Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [291]
He watched as Little White Walking Sam waited at the comer of Dunbar Street and Johnstown Avenue for the light to change. He watched as he scampered across the street with the book in his hand ... the basket was gone now. He watched as Little White Walking Sam went into the Dunbar Street News and then he was inside, too, smelling the old mingled smells of camphor, candy, and pipe tobacco, watching as Little White Walking Sam approached the counter with a nickle package of Bull's Eye red licorice - his favorite. He watched as the little boy carefully removed the dollar bill his mother had tucked into the card-pocket in the back of The Black Arrow. He watched as the clerk took the dollar and returned ninety-five cents ... more than enough to pay the fine. He watched as Little White Walking Sam left the store and paused on the street outside long enough to put the change in his pocket and tear open the package of licorice with his teeth. He watched as Little White Walking Sam went on his way - only three blocks to the Library now - munching the long red whips of candy as he went.
He tried to scream at the boy.
Beware! Beware! The wolf is waiting, little boy! Beware the wolf! Beware the wolf!
But the boy walked on, eating his red licorice; now he was on Briggs Avenue and the Library, a great pile of red brick, loomed ahead.
At this point Sam - Big White Plane-Riding Sam - tried to pull himself out of the dream. He sensed that Naomi and Stan Soames and the world of real things were just outside this hellish egg of nightmare in which he found himself. He could hear the drone of the Navajo's engine behind the sounds of the dream: the traffic on Briggs Avenue, the brisk brrrinnng!-brrrinnng! of some kid's bike-bell, the birds squabbling in the rich leaves of the midsummer elms. He closed his dreaming eyes and yearned toward that world outside the shell, the world of real things. And more: he sensed he could reach it, that he could hammer through the shell
No, Dave said. No, Sam, don't do that. You mustn't do that. If you want to save Sarah from Ardelia, forget about breaking out of this dream. There's only one coincidence in this business, but it's a killer: once You had a Library Policeman, too. And you have to get that memory back.
I don't want to see. I don't want to know. Once was bad enough.
Nothing is as bad as what's watting for you, Sam. Nothing.
He opened his eyes - not his outer eyes but the inside ones; the dreaming eyes.
Now Little White. Walking Sam is on the concrete path which approaches the east side of the Public Library, the concrete path which leads to the Children's Wing. He moves in a kind of portentous slow motion, each step the soft swish of a pendulum in the glass throat of a grandfather clock, and everything is clear: the tiny sparks of mica and quartz gleaming in the concrete walk; the cheerful roses which border the concrete walk; the thick drift of green bushes along the side of the building; the climbing ivy on the red brick wall; the strange and somehow frightening Latin motto, Fuimus, non sumus, carved in a brief semicircle over the green doors with their thick panes of wire-reinforced glass.
And the Library Policeman standing by the steps is clear, too.
He is not pale. He is flushed. There are pimples on his forehead, red and flaring. He is not tall but of medium height with extremely broad shoulders. He is wearing not a trenchcoat but an overcoat, and that's very odd because this is a summer day, a hot St Louis summer day. His eyes might be silver; Little White Walking Sam cannot see what color they are, because the Library Policeman is wearing little round black glasses - blind man's glasses.
He's not a Library Policeman! He's the wolf! Beware! He's the wolf! The Library WOLF!
But Little White Walking Sam doesn't hear. Little White Walking Sam isn't afraid. It is, after all, bright daylight, and the city is full of strange - and sometimes amusing - people. He has lived all his life in St Louis, and he's not afraid of it. That is about to change.
He approaches