Chapter 2: The Prisoner
Theme "Weak and Powerless" by A Perfect Circle
Tilling my own grave to keep me level.
Jam another dragon down the hole.
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren,
One that pushes me along and leaves me so-
Desperate!-- and-- Ravenous!
I'm so
Weak--and-- Powerless...
Someone feed the monkey
While I dig in search of China
White as Dracula
as I approach the bottom
Desperate!-- and-- Ravenous!
I'm so
Weak-- and-- Powerless...
over you
Hello, angel, go away
Come again some other day
The devil has my ear today
And I'll never hear a word you say
He promised I would find a little solace
And some piece of mind,
Whatever!
just as long as I don't feel so
Desperate!-- and-- Ravenous!
I'm so
Weak-- and-- Powerless
over you
The words on the page swam in Roland's eyes, making his head ache. He closed this man's eyes to the sight of the words and closed the book. He sat it aside and looked at the man's hands. You could tell a lot about a man's hands and he wondered what sort of man he was riding in, so before looking for a mirror, he looked as the hands he wore.
The man was 22 year old Shane Williams, and the book was a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous, given to him in his little S.W.A.G. bag along with a toothbrush and the little travel-size toothpaste, 2 in 1 shampoo conditioner and hotel bar of soap. He'd only arrived in detox an hour ago.
For him, there was an immediate rush of vertigo as his body moved on it's own. In his head, Roland heard the
"Woah! What the fuck was in that triple-stack?" Reactionary thought Shane had. There was no immediate resistance to the Gunslinger's control. Shane was a veteran tripper, and he believed forcefully resisting the lossof control drugs brought was as potentially harmful as panicking when the cops show up.
Stoner Rule #1 is do not panic.
Roland knew that rule. He was not a stranger to narcotics, but they were mostly to be used as tools rather than distractions. He grasped at the rush of information that came from the man's mind and gathered that he were in some sort of... program. A place where this chemically effected body could... clean out. No. Clean up. He stood the man's body and felt the environment around him take a second to catch up. "Damn it..." He cursed and grasped at the frame at the foot of the bed. "First a wide eyed traumatized wreck, now a weed eater..." He waited for the world to right and focused his control over the body through the purple haze that effected the man.
Not any psychedelic drug, not even DMT, had produced spontanious personalities in Shane's head before. No, this might have something to do with the mental breakdown that got him in here.
Yet, Shane was into all that mystical shit. Shane watched Alex Jones online. He didnt believe President Obama was a motherfucking lizard man, but mind control could be going on here. Or some alien from the Pleiades or alpha centauri was brain hacking him, or--
Shane took a deep breath. Shane could go shopping at Sooper Saver and pick up his groceries on four hits of acid, then drive home straight as an rrow. This shit wasn't going down with him as a helpless bystander.
Roland felt the controls get yanked right out from under him. Shane had much more cognitive self-awareness than Jaqi, at least interms of mental/emotion
al control. He sat his ass right back on the bed and put his hands on his knees. If he was going to seizure out, he was going to fall on this nice, forgiving rubber-covered matress.
"Okay," he said out loud. "Deep breaths, Shane, deeeeepfuckin breaths man."
"Be still." Roland told him, feeling control shift in the man's direction. "You're not going to seize and this is not a... trip." Roland remembered how hard it had been fighting the girl and decided that for now, in this strange looking room, it was better if they didn't fight. "Tell me your name, boy."
"The fuck?" He said outloud, but quietly. His heartbeat jacket up and adrenaline went through his system, cutting way down on the effects of the roll pill he took an hour before showing up at detox. He'd considered many times what he should do if he were abducted by aliens, or contacted by spirits. The first directive there was the same as Stoner Rule #1.
Don't Panic.
In his head, he spoke at the presence.
"Hey dude, why don't you declare YOURself and YOUR intentions first. I mean, no disrespect, but this consciousness happens to belong to me, bro!"
Behind that, his mind flinched at his own discourtesy. This could be Jesus or Amon Ra or something.
"No offense," he added directly.
Roland found himself, of all things, amused. He decided at the moment to play along. It was never useful to confront the insane (and he was leaning towards the fact that this man might very well be insane) in an aggressive manner. "Roland Deschaine." He said, for the moment playing along. "And I intend to take you out of this place."
Again, Shane answered with his thoughts.
"Not a lockdown facility here. I can walk right out anytime. Of course, thats a damn good way for me to see 45 year in prison down in Loxahatchie, so I think I'll stay. 7 day detox, 28 days in treatment, 7 years probation. Thats what the lawyer says, and I like that deal. So I appreciate the offer, Roland Deschain, but I'm gonna have to say 'fuck that"
Shane took a deep breath again, and decided to lie down and close his eyes. This crazy ass event should take his full attention. If its a mind thing, put the body on hold.
Then, of course, the door by the foot of his bed opened and a massive black man in blue hospital scrubs came in unannounced, wheeling in a big vitals-taking machine mounted on that metal thing with wheels that hospitals have patients carry around their IV bags with.
"All right, mister Williams," the rehab tech said in a heavy basso voice. "Wake up, gottatake your vitals."
Roland was irritated at the brownie man that came in, but he couldn't get anything done with the brownie in the room. He turned the man's head and looked at the door fixed into the wall behind the bed. He could see Jaqi. She was kneeling over him, looking fretful. For now he decided to leave this man to whatever the brownie needed to do to him and spilled himself back through the door.
Shane fel it when the voice left. It was like the feeling of absence when our pet dog jumps out of your lap. It was bizarre. But, if the guy was gone, it was a good thing. No need to look crazy here. These people had the judge's number, fax, all that.
"Yeah, yeah," he said tiredly and handed his arm to the tech, who put a blood pressure band on and put a thermometer in his mouth.
"Comin' down yet?" The tech asked.
"Last ride finishes in probably four or five hours, good sir. Then Im on the clean and serene path again." Shane answered, slurring slightly because of the wand under his tongue.
"For real this time?" The orderly said with an incredulous laugh.
"This time I got prison time to sweeten the deal." Shane said asthe machine squeezed the fuck out of his average arm that was on an average body.
"You know that dont mean shit, right?" The orderly said as he took the thermometer back and finished the vitals.
"It better this time." Shane said with a sigh.
"120 bpm. You feelin okay?"
"Nervous as FUCK about that legal stuff." Shane answeres.
"I would be too, kid." The orderly finished up, wrote on his clipboard, and cleared out
Roland came to life in Jackie's arms, the sudden movement and tensing of all those slack muscles probably startling her. He blinked rapidly, feeling how dry his eyes were.
"He's loose in the damn head from the look of it," he said to Jaqi as he satup.
Jaqi jumped and fell back onto her bottom in the dirt. "Shit!" She exclaimed. It was like seeing a dead man come back to life. "What?" She asked, scrambling to right herself. She put herself back out of arms reach, but just barely. "What did you say?"
"The Prisoner. He's not imprisoned, not yet from the way he tells it." Roland said, dusting himsely off as the black man soundlessly talked at the doorway. "But his mind... moves to fast and thinks strangely. And he's drugged. But I don't think that's why." He looked at Jaqi. He seemed to glare at her a little. She was still acting like a cornered animal. Maybe she wasnt aware of it. But it annoyed him.
She was closer than she usually put herself. He'd just woken up like a corpse after all. She stood, brushing off her bottom. "What is he? Like in a insane asylum or something? It looks awful nice for a nuthouse..."
"He calls it 'detox'" Roland answered. "He's a drug addict. It's a hospital for that, I suppose." Roland looked at her. "I think I can get him out quickly. He's due to be charged with long imprisonment. I guess I should try convincing him this is a better alternative. Im going back in," he told her.
"Be careful." She said as he went through the door. "Addicts can be dangerous!" But he crumpled at the foot of the door again.
Roland slipped back into the man's mind and he resisted the urge to take control just yet. He took only the eyes and looked at the spartan room for a moment. "Is there a mirror in this place Sean Williams?"
Shane hunched over and held his head. The vertigo was back as his eyes went right to left by themselves.
"How do you know my--" he said out loud, but switched to his head again.
"Its SHANE. Man--Roland, Guy, sir... fuckin.. no, no mirror. What the hell do you want? Where are you from? What the fuck is this about?"
Inwardly, he wondered if he really was that depressed. Sure, Amy, the love of his life left hin for his best friend, and his mom found him dead on the bathroom floor with foam coming out of his mouth, but that was a coincidence. Sometimes mixing benzos and alcohol stops your heart. Fact of life. Wasnt on purpose, for chrissakes.
"It's about you being useful for once." Roland told him. "Shane." He added, letting the boy know he knew his name. "This place will do little to rid you of your demons." He stood the body up, knowing better this time to be relaxed about his control. "But where I intend to take you, you can exercise them yourself."
"Oh...kay..." this time, having hisbody move itself was just plain cool. "Yeah, so you know I'm a mess. That's just fine. But I can't leave man. I got serious drug charges. This place is the only way out of that. If you wanna come back to take me on your spirit quest in about... 60 days, give or take a couple, when I don't have to see my P.O. for a while, then we can fucking do some shit man. That really does sound cool. Seriously." Shane had a habit of talking fast and without pause, and his thoughts came at Roland fast with no pauses, like a nervous man yammering to avoid trouble with someone.
"Still your prattling, boy." Roland said, beginning to loose his patience. He turned the body toward the door and beyond it he could see the girl and his body laying in the scrubby grass. Jaqi was watching them. She had not at all begun the preparations for their lunch. "I can take you out of this place and away from your... charges. Your P.O., whatever that is, will not find you. But I need you to decide. Call it the trip of a life time if you have to. But beyond that door lies the keys to your bondage."
Shane was blown away. The wall with the wire mesh window seemed to have like a wormhole in it. A hot girl and a cowboy outside on the ground was all he saw. That could have been underwhelming, but it was A FUCKING WORMHOLE IN THE FUCKING FABRIC OF FUCK REALITY.
"Okay, Roland. Worst case I smash my nose in a wall and have one damn good war story to tell the asshats in rehab. Best case, mystical adventure... Oh man, get a grip, this is important."
Shane hyperventilated a little as he focused his ecstacy addled mind on the dilemma at hand.
"Okay, man. You gotta gimme the hard sell. What's this about? What do you need me for? Whats the actual plan?"
"All in all..." Roland said slowly. "To reach the Dark Tower, which is the center of existence... What you have to do with it, I'm not entirely certain." He was frank and more answers would come later. As a matter of fact he could kill two birds with one stone and not have to repeat himself between Jaqi and this boy.
"Dark Tower..." Shane thought. The phrase "Dark Tower" was far more provocative than even "center of existence."
"You know what? Fuck it! FUCK. IT." Shane clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, moving on the balls of his feet. He started speaking out loud. Emphasis on loud.
"I have been tired of this whole fuckin' plane of EXISTANCE! My whole life I've waited for a chance like this. I dont even give a shit if CARE BEARS are on the otherside! Lets go!" He turned to yell back at the door to the facility. "SEEYA LATER, SUCKERS! HAHAHAAA!"
And leaped head first into the doorway without any warning.
"Shit!" Jaqi's eyes widened, seeing the man leap towards her through the door. She jumped back before he could barrel into her and didn't have time to move Roland. At the last second she saw the man landing in the center of Roland's chest. Thankfully he didn't and soft scrubby grass met his feet on the other side.
What tore out of the doorway was a 22 year old guy of about 6 feet in height, a ittle shorter than Roland. He wasnt fit, but he had some muscle and a slight chubbyness, but really just a normal looking guy from that standpoint. His face was vaguely good-looking in a mostly forgettable way. He had a slightly jutting chin and high forehead, pale complextion and big, deep blue eyes with long eyelashes. His hair was close to shoulder length with a lazy wave to it. He hadnt shaved recently, but his beard was incredibly patchy and looked awful on him. He was in jeans, black Nike Hi-tops, and a black shirt with the gold Batman emblem on it. The shirt was a size too big. Maybe two.
Shane stumbled and fell as he plowed over Roland, but rolled straight through the fall, somersaulting to one knee facing back towards Jaqi and Roland.
"That was quick! ... man, no Willy Wonka tunnel? I feel cheated..." he looked around, up down, back.
"I was gonna say "we're not in Kansas, anymore," but this country shit looks awfully Kansas-esque..."
His exuberance was... upsetting. Jaqi found herself very close to Roland all of a sudden, as if seeking his company for protection rather than relying on the .357 on her hip.
Roland placed a hand on Jaqi's shouldet and, not too gently, but not forcefully nudged her away from him so he could stand.
"This is midworld, Shane. I hadn't asked where I found you."
"Pescadero Plains detox in New York-Holy shit Youre Clint Eastwood." Shane said then shook his head "Excuse me, that was rude. You're Roland... I see." He stood up too, grimacing that he got mud all over the knee of his pants. Then he looked around at the sky, the tree the hill, turning in place.
"Awwwwwwww man, what a RUSH! Woooo!"
That had been the name of the actor Jaqi had been grasping for last night and it clicked. He did look a lot like Clint Eastwood, but older. She didn't flinch when he put his mutilated hand on her shoulder and guided her away. As a matter of fact she accepted his touch and movement, finding it oddly comforting, as if he intended to protect her from this... nut job. "He's high as hell Roland..." She whispered from behind him. She'd tried to tell him that people on drugs could be really dangerous.
"Shut up," Roland said to him. It was abrupt and did the job. The Gunslinger stood and walked towards him.
"Hey, easy man," Shane said back to him. "I grateful for the opportunity and all. I mean, we're going to a castle, right? Is there like some King of fuckin' Narnia or some shit? Like a quest?"
"Stop talking and I'll tell you," Roland said. He was already finding this kid wholly aggravating.
"Hey, cheese the aggression, dude. I'm sorry if I'm acting all excited and HOLY FUCK those guns are huge! Wtf are those, like fifty magnums? Holy Chistzilla! Dude do you duel wield those? That's insane!"
Roland grabbed Shane by the collor and shook him.
"Calm down and be silent! You're drugged and you're scaring the girl!"
"Bro. Take your hands off me right now. I don't know you man. Don't touch me!"
Shane put his hands on Roland's wrists.
Roland growled and pushed, backpedalling Shane towards the the dirt pile...
And suddenly found himself on his back, looking up at the canopy of the willow tree. Shane had grounded Roland with a martial arts throw, a Judo hip throw, to be exact.
"Sit the fuck down or I'll blow your fucking head off..." Jaqi's voice was a lot stronger than it had been before, but she's drawn her father's pistol out of instinct as much as out of desire to protect Roland. She stood with her feet square, right arm extended and her left arm supporting the heavy weapon. The last time she'd shot her father's service weapon it had been far too big for her, but all the rules remained the same and she had had a both a .22 rifle and he had just gotten her a pistol shortly before he died. She stood steady as a post with Shane in her sights. She was still standing where Roland had put her, where the door had been. It gave her a few yards between them, putting him too far away to use any fancy moves on her.
