Desperation Read online

  By seven forty-five, Ripton has killed everyone on Pascal Martinez's A-crew. As a bonus, he gets the one-legged guy from Bud's Suds who has come out to service the coffee-machine. Twenty-five bodies behind the field office.

  The animals start moving in and out of the China Shaft again, streaming toward town with can tahs in their mouths. Soon they will quit for the day, waiting for the cover of night to start again.

  In the meantime, the pit is his... and it is time to make the jump. He wants out of this unpleasantly decaying body, and if he doesn't make the switch soon, he never will.

  When he opens the door, Brad Josephson rushes him. He has heard the gunfire, he has heard the screams when Ripton' s first shot hasn't put his victim down cleanly, and he knows that rushing is the only option he has. He expects to be shot, but of course Cary can't do that. Instead he grabs Josephson's arms, calling on the last of this body's strength to do it, and shoves the black man against the wall so hard that the entire prefab building shakes. And it's not just Ripton now, of course; it's Tak's strength. As if to confirm this, Josephson asks how in God's name he got so tall.

  "Wheaties!" it exclaims. "Tak!"

  "What are you doing?" Josephson asks, trying to squirm away as Ripton's face bears down on his and Ripton's mouth comes open. "What are you d--"

  "Kiss me, beautiful!" Ripton exclaims, and slams his mouth down on Josephson's. He makes a blood-seal through which he exhales. Josephson goes rigid in Ripton's arms and begins to tremble wildly. Ripton exhales and exhales, going out and out and out, feeling it happen, feeling the transfer. For one terrible moment the essence of Tak is naked, caught between Ripton, who is collapsing, and Josephson, who has begun to swell like a float on the morning of the Thanksgiving Day Parade. And then, instead of looking out of Ripton's eyes, it is looking out of Josephson's eyes.

  It feels a wonderful, intoxicating sense of rebirth. It is filled not only with the strength and purpose of Tak, but with the greasefired energy of a man who eats four eggs and half a pound of limp bacon for breakfast. It feels ... feels ...

  "I feel GRRRREAT!" Brad Josephson exclaims in a boisterous Tony the Tiger voice. It can hear a tenebrous creaking that is Brad's backbone growing, the taut silk-across-satin sound that is his muscles stretching, the thawing-ice sound of his skull expanding. He breaks wind repeatedly, the sound like the reports of a track-starter's gun.

  It drops Ripton's body--the body feels as light as a burst seedpod--and strides toward the door, listening to the seams of Josephson's khaki shirt tear open as his shoulders widen and his arms lengthen. His feet don't grow as much, but enough to burst the laces of his tennis shoes.

  Tak stands outside, grinning hugely. It has never felt better. Everything is in its eye. The world roars like a waterfall. A recordsetting erection, a pantsbuster if ever there was one, has turned the front of his jeans into a tent.

  Tak is here, liberated from the well of the worlds. Tak is great, Tak will feed, and Tak will rule as it has always ruled, in the desert of wastes, where the plants are migrants and the ground is magnetic.

  It gets into the Buick, splitting the seam running up the back of Brad Josephson's pants all the way to the belt-loops. Then, grinning at the thought pf the bumper-sticker on the front of the car-MINERS GO DEEPER AND STAY LONGER--it swings around the field office and heads back toward Desperation, stretching out a rooster-tail of dust behind the fastmoving car.

  3

  David stopped. He still sat with his back against the wall of the Ryder truck, looking down at his sneakers. His voice had grown husky with talking. The others stood around him in a semicircle, pretty much as Johnny supposed the wise old wallahs had once stood around the boy Jesus while he gave them the scoop, the lowdown, the latest buzz, the true gen. Johnny's clearest view was of the little punk-chick, Steve Ames's catch of the day, and she looked pretty much the way he himself felt: mesmerized, amazed, but not disbelieving. And that, of course, was the root of his disquiet. He was going to get out of this town, nothing was going to stop him from doing that, but it would be a lot easier on the old ego if he could simply believe the boy was deluded, rapping tall tales straight out of his own imagination. But he didn't think that was the case.

  You know it's not, Terry said from her cozy little place in Der Bitchen Bunker.

