Sleeping Beauties: A Novel

by Stephen King

  With that chore taken care of, she sat back and closed her eyes. Sleep rushed at her like a black engine with no headlight, and oh the relief. The blessed relief.

  The first delicate threads spun out of Lila’s face and caressed her skin.

  PART TWO

  I’LL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD

  It don’t matter if I get a little tired

  I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

  —Warren Zevon

  The spongy old boards of the porch bow and weep beneath Lila’s shoes. A powerful spring breeze shakes the field of oxtail that used to be her own front yard, and the noise is a beautiful roar. The fabulous green of the oxtails strains credulity. She glances back in the direction she has come from and sees that saplings have risen up through the broken pavement of Tremaine Street. They rock in the wind like the hands of confused clocks, trapped between twelve and one. A blue sky covers the world. In Mrs. Ransom’s driveway, her cruiser, the door left ajar, is scaled with rust. All four tires are flat.

  How did she get here?

  Never mind, she tells herself. It’s a dream. Leave it at that.

  She goes inside her house and stops to consider the remains of the little-used dining room: windows broken, tattered curtains curling and uncurling in another waft of breeze, seasons and seasons’ worth of leaves drifted almost to the top of the mold-spackled table. The smell of rot is pervasive. As she walks down the hall, she thinks this might be a time-traveling dream.

  Chunks of the living room ceiling have fallen, littering the carpet with moon rocks. The flatscreen TV is still bolted to the wall, but the screen has gone bad somehow, warped and puffed out, as if it has been baked.

  Dirt and dust have whitened the sliding glass doors to opacity. Lila pulls the right one, and it opens, moaning along its decayed rubber track.

  “Jared?” she asks. “Clint?”

  They were here last night, sitting around a table that now lies on its side. Yellow weeds tower around the edges of the deck and sprout between the boards. Their barbecue, the center of many summer picnic suppers, has been engulfed.

  In the pool, where the waters are the brackish color of a fish tank after a long power outage, a bobcat pauses breast-deep in its crossing. A bird is clamped in its teeth. The bobcat’s eyes are bright and its teeth are large and water beads its fur. Pasted to its broad, flat nose is a white feather.

  Lila rakes her fingernails down her cheek, feels the pain, and decides (reluctantly) that this might not be a dream, after all. If not, how long has she been asleep?

  A good while. Or a bad one.

  The animal blinks its shining eyes and begins to paddle toward her.

  Where am I? she thinks, then thinks, I am home, and then thinks the first thing again: Where am I?

  CHAPTER 1

  1

  Late Friday afternoon, well into the second day of the disaster (in Dooling, at least; in some parts of the world, it was already Aurora Day Three), Terry Coombs awoke to the aroma of sizzling bacon and brewing coffee. Terry’s first coherent thought was: Is there any liquid left in the Squeaky Wheel, or did I drink the whole place, right down to the dishwater? His second was more basic: get to the bathroom. He did just that, arriving in time to vomit copiously into the toilet. For a couple of minutes he rested there, letting the pendulum that was making the room swing back and forth settle to a stop. When it did, he hauled himself up, found some Bayer and swallowed three with gulps of water from the faucet. Back in the bedroom, he stared at the space on the left side of the bed where he recalled that Rita had been lying, cocoon around her head, the white stuff in her mouth sucking inward and billowing out with each breath.

  Had she gotten up? Was it over? Tears prickled Terry’s eyes and he staggered, wearing nothing but his underwear, out into the kitchen.

  Frank Geary sat at the table, dwarfing it with his broad upper body. Somehow the inherent mournfulness of that sight—a big man at a tiny table in bright sunlight—informed Terry of everything he needed to know before any words were spoken. Their gazes met. Geary had a copy of National Geographic folded open. He set it aside.

  “I was reading about Micronesia,” said Frank. “Interesting place. Lots of wildlife, too much of it endangered. Probably you were hoping for someone else. I don’t know if you remember, but I slept over. We moved your wife into the basement.”