"Hey, woah, ahh look, its not personal!" Shane put his hands straight up where he stood. "Just had to protect myself, okay? I dont know you people, and--"
Roland put his boot straight up into Shane's balls. Shane crumpled, crying out in pain. The gunslinger got to one knee and cracked Shane with a left hook after that. The blow didn't knock him over, but as Roland regained his footing, Shane stayed down, holding his face.
"AhhhhhHHH! MotherFUCK!" Then Shane keeled over into the fetal position, groaning and cursing.
"My sentiments, as well, Shane of Pescadero Plains." Roland stepped back towards Jaqi, removing his duster to shake the mud off it.
Jaqi was thankful that she didn't have to shoot Shane, not if he was supposed to be useful to this quest they were supposed to be on. She lowered her pistol as Roland approached, but she didn't put it away. "Are you ok?" She asked Roland, keeping an eye on Shane. Roland looked fine but she still wanted to know.
"No harm done. Save perhaps my ears." Roland put the duster back on. Shane continued to roll on his back like a turtle, alternating his hands between his jaw and his crotch. Roland looked to Jaqi.
"That was good. Just sink into your knees more." He looked to Jaqi and nodded.
She looked at her knees and back up to him. She smiled. A real smile, one that took away some of that haunted look in her eyes. She'd done something right and he'd praised her for it, all be it a small praise. She craved acceptance and he'd given it to her. Before she ruined it she swallowed and tried to return to the situation. "I don't think he's gonna be much trouble for a little while..." She slowly holstered the weapon and sighed in relief of not having to use it. "Thanks." She said. "For trying to get him to calm down..." 'Your scaring the girl.' He'd said. He wanted to protect her and though he was standing very close, she didn't move out of his reach.
Shane rolled flat on his back, arms and legs spread eagle, breathing really hard.
"Yeah," he mumbled quietly, "This is really happening." He kept panting, then wiped his face and hissed. Already his right jaw was turning bright red.
Roland returned her smile, then looked back to Shane.
"Get up. It's time to palaver. That's waited long enough."
Shane sat up, brushing his hair out of his face.
"What the--" he swallowed and winced. "Sir, what does Palaver mean?" He asked quietly.
Jaqi bit her lip to keep from snickering at the way Shane called Roland “sir”. It was so respectable, as if he was worried about getting clobbered again. A fan of old westerns she answered for Roland. “It means we have to talk.” She said. She turned back to Roland, keeping Shane in her sight lines. “This all happened so fast I never got lunch started like you asked. I can make more sand- more popkins, or I can build a fire for the eggs if you want to make camp here... Are we going to try to get a few more miles in today?” If they were going to go on, there was no need to build a fire here and the eggs would keep. The lunch meat might not. Either way, she seemed eager to accommodate whatever Roland wanted.
Roland closed his eyes, rolled his right hand in a gesture Shane found similar to the jerking off gesture that was popular with his friends. The meaning was the same: "whatever."
"We can cook now." The willows around had dumped enough limbs and brush to make a fire.
Shane sat down cross legged, looking from the girl to this cowboy-looking Roland guy. The man had a peculiar look to him. His initial idea that he was the spitting image of Eastwood seemed way off now. Now that he thought about it, he couldnt swear to what race the guy even was. His skin was the ugly red-brown of a construction worker who got too much sun. There was some features that made Shane think Spanish, others like his eyebrows and squinty, puffy eyes said native american. But the guy was pretty much white, he guessed. There was a dryness and weariness to his voice that reminded Shane of his grandfather.
"Then I'll build a fire." Jaqi said. "And run down to the beach for more eggs since there are three of us now. Those rocks were lousy with them." She started to head off and stopped. "Keep him out of my stuff please." She didn't know why she'd brought half of what she'd brought, but she didn't want Shane pilfering her things. She left and with a purpose other than walking Jaqi felt more useful and began gathering willow branches.
Roland parked himself on a drier section of that six foot dirt wall that the stream pooled behind. The willow provided excellent shade from the late morning sun. Roland looked at his maimed hand, interested in the fresh, scarless pink skin where his fingers had been.
Shane sat quietly, feeling shamed and humbled. This was a lot to take in, he hoped Mr.Roland didn't take it personally.
"So it's not a castle?" He asked meekly.
"The Dark Tower?" Roland let his hand fall to his side, feeling awkward with the lazy pace he had when he had been running so hard for the past few years. "It's probably not a castle. But I don't know."
Shane looked around more, his mind finally noticing the weirdness of the tree, the abscence of any other people. No people, no cars, no buildings.
"What year is this?" He asked.
Roland arched an eyebrow "Pardon?"
Jaqi heard the question and found herself curious as well. She brought her sticks and tender near the boys and stayed out of reach of Shane, despite his now subdued nature. "He's asking what the year is." She said as she took matches from the smaller of her two bags as well as a scrap sheet of paper and returned to the pile of sticks she'd gathered and began building them up. "From your clothes and stuff I'd guess like the 1880's... which is about a hundred hears before where I'm from..."
Roland's lips scrunched up as he thought about it.
"I haven't seen very much of where you two come from. But.." he looked at Jaqi. "Hardly anyone keeps the same calender. And mostly people don't care anynore. The world has moved on." He stopped, lit a winston, and ripped out the cotton. "Where Shane is from, it looks more like what the Old People lived in here. Legends Bout the old people say they all killed each other with their technology at least. . Thousand years ago. Maybe two." Roland knew this was the sort of irony that asked for a joke, but he didnt have one. He wasnt the joking type. He didnt even smile.
"If this world is yours too, than this is not an "ago." It's what is to come."
"We're in the future?" Jaqi asked, looking astonished. "A thousand or more years in the future?" She'd lit a match and as stunned as she was she inadvertently let it burn down to her fingers. She flinched with a hiss and stuck her fingers in her mouth.
"Probably not," Roland said, dragging on his smoke.
<hr?
Shane looked around, and was grateful he quit. He did enough to himself without those useless cigarettes making it worse. "So this is an alternate universe?" Shane asked.
"A what?" Roland responded.
"A..." Jaqi thought. She'd watched the twilight zone in reruns but she thought about how to explain it. "Like a mirror of a room but something in the reflection is different. A world that exists beside another world but it isn't the same. There was a scientist from my... when that theorized there might be millions of worlds like that all kinda stacked on top of one another." She lit another match and this time touched it to the paper. It caught and the fibers she'd pulled from a dry branch caught from it. The twigs followed as well as the smaller sticks. She blew gently at the base of the fire, encouraging the heat to reach the bigger bits of wood. She piled on more smaller sticks to keep it going.
"Definitely that." Shane said. When Roland looked quizically at them both, Shane added "if you got me here from New York, and this isnt earth, and you did it like.. telepathicly or something, I mean... now I dont even know how I got here, but--"
"Magic," Roland said simply.
"...no shit?" Shane's eyes widened.
"No shit." Roland responded.
"So what are we in for? Like, the next step?" Shane asked.
"You said last night more people were coming..." Jaqi said, waiting to make sure the bigger sticks caught fire. She poked at it a bit, encouraging the flames. "Did... did the wizard tell you how many?" She remembered him saying something about a wizard but she didn't remember anything extremely specific. Then again she'd been really frazzled last night.
Roland's eyes flicked to Jaqi. He hadnt mentioned Marten Broadcloak to her. But he kept that to himself.
"I was told I would find three companions to help me. Jaqi, you were heralded as "The Child Lost." Roland eyed Shane.
"And you are The Prisoner."
"Deep, man. Somebody prophesied my coming? Shit, I hope that's a good thing." But when he thought for a second about that term, "Prisoner," he remembered that he'd just arrived in detox. There was no Xanax or Jack Daniels in sight. He paled. That was very bad.
"The Somebody," Roland said, "The Wizard, he is not to be trusted. Not for a second. We wont concern ourselves with any gabbing about titles he gave."
Jaqi looked into the fire and decided Roland could handle it from there if it decided to start dying. "I promised more eggs..." She said, standing and brushing grass off her knees. She pulled the socks out of her bag and emptied them of the four eggs she'd already found. She took the socks with her to carry more in and made a wide circle around Shane before starting off the way she and Roland had come from the beach.
Roland removed his blackened iron pan and cracked the eggs it, stirring them in with a stick. He set about it silent, which bugged the shit out of Shane. The guy was ten kinds of intimidating to him.
"So is the Wizard the adversary? You know, the guy we have to stop? Is he in the Tower?" Shane asked, scooting a bit closer tothe fire.
"No." Roland said. "I wish it were that simple. But if we see him,we will hope we're able to kill him. Which is doubtful."
"Lemme guess." Shane chuckled. "He's immortal and your hand cannons are powerless against him!" He said jokingly.
"Good guess," was all Roland had to respond.
Shane laughed again and rubbed his jaw. After expecting some exposition and getting none, Shane's face fell.
"Oh shit, you're serious."
"They've failed against him in the past." Roland said, focusing his attention on the pan. He used it to break down some of the sticks so the pan would sit on the surface of the coals. From such a new fire though, he lifted the pan a little and fanned the fire, encouraging coals over flame. Flame did them no good if they were cooking.
Meanwhile Jaqi heard their voices dwindle as she came nearer to she beach. She watched where she saw birds breaking from the rocks and chose those places to search for eggs. The season must be right because her search was fruitful. The gulls were like rats, so their numbers wouldn't be too diminished. It didn't take long to fill both her socks with eggs. The beach was less than half a mile away so she was only gone about twenty minutes. As she came back, she hailed Roland by lifting her full pair of socks with a smile. "It must be their season." She said as she came to kneel by the fire. She started plucking eggs from the socks. They were black knee socks from her uniform so there were over two dozen eggs. They weren't as big as chicken eggs though. "I think I got enough for morning." She looked pleased with herself, but didn't say any more as she started cracking eggs and adding them to the scramble Roland had started.
Shane felt the edge come off from the roll he was on. He still felt light as a feather and spacey as Niel Armstrong, but the solid realization that New York, and maybe America, had gone bye bye.
"Awww, shit. I'm in the Matrix." He mumbled, then blinked twice. "Or out of it."
Roland gave a sidelong look, not knowing what the hell that meant.
Jaqi saw Roland's look and shrugged. "I duno what it means..." She said, sort of taking the task of making lunch away from the Gunslinger. "He's probably still high..." She was content to pretty much ignore Shane so long as he stayed calm and out of arms reach. "Do we have plates?" Out of all the belongings she brought she didn't pack any plates. Not that there had been anything like camping dishes in Rick and Aunt Sheryl's fancy Manhattan home to take.
"A pan is a plate with the right perception," Roland said absently.
"Hold on, you haven't seen The Matrix?" Shane asked Jaqi. "Where are you from? You ain't like hippy Bat Masterson over there, cowgirl."
"Bat Masterson was hardly a hippy." Jaqi said. She'd read a little about William Barclay Masterson after watching reruns of the television show with her father. "Hippies don't hunt buffalo and become infantry scouts... And I'm from Bloomsberg, Pennsylvania and... because I guess it matters... 1978."
"Nineteen-seventy...? Wooooahhh... youre not kidding, are you?" Shane started laughing hard enough to double over, his laughs interspersed with "ows" from his swollen jaw. "Oh you poor, poor girl! Ha-HA! Thats rich!"
Jaqi scowled at him. "You can shut the fuck up at any time you know..." She told him. "And where are you from that grown men were Batman t-shirts and corrective shoes?" To her his high-tops looked like the kind of shoes the retarded kid at school wore.
"And what do you wear? Fucking 70s, hahaha.." he smiled. He sung abar of an old Eric Clapton song from the singer/guitarists 70s days. "Bell-Bottom Blues, they maaade me Cry-y," he smiled. "Or do you want to know just what IS 'The Matrix'?" He said in a basso Laurance Fishburne impression.
"You think we can throw him back through the next door we come across?" Jaqi asked Roland, handing him the first of the finished eggs. She was obviously not a fan of Shane's.
"No. And Ive known men like him before. Obnoxious does not always mean useless." Roland had barely noticed Shane had attacked him until he was put prone and vulnerable. No, this boy wold be useful, even if the Gunslinger had to torture himself to teach him.
"Very wise, Mr. Miyagi. Now... this being a country-western-style insane delusion, is there any saloons or brothels in the next town? Because I need a drink..." Shane said with a slight pout.
Jaqi didn't see much about Shane that was useful. She sat back beside Roland and within arms reach, but just barely. He never said when or where he was from. She felt suddenly selfconscious about being from 1978... What was wrong with 1978? Ragan became president, Halloween was like the best movie and Bill Murray was twice as funny as Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live... What was wrong with 1978?
"Good luck to you finding one," Roland said. "Out here, people ferment corn. I dont care for the taste. I doubt you would either." Roland portioned the eggs into three helpings and greedily ate his share.
Shane paled even more than he was already. "No kidding."
"Moonshine?" Jaqi asked. "Dad and I found a still once... I didn't like the taste at all..." She watched Roland wolf down his eggs and decided to make him more, remembering how starved he was.
Shane picked at his, not feeling terribly hungry. "Incoming DT's," he said morosely."
"D.T.?" Roland asked.
"DT...?" Shane looked up. "Oh, you thought I meant Dark Tower? Fuck, if only." He pouted again and picked moreat his eggs.
"He means withdraws." Jaqi said. "He's gonna get sick... really sick. Like... not going anywhere for a few days sick." In the same breath she said, "If you're not going to eat those, give them to Roland..."
Shane cocked his head to the side, a row of his dark bangs falling over one eye. The look on his face said it all.
Woman, are you for real?
"You want the eggs, man?" He said out loud to Roland.
"Eat them yourself. You might regret it if you don't." Roland said simply as he used some leaves and water to wash the pan.
"You might have upgraded to Confucious, now that I think about it..." Shane went back to eating, looking pretty sour for how excited he was earlier.
Roland looked at Jaqi, as if she could decipher what the fuck that meant.
She shrugged again, lifting her eyebrows. She didn't know everything. "I'm not a druggy dictionary..." She said. "Sorry..."
"Confucious? Chinese revolutionary philosopher?" Shane glared at Jaqi. "Tried to civilize the people; brought about chopsticks because he said people shouldn't eat with weapons..?" He squinted and continued with a stereotype oriental voice, "Confuscious say: man who stand on toilet is high on pot! None of this ringin' a bell?" He crossed his arms and scoffed. "I thought that was a school uniform. But maybe it's a stripper outfit." He shrugged.
"It is a uniform, jackass." She snapped at him. "I'm fifth-fuckin-teen, I'm sorry if I don't know everything. Half the shit you say doesn't make any fucking sense half the time!" She really didn't like him. He made her feel stupid. Rick did that. She thought coming here meant she didn't have to deal with Rick's stupid bullshit anymore.
Shane opened his mouth to say something, saw Roland pinch his nose bridge and then remembered something about himself, more particularly about Amy. He shut it again and shut his eyes as well, taking in deep breaths through his nostrils.
