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 on to 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 your 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, on 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 1: 15 A.M.
It was 11:20 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. Honky-tonkin' music came faintly up to them, and the building vibrated subtly with the clumsy-enthusiastic dancing of farmers and truckers and millworkers and waitresses and hairdressers, of the greasers and their townie girl friends from Westover and Motton.
'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, br**sts 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 surprising 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 humour, 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 on to the bed. The springs screamed. She pounded her fists helplessly on his back.
'Get off me! Get off me! Get off me! You f**king 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 f**kin squash. You know it? Huh? Know it? Pig blood for pigs, right? Right on your motherfucking 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 low-cock 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 back - and spat 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 wide/Six days on the road and I'm gonna make it home tonight!'), c/w, full throttle, very loud, very bad, five-man 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.