Chapter 39 thirty-nine

"Back then... I mean, during the Great War... when the train was still stopping in Orrington, Bill hired a car at the station and took the body of his son Dim from the train to the hearse outside. Bill Standing by the hearse, livid, without tears. He took his son's body to the funeral home and was buried two days later in Pleasant Cemetery. Oh, Louis, I forgot to tell you that Bill's wife died when she had her second child Dead, and by the time Dim died, she had been dead for 10 years. It had a lot to do with what happened afterwards. Bill would have been better off if they had had a kid. Don't you? Bill figured it would be easier for him to have someone else in pain. I guess so, you're luckier than him—you've got another kid, I mean, you've got a wife and another kid, and they're both Still alive and well. According to Bill's letter from the troops, Diem fell to machine gun bullets during a charge. He died in Rome on July 15, 1943, and was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.20 The body was transported back to his hometown on the 22nd, and he was buried on the 22nd. But four or five days after the burial, Maggie, a postman in Ludlow Town, said that he saw Dim again on the road, and she was so scared that she almost drove the car to the side of the road. You can understand why. She went back to the post office, threw the parcel and the undelivered mail on George's desk, and told George she was going home, to go to bed and get quiet.

"George asked: 'Markey, are you sick? You're pale.' "Markey said: 'I saw the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. But I don't want to tell you. I'm not going to tell Brian, or my mom, or anyone. When I die I go to heaven If Jesus told me to tell him, maybe I would. But I don't believe it.' And she went away. "Everyone knew that Tim was dead, and his picture and story had been in the Daily News and the American in Bangor the previous week. Half the town had been to his funeral. But here Markey saw him again, saw him walking on the road, stumbling along. She told George 20 years later, when she was dying, and George told me that she seemed to want to She told somebody what she saw, George said, as if it was eating into Markey's head.

"Markey said she saw Dum pale and wearing a pair of old trousers and a faded flannel shirt, but it was a hot day and it must have been 90 degrees even in the shade," Markey said Dim's hair stood on end and his eyes were like raisins on his face. She said, George, I saw a ghost the other day, and it scared the hell out of me. I never thought I'd see something like this, but it was there there. "Oh, it spread fast. Others saw Dim. There was a Miss Stratton, we called her Miss, because no one knew if she was single, or divorced, or widowed. .She has a two room house down the road, she has a lot of jazz records, and sometimes she throws a little dance party, if she has some money, she can do that. She met Dim on the porch of her house, she said Dum came to the side of the road and stopped. She said Dim was just standing there with his hands hanging by his sides and his head thrown forward like a boxer. She said she was standing on the porch, terrified Pounding so hard I couldn't move. She said then Dim turned around like a drunk, one leg out before the other turned and nearly fell. She said Dim Looking directly at her, she lost all strength in her hand, and the basket she was holding dropped on the floor, and the laundry in the basket was dirty again. Louis, she said his eyes looked lifeless and blurred like two pieces Pebbles. But Dim saw her.. He grinned.. She said Dim talked to her and asked if she still had those records, because he wanted to go to her prom, maybe just that night. Miss Trutton hurried back into the house. She didn't dare to go out again for almost a week, but after a week it was over. Many people have seen Dim, some of them are dead now... But there are a few old people. Guys like I'm still alive and they'll tell you about it too if you ask the right questions. We saw him walking up and down the road. A mile east of where his dad lives, back and forth all day Yes, everybody knows, and he walks up and down all night, always pale, and his hair sticks up like an arrow, and his shirt is unbuttoned, and the look on his face... the look on his face..."

Chad stopped to light a cigarette, struck out the match, and watched Louis through the drifting blue smoke, and though the story sounded—almost uncommon, of course—there was no lie in Chad's eyes.He went on: "You know, people have described zombies in Haiti in movies and novels. I don't know if there is such a thing. In the movies these zombies are shambling around, looking straight ahead with lifeless eyes, moving Slow and stupid. Dim is like this, Louis, he's like a zombie in a movie, but he's not. There's something else, there's something hidden in his eyes, you can see it sometimes, But sometimes you can't see it. Louis, there's something hidden in his eyes, I don't think I want to call it thinking, I really don't know what to call it. It's a sneaky thing. Like he told Stratton miss he wants to go to her ball, louis, there's something weird about dim, like a radio signal from somewhere. you look at him and think, 'if he touches me, i'm gonna scream cried out.' That's how it feels.

