by Stephen King
“Hoptedoodle!” cried Mr. Martin, waving his hat in the air. “This is some locomotive, Bob! I don’t know why we ever retired it! How do you keep the coal-conveyor loaded at this speed?”
Engineer Bob only smiled, because he knew Charlie was feeding himself. And, beneath the clickety-clack and the chuffa-chuffa and the brump-hrump, he could hear Charlie singing his old song in his low, gruff voice:Don’t ask me silly questions, I won’t play silly games, I’m just a simple choo-choo train And I’ll always be the same.I only want to race along Beneath the bright blue sky, And be a happy choo-choo train Until the day I die.Charlie got Mr. Martin to his daughter’s piano recital on time (of course), and Susannah was just tickled pink to see her old friend Charlie again (of course), and they all went back to St. Louis together with Susannah yanking hell out of the train-whistle the whole way. Mr. Martin got Charlie and Engineer Bob a gig pulling kids around the brand-new Mid-World Amusement Park and Fun Fair in California, andyou will find them there to this day, pulling laughing children hither and thither in that world of lights and music and good, wholesome fun. Engineer Bob’s hair is white, and Charlie doesn’t talk as much as he once did, but both of them still have plenty of zip and zowie, and every now and then the children hear Charlie singing his old song in his soft, gruff voice.
THE END
“Don’t ask me silly questions, I won’t play silly games,” Jake muttered, looking at the final picture. It showed Charlie the Choo-Choo pulling two bunting-decked passenger cars filled with happy children from the roller coaster to the Ferns wheel. Engineer Bob sat in the cab, pulling the whistle-cord and looking as happy as a pig in shit. Jake supposed Engineer Bob’s smile was supposed to convey supreme happiness, but to him it looked like the grin of a lunatic. Charlie and Engineer Bob both looked like lunatics… and the more Jake looked at the kids, the more he thought that their expressions looked like grimaces of terror. Let us off this train, those faces seemed to say. Please, just let us off this train alive.
And be a happy choo-choo train until the day I die.
Jake closed the book and looked at it thoughtfully. Then he opened it again and began to leaf through the pages, circling certain words and phrases that seemed to call out to him.
The Mid-World Railway Company… Engineer Bob… a small, gruff voice… WHOO-OOOO… the first real friend he’d had since his wife died, long ago, in New York… Mr. Martin… the world has moved on… Susannah…
He put his pen down. Why did these words and phrases call to him? The one about New York seemed obvious enough, but what about the others? For that matter, why this book? That he had been meant to buy it was beyond question. If he hadn’t had the money in his pocket, he felt sure he would have simply grabbed it and bolted from the store. But why? He felt like a compass needle. The needle knows nothing about magnetic north; it only knows it must point in a certain direction, like it or not.
The only thing Jake knew for sure was that he was very, very tired, and if he didn’t crawl into bed soon, he was going to fall asleep at his desk. He took off his shirt, then gazed down at the front of Charlie the Choo-Choo again.
That smile. He just didn’t trust that smile.
Not a bit.
23
SLEEP DIDN’T COME AS soon as Jake had hoped. The voices began to argue again about whether he was alive or dead, and they kept him awake. At last he sat up in bed with his eyes closed and his fisted hands planted against his temples.
Quit! he screamed at them. Just quit! You were gone all day, be gone again!
I would if he’d just admit I’m dead, one of the voices said sulkily.
I would if he’d just take a for God’s sake look around and admit I’m clearly alive, the other snapped back.
He was going to scream right out loud. There was no way to hold it back; he could feel it coming up his throat like vomit. He opened his eyes, saw his pants lying over the seat of his desk chair, and an idea occurred to him. He got out of bed, went to the chair, and felt in the right front pocket of the pants.
The silver key was still there, and the moment his fingers closed around it, the voices ceased.
Tell him, he thought, with no idea who the thought was for. Tell him to grab the key. The key makes the voices go.
He went back to bed and was asleep with the key clasped loosely in his hand three minutes after his head hit the pillow.
