He had told Larry he was too old for adventure, and God save him, but that had been a lie. His heart hadn't beat with this quick rhythm for twenty years, the air had not tasted this sweet, colors had not seemed this bright. He would follow I-25 to Cheyenne and then move west toward whatever waited for him beyond the mountains. His skin, dry with age, nonetheless crawled and goosebumped a little at the thought. I-80 west, into Salt Lake City, then across Nevada to Reno. Then he would head north again, but that hardly mattered. Because somewhere between Salt Lake and Reno, maybe even sooner, he would be stopped, questioned, and probably sent somewhere else to be questioned again. And at some place or other, an invitation might be issued.

It was not even impossible to think that he might meet the dark man himself.

"Get moving, old man," he said softly.

He put the Rover in gear and crept down to the turnpike. There were three lanes northbound, all of them relatively clear. As he had guessed, traffic jams and multiple accidents back in Denver had effectively dammed the flow of traffic. The traffic was heavy on the other side of the median strip-the poor fools who had been headed south, blindly hoping that south would be better-but here the going was good. For a while at least.

Judge Farris drove on, glad to be making his start. He had slept poorly last night. He would sleep better tonight, under the stars, his old body wrapped firmly in two sleeping bags. He wondered if he would ever see Boulder again and thought the chances were probably against it. And yet his excitement was very great.

It was one of the finest days of his life.

Early that afternoon, Nick, Ralph, and Stu biked out to North Boulder to a small stucco house where Tom Cullen lived by himself. Tom's house had already become a landmark to Boulder's "old" residents. Stan Nogotny said it was as if the Catholics, Baptists, and Seventh-Day Adventists had gotten together with the Democrats and the Moonies to create a religious-political Disneyland.

The front lawn of the house was a weird tableau of statues. There were a dozen Virgin Marys, some of them apparently in the act of feeding flocks of pink plastic lawn flamingos. The largest of the flamingos was taller than Tom himself and anchored to the ground on a single leg that ended in a four-foot spike. There was a giant wishing well with a large plastic glow-in-the-dark Jesus standing in the ornamental bucket with His hands outstretched ... apparently to bless the pink flamingos. Beside the wishing well was a large plaster cow who was apparently drinking from a birdbath.

The front door screen slammed open and Tom came out to meet them, stripped to the waist. Seen from a distance, Nick thought, you would have supposed he was some fantastically virile writer or painter, with his bright blue eyes and that big reddish-blond beard. As he got closer you might have given up that idea in favor of one not quite so intellectual ... maybe some sort of craftsman from the counterculture who had substituted kitsch kitsch for originality. And when he got very close, smiling and talking away a mile a minute, you realized for sure that a goodly chunk of Tom Cullen's attic insulation was missing. for originality. And when he got very close, smiling and talking away a mile a minute, you realized for sure that a goodly chunk of Tom Cullen's attic insulation was missing.

Nick knew that one of the reasons he felt a strong sense of empathy for Tom was because he himself had been assumed to be mentally retarded, at first because his handicap had held him back from learning to read and write, later because people just assumed that someone who was both deaf and mute must be mentally retarded. He had heard all the slang terms at one time or another. A few bricks short the load. Soft upstairs. Running on three wheels. The guy's got a hole in his head and his brains done leaked out. This guy ain't traveling with a full seabag. He remembered the night he had stopped for a couple of beers in Zack's, the ginmill on the outskirts of Shoyo-the night Ray Booth and his buddies had jumped him. The bartender had stood at the far end of the bar, leaning confidentially over it to speak to a customer. His hand had been half shielding his mouth, so Nick could only make out fragments of what he had been saying. He didn't need to make out any more than that, however. Deaf-mute Deaf-mute ... probably retarded... almost all those ... probably retarded... almost all those guys're guys're retarded ... retarded ...

But among all the ugly terms for mental retardation, there was one term that did fit Tom Cullen. It was one Nick had applied to him often, and with great compassion, in the silence of his own mind. The phrase was: The guy's not playing with a full a full deck. That was what was wrong with Tom. That was what it came down to. And the pity in Tom's case was that so few cards were missing, and low cards at that-a deuce of diamonds, a trey of clubs, something like that. But without those cards, you just couldn't have a good game of anything. You couldn't even win at solitaire with those cards missing from the deck. deck. That was what was wrong with Tom. That was what it came down to. And the pity in Tom's case was that so few cards were missing, and low cards at that-a deuce of diamonds, a trey of clubs, something like that. But without those cards, you just couldn't have a good game of anything. You couldn't even win at solitaire with those cards missing from the deck.

"Nicky!" Tom yelled. "Am I glad to see you! Laws, yes! Tom Cullen is so glad!" He threw his arms around Nick's neck and gave him a hug. Nick felt his bad eye sting with tears behind the black eyepatch he still wore on bright days like this one. "And Ralph too! And that one. You're ... let's see ..."

"I'm-" Stu began, but Nick silenced him with a brusque chopping gesture of his left hand. He had been practicing mnemonics with Tom, and it seemed to work. If you could associate something you knew with a name you wanted to remember, it often clicked home and stuck. Rudy had turned him on to that, too, all those long years ago.

