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It feels a wonderful, intoxicating sense of rebirth.
In the meantime, the pit is his . . . and it is time to make the jump. He wants out of this unpleasantly decaying body, and if he doesn’t make the switch soon, he never will.
When he opens the door, Brad Josephson rushes him. He has heard the gunfire, he has heard the screams when Ripton’s first shot hasn’t put his victim down cleanly, and he knows that rushing is the only option he has. He expects to be shot, but of course Cary can’t do that. Instead he grabs Josephson’s arms, calling on the last of this body’s strength to do it, and shoves the black man against the wall so hard that the entire prefab building shakes. And it’s not just Ripton now, of course; it’s Tak’s strength. As if to confirm this, Josephson asks how in God’s name he got so tall.
“Wheaties!” it exclaims. “Tak!”
“What are you doing?” Josephson asks, trying to squirm away as Ripton’s face bears down on his and Ripton’s mouth comes open. “What are you d—”
“Kiss me, beautiful!” Ripton exclaims, and slams his mouth down on Josephson’s. He makes a blood-seal through which he exhales. Josephson goes rigid in Ripton’s arms and begins to tremble wildly. Ripton exhales and exhales, going out and out and out, feeling it happen, feeling the transfer. For one terrible moment the essence of Tak is naked, caught between Ripton, who is collapsing, and Josephson, who has begun to swell like a float on the morning of the Thanksgiving Day Parade. And then, instead of looking out of Ripton’s eyes, it is looking out of Josephson’s eyes.
It feels a wonderful, intoxicating sense of rebirth. It is filled not only with the strength and purpose of Tak, but with the greasefired energy of a man who eats four eggs and half a pound of limp bacon for breakfast. It feels . . . feels . . .
“I feel GRRRREAT!” Brad Josephson exclaims in a boisterous Tony the Tiger voice.
Tak is here, liberated from the well of the worlds. Tak is great, Tak will feed, and Tak will rule as it has always ruled, in the desert of wastes, where the plants are migrants and the ground is magnetic.
He thought about David’s explanation of Tak—trapped in the earth like an ogre in a fairytale, using human beings like paper cups because it wore their bodies out so rapidly—and wondered if David’s God was much different.
“But what kissed Ripton?” Cynthia asked. “When he went into the mine the night before, what kissed him?”
“But what kissed Ripton?” Cynthia asked. “When he went into the mine the night before, what kissed him?”
“I don’t know,” David said. “Either I wasn’t shown or I don’t understand. All I know is that it happened at the well I told you about. He went into the room . . . the chamber . . . the can tahs drew him, but he wasn’t allowed to actually touch any of them.”
Tak’s real, it has a being. It had to get Ripton into the mine because it can’t get through the ini—the well. It has a physical body, and the well is too small for it. All it can do is catch people, inhabit them, make them into can tak. And trade them in when they wear out.”
It took two and a half days. Then he switched to Entragian.
“What happened to Josephson, David?” Ralph asked. He sounded quiet, almost drained. Johnny found it increasingly difficult to look at Carver looking at his son.
“He had a leaky heart valve,” David said. “It wasn’t a big deal. He could have gone on without any problem for years, maybe, but Tak got hold of him, and just . . .” David shrugged. “Just wore him out. It took two and a half days. Then he switched to Entragian. Entragian was strong, he lasted most of a whole week . . . but he had very fair skin. People used to kid him about all the sunburn creams he had.”
“All that matters is what God wants. And what he wants is for us to go up to the China Pit. All the rest is just . . . story-hour.”
“What about Mary?” Steve asked. “Do you want to leave her? Can you leave her?”
“If you go, it’s over,” David said. His face was still against his father’s chest. His words were muffled but audible. “The chain breaks. Tak wins.”
“I don’t respect you for this.”
“It will let you go, but you’ll wish you stayed when you start smelling Tak on your skin.”
The man in the middle was grinning, he was holding his reflector sunglasses in one hand, and there was no question about who he was.