"If you promise to learn to take a joke, I'll learn to tell jokes better." e said calmly, and opened his big blue eyes, looking right at her. "Deal?"
He took all the wind out of her sails with that and he could tell by her expression that her anger was mostly a 'flash in the pan'. "Just..." She sat back a little, averting her eyes from both men. She felt like a fool. "Don't... This whole thing is..." She trailed off again. Shutting down because it was easier than arguing or trying to explain herself. "Never mind... Forget it... Are there any eggs left?" She'd not gotten to eat yet.
"You can finish mine, if you aren't afraid of cooties," he said, holding out the tin cup his was in. "Us druggies are fucking rife with cooties." He shook the cup a bit to beckon her.
Roland was beginning to realize his acclimation to solitary living with the occasional interaction with semi-savage, superstitious desert people was beginning to wear on him. And he hadn't the first idea how to get these two children to take this seriously.
She scowled at Shane shortly and took the eggs. She ate, if only to prove that she wasn't scared of whatever cooties he might have. She ate until she wasn't hungry and filled herself with water. She handed the remainder of the eggs to Roland. "Here... I'm done."
Roland looked at her again. "I'm finished with mine." He looked at Shane, "How long until you fall ill, then?" Those eyes of his were hawk like, somehow both more and less than human.
"Long enough to find out if you're Morpheus, or not," Shane said, finally standing up and dusting himself off.
Roland stood up, as well. "Until then, we walk." He looked up to the sky as he shouldered his purse and skin. Even after he was all set, he looked up at the slightly overcast sky for a few moments. Then he continued North along tbe stream, walking steadily.
He left Jaqi alone with Shane and she sort of panicked. She grabbed the cup and almost bolted to her bags to keep from being left behind alone with him. She was struggling with her burdens when she hurried by Shane saying, "Put that out will you?" Meaning the fire. Roland was fast and she carried twice as much as he did. She didn't want to get left behind.
Shane blinked rapidly, then nodded, kicked dirt repeatedly over the fire with his Nike Air Jordan's then jogged to catch up. He looked around as he went. The landscape was patchy with grass that seemed more yellow and wilted the taller it was. The dirt was consistently damp, with lots of give and littered with dead twigs. The weird weeping cypress grew thicker quickly, looking like big mushroom clouds of stringy leaves, with thin, vine-like streamers flailing out, needing to be brushed aside as they walked. The air smelled of salt and sea, with thick, cloying humidity but very little heat as of yet. It reminded him of Florida in February.
Jaqi hurried along after Roland, taking some time to right her bags and jacket before finding the comfortable balance to walk with everything she carried. She finally caught up with him and offered him the cup of eggs from earlier. "Here." She said. "You were more than half starved yesterday." She remembered his bony ribs under her arms from when he'd pulled her through the puddle. "It's your cup any way..."
He took it, practically swallowed the eggs at a gulp, if only to shut her up, and ran a finger around the tin to get it mostly egg-free, then shoved it back in his purse, all without breaking stride. He was a bit miffed at her attachment to him once an even stranger male came along. But young people were slaves to their instincts. Even he remembered the weakness of his own youth.
"Decided I'm not so bad, after all, did you?" He asked her as Shane followed behind.
She was glad he took the eggs but her stomach jumped a little at his question and she turned her head forward, trying not to sound breathless as she kept up. "Guess so..." She said. He was still frightening, but out of the two of them, he seemed the lesser of two evils. "I'm not-" She stopped, realizing what she had intended to say wasn't right. "I'm sorry." She said instead. "I know I'm... probably the last thing you need on a quest." She glanced back at Shane. He could at least fight, even though at the moment he was unpredictable as fuck. "But... thanks. For earlier. I was pretty freaked out and you got between us... Thanks..."
Roland sighed loudly. He'd done enough coddling.
"I've told you that you think too much. Now I'll tell you how to be useful. Smarts are useful. Thoughts are not always useful. Sometimes they are a bad thing. Do you know why I say that?"
She was just trying to thank him and he laughed. For a moment she thought that's all both men were going to do whenever she said something, but at least from Roland it didn't quite sound so.... heartless. "Why?" She asked simply, having nothing else to offer in response to his question. Or that she didn't want to offer up any more to get laughed at again.
"When your life is in danger, you don't need to outsmart your enemy, you just have to kill him FIRST." Roland looked up at the sky again, squinting and acting like he wasn't even thinking about what he was talking about. "When you and another are intent to kill each other, your true enemy is time." He looked back to her, still walking at a steady pace, his long gait perhaps making him move too fast for the other two's comfort.
"Those pitiful fears in your head, your desperation to understand everything. Those doubts will get you killed. When you "shoot with your mind," THAT is not" the mind you shoot with.
"You mean like when I drew on Shane without thinking about it?" She asked. "I get that. The whole acting on instinct thing. Dad taught me about that when he taught me how to shoot. But what does that have to do with me thanking you for before? I get that what you did was probably on instinct too so why not just say 'your welcome' instead of making me trying to thank you about me thinking too much?" She was probably doing it again, she realized it even as she was speaking. Still... why not just say 'your welcome'?
Roland winced and decided to drop the subject. He was no teacher. He would just have to lead by example.
"Your gun." He said. "Let me see it."
"Dad said never give up your weapon to someone you don't know..." Jaqi said next, figuring maybe this was part of the lesson. "He said that was just asking to get shot... not that I think you're gonna shoot me. If you were you'd just do it with those." She nodded with her chin towards his big irons which at first glance she had thought were long colt .45's and now realized they were far too big. "And you already had your chance to keep it if you were gonna keep it... And yes I realize I'm thinking out loud. So you don't have to tell me." As she said that last bit she removed the Cattleman .357 from it's holster. She carried her bags so they didn't hinder her ability to draw if she needed to. Not that she was particularly fast any way. She glanced at him, again thinking this was a test. Figuring it was, she unloaded the weapon and handed it over, holding the shells in her hand.
He smiled, and didn't say "you think too much" to her again. Technically the unloading was a good habit.
"Son of a bitch, this gun is about to rust. You dont use this at all, do you?" He said, peering down the barrel, examining the cylinders. He recognized the numerals on the bullet casings. "Three, five, seven... Pok?" He said. It was an upper case M, but he thought it was a varient of a lowspeech K. Why a gun would be stamped with low speech didn't make sense to him, so he asked Jaqi.
"It's not been cleaned since Dad carried it." She said. "He died about a year ago. He cleaned it once a month, fired or not. Before I took it out of Rick's safe it was sitting in the leather in a metal box, which I know isn't good for it. I know how to clean it, but I don't have anything to clean it with." She didn't know what the letters meant because he'd said "Pok" so she didn't answer. He sometimes said strange things.
She required him to be blunt. "I was curious as to what the markers on the cartridges mean." He said. "We know now we can take provisions from the worlds beyond the doors, and we have only one more opportunity." He looked at her. "I cast my bullets by hand. I think a machine made this. If its a mass produced item, like much of the old people's things are, I may be able to find ammunition for even my guns."
"Probably." She said. "And these are defiantly mass produced and machine made. You can buy whole boxes for just a couple bucks." She pulled out her half box of shells to reveal about 65 remaining bullets inside the box. "Some states you need a card. I duno about New York." She didn't know why the next door would open up to New York, just that it would. "And I have money... quite a bit. So long as The Working Man doesn't come from like crazy far into the future where the laws are different and bullets are really expensive, you should have no problem finding shells. We should ask Peter Pan-" By this she meant Shane, but she was rambling so she didn't stop. "How much ammunition runs for wherever or whenever he is from. We can get a frame of reference."
Roland stopped walking. That was the third time she said something she had no business knowing. Shane was about to make comment that her idea of what a dollar was worth was wayyyyyy more than what a 2009 dollar, and that he prayed #3 was not from anytime in the future, but he stopped too. Roland had a vibe, a merkaba like the zen meditation masters. And the guy was either cold and dead as steel, or full of fiery violence. He even took a stepback.
"Who is the Working Man?" He asked her straight out, glaring right into her eyes. He knew something was wrong about her. He had taken her from a Between Place
Way Station
And she knew things only Marten would know. She could be an agent of his. He looked at her very, very closely.
Like the machines of those who lived before, he exists to build for others to prosper, yet his very human heart begins to sicken and waste.
Marten had claimed all three of these allies
Rods
Would be troublesome, insane, or even dangerous. But Marten never played with his cardsface up
She hadn't noticed that he'd stopped walking. When she did, she met his question and saw how still he was. "What?" She asked, appearing not to know what he was talking about. "Working man?" They were both staring, Shane at Roland's fixed intensity and Roland at her. "What?" She asked again. "What did I do?" She didn't like the way he was looking at her. She was aware that he still had her pistol. She had nothing to protect herself with.
"I never told you Shane was The Prisoner, and you said he was before I told you. Back then, I thought you could read High speech. But the third door hasn't appeared, and I did not tell you the title of my third." Roland squinted, nearly motionless.
"I'll ask you again. Who is the Working Man? And how do you know of him?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." She said, eyes a little wide. He saw that fear in her again and she took a step back. She'd forsake her father's pistol and run if she had to. He couldn't shoot it any way since she had the bullets, but he still had his big irons. "It said 'The Prisoner' on the door. It was just... there. You read it same as I did. And you must have said something last night. We were both pretty... Look, I don't even remember saying anything about a working man..." She took another step back. She and Roland had been getting along so well and now this. She didn't even know what she'd done. "Stop looking at me like that!"
"As if you're not acting like a caught cheat," Roland grumbled. "If you don't have anything to hide, then calm down and answer the question" when she took another step back, he used that commanding voice that he rarely used, and people rarely believed he had. It was that kingly voice that wasn't so easy to disobey. "Sit down."
She froze in the midst of a second step, but she was too worried to sit and he could see that in her posture. She did however drop an inch or two, like a dog cowing to their angry master. "Look..." She said, closing her eyes because she couldn't bear to be under those sky blue killer's eyes any more. She was trembling a little, but she managed to speak. "Sometimes things just... kinda... pop into my head... It doesn't happen unless I'm writing though. I don't know it when it happens either." She opened her eyes again and her trembling eased. "And that's the truth. Ok? If I said something I didn't mean to. I've never... said anything before. Just always wrote it down. I can't even write a fucking book report without crap ending up on the paper."
"You dont remember saying it?" Roland looked down mulling it over. It could be the Touch. But the memory of his palaver with Marten wouldn't let him just ignore such coincidences. But she had just said something else unusual. Women were not so often literate, and "writing" as she had so passively used the verb, was something hardly anyone did anymore.
"And it comes when you write?"
"Yeah..." She said. "I... I never told anyone, but my last history test came back full of weird stuff. I can usually catch it but..." She carefully (because she felt as if she moved too quickly he'd turn her head into a canoe) she slipped her hand into the bag on her left side and looked in after it. She was pretty sure she'd left all of her homework on her bed when she dumped her bag, but the test was there as if she'd meant to pack it. She pulled it out and held the crumpled sheet of paper at arms length. "I have a lot more in here..." She said, indicating the bag on her shoulder.
Roland took the paper. It was bleach white and his heart hurt a little to see it so mistreated. But he opened it. He wasnt able to make much of the words. It seemed to be a school quiz. His eyes followed the check marks, beside one of them was a phrase he did recognize, "Ka-tet." As his eyes paced, he caught sight of a little doodle in the margins. There were scribbles, and zigzags in the corners of the page, but along the side was something more recognizable in blue ink. A halflidded, weeping eye. Nearby was another word that on second look did look familiar: "Gunslinger."
Rolands eyes shifted a second to Shane, who put his hands up."I havent the slightest fucking clue whats even going ON, man."
Roland peered over the paper at Jaqi. If she was faking her fear, or hiding anything, she didn't look the part.
"We know too little about each other." He said, lowering the test "I suppose I can tell it again to the Working Man. For now, it's best you two are put in the know."
"You believe me?" She asked, looking hopeful. "You don't... think I'm nuts?" That was her biggest fear. She'd skimmed books at the library about this kind of thing, but nothing she'd been brave enough to check out and actually study. It was called "autowriting" but none of the experts seemed to know where it came from.
"Crazy? No." Roland furrowed his brow, then resumed walking. "I tell you some while we go." First Roland detailed where he was raised, mentioned his father, and a small amount about his title as a gunslinger. Throughout, he was modest enough to be clear how little those things meant anymore.
"So there are castles." Shane said.
"Aye, but we likely wont see any. At least for a time," Roland said.
She was thankful that, as they walked, he returned her father's pistol to her. She reloaded it and took up position of walking on his right while it seemed that Shane was happy on Roland's left. She was still a little confused and worried so she stayed just out of his reach. He could probably catch her if he tried, but she knew he wouldn't... probably wouldn't. "So... there are guys like you all over?" She asked. "Like knighted U.S. Marshals or something. You can enforce law wherever you go and this is like... your Fellowship of the Ring?" She realized he wouldn't get that reference and said. "That's a book where we-" She glanced at Shane, the works of Tolkien were probably lost by whenever he was from. "I'm from. It's about a bunch of people on a quest to save the world."
"Yeah. The whole blood of the old kings. Aragorn was like a... like a meta human. Maybe that's why you got such a heavy vibe, dude." Shane laughed, but his eyes were serious. He knew this whole thing was a big deal.
Roland nearly stopped he was so baffled by the slang coming out of Shane's mouth. Jaqi's question was easier to answer.
"Yes... somewhat. Gunslingers were different than lawmen. We didn't just keep the peace. We were diplomats, mediators. And we were called when nothing else would do. Sometimes fell creatures wander from the wastes. And some towns lack even one gun to share amongst itself."
Jaqi was a little surprised that Shane got her reference, but asked instead, "So why do you need us? We're pretty much useless compared to thirty or forty of you." She didn't bother saying 'no offense' to Shane.
Roland actually laughed at that. "There's only me." He pointed back west. "Beyond those mountains, my father and his father so on owned much of the land that exists. Owned, but not ruled. Even in the best days I remember, every resource stretched too thin for anyone to RULE everything. There were baronies, noble families. All held alegiance to Gilead and New Canaan. Those days are over. There was a war, and...." he looked from Shane to Jaqi. "And Gilead lost. All the gunslingers are dead."
"Jericho." Jaqi said, frowning, not knowing what it meant. "Jericho Hill. I duno what that means..." She didn't linger on it. It didn't matter, not really. "I guess you lost all your friends then. If all the others died... You've probably been alone for a really long time... No wonder you're scarey as fuck..."
Roland grumbled. "So it is the Touch." He looked at Jaqi more closely. "As often and as clear as you get details, it's a wonder you aren't insane."
"Oh, I get it," Shane said, smirking at Jaqi. "She's psychic. Man, I was always so sure that was all bullshit." He cocked his jaw, staring into space for a second. "Well, I mean Extra Sensory Perception is real, but the pulling-details-from-the-aether gag is supposed to be bullshit. I dunno. No offense."
