flashlight back and forth, trying to fan a litde life into the guttering flames (which might have worked had there been fuel for them), and she saw their fading shadows rock deliriously back and fordi on the decaying tile walls.
The circumference of die bone was too big for the can. Now lying in an awkward sprawl, half in and half out of the harness, she dipped into it, brought out a handful of jelly, and slathered it up and down the bone. If the bone was wet, this would only buy them a few more seconds of horror. If it was dry, however, then maybe... just maybe...
The thing was creeping ever closer. Amid the tentacles sprouting from its mouth she could see jutting fangs. In another moment it would be close enough to lunge at Oy, taking him with the speed of a gecko snatching a fly out of the air. Its rotted-fish aroma was strong and nauseating. And what might be behind it? What other abominations?
No time to think about that now.
She touched her thighbone torch to the fading flames licking along the barrel of the flashlight. The bloom of fire was greater than she had expected-far greater-and the thing's scream this time was filled with pain as well as surprise. There was a nasty squelching sound, like mud being squeezed in a vinyl raincoat, and it lashed backward.
"Git me more bones," she said as Roland cast the flashlight aside. "And make sure they're dem drah bones." She laughed at her own wit (since nobody else would), a down-anddirty Detta cackle.
Still gasping for breath, Roland did as she told him.
THIRTEEN
They resumed their progress along the passage, Susannah now riding backward, a position that was difficult but not impossible.
If they got out of here, her back would ache a bitch for the next day or two. And I'll relish every single throb, she told herself.
Roland still had the Bridgton Old Home Days tee-shirt Irene Tassenbaum had bought him. He handed it up to Susannah.
She wrapped it around the bottom of the bone and held it out as far as she possibly could while still keeping her balance.
Roland wasn't able to run-she would have surely tumbled out of the harness had he tried doing that-but he maintained a good fast walking pace, pausing every now and then to pick up a likely-looking arm- or legbone. Oy soon got the idea and began bringing them to the gunslinger in his mouth. The thing continued to follow them. Every now and then Susannah caught a glimpse of its slick-gleaming skin, and even when it drew back beyond the chancy light of her current torch they would hear those liquid stomping sounds, like a giant in mudfilled boots. She began to think it was the sound of the thing's tail. This filled her with a horror that was unreasoning and private and almost powerful enough to undo her mind.
That it should have a tail! her mind nearly raved. A tail that sounds like it's filled with water or jelly or half-coagulated blood!
Christ! My God! My Christ!
It wasn't just light keeping it from attacking them, she reckoned, but fear of fire. The thing must have hung back while they were in the part of the passage where the glow-globes still worked, thinking (if it could think) that it would wait and take them once they were in the dark. She had an idea that if it had known they had access to fire, it might simply have closed some or all of its many eyes and pounced on them where a few of the globes were out and the light was dimmer. Now it was at least temporarily out of luck, because the bones made surprisingly good torches (the idea that they were being helped by the recovering Beam in this regard did not cross her mind). The only question was whether or not the Sterno would hold out.
She was able to conserve now because the bones burned on their own once they were going-except for a couple of damp ones that she had to cast aside after lighting her next torches from their guttering tips-but you did have to get diem going, and she was already deep into the third and last can. She bitterly regretted the one she'd tossed away when the thing had been closing in on them, but didn't know what else she could have done. She also wished Roland would go faster, although she guessed he now couldn't have maintained