The Talisman Read online

  "No," Jack said in a small, whistling, out-of-breath voice. Because he had smelled something, hadn't he? Something he had never smelled before. Something like a mixture of . . .

  It came to him, and suddenly his strength was gone. He sat down heavily on the guardrail cable and looked at Wolf.

  Shit and rotting grapes. That was what that smell had been like. That wasn't it a hundred percent, but it was too hideously close.

  Shit and rotting grapes.

  "It's the worst smell," Wolf said. "It's when people forget how to be healthy. We call it--Wolf!--the Black Disease. I don't even think he knew he had it. And . . . these Strangers can't smell it, can they, Jack?"

  "No," he whispered. If he were to be suddenly teleported back to New Hampshire, to his mother's room in the Alhambra, would he smell that stink on her?

  Yes. He would smell it on his mother, drifting out of her pores, the smell of shit and rotting grapes, the Black Disease.

  "We call it cancer," Jack whispered. We call it cancer and my mother has it.

  "I just don't know if I can hitch," Wolf said. "I'll try again if you want, Jack, but the smells . . . inside . . . they're bad enough in the outside air, Wolf! but inside . . ."

  That was when Jack put his face in his hands and wept, partly out of desperation, mostly out of simple exhaustion. And, yes, the expression Wolf believed he had seen on Jack's face really had been there; for an instant the temptation to leave Wolf was more than a temptation, it was a maddening imperative. The odds against his ever making it to California and finding the Talisman--whatever it might be--had been long before; now they were so long they dwindled to a point on the horizon. Wolf would do more than slow him down; Wolf would sooner or later get both of them thrown in jail. Probably sooner. And how could he ever explain Wolf to Rational Richard Sloat?

  What Wolf saw on Jack's face in that moment was a look of cold speculation that unhinged his knees. He fell on them and held his clasped hands up to Jack like a suitor in a bad Victorian melodrama.

  "Don't go away an' leave me, Jack," he wept. "Don't leave old Wolf, don't leave me here, you brought me here, please, please don't leave me alone. . . ."

  Beyond this, conscious words were lost; Wolf was perhaps trying to talk but all he really seemed able to do was sob. Jack felt a great weariness fall over him. It fit well, like a jacket that one has worn often. Don't leave me here, you brought me here . . .

  There it was. Wolf was his responsibility, wasn't he? Yes. Oh yes indeed. He had taken Wolf by the hand and dragged him out of the Territories and into Ohio and he had the throbbing shoulder to prove it. He had had no choice, of course; Wolf had been drowning, and even if he hadn't drowned, Morgan would have crisped him with whatever that lightning-rod thing had been. So he could have turned on Wolf again, could have said: Which would you prefer, Wolf old buddy? To be here and scared, or there and dead?

  He could, yes, and Wolf would have no answer because Wolf wasn't too swift in the brains department. But Uncle Tommy had been fond of quoting a Chinese proverb that went: The man whose life you save is your responsibility for the rest of your life.

  Never mind the ducking, never mind the fancy footwork; Wolf was his responsibility.

  "Don't leave me, Jack," Wolf wept. "Wolf-Wolf! Please don't leave good old Wolf, I'll help you, I'll stand guard at night, I can do lots, only don't don't--"

  "Quit bawling and get up," Jack said quietly. "I won't leave you. But we've got to get out of here in case that guy does send a cop back to check on us. Let's move it."

  5

  "Did you figure out what to do next, Jack?" Wolf asked timidly. They had been sitting in the brushy ditch just over the Muncie town line for more than half an hour, and when Jack turned toward Wolf, Wolf was relieved to see he was smiling. It was a weary smile, and Wolf didn't like the dark, tired circles under Jack's eyes (he liked Jack's smell even less--it was a sick smell), but it was a smile.

  "I think I see what we should do next right over there," Jack said. "I was thinking about it just a few days ago, when I got my new sneakers."

  He bowed his feet. He and Wolf regarded the sneakers in depressed silence. They were scuffed, battered, and dirty. The left sole was bidding a fond adieu to the left upper. Jack had owned them for . . . he wrinkled his forehead and thought. The fever made it hard to think. Three days. Only three days since he had picked them out of the bargain bin of the Fayva store. Now they looked old. Old.