"I'm not psychic..." Jaqi said, grumbling. She pulled out one of the dalmatian composition notebooks she'd brought with her. She opened it and handed it to Roland. The first paragraph was drivel about some sort of mathematical equation. It trailed off into a lot of nonsense about Jericho Hill. In some places it wasn't even standard English, but the rough variation of Spanish found in the callas. "See." She said. "Last week. I was taking notes in class this time. I just remember it because of Joshua in the Bible. When Joshua led the Israelites around the city and the walls fell."
Along the page, the numbers and strange text became the swooping scrawl of text he recognized as being common in Meijis. It was a poem, in verse.
The Good Man raked them down with the guns that shoot lasers
The horn lies with the laughing birdskull
Beyond Jericho Hill, where the bombs and fire killed the gunslingers
One way passes the Eye, and another passes the son of Eld.
Roland put the book back in Jaqi's hand. He didnt want to touch the paper, and after that, he didn't want to read it either.
"All right, I believe you." Roland said to her. "So you're from her world?" He asked Shane.
Jaqi shoved the notebook back in her bag. She thought it meant she wasn't psychic but she half proved Shane's argument with that. As Roland changed the subject she found her interest peeked a little. He had withstood the other attempts to find out where he was from. Rather than interrupt she listened and tried to keep up with the stride of the two impossibly tall men. At least they seemed tall to her. At just a few inches over five feet, everyone was tall to her.
"Ummm, I think?" Shane rubbed at the scruffy proto-beard under his chin. "I mean, if we ignore the whole idea of alternate universes, yeah. I guess so. I'm from Jersey but you got me out of a treatment center in New York State. Just outside of the city."
"What is a treatment center?" aske Roland.
"Because I'm 'The Prisoner.' You guys already know about the drugs..."
<hr?
Roland nodded and went silent again.
"So, she says the present is 1978. I say the present is 2009, thats 31 years past her time. So anything I talk about is gonna sound like an acid trip to her."
Roland arched an eyebrow.
"Just think really fucked up. Like hallucinating."
Roland nodded again.
"So, the world is more than she ever dreamed of, man. No flying cars, but we have worldwide wireless communication and we fight wars with remote controlled airplanes. But no lasers yet. Hey Roland, man, maybe this is wayyy in the future? I mean you got that Road Warrior shit goin on. Post-Armagedfon."
Jaqi just listened, but she found some of what he said highly believable. Remote control air planes though... that sounded far fetched. She swore Roland had made some kind of reference to this indeed being their future, but on the off chance of saying something she had no business knowing, she kept her mouth shut.
"The future..." Roland decided to light a Winston before continuing. He left the filter in this time. He usually didnt smoke while moving. "Maybe. But the world has moved on. If this was once your world, it isnt any longer."
"What the heck does that mean?" Shane asked. He leaned towards Roland, incredulous. He flinched slightly at his long bangs falling into his eyes, and flicked his head back.
"This world is... dying... breaking, maybe." Roland said. "Parts of it are rotten, and only mutants can live there. Parts of it are pure poison. Just breathing the air kills you. Other parts are just..." Roland was going to say 'dissolving right away from the rest of the terra' but he saw that his two companions were already awestruck. Maybe that stuff would confuse them.
"Just what?" Shane asked, raising his own thick eyebrows.
Roland looked to Jaqi. "Its your turn. Say something about 1978."
"Like what?" Jaqi asked. "Anything I say about technology and society you're not going to understand and he-" She nodded towards Shane even though since they were walking three abreast, she couldn't really see him. "pretty much knows about it already. Unless you want me to tell you about how cars took over for horses and wagons and that men set foot on the moon nine years ago."
"Cars...? There was a train through New Canaan. Theres a few that work. Set foot on the moon? Wait, I cry your pardon, you mean that?"
"Chya, man! '69, the Apollo astronauts walked on the moon! Everyone saw that, bro. It's like mankind's greatest achievement." Shane smirked. His smile was what made him look good. The rest of the time he seemed terribly plain and even a bit awkward in the way he moved.
Roland pointed to a blue, semicircle smear in a clearer swath of sky off the horizon. "And how would men get there? No scrying ball can even see it! Who could walk there? Ride there?"
"They used rockets." Jaqi said. "I was six when we watched the launch on tv. By the time they landed Mom had..." She trailed off. "Rockets are these big tower like things with giant engines that burn a really powerful fuel. The men who went were the best of the best." She smirked. "Like Gunslingers, but their minds were their guns. The engines carried them into the sky where they punched through the atmosphere. When they were on the other side it only took a little energy to push them through space, because there's no friction out there. It took a long time I think to get there but there was nothing but dust and rocks. No people or water or strange animals. They had to wear special suits so they could breath, but they didn't find anything awesome."
And Gan separated the waters from the waters..." Roland mumbled. "You say there's nothing up in the sky....hmmm sounds truer than water. And they rode... towers.." it was a bit too much to think about, and he shook his head. "The wizard, Marten, who told me I would find you two... he was a member of my father's court. He betrayed my father and his barony to a usurper. I've chased him for nigh two decades before two nights past. When I found him, he used a glammer to lay me to sleep. Do you ken that word, 'Glammer?'"
"Magic that can make a person see something else." Jaqi said. "At least that's it the way I heard it in fairy tales and stuff. He put a spell on you that made you sleep." Like God did to Adam, she thought. Only Roland got a girl, a druggy and a mystery working man instead of a beautiful helpmate. "He probably just made you sleep long enough to get a good head start."
Roland tensed some. "Aye."
"So magic?" Shane asked. "Like a real evil wizard?"
"Yes, you can set your watch and warrant on it. He left after he showed me the cards of ka, three for you, and one for me. The last one he was lying about. But as I slept, I fear too much time has passed. He's gone, so we must draw east by north east. The Beam of the Eagle should call us before six days walk, if we don't stop to bicker to and bicker you."
"You lost me at Beam of the Eagle." Jaqi said a little apologetically. She was breathing a little hard again as she tried to keep up with the taller men, but she didn't ask to stop.
"The Beam of the Eagle is the Beam the birds fly south along to Mejis in the winter. By the look of things, we're a head into spring. A fine time to travel." Ahead, a shadow moved along the path. In the sky above was a great predatory bird, what the men of the south called a "Raptor." To the other two, theyd see its sixfoot wing span, and its fan of a tail, but Roland could see it well. From it's brown and gold wings to its rusty tail.
"Redtail hawk," Shane said, watching it start to loop in search of gulls before it continued o the beach from whence the group came.
"Ah, you see it well?" Roland said.
"Lasik," Shane replied. "And what's the beam, a migratory route?"
"Yes. But all things follow it. It comes forth from The Dark Tower itself. Though we are too far from the Tower to feel it's pull."
"Like ley lines." Jaqi said. "Some people believe there are magic paths under the ground. A lot of old monuments and stuff were built along ley lines. Are we following one of those, is that what you mean?"
Moving towards one," Roland answered simply. "I should hope we see the third door soon." He looked up. "High noon. Lets rest for an hour."
"Fine by me!" Shane said and slumped down. He looked at his hands. No shaking yet, but much as he wanted a rest, the walking kept his mind off the cravings.
Jaqi was glad. Her thighs ached. She walked to school every day, but this was much more intense. She put her bags down and was careful of the eggs in her backpack. She opened it and fished out a faded maroon t-shirt emboldened with the Dr. Pepper logo and a pair of jeans from back home that she'd managed to keep Aunt Shirley from throwing away. "I'll be right back." She said. She was eager to stop and rest, but she felt horribly exposed around Shane in her uniform and leggings. Trusting Roland to watch her bags, she went deeper into the trees. The bag containing the notebooks, her extra shells and a few of the other odds and ends she carried lay beside her backpack, unguarded.
Shane looked at Roland.
"She's right you know. Im going to get sick. Bad sick."
Roland looked at him, not saying anything.
"You can count on me to get through it, I've done this cold turkey before. I'm more worried about you, Cap'n. You dont look good either." Shane flicked his hair away, looking right at Roland, who, as usual, was looking off in the distance.
"I'm serious man, you're acting like you got a concussion. Bleary eyes, lots of grimacing. I hope you dont resent me when I cant walk, you probably need the rest." Shane blinked at Roland a bit. The gunslinger seemed to be ignoring him. "Also, man, I didn't get the memo... what do you suggest I get for a weapon? I mean, I'm no gun afficianado, so I wouldn't ask for one of those big irons, but--"
"Isn't it strange," Roland cut him off, "That there's no animals around?" Roland stretched his left wrist out as he looked around. After that he pushed the sides of his duster back with his elbows. "Just the one raptor. Nothing on the ground. With no villages in sight, there should be possums, maybe a throcken, Jesse Jay's, something..." Roland turned, peering the way Jaqi had gone. She was well out of sight by now.
"...What's a Jesse Jay?" Shane asked.
Roland put out his maimed right hand, palm out, gesturing for Shane to be quiet.
The quiet wouldn't have bothered a normal city girl from New York, but the daughter of a game warden and deputy from north eastern P.A., noticed. Of course this happened at her most vulnerable moment, with her only wearing the white shirt that went with her uniform, socks and the clean panties she'd brought to change into. The skirt, t-shirt, boots and pistol were on the ground next to her. She stopped with one socked foot poised to step into her jeans. It was too still. Even when forests were quiet they were a flurry of activity. Insects, birds, rodents scurrying around. Had her senses been as keen as Roland's, she might have been more worried.
To her right, Jaqi heard a beeping noise, sounding like a low volume digital alarm clock. beep, beep, beep, beep
It was quiet enough that Roland didn't hear it. What Roland did hear, he didn't like. He heard the sound for sure a full fifteen seconds before Shane did. Far to the northeast came a rustling, rushing sound, like someone drawing the last few drops from a glass with a straw.
"Jaqi!" Roland shouted. "Jaqi, TO ME! Right now!"
Shane could hear the sound just barely. It was getting louder, however.
"What is that?"
"I don't know," Roland whispered. "But it's coming our way. Fast. JAQI!"
Jaqi was staring at the place the noise was coming from when she heard Roland's voice. She would have lingered a moment longer if not the seriousness of his tone and the something desperate inside her head telling her not to leave without the pistol. It was similar to that thing that had told her to grab everything she had from the house. It hadn't failed her yet, but reacting upon it was more instinctual than it was a conscious act. Forgetting her petty fears of molestation, she snatched up the belt and left everything else. Half bare-assed, she took off for Roland's voice. That's hen she heard the other sound, like an angry swarm of bees heading right for her.
Eventually, the sound grew very loud. Roland darted towards the noise, gun drawn. At least it looked like it. He got to a tiny clearing, where he could look up. Speeding towards them was a similar shape to the eagle he saw earlier, save maybe fifteen times the size.
"Shane, get down, now!" He yelled as he hunkered down and backed into the tree canopy.
Shane only heard Roland call for him, for the other three words were drowned out by a piercing scream. A raptor cry.
Jaqi knew better than to turn around. All those scarey movies she'd watched to annoy Rick always had the damsel fall and twist an ankle. Jaqi didn't twist an ankle, but she didn't see the felled log she fell over either. She face planted into the leaves hard. Her scratches were cursory to the manic buzzing that swarmed overhead. She managed not to scream but began scrabbling for purchase. She made it to her feet with a skinned knee and a few scratches, but she still had the pistol. Her hair was tangled with leaves and what Roland saw running out of the trees was a disheveled and terrified, half-naked girl, headed right for him.
Roland backed up, and shane ran right up to him. "What the hell is that?"
"Perhaps an angry Can Calah," Roland said. He watched it, very worried, through the thin holes in the tree canopy. The eagle screamed again, and circled, and then saw Jaqi. Roland saw it fold it's wings, that noise making a screech almost as bad as the screaming, and it plummeted from the sky, diving straight at her.
She knew from something terrible was about to happen by the expression on Shane's face. "ROLAND!" She had a sinking feeling that she was going to see that between place again. The place where Roland had found her, only there wasn't another door to take him there to save her this time.
Roland and drew and began firing while jogging towards her. His right hand fanned the hammer as he unloaded the weapon at the eagle. Shane fell on his ass as Roland passed. The big iron shamed the the eagle with it's sheer loudness.
Wood and vines of leaves exploded everywhere as the eagle broke through the trees. If the bullets even hit the thing, there wasnt a noticible effect yet. But the cannopy slowed it. It's wings deployed again to push tree branches away from itself. It was made of a dull colored steel, and it's wings were like a fan of giant swords. A single red eye gleamed from above a bright, shining metal beak that was in high contrast from the rest of it. Black clawed talons the size of Jaqi's Torso reached at her.
She could almost feel the thing about to tear into her flesh and thankfully, Ka or whatever Roland had called it, intervened because her now filthy socks refused to hold traction into her next step. She fell just shy of becoming the thing's next meal. She hit harder this time, but it put her out of reach of the thing and because it's forward momentum kept carrying it, she was now behind it with a new set of fresh scrapes. Her lungs ached for breath and her head spun from the exertion, but she managed to push up to her knees and draw her father's pistol from the holster slung crossways over her chest like a bandolier. She emptied the pistol at the thing before her ears even registered the report of the first shot.
"Shit," Roland mumbled and rolled himelf behind a tree. Jaqi's .357 rounds splintered and richocheted off the back and wings of the creature as it turned. Roland reloaded his weapon with practiced hands, not even looking. He didnt see shane anymore.
The eagle brought one of it's wings low as it turned, shredding through dirt and roots. One of the blades that resembled a feather caught the log she had tripped over and sent it sailing away to Jaqi's right. The impact jarred the machine and his wing passed over her again.
She was reloading with the speed loaders from her father's belt and swung the cylinder closed as if she'd done it a million times. She flinched at the log as it passed by and lifted the pistol this time with both hands, taking aim at that gleaming red eye in the center of it's face. Before it passed completely over her, she managed one shot before she had to duck again to keep from getting sliced in half like the log.
The shot clipped the top ring of the Eagle's eye, sending a crack through the glass over it. It screamed again, shielding the whole front of it's body with it's wings. In that moment, Shane came running through the grass from the direction the machine threw the log, north. He tackled Jaqi hard enough to knock the gun out of her hands.
"Please WASTE THAT THING, ROLAND!" He hollered over the nails on a chalkboard screech of the twelve foot tall eagle re extending it's wings. As it did so, metal darts flew from small slits in the thing's wings. Shane suddenly went limp on top of Jaqi.
Roland wheeled out from the tree and stepped calmly forward, his body fully sideways as he fired the gun from his extended left hand. The world filled with what sounded like a lightning bolt savagely fucking a crash symbol.
Once twice, six times, Roland's bullets punched through the Eagle's chestplate. giant metal bird keeled over as it's right leg suddenly crumpled under it. He continued walking forward as he reloaded.
