Chapter 62 Chapter 61

The men in black set up many checkpoints along the eastern border of Oregon.The largest is in Ontario, where Interstate 80 runs from Idaho; there are six people at the checkpoint, who live in the trailer of a large truck.The six men had been stationed there for more than a week, doing nothing but playing poker: they bet on 20- and 50-dollar bills, which were as worthless as chips in strong hand chess.One of them won almost $60,000, and the other won more than 40,000—and before the plague, his annual salary was only about $10,000. It had been raining for almost a whole week, and they were getting more and more restless in the trailer.They want to return to Portland, where they started.Women can be found in Portland.The high-powered transceiver radio hanging on the nail could hear nothing but noise.They have been waiting for two simple words from it: go home.That meant the man they'd been looking for had been caught somewhere.

The man they were looking for was around 70 years old, fat and bald.He wears glasses and drives a four-wheeled motor vehicle with white stripes on a blue background.When he is finally recognized, he will be killed. They're fidgety and weary—the novelty of playing poker for real money with big stakes had worn off even the most insensitive among them two days ago—but they're not weary enough to make their own way. Back to Portland's point of view. The Walker had given them orders himself, and a week of rain had nearly made them claustrophobic, but their fear of him lingered nonetheless.If he finds them messing things up, then probably only God can help them.

So they sat there playing cards, and took turns looking out through a slit—the slender slit they had made in the iron wall of the trailer. Interstate 80 was empty, except for the relentless rain.If that patrol car shows up on the highway, they'll find it...and stop it. "He's a spy over there," Walker told them, that creepy smile on his face.No one can explain why his smile is so scary, but when he faces you with such a smile, you will feel all the blood in your veins turn into hot tomato soup. "He's a spy and we could welcome him with open arms, show him everything and send him back unscathed. But I want him. I want both of them. We're going to get 'em before it snows Send their heads back up the mountain to keep them thinking and entertaining all winter long." And he laughed to the people he'd summoned to this conference room in downtown Portland.They smiled at him too, but the smiles were so cold and unnatural.Outwardly, they might loudly congratulate each other on being chosen for such an important mission, but deep down they would rather have those gleeful, scary, weasel eyes on someone else than on someone else. not myself.

At Sherville, far south of Ontario, is another large checkpoint.The four men stationed here live in a small house not far from Interstate 95, which winds its way into the Alvord Desert, strewn with oddly shaped rocks and gloomy sluggish streams. stream. The other checkpoints are all manned by two people. There are as many as 12 such checkpoints. The stationed area extends from the small town of Flora, which is less than 60 miles from the Washington state border on Highway 3, to Mike on the Oregon-Nevada border. Demeter. In a blue and white quadricycle, there was an old man.All sentries were given the same order: kill him, but don't hit him on the head.There should be no blood or bruises on the Adam's apple.

"I don't want to send back a broken thing," Randall Flagg told them, followed by a terrible laugh. The Snake River separates Oregon and Idaho.From Ontario, where the six Sentinels were playing the "bad card" for the worthless bills in their truck trailer, it was a short walk north along the Snake River to Copperfield.Here the Snake River makes a bend, which geographers call an oxbow bend, and near Copperfield, a dam was built on the Snake River, called the oxbow dam. On September 7, as Stu Redman and his companions trudged more than 1,000 miles on Colorado's Highway 6, Bobby Terry was sitting in a small shop selling cheap goods in Copperfield , surrounded by a pile of comic strips, imagining what the oxbow dam would be like if the sluice gates were opened or closed.Outside the store, Oregon Highway 86 passes here.

He and his partner Dave Roberts (who was sleeping in an upstairs room) had a long discussion about the dam.It has been raining for a week and the Snake River is rising.Imagine what would happen if the oxbow dam, which had fallen into disrepair, burst?Bad news of course.The rushing river will head for Copperfield, and the duo of Bobby Terry and Dave Roberts may just float down to the Pacific Ocean.They had discussed going to the dam to check the cracks, but in the end they didn't dare to go.Flagg's orders were clear: Get under cover. Dave had long said that Flagg could be everywhere.He was a great traveler and legends abound about him, like in a small remote village where the only 12 villagers were fixing power lines or collecting weapons from some barracks, he would suddenly appear there like a ghost Appear.Except this is a black ghost with dirty and torn shoes and a smiling face.Sometimes he was alone and sometimes Lloyd Henrider was with him, driving a big Daimler as black as a coffin and as long as the coffin.Sometimes he is on foot.One moment he is not somewhere, and the next moment he is already there.He could be in Los Angeles one day and be in Boltz the next... all on foot.

