The Talisman

immediately felt the furious presence of Morgan Sloat near him, as if knowing where Sloat was had summoned him up.

“Well, don’t worry about him.” Richard’s voice was paper-thin. “I mean, don’t worry about me worrying about him. I think he’s dead, Jack.”

Jack looked at his friend with a fresh anxiety: could Richard actually be losing his mind? Certainly Richard was feverish. Up on the hill, Sunlight Gardener bawled “SPREAD OUT!” through his bullhorn.

“You think—”

And then Jack heard another voice, one that had first whispered beneath Gardener’s angry command. It was a half-familiar voice, and Jack recognized its timbre and cadence before he had truly identified it. And, oddly, he recognized that the sound of this particular voice made him feel relaxed—almost as if he could stop scheming and fretting now, for everything would be taken care of—before he could name its owner.

“Jack Sawyer,” the voice repeated. “Over here, sonny.”

The voice was Speedy Parker’s.

“I do,” Richard said, and closed his puffy eyes again and looked like a corpse washed up by the tide.

I do think my father is dead, Richard meant, but Jack’s mind was far from the ravings of his friend. “Over here, Jacky,” Speedy called again, and the boy saw that the sound came from the largest group of tall rocks, three joined vertical piles only a few feet from the edge of the water. A dark line, the high-tide mark, cut across the rocks a quarter of the way up.

“Speedy,” Jack whispered.

“Yeah-bob,” came the reply. “Get yourself over here without them zombies seein you, can you? And bring your frien’ along, too.”

Richard still lay face-up on the sand, his hand over his face. “Come on, Richie,” Jack whispered into his ear. “We have to move a little bit down the beach. Speedy’s here.”

“Speedy?” Richard whispered back, so quietly Jack had trouble hearing the word.

“A friend. See the rocks down there?” He lifted Richard’s head on the reedlike neck. “He’s behind them. He’ll help us, Richie. Right now, we could use a little help.”

“I can’t really see,” Richard complained. “And I’m so tired . . .”

“Get on my back again.” He turned around and nearly flattened out on the sand. Richard’s arms came over his shoulders and feebly joined.

Jack peered around the edge of the rock. Down the beach road, Sunlight Gardener stroked his hair into place as he strode toward the front door of the Kingsland Motel. The black hotel reared up awesomely. The Talisman opened its throat and called for Jack Sawyer. Gardener hesitated outside the door of the motel, swept both hands over his hair, shook his head, and turned smartly about and began walking much more rapidly back up the long line of limousines. The bullhorn lifted. “REPORTS EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES!” he screeched. “YOU POINT MEN—TELL ME IF YOU SEE A BUG MOVE! I MEAN IT, YES I DO!”

Gardener was walking away; everybody else watched him. It was time. Jack kicked off away from his shelter of rock and, bending over while he clasped Richard’s skimpy forearms, raced down the beach. His feet kicked up scallops of damp sand. The three joined pillars of rocks, which had seemed so close while he talked to Speedy, now appeared to be half a mile away—the open space between himself and them would not close. It was as if the rocks receded while he ran. Jack expected to hear the crack of a shot. Would he feel the bullet first, or would he hear the report before the bullet knocked him down? At last the three rocks grew larger and larger in his vision, and then he was there, falling onto his chest and skidding behind their protection.

“Speedy!” he said, almost laughing in spite of everything. But the sight of Speedy, who was sitting down beside a colorful little blanket and leaning against the middle pillar of rock, killed the laughter in his throat—killed at least half of his hope, too.

2

For Speedy Parker looked worse than Richard. Much worse. His cracked, leaking face gave Jack a weary nod, and the boy thought that Speedy was confirming his hopelessness. Speedy wore only a pair of old brown shorts, and all of his skin seemed horribly diseased, as if with leprosy.

“Settle down now, ole Travellin Jack,” Speedy whispered in a hoarse, crackling voice. “There’s lots you got to hear, so open your ears up good.”

“How are you?” Jack asked. “I mean . . . Jesus, Speedy . . . is there anything I can do for you?”

He gently placed Richard down on the sand.

“Open your ears, like I said. Don’t you go worryin bout Speedy. I ain’t too com’fable, the way you see me now, but I can be com’fable again, if you does the right thing. Your little friend’s dad put this hurtin on me—on his own boy, too, looks like. Old Bloat don’t want his child in that hotel, no sir. But you got to take him there, son. There ain’t but one way about it. You got to do it.”

Speedy seemed to be fading in and out as he talked to Jack, who wanted to scream or wail more than he had at any time since the death of Wolf. His eyes smarted, and he knew he wanted to cry. “I know, Speedy,” he said. “I figured that out.”

“You a good boy,” the old man said. He cocked his head back and regarded Jack carefully. “You the one, all right. The road laid its mark on you, I see. You the one. You gonna do it.”

“How’s my mom, Speedy?” Jack asked. “Please tell me. She’s still alive, isn’t she?”

“You can call her soon’s you can, find out she’s okay,” Speedy answered. “But first you got to get it, Jack. Because if you don’t get it, she be dead. And so be Laura, the Queen. She be dead, too.” Speedy hitched himself up, wincing, to straighten his back. “Let me tell you. Most everybody at the court gave up on her—gave her up for dead already.” His face expressed his disgust. “They all afraid of Morgan. Because they know Morgan’ll take they skin off they backs if they don’t swear allegiance to him now. While Laura still got a few breaths in her. But out in the far Territories, two-legged snakes like Osmond and his gang been goin around, tellin folks she already dead. And if she dies, Travellin Jack, if she dies . . .” He levelled his ruined face at the boy. “Then we got black horror in both worlds. Black horror. And you can call your momma. But first you has to get it. You has to. It’s all that’s left, now.”