Carrie drew in a startled, smothered gasp, and Tommy again felt (but for only a second) that weird vertigo in his mind (carrie carrie carrie carrie) that seemed to blank out all thought but the name and image of this strange girl he was with. For a fleeting second he was literally scared shitless. Something fell on the floor with a clink, and at the same instant the candle between them whiffed out. Then Josie and the Moonglows were playing a rock version of Pomp and Circumstance, the ushers appeared at their table (almost magically; all this had been rehearsed meticulously by Miss Geer who, according to rumor, ate slow and clumsy ushers for lunch), a scepter wrapped in aluminum foil was thrust into Tommy's hand, a robe with a lush dogfur collar was thrown over Carrie's shoulders, and they were being led down the center aisle by a boy and a girl in white blazers. The band blared. The audience applauded. Miss Geer looked vindicated. Tommy Ross was grinning bemusedly. They were ushered up the steps to the apron, led across to the thrones, and seated. Still the applause swelled. The sarcasm in it was lost now; it was honest and deep, a little frightening. Carrie was glad to sit down. It was all happening too fast. Her legs were trembling under her and suddenly, even with the comparatively high neck of her gown, her breasts (dirtypillows) felt dreadfully exposed. The sound of the applause in her ears made her feel woozy, almost punchdrunk. Part of her was actually convinced that all this was a dream from which she would wake with mixed feelings of loss and relief. Vic boomed into the mike The King and Queen of the 1979 Spring BallTommy ROSS and Carrie WHITE! Still applause, swelling and booming and crackling. Tommy Ross, in the fading moments of his life now, took Carrie's hand and grinned at her, thinking that Suzie's intuition had been very right. Somehow she grinned back. Tommy (she was right and i love her well i love this one too this carrie she is she is beautiful and it's right and i love all of them the light the light in her eyes) and Carrie (can't see them the lights are too bright i can hear them but can't see them the shower remember the shower o momma it's too high i think i want to get down o are they laughing and ready to throw things to point and scream with laughter i can't see them i can't see them it's all too bright) and the beam above them. Both bands, in a sudden and serendipitous coalition of rock and brass, swung into the school song. The audience rose to its feet and began to sing, still applauding. It was tenoseven. Billy had just flexed his knees to make the joints pop. Chris Hargensen stood next to him with increasing signs of nervousness. Her hands played aimlessly along the seams of the jeans she had worn and she was biting the softness of her lower lip, chewing at it, making it a little ragged. You think they'll vote for them? Billy said softly. They will, she said. I set it up. It won't even be close. Why do they keep applauding? What's going on in there? Don't ask me, babe. I The school song suddenly roared out, full and strong on the soft May air, and Chris jumped as if stung. A soft gasp of surprise escaped her. All rise high for Thomas Ewen Hiiiiyyygh . . . Go on, he said. They're there. His eyes glowed softly in the dark. The odd halfgrin had touched his features. She licked her lips. They both stared at the length of jute cord. We'll raise your banners to the skyyyyyy . . . Shut up, she whispered. She was trembling, and he thought that her body had never looked so lush or exciting. When this was over he was going to have her until every other time she'd been had was like two pumps with a fag's little finger. He was going on her like a raw cob through butter. No guts, babe? He leaned forward. I won't pull it for you, babe. It can sit there till hell freezes. With pride we wear the red and whiiyyyyte . . . A sudden smothered sound that might have been a halfscream came from her mouth, and she leaned forward and pulled violently on the cord with both hands. It came loose with slack for a moment, making her think that Billy had been having her on all this time, that the rope was attached to nothing but thin air. Then it snubbed tight, held for a second, and then came through her palms harshly, leaving a thin burn. I she began. The music inside came to a jangling, discordant halt. For a moment ragged voices continued oblivious, and then they stopped. There was a beat of silence, and then someone screamed. Silence again. They stared at each other in the dark, frozen by the actual act as thought never could have done. Her very breath turned to glass in her throat. Then, inside, the laughter began. It was ten twentyfive, and the feeling had been getting worse and worse. Sue stood in front of the gas range on one foot, waiting for the milk to begin steaming so she could dump in the Nestl's. Twice she had begun to go upstairs and put on a nightgown and twice she had stopped, drawn for no reason at all to the kitchen window that looked down Brickyard Hill and the spiral of Route 6 that led into town. Now, as the whistle mounted atop the town hall on Main Street suddenly began to shriek into the night, rising and falling in cycles of panic, she did not even turn immediately to the window, but only turned the heat off under the milk so it would not burn. The town hall whistle went off every day at twelve noon and that was all, except to call the volunteer fire department during grassfire season in August and September. It was strictly for major disasters, and its sound was dreamy and terrifying in the empty house. She went to the window, but slowly. The shrieking of the whistle rose and fell, rose and fell. Somewhere, horns were beginning to blat, as if for a wedding. She could see her reflection in the darkened glass, lips parted, eyes wide, and then the condensation of her breath obscured it. A memory, halfforgotten, came to her. As children in grammar school, they had practiced airraid drills. When the teacher clapped her hands and said, The town whistle is blowing, you were supposed to crawl under your desk and put your hands over your head and wait, either for the allclear or for enemy missiles to blow you to powder. Now, in her mind, as clearly as a leaf pressed in plastic, (the town whistle is blowing) she heard the words clang in her mind. Far below, to the left, where the high school parking lot wasthe ring of sodium arc lamps made it a sure landmark, although the school building itself was invisible in the darka spark glowed as if God had struck a flintandsteel. (that's where the oil tanks are) The spark hesitated, then bloomed orange. Now you could see the school, and it was on fire. She was already on her way to the closet to get her coat when the first dull, booming explosion shook the floor under her feet and made her mother's china rattle in the cupboards. From We Survived the Black Prom, by Norma Watson (Published in the August, 1980, issue of The Reader's Digest as a Drama in Real Life article) . . . and it happened so quickly that no one really knew what was happening. We were all standing and applauding and singing the school song. ThenI was at the ushers' table just inside the main doors, looking at the stagethere was a sparkle as the big lights over the stage apron reflected on something metallic. I was standing with Tina Blake and Stella Horan, and I think they saw it, too. All at once there was a huge red splash in the air. Some of it hit the mural and ran in long drips. I knew right away, even before it hit them, that it was blood. Stella Horan thought it was paint, but I had a premonition, just like the time my brother got hit by a hay truck. They were drenched. Carrie got it the worst. She looked exactly like she had been dipped in a bucket of red paint. She just sat there. She never moved. The band that was closest to the stage, Josie and the Moonglows, got splattered. The lead guitarist had a white instrument, and it splattered all over it. I said My God, that's blood! When I said that, Tina screamed. It was very loud, and it rang out clearly in the auditorium. People had stopped singing and everything was completely quiet. I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot. I looked up and there were two buckets dangling high over the thrones, swinging and banging together. They were still dripping. All of a sudden they fell, with a lot of loose string paying out behind them. One of them hit Tommy Ross on the head. It made a very loud noise, like a gong. That made someone laugh. I don't know who it was, but it wasn't the way a person laughs when they see something funny and gay. It was raw and hysterical and awful. At that same instant, Carrie opened her eyes wide. That was when they all started laughing. I did too, God help me. It was so . . . so weird. When I was a little girl I had a Walt Disney storybook called Song of the South, and it had that Uncle Remus story about the tarbaby in it. There was a picture of the tarbaby sitting in the middle of the road, looking like one of those oldtime Negro minstrels with the blackface and great big white eyes. When Carrie opened her eyes it was like that. They were the only part of her that wasn't completely red. And the light had gotten in them and made them glassy. God help me, but she looked for all the world like Eddie Cantor doing that popeyed act of his. That was what made people laugh. We couldn't help it. It was one of those things where you laugh or go crazy. Carrie had been the butt of every joke for so long, and we all felt that we were part of something special that night. It was as if we were watching a person rejoin the human race, and I for one thanked the Lord for it. And that happened. That horror. And so there was nothing else to do. It was either laugh or cry, and who could bring himself to cry over Carrie after all those years? She just sat there, staring out at them, and the laughter kept swelling, getting louder and louder. People were holding their bellies and doubling up and pointing at her. Tommy was the only one who wasn't looking at her. He was sort of slumped over in his seat as if he'd gone to sleep. You couldn't tell he was hurt, though; he was splashed too bad. And then her face . . . broke. I don't know how else to describe it. She put her hands up to her face and halfstaggered to her feet. She almost got tangled in her own feet and fell over, and that made people laugh even more. Then she sort of . . . hopped off the stage. It was like watching a big red frog hopping off a lily pad. She almost fell again, but kept on her feet. Miss Desjardin came running over to her, and she wasn't laughing any more. She was holding out her arms to her. But then she veered off and hit the wall beside the stage. It was the strangest thing. She didn't stumble or anything. It was as if someone had pushed her, but there was no one there. Carrie ran through the crowd with her hands clutching her face, and somebody put his foot out. I don't know who it was, but she went sprawling on her face, leaving a long red streak on the floor. And she said, Oof! I remember that. It made me laugh even harder, hearing Carrie say Oof like that. She started to crawl along the floor and then she got up and ran out. She ran right past me. You could smell the blood. It smelled like something sick and rotted. She went down the stairs two at a time and then out the doors. And was gone. The laughter just sort of faded off, a little at a time. Some people were still hitching and snorting. Lennie Brock had taken out a big white handkerchief and was wiping his eyes. Sally McManus looked all white, like she was going to throw up, but she was still giggling and she couldn't seem to stop. Billy Bosnan was just standing there with his little conductor's stick in his hand and shaking his head. Mr. Lublin was sitting by Miss Desjardin and calling for a Kleenex. She had a bloody nose. You have to understand that all this happened