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“I hope to hell that’s the truth,” shesaid, “because Turtleback’s hilly and only one lane wide in places. If yousense someone coming the other way, you have to let me know.”
“I will.”
“Excellent,” said Irene Tassenbaum. Shebared her teeth in a grin. Really, there was no longer any doubt: this was thebest thing that had ever happened to her. The most exciting thing. Now,as well as hearing those singing voices, she could see faces in the leaves ofthe trees on the sides of the road, as if they were being watched by amultitude. She could feel some tremendous force gathering all around them, andshe was possessed by a sudden giddy notion: that if she floored the gas-pedalof Chip McAvoy’s old rusty pickup, it might go faster than the speed of light.Powered by the energy she sensed around them, it might outrace time itself.
Well, let’s just see about that, shethought. She swung the I-H into the middle of Turtleback Lane, then punched theclutch and yanked the gearshift into Third. The old truck didn’t go faster thanthe speed of light, and it didn’t outrace time, but the speedometer needleclimbed to fifty… and then past. The truck crested a hill, and when it starteddown the other side it flew briefly into the air.
At least someone was happy; IreneTassenbaum shouted in excitement.
Seventeen
Stephen King takes two walks, the shortone and the long one. The short one takes him out to the intersection ofWarrington’s Road and Route 7, then back to his house, Cara Laughs, the sameway. That one is three miles. The long walk (which also happens to be the nameof a book he once wrote under the Bachman name, back before the world moved on)takes him past the Warrington’s intersection, down Route 7 as far as the SlabCity Road, then all the way back Route 7 to Berry Hill, bypassing Warrington’sRoad. This walk returns him to his house by way of the north end of TurtlebackLane, and is four miles. This is the one he means to take today, but when hegets back to the intersection of 7 and Warrington’s he stops, playing with theidea of going back the short way. He’s always careful about walking on theshoulder of the public road, though traffic is light on Route 7, even insummer; the only time this highway ever gets busy is when the Fryeburg Fair’sgoing on, and that doesn’t start until the first week of October. Most of thesightlines are good, anyway. If a bad driver’s coming (or a drunk) you canusually spot him half a mile away, which gives you plenty of time to vacate thearea. There’s only one blind hill, and that’s the one directly beyond theWarrington’s intersection. Yet that’s also an aerobic hill, one thatgets the old heart really pumping, and isn’t that what he’s doing all thesestupid walks for? To promote what the TV talking heads call “hearthealthiness?” He’s quit drinking, he’s quit doping, he’s almost quitsmoking, he exercises. What else is there?
Yet a voice whispers to him just thesame. Get off the main road, it says. Go on back to the house.You’ll have an extra hour before you have to meet the rest of them for theparty on the other side of the lake. You can do some work. Maybe start the nextDark Tower story; you know it’s been on your mind.
Aye, so it has, but he already has astory to work on, and he likes it fine. Going back to the tale of the Towermeans swimming in deep water. Maybe drowning there. Yet he suddenly realizes,standing here at this crossroads, that if he goes back early he will begin.He won’t be able to help himself. He’ll have to listen to what he sometimesthinks of as Ves’-Ka Gan, the Song of the Turtle (and sometimes as Susa
Swim or drown.
“No,” he says. He speaks aloud, and whynot? There’s no one to hear him out here. He perceives, faintly, the attenuatesound of an approaching vehicle—or is it two? one on Route 7 and one onWarrington’s Road?—but that’s all.
“No,” he says again. “I’m go
And so, leaving the intersection behind,he begins making his way up the steep hill with its short sightline. He beginsto walk toward the sound of the oncoming Dodge Caravan, which is also the soundof his oncoming death. The ka of the rational world wants him dead; that of thePrim wants him alive, and singing his song. So it is that on this su
“Resolution demands a sacrifice,” Kingsays, and although no one hears but the birds and he has no idea what thismeans, he is not disturbed. He’s always muttering to himself; it’s as thoughthere is a Cave of Voices in his head, one full of brilliant—but notnecessarily intelligent—mimics.
He walks, swinging his arms beside hisbluejeaned thighs, unaware that his heart is
(isn’t)
finishing its last few beats, that hismind is
(isn’t)
thinking its last few thoughts, that hisvoices are
(aren’t)
making their last Delphicpronouncements.
“Ves’-Ka Gan,” he says, amused by thesound of it—yet attracted, too. He has promised himself that he’ll trynot to stuff his Dark Tower fantasies with unpronounceable words in somemade-up (not to say fucked-up) language—his editor, Chuck Verrill in NewYork, will only cut most of them if he does—but his mind seems to befilling up with such words and phrases all the same: ka, ka-tet, sai, soh,can-toi (that one at least is from another book of his, Desperation), taheen.Can Tolkien’s Cirith Ungol and H. P. Lovecraft’s Great Blind Fiddler, Nyarlathotep,be far behind?
He laughs, then begins to sing a songone of his voices has given him. He thinks he will certainly use it in the nextgunslinger book, when he finally allows the Turtle its voice again.“Commala-come-one,” he sings as he walks, “there’s a young man with a gun. Thatyoung man lost his honey when she took it on the run.”
And is that young man Eddie Dean? Or isit Jake Chambers?
“Eddie,” he says out loud. “Eddie’s thegu
Eighteen
Bryan hears the scrape of the cooler’slid even over the funky rip-rap beat of the music, and when he looks in therearview mirror he’s both dismayed and outraged to see that Bullet, always themore forward of the two rotties, has leaped from the storage area at the rearof the van into the passenger compartment. Bullet’s rear legs are up on thedirty seat, his stubby tail is wagging happily, and his nose is buried inBryan’s cooler.
At this point any reasonable driverwould pull over to the side of the road, stop his vehicle, and take care of hiswayward animal. Bryan Smith, however, has never gotten high marks for reasonwhen behind the wheel, and has the driving record to prove it. Instead ofpulling over, he twists around to the right, steering with his left hand andshoving ineffectually at the top of the rottweiler’s flat head with his right.