  Ah, now it came back. They’d carried Rita downstairs, a man to each end, as if she were a rug, banging their shoulders off the railings and the walls as they descended. They’d left her on the old couch, atop the old quilt that covered it to keep the dust off. Rita was undoubtedly lying there at that moment, surrounded by the other pieces of dusty furniture they’d discarded over the years and intended to yardsale but never got around to: bar chairs with yellow vinyl seats, the VCR, Diana’s old crib, the old woodstove.

  Despondency sapped Terry: he couldn’t even keep his head raised. His chin dropped to his chest.

  In front of the empty chair on the opposite side of the table was a plate with bacon and toast on it. Beside the plate was a cup of black coffee and a bottle of Beam. Terry drew in a ragged breath and sat down.

  He crunched up a piece of bacon and waited to see what would happen. His stomach made noises and swirled around some, but nothing came up. Frank wordlessly added a dollop of whiskey to Terry’s coffee. Terry took a sip. His hands, which he hadn’t realized were trembling, steadied.

  “I needed that. Thank you.” His voice was a croak.

  Though they weren’t close friends, he and Frank Geary had shared a few drinks together over the years. Terry knew Frank was serious about his job as the town’s animal control officer; he knew Frank had a daughter he believed was a pretty terrific artist; he remembered that a drunk had once suggested to Frank that he should leave some irritation or another up to God, and Frank had told the drunk to put a sock in it, and as well-sauced as the drunk had been, he’d caught the warning in Frank’s tone and had not made a peep the rest of the night. In other words, Frank had seemed to Terry like a right enough guy, just not someone whose balls you’d ever want to bust. That Frank was black might have played into a certain sense of necessitated distance, too. Terry had never actually considered the possibility of being buddies with a black guy, although he had nothing against the idea now that he did consider it.

  “It’s no problem,” said Frank. His cool, straightforward manner was reassuring.

  “So, everything’s . . .” Terry had another swallow of the juiced coffee. “The same?”

  “As yesterday? Yeah. Which means everything’s different. For one thing, you’re acting sheriff. Station called looking for you a few minutes ago. The old sheriff has gone missing.”

  Terry’s stomach sent up a bubble of nastiness. “Lila missing? Jeez.”

  “Congratulations, huh? Big promotion. Cue the marching band.”

  Frank’s right eyebrow was wryly arched. They both broke into laughter, but Terry’s dried up quickly.

  “Hey,” Frank said. His hand found Terry’s, squeezed it. “Keep it together, okay?”

  “Okay.” Terry swallowed. “How many women are still awake?”

  “Don’t know. It’s bad. But I’m sure you can handle this.”

  Terry wasn’t. He drank his doctored coffee. He chewed his bacon. His dining companion was quiet.

  Frank drank from his own coffee and looked at Terry over the rim of his cup.

  “Can I handle it?” Terry asked. “Can I really?”

  “Yes.” There was no doubt at all in Frank Geary’s voice. “But you’ll need all the help you can get.”

  “You want me to deputize you?” It made sense to Terry: besides Lila, they were down at least a couple of officers.

  Frank shrugged. “I’m a town employee. I’m here to pitch in. If you want to give me a star, that’s fine.”

  Terry took another slug of the laced coffee and got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

  2

  Aurora had knocked out a quarter o
f the department, but Frank helped Terry fill out a roster of volunteer deputies that Friday morning, and brought in Judge Silver to administer their oaths on Friday afternoon. Don Peters was one of the new hires; another was a high school senior named Eric Blass, young but enthusiastic.

  On Frank’s advice, Terry posted a nine PM curfew. Two-man teams began canvasing Dooling’s neighborhoods to put up the notices. Also to settle folks down, discourage vandalism, and—another notion of Frank’s—to begin cataloging the whereabouts of the sleepers. Frank Geary might have been a dogcatcher before Aurora, but he made a helluva law officer, with a terrific sense of organization. When Terry discovered he could lean on him, he leaned hard.