in no more than two minutes. Nobody could put it all together. We were stunned. Some of them were wandering around, talking a little, but not much. Helen Shyres burst into tears, and that made some of the others start up. Then someone yelled Call a doctor! Hey, call a doctor quick! It was Josie Vreck. He was up on the stage, kneeling by Tommy Ross, and his face was white as paper. He tried to pick him up, and the throne fell over and Tommy rolled onto the floor. Nobody moved. They were all just staring. I felt like I was frozen in ice. My God, was all I could think. My God, my God, my God. And then this other thought crept in, and it was as if it wasn't my own at all. I was thinking about Carrie. And about God. It was all twisted up together, and it was awful. Stella looked over at me and said Carrie's back. And I said Yes, that's right. The lobby doors all slammed shut. The sound was like hands clapping. Somebody in the back screamed, and that started the stampede. They ran for the doors in a rush. I just stood there, not believing it. And when I looked, just before the first of them got there and started to push, I saw Carrie looking in, her face all smeared, like an Indian with war paint on. She was smiling. They were pushing at the doors, hammering on them, but they wouldn't budge. As more of them crowded up against them, I could see the first ones to get there being battered against them, grunting and wheezing. They wouldn't open. And those doors are never locked. It's a state law. Mr. Stephens and Mr. Lublin waded in, and began to pull them away, grabbing jackets, skirts, anything. They were all screaming and burrowing like cattle. Mr. Stephens slapped a couple of girls and punched Vic Mooney in the eye. They were yelling for them to go out the back fire doors. Some did. Those were the ones who lived. That's when it started to rain . . . at least, that's what I thought it was at first. There was water falling all over the place. I looked up and all the sprinklers were on, all over the gym. Water was hitting the basketball court and splashing. Josie Vreck was yelling for the guys in his band to turn off the electric amps and mikes quick, but they were all gone. He jumped down from the stage. The panic at the doors stopped. People backed away, looking up at the ceiling. I heard somebodyDon Farnham, I thinksay This is gonna wreck the basketball court. A few other people started to go over and look at Tommy Ross. All at once I knew I wanted to get out of there. I took Tina Blake's hand and said, Let's run. Quick. To get to the fire doors, you had to go down a short corridor to the left of the stage. There were sprinklers there too, but they weren't on. And the doors were openI could see a few people running out. But most of them were just standing around in little groups, blinking at each other. Some of them were looking at the smear of blood where Carrie fell down. The water was washing it away. I took Tina's arm and started to pull her toward the exit sign. At that same instant there was a huge flash of light, a scream, and a horrible feedback whine. I looked around and saw Josie Vreck holding onto one of the mike stands. He couldn't let go. His eyes were bugging out and his hair was on end and it looked like he was dancing. His feet were sliding around in the water and smoke started to come out of his shirt. He fell over on one of the ampsthey were big ones, five or six feet highand it fell into the water. The feedback went up to a scream that was headsplitting, and then there was another sizzling flash and it stopped. Josie's shirt was on fire. Run! Tina yelled at me. Come on, Norma. Please! We ran out into the hallway, and something exploded backstagethe main power switches, I guess. For just a second I looked back. You could see right out onto the stage, where Tommy's body was, because the curtain was up. All the heavy light cables were in the air, flowing and jerking and writhing like snakes out of an Indian fakir's basket. Then one of them pulled in two. There was a violet flash when it hit the water, and then everybody was screaming at once. Then we were out the door and running across the parking lot. I think I was screaming. I don't remember very well. I don't remember anything very well after they started screaming. After those highvoltage cables hit that watercovered floor . . . For Tommy Ross, age eighteen, the end came swiftly and mercifully and almost without pain. He was never even aware that something of importance was happening. There was a clanging, clashing noise that he associated momentarily with (there go the milk buckets) a childhood memory of his Uncle Galen's farm and then with (somebody dropped something) the band below him. He caught a glimpse of Josie Vreck looking over his head (what have i got a halo or something) and then the quarterfull bucket of blood struck him. The raised lip along the bottom of the rim struck him on top of the head and (hey that hur) he went swiftly down into unconsciousness. He was still sprawled on the stage when the fire originating in the electrical equipment of Josie and the Moonglows spread to the mural of the Venetian boatman, and then to the rat warren of old uniforms, books, and papers backstage and overhead. He was dead when the oil tank exploded a half hour later. From the New England AP ticker, 1046 P.M. CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP) A FIRE IS RAGING OUT OF CONTROL AT EWEN (UWIN) CONSOLIDATED HIGH SCHOOL AT THIS TIME. A SCHOOL DANCE WAS IN PROGRESS AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK WHICH IS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN ELECTRICAL IN ORIGIN. WITNESSES SAY THAT THE SCHOOL'S SPRINKLER SYSTEM WENT ON WITHOUT WARNING, CAUSING A SHORTCIRCUIT IN THE EQUIPMENT OF A ROCK BAND. SOME WITNESSES ALSO REPORT BREAKS IN MAIN POWER CABLES. IT IS BELIEVED THAT AS MANY AS ONE HUNDRED AND TEN PERSONS MAY BE TRAPPED IN THE BLAZING SCHOOL GYMNASIUM. FIRE FIGHTING EQUIPMENT FROM THE NEIGHBORING TOWNS OF WESTOVER, MOTTON, AND LEWISTON HAVE REPORTEDLY RECEIVED REQUESTS FOR ASSISTANCE AND ARE NOW OR SHORTLY WILL BE EN ROUTE. AS YET, NO CASUALTIES HAVE BEEN REPORTED. ENDS. 1046 PM MAY 27 6904D AP From the New England AP ticker, 1122 P.M. URGENT CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP) A TREMENDOUS EXPLOSION HAS ROCKED THOMAS EWIN (UWIN) CONSOLIDATED HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SMALL MAINE TOWN OF CHAMBERLAIN. THREE CHAMBERLAIN FIRE TRUCKS, DISPATCHED EARLIER TO FIGHT A BLAZE AT THE GYMNASIUM WHERE A SCHOOL PROM WAS TAKING PLACE, HAVE ARRIVED TO NO AVAIL. ALL FIRE HYDRANTS IN THE AREA HAVE BEEN VANDALIZED, AND WATER PRESSURE FROM CITY MAINS IN THE AREA FROM SPRING STREET TO GRASS PLAZA IS REPORTED TO BE NIL. ONE FIRE OFFICIAL SAID THE DAMN THINGS WERE STRIPPED OF THEIR NOZZLES. THEY MUST HAVE SPOUTED LIKE GUSHERS WHILE THOSE KIDS WERE BURNING. THREE BODIES HAVE BEEN RECOVERED SO FAR. ONE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS THOMAS B. MEARS, A CHAMBERLAIN FIREMAN. THE TWO OTHERS WERE APPARENT PROMGOERS. THREE MORE CHAMBERLAIN FIREMEN HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO MOTTON RECEIVING HOSPITAL SUFFERING FROM MINOR BURNS AND SMOKE INHALATION. IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE EXPLOSION OCCURRED WHEN THE FIRE REACHED THE SCHOOL'S FUELOIL TANKS, WHICH ARE SITUATED NEAR THE GYMNASIUM. THE FIRE ITSELF IS BELIEVED TO HAVE STARTED IN POORLY INSULATED ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT FOLLOWING A SPRINKLER SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. ENDS. 1122 PM MAY 27 70119E AP    Sue had only a driver's permit, but she took the keys to her mother's car from the pegboard beside the refrigerator and ran to the garage. The kitchen clock read exactly 1100. She flooded the car on her first try, and forced herself to wait before trying again. This time the motor coughed and caught, and she roared out of the garage heedlessly, dinging one fender. She turned around, and the rear wheels splurted gravel. Her mother's '77 Plymouth swerved onto the road, almost fishtailing onto the shoulder and making her feel sick to her stomach. It was only at this point that she realized she was moaning deep in her throat, like an animal in a trap. She did not pause at the stop sign that marked the intersection of Route 6 and the Back Chamberlain Road. Fire sirens filled the night in the east, where Chamberlain bordered Westover, and from the south behind herMotton. She was almost at the base of the hill when the school exploded. She jammed on the power brakes with both feet and was thrown into the steering wheel like a rag doll. The tires wailed on the pavement. Somehow she fumbled the door open and was out, shading her eyes against the glare. A gout of flame had ripped skyward, trailing a nimbus of fluttering steel roof panels, wood, and paper. The smell was thick and oily. Main Street was lit as if by a flashgun. In that terrible hallway between seconds, she saw that the entire gymnasium wing of Ewen High was a gutted, flaming ruin. Concussion struck a moment later, knocking her backward. Road litter blew past her in a sudden and tremendous rush, along with a blast of warm air that reminded her fleetingly of (the smell of subways) a trip she had taken to Boston the year before. The windows of Bill's Home Drugstore and the Kelly Fruit Company jingled and fell inward. She had fallen on her side, and the fire lit the street with hellish noonday. What happened next happened in slow motion as her mind ran steadily onward (dead are they all dead carrie why think carrie) at its own clip. Cars were rushing toward the scene, and some people were running in robes, nightshirts, pajamas. She saw a man come out of the front door of Chamberlain's combined police station and courthouse. He was moving slowly. The cars were moving slowly. Even the people running were moving slowly. She saw the man on the policestation steps cup his hand around his mouth and scream something; unclear over the shrieking town whistle, the fire sirens, the monstermouth of the fire. Sounded like Heyret! Don't hey that ass! The street was all wet down there. The light danced on the water. Down by Teddy's Amoco station. hey, that's And then the world exploded. From the sworn testimony of Thomas K. Quillan, taken before The State Investigatory Board of Maine in connection with the events of May 2728 in Chamberlain, Maine (abridged version which follows is from Black Prom The White Commission Report, Signet Books New York, 1980) Q. Mr. Quillan. are you a resident of Chamberlain? A. Yes. Q. What is your address? A. I got a room over the pool hall. That's where I work. I mop the floors, vacuum the tables, work on the machinespinball machines, you know. Q. Where were you on the night of May twentyseventh at 1030 P.M., Mr. Quillan? A. Well . . . actually, I was in a detention cell at the police station. I get paid on Thursdays, see. And I always go out and get bombed. I go out to The Cavalier, drink some Schlitz, play a little poker out back. But I get mean when I drink. Feels like the Roller Derby's going on in my head. Bummer, huh? Once I conked a guy over the head with a chair and Q. Was it your habit to go to the police station when you felt these fits of temper coming on? A. Yeah. Big Otis, he's a friend of mine. Q. Are you referring to Sheriff Otis Doyle of this county? A. Yeah. He told me to pop in any time I started feeling mean. The night before the prom, a bunch of us guys were in the back room down at The Cavalier playing stud poker and I got to thinking Fast Marcel Dubay was cheating. I would have known better sobera Frenchman's idea of pullin' a fast one is to look at his own cardsbut that got me going. I'd had a couple of beers, you know, so I folded my hand and went on down to the station. Plessy was catching, and he locked me right up in Holding Cell Number 1. Plessy's a good boy. I knew his mom, but that was many years ago. Q. Mr. Quillan, do you suppose we could discuss the night of the twentyseventh? 