If It Bleeds

by Stephen King

  “Okay,” she whispers, and goes into the bathroom.

  Holly turns back to Jerome. “Were you tracking my phone, Jerome Robinson? Was Barbara? Were both of you?”

  The bloody young man standing in front of her smiles. “If I promise to never, ever, call you Hollyberry again, do I have to answer those questions?”

  18

  In the lobby, fifteen minutes later.

  Holly’s pants are too tight for Barbara, and they’re highwater, but she managed to get them buttoned. The ashy look is fading from her cheeks and forehead. She’ll survive this, Holly thinks. There will be bad dreams, but she’ll come through.

  The blood on Jerome’s face is drying to a crack-glaze. He says he has a bitch of a headache but no, he’s not dizzy. Not nauseous. Holly isn’t surprised about the headache. She has Tylenol in her purse, but she doesn’t dare give him any. He’ll get stitches—and an X-ray, no doubt—at the ER, but right now she has to make sure their stories are straight. Once that’s taken care of, she has to finish cleaning up her own mess.

  “You two came here because I wasn’t at home,” she says. “You thought I must be at the office, catching up, because I’d spent a few days with my mother. Right?”

  They nod, willing to be led.

  “You went to the side door in the service alley.”

  “Because we know the code,” Barbara says.

  “Yes. And there was a mugger. Right?”

  More nods.

  “He hit you, Jerome, and tried to grab Barbara. She got him with the pepper spray in her purse. Full face. Jerome, you jumped up and grappled with him. He ran off. Then you two came inside to the lobby and called 911.”

  Jerome asks, “Why did we come to see you in the first place?”

  Holly is stumped. She remembered to reinstate the elevator fix (did it while Barbara was in the bathroom cleaning up and changing, easy-peasy), and she dropped Bill’s gun into her handbag (just in case), but she hasn’t even considered the thing Jerome is asking about.

  “Christmas shopping,” Barbara says. “We wanted to pry you out of the office to go Christmas shopping with us. Didn’t we, Jerome?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” Jerome says. “We were going to surprise you. Were you here, Holly?”

  “No,” she says. “I was gone. In fact, I am gone. Christmas shopping on the other side of town. That’s where I am right now. You didn’t call me right after the attack because… well…”

  “Because we didn’t want to upset you,” Barbara says. “Right, Jerome?”

  “Right.”

  “Good,” Holly says. “Can you both remember that story?”

  They say they can.

  “Then it’s time for Jerome to call 911.”

  Barbara says, “What are you going to do, Hols?”

  “Clean up.” Holly points at the elevator.

  “Oh, Christ,” Jerome says. “I forgot there’s a body down there. I clean forgot.”

  “I didn’t,” Barbara says, and shudders. “Jesus, Holly, how can you ever explain a dead guy at the bottom of the elevator shaft?”

  Holly is remembering what happened to the other outsider. “I don’t think it will be an issue.”

  “What if he’s still alive?”

  “He fell five stories, Barb. Six, counting the basement. And then the elevator…” Holly turns one hand palm up and brings the other down on it, making a sandwich.

  “Oh,” Barbara says. Her voice is faint. “Right.”

  “Call 911, Jerome. I think you’re basically okay, but I’m no doctor.”

  While he does that, she goes to the elevator and brings it up to the first floor. With the fix in place again, it works fine.

  When the doors open, Holly spies a furry hat, the kind the Russians call an ushanka. She remembers the man who passed by her as she was opening the lobby door.

  She returns to her two friends, holding the hat in one hand. “Tell me the story again.”

  “Mugger,” Barbara says, and Holly decides that’s good enough. They’re smart, and the rest of the story is simple. If everything works out the way she thinks it will, the cops aren’t going to care about where she was, anyway.

  19

  Holly leaves them and takes the stairs to the basement, which stinks of old cigarette smoke and what she’s afraid is mold. The lights are off and she has to use her phone to look for the switches. Shadows leap as she shines it around, making it all too easy to imagine the Ondowsky-thing in the dark, waiting to spring out at her and fasten its hands around her neck. Her skin is lightly sheened with sweat, but her face is cold. She has to consciously stop her teeth from chattering. I’m in shock myself, she thinks.

