The machinery rumbled on and on, but wasn’t there a rough under-tone to the sound? A land of desperate thudding beneath the hum, like the arrhythmia of a diseased heart? A feeling that the machinery produc-ing this sound, although far more sophisticated even than that within the bear had been, was somehow falling out of tune with itself?
“All is silent in the halls of the dead,” Eddie heard himself whisper in a falling, fainting voice. “All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. Behold the stairways which stand in darkness; behold the rooms of ruin. These are the halls of the dead where the spiders spin and the great circuits tall quiet, one by one.”
Roland pulled him roughly back, and Eddie looked at him with dazed eyes. “That’s enough,” Roland said.
“Whatever they put in there isn’t doing so well, is it?” Eddie heard himself ask. His trembling voice seemed to come from far away. He could still feel the power coming out of that box. It called to him. “No. Nothing in my world is doing so well these days.” “If you boys are planning to camp here for the night, you’ll have to do without the pleasure of my company,” Susannah said. Her face was a white blur in the ashy aftermath of twilight. “I’m going over yonder. I don’t like the way that thing makes me feel.”
“We’ll all camp over yonder,” Roland said. “Let’s go.” “What a good idea,” Eddie said. As they moved away from the box, the sound of the machinery began to dim. Eddie felt its hold on him weakening, although it still called to him, invited him to explore the half-lit hallways, the standing stairways, the rooms of ruin where the spiders spun and the control panels were going dark, one by one.
IN His DREAM THAT night, Eddie again went walking down Second Ave-nue toward Tom and Gerry’s Artistic Deli on the corner of Second and Forty-sixth. He passed a record store and the Rolling Stones boomed from the speakers: “I see a red door and I want to paint it black, No colours anymore, I want them to turn black, I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes, I have to turn my head until my darkness goes …” He walked on, passing a store called Reflections of You between Forty-ninth and Forty-eighth. He saw himself in one of the mirrors hang-ing in the display window. He thought he looked better than he had in years—hair a little too long, but otherwise tanned and fit. The clothes, though . . . uh-uh, man. Square-bear shit all the way. Blue blazer, white shirt, dark red tie, gray dress pants … he had never owned a yuppie-from-hell outfit like that in his life. Someone was shaking him.
Eddie tried to burrow deeper into the dream. He didn’t want to wake up now. Not before he got to the deli and used his key to go through the door and into the field of roses. He wanted to see it all again—the endless blanket of red, the overarching blue sky where those great white cloud-ships sailed, and the Dark Tower. He was afraid of the darkness which lived within that eldritch column, waiting to eat anyone who got too close, but he wanted to see it again just the same. Needed to see it.
The hand, however, would not stop shaking. The dream began to darken, and the smells of car exhaust along Second Avenue became the smell of woodsmoke—thin now, because the fire was almost out.
It was Susannah. She looked scared. Eddie sat up and put an arm around her. They had camped on the far side of the alder grove, within earshot of the stream babbling through the bone-littered clearing. On the other side of the glowing embers which had been their campfire, Roland lay asleep. His sleep was not easy.
He had cast aside his single blanket and lay with his knees drawn up almost to his chest. With his boots off, his feet looked white and narrow and defenseless. The great toe of the right foot was gone, victim of the lobster-thing which had also snatched away part of his right hand. He was moaning some slurred phrase over and over again. After a few repetitions, Eddie realized it was the phrase he had spoken before keeling over in the clearing where Susannah had shot the bear: Go, then—there are other worlds than these. He would fall silent for a moment, then call out the boy’s name: “Jake! Where are you? Jake!”
The desolation and despair in his voice filled Eddie with horror. His arms stole around Susannah and he pulled her tight against him. He could feel her shivering, although the night was warm.