Desperation

About that he had been right.

“God, protect me long enough to get this done,” he said, and allowed himself to be drawn toward the mi. Could he stop even if he tried. Best not to know, maybe.

There were dead animals lying in a rotting ring around the hole in the floor-David Carver’s well of the worlds. Coyotes and buzzards, mostly, but he also saw spiders and a few scorpions. He had an idea that these last protec-tors had died when the eagle had died. Some withdrawing force had hammered the life out of them just as the life had been hammered from Audrey Wyler almost as soon as Steve had slapped the can tahs out of her hand.

Now smoke began to rise out of the mi… except it wasn’t smoke at all, not really. It was some sort of greasy brown-black muck, and as it began to curl toward him, Joh

They were not ectoplasmic, those arms, but neither were they strictly physical. Like the carved shapes looming above and all around him, looking at them made Joh

what, exactly. He could almost hear—(cay de mun) Open your mouth.

And yes, his mouth was open, wide open, like when you go to the dentist. Please open wide, Mr. Marinville, open wide, you lousy contemptible excuse for a writer, you make me furious, you make me sick with rage, but go on, open wide, cay de mun, you fucking grayhaired pre-tentious motherfucker, we’ll fix you up, make you good as new, better than new, open wide open wide cay de mun OPEN WIDE—The smoke. Muck. Whatever it was. Those were no longer hands on the ends of the arms but tubes. No… not tubes…

Holes.

Yes, that was it. Holes like eyes. Three of them. Maybe more, but three he could see clearly. A triangle of holes, two on top and one underneath, holes like whispering eyes,

like blast-holes—That’s right, David said. That’s right, Joh

The brownish-black muck twisted toward him, both horrible and enticing, holes that were mouths, mouths that were eyes. Eyes that whispered. Promised. He realized he had an erection. Not exactly a great time for one, but when had that ever stopped him.

Now… sucking… he could feel them sucking the air out of his mouth… his t—oat…

He snapped his mouth shut and yanked the motorcycle helmet down over his head. He was just in time. A moment later the brownish ribbons encountered the plexi face-shield and spread over it with an unpleasant wet smooching sound. For a moment he could see spreading suckers like kissing lips, and then they were gone, lost in filthy smears of brown particulate matter.

Joh

He reached the edge of the hole, standing between a heap of feathers that had been a buzzard and a coyote lying dead on its side. He looked down, reaching up to touch the hanging bags of ANFO as he did, caressing them with tingling, half-numb hands.

Do you know how to set this shit off without dyno or blasting caps. Steve had asked. You do, don’t you. Or you think you do.

“I hope I do,” Joh

“THEN COME ON!” a mad voice cried out from below him. Joh

He tried to take a step backward, maybe think this over, but tendrils of muck curled around his ankles like hands and jerked his feet out from under him. He went into the well in a graceless feet-first dive, hammering the back of his head against the edge as he fell. If not for the helmet, his skull would likely have been crushed in. He curled the bags of ANFO protectively against his chest, making breasts of them.

Then the pain came, first biting, then searing, then seeming to eat him alive. The Mi was fu

“YOU UKE THAT.” the voice from the bottom of the mi gibed, and now it was Ellen Carver’s voice. “TAK AH LAH, YOU INTERFERING BASTARD! EN TOW! TEN AH LAK!” Raving.

Cursing him in two languages.

Insane in any dimension, Joh

The brown-black vapor was all around him, whispering and smearing gaping sucker—mouths across the helmet’s faceplate. They appeared, disappeared, then appeared again, rubbing and making those low, suggestive smooch-ing sounds. He couldn’t get off his back the way he wanted to, couldn’t somersault. The angle of descent was too steep. He turned over on his side instead, clutching at the crystal outcrops that were tearing him open, slashing his hands and not caring, needing to stop himself before he was literally cut to ribbons.

Then, suddenly, it was over.

He lay folded at the bottom of the fu

Smoke curling up between his legs, coming from the hole at the bottom of the fu

“Let go,” he said. “My God commands it.”

The brownish-black smoke fell back, curling around his thighs in filthy ba

“I can let you live,” a voice said. It was no wonder, Joh

“Yeah, but can you win me a goddam Nobel Prize for Literature.”

Joh

He’d have to work fast. He was cut in what felt like a billion places, and already he could feel the grayness of blood-loss crowding in on his mind. It made him think of Co

“Yes! Yes, I can do that!” The voice from the narrow red throat sounded eager. It also sounded frightened. “Anything! Success… money… women… and I can heal you, don’t forget that! I can heal you!”