'No guts, babe?'
He leaned forward. 'I won't pull it for you, babe. It can sit there till bell freezes.'
With pride we wear the red and whiiyyyte
A sudden smothered sound that might have been a scream 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 palm harshly, leaving a thin burn.
she began.
The music inside came to a jangling, discordant halt For a moment ragged You continued oblivious, and then they stopped. Then 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 twenty-five, 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 Nestle'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, and falling in cycles of panic, she did not evert immediately to the window, but only tamed the heat oft 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 grass-fire 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 blast, 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, half-forgotten, came to her. As children in grammar school, they had practised air-raid 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 all-clear 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 was - the ring of sodium are lamps made it a sure landmark, although the school building itself was invisible in the dark -a spark glowed as if God has struck a flint-and-steel.
(that's whew 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. Then - I was at the usher's table just inside the main doors, looking at the stage - there 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 say: '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 we something funny and g*y. It was raw and hysterical and awful.
At the same instant, Carrie opened her eyes wide.
That was when they all started laughing. I did too. God help me. It was 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 old-time Negro minstrels with the blackface and great 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 pop-eyed 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.