Free The Dark Tower by Stephen King Page A

flustered.
    “Won’t need them!” Scowther returned breezily. “She was built for babies, could have a dozen inthe rice-patch and never miss a row’s worth of picking. Here it comes, neat as you please!”
    Scowther made as if to grab the largish basin sitting on the next bed, decided he didn’t have quite enough time, and slipped his pink, gloveless hands up the inside of Mia’s thighs, instead. This time when Susannah made an effort to move closer to Mia, Straw didn’t stop her. All of them, low men and vampires alike, were watching the last stage of the birth with complete fascination, most of them clustered at the end of the two beds which had been pushed together to make one. Only Straw was still close to Susannah. The vampire with the fire-sword had just been demoted; she decided that Straw would be the first to go.
    “Once more! ” Scowther cried. “For your baby! ”
    Like the low men and the vampires, Mia had forgotten Susannah. Her wounded, pain-filled eyes fixed on Sayre. “May I have him, sir? Please say I may have him, if only for a little while!”
    Sayre took her hand. The mask which covered his real face smiled. “Yes, my darling,” he said. “The chap is yours for years and years. Only push this one last time.”
    Mia, don’t believe his lies! Susannah cried, but the cry went nowhere. Likely that was just as well. Best she be entirely forgotten for the time being.
    Susannah turned her thoughts in a new direction. Jake! Jake, where are you?
    No answer. Not good. Please God he was still alive.
    Maybe he’s only busy. Running . . . hiding . . . fighting. Silence doesn’t necessarily mean he’s —
    Mia howled what sounded like a string of obscenities, pushing as she did so. The lips of her alreadydistended vagina spread further. A freshet of blood poured out, widening the muddy delta-shape on the sheet beneath her. And then, through the welter of crimson, Susannah saw a crown of white and black. The white was skin. The black was hair.
    The mottle of white and black began to retreat into the crimson and Susannah thought the baby would settle back, still not quite ready to come into the world, but Mia was done waiting. She pushed with all her considerable might, her hands held up before her eyes in clenched and trembling fists, her eyes slitted, her teeth bared. A vein pulsed alarmingly in the center of her forehead; another stood out on the column of her throat.
    “HEEEYAHHHH!” she cried. “COMMALA, YOU PRETTY BASTARD! COMMALA-COME-COME! ”
    “Dan-tete,” murmured Jey, the hawk-thing, and the others picked it up in a kind of reverent whisper: Dan-tete . . . dan-tete . . . commala dan-tete. The coming of the little god.
    This time the baby’s head did not just crown but rushed forward. Susannah saw his hands held against his blood-spattered chest in tiny fists that trembled with life. She saw blue eyes, wide open and startling in both their awareness and their similarity to Roland’s. She saw sooty black lashes. Tiny beads of blood jeweled them, barbaric natal finery. Susannah saw—and would never forget—how the baby’s lower lip momentarily caught on the inner lip of his mother’s vulva. The baby’s mouth was pulled briefly open, revealing a perfect row of little teeth in the lower jaw. They were teeth—not fangs but perfect little teeth—yet still, to see them in the mouth of a newborn gave Susannah a chill. So did the sight of the chap’s penis, disproportionatelylarge and fully erect. Susannah guessed it was longer than her little finger.
    Howling in pain and triumph, Mia surged up on her elbows, her eyes bulging and streaming tears. She reached out and seized Sayre’s hand in a grip of iron as Scowther deftly caught the baby. Sayre yelped and tried to pull away, but he might as well have tried to . . . well, to pull away from a Deputy Sheriff in Oxford, Mississippi. The little chant had died and there was a moment of shocked silence. In it, Susannah’s overstrained ears