felt a recurrence of his earlier unease.
“I’ll bet this was a good place once,” Wolf said. “Clean and full of power . . .”
“Wolf?” Jack asked in a low voice. “Wolf, the hair’s come
back on your palms.”
Wolf started and looked at Jack. For a moment—it might
have been his feverish imagination, and even if not, it was only for a moment—Wolf looked at Jack with a flat, greedy hunger.
Then he seemed to shake himself, as if out of a bad dream.
“Yes,” he said. “But I don’t want to talk about that, and I don’t want you to talk about that. It doesn’t matter, not yet.
Wolf! Just drink your medicine, Jack, that’s all you have to do.”
Wolf was obviously not going to take no for an answer; if
Jack didn’t drink the medicine, then Wolf might feel duty-
bound to simply pull open his jaws and pour it down his throat.
“Remember, if this kills me, you’ll be alone,” Jack said
grimly, taking the can. It was still warm.
King_0345444884_6p_01_r1.qxd 8/13/01 1:05 PM Page 299
The Road of Trials
299
A look of terrible distress spread over Wolf ’s face. He
pushed the round glasses up on his nose. “Don’t want to hurt you, Jack—Wolf never wants to hurt Jack.” The expression
was so large and so full of misery that it would have been ludicrous had it not been so obviously genuine.
Jack gave in and drank the contents of the can. There was
no way he could stand against that expression of hurt dismay.
The taste was as awful as he had imagined it would be . . .
and for a moment didn’t the world waver? Didn’t it waver as if he were about to flip back into the Territories?
“Wolf!” he yelled. “Wolf, grab my hand!”
Wolf did, looking both concerned and excited. “Jack?
Jacky? What is it?”
The taste of the medicine began to leave his mouth. At the
same time, a warm glow—the sort of glow he got from a
small sip of brandy on the few occasions his mother had al-
lowed him to have one—began to spread in his stomach. And
the world grew solid around him again. That brief wavering
might also have been imagination . . . but Jack didn’t think so.
We almost went. For a moment there it was very close.
Maybe I can do it without the magic juice . . . maybe I can!
“Jack? What is it?”
“I feel better,” he said, and managed a smile. “I feel better, that’s all.” He discovered that he did, too.
“You smell better, too,” Wolf said cheerfully. “Wolf! Wolf!”
2
He continued to improve the next day, but he was weak. Wolf carried him “horseyback” and they made slow progress west.
Around dusk they started looking for a place to lie up for the night. Jack spotted a woodshed in a dirty little gully. It was surrounded by trash and bald tires. Wolf agreed without saying much. He had been quiet and morose all day long.
Jack fell asleep almost at once and woke up around eleven
needing to urinate. He looked beside him and saw that Wolf ’s place was empty. Jack thought he had probably gone in search of more herbs in order to administer the equivalent of a
booster shot. Jack wrinkled his nose, but if Wolf wanted him to drink more of the stuff, he would. It surely had made him feel one hell of a lot better.
King_0345444884_6p_01_r1.qxd 8/13/01 1:05 PM Page 300
300
THE TALISMAN
He went around to the side of the shed, a straight slim boy wearing Jockey shorts, unlaced sneakers, and an open shirt.
He peed for what seemed like a very long time indeed, look-
ing up at the sky as he did so. It was one of those misleading nights which sometimes comes to the midwest in October and
early November, not so long before winter comes down with
a cruel, iron snap. It was almost tropically warm, and the mild breeze was like a caress.
Overhead floated the moon, white and round and lovely. It
cast a clear and yet eerily misleading glow over everything, seeming to simultaneously enhance and obscure. Jack stared
at it, aware that he was almost hypnotized, not really caring.
We don’t go near the herd when we change. Good Jason, no!
Am I the herd now, Wolf?
There was a face on the moon. Jack saw with no surprise
that it was Wolf ’s face . . . except it was not wide and open and a little surprised, a face of goodness and simplicity. This face was narrow, ah yes, and dark; it was dark with hair, but the hair didn’t matter. It was dark with intent.
We don’t go near them, we’d eat them, eat them, we’d eat them, Jack, when we change we’d—
The face in the moon, a chiaroscuro carved in bone, was
the face of a snarling beast, its head cocked in that final moment before the lunge, the mouth open and filled with teeth.
We’d eat we’d kill we’d kill, kill, KILL KILL
A finger touched Jack’s shoulder and ran slowly down to
his waist.
Jack had only been standing there with his penis in his
hand, the foreskin pinched lightly between thumb and forefinger, looking at the moon. Now a fresh, hard jet of urine
spurted out of him.
“I scared you,” Wolf said from behind him. “I’m sorry,
Jack. God pound me.”
But for a moment Jack didn’t think Wolf was sorry.
For a moment it sounded as if Wolf were grinning.
And Jack was suddenly sure he was going to be eaten up.
House of bricks? he thought incoherently. I don’t even have a house of straw that I can run to.
Now the fear came, dry terror in his veins hotter than any fever.
King_0345444884_6p_01_r1.qxd 8/13/01 1:05 PM Page 301
The Road of Trials
301
Who’s afraid of the big bad Wolf the big bad Wolf the big bad—
“Jack?”
I am, I am, oh God I am afraid of the big bad Wolf—
He turned around slowly.
Wolf ’s face, which had been lightly scruffed with stubble
when the two of them crossed to the shed and lay down, was
now heavily bearded from a point so high on his cheekbones
that the hair almost seemed to begin at his temples. His eyes glared a bright red-orange.
“Wolf, are you all right?” Jack asked in a husky, breathy
whisper. It was as loud as he could talk.
“Yes,” Wolf said. “I’ve been running with the moon. It’s
beautiful. I ran . . . and ran . . . and ran. But I’m all right, Jack.” Wolf smiled to show how all right he was, and revealed a mouthful of giant, rending teeth. Jack recoiled in numb horror. It was like looking into the mouth of that Alien thing in the movies.
Wolf saw his expression, and dismay crossed his rough-
ened, thickening features. But under the dismay—and not far under, either—was something else. Something that capered
and grinned and showed its teeth. Something that would
chase prey until blood flew from the prey’s nose in its terror, until it moaned and begged. Something that would laugh as it tore the screaming prey open.
It would laugh even if he were the prey.
Especially if he were the prey.
“Jack, I’m sorry,” he said. “The time . . . it’s coming. We’ll have to do something. We’ll . . . tomorrow. We’ll have to . . .
have to . . .” He looked up and that hypnotized expression spread over his face as he looked into the sky.
He raised his head and howled.
And Jack thought he heard—very faintly—the Wolf in the
moon howl back.
Horror stole through him, quietly and completely. Jack
slept no more that night.
3
The next day Wolf was better. A little better, anyway, but he was almost sick with tension. As he was trying to tell Jack
King_0345444884_6p_01_r1.qxd 8/13/01 1:05 PM Page 302
302
THE TALISMAN
what to do—as well as he could, anyway—a jet plane passed
high overhead. Wolf jumped to his feet, rushed out, and
howled at it, shaking his fists at the sky. His hairy feet were bare again. They had swelled and split the cheap penny
loafers wide open.
He tried to tell Jack what to do, but he had little to go on except old tales and rumors. He knew what the change was in his own world, but he sensed it might be much worse—more
powerful and more dangerous—in the land of the Strangers.
And he felt that now. He felt that power sweeping through
him, and tonight when the moon rose he felt sure it would
sweep him away.
Over and over again he reiterated that he didn’t want to
hurt Jack, that he would rather kill himself than hurt Jack.