The Waste Lands

by Stephen King

  "I cleared my throat, Blaine," Eddie said. He swallowed and armed sweat from his forehead. "I'm . . . shit, tell the truth and shame the devil. I'm scared to death."

  "THAT IS VERY WISE OF YOU. THESE RIDDLES OF WHICH YOU SPEAK--ARE THEY STUPID? I WON'T HAVE MY PATIENCE TRIED WITH STUPID RIDDLES."

  "Most are smart," Susannah said, but she looked anxiously at Eddie as she said it.

  "YOU LIE. YOU DON'T KNOW THE QUALITY OF THESE RIDDLES AT ALL."

  "How can you say--"

  "VOICE ANALYSIS. FRICTIVE PATTERNS AND DIPHTHONG STRESS-EMPHASIS PROVIDE A RELIABLE QUOTIENT OF TRUTH/UNTRUTH. PREDICTIVE RELIABILITY IS 97 PER CENT, PLUS OR MINUS .5 PER CENT." The voice fell silent for a moment, and when it spoke again, it did so in a menacing drawl that Eddie found very familiar. It was the voice of Humphrey Bogart. "I SHUGGEST YOU SHTICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW, SHWEETHEART. THE LAST GUY THAT TRIED SHADING THE TRUTH WITH ME WOUND UP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEND IN A PAIR OF SHEMENT COWBOY BOOTS."

  "Christ," Eddie said. "We walked four hundred miles or so to meet the computer version of Rich Little. How can you imitate guys like John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart, Blaine? Guys from our world?"

  Nothing.

  "Okay, you don't want to answer that one. How about this one--if a riddle was what you wanted, why didn't you just say so?"

  Again there was no answer, but Eddie discovered that he didn't really need one. Blaine liked riddles, so he had asked them one. Susannah had solved it. Eddie guessed that if she had failed to do so, the two of them would now look like a couple of giant-economy-size charcoal briquets lying on the floor of the Cradle of Lud.

  "Blaine?" Susannah asked uneasily. There was no answer. "Blaine, are you still there?"

  "YES. TELL ME ANOTHER ONE."

  "When is a door not a door?" Eddie asked.

  "WHEN IT'S AJAR. YOU'LL HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN THAT IF YOU REALLY EXPECT ME TO TAKE YOU SOMEWHERE. CAN YOU DO BETTER THAN THAT?"

  "If Roland gets here, I'm sure we can," Susannah said. "Regardless of how good the riddles in Jake's book may be, Roland knows hundreds--he actually studied them as a child." Having said this, she realized she could not conceive of Roland as a child. "Will you take us, Blaine?"

  "I MIGHT," Blaine said, and Eddie was quite sure he heard a dim thread of cruelty running through that voice. "BUT YOU'LL HAVE TO PRIME THE PUMP TO GET ME GOING, AND MY PUMP PRIMES BACKWARD."

  "Meaning what?" Eddie asked, looking through the bars at the smooth pink line of Blaine's back. But Blaine did not reply to this or any of the other questions they asked. The bright orange lights stayed on, but both Big Blaine and Little Blaine seemed to have gone into hibernation. Eddie, however, knew better. Blaine was awake. Blaine was watching them. Blaine was listening to their frictive patterns and diphthong stress-emphasis.

  He looked at Susannah.

  " 'You'll have to prime the pump, but my pump primes backward,' " he said bleakly. "It's a riddle, isn't it?"

  "Yes, of course." She looked at the triangular window, so like a half-lidded, mocking eye, and then pulled him close so she could whisper in his ear. "It's totally insane, Eddie--schizophrenic, paranoid, probably delusional as well."

  "Tell me about it," he breathed back. "What we've got here is a lunatic genius ghost-in-the-computer monorail that likes riddles and goes faster than the speed of sound. Welcome to the fantasy version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

  "Do you have any idea what the answer is?"

  Eddie shook his head. "You?"

  "A little tickle, way back in my mind. False light, probably. I keep thinking about what Roland said: a good riddle is always sensible and always solvable. It's like a magician's trick."

  "Misdirection."

  She nodded. "Go fire another shot, Eddie--let em know we're still here."

  "Yeah. Now if we could only be sure that they're still there."

  "Do you think they are, Eddie?"

  Eddie had started away, and he spoke without stopping or looking back. "I don't know--that's a riddle not even Blaine could answer."

  31

  "COULD I HAVE SOMETHING to drink?" Jake asked. His voice came out sounding furry and nasal. Both his mouth and the tissues in his abused nose were swelling up. He looked like someone who has gotten the worst of it in a nasty street-fight.