"Dim was just going up and down the road day and night like that. One day I came home from get off work... oh, must have been around July 23rd and saw George at home. Benson and Alan three in my house Sitting on the back porch drinking iced tea. Norma sat there too, but didn't say a word. George was massaging his half-broken right leg, broken while working on the railroad. He said to me: "This is a bit too much. A female postman at the post office is not willing to deliver mail on that road. This is one thing. It also started to cause riots in the government." "I asked him: 'What do you mean by causing riots in the government?'

"Benson said that the Ministry of Defense called him, and an army captain named Kingsman said that four or five people wrote anonymous letters to them, reporting this weird thing. Kingsman was a little worried about this, because if If a person writes a letter they think it's a joke and laugh it off; if a person writes a series of letters in response, they notify the State Police that there may be a psychopath attacking Bill's family. Hateful. But these letters are written by different people, you can tell from the handwriting of the letters. These people are all reflecting a strange thing: if Dim is dead, how can it be possible to walk back and forth on the road now Well, like a living corpse.

"This Kingsman said if it doesn't settle down, he's going to send someone or himself and they want to know if Dim is really dead, or deserted, or what happened. Because they don't want them His troop records were a mess, and he was trying to figure out who, if not Dim, was buried in the coffin. "Oh, Louis, you can imagine how messed up it was, we sat there over tea and talked about it for almost an hour. Norma asked if we wanted some sandwiches, but no one wanted any. We Finally decided to go to Bill's house together. I will never forget that day, even if I lived to be 160 years old, it was a very hot day, the sun was going down behind the clouds. None of us wanted to go to Bill's house, but we had to Go, Norma knew this already, and she made an excuse to call me into the house and say, 'You don't want them to hesitate to put this off any longer. Chad, you gotta go and sort this out.' It's so annoying.'"

Chad looked at Louis calmly, then said, "Louis, that's what she said, in her own words, it was a nuisance. She also whispered to me, 'Chad, if anything unexpected happens, you Run. Leave the others alone, they have to watch out for themselves. You mark my words, and if anything happens, run away.' "We were in Benson's car, four of us smoking one after the other. Louis, we were all terrified, but one guy really said a word, it was Alan. He said to George: 'Bill must go Over the woods north of Route 15, I bet." No one answered, but I remember George nodding.

"Well, we got to Bill's house, and Alan knocked on the door, but no one answered, so we went around to his back yard, where both his father and son were. Bill sat bent over with a can of beer in front of him, up to Tom was in the back of the yard, staring up at the blood-red sun that was about to set, his face was sprinkled with orange by the setting sun, as if he had been condemned and alive again. Bill, he looked like he had aged seven years suddenly. The clothes look hollow on him, and I think he's lost 40 pounds. His eyes are sunken, and the left corner of his mouth keeps twitching and beeping."

Chad stopped.Seems to be thinking about something, then nodded imperceptibly, and said, "Louis, he looks terrible. Dum looked back at us for a moment, then opened his mouth and smiled. Seeing him open his mouth makes people laugh." Wanted to scream. Then he turned back to look at the sunset. Bill said, 'I didn't hear you knocking.' He was lying, of course, because Alan knocked loud enough to startle a deaf person. No one wanted to As if to say something, I spoke first, and I said, 'Bill, I heard your son died in Italy.' Bill looked me straight in the eye and said, 'That was a mistake.' I said, 'Is that so? ' Bill said, 'Didn't you just stand there without seeing him?' Alan asked him, 'And who was that man you buried the other day?' Bill said, 'If only I knew who it was. I too Don't care who it is." Bill got up to get a cigarette, but knocked it all on the floor and broke two or three trying to pick it up. "Maybe we gotta dig up the graveyard and check it out," said Benson. Don't know? Bill, the damn DOD called me and they wanted to know if it was someone else buried in there instead of Dim." Bill exclaimed, 'Oh, what the hell is buried in there, It's none of my business, is it? I got my son back and Dim came home one day. He got knocked out by a bomb or something, he's kinda weird now but he'll recover of.'

