The Waste Lands

by Stephen King

  "I'm sorry," he said. He really was, but he was also bitterly disappointed. It had only been the pantry, after all. He had been so sure--

  "What are you doing, creeping around here, anyway? This is your bowling day! I didn't expect you for at least another hour! I haven't even made your snack yet, so don't be expecting it."

  "That's okay. I'm not very hungry, anyway." He bent down and picked up the can she had dropped.

  "Wouldn't know it from the way you came bustin in here," she grumbled.

  "I thought I heard a mouse or something. I guess it was just you."

  "I guess it was." She descended the step-stool and took the can from him. "You look like you're comin down with the flu or something, Johnny." She pressed her hand against his forehead. "You don't feel hot, but that doesn't always mean much."

  "I think I'm just tired," Jake said, and thought: If only that was all it was. "Maybe I'll just have a soda and watch TV for a while."

  She grunted. "You got any papers you want to show me? If you do, make it fast. I'm behind on supper."

  "Nothing today," he said. He left the pantry, got a soda, then went into the living room. He turned on Hollywood Squares and watched vacantly as the voices argued and the new memories of that dusty other world continued to surface.

  7

  His MOTHER AND FATHER didn't notice anything was wrong with him--his father didn't even get in until 9:30--and that was fine by Jake. He went to bed at ten and lay awake in the darkness, listening to the city outside his window: brakes, horns, wailing sirens.

  You died.

  I didn't, though. I'm right here, safe in my own bed.

  That doesn't matter. You died, and you know it.

  The hell of it was, he knew both things.

  I don't know which voice is true, but I know I can't go on like this. So just quit it, both of you. Stop arguing and leave me alone. Okay? Please?

  But they wouldn't. Couldn't, apparently. And it came to Jake that he ought to get up--right now--and open the door to the bathroom. The other world would be there. The way station would be there and the rest of him would be there, too, huddled under an ancient blanket in the stable, trying to sleep and wondering what in hell had happened.

  I can tell him, Jake thought excitedly. He threw back the covers, suddenly knowing that the door beside his bookcase no longer led into the bathroom but to a world that smelled of heat and purple sage and fear in a handful of dust, a world that now lay under the shadowing wing of night. I can tell him, but I won't have to . . . because I'll be IN him . . . I'll BE him!

  He raced across his darkened room, almost laughing with relief, and shoved open the door. And--

  And it was his bathroom. Just his bathroom, with the framed Marvin Gaye poster on the wall and the shapes of the venetian blinds lying on the tiled floor in bars of light and shadow.

  He stood there for a long time, trying to swallow his disappointment. It wouldn't go. And it was bitter.

  Bitter.

  8

  THE THREE WEEKS BETWEEN then and now stretched like a grim, blighted terrain in Jake's memory--a nightmare wasteland where there had been no peace, no rest, no respite from pain. He had watched, like a helpless prisoner watching the sack of a city he had once ruled, as his mind buckled under the steadily increasing pressure of the phantom voices and memories. He had hoped the memories would stop when he reached the point in them where the man named Roland had allowed him to drop into the chasm under the mountains, but they didn't. Instead they simply recycled and began to play themselves over again, like a tape set to repeat and repeat until it either breaks or someone comes along and shuts it off.

  His perceptions of his more-or-less real life as a boy in New York City grew increasingly spotty as this terrible schism grew deeper. He could remember going to school, and to the movies on the weekend, and out to Sunday brunch with his parents a week ago (or had it been two?), but he remembered these things the way a man who has suffered malaria may remember the deepest, darkest phase of his illness: people became shadows, voices seemed to echo and overlap each other, and even such a simple act as eating a sandwich or obtaining a Coke from the machine in the gymnasium became a struggle. Jake had pushed through those days in a fugue of yelling voices and doubled memories. His obsession with doors--all kinds of doors--deepened; his hope that the gunslinger's world might lie behind one of them never quite died. Nor was that so strange, since it was the only hope he had.