III. DOOR AND DEMON
1
EDDIE WAS ALMOST ASLEEP when a voice spoke clearly in his ear: Tell him to grab the key. The key makes the voices go.
He sat bolt upright, looking around wildly. Susannah was sound asleep beside him; that voice had not been hers.
Nor anyone else’s, it seemed. They had been moving through the woods and along the path of the Beam for eight days now, and this evening they had camped in the deep cleft of a pocket valley. Close by on the left, a large stream roared brashly past, headed in the same direction as they were: southeast. To the right, firs rose up a steep slope of land. There were no intruders here; only Susannah asleep and Roland awake. He sat huddled beneath his blanket at the edge of the stream’s cut, staring out into the darkness.
Tell him to grab the key. The key makes the voices go.
Eddie hesitated for only a moment. Roland’s sanity was in the balance now, the balance was tipping the wrong way, and the worst part of it was this: no one knew it better than the man himself. At this point, Eddie was prepared to clutch at any straw.
He had been using a folded square of deerskin as a pillow. He reached beneath it and removed a bundle wrapped in a piece of hide. He walked over to Roland, and was disturbed to see that the gunslinger did not notice him until he was less than four steps from his unprotected back. There had been a time-and it was not so long ago-when Roland would have known Eddie was awake even before Eddie sat up. He would have heard the change in his breathing.
He was more alert than this back on the beach, when he was half-dead from the lobster-thing’s bite, Eddie thought grimly.
Roland at last turned his head and glanced at him. His eyes were bright with pain and weariness, but Eddie recognized these things as no more than a surface glitter. Beneath it, he sensed a growing confusion that would almost surely become madness if it continued to develop unchecked. Pity tugged at Eddie’s heart.
“Can’t sleep?” Roland asked. His voice was slow, almost drugged.
“I almost was, and then I woke up,” Eddie said. “Listen-”
“I think I’m getting ready to die.” Roland looked at Eddie. The bright shine left his eyes, and now looking into them was like staring into a pair of deep, dark wells that seemed to have no bottom. Eddie shuddered, more because of that empty stare than because of what Roland had said. “And do you know what I hope lies in the clearing where the path ends, Eddie?”
“Roland-”
“Silence,” Roland said. He exhaled a dusty sigh. “Just silence. That will be enough. An end to… this.”
He planted his fists against his temples, and Eddie thought: I’ve seen someone else do that, and not long ago. But who? Where?
It was ridiculous of course; he had seen no one but Roland and Susannah for almost two months now. But it felt true, all the same.
“Roland, I’ve been making something,” Eddie said.
Roland nodded. A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I know. What is it? Are you finally ready to tell?”
“I think it might be part of this ka-tet thing.”
The vacant look left Roland’s eyes. He gazed at Eddie thoughtfully but said nothing.
“Look.” Eddie began to unfold the piece of hide.
That won’t do any good! Henry’s voice suddenly brayed. It was so loud that Eddie actually flinched a little. It’s just a stupid piece of wood-carving! He’ll take one look and laugh at it! He’ll laugh at you! “Oh, lookit this!” he’ll say. “Did the sissy carve something?”
“Shut up,” Eddie muttered.
The gunslinger raised his eyebrows.
“Not you.”
Roland nodded, unsurprised. “Your brother comes to you often, doesn’t he, Eddie?”
For a moment Eddie only stared at him, his carving still hidden in the hide square. Then he smiled. It was not a very pleasant smile. “Not as often as he used to, Roland. Thank Christ for small favors.”
“Yes,” Roland said. “Too many voices weigh heavy on a man’s heart… What is it, Eddie? Show me, please.”
Eddie held up the chunk of ash. The key, almost complete, emerged from it like the head of a woman from the prow of a sailing ship… or the hilt of a sword from a chunk of stone. Eddie didn’t know how close he had come to duplicating the key-shape he had seen in the fire (and never would, he supposed, unless he found the right lock in which to try it), but he thought it was close. Of one thing he was quite sure: it was the best carving he had ever done. By far.