  Johnny squatted to get a fresh bottle of Jolt, not feeling his wallet (genuine crocodile, Barneys, three hundred and ninety-five dollars), which had worked most of the way out of his back pocket, slip all the way out and drop to the floor. He tapped David's hand with the neck of the bottle. The boy looked up, smiling, and Johnny was shocked at how tired he looked. He thought about David's explanation of Tak--trapped in the earth like an ogre in a fairy-tale, using human beings like paper cups because it wore their bodies out so rapidly--and wondered if David's God was much different.

  "Anyway, that's how he does it," David said in his husky voice. "He goes across on their breath, like a seed on a gust of wind."

  "The kiss of death instead of the kiss of life," Ralph said.

  David nodded.

  "But what kissed Ripton?" Cynthia asked. "When he went into the mine the night before, what kissed him?"

  "I don't know," David said. "Either I wasn't shown or I don't understand. All I know is that it happened at the well I told you about. He went into the room ... the chamber ... the can tahs drew him, but he wasn't allowed to actually touch any of them."

  "Because the can tahs spoil people as a vessel for Tak," Steve half-said, half-asked.

  "Yes."

  "But Tak has a physical body? I mean, he--it--we're not just talking about an idea, are we? Or a spirit?"

  David was shaking his head. "No, Tak's real, it has a being. It had to get Ripton into the mine because it can't get through the ini--the well. It has a physical body, and the well is too small for it. All it can do is catch people, inhabit them, make them into can tak. And trade them in when they wear out."

  "What happened to Josephson, David?" Ralph asked. He sounded quiet, almost drained. Johnny found it increasingly difficult to look at Carver looking at his son.

  "He had a leaky heart valve," David said. "It wasn't a big deal. He could have gone on without any problem for years, maybe, but Tak got hold of him, and just ..." David shrugged. "Just wore him out. It took two and a half days. Then he switched to Entragian. Entragian was strong, he lasted most of a whole week ... but he had very fair skin. People used to kid him about all the sunburn creams he had."

  "Your guide told you all this," Johnny said.

  "Yes. I guess that's what he was."

  "But you don't know who he was."

  "I almost know. I feel like I should know."

  "Are you sure he didn't come from this Tak? Because there's an old saying: 'The devil can wear a pleasing aspect.' "

  "He wasn't from Tak, Johnny."

  "Let him talk," Steve said. "All right?"

  Johnny shrugged and sat down. One of his hands almost touched his fallen wallet as he did so. Almost, but not quite.

  "The back part of the hardware store here in town is a clothes store," David resumed. "Work clothes, mostly. Levi's, khakis, Red Wing boots, stuff like that. They order special for this one guy, Curt Yeoman, who works--worked--for the telephone company. Six-foot-seven, the tallest man in Desperation. That's why Entragian's clothes weren't ripped when he took us, Dad. Saturday night, Josephson broke into the True Value and grabbed a set of khakis in Curt Yeoman's size. Shoes, too. He took them to the Municipal Building and actually put them in Collie Entragian's locker. Even then he knew who he was going to use next, you see."

  "Was that when he killed the Police Chief?" Ralph. asked.

  "Mr. Reed? No. Not then. He did that Sunday night. By then Mr. Reed didn't matter much, anyway. Ripton left him one of the can tahs, you see, and it messed Mr. Reed up. Bad. The can tahs do different things to different people. When Mr. Josephson killed him, Mr. Reed was sitting at his desk and--"

  Looking away, clearly
embarrassed, David made his right hand into a tube and moved it rapidly up and down in the air.

  "Okay," Steve said. "We get the picture. What about Entragian? Where was he all weekend?"

  "Out of town, like Audrey. The Desperation cops have--had--a law-enforcement contract with the county. It means a lot of travelling. Friday night, the night Ripton killed the blast-crew, Entragian was in Austin. Saturday night he slept at the Davis Ranch. Sunday night--the last night he was really Collie Entragian--he spent on Shoshone tribal land. He had a friend up there. A woman, I think."

  Johnny walked toward the back of the Ryder truck, then wheeled around. "What did he do, David? What did it do? How did we get to where we are now? How did it happen without anyone finding out? How could it happen?" He paused. "And another question. What does Tak want? To get out of its hole in the ground and stretch its legs? Eat pork rinds? Snort cocaine and drink Tequila Sunrises? Screw some NFL cheerleaders? Ask Bob Dylan what the lyrics to 'Gates of Eden' really mean? Rule the earth? What?"

