The Talisman by Stephen King

Roars, bellows. In a moment, Jack knew, a fresh contingent

of Wolfs, supported by Assorted Geeks and Freaks, was going to appear from the back end of the long barracks, where they would have been shielded from the explosion, where they had probably been cowering with their heads down, and where

they would have remained . . . except for Osmond.

“Should have stayed off the road, little chicken,” Elroy

grunted, and ran at the train. His tail was swishing through the air. Reuel Gardener—or whatever Reuel was in this world—

made a thick mewling sound and attempted to follow. Os-

mond reached out and hauled him back; his fingers, Jack saw, appeared to slide right into the monster-boy’s slatlike, repulsive neck.

Then he raised the Uzi and fired an entire clip, point-blank, into Elroy’s face. It tore the goat-thing’s entire head off, and yet Elroy, headless, continued to climb for a moment, and one of his hands, the fingers melted together in two clumps to

make a parody of a cloven hoof, pawed blindly for Jack’s head before it tumbled backward.

Jack stared at it, stunned—he had dreamed that final night-

marish confrontation at the Oatley Tap over and over again, trying to stumble away from the monster through what

seemed to be a dark jungle filled with bedsprings and broken glass. Now here was that creature, and he had somehow killed it. It was hard to get his mind around the fact. It was as if he had killed childhood’s bogeyman.

Richard was screaming—and his machine-gun roared,

nearly deafening Jack.

“It’s Reuel! Oh Jack oh my God oh Jason it’s Reuel, it’s Reuel—”

The Uzi in Richard’s hands coughed out another short

burst before falling silent, its clip spent. Reuel shook free of his father. He lurched and hopped toward the train, mewling.

His upper lip curled back, revealing long teeth that looked false and flimsy, like the wax teeth children don at Halloween.

Page 563

The Talisman

563

Richard’s final burst took him in the chest and neck,

punching holes in the brown kilt- cum-jumper he wore, ripping open flesh in long, ragged furrows. Sluggish rills of dark blood flowed from these wounds, but no more. Reuel might

once have been human—Jack supposed it was just possible. If so, he was not human now; the bullets did not even slow him down. The thing which leaped clumsily over Elroy’s body was a demon. It smelled like a wet toadstool.

Something was growing warm against Jack’s leg. Just

warm at first . . . then hot. What was it? Felt like he had a teakettle in his pocket. But he didn’t have time to think.

Things were unfolding in front of him. In Technicolor.

Richard dropped his Uzi and staggered back, clapping his

hands to his face. His horrified eyes stared out at the Reuel-thing through the bars of his fingers.

“Don’t let him get me, Jack! Don’t let him get meeeee. . . .”

Reuel bubbled and mewled. His hands slapped against the

side of the engine and the sound was like large fins slapping down on thick mud.

Jack saw there were indeed thick, yellowish webs between

the fingers.

“Come back!” Osmond was yelling at his son, and the fear in his voice was unmistakable. “Come back, he’s bad, he’ll hurt you, all boys are bad, it’s axiomatic, come back, come back!”

Reuel burbled and grunted enthusiastically. He pulled him-

self up and Richard screamed insanely, backing into the far corner of the cab.

“DON’T LET HIM GET MEEEEEEE—”

More Wolfs, more strange freaks charging around the cor-

ner. One of them, a creature with curly ram’s horns jutting from the sides of its head and wearing only a pair of patched L’il Abner britches, fell down and was trampled by the others.

Heat against Jack’s leg in a circle.

Reuel, now throwing one reedy leg over the side of the cab.

It was slobbering, reaching for him, and the leg was writhing, it wasn’t a leg at all, it was a tentacle. Jack raised the Uzi and fired.

Half of the Reuel-thing’s face sheered away like pudding.

A flood of worms began to fall out of what was left.

Reuel was still coming.

Page 564

564

THE TALISMAN

Reaching for him with those webbed fingers.

Richard’s shrieks, Osmond’s shrieks merging, melting to-

gether into one.

Heat like a branding iron against his leg and suddenly he

knew what it was, even as Reuel’s hands squashed down on

his shoulders he knew—it was the coin Captain Farren had

given him, the coin Anders had refused to take.

