Desperation

by Stephen King

That’s just what he wants you to believe, that he’s a mind-reader,

Then a coyote howled outside, a long, lonely sound, and the cop glanced in that direction. The thread between them—maybe telepathy, maybe just a combination of fear and fascination—snapped.

“Are you thinking about God?” the cop asked. “Don’t bother. Out here, God’s country stops at Indian Springs and even Lord Satan don’t step his cloven feet much north of Tonopah. There’s no God in Desperation, baby boy. Out here there’s only can de lach.”

“Are you thinking about God?” the cop asked. “Don’t bother. Out here, God’s country stops at Indian Springs and even Lord Satan don’t step his cloven feet much north of Tonopah. There’s no God in Desperation, baby boy. Out here there’s only can de lach.” Note Can de lach—Heart of the unformed (Language of the Dead, the language that the can-toi and the taheen speak. Its name comes from one of Stephen King's other novels, Desperation, where the antagonist Tak also uses the language.) Reference King, Stephen (1996). “Desperation,” Kindle Edition. Chapter 5, p. 139 of 614, 33%.

“Old Jerry Lewis bit,” he said. “American critics don’t understand Jerry Lewis, but he’s huge in France. I mean he’s a stud.”

“I know that you’re scared of me, and maybe you’re right to be scared, but you’re locked up for a reason, believe it. This is the only safe place for miles around. There are forces out there you don’t want to even think about. And when tonight comes—”

“You people have to stay put,” he said. “I know that you’re scared of me, and maybe you’re right to be scared, but you’re locked up for a reason, believe it. This is the only safe place for miles around. There are forces out there you don’t want to even think about. And when tonight comes—” He only looked at them and shook his head somberly, as if the rest was too awful to be spoken aloud.

Like most spiritual conversions, David Carver’s was dramatic only on the outside; on the inside it was quiet, almost mundane.

Like most spiritual conversions, David Carver’s was dramatic only on the outside; on the inside it was quiet, almost mundane. Not rational, perhaps—matters of the spirit may never be strictly rational—but possessed of its own clarity and logic. And to David, at least, its genuineness was beyond question. He had found God, that was all. And (this he considered probably more important) God had found him.

In the second grade they’d pricked their fingers with pins and smooshed them together and sworn themselves blood-brothers.

He is in there, I know he is. Still in there, like someone caught in a landslide . . . or a cave-in . . .

“What sort of God lets a man forget killing a little boy?” Brian’s mom had screamed. “The kind that wants that man to get loaded and do it again, that’s who! A God who loves drunks and hates little boys!”

Later, Reverend Martin would tell him about “the still, small voice” of God, and David would feel a tug of recognition, but it hadn’t seemed like a voice then, or a thought, or even an intuition.

He told himself that was crazy, absolutely nutzoid, but maybe the nuttiest thing of all was that he didn’t really think it was.

But maybe something made him drop it. Something that knew I’d come along after that car hit him and threw him and broke his head on the bricks, something that knew I’d find it and remember him. He told himself that was crazy, absolutely nutzoid, but maybe the nuttiest thing of all was that he didn’t really think it was. Perhaps it would sound nutty if spoken aloud, but inside his head, it seemed perfectly logical.

David and Brian knew that the high school kids sometimes used it (they had found cigarette butts and beer-cans on the weather-darkened old boards from time to time, and once a pair of pantyhose), but never until after dark, it seemed, and the idea of big kids using something they had made was actually sort of flattering.

The boys hadn’t quite dared to go whole hog and build a treehouse in this beckoning fork—someone might notice and make them tear it down again—but they had brought boards, hammers, and nails down here one summer day a year ago and made a platform that still remained. David and Brian knew that the high school kids sometimes used it (they had found cigarette butts and beer-cans on the weather-darkened old boards from time to time, and once a pair of pantyhose), but never until after dark, it seemed, and the idea of big kids using something they had made was actually sort of flattering. Also, the first handholds you had to grab in order to make the climb were high enough to discourage the little kids.

Who I am, the voice said, and then fell silent, as if that actually explained something.

