Stephen King – The Waste Lands

young children. On the bright green cover was an anthropomorphic locomotive puffing its

way up a hill. Its cowcatcher (which was bright pink) wore a happy grin and its headlight

was a cheerful eye which seemed to invite Jake Cham- bers to come inside and read all

about it. Charlie the Choo-Choo, the title proclaimed, Story and Pictures by Beryl Evans.

Jake’s mind flashed back to his Final Essay, with the picture of the Amtrak train on the

title-page and the words choo-choo written over and over again inside.

He grabbed the book and clutched it tightly, as if it might fly away if he relaxed his grip.

And as he looked down at the cover, Jake found that he did not trust the smile on Charlie

the Choo-Choo’s face. YOM look happy, but I think that’s just the mask you wear, he

thought. I don’t think you’re happy at all. And I don’t think Charlie’s your real name, either.

These were crazy thoughts to be having, undoubtedly crazy, but they did not feel crazy.

They felt sane. They felt true.

Standing next to the place where Charlie the Choo-Choo had been was a tattered

paperback. The cover was quite badly torn and had been mended with Scotch tape now

yellow with age. The picture showed a puzzled-looking boy and girl with a forest of

question-marks over their heads. The title of this book was Riddle-De-Dum!

Brain-Twisters and Puzzles for Everyone! No author was credited.

Jake tucked Charlie the Choo-Choo under his arm and picked up the riddle book. He opened it at random and saw this:

When is a door not a door?

“When it’s a jar,” Jake muttered. He could feel sweat popping out on his forehead . . . his arms … all over his body.

“When it’s ajar!”

“Find something, son?” a mild voice inquired.

Jake turned around and saw a fat guy in an open-throated white shirt standing at the end of

the counter. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his old gabardine slacks. A pair of

half-glasses were pushed up on the bright dome of his bald head.

“Yes,” Jake said feverishly. “These two. Are they for sale?”

“Everything you see is for sale,” the fat guy said. “The building itself would be for sale, if I owned it. Alas, I only lease.” He held out his hand for the books and for a moment Jake

balked. Then, reluctantly, he handed them over. Part of him expected the fat guy to flee

with them, and if he did—if he gave the slightest indication ol trying it— Jake meant to

tackle him, rip the books out of his hands, and boogie. He needed those books.

“Okay, let’s see what yon got,” the fat man said. “By the way, I’m Tower. Calvin Tower.”

He stuck out his hand.

Jake’s eyes widened, and he took an involuntary step backward. “What?”

The fat guy looked at him with some interest. “Calvin Tower. Which word is profanity in

your language, O Hyperborean Wanderer?”

“Huh?”

“I just mean you look like someone goosed you, kid.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He clasped Mr. Tower’s large, soft hand, hoping the man wouldn’t pursue it.

The name had given him a jump, but he didn’t know why. “I’m Jake Chambers.”

Calvin Tower shook his hand. “Good handle, pard. Sounds like the footloose hero in a

Western novel—the guy who blows into Black Fork, Arizona, cleans up the town, and then

travels on. Something by Wayne D. Overholser, maybe. Except you don’t look footloose,

Jake. You look like you decided the day was a little too nice to spend in school.”

“Oh … no. We finished up last Friday.”

Tower grinned. “Uh-huh. I bet. And you’ve gotta have these two items, huh? It’s sort of funny, what people have to have. Now you—I would have pegged you as a Robert Howard

land of kid from the jump, looking for a good deal on one of those nice old Donald M.

Grant editions—the ones with the Roy Krenkel paintings. Dripping swords, mighty thews,

and Conan the Barbarian hacking his way through the Stygian hordes.”

“That sounds pretty good, actually. These are for . . . uh, for my little brother. It’s his birthday next week.”

Calvin Tower used his thumb to flip his glasses down onto his nose and had a closer look

at Jake. “Really? You look like an only child to me. An only child if I ever saw one,

enjoying a day of French leave as Mistress May trembles in her green gown just outside the

bosky dell of June.”

“Come again?”

“Never mind. Spring always puts me in a William Cowper-ish mood. People are weird but

interesting, Tex—am I right?”

“I guess so,” Jake said cautiously. He couldn’t decide if he liked this odd man or not.

One of the counter-browsers spun on his stool. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand

and a bartered paperback copy of The Plague in the other. “Quit pulling the kid’s chain and sell him the books, Cal,” he said. “We’ve still got time to finish this game of chess before the end of the world, if you hurry up.”

“Hurry is antithetical to my nature,” Cal said, hut he opened Charlie the Choo-Choo and peered at the price pencilled on the flyleaf. “A fairly common book, but this copy’s in

unusually fine condition. Little kids usually rack the hell out of the ones they like. I should

get twelve dollars for it—”

“Goddam thief,” the man who was reading The Plague said, and the other browser laughed.

Calvin Tower paid no notice.

“—but I can’t bear to dock you that much on a day like this. Seven bucks and it’s yours.

Plus tax, of course. The riddle book you can have for free. Consider it my gift to a boy wise

enough to saddle up and light out for the territories on the last real day of spring.”

Jake dug out his wallet and opened it anxiously, afraid he had left the house with only

three or four dollars. He was in luck, however. He had a five and three ones. He held the

money out to Tower, who folded the bills casually into one pocket and made change out of

the other.

“Don’t hurry off, Jake. Now that you’re here, come on over to the counter and have a cup of coffee. Your eyes will widen with amazement as I cut Aaron Deepneau’s spavined old Kiev

Defense to ribbons.”

“Don’t you wish,” said the man who was reading The Plague—Aaron Deepneau, presumably.

“I’d like to, but I can’t. I … there’s someplace I have to be.”

“Okay. As long as it’s not back to school.”

Jake grinned. “No—not school. That way lies madness.”

Tower laughed out loud and flipped his glasses up to the top of his head again. “Not bad!

Not bad at all! Maybe the younger generation isn’t going to hell after all, Aaron—what do

you think?”

“Oh, they’re going to hell, all right,” Aaron said. “This boy’s just an exception to the rule.

Maybe.”

“Don’t mind that cynical old fart,” Calvin Tower said. “Motor on, O Hyperborean

Wanderer. I wish I were ten or eleven again, with a beautiful day like this ahead of me.”

“Thanks for the books,” Jake said.

“No problem. That’s what we’re here for. Come on back sometime.”

“I’d like to.”

“Well, you know where we are.”

Yes, Jake thought. Now if I only knew where I am.

14

HE STOPPED JUST OUTSIDE the bookstore and flipped open the riddle book again, this

time to page one, where there was a short uncredited introduction.

“Riddles are perhaps the oldest of all the games people still play today,” it began. “The gods and goddesses of Greek myth teased each other with riddles, and they were employed

as teaching tools in ancient Rome. The Bible contains several good riddles. One of the

most famous of these was told by Samson on the day he was married to Delilah:

‘Out of the eater came forth meat,

and out of the strong came forth sweetness!’

“He asked this riddle of several young men who attended his wedding, confident that they

wouldn’t be able to guess the answer. The young men, however,’ got Delilah aside and she

whispered the answer to them. Samson was furious, and had the young men put to death for

cheating—in the old days, you see, riddles were taken much more seriously than they are

today!

“By the way, the answer to Samson’s riddle—and all the other rid- dles in this book—can

be found in the section at the back. We only ask that you give each puzzler a fair chance

before you peek!”

Jake turned to the back of the book, somehow knowing what he would find even before he

got there. Beyond the page marked ANSWERS there was nothing but a few torn fragments

and the back cover. The section had been ripped out.