The Talisman by Stephen King

. . . that vermouth is the ruination of a good martini . . .

Richard followed silently along, brooding. He was so

much slower that Jack had to stop still on the side of the road

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and wait for Richard to catch up with him. A little town that must have been Storyville was visible a half-mile or so ahead.

A few low white buildings sat on either side of the road. ANTIQUES, read the sign atop one of them. Past the buildings a blinking stoplight hung over an empty intersection. Jack

could see the corner of the MOBIL sign outside the gas station.

Richard trudged along, his head so far down his chin nearly rested on his chest. When Richard drew nearer, Jack finally saw that his friend was weeping.

Jack put his arm around Richard’s shoulders. “I want you

to know something,” he said.

“What?” Richard’s small face was tear-streaked but

defiant.

“I love you,” Jack said.

Richard’s eyes snapped back to the surface of the road.

Jack kept his arm over his friend’s shoulders. In a moment

Richard looked up—looked straight at Jack—and nodded.

And that was like something Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer once or

twice really had said to her son: Jack-O, there are times you don’t have to spill your guts out of your mouth.

“We’re on our way, Richie,” Jack said. He waited for

Richard to wipe his eyes. “I guess somebody’s supposed to

meet us up there at the Mobil station.”

“Hitler, maybe?” Richard pressed the heels of his hands to

his eyes. In a moment he was ready again, and the two boys

walked into Storyville together.

7

It was a Cadillac, parked on the shady side of the Mobil

station—an El Dorado with a boomerang TV antenna on the

back. It looked as big as a house-trailer and as dark as death.

“Oh, Jack, baaaad shit,” Richard moaned, and grabbed at Jack’s shoulder. His eyes were wide, his mouth trembling.

Jack felt adrenaline whippet into his system again. It didn’t pump him up any longer. It only made him feel tired. There

had been too much, too much, too much.

Clasping the dark junk-shop crystal ball that the Talisman

had become, Jack started down the hill toward the Mobil station.

“Jack!” Richard screamed weakly from behind him.

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“What the hell are you doing? It’s one of THEM! Same cars as at Thayer! Same cars as in Point Venuti!”

“Parkus told us to come here,” Jack said.

“You’re crazy, chum,” Richard whispered.

“I know it. But this’ll be all right. You’ll see. And don’t call me chum.”

The Caddy’s door swung open and a heavily muscled leg

clad in faded blue denim swung out. Unease became active

terror when he saw that the toe of the driver’s black engineer boot had been cut off so long, hairy toes could stick out.

Richard squeaked beside him like a fieldmouse.

It was a Wolf, all right—Jack knew that even before the

guy turned around. He stood almost seven feet tall. His hair was long, shaggy, and not very clean. It hung in tangles to his collar. There were a couple of burdocks in it. Then the big figure turned, Jack saw a flash of orange eyes—and suddenly

terror became joy.

Jack sprinted toward the big figure down there, heedless of the gas station attendant who had come out to stare at him, and the idlers in front of the general store. His hair flew back from his forehead; his battered sneakers thumped and

flapped; his face was split by a dizzy grin; his eyes shone like the Talisman itself.

Bib overalls: Oshkosh, by gosh. Round rimless spectacles:

John Lennon glasses. And a wide, welcoming grin.

“Wolf!” Jack Sawyer screamed. “Wolf, you’re alive! Wolf, you’re alive!”

He was still five feet from Wolf when he leaped. And Wolf

caught him with neat, casual ease, grinning delightedly.

“Jack Sawyer! Wolf! Look at this! Just like Parkus said!

I’m here at this God-pounding place that smells like shit in a swamp, and you’re here, too! Jack and his friend! Wolf!

Good! Great! Wolf!”

It was the Wolf ’s smell that told Jack this wasn’t his Wolf, just as it was the smell that told him this Wolf was some sort of relation . . . surely a very close one.

“I knew your litter-brother,” Jack said, still in the Wolf ’s shaggy, strong arms. Now, looking at this face, he could see it was older and wiser. But still kind.