  "Anyway . . ." Jack sighed. Then he brightened. "See that building over there, Wolf?"

  The building, an explosion of uninteresting angles in gray brick, stood like an island in the middle of a giant parking lot. Wolf knew what the asphalt in that parking lot would smell like: dead, decomposing animals. That smell would almost suffocate him, and Jack would barely notice it.

  "For your information, the sign there said Town Line Sixplex," Jack said. "It sounds like a coffee pot, but actually it's a movie with six shows. There ought to be one we like." And in the afternoon, there won't be many people there and that's good because you have this distressing habit of going Section Eight, Wolf. "Come on." He got unsteadily to his feet.

  "What's a movie, Jack?" Wolf asked. He had been a dreadful problem to Jack, he knew--such a dreadful problem that he now hesitated to protest about anything, or even express unease. But a frightening intuition had come to him: that going to a movie and hitching a ride might be the same thing. Jack called the roaring carts and carriages "cars," and "Chevys," and "Jartrans," and "station-wagons" (these latter, Wolf thought, must be like the coaches in the Territories which carried passengers from one coach-station to the next). Might the bellowing, stinking carriages also be called "movies"? It sounded very possible.

  "Well," Jack said, "it's easier to show you than to tell you. I think you'll like it. Come on."

  Jack stumbled coming out of the ditch and went briefly to his knees. "Jack, are you okay?" Wolf asked anxiously.

  Jack nodded. They started across the parking lot, which smelled just as bad as Wolf had known it would.

  6

  Jack had come a good part of the thirty-five miles between Arcanum, Ohio, and Muncie, Indiana, on Wolf's broad back. Wolf was frightened of cars, terrified of trucks, nauseated by the smells of almost everything, apt to howl and run at sudden loud noises. But he was also almost tireless. As far as that goes, you can strike the "almost," Jack thought now. So far as I know, he is tireless.

  Jack had moved them away from the Arcanum ramp as fast as he could, forcing his wet, aching legs into a rusty trot. His head had been throbbing like a slick, flexing fist inside his skull, waves of heat and cold rushing through him. Wolf moved easily to his left, his stride so long that he was keeping up with Jack easily by doing no more than a moderately fast walk. Jack knew that he had maybe gotten paranoid about the cops, but the man in the CASE FARM EQUIPMENT hat had looked really scared. And pissed.

  They hadn't gone even a quarter of a mile when a deep, burning stitch settled into his side and he asked Wolf if he could give him a piggyback for a while.

  "Huh?" Wolf asked.

  "You know," Jack said, and pantomimed.

  A big grin had overspread Wolf's face. Here at last was something he understood; here was something he could do.

  "You want a horseyback!" he cried, delighted.

  "Yeah, I guess . . ."

  "Oh, yeah! Wolf! Here and now! Used to give em to my litter-brothers! Jump up, Jack!" Wolf bent down, holding his curved hands ready, stirrups for Jack's thighs.

  "Now when I get too heavy, just put me d--"

  Before he could finish, Wolf had swept him up and was running lightly down the road with him into the dark--really running. The cold, rainy air flipped Jack's hair back from his hot brow.

  "Wolf, you'll wear yourself out!" Jack shouted.

  "Not me! Wolf! Wolf! Runnin here and now!" For the first time since they had come over, Wolf sounded actually happy. He ran for the next two hours, until they were west of Arcanum and tra
velling along a dark, unmarked stretch of two-lane black-top. Jack saw a deserted barn standing slumped in a shaggy, untended field, and they slept there that night.

  Wolf wanted nothing to do with downtown areas where the traffic was a roaring flood and the stinks rose up to heaven in a noxious cloud, and Jack didn't want anything to do with them, either. Wolf stuck out too much. But he had forced one stop, at a roadside store just across the Indiana line, near Harrisville. While Wolf waited nervously out by the road, hunkering down, digging at the dirt, getting up, walking around in a stiff little circle, then hunkering again, Jack bought a newspaper and checked the weather page carefully. The next full moon was on October 31st--Halloween, that was fitting enough. Jack turned back to the front page so he could see what day it was today . . . yesterday, that had been now. It had been October 26th.

