Eddie said: “Check me if I’m wrong on this, sport, because I know almost zilch about baseball west of Yankee Stadium, but shouldn’t that say Kansas City Royals? You know, George Brett and all that?”

Jake nodded. He knew the Royals, and he knew Brett, although he had been a young player in Jake’s when and must have been a fairly old one in Eddie’s.

“Kansas City Athletics, you mean,” Susannah said, sounding bewildered. Roland ignored it all; he was still cruising in his own personal ozone layer.

“Not by ’86, darlin,” Eddie said kindly. “By ’86 the Athletics were in Oakland.” He glanced from the bumper sticker to Jake. “Minor-league team, maybe?” he asked. “Triple A?”

“The Triple A Royals are still the Royals,” Jake said. “They play in Omaha. Come on, let’s go.”

And although he didn’t know about the others, Jake himself went on with a lighter heart. Maybe it was stupid, but he was relieved. He didn’t believe that this terrible plague was waiting up ahead for his world, because there were no Kansas City Monarchs in his world. Maybe that wasn’t enough information upon which to base a conclusion, but it felt true. And it was an enormous relief to be able to believe that his mother and father weren’t slated to die of a germ people called Captain Trips and be burned in a... a landfill, or something.

Except that wasn’t quite a sure thing, even if this wasn’t the 1986 version of his 1977 world. Because even if this awful plague had happened in a world where there were cars called Takuro Spirits and George Brett played for the K.C. Monarchs, Roland said the trouble was spreading... that things like the superflu were eating through the fabric of existence like battery acid eating its way into a piece of cloth.

The gunslinger had spoken of time’s pool, a phrase which had at first struck Jake as romantic and charming. But suppose the pool was growing stagnant and swampy? And suppose these Bermuda Triangle–type things Roland called thinnies, once great rarities, were becoming the rule rather than the exception? Suppose—oh, and here was a hideous thought, one guaranteed to keep you lying awake until way past three—all of reality was sagging as the structural weaknesses of the Dark Tower grew? Suppose there came a crash, one level falling down into the next... and the next... and the next... until—

When Eddie grasped his shoulder and squeezed, Jake had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming.

“You’re giving yourself the hoodoos,” Eddie said.

“What do you know about it?” Jake asked. That sounded rude, but he was mad. From being scared or being seen into? He didn’t know. Didn’t much care, either.