“By the gods, Eddie, it’s beautiful!” Roland said. The apathy was gone from his voice; he spoke in a tone of surprised reverence Eddie had never heard before. “Is it done? It’s not, is it?”
“No-not quite.” He ran his thumb into the third notch, and then over the s-shape at the end of the last notch. “There’s a little more to do on this notch, and the curve at the end isn’t right yet. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.”
“This is your secret.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. Now if only I knew what it meant.”
Roland looked around. Eddie followed his gaze and saw Susannah. He found some relief in the fact that Roland had heard her first.
“What you boys doin up so late? Chewin the fat?” She saw the wooden key in Eddie’s hand and nodded. “I wondered when you were going to get around to showing that off. It’s good, you know. I don’t know what it’s for, but it’s damned good.”
“You don’t have any idea what door it might open?” Roland asked Eddie. “That was not part of your khef?”
“No-but it might be good for something even though it isn’t done.” He held the key out to Roland. “I want you to keep it for me.”
Roland didn’t move to take it. He regarded Eddie closely. “Why?”
“Because… well… because I think someone told me you should.”
“Who?”
Your boy, Eddie thought suddenly, and as soon as the thought came he knew it was true. It was your goddamned boy. But he didn’t want to say so. He didn’t want to mention the boy’s name at all. It might just set Roland off again.
“I don’t know. But I think you ought to give it a try.”
Roland reached slowly for the key. As his fingers touched it, a bright glimmer seemed to flash down its barrel, but it was gone so quickly that Eddie could not be sure he had seen it. It might have been only starlight.
Roland’s hand closed over the key growing out of the branch. For a moment his face showed nothing. Then his brow furrowed and his head cocked in a listening gesture.
“What is it?” Susannah asked. “Do you hear-”
“Shhhh!” The puzzlement on Roland’s face was slowly being replaced with wonder. He looked from Eddie to Susannah and then back to Eddie. His eyes were filling with some great emotion, as a pitcher fills with water when it is dipped in a spring.
“Roland?” Eddie asked uneasily. “Are you all right?”
Roland whispered something. Eddie couldn’t hear what it was.
Susannah looked scared. She glanced frantically at Eddie, as if to ask, What did you do to him?
Eddie took one of her hands in both of his own. “I think it’s all right.”
Roland’s hand was clamped so tightly on the chunk of wood that Eddie was momentarily afraid he might snap it in two, but the wood was strong and Eddie had carved thick. The gunslinger’s throat bulged; his Adam’s apple rose and fell as he struggled with speech. And suddenly he yelled at the sky in a fair, strong voice:
“GONE! THE VOICES ARE GONE!”
He looked back at them, and Eddie saw something he had never expected to see in his life-not even if that life stretched over a thousand years.
Roland of Gilead was weeping.
2
THE GUNSLINGER SLEPT SOUNDLY and dreamlessly that night for the first time in months, and he slept with the not-quite finished key clenched tightly in his hand.
3
IN ANOTHER WORLD, BUT beneath the shadow of the same ka-tet, Jake Chambers was having the most vivid dream of his life.
He was walking through the tangled remains of an ancient forest- a dead zone of fallen trees and scruffy, aggravating bushes that bit his ankles and tried to steal his sneakers. He came to a thin belt of younger trees (alders, he thought, or perhaps beeches-he was a city boy, and the only thing he knew for sure about trees was that some had leaves and some had needles) and discovered a path through them. He made his way along this, moving a little faster. There was a clearing of some sort up ahead.
He stopped once before reaching it, when he spied some sort of stone marker to his right. He left the path to look at it. There were letters carved into it, but they were so eroded he couldn’t make them out. At last he closed his eyes (he had never done this in a dream before) and let his fingers trace each letter, like a blind boy reading Braille. Each formed in the darkness behind his lids until they made a sentence which stood forth in an outline of blue light:
TRAVELLER, BEYOND LIES MID-WORLD.