“I knew something was there,” David said, almost too faintly for the others to hear. “As soon as I saw his wallet on the floor. But . . . it was him.” He paused, then repeated it, wonderingly. “It was him.”
“Who was who?” Ralph asked.
David didn’t answer, only stared at the picture. It showed three men standing in front of a ramshackle cinderblock building—a bar, judging from the Budweiser sign in the window. The sidewalks were crowded with Asians. Passing in the street at camera left, frozen forever into a half-blur by this old snapshot, was a girl on a motorscooter.
The men on the left and right of the trio were wearing polo shirts and slacks. One was very tall and held a notebook. The other was festooned with cameras. The man in the middle was wearing jeans and a gray tee-shirt. A Yankees baseball cap was pushed far back on his head. A strap crossed his chest; something cased and bulky hung against his hip.
“His radio,” David whispered, touching the cased object.
“Nope,” Steve said after taking a closer look. “That’s a tape-recorder, 1968-style.”
She didn’t actually faint, but Mary screamed until something in her head gave way and the strength deserted her muscles.
She didn’t actually faint, but Mary screamed until something in her head gave way and the strength deserted her muscles. She staggered forward, grabbing the table with one hand, not wanting to, there were black widows and scorpions crawling all over it, not to mention a corpse with a nice tasty bowl of blood in front of him, but she wanted to go tumbling face-first onto the floor even less.
There’s nothing here that can hurt you,
“God,” she said, “I need help. I’m in a room filled with creepy-crawlies, mostly poisonous, and I’m scared to death. If you’re there, anything you can do would be appreciated. A—”
Amen, it was supposed to be, but she broke off before she could finish saying it, her eyes wide. A clear voice spoke in her head—and not her own voice, either, she was sure of it. It was as if someone had just been waiting, and not very patiently, for her to speak first.
There’s nothing here that can hurt you, it said.
Mary put the light back on the bodies, running it from the first one to Josephson to Entragian. The virus which had haunted these bodies was now in Ellen. And if she, Mary Jackson, was supposed to be its next home, then the things in here really couldn’t hurt her. Couldn’t damage the goods.
You have to get out of here, the voice told her. Before it comes back. And it will. Soon, now.
Mary bent down to look at the hole. It was about two feet across, too small to crawl through, but the edges were badly corroded, and she thought . . .
Her first shocked impression was that there were hundreds of bodies stacked behind the building she was in—the whole world seemed to be white, slack faces, glazed eyes, and torn flesh.
You have to go, Mary, the voice told her patiently. You have to go now, or it will be too late.
I’m out, she thought, taking the flashlight. At least there’s that. Dear God, thank you for that.
If I can’t, I have to make sure he can’t either. Or she. Or whatever in hell it is.
. . . and she couldn’t drive the police-cruiser up and out of here because she didn’t have the fucking key.
If I can’t, I have to make sure he can’t either. Or she. Or whatever in hell it is.
Mary squatted, got a fistful of China Pit, pushed down a metal flap-thingie over one of the carb’s chambers, and stuffed the sand and rock in.
She snapped off the flash—the moon would give her all the light she needed, at least for awhile—and began to trudge up the road which led out of China Pit.
Everything people keep in their pockets is hyphenated, he thought. How fascinating.
Not even Houdini could have done it, Marinville. It was the old rumdum’s voice this time. Because of the head. And what about the phone? What about the sardines?
Unobtrusive miracles, he thought, only once again he heard the words in the old rumdum’s voice. He was, by God, chattier dead than alive. Why, if it wasn’t for the boy, you’d still be in a jail cell now, wouldn’t you? Or dead. Or worse. And you deserted him.
Then it was running at him full-tilt, its muzzle wrinkling back to expose its teeth.
He turned his head in that direction and saw a timberwolf—very likely the same one that had approached Steve and Cynthia with the can tah in its mouth—standing in the doorway leading back to the offices. Its eyes glowed at him. For a moment it hesitated, and Johnny allowed himself to hope—maybe it was afraid, maybe it would back off. Then it was running at him full-tilt, its muzzle wrinkling back to expose its teeth.
