Wizard and Glass

“All Amtrak rail travel has been suspended, not just in Topeka but across all of Kansas. The Gage Boulevard Amtrak station has been closed until further notice.

“All Topeka schools have also been closed until further notice. This includes Districts 437, 345, 450 (Shawnee Heights), 372, and 501 (metro Topeka). Topeka Lutheran and Topeka Technical College are also closed, as is KU at Lawrence.

“Topekans must expect brownouts and perhaps blackouts in the days and weeks ahead. Kansas Power and Light has a

Jake paused, following the story to the next page, where there were more pictures: a burned-out panel truck overturned on the steps of the Kansas Museum of Natural History; traffic on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge stalled bumper to bumper; piles of corpses in Times Square. One body, Susa

Echoes. Everything echoed now. They bounced back and forth from one world to the other, not fading as ordinary echoes did but growing and becoming more terrible. Like the god-drums, Susa

“In national developments,” Jake read, “conviction continues to grow that, after denying the superflu’s existence during its early days, when quarantine measures might still have had some effect, national leaders have fled to underground retreats which were created as brain-trust shelters in case of nuclear war. Vice-President Bush and key members of the Reagan cabinet have not been seen during the last forty-eight hours. Reagan himself has not been seen since Sunday morning, when he attended prayer services at Green Valley Methodist Church in San Simeon.”

“They have gone to the bunkers like Hitler and the rest of the Nazi sewer-rats at the end of World War II,” said Rep. Steve Sloan. When asked if he had any objection to being quoted by name, Kansas’s first-term representative, a Republican, laughed and said: “Why should I? I’ve got a real fine case myself. I’ll be so much dust in the wind come this time next week.”

“Fires, most likely set, continue to ravage Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Terre Haute.

“A gigantic explosion centered near Cinci

Jake let the paper drop from his hands. A gust of wind caught it and blew it the length of the platform, the few folded sheets separating as they went. Oy stretched his neck and snagged one of these as it went by. He trotted toward Jake with it in his mouth, as obedient as a dog with a stick.

“No, Oy, I don’t want it,” Jake said. He sounded ill and very young.

“At least we know where all the folks are,” Susa

But how hard they tried to honor their dead, even at the end, she thought, and a lump rose in her throat. How hard they tried.

She folded the quarto together and looked on the back-the last page of the Capital-Journal. It showed a picture of Jesus Christ, eyes sad, hands outstretched, forehead marked from his crown of thorns. Below it, three stark words in huge type:

She looked up at Eddie, eyes accusing. Then she handed him the newspaper, one brown finger tapping the date at the top. It was June 24, 1986. Eddie had been drawn into the gunslinger’s world a year later.

He held it for a long time, fingers slipping back and forth across the date, as if the passage of his finger would somehow cause it to change. Then he looked up at them and shook his head. “No. I can’t explain this town, this paper, or the dead people in that station, but I can set you straight about one thing-everything was fine in New York when I left. Wasn’t it, Roland?”

The gunslinger looked a trifle sour. “Nothing in your city seemed very fine to me, but the people who lived there did not seem to be survivors of such a plague as this, no.”

“There was something called Legio

“That’s the sex one, right?” Susa

“Yes, but calling gays fruits isn’t the done thing in my when,” Eddie said. He tried a smile, but it felt stiff and u

“So this… this never happened,” Jake said, tentatively touching the face of Christ on the back page of the paper.

“But it did,” Roland said. “It happened in June-sowing of the year one thousand nine hundred and eighty-six. And here we are, in the aftermath of that plague. If Eddie’s right about the length of time that has gone by, the plague of this ’superflu' was this past June-sowing. We’re in Topeka, Kansas, in the Reap of eighty-six. That’s the when of it. As to the where, all we know is that it’s not Eddie’s. It might be yours, Susa

“More riddles,” Eddie said, scowling.

“Is it not a fact that Jake Chambers died once and now stands before us, alive and well? Or do you doubt my story of his death under the mountains? That you have doubted my honesty from time to time is something I know. And I suppose you have your reasons.”

Eddie thought it over, then shook his head. “You lie when it suits your purpose, but I think that when you told us about Jake, you were too fucked up to manage anything but the truth.”

Roland was startled to find himself hurt by what Eddie had said-You lie when it suits your purpose-but he went on. After all, it was essentially true.

“We went back to time’s pool,” the gunslinger said, “and pulled him out before he could drown.”

“You pulled him out,” Eddie corrected.

“You helped, though,” Roland said, “if only by keeping me alive, you helped, but let that go for now. It’s beside the point. What’s more to it is that there are many possible worlds, and an infinity of doors leading into them. This is one of those worlds; the thi

“How big?” Eddie asked. “As big as a warehouse loading door, or as big as the warehouse?”