1030 P.M.? A. Ain't we? Q. I devoutly hope so. Continue. A. Well, Plessy locked me up around quarter of two on Friday morning, and I popped right off to sleep. Passed out, you might say. Woke up around four o'clock the next afternoon, took three AlkaSeltzers, and went back to sleep. I got a knack that way. I can sleep until my hangover's all gone. Big Otis says I should find out how I do it and take out a patent. He says I could save the world a lot of pain. Q. I'm sure you could, Mr. Quillan. Now when did you wake up again? A. Around ten o'clock on Friday night. I was pretty hungry, so I decided to go get some chow down at the diner. Q. They left you all alone in an open cell? A. Sure. I'm a fantastic guy when I'm sober. In fact, one time Q. Just tell the Committee what happened when you left the cell. A. The fire whistle went off, that's what happened. Scared the bejesus out of me. I ain't heard that whistle at night since the Viet Nam war ended. So I ran upstairs and sonofabitch, there's no one in the office. I say to myself, hot damn, Plessy's gonna get it for this. There's always supposed to be somebody catching, in case there's a callin. So I went over to the window and looked out. Q. Could the school be seen from that window? A. Sure. It's on the other side of the street, a block and a half down. People were running around and yelling. And that's when I saw Carrie White. Q. Had you ever seen Carrie White before? A. Nope. Q. Then how did you know it was she? A. That's hard to explain. Q. Could you see her clearly? A. She was standing under a street light, by the fire hydrant on the corner of Main and Spring. Q. Did something happen? A. I guess to Christ. The whole top of the hydrant exploded off three different ways. Left, right, and straight up to heaven. Q. What time did this . . . uh . . . malfunction occur? A. Around twenty to eleven. Couldn't have been no later. Q. What happened then? A. She started downtown. Mister, she looked awful. She was wearing some kind of party dress, what was left of it, and she was all wet from that hydrant and covered with blood. She looked like she just crawled out of a car accident. But she was grinning. I never saw such a grin. It was like a death's head. And she kept looking at her hands and rubbing them on her dress, trying to get the blood off and thinking she'd never get it off and how she was going to pour blood on the whole town and make them pay. It was awful stuff. Q. How would you have any idea what she was thinking? A. I don't know. I can't explain. Q. For the remainder of your testimony, I wish you would stick to what you saw, Mr. Quillan. A. Okay. There was a hydrant on the corner of Grass Plaza, and that one went, too. I could see that one better. The big lug nuts on the sides were unscrewing themselves. I saw that happening. It blew, just like the other one. And she was happy. She was saying to herself, that'll give 'em a shower, that'll . . . whoops, sorry. The fire trucks started to go by then, and I lost track of her. The new pumper pulled up to the school and they started on those hydrants and saw they wasn't going to get no water. Chief Burton was hollering at them, and that's when the school exploded. Jesus. Q. Did you leave the police station? A. Yeah. I wanted to find Plessy and tell him about that crazy broad and the fire hydrants. I glanced over at Teddy's Amoco, and I seen something that made my blood run cold. All six gas pumps was off their hooks. Teddy Duchamp's been dead since 1968, God love him, but his boy locked those pumps up every night just like Teddy himself used to do. Every one of them Yale padlocks was hanging busted by their hasps. The nozzles were laying on the tarmac, and the automatic feeds was set on every one. Gas was pouring out onto the sidewalk and into the street. Holy mother of God, when I seen that, my balls drew right up. Then I saw this guy running along with a lighted cigarette. Q. What did you do? A. Hollered at him. Something like Hey! Watch that cigarette! Hey don't, that's gas! He never heard me. Fire sirens and the town whistle and cars ripassing up and down the street, I don't wonder. I saw he was going to pitch it, so I started to duck back inside. Q. What happened next? A. Next? Why, next thing, the Devil came to Chamberlain . . . When the buckets fell, she was at first only aware of a loud, metallic clang cutting through the music, and then she was deluged in warmth and wetness. She closed her eyes instinctively. There was a grunt from beside her, and in the part of her mind that had come so recently awake, she sensed brief pain. (tommy) The music came to a crashing, discordant halt, a few voices hanging on after it like broken strings, and in the sudden deadness of anticipation, filling the gap between event and realization, like doom, she heard someone say quite clearly My God, that's blood. A moment later, as if to ram the truth of it home, to make it utterly and exactly clear, someone screamed. Carrie sat with her eyes closed and felt the black bulge of terror rising in her mind. Momma had been right, after all. They had taken her again, gulled her again, made her the butt again. The horror of it should have been monotonous, but it was not; they had gotten her up here, up here in front of the whole school, and had repeated the showerroom scene . . . only the voice had said (my god that's blood) something too awful to be contemplated. If she opened her eyes and it was true, oh, what then? What then? Someone began to laugh, a solitary, affrighted hyena sound, and she did open her eyes, opened them to see who it was and it was true, the final nightmare, she was red and dripping with it, they had drenched her in the very secretness of blood, in front of all of them and her thought (oh . . . i . . . COVERED . . . with it) was colored a ghastly purple with her revulsion and her shame. She could smell herself and it was the stink of blood, the awful wet, coppery smell. In a flickering kaleidoscope of images she saw the blood running thickly down her naked thighs, heard the constant beating of the shower on the tiles, felt the soft patter of tampons and napkins against her skin as voices exhorted her to plug it UP, tasted the plump, fulsome bitterness of horror. They had finally given her the shower they wanted. A second voice joined the first, and was followed by a thirdgirl's soprano gigglea fourth, a fifth, six, a dozen, all of them, all laughing. Vic Mooney was laughing. She could see him. His face was utterly frozen, shocked, but that laughter issued forth just the same. She sat quite still, letting the noise wash over her like surf. They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil. In this one she would bite a poison apple, be attacked by trolls, be eaten by tigers. They were laughing at her again. And suddenly it broke. The horrible realization of how badly she had been cheated came over her, and a horrible, soundless cry (they're LOOKING at me) tried to come out of her. She put her hands over her face to hide it and staggered out of the chair. Her only thought was to run, to get out of the light, to let the darkness have her and hide her. But it was like trying to run through molasses. Her traitor mind had slowed time to a crawl; it was as if God had switched the whole scene from 78 rpm to 33 13. Even the laughter seemed to have deepened and slowed to a sinister bass rumble. Her feet tangled in each other, and she almost fell off the edge of the stage. She recovered herself, bent down, and hopped down to the floor. The grinding laughter swelled louder. It was like rocks rubbing together. She wanted not to see, but she did see; the lights were too bright and she could see all their faces. Their mouths, their teeth, their eyes. She could see her own gorestreaked hands in front of her face. Miss Desjardin was running toward her, and Miss Desjardin's face was filled with lying compassion. Carrie could see beneath the surface to where the real Miss Desjardin was giggling and chuckling with rancid oldmaid ribaldry.


Miss Desjardin's mouth opened and her voice issued forth, horrible and slow and deep Let me help you, dear. Oh I am so sor She struck out at her (flex) and Miss Desjardin went flying to rattle off the wall at the side of the stage and fall into a heap. Carrie ran. She ran through the middle of them. Her hands were to her face but she could see through the prison of her fingers, could see them, how they were, beautiful, wrapped in light, swathed in the bright, angelic robes of Acceptance. The shined shoes, the clear faces, the careful beautyparlor hairdos, the glittery gowns. They stepped back from her as if she was plague, but they kept laughing. Then a foot was stuck slyly out (o yes that comes next o yes) and she fell over on her hands and knees and began to crawl, to crawl along the floor with her bloodclotted hair hanging in her face, crawling like St. Paul on the Damascus Road, whose eyes had been blinded by the light. Next someone would kick her ass. But no one did and then she was scrabbling to her feet again. Things began to speed up. She was out through the door, out into the lobby, then flying down the stairs that she and Tommy had swept up so grandly two hours ago. (tommy's dead full price paid full price for bringing a plague into the place of light) She went down them in great, awkward leaps, with the sound of the laughter flapping around her like black birds. Then, darkness. She fled across the school's wide front lawn, losing both of her prom slippers and fleeing barefoot. The closely cut school lawn was like velvet, lightly dusted with dewfall, and the laughter was behind her. She began to calm slightly. Then her feet did tangle and she fell at full length out by the flagpole. She lay quiescent, breathing raggedly, her hot face buried in the cool grass. The tears of shame began to flow, as hot and as heavy as that first flow of menstrual blood had been. They had beaten her, bested her, once and for all time. It was over. She would pick herself up very soon now, and sneak home by the back streets, keeping to the shadows in case someone came looking for her, find Momma, admit she had been wrong (!! NO !!) The steel in herand there was a great deal of itsuddenly rose up and cried the word out strongly. The closet? The endless, wandering prayers? The tracts and the cross and only the mechanical bird in the Black Forest cuckoo clock to mark off the rest of the hours and days and years and decades of her life? Suddenly, as if a videotape machine had been turned on in her mind, she saw Miss Desjardin running toward her, and saw her thrown out of her way like a rag doll as she used her mind on her, without even consciously thinking of it. She rolled over on her back, eyes staring wildly at the stars from her painted face. She was forgetting (!! THE POWER!!) It was time to teach them a lesson. Time to show them a thing or two. She giggled hysterically. It was one of Momma's pet phrases. (momma coming home putting her purse down eyeglasses flashing well i guess i showed that elt a thing or two at the shop today) There was the sprinkler system. She could turn it on, turn it on easily. She giggled again and got up, began to walk barefoot back toward the lobby doors. Turn on the sprinkler system and close all the doors. Look in and let them see her looking in, watching and laughing while the shower ruined their dresses and their hairdos and took the shine off their shoes. Her only regret was that it couldn't be blood. The lobby was empty. She paused halfway up the stairs and FLEX, the doors all slammed shut under the concentrated force she directed at them, the pneumatic doorclosers snapping off. She heard some of them scream and it was music, sweet soul music. For a moment nothing changed and then she could feel them pushing against the doors, wanting them to open. The pressure was