The waste lands - Stephen King [60]
He left home at eight o’clock to walk to school—he always walked when the weather was good, and the weather this May had been absolutely fine. His father had left for the Network, his mother was still in bed, and Mrs. Greta Shaw was in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading her New York Post.
“Goodbye, Greta,” he said. “I’m going to school now.”
She raised a hand to him without looking up from the paper. “Have a good day, Johnny.”
All according to routine. Just another day in the life.
And so it had been for the next fifteen hundred seconds. Then everything had changed forever.
He idled along, bookbag in one hand, lunch sack in the other, looking in the windows. Seven hundred and twenty seconds from the end of his life as he had always known it, he paused to look in the window of Brendio’s, where mannequins dressed in fur coats and Edwardian suits stood in stiff poses of conversation. He was thinking only of going bowling that afternoon after school. His average was 158, great for a kid who was only eleven. His ambition was to some day be a bowler on the pro tour (and if his father had known this little factoid, he also would have hit the roof).
Closing in now—closing in on the moment when his sanity would be suddenly eclipsed.
He crossed Thirty-ninth and there were four hundred seconds left. Had to wait for the WALK light at Forty-first and there were two hundred and seventy. Paused to look in the novelty shop on the corner of Fifth and Forty-second and there were a hundred and ninety. And now, with just over three minutes left in his ordinary life, Jake Chambers walked beneath the unseen umbrella of that force which Roland called ka-tet.
An odd, uneasy feeling began to creep over him. At first he thought it was a feeling of being watched, and then he realized it wasn’t that at all . . . or not precisely that. He felt that he had been here before; that he was reliving a dream he had mostly forgotten. He waited for the feeling to pass, but it didn’t. It grew stronger, and now began to mix with a sensation he reluctantly recognized as terror.
Up ahead, on the near corner of Fifth and Forty-third, a black man in a Panama hat was setting up a pretzel-and-soda cart.
He’s the one that yells “Oh my God, he’s kilt!” Jake thought.
Approaching the far corner was a fat lady with a Bloomingdale’s bag in her hand.
She’ll drop the bag. Drop the bag and put her hands to her mouth and scream. The bag will split open. There’s a doll inside the bag. It’s wrapped in a red towel. I’ll see this from the street. From where I’ll be lying in the street with my blood soaking into my pants and spreading around me in a pool.
Behind the fat woman was a tall man in a gray nailhead worsted suit. He was carrying a briefcase.
He’s the one who vomits on his shoes. He’s the one who drops his briefcase and throws up on his shoes. What’s happening to me?
Yet his feet carried him numbly forward toward the intersection, where people were crossing in a brisk, steady stream. Somewhere behind him, closing in, was a killer priest. He knew this, just as he knew that the priest’s hands would in a moment be outstretched to push . . . but he could not look around. It was like being locked in a nightmare where things simply had to take their course.
Fifty-three seconds left now. Ahead of him, the pretzel vendor was opening a hatch in the side of his cart.
He’s going to take out a bottle of Yoo-Hoo, Jake thought. Not a can but a bottle. He’ll shake it up and drink it all at once.
The pretzel vendor brought out a bottle of Yoo-Hoo, shook it vigorously, and spun off the cap.
Forty seconds left.
Now the light will change.
White WALK went out. Red DONT WALK began to flash rapidly on and off. And somewhere, less than half a block away, a