  "Oh, yes," Tick-Tock replied judiciously. "You could. I'd say you certainly could. We have lots to drink, don't we, Copperhead?"

  "Ay," said a tall, bespectacled man in a white silk shirt and a pair of black silk trousers. He looked like a college professor in a turn-of-the-century Punch cartoon. "No shortage of po-ter-bulls here."

  The Tick-Tock Man, once more seated at ease in his throne-like chair, looked humorously at Jake. "We have wine, beer, ale, and, of course, good old water. Sometimes that's all a body wants, isn't it? Cool, clear, sparkling water. How does that sound, cully?"

  Jake's throat, which was also swollen and as dry as sandpaper, prickled painfully. "Sounds good," he whispered.

  "It's woke my thirsty up, I know that," Tick-Tock said. His lips spread in a smile. His green eyes sparkled. "Bring me a dipper of water. . Till--I'll be damned if I know what's happened to my manners."

  Tilly stepped through the hatchway on the far side of the room--it was opposite the one through which Jake and Gasher had entered. Jake watched her go and licked his swollen lips.

  "Now," Tick-Tock said, returning his gaze to Jake, "you say the American city you came from--this New York--is much like Lud."

  "Well . . . not exactly . . ."

  "But you do recognize some of the machinery," Tick-Tock pressed. "Valves and pumps and such. Not to mention the firedim tubes."

  "Yes. We call it neon, but it's the same."

  Tick-Tock reached out toward him. Jake cringed, but Tick-Tock only patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, yes; close enough." His eyes gleamed. "And you've heard of computers?"

  "Sure, but--"

  Tilly returned with the dipper and timidly approached the Tick-Tock Man's throne. He took it and held it out to Jake. When Jake reached for it, Tick-Tock pulled it back and drank himself. As Jake watched the water trickle from Tick-Tock's mouth and roll down his naked chest, he began to shake. He couldn't help it.

  The Tick-Tock Man looked over the dipper at him, as if just remembering that Jake was still there. Behind him, Gasher, Copperhead, Brandon, and Hoots were grinning like schoolyard kids who have just heard an amusing dirty joke.

  "Why, I got thinking about how thirsty I was and forgot all about you!" Tick-Tock cried. "That's mean as hell, gods damn my eyes! But, of course, it looked so good . . . and it is good . . . cold . . . clear . . ."

  He held the dipper out to Jake. When Jake reached for it, Tick-Tock pulled it back.

  "First, cully, tell me what you know about dipolar computers and transitive circuits," he said coldly.

  "What . . ." Jake looked toward the ventilator grille, but the golden eyes were still gone. He was beginning to think he had imagined them after all. He shifted his gaze back to the Tick-Tock Man, understanding one thing clearly: he wasn't going to get any water. He had been stupid to even dream he might. "What are dipolar computers?"

  The Tick-Tock Man's face contorted with rage; he threw the remainder of the water into Jake's bruised, puffy face. "Don't you play it light with me!" he shrieked. He stripped off the Seiko watch and shook it in front of Jake. "When I asked you if this ran on a dipolar circuit, you said it didn't! So don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about when you already made it clear that you do!"

  "But . . . but . . ." Jake couldn't go on. His head was whirling with fear and confusion. He was aware, in some far-off fashion, that he was licking as much water as he could off his lips.

  "There's a thousand of those ever-fucking dipolar computers right under the ever-fucking city, maybe a HUNDRED thousand, and the only one that still works don't do a thing except play Watch Me and run those drums! I want those computers! I want them working for ME!"

  The Tick-
Tock Man bolted forward on his throne, seized Jake, shook him back and forth, and then threw him to the floor. Jake struck one of the lamps, knocking it over, and the bulb blew with a hollow coughing sound. Tilly gave a little shriek and stepped backward, her eyes wide and frightened. Copperhead and Brandon looked at each other uneasily.

  Tick-Tock leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, and screamed into Jake's face: "I want them AND I MEAN TO HAVE THEM!"

  Silence fell in the room, broken only by the soft whoosh of warm air pouring from the ventilators. Then the twisted rage on the Tick-Tock Man's face disappeared so suddenly it might never have existed at all. It was replaced by another charming smile. He leaned further forward and helped Jake to his feet.

  "Sorry. I get thinking about the potential of this place and sometimes I get carried away. Please accept my apology, cully." He picked up the overturned dipper and threw it at Tilly. "Fill this up, you useless bitch! What's the matter with you?"

