every-damneverything you got!"
And there in the dark beneath Casde Discordia, Roland did...
TWELVE
She plunged her free hand once more into the bag and it closed on the flashlight's barrel. She pulled it out and tucked it under her arm (knowing if she dropped it they were gone for sure), then snapped back the tab-release on the Sterno can, relieved to hear the momentary hiss as the vacuum-seal broke.
Relieved but not surprised-if the seal had been broken, the flammable jelly inside would have evaporated long ago and the can would have been lighter.
"Roland!" she shouted. "Roland, I need matches!"
"Shirt... pocket!" he panted. "Reach for them!"
But first she dropped the flashlight into the seam where her crotch met the middle of his back, then snatched it up just before it could slide away. Now, with a good hold on it, she plunged the barrel into the can of Sterno. To grab one of the matches while holding the can and the jelly-coated flashlight would have taken a third hand, so she jettisoned the can. There were two others in the bag, but if this didn't work she'd never have a chance to reach for one of them.
The thing bellowed again, sounding as if it were right behind them. Now she could smell it, the aroma like a load of fish rotting in the sun.
She reached over Roland's shoulder and plucked a single match from his pocket. There might be time to light one; not for two. Roland and Eddie were able to pop them alight with their thumbnails, but Detta Walker had known a trick worth two of that, had used it on more than one occasion to impress her whiteboy victims in the roadhouses where she'd gone trolling.
She grimaced in the dark, peeling her lips away from her teeth, and placed the head of the match between the two front ones on top. Eddie, if you're there, help me, sugar-help me do right.
She struck the match. Something hot burned the roof of her mouth and she tasted sulfur on her tongue. The head of the match nearly blinded her dark-adapted eyes, but she could see well enough to touch it to the jelly-coated barrel of the flashlight.
The Sterno caught at once, turning the barrel into a torch. It was weak but it was something.
"Turn around!" she screamed.
Roland skidded to a stop immediately-no questions, no protest-and pivoted on his heels. She held the burning flashlight out before her and for a moment they both saw the head of something wet and covered with pink albino eyes. Below them was a mouth the size of a trapdoor, filled with squirming tentacles. The Sterno didn't burn brightly, but in this Stygian blackness it was bright enough to make the thing recoil. Before it disappeaied into the blackness again, she saw all those eyes squeezing shut and had a moment to think of how sensitive they must be if even a little guttering flame like this could-
Lining the floor of the passageway on both sides were jumbled heaps of bones. In her hand, the bulb end of the flashlight was already growing warm. Oy was barking frantically, looking back into the dark with his head down and his short legs splayed, every hair standing on end.
"Squat down, Roland, squat!"
He did and she handed him the makeshift torch, which was already beginning to gutter, the yellow flames running up and down the stainless steel barrel turning blue. The thing in the dark let out another deafening roar, and now she could see its shape again, weaving from side to side. It was creeping closer as the light faltered.
If the floor's wet here, we're most likely done, she thought, but the touch of her fingers as she groped for a thighbone suggested it was not. Perhaps that was a false message sent by her hopeful senses-she could certainly hear water dripping from the ceiling somewhere up ahead-but she didn't think so.
She reached into the bag for another can of Sterno, but at first the release-ring defied her. The thing was coming and now she could see any number of short, misshapen legs beneaui its raised lump of a head. Not a worm after all but some kind of giant centipede. Oy placed himself in front of her, still barking, every tooth on display. It was Oy the thing would take first if she couldn't-
Then her finger slipped into the ring lying almost flat against the lid of the can. There was a pop-hissh sound. Roland was waving die