The thing which had been Ellen had been concentrating on the wolf—using the wolf to finish with the writer—so deeply that it was in a state akin to hypnosis.
The thing which had been Ellen had been concentrating on the wolf—using the wolf to finish with the writer—so deeply that it was in a state akin to hypnosis. Now something, some disruption in the expected flow of things, interrupted Tak’s concentration. It pulled back for a moment, holding the wolf where it was, but turning toward the Ryder truck with the rest of its terrible curiosity and dark regard. Something had happened at the truck, but Tak was unable to tell what it was. There was a feeling of disorientation, a sense of waking in a room where the positions of all the furniture had been subtly altered.
Perhaps, if it wasn’t trying to be in two places at the same time—
“Mi him, en tow!” it growled, and sent the wolf at the writer. So much for the man who would be Steinbeck;
“Mi him, en tow!” it growled, and sent the wolf at the writer. So much for the man who would be Steinbeck; the thing on four legs was fast and strong, the thing on two, slow and weak. Tak pulled its mind out of the wolf, its vision of Johnny Marinville first dimming, then fading out as the writer turned, groping for something on the worktable with one hand while his eyes went wide with fright.
It thought briefly of the animals, but there were none here capable of serving Tak in that way. Tak’s presence drubbed even the strongest of its human vessels to death in a matter of days. A snake, coyote, rat, or buzzard would simply explode immediately upon or moments after Tak’s entry, like a tin can into which someone drops a lit stick of dynamite. The timberwolf might serve for an hour or two, but the wolf was the only one of its kind left in these parts, and currently three miles away, dealing with (and by now probably dining on) the writer. It had to be the woman. It had to be Mary.
At the entrance to the China Shaft it paused, looking down. The moon had passed behind the far side of the pit, but it still shed some light, and the domelight inside the police-cruiser shed a little more. Enough for Ellen’s eyes to see that the cruiser’s hood was up and for the creature now inhabiting Ellen’s brain to understand that the sly os pa had fucked the motor up somehow. How had she gotten out of the field office? And how had she dared do this? How had she dared?
“Mi him, en tow! En tow! En TOW!” At first there was nothing, just blackness and the slow flux of cramps deep down in Ellen’s stomach. And terror. Terror that the os pa bitch was gone already. Then it saw what it was looking for, not with Ellen’s eyes but with ears inside of Ellen’s ears: a sudden alien echo of sound that made the shape of a woman. It was a circling bat that had seen Mary as she struggled up the road toward the northern rim of the pit, and Mary was a long way from fresh, gasping for breath and turning around every dozen steps or so. Checking for pursuit. The bat “saw” the
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What about sending the can toi to stop her? Those that were not on the perimeter as part of the mi him? It could, but what fucking good would it do? It could surround Mary with snakes and spiders, with hissing wildcats and laughing coyotes, and the bitch would very likely walk right through them, parting them the way Moses had supposedly parted the Red Sea. She must know that “Ellen” couldn’t damage her body, not with the can toi, not with any other weapon. If she didn’t know it, she’d still be in the field office, probably crouched in the corner, all but catatonic with fear, unable to make a
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“It doesn’t matter how fast you hurry, os pa. You’re not getting away.”
She started to turn again, then glimpsed something down below. A shadow moving among shadows.
She started to turn again, then glimpsed something down below. A shadow moving among shadows.
“Mary?” It was Ellen Carver’s voice that came floating up, but at the same time it wasn’t. It was gargly, full. If you hadn’t been through the hell of the last six or eight hours, you might have thought it was Ellen with a bad cold. “Wait, Mare! I want to go with you! I want to see David! We’ll go see him together!”
“Go to hell,” Mary whispered. She turned and began to walk again, tearing breath out of the air and rubbing at the pain in her side. She would have run if she could.
“Mary-Mary-quite-contrary!” Not quite laughing, but almost. “You can’t get away, dear—don’t you know that?”