  He turned his attention back to Jake, still smiling his TV game-show host smile.

  "All right; you've had your little joke and I've had mine. Now tell me everything you know about dipolar computers and transitive circuits. Then you can have a drink."

  Jake opened his mouth to say something--he had no idea what--and then, incredibly, Roland's voice was in his mind, filling it.

  Distract them, Jake--and if there's a button that opens the door, get close to it.

  The Tick-Tock Man was watching him closely. "Something just came into your mind, didn't it, cully? I always know. So don't keep it a secret; tell your old friend Ticky."

  Jake caught movement in the corner of his eye. Although he did not dare glance up at the ventilator panel--not with all the Tick-Tock Man's notice bent upon him--he knew that Oy was back, peering down through the louvers.

  Distract them . . . and suddenly Jake knew just how to do that.

  "I did think of something," he said, "but it wasn't about computers. It was about my old pal Gasher. And his old pal, Hoots."

  "Here! Here!" Gasher cried. "What are you talking about, boy?"

  "Why don't you tell Tick-Tock who really gave you the password, Gasher? Then I can tell Tick-Tock where you keep it."

  The Tick-Tock Man's puzzled gaze shifted from Jake to Gasher. "What's he talking about?"

  "Nothin!" Gasher said, but he could not forbear a quick glance at Hoots. "He's just runnin his gob, tryin to get off the hot-seat by puttin me on it, Ticky. I told you he was pert! Didn't I say--"

  "Take a look in his scarf, why don't you?" Jake asked. "He's got a scrap of paper with the word written on it. I had to read it to him because he couldn't even do that."

  There was no sudden rage on Tick-Tock's part this time; his face darkened gradually instead, like a summer sky before a terrible thunderstorm.

  "Let me see your scarf, Gasher," he said in a soft, thick voice. "Let your old pal sneak a peek."

  "He's lyin, I tell you!" Gasher cried, putting his hands on his scarf and taking two steps backward toward the wall. Directly above him, Oy's gold-ringed eyes gleamed. "All you got to do is look in his face to see lyin's what a pert little cull like him does best!"

  The Tick-Tock Man shifted his gaze to Hoots, who looked sick with fear. "What about it?" Tick-Tock asked in his soft, terrible voice. "What about it, Hooterman? I know you and Gasher was butt-buddies of old, and I know you've the brains of a hung goose, but surely not even you could be stupid enough to write down a password to the inner chamber . . . could you? Could you?"

  "I . . . I oney thought . . ." Hoots began.

  "Shut up!" Gasher shouted. He shot Jake a look of pure, sick hate. "I'll kill you for this, dearie--see if I don't."

  "Take off your scarf, Gasher," the Tick-Tock Man said. "I want a look inside it."

  Jake sidled a step closer to the podium with the buttons on it.

  "No!" Gasher's hands returned to the scarf and pressed against it as if it might fly away of its own accord. "Be damned if I will!"

  "Brandon, grab him," Tick-Tock said.

  Brandon lunged for Gasher. Gasher's move wasn't as quick as Tick-Tock's had been, but it was quick enough; he bent, yanked a knife from the top of his boot, and buried it in Brandon's arm.

  "Oh, you barstard!" Brandon shouted in surprise and pain as blood began to pour out of his arm.

  "Lookit what you did!" Tilly screamed.

  "Do I have to do everything around here myself?" Tick-Tock shouted, more exasperated than angry, it seemed, and rose to his feet. Gasher retreated from him, weaving the bloody knife back and forth in front of his face in mystic patterns. He kept his other hand planted firmly on top of his head.

  "Draw back," he panted. "I loves you like a brother, Ticky, but if you don't draw back, I'll hide this blade in your guts--so I will."

  "You? Not likely," the Tick-Tock Man said with a laugh. He removed his own knife from its scabbard and held it delicately by the bone hilt. All eyes were on the two of them. Jake took two quick steps to the podium with its little cluster of buttons and reached for the one he thought the Tick-Tock man had pushed.

  Gasher was backing along the curved wall, the tubes of light painting his mandrus-riddled face in a succession of sick colors: bile-green, fever-red, jaundice-yellow. Now it was the Tick-Tock Man standing below the ventilator grille where Oy was watching.

  "Put it down, Gasher," Tick-Tock said in a reasonable tone of voice. "You brought the boy as I asked; if anyone else gets pricked over this, it'll be Hoots, not you. Just show me--"

  Jake saw Oy crouching to spring and understood two things: what the bumbler meant to do and who had put him up to it.

  "Oy, no!" he screamed.

