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The Waste Lands

The Waste Lands is a sweeping tale of exploration and discovery in a fantastical world, where characters embark on a perilous journey through treacherous landscapes and encounter mythical creatures. more

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Stephen King
Stephen King

Stephen King, born on September 21, 1947, is a renowned American author. His works primarily focus on horror, fantasy, and science fiction, and have won him a wide audience. King has received numerous literary awards in the United States, including the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the World Fantasy Award. more

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“Tick-tock appeared to have forgotten all about both Brandon and the woman who had literally laughed herself to death. His brilliant green eyes had fixed on something which interested him much more than the dead woman. "Come here, cully," he said. "I want a better look at you." Gasher gave him a shove. Jake stumbled forward. He would have fallen if Tick-Tock's strong hands hadn't caught him by the shoulders. Then, when he was sure Jake had his balance again, Tick-Tock grasped the boy's left wrist and raised it. It was Jake's Seiko which had drawn his interest. "If this here's what I think it is, it's an omen for sure and true," Tick-Tock said. "Talk to me, boy--what's this sigul you wear?" Jake, who hadn't the slightest idea what a sigul was, could only hope for the best. "It's a watch. But it doesn't work, Mr. Tick-Tock." Hoots chuckled at that, then clapped both hands over his mouth when the Tick-Tock Man turned to look at him. After a moment, Tick-Tock looked back at Jake, and a sunny smile replaced the frown. Looking at that smile almost made you forget that it was a dead woman and not a movie Mexican taking a siesta against the wall of an adobe over there. Looking at it almost made you forget that these people were crazy, and the Tick-Tock Man was likely the craziest inmate in the whole asylum. "Watch," Tick-Tock said, nodding. "Ar, a likely enough name for such; after all, what does a person want with a timepiece but to watch it once in a while? Ar, Brandon? Ar, Tilly? Ar, Gasher?" They responded with eager affirmatives. The Tick-Tock Man favored them with his winning smile, then turned back to Jake again. Now Jake noticed that the smile, winning or not, stopped well short of the Tick-Tock Man's green eyes. They were as they had been throughout: cool, cruel, and curious.”

WatchJake ChambersTick Tock ManSigul
Book:The Waste Lands
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“He reached a finger toward the Seiko, which now proclaimed the time to be ninety-one minutes past seven--A.M. and P.M.--and pulled it back just before touching the glass above the liquid crystal display. "Tell me, dear boy--is this 'watch' of yours boobyrigged?" "Huh? Oh! No. No, it's not boobyrigged." Jake touched his own finger to the face of the watch. "That means nothing, if it's set to the frequency of your own body," the Tick-Tock Man said. He spoke in the sharp, scornful tone Jake's father used when he didn't want people to figure out that he didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Tick-Tock glanced briefly at Brandon, and Jake saw him weigh the pros and cons of making the bowlegged man his designated toucher. Then he dismissed the notion and looked back into Jake's eyes. "If this thing gives me a shock, my little friend, you're going to be choking to death on your own sweetmeats in thirty seconds." Jake swallowed hard but said nothing. The Tick-Tock Man reached out his finger again, and this time allowed it to settle on the face of the Seiko. The moment that it did, all the numbers went to zeros and then began to count upward again. Tick-Tock's eyes had narrowed in a grimace of potential pain as he touched the face of the watch. Now their corners crinkled in the first genuine smile Jake had seen from him. He thought it was partly pleasure at his own courage but mostly simple wonder and interest. "May I have it?" he asked Jake silkily. "As a gesture of your goodwill, shall we say? I am something of a clock fancier, my dear young cully--so I am." "Be my guest." Jake stripped the watch off his arm at once and dropped in onto the Tick-Tock Man's large waiting palm.”

WatchesJake ChambersTick Tock Man
Book:The Waste Lands
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“He wasn't, I realized when I read those scenes concerning Blair and myself, close to any of us-- except of course to Blair, and really not even to her. He was simply someone who floated through our lives and didn't seem to care how flatly he perceived everyone or that he'd shared our secret failures with the world, showcasing the youthful indifference, the gleaming nihilism, glamorizing the horror of it all. But there was no point in being angry with him.”

WritingFictionJealousyResentment
Book:Imperial Bedrooms
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“Talks just like a little silk-arse gennelman, don't he?" Gasher said happily. "In the old days someone would have paid a wery high price for the return o' such as him, Ticky, ar, so they would. Why, my father--" "Your father died so blowed-out-rotten with the mandrus that not even the dogs would eat him," the Tick-Tock Man interrupted. "Now shut up, you idiot." At first Gasher looked furious...and then only abashed. He sank into a nearby chair and closed his mouth.”