negligible. They were trapped (trapped) and the word echoed intoxicatingly in her mind. They were under her thumb, in her power. Power! What a word that was! She went the rest of the way up and looked in and George Dawson was smashed up against the glass, struggling, pushing, his face distorted with effort. There were others behind him, and they all looked like fish in an aquarium. She glanced up and yes, there were the sprinkler pipes, with their tiny nozzles like metal daisies. The pipes went through small holes in the green cinderblock wall. There were a great many inside, she remembered. Fire laws, or something. Fire laws. In a flash her mind recalled (black thick cords like snakes) the power cords strung all over the stage. They were out of the audience's sight, hidden by the footlights, but she had had to step carefully over them to get to the throne. Tommy had been holding her arm. (fire and water) She reached up with her mind, felt the pipes, traced them. Cold, full of water. She tasted iron in her mouth, cold wet metal, the taste of water drunk from the nozzle of a garden hose. Flex. For a moment nothing happened. Then they began to back away from the doors, looking around. She walked to the small oblong of glass in the middle door and looked inside. It was raining in the gym. Carrie began to smile. She hadn't gotten all of them, only some. But she found that by looking up at the sprinkler system with her eyes, she could trace its course more easily with her mind. She began to turn on more of the nozzles, and more. Yet it wasn't enough. They weren't crying yet, so it wasn't enough. (hurt them then hurt them) There was a boy up on stage by Tommy, gesturing wildly and shouting something. As she watched, he climbed down and ran toward the rock band's equipment. He caught hold of one of the microphone stands and was transfixed. Carrie watched, amazed, as his body went through a nearly motionless dance of electricity. His feet shuffled in the water, his hair stood up in spikes, and his mouth jerked open, like the mouth of a fish. He looked funny. She began to laugh. (by christ then let them all look funny) And in a sudden, blind thrust, she yanked at all the power she could feel. Some of the lights puffed out. There was a dazzling flash somewhere as a live power cord hit a puddle of water. There were dull thumps in her mind as circuit breakers went into hopeless operation. The boy who had been holding the mike stand fell over on one of his amps and there was an explosion of purple sparks and then the crepe bunting that faced the stage was burning. Just below the thrones, a live 220volt electricity cable was crackling on the floor and beside it Rhonda Simard was doing a crazed puppet dance in her green tulle formal. Its full skirt suddenly blazed into flame and she fell forward, still jerking. It might have been at that moment that Carrie went over the edge. She leaned against the doors, her heart pumping wildly, yet her body as cold as ice cubes. Her face was livid, but dull red fever spots stood on each cheek. Her head throbbed thickly, and conscious thought was lost. She reeled away from the doors, still holding them shut, doing it without thought or plan. Inside the fire was brightening and she realized dimly that the mural must have caught on fire. She collapsed on the top step and put her head down on her knees, trying to slow her breathing. They were trying to get out the doors again, but she held them shut easilythat alone was no strain. Some obscure sense told her that a few were getting out the fire doors, but let them. She would get them later. She would get all of them. Every last one. She went down the stairs slowly and out the front doors, still holding the gymnasium doors closed. It was easy. All you had to do was see them in your mind. The town whistle went off suddenly, making her scream and put her hands in front of her face (the whistle it's just the fire whistle) for a moment. Her mind's eye lost sight of the gymnasium doors and some of them almost got out. No, no. Naughty. She slammed them shut again, catching somebody's fingersit felt like Dale Norbertin the jamb and severing one of them. She began to reel across the lawn again, a scarecrow figure with bulging eyes, toward Main Street. On her right was downtownthe department store, the Kelly Fruit, the beauty parlor and barbershop, gas stations, police station, fire station (they'll put out my fire) But they wouldn't. She began to giggle and it was an insane sound triumphant, lost, victorious, terrified. She came to the first hydrant and tried to twist the huge painted lug nut on the side. (ohuh) It was heavy. It was very heavy. Metal twisted tight to balk her. Didn't matter. She twisted harder and felt it give. Then the other side. Then the top. Then she twisted all three at once, standing back, and they unscrewed in a flash. Water exploded outward and upward, one of the lug nuts flying five feet in front of her at suicidal speed. It hit the street, caromed high into the air, and was gone. Water gushed with white pressure in a cruciform pattern. Smiling, staggering, her heart beating at over two hundred per minute, she began to walk down toward Grass Plaza. She was unaware that she was scrubbing her bloodied hands against her dress like Lady Macbeth, or that she was weeping even as she laughed, or that one hidden part of her mind was keening over her final and utter ruin. Because she was going to take them with her, and there was going to be a great burning, until the land was full of its stink. She opened the hydrant at Grass Plaza, and then began to walk down to Teddy's Amoco. It happened to the first gas station she came to, but it was not the last. From the sworn testimony of Sheriff Otis Doyle, taken before The State Investigatory Board of Maine (from The White Commission Report), p. 2931 Q. Sheriff, where were you on the night of May twentyseventh? A. I was on Route 179, known as Old Bentown Road, investigating an automobile accident. This was actually over the Chamberlain town line and into Durham, but I was assisting Mel Crager, who is the Durham constable. Q. When were you first informed that trouble had broken out at Ewen High School? A. I received a radio transmission from Officer Jacob Plessy at 1021. Q. What was the nature of the radio call? A. Officer Plessy said there was trouble at the school, but he didn't know if it was serious or not. There was a lot of shouting going on, he said, and someone had pulled a couple of fire alarms. He said he was going over to try and determine the nature of the trouble. Q. Did he say the school was on fire? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ask him to report back to you? A. I did. Q. Did Officer Plessy report back? A. No. He was killed in the subsequent explosion of Teddy's Amoco gas station on the corner of Main and Summer. Q. When did you next have a radio communication concerning Chamberlain? A. At 1042. I was at that time returning to Chamberlain with a suspect in the back of my cara drunk driver. As I have said, the case was actually in Mel Crager's town, but Durham has no jail. When I got him to Chamberlain, we didn't have much of one, either. Q. What communication did you receive at 1042? A. I got a call from the State Police that had been relayed from the Motton Fire Department. The State Police dispatcher said there was a fire and an apparent riot at Ewen High School, and a probable explosion. No one was sure of anything at that time. Remember, it all happened in a space of forty minutes. Q. We understand that, Sheriff. What happened then? A. I drove back to Chamberlain with siren and flasher. I was trying to raise Jake Plessy and not having any luck. That's when Tom Quillan came on and started to babble about the whole town going up in flames and no water. Q. Do you know what time that was? A. Yes, sir. I was keeping a record by then. It was 1058. Q. Quillan claims the Amoco station exploded at 1100. A. I'd take the average, sir. Call it 1059. Q. At what time did you arrive in Chamberlain? A. At 1110 P.M. Q. What was your immediate impression upon arriving, Sheriff Doyle? A. I was stunned. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Q. What exactly were you seeing? A. The entire upper half of the town's business section was burning. The Amoco station was gone. Woolworth's was nothing but a blazing frame. The fire had spread to three wooden store fronts next to thatDuffy's Bar and Grille, the Kelly Fruit Company, and the billiard parlor. The heat was ferocious. Sparks were flying onto the roofs of the Maitland Real Estate Agency and Doug Brann's Western Auto Store. Fire trucks were coming in, but they could do very little. Every fire hydrant on that side of the street was stripped. The only trucks doing any business at all were two old volunteer fire department pumpers from Westover, and about all they could do was wet the roofs of the surrounding buildings. And of course the high school. It was just. . . gone. Of course it's fairly isolatednothing close enough to it to burnbut my God, all those kids inside. . . all those kids. . . Q. Did you meet Susan Snell upon entering town? A. Yes, sir. She flagged me down. Q. What time was this? A. Just as I entered town . . . 1112, no later. Q. What did she say? A. She was distraught. She'd been in a minor car accidentskiddingand she was barely making sense. She asked me if Tommy was dead. I asked her who Tommy was, but she didn't answer. She asked me if we had caught Carrie yet. Q. The Commission is extremely interested in this part of your testimony, Sheriff Doyle. A. Yes, sir, I know that. Q. How did you respond to her question? A. Well, there's only one Carrie in town as far as I know, and that's Margaret White's daughter. I asked her if Carrie had something to do with the fires. Miss Snell told me Carrie had done it. Those were her words. Carrie did it. Carrie did it. She said it twice. Q. Did she say anything else? A. Yes, sir. She said They've hurt Carrie for the last time. Q. Sheriff, are you sure she didn't say We've hurt Carrie for the last time? A. I am quite sure. Q. Are you positive? One hundred per cent? A. Sir, the town was burning around our heads. I Q. Had she been drinking? A. I beg pardon? Q. Had she been drinking? You said she had been involved in a car smash. A. I believe I said a minor skidding accident. Q. And you can't be sure she didn't say we instead of they? A. I guess she might have, but Q. What did Miss Snell do then? A. She burst into tears. I slapped her. Q. Why did you do that? A. She seemed hysterical. Q. Did she quiet eventually? A. Yes, sir. She quieted down and got control of herself pretty well, in light of the fact that her boy friend was probably dead. Q. Did you interrogate her? A. Well, not the way you'd interrogate a criminal, if that's what you mean. I asked her if she knew anything about what had happened. She repeated what she had already said, but in a calmer way. I asked her where she had been when the trouble began, and she told me that she had been at home. Q. Did you interrogate her further? A. No, sir. Q. Did she say anything else to you? A. Yes, sir. She asked mebegged meto find Carrie White. Q. What was your reaction to that? A. I told her to go home. Q. Thank you, Sheriff Doyle. Vic Mooney lurched out of the shadows near the Bankers Trust drivein office with a grin on his face. It was a huge and awful grin, a Cheshire cat grin, floating dreamily in the fireshot darkness like a trace memory of lunacy. His hair, carefully slicked down for his emcee duties, was now sticking up in a crow's nest. Tiny drops of blood were branded across his forehead from some unremembered fall in his mad flight from the Spring Ball. One eye was swelled purple and screwed shut. He walked into Sheriff Doyle's squad car, bounced back like a pool ball, and grinned in at the drunk driver dozing in the back. Then he turned to Doyle, who had just finished with Sue Snell. The