  All of them turned to look at him. At that moment Oy leaped, hitting the flimsy ventilator grille and knocking it free. The Tick-Tock Man wheeled toward the sound, and Oy fell onto his upturned face, biting and slashing.

  32

  ROLAND HEARD IT FAINTLY even through the twin doors--Oy, no!--and his heart sank. He waited for the valve-wheel to turn, but it did not. He closed his eyes and sent with all his might: The door, Jake! Open the door!

  He sensed no response, and the pictures were gone. His communication line with Jake, flimsy to begin with, had now been severed.

  33

  THE TICK-TOCK MAN blundered backward, cursing and screaming and grabbing at the writhing, biting, digging thing on his face. He felt Oy's claws punch into his left eye, popping it, and a horrible red pain sank into his head like a flaming torch thrown down a deep well. At that point, rage overwhelmed pain. He seized Oy, tore him off his face, and held him over his head, meaning to twist him like a rag.

  "No!" Jake wailed. He forgot about the button which unlocked the doors and seized the gun hanging from the back of the chair.

  Tilly shrieked. The others scattered. Jake levelled the old German machine-gun at the Tick-Tock Man. Oy, upside down in those huge, strong hands and bent almost to the snapping point, writhed madly and slashed his teeth into the air. He shrieked in agony--a horribly human sound.

  "Leave him alone, you bastard!" Jake screamed, and pressed the trigger.

  He had enough presence of mind left to aim low. The roar of the Schmeisser .40 was ear-splitting in the enclosed space, although it fired only five or six rounds. One of the lighted tubes popped in a burst of cold orange fire. A hole appeared an inch above the left knee of the Tick-Tock Man's tight-fitting trousers, and a dark red stain began to spread at once. Tick-Tock's mouth opened in a shocked O of surprise, an expression which said more clearly than words could have done that, for all his intelligence, Tick-Tock had expected to live a long, happy life where he shot people but was never shot himself. Shot at, perhaps, but actually hit? That surprised expression said that just wasn't supposed to be in the cards.

  Welcome to the real world, you fuck, Jake thought.

  Tick-Tock dropped Oy to the iron grillework floor to grab at his wounded leg. Copperhead lunged at Jake, got an arm around his throat, and then Oy was on him,
barking shrilly and chewing at Copperhead's ankle through the black silk pants. Copperhead screamed and danced away, shaking Oy back and forth at the end of his leg. Oy clung like a limpet. Jake turned to see the Tick-Tock Man crawling toward him. He had retrieved his knife and the blade was now clamped between his teeth.

  "Goodbye, Ticky," Jake said, and pressed the Schmeisser's trigger again. Nothing happened. Jake didn't know if it was empty or jammed, and this was hardly the time to speculate. He took two steps backward before finding further retreat blocked by the big chair which had served the Tick-Tock Man as a throne. Before he could slip around, putting the chair between them, Tick-Tock had grabbed his ankle. His other hand went to the hilt of his knife. The ruins of his left eye lay on his cheek like a glob of mint jelly; the right eye glared up at Jake with insane hatred.

  Jake tried to pull away from the clutching hand and went sprawling on the Tick-Tock Man's throne. His eye fell on a pocket which had been sewn into the right-hand arm-rest. Jutting from the elasticized top was the cracked pearl handle of a revolver.

  "Oh, cully, how you'll suffer!" the Tick-Tock Man whispered ecstatically. The O of surprise had been replaced by a wide, trembling grin. "Oh how you'll suffer! And how happy I'll be to . . . What--?"

  The grin slackened and the surprised O began to reappear as Jake pointed the cheesy nickel-plated revolver at him and thumbed back the hammer. The grip on Jake's ankle tightened until it seemed to him that the bones there must snap.

  "You dasn't!" Tick-Tock said in a screamy whisper.

  "Yes I do," Jake said grimly, and pulled the trigger of the Tick-Tock Man's runout gun. There was a flat crack, much less dramatic than the Schmeisser's Teutonic roar. A small black hole appeared high up on the right side of Tick-Tock's forehead. The Tick-Tock Man went on staring up at Jake, disbelief in his remaining eye.

  Jake tried to make himself shoot him again and couldn't do it.

  Suddenly a flap of the Tick-Tock Man's scalp peeled away like old wallpaper and dropped on his right cheek. Roland would have known what this meant; Jake, however, was now almost beyond coherent thought. A dark, panicky horror was spinning across his mind like a tornado funnel. He cringed back in the big chair as the hand on his ankle fell away and the Tick-Tock Man collapsed forward on his face.