shot next, a fishlike thing ten feet long with a great sail of a dorsal fin rose straight up out of the water and stopped the bullet. In one motion, the creature rolled back down and
sliced into the water again. Jack saw a great ragged hole in its side. The next time he rode up a crest, Gardener was trotting off across the beach, clearly on his way to the Kingsland Mo-
Page 623
The Talisman
623
tel. The giant fish continued to wash him diagonally forward toward the pilings.
5
A ladder, Speedy had said, and as soon as Jack was under the wide deck he peered through the gloom to try to find it. The thick pilings, encrusted with algae and barnacles and dripping with seaweed, stood in four rows. If the ladder had been installed at the time the deck was built it might easily be useless now—at the least a wooden ladder would be hard to see, overgrown with weed and barnacles. The big shaggy pilings were
now much thicker than they had been originally. Jack got his forearms over the back of the raft and used the thick rubbery tail to lever himself back inside. Then, shivering, he unbuttoned his sodden shirt—the same white button-down, at least one size too small, Richard had given him on the other side of the Blasted Lands—and dropped it squashily in the bottom of the raft. His shoes had fallen off in the water, and he peeled off the wet socks and tossed them on top of the shirt. Richard sat in the bow of the raft, slouching forward over his knees, his eyes shut and his mouth closed.
“We’re looking for a ladder,” Jack said.
Richard acknowledged this with a barely perceptible
movement of his head.
“Do you think you could get up a ladder, Richie?”
“Maybe,” Richard whispered.
“Well, it’s around here somewhere. Probably attached to
one of these pilings.”
Jack paddled with both hands, bringing the raft between
two of the pilings in the first row. The Talisman’s call was continuous now, and seemed nearly strong enough to pick him up out of the raft and deposit him on the deck. They were drifting between the first and second rows of pilings, already under the heavy black line of the deck above; here as well as outside, little red flares ignited in the air, twisted, winked out.
Jack counted: four rows of pilings, five pilings in each row.
Twenty places where the ladder might be. With the darkness
beneath the deck and the endless refinements of corridors
suggested by the pilings, being here was like taking a tour of the Catacombs.
Page 624
624
THE TALISMAN
“They didn’t shoot us,” Richard said without affect. In the same tone of voice he might have said, “The store is out of bread.”
“We had some help.” He looked at Richard, slumped over
his knees. Richard would never be able to get up a ladder unless he were somehow galvanized.
“We’re coming up to a piling,” Jack said. “Lean forward
and shove us off, will you?”
“What?”
“Keep us from bumping into the piling,” Jack repeated.
“Come on, Richard. I need your help.”
It seemed to work. Richard cracked open his left eye and
put his right hand on the edge of the raft. As they drifted nearer to the thick piling he held out his left hand to deflect them. Then something on the pillar made a smacking sound,
as of lips pulled wetly apart.
Richard grunted and retracted his hand.
“What was it?” Jack said, and Richard did not have to
answer—now both boys saw the sluglike creatures clinging to the pilings. Their eyes had been closed, too, and their mouths.
Agitated, they began to shift positions on their pillars, clattering their teeth. Jack put his hands in the water and swung the bow of the raft around the piling.
“Oh God,” Richard said. Those lipless tiny mouths held a
quantity of teeth. “God, I can’t take—”
“You have to take it, Richard,” Jack said. “Didn’t you hear Speedy back there on the beach? He might even be dead now,
Richard, and if he is, he died so he could be certain that I knew you had to go in the hotel.”
Richard had closed his eyes again.
“And I don’t care how many slugs we have to kill to get up
the ladder, you are going up the ladder, Richard. That’s all.
That’s it.”
“Shit on you,” Richard said. “You don’t have to talk to me
like that. I’m sick of you being so high and mighty. I know I’m going up the ladder, wherever it is. I probably have a
fever of a hundred and five, but I know I’m going up that ladder. I just don’t know if I can take it. So to hell with you.”
Richard had uttered this entire speech with his eyes shut. He effortfully forced both eyes open again. “Nuts.”
Page 625
The Talisman
625
“I need you,” Jack said.
“Nuts. I’ll get up the ladder, you asshole.”
“In that case, I’d better find it,” Jack said, pushed the raft forward toward the next row of pilings, and saw it.
6
The ladder hung straight down between the two inner rows of pilings, ending some four feet above the surface of the water.
A dim rectangle at the top of the ladder indicated that a trapdoor opened onto the deck. In the darkness it was only the
ghost of a ladder, half-visible.
“We’re in business, Richie,” Jack said. He guided the raft
carefully past the next piling, making sure not to scrape
against it. The hundreds of sluglike creatures clinging to the piling bared their teeth. In seconds the horse’s head at the front of the raft was gliding beneath the bottom of the ladder, and then Jack could reach up to grab the bottom rung.
“Okay,” he said. First he tied one sleeve of his sodden shirt around the rung, the other around the stiff rubbery tail next to him. At least the raft would still be there—if they ever got out of the hotel. Jack’s mouth abruptly dried. The Talisman sang out, calling to him. He stood up carefully in the raft and hung on to the ladder. “You first,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy, but I’ll help you.”
“Don’t need your help,” Richard said. Standing up, he
nearly pitched forward and threw both of them out of the raft.
“Easy now.”
“Don’t easy me.” Richard extended both arms and steadied
himself. His mouth was pinched. He looked afraid to breathe.
He stepped forward.
“Good.”
“Asshole.” Richard moved his left foot forward, raised his
right arm, brought his right foot forward. Now he could find the bottom of the ladder with his hands, as he fiercely
squinted through his right eye. “See?”
“Okay,” Jack said, holding both hands palm-out before
him, fingers extended, indicating that he would not insult
Richard with the offer of physical aid.
Richard pulled on the ladder with his hands, and his feet
Page 626
626
THE TALISMAN
slid irresistibly forward, pushing the raft with them. In a second he was suspended half over the water—only Jack’s shirt
kept the raft from zooming out from under Richard’s feet.
“Help!”
“Pull your feet back.”
Richard did so, and stood upright again, breathing hard.
“Let me give you a hand, okay?”
“Okay.”
Jack crawled along the raft until he was immediately be-
fore Richard. He stood up with great care. Richard gripped
the bottom rung with both hands, trembling. Jack put his
hands on Richard’s skinny hips. “I’m going to help lift you.
Try not to kick out with your feet—just pull yourself up high enough to get your knee on the rung. First put your hands up on the next one.” Richard cracked open an eye and did so.
“You ready?”
“Go.”
The raft slid forward, but Jack yanked Richard upright so
high that he could easily place his right knee on the bottom rung. Then Jack grabbed the sides of the ladder and used the strength in his arms and legs to stabilize the raft. Richard was grunting, trying to get his other knee on the rung; in a second he had done it. In another two seconds, Richard Sloat stood upright on the ladder.
“I can’t go any farther,” he said. “I think I’m going to fall off. I feel so sick, Jack.”
“Just go up one more, please. Please. Then I can help you.”
Richard wearily moved his hands up a rung. Jack, looking
toward the deck, saw that the ladder must be thirty feet long.
“Now move your feet. Please, Richard.”
Richard slowly placed one foot, then the next, on the sec-
ond rung.
Jack placed his hands on the outsides of Richard’s feet and pulled himself up. The raft swung out in a looping half-circle, but he raised his knees and got both legs securely on the lowest rung. Held by Jack’s outstretched shirt, the raft swung back around like a dog on a leash.