As they neared an intersection from whichpassages and tiled corridors rayed off in all directions, he felt her shiftagainst him, sitting up. “There!” she shouted. “That pile of rubble! We walkedaround that! We walked around that, Roland, I remember!”

Part of the ceiling had fallen into themiddle of the intersection, creating a jumble of broken tiles, smashed glass,snags of wire, and plain old dirt. Along the edge of it were tracks.

“Down there!” she cried. “Straight ahead!Ted said, ‘I think this is the one they called Main Street’ and Dinky said hethought so, too. Dani Rostov said that a long time ago, around the time theCrimson King did whatever it was that darkened Thunderclap, a whole bunch ofpeople used that way to get out. Only they left some of their thoughts behind.I asked her what feeling that was like and she said it was a little like seeingdirty soap-scum on the sides of the tub after you let out the water. ‘Notnice,’ she said. Fred marked it and then we went all the way back up to theinfirmary. I don’t want to brag and queer the deal, but I think we’re gonna beokay.”

And they were, at least for the time being.Eighty paces beyond the pile of rubble they came upon an arched opening. Beyondit, flickering white balls of radiance hung down from the ceiling, leading offat a downward-sloping angle. On the wall, in four chalkstrokes that had alreadystarted to run because of the moisture seeping through the tiles, was the lastmessage left for them by the liberated Breakers:

They rested here for awhile, eatinghandfuls of raisins from a vacuum-sealed can. Even Oy nibbled a few, althoughit was clear from the way he did it that he didn’t care for them much. Whenthey’d all eaten their fill and Roland had once more stored the can in theleather sack he’d found along the way, he asked her: “Are you ready to go on?”

“Yes. Right away, I think, before I losemy—my God, Roland, what was that?”

From behind them, probably from one of thepassages leading away from the rubble-choked intersection, had come a lowthudding sound. It had a liquid quality to it, as if a giant in water-filledrubber boots had just taken a single step.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Susannah was looking uneasily back over hershoulder but could see only shadows. Some of them were moving, but that couldhave been because some of the lights were flickering.

Could have been.

“You know,” she said, “I think it might bea good idea if we vacated this area just about as fast as we can.”

“I think you’re right,” he said, resting onone knee and the splayed tips of his fingers, like a runner getting ready toburst from the blocks. When she was back in the harness, he got to his feet andmoved past the arrow on the wall, setting a pace that was just short of a jog.

Nine

They had been moving at that near-jog forabout fifteen minutes when they came upon a skeleton dressed in the remains ofa rotting military uniform. There was still a flap of scalp on its head andtuft of listless black hair sprouting from it. The jaw grinned, as if welcomingthem to the underworld. Lying on the floor beside the thing’s naked pelvis wasa ring that had finally slipped from one of the moldering fingers of the deadman’s right hand. Susannah asked Roland if she could have a closer look. Hepicked it up and handed it to her. She examined it just long enough to confirmwhat she had thought, then cast it aside. It made a little clink and then therewere only the sounds of dripping water and the todash chimes, fainter now butpersistent.

“What I thought,” she said.

“And what was that?” he asked, moving onagain.

“The guy was an Elk. My father had the samedamn ring.”

“An elk? I don’t understand.”

“It’s a fraternal order. A kind ofgood-ole-boy ka-tet. But what in the hell would an Elk be doing down here? AShriner, now, that I could understand.” And she laughed, a trifle wildly.

The hanging bulbs were filled with somebrilliant gas that pulsed with a rhythmic but not quite constant beat. Susannahknew there was something there to get, and after a little while she got it.While Roland was hurrying, the pulse of the guide-lights was rapid. When heslowed down (never stopping but conserving his energy, all the same), the pulsein the globes also slowed down. She didn’t think they were responding to hisheartbeat, exactly, or hers, but that was part of it. (Had she known the term biorhythm,she would have seized upon it.) Fifty yards or so ahead of their position atany given time, Main Street was dark. Then, one by one, the lights would comeon as they approached. It was mesmerizing. She turned to look back—onlyonce, she didn’t want to throw him off his stride—and saw that, yes, thelights were going dark again fifty yards or so behind. These lights were muchbrighter than the flickering globes at the entrance to Main Street, and sheguessed that those ran off some other power-source, one that was (like almosteverything else in this world) starting to give out. Then she noticed that oneof the globes they were approaching remained dark. As they neared and thenpassed under it, she saw that it wasn’t completely dead; a dim core ofillumination burned feebly deep inside, twitching to the beat of their bodiesand brains. It reminded her of how you’d sometimes see a neon sign with one ormore letters on the fritz, turning PABST into PA ST or TASTY BRATWURST intoTASTY RATWURST. A hundred feet or so further on they came to another burnt-outbulb, then another, then two in a row.

“Chances are good we’re gonna be in thedark before long,” she said glumly.

“I know,” Roland said. He was starting tosound the teensiest bit out of breath.

The air was still dank, and a chill wasgradually replacing the heat. There were posters on the walls, most rotted farbeyond the point of readability. On a dry stretch of wall she saw one thatdepicted a man who had just lost an arena battle to a tiger. The big cat wasyanking a bloody snarl of intestines from the screaming man’s belly while thecrowd went nuts. There was one line of copy in half a dozen differentlanguages. English was second from the top. VISIT CIRCUS MAXIMUS! YOU WILLCHEER! it said.

“Christ, Roland,” Susannah said. “Christalmighty, what were they?”

Roland did not reply, although he knew theanswer: they were folken who had run mad.

Ten

At hundred-yard intervals, little flightsof stairs—the longest was only ten risers from top to bottom—tookthem gradually deeper into the bowels of the earth. After they’d gone what Susannahestimated to be a quarter of a mile, they came to a gate that had been tornaway, perhaps by some sort of vehicle, and smashed to flinders. Here were moreskeletons, so many that Roland had to tread upon some in order to pass. Theydid not crunch but made a damp puttering sound that was somehow worse. Thesmell that arose from them was sallow and wet. Most of the tiles had been tornaway above these bodies, and those that were still on the walls had been pockedwith bullet-holes. A firefight, then. Susannah opened her mouth to saysomething about it, but before she could, that low thudding sound came again.She thought it was a little louder this time. A little closer. She lookedbehind her again and saw nothing. The lights fifty yards back were still goingdark in a line.

“I don’t like to sound paranoid, Roland,but I think we are being followed.”

“I know we are.”

“You want me to throw a shot at it? Or aplate? That whistling can be pretty spooky.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It may not know what we are. If you shoot…it will.”

It took her a moment to realize what he wasreally saying: he wasn’t sure bullets—or an Oriza—would stopwhatever was back there. Or, worse, perhaps he was sure.