fire cast wavering shadows of light across everything, turning the world into the maroon tones of dried blood. As Doyle turned, Vic Mooney clutched him. He clutched Doyle as an amorous swain might clutch his lady in a hug dance. He clutched Doyle with both arms and squeezed him, all the while goggling upward into Doyle's face with his great crazed grin. Vic Doyle began. She pulled all the plugs, Vic said lightly, grinning. Pulled all the plugs and turned on the water and buzz, buzz, buzz. Vic We can't let 'em. Oh no. NoNoNo. We can't. Carrie pulled all the plugs. Rhonda Simard burnt up. Oh Jeeeeeeeeeesuuuuuuuuussss Doyle slapped him twice, callused palm cracking flatly on the boy's face. The scream died with shocking suddenness, but the grin remained, like an echo of evil. It was loose and terrible. What happened? Doyle said roughly. What happened at the school? Carrie, Vic muttered. Carrie happened at the school. She . . . He trailed off and grinned at the ground. Doyle gave him three brisk shakes. Vic's teeth clicked together like castanets. What about Carrie? Queen of the Prom, Vic muttered. They dumped blood on her and Tommy. What It was 1115. Tony's Citgo on Summer Street suddenly exploded with a great, coughing roar. The street went daylight that made them both stagger back against the police car and shield their eyes. A huge, oily cloud of fire climbed over the elms in Courthouse Park, lighting the duck pond and the Little League diamond in scarlet. Amid the hungry crackling roar that followed, Doyle could hear glass and wood and hunks of gasstation cinderblock rattling back to earth. A secondary explosion followed, making them wince again. He still couldn't get it straight (my town this is happening in my town) that this was happening in Chamberlain, in Chamberlain, for God's sake, where he drank iced tea on his mother's sun porch and refereed PAL basketball and made one last cruise out Route 6 past The Cavalier before turning in at 230 every morning. His town was burning up. Tom Quillan came out of the police station and ran down the sidewalk to Doyle's cruiser. His hair was standing up every which way, he was dressed in dirty green work fatigues and an undershirt and he had his loafers on the wrong feet, but Doyle thought he had never been so glad to see anyone in his life. Tom Quillan was as much Chamberlain as anything, and he was hereintact. Holy God, he panted. Did you see that? What's been happening? Doyle asked curtly. I been monitorin' the radio, Quillan said. Motton and Westover wanted to know if they should send ambulances and I said hell yes, send everything. Hearses too. Did I do right? Yes. Doyle ran his hands through his hair. Have you seen Harry Block? Block was the town's Commissioner of Public Utilities, and that included water. Nope. But Chief Deighan says they got water in the old Rennett Block across town. They're laying hose now. I collared some kids, and they're settin' up a hospital in the police station. They're good boys, but they're gonna get blood on your floor, Otis. Otis Doyle felt unreality surge over him. Surely this conversation couldn't be happening in Chamberlain. Couldn't. That's all right, Tommy. You did right. You go back there and start calling every doctor in the phone book. I'm going over to Summer Street. Okay, Otis. If you see that crazy broad, be careful. Who? Doyle was not a barking man, but now he did. Tom Quillan flinched back. Carrie. Carrie White. Who? How do you know? Quillan blinked slowly. I dunno. It just sort of . . . came to me. From the national AP ticker, 1146 P.M. CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP) A DISASTER OF MAJOR PROPORTIONS HAS STRUCK THE TOWN OF CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE, TONIGHT. A FIRE, BELIEVED TO HAVE BEGUN AT EWEN (UWIN) HIGH SCHOOL DURING A SCHOOL DANCE, HAS SPREAD TO THE DOWNTOWN AREA, RESULTING IN MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS THAT HAVE LEVELED MUCH OF THE DOWNTOWN AREA. A RESIDENTIAL AREA TO THE WEST OF THE DOWNTOWN AREA IS ALSO REPORTED TO BE BURNING. HOWEVER, MOST CONCERN AT THIS TIME IS OVER THE HIGH SCHOOL WHERE A JUNIORSENIOR PROM WAS BEING HELD. IT IS BELIEVED THAT MANY OF THE PROMGOERS WERE TRAPPED INSIDE. A WESTOVER FIRE OFFICIAL SUMMONED TO THE SCENE SAID THE KNOWN TOTAL OF DEAD STOOD AT SIXTYSEVEN, MOST OF THEM HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. ASKED HOW HIGH THE TOTAL MIGHT GO HE SAID WE DON'T KNOW. WE'RE AFRAID TO GUESS. THIS IS GOING TO BE WORSE THAN THE COCONUT GROVE. AT LAST REPORT THREE FIRES WERE RAGING OUT OF CONTROL IN THE TOWN. REPORTS OF POSSIBLE ARSON ARE UNCONFIRMED. ENDS. 1146 PM MAY 27 8943F AP There were no more AP reports from Chamberlain. At 1206 A.M., a Jackson Avenue gas main was opened. At 1217, an ambulance attendant from Motton tossed out a cigarette butt as the rescue vehicle sped toward Summer Street. The explosion destroyed nearly half a block at a stroke, including the offices of the Chamberlain Clarion. By 1218 A.M., Chamberlain was cut off from the country that slept in reason beyond. At 1210, still seven minutes before the gasmain explosion, the telephone exchange experienced a softer explosion a complete jam of every town phone line still in operation. The three harried girls on duty stayed at their posts but were utterly unable to cope. They worked with expressions of wooden horror on their faces, trying to place unplaceable calls. And so Chamberlain drifted into the streets. They came like an invasion from the graveyard that lay in the elbow crook formed by the intersection of the Bellsqueeze Road and Route 6; they came in white nightgowns and in robes, as if in winding shrouds. They came in pajamas and curlers (Mrs. Dawson, she of the nowdeceased son who had been a very funny fellow, came in a mudpack as if dressed for a minstrel show); they came to see what happened to their town, to see if it was indeed lying burned and bleeding. Many of them also came to die. Carlin Street was thronged with them, a riptide of them, moving downtown through the hectic light in the sky, when Carrie came out of the Carlin Street Congregational Church, where she had been praying. She had gone in only five minutes before, after opening the gas main (it had been easy; as soon as she pictured it lying there under the street it had been easy), but it seemed like hours. She had prayed long and deeply, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently. Her heart thudded and labored. The veins on her face and neck bulged. Her mind was filled with the huge knowledge of POWERS, and of an ABYSS. She prayed in front of the altar, kneeling in her wet and torn and bloody gown, her feet bare and dirty and bleeding from a broken bottle she had stepped on. Her breath sobbed in and out of her throat, and the church was filled with groanings and swayings and sunderings as psychic energy sprang from her. Pews fell, hymnals flew, and a silver Communion set cruised silently across the vaulted darkness of the nave to crash into the far wall. She prayed and there was no answer. No one was thereor if there was, HeIt was cowering from her. God had turned His face away, and why not? This horror was as much His doing as hers. And so she left the church, left it to go home and find her momma and make destruction complete. She paused on the lower step, looking at the flocks of people streaming toward the center of town. Animals. Let them burn, then. Let the streets be filled with the smell of their sacrifice. Let this place be called racca, ichabod, wormwood. Flex. And power transformers atop lightpoles bloomed into nacreous purple light, spitting catherinewheel sparks. Hightension wires fell into the streets in pickupsticks tangles and some of them ran, and that was bad for them because now the whole street was littered with wires and the stink began, the burning began. People began to scream and back away and some touched the cables and went into jerky electrical dances. Some had already slumped into the street, their robes and pajamas smoldering. Carrie turned back and looked fixedly at the church she had just left. The heavy door suddenly swung shut, as if in a hurricane wind. Carrie turned toward home.    From the sworn testimony of Mrs. Cora Simard, taken before The State Investigatory Board (from The White Commission Report), pp. 21718 Q. Mrs. Simard, the Board understands that you lost your daughter on Prom Night, and we sympathize with you deeply. We will make this as brief as possible. A. Thank you. I want to help if I can, of course. Q. Were you on Carlin Street at approximately 1212, when Carietta White came out of the First Congregational Church on that street? A. Yes. Q. Why were you there? A. My husband had to be in Boston over the weekend on business and Rhonda was at the Spring Ball. I was home alone watching TV and waiting up for her. I was watching the Friday Night Movie when the town hall whistle went off, but I didn't connect that with the dance. But then the explosion . . . I didn't know what to do. I tried to call the police but got a busy signal after the first three numbers. I . . . I . . . Then . . . Q. Take your time, Mrs. Simard. All the time you need. A. I was getting frantic. There was a second explosionTeddy's Amoco station, I know nowand I decided to go downtown and see what was happening. There was a glow in the sky, an awful glow. That was when Mrs. Shyres pounded on the door. Q. Mrs. Georgette Shyres? A. Yes, they live around the corner. 217 Willow. That's just off Carlin Street. She was pounding and calling Cora, are you in there? Are you in there? I went to the door. She was in her bathrobe and slippers. Her feet looked cold. She said they had called Westover to see if they knew anything and they told her the school was on fire. I said Oh dear God, Rhonda's at the dance. Q. Is this when you decided to go downtown with Mrs. Shyres? A. We didn't decide anything. We just went. I put on a pair of slippersRhonda's, I think. They had little white puffballs on them. I should have worn my shoes, but I wasn't thinking. I guess I'm not thinking now. What do you want to hear about my shoes for? Q. You tell it in your own way, Mrs. Simard. A. TThank you. I gave Mrs. Shyres some old jacket that was around, and we went. Q. Were there many people walking down Carlin Street? A. I don't know. I was too upset. Maybe thirty. Maybe more. Q. What happened? A. Georgette and I were walking toward Main Street, holding hands just like two little girls walking across a meadow after dark. Georgette's teeth were clicking. I remember that. I wanted to ask her to stop clicking her teeth, but I thought it would be impolite. A block and a half from the Congo Church, I saw the door open and I thought Someone has gone in to ask God's help. But a second later I knew that wasn't true. Q. How did you know? It would be logical to assume just what you first assumed, wouldn't it? A. I just knew. Q. Did you know the person who came out of the church? A. Yes. It was Carrie White. Q. Had you ever seen Carrie White before? A. No. She was not one of my daughter's friends. Q. Had you ever seen a picture of Carrie White? A. No. Q. And in any case, it was dark and you were a block and a half from the church. A. Yes, sir. Q. Mrs. Simard, how did you know it was Carrie White? A. I just knew. Q. This knowing, Mrs. Simard was it like a light going on in your head? A. No, sir. Q. What was it like? A. I can't tell you. It faded away the way a dream does. An hour after you get up you can only remember you had a dream. But I knew. Q. Was there an emotional feeling that went with this knowledge? A. Yes. Horror. Q. What did you do then? A. I turned to Georgette and said There she is. Georgette said Yes, that's her. She started to say something else, and then the whole street was lit up by a bright glow and there were crackling noises and then the power lines started to fall into the street, some of them spitting live sparks. One of them hit a