"I suddenly got angry at Bill and I said, 'Bill, let's not talk about this, if the Ministry of Defense send people to dig up the grave, they will find that there is nothing in the coffin, unless you put your son in it when you take it out. Full of rocks. I don't think you're pretending. I know what's going on, everybody here knows what's going on. You went to that woods and you got yourself and this town in big trouble.' Bill said:' You guys go away, I don't have to explain to you, or make sense or anything. When I got the telegram, I felt a sudden despair in life, I could feel my despair in life, like Wet my pants. Ah, I got my son again. They have no right to take my son. He's only 17. He's all that his mom left me, and it's legal. So fuck the troops ,fuck its DOD,fuck its America,fuck you guys too.I got him again and he'll recover.That's all I have to say.Now go back where you came from .' Bill beeped again, and there were big drops of sweat on his forehead, and then I saw that he was crazy, and I would be crazy, and that...that thing live together." Louis felt sick to his stomach.He drank too much beer too fast, and soon the beer would come up.The feeling of heavy bloating in his stomach made him believe that the beer would be full in a while. Chad went on to say, "Well, there's nothing we can do. We were about to go, and Benson said something like, 'God help you, Bill.' Bill said, 'God never helped me,' and I helped myself. ’ Just then Tim came up to us. Louis, he walked in a strange way, like a very old man walking. He raised one foot high, then put it down, And then a drag and lift the other foot up like a crab walking. His hands hang down the sides of his legs. As he gets closer, we can see the red marks on his face, like freckles Or a small burn mark, I think it was from a machine gun bullet that hit him and nearly blew his head off. He smelled like a putrid grave. I saw Alan put his hand over his nose and mouth. The stench was unbearable. You could almost see the maggots wriggling in his hair..." Louis said hoarsely, "Enough, I've heard enough." Chad said with indomitable energy, "You haven't heard enough. Yes, you haven't heard it all. I can't describe it. The truth is much scarier than that. Unless people see it with their own eyes, they don't understand it at all." How bad. Louis, he's dead and alive, and he...he...he knows a lot of things." Louis leaned forward and asked, "Know something?" "Yeah. Dim looked at Alan for a long time, like he was smiling, people could see his teeth anyway, and then he whispered like people had to lean over to hear him. He The voice said to Alan strangely: "Your wife is having sex with the man who works with her in the pharmacy. Alan, what do you think of this? She is screaming excitedly, what do you think?" Alan seemed to be out of breath. You could tell it was a big blow to Alan like he was mad. He's in a nursing home, the last I heard, and he must be in his late 90s. When that happened, He was about 40 years old, and there was some gossip in the town about his second wife. She was his sister-in-law, and she came to live with Alan and Alan's first wife Lucy before the war. Then Lucy died, Alan married the girl a year and a half later. Her name was Lauryn, and she was twenty-four when they got married. You know, people gossip about her before they got married. If it was a man, people would say the girl was loose, Free-spirited, didn't mind too much. But the women thought she might be slutty. Maybe Alan thought that too, so he said, 'Shut up! Shut up, or I'll beat you up, whoever you are!' "Bill also said, 'Dim, shut up.' You know, Bill looked much worse than usual, like maybe he was going to throw up or pass out. And he said it again: 'Dim, you shut up.' "But Dam didn't talk to his dad at all. He looked back at George and said: 'Old man, your very beloved grandson is expecting you to die. All he wants is your money, he thinks you have a lot of money in the bank Yeah. That's why he fawns on you, but he teases you behind your back. He and his sister, call you old wooden leg." Louis, Dim's voice gets more vicious the more he says it, it sounds like George It sounded like your grandson's grandson... Dim went on: 'Old wooden leg, if they find you poor and penniless, they won't be surprised if they don't take revenge on you!' Fell on Bill's porch, on top of a beer can. George paled. Bill stood up and snarled at his son, 'Shut up, Tim!' But Tim wouldn't listen to him, he Then he said some bad things about benson and me and he was almost yelling at us and he was screaming and we started backing up and we started running outside dragging George with him because his prosthetic leg wasn't working I got one last look at Dim in the back yard by the clothesline on the grass in the setting sun, blood-red, bruised face, hair tousled... and he was laughing and pointing over and over again Crying: 'Old wooden leg! Old wooden leg! The adulterer's husband! The adulterer's husband! The bastard of the whorehouse! Goodbye