But as Dave pointed out, even Flagg couldn't be in six different places at the same time.One of them could have just sprinted over to the goddamn dam for a quick look and then slipped back.The chances of being discovered are slim to none. Well, you go, Bobby Terry said to him, I agree with you.But Dave smiled uneasily and declined.For Flagg had a peculiar knack for omniscience, even if he didn't see it right away. Some say he has a supernatural ability that is more sensitive than any carnivore in the animal kingdom.A woman named Ross Kingman, who claimed to have seen him snap his fingers at a flock of crows that landed on a telephone line, and that the crows circled and landed on his shoulders, further confirmed that those The crow croaked over and over again "Flag...Flag...Flag..."

He knew that this kind of legend was too ridiculous.Only a fool would believe it, but Bobby Terry's mother, Delors, had no fools.He knew how those stories were spread, and they became more and more evil as they were passed on from ear to ear.How happy the men in black would be if such stories spread like this. But these stories somewhat frighten him. It seems that each story has a certain factual basis at its core. Some say he can call a wolf, or send his mind to a cat.There's a guy in Portland who says he walks with an old, battered Boy Scout backpack with a weasel or a fisherman in it, or something less worth mentioning.

Bad fiction, all bad fiction.But, just think of him being able to talk to animals like the villainous Doolittle...if he or Dave just disobeyed his orders and went out to have a look at that damned dam, only to be spotted... The punishment for disobeying orders was brutal. In any case, Bobby Terry felt, the old dam was not going to break. He took a Kent from the bag on the table and lit it, the hot, dry smell making him grimace.In the next 6 months, I am afraid I will not even have to smoke a cigarette.Perhaps it was a blessing, death is, after all, a nasty thing. He sighed, and took out a comic book from the pile of books. It was called "Teenage Transforming Ninja Turtles", something ridiculous and disgusting.Those Ninja Turtles are called "One Shell Heroes".He threw Rafael, Donatello, and their stupid, ugly companions around the store, along with the comic strips they inhabited, and finally landed on a cash register, piled up in the shape of a small tent.Stories like this about teenage turtles turning into ninja turtles make you believe that the world might just as easily be destroyed, he thought.

He picked up another copy of Batman and turned to the first page—and that's when he saw the blue patrol car driving by the door, heading west, its huge tires splashing a rainwater. Bobby Terry watched it pass with his mouth half open.He couldn't believe that the car they'd been looking for had just passed his post. Then he rushed to the door, flung it open, and ran out onto the sidewalk, the copy of Batman still in one hand.Maybe it's just an illusion.Come to think of it, Flagg can hallucinate anyone. But this is not an illusion.Just as the patrol car was driving down another hill and out of town, he caught a glimpse of the roof of the patrol car.So he ran back, yelling at Dave at the top of his voice.