A breeze soughed through the trees, cooling his hot skin. Any other day and Brian would have been sharing that breeze with him. They would have been dangling their feet, talking, laughing. David started to cry again. Why am I here? No answer. Why did I come? Did something make me come? No answer. If anyone’s there, please answer! No answer for a long time . . . and then one did come, and he didn’t think he was just talking to himself inside his own head, then fooling himself about what he was doing in order to gain a little comfort. As when he had stood over Brian, the thought which came seemed in no way his own. Yes, this voice had said. I’m here. Who are you? Who I am, the voice said, and then fell silent, as if that actually explained something. David crossed his legs, sitting tailor-fashion in the middle of the platform, and closed his eyes. He cupped his knees in his palms and opened his mind as best he could. He had no idea what else to do. In this fashion he waited for an unknown length of time, hearing the distant voices of the home-going children, aware of shifting red and black shapes on the insides of his eyelids as the breeze moved the branches above him and dapples of sunlight slipped back and forth on his face. Tell me what you want, he asked the voice. No answer. The voice didn’t seem to want anything. Tell me what to do, then. No answer from the voice.

The voice overrode his, not angry, not amused, not impatient, not anything he could read. You’re praying already, it said.

His mom and dad would have noticed he was no longer in the driveway, would have seen the ball lying in the grass, would be worried. He loved them and didn’t want to worry them—on some level he understood that Brian’s impending death had struck at them as hard as it had struck at him—but he couldn’t go home yet. Because he wasn’t done yet. Do you want me to pray? he asked the voice. I’ll try if you want me to, but I don’t know how—we don’t go to church, and— The voice overrode his, not angry, not amused, not impatient, not anything he could read. You’re praying already, it said. What should I pray for? Oh shit, the mummy’s after us, the voice said. Let’s all walk a little faster. I don’t know what that means. Yes you do. No I don’t! “Yes I do,” he said, almost moaned. “Yes I do, it means ask for what none of them dare to ask for, pray for what none of them dare to pray for. Is that it?” No answer from the voice.

“Make him better,” he said. “God, make him better. If you do, I’ll do something for you. I’ll listen for what you want, and then I’ll do it. I promise.”

He grabbed a branch to steady himself, and as he was doing this, the voice did speak again.

He grabbed a branch to steady himself, and as he was doing this, the voice did speak again. David listened, head cocked, still holding the branch, still feeling his muscles tingle crazily as the blood worked its way back into them. Then he nodded. They had put three nails into the trunk of the tree to hold the VIET CONG LOOKOUT sign. The wood had shrunk and warped since then, and the rusty heads of the nails stuck out. David took the blue pass with EXCUSED EARLY printed on it from his shirt pocket and poked it onto one of the nailheads. That done, he marched in place until the tingling in his legs began to subside and he trusted himself to climb back down the tree.

David crossed the room and took the phone. That feeling of otherness had swept over him again. He had been sure his mom was at least half-right: something was over.

Is he dead? Ellen mouthed again. “No!” he told her, a little irritated—it was like she was deaf. “Not dead, alive. She says he’s awake.”

David had nodded, unsurprised. Right around the time the voice in his head had told him You’re praying already.

If you take the credit, it stops here.

It wasn’t the strange inside-out voice that stopped him but a thought of his own, one that was more intuited than articulated: If you take the credit, it stops here. What stops? Everything that matters, the voice of intuition responded. Everything that matters.

“You didn’t know why it was wrong to take the credit for your friend’s recovery, but you didn’t need to. Satan tempted you as he tempted Moses, but in this case you did what Moses didn’t, or couldn’t: first understood, then withstood.”

