increasing periods of sleep it could be said to dream, and these dreams grew steadily more abnormal as the world moved on. Now, although the unthinkable machinery which maintained the Beams had weakened, this insane and inhuman intelligence had awakened in the rooms of ruin and had begun once more, although as bodiless as any ghost, to stumble through the halls of the dead.
In other words, Blaine the Mono was preparing to get out of Dodge.
37
ROLAND HEARD A FOOTSTEP behind him as he knelt by Jake and turned, raising his gun. Tilly, her dough-colored face a mask of confusion and superstitious fear, raised her hands and shrieked: “Don’t kill me, sai! Please! Don’t kill me!”
“Run, then,” Roland said curtly, and as Tilly began to move, he struck her calf with the barrel of his revolver. “Not that way—through the door I came in. And if you ever see me again, I’ll be the last thing you ever see. Now go!”
She disappeared into the leaping, circling shadows.
Roland dropped his head to Jake’s chest, slamming his palm against his other ear to deaden the pulse of the alarm. He heard the boy’s heartbeat, slow but strong. He slipped his arms around the boy, and as he did, Jakes’s eyes fluttered open. “You didn’t let me fall this time.” His voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
“No. Not this time, and not ever again. Don’t try your voice.”
“Where’s Oy?”
“Oy!” the bumbler barked. “Oy!”
Brandon had slashed Oy several times, but none of the wounds seemed mortal or even serious. It was clear that he was in some pain, but it was equally clear he was transported with joy. He regarded Jake with sparkling eyes, his pink tongue lolling out. “Ake, Ake, Ake!”
Jake burst into tears and reached for him; Oy limped into the circle of his arms and allowed himself to be hugged for a moment.
Roland got up and looked around. His gaze fixed on the door on the far side of the room. The two men he’d backshot had been heading in that direction, and the woman had also wanted to go that way. The gunslinger went toward the door with Jake in his arms and Oy at his heel. He kicked one of the dead Grays aside, and ducked through. The room beyond was a kitchen. It managed to look like a hog-wallow in spite of the built-in appliances and the stainless steel walls; the Grays were apparently not much interested in housekeeping.
“Drink,” Jake whispered. “Please . . . so thirsty.”
Roland felt a queer doubling, as if time had folded backward on itself. He remembered lurching out of the desert, crazy with the heat and the emptiness. He remembered passing out in the stable of the way station, half-dead from thirst, and waking at the taste of cool water trickling down his throat. The boy had taken off his shirt, soaked it under the flow from the pump, and given him to drink. Now it was his turn to do for Jake what Jake had already done for him.
Roland glanced around and saw a sink. He went over to it and turned on the faucet. Cold, clear water rushed out. Over them, around them, under them, the alarm roared on and on.
“Can you stand?”
Jake nodded. “I think so.”
Roland set the boy on his feet, ready to catch him if he looked too wobbly, but Jake hung onto the sink, then ducked his head beneath the flowing water. Roland picked Oy up and looked at his wounds. They were already clotting. You got off very lucky, my furry friend, Roland thought, then reached past Jake to cup a palmful of water for the animal. Oy drank it eagerly.
Jake drew back from the faucet with his hair plastered to the sides of his face. His skin was still too pale and the signs that he had been badly beaten were clearly visible, but he looked better than he had when Roland had first bent over him. For one terrible moment, the gunslinger had been positive Jake was dead.
He found himself wishing he could go back and kill Gasher again, and that led him to another thought.
“What about the one Gasher called the Tick-Tock Man? Did you see him, Jake?”
“Yes. Oy ambushed him. Tore up his face. Then I shot him.”
“Dead?”
Jake’s lips began to tremble. He pressed them firmly together. “Yes. In his . . .” He tapped his forehead high above his right eyebrow. “I was l-l- . . . I was lucky.”