Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [286]
“They’re what my friends Eddie, Susannah, and Jake call zombis. They can’t be killed by bow, bah, or bullet unless struck in the brain or the heart.” Roland tapped the left side of his chest for emphasis. “And of course when they come on their raids, they come wearing heavy armor under their clothes.”
Henchick was nodding. Several of the other older men and women—folken who well remembered the Wolves coming not just once before but twice—were doing the same. “It explains a good deal,” he said. “But how—”
“To strike them in the brain is beyond our abilities, because of the helmets they wear under their hoods,” Roland said. “But we saw such creatures in Lud. Their weakness is here.” Again he tapped his chest. “The undead don’t breathe, but there’s a kind of gill above their hearts. If they armor it over, they die. That’s where we’ll strike them.”
A low, considering hum of conversation greeted this. And then Gran-pere’s voice, shrill and excited: “ ’Tis ever’ word true, for dinna Molly Doolin strike one there hersel’ wi’ the dish, an’ not even dead-on, neither, and yet the creetur’ dropped down!”
Susannah’s hand tightened on Eddie’s arm enough for him to feel her short nails, but when he looked at her, she was grinning in spite of herself. He saw a similar expression on Jake’s face. Trig enough when the chips were down, old man, Eddie thought. Sorry I ever doubted you. Let Andy and Slightman go back across the river and report that happy horseshit! He’d asked Roland if they (the faceless they represented by someone who called himself Finli o’ Tego) would believe such tripe. They’ve raided this side of the Whye for over a hundred years and lost but a single fighter, Roland had replied. I think they’d believe anything. At this point their really vulnerable spot is their complacence.
“Bring your twins here by seven o’ the clock on Wolf’s Eve,” Roland said. “There’ll be ladies—Sisters of Oriza, ye ken—with lists on slateboards. They’ll scratch off each pair as they come in. It’s my hope to have a line drawn through every name before nine o’ the clock.”
“Ye’ll not drig no line through the names o’ mine!” cried an angry voice from the back of the crowd. The voice’s owner pushed several people aside and stepped forward next to Jake. He was a squat man with a smallhold rice-patch far to the south’ards. Roland scratched through the untidy storehouse of his recent memory (untidy, yes, but nothing was ever thrown away) and eventually came up with the name: Neil Faraday. One of the few who hadn’t been home when Roland and his ka-tet had come calling…or not home to them, at least. A hard worker, according to Tian, but an even harder drinker. He certainly looked the part. There were dark circles under his eyes and a complication of burst purplish veins on each cheek. Scruffy, say big-big. Yet Telford and Took threw him a grateful, surprised look. Another sane man in bedlam, it said. Thank the gods.
“ ’Ay’ll take ’een babbies anyro’ and burn ’een squabbot town flat,” he said, speaking in an accent that made his words almost incomprehensible. “But ’ay’ll have one each o’ my see’, an’ ’at’ll stee’ lea’ me three, and a’ best ’ay ain’t worth squabbot, but my howgan is!” Faraday looked around at the townsfolk with an expression of sardonic disdain. “Burn’ee flat an’ be damned to ’ee,” he said. “Numb gits!” And back into the crowd he went, leaving a surprising number of people looking shaken and thoughtful. He had done more to turn the momentum of the crowd with his contemptuous and (to Eddie, at least) incomprehensible tirade than Telford and Took had been able to do together.
He may be shirttail poor, but I doubt if he’ll have trouble getting credit from Took for the next year or so, Eddie thought. If the store still stands, that is.
“Sai Faraday’s got a right to his opinion, but I hope he’ll change it over the next few days,” Roland said. “I hope you folks will help him change it. Because if he doesn’t, he’s apt to be left not with three kiddies but none at all.” He raised his voice and shaped it toward the place