  7

  Jack pulled open one of the glass doors and stepped inside the lobby of the Town Line Sixplex. He looked around sharply at Wolf, but Wolf looked--for the moment, at least--pretty much okay. Wolf was, in fact, cautiously optimistic . . . at least for the moment. He didn't like being inside a building, but at least it wasn't a car. There was a good smell in here--light and sort of tasty. Or would have been, except for a bitter, almost rancid undersmell. Wolf looked left and saw a glass box full of white stuff. That was the source of the good light smell.

  "Jack," he whispered.

  "Huh?"

  "I want some of that white stuff, please. But none of the pee."

  "Pee? What are you talking about?"

  Wolf searched for a more formal word and found it. "Urine." He pointed at a thing with a light going off and on inside it. BUTTERY FLAVORING, it read. "That's some kind of urine, isn't it? It's got to be, the way it smells."

  Jack smiled tiredly. "A popcorn without the fake butter, right," he said. "Now pipe down, okay?"

  "Sure, Jack," Wolf said humbly. "Right here and now."

  The ticket-girl had been chewing a big wad of grape-flavored bubble gum. Now she stopped. She looked at Jack, then at Jack's big, hulking companion. The gum sat on her tongue inside her half-open mouth like a large purple tumor. She rolled her eyes at the guy behind the counter.

  "Two, please," Jack said. He took out his roll of bills, dirty, tag-eared ones with an orphan five hiding in the middle.

  "Which show?" Her eyes moved back and forth, back and forth, Jack to Wolf and Wolf to Jack. She looked like a woman watching a hot table-tennis match.

  "What's just starting?" Jack asked her.

  "Well . . ." She glanced down at the paper Scotch-taped beside her. "There's The Flying Dragon in Cinema Four. It's a kung-fu movie with Chuck Norris." Back and forth went her eyes, back and forth, back and forth. "Then, in Cinema Six, there's a double feature. Two Ralph Bakshi cartoons. Wizards and The Lord of the Rings."

  Jack felt relieved. Wolf was nothing but a big, overgrown kid, and kids loved cartoons. This could work out after all. Wolf would maybe find at least one thing in the Country of Bad Smells that would amuse him, and Jack could sleep for three hours.

  "That one," he said. "The cartoons."

  "That'll be four dollars," she said. "Bargain Matinee prices end at two." She pushed a button and two tickets poked out of a slot with a mechanical ratcheting noise. Wolf flinched backward with a small cry.

  The girl looked at him, eyebrows raised.

  "You jumpy, mister?"

  "No, I'm Wolf," Wolf said. He smiled, showing a great many teeth. Jack would have sworn that Wolf showed more teeth now when he smiled than he had a day or two ago. The girl looked at all those teeth. She wet her lips.

  "He's okay. He just--" Jack shrugged. "He doesn't get off the farm much. You know." He gave her the orphan five. She handled it as if she wished she had a pair of tongs to do it with.

  "Come on, Wolf."

  As they turned away to the candy-stand, Jack stuffing the one into the pocket of his grimy jeans, the ticket-girl mouthed to the counterman: Look at his nose!

  Jack looked at Wolf and saw Wolf's nose flaring rhythmically.

  "Stop that," he muttered.

  "Stop what, Jack?"

  "Doing that thing with your nose."

  "Oh. I'll try, Jack, but--"

  "Shh."

  "Help you, son?" the counterman asked.

  "Yes, please. A Junior Mints, a Reese's Pieces, and an extra-large popcorn without the grease."

  The counterman got the stuff and pushed it across to them. Wolf got the tub of popcorn in both hands and immediately began to snaffle it up in great jaw-cracking chomps.

  The counterman looked at this silently.

  "Doesn't get off the farm much," Jack repeated. Part of him was already wondering if these two had seen enough of sufficient oddness to get them thinking that a call to the police might be in order. He thought--not for the first time--that there was a real irony in all this. In New York or L.A., probably no one would have given Wolf a second look . . . or if a second look, certainly not a third. Apparently the weirdness-toleration level was a lot lower out in the middle of the country. But, of course, Wolf would have flipped out of his gourd long since if they had been in New York or L.A.

  "I'll bet he don't," the counterman said. "That'll be two-eighty."

  Jack paid it with an inward wince, realizing he had just laid out a quarter of his cash for their afternoon at the movies.

  Wolf was grinning at the counterman through a mouthful of popcorn. Jack recognized it as Wolf's A #1 Friendly Smile, but he somehow doubted that the counterman was seeing it that way. There were all those teeth in that smile . . . hundreds of them, it seemed.

