Stephen King – The Waste Lands

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Oy.

Tick-Tock slapped his face, knocking him back into Gasher, who immediately pushed him

forward again. “It’s school-time, dear heart,” Gasher whispered. “Mind yer lessons, now!

Mind em wery sharp!”

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Tick-Tock said. “I’ll have some respect, Jake Chambers, or I’ll have your balls.”

“All right.”

Tick-Tock’s green eyes gleamed dangerously. “All right what?”

Jake groped for the right answer, pushing away the tangle of ques- tions and the sudden

hope which had dawned in his mind. And what came was what would have served at his

own Cradle of the Pubes . . . otherwise known as The Piper School. “All right, sir?”

Tick-Tock smiled. “That’s a start, boy,” he said, and leaned forward, forearms on his

thighs. “Now . . . what’s an American?”

Jake began to talk, trying with all his might not to look toward the ventilator grille as he

did so.

29

ROLAND BOLSTERED HIS GUN, laid both hands on the valve-wheel, and tried to turn

it. It wouldn’t budge. That didn’t much surprise him, but it presented serious problems.

Oy stood by his left boot, looking up anxiously, waiting for Roland to open the door so

they could continue the journey to Jake. The gunslinger only wished it was that easy. It

wouldn’t do to simply stand out here and wait for someone to leave; it might be hours or

even days before one of the Grays decided to use this particular exit again. Gasher and his

friends might take it into their heads to flay Jake alive while the gunslinger was waiting for

it to happen.

He leaned his head against the steel but heard nothing. That didn’t surprise him, either. He

had seen doors like this a long time ago—you couldn’t shoot out the locks, and you

certainly couldn’t hear through them. There might be one; there might be two, facing each

other, with some dead airspace in between. Somewhere, though, there would be a button

which would spin the wheel in the middle of the door and release the locks. If Jake could

reach that button, all might still be well.

Roland understood that he was not a full member of this ka-tet; he guessed that even Oy

was more fully aware than he of the secret life which existed at its heart (he very much

doubted that the bumbler had tracked Jake with his nose alone through those tunnels where

water ran in polluted streamlets). Nevertheless, he had been able to help Jake when die boy

had been trying to cross from his world to this one. He had been able to see . . . and when

Jake had been trying to regain the key he had dropped, he had been able to send a message.

He had to be very careful about sending messages this time. At best, the Grays would

realize something was up. At worst, Jake might misinterpret what Roland tried to tell him

and do something foolish.

But if he could see . . .

Roland closed his eyes and bent all his concentration toward Jake. He thought of the boy’s

eyes and sent his ka out to find them.

At first there was nothing, but at last an image began to form. It was a face framed by long,

gray-blonde hair. Green eyes gleamed in deep sockets like firedims in a cave. Roland

quickly understood that this was the Tick-Tock Man, and that he was a descendent of the

man who had died in the air-carriage—interesting, but of no practical value in this situation.

He tried to look beyond the Tick-Tock Man, to see the rest of the room in which Jake was

being held, and the people in it.

“Ake,” Oy whispered, as if reminding Roland that this was neither the time nor the place to take a nap.

“Shhh,” the gunslinger said, not opening his eyes.

But it was no good. He caught only blurs, probably because Jake’s concentration was

focused so tightly on the Tick-Tock Man; everyone and everything else was little more

than a series of gray-shrouded shapes on the edges of Jake’s perception.

Roland opened his eyes again and pounded his left fist lightly into the open palm of his

right hand. He had an idea that he could push harder and see more . . . but that might make

the boy aware of his presence. That would be dangerous. Casher might smell a rat, and if he

didn’t the Tick-Tock Man would.

He looked up at the narrow ventilator grilles, then down at Oy. He had wondered several

times just how smart he was; now it looked as though he was going to find out.

Roland reached up with his good left hand, slipped his fingers between the horizontal slats

of the ventilator grille closest to the hatchway through which Jake had been taken, and

pulled. The grille popped out in a shower of rust and dried moss. The hole behind it was far

too small for a man . . . but not for a billy-bumbler. He put the grille down, picked Oy up,

and spoke softly into his ear.

“Go . . . see . . . come back. Do you understand? Don’t let them see you. Just go and see and come back.”

Oy gazed up into his face, saying nothing, not even Jake’s name. Roland had no idea if he

had understood or not, but wasting time in ponderation would not help matters. He placed

Oy in the ventilator shaft. The bumbler sniffed at the crumbles of dried moss, sneezed

delicately, then only crouched there with the draft rippling through his long, silky fur,

looking doubtfully at Roland with his strange eyes.

“Go and see and come back,” Roland repeated in a whisper, and Oy disappeared into the

shadows, walking silently, claws retracted, on the pads of his paws.

Roland drew his gun again and did the hardest thing. He waited.

Oy returned less than three minutes later. Roland lifted him out of the shaft and put him on

the floor. Oy looked up at him with his long neck extended. “How many, Oy?” Roland

asked. “How many did you see?”

For a long moment he thought the bumbler wouldn’t do anything except go on staring in

his anxious way. Then he lifted his right paw tentatively in the air, extended the claws, and

looked at it, as if trying to remember something very difficult. At last he began to tap on the

steel floor.

One . . . two . . . three . . . four. A pause. Then two more, quick and delicate, the extended

claws clicking lightly on the steel: five, six. Oy paused a second time, head down, looking

like a child lost in the throes of some titanic mental struggle. Then he tapped his claws one

final time on the steel, looking up at Roland as he did it. “Ake!”

Six. Grays . . . and Jake.

Roland picked Oy up and stroked him. “Good!” he murmured into Oy’s ear. In truth, he

was almost overwhelmed with surprise and grati- tude. He had hoped for something, but

this careful response was amaz- ing. And he had few doubts about the accuracy of the count.

“Good boy!”

“Oy! Ake!”

Yes, Jake. Jake was the problem. Jake, to whom he had made a promise he intended to

keep.

The gunslinger thought deeply in his strange fashion—that combina- tion of dry

pragmatism and wild intuition which had probably come from his strange grandmother,

Deidre the Mad, and had kept him alive all these years after his old companions had passed.

Now he was depending on it to keep Jake alive, too.

He picked Oy up again, knowing Jake might live—might—but the bumbler was almost

certainly going to die. He whispered several simple words into Oy’s cocked ear, repeating

them over and over. At last he ceased speaking and returned him to the ventilator shaft.

“Good boy,” he whispered. “Go on, now. Get it done. My heart goes with you.”

“Oy! Art! Ake!” the bumbler whispered, and then scurried off into the darkness again.

Roland waited for all hell to break loose.

30

ASK ME A QUESTION, Eddie Dean of New York. And it better be a good one . . . if it’s

not, you and your woman are going to die, no matter where you came from.

And, dear God, how did you respond to something like that?

The dark red light had gone out; now the pink one reappeared. “Hurry,” the faint voice of Little Blaine urged them. “He’s worse than ever before . . . hurry or he’ll kill you!”

Eddie was vaguely aware that flocks of disturbed pigeons were still swooping aimlessly

through the Cradle, and that some of them had smashed headfirst into the pillars and

dropped dead on the floor.

“What does it want?” Susannah hissed at the speaker and the voice of Little Blaine

somewhere behind it. “For God’s sake, what does it want?”