Judge held the steering wheel firmly, as if there was no such thing as arthritis, and if there was, he didn't have it; and if he did have it, it wouldn't bother him in the wet.He didn't want to let himself think about it anymore, because rain was a fact, an unmistakable fact. His father once said to him that only keeping hope is the greatest hope. He also stopped letting himself think about other things. He has been driving in the rain for the past 3 days.Sometimes the rain falls a little lightly, but most of the time it's a solid downpour.This is also an unmistakable fact.In some areas, roads are looking washed out and most sections will be impassable next spring.He had already thanked God many times for the patrol car's performance on this small trip. Three days of hard work on Interstate 80 had taught him that he wouldn't have been able to reach the West Coast until 2000 if he didn't drive on side roads.There were long stretches of the interstate that were unnervingly empty, and there were places where he had to weave through jammed traffic in second gear, and several times he was forced to stop and use the patrol car's The crank hooked the bumper of the vehicle in front and pushed it down the road, making room for barely passing. When it came to Rollins, he couldn't take it anymore.He turned northwest on Interstate 287, bypassing the Great Divide Basin, and two days later camped in the northwest corner of Wyoming, east of Yellowstone.There, the road is almost empty.Traveling through Wyoming and eastern Idaho was thrilling and dreamlike.He had never imagined that in this empty land, in his own soul, the feeling of death was so heavy.But there it was—in the eerie silence of the open western sky—the deer roamed now and then.It was there that the utility poles fell to the ground, unrepaired; it was there that he drove his patrol car in the deserted atmosphere through one town after another: La Notre, Madi Gap, Jay Freetown, Rand, Crowhart. His sense of loneliness grew stronger with the swelling feeling of death inside him.He was even more convinced that he would never see Boulder Free State or the people who lived there—Frannie, Lucy, Nick Andros—in his lifetime.He began to understand how Cain felt when God banished him to Nord. But that place is east of the Garden of Eden. And the judge is now in the West. He felt it most strongly when crossing the Wyoming-Idaho border.He was entering Idaho via Tarkin Pass and stopped for a light lunch on the side of the road.There was no sound except for the muffled rush of a nearby brook, and a strange harsh sound that reminded him of dirt on the hinges of a door.Clouds began to gather in the blue sky overhead, and damp air blew in, and his arthritis was afflicted.Haven't made it in ages, despite the long trip and... ...What is that piercing sound? After lunch, he took his Garand-style semi-automatic rifle out of the patrol car and walked to the picnic area by the stream—a nice place to eat in nice weather.There is a grove in which a few tables are placed.A hanged man was hanging from a tree, his shoes almost touching the ground, his head turned up in a very strange way, and the flesh on his body was almost pecked off by birds.The strange creaking sound was the rope that was attached to the branch swinging back and forth.The rope is about to fray. And so he gradually began to realize that he was now in the West. That afternoon, at about 4 o'clock, the first drops of rain flickered on the windshield of the patrol car, and then it started to rain. When he arrived in Butte two days later, the pain in his fingers and knees was so bad that he had to check into a motel and rest for the day.In the utter silence, Judge Charles sprawled on his hotel bed, with hot towels on his hands and knees, reading Lapham's Law and the Classes of Society, like a grotesque crucifix. Packed with aspirin and brandy the next day, he continued on the road, patiently finding side roads along the way, trying to keep the patrol car following the ruts.The dirt road was bumpy, and sometimes there were wrecks of vehicles to dodge, but it was better than hooking other cars with the crank, and it saved him from bending over and so on.It wasn't always so lucky, however, and on September 5, two days earlier, near the Salmon River Range, he had been forced to hook a large telephone truck and tow it backwards. It was a mile and a half until he came across a dip in the shoulder before he pushed the damned thing down an unknown river. On September 4, the day before the encounter with the phone truck and three days before Bobby Terry found him passing Copperfield, a rather disturbing incident occurred in New Meadows.He checked into the Range Hand Motel, and when he was picking up his keys in the office, he found a surprise: an automatic heater, which he put at the foot of his bed.For the first time in a week, he found that the evening was really warm and comfortable.The heater emits a strong and soft light.Stripped down to a pair of shorts, he leaned back on a pillow and read a case in which an uneducated black woman in