What little wind Jaqi had left was knocked out of her as Shane slammed into her smaller body. The pistol bounced across the leaf strewn ground as, for the third time, she struck the ground harder than a little girl should. The sound of Shane's shout and Roland's thunder was further away than it should have been. Her brain was a little oxygen starved and he had severely rung her bell. She didn't realize Shane's collapse was because anything was wrong. She just thought he was shielding her out of instinct.
The Eagle didnt just shriek this time, it roared. It itself upright again with it's left wing. It's big, titanium beak yawning open, this time spewing fire. Roland dropped to one knee, even though the flames missed him high by a few feet. He was reacting to the fire breath. If he hadn't, he would have been torched. His gun snapped closed with a barely perceptible twist of his wrist and he fired again, slower this time, unloading all six shots. The Eagle lurched as, on the sixth shot, fire gutted not just from it's mouth, but from the 18 holes in it's body. Instead of roaring, the thing let out a deafening warble like a fax machine through a megaphone. Roland was about to reload again, when the Eagle's ass rocketed out clear blue fire and it bodily shot up, crunched into the gnarly branches of the tree Roland had earlier reloaded behind, and the Eagle had earlier set aflame, and then crumpled to the ground, spouting fire and white smoke.
"Shane, get up," Roland said, but didnt hear over his own ringing ears. "Move!" He stomped over, but then he saw it.
Jaqi caught only a little of Roland "killing" the machine. Shane was too heavy to move and she had no real leverage. With the immediate threat gone, she felt extremely exposed in only her shirt and panties. "Shane." She said, shifting a little, wanting him off of her. "Shane, please get off me..." She tried not to panic, after all, he wasn't groping her or leaving bruises where no one would notice so he could keep his dick hard.
Shane had black metal, diamond shaped knives in him. One in his right bicep, one in his left ass cheek, and one in his back, high on the right side. Roland picked him up from under his arms and started dragging him westward, away from the Eagle machine.
"Jaqi," he nodded over his shoulder and grunted with Shane's dead weight. "Run, run back to your clothes! Jin-Jin!'
She pushed up to her knees, realizing only now how sore everything was. She was still laboring for breath, but she paused when she saw Shane's wounds. Had he not tackled her, the on in his bicep would have missed her, but the one in his ass cheek would have pierced her kidney and the one in his back probably would have severed her spinal column. She ignored the order to get her clothes. "Is he gonna be ok?"
"That charry bird is going to explode! HIE! UP! UP!" He shouted he threw shane over his shoulder and started jogging away. There was an explosion, and one of the things wings cartwheeled off northward. Another gouted flame from it's mouth, scorching the base of the tree. Embers started to fall from the canopy as adjacent trees caught fire.
She didn't need any more coaxing after that. A little wobble legged she got up and snatched up her pistol before hurrying back in the direction of her clothes. She passed Roland since he was incumbered with Shane's weight. When she reached her clothes she stepped into her pants, then her boots. Her shirt was covered in Shane's blood, but since she'd passed Roland up, she had a few moments to herself. She pulled it off and pulled the t-shirt over her head. Her boots were still unlaced, she wasn't wearing her pistol and there were leaves in her hair, but when Roland came through the trees a moment later, she had the bloody shirt laid out on the ground with several items laying on it. Needle, thread, antiseptic ointment and other bits of things they could use to patch Shane up. She didn't particularly like him, but he had saved her life. "Is he gonna be ok?" She asked again as she searched through her bag. She swore she had more of a first aid kit than this.
Roland very carefully laid Shane on his stomach. "Medical gunna?" Roland said, without being able to surpress a smile. "There's hope for you yet." Roland took out a weathered buck knife. The only part of the metal that still reflected light was the well kept edge. He started cutting Shane's shirt off. There wasnt much blood. The little knives were only about an inch wide, and stuck in at an angle. The only one that was that deep was the one in his back. Roland ignored the daggers Shane's arm and ass and pulled the one out of his back. The wound immediately welled up and ran over with blood.
She smiled briefly as he complimented her, but when Shane's blood spilled over, she uttered, "Oh god..." She pushed Roland out of the way and pressed her hands hard against the wound. "Start a fire." She told him. "If arteries are severed we need to cauterize the wound. Cowboy style." They didn't have the tools they needed to preform any more major surgery than that. Not that she'd cauterized a wound before though. She'd seen it done on tv and movies. Westerns mostly. Shane's blood welled up over her small hands and she pushed deeper against it, wishing Roland hadn't pulled the knife out till they had a fire. When he wasn't moving fast enough for her taste she used his words against him. "Jin jin, or whatever that means, hurry up!"
Roland sighed. "It didnt hit an artery. Now stop touching his injury with your bare hands!" A minute ago, he was proud of her. Now he was considering slapping her.
"He's gonna bleed to death!" She argued, but as she looked down at her hands, the torrent of blood she was sure she had seen, didn't look like much any more. There was some between her fingers, but not the fountain welling up that she swore had been there. She was over reacting. Thinking too much. He could see by her expression she realized she was being stupid. "Sorry..." She said, taking her hands away. She looked at her bloody palms and swallowed. They'd never been covered in someone else' blood before and they were shaking. She'd been mostly fine once she'd fallen and stopped running form the bird. Now that it was over she was trembling. "Sorry..." she said again and wiped her hand on the sleeve of the white shirt. "Um, this..." She picked up a big brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide. "This'll clean it and this-" She pointed to the tube of antiseptic ointment. "Will help it heal... I... I can sew it up once this quits... There are bandages..." She indicated her shaky hands. Her adrenalin had no means of escape, leaving her heart pounding and apparently her imagination playing tricks on her.
Roland nodded, took the hydrogen peroxide. Shane was lucky. The angle the blades hit him at caused his bones to stop them before they hit anything vital. He didnt even know why Shane was unconscious. He tipped the bottle and doused the cut.
Shane woke immediately, thrashing and cursing. "What the fuck! That burns!!"
Roland pushed him back down. "Don't move! Unless you actually want to hurt yourself!"
Shane hissed, but did as he was told. "What even happened? I dont remember."
Roland examined the other cyllinder Jaqi had handed him. When he squeezed it, some sort of gel came out, like tree sap. Roland stuffed a big gob of it in the cut, to Shane's groaning and mumbling.
"I think it was a robot..." Jaqi said, searching with bloody fingers through the olive drab messenger bag. She came out with a little round tin of needles and a spool of pink thread. Absently she thought it would look absurd in place of stitches. There was black in there somewhere, but she didn't bother looking for it. She was still shaking, but she managed to thread an upholstery needle. It was curved and would make the sewing easier. "A robot right?" She asked Roland. "That thing was a robot bird right?"
"You have shrapnel in your arm and ass, Shane. So just let me triage and hold still. No complaining."
Shane just groaned and held still. Honestly, all he felt like doingwas going to sleep. He was very tired.
Roland repeated the process on Shane's arm and had to yank his pants down abit to clean the cut on his ass. The sap that Jaqi gave him stopped the bleeding very well.
Since Roland didn't answer her, Jaqi didn't ask again. He would out once Shane was done being mended. When he was done she splashed a little peroxide on her hands and washed them so she didn't contaminate Shane's wounds as she had before. She dipped the whole needle and thread into the bottle and came back out with it dripping. "He doesn't look like he's got much fight left." She said. "But it might be a good idea to hold him while I do this." She'd stopped shaking and besides the feeling of foolishness that lingered from her panic, she was steady again.
Shane said "its just stitches, right? I mean, I think Ijust went into sehock... it doesn tfeel like their deep, I think Im ok."
"Shut up and relax," Roland said and held Shanes arms down and nodded to Jaqi.
Jaqi took a bracing sigh and took the upholstery needle to the first of Shane's wounds. The one on his back. She expected it to be easy, but flesh was tougher than she had thought and she was glad Roland was holding Shane down. She winced because by his reaction, this obviously hurt. She tried to be quick, but she could only go so fast. Occasionally she uttered a, "Sorry... sorry..." As she worked, but his pain couldn't be helped. Thankfully half way through the wound on his arm, he slipped away again as he had when Roland had treated his wounds. With him unconscious, sewing up his ass was much easier. All the while she tried thinking of a joke to make Roland laugh, or maybe smile, but she couldn't think of anything.
Once Shane was unconscious it gave Roland time to make a camp. She didn't mind when he fished in her bags for the food and made a quick meal for them out of the remainder of the eggs. By the time the sun had fallen Shane's wounds were mended and Jaqi cleaned up the mess they had made.
"I duno if I can eat..." She said seeing the eggs Roland had made. She'd been around blood. Her father had taken her hunting and she'd killed her share of rabbits and squirrels, but human blood was very different.
At some point during the eggcooking, Shane awoke, but did notstir.
Roland looked at Jaqi. "Relax, you did well. Better than I expected" he said simply and nodded at her.
Jaqi didn't notice Shane had woken, but when Roland complimented her, she smiled a little. "You think he's gonna be ok?" She asked, not wanting to seem too eager for his praise. She filed that away with the memory of him
telling her she'd done well when she'd drawn down on Shane.
"Yes. Shane was trying to help, too. He'll be ok." Roland promised her.
Shane, on the other hand, was starting to feel a little nautious, his nerves got tingly, and he really didnt want to move anymore.
"You don't think those knife feather things were poisoned or anything do you?" She asked. "When he wakes up we should ask if he's had a tetnis shot."
Roland laughed quietly and waved his hand at the matter dismissively.
He started eating quietly, wishing to go wash his clothes. But a fire had born of their battle. It seperated them from that water source.
She watched him smile and dismiss her concerns, but she studied him as he did it. In the fire light he looked old, but not quite so scarey. She picked at her eggs. She tried to think of something to say but remembering that he said she thought too much, she tried to stop. Instead she focused her attention on the fire and ate another bite of eggs. Her constant nervousness seemed to still a bit and she relaxed.
"Can I get some water?" Shane finally mumbled.
Jaqi flinched at the sound of his voice and every bit of stillness she'd achieved in those few quiet minutes was lost. In her opinion it was her job since Roland fixed dinner. She grabbed one of the water skins and went to him, figuring he was in no state to hurt her at the moment. Not that he would. "There's eggs..." She told him as she uncapped the water skin for him.
"I should probably eat," Shane mumbled. His eyes were sensitive to the firelight and just wanted to stay layimg down.
"I'll bring them to you." She told him. "Here..." She tilted the water skin as if she intended to hold it while he drank.
He reached his left arm over stiffly and tilted the skin so he could drink. " thank you," he said to Jaqi with a tight lippid smile afterwards.
She sort of smiled at his thank you, but he could see that she wasn't sure she wanted to. She didn't tell him he was welcome. She just capped the water skin and said, "I'll be right back..." She returned the water to beside the fire and took the third portion of eggs to Shane. She knelt and looked unsure of what to do. "You wanna use my bag to sit up?" She asked.
"I wanna stay lying flat on the cool grass, if you dont mind," Shane said.
Roland paid none of that any attention. He was just sitting quietly, looking at the stars.
"Ok..." Jaqi put the skillet down for him. "I'm sorry." She said. "About the stitches... first time..."
"That isnt so much of why I dont feel good," Shane said, "And, uh, thank you," he said.
"You're already getting sick..." Jaqi said. "I don't know a lot about... about what's gonna happen but... is there anything I can do to make it easier? To get you through it quicker?" Before she had drawn a pistol on him, now she was worried about soothing his withdrawals. She wasn't exactly the most consistent of girls.
"Gonna need a place to do a lotta number 2, if you know what I mean," Shane said tiredly.
Roland merely started to relax, figuring that the eagle came as the guardian of the beam. It couldn't have cone upon them from too far away.
"All I have for that are bushes but..." She reached in her bag and pulled out a roll of toilet paper with a smile. It was a little squashed. "I got a few rolls... I grabbed all kinds of stuff before I left home. I guess my spidey sense kicked in..."
"Youre a genius," shane said and rolled on his side. He accepted the tp and smiled at her. "Im sorry for kind of... being a pain," he said.
She beamed when he called her a genius. She even blushed a little but she never let her smiles linger very long. "It's ok..." She said. "I'm sure Roland was ready to choke me before you came along..." She trailed off, hugging her knees a little as she hovered there on her haunches. "I'm sorry too." She said. "You kinda freaked me out and I... I have some baggage of my own..."
"Who doesnt?" Shane said passively and took another drink of water. Then he looked at the unseasoned eggs and figured it was just like cafeteria food and took a bite.
Over at the campfire, Roland withdrew from his duster one of Jaqi's notebooks. He opened it to that page that he'd seen that doodle. The word "Gilead" was egible to him, mostly because it was in cursive font, and above it was a cartoonish red eye, in red ink, weeping blood.
Jaqi noticed Roland's movement and it gave her an excuse not to respond about baggage. "Can you even read that?" She asked him from where she knelt beside Shane. She'd thought they read the same language but after his fit about the word "prisoner" on Shane's door, now she wasn't so sure.
"Sometimes," Roland said, cleared his throat, then pointed with the ring finger of his right hand. "The letters are the same. 'Gilead' was the seat of my father's barony." He pointed to the G, the L, the A, the D, "And this", he pointed to the red eye. It was not specifically the sigul of Farson, and that which Farson served, the Crimson King, but the eye was most certainly the same representation, "Do you know the meaning of this Sigul?"
Jaqi shrugged, still hugging her knees as she hovered there beside Shane. "All I know is I don't like it." She said. "I wrote that one a few months ago and after I just... it felt like it was looking at me. I never hid that one under my bed after I put that... sigul in there."
"It is a fell sigul, Jaqi." He shut the book. "Bad news, Sai Shane of Pescadero Plains," Roland looked over to the miserable, slumped, slowly eating young man. "You'll be walking tomorrow, whether you like it, or not."
"He's going to be sick by then..." Jaqi told Roland. "It's not a question of like. He might make it part of the day but through the worst of it we're going to have to make came for a few days at least. You don't know how bad this is gonna get and none of my scribbles are gonna make it any better."
Roland looked at her with a blank expression on his face. He was tempted to get angry, but, there was the fact that the second door came out of nowhere, by itself. He would have assumed the doors would be static, even if they were placed with destiny in mind. With Shane's predicament, he was forced to acknowledge that he was not in control of any of this. The door could appear over the campfire as he slept, or teleport in front of him the next time he took a piss. His urge to continue with all haste could be considered just as irrational not moving at all.
"Perhaps you're right." It was perhaps five in the afternoon. It felt like apostacy not to continue walking. "And perhaps I should get firewood, now that the decision is made." Roland stood and walked off towards the trees. The fire moved lazily, it probably wouldnt last the night. The terrain was wet, humid, likely the border of a marsh. The trees would not burn easily, and the ground was not by any means dry.
Jaqi was more than surprised that Roland just... agreed with her. To tell the truth standing up to him like that (though it wasn't exactly as if they'd been arguing) made her heart pound in her throat. When he got up her eyes followed him in astonishment until the forest swallowed him. "Fuck..." She sighed. "I thought for a second he was going to eat me alive..."
