Desperation

by Stephen King

‘Central Nevada’s full of intense people.’

The sky alone is enough to freak me out. Ever since we left this morning, I’ve felt it up there, pressing down on me.”

His eyes were bright gray, direct but with no emotion in them. None that Peter could read, anyway.

It was weird how cops could get you running off at the mouth like this, as if you had a dismembered body or a kidnapped child in the trunk.

“I see you’re an organ donor,” the cop said, without looking up. “Do you really think that’s wise?”

“A year, hmmm? Between high school and college. Married. Tak!”

I see you’re an organ donor. Do you really think that’s wise? Tak!

see you’re an organ donor. Do you really think that’s wise? Tak!

Boink, a lie. He had been afraid, and Mary… well, Mary had been damned close to terrified.

This time there was also a sense of his sphincter’s not loosening but dropping, as if the muscles which ordinarily held it up where it belonged had dozed off.

Words from an old song, floating in his head: Somethin happenin here… what it is ain’t exactly clear…

You have the right to an attorney. I’m going to kill you. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.

I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. In fact, I’ve got eyes just about everywhere.

“I see holes like eyes,” the cop said. “My mind is full of them.” He said nothing else until they got to town.

“Rattlesnake Number Two. Sometimes known as the China Pit.”

Ralph Carver was somewhere deep in the black and didn’t want to come up.

Until Nevada, things had been fine.

“A bad guy,” the cop said. “That’s all you need to know for now, son. A very bad guy. Tak!”

“Carvers,” he said, speaking solemnly through his grin, “welcome to Desperation.”

I can tell you that because I’m a wolf and we get a circular every month from the National Safety Council.

Did he say something about being a wolf, did I hear that?

He was interrupted by a long, trembling howl that chilled his blood… not just because it was clearly the sound of a wild animal but because it was close.

“Tak,” the cop said. “Tak ah lah.”

“Desert lore. Scripture in the wasteland. The resonance of lonely places.”

Now, looking at the poncho dangling out of the unbuckled saddlebag, Johnny felt alarm bells start going off in his head. The cop did it.

There was no joke in the big cop’s expression as he looked toward that sound; it was the look of a man who is totally insane.

“My children of the desert!” the cop said. “The can toi! What music they make!”

You’re in my house now, the house of the wolf and the scorpion, and you better not forget it.”

The cop’s eyes were empty—so empty that it was almost as if he were unconscious with them open.

There was something there, yes, something, and David didn’t know what it was, or how it could be both something and nothing.

There’s no God in Desperation, baby boy. Out here there’s only can de lach.”

But it was often best if you didn’t tell your parents everything. They were old, and stuff got on their nerves.

Everything that matters, the voice of intuition responded. Everything that matters.

“Jail,” the big cop said in his stuffy, liquid voice. “Where anything you bray will be abused against you in a sort of caw.”

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

“Don’t speak to them in the language of the dead, Mr. Marinville.”

That one spoke in the language of the unformed, from the time before, when all animals except for men and the outsider were one.