  "It doesn't matter," David said quietly.

  "Huh?"

  "All that matters is what God wants. And what he wants is for us to go up to the China Pit. All the rest is just ... story-hour."

  Johnny smiled. It felt tight and a little painful, too small for his mouth. "Tell you what, sport: what your God wants doesn't matter in the least to me." He turned back to the Ryder truck's rear door and ran it up. Outside, the air seemed almost breathlessly still and strangely warm in the wake of the storm. The blinker pulsed rhythmically at the intersection. Crossing the street at regular intervals were rippled sand dunes. Seen in the nebulous light of the westering moon and the yellow pulse of the blinker-light, Desperation looked like an outpost in a science fiction movie.

  "I can't stop you if you mean to go," David said. "Maybe Steve and my dad could, but it wouldn't do any good. Because of the free-will covenant."

  "That's right," Johnny said. "Good old free will." He jumped down from the back of the truck, wincing at another twinge of pain in his back. His nose was hurting again, too. Bigtime. He looked around, checking for coyotes or buzzards or snakes, and saw nothing. Not so much as a bug. "Frankly, David, I trust God about as far as I can sling a piano." He looked back in at the boy, smiling. "You trust him all you want. I guess it's a luxury you can still afford. Your sister's dead and your mother's turned into Christ-knows-what, but there's still your father to get through before Tak goes to work on you personally."

  David jerked. His mouth trembled. His face crumpled and he began to cry.

  "You bitch!" Cynthia shouted at Johnny. "You cunt!" She rushed to the back of the truck and kicked at him. Johnny dodged back, the toe of her small foot missing his chin by only an inch or two. He felt the wind of it. Cynthia stood on the edge of the truck, waving her arms for balance. She probably would have fallen into the street if Steve hadn't caught her by the shoulders and steadied her.

  "Lady, I never pretended to be a saint," Johnny said, and it came out the way he wanted--easy and ironic and amused--but inside he was horrified. The wince on the kid's face ... as if he'd been slugged by someone he'd counted on as a friend. And he'd never been called a bitch in his life. A cunt, either, for that matter.

  "Get out!" Cynthia screamed. Behind her, Ralph was down on one knee, clumsily holding his son and staring out at Johnny in a kind of stunned disbelief. "We don't need you, we'll do it without you!"

  "Why do it at all?" Johnny asked, taking care to stay out of range of her foot. "That's my point. For God? What did he ever do for you, Cynthia, that you should spend your life waiting for him to buzz you on the old intercom or send you a fax? Did God protect you from the guy who jobbed your ear and broke your nose?"

  "I'm here, ain't I?" she asked truculently.

  "Sorry, that's not enough for me. I'm not going to be the punchline of a joke in God's little comedy club. Not if I can help it. I can't believe any of you are seriously contemplating going up there. The idea is insane."

  "What about Mary?" Steve asked. "Do you want to leave her? Can you leave her?"

  "Why not?" Johnny asked, and actually laughed. It was just a short bark of sound ... but it was not without amusement, and he saw Steve shy away from it, disgusted. Johnny glanced around for animals, but the coast was still clear. So maybe the kid was right--Tak wanted them to go, had opened the door for them. "I don't know her any more than I know the sandhogs he--it, if you like that better--killed in this town. Most of whom were probably so brain-dead they didn't even know they were gone. I mean, don't you see how pointless all this is? If you should succeed, Steve, what's your reward going to be? A lifetime membership at the Owl's Club?"

  "What happened to you?" Steve asked. "You walked up to that cougar big as life and blew her head off. You were like the fucking Wolverine. So I know you've got guts. Had em, anyway. Who stole em?"

  "You don't understand. That was hot blood. You know what my trouble is? If you give me a chance to think, I'll take it." He took another step backward. No God stopped him. "Good luck, you guys. David, for whatever it's worth, you're an extraordinary young man."

  "If you go, it's over," David said. His face was still against his father's chest. His words were muffled but audible. "The chain breaks. Tak wins."

  "Yeah; but when playoff-time comes, he's ours," Johnny said, and laughed again. The sound reminded him of cocktail parties where you laughed that same meaningless laugh at meaningless witticisms while, in the background, a meaningless little jazz combo played meaningless renditions of meaningless old standards like "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and "Papa Loves Mambo." It was the way he had been laughing when he climbed out of the pool at the Bel-Air, still holding his beer in one hand. But so what. He could laugh any fucking way he wanted to. He had once won the National Book Award, after all.