  But as of today the game was over. He'd never had a chance of winning anyway, not really. He had given up. He had gone truant. Jake walked blindly east along the gridwork of streets, head down, with no idea of where he was going or what he would do when he got there.

  9

  AFTER WALKING FOR A while, he began to come out of this unhappy daze and take some notice of his surroundings. He was standing on the corner of Lexington Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street with no memory at all of how he had come to be there. He noticed for the first time that it was an absolutely gorgeous morning. May 9th, the day this madness had started, had been pretty, but today was ten times better--that day, perhaps, when spring looks around herself and sees summer standing nearby, strong and handsome and with a cocky grin on his tanned face. The sun shone brightly off the glass walls of the midtown buildings; the shadow of each pedestrian was black and crisp. The sky overhead was a clear and blameless blue, dotted here and there with plump foul-weather clouds.

  Down the street, two businessmen in expensive, well-cut suits were standing at a board wall which had been erected around a construction site. They were laughing and passing something back and forth. Jake walked in their direction, curious, and as he drew closer he saw that the two businessmen were playing tic-tac-toe on the wall, using an expensive Mark Cross pen to draw the grids and make the X's and O's. Jake thought this was a complete gas. As he approached, one of them made an O in the upper right-hand corner of the grid and then slashed a diagonal line through the middle.

  "Skunked again!" his friend said. Then this man, who looked like a high-powered executive or lawyer or big-time stockbroker, took the Mark Cross pen and drew another grid.

  The first businessman, the winner, glanced to his left and saw Jake. He smiled. "Some day, huh, kid?"

  "It sure is," Jake said, delighted to find he meant every word.

  "Too nice for school, huh?"

  This time Jake actually laughed. Piper School, where you had Outs instead of lunch and where you sometimes stepped out but never had to take a crap, suddenly seemed far away and not at all important. "You know it."

  "You want a game? Billy here couldn't beat me at this when we were in the fifth grade, and he still can't."

  "Leave the kid alone," the second businessman said, holding out the Mark Cross pen. "This time you're history." He winked at Jake, and Jake amazed himself by winking back. He walked on, leaving the men to their game. The sense that something totally wonderful was going to happen--had perhaps already begun to happen--continued to grow, and his feet no longer seemed to be quite touching the pavement.

  The WALK light on the corner came on, and he began to cross Lexington Avenue. He stopped in the middle of the street so suddenly that a messenger-boy on a ten-speed bike almost ran him down. It was a beautiful spring day--agreed. But that wasn't why he felt so good, so suddenly aware of everything that was going on around him, so sure that some great thing was about to occur.

  The voices had stopped.

  They weren't gone for good--he somehow knew this--but for the time being they had stopped. Why?

  Jake suddenly thought of two men arguing in a room. They sit facing each other over a table, jawing at each other with increasing bitterness. After a while they begin to lean toward each other, thrusting their faces pugnaciously forward, bathing each other with a fine mist of outraged spittle. Soon they will come to blows. But before that can happen, they hear a steady thumping noise--the sound of a bass drum--and then a jaunty flourish of brass. The two men stop arguing and look at ea
ch other, puzzled.

  What's that? one asks.

  Dunno, the other replies. Sounds like a parade.

  They rush to the window and it is a parade--a uniformed band marching in lock-step with the sun blazing off their horns, pretty majorettes twirling batons and strutting their long, tanned legs, convertibles decked with flowers and filled with waving celebrities.

  The two men stare out the window, their quarrel forgotten. They will undoubtedly return to it, but for the time being they stand together like the best of friends, shoulder to shoulder, watching as the parade goes by--

  10

  A HORN BLARED, STARTLING Jake out of this story, which was as vivid as a powerful dream. He realized he was still standing in the middle of Lexington, and the light had changed. He looked around wildly, expecting to see the blue Cadillac bearing down on him, but the guy who had tooted his horn was sitting behind the wheel of a yellow Mustang convertible and grinning at him. It was as if everyone in New York had gotten a whiff of happy-gas today.

