The Waste Lands

8

THEY MOVED ALONG, ROLAND and Eddie trading off on Susannah's wheelchair. They picked the left-hand wheelrut. The chair bumped and pitched, and every now and then Eddie and Roland had to lift it over the cobbles which stuck out of the dirt here and there like old teeth. They were still making faster, easier time than they had in a week, how-ever. The ground was rising, and when Eddie looked over his shoulder he could see the forest sloping away in what looked like a series of gentle steps. Far to the northwest, he could see a ribbon of water spilling over a fractured rock face. It was, he realized with wonder, the place they had dubbed "the shooting gallery." Now it was almost lost behind them in the haze of this dreaming summer afternoon.

"Whoa down, boy!" Susannah called sharply. Eddie faced forward again just in time to keep from pushing the wheelchair into Roland. The gunslinger had stopped and was peering into the tangled bushes at the left of the road.

"You keep that up, I'm gonna revoke your driver's license," Susannah said waspily.

Eddie ignored her. He was following Roland's gaze. "What is it?"

"One way to find out." He turned, hoisted Susannah from her chair, ~and planted her on his hip. "Let's all take a look."

"Put me down, big boy - I can make my way. Easier'n you boys, if you really want to know."

As Roland gently lowered her to the grassy wheelrut, Eddie peered into the woods. The late light threw overlapping crosses of shadow, but he thought he saw what had caught Roland's eye. It was a tall gray stone, almost completely hidden in a shag of vines and creepers.

Susannah slipped into the woods at the side of the road with eely sinuousness. Roland and Eddie followed.

"It's a marker, isn't it?" Susannah was propped on her hands study-ing die rectangular chunk of rock. It had once been straight, but now it leaned drunkenly to the right, like an old gravestone.

"Yes. Give me my knife, Eddie."

Eddie handed it over, then hunkered next to Susannah as the gun-slinger cut away the vines. As they fell, he could see eroded letters carved into the stone, and he knew what they said before Roland had uncovered even half of the inscription:

TRAVELLER, BEYOND LIES MID-WORLD.

9

"WHAT DOES IT MEAN?" Susannah asked at last. Her voice was soft and awestruck; her eyes ceaselessly measured the gray stone plinth.

"It means that we're nearing the end of this first stage." Roland's face was solemn and thoughtful as he handed his knife back to Eddie. "I think that we'll keep to this old coach-road now - or rather, it will keep to us. It has taken up the path of the Beam. The woods will end soon. I expect a great change."

"What is Mid-World?" Eddie asked.

"One of the large kingdoms which dominated the earth in the times before these. A kingdom of hope and knowledge and light - the sort of things we were trying to hold onto in my land before the darkness over-took us, as well. Some day if there's time, I'll tell you all the old stories... the ones I know, at least. They form a large tapestry, one which is beautiful but very sad.

"According to the old tales, a great city once stood at the edge of Mid-World - perhaps as great as your city of New York . It will be in ruins now, if it still exists at all. But there may be people ... or monsters ... or both. We'll have to be on our guard."

He reached out his two-fingered right hand and touched the inscrip-tion. "Mid-World," he said in a low, meditative voice. "Who would have thought..." He trailed off.

"Well, there's no help for it, is there?" Eddie asked.

The gunslinger shook his head. "No help."

"Ka," Susannah said suddenly, and they both looked at her.

10

THERE WERE TWO HOURS of daylight left, and so they moved on. The road continued southeast, along the path of the Beam, and two other overgrown roads - smaller ones - joined the one they were following. Along one side of the second were the mossy, tumbled remains of what must have once been an immense rock wall. Nearby, a dozen fat billy-bumblers sat upon the ruins, watching the pilgrims with their odd gold-ringed eyes. To Eddie they looked like a jury with hanging on its mind.

The road continued to grow wider and more clearly defined. Twice they passed the shells of long-deserted buildings. The second one, Roland said, might have been a windmill. Susannah said it looked haunted. "I wouldn't be surprised," the gunslinger replied. His matter-of-fact tone chilled both of them.

When darkness forced a halt, the trees were thinning and the breeze which had chased around tin-in all day became a light, warm wind. Ahead, the land continued to rise.

"We'll come to the top of the ridge in a day or two," Roland said. "Then we'll see."

"See what?" Susannah asked, but Roland only shrugged.

That night Eddie began to carve again, but with no real feeling of inspiration. The confidence and happiness he'd felt as the key first began to take shape had left him. His fingers felt clumsy and stupid. For the first time in months he thought longingly of how good it would be to have some heroin. Not a lot; he felt sure that a nickel bag and a rolled-up dollar bill would send him flying through this little carving project in no time flat.

"What are you smiling about, Eddie?" Roland asked. He was sitting on the other side of the campfire; the low, wind-driven flames danced capriciously between them.

"Was I smiling?"

"Yes."

