The Talisman Trilogy, #3
Other Worlds Than These
by Stephen King and Peter Straub
Contents
Chapter 22
Overview
Jack and Mary struggle across the bads toward Dezi, guided at times by Mary’s trances. She warns Jack to hide as a massive mechanized convoy of redheaded raiders thunders past. A storm traps them for days, and Mary foresees “sleepers” and severed heads. When they reach the outskirts, Richard kills carrion plunjas, they find a dead dyed boy raider, and at last see Dezi devastated from the Redoubt.
Summary
Jack and Mary awaken after their flight from the water tower and Destry’s burial. They spot distant smoke and set out across the bads with Mrs. Talbot, Golden Boy, and Richard, inching over broken roads and rock. Mary drifts into a trance, declaring Starkweather and Roy Kinneston dead on America-side and calling the redheads “infected.”
That night Mary jolts awake with a warning, and Jack moves the Binny off-road behind an outcrop. A mechanized convoy—trucks, armored vehicles, and scooters—roars past toward the west. The next day storm clouds gather; Mary’s moods swing between warmth and edge as they push on through chewed-up roadbeds.
They find a drop-rider shelter and hole up as a violent storm hammers the arroyo, Mary trancing again: “They will sleep” and “Severed heads,” and foreseeing a force that will “rule Discordia.” After three rainbound days, they resume, detouring around washouts and new ponds as blooms spread across the Drop.
Nearer Dezi, a giant plunja confronts Richard. Jack stops Mary, and Richard advances, subdues the bird with eerie calm, and snaps its neck. More plunjas later yield to him the same way. Among the dead they find a young country boy raider, dyed hair and stolen kim commala, an arrowhead in his chest; Jack leaves his loot but gives Mary a recovered sonic pistol.
At the shattered pink stones of Dezi’s Welcome Arch, they read its broken greeting and press on. From the Redoubt they finally see Dezi’s terraces blasted and burning, the sea bright beyond the wreckage. Mary weeps, and Jack faces the town’s ruin in silence.
Who Appears
- JackLeads the trek through the bads, hides the group from a raider convoy, investigates corpses, and guides the return to ruined Dezi.
- MaryShifts between calm and trance; foresees danger, prompts hiding from the convoy, and prophesies sleepers and severed heads.
- RichardBumbler companion; exerts a strange dominance over plunjas and kills two carrion birds cleanly.
- Mrs. TalbotAI-guided Binny vehicle; transports the group, tells a joke, and grinds through washouts toward Dezi.
- Golden BoyPalomino horse; follows the Binny, needs care during storms, shares the shelter.
- Redheaded Children (raiders)Mechanized convoy thunders west; leave devastation, corpses, and plunjas feasting in their wake.
- Young raider boyDead country youth with dyed hair and stolen kim commala; carries a sonic pistol Jack salvages for Mary.