"What a fuckin' hardass," Shane murmured and managed one more bite of eggs before he put the plate down. Gingerly, he inched into a seated position, wary of stretching his stitches. "Did you even understand what the hell he said we're doing? Saving the laws of physics, or some shit?"
"Saving the world." She said. "But like... a bunch of them." She nodded towards his t-shirt. "You like Batman right? D.C. Comics has this thing where there are like hundreds of versions of Earth. Like on one Superman landed in Germany and we lost the war or on another you or I could actually be a super hero or something. I think this is like that. A whole bunch of different worlds, only they're like stacked on top of one another and this tower we have to find holds it all together. That's what I got from it, but we talked a little about it last night so I guess I've had a little longer to process it."
"Its probably not as neat as that." Shane batted his bangs out of his eyes. He had a way of jutting his chin out that made him look a little like John Lennon. The aquiline features of his face added to that too. "I mean, as simple and put together. Reality is always messier than fiction," he blinked at her a little coming to the realization that she was actually being personable to him. It made him smile.
"You're probably right..." She said, shifting till she was sitting on her butt instead of perched on her toes. "Thanks by the way..." She told him. "You plowed into me like a bull," She rubbed her left side as if it still ached a bit. "But if you hadn't that bird would have taken my head off." It hadn't yet dawned on her that she was in Shane's presence without her body guard. He wasn't exactly in any shape to hurt her, but still, considering that just earlier today she'd ran away from him like a frightened rabbit, this was a pretty big step.
"Yeah, well, I was retarded." He smirked and looked down. "You at least got a gun. And, we both could have been barbequed. If I stayed out of it, then only ONE of the chosen ones would get roasted." He chuckled, thinking that was perhaps more funny than it really was.
She didn't laugh, but she smiled. He was cute. Not in an actively handsome kind of way, but in a youthful sort of way that she'd not had a chance to experience before. She'd sort of been forced to grow up a little quickly and here was an adult, not much older than her, who sort of acted like someone her own age. "Thanks any way." She told him.
"1978... man, so... not just different worlds, but different times... everything really is all chaos..." Shane remembered something he read once, that order was only an exception to the rule of chaos, and that the civility and structured neatness of the universe was really an aberration, a stroke of luck, like winning the lottery.
"Why did you laugh earlier?" She asked. "When I told you I was from '78?"
"The world is a different place. I wish I could show you my phone!" He laughed hard enough to double over. "Everything is advanced technologically. I mean, what if I told you that we all carry our phones in our pockets? But not just that, but that our phones are also TVs AND computers, and that each one has more computing power than the Apollo astronauts had on their rocket? ? More than a hundred times more!" He laughed again. "Awww man you got GYPPED!"
Her brow furrowed. "You... you're serious..." She stated rather than asked. "You can watch television on your phone... that you can carry in your pocket?" She sounded a little in awe of the subject. "I... I can't even imagine that... Do you draw or anything? I have paper."
"Me? Draw? Uh... look, I'll explain.." he blew his hair out of his face with a sigh and looked up for a second, "Its not because oflike anything sci fi... just, scientists... the discovered a different way to hold information electronically. Its all... digital now. So information takes up less space. So computers kept get smaller and smaller the more they worked on improving them. So now what used to take a whole building to store electronically can be stored in a space smaller than your pinky nail. Then they did the same thing with screens, finding ways to make pixels, the little color dots on the tv screen smaller and smaller as they improved them. Things just got easier to make is all."
He smiled at her. "The process is the same. The military gets the technology first, then it gets made available to the public after like ten years. Standard process. Oh! And we made piece with Russia-- I mean the USSR. SO YEAH, lot changed... heh" he realized he'd been rambling and trailed off.
"Ok... so all that stuff in Iran and Afghanistan is over with?" She asked. "We're all grooy now?" She said 'grooy' in a way that sounded as if it were natural. Though the word was older than her generation, she used it as if she'd grown up hearing it.
"Uhhh, no. We still don't get along with North Korea or China and we're still blowing the shit out of the middle east. That's another, stupider story." Even though it was cool, Shane repeatedly wiped his bangs from his brow, which was sticky with sweat. He didn't say anything about it, though.
"I don't guess it matters much now..." She said, picking at the grass in front of her. Still kinda hard to get min mind around this whole child of destiny thing... Just yesterday my biggest worry was getting home before Aunt Sheryl..."
"I just come in not expecting to understand. My consolation is that this is better than what I was doing before." Shane settled back down to being propped up on his non wounded arm. He wasnt high anymore and was just feeling very tired and feverish.
She scrunched up till she was hugging her knees, which she seemed to do often. "Same here..." She thought about what would have happened had she stayed. Had she not followed what Roland called 'the touch' and left the house when she did. She was staring deep into the fire as she imagined the beating Rick would have given her for his concussion and broken nose. This time he'd have probably been pissed enough to keep it up proper. She was thinking too much again and Shane could almost read her thoughts in her expression as she stared into the fire. This was a lot better than what she'd been doing before...
Shane would have kept talking, but Jaqi started to look all spacey and far away, so he just closed his eyes. Right about then, Roland returned with both arms full of dry brush and set to improving the fire. The gunslinger could have returned sooner, but had relished the solitude and quiet.
Jaqi seemed glad for the interruption. She looked away from the fire, blinking a little as green and blue dots covered Roland for a moment. "Want me to go get some more? I promise not to scare up any ancient robobirds."
"No," Roland said. "Both of you, come by the fire. There is more to discuss." He'd spent the time away realizing that he had to become a teacher and leader of Shane and Jaqi. They were mostly useless as it was, and a liability to himself, and themselves. It was up to him to change that.
Jaqi glanced at Shane and figured she should ask if he needed help. Doing so would end in physical contact and while she might be able to talk to him, she remembered how she reacted this morning when Roland tried to synch her belt. She didn't offer to help him and took her stuff, moving over to the fire like Roland asked.
Shane moved gingerly, sure enough, slowly too, but that more so because of the nausea. He sat down and leaned on his elbow, flicked his bangs out of his eyes and just sat waiting.
Roland was kneeling on one leg by the fire. As the day got a bit older, and the sun lazily creeped its warmest hours down to the horizon, the man wasnt sweating, not even after what just happened.
"Do you ken," he looked at his right hand, the three fingered one that held the stoking stick. "Do you understand, you are in danger now?" He turned looking at Jaqi first, then Shane, "My Ka takes me to a place no man dare go, where no civilized and safe barony has EVER ruled, and fell... things..." he waved his hand off to the smoky south east, "machines," he pronounced the word almost like "mahsheens" while his face took on a steely expression, "the men and not men you will meet," Roland looked almost upset, irritated, maybe, with a glint in his bright blue eyes, "I would have every one of ye a with me a cursed Gunslinger! A veteran killer of ten years!" He raised his voice, glared at both of them in turn. "I'd hope the four of us are all afforded a weapon, and every bullet that Gan could will us to be carrying."
Shane piped up despite the dramatic theatrics of Roland's short speech.
"At least there is three now." He said almost absently. "I mean, only if you're cool with teaching me to wield one of those fucking hand-cannons..." he looked up at Roland's blank stare. "What?"
Jaqi, who was pretty good with the whole cowboy lingo thing wasn't sure she understood what he was saying about Gunslingers and killers, but that they were hardly safe, she understood very well. She sat, hugging her knees as usual. Instead of asking questions, she translated for Shane. "He's asking you to teach him how to shoot." She said. "And for that matter, I might know the mechanics of it, the safety and responsibility of carrying a gun. But I don't really know anything about quick drawing. I'm an ace with a rifle though... which we don't have... As for this quest..." She glanced at Shane, then back to Roland. "It's better than what I was doing before..."
Shane swallowed his words and avoided eye contact, "I didn't mean anything by it."
"It may be the case that I need you to. Not a week ago I had two hands and two guns. Now I have three hands, and may as well give you one of the irons," Roland looked at the fire as well, still feeling uncomfortable about it.
Jaqi could see that in his expression. "We've still got the... the Working Man to find." She said. "It maybe that we can find more weapons when that happens. More ammunition too. Though... I'm not sure about yours." She nodded her chin towards Roland's pistols. "I have some money. Little good it does me here, but you go through another door maybe you can buy what you need."
"I duno exactly..." She said and pulled the green bag toward her. She looked inside and riffled around a bit. She came out with the envelope of her mother's pearls and realized that was the wrong one. She put it back inside and stood on her knees as she looked through the backpack. Food and clothes had pushed the metal box to the bottom but she finally brought it out. Her father's pistol had been in it, but now all that was inside was the money she'd taken from Rick's safe when she stole back her father's pistol. Inside was a thick envelope filled with cash. She held the envelope between her teeth as she put everything but the box back in her bag. The food she packed on top. Once she was done she sat back down by the fire and pulled out quite a wad of cash. She began counting.
"You know, if she's from 1978, and Im from 2009, who knows if that money is any good where you try to use it?" He frowned, whenever he was thinking hard, he frowned. "I mean, in my time, the bills already look different. You might get a hard time from a gun store even though those are still technically good. Say the next person you go visit is in 2109? Then what?" He looked from Roland to Jaqi, "or worse yet, 1909?"
"We just have to hope that won't happen." She said. "Maybe the Working Man is from the eighties or even the sixties. Money hasn't changed too much in the last twenty years. Oh fuck... I lost count. Here." She held out a wad of bills to Roland. "That's a thousand." And went on counting again.
Roland looked at Shane with an eyebrow raised.
"In her time, a thosand dollars, the unit of money is a dollar got it?"
Roland nodded.
<ht>
"A thousand dollars is a lot of money. Where I'm from thirty years later, it still is, but not really. Now, obviously you want ammunition..."
Roland sighed, then nodded.
"Ammunition is very expensive. So, a couple thousand dollars will buy probably all the ammunition we need for four people, but you're going to need to budget it out if you want guns, too. Also there's rules about buying these things. You might have to steal the weapons and ammo annyway, if your working man isnt allowed to buy guns, or if where he lives, you have to wait a week to obtain the goods."
Roland understood most of that. To him, it just sounded like it was going to be a pain in the ass
"Ammunition isn't expensive." Jaqi said, still trying to count. "A box of twenty twos only costs like three bucks..." She realized Shane had taken up translating to Roland and she felt like that was her job. "Bucks is another name for dollars." She smiled. "Ya ken bucks, Gunslinger?" She handed Shane another thousand.
Roland frowned himself when she said that. In the syntax of the way she said the phrase, it was an insult. But she didnt know that. "Yes, I follow." He looked at Shane "so guns are common where you are from? But regulated?"
"Yes, but there's reasons for that. In America, the nation she and I are from, the citizens have the right to purchase and own guns. But... America is a utopian society..."
"What does that mean?" Roland asked.
"That America is a very rich and prosperous nation. Utopian means perfect, so thats the wrong word. America isnt perfect. But everyone is... kind of like a spoiled child, you get it? It's like they dont know the purpose of a gun is to fucking kill people."
At this, Roland did show comedic surprise, with both his eyebrows going up and his jaw hanging a bit down.
"Yeah, responsibility and discipline are lost arts over there. So getting a gun without a couple of permits, or waiting a week, that might happen. Really, though, you're gonna be pleased with the selection you can choose from. Might give ya culture shock."
Jaqi put down another thousand and placed a rock on top. "All you really need to a permit when I'm from is to not have a criminal record." She said. "But that doesn't stop the criminals... but you don't really have to wait to get one... Still, I guess the easiest way is to just buy one from a private citizen."
"Hardly!" Shane said to Jaqi. "Lets have some guy with an alien mind in his head go try to buy a gun face to face from a stranger. No, no we're gonna have cowboy here buy from a big conglomerate store, something like "Gunzapalooza" or some shit, someplace where he's just another face buying 2 thousand rounds for three different guns."
"There's a store called Gunsapalooza?" She asked, looking almost mortified. Guns were bad news even in the late seventies. If ANYONE could get a gun that was nuts. She'd reached four thousand and eight hundred dollars, but with all their talking she'd probably lost count.
"No, thats a figure of speech. But yeah, there's gun stores bigger than Macy's and big conventions where they sell guns. If you're lucky you can buy privately at a gun show like that. But we're speculating way too much. And probably wearing Captain Big-Bad's ears out." Shane sighed and sprawled out on his stomach more. He was getting very tired from all the talking himself.
"Right..." Jaqi said. "Well there's about five thousand dollars here." She said. "That's plenty to basically buy whatever you want. If we can find it."
Roland nodded. "Keep it back in the box, for now. We'll probably have the opportunity to use the dollars tomorrow." Shane's door had come the next day, so it wasnt a stretch to assume the next door would appear tomorrow.
Shane closed his eyes, thinking he'd probably wake up back on a rubber mattress in rehab. But part of him knew that wasn't going to happen. No, he was going to wake up sick in a world without toilets. But at least it was with the lone ranger and Pocahontas in the land of mystery...
"Ok." She said, gathering up the money. "When do you think the door will appear?" She asked, glancing a little worried at Shane as she put the money away. "You think it'll wait till... we're all on our feet again?"
Roland merely sighed and removed his boots, testing his heavily calloused feet on the grass and finding it suitable.
"I haven't given it thought. Then again, I dont think as much as you." He saw her face scrunch up a bit when he said that.
"Don't worry, sai Jaqi. On the morrow, your thinking may shame me, for true." His face was, as always, serious, but there was something benevolent in his eyes this time. "My peers, my... friends," Roland said that word haltingly, knowing that it had been a full lifetime since he'd even considered the thought of a friend, "they japed at me for not being able to think around things." He'd almost said "corners," and wasn't sure why he didn't. "I am a great killer. But I would never make a good peacekeeper, like your da before you."
"Did you just call yourself dumb?" Jaqi asked, though she inwardly preened as he complimented her father. "Cause so far I've not seen you do or say anything dumb." She glanced at Shane and chose to make a little joke. "Unlike some people." She smiled a little so he knew she was kidding. It seemed that the saving of her life had loosened her up a little where he was concerned.
"Turncoat," Shane mumbled at her. The sun still crept at the horizon, and the cloudy day became dimmer still.
She smiled a little more at him. "Either way, we'll be fine in a few days." She said, trying to bolster the boy's confidence a little. "We'll find the Working Man and everything will fall into place like it's supposed to... Besides... we already have a cheat sheet." She pointed to the dalmatian composition note book that Roland was keeping with him. She had more, but he seemed taken with that one.
"Few...." Shane mumbled, and uttered a sarcastic laugh both genuinely amused and genuinely pitiful.
Roland held up the books. "Do you still have a quill to write with? I can make ink. I'll need to stay busy tomorrow."
"I have pens." She said. She pulled her bag over and began digging again. She came out with a hand full of black and white Bic pens. She offered him one. "You don't have to make ink. And I have more of those notebooks. You're probably gonna want to read those too. I've been writing this crap since not long after Dad died... theres a lot..."