embezzlers! Gentlemen! Goodbye! Goodbye!' Then he laughed, but it sounded like a scream , really...like something inside him was screaming...screaming..." Chad stopped talking, his chest heaving rapidly. Louis said, "Chad, is it true what Dim said about you?" Chad murmured, "It's true, my God! It's true. I used to go to a brothel in Bangor. Probably a lot of men have. Make love, or pay a woman to do something a man won't let his wife do. Luis, men have their own world, and what I do is not a terrible thing. Norma won't leave if she knows Me, but something dear and sweet in her will be gone forever." Chad's eyes were red and swollen.The old man's tears are not very cute, Louis thought.But when Chad reached across the table, Louis grabbed the old man's hand tightly. Chad said after a while, "He's only talking about bad things, just bad things. God knows everybody's done something bad in their life, doesn't he?" Two or three days later, Lauren left Luther Hall for good. Someone in the town saw her before she got on the train and said Lauryn had bruises around both eyes. Alan never said it. George died in 1950 and I never heard he left any for his grandchildren. Something. Benson got fired for exactly what Diem said. I don't think you need to know the exact reason, I think he misused the town common fund, and there was talk of sending him to court, But people don't do that, he's punished enough by losing his job. He's been trying to be a big shot all his life. But these guys have good points. I mean, it's hard for people to remember good points. It's Benson started the foundation for Eastern General Hospital before the war, Alan was the most generous man I ever knew, old George just wanted to run the Post Office forever. But people only want to talk about bad things, people only remember the bad things, Louis, Dim was a normal good kid before he went to war, maybe a bit dumb but good hearted. That thing we saw that night looking up at the sun... it was a monster, maybe a zombie or a devil or something, maybe that thing was not at all There's no name, but the Meek Mikes will know what it is, named or not." Louis asked numbly, "What is it?" Chad took a deep breath, paused, and said calmly, "That's what Wendigo ghost touched." Then he looked at his watch and said, "Oh, Louis, it's too late, I said That's too much, nine times more than I want to say." Louis said: "No, you've been very talkative, tell me how it ended." Chad said: "Two days later there was a fire at Bill's house, the whole house burned down and Alan said there was no doubt that the fire was set on purpose, someone poured cooking oil all over the front and back of the house and the fire went out three days later , people can still smell the smoke.” "Then both of them were burnt." "Oh yes, they were all charred. But both were dead before the fire. Bill killed Beam with a pistol, two shots, in the chest. People presume that Bill killed the Son, put him on the bed and pour the kitchen oil around, then sit in the easy chair by the radio, light the fuel with a match, and shoot himself. They found the pistol in his hand." Louis said, "My God." Chad continued: "Both were charred, but the coroner in town said it looked like Dim had died two or three weeks ago." There was silence. Chad stood up and said, "Louis, I'm not exaggerating when I say I may have killed your son, it may have contributed to his death. They made that place what it is. The Mi'kmacks weren't here all the time. They could have come from Canada, Russia, or Asia, they lived here, in Maine for maybe 1000 years, maybe 2000 years .It's hard to tell because they didn't leave a mark. Now they're gone..One day we will too. But no matter who's here, that place is always there.Louis, that place doesn't say who Whoever owns it may know its secrets. It's a wicked bad place, I didn't mean to take you there to bury kittens. Now I know, there's a magic there, if you know it's good for you and your family What it means, realize it. I'm weak-willed, I can't beat it, you saved Norma, I want to repay you, but the place turns my kindness into its malice, there's a magic there, I'm afraid it's full of magic in there now, I'm afraid it's finding you through me, finding your son, manifesting in your son. Louis, do you understand what I'm saying?" Chad's eyes were pleading. He looked at Louis. Lewis said, "You mean that place knew Gage was going to die, right?" "No, I mean because I told you about the magic of that place, and it probably killed Gage. I mean maybe I meant well and killed your son instead, Louis." "I don't believe it," Louis said finally, his voice trembling.He doesn't believe it, won't believe it, can't believe it. Luis held Chad's hand tightly and said, "We're burying Gage tomorrow, in Bangor City. He's going to rest in Bangor. I don't want to go to the pet cemetery or go up the hill, to that place." .” Chad said sternly, "You swear! You swear!" "I swear," Louis said. But in the back of Louis's brain, he was still thinking... the thought of vowing not to go was just a flash.