The Dark Tower

“But—”

“Go on and go, sugarbunch,” Susa

“But how will I—”

“I’ll call you when it’s time,” Rolandsaid, and tapped Jake’s temple with one of the remaining fingers on his righthand. “You’ll hear me.”

Jake had wanted to kiss Eddie beforeleaving, but he was afraid. Not that he might catch death like a cold—heknew better than that—but afraid that even the touch of his lips might beenough to push Eddie into the clearing at the end of the path.

And then Susa

Six

Outside in the hallway, Dinky asked him howit was going.

“Real bad,” Jake said. “Do you have anothercigarette?”

Dinky raised his eyebrows but gave Jake a smoke.The boy tamped it on his thumbnail, as he’d seen the gunslinger do withtailor-made smokes, then accepted a light and inhaled deeply. The smoke stillburned, but not so harshly as the first time. His head only swam a little andhe didn’t cough. Pretty soon I’ll be a natural, he thought. If I evermake it back to New York, maybe I can go to work for the Network, in my Dad’sdepartment. I’m already getting good at The Kill.

He lifted the cigarette in front of hiseyes, a little white missile with smoke issuing from the top instead of thebottom. The word CAMEL was written just below the filter. “I told myself I’dnever do this,” Jake told Dinky. “Never in life. And here I am with one in myhand.” He laughed. It was a bitter laugh, an adult laugh, and the soundof it coming out of his mouth made him shiver.

“I used to work for this guy before I camehere,” Dinky said. “Mr. Sharpton, his name was. He used to tell me that never’sthe word God listens for when he needs a laugh.”

Jake made no reply. He was thinking of howEddie had talked about the rooms of ruin. Jake had followed Mia into a roomlike that, once upon a time and in a dream. Now Mia was dead. Callahan wasdead. And Eddie was dying. He thought of all the bodies lying out there underblankets while thunder rolled like bones in the distance. He thought of the manwho’d shot Eddie snap-rolling to the left as Roland’s bullet finished him off.He tried to remember the welcoming party for them back in Calla Bryn Sturgis,the music and dancing and colored torches, but all that came clear was thedeath of Be

He himself had died and come back: back toMid-World and back to Roland. All afternoon he had tried to believe the samething might happen to Eddie and knew somehow that it would not. Jake’s part inthe tale had not been finished. Eddie’s was. Jake would have given twenty yearsof his life—thirty!—not to believe that, but he did. He supposed hehad progged it somehow.

The rooms of ruin where the spiders spinand the great circuits fall quiet, one by one.

Jake knew a spider. Was Mia’s childwatching all of this? Having fun? Maybe rooting for one side or the other, likea fucking Yankee fan in the bleachers?

He is. I know he is. I feel him.

“Are you all right, kiddo?” Dinky asked.

“No,” Jake said. “Not all right.” And Dinkynodded as if that was a perfectly reasonable answer. Well, Jake thought,probably he expected it. He’s a telepath, after all.

As if to underline this, Dinky had askedwho Mordred was.

“You don’t want to know,” Jake said.“Believe me.” He snuffed his cigarette half-smoked (“All your lung cancer’sright here, in the last quarter-inch,” his father used to say in tones ofabsolute certainty, pointing to one of his own filterless cigarettes like a TVpitchman) and left Corbett Hall. He used the back door, hoping to avoid thecluster of waiting, anxious Breakers, and in that he had succeeded. Now he wasin Pleasantville, sitting on the curb like one of the homeless people you sawback in New York, waiting to be called. Waiting for the end.

He thought about going into the tavern,maybe to draw himself a beer (surely if he was old enough to smoke and to killpeople from ambush he was old enough to drink a beer), maybe just to see if thejukebox would play without change. He bet that Algul Siento had been what hisDad had claimed America would become in time, a cashless society, and that oldSeeberg was rigged so you only had to push the buttons in order to start themusic. And he bet that if he looked at the song-strip next to 19, he’d see“Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” by Elton John.

He got to his feet, and that was when thecall came. Nor was he the only one who heard it; Oy let go a short,hurt-sounding yip. Roland might have been standing right next to them.

To me, Jake, and hurry. He’s going.

Seven

Jake hurried back down one of the alleys,skirted the still-smoldering Warden’s House (Tassa the houseboy, who had eitherignored Roland’s order to leave or hadn’t been informed of it, was sittingsilently on the stoop in a kilt and a sweatshirt, his head in his hands), andbegan to trot up the Mall, sparing a quick and troubled glance at the long lineof dead bodies. The little séance-circle he’d seen earlier was gone.

I won’t cry, he promised himselfgrimly. If I’m old enough to smoke and think about drawing myself a beer,I’m old enough to control my stupid eyes. I won’t cry.

Knowing he almost certainly would.

Eight

Sheemie and Ted had joined Dinky outsidethe proctor’s suite. Dinky had given up his seat to Sheemie. Ted looked tired,but Sheemie looked like shit on a cracker to Jake: eyes bloodshot again, acrust of dried blood around his nose and one ear, cheeks leaden. He had takenoff one of his slippers and was massaging his foot as though it pained him. Yethe was clearly happy. Maybe even exalted.

“Beam says all may yet be well, youngJake,” Sheemie said. “Beam says not too late. Beam says thankya.”

“That’s good,” Jake said, reaching for thedoorknob. He barely heard what Sheemie was saying. He was concentrating

(won’t cry and make it harder for her)

on controlling his emotions once he wasinside. Then Sheemie said something that brought him back in a hurry.

“Not too late in the Real World, either,”Sheemie said. “We know. We peeked. Saw the moving sign. Didn’t we, Ted?”

“Indeed we did.” Ted was holding a can ofNozz-A-La in his lap. Now he raised it and took a sip. “When you get in there,Jake, tell Roland that if it’s June 19th of ‘99 you’re interested in, you’restill okay. But the margin’s commencing to get a little thin.”

“I’ll tell him,” Jake said.

“And remind him that time sometimes slipsover there. Slips like an old transmission. That’s apt to continue for quiteawhile, regardless of the Beam’s recovery. And once the 19th is gone…”

“It can never come again,” Jake said. “Notthere. We know.” He opened the door and slipped into the darkness of theproctor’s suite.

Nine

A single circle of stringent yellow light,thrown by the lamp on the bedtable, lay upon Eddie Dean’s face. It cast theshadow of his nose on his left cheek and turned his closed eyes into darksockets. Susa