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 somebody-Don Farnham, I think-say: “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 open-I 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 amps-they were big ones, five or six feet high-and it fell into the water. The feedback went up to a scream that was head-splitting, 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 backstage-the 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 high-voltage cables hit that water-covered 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 quarter-full 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, 10:46 P.M.: CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP)
A FIRE IS RAGING OUT OF CONTROL AT EWEN (U-WIN) 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 SHORT-CIRCUIT 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. 10:46 PM
MAY 27 6904D AP
From the New England AP ticker, 11:22 P.M.
URGENT
CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP)
A TREMENDOUS EXPLOSION HAS ROCKED THOMAS EWIN
(U-WIN) 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 PROM-GOERS. 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
FUEL- OIL 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. 11:22PM MAY27 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 11:00.
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 her-Motton.
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.