Now he hung in the black, blind but not deaf, listening for the voice, the one Reverend Gene Martin called the still, small voice of God. Reverend Martin had listened carefully to David’s story not once but many times over the last seven months, and he seemed especially pleased by David’s recounting of how he had felt during the conversation with his parents after he had finished talking with Mr. Ross. “You were completely correct,” Reverend Martin had said. “It wasn’t another voice you heard at the end, especially not the voice of God . . . except in the sense that God always speaks to us through our consciences. Secular people, David, believe that the conscience is only a kind of censor, a place where social sanctions are stored, but in fact it is itself a kind of outsider, often guiding us to good solutions even in situations far beyond our understanding. Do you follow me?” “I think so.” “You didn’t know why it was wrong to take the credit for your friend’s recovery, but you didn’t need to. Satan tempted you as he tempted Moses, but in this case you did what Moses didn’t, or couldn’t: first understood, then withstood.” “What about Moses? What did he do?” Reverend Martin told him the story of how, when the Israelites he’d led out of Egypt were thirsty, Moses had struck a stone with Aaron’s staff and brought water gushing out of it. And when the Israelites asked to whom their thanks should be directed, Moses said they could thank him. Reverend Martin sipped from a teacup with HAPPY, JOYOUS, AND FREE printed on the side as he told this story, but what was in the cup didn’t exactly smell like tea to David. It smelled more like the whiskey his dad sometimes drank while watching the late news. “Just one little misstep in a long, hardworking life in the service of the Lord,” Reverend Martin said cheerfully, “but God kept him out of the Promised Land for it. Joshua led em across the river—nasty, ungrateful bunch that they were.”

“God isn’t very forgiving, is he?”

“God isn’t very forgiving, is he?” “Yes, indeed he is,” Reverend Martin said, sounding a little surprised. “He has to be, because he is so demanding.” “But he’s cruel, too—isn’t he?” Gene Martin hadn’t hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “God is cruel. I have popcorn, David—would you like me to make some?”

If you want to pray, pray to me, it said. Why would you pray to a God who kills baby sisters? You’ll never laugh at how funny she is again, or tickle her until she squeals, or pull her braids. She’s dead and you and your folks are in jail. When he comes back, the crazy cop, he’ll probably kill all three of you. The others as well. This is what your God did, and really, what else would you expect from a God who kills baby sisters? He’s as crazy as the cop, when you get right down to cases. Yet you kneel before him. Come on, Davey, get a life. Get a grip. Pray to me. At least I’m not crazy.

“Like God, Satan tends to speak to us most clearly in our prayers and meditations,”

He wasn’t rocked by this voice—not very, anyway. He’d heard it before, perhaps first wrapped inside that strong impulse to give his folks the impression that he had called Brian back from the deep reaches of his coma. He heard it more clearly, more personally, during his daily prayers, and this had troubled him, but when he told Reverend Martin about how that voice would sometimes cut in as if it were on a telephone extension, Reverend Martin had only laughed. “Like God, Satan tends to speak to us most clearly in our prayers and meditations,” he said. “It’s when we’re most open, most in touch with our pneuma.” “Pneuma? What’s that?” “Spirit. The part of you that yearns to fulfill its God-made potential and be eternal. The part that God and Satan are squabbling over even now.”

“Lord, make me be useful to myself and help me to remember that until I am, I can’t be useful to others. Help me to remember that you are my creator. I am what you made—sometimes the thumb on your hand, sometimes the tongue in your mouth. Make me a vessel which is whole to your service. Thanks. Amen.”

“Yes, David, I know what an IOU is. And has he collected on it? This God of yours?”

“Maybe your father understands, but I don’t,” Ellen said. “I talk to God,” he said. This was embarrassing, but maybe if it was said once, and right out straight, it wouldn’t have to be said again. “That’s what praying is, talking to God. At first it feels like talking to yourself, but then it changes.” “Is that something you know for yourself, David, or is it something your new Sunday pal told you?” “Something I know for myself.” “And does God answer?” “Sometimes I think I hear him,” David said. He reached into his pocket and touched the shotgun shell with the tips of his fingers. “And once I know I did. I asked him to let Brian be all right. After Dad took me to the hospital, I went to the Bear Street Woods and climbed to the platform me and Bri made in a tree there and asked God to let him be all right. I said that if he did that, I’d kind of give him an IOU. Do you know what I mean?” “Yes, David, I know what an IOU is. And has he collected on it? This God of yours?” “Not yet. But when I got up to climb back down the tree, God told me to put my EXCUSED EARLY pass on a nail that was sticking out of the bark up there. It was like he wanted me to turn it in, only to him instead of Mrs. Hardy in the office. And something else. He wanted me to find out as much as I could about him—what he is, what he wants, what he does, and what he won’t do. I didn’t exactly hear that in words, but I heard the name of the man he wanted me to go to—Reverend Martin. That’s why I go to the Methodist church. I don’t think the brand name matters much to God, though. He just said to do church for my heart and spirit, and Reverend Martin for my mind. I didn’t even know who Reverend Martin was at first.” “But you did,” Ellie Carver said. She spoke in the soft, soothing voice of a person who suddenly understands that the person she’s talking with is having mental problems. “Gene Martin has come to the house two or three years in a row to collect for African Relief.” “Really? I didn’t see him. I guess I must have been in school when he came.” “Nonsense,” his mother said, now in tones of absolute finality. “He would have come around near Christmas, so you wouldn’t have been in school.