Sleeping in his bed, Jake drew his knees up against his chest. The hand holding the key was under his pillow, and now his fingers tightened their grip on it.
Mid-World, he thought, of course. St. Louis and Topeka and Oz and the World’s Fair and Charlie the Choo-Choo.
He opened his dreaming eyes and pressed on. The clearing behind the trees was paved with old cracked asphalt. A faded yellow circle had been painted in the middle. Jake realized it was a playground basketball court even before he saw the boy at the far end, standing at the foul line and shooting baskets with a dusty old Wilson ball. They popped in one after another, falling neatly through the netless hole. The basket jutted out from something that looked like a subway kiosk which had been shut up for the night. Its closed door was painted in alternating diagonal stripes of yellow and black. From behind it-or perhaps from below it-Jake could hear the steady rumble of powerful machinery. The sound was somehow disturbing. Scary.
Don’t step on the robots, the boy shooting the baskets said without turning around. I guess they’re all dead, but I wouldn’t take any chances, if I were you.
Jake looked around and saw a number of shattered mechanical devices lying around. One looked like a rat or mouse, another like a bat. A mechanical snake lay in two rusty pieces almost at his feet.
ARE you me? Jake asked, taking a step closer to die boy at the basket, but even before he turned around, Jake knew that wasn’t the case. The boy was bigger than Jake, and at least thirteen. His hair was darker, and when he looked at Jake, he saw that the stranger’s eyes were hazel. His own were blue.
What do you think? the strange boy asked, and bounce-passed the ball to Jake.
No, of course not, Jake said. He spoke apologetically. It’s just that I’ve been cut in two for the last three weeks or so. He dipped and shot from mid-court. The ball arched high and dropped silently through the hoop. He was delighted… but he discovered he was also afraid of what this strange boy might have to tell him.
I know, the boy said. It’s been a bitch for you, hasn’t it? He was wearing faded madras shorts and a yellow t-shirt that said NEVER A DULL MOMENT IN MID-WORLD. He had tied a green bandanna around his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes. And things are going to get worse before they get better.
What is this place? Jake asked. And who are you?
It’s the Portal of the Bear… but it’s also Brooklyn.
That didn’t seem to make sense, and yet somehow it did. Jake told himself that things always seemed that way in dreams, but this didn’t really feel like a dream.
As for me, I don’t matter much, the boy
said. He hooked the basketball over his shoulder. It rose, then dropped smoothly through the hoop. I’m supposed to guide you, that’s all. I’ll take you where you need to go, and I’ll show you what you need to see, but you have to be careful because I won’t know you. And strangers make Henry nervous. He can get mean when he’s nervous, and he’s bigger than you.
Who’s Henry? Jake asked.
Never mind. Just don’t let him notice you. All you have to do is hang out… and follow us. Then, when we leave…
The boy looked at Jake. There was both pity and fear in his eyes. Jake suddenly realized that the boy was starting to fade-lie could see the yellow and black slashes on the box right through the boy’s yellow t-shirt.
How will I find you? Jake was suddenly terrified that the boy would melt away completely before he could say everything Jake needed to hear.
No problem, the boy said. His voice had taken on a queer, chiming echo. Just take the subway to Co-Op City. You’ll find me.
No, I won’t! Jake cried. Co-Op City’s huge! There must be a hundred thousand people living there!
Now the boy was just a milky outline. Only his hazel eyes were still completely there, like the Cheshire cat’s grin in Alice. They regarded Jake with compassion and anxiety. No problem-o, he said. You found the key and the rose, didn’t you? You’ll find me the same way. This afternoon, Jake. Around three o’clock should be good. You’ll have to be careful, and you’ll have to be quick. He paused, a ghostly boy with an old basketball lying near one transparent foot. I have to go now… but it was good to meet you. You seem like a nice kid, and I’m riot surprised he loves you. Remember, there’s danger, though. He careful… and he quick.