The Dark Tower

The thing bellowed again, sounding as if itwere right behind them. Now she could smell it, the aroma like a load offish rotting in the sun.

She reached over Roland’s shoulder andplucked a single match from his pocket. There might be time to light one; notfor two. Roland and Eddie were able to pop them alight with their thumbnails,but Detta Walker had known a trick worth two of that, had used it on more thanone occasion to impress her whiteboy victims in the roadhouses where she’d gonetrolling. She grimaced in the dark, peeling her lips away from her teeth, andplaced the head of the match between the two front ones on top. Eddie, ifyou’re there, help me, sugar—help me do right.

She struck the match. Something hot burnedthe roof of her mouth and she tasted sulfur on her tongue. The head of thematch nearly blinded her dark-adapted eyes, but she could see well enough totouch it to the jelly-coated barrel of the flashlight. The Sterno caught atonce, turning the barrel into a torch. It was weak but it was something.

“Turn around!” she screamed.

Roland skidded to a stopimmediately—no questions, no protest—and pivoted on his heels. Sheheld the burning flashlight out before her and for a moment they both saw thehead of something wet and covered with pink albino eyes. Below them was a mouththe size of a trapdoor, filled with squirming tentacles. The Sterno didn’t burnbrightly, but in this Stygian blackness it was bright enough to make the thingrecoil. Before it disappeared into the blackness again, she saw all those eyessqueezing shut and had a moment to think of how sensitive they must be if evena little guttering flame like this could—

Lining the floor of the passageway on bothsides were jumbled heaps of bones. In her hand, the bulb end of the flashlightwas already growing warm. Oy was barking frantically, looking back into thedark with his head down and his short legs splayed, every hair standing on end.

“Squat down, Roland, squat!”

He did and she handed him the makeshifttorch, which was already begi

If the floor’s wet here, we’re mostlikely done, she thought, but the touch of her fingers as she groped for athighbone suggested it was not. Perhaps that was a false message sent by herhopeful senses—she could certainly hear water dripping from the ceilingsomewhere up ahead—but she didn’t think so.

She reached into the bag for another can ofSterno, but at first the release-ring defied her. The thing was coming and nowshe could see any number of short, misshapen legs beneath its raised lump of ahead. Not a worm after all but some kind of giant centipede. Oy placed himselfin front of her, still barking, every tooth on display. It was Oy the thingwould take first if she couldn’t—

Then her finger slipped into the ring lyingalmost flat against the lid of the can. There was a pop-hissh sound.Roland was waving the flashlight back and forth, trying to fan a little lifeinto the guttering flames (which might have worked had there been fuel forthem), and she saw their fading shadows rock deliriously back and forth on thedecaying tile walls.

The circumference of the bone was too bigfor the can. Now lying in an awkward sprawl, half in and half out of theharness, she dipped into it, brought out a handful of jelly, and slathered itup and down the bone. If the bone was wet, this would only buy them a few moreseconds of horror. If it was dry, however, then maybe… just maybe…

The thing was creeping ever closer. Amidthe tentacles sprouting from its mouth she could see jutting fangs. In anothermoment it would be close enough to lunge at Oy, taking him with the speed of agecko snatching a fly out of the air. Its rotted-fish aroma was strong andnauseating. And what might be behind it? What other abominations?

No time to think about that now.

She touched her thighbone torch to thefading flames licking along the barrel of the flashlight. The bloom of fire wasgreater than she had expected—far greater—and the thing’s screamthis time was filled with pain as well as surprise. There was a nastysquelching sound, like mud being squeezed in a vinyl raincoat, and it lashedbackward.

“Git me more bones,” she said as Rolandcast the flashlight aside. “And make sure they’re dem drah bones.” Shelaughed at her own wit (since nobody else would), a down-and-dirty Dettacackle.

Still gasping for breath, Roland did as shetold him.

Thirteen

They resumed their progress along thepassage, Susa

That it should have a tail! her mindnearly raved. A tail that sounds like it’s filled with water or jelly orhalf-coagulated blood! Christ! My God! My Christ!

It wasn’t just light keeping it fromattacking them, she reckoned, but fear of fire. The thing must have hung backwhile they were in the part of the passage where the glow-globes still worked,thinking (if it could think) that it would wait and take them once theywere in the dark. She had an idea that if it had known they had access to fire,it might simply have closed some or all of its many eyes and pounced on themwhere a few of the globes were out and the light was dimmer. Now it was atleast temporarily out of luck, because the bones made surprisingly good torches(the idea that they were being helped by the recovering Beam in this regard didnot cross her mind). The only question was whether or not the Sterno would holdout. She was able to conserve now because the bones burned on their own once theywere going—except for a couple of damp ones that she had to cast asideafter lighting her next torches from their guttering tips—but you didhave to get them going, and she was already deep into the third and last can.She bitterly regretted the one she’d tossed away when the thing had beenclosing in on them, but didn’t know what else she could have done. She alsowished Roland would go faster, although she guessed he now couldn’t havemaintained much speed even if she’d been faced around the right way and holdingonto him. Maybe a short burst, but surely no more. She could feel his musclestrembling under his shirt. He was close to blown out.

Five minutes later, while getting a handfulof ca