Y’s Reviews > Carrie > Status Update

Mister, she looked awful. She was wearing
some kind of party dress, what was left of it, and she was all wet from that
hydrant and covered with blood. She looked like she just crawled out of a
car accident. But she was grinning. I never saw such a grin. It was like a
death's head. And she kept looking at her hands and rubbing them on her
dress, trying to get the blood off and thinking she'd never get it off and how

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.

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.”

Mr. Lublin was sitting by Miss
Desjardin and calling for a Kleenex. She had a bloody nose.
You have to understand that all this happened in no more than two
minutes. Nobody could put it all together. We were stunned. Some of them
were wandering around, talking a little, but not much. Helen Shyres burst
into tears, and that made some of the others start up.
Then someone yelled: “Call a doctor!

The laughter just sort of faded off, a little at a time. Some people were
still hitching and snorting. Lennie Brock had taken out a big white
handkerchief and was wiping his eyes. Sally McManus looked all white,
like she was going to throw up, but she was still giggling and she couldn't
seem to stop. Billy Bosnan was just standing there with his little conductor's
stick in his hand and shaking his head.

I don't know who it was, but she went sprawling
on her face, leaving a long red streak on the floor. And she said, “Oof!” I
remember that. It made me laugh even harder, hearing Carrie say Oof like
that. She started to crawl along the floor and then she got up and ran out.
She ran right past me. You could smell the blood. It smelled like something
sick and rotted.
She went down the stairs out the doors. And was
gone.

Miss Desjardin came running over to her, and she wasn't laughing any
more. She was holding out her arms to her. But then she veered off and hit
the wall beside the stage. It was the strangest thing. She didn't stumble or
anything. It was as if someone had pushed her, but there was no one there.
Carrie ran through the crowd with her hands clutching her face, and
somebody put his foot out.

And then her face . . . broke. I don't know how else to describe it. She put
her hands up to her face and half-staggered to her feet. She almost got
tangled in her own feet and fell over, and that made people laugh even
more. Then she sort of . . . hopped off the stage. It was like watching a big
red frog hopping off a lily pad. She almost fell again, but kept on her feet.

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. And so there was nothing else to do. It was either laugh or cry, and who
could bring himself to cry over Carrie after all those years?
She just sat there, staring out at them, and the laughter kept swelling,
louder. People were holding their bellies and doubling upand pointing at her.

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.
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.