Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,39

drawing his gun from the docker’s clutch he had built her as he went. He fired a single time. Susannah let out a little scream, dropping her purse and slapping at the empty holster high up under her left breast.

“Honky, you scared the livin Jesus out of me!”

“Take better care of your gun, Susannah, or the next time someone takes it from you, the hole may be between your eyes instead of in a . . . what is it, Jake? A news-telling device of some kind? Or does it hold paper?”

“Both.” Jake looked startled. Oy had withdrawn halfway down the platform and was looking at Roland mistrustfully. Jake poked his finger at the bullet-hole in the center of the newspaper box’s locking device. A little curl of smoke was drifting from it.

“Go on,” Roland said. “Open it.”

Jake pulled the handle. It resisted for a moment, then a piece of metal clunked down somewhere inside, and the door opened. The box itself was empty; the sign on the back wall read WHEN ALL PAPERS ARE GONE, PLEASE TAKE DISPLAY COPY. Jake worked it out of its wire holder, and they all gathered round.

“What in God’s name . . . ?” Susannah’s whisper was both horrified and accusing. “What does it mean? What in God’s name happened?”

Below the newspaper’s name, taking up most of the front page’s top half, were screaming black letters:

“CAPTAIN TRIPS” SUPERFLU RAGES UNCHECKED

Govt. Leaders May Have Fled Country Topeka Hospitals Jammed with Sick, Dying Millions Pray for Cure

“Read it aloud,” Roland said. “The letters are in your speech, I cannot make them all out, and I would know this story very well.”

Jake looked at Eddie, who nodded impatiently.

Jake unfolded the newspaper, revealing a dot-picture (Roland had seen pictures of this type; they were called “fottergrafs”) which shocked them all: it showed a lakeside city with its skyline in flames. CLEVELAND FIRES BURN UNCHECKED, the caption beneath read.

“Read, kid!” Eddie told him. Susannah said nothing; she was already reading the story—the only one on the front page—over his shoulder. Jake cleared his throat as if it were suddenly dry, and began.

5

“The byline says John Corcoran, plus staff and AP reports. That means a lot of different people worked on it, Roland. Okay. Here goes. ‘America’s greatest crisis—and the world’s, perhaps—deepened overnight as the so-called superflu, known as Tube-Neck in the Midwest and Captain Trips in California, continues to spread.

“ ‘Although the death-toll can only be estimated, medical experts say the total at this point is horrible beyond comprehension: twenty to thirty million dead in the continental U.S. alone is the estimate given by Dr. Morris Hackford of Topeka’s St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center. Bodies are being burned from Los Angeles, California, to Boston, Massachusetts, in crematoria, factory furnaces, and at landfill sites.

“ ‘Here in Topeka, the bereaved who are still well enough and strong enough to do so are urged to take their dead to one of three sites: the disposal plant north of Oakland Billard Park; the pit area at Heartland Park Race Track; the landfill on Southeast Sixty-first Street, east of Forbes Field. Landfill users should approach by Berryton Road; California has been blocked by car wrecks and at least one downed Air Force transport plane, sources tell us.’ ”

Jake glanced up at his friends with frightened eyes, looked behind him at the silent railway station, then looked back down at the newspaper.

“ ‘Dr. April Montoya of the Stormont-Vail Regional Medical Center points out that the death-toll, horrifying as it is, constitutes only part of this terrible story. “For every person who has died so far as a result of this new flu-strain,” Montoya said, “there are another six who are lying ill in their homes, perhaps as many as a dozen. And, so far as we have been able to determine, the recovery rate is zero.” Coughing, she then told this reporter: “Speaking personally, I’m not making any plans for the weekend.”

“ ‘In other local developments:

“ ‘All commercial flights out of Forbes and Phillip Billard have been cancelled.

“ ‘All Amtrak rail travel has been suspended, not just in Topeka but across all of Kansas. The Gage Boulevard Amtrak station has been closed until further notice.

“ ‘All Topeka schools have also been closed until further notice. This includes Districts 437, 345, 450 (Shawnee Heights), 372, and 501 (metro Topeka). Topeka Lutheran and Topeka Technical College are also closed, as is KU at Lawrence.

“ ‘Topekans must expect brownouts and perhaps blackouts in the days and weeks