  Jake waved at the guy and sprinted to the other side of the street. The guy in the Mustang twirled a finger around his ear to indicate that Jake was crazy, then waved back and drove on.

  For a moment Jake simply stood on the far corner, face turned up to the May sunshine, smiling, digging the day. He supposed prisoners condemned to die in the electric chair must feel this way when they learn they have been granted a temporary reprieve.

  The voices were still.

  The question was, what was the parade which had temporarily diverted their attention? Was it just the uncommon beauty of this spring morning?

  Jake didn't think that was all. He didn't think so because that sensation of knowing was creeping over him and through him again, the one which had taken possession of him three weeks ago, as he approached the corner of Fifth and Forty-sixth. But on May 9th, it had been a feeling of impending doom. Today it was a feeling of radiance, a sense of goodness and anticipation. It was as if . . . as if . . .

  White. This was the word that came to him, and it clanged in his mind with clear and unquestionable rightness.

  "It's the White!" he exclaimed aloud. "The coming of the White!"

  He walked on down Fifty-fourth Street, and as he reached the corner of Second and Fifty-fourth, he once more passed under the umbrella of ka-tet.

  11

  HE TURNED RIGHT, THEN stopped, turned, and retraced his steps to the corner. He needed to walk down Second Avenue now, yes, that was unquestionably correct, but this was the wrong side again. When the light changed, he hurried across the street and turned right again. That feeling, that sense of

  (Whiteness)

  rightness, grew steadily stronger. He felt half-mad with joy and relief. He was going to be okay. This time there was no mistake. He felt sure that he would soon begin to see people he recognized, as he had recognized the fat lady and the pretzel vendor, and they would be doing things he remembered in advance.

  Instead, he came to the bookstore.

  12

  THE MANHATTAN RESTAURANT OF THE MIND, the sign painted in the window read. Jake went to the door. There was a chalkboard hung there; it looked like the kind you saw on the wall in diners and lunchrooms.

  TODAY'S SPECIALS

  From Florida! Fresh-Broiled John D. MacDonald

  Hardcovers 3 for $2.50

  Paperbacks 9 for $5.00

  From Mississippi! Pan-Fried William Faulkner

  Hardcovers Market Price

  Vintage Library Paperbacks 75C/ each

  From California! Hard-Boiled Raymond Chandler

  Hardcovers Market Price

  Paperbacks 7 for $5.00

  FEED YOUR NEED TO READ

  Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side. A bell jingled overhead. The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home.

  The restaurant motif continued inside. Although the walls were lined with shelves of books, a fountain-style counter bisected the room. On Jake's side of the counter were a number of small tables with wire-backed Malt Shoppe chairs. Each table had been arranged to display the day's specials: Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald, Philip Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler, Snopes novels by William Faulkner. A small sign on the Faulkner table said: Some rare 1st eds available--pls ask. Another sign, this one on the counter, read simply: BROWSE! A couple of customers were doing just that. They sat at the counter, drinking coffee and reading. Jake thought this was without a doubt the best bookstore he'd ever been in.

  The question was, why was he here? Was it luck, or was it part of that soft, insistent feeling that he was following a trail--a kind of force-beam--that had been left for him to find?

  He glanced at the display on a small table to his left and knew the answer.

  13

  IT WAS A DISPLAY of children's books. There wasn't much room on the table, so there were only about a dozen of them--Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Hobbit, Tom Sawyer, things like that. Jake had been attracted by a story-book obviously meant for very young children. On the bright green cover was an anthropomorphic locomotive puffing its way up a hill. Its cowcatcher (which was bright pink) wore a happy grin and its headlight was a cheerful eye which seemed to invite Jake Chambers to come inside and read all about it. Charlie the Choo-Choo, the title proclaimed, Story and Pictures by Beryl Evans. Jake's mind flashed back to his Final Essay, with the picture of the Amtrak train on the title-page and the words choo-choo written over and over again inside.

  He grabbed the book and clutched it tightly, as if it might fly away if he relaxed his grip. And as he looked down at the cover, Jake found that he did not trust the smile on Charlie the Choo-Choo's face. You look happy, but I think that's just the mask you wear, he thought. I don't think you're happy at all. And I don't think Charlie's your real name, either.