Tick Tock ManGasher
Book:The Waste Lands
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“Gasher's right. You're pert. But you don't want to be pert with me, cully. You don't EVER want to be pert with me. Have you heard of people with short fuses? Well, I have no fuse at all, and there's a thousand could testify to it if I hadn't stilled their tongues for good. If you ever speak to me of Lord Perth again...ever, ever, EVER...I'll tear off the top of your skull and eat your brains. I'll have none of that bad-luck story in the Cradle of the Grays. Do you understand me?" He shook Jake back and forth like a rag, and the boy burst into tears. "Do you?" "Y-Y-Yes!" "Good." He set Jake upon his feet, where he swayed woozily back and forth, wiping at his streaming eyes and leaving smudges of dirt on his cheeks so dark they looked like mascara. "Now, my little cull, we're going to have a question and answer session here. I'll ask the questions and you'll give the answers. Do you understand?" Jake didn't reply. He was looking at a panel of the ventilator grille which circled the chamber. The Tick-Tock Man grabbed his nose between two of his fingers and squeezed it viciously. "Do you understand me?" "Yes!" Jake cried. His eyes, now watering with pain as well as terror, returned to Tick-Tock's face. He wanted to look back at the ventilator grille, wanted desperately to verify that what he had seen there was not simply a trick of his frightened, overloaded mind, but he didn't dare. He was afraid someone else--Tick-Tock himself, most likely--would follow his gaze and see what he had seen. "Good." Tick-Tock pulled Jack back over to the chair by his nose, sat down, and cocked his leg over the arm again. "Let's have a nice little chin, then.”

UnderstandingJake ChambersTick Tock Man
Book:The Waste Lands
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“We'll begin with your name, shall we? Just what might that be, cully?" "Jake Chambers." With his nose pinched shut, his voice sounded nasal and foggy. "And are you a Not-see, Jake Chambers?" For a moment, Jake wondered if this was a peculiar way of asking him if he was blind...but of course they could all see he wasn't. "I don't understand what--" Tick-Tock shook him back and forth by the nose. "Not-See! Not-See! You just want to stop playing with me, boy!" "I don't understand--" Jake began, and then he looked at the old machine-gun hanging from the chair and thought once more of the crashed Focke-Wulf. The pieces fell together in his mind. "No--I'm not a Nazi. I'm an American. All that ended long before I was born!" The Tick-Tock Man released his hold on Jake's nose, which immediately began to gush blood. "You could have told me that in the first place and saved yourself all sorts of pain, Jake Chambers...but at least now you understand how we do things around here, don't you?" Jake nodded. "Ar. Well enough! We'll start with the simple questions." Jake's eyes drifted back to the ventilator grille. What he had seen before was still there; it hadn't been just his imagination. Two gold-ringed eyes floated in the dark behind the chrome louvers. Oy. Tick-Tock slapped his face, knocking him back into Gasher, who immediately pushed him forward again. "It's school-time, dear heart," Gasher whispered. "Mind yer lessons, now! Mind em wery sharp!" "Look at me when I'm talking to you," Tick-Tock said. "I'll have some respect, Jake Chambers, or I'll have your balls." "All right." Tick-Tock's green eyes gleamed dangerously. "All right what?" Jake groped for the right answer, pushing away the tangle of questions and the sudden hope which had dawned in his mind. And what came was what would have served at his own Cradle of the Pubes...otherwise known as The Piper School. "All right, sir?" Tick-Tock smiled. "That's a start, boy," he said, and leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. "Now...what's an American?”

QuestionsAmericansNazisJake ChambersTick Tock ManGasher
Book:The Waste Lands
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“Could I have something to drink?" Jake asked. His voice came out sounding furry and nasal. Both his mouth and the tissues in his abused nose were swelling up. He looked like someone who has gotten the worst of it in a nasty street-fight. "Oh, yes," Tick-Tock replied judiciously. "You could. I'd say you certainly could. We have lots to drink, don't we, Copperhead?" "Ar," said a tall, bespectacled man in a white silk shirt and a pair of black silk trousers. He looked like a college professor in a turn of the century Punch cartoon. "No shortage of po-ter-bulls here." The Tick-Tock Man, once more seated at ease in his throne-like chair, looked humorously at Jake. "We have wine, beer, ale, and, of course, good old water. Sometimes that's all a body wants, isn't it? Cool, clear, sparkling water. How does that sound, cully?" Jake's throat, which was also swollen and as dry as sandpaper, prickled painfully. "Sounds good," he whispered. "It's woke my thirsty up, I know that," Tick-Tock said. His lips spread in a smile. His green eyes sparkled. "Bring me a dipper of water, Tilly--I'll be damned if I know what's happened to my manners." Tilly stepped through the hatchway on the far side of the room--it was opposite the one through which Jake and Gasher had entered. Jake watched her go and licked his swollen lips.”

WaterThirstDrinksJake ChambersTick Tock Man
Book:The Waste Lands
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“Now," Tick-Tock said, returning his gaze to Jake, "you say the American city you came form--this New York--is much like Lud." "Well...not exactly..." "But you do recognize some of the machinery," Tick-Tock pressed. "Valves and pumps and such. Not to mention the firedim tubes." "Yes. We call it neon, but it's the same." Tick-Tock reached out toward him. Jake cringed, but Tick-Tock only patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, yes; close enough." His eyes gleamed. "And you've heard of computers?”

New YorkMachineryNeonJake ChambersTick Tock Man
Book:The Waste Lands
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