Now he took his pad from his pocket and jotted on it. Then he handed it to Ralph to read aloud.

Frowning a little, Ralph did so: "What do you like to eat that comes in a bowl with meat and vegetables and gravy?"

Tom went stockstill. The animation died out of his face. His mouth dropped slackly open and he became the picture of idiocy.

Stu stirred uncomfortably and said, "Nick, don't you think we ought to-"

Nick shushed him with a finger at his lips, and at the same instant Tom came alive again.

"Stew!" he said, capering and laughing. "You're Stew!" He looked at Nick for confirmation, and Nick gave him a V-for-victory.

"M-O-O-N, that spells Stew, Tom Cullen knows that, everybody knows that!"

Nick pointed to the door of Tom's house.

"Want to come in? Laws, yes! All of us are going to come in. Tom's been decorating his house."

Ralph and Stu exchanged an amused glance as they followed Nick and Tom up the porch steps. Tom was always "decorating." He did not "furnish," because the house had of course been furnished when he moved in. Going inside was like entering a madly jumbled Mother Goose world.

A huge gilded birdcage with a green stuffed parrot carefully wired to the perch hung just inside the front door and Nick had to duck under it. The thing was, he thought, Tom's decorations were not just random rickrack. That would have made this house into something no more striking than a rummage sale barn. But there was something more here, something that seemed just beyond what the ordinary mind could grasp as a pattern. In a large square block over the mantel in the living room were a number of credit card signs, all of them centered and carefully mounted. YOUR VISA CARD WELCOME HERE. JUST SAY MASTERCARD. WE HONOR AMERICAN EXPRESS. DINER'S CLUB YOUR VISA CARD WELCOME HERE. JUST SAY MASTERCARD. WE HONOR AMERICAN EXPRESS. DINER'S CLUB. Now the question occurred: How did Tom know that all those signs were part of a fixed set? He couldn't read, but somehow he had grasped the pattern.

Sitting on the coffee table was a large Styrofoam fire plug. On the windowsill, where it could catch the sunlight and reflect cool fans of blue light onto the wall, was a police car bubble.

Tom toured them through the entire house. The downstairs game room was filled with stuffed birds and animals that Tom had found in a taxidermy shop; he had strung the birds on nearly invisible piano wire and they seemed to cruise, owls and hawks and even a bald eagle with moth-eaten feathers and one yellow glass eye missing. A woodchuck stood on its hind legs in one corner, a gopher in another, a skunk in another, a weasel in the fourth. In the center of the room was a coyote, somehow seeming to be the focus for all the smaller animals.

The bannister leading up the stairs had been wrapped in red and white strips of Con-Tact paper so that it resembled a barber pole. The upper hallway was hung with fighter planes on more piano wire-Fokkers, Spads, Stukas, Spitfires, Zeros, Messerschmitts. The floor of the bathroom had been painted a bright electric blue and on it was Tom's extensive collection of toy boats, sailing an enamel sea around four white porcelain islands and one white porcelain continent: the legs of the tub, the base of the toilet.

At last Tom took them back downstairs and they sat below the credit card montage and facing a 3-D picture of John and Robert Kennedy against a background of gold-edged clouds. The legend beneath proclaimed BROTHERS TOGETHER IN HEAVEN BROTHERS TOGETHER IN HEAVEN.

"You like Tom's decorations? What do you think? Nice?"

"Very nice," Stu said. "Tell me. Those birds downstairs ... do they ever get on your nerves?"

"Laws, no!" Tom said, astounded. "They're full of sawdust!"

Nick handed a note to Ralph.

"Tom, Nick wants to know if you'd mind being hypnotized again. Like the time Stan did it. It's important this time, not just a game. Nick says he'll explain why afterward."

"Go ahead," Tom said. "Youuu... are getting ... verrrry sleepy "Youuu... are getting ... verrrry sleepy ... right?" ... right?"

"Yes, that's it," Ralph said.

"Do you want me to look at the watch again? I don't mind. You know, when you swing it back and forth? Verrrry...sleeeepy Verrrry...sleeeepy..." Tom looked at them doubtfully. "Except I don't feel very sleepy. Laws, no. I went to bed early last night. Tom Cullen always goes to bed early because there's no TV to watch."

Stu said softly: "Tom, would you like to see an elephant?"

Tom's eyes closed immediately. His head dropped forward loosely. His respiration deepened to long, slow strokes. Stu watched this with great surprise. Nick had given him the key phrase, but Stu hadn't known whether or not to believe it would work. And he had never expected that it could happen so fast.

"Just like putting a chicken's head under its wing," Ralph marveled.

Nick handed Stu his prepared "script" for this encounter. Stu looked at Nick for a long moment. Nick looked back, then nodded gravely that Stu should go ahead.

"Tom, can you hear me?" Stu asked.

"Yes, I can hear you," Tom said, and the quality of his voice made Stu look up sharply.