  At last she finds a double row of switches. She flips them all, and banks of fluorescents light up with a hive buzzing. The basement is a filthy labyrinth of stacked bins and boxes. She thinks again that their building superintendent—whose salary they pay—is your basic man-slut.

  She orients herself and goes to the elevator. The doors (the ones down here are filthy and the paint is chipped) are firmly shut. Holly puts her bag on the floor and takes out Bill’s revolver. Then she removes the elevator drop-key from its hook on the wall and jams it into the hole on the lefthand door. The key hasn’t been used for a long time, and it’s balky. She has to put the gun in the waistband of her slacks and use both hands before it will turn. Gun once more in hand, she pushes one of the doors. Both of them slide open.

  A smell of mingled oil, grease, and dust wafts out. In the center of the shaft is a long piston-like thing which she’ll later learn is called the plunger. Scattered around it, among a litter of cigarette butts and fast food bags, are the clothes Ondowsky was wearing when he went on his final trip. A short one, but lethal.

  Of Ondowsky himself, also known as Chet on Guard, there is no sign.

  The fluorescents down here are bright, but the bottom of the shaft is still too shadowy for Holly’s liking. She finds a flashlight on Al Jordan’s cluttered worktable and shines it carefully around, making sure to check behind the plunger. She’s not looking for Ondowsky—he’s gone—but for bugs of a certain exotic type. Dangerous bugs that may be looking for a new host. She sees none. Whatever infested Ondowsky may have outlived him, but not for long. She spies a burlap sack in one corner of the cluttered, filthy basement, and stuffs Ondowsky’s clothes into it, along with the fur hat. His undershorts go last. Holly picks them up between two tweezed fingers, revulsion pulling her mouth down at the corners. She drops the shorts into the sack with a shudder and a little cry (“Oough!”) and then uses the flats of her hands to run the elevator doors closed. She relocks them with the drop-key, then hangs the key back on its hook.

  She sits and waits. Once she’s sure Jerome, Barbara, and the 911 responders must be gone, she shoulders her purse and carries the bag containing Ondowsky’s clothes upstairs. She leaves by the side door. She thinks about tossing the clothes into the Dumpster, but that would be a little too close for comfort. She takes the bag with her instead, which is perfectly okay. Once she’s on the street, she’s just one more person carrying a parcel.

  She’s barely started her car when she gets a call from Jerome, telling her that he and Barbara were victims of a mugging just as they were about to let themselves into the Frederick Building by the side door. They’re at Kiner Memorial, he says.

  “Oh my God, that’s terrible,” Holly says. “You should have called me sooner.”

  “Didn’t want to worry you,” Jerome says. “We’re basically okay, and he didn’t get anything.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Holly dumps the burlap bag containing Ondowsky’s clothes in a trashcan on her way to John M. Kiner Memorial Hospital. It’s starting to snow.

  She turns on the radio, gets Burl Ives bellowing “Holly Jolly Christmas” at the top of his fracking voice, and turns it off again. She hates that song above all others. For obvious reasons.

  You can’t have everything, she thi
nks; into every life a little poop must fall. But sometimes you do get what you need. Which is really all a sane person can ask for.

  And she is.

  Sane.

  December 22, 2020

  Holly has to give a deposition at the offices of McIntyre and Curtis at ten o’clock. It’s one of her least favorite things, but she’s just a minor witness in this custody case, which is good. It’s a Samoyed at issue, rather than a child, and that lowers the stress level a bit. There are a few nasty questions from one of the lawyers, but after what she’s been through with Chet Ondowsky—and George—the interrogation seems pretty tame. She’s done in fifteen minutes. She turns on her phone once she’s in the corridor, and sees she’s missed a call from Dan Bell.

  But it isn’t Dan who answers when she calls back; it’s the grandson.

