1408- Maids' Ailments

“I suppose. In any case, Vee and Cee turned that room—very quick,
just in and out—until Cee retired and Vee got her first big promotion.
After that, I got other maids to do it in pairs, always picking ones who
got on well with each other—”

“Hoping for that bond to withstand the bogies?”

“Hoping for that bond, yes. And you can make fun of the room
1408 bogies as much as you want, Mr. Enslin, but you’ll feel them
almost at once, of that I’m confident. Whatever there is in that
room, it’s not shy.

“On many occasions—all that I could manage—I went with the
maids, to supervise them.” He paused, then added, almost reluctantly,
“To pull them out, I suppose, if anything really awful started to hap
pen. Nothing ever did. There were several who had weeping fits, one
who had a laughing fit—I don’t know why someone laughing out of
control should be more frightening than someone sobbing, but it is—
and a number who fainted. Nothing too terrible, however. I had time
enough over the years to make a few primitive experiments—beep
ers and cell-phones and such—but nothing too terrible. Thank
God.” He paused again, then added in a queer, flat tone: “One of
them went blind.”

“What?”

“She went blind. Rommie Van Gelder, that was. She was dusting
the top of the television, and all at once she began to scream. I
asked her what was wrong. She dropped her dustrag and put her
hands over her eyes and screamed that she was blind . . . but that she
could see the most awful colors. They went away almost as soon as I
got her out through the door, and by the time I got her down the
hallway to the elevator, her sight had begun to come back.”

- 1408, chapter I