The Talisman

goats dropped to hands and knees – or hooves – and scurried back inside. Richard saw three others spin and drop under the force of the slugs. A joy so savage that it made him feel faint swept through him.
    Bullets also tore open the whitish-green belly of the alligatorthing, and a blackish fluid – ichor, not blood – began to pour out of it. It fell backward, but its tail seemed to cushion it. It sprang back up and leaped at Richard’s side of the train. It uttered its rough, powerful cry again . . . and this time it seemed to Richard that there was something hideously feminine in that cry.
    He pulled the trigger of the Uzi. Nothing happened. The clip was spent.
    The alligatorthing ran with slow, clumsy, thudding determination. Its eyes sparkled with murderous fury . . . and intelligence. The vestiges of breasts bounced on its scaly chest.
    He bent, groped, without taking his eyes off the were-alligator, and found one of the grenades.
    Seabrook Island, Richard thought dreamily. Jack calls this place the Territories, but it’s really Seabrook Island, and there is no need to be afraid, really no need; this is all a dream and if that thing’s scaly claws settle around my neck I will surely wake up, and even if it’s not all a dream, Jack will save me somehow – I know he will, I know it; because over here Jack is some kind of god.
    He pulled the pin on the grenade, restrained the strong urge he felt to simply chuck it in a panicky frenzy, and lobbed it gently, underhand. ‘Jack, get down!’
    Jack dropped below the level of the engine cab’s sides at once, without looking. Richard did, too, but not before he had seen an incredible, blackly comic thing: the alligator-creature had caught the grenade . . . and was trying to eat it.
    The explosion was not the dull crump Richard had expected but a loud, braying roar that drilled into his ears, hurting them badly. He heard a splash, as if someone had thrown a bucket of water against his side of the train.
    He looked up and saw that the engine, boxcar and flatcar were covered with hot guts, black blood, and shreds of the alligator-creature’s flesh. The entire front of the barracks building had been blown away. Much of the splintered rubble was bloody. In the midst of it he saw a hairy foot in a boot with a cut-off toe.
    The jackstraw blowdown of logs was thrown aside as he watched, and two of the goatlike creatures began to pull themselves out. Richard bent, found a fresh clip, and slammed it into his gun. It was getting hot, just as Jack had said it would.
    Whoopee! Richard thought faintly, and opened fire again.
    9
    When Jack popped up after the grenade explosion, he saw that the four Wolfs who had escaped his first two fusillades were just running through the hole where the gate had been. They were howling with terror. They were running side by side, and Jack had a clear shot of them. He raised the Uzi – then lowered it again, knowing he would see them later, probably at the black hotel, knowing he was a fool . . . but, fool or not, he was unable to just let them have it in the back.
    Now a high, womanish shrieking began from behind the barracks. ‘Get out there! Get out there, I say! Move! Move!’ There was the whistling crack of a whip.
    Jack knew that sound, and he knew that voice. He had been wrapped up in a strait-jacket when he had last heard it. Jack would have known that voice anywhere.
    – If his retarded friend shows up, shoot him.
    Well, you managed that, but maybe now it’s payback time – and maybe, from the way your voice sounds, you know it.
    ‘Get them, what’s the matter with you cowards? Get them, do I have to show you how to do everything? Follow us, follow us!’
    Three creatures came from behind what remained of the barracks, and only one of them was clearly human – Osmond. He carried his whip in one hand, a Sten gun in the other. He wore a red cloak and black boots and white silk pants with wide, flowing legs. They were splattered with fresh blood. To his left was a shaggy goat-creature wearing jeans and Western-style boots. This creature and Jack looked at each other and shared a moment of complete recognition. It was the dreadful barroom cowboy from the Oatley Tap. It was Randolph Scott. It was Elroy. It grinned at Jack; its long tongue snaked out and lapped its wide upper lip.
    ‘Get him!’ Osmond screamed at Elroy.
    Jack tried to lift the Uzi, but it suddenly seemed very heavy in his arms. Osmond was bad, the