  “Grampa had a heart attack,” Brad says. “Another heart attack. It’s actually his fourth. He’s in the hospital, and this time he won’t be coming out.”

  There’s a long, watery intake of breath. Holly waits.

  “He wants to know how things went with you. What happened with the reporter. The thing. If I could give him good news, I think it would make it easier for him to go.”

  Holly looks around to make sure she’s alone. She is, but she lowers her voice anyway. “It’s dead. Tell him it’s dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She thinks of that final look of surprise and fear. She thinks of the scream as he—it—went down. And she thinks of the abandoned clothes at the bottom of the shaft.

  “Oh yes,” she says. “I’m sure.”

  “We helped? Grampa, he helped?”

  “Couldn’t have done it without either of you. Tell him he may have saved a lot of lives. Tell him Holly says thanks.”

  “I will.” Another watery intake of breath. “Do you think there are more like him?”

  After Texas, Holly would have said no. Now she cannot be sure. One is a unique number. When you have two, you may be seeing the beginning of a pattern. She pauses, then gives an answer she doesn’t necessarily believe . . . but wants to believe. The old man watched for years. For decades. He deserves to go out with a win under his belt.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good,” Brad says. “That’s good. God bless, Holly. You have a merry Christmas.”

  Under the circumstances she can’t wish him the same, so she simply thanks him.

  Are there more?

  She takes the stairs rather than the elevator.

  December 25, 2020

  1

  Holly spends thirty minutes of her Christmas morning drinking tea in her bathrobe and talking to her mother. Only it’s mostly listening, as Charlotte Gibney goes through her usual litany of passive-aggressive complaints (Christmas alone, achy knees, bad back, etc., etc.), punctuated by long-suffering sighs. Finally Holly feels able, in good conscience, to end the call by telling Charlotte she will be there in a few days, and they’ll go see Uncle Henry together. She tells her mother that she loves her.

  “I love you, too, Holly.” After another sigh that indicates such loving is hard, hard, she wishes her daughter a merry Christmas, and that part of the day is over.

  The rest is more cheerful. She spends it with the Robinson family, happy to fall in with their traditions. There’s a light brunch at ten, followed by the exchange of gifts. Holly gives Mr. and Mrs. Robinson certificates for wine and books. For their children, she was happy to splurge a little more: a spa day (mani-pedi included) for Barbara, and wireless earbuds for Jerome.

  She, in turn, is given not only a $300 gift card for the AMC 12 cinemas close to her, but a year’s subscription to Netflix. Like many deeply committed cineastes, Holly is conflicted about Netflix and has so far resisted it. (She loves her DVDs but firmly believes movies should first be seen on the big screen.) Still, she has to admit she’s been sorely tempted by Netflix and all the other streaming platforms. So many new things, and all the time!

  The Robinson household is normally gender-neutral and everyone-is-equal, but on Christmas afternoon there’s a reversion (perhaps out of nostalgia) to the sexual roles of the previous century. Which is to say, the women cook while the men watch basketball (with occasional trips to the kitchen for tastes of this and that). As they sit down to an equally traditional holiday dinner—turkey with all the trimmings and two kinds of pie for dessert—it begins to snow.

  “Could we join hands?” Mr. Robinson asks.

  They do.

  “Lord, bless the food we are about to receive from your bounty. Thank you for this time together. Thank you for family and friends. Amen.”

  “Wait,” Tanya Robinson says. “That’s not enough. Lord, thank you so much that neither of my beautiful children was badly hurt by the man who attacked them. It would break my heart if they weren’t at this table with us. Amen.”

  Holly feels Barbara’s hand tighten on hers, and hears a faint sound from the girl’s throat. Something that might have been a cry, had it been set free.

  “Now everyone has to tell one thing they’re grateful for,” Mr. Robinson says.

  They go around the table. When it’s Holly’s turn, she says she’s grateful to be with the Robinsons.

  2

  Barbara and Holly try to help with the washing-up, but Tanya shoos them out of the kitchen, telling them to “do something Christmassy.”

