Stephen King - Wolves of the Calla

He bent forward between Andolini and Balazar, aware that both men were looking around with wide, wary eyes, not caring. What he cared about was the paper. Someone had hired Balazar first to get it signed (probably) and then to shove it under Tower/Toren's nose when the time was right (certainly). In most cases, Il Roche would have been content to send a couple of his hard boys-what he called his "gentlemen"-on an errand like that. This job, however, was important enough to warrant his personal attention. Eddie wanted to know why.

Those chimes wriggled through his head again, making him shiver. This time they were louder. The shadows drew thicker, leaping up the storage room's walls. The darkness Eddie had sensed out on the street was breaking through. They might be swept away, and that would be bad. They might be drowned in it, and that would be worse, of course it would, being drowned in darkness would surely be an awful way to go.

And suppose there were things in that darkness? Hungry things like the doorkeeper?

There are . That was Henry's voice. For the first time in almost two months. Eddie could imagine Henry standing just behind him and grinning a sallow junkie's grin: all bloodshot eyes and yellow, uncared-for teeth. You know there are. But when you hear the chimes, you got to go, bro, as I think you know .

"Eddie!" Jake cried. "It's coming back! Do you hear it?"

"Grab my belt," Eddie said. His eyes raced back and forth over the paper in Tower's pudgy hands. Balazar, Andolini, and Big Nose were still looking around. Biondi had actually drawn his gun.

"Your-?"

"Maybe we won't be separated," Eddie said. The chimes were louder than ever, and he groaned. The words of the agreement blurred in front of him. Eddie squinted his eyes, bringing the print back together:

… identified as Lot#298 and Block #19, located inmanhattan, New York City, on46th Street and2nd Avenue, andSombra Corporation, a corporation doing business within the State of New York.

On this day ofjuly 15,1976, sombra is paying a non-returnable sum of$100,000.00 to calvin tower, receipt of which is acknowledged in regard to this property. In consideration thereof,Calvin Tower agrees not to…

July 15th, 1976. Not quite a year ago.

Eddie felt the darkness sweeping down on them, and tried to cram the rest of it through his eyes and into his brain: enough, maybe, to make sense of what was going on here. If he could do that, it would be at least astep toward figuring out what all this meant to them.

If the chimes don't drive me crazy. If the things in the darkness don't eat us on the way back.

"Eddie!" Jake. And terrified, by the sound. Eddie ignored him.

… Calvin Tower agrees not to sell or lease or otherwise encumber the property during aone-year period commencing on the date hereof and ending onJuly 15, 1977. It is understood that thesombra corporation shall have first right of purchase on the above mentioned property, as defined below.

During this period,calvin tower will fully preserve and protectsombra corporation's stated interest in the above-mentioned Property and will permit no liens or other encumbrances…

There was more, but now the chimes were hideous, head-bursting. For just one moment Eddie understood-hell, could almost see -how thin this world had become. All of the worlds, probably. As thin and worn as his own jeans. He caught one final phrase from the agreement:… if these conditions are met, will have the right to sell or otherwise dispose of the property to Sombra or any other party.Then the words were gone, everything was gone, spinning into a black whirlpool. Jake held onto Eddie's belt with one hand and Oy with the other. Oy was barking wildly now, and Eddie had another confused image of Dorothy being swirled away to the Land of Oz.

There were things in the darkness: looming shapes behind weird phosphorescent eyes, the sort of things you saw in movies about exploring the deepest cracks of the ocean floor. Except in those movies, the explorers were always inside a steel diving-bell, while he and Jake-

The chimes grew to an ear-splitting volume. Eddie felt as if he had been jammed headfirst into the works of Big Ben as it was striking midnight. He screamed without hearing himself. And then it was gone, everything was all gone-Jake, Oy, Mid-World-and he was floating somewhere beyond the stars and the galaxies.

Susannah! .'he cried. Where are you, Suze ?

No answer. Only darkness.

Once upon a time, back in the sixties (before the world moved on), there had been a woman named Odetta Holmes, a pleasant and really quite socially conscious young woman who was wealthy, good-looking, and perfectly willing to look out for the other guy. (Or gal.) Without even realizing it, this woman shared her body with a far less pleasant creature named Detta Walker. Detta did not give a tin shit for the other guy (or gal). Rhea of the Coos would have recognized Detta, and called her sister. On the other side of Mid-World, Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, had drawn this divided woman to him and had created a third, who was far better, far stronger, than either of the previous two. This was the woman with whom Eddie Dean had fallen in love. She called him husband, and thus herself by the name of his father. Having missed the feminist squabbles of later decades, she did this quite happily. If she did not call herself Susannah Dean with pride as well as happiness, it was only because her mother had taught her that pride goeth before a fall.

Now there was a fourth woman. She had been born out of the third in yet another time of stress and change. She cared nothing for Odetta, Detta, or Susannah; she cared for nothing save the new chap who was on his way. The new chap needed to be fed. The banqueting hall was near. That was what mattered and all that mattered.

This new woman, every bit as dangerous in her own way as Detta Walker had been, was Mia. She bore the name of no man's father, only the word that in the High Speech means mother .

She walked slowly down long stone corridors toward the place of feasting. She walked past the rooms of ruin, past the empty naves and niches, past forgotten galleries where the apartments were hollow and none was the number. Somewhere in this castle stood an old throne drenched in ancient blood. Somewhere ladderways led to bone-walled crypts that went gods knew how deep. Yet there was life here; life and rich food. Mia knew this as well as she knew the legs under her and the textured, many-layered skirt swishing against them. Rich food. Life for you and for your crop, as the saying went. And she was so hungry now. Of course! Wasn't she eating for two?

She came to a broad staircase. A sound, faint but powerful, rose up to her: the beat-beat-beat of slo-trans engines buried in the earth below the deepest of the crypts. Mia cared nothing for them, nor for North Central Positronics, Ltd., which had built them and set them in motion tens of thousands of years before. She cared nothing for the dipolar computers, or the doors, or the Beams, or the Dark Tower which stood at the center of everything.