The Talisman

think you could get up a ladder, Richie?’
    ‘Maybe,’ Richard whispered.
    ‘Well, it’s around here somewhere. Probably attached to one of these pilings.’
    Jack paddled with both hands, bringing the raft between two of the pilings in the first row. The Talisman’s call was continuous now, and seemed nearly strong enough to pick him up out of the raft and deposit him on the deck. They were drifting between the first and second rows of pilings, already under the heavy black line of the deck above; here as well as outside, little red flares ignited in the air, twisted, winked out. Jack counted: four rows of pilings, five pilings in each row. Twenty places where the ladder might be. With the darkness beneath the deck and the endless refinements of corridors suggested by the pilings, being here was like taking a tour of the Catacombs.
    ‘They didn’t shoot us,’ Richard said without affect. In the same tone of voice he might have said, ‘The store is out of bread.’
    ‘We had some help.’ He looked at Richard, slumped over his knees. Richard would never be able to get up a ladder unless he were somehow galvanized.
    ‘We’re coming up to a piling,’ Jack said. ‘Lean forward and shove us off, will you?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Keep us from bumping into the piling,’ Jack repeated. ‘Come on, Richard. I need your help.’
    It seemed to work. Richard cracked open his left eye and put his right hand on the edge of the raft. As they drifted nearer to the thick piling he held out his left hand to deflect them. Then something on the pillar made a smacking sound, as of lips pulled wetly apart.
    Richard grunted and retracted his hand.
    ‘What was it?’ Jack said, and Richard did not have to answer – now both boys saw the sluglike creatures clinging to the pilings. Their eyes had been closed, too, and their mouths. Agitated, they began to shift positions on their pillars, clattering their teeth. Jack put his hands in the water and swung the bow of the raft around the piling.
    ‘Oh God,’ Richard said. Those lipless tiny mouths held a quantity of teeth. ‘God, I can’t take—’
    ‘You have to take it, Richard,’ Jack said. ‘Didn’t you hear Speedy back there on the beach? He might even be dead now, Richard, and if he is, he died so he could be certain that I knew you had to go in the hotel.’
    Richard had closed his eyes again.
    ‘And I don’t care how many slugs we have to kill to get up the ladder, you are going up the ladder, Richard. That’s all. That’s it.’
    ‘Shit on you,’ Richard said. ‘You don’t have to talk to me like that. I’m sick of your being so high and mighty. I know I’m going up the ladder, wherever it is. I probably have a fever of a hundred and five, but I know I’m going up that ladder. I just don’t know if I can take it. So to hell with you.’ Richard had uttered this entire speech with his eyes shut. He effortfully forced both eyes open again. ‘Nuts.’
    ‘I need you,’ Jack said.
    ‘Nuts. I’ll get up the ladder, you asshole.’
    ‘In that case, I’d better find it,’ Jack said, pushed the raft forward toward the next row of pilings, and saw it.
    6
    The ladder hung straight down between the two inner rows of pilings, ending some four feet above the surface of the water. A dim rectangle at the top of the ladder indicated that a trapdoor opened onto the deck. In the darkness it was only the ghost of a ladder, half-visible.
    ‘We’re in business, Richie,’ Jack said. He guided the raft carefully past the next piling, making sure not to scrape against it. The hundreds of sluglike creatures clinging to the piling bared their teeth. In seconds the horse’s head at the front of the raft was gliding beneath the bottom of the ladder, and then Jack could reach up to grab the bottom rung. ‘Okay,’ he said. First he tied one sleeve of his sodden shirt around the rung, the other around the stiff rubbery tail next to him. At least the raft would still be there – if they ever got out of the hotel. Jack’s mouth abruptly dried. The Talisman sang out, calling to him. He stood up carefully in the raft and hung on to the ladder. ‘You first,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to be easy, but I’ll help you.’
    ‘Don’t need your help,’ Richard said. Standing up, he nearly pitched forward and threw both of them out of the raft.
    ‘Easy now.’
    ‘Don’t easy me.’ Richard extended both arms and steadied himself. His mouth was pinched. He looked