  Holly suggests a walk. Maybe to the bottom of the hill, maybe all the way around the block. “It will be pretty in the snow,” she says.

  Barbara’s up for it. Mrs. Robinson tells them to get back by seven, because they’re going to watch A Christmas Carol. Holly hopes it will be the one with Alastair Sim, which in her opinion is the only one worth watching.

  It’s not just pretty outside; it’s beautiful. They are the only ones on the sidewalk, their boots crunching in two inches of new-fallen powder. Streetlights and Christmas lights are surrounded by swirling halos. Holly sticks out her tongue to catch some flakes, and Barbara does the same. It makes them both laugh, but when they reach the bottom of the hill and Barbara turns to her, she’s solemn.

  “All right,” she says. “It’s just the two of us. Why are we out here, Hols? What did you want to ask?”

  “Just how you’re doing with it,” Holly says. “Jerome I don’t worry about. He got clobbered, but he didn’t see what you did.”

  Barbara takes a shuddering breath. Because of the snow melting on her cheeks, Holly can’t tell if she’s crying. Crying might be good. Tears can be healing.

  “It’s not that so much,” she says at last. “The way he changed, I mean. The way his head seemed to turn to jelly. It was horrible, sure, and it opens the gates . . . you know . . .” She puts her mittened hands to her temples. “The gates in here?”

  Holly nods.

  “You realize anything could be out there.”

  “See ye devils, then shall ye not see angels?” Holly says.

  “Is that the Bible?”

  “It doesn’t matter. If what you saw isn’t troubling you, Barb, then what is?”

  “Mom and Dad could have buried us!” Barbara bursts out. “They could have been at that table alone! Not eating turkey and stuffing, they wouldn’t want anything like that, maybe just S-Sp-Spam—”

  Holly laughs. She can’t help it. And Barbara can’t help joining in. Snow is gathering on her knitted cap. To Holly she looks very young. Of course she is young, but more like a twelve-year-old than a young woman who will be going to Brown or Princeton next year.

  “Do you see what I mean?” Barbara takes Holly’s gloved hands. “It was close. It was really, really close.”

  Yes, Holly thinks, and it was your regard for me that put you there.

  She embraces her friend in the falling snow. “Sweetheart,” she says, “we’re all close. All the time.”

  3

  Barbara starts up the steps to the house. Inside, there will be cocoa and popcorn and Scrooge trumpeting that the spirits have done it all
in one night. But there’s a final bit of business that needs to be done out here, so Holly takes Barbara’s arm for a moment in the thickening snow. She holds out a card she put in her coat pocket before leaving for the Robinsons’, in case it might be needed. There’s nothing on it but a name and a number.

  Barbara takes it and reads it. “Who’s Carl Morton?”

  “A therapist I saw after I came back from Texas. I only saw him twice. That was all the time I needed to tell my story.”

  “Which was what? Was it like . . .” She doesn’t finish. She doesn’t have to.

  “I might tell you someday, you and Jerome both, but not on Christmas. Just know that if you need to talk to someone, he’ll listen.” She smiles. “And because he’s heard my story, he might even believe yours. Not that that matters. Telling it is what helps. At least it did me.”

  “Getting it out there.”

  “Yes.”

  “Would he tell my parents?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Barbara says, and puts the card in her pocket. “Thank you.” She hugs Holly. And Holly, who once upon a time feared to be touched, hugs back. Hard.

  4

  It is the Alastair Sim version, and when Holly drives slowly home through the blowing snow, she can’t remember a happier Christmas. Before going to bed, she uses her tablet to send Ralph Anderson a text message.

  There will be a package from me when you get back. I have had quite an adventure, but all is well. We’ll talk, but it can wait. Hope you & yours had a merry (tropical) Christmas. Much love.

  She says her prayers before turning in, finishing as she always does, by saying that she’s not smoking, she’s taking her Lexapro, and she misses Bill Hodges.

  “God bless us every one,” she says. “Amen.”

  She gets in bed. Turns out the light.

  Sleeps.