The Talisman

to be able to give him some information immediately. So you had better talk to me, Jack. Spare yourself further pain.’
    Jack looked at him, hoping the jackhammer beat of his heart didn’t show either in his face or as a faster, more noticeable pulse in his neck. If Wolf was out of the Box –
    Gardener held up the pick Speedy had given him in one hand, the coin Captain Farren had given him in the other. ‘What are they?’
    ‘When I flip, they turn into tortoise testicles,’ Jack said, and laughed wildly, hysterically.
    Gardener’s face darkened with angry blood.
    ‘Lace up his arms again,’ he said to Sonny and Andy. ‘Lace up his arms and then pull down this hellhound bastard’s pants. Let’s see what happens when we heat up his testicles.’
    11
    Heck Bast was deathly bored with confession. He had heard them all before, these paltry mail-order sins. I hooked money from my mother’s purse, I used to blow joints in the schoolyard, we usta put glue in a paper bag and sniff it, I did this, I did that . Little kids’ stuff. No excitement. Nothing to take his mind off the steady drone of pain in his hand. Heck wanted to be downstairs, working on that kid Sawyer. And then they could get started on the big retard who had somehow surprised him and destroyed his good right hand. Yes, getting to work on the big retard would be a real pleasure. Preferably with a set of bolt-cutters.
    A boy named Vernon Skarda was currently droning away.
    ‘. . . so me and him, we seen the keys was in her, know what I mean? So he goes, “Let’s jump in the whore and drive her around the block,” he goes. But I knew it was wrong, and I said it was, so he goes, “You ain’t nothin but a chickenshit.” So I go, “I ain’t no chickenshit.” Like that. So he goes, “Prove it, prove it.” “I ain’t doin no joy-ride,” I go, so he goes . . .’
    Oh dear Christ , Heck thought. His hand was really starting to yell at him, and his pain-pills were up in his room. On the far side of the room, he saw Peabody stretch his jaws in a bone-cracking yawn.
    ‘So we went around the block, and then he goes to me, he goes—’
    The door suddenly slammed inward so hard it tore off its hinges. It hit the wall, bounced, struck a boy named Tom Cassidy, drove him to the floor, and pinned him there. Something leaped into the common room – at first Heck Bast thought it was the biggest motherfucking dog he had ever seen. Boys screamed and bolted up from their chairs . . . and then froze, eyes wide and unbelieving, as the gray-black beast that was Wolf stood upright, shreds of chinos and checked shirt still clinging to him.
    Vernon Skarda stared, eyes bulging, jaw hanging.
    Wolf bellowed, eyes glaring around as the boys fell back from him. Pedersen made for the door. Wolf, towering so high his head almost brushed the ceiling, moved with liquid speed. He swung an arm as thick as a barn-beam. Claws tore a channel through Pedersen’s back. For a moment his spine was clearly visible – it looked like a bloody extension cord. Gore splashed the walls. Pedersen took one great, shambling step out into the hall and then collapsed.
    Wolf turned back . . . and his blazing eyes fastened on Heck Bast. Heck got up suddenly on nerveless legs, staring at this shaggy, red-eyed horror. He knew who it was . . . or, at least, who it had been.
    Heck would have given anything in the world just then to be bored again.
    12
    Jack was sitting in the chair again, his burned and throbbing hands once more pressed against the small of his back – Sonny had laced the straitjacket cruelly tight and then unbuttoned Jack’s chinos and pushed them down.
    ‘Now,’ Gardener said, holding his Zippo up where Jack could see it. ‘You listen to me, Jack, and listen well. I’m going to begin asking you questions again. And if you don’t answer them well and truly, then buggery is one temptation you will never have to worry about being led into again.’
    Sonny Singer giggled wildly at this. That muddy, half-dead look of lust was back in his eyes again. He stared at Jack’s face with a kind of sickly greed.
    ‘Reverend Gardener! Reverend Gardener!’ It was Casey, and Casey sounded distressed. Jack opened his eyes again. ‘Some kind of hooraw going on upstairs!’
    ‘I don’t want to be bothered now.’
    ‘Donny Keegan’s laughing like a loon in the kitchen! And—’
    ‘He said he didn’t want to be bothered now,’ Sonny said. ‘Didn’t you hear him?’
    But