  These were crazy thoughts to be having, undoubtedly crazy, but they did not feel crazy. They felt sane. They felt true.

  Standing next to the place where Charlie the Choo-Choo had been was a tattered paperback. The cover was quite badly torn and had been mended with Scotch tape now yellow with age. The picture showed a puzzled-looking boy and girl with a forest of question-marks over their heads. The title of this book was Riddle-De-Dum! Brain-Twisters and Puzzles for Everyone! No author was credited.

  Jake tucked Charlie the Choo-Choo under his arm and picked up the riddle book. He opened it at random and saw this:

  When is a door not a door?

  "When it's a jar," Jake muttered. He could feel sweat popping out on his forehead . . . his arms . . . all over his body.

  "When it's a jar!"

  "Find something, son?" a mild voice inquired.

  Jake turned around and saw a fat guy in an open-throated white shirt standing at the end of the counter. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his old gabardine slacks. A pair of half-glasses were pushed up on the bright dome of his bald head.

  "Yes," Jake said feverishly. "These two. Are they for sale?"

  "Everything you see is for sale," the fat guy said. "The building itself would be for sale, if I owned it. Alas, I only lease." He held out his hand for the books and for a moment Jake balked. Then, reluctantly, he handed them over. Part of him expected the fat guy to flee with them, and if he did--if he gave the slightest indication of trying it--Jake meant to tackle him, rip the books out of his hands, and boogie. He needed those books.

  "Okay, let's see what you got," the fat man said. "By the way, I'm Tower. Calvin Tower." He stuck out his hand.

  Jake's eyes widened, and he took an involuntary step backward. "What?"

  The fat guy looked at him with some interest. "Calvin Tower. Which word is profanity in your language, O Hyperborean Wanderer?"

  "Huh?"

  "I just mean you look like someone goosed you, kid."

  "Oh. Sorry." He clasped Mr. Tower's large, soft hand, hoping the m
an wouldn't pursue it. The name had given him a jump, but he didn't know why. "I'm Jake Chambers."

  Calvin Tower shook his hand. "Good handle, pard. Sounds like the footloose hero in a Western novel--the guy who blows into Black Fork, Arizona, cleans up the town, and then travels on. Something by Wayne D. Overholser, maybe. Except you don't look footloose, Jake. You look like you decided the day was a little too nice to spend in school."

  "Oh . . . no. We finished up last Friday."

  Tower grinned. "Uh-huh. I bet. And you've gotta have these two items, huh? It's sort of funny, what people have to have. Now you--I would have pegged you as a Robert Howard kind of kid from the jump, looking for a good deal on one of those nice old Donald M. Grant editions--the ones with the Roy Krenkel paintings. Dripping swords, mighty thews, and Conan the Barbarian hacking his way through the Stygian hordes. "

  "That sounds pretty good, actually. These are for . . . uh, for my little brother. It's his birthday next week."

  Calvin Tower used his thumb to flip his glasses down onto his nose and had a closer look at Jake. "Really? You look like an only child to me. An only child if I ever saw one, enjoying a day of French leave as Mistress May trembles in her green gown just outside the bosky dell of June."

  "Come again?"

  "Never mind. Spring always puts me in a William Cowper-ish mood. People are weird but interesting, Tex--am I right?"

  "I guess so," Jake said cautiously. He couldn't decide if he liked this odd man or not.

  One of the counter-browsers spun on his stool. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a battered paperback copy of The Plague in the other. "Quit pulling the kid's chain and sell him the books, Cal," he said. "We've still got time to finish this game of chess before the end of the world, if you hurry up."

  "Hurry is antithetical to my nature," Cal said, but he opened Charlie the Choo-Choo and peered at the price pencilled on the flyleaf. "A fairly common book, but this copy's in unusually fine condition. Little kids usually rack the hell out of the ones they like. I should get twelve dollars for it--"