The God you heard in your moment of bereavement was your subconscious mind, looking for answers.”

“Oh no, praying is great, without it the thumbscrews and the Iron Maiden probably never would have been invented.”

And, as David turned to look at the old man, the still, small voice—the one he had first heard in Brian’s hospital room—spoke to him.

And, as David turned to look at the old man, the still, small voice—the one he had first heard in Brian’s hospital room—spoke to him. As usual, its arrival came pretty much as a surprise, and the two words it spoke made no immediate sense. The soap. He heard the words as clearly as he had heard You’re praying already while he’d been sitting in the Viet Cong Lookout with his eyes closed. The soap. He looked into the left rear corner of the cell he was sharing with old Mr. White Hair. There was a toilet with no seat. Beside it was an ancient rust-stained porcelain sink. Sitting beside the righthand spigot was a green bar of what could only be Irish Spring soap.

the dog was now hard to miss. Since the Carvers had passed this way, the buzzards had found it.

“I’ll tell you something about buzzards,” the cop continued. “They wake to sleep and take their waking slow. They learn by going where they have to go. Wouldn’t you agree, mon capitaine?”

“They fart, you know,” the cop said in his bloodsoaked voice. “Buzzards fart.”

“They fart, you know,” the cop said in his bloodsoaked voice. “Buzzards fart.” “No, I didn’t know that.” “Yessir, only birds that do. I tell you so you can put it in your book. Chapter 16 of Travels with Harley.” Johnny thought the putative title of his book had never sounded so quintessentially stupid.

“Where are you taking me?” Johnny asked, striving for a neutral tone. “Jail,” the big cop said in his stuffy, liquid voice. “Where anything you bray will be abused against you in a sort of caw.”

It’s not all the cop, Johnny, don’t you think it is. Something not normal is going on here. Something very much not normal.

A pair of animals went trotting lazily across what appeared to be the town’s only intersection, moving on a diagonal beneath the blinker-light. Johnny tried to tell himself they were dogs, but they weren’t dogs. They were coyotes. It’s not all the cop, Johnny, don’t you think it is. Something not normal is going on here. Something very much not normal.

“Shut up, you baby,” the cop said. “Gosh, aren’t you spleeny?”

“Billy, you bugger!” the cop cried happily. “Tak an lah!”

People usually died hard. That was the horror of it.

He was badly hurt, but although he had been struck amidships and then run over, he didn’t appear even close to dead. That didn’t surprise Johnny much. Most times it took a lot to kill a man—he had seen it again and again in Vietnam. Guys alive with half their heads blown off, guys alive with their guts piled in their laps and drawing flies, guys alive with their jugulars spouting through their dirty fingers. People usually died hard. That was the horror of it.

“Ran him over in the street like a damn rabbit. Brave boy!”

That’s from the Book of Adverbs, John.

The cop turned, gave him a considering look with his one good eye, then turned back to face the windshield again. “ ‘I have taught thee in the way of wisdom,’ ” he said, “ ‘I have led thee in right paths. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.’ That’s from the Book of Adverbs, John.

I think he’s on the verge of crashing and bleeding out, the way hemophiliacs sometimes do. If he wasn’t so Christing big, he’d probably be dead already. You know what you have to do, don’t you?

He’ll have to kill the people inside, he thought. That’s pretty much automatic. But the cop only bent, offloaded his burden, then backed out onto the porch’s little stoop again. He closed the door and then wiped his hands above it, leaving smears of blood on the lintel. He was so tall he didn’t even have to reach to do this. The gesture gave Johnny a deep chill—it was like something out of the Book of Exodus, instructions for the Angel of Death to pass on by . . . except this man was the Angel of Death. The destroyer.

