The Talisman by Stephen King

him.

“What, Jack?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Wolf, do you really change into an an-

imal when the moon gets full?”

“ ’Course I do!” Wolf said. He looked astounded, as if Jack had asked him something like Wolf, do you really pull up your pants after you finish taking a crap? “Strangers don’t, do they? Phil told me that.”

“The, ah, herd,” Jack said. “When you change, do they—”

“Oh, we don’t go near the herd when we change,” Wolf said seriously. “Good Jason, no! We’d eat them, don’t you

know that? And a Wolf who eats of his herd must be put to

death. The Book of Good Farming says so. Wolf! Wolf! We have places to go when the moon is full. So does the herd.

They’re stupid, but they know they have to go away at the

time of the big moon. Wolf! They better know, God pound

them!”

“But you do eat meat, don’t you?” Jack asked.

“Full of questions, just like your father,” Wolf said. “Wolf!

I don’t mind. Yeah, we eat meat. Of course we do. We’re

Wolfs, aren’t we?”

“But if you don’t eat from the herds, what do you eat?”

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“We eat well,” Wolf said, and would say no more on that

subject.

Like everything else in the Territories, Wolf was a

mystery—a mystery that was both gorgeous and frightening.

The fact that he had known both Jack’s father and Morgan

Sloat—had, at least, met their Twinners on more than one occasion—contributed to Wolf ’s particular aura of mystery, but did not define it completely. Everything Wolf told him led

Jack to a dozen more questions, most of which Wolf

couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer.

The matter of Philip Sawtelle’s and Orris’s visits was a

case in point. They had first appeared when Wolf was in the

“little moon” and living with his mother and two “litter-

sisters.” They were apparently just passing through, as Jack himself was now doing, only they had been heading east instead of west (“Tell you the truth, you’re just about the only human I’ve ever seen this far west who was still going west,”

Wolf said).

They had been jolly enough company, both of them. It was

only later that there had been trouble . . . trouble with Orris.

That had been after the partner of Jack’s father had “made

himself a place in this world,” Wolf told Jack again and

again—only now he seemed to mean Sloat, in the physical

guise of Orris. Wolf said that Morgan had stolen one of his litter-sisters (“My mother bit her hands and toes for a month after she knew for certain that he took her,” Wolf told Jack matter-of-factly) and had taken other Wolfs from time to time.

Wolf dropped his voice and, with an expression of fear and

superstitious awe on his face, told Jack that the “limping

man” had taken some of these Wolfs into the other world, the Place of the Strangers, and had taught them to eat of the herd.

“That’s very bad for guys like you, isn’t it?” Jack asked.

“They’re damned,” Wolf replied simply.

Jack had thought at first that Wolf was speaking of kidnap-

ping—the verb Wolf had used in connection with his litter-

sister, after all, was the Territories version of take. He began to see now that kidnapping wasn’t what was going on at all—

unless Wolf, with unconscious poetry, had been trying to say that Morgan had kidnapped the minds of some of the Wolf

family. Jack now thought that Wolf was really talking about werewolves who had thrown over their ancient allegiance to

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the Crown and the herd and had given it to Morgan

instead . . . Morgan Sloat and Morgan of Orris.

Which led naturally enough to thoughts of Elroy.

A Wolf who eats of his herd must be put to death.

To thoughts of the men in the green car who had stopped

to ask him directions, and offered him a Tootsie Roll, and

who had then tried to pull him into their car. The eyes. The eyes had changed.

They’re damned.

He made himself a place in this world.

Until now he had felt both safe and delighted: delighted to be back in the Territories where there was a nip in the air but nothing like the dull, cold gray bite of western Ohio, safe with big, friendly Wolf beside him, way out in the country, miles from anything or anyone.

Made himself a place in this world.

He asked Wolf about his father—Philip Sawtelle in this

world—but Wolf only shook his head. He had been a

God-pounding good guy, and a Twinner—thus obviously a

Stranger—but that was all Wolf seemed to know. Twinners, he said, was something that had something to do with litters of people, and about such business he could not presume to say.

Nor could he describe Philip Sawtelle—he didn’t remember.

He only remembered the smell. All he knew, he told Jack, was that, while both of the Strangers had seemed nice, only Phil Sawyer had really been nice. Once he had brought presents for Wolf and his litter-sisters and litter-brothers. One of the presents, unchanged from the world of the Strangers, had

been a set of bib overalls for Wolf.

“I wore em all the time,” Wolf said. “My mother wanted to

throw em away after I’d wore em for five years or so. Said

they were worn out! Said I was too big for them! Wolf! Said they were only patches holding more patches together. I

wouldn’t give em up, though. Finally, she bought some cloth from a drummer headed out toward the Outposts. I don’t

know how much she paid, and Wolf! I’ll tell you the truth,

Jack, I’m afraid to ask. She dyed it blue and made me six

pairs. The ones your father brought me, I sleep on them now.

Wolf! Wolf! It’s my God-pounding pillow, I guess.” Wolf

smiled so openly—and yet so wistfully—that Jack was moved

to take his hand. It was something he never could have done

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in his old life, no matter what the circumstances, but that now seemed like his loss. He was glad to take Wolf ’s warm, strong hand.

“I’m glad you liked my dad, Wolf,” he said.

“I did! I did! Wolf! Wolf!”

And then all hell broke loose.

2

Wolf stopped talking and looked around, startled.

“Wolf ? What’s wr—”

“Shhhh!”

Then Jack heard it. Wolf ’s more sensitive ears had picked

the sound up first, but it swelled quickly; before long, a deaf man would have heard it, Jack thought. The cattle looked

around and then began to move away from the source of the

sound in a rough, uneasy clot. It was like a radio sound-effect where someone is supposed to be ripping a bedsheet down the middle, very slowly. Only the volume kept going up and up

and up until Jack thought he was going to go crazy.

Wolf leaped to his feet, looking stunned and confused and

frightened. That ripping sound, a low, ragged purr, continued to grow. The bleating of the cattle became louder. Some were backing into the stream, and as Jack looked that way he saw one go down with a splash and a clumsy flailing of legs. It had been pushed over by its milling, retreating comrades. It let out a shrill, baaa-ing cry. Another cow-sheep stumbled over it and was likewise trampled into the water by the slow retreat. The far side of the stream was low and wet, green with reeds, muddy-marshy. The cow-sheep who first reached this

muck quickly became mired in it.

“Oh you God-pounding good-for-nothing cattle!” Wolf bellowed, and charged down the hill toward the stream, where the first animal to fall over now looked as if it were in its death-throes.

“Wolf!” Jack shouted, but Wolf couldn’t hear him. Jack

could barely hear himself over that ragged ripping sound. He looked a little to the right, on this side of the stream, and gaped with amazement. Something was happening to the air.

A patch of it about three feet off the ground was rippling and blistering, seeming to twist and pull at itself. Jack could see

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the Western Road through this patch of air, but the road

seemed blurry and shimmery, as if seen through the heated,

rippling air over an incinerator.

Something’s pulling the air open like a wound—some-

thing’s coming through—from our side? Oh Jason, is that what I do when I come through? But even in his own panic and confusion he knew it was not.

Jack had a good idea who would come through like this, like a rape in progress.

Jack began to run down the hill.

3

The ripping sound went on and on and on. Wolf was down on