Blog-o-ween 2024: Day 28

Lots of ‘Salem’s Lot

Part Three

Chapter 14: The Lot (IV)

Sections 33-40

Sunrise: 7:09 AM

Sunset: 6:03 PM

It’s morning in ‘salem’s Lot.

Ben, Jimmy, and Mark leave Matt’s room at the hospital and drive into town. The smell of decay and death is palpable. While Ben makes stakes in Henry Petrie’s workroom, Jimmy and Mark go out to discover where the vampires are hiding and to mark their hideyholes. While they are out and about, Jimmy suddenly flashes on what the blue chalk that Mark saw on Barlow’s cuff means—a pool table. Jimmy then recalls that Eva Miller keeps her husband’s pool table in good order in the basement of her boarding house. Barlow is at Eva’s! Jimmy and Mark rush off to Eva’s (without contacting Ben) to see if Jimmy is right…

Oh, boy, Blog-o-weeners…we are coming down to it, are we not? After today, we only have three days until Halloween and only thirty-four pages (or so…depending on which edition you are reading) left in ‘Salem’s Lot. Can you believe it? What a long, strange trip it’s been. (RIP Phil Lesh.) We can’t slow down now and look at where we’ve been, however. There’s too much to still cover in the few days remaining to us.

As our three Fearless Vampire Killers drive into town, the spread of the vampires’ control can be felt even in the light of day.

“As they drew closer to the Lot, an almost palpable sense of dread formed in Jimmy’s Buick, and conversation lagged. When Jimmy pulled off the turnpike at the large green reflectorized sign that read ROUTE 12  JERUSALEM’S LOT  CUMBERLAND  CUMBERLAND CTR, Ben thought that this was the way he and Susan had come home after their first date—she had wanted to see something with a car chase in it. 

‘It’s gone bad,’ Jimmy said. His boyish face looked pale and frightened and angry. ‘Christ, you can almost smell it.’ 

And you could, Ben thought, although the smell was mental rather than physical: a psychic whiff of tombs.”

Their drive into the Lot brings them past Win Purinton’s milk truck — abandoned on the side of the road and idling with the keys still in the ignition. Although there are signs of life in the town, that life is of a strained and tenuous quality. Milt Crossen may be putting out the morning newspapers, and the diner may be open and serving breakfast, but these life signs are weak and getting weaker, like the heartbeat of a dying patient hooked up to an ECG. Foreman’s Mortuary is closed, the hardware store is closed, even the town’s latest shop, Barlow and Straker—Fine Furnishings, is closed. And I don’t think it will be reopening anytime soon. Mr. Barlow doesn’t seem as business-minded as his partner.

Once our FVKs are set up at Mark’s house, they make their plans for the day. While Ben operates Henry Petrie’s lathe and begins the arduous task of turn the family woodpile into stakes, Jimmy and Mark decide — once again, mind you! — to do what every game of D&D has ever taught us not to do: they split the party.

Granted, this isn’t like the splitting of the party that happened before. It was nighttime when Father Callahan and Mark visited the Petries as Ben and Mark and Jimmy went back to the hospital. It is daylight and the vamps will be in their beds as Jimmy and Mark stalk their way through the Lot. But have they not considered that Barlow probably has a few Straker wannabes floating around looking for them?

We get one last visit to the McDougall home. Every previous visit has been nightmare, and this one is no different. However, it does seem that tensions within the family have finally been resolved. It’s like they say: the family that sleeps the sleep of the undead in the crawl space under their trailer home together, stays together. Mark, ever the good Monster Kid, wants to test a theory out before they go:

“‘Wait,’ Mark said. ‘Let me pull one of them out.’

‘Pull…? Why?’ 

‘Maybe the daylight will kill them,’ Mark said. ‘Maybe we won’t have to do that with the stakes.’ 

Jimmy felt hope. ‘Yeah, okay. Which one?’ 

‘Not the baby,’ Mark said instantly. ‘The man. You catch one foot.’ 

‘All right,’ Jimmy said. His mouth had gone cotton-dry, and when he swallowed there was a click in his throat. 

Mark wriggled in on his stomach, the dead leaves that had drifted in crackling under his weight. He seized one of Roy McDougall’s work boots and pulled. Jimmy squirmed in beside him, scraping his back on the low overhang, fighting claustrophobia. He got hold of the there boot and together they pulled him out into the lessening drizzle and white light. 

What followed was almost unbearable. Roy McDougall began to writhe as soon as the light struck him full, like a Mann who has been disturbed in sleep. Steam and moisture came from his pores, and the skin underwent a slight sagging and yellowing. Eyeballs rolled behind the thin skin of his closed lids. His feet kicked slowly and dreamily in the wet leaves. His upper lip curled back, showing upper incisors like those of a large dog—a German shepherd of a collie. His arms thrashed slowly, the hands clenching an unclenching, and when one of them brushed Mark’s shirt, he jerked back with a disgusted cry. 

Roy turned over and began to hunch slowly back into the crawl space, arms and knees and face digging grooves in the rain-softened humus. Jimmy noted that a hitching Cheyne-Stokes type of respiration had begun as soon as the light struck the body; it stopped as soon as McDougall was wholly in shadow again. So did the moisture extrusion. 

When he had reached his previous resting place, McDougall turned over and lay still.”

Well, Mark, looks like stakes are still in play.

Afterwards, Mark and Jimmy go next door to the Evans’ trailer. The smell of death is strong, and the Evans family is found quickly. It is inside the trailer, as Mark uses the bathroom to wash off the horridness of his encounter with Roy McDougall, that Jimmy realizes what the blue chalk stains that Mark saw on Barlow’s clothing mean. Furthermore, knowing that there are no pool halls in the Lot, he quickly remembers that Eva Miller’s husband Ralph owned a pool table. In fact, Eva keeps it nice and clean…in her basement.

Next comes the second boneheaded move of the afternoon: Jimmy decides that he and Mark should head straight to Eva’s boardinghouse without telling Ben what they are doing. This is one of those moments in books, films, and tv made in the halcyon days before cellphones that make younger readers and viewers shake their heads. It is also one of those scenes that drives home just how on your own you were without a computer in your pocket. Without a cellphone, you had to know where you were going. You had to be prepared to be disappointed when you discovered that the store you were driving to was closed. You had to make plans hours in advance and hope that the person you were meeting showed up. You had to make your own fun in order to pass the time. As Count Floyd would say…

Before we call it a day, we should also address the sad and abrupt ending of the FVKs’ Van Helsing. This is a strange scene. Honestly, if King decided to cut it, it wouldn’t have really mattered — except to those pedants in the audience.

Matt’s death from a heart attack is not out of the blue. Jimmy himself said to Ben that while the attack Matt had in his house was minor, his next one would not be. This is the one moment that I feel the 2004 adaptation of ‘Salem’s Lot gets right. Matt should have been killed by one of Barlow’s minions. He could have been given more of a heroes death, you know? I’m not sure who could have done the business—one of his students? Del, the barkeep? Loretta Starcher, the town librarian?

Say!…that would have been pretty juicy! It is noted that ol’ Loretta is an old maid and a virgin, and Matt never married. They could have had a little fun before Matt’s ticker gave out.

Well, that’s it for today, kiddies. Read Part 3, Chapter 14: The Lot (IV), Sections 41-47 for tomorrow. We will learn if Jimmy was right about Barlow being at Eva’s. We will also learn what happened to all those rats from the dump…or will we? Let’s hope that no matter what our FVKs find in the basement of Eva’s boardinghouse, that Jimmy and Mark remember to…