The Dark Tower

Roland looked to Susa

She swung herself on her hands so she wasin the door of the cell. The emaciated boy-thing in the corner uttered itsweird bird-shriek again and pulled the supplicating hands back, crossing themat the wrists, turning their gesture into one of pathetic defense.

“No, honey.” This was a Detta WalkerSusa

She saw something in his eyes—perhapsjust a minute widening that revealed more of the bloodshot whites. She smiledand nodded. “Dass ri’! Mistuh Collins, he daid! He ain’ nev’ goan comedown he’ no mo an… whuh? Whut he do to you, Patrick?”

Above them, muffled by the stone, the windgusted. The lights flickered; the house creaked and groaned in protest.

“Whuh he do t’you, boy?”

It was no good. He didn’t understand. Shehad just made up her mind to this when Patrick Danville put his hands to hisstomach and held it. He twisted his face into a cramp that she realized wassupposed to indicate laughter.

“He make you laugh?”

Patrick, crouched in his corner, nodded.His face twisted even more. Now his hands became fists that rose to his face.He rubbed his cheeks with them, then screwed them into his eyes, then looked ather. Susa

“He make you cry, too.”

Patrick nodded. He did the laughing mimeagain, holding the stomach and going ho-ho-ho; he did the crying mime, wipingtears from his fuzzy cheeks; this time he added a third bit of mummery,scooping his hands toward his mouth and making smack-smack sounds withhis lips.

From above and slightly behind her, Rolandsaid: “He made you laugh, he made you cry, he made you eat.”

Patrick shook his head so violently itstruck the stone walls that were the boundaries of his corner.

“He ate,” Detta said. “Dass whut youtrine t’say, ain’t it? Dandelo ate.”

Patrick nodded eagerly.

“He made you laugh, he made you cry, andden he ate whut came out. Cause dass what he do!”

Patrick nodded again, bursting into tears.He made inarticulate wailing sounds. Susa

When Patrick looked up at her, it was withdumb, doglike adoration.

“Don’t you worry,” Susa

Patrick shook his head at once. There wasfear in his eyes again, but something else she hated to see even more. It wasshame.

“Yes, Patrick, yes. Open your mouth.”

He shook his head violently, his greasylong hair whipping from side to side like the head of a mop.

Roland said, “What—”

“Hush,” she told him. “Open your mouth,Patrick, and show us. Then we’ll take you out of here and you’ll never have tobe down here again. Never have to be Dandelo’s di

Patrick looked at her, pleading, butSusa

Seven

Twenty minutes later, the two of them stoodin the kitchen doorway, watching Patrick Danville eat a bowl of soup. At leasthalf of it was going down the boy’s gray shirt, but Susa

She said, “Dandelo was a vampire that fedon emotions instead of blood. Patrick, there… Patrick was his cow. There’s twoways you can take nourishment from a cow: meat or milk. The trouble with meatis that once you eat the prime cuts, the not-so-prime cuts, and then the stew,it’s gone. If you just take the milk, though, you can go on forever… alwaysassuming you give the cow something to eat every now and then.”

“How long do you suppose he had him pe

“I don’t know.” But she remembered the duston the acetylene tank, remembered it all too well. “A fairly long time, anyway.What must have seemed like forever to him.”

“And it hurt.”

“Plenty. Much as it must have hurt whenDandelo pulled the poor kid’s tongue out, I bet the emotional bloodsucking hurtmore. You see how he is.”

Roland saw, all right. He saw somethingelse, as well. “We can’t take him out in this storm. Even if we dressed him upin three layers of clothes, I’m sure it would kill him.”

Susa

Roland agreed when she said so. “We’ll campout in yonder barn until the storm finishes. It’ll be cold, but I see a pair ofpossible gains: Mordred may come, and Lippy may come back.”

“You’d kill them both?”

“Aye, if I could. Do’ee have a problem withthat?”

She considered it, then shook her head.

“All right. Let’s put together what we’dtake out there, for we’ll have no fire for the next two days, at least. Maybeas long as four.”

Eight

It turned out to be three nights and twodays before the blizzard choked on its own fury and blew itself out. Near duskof the second day, Lippy came limping out of the storm and Roland put a bulletin the blind shovel that was her head. Mordred never showed himself, althoughshe had a sense of him lurking close on the second night. Perhaps Oy did, too,for he stood at the mouth of the barn, barking hard into the blowing snow.

During that time, Susa

Dandelo had given his captive the bareminimum of food necessary to keep him alive, and had stolen emotions from himon a regular basis: two times a week, sometimes three, once in awhile evenfour. Each time Patrick became convinced that the next time would kill him,someone would happen by. Just lately, Patrick had been spared the worst ofDandelo’s depredations, because “company” had been more frequent than everbefore. Roland told her later that night, after they’d bedded down in thehayloft, that he believed many of Dandelo’s most recent victims must have beenexiles fleeing either from Le Casse Roi Russe or the town around it. Susa

On some occasions, Joe had assumed his trueDandelo form in front of his prisoner, then had eaten the boy’s resultingterror. But he had wanted much more than terror from his captive cow. Susa