It was different from Tom's usual voice, but in a way Stu could not quite put his hand to. It reminded him of something which had happened when he was eighteen, and graduating from high school. They had been in the boys' locker room before the ceremony, all the guys he'd been going to school with since ... well, since the first day of the first grade in at least four cases, and almost as long in many others. And for just a moment he had seen how much their faces had changed between those old days, those first days, and that moment of insight, standing on the tile floor of the locker room with the black robe in his hands. That vision of change had made him shiver then, and it made him shiver now. The faces he had looked into had no longer been the faces of children ... but neither had they yet become the faces of men. They were faces in limbo, faces caught perfectly between two well-defined states of being. This voice, coming out of the shadowland of Tom Cullen's subconscious, seemed like those faces, only infinitely sadder. Stu thought it was the voice of the man forever denied.

But they were waiting for him to go on, and go on he must.

"I'm Stu Redman, Tom."

"Yes. Stu Redman."

"Nick is here."

"Yes, Nick is here."

"Ralph Brentner is here, too."

"Yes, Ralph is, too."

"We're your friends."

"I know."

"We'd like you to do something, Tom. For the Zone. It's dangerous."

"Dangerous ..."

Trouble crossed over Tom's face, like a cloud shadow slowly crossing a midsummer field of corn.

"Will I have to be afraid? Will I have to ..." He trailed off, sighing.

Stu looked at Nick, troubled.

Nick mouthed: Yes. Yes.

"It's him," him," Tom said, and sighed dreadfully. It was like the sound a bitter November wind makes in a stand of denuded oaks. Stu felt that shudder inside him again. Ralph had gone pale. Tom said, and sighed dreadfully. It was like the sound a bitter November wind makes in a stand of denuded oaks. Stu felt that shudder inside him again. Ralph had gone pale.

"Who, Tom?" Stu asked gently.

"Flagg. His name is Randy Flagg. The dark man. You want me to ..." That sick sigh again, bitter and long.

"How do you know him, Tom?" This wasn't in the script.

"Dreams ... I see his face in dreams."

I see his face in dreams. But none of them had seen his face. It was always hidden. But none of them had seen his face. It was always hidden.

"You see him?"

"Yes ..."

"What does he look like, Tom?"

Tom didn't speak for a long time. Stu had decided he wasn't going to answer and he was preparing to go back to the "script" when Tom said: "He looks like anybody you see on the street. But when he grins, birds fall dead off telephone lines. When he looks at you a certain way, your prostate goes bad and your urine burns. The grass yellows up and dies where he spits. He's always outside. He came out of time. He doesn't know himself. He has the name of a thousand demons. Jesus knocked him into a herd of pigs once. His name is Legion. He's afraid of us. We're inside. He knows magic. He can call the wolves and live in the crows. He's the king of nowhere. But he's afraid of us. He's afraid of ... inside."

Tom fell silent.

The three of them stared at each other, pallid as gravestones. Ralph had seized his hat from his head and was kneading it convulsively in his hands. Nick had put one hand over his eyes. Stu's throat had turned to dry glass.

His name is Legion. He is the king of nowhere.

"Can you say anything else about him?" Stu asked in a low voice.

"Only that I'm afraid of him, too. But I'll do what you want. But Tom ... is so afraid." That dreadful sigh again.

"Tom," Ralph said suddenly. "Do you know if Mother Abagail ... if she's still alive?" Ralph's face was desperately set, the face of a man who has staked everything on one turn of the cards.

"She's alive." Ralph leaned against the back of his chair with a great gust of breath. "But she's not right with God yet," Tom added.

"Not right with God? Why not, Tommy?"

"She's in the wilderness, God has lifted her up in the wilderness, she does not fear the terror that flies at noon or the terror that creeps at midnight ... neither will the snake bite her nor the bee sting her ... but she's not right with God yet. It was not the hand of Moses that brought water from the rock. It was not the hand of Abagail that turned the weasels back with their bellies empty. She's to be pitied. She will see, but she will see too late. There will be death. His His death. She will die on the wrong side of the river. She-" death. She will die on the wrong side of the river. She-"

"Stop him," Ralph groaned. "Can't you stop him?"

"Tom," Stu said.

"Yes."

"Are you the same Tom that Nick met in Oklahoma? Are you the same Tom we know when you're awake?"

"Yes, but I am more than that Tom."

"I don't understand."

He shifted a little, his sleeping face calm.

"I am God's Tom."

Completely unnerved now, Stu almost dropped Nick's notes.

"You say you'll do what we want."

"Yes."

"But do you see ... do you think you'll come back?"

"That's not for me to see or say. Where shall I go?"

"West, Tom."

Tom moaned. It was a sound that made the hair on the nape of Stu's neck stand on end. What are we sending him into? What are we sending him into? And maybe he knew. Maybe he had been there himself, only in Vermont, in mazes of corridors where the echo made it seem as if footsteps were following him. And gaining. And maybe he knew. Maybe he had been there himself, only in Vermont, in mazes of corridors where the echo made it seem as if footsteps were following him. And gaining.

"West," Tom said. "West, yes."

"We're sending you to look, Tom. To look and see. Then to come back."

"Come back and tell."

"Can you do that?"

"Yes. Unless they catch and kill me."

Stu winced; they all winced.

"You go by yourself, Tom. Always west. Can you find west?"