps more than Neurontin. I think. As long as I don't overdue it

  Sept 16

  Back from Motown. Covered with sweat. Shaking. But eight again. I fixed it. I! Fixed it! IT! Thank God. But...

  But!

  I cannot live my life this way.

  No, but--I WAS JUST IN TIME. IT WAS ON THE VERGE OF GETTING OUT. The protections only hold so long and then a house-call is necessary! (My little joke.)

  I saw the 3-lobed eye N. spoke of. It belongs to nothing from this world or this universe.

  It is trying to eat its way thru.

  Except I don't accept this. I let N.'s obsession get a finger in my psyche (it's playing stinkyfinger with me if you get my little joke) and it has continued to widen the gap, slipping in a second finger, a third, a whole pulling hand. Opening me up. Opening up my