man in front of us and he bburst into flames. Another man started to run and he stepped on one of them and his body just . . . arched backward, as if his back had turned into elastic. And then he fell down. Other people were screaming and running, just running blindly, and more and more cables fell. They were strung all over the place like snakes. And she was glad about it. Glad! I could feel her being glad. I knew I had to keep my head. The people who were running were getting electrocuted. Georgette said Quick, Cora. Oh God, I don't want to get burned alive. I said Stop that. We have to use our heads, Georgette, or we'll never use them again. Something foolish like that. But she wouldn't listen. She let go of my hand and started to run for the sidewalk. I screamed at her to stopthere was one of those heavy main cables broken off right in front of usbut she didn't listen. And she . . . she . . . oh, I could smell her when she started to burn. Smoke just seemed to burst out of her clothes and I thought that's what it must be like when someone gets electrocuted. The smell was sweet, like pork. Have any of you ever smelled that? Sometimes I smell it in my dreams. I stood dead still, watching Georgette Shyres turn black. There was a big explosion over in the West Endthe gas main, I supposebut I never even noticed it. I looked around and I was all alone. Everyone else had either run away or was burning. I saw maybe six bodies. They were like piles of old rags. One of the cables had fallen onto the porch of a house to the left, and it was catching on fire. I could hear the oldfashioned shake shingles popping like corn. It seemed like I stood there a long time, telling myself to keep my head. It seemed like hours. I began to be afraid that I would faint and fall on one of the cables, or that I would panic and start to run. Like . . . like Georgette. So I started to walk. One step at a time. The street got even brighter, because of the burning house. I stepped over two live wires and went around a body that wasn't much more than a puddle. III had to look to see where I was going. There was a wedding ring on the body's hand, but it was all black. All black. Jesus, I was thinking. Oh dear Lord. I stepped over another cable and then there were three, all at once. I just stood there looking at them. I thought if I got over those I'd be all right but . . . I didn't dare. Do you know what I kept thinking of? That game you play when you're kids. Giant Step. A voice in my mind was saying, Cora, take one giant step over the live wires in the street. And I was thinking May I? May I? One of them was still spitting a few sparks, but the other two looked dead. But you can't tell. The third rail looks dead too. So I stood there, waiting for someone to come and nobody did. The house was still burning and the flames had spread to the lawn and the trees and the hedge beside it. But no fire trucks came. Of course they didn't. The whole west side was burning up by that time. And I felt so faint And at last I knew it was take the giant step or faint and so I took it, as big a giant step as I could, and the heel of my slipper came down not an inch from the last wire. Then I got over and went around the end of one more wire and then I started to run. And that's all I remember. When morning came I was lying on a blanket in the police station with a lot of other people. Some of thema fewwere kids in their prom getups and I started to ask them if they had seen Rhonda. And they said . . . they sssaid . . . (A short recess) Q. You are personally sure that Carrie White did this? A. Yes. Q. Thank you, Mrs. Simard. A. I'd like to ask a question, if you please. Q. Of course. A. What happens if there are others like her? What happens to the world? From The Shadow Exploded (p. 151) By 1245 on the morning of May 28, the situation in Chamberlain was critical. The school had burned itself out on a fairly isolated piece of ground, but the entire downtown area was ablaze. Almost all the city water in that area had been tapped, but enough was available (at low pressure) from Deighan Street water mains to save the business buildings below the intersection of Main and Oak streets.


The explosion of Tony's Citgo on upper Summer Street had resulted in a ferocious fire that was not to be controlled until nearly ten o'clock that morning. There was water on Summer Street; there simply were no firemen or firefighting equipment to utilize it. Equipment was then on its way from Lewiston, Auburn, Lisbon, and Brunswick, but nothing arrived until one o'clock. On Carlin Street, an electrical fire, caused by downed power lines, had begun. It was to eventually gut the entire north side of the street, including the bungalow where Margaret White gave birth to her daughter. On the West End of town, just below what is commonly called Brickyard Hill, the worst disaster had taken place the explosion of a gas main and a resulting fire that raged out of control through most of the next day. And if we look at these flash points on a municipal map (see page facing), we can pick out Carrie's routea wandering, looping path of destruction through the town, but one with an almost certain destination home. . . . Something toppled over in the living room, and Margaret White straightened up, cocking her head to one side. The butcher knife glittered dully in the light of the flames. The electric power had gone off sometime before, and the only light in the house came from the fire up the street. One of the pictures fell from the wall with a thump. A moment later the Black Forest cuckoo clock fell. The mechanical bird gave a small, strangled squawk and was still. From the town the sirens whooped endlessly, but she could still hear the footsteps when they turned up the walk. The door blew open. Steps in the hall. She heard the plaster plaques in the living room (CHRIST, THE UNSEEN GUEST; WHAT WOULD JESUS DO; THE HOUR DRAWETH NIGH IF TONIGHT BECAME JUDGMENT, WOULD YOU BE READY) explode one after the other, like plaster birds in a shooting gallery. (o i've been there and seen the harlots shimmy on wooden stages) She sat up on her stool like a very bright scholar who has gone to the head of the class. But her eyes were deranged. The livingroom windows blew outward. The kitchen door slammed and Carrie walked in. Her body seemed to have become twisted, shrunken, cronelike. The prom dress was in tatters and flaps, and the pig blood had began to clot and streak. There was a smudge of grease on her forehead, and both knees were scraped and rawlooking. Momma, she whispered. Her eyes were preternaturally bright, hawklike, but her mouth was trembling. If someone had been there to watch, he would have been struck by the resemblance between them. Margaret White sat on her kitchen stool, the carving knife hidden among the folds of her dress in her lap. I should have killed myself when he put it in me, she said clearly. After the first time, before we were married, he promised. Never again. He said we just . . . slipped. I believed him. I fell down and I lost the baby and that was God's judgment. I felt that the sin had been expiated. By blood. But sin never dies. Sin . . . never . . . dies. Her eyes glittered. Momma, I At first it was all right. We lived sinlessly. We slept in the same bed, belly to belly sometimes, and o, I could feel the presence of the Serpent, but we. never. did. until. She began to grin, and it was a hard, terrible grin. And that night I could see him looking at me That Way. We got down on our knees to pray for strength and he . . . touched me. In that place. That woman place. And I sent him out of the house. He was gone for hours, and I prayed for him. I could see him in my mind's eye, walking the midnight streets, wrestling with the devil as Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord. And when he came back, my heart was filled with thanksgiving. She paused, grinning her dry, spitless grin into the shifting shadows of the room. Momma, I don't want to hear it! Plates began to explode in the cupboards like clay pigeons. It wasn't until he came in that I smelled the whiskey on his breath. And he took me. Took me! With the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey still on him he took me . . . and I liked it! She screamed out the last words at the ceiling. I liked it o all that dirty fucking and his hands on me ALL OVER ME! MOMMA! (!! MOMMA !!) She broke off as if slapped and blinked at her daughter. I almost killed myself, she said in a more normal tone of voice. And Ralph wept and talked about atonement and I didn't and then he was dead and then I thought God had visited me with cancer; that He was turning my female parts into something as black and rotten as my sinning soul. But that would have been too easy. The Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. I see that now. When the pains began I went and got a knifethis knife she held it up and waited for you to come so I could make my sacrifice. But I was weak and backsliding. I took this knife in hand again when you were three, and I backslid again. So now the devil has come home. She held the knife up, and her eyes fastened hypnotically on the glittering hook of its blade. Carrie took a slow, blundering step forward. I came to kill you, Momma. And you were waiting here to kill me. Momma, I . . . it's not right, Momma. It's not . . . Let's pray, Momma said softly. Her eyes fixed on Carrie's and there was a crazed, awful compasssion in them. The firelight was brighter now, dancing on the walls like dervishes. For the last time, let us pray. Oh Momma help me! Carrie cried out. She fell forward on her knees, head down, hands raised in supplication. Momma leaned forward, and the knife came down in a shining arc. Carrie, perhaps seeing out of the tail of her eye, jerked back, and instead of penetrating her back, the knife went into her shoulder to the hilt. Momma's feet tangled in the legs of her chair, and she collapsed in a sitting sprawl. They stared at each other in silent tableau. Blood began to ooze from around the handle of the knife and to splash onto the floor. Then Carrie said softly I'm going to give you a present, Momma. Margaret tried to get up, staggered, and fell back on her hands and knees. What are you doing? she croaked hoarsely. I'm picturing your heart, Momma, Carrie said. It's easier when you see things in your mind. Your heart is a big red muscle. Mine goes faster when I use my power. But yours is going a little slower now. A little slower. Margaret tried to get up again, failed, and forked the sign of the evil eye at her daughter. A little slower, Momma. Do you know what the present is, Momma? What you always wanted. Darkness. And whatever God lives there. Margaret White whispered Our Father, Who art in heaven Slower, Momma. Slower. hallowed be Thy name I can see the blood draining back into you. Slower. Thy kingdom come Your feet and hands like marble, like alabaster. White. Thy will be done My will, Momma. Slower. on earth Slower. as . . . as . . . as it . . . She collapsed forward, hands twitching. as it is in heaven. Carrie whispered Full stop. She looked down at herself, and put her hands weakly around the haft of the knife. (no o no that hurts that's too much hurt) She tried to get up, failed, then pulled herself up by Momma's stool. Dizziness and nausea washed over her. She could taste blood, bright and slick, in the back of her throat. Smoke, acrid and choking, was drifting in through the windows now. The flames had reached next door; even now sparks would be lighting softly on the roof that rocks had punched brutally through a thousand years before. Carrie went out the back door, staggered across the lawn, and rested (where's my momma) against a tree. There was something she was supposed to do. Something about (roadhouses parking lots) the Angel with the Sword. The Fiery Sword. Never mind. It would come to her. She crossed by back yards to Willow Street and