Then it would eat.

Fourteen

They were going to need a fallbackposition. She became sure of that almost as soon as the tips of her fingerstouched the bottom of the can. Ten minutes and three torches later, Susannahprepared to tell the gunslinger to stop when—and if—they came toanother especially large ossuary. They could make a bonfire of rags and bones,and once it was going hot and bright, they’d simply run like hell.When—and if—they heard the thing on their side of the fire-barrieragain, Roland could lighten his load and speed his heels by leaving her behind.She saw this idea not as self-sacrificing but merely logical—there was noreason for the monstrous centipede to get both of them if they could avoid it.And she had no plans to let it take her, as far as that went. Certainly notalive. She had his gun, and she’d use it. Five shots for Sai Centipede; if itkept coming after that, the sixth for herself.

Before she could say any of these things,however, Roland got in three words that stopped all of hers. “Light,” hepanted. “Up ahead.”

She craned around and at first saw nothing,probably because of the torch she’d been holding out. Then she did: a faintwhite glow.

“More of those globes?” she asked. “Astretch of them that are still working?”

“Maybe. I don’t think so.”

Five minutes later she realized she couldsee the floor and walls in the light of her latest torch. The floor was coveredwith a fine scrim of dust and pebbles such as could only have been blown infrom outside. Susannah threw her arms up over her head, one hand holding ablazing bone wrapped in a shirt, and gave a scream of triumph. The thing behindher answered with a roar of fury and frustration that did her heart good evenas it pebbled her skin with goosebumps.

“Goodbye, honey!” she screamed. “Goodbye,you eye-covered muthafuck!”

It roared again and thrust itself forward.For one moment she saw it plain: a huge round lump that couldn’t be called aface in spite of the lolling mouth; the segmented body, scratched and oozingfrom contact with the rough walls; a quartet of stubby armlike appendages, twoon each side. These ended in snapping pincers. She shrieked and thrust thetorch back at it, and the thing retreated with another deafening roar.

“Did your mother never teach you that it’swrong to tease the animals?” Roland asked her, and his tone was so dry shecouldn’t tell if he was kidding her or not.

Five minutes after that they were out.

Chapter II:

On Badlands Avenue

One

They exited through a crumbling hillsidearch beside a Quonset hut similar in shape but much smaller than the Arc 16Experimental Station. The roof of this little building was covered with rust.There were piles of bones scattered around the front in a rough ring. Thesurrounding rocks had been blackened and splintered in places; one boulder thesize of the Queen Anne house where the Breakers had been kept was split in two,revealing an interior filled with sparkling minerals. The air was cold and theycould hear the restless whine of the wind, but the rocks blocked the worst ofit and they turned their faces up to the sharp blue sky with wordlessgratitude.

“There was some kind of battle here, wasn’tthere?” she asked.

“Yes, I’d say so. A big one, long ago.” Hesounded utterly whipped.

A sign lay facedown on the ground in frontof the Quonset’s half-open door. Susannah insisted that he put her down so shecould turn it over and read it. Roland did as she asked and then sat with hisback propped against a rock, staring at Castle Discordia, which was now behindthem. Two towers jutted into the blue, one whole and the other shattered offnear what he judged had been the top. He concentrated on getting his breathback. The ground under him was very cold, and he knew already that their trek throughthe Badlands was going to be difficult.

Susannah, meanwhile, had lifted the sign.She held it with one hand and wiped off an ancient scrum of dirt with theother. The words she uncovered were in English, and gave her a deep chill:

THIS CHECKPOINT IS CLOSED.

FOR-EVER.

Below it, in red, seeming to glare at her,was the Eye of the King.

Two

There was nothing in the Quonset’s mainroom but jumbles of equipment that had been blasted to ruin and more skeletons,none whole. In the adjoining storeroom, however, she found delightfulsurprises: shelves and shelves of canned food—more than they couldpossibly carry—and also more Sterno. (She did not think Roland wouldsneer at the idea of canned heat anymore, and she was right.) She poked her headout of the storeroom’s rear door almost as an afterthought, not expecting tofind anything except maybe a few more skeletons, and there was one. Theprize was the vehicle in which this loose agglomeration of bones was resting: adogcart a bit like the one she’d found herself sitting in atop the castle,during her palaver with Mia. This one was both smaller and in much bettershape. Instead of wood, the wheels were metal coated with thin rinds of somesynthetic stuff. Pull-handles jutted from the sides, and she realized it wasn’ta dogcart at all, but a kind of rickshaw.

Git ready to pull yo sweetie, graymeat!

This was a typically nasty Detta Walkerthought, but it surprised a laugh out of her, all the same.

“What have you found that’s amusing?”Roland called.

“You’ll see,” she called back, straining tokeep Detta out of her voice, at least. In this she did not entirely succeed.“You gonna see soon enough, sho.”

Three

There was a small motor at the rear of therickshaw, but both saw at a glance it had been ages since it had run. In thestoreroom Roland found a few simple tools, including an adjustable wrench. Itwas frozen with its jaw open, but an application of oil (in what was toSusannah a very familiar red-and-black 3-In-1 can) got it working again. Rolandused the wrench to unbolt the motor from its mounts and then tumbled it off theside. While he worked and Susannah did what Daddy Mose would have called theheavy looking-on, Oy sat forty paces outside the arch through which they hadexited, clearly on guard against the thing that had followed them in the dark.

“No more than fifteen pounds,” Roland said,wiping his hands on his jeans and looking at the tumbled motor, “but I reckonI’ll be glad we got rid of it by the time we’re done with this thing.”

“When do we start?” she asked.

“As soon as we’ve loaded as much cannedstuff into the back as I think I can carry,” he said, and fetched a heavy sigh.His face was pale and stubbly. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, newlines carving his cheeks and descending to his jaw from the corners of hismouth. He looked as thin as a whip.

“Roland, you can’t! Not so soon! You’redone up!”

He gestured at Oy, sitting so patiently,and at the maw of darkness forty paces beyond him. “Do you want to be thisclose to that hole when dark comes?”

“We can build a fire—”

“It may have friends,” he said, “thataren’t shy of fire. While we were in yonder shaft, that thing wouldn’t havewanted to share us because it didn’t think it had to share. Now it mightnot care, especially if it’s vengeance-minded.”

“A thing like that can’t think. Surelynot.” This was easier to believe now that they were out. But she knew she mightchange her mind once the shadows began to grow long and pool together.

“I don’t think it’s a chance we can affordto take,” Roland said.

She decided, very reluctantly, that he wasright.