The Waste Lands (Page 144)

“No!” Jake wailed. He forgot about the button which unlocked the doors and seized the gun hanging from the back of the chair. Tilly shrieked. The others scattered. Jake levelled the old German machine-gun at the Tick-Tock Man. Oy, upside down in those huge, strong hands and bent almost to the snapping point, writhed madly and slashed his teeth into the air. He shrieked in agony—a horribly human sound. “Leave him alone, you bastard!” Jake screamed, and pressed the trigger. He had enough presence of mind left to aim low. The roar of the Schmeisser . was ear-splitting in the enclosed space, although it fired only five or six rounds. One of the lighted tubes popped in a burst of cold orange fire. A hole appeared an inch above the left knee of the Tick-Tock Man’s tight-fitting trousers, and a dark red stain began to spread at once. Tick-Tock’s mouth opened in a shocked O of surprise, an expression which said more clearly than words could have done that, for all his intelligence, Tick-Tock had expected to live a long, happy life where he shot people but was never shot himself. Shot at, perhaps, but actually hit? That surprised expression said that just wasn’t supposed to be in the cards.

Welcome to the real world, you f**k, Jake thought. Tick-Tock dropped Oy to the iron grillework floor to grab at his wounded leg.

Copperhead lunged at Jake, got an arm around his throat, and then Oy was on him, barking shrilly and chewing at Copperhead’s ankle through the black silk pants. Copperhead screamed and danced away, shaking Oy back and forth at the end of his leg. Oy clung like a limpet. Jake turned to see the Tick-Tock Man crawling toward him. He had retrieved his knife and the blade was now clamped between his teeth.

“Goodbye, Ticky,” Jake said, and pressed the Schmeisser’s trigger again. Nothing happened. Jake didn’t know if it was empty or jammed, and this was hardly the time to speculate. He took two steps backward before finding further retreat blocked by the big chair which had served the Tick-Tock Man as a throne. Before he could slip around, putting the chair between them, Tick-Tock had grabbed his ankle. His other hand went to the hilt of his knife. The ruins of his left eye lay on his cheek like a glob of mint jelly; the right eye glared up at Jake with insane hatred.

Jake tried to pull away from the clutching hand and went sprawling on the Tick-Tock man’s throne. His eye fell on a pocket which had been sewn into the right-hand arm-rest. Jutting from the elasticized top was the cracked pearl handle of a revolver.

“Oh, cully, how you’ll suffer!” the Tick-Tock Man whispered ecstati-cally. The O of surprise had been replaced by a wide, trembling grin. “Oh how you’ll suffer! And how happy I’ll be to … What—?”

The grin slackened and the surprised O began to reappear as Jake pointed the cheesy nickel-plated revolver at him and thumbed back the hammer. The grip on Jake’s ankle tightened until it seemed to him that the bones there must snap. “You dasn’t!” Tick-Tock said in a screamy whisper. “Yes I do,” Jake said grimly, and pulled the trigger of the Tick-Tock Man’s runout gun. There was a Hat crack, much less dramatic than the Schmeisser’s Teutonic roar. A small black hole appeared high up on the right side of Tick-Tock’s forehead. The Tick-Tock Man went on staring up at Jake, disbelief in his remaining eye.

Jake tried to make himself shoot him again and couldn’t do it. Suddenly a flap of the Tick-Tock Man’s scalp peeled away like old wallpaper and dropped on his right cheek. Roland would have known what this meant; Jake, however, was now almost beyond coherent thought. A dark, panicky horror was spinning across his mind like a tornado funnel. He cringed back in the big chair as the hand on his ankle fell away and the Tick-Tock Man collapsed forward on his face.

The door. He had to open the door and let the gunslinger in. Focusing on that and nothing but, Jake let the pearl-handled revolver clatter to the iron grating and pushed himself out of the chair. He was reaching again for the button he thought he had seen Tick-Tock push when a pair of hands settled around his throat and dragged him back-ward, away from the podium. “I said I’d kill you for it, my narsty little pal,” a voice whispered in his ear, “and the Gasherman always keeps his promises.” Jake flailed behind him with both hands and found nothing but thin air. Gasher’s fingers sank into his throat, choking relentlessly. The world started to turn gray in front of his eyes. Gray quickly deepened to purple, and purple to black.

A PUMP STARTED UP, and the valve-wheel in the center of the hatch spun rapidly. Gods be thanked! Roland thought. He seized the wheel with his right hand almost before it had stopped moving and yanked it open. The other door was ajar; from beyond it came the sounds of men fighting and Oy’s bark, now shrill with pain and fury.

Roland kicked the door open with his boot and saw Gasher throttling Jake. Oy had left Copperhead and was now trying to make Gasher let go of Jake, but Gasher’s boot was doing double duty: protecting its owner from the bumbler’s teeth, and protecting Oy from the virulent infection which ran in Gasher’s blood. Brandon stabbed Oy in the flank again in an effort to make him stop worrying Gasher’s ankle, but Oy paid no heed. Jake hung from his captor’s dirty hands like a puppet whose strings have been cut. His face was bluish-white, his swollen lips a delicate shade of lavender.

Gasher looked up. “You,” he snarled.

“Me,” Roland agreed. He fired once and tin; left side of Gasher’s head disintegrated. The man went flying backward, bloodstained yellow scarf unravelling, and landed on top of the Tick-Tock Man. His feet drummed spastically on the iron grillework for a moment and then fell still. The gunslinger shot Brandon twice, fanning the hammer of his revolver with the flat of his right hand. Brandon, who had been bent over Oy for another stroke, spun around, struck the wall, and slid slowly down it, clutching at one of the tubes. Green swamplight spilled out from between his loosening fingers. Oy limped to where Jake lay and began licking his pale, still face. Copperhead and Hoots had seen enough. They ran side by side for the small door through which Tilly had gone to get the dipper of water. It was the wrong time for chivalry; Roland shot them both in the back. He would have to move fast now, very fast indeed, and he would not risk being waylaid by these two if they should chance to rediscover their guts.