then crawled up the embankment to Route 6. It was 115 A.M. It was 1120 P.M. when Christine Hargensen and Billy Nolan got back to The Cavalier. They went up the back stairs, down the hall, and before she could do more than turn on the lights, he was yanking at her blouse. For God's sake let me unbutton it To hell with that. He ripped it suddenly down the back. The cloth tore with a sudden hard sound. One button popped free and winked on the bare wood floor. Honkytonkin' music came faintly up to them, and the building vibrated subtly with the clumsyenthusiastic dancing of farmers and truckers and millworkers and waitresses and hairdressers, of the greasers and their townie girl friends from Westover and Lewiston. Hey Be quiet. He slapped her, rocking her head back. Her eyes took on a flat and deadly shine. This is the end, Billy. She backed away from him, breasts swelling into her bra, flat stomach pumping, legs long and tapering in her jeans; but she backed toward the bed. It's over. Sure, he said. He lunged for her and she punched him, a surprisingly hard punch that landed on his cheek. He straightened and twitched his head a little. You gave me a shiner, you bitch. I'll give you more. You're goddam right you will. They stared at each other, panting, glaring. Then he began to unbutton his shirt, a little grin beginning on his face. We got it on, Charlie. We really got it on. He called her Charlie whenever he was pleased with her. It seemed to be, she thought with a cold blink of humor, a generic term for good cunt. She felt a little smile come to her own face, relaxed a little, and that was when he whipped his shirt across her face and came in low, butting her in the stomach like a goat, tipping her onto the bed. The springs screamed. She pounded her fists helplessly on his back. Get off me! Get off me! Get off me! You fucking greaseball, get off me! He was grinning at her, and with one quick, hard yank her zipper was broken, her hips free. Call your daddy? he was grunting. That what you gonna do? Huh? Huh? That it, ole Chuckie? Call big ole legal beagle daddy? Huh? I woulda done it to you, you know that? I woulda dumped it all over your fuckin squash. You know it? Huh? Know it? Pig blood for pigs, right? Right on your motherfuckin squash. You She had suddenly ceased to resist. He paused, staring down at her, and she had an odd smile on her face. You wanted it this way all along, didn't you? You miserable little scumbag. That's right, isn't it? You creepy little onenut lowcock dinkless wonder. His grin was slow, crazed. It doesn't matter. No, she said. It doesn't. Her smile suddenly vanished, the cords on her neck stood out as she hawked backand spit in his face. They descended into a red, thrashing unconsciousness. Downstairs the music thumped and wheezed (I'm poppin little white pills an my eyes are open wideSix days on the road, and I'm gonna make it home tonight), cw, full throttle, very loud, very bad, fiveman band wearing sequined cowboy shirts and new pegged jeans with bright rivets, occasionally wiping mixed sweat and Vitalis from their brows, lead guitar, rhythm, steel, dobro guitar, drums no one heard the town whistle, or the first explosion, or the second; and when the gas main blew and the music stopped and someone drove into the parking lot and began to yell the news, Chris and Billy were asleep. Chris woke suddenly and the clock on the night table said five minutes of one. Someone was pounding on the door. Billy! the voice was yelling. Get up! Hey! Hey! Billy stirred, rolled over, and knocked the cheap alarm clock onto the floor. What the Christ? he said thickly, and sat up. His back stung. The bitch had covered it with long scratches. He'd barely noticed it at the time, but now he decided he was going to have to send her home bowlegged. Just to show her who was b Silence struck him. Silence. The Cavalier did not close until two; as a matter of fact, he could still see the neon twinkling and flicking through the dusty garret window. Except for the steady pounding (something happened) the place was a graveyard. Billy, you in there? Hey! Who is it? Chris whispered. Her eyes were glittering and watchful in the intermittent neon. Jackie Talbot, he said absently, then raised his voice. What? Lemme in, Billy. I got to talk to you! Billy got up and padded to the door, naked. He unlocked the oldfashioned hookandeye and opened it. Jackie Talbot burst in. His eyes were wild and his face was smeared with soot. He had been drinking it up with Steve and Henry when the news came at ten minutes of twelve. They had gone back to town in Henry's elderly Dodge convertible, and had seen the Jackson Avenue gas main explode from the vantage point of Brickyard Hill. When Jackie had borrowed the Dodge and started to drive back at 1230, the town was a panicky shambles. Chamberlain's burning up, he said to Billy. Whole fuckin town. The school's gone. The Center's gone. West End blew upgas. And Carlin Street's on fire. And they're saying Carrie White did it! Oh God, Chris said. She started to get out of bed and grope for her clothes. What did Shut up, Billy said mildly, or I'll kick your ass. He looked at Jackie again and nodded for him to go on. They seen her. Lots of people seen her. Billy, they say she's all covered with blood. She was at that fuckin prom tonight . . . Steve and Henry didn't get it but . . . Billy, did you . . . that pig blood . . . was it Yeah, Billy said. Oh, no. Jackie stumbled back against the doorframe. His face was a sickly yellow in the light of the one hall lightbulb. Oh Jesus, Billy, the whole town Carrie trashed the whole town? Carrie White? You're full of shit. He said it calmly, almost serenely. Behind him, Chris was dressing rapidly. Go look out the window, Jackie said. Billy went over and looked out. The entire eastern horizon had gone crimson, and the sky was alight with it. Even as he looked, three fire trucks screamed by. He could make out the names on them in the glow of the street light that marked The Cavalier's parking lot. Son of a whore, he said. Those trucks are from Brunswick. Brunswick? Chris said. That's forty miles away. That can't be . . . Billy turned back to Jackie Talbot. All right. What happened? Jackie shook his head. Nobody knows, not yet. It started at the high school. Carrie and Tommy Ross got the King and Queen, and then somebody dumped a couple of buckets of blood on them and she ran out. Then the school caught on fire, and they say nobody got out. Then Teddy's Amoco blew up, then that Mobil station on Summer Street Citgo, Billy corrected. It's a Citgo. Who the fuck cares? Jackie screamed. It was her, every place something happened it was her! And those buckets . . . none of us wore gloves. . . . I'll take care of it, Billy said. You don't get it, Billy. Carrie is Get out. Billy Get out or I'll break your arm and feed it to you. Jackie backed out of the door warily. Go home. Don't talk to nobody. I'm going to take care of everything. All right, Jackie said. Okay. Billy, I just thought Billy slammed the door. Chris was on him in a second. Billy what are we going to do that bitch Carrie oh my Lord what are we going to Billy slapped her, getting his whole arm into it, and knocked her onto the floor. Chris sat sprawled in stunned silence for a moment, and then held her face and began to sob. Billy put on his pants, his tee shirt, his boots. Then he went to the chipped porcelain washstand in the corner, clicked on the light, wet his head, and began to comb his hair, bending down to see his reflection in the spotted, ancient mirror. Behind him, wavy and distorted, Chris Hargensen sat on the floor, wiping blood from her split lip. I'll tell you what we're going to do, he said. We're going into town and watch the fires. Then we're coming home. You're going to tell your dear old daddy that we were out to The Cavalier drinking beers when it happened. I'm gonna tell my dear ole mummy the same thing. Dig? Billy, your fingerprints, she said. Her voice was muffled, but respectful. Their fingerprints, he said. I wore gloves. Would they tell? she asked. If the police took them in and questioned them Sure, he said. They'd tell. The loops and swirls were almost right. They glistened in the light of the dull, flyspecked globe like eddies in deep water. His face was calm, reposeful. The comb he used was a battered old Ace, clotted with grease. His father had given it to him on his eleventh birthday, and not one tooth was broken in it. Not one. Maybe they'll never find the buckets, he said. If they do, maybe the fingerprints will all be burnt off. I don't know. But if Doyle takes any of 'em in, I'm heading for California. You do what you want. Would you take me with you? she asked. She looked at him from the floor, her lip puffed to negroid size, her eyes pleading. He smiled. Maybe. But he wouldn't. Not any more. Come on. We're going to town. They went downstairs and through the empty dance hall, where chairs were still pushed back and beers were standing flat on the tables. As they went out through the fire door Billy said This place sucks, anyway. They got into his car, and he started it up. When he popped on the headlights, Chris began to scream, hands in fists up to her cheeks. Billy felt it at the same time Something in his mind, (carrie carrie carrie carrie) a presence. Carrie was standing in front of them, perhaps seventy feet away. The high beams picked her out in ghastly horrormovie blacks and whites, dripping and clotted with blood. Now much of it was her own. The hilt of the butcher knife still protruded from her shoulder, and her gown was covered with dirt and grass stain. She had crawled much of the distance from Carlin Street, half fainting, to destroy this roadhouseperhaps the very one where the doom of her creation had begun. She stood swaying, her arms thrown out like the arms of a stage hypnotist, and she began to totter toward them. It happened in the blink of a second. Chris had not had time to expend her first scream. Billy's reflexes were very good and his reaction was instantaneous. He shifted into low, popped the clutch, and floored it. The Chevrolet's tires screamed against the asphalt, and the car sprang forward like some old and terrible maneater. The figure swelled in the windshield and as it did the presence became louder (CARRIE CARRIE CARRIE) and louder (CARRIE CARRIE CARRIE) like a radio being turned up to full volume. Time seemed to close around them in a frame and for a moment they were frozen even in motion Billy (CARRIE just like the dogs CARRIE just like the goddam dogs CARRIE brucie i wish it could CARRIE be CARRIE you) and Chris (CARRIE jesus not to kill her CARRIE didn't mean to kill her CARRIE billy i don't CARRIE want to CARRIE see it CA) and Carrie herself. (see the wheel car wheel gas pedal wheel i see the WHEEL o god my heart my heart my heart) And Billy suddenly felt his car turn traitor, come alive, slither in his hands. The Chevvy dug around in a smoking halfcircle, straight pipes racketing, and suddenly the clapboard side of The Cavalier was swelling, swelling, swelling and (this is) they slammed into it at forty, still accelerating, and wood sprayed up in a neontinted detonation. Billy was thrown forward and the steering column speared him. Chris was thrown into the dashboard. The gas tank split open, and fuel began to puddle around the rear of the car. Part of one straight pipe fell into it, and the gas bloomed into flame. Carrie lay on her side, eyes closed, panting thickly. Her chest was on fire. She began to drag herself across the parking lot, going nowhere. (momma i'm sorry it all went wrong o momma o please o please i hurt so bad momma what do i do) And suddenly it didn't seem to matter any more, nothing would matter if she could turn over, turn over and see the stars, turn over and look once and die. And that was how Sue found her at two o'clock. When Sheriff Doyle left her, Sue walked down the street and sat on the steps