He drove his hand into his pocket. The coin was like a

chunk of ore in his hand—he made a fist around it, and felt power ram through him in big volts. Reuel felt it, too. His triumphant slobberings and grunts became mewlings of fear. He

tried to back away, his one remaining eye rolling wildly.

Jack brought the coin out. It glowed red-hot in his hand.

He felt the heat clearly—but it was not burning him.

The profile of the Queen glowed like the sun.

“In her name, you filthy, aborted thing!” Jack shouted.

“Get you off the skin of this world!” He opened his fist and slammed his hand into Reuel’s forehead.

Reuel and his father shrieked in harmony—Osmond a

tenor-verging-on-soprano, Reuel a buzzing, insectile bass.

The coin slid into Reuel’s forehead like the tip of a hot poker into a tub of butter. A vile dark fluid, the color of overbrewed tea, ran out of Reuel’s head and over Jack’s wrist. The fluid was hot. There were tiny worms in it. They twisted and

writhed on Jack’s skin. He felt them biting. Nevertheless, he pressed the first two fingers of his right hand harder, driving the coin farther into the monster’s head.

“Get you off the skin of this world, vileness! In the name of the Queen and in the name of her son, get you off the skin of this world!”

It shrieked and wailed; Osmond shrieked and wailed with it.

The reinforcements had stopped and were milling behind Os-

mond, their faces full of superstitious terror. To them Jack seemed to have grown; he seemed to be giving off a bright light.

Reuel jerked. Uttered one more bubbling screech. The

black stuff running out of his head turned yellow. A final

worm, long and thickly white, wriggled out of the hole the

coin had made. It fell to the floor of the engine compartment.

Jack stepped on it. It broke open under his heel and splat-

tered. Reuel fell in a wet heap.

Now such a screaming wail of grief and fury arose in the

Page 565

The Talisman

565

dusty stockade yard that Jack thought his skull might actually split open with it. Richard had curled into a fetal ball with his arms wrapped around his head.

Osmond was wailing. He had dropped his whip and the

machine-pistol.

“Oh, filthy!” he cried, shaking his fists at Jack. “Look what you’ve done! Oh, you filthy, bad boy! I hate you, hate you forever and beyond forever! Oh, filthy Pretender! I’ll kill you!

Morgan will kill you! Oh my darling only son! FILTHY!

MORGAN WILL KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE!

MORGAN—”

The others took up the cry in a whispering voice, remind-

ing Jack of the boys in the Sunlight Home: can you gimme hallelujah. And then they fell silent, because there was the other sound.

Jack was tumbled back instantly to the pleasant afternoon

he had spent with Wolf, the two of them sitting by the stream, watching the herd graze and drink as Wolf talked about his

family. It had been pleasant enough . . . pleasant enough, that is, until Morgan came.

And now Morgan was coming again—not flipping over

but bludgeoning his way through, raping his way in.

“Morgan! It’s—”

“—Morgan, Lord—”

“Lord of Orris—”

“Morgan . . . Morgan . . . Morgan . . .”

The ripping sound grew louder and louder. The Wolfs were

abasing themselves in the dust. Osmond danced a shuffling

jig, his black boots trampling the steel-tipped rawhide thongs woven into his whip.

“Bad boy! Filthy boy! Now you’ll pay! Morgan’s coming!

Morgan’s coming!”

The air about twenty feet to Osmond’s right began to blur

and shimmer, like the air over a burning incinerator.

Jack looked around, saw Richard curled up in the litter of

machine-guns and ammunition and grenades like a very small

boy who has fallen asleep while playing war. Only Richard

wasn’t asleep, he knew, and this was no game, and if Richard saw his father stepping through a hole between the worlds, he feared, Richard would go insane.

Jack sprawled beside his friend and wrapped his arms

Page 566

566

THE TALISMAN

tightly around him. That ripping-bedsheet sound grew louder, and suddenly he heard Morgan’s voice bellow in terrible rage:

“What is the train doing here NOW, you fools?”

He heard Osmond wail, “The filthy Pretender has killed