Roland took the "pen" from her. The material of the thin tube was as foreign to him as the bindings of her notebooks.
"Pens...?" He held it between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, afraid it was fragile and expensive.
She pulled the cap off of one with her teeth and drew a swirl on her palm. "Pen." She said. "Like a feather quill and ink all contained in one little tube. I have pencils too, but you mentioned ink so..." She shrugged. "I have a bunch and they take forever to run out."
He took the pen and looked at it. At first he held it tip side up as if it might spill. Then he examined it sideways, then he shook it upside down.
"How does the ink come out?"
"It's like a gerbil water bottle..." Shane said sleepily, "the bottom of the tube has a ball on the inside. Thats the tip. If you apply pressure to the ball, or push the pen onto paper, it releases--" Shane yawned loudly, "releases ink. Otherwise the internal pressure of the tube holds the ball to the end and seals it."
Roland nodded sagely. Concrete things, engineering things, he could understand readily.
"And the ink is thicker than what they use where you're from." She said. "Presumably. So it doesn't run out as quick. Like a bar of soap verses liquid soap... if that makes any sense." Roland looked as if he hadn't seen a bar of soap in a while though.
"Like dry oil," Shane mumbled, sounding even closer to just falling asleep.
Roland nodded and touched the pen to a corner of a page Jaqi had already written on. Doodling on a fresh page was currently unthinkable to him. He drew a five pointed star, then a six pointed star. He was fascinated by the pen. It required much greater applied pressure than a quill, but wrote very cleanly in black. He had to continuously press on it to even get it to blot. He nodded, eyebrows up, to Jaqi. He was impressed.
She was a sucker for that look. That, 'not bad, kid' look he gave her sometimes. She smiled, appreciatively preening under his gaze.
He smiled back, just a little, and wrote something down on one empty line. It might have looked like the caligraphy version of some letters, and some of that symbol-censored swearing you see in funny papers. It roughly looked like
R&LA#8 8'sC#A4#
Jaqi remarked that light little turn of his lip and let it cement itseflf in her memory with all the other times he had smiled at her. All two times maybe. Curious she leaned up, looking at what he was writing. "Roland... Da..." I can't make out the rest..."
"If only it was my Ka to carry my father's duty as well as his name. This is my name, Roland Deschain. I haven't occasion to write that in many, many years." This was accompanied by a smile that showed teeth
She'd made him happy... actually happy. Jaqi smiled, revealing her teeth as well. "I'm glad you like it." She said and, being a little behind him, she placed her cheek on the back of his left shoulder. She remembered his arms around her and seeing her father's face. She wanted him back, but she figured for now Roland would do. "I think I'll get some sleep." She said, her cheek lingering on his shoulder.
Roland was perplexed for a moment, but then gave her a slight pat on the head. "Go lay down," he told her gently. He would perhaps sleep when night finally fell. These two young ones were exhausted. And now, with all this knew information rattling around in his head, Roland felt a yawn coming up, too. He preferred to "sleep on" tough decisions rather than obsess on them, and his body was likely feeling groggy purely in self defense.
He felt her nod. "You're not stupid." She said as she left him. "Your friends were wrong. You just think differently." She slipped out of her boots and into the bedding he had laid out for them. She looked over at Shane and decided to leave him. He was peaceful. He might have chiggers in the morning, but he was peaceful.
"Cover the fool up. We dont need him to take ill from the cold too." Roland said, and put his boots back on. The sky began to slowly turn pink, fading from the west, behind the black cloud about a mile to the west where the fire started by the beam guardian still smoldered. When the wind stopped blowing, the smell of jet fuel was noticible. The smoke itself generally didnt spread outward until it was well above the tree line
Jaqi frowned. Just when Roland was alright, he was a dick again. She did as he asked though and covered Shane over with his share of the bedding. She laid back down when she had finished and found that with the exhaustion of the day, sleep took her quickly. However, her dreams were far from peaceful
Shane dreamed of Amy, his girlfriend of five years. Ex girlfriend.
She wore a red dress, fitted tightly to her slender frame, with a ruby encrusted barrete holding her dirty blonde hair back. She was in a ballroom, dancing with some guy Shane could never see clearly. It was queerly lucid, watching her on the floor amidst a crowd of other nondescript dancers. Then Roland, or was it Clint? waltzed in, chewing a cigar.
"Get out my castle tower, you charry woman!" The gunslinger said, and started shooting. One by one the tuxedoed and cocktail dressed dancers collapsed, until only Amy remained.
"Shane! Help! Save me!" She cried.
"Like you helped me??" Shane shouted back bitterly.
"I don't wanna see you in my tower, no more!" The gunslinger growled, looking only at Amy. "I did my duty, woman. Now you do yours."
The gunslinger fired once more, and Amy's head exploded into fragments of pink glass...
Shane awoke with a gasp in the darkness. He felt hot, but his face felt like he gave Frosty a blowjob. At first, he thought Roland had shot him, instead, but then his eyes caught sight of the low fire, with Roland reclined right in front of it, boots almost to the fire pit, hat tilted over his face. Jaqi was between him and Roland. Shane settled down some.
Jaqi woke as pink glass darted through her mind's eye. She hadn't experienced Shane's dream, but that fragment jarred her awake and she saw him easing back into his bedding. "Shane?" She asked, leaning up on one elbow. She whispered, trying not to wake Roland. "Are you ok?"
"Fine," he said but it came out a croak. He smacked his lips and tried again, "fine, Jaqi. I just had a bad dream is all." She just asked him if he was ok. He was under the impression she didnt like him, or at least was very wary of him. But that sounded like genuine concern.
"You sure?" She asked. She didn't know why but this lingering dread or fear seemed stuck to her. Maybe that was part of what Roland called the Touch. She was wary of him, but her dislike had dwindled over the course of the day as he transitioned more into himself than a flipped out druggy. "Do you need anything?"
"All you need is love, baby," he said quietly in his best faximile of some late 60s-early hippy type. A slight snicker, then, soberly, "I'm ok, but do you have the waterbag-thing over there?"
She sat up. "Yeah..." She hunted for the water skin in the glow of the fire and when she found it, she brought it to him. She knelt beside his bedding. "You need help?" She asked, not sure how quickly he would get sick or how far gone he was already.
"No, no," he spoke in a hushed tone, mindful of Roland sleeping. He gingerly scooted around until he was back seated. "My back is just more comfortable like that. It doesnt hurt so bad but it burns when I stretch those muscles..." he took the skin and took a pull before handing it back.
"Thanks. Hey, uh..." he started, but trailed off and looked down. His curtain-like wall of bangs obscured his face.
"Uh what?" She asked, putting the cork back in the water skin.
Shane kept his head lowered. "Sorry for teasin you and makin fun of you. Just reflex when around hostile people. You're not really hostile, and neither am I..."
She smiled a little. "I can be a bit of a bitch too." She said. "Sorry... It's not been the easiest year for me... I get loud and defensive and pull guns on people apparently."
"Only a bit," he smiled at her, even though he couldnt see her so well with the fire behind her. "Should meet my ex from last year... the Bitchforce is strong in her. You arent so bad." He whipped his hair out of his face and smiled more openly
Her smile widened. "Bitchforce..." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "I like that... I guess we all have our bad days. Getting spat out in the distant future probably qualifies as a bad day but like you said... it's better than what we were doing... Right?"
"Yeah. I really say memorable things like that? Youve mentioned it twice." He affected a silly, wistful look. "Holy cow, I must be cooler than I thought!"
She smiled and blushed a little. "Maybe just a bit." She said, lifting her fingers with only an inch between them. "Don't let it go to your head though."
"You're cool too," he offered, amused at the way she still crouched at few feets distance. He wondered if she'd keep doing that when she had the skirt back on. "Those combat boots, by the way. Very sexy. You know, in that--" he switched to a bassier voice "'this empowered woman can kick your ass' way. I dig that."
Her face broke into a real smile that time and she sort of laughed as she blushed all the way to the tip of her nose. "They just started out as just a big 'fuck you' to my uncle and the school they sent me to..." She said, but she shifted so she could sit with her arms around her knees. He could see her boots well now. "Picked em up at the Salvation Army... two bucks..." She tapped her toes together. "They've grown on me..."
"The real cool secret, I mean the realllly cool thing about 2009 is that, uh," he blushed too when he noticed her blush, "even though gasoline is 4 dollars a gallon, and a bottle of coke is like a dollar-seventy-five, Doc Martins are still cool as shit, baby. I swear it." He winked at her.
Out of all that the only thing she got was the price of gas. "Gas is four dollars a gallon!" She exclaimed, forgetting that Roland was asleep. "How can you people afford to go anywhere?" Her legs fell open and she sat Indian style beside his bed as if she were truly interested.
Roland, who had awoken from Shane gasping, let his consciousness meander back to sleep. Let them bond, he thought. It could only help
"Dollar really isn't what it used to be. Whats a good frame of reference... uh.. what's a pack of cigarettes cost for you?" Shane was more animated and awake. He loved talking. Especially to girls.
"Thirty-five cents." Jaqi said, in for a real shock once he told her how much they'd gone up over the years.
"Yeah, its about 9 bucks in New York, 7 in Jersey, and about five-fifty everywhere else. But you cant buy hardly anything but candy bars and soda for under ten dollars. Inflation sucks, heh. But the average American has a $37,000 salary now
He grinned wide, feeling like the comparing game was fun. And Jaqi was very cute. Clearly younger than he was supposed to go for, but nothing different than Romeo and Juliet, right? It wasn't weird to flirt here, and now, was it?
"We'll they're no better off when prices were lower then." She said, missing that Shane was flirting with her. She went to an all girls school and wasn't allowed to socialize with boys because Rick would get upset and knock her around. So despite Shane seeming like a really nice guy (and not too bad on the eyes either) she didn't notice that he liked her. She was only fifteen after all. Though she'd been forced to grow up quickly, there were still child-like things about her. Like the way she sat or how far too easy it was to make her blush. "It sounds like inflation hasn't kept up at all with the rate of pay." She said, continuing the conversation. "People make more, but they have to spend even more to get the things they need. Which is stupid."
"Yes. There's not much of that Leave it to Beaver, white picket fence stuff anymore. Theres poor, and rich, but not so many in the middle anymore. Dont get me started on politics, its awful and awful conversation too. Music isnt much better either. The Stones, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, and a bunch of other bands are still huge, some are still touring. Swear to god. So, minus the smart phones, you're not missing much."
"I still think you're shiting me with the phones." She said, almost laughing. "There's no way you can watch television on a phone."
He laughed again. Shane had a a jovial, infectious laugh. Even at the low volume he was trying to keep. "You're technically right. I watch videos on the internet on my phone." He smirked playfully at her. "It is much too late at night to explain the internet." He made a sarcastic omg!-fuck-THAT! face then chuckled again. "'Sides, it's your turn to tell me stuff."
"What can I tell you that you don't already know?" She asked. "I mean, it's all part of your when's past. It's not like I can tell you about going to see The Exorcist and how people were puking in the isles and stuff."
"Now see, that is something I didn't know. Ive seen the movie. I have no idea how it got made in the 70s when... I mean everyone has really loosened the fuck up by the turn of the century, but that movie still is fuckin' offensive. I mean there is scary, I mean actual SCARY, and then there's just shock-value stuff. Pissing on the floor and banging crucifixes is still just gross." He laughed at that again. "Wow, you really are from the past. And my shoes! You poked at my shoes!" Shane pushed his hair back and hissed that last exclamation in an excited whisper.
"I poked at your shoes?" She asked, looking at his feet. "Well... they're like something a kid would wear. Do adults really wear those when you're from?"
"These are BASKETBALL SHOES!" He affected mock-outrage. "You know Chuck Taylors, right? Converses? Theyre um... hi-top keds, essentially. These are like the futuristic design of those kind of shoes. And I dont give a fuck if you think they are goofy. They are SO damn comfortable, Jaqi, you dont even know." He beamed at her. His eyes had fully adjusted and he found himself staring at her lips. Maybe in a couple of years she would fill out some, but at the moment, her eyes and lips alone beat out all the porn he could think of.
"Whatever, man." She said, smiling at his playful outrage. "All I know is they look like they belong on a retarded kid with a foot problem." She laughed, forgetting Roland. She hadn't had such a fun conversation in ages. There was no threat of Rick waiting for her at home or one of the sisters getting upset that she was fraternizing. Shane was funny and cute and she found herself forgetting he was five or more years older than her. It was going to be hard watching him get sick...
"Well, times always change. We both look like retards to some guy in 2050, probably. So yeah. Um... glad I could make you smile. You're much prettier when you smile." He blushed a little and smirked.
All joviality left her face when he said that. She grew suddenly serious and that haunted look returned. "You should get some sleep..." She said and prepared to go back to her own bed. She'd been having such a good time. Why did he have to go and ruin it like that?
He was left with his jaw hanging a bit. He figured he'd hit the nerve again. Abuse nerve, probably. The guilt <immediate and overwhelming. He laid back down on his side, afraid to even look at her. He didnt know how well he'd sleep after that.
She laid down with her back to the fire and covered up all the way to her shoulder. Images of Jack haunted her. His bourbon stained breath in her face as he rutted on top of her. The way he pinched and bit to make her wince and squirm as he told her how she was such a pretty little thing. The way he would grab her wrist as she walked by and order her to smile with that shit eating grin of his. How he called her his pretty little whore whenever Aunt Sheryl wasn't around... Such a harmless little phrase from Shane dredged all of it up again and she lay awake, trying not to think too much.
"Hey." Shane whispered at her, extra quiet, after watching her shake in her bedding. Whether it was from anger or sadness, he didnt know.
"Hey, Jaqi." He whispered again. Just that harmless, salutory whisper. Nothing mean.
She tried not to make her sniff audible as she wiped her nose. Her voice sounded heavy and moist, which she tried hiding also. "What?" She asked.
"I said something wrong, didn't I?" He tried to be as unassuming about the question as humanly possible.
"It's ok, Shane..." She said softly. "It's not your fault... go back to sleep..." It wasn't his fault. It was Ricks for turning her into a mess who couldn't even take a compliment as harmless as the one Shane had given her. "You didn't do anything wrong..."
"Why dont you come back over here? We'll go back to talking about me being mentally retarded. That makes you feel better." All still in that deadpan hoarse whisper. He was pulling out all the class clown stunts now. Shane did not quit easily. Esecially when he was ahead
"Go back to sleep, Shane..." She said in a voice that said she was done for the night. Nothing could drive away Rick's haunting, but she couldn't let Shane think this was his fault. "We'll talk tomorrow ok?" She said, tears streaming onto her arm as she lay there. "I'll call you retarded all day if you want me to..." She couldn't hide the tears in her voice, she only hoped Roland wasn't feinting sleep and heard them too.