"I was just thinking about how stupid some people can be - you put them in a room with six doors, they'll still walk into the walls. And then have the nerve to bitch about it."

"If you're afraid of what might be on the other side of the doors, maybe bouncing off the walls seems safer," Susannah said.

Eddie nodded. "Maybe so."

He worked slowly, trying to see the shapes in the wood - that little s-shape in particular. He discovered it had become very dim.

Please, God, help me not to fuck this up, he thought, but he was terribly afraid that he had already begun to do just that. At last he gave up, returned the key (which he had barely changed at all) to the gun-slinger, and curled up beneath one of the hides. Five minutes later, the dream about the boy and the old Markey Avenue playground had begun to unspool again.

11

JAKE STEPPED OUT OF his apartment building at about quarter of seven, which left him with over eight hours to kill. He considered taking the train out to Brooklyn right away, then decided it was a bad idea. A kid out of school was apt to attract more attention in the hinterlands than in the heart of a big city, and if he really had to search for the place and the boy he was supposed to meet there, he was cooked already.

No problem-o, the boy in the yellow T-shirt and green bandanna had said. You found the key and the rose, didn't you? You'll find me the same way.

Except Jake could no longer remember just how he had found the key and the rose. He could only remember the joy and the sense of surety which had filled his heart and head. He would just have to hope that would happen again. In the meantime, he'd keep moving. That was the best way to keep from being noticed in New York .

He walked most of the way to First Avenue, then headed back the way he had come, only sliding uptown little by little as he followed the pattern of the WALK lights (perhaps knowing, on some deep level, that even they served the Beam). Around ten o'clock he found himself in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue . He was hot, tired, and depressed. He wanted a soda, but he thought he ought to hold onto what little money he had for as long as he could. He'd taken every cent out of the box he kept by his bed, but it only amounted to eight dollars, give or take a few cents.

A group of school-kids were lining up for a tour. Public school, Jake was almost sure - they were dressed as casually as he was. No blazers from Paul Stuart, no ties, no jumpers, no simple little skirts that cost a hundred and twenty-five bucks at places like Miss So Pretty or Tweenity. This crowd was Kmart all the way. On impulse, Jake stood at the end of the line and followed them into the museum.

The tour took an hour and fifteen minutes. Jake enjoyed it. The museum was quiet. Even better, it was air-conditioned. And the pictures were nice. He was particularly fascinated by a small group of Frederick Remington's Old West paintings and a large picture by Thomas Hart Benton that showed a steam locomotive charging across the great plains toward Chicago while beefy farmers in bib overalls and straw hats stood in their fields and watched. He wasn't noticed by either of the teachers with the group until the very end. Then a pretty black woman in a severe blue suit tapped him on the shoulder and asked who he was.

Jake hadn't seen her coming, and for a moment his mind froze. Without thinking about what he was doing, he reached into his pocket and closed his hand around the silver key. His mind cleared immediately, and he felt calm again.

"My group is upstairs," he said, smiling guiltily. "We're supposed to be looking at a bunch of modern art, but I like the stuff down here a lot better, because they're real pictures. So I sort of ... you know..."

"Snuck away?" the teacher suggested. The comers of her lips twitched in a suppressed smile.

"Well, I'd rather think of it as French leave." These words simply popped out of his mouth.

The students now staring at Jake only looked puzzled, but this time the teacher actually laughed. "Either yon don't know or have forgotten," she said, "but in the French Foreign Legion they used to shoot deserters. I suggest you rejoin your class at once, young man."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you. They'll be almost done now, anyway."

"What school is it?"

" Markey Academy," Jake said. This also just popped out.

He went upstairs, listening to the disembodied echo of foot-falls and low voices in the great space of the rotunda and wondering why he had said that. He had never heard of a place called Markey Academy in his life.

12

HE WAITED AWHILE IN the upstairs lobby, then noticed a guard looking at him with growing curiosity and decided it wouldn't be wise to wait any longer - he would just have to hope the class he had joined briefly was gone.

He looked at his wristwatch, put an expression on his face that he hoped looked like Gosh! Look how late it's getting!, and trotted back downstairs. The class - and the pretty black teacher who had laughed at the idea of French leave - was gone, and Jake decided it might be a good idea to get gone himself. He would walk awhile longer - slowly, in deference to the heat - and catch a subway.

He stopped at a hot-dog stand on the comer of Broadway and Forty-second, trading in a little of his meager cash supply for a sweet sausage and a Nehi. He sat on the steps of a bank building to eat his lunch, and that turned out to be a bad mistake.

A cop came walking toward him, twirling his nightstick in a complex series of maneuvers. He seemed to be paying attention to nothing but this, but when he came abreast of Jake he abruptly shoved his stick back into his loop and turned to him.

"Say-hey, big guy," he said. "No school today?"

