They looked. A child was wandering slowly toward them. It was only possible to tell it was a girl because of the red-and-blue dress she wore. When she got closer, Eddie saw that the blue was supposed to be the ocean. The red blobs resolved themselves into little candy-colored sailboats. Her head had been squashed in some cruel accident, squashed until it was wider than it was long. Her eyes were crushed grapes. Over one pale arm was a white plastic purse. A little girl’s best I’m-going-to-the-car-accident-and-don’t-know-it purse.

Susannah drew in breath to scream. The darkness she had only sensed earlier was now almost visible. Certainly it was palpable; it pressed against her like earth. Yet she would scream. She must scream. Scream or go mad.

“Not a sound,” Roland of Gilead whispered in her ear. “Do not disturb her, poor lost thing. For your life, Susannah!” Susannah’s scream expired in a long, horrified sigh.

“They’re dead,” Jake said in a thin, controlled voice. “Both of them.”

“The vagrant dead,” Roland replied. “I heard of them from Alain Johns’s father. It must have been not long after we returned from Mejis, for after that there wasn’t much more time before everything…what is it you say, Susannah? Before everything ‘went to hell in a handbasket.’ In any case, it was Burning Chris who warned us that if we ever went todash, we might see vags.” He pointed across the street where the naked dead man still stood. “Such as him yonder have either died so suddenly they don’t yet understand what’s happened to them, or they simply refuse to accept it. Sooner or later they do go on. I don’t think there are many of them.”

“Thank God,” Eddie said. “It’s like something out of a George Romero zombie movie.”

“Susannah, what happened to your legs?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “One minute I had em, and the next minute I was the same as before.” She seemed to become aware of Roland’s gaze and turned toward him. “You see somethin funny, sugar?”

“We are ka-tet, Susannah. Tell us what really happened.”

“What the hell are you trying to imply?” Eddie asked him. He might have said more, but before he could get started, Susannah grasped his arm.

“Caught me out, didn’t you?” she asked Roland. “All right, I’ll tell you. According to that fancy dot-clock down there, I lost seven minutes while I was waiting for you boys. Seven minutes and my fine new legs. I didn’t want to say anything because…” She faltered, then went on. “Because I was afraid I might be losing my mind.”

That’s not what you’re afraid of,Roland thought . Not exactly.