as a tile was torn off. It was impossible not to construct a picture from these sounds, and
what Susannah began to see was a great black worm whose segmented body filled the
passage from side to side, occasionally ripping off loose ceramic squares and crushing
them beneath its gelatinous body as it rushed ever onward, hungry, closing the gap between
it and them.
And closing it much more rapidly now. Susannah thought she knew why. Before, they had
been running in a moving island of light. Whatever that thing behind them was, it didn’t
like the light. She thought of the flashlight Roland had added to their gunna, but without
fresh batteries, it would be next to useless. Twenty seconds after flicking the switch on its long barrel, the damn thing would be dead.
Except…wait a minute.
Its barrel.
Its long barrel!
Susannah reached into the leather bag bouncing around at Roland’s side, finding tins of
food, but those weren’t the tins she wanted. At last she found one that she did, recognizing
it by the circular gutter running around the lid. There was no time to wonder why it should
feel so immediately and intimately familiar; Detta had her secrets, and something to do
with Sterno was probably one of them. She held the can up to smell and be sure, then
promptly bashed herself on the bridge of the nose with it when Roland stumbled over
something—maybe a chunk of flooring, maybe another skeleton—and had to battle again
for balance. He won this time, too, but eventually he’d lose and the thing back there might
be on them before he could get up. Susannah felt warm blood begin to course down her
face and the thing behind them, perhaps smelling it, let loose an enormous damp cry. She
thought of a gigantic alligator in a Florida swamp, raising its scaly head to bay at the moon.
And it was soclose.
Oh dear God give me time,she thought.I don’t want to go like this, getting shot’s one thing,
but getting eaten alive in the dark —
That was another.
“Gofaster !” she snarled at Roland, and thumped at his sides with her thighs, like a rider
urging on a weary horse.
Somehow, Roland did. His respiration was now an agonized roar. He had not breathed so
even after dancing the commala. If he kept on, his heart would burst in his chest. But—
“Faster,Tex! Let it all out, goddammit! I might have a trick up my sleeve, but in the
meantime you give it every-damn-everything you got!”
And there in the dark beneath Castle Discordia, Roland did.
Twelve
She plunged her free hand once more into the bag and it closed on the flashlight’s barrel.
She pulled it out and tucked it under her arm (knowing if she dropped it they were gone for
sure), then snapped back the tab-release on the Sterno can, relieved to hear the momentary
hiss as the vacuum-seal broke. Relieved but not surprised—if the seal had been broken, the
flammable jelly inside would have evaporated long ago and the can would have been
lighter.
“Roland!” she shouted. “Roland, I need matches!”
“Shirt…pocket!” he panted. “Reach for them!”
But first she dropped the flashlight into the seam where her crotch met the middle of his
back, then snatched it up just before it could slide away. Now, with a good hold on it, she
plunged the barrel into the can of Sterno. To grab one of the matches while holding the can
and the jelly-coated flashlight would have taken a third hand, so she jettisoned the can.
There were two others in the bag, but if this didn’t work she’d never have a chance to reach
for one of them.
The thing bellowed again, sounding as if it wereright behind them . Now she could smell it,
the aroma like a load of fish rotting in the sun.
She reached over Roland’s shoulder and plucked a single match from his pocket. There
might be time to light one; not for two. Roland and Eddie were able to pop them alight with
their thumbnails, but Detta Walker had known a trick worth two of that, had used it on
more than one occasion to impress her whiteboy victims in the roadhouses where she’d
gone trolling. She grimaced in the dark, peeling her lips away from her teeth, and placed
the head of the match between the two front ones on top.Eddie, if you’re there, help me,
sugar—help me do right.
She struck the match. Something hot burned the roof of her mouth and she tasted sulfur on
her tongue. The head of the match nearly blinded her dark-adapted eyes, but she could see
well enough to touch it to the jelly-coated barrel of the flashlight. The Sterno caught at
once, turning the barrel into a torch. It was weak but it wassomething .
“Turn around!” she screamed.
Roland skidded to a stop immediately—no questions, no protest—and pivoted on his heels.
She held the burning flashlight out before her and for a moment they both saw the head of
something wet and covered with pink albino eyes. Below them was a mouth the size of a
trapdoor, filled with squirming tentacles. The Sterno didn’t burn brightly, but in this
Stygian blackness it was bright enough to make the thing recoil. Before it disappeared into the blackness again, she saw all those eyes squeezing shut and had a moment to think of
how sensitive they must be if even a little guttering flame like this could—
Lining the floor of the passageway on both sides were jumbled heaps of bones. In her hand,
the bulb end of the flashlight was already growing warm. Oy was barking frantically,
looking back into the dark with his head down and his short legs splayed, every hair
standing on end.
“Squat down, Roland, squat!”
He did and she handed him the makeshift torch, which was already beginning to gutter, the
yellow flames running up and down the stainless steel barrel turning blue. The thing in the
dark let out another deafening roar, and now she could see its shape again, weaving from
side to side. It was creeping closer as the light faltered.
If the floor’s wet here, we’re most likely done,she thought, but the touch of her fingers as
she groped for a thighbone suggested it was not. Perhaps that was a false message sent by
her hopeful senses—she could certainly hear water dripping from the ceiling somewhere
up ahead—but she didn’t think so.
She reached into the bag for another can of Sterno, but at first the release-ring defied her.
The thing was coming and now she could see any number of short, misshapen legs beneath
its raised lump of a head. Not a worm after all but some kind of giant centipede. Oy placed
himself in front of her, still barking, every tooth on display. It was Oy the thing would take first if she couldn’t—
Then her finger slipped into the ring lying almost flat against the lid of the can. There was apop-hissh sound. Roland was waving the flashlight back and forth, trying to fan a little life into the guttering flames (which might have worked had there been fuel for them), and she
saw their fading shadows rock deliriously back and forth on the decaying tile walls.
The circumference of the bone was too big for the can. Now lying in an awkward sprawl,
half in and half out of the harness, she dipped into it, brought out a handful of jelly, and
slathered it up and down the bone. If the bone was wet, this would only buy them a few
more seconds of horror. If it was dry, however, then maybe…just maybe…
The thing was creeping ever closer. Amid the tentacles sprouting from its mouth she could
see jutting fangs. In another moment it would be close enough to lunge at Oy, taking him
with the speed of a gecko snatching a fly out of the air. Its rotted-fish aroma was strong and nauseating. And what might be behind it? What other abominations?
No time to think about that now.
She touched her thighbone torch to the fading flames licking along the barrel of the
flashlight. The bloom of fire was greater than she had expected—far greater—and the
thing’s scream this time was filled with pain as well as surprise. There was a nasty squelching sound, like mud being squeezed in a vinyl raincoat, and it lashed backward.
“Git me more bones,” she said as Roland cast the flashlight aside. “And make sure they’re
demdrah bones.” She laughed at her own wit (since nobody else would), a down-and-dirty
Detta cackle.
Still gasping for breath, Roland did as she told him.
Thirteen
They resumed their progress along the passage, Susannah now riding backward, a position
that was difficult but not impossible. If they got out of here, her back would ache a bitch for the next day or two.And I’ll relish every single throb, she told herself. Roland still had the Bridgton Old Home Days tee-shirt Irene Tassenbaum had bought him. He handed it up to