"Oy!" Cocked ears and bright eyes providing the rest of the message: Don't take too long.
Jake sprayed urine onto one of the tile walls. Greenish dreck was seeping between the squares. He also listened for the sound of pursuit and was not disappointed. How many back there? What sort of posse? Roland probably would have known, but Jake had no idea. The echoes made it sound like a regiment.
As he was shaking off, it came to Jake Chambers that the Pere would never do this again, or grin at him and point his finger, or cross himself before eating. They had killed him. Taken his life. Stopped his breath and pulse. Save perhaps for dreams, die Pere was now gone from the story. Jake began to cry. Like his smile, the tears made him once again look like a child. Oy had turned around, eager to be off on the scent, but now looked back over one shoulder with an expression of unmistakable concern.
"'s'all right," Jake said, buttoning his fly and then wiping his cheeks with the heel of his hand. Only it wasn't all right. He was more than sad, more than angry, more than scared about the low men running relendessly up his backtrail. Now that the adrenaline in his system had receded, he realized he was hungry as well as sad. Tired, too. Tired?Verging on exhaustion. He couldn't remember when he'd last slept. Being sucked through the door into New York, he could remember that, and Oy almost being hit by a taxi, and the God-bomb minister with the name that reminded him of Jimmy Cagney playing George M.
Cohan in that old black-and-white movie he'd watched on the TV in his room when he was small. Because, he realized now, there had been a song in that movie about a guy named Harrigan:
H-A-double R-I; Harrigan, that's me. He could remember those things, but not when he'd last eaten a square-
"Ake!" Oy barked, relentless as fate. If bumblers had a breaking point, Jake thought wearily, Oy was still a long way from his. "Ake-Ake!"
"Yeah-yeah," he agreed, pushing away from the wall. "Ake-
Ake will now run-run. Go on. Find Susannah."
He wanted to plod, but plodding would quite likely not be good enough. Mere walking, either. He flogged his legs into a jog and once more began to sing under his breath, this time the words to the song: "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight... In the jungle, the quiet jungle, the lion sleeps tonight... ohhh... "And then he was off again, wimeweh, wimeweh, luimeweh, nonsense words from the kitchen radio that was always tuned to the oldies on WCBS... only weren't memories of some movie wound around and into his memory of this particular song? Not a song from Yankee Doodle Dandy but from some other movie?
One with scary monsters? Something he'd seen when he was just a little kid, maybe not even out of his
(clouts)
diapers?
"Near the village, the quiet village, the lion sleeps tonight... Near the village, the peaceful village, the lion sleeps tonight... HUH-oh, awimeweh, a-wimeweh..."
He stopped, breathing hard, rubbing his side. He had a stitch there but it wasn't bad, at least not yet, hadn't sunk deep enough to stop him. But that goo... that greenish goo dribbling between the tiles... it was oozing through the ancient grout and busted ceramic because this was
(the jungle)
deep below the city, deep like catacombs
(wimeweh)
or like-
"Oy," he said, speaking through chapped lips. Christ, he was so thirsty! "Oy, this isn't goo, this is grass. Or weeds... or..."
Oy barked his friend's name, but Jake hardly noticed. The echoing sound of the pursuers continued (had drawn a bit closer, in fact), but for the time being he ignored them, as well.
Grass, growing out of the tiled wall.
Overwhelming the wall.
He looked down and saw more grass, a brilliant green that was almost purple beneath the fluorescent lights, growing out of the floor. And bits of broken tile crumbling into shards and fragments like remains of the old people, the ancestors who had lived and built before the Beams began to break and the world began to move on.
He bent down. Reached into the grass. Brought up sharp shards of tile, yes, but also earth, the earth of
(the jungle)
some deep catacomb or tomb or perhaps-
There was a beetle crawling through the dirt he'd scooped up, a beetle with a red mark on its back like a bloody smile, and Jake cast it away with a cry of disgust. Mark of the King! Say true!
He came back to himself and realized that he was down on one knee, practicing at archaeology like the hero in some old movie while the hounds drew closer on his trail. And Oy was looking at him, eyes shining with anxiety.
"Ake! Ake-Ake!"
"Yeah," he said, heaving himself to his feet. "I'm coming.
But Oy... what is this place?"
Oy had no idea why he heard anxiety in his ka-dinh's voice; what he saw was the same as before and what he smelled was the same as before: her smell, the scent the boy had asked him to find and follow. And it was fresher now. He ran on along its bright brand.
FOUR