Jerusalem's Lot Stephen King

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of Terror, the hellish, screaming Cries of the Whippoorwills dinning in my ears as I ran through those
shadow-riven Woods.
All tends to the Climax, yet unforeseen. I dare not sleep for the Dreams that come, yet not remain
awake for what lunatic Terrors may come. The night is full of awful Sounds and I fear -And yet I feel
the urge to go again, to watch, to see. It seems that Philip himself calls me, and the Old Man. The Birds
cursed cursed cursed
Here the diary of Robert Boone ends.
Yet you must notice, Bones, near the conclusion, that he claims Philip himself seemed to call him. My
final conclusion is formed by these lines, by the talk of Mrs Cloris and the others, but most of all by
those terrifying figures in the cellar, dead yet alive. Our line is yet an unfortunate one, Bones. There is
a curse over us which refuses to be buried; it lives a hideous shadow-life in this house and that town.
And the culmination of the cycle is drawing close again. I am the last of the Boone blood. I fear that
something knows this, and that I am at the nexus of an evil endeavour beyond all sane understanding.
The anniversary is All Saints' Eve, one week from today.
How shall I proceed? If only you were here to counsel me, to help me! If only you were here!
I must know all; I must return to the shunned town. May God support me!
CHARLES
(From the pocket journal of Calvin McCann)
25 October 1850
Mr Boone has slept nearly all this day. His face is pallid and much thinner. I fear recurrence of his
fever is inevitable.
While refreshing his water carafe I caught sight of two unmailed letters to Mr Granson in Florida. He
plans to return to Jerusalem's Lot; 'twill be the killing of him if I allow it. Dare I steal away to
Preacher's Corners and hire a buggy? I must, and yet what if he wakes? If I should return and find him
gone?
The noises have begun in our walls again. Thank God he still sleeps! My mind shudders from the
import of this.
Later
I brought him his dinner on a tray. He plans on rising later, and despite his evasions, I know what he
plans; yet I go to Preacher's Corners. Several of the sleeping-powders prescribed to him during his late
illness remained with my things; he drank one with his tea, all-unknowing. He sleeps again.
To leave him with the Things that shamble behind our walls terrifies me; to let him continue even one
more day within these walls terrifies me even more greatly. I have locked him in.
God grant he should still be there, safe and sleeping, when I return with the buggy!
Still later
Stoned me! Stoned me like a wild and rabid dog! Monsters and fiends! These, that call themselves men!
We are prisoners here -The birds, the whippoorwills, have begun to gather.
26 October 1850
DEAR BONES,
It is nearly dusk, and I have just wakened, having slept nearly the last twenty-four hours away.
Although Cal has said nothing, I suspect he put a sleeping-powder in my tea, having gleaned my
intentions. He is a good and faithful friend, intending only the best, and I shall say nothing.
Yet my mind is set. Tomorrow is the day. I am calm, resolved, but also seem to feel the subtle onset of
the fever again. If it is so, it must be tomorrow. Perhaps tonight would be better still; yet not even the
fires of Hell itself could induce me to set foot in that village by shadowlight.
Should I write no more, may God bless and keep you, Bones.
CHARLES
Posiscriptum - The birds have set up their cry, and the horrible shuffling sounds have begun again. Cal
does not think I hear, but I do.
C.
(From the pocket journal of Calvin McCann)
27 October 1850
He is impersuadable. Very well. I go with him.
4 November 1850
DEAR BONES,
Weak, yet lucid. I am not sure of the date, yet my almanac assures me by tide and sunset that it must be
correct. I sit at my desk, where I sat when I first wrote you from Chapelwaite, and look out over the
dark sea from which the last of the light is rapidly fading. I shall never see more. This night is my night;
I leave it for whatever shadows be.
How it heaves itself at the rocks, this sea! It throws clouds of sea-foam at the darkling sky in banners,
making the floor beneath me tremble. In the window-glass I see my reflection, pallid as any vampire's.
I have been without nourishment since the twenty-seventh of October, and should have been without
water, had not Calvin left the carafe beside my bed on that day.
0, Cal! He is no more, Bones. He is gone in my place, in the place of this wretch with his pipestem
arms and skull face who I see reflected back in the darkened glass. And yet he may be the more
fortunate; for no dreams haunt him as they have haunted me these last days - twisted shapes that lurk in
the nightmare corridors of delirium. Even now my hands tremble; I have splotched the page with ink.
Calvin confronted me on that morning just as I was about to slip away - and I thinking I had been so [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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