  And Wolf was flaring his nostrils again.

  Screw it, let them call the cops, if that's what they want to do, he thought with a weariness that was more adult than child. It can't slow us down much more than we're slowed down already. He can't ride in the new cars because he can't stand the smell of the catalytic convertors and he can't ride in old cars because they smell like exhaust and sweat and oil and beer and he probably can't ride in any cars because he's so goddam claustrophobic. Tell the truth, Jack-O, even if it's only to yourself. You're going along telling yourself he's going to get over it pretty soon, but it's probably not going to happen. So what are we going to do? Walk across Indiana, I guess. Correction, Wolf is going to walk across Indiana. Me, I'm going to cross Indiana riding horseyback. But first I'm going to take Wolf into this damn movie theater and sleep either until both pictures are over or until the cops arrive. And that is the end of my tale, sir.

  "Well, enjoy the show," the counterman said.

  "You bet," Jack replied. He started away and then realized Wolf wasn't with him. Wolf was staring at something over the counterman's head with vacant, almost superstitious wonder. Jack looked up and saw a mobile advertising the re-issue of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters floating around on drafts of convection.

  "Come on, Wolf," he said.

  8

  Wolf knew it wasn't going to work as soon as they went through the door.

  The room was small, dim, and dank. The smells in here were terrible. A poet, smelling what Wolf was smelling at that moment, might have called it the stink of sour dreams. Wolf was no poet. He only knew that the smell of the popcorn-urine predominated, and that he felt suddenly like throwing up.

  Then the lights began to dim even further, turning the room into a cave.

  "Jack," he moaned, clutching at Jack's arm. "Jack, we oughtta get out of here, okay?"

  "You'll like it, Wolf," Jack muttered, aware of Wolf's distress but not of its depth. Wolf was, after all, always distressed to some degree. In this world, the word distress defined him. "Try it."

  "Okay," Wolf said, and Jack heard the agreement but not the thin waver that meant Wolf was holding on to the last thread of his control with both hands. They sat down with Wolf on the aisle, his knees accordioned up uncomfortably, the tub of popcorn (which he no longer wanted) clutched to his chest.

  In front of them a match flared
briefly yellow. Jack smelled the dry tang of pot, so familiar in the movies that it could be dismissed as soon as identified. Wolf smelled a forest-fire.

  "Jack--!"

  "Shhh, picture's starting."

  And I'm dozing off.

  Jack would never know of Wolf's heroism in the next few minutes; Wolf did not really know of it himself. He only knew that he had to try to stick this nightmare out for Jack's sake. It must be all right, he thought, look, Wolf, Jack's going right to sleep, right to sleep right here and now. And you know Jack wouldn't take you to a Hurt-Place, so just stick it out . . . just wait . . . Wolf! . . . it'll be all right . . .

  But Wolf was a cyclic creature, and his cycle was approaching its monthly climax. His instincts had become exquisitely refined, almost undeniable. His rational mind told him that he would be all right in here, that Jack wouldn't have brought him otherwise. But that was like a man with an itchy nose telling himself not to sneeze in church because it was impolite.

  He sat there smelling forest-fire in a dark, stinking cave, twitching each time a shadow passed down the aisle, waiting numbly for something to fall on him from the shadows overhead. And then a magic window opened at the front of the cave and he sat there in the acrid stink of his own terror-sweat, eyes wide, face a mask of horror, as cars crashed and overturned, as buildings burned, as one man chased another.

  "Previews," Jack mumbled. "Told you you'd like it. . . ."

  There were Voices. One said nosmoking. One said don't litter. One said groupratesavailable. One said Bargain Matinee-priceseveryweekdayuntilfourp.m.

  "Wolf, we got screwed," Jack mumbled. He started to say something else, but it turned into a snore.

  A final voice said andnowourfeaturepresentation and that was when Wolf lost control. Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings was in Dolby sound, and the projectionist had orders to really crank it in the afternoons, because that's when the heads drifted in, and the heads really liked loud Dolby.

  There was a screeching, discordant crash of brass. The magic window opened again and now Wolf could see the fire--shifting oranges and reds.

  He howled and leaped to his feet, pulling with him a Jack who was more asleep than awake.