'Salem's Lot

By Monday morning, ’salem’s Lot is dead; the town just doesn’t know it yet. Many of its residents are rising and going to work as usual, unaware that so many others are asleep in old freezers, haylofts, in basements and under houses. Some are wondering where their loved ones have gone, but they are too weak and sick to inquire very deeply.

At 11:00 p.m. Sunday night, Susan’s parents call Sheriff McCaslin because Susan never came home. He promises to keep an eye out for her. Cruising the back roads, he spots her car and investigates. He hears a light and carefree woman’s voice say, “Sheriff?” He sees a breathtakingly beautiful Susan walking hand in hand with Barlow, who now looks like a young man. They fall on him, and Monday morning, he is curled in the trunk of his cruiser, asleep but not breathing. Before dawn, Susan also visits her mother.

Ben comes downstairs late Monday morning to find Mark Petrie waiting for him. Mark reminds Ben of himself at the same age, but he also feels a stretching of reality, a weight settling on him as if they are the same person. Mark feels the same thing.