  Almost a dozen looters were collared. This really wasn’t much in the way of police work, because few bothered to hide what they were doing. They probably believed their behavior would be winked at, but soon learned better. One of these miscreants was Roger Dunphy, Dooling Correctional’s AWOL janitor. On their first Sunday morning cruise around town, Terry and Frank spied Mr. Dunphy blatantly toting a clear plastic bag filled with necklaces and rings that he’d lifted from the rooms of the female residents at Crestview Nursing Home, where he sometimes moonlighted.

  “They don’t need them now,” Dunphy had argued. “Come on, Deputy Coombs, gimme a break. It’s a clear case of salvage.”

  Frank seized the janitor by the nose, squeezing hard enough to make the cartilage creak. “Sheriff Coombs. You’ll call him Sheriff Coombs from now on.”

  “Okay!” Dunphy cried. “I’ll call im President Coombs, if you’ll just leave go of my schnozz!”

  “Return that property and we’ll let this ride,” Terry said, and was gratified by Frank’s approving nod.

  “Sure! You bet!”

  “And don’t you fuck the dog on this, because we’ll be checking.”

  The great thing about Frank, Terry realized during those first three days, was that he grasped the enormous pressure Terry was functioning under in a way that no one else seemed to. He never pressed, but he always had a suggestion and, nearly as important, he kept that leather-encased silver hip flask—very cool, maybe it was a black thing—at the ready for when Terry got low, when it seemed the day would never end and his wheels started spinning in the awful, surreal mud of it all. He was at Terry’s elbow the entire time, stalwart as hell, and he was with him on Monday, Aurora Plus Five, outside the gates of the Dooling Correctional Facility for Women.

  3

  Acting chief Coombs had tried several times over the weekend to convince Clint that he needed to release Eve Black into his custody. Rumors about the woman who had killed the meth dealers were circulating: unlike all the others, the stories went, she slept and woke. At the station, Linny Mars (still hanging in there; you go, girl) had received so many calls regarding this that she had taken to hanging up on anyone who asked. Frank said they had to find out if the rumors were true; it was a priority. Terry supposed he was right, but Norcross was being stubborn, and Terry was finding it increasingly difficult to even get the annoying man on the phone.

  The fires had burned themselves out by Monday, but the countryside near the prison still smelled like an ashtray. It was gray and humid and the misty rain that had been falling off and on since early Friday morning was falling again. Acting Sheriff Terry Coombs, feeling mildewed, stood at the intercom and monitor outside the gates of the Dooling Correctional Facility for Women.

  Norcross still wasn’t buying the transfer order that Judge Silver had signed for Eve Black. (Frank had assisted with that, too, explaining to the judge that the woman might possess a unique immunity to the virus, and impressing on the old jurist the need to act quickly and keep things calm before a riot started.)

  “Oscar Silver’s got no jurisdiction in the matter, Terry.” The doctor’s voice burbled from the speaker, sounding as if it were coming from the bottom of a pond. “I know he signed her in at my wife’s request, but he can’t sign her out. Once she was remanded to me for evaluation, that was the end of his authority. You need a county judge now.”

  Terry couldn’t fathom why Lila’s husband, who had always seemed down-to-earth, was being such a pain in the ass. “There’s no one else right now, Clint. Judge Wainer and Judge Lewis are both asleep. Just our luck to’ve had a couple of female judges on the county circuit.”

  “All right, so go ahead and call Charleston and find out who they’ve appointed as interim,” Clint said. As if they’d come to a happy compromise, as if he’d given even a single damn inch. “But why bother? Eve Black is now asleep like all the rest.”

  Hearing that put a lead ball in Terry’s stomach. He should have known better than to believe a bunch of loose talk. Might as well try to question his own wife, a mummy in the basement dark, sprawled atop the dingy quilt on their old couch.

  “She went down yesterday afternoon,” Norcross continued. “We’ve only got a few inmates that are still awake.”

  “Then why won’t he let us see her?” Frank asked. He had been standing silently throughout the exchange.

  It was a good question. Terry jabbed the call button and asked it.

