| "There is a small train I've read about that I'd like to actually
derail called Charlie....the Choo-Choo. The inspiration for that storybook
character by the same name in Jake's book."
A few moments later, after walking through a zoo where only a few animals
got released before Captain Trips finally claimed the zoo attendants (as
evidenced by all the dead animals still in their cages) and through another
section of the park where a bunch of roses had grown wild and were now
in full blossom (causing Jake to mutter something about how roses and trains
seeming to keep coming back to haunt them throughout this quest). Indeed,
in his and the other's dreams of the Dark Tower had the blasted thing surrounded
by a field of red roses! That and mayhaps the old mono/train railway system
was set up along the same system as the Path of the Beam (a mysterious
construct that perhaps served as a railway system itself, linking Mid-world
to ALL other realities, somehow).
"But whatever the case, where the six Beams intersect stands the Dark
Tower," Jake finishes to himself.
"And I'm really eager to see this mysterious Dark Tower myself, kid."
Ama'lis puts in, alighting lightly on the child's left shoulder.
Jake, already having adjusted to the presence of the blue haired fairy
woman , just nods and is about to add more when he hears a tremendous roar
and the crash of metal.
The others rush up through the tunnel of roses they'd been passing single
file through and to the an almost ridiculous sight of a large black dragon
(wearing a taichi medallion, a reminder of his time studying with his Eastern
draconian brothers years ago) is standing over the crushed ruins of what
appears to have been a miniature steam locomotive.
"Damn thing tried to make a run at me!" Dragon Synizn rumbles, changing
back to his human form.
"My God!" breaths Eddie, "It was something like from that movie,
Carrie
! Except it's a toy train instead of a cherry red American classic
roadster!"
The former drug addict then blinked in consternation as he suddenly
realized the irony of it all. Carrie was a Stephen King novel and
movie. And as it turned out, he, Susannah his wife, Roland his friend,
and Susan (Roland's love of old) also were characters in some crazy assed
King novel.....in other worlds than this.
"Sheeit." Eddie mutters, the strangeness suddenly rising up and striking
him yet again.
And so the others watch as the cracked, malignant headlight on the front
of the now derailed (and very battered) train fades and dies. With a shouted
spell, the very ground opens up and buries the wrecked train that was the
basis for the storybook that warned Jake and the others of Blaine.
And so, that done, the dragon mage returns to his dragon form (full
sized vice the pathetically small form that he'd found himself in when
the Rules and Agents had found him.....a few seconds away from shrinking
away to nothing as the size of his body diminished as his life force faded
in the strange realm he'd been sucked into). The others climb onto his
back after securing a few supplies (including Susannah's new wheelchair)
and plugging the ears of the humans. See, the sound of the thinny they
had traveled through was rather disturbinglyy loud here, and only by using
bullets for Roland and Astra's handguns (as crazy as it sounded, the alien
origins of the bullets made the thinny's sound bearable).
"Lordy, I'm putting bullet's in my ears," Eddie mutters as he climbs
onto the black dragon's broad and powerful back, "Momma would shit."
-
 Meanwhile,
at a location east along the turnpike leading out of Topeka.....
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