And behind Thonnie, all the rest, snaking out of the cave and down thirty feet of the path.
“Get ready, lad,” Henchick said.
Hedron’s hand slipped under Jake’s shirt and gripped the waistband of his jeans. Jake felt pushed instead of pulled. Something in his head bolted forward, and for a moment he saw all the doors of a thousand, thousand worlds flung wide, generating a draft so great it could almost have blown out the sun.
And then his progress was stopped. There was something . . . something right in front of the door . . .
The hook! It’s the hook!
He slipped himself over it as if his mind and life-force were some sort of loop. At the same time he felt Hedron and the others pulling him backward. The pain was immediate, enormous, seeming to tear him apart. Then the draining sensation began. It was hideous, like having someone pull his guts out a loop at a time. And always, the manic buzzing in his ears and deep in his brain.
He tried to cry out— No, stop, let go, it’s too much! —and couldn’t. He tried to scream and heard it, but only inside his head. God, he was caught. Caught on the hook and being ripped in two.
One creature did hear his scream. Barking furiously,Oy darted forward. And as he did, the Unfound Door sprang open, swinging in a hissing arc just in front of Jake’s nose.
“Behold!” Henchick cried in a voice that was at once terrible and exalted. “Behold, the door opens! Over-sam kammen! Can-tah, can-kavar kammen! Over-can-tah!”
The others responded, but by then Jake Chambers had already been torn loose from Roland’s hand on his right. By then he was flying, but not alone.
Pere Callahan flew with him.
EIGHT
There was just time for Eddie to hear New York, smell New York, and to realize what was happening. In a way, that was what made it so awful—he was able to register everything going diabolically counter to what he had expected, but not able to do anything about it.
He saw Jake yanked out of the circle and felt Callahan’s hand ripped out of his own; he saw them fly through the air toward the door, actually looping the loop in tandem, like a couple of fucked-up acrobats. Something furry and barking like a motherfucker shot past the side of his head. Oy, doing barrel-rolls, his ears laid back and his terrified eyes seeming to start from his head.
And more. Eddie was aware of dropping Cantab’s hand and lunging forward toward the door— his door, his city, and somewhere in it his lost and pregnant wife. He was aware (exquisitely so) of the invisible hand that pushed him back, and a voice thatspoke, but not in words. What Eddie heard was far more terrible than any words could have been. With words you could argue. This was only an inarticulate negation, and for all he knew, it came from the Dark Tower itself.
Jake and Callahan were shot like bullets from a gun: shot into a darkness filled with the exotic sounds of honking horns and rushing traffic. In the distance but clear, like the voices you heard in dreams, Eddie heard a rapid, rapping, ecstatic voice streetbopping its message: “Say Gawd, brotha, that’s right, say Gawd on Second Avenue, say Gawd on Avenue B, say Gawd in the Bronx, I say Gawd, I say Gawd -bomb, I say Gawd! ” The voice of an authentic New York crazy if Eddie had ever heard one and it laid his heart open. He saw Oy zip through the door like a piece of newspaper yanked up the street in the wake of a speeding car, and then the door slammed shut, swinging so fast and hard that he had to slit his eyes against the wind it blew into his face, a wind that was gritty with the bone-dust of this rotten cave.
Before he could scream his fury, the door slapped open again. This time he was dazzled by hazy sunshine loaded with birdsong. He smelled pine trees and heard the distant backfiring of what sounded like a big truck. Then he was sucked into that brightness, unable to yell that this was fucked up, assbackw—
Something collided with the side of
“Get ready, lad,” Henchick said.
Hedron’s hand slipped under Jake’s shirt and gripped the waistband of his jeans. Jake felt pushed instead of pulled. Something in his head bolted forward, and for a moment he saw all the doors of a thousand, thousand worlds flung wide, generating a draft so great it could almost have blown out the sun.
And then his progress was stopped. There was something . . . something right in front of the door . . .
The hook! It’s the hook!
He slipped himself over it as if his mind and life-force were some sort of loop. At the same time he felt Hedron and the others pulling him backward. The pain was immediate, enormous, seeming to tear him apart. Then the draining sensation began. It was hideous, like having someone pull his guts out a loop at a time. And always, the manic buzzing in his ears and deep in his brain.
He tried to cry out— No, stop, let go, it’s too much! —and couldn’t. He tried to scream and heard it, but only inside his head. God, he was caught. Caught on the hook and being ripped in two.
One creature did hear his scream. Barking furiously,Oy darted forward. And as he did, the Unfound Door sprang open, swinging in a hissing arc just in front of Jake’s nose.
“Behold!” Henchick cried in a voice that was at once terrible and exalted. “Behold, the door opens! Over-sam kammen! Can-tah, can-kavar kammen! Over-can-tah!”
The others responded, but by then Jake Chambers had already been torn loose from Roland’s hand on his right. By then he was flying, but not alone.
Pere Callahan flew with him.
EIGHT
There was just time for Eddie to hear New York, smell New York, and to realize what was happening. In a way, that was what made it so awful—he was able to register everything going diabolically counter to what he had expected, but not able to do anything about it.
He saw Jake yanked out of the circle and felt Callahan’s hand ripped out of his own; he saw them fly through the air toward the door, actually looping the loop in tandem, like a couple of fucked-up acrobats. Something furry and barking like a motherfucker shot past the side of his head. Oy, doing barrel-rolls, his ears laid back and his terrified eyes seeming to start from his head.
And more. Eddie was aware of dropping Cantab’s hand and lunging forward toward the door— his door, his city, and somewhere in it his lost and pregnant wife. He was aware (exquisitely so) of the invisible hand that pushed him back, and a voice thatspoke, but not in words. What Eddie heard was far more terrible than any words could have been. With words you could argue. This was only an inarticulate negation, and for all he knew, it came from the Dark Tower itself.
Jake and Callahan were shot like bullets from a gun: shot into a darkness filled with the exotic sounds of honking horns and rushing traffic. In the distance but clear, like the voices you heard in dreams, Eddie heard a rapid, rapping, ecstatic voice streetbopping its message: “Say Gawd, brotha, that’s right, say Gawd on Second Avenue, say Gawd on Avenue B, say Gawd in the Bronx, I say Gawd, I say Gawd -bomb, I say Gawd! ” The voice of an authentic New York crazy if Eddie had ever heard one and it laid his heart open. He saw Oy zip through the door like a piece of newspaper yanked up the street in the wake of a speeding car, and then the door slammed shut, swinging so fast and hard that he had to slit his eyes against the wind it blew into his face, a wind that was gritty with the bone-dust of this rotten cave.
Before he could scream his fury, the door slapped open again. This time he was dazzled by hazy sunshine loaded with birdsong. He smelled pine trees and heard the distant backfiring of what sounded like a big truck. Then he was sucked into that brightness, unable to yell that this was fucked up, assbackw—
Something collided with the side of
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