  “Look, here’s what we’ll do,” said Clint. “I’ll send you a picture on your cell phone. But I can’t let anyone in. That’s lockdown protocol. I’ve got the warden’s book open right here in front of me. I’ll read you what it says. ‘State authorities must enjoin the facility and may remove the Lockdown Order at their discretion.’ State authorities.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t but me, Terry, I didn’t write it. Those are the regulations. Since Hicks walked off on Friday morning, I’m the only administrative officer this prison’s got, and protocol is all I have to go on.”

  “But—” He was starting to sound like a two-cycle engine: but-but-but-but.

  “I had to put us on lockdown. I had no choice. You’ve seen the same news I’ve seen. There’re people going around torching women in their cocoons. I think you’ll agree that my population would be a prime target for that breed of vigilante.”

  “Oh, come on.” Frank made a hissing noise and shook his head. They hadn’t been able to find a uniform shirt large enough to button across his chest, so Frank wore it open to his undershirt. “Sounds like a bunch of bureaucratic gobblydegook to me. You’re the acting sheriff, Terry. That’s gotta trump a doctor, especially a shrink.”

  Terry held up a hand to Frank. “I get all that, Clint. I understand your concern. But you know me, all right? I’ve worked with Lila for more than a decade. Since before she was sheriff. You’ve eaten dinner at my house and I’ve eaten dinner at yours. I’m not going to do anything to any of those women, so give me a break.”

  “I’m trying—”

  “You would not believe some of the garbage I’ve had to shovel up around town over the weekend. Some lady left her stove on and burned down half of Greely Street. A hundred acres of woods south of town are torched. I got a dead high school athlete who tried to rape a sleeper. I got a guy with his head smashed in by a blender. I mean, this is stupid. Let’s put aside the rulebook. I’m acting sheriff. We’re friends. Let me see she’s sleeping like the others, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  The security kiosk on the opposite side of the fence, where an officer ought to have been stationed, was empty. Beyond it, across the parking lot and on the opposite side of the second fence, the prison hunched its gray shoulders. There was no movement to be seen through the bulletproof glass of the front doors, no prisoners taking laps on the track or working in the garden plot. Terry thought of amusement parks in the late fall, the ramshackle appearance they took on when the rides stopped spinning and there were no kids walking around eating ice cream and laughing. Diana, his daughter, was grown now, but he’d taken her on countless amusement park trips when she was younger. Those had been fine times.

  Christ, he could use a nip. Good thing Frank kept his cool flask handy.

  “Check your phone, Terry,” came Clint’s voice through the interc
om speaker.

  The train whistle that was Terry’s ringtone went off. He took his cell phone from his pocket and looked at the photograph that Clint had messaged him.

  A woman in a red top lay on a cell cot. There was an ID number above her breast pocket. Beside the ID number an ID card had been placed. On the card was a photograph of a woman with long black hair, tan skin, and a wide, white smile. The name of the woman was listed as “Eve Black” and her ID number matched the number on the uniform shirt. A cocoon had blotted out her face.

  Terry handed the phone to Frank so he could see the picture. “What do you think? Do we call it good?”

  It occurred to Terry, that he—the acting sheriff—was fishing for a direction from his new deputy, when it was supposed to be the other way around.

  Frank studied the picture and said, “This doesn’t prove jack shit. Norcross could put one on any sleeping woman and add Black’s ID.” Frank returned the phone to Terry. “It doesn’t make any sense, refusing to let us in. You’re the law, Terry, and he’s a goddam prison psychiatrist. He is smoother than slippery elm, I’ll give him that, but it smells. I think it’s a stall game.”

  Frank was right, of course; the picture didn’t prove anything. Why not allow them in to at least see the woman in the flesh, sleeping or not? The world was on the verge of losing half its population. What did some warden’s rulebook matter?

  “Why stall, though?”

  “I don’t know.” Frank took out the flat flask and offered it. Terry thanked him, took a glorious swig of the whiskey, and offered the flask back. Frank shook his head. “Keep it handy.”

  Terry pocketed the flask and thumbed the intercom. “I got to see her, Clint. Let me in, let me see, and we can all get on with our day. People are talking about her. I need to put the talk to rest. If I don’t, we might have a problem I can’t control.”