“Why didn’t you kill me like you did that guy back there? Billy? Or does it even make any sense to ask? Are you beyond why?”

Would you like that, Johnny? Would you like me to let you go free?”

Would you like that, Johnny? Would you like me to let you go free?” Erin go bragh, Johnny thought for no reason at all, and for one nightmarish moment felt he would laugh. Then the urge was gone and he nodded. “Yes, I’d like that very much.” “Free! Like a bird out of a cage.” The cop flapped his arms to demonstrate, and Johnny saw that the bloody patches under his arms had spread. His uniform shirt was now stained crimson along the torn side-seams almost all the way down to his beltline.

“Tak ah lah,” he said in his guttural, gargling voice. “Timoh. Can de lach! On! On!”

The cop’s face had tautened. The skin on it now looked like makeup, or a thin coat of paint—unreal. Even the blood-filled eye looked unreal. It was as if there was another face beneath the one Johnny could see, pushing at the overlying flesh, trying to get out. The cop’s good eye fixed on him for a moment, and then his head lifted. He pointed at the sky with all five fingers of his left hand. “Tak ah lah,” he said in his guttural, gargling voice. “Timoh. Can de lach! On! On!” There was a flapping sound, like clothes on a line, and a shadow fell over Johnny’s face. There was a harsh cry, not quite a caw, and then something with scabrous, flapping wings dropped on him, its crooked claws gripping his shoulders and folding themselves into the fabric of his shirt, its beak digging into his scalp as it uttered its inhuman cry again. It was the smell that told Johnny what it was—a smell like meat gone feverish with rot. Its huge, unkempt wings flapped against the sides of his face as it solidified its position, driving that stench into his mouth and nose, jamming it in, making him gag. He saw the Shepherd on its rope, swinging as the peeled-looking bald things pulled at its tail and feet with their beaks. Now one of them was roosting on him—one which had apparently never heard that buzzards were fundamental cowards that only attacked dead things—and its beak was plowing his scalp in furrows, bringing blood. “Get it off!” he screamed, completely unnerved. He tried to grab the wide, beating wings, but got only two fistfuls of feathers. Nor could he see; he was afraid that if he opened his eyes, the buzzard would shift its position and peck them out. “Jesus, please, please get it off me!” “Are you going to look at me properly if I do?” the cop asked. “No more insolence? No more disrespect?” “No! No more!” He would have promised anything. Whatever had leaped out of him and spoken against the cop was gone now; the bird had plucked it out like a worm from an ear of corn. “You promise?” The bird, flapping and squalling and pulling. Smelling like green meat and exploded guts. On him. Eating him. Eating him alive. “Yes! Yes! I promise!” “Fuck you,” the cop said calmly. “Fuck you, os pa, and fuck your promise. Take care of it yourself. Or die.”

Eyes squeezed to slits, kneeling, head lowered, Johnny gripped blindly for the bird, caught its wings where they joined its body, and tore it off his head.

Eyes squeezed to slits, kneeling, head lowered, Johnny gripped blindly for the bird, caught its wings where they joined its body, and tore it off his head. It spasmed wildly in the air above him, shitting white streams that the wind pulled away in banners, uttering its rough cry (only there was pain in it now), its head whipping from side to side. Sobbing—mostly what he felt was revulsion—Johnny ripped one of its wings off and threw the buzzard against the wall. It stared at him with eyes as black as tar, its bloodstained beak popping open and then snapping closed with liquid little clicks.

They are laughing with him. Because it’s not his joke; it’s their joke.

The cop raised his head to the buzzard-lined roofline of the Municipal Building and began to laugh. They cried harsh cawing sounds back down at him, and Johnny was not able to stifle the thought which came to him then. It was horrible because it was so convincing. They are laughing with him. Because it’s not his joke; it’s their joke.

The sun was still above the dust, but wouldn’t be for long. It was a windstorm, and headed their way.

“What did you say his name was?” Mary asked. “Collie Entragian,” the old man said.

The man who followed him through the door was the man who had brought them all to this place, and yet he wasn’t—he was a kind of blood-gorgon, a creature who appeared to be disintegrating before their very eyes.

“Look at us, would you? Gosh! Just one big happy family!”