of the Chamberlain UWashIt. She stared at the burning sky without seeing it. Tommy was dead. She knew it was true and accepted it with an ease that was dreadful. And Carrie had done it. She had no idea how she knew it, but the conviction was as pure and right as arithmetic. Time passed. It didn't matter. Macbeth hath murdered sleep and Carrie hath murdered time. Pretty good. A bon mot. Sue smiled dolefully. Can this be the end of our heroine, Miss Sweet Little Sixteen? No worries about the country club and Kleen Korners now. Not ever. Gone. Burned out. Someone ran past, blabbering that Carlin Street was on fire. Good for Carlin Street. Tommy was gone. And Carrie had gone home to murder her mother. (?????????) She sat bolt upright, staring into the darkness. (?????????) She didn't know how she knew. It bore no relationship to anything she had ever read about telepathy. There were no pictures in her head, no great white flashes of revelation, only prosaic knowledge; the way you know summer follows spring, that cancer can kill you, that Carrie's mother was dead already, that (!!!!!) Her heart rose thickly in her chest. Dead? She examined her knowledge of the incident, trying to disregard the insistent weirdness of knowing from nothing. Yes, Margaret White was dead. Something to do with her heart. But she had stabbed Carrie. Carrie was badly hurt. She was There was nothing more. She got up and ran back to her mother's car. Ten minutes later she parked on the corner of Branch and Carlin Street, which was on fire. No trucks were available to fight the blaze yet, but sawhorses had been put across both ends of the street, and greasily smoking road pots lit a sign which said DANGER! LIVE WIRES! Sue cut through two back yards and forced her way through a budding hedge that scraped at her with short, stiff bristles. She came out one yard from the Whites' house and crossed over. The house was in flames, the roof blazing. It was impossible to even think about getting close enough to look in. But in the strong firelight she saw something better the splashed trail of Carrie's blood. She followed it with her head down, past the larger spots where Carrie had rested, through another hedge, across a Willow Street back yard, and then through an undeveloped tangle of scrub pine and oak. Beyond that, a short, unpaved spurlittle more than a footpathwound up the rise of land to the right, angling away from Route 6. She stopped suddenly as doubt struck her with vicious and corrosive force. Suppose she could find her? What then? Heart failure? Set on fire? Controlled and forced to walk in front of an oncoming car or fire engine? Her peculiar knowledge told her Carrie would be capable of all these things. (find a policeman) She giggled a little at that one and sat down in the grass, which was silked with dew. She had already found a policeman. And even supposing Otis Doyle had believed her, what then? A mental picture came to her of a hundred desperate manhunters surrounding Carrie, demanding her to hand over her weapons and give up. Carrie obediently raises her hands and plucks her head from her shoulders. Hands it to Sheriff Doyle, who solemnly puts it in a wicker basket marked People's Exhibit A. (and tommy's dead) Well, well. She began to cry. She put her hands over her face and sobbed into them. A soft breeze snuffled through the juniper bushes on top of the hill. More fire engines screamed by on Route 6 like huge red hounds in the night. (the town's burning down o well) She had no idea how long she sat there, crying in a grainy halfdoze. She was not even aware that she was following Carrie's progress toward The Cavalier, no more than she was aware of the process of respiration unless she thought about it. Carrie was hurt very badly, was going on brute determination alone at this point. It was three miles out to The Cavalier, even cross country, as Carrie was going. Sue (watched? thought? doesn't matter) as Carrie fell in a brook and dragged herself out, icy and shivering. It was really amazing that she kept going. But of course it was for Momma. Momma wanted her to be the Angel's Fiery Sword, to destroy (she's going to destroy that too) She got up and began to run clumsily, not bothering to follow the trail of blood. She didn't need to follow it any more.    From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 16465) Whatever any of us may think of the Carrie White affair, it is over. It's time to turn to the future. As Dean McGuffin points out, in his excellent Science Yearbook article, if we refuse to do this, we will almost certainly have to pay the piperand the price is apt to be a high one. A thorny moral question is raised here. Progress is already being made toward complete isolation of the TK gene. It is more or less assumed in the scientific community (see, for instance, Bourke and Hannegan's A View Toward Isolation of the TK Gene with Specific Recommendations for Control Parameters in Microbiology Annual, Berkeley 1982) that when a testing procedure is established, all schoolage children will undergo the test as routinely as they now undergo the TB skinpatch. Yet TK is not a germ; it is as much a part of the afflicted person as the color of his eyes. If overt TK ability occurs as a part of puberty, and if this hypothetical TK test is performed on children entering the first grade, we shall certainly be forewarned. But in this case, is forewarned forearmed? If the TB test shows positive, a child can be treated or isolated. If the TK test shows positive, we have no treatment except a bullet in the head. And how is it possible to isolate a person who will eventually have the power to knock down all walls? And even if isolation could be made successful, would the American people allow a small pretty girlchild to be ripped away from her parents at the first sign of puberty to be locked in a bank vault for the rest of her life? I doubt it. Especially when the White Commission has worked so hard to convince the public that the nightmare in Chamberlain was a complete fluke. Indeed, we seem to have returned to Square One . . . From the sworn testimony of Susan Snell, taken before The State Investigatory Board of Maine (from The White Commission Report), pp. 306472 Q. Now, Miss Snell, the Board would like to go through your testimony concerning your alleged meeting with Carrie White in The Cavalier parking lot A. Why do you keep asking the same questions over and over? I've told you twice already. Q. We want to make sure the record is correct in every A. You want to catch me in a lie, isn't that what you really mean? You don't think I'm telling the truth, do you? Q. You say you came upon Carrie at A. Will you answer me? Q. at approximately 200 on the morning of May 28th. Is that correct? A. I'm not going to answer any more questions until you answer the one I just asked. Q. Miss Snell, this body is empowered to cite you for contempt if you refuse to answer on any other grounds than Constitutional ones. A. I don't care what you're empowered to do. I've lost someone I love. Go and throw me in jail. I don't care. IIOh, go to hell. All of you, go to hell. You're trying to . . . to . . . I don't know, crucify me or something. Just lay off me! (A short recess) Q. Miss Snell, are you willing to continue your testimony at this time? A. Yes. But I won't be badgered, Mr. Chairman. Q. Of course not, young lady. No one wants to badger you. Now you claim to have come upon Carrie in the parking lot of this tavern at about 200. Is that correct? A. Yes. Q. You knew the time. A. I was wearing the watch you see on my wrist right now. Q. To be sure. Isn't The Cavalier better than six miles from where you left your mother's car? A. It is by the road. It's closer to three as the crow flies. Q. You walked this distance? A. Yes. Q. Now you testified earlier that you knew you were getting close to Carrie. Can you explain this? A. No. Q. Could you smell her? A. What? Q. Did you follow your nose? (Laughter in the galleries) A. Are you playing games with me? Q. Answer the question, please. A. No. I didn't follow my nose. Q. Could you see her? A. No. Q. Hear her? A. No. Q. Then how could you possibly know she was there? A. How did Tom Quillan know? Or Cora Simard? Or poor Vic Mooney? How did any of them know? Q. Answer the question, miss. This is hardly the place or the time for impertinence. A. But they did say they just knew, didn't they? I read Mrs. Simard's testimony in the paper! And what about the fire hydrants that opened themselves? And the gas pumps that broke their own locks and turned themselves on? The power lines that climbed down off their poles! And Q. Miss Snell, please A. Those things are in the record of this Commission's proceedings! Q. That is not an issue here. A. Then what is? Are you looking for the truth or just a scapegoat? Q. You deny you had prior knowledge of Carrie White's whereabouts? A. Of course I do. It's an absurd idea. Q. Oh? And why is it absurd? A. Well, if you're suggesting some kind of conspiracy, it's absurd because Carrie was dying when I found her. It could not have been an easy way to die. Q. If you had no prior knowledge of her whereabouts, how could you go directly to her location? A. Oh, you stupid man! Have you listened to anything that's been said here? Everybody knew it was Carrie! Anyone could have found her if they had put their minds to it. Q. But not just anyone found her. You did. Can you tell us why people did not show up from all over, like iron filings drawn to a magnet? A. She was weakening rapidly. I think that perhaps the . . . the zone of her influence was shrinking. Q. I think you will agree that that is a relatively uninformed supposition. A. Of course it is. On the subject of Carrie White, we're all relatively uninformed. Q. Have it your way, Miss Snell. Now if we could turn to . . . At first, when she climbed up the embankment between Henry Drain's meadow and the parking lot of The Cavalier, she thought Carrie was dead. Her figure was halfway across the parking lot, and she looked oddly shrunken and crumpled. Sue was reminded of dead animals she had seen on 95woodchucks, groundhogs, skunksthat had been crushed by speeding trucks and station wagons. But the presence was still in her mind, vibrating stubbornly, repeating the call letters of Carrie White's personality over and over. An essence of Carrie, a gestalt. Muted now, not strident, not announcing itself with a clarion, but waxing and waning in steady oscillations. Unconscious. Sue climbed over the guard rail that bordered the parking lot, feeling the heat of the fire against her face. The Cavalier was a wooden frame building, and it was burning briskly. The charred remains of a car were limned in flame to the right of the back door. Carrie had done that, then. She did not go to look and see if anyone had been in it. It didn't matter, not now. She walked over to where Carrie lay on her side, unable to hear her own footsteps under the hungry crackle of the fire. She looked down at the curledup figure with a bemused and bitter pity. The knife hilt protruded cruelly from her shoulder, and she was lying in a small pool of bloodsome of it was trickling from her mouth. She looked as if she had been trying to turn herself over when unconsciousness had taken her. Able to start fires, pull down electric cables, able to kill almost by thought alone; lying here unable to turn herself over. Sue knelt, took her by one arm and the unhurt shoulder, and gently turned her onto her back. Carrie moaned thickly, and her eyes fluttered. The perception of her in Sue's mind sharpened, as if a mental picture was coming into focus. (who's there) And Sue, without thought, spoke in the same fashion (me sue snell) Only there was no need to think of her name. The thought of herself as herself was neither words nor pictures. The realization suddenly brought everything up close, made it real, and compassion for Carrie broke through the dullness of her shock.