Ellen was less than twenty yards below her, panting soundlessly through a mouth dropped so wide open that it looked like an airscoop.
She could see a tiny yellow spark in the blackness of the desert floor, winking on and off: the blinker in the center of town.
“I know where he is,” David said calmly. “I can find him. He’s close.” He hesitated, then added: “I’m supposed to find him.”
He could hear the ruffle of the wind in his ears and a voice (mi him, en tow! mi him, en tow!) calling. A voice that wasn’t human.
“You have to go to the pit,” he told his father. “Daddy, you and Steve and Cynthia have to go out to the China Pit right now. Mary needs help. Do you understand? Mary needs help!”
“All right,” Ralph said. “We’ll leave God to protect my kid until we get back.”
The wolf broke left and turned in a tight circle, growling as it went, hindquarters low to the ground, tail tucked.
He brandished the hammer at the oncoming wolf and yelled “Get outta here!” in a shrill voice he barely recognized as his own.
The wolf broke left and turned in a tight circle, growling as it went, hindquarters low to the ground, tail tucked. One of its powerful shoulders struck a cabinet as it completed its turn, and a teacup balanced on top of it fell off and shattered on the floor. The radio coughed out a long, loud bray of static.
If there was, why would he come see about me, anyhow? Why would he come see about me after I left the others back in that truck?
No God, no God, he wasn’t a suburban kid from Ohio still three years away from his first encounter with a razor, prayer was just a manifestation of what psychologists called “magical thinking,” and there was no God.
If there was, why would he come see about me, anyhow? Why would he come see about me after I left the others back in that truck?
What it did was strike the wolf dead center between the eyes.
He expected the hammer to spin and was sure it would sail over the animal’s head—he had pitched at Lincoln Park High School about a thousand years ago and still knew the feeling of one that was going to be wild-high—but it didn’t. It was no Excalibur, just a plain old Craftsman hammer with a perforated rubber sleeve on it to improve the grip, but it didn’t turn over and it didn’t go high.
What it did was strike the wolf dead center between the eyes.
Is it time to reconsider David Carver’s God? Terry asked quietly.
Gasping, Johnny staggered away from it. He bent to pick up the hammer, then whirled around so clumsily he almost fell, sure that the wolf would be on its feet and coming for him again; there was no way he could have gotten it with the hammer like that, absolutely no way, that baby had been going high, your muscles remembered what it felt like when you’d uncorked one that was going all the way to the backstop, they remembered it very well.
But the wolf lay where it had fallen.
Is it time to reconsider David Carver’s God? Terry asked quietly. Stereo Terry now; she had a place in his head, and she also had a place on the wall under YOU MUST WEAR A HARDHAT.
You left them to die. Worse, you continue to deny God even after you called on him . . . and he answered. What kind of man are you?
“Your wallet,” David said. His eyes on him, so steady. “It fell out of your pocket, in the truck. I brought it to you. It’s got all your ID in it, in case you forget who you are.”
“The guy in the gray shirt and the Yankees hat. The guy that showed me the China Pit from my Viet Cong Lookout. That guy was you.”
“There’s a picture in it. You and two other guys standing in front of a place called The Viet Cong Lookout. A bar, I think.”
“Yeah, a bar,” Johnny agreed. He flexed his hand uneasily on the shaft of the hammer, barely feeling the sting run across his scraped knuckles. “The tall guy in that picture’s David Halberstam. Very famous writer. Historian. Baseball fan.”
“I was more interested in the ordinary-sized guy in the middle,” David said, and all at once a part of Johnny—a deep, deep part—knew what the child was driving at, what the child was going to say, and that part moaned in protest. “The guy in the gray shirt and the Yankees hat. The guy that showed me the China Pit from my Viet Cong Lookout. That guy was you.”
Why did the boy have to come? Because he was sent, of course. It wasn’t David’s fault. The real question was why couldn’t the boy’s terrible master let either of them go?
