Carrying the pails back to the trunk, his mind made a dim, symbolic connection. Pig blood. That was good. Chris was right. It was really good. It made everything solidify.
Pig blood for a pig.
He nestled the galvanized steel pails into the crushed ice, capped them, and slammed the lid of the chest. “Let’s go,” he said.
Billy got behind the wheel and released the emergency brake. The five boys got behind, put their shoulders into it, and the car turned in a tight, noiseless circle and trundled up past the barn to the crest of the hill across from Henty’s house.
When the car began to roll on its own, they trotted up beside the doors and climbed in, puffing and panting.
The car gained speed enough to slew a little as Billy whipped it out of the long driveway and onto the Henty Road. At the bottom of the hill he dropped the transmission into third and popped the clutch. The engine hitched and grunted into life.
Pig blood for a pig. Yes, that was good, all right. That was really good. He smiled, and Lou Garson felt a start of surprise and fear. He was not sure he could recall ever having seen Billy Nolan smile before.
There had not even been rumors.
“Whose funeral did ole man Henty go to?” Steve asked.
“His mother’s,” Billy said.
“His mother?” Jackie Talbot said, stunned. ‘Jesus Christ, she musta been older’n God.”
Kenny’s high-pitched cackle drifted back on the redolent darkness that trembled at the edge of summer.
PART TWO
______________
PROM NIGHT
She put the dress on for the first time on the morning of May 27, in her room. She had bought a special brassiere to go with it, which gave her breasts the proper uplift (not that they actually needed it) but left their top halves uncovered. Wearing it gave her a weird, dreamy feeling that was half shame and half defiant excitement.
The dress itself was nearly floor length. The skirt was loose, but the waist was snug, the material rich and unfamiliar against her skin, which was used to only cotton and wool.
The hang of it seemed to be right-or would be, with the new shoes.
She slipped them on, adjusted the neckline, and went to the window.
She could see only a maddening ghost image of herself, but everything seemed to be right. Maybe later she could-The door swung open behind her with only a soft snick of the latch, and Carrie turned to look at her mother.
She was dressed for work, wearing her white sweater and holding her black pocketbook in one hand. In the other she was holding Daddy Ralph’s Bible.
They looked at each other.
Hardly conscious of it, Carrie felt her back straighten until she stood straight in the patch of early spring sunshine that fell through the window.
“Red,” Momma murmured. “I might have known it would be red.”
Carrie said nothing.
“I can see your dirty pillows. Everyone will. They’ll be looking at your body. The Book say~
“Those are my breasts, Momma. Every woman has them.”
“Take off that dress,” Momma said.
“Take it off, Carrie. We’ll go down and burn it in the incinerator together, and then pray for forgiveness. We’ll do penance.” Her eyes began to sparkle with the strange, disconnected zeal that came over her at events which she considered to be tests of faith. “Ill stay home from work and you’ll stay home from school. We’ll pray. We’ll ask for a Sign. We’ll get us down on our knees and ask for the Pentecostal Fire.”
“No, Momma.”
Her mother reached up and pinched her own face. It left a red mark.
She looked to Carrie for reaction, saw none, hooked her right hand into claws and ripped it across her own cheek, bringing thin blood. She whined and rocked back on her heels. Her eyes glowed with exaltation.
“Stop hurting yourself, Momma. That’s not going to make me stop either.”
Momma screamed. She made her right hand a fist and struck herself in the mouth, bringing blood. She dabbled her fingers in it, looked at it dreamily, and daubed a spot on the cover of the Bible.
“Washed in the Blood of the Lamb,” she whispered. “Many times.
Many times he and I-”
“Go away, Momma.”
She looked up at Carrie, her eyes glowing. There was a terrifying expression of righteous anger graven on her face.
“The Lord is not mocked,” she whispered. :’Be sure your sin will find you out. Burn it, Carrie! Cast that devil’s red from you and burn it!
Burn it! Burn it! Burn it!”
The door slammed open by itself.
“Go away, Momma.”
Momma smiled. Her bloody mouth made the smile grotesque, twisted. “As Jezebel fell from the tower, let it be with you,” she said.
“And the dogs came and licked up the blood. It’s in the Bible! It’s-”
“Her feet began to slip along the floor and she looked down at them, bewildered. The wood might have turned to ice.
“Stop that!” she screamed.
She was in the hall now. She caught the doorjamb and held on for a moment; then her fingers were torn loose, seemingly by nothing.
“1 love you, Momma,” Carrie said steadily. “I’m sorry.”
She envisioned the door swinging shut, and the door did just that, as if moved by a light breeze. Carefully, so as not to hurt her, she disengaged the mental hands she had pushed her mother with.
A moment later, Margaret was pounding on the door. Carrie held it shut, her lips trembling.
“There’s going to be a judgment!” Margaret White raved. “I wash my hands of it! I tried!”
“Pilate said that,” Carrie said.
Her mother went away. A minute later Carrie saw her go down the walk and cross the street on her way to work.
“Momma,” she said softly, and put her forehead on the glass.
From The Shadow Exploded (p.129):
Before turning to a more detailed analysis of Prom Night itself, it might be well to sum up what we know of Carrie White the person.
We know that Carrie was the victim of her mother’s religious mania. We know that she possessed a latent telekinetic talent, commonly referred to as TK. We know that this so-called “wild talent”
is really a hereditary trait, produced by a gene that is usually recessive, if present at all. We suspect that the TK ability may be glandular in nature. We know that Carrie produced at least one demonstration of her ability as a small girl when she was put into an extreme situation of guilt and Stress. We know that a second extreme situation of guilt and stress arose from a shower-room hazing incident. It has been theorized (especially by William G. Throneberry and Julia Givens, Berkeley) that resurgence of the TK ability at this point was caused by both psychological factors (i.e., the reaction of the other girls and Carrie herself to their first menstrual period) and physiological factors (i.e., the advent of puberty).
And finally, we know that on Prom Night, a third stress situation arose, causing the terrible events which we now must begin to discuss.
We will begin with …
(i am not nervous not a bit nervous)
Tommy had called earlier with her corsage, and now she was pinning it to the shoulder of her gown herself. There was no momma, of course, to do it for her and make sure it was in the right place.
Momma had locked herself in the chapel and had been in there for the last two hours, praying hysterically. Her voice rose and fell in frightening, incoherent cycles.
(i’m sorry momma but I can’t be sorry)
When she had it fixed to her satisfaction, she dropped her hands and stood quietly for a moment with her eyes closed. There was no full-length mirror in the house,
(vanity vanity all is vanity)
but she thought she was all right. She had to be. She-She opened her eyes again. The Black Forest cuckoo clock,
bought with Green Stamps, said seven-ten.
(he’ll be here in twenty minutes)
Would he?
Maybe it was all just an elaborate joke, the final crusher, the ultimate punch line. To leave her sitting here half the night in her crushed-velvet prom gown with its princess waistline, juliet sleeves and simple straight skirt-and her tea roses pinned to her left shoulder.
From the other room, on the rise now: …. . in hallowed earth! We know thou bring’st the Eye That Watcheth, the hideous three-lobed Eye, and the sound of black trumpets. We most heartily repent-”
Carrie did not think anyone could understand the brute courage it had taken to reconcile herself to this, to leave herself open to whatever fearsome possibilities the night might realize. Being stood up could hardly be the worst of them. In fact, in a kind of sneaking, wishful way she thought it might be for the best if-