“My brother Wolf,” Wolf said, and put Jack down. He

reached out one hand and touched the Talisman with the tip of

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one finger. His face was full of awed reverence. When he

touched it, one bright spark appeared and shot deep into the globe’s dull depths like a tumbling comet.

He drew in a breath, looked at Jack, and grinned. Jack

grinned back.

Richard now arrived, staring at both of them with wonder

and caution.

“There are good Wolfs as well as bad in the Territories—”

Jack began.

“Lots of good Wolfs,” Wolf interjected.

He stuck out his hand to Richard. Richard pulled back for

a second and then shook it. The set of his mouth as his hand was swallowed made Jack believe Richard expected the sort

of treatment Wolf had accorded Heck Bast a long time ago.

“This is my Wolf ’s litter-brother,” Jack said proudly. He cleared his throat, not knowing exactly how to express his

feelings for this being’s brother. Did Wolfs understand condolence? Was it part of their ritual?

“I loved your brother,” he said. “He saved my life. Except

for Richard here, he was just about the best friend I ever had, I guess. I’m sorry he died.”

“He’s in the moon now,” Wolf ’s brother said. “He’ll be

back. Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon.

Everything comes back, like the moon. Come on. Want to get

away from this stinking place.”

Richard looked puzzled, but Jack understood and more

than sympathized—the Mobil station seemed surrounded

with a hot, oily aroma of fried hydrocarbons. It was like a brown shroud you could see through.

The Wolf went to the Cadillac and opened the rear door

like a chauffeur—which was, Jack supposed, exactly what

he was.

“Jack?” Richard looked frightened.

“It’s okay,” Jack said.

“But where—”

“To my mother, I think,” Jack said. “All the way across the country to Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire. Going first class.

Come on, Richie.”

They walked to the car. Shoved over to one side of the

wide back seat was a scruffy old guitar case. Jack felt his heart leap up again.

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“Speedy!” He turned to Wolf ’s litter-brother. “Is Speedy

coming with us?”

“Don’t know anyone speedy,” the Wolf said. “Had an uncle

who was sort of speedy, then he pulled up lame—Wolf!—and

couldn’t even keep up with the herd anymore.”

Jack pointed at the guitar case.

“Where did that come from?”

Wolf grinned, showing many big teeth. “Parkus,” he said.

“Left this for you, too. Almost forgot.”

From his back pocket he took a very old postcard. On the

front was a carousel filled with a great many familiar

horses—Ella Speed and Silver Lady among them—but the

ladies in the foreground were wearing bustles, the boys knickers, many of the men derby hats and Rollie Fingers mous-

taches. The card felt silky with age.

He turned it over, first reading the print up the middle:

ARCADIA BEACH CAROUSEL, JULY 4TH, 1894.

It was Speedy—not Parkus—who had scratched two sen-

tences in the message space. His hand was sprawling, not

very literate; he had written with a soft, blunt pencil.

You done great wonders, Jack. Use what you need of

what’s in the case—keep the rest or throw it away.

Jack put the postcard in his hip pocket and got into the

back of the Cadillac, sliding across the plush seat. One of the catches on the old guitar case was broken. He unsnapped the other three.

Richard had gotten in after Jack. “Holy crow!” he whis-

pered.

The guitar case was stuffed with twenty-dollar bills.

8

Wolf took them home, and although Jack grew hazy about

many of that autumn’s events in a very short time, each mo-

ment of that trip was emblazoned on his mind for the rest of his life. He and Richard sat in the back of the El Dorado and Wolf drove them east and east and east. Wolf knew the roads and Wolf drove them. He sometimes played Creedence Clearwater Revival tapes—“Run Through the Jungle” seemed to be

his favorite—at a volume just short of ear-shattering. Then he would spend long periods of time listening to the tonal varia-

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tions in the wind as he worked the button that controlled his wing window. This seemed to fascinate him completely.

East, east, east—into the sunrise each morning, into the