Jake had been wolfing his sausage, but the last bite abruptly stuck in his throat. This was a lousy piece of luck ... if luck was all it was. They were in Times Square, sleaze capital of America ; there were push-ers, junkies, whores, and chicken-chasers everywhere . .. but this cop was ignoring them in favor of him.

Jake swallowed with an effort, then said, "It's finals week at my school. I only had one test today. Then I could leave." He paused, not liking the bright, searching look in the cop's eyes. "I had permission," he concluded uneasily.

"Uh-huh. Can I see some ID?"

Juke's heart sank. Had his mother and father already called the cops? He supposed that, after yesterday's adventure, that was pretty likely. Under ordinary circumstances, the NYPD wouldn't take much notice of another missing kid, especially one that had been gone only half a day, but his father was a big deal at the Network, and he prided himself on the number of strings he could pull. Jake doubted if this cop had his picture... but he might very well have his name.

"Well," Jake said reluctantly, "I've got my student discount card from Mid-World Lanes, but that's about all."

"Mid-World Lanes? Never heard of it. Where's that? Queens ?"

"Mid-Town, I mean," Jake thought. God, this was going north instead of south... and fast. "You know? On Thirty-third?"

"Uh-huh. That'll do fine." The cop held out his hand.

A black man with dreadlocks spilling over the shoulders of his canary-yellow suit glanced over. "Bussim, ossifer!" this apparition said cheerfully. "Bussiz lil whitebread ass! Do yo duty, now!"

"Shut up and get in the wind, Eli," the cop said without looking around.

Eli laughed, exposing several gold teeth, and moved along.

"Why don't you ask him for some ID?" Jake asked.

"Because right now I'm asking you. Snap it up, son."

The cop either had his name or had sensed something wrong about him - which wasn't so surprising, maybe, since he was the only white in the area who wasn't obviously trolling. Either way, it came to the same: sitting down here to eat his lunch had been dumb. But his feet had hurt, and he'd been hungry, dammit - hungry.

You're not going to stop me, Jake thought. / can't let you stop me. There's someone I'm supposed to meet this afternoon in Brooklyn... and I'm going to be there.

Instead of reaching for his wallet, he reached into his front pocket and brought out the key. He held it up to the policeman; the late-morning sunshine bounced little coins of reflected light onto the man's cheeks and forehead. His eyes widened.

"Heyy!" he breathed. "What you got there, kid?"

He reached for it, and Jake pulled the key back a little. The reflected circles of light danced hypnotically on the cop's face. "You don't need to take it," Jake said. "You can read my name without doing that, can't you?"

"Yes, sure."

The curiosity had left the cop's face. He looked only at the key. His gaze was wide and fixed, but not quite empty. Jake read both amazement and unexpected happiness in his look. That's me, Jake thought, just spread-ing joy and goodwill wherever I go. The question is, what do I do now?

A young woman (probably not u librarian, judging from the green silk hotpants and see-through blouse she was wearing) came wiggle-wob-bling up the sidewalk on a pair of purple fuck-me shoes with three-inch heels. She glanced first at the cop, then at Jake to see what the cop was looking at. When she got a good look, she stopped cold. One of her hands drifted up and touched her throat. A man bumped into her and told her to watch where the damn-hell she was going. The young woman who was probably not a librarian took no notice whatever. Now Jake saw that four or five other people had stopped as well. All were staring at the key. They were gathering as people sometimes will around a very good three-card-monte dealer plying his trade on a streetcorner.

You're doing a great job of being inconspicuous, he thought. Oh yeah. He glanced over the cop's shoulder, and his eye caught a sign on the far side of the street. Denby's Discount Drug, it said.

"My name's Tom Denby," he told the cop. "It says so right here on my discount bowling card - right?"

"Right, right," the cop breathed. He had lost all interest in Jake; he was only interested in the key. The little coins of reflected light bounced and spun on his face.

"And you're not looking for anybody named Tom Denby, are you?"

"No," the cop said. "Never heard of him."

Now there were at least half a dozen people gathered around the cop, all of them staring with silent wonder at the silver key in Jake's hand.

"So I can go, can't I?"

"Huh? Oh! Oh, sure - go, for your father's sake!"

"Thanks," Jake said, but for a moment he wasn't sure how to go. He was hemmed in by a silent crowd of zombies, and more were joining it all the time. They were only coming to see what the deal was, he realized, but the ones who saw the key just stopped dead and stared.

He got to his feet and backed slowly up the wide bank steps, holding the key out in front of him like a lion-tamer with a chair. When he got to the wide concrete plaza at the top, he stuffed it back into his pants pockets, turned, and fled.

He stopped just once on the far side of the plaza, and looked back. The small group of people around the place where he had been standing was coming slowly back to life. They looked around at each other with dazed expressions, then walked on. The cop glanced vacantly to his left, to his right, and then straight up at the sky, as if trying to remember how he had gotten here and what he had been meaning to do. Jake had seen enough. It was time to find a subway station and get his ass over to Brooklyn before anything else weird could happen.