  "I'm going to take a car from the mining-office lot. I'm going to drive like hell until I get to Austin, and then I'm going to make an anonymous call to the State Police, tell them some bad shit's happened in Desperation. Then I'll take some rooms in the local Best Western and hope you guys show up to use them. If you do, drinks are on me. One way or another, I'm stepping off the wagon tonight. I think Desperation's cured me of sobriety forever." He smiled at Steve and Cynthia, standing side by side in the back of the truck with their arms around each other. "You two are crazy not to come with me now, you know. Somewhere else you could be good together. I can see that. All you can do here is be can tahs for David's cannibal God."

  He turned and began to walk away, head down, heart pounding. He expected to be followed by anger, invective, maybe pleas. He was ready for any of them, and perhaps the only thing that could have stopped him was the thing Steve Ames did say, in the low, almost toneless voice of a man who is only conveying a fact.

  "I don't respect you for this."

  Johnny turned around, more hurt by this simple declaration than he would have believed possible. "Dear me," he said. "I've lost the respect of a man once in charge of throwing out Steven Tyler's barf-bags. Ratfuck."

  "I never read any of your books, but I read that story you gave me, and I read the book about you," Steve said. "The one by the professor in Oklahoma. I guess you were a hellraiser, and a shit to your women, but you went to Vietnam without a rifle, for God's sake ... and tonight ... the cougar ... what happened to all that?"

  "Ran out like piss down a drunk's leg," Johnny said. "I suppose you don't think that happens, but it does. The last of mine ran out in a swimming pool. How's that for absurd?"

  David joined Steve and Cynthia at the back of the truck.

  He still looked pale and worn. but he was calm. "Its mark is on you,"he said. "It will let you go, but you'll wish you stayed when you start smelling Tak on your skin."

  Johnny looked at the boy for a long time, fighting an urge to walk back to the truck--fighting it with all the considerable force of will at his disposal. "So I'll wear lots of aftershave," he said. "Bye, boys and girls. Live right."

 
He walked away, and as fast as he could. Any faster and he would have been running.

  4

  There was silence in the truck; they watched until Johnny was out of sight, and still no one said anything. David stood with his father's arm around him, thinking he had never felt so hollow, so empty, so utterly done in. It was over. They had lost. He kicked one of the empty Jolt bottles, his eye following its skitter to the wall of the truck, where it bounced and came to rest next to--

  David stepped forward. "Look, Johnny's wallet. It must have fallen out of his pocket."

  "Poor baby," Cynthia said.

  "Surprised he didn't lose it sooner," Steve said. He spoke in the dull, preoccupied tone of a man whose real thoughts are somewhere else entirely. "I kept telling him a guy on a motorcycle trip ought to have a wallet with a chain on it." A ghost of a grin touched his lips. "Getting those motel rooms in Austin may not be as easy as he thinks."

  "I hope he sleeps in the damn parking lot," Ralph said. "Or beside the road."

  David barely heard them. He felt the way he had that day in the Bear Street Woods--not when God was speaking to him, but when he had become aware that God was going to. He bent forward and picked up Johnny's wallet. When he touched it, something that felt like a wallop of electricity exploded in his head. A small, plosive grunt escaped him. He fell against the wall of the truck, clutching the wallet.

  "David?" Ralph asked. His voice was distant, his concern echoing over a thousand miles.

  Ignoring him, David opened the wallet. There was currency in one compartment and a squash of papers--memoranda, business cards, and such--in another. He ignored both and thumbed a snap on the wallet's left interior side, releasing an accordion of sleeved photographs. He was faintly aware of the others moving in around him as he looked through the pictures, using one finger to spool back through the years: here was a bearded Johnny and a beautiful dark-haired woman with high cheekbones and thrusting breasts, here a gray-mustached Johnny at the railing of a yacht, here a ponytailed Johnny in a tie-dyed jabbho, standing beside an actor who looked like Paul Newman before Newman ever thought of selling red-sauce and salad dressing. Each Johnny was a little younger, the head-hair and facial hair darker, the lines in the face less carven, until--