Shane wrapped up in his blanket, limped over to her, and wrapped himself up again about a foot or so away.
"Make you a deal," he murrmurred. "I'll go to sleep when you stop crying."
She turned her face in toward the ground so he couldn't see her. "Go away, Shane..." She said, crying all the harder now that he refused to let her suffer in peace.
"Hm mm!" He mumbled a negatory. "Can't sleep when you're isolating and crying. So we're still talking. Quick!" He whispered, "name of your all time favorite stuffed animal. Quick, before you get all flustered!"
"Mickey Mouse..." She said, wiping her eyes, having no idea why she decided to play along. Shane distracted her and that meant a lot. He was a fool, but a kind well meaning fool.
"Good! Good!" He murrmurred. "Uhmmm, first crush, go!"
"Roger Daltry..." She lifted her head a little and wiped her eyes again.
"The Who kicks ass." He mumbled. "Favorite candy, go! You gotta keep em coming!" He said, excitedly, albeit with a slight yawn and still trying to be quiet.
SHe gave a small smirk as he mentioned the who and replied with, "Reese's cups. What's yours?"
"Damn, reese's cups are hard to beat. I dont really have much of a sweet tooth. I might just have to agree with you." He smiled, just his weary, long haired head poking out of the blanket. He looked up the night sky. "I've never been camping before," he said.
"I have." She said, "Loads of times. And hunting... I'm not really a city girl I just play one on t.v." She smiled. Another real smile again, there was a little pain behind it but he could see that he was helping.
"I'm a city boy. I'm not proud of it. Cities are bad for the spirit." He made eye contact with her again. "I wasn't happy before, either, Jaqi. But life really isn't a happy thing. The happy things are reece's pieces and camping with Mickey."
"I've not had any happy things for so long..." She said, growing dark again. But she sat up because she couldn't lay there any more. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Dad died and it all went away... I've been scared for so long... I'm sorry Shane, I know you want to make me feel better but this is something you can't make go away..."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I musta gave you the impression I'm a miracle worker." He tilted his head so he could maintain eye contact. "I promised 'stop crying' and 'feel betterrrr uh-oh!" Now he had an early Shatner accent. "Come. ON. DoctOR. We're losing her.... totheMelancholy!" He turned his head over his shoulder "Dammit Jim! Im a doctor! Not a headshrink!"
She knew he meant her to laugh at that but she smiled and blushed a little. "You're sweet, Shane..." She said. "Thank you for trying to make me feel better."
"Trying? Woman, the almighty Shane Williams never tries! He does." he scooted to a seated position too, turtled under the blanket. "And without hugs or cradling or headpats, one must be a blackbelt at Comfort-Fu." He chuckled at himself. "As if you'd want a guy like me to be your only comforting option. Sweaty ugly dopehe as I am."
"You're sweaty, might be dopey, but you're not ugly." She said, glancing away from him. "Thank you, for what you said earlier... about me being pretty... It just reminded me of someone else who said that a lot... he didn't mean it though..."
"Ahhh. Say no more," he said sagely. "I didn't lose points for sexy, though. Normally its the other way around." He winked and rubbed his face vigorously.
She didn't know what he meant by that so she decided not to ask.
He smiled really big. "Yes, glum, awkward schoolgirl beats crying, miserable schoolgirl. I think I mighta done all I can." He shook the dew off his blanket. "Shall I retreat back to my cold little patch over there?"
"Well you can't share mine." She said, but she peeled one of the thin blankets from her pile of covers. "But you can have this."
Shane took the blanket graciously and wrapped up in it, then his slightly damp blanket. "I'll stay right here in case you need something, ok?" He curled up on his side, still a good arms length away.
"I'll be ok..." She told him as she snuggled back down. "Thanks..."
"My pleasure," he said, sniffled, and cleared his throat. "G'night."
"Night..." She rolled over and faced the fire. She felt better, but she was tired from crying and it wasn't long before sleep took her, despite having a watch dog over her shoulder. In the early hours of morning she felt the absence of the blanket she had given Shane and began to scrunch into a ball.
Shane awoke again before dawn. Not from bad dreams or even Jaqi's shaking, just from cramps starting in his stomach. What his friends back home sometimes called a "Dope-eriod" because it usually happened once a month, before payday. He saw Jaqi shaking and returned her blanket, very carefully, over the one she had wrapped around her. But she kept on shaking, and his teeth started clattering. So he said to himself, "eh, fuck it" and snuck under that top blanket. Then he was warm enough to drowse, but real sleep eluded him. At one point, he thought he had spooned Jaqi like she was a stuffed animal, but he wasn't really conscious by then. By the time he'd really gotten back to restful sleep, Jaqi had moved around some, and now they were under the same blanket
She was facing him, snuggled up against his chest. He was warm, which might have been a byproduct of his elevated temperature. Nevertheless, the shivers went away and she slept peacefully for the first time in ages. When she heard Roland begin to move around camp, it didn't register that she was in Shane's arms, her lips inches away from his scruffy neck.
Shane slept like the dead. He, too, felt warm and content, but he had spent a over a year, and not too long ago, completely used to sharing a bed. So, physically, Jaqi provided the human contact he still couldn't sleep right without. He didn't snore or move, when he normally moved all over the bed at night.
Roland woke up at first light, had a bemused scoff at the two kids, then set about checking the forest. It didn't take him long to see the first out of place branch, it was some kind of antennae, but he only recognized it as a
roda pole. He touched it, and the buzzing noise that reverbated through the area, just above the human audible range, vibrated his hand enough to sting. Was that why the animals were all gone? Is that why he dreamed for the first time in years?
There are other worlds than these, Gunslinger, he heard again, like an echo, like a distant cry of one of the muties in the mountain tunnels.
That headache he'd had since awaking on the beach returned.
As Roland's head began to ache, Jaqi felt a sharp pain in her left temple. Though brief, it roused her and she gradually woke to the circumstances wrapped around her. The circumstances were Shane and she began to panic. She began to hyperventilate and jerk, trying to get free of the covers. Her throat made a strangled cry and she finally came free. Her boot hung and he fell back, back peddling as her feet hooked on one of the rocks of the fire. Flames licked up at her as she stumbled back, her rubber sole scorching in the embers. Thankfully she remained upright till her ass hit the ground on the other side of the fire, but her legs were still enveloped in flame as she crawled backward. It had all happened too quick for her to catch fire, but bits of her boots were belted and embers glowed around her and the sole of her left boot was aflame.
By then, Shane has scrambled to his feet. The fire was mercifully low, but that damn girl was right in it for some reason. He ran, clumsily, the five or so steps to the fire and planted his new nike's in the wet dirt, baseball slide style, and kicked a spray of earth into the fire. Then he started shoveling handfuls at her legs. "Move move move! Dont mind the shoes! Watch your legs! Legs!"
She frantically kicked her legs, patting at herself through the dirt and confusion. It was such a terrible way to wake up, covered in flame and clouded with dirt. Thankfully it took only seconds to put out and she scrambled away from Shane as fast as she could. She staggered several paces and vomited behind a bush.
He was following after her, inquiring if she was okay, then he saw her throw up, and trailed off to dumbstruck town. He looked back and the blanket, the fire, back to Jaqi puking, and realized he could still feel the weight and warmth of her in his arms, then he despaired.
"Aww, hell!" He pushed his bangs back with a palm, and felt warm liquid on his head. He looked at his palm and saw it smeared with blood. A trickle of it ran down his arm and around his elbow to his hand.
"Christos on shittoast," he mumbled.
She wretched into the bush again, her heart still pounding. She was shaking with anxiety and watched her hand vibrate loosely before her eyes before she even realized Shane had followed her. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights that had already been grazed by a car. She swallowed, her mind blank and buzzing all at once.
"Easy, easy," he had his hands out, palms up. "You're ok." He felt like throwing up too, but it was under control, for now. "Roland will be back any second now."
"What... why..." She was panting and she actually clinched her fists and screamed through gritted teeth. It wasn't loud, but she couldn't control herself. The panic wouldn't go away and tears were streaming down her cheeks. All of a sudden she managed, "I'm fifteen you pervert!"
"I uh..." he coughed hoarsely, "you were cold and shaking... trying to help... aw fuck..." he palmed his bangs again, with his good hand, and it came back red again. "Son of a... look, I gotta go wash up..."
She didn't know why he was bleeding or why she cared, but she couldn't bring herself to ask. She was still shaking, but gradually beginning to still. Where was Roland? Had he seen her freak out like a child again?
Roland happened to be just outside that tiny clearing they slept in. He wanted to see if, and how, the two would behave left to their own devices. He didnt know which of the two bothered him more: Shane's clumsiness and discourtesy, or Jaqi's crazy paranoia.
Shane started to look around and spot where that stream was. He started off south west, using the meagre smoke cloud still coming from the Eagle's hulk to jude the trajectory. He was correct, and walking right at Roland, who was returning with fresh water
"Shane..." She called after a few moments. "Shane I'm sorry... are you ok?" She was still shaking a little but she followed after him at a distance. "I didn't mean to freak out, I'm sorry."
Roland smiled at that, too, from behind his tree. Roland didn't want Jaqi running to daddy to fix it, and she didn't.
Shane waved at her and kept walking. "Fine, Im fine. Like I said, need some cold water, a-a-ayyyyy oooh dammit."
He put a hand on a tree, but shook his head. No, the nausea wasnt kicking in it's full time swing at all yet. But the dizzyness set in, and that was almost as good for starting a puke session.
She came up behind him just as he wretched and froze. "I'm so sorry..." She said, thinking she'd probably hit him in her panic. "I'm a fucking idiot, I'm sorry."
He spit away from her, behind the tree, then cleared his throat. "Nooo... no you're fine.. you're fine. It was my bad."
She could see the droplets of blood falling off the fingers of his right hand.
"Me, I'M sorry, Jaqi."
"You're bleeding." She told him. "Your stitches probably popped. I can fix it..." She could touch him with his back to her and his hands idle. Long enough to sew him up any way.
He grimaced and nodded. "Yeah, yeah just let me sit down, here." He, very slowly, very gingerly, sat down. His back and butt wounds were fine, but he'd jostled the one in his right arm too much.
"I'm really sorry, Jaqi..."
"It's ok..." She said. "I... I have issues with being so close... I'm sorry. Thank you for trying to keep me warm... I gotta get a handle this... I'm gonna make a shitty gunslinger if I can't even let people touch me..." She pulled the little first aid kit out of her bag and began to attend his arm, starting by mopping away some of the blood.
"Well, yeah.. but when I fell asleep, there were blankets between us. . So, it was an accident, but, you're right to be mad..." he hung his head, letting her start stringing the stitches along again
"I'm not mad..." She said, stringing the needle. "My mouth runs before my brain has a chance to catch up. I don't think you're a pervert..."
"Well, I can be, when its a good thing. But Im not that kind of guy. I dont force myself on people.." he used the waist of his shirt to mop his brow with his free hand
"After Dad died I moved in with my Aunt and her husband..." She said, beginning to sew. "It wasn't two months before he..." She trailed off. "He could only keep it hard if he hurt me..." She lifted her shirt, revealing old bruises on her ribs and side. "When I stopped crying he only hit harder..." She pulled her shirt back down. "So yeah... I got a thing about being touched..."
"Fuck that guy." Shane said. "He's lucky to be in an alternate dimension from me. Piece of shit." He grumbled and hung his head. "I know it doesnt mean shit. But I'd smash that fuck's face in. I'd be a hero in jail. 'See that guy?' Bubba of the Clichèd Anal Rape would say, 'He's the Judo blackbelt whos doin' a bid for beating a child rapist into a coma. You leave him alone."
Jaqi's hands were still on his shoulder for a moment. He'd only popped a couple of the stitches and she was already done. She snipped the thread, smeared on some ointment and cupped his cheek, careful not to smear ointment on his face. She drew him to her and briefly kissed his cheek. "Thank you." She said and let him go, busying herself by packing up the medical stuff.
Shane was, like Jaqi, pale as printing paper. At her thanks and cheek kiss, he blushed red enough to make the KoolAid guy sue. He got to his feet gingerly, and Roland made an appearance.
"Finally awake?" He asked, then, as a surprise, held a length of wire with a pair of footlong trout on it.
Shane smirked. "I was beginning to fear you left us gawking tourists for the wolves."
Roland eyed him gravely. "I considered it, but there are no wolves about."
Shane slapped his thigh. Laughter always made him feel better. "Did you kill them and pull your sense of humor back out of their stomachs?"
"No, I had to get that back from lobsters," Roland said, and looked, just as stone faced, at Jaqi.
Jaqi smiled at Roland, catching that as the joke she hoped he meant it for. She felt better after fixing Shane. That little kiss she gave him... it made her feel a little better too. She proved that she was strong enough to overcome her fear. Her will was greater than her fear after all. "Want me to cook those up?" She asked, meaning the fish.
"Do you know how to clean fish?" Roland said, producing a steel bowie style knife, obviously old, but obviously well kept. "If you do, I gratefully accept the offer." Roland fucking hated fish scales. They were the medieval equivilent of Christmas tinsel.
She smiled. "Give em here." She stood and held her hands out for the line. "A woman's place is the kitchen right?" She was joking, but she took the fish and they nearly tipped her over they were so heavy.
Roland smiled. She could keep her hands on a good sized revolver, but not a pair of bludgeoned fish. Somehow he'd get her to have that focus on command. And where she went right, Shane went wrong, and Vice versa. Maybe he could teach them both at once.
Shane looked at Roland, and whispered, hiding his mouth. "Thank you for not stepping in."
This earned Roland's coveted Double Eyebrow Salute.
Shane continued to whisper. "Didn't see you, didn't hear you, but I can smell you a mile away, boss."
Roland, not accustomed to grooming anymore, nodded. "Perhaps we should attend the smaller things today. Even though I know you can walk. She wants me to be her Da, but she wants to be your Ma."
"Yeah, and I wanna acclimate. So if she can convince you to stay put, you grizzled, old bastard, then I'm on her side.
Roland nodded again. That simple, unique, and flat "I acknowledge the comment" cowboy nod.
Near the fire Jaqi set to work, letting the boys discuss whatever boys discussed. She tried not to let earlier get to her. What Shane had said about Rick made her feel better and that meant a lot. She took Roland's big skillet and she began to fillet the fish and put them in one at a time.
She nearly ruined the first fish, but when Roland produced a little deer fat from his gunna, things went more smoothly. The fat cooked down into a reasonable amount of grease and it let her brown the fish without loosing any of it.
They ate heartily that afternoon, but Jaqi poked at Shane to eat. As the day wore on he began to deteriorate a little and some of the funny young man she had spoken to last night dwindled.
Dusk had begun to set when the flicker of the fire glinted off something a few paces behind Roland. Shane was trying to explain a Matrix reference to Jaqi when she noticed the shape behind Roland. "I... don't want to interrupt but..." She pointed. "Is that what I think it is?"
Stumble!