Brixton, Mississippi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for shoplifting.Lapham seems to be pointing out... There was a bang, bang, bang on the window. The Judge's old heart was beating wildly.Lapham suddenly ran to the clouds.He grabbed the Garand rifle leaning on the chair and aimed it at the window, ready for any surprises.The set of deceitful statements passed through his mind quickly like a scarecrow swaying in the wind.Yes, they most want to know who he is and where he comes from... It turned out to be a crow. The judge relaxed a little for a moment, and a frightened smile appeared on his face. Just a crow. In the rain, it stood on the window sill outside, its originally smooth feathers sticking together comically, and a pair of small eyes watched through the dripping windowpane an old lawyer and the oldest amateur spy in the world. Lying on a bed in western Idaho, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts emblazoned with pink and gold "Boats of Los Angeles" logos, a thick law book resting on her paunch.The crow seemed to be grinning.The judge relaxed completely and grinned at it too.Yes, I am ridiculous.But after two weeks of solo travel in the open fields, it was not surprising that he felt a little jumpy. Bang, boom, boom. The crow continued to peck at the dripping glass with its beak. The judge's smile faltered a little.There was something odd about the way the crow looked at him, and he didn't really like it.It still seemed to be grinning, but he was sure it was a sneer, a sneer. Bang, boom, boom. Come down like a raven and settle on the bust of Pallas.Returning to the land of the free seems so far away, when will I find out what they need to know?Never again.Can I still spot the man in black's weakness?Never again. Can I go back safely? Never again. Bang, boom, boom. The crow looked at him like he was grinning. At this moment, a vague intuition made him believe that this was the man in black, and his soul was attached to this dripping, grinning crow, staring at him and examining him. He also stared at it fascinated. The crow's eyes seemed to get a little bigger.He noticed a ring of crimson ruby ​​around its eyes.The rain is still falling, and the water is still flowing on the ground.The crow leaned forward very calmly, and continued to peck at the glass with its beak. The Judge thought: It thinks it has charmed me.Maybe a little bit.But maybe because I'm so old, it's not so easy to charm me.Assuming...that would be silly of course, but assuming it was him.Can I grab that gun in one go?I haven't shot skeet in 4 years, but I was a club champion in 1976 and 1979 and had a good 1986 as well.The window is much closer than a flying skeet, if it's him, can I kill him?Can catch his soul in this damned crow - if there is such a thing?Wouldn't it be inappropriate if an old guy like me murdered a crow in a bland way in western Idaho to justify everything. The crow was smiling at him.He was pretty sure it was grinning now. The judge sat up with a jerk, thrusting the Garand into the hollow of his shoulder with quick and precise motion—a movement he had never imagined he could do so well.The crow looked a little scared.It shook its wet wings, and the water splashed everywhere.It seemed to open its eyes wide in horror.The judge heard it let out a dull cry: Wow!He instantly confirmed with a triumphant mood: he is the man in black, he misjudged the judge, and his price will be its poor life... "Eat this shot!" roared the judge, pulling the trigger sharply. But the trigger won't work because he still has the safety on.After a while, nothing could be seen on the window except rain. The judge lowered his gun in frustration, feeling stupid.He comforted himself that it was just a crow, and he should have spent the night for a while.If the window was broken, the rain would come in, and he would have to change rooms, which was really lucky when he thought about it. But he didn't sleep well that night, waking up many times during the night, and each time he woke up to stare at the window, he was sure he heard a strange banging sound at the window.If that crow landed there again, it would not leave.He flipped the safety on the gun. But the crow didn't come back. The next morning he drove west again, his arthritis not getting better, but not worse, stopping at a small café just after eleven o'clock to settle his lunch.When he had finished his sandwich and had a cup of coffee, he saw a large crow hovering in the air and landing on a telephone wire half a block ahead.The judge stared at it fascinated, and the red thermos rested between the table and his mouth.It's certainly not the same crow.There must have been a lot of crows, all plump and lively.It's crow's world now.But he still felt that it was the same crow, and a premonition of death and doom quickly swept through him. He no longer feels hungry. He drove on.A few days later, at 12:15 p.m., he continued west on Highway 86 in Oregon, through the town of Copperfield, and he didn't even notice the little shop on the side of the road.In the shop, Bobby Terry was dumbfounded when he saw him go by.The Garland rifle sat on the seat beside him, the safety on, and a box of ammunition beside it.The judge is ready to shoot any crow he sees. "Come on! Can you just drive the damn thing out of here?" "Fuck you, Bobby Terry. It's all because of your dereliction of duty. You have no reason to get mad at me." Dave Roberts was behind the wheel of the Willys, which was parked upside down in an alley next to the store.When Bobby Terry woke up Dave Roberts, and by the time he got up and dressed, the old guy in the patrol car had passed them ten minutes ahead.It was raining heavily and visibility was poor.Bobby Terry had a Winchester rifle slung across his waist and a .45 Colt in his belt. Dave, in cowboy boots, jeans, a yellow raincoat and nothing else, stared at him. "Bobby Terry, you're always pulling the trigger on your rifle, trying to punch a hole in the door or something?" "Just keep an eye on him," Bobby Terry said.He muttered softly, "Gut. Hit him in the gut. Don't aim for the head. Yeah, that's it." "Stop talking to yourself there." "Where is he?" Bobby Terry asked. "We'll find him." "What if he turns the corner?" "Where does it turn?" Dave asked. "It's country dirt roads that connect to the interstate. Relax, Bobby Terry." Bobby Terry said bitterly, "I couldn't relax. I kept thinking about what it would be like to be hanged on a pole in the desert and then be dried in the sun." "How come! . . . Look there! See that? God, we're almost on him." Ahead, a Chevrolet and a heavy-duty Piccolo collided head-on, a crash that had been going on for a long time.They lay in the rain, like giants, across the middle of the road.On the right side of the road, there are two deep fresh tire tracks on the side. "It's him," Dave said, "these car marks are less than five minutes old." He wobbled around the wreckage in the Willys, their car bouncing badly under the shoulder.Dave drove back onto the road with the judge ahead of them, and both of them saw the muddy chevron tire tracks the patrol car had left on the tarmac.On another hillside, they saw the patrol car had just disappeared over a mound about two miles away. "Hello!" Dave Roberts yelled, "Go!" He stepped on the clutch, and the Willys slowly accelerated to 60 mph.The windshield turned into a silver mist, and the wipers didn't work.On the mound they saw the patrol car again, this time much closer.Dave flicked on the headlight switch and flicked the dimmer switch with his foot.After a while, the taillights of the patrol car began to flash ahead. "Okay," Dave said, "let's be nice and push him out. Your gun's still half-cocked, Bobby Terry. If this works out, we'll be in Vegas The MGM Grand Hotel has two seats. If it goes wrong, we are doomed. So only succeed, not fail. Squeeze him out." "Oh, God, why didn't he go from Robinette?" muttered Bobby Terry.His hand was firmly on the Winchester rifle. Dave smacked one of his hands, "Can't take the gun outside either." "But……" "Shut up! One mile to go, you bastard!" Bobby Terry began to laugh.It was the stiff laugh of a clown in a funhouse. "You can't," Dave yelled, "I'll do it, you stay in the fucking car." They were already parallel to the patrol car, two wheels spinning on the pavement and two other tires pinched onto the soft shoulder.With a smile on his face, Dave got out of the car.His hands were in the pockets of his yellow raincoat.In the left pocket is a .38 caliber police gun. The judge carefully climbed out of the patrol car.He is also wearing a yellow raincoat and walks carefully, as if holding a fragile vase.In his left hand he carried the Garland rifle. "Hey, you're not going to shoot me with that, are you?" said the man getting out of the Willis with a friendly smile. "I don't think so," the judge said.They talked in the pattering rain. "You're from Copperfield, aren't you?" "Yes. My name is Dave Roberts." He held out his right hand. "My name is Charles." The judge said, also extending his right hand.He glanced up the passenger window of the Willys just in time to see Bobby Terry sticking out his .45 with both hands.Rainwater runs down the barrel.His face was pale, and he still had the stiff smile on the face of the clown in the pleasure palace. "Oh, bastard," the judge muttered, struggling to free his hand from Roberts' grip as Dave fired at him from the pocket of his raincoat.The bullet passed under his stomach, and he fell to the ground, feeling dizzy and dizzy. The feeling spread rapidly, and the bullet exited the right side of his spine, leaving a hole the size of a saucer.The Garland slipped from his hand and he was ejected against the door of the patrol car's cab. None of them noticed that the crow had landed on the telephone wire on the far side of the road. Dave Roberts steps forward, ready to complete his mission.Just then, Bobby Terry opened fire from the window of Willis' car.The bullet struck Roberts in the throat, dislodging a large portion of his throat.A spurt of blood spurted out and splashed on the front of his raincoat, mixing with the rain.He turned to Bobby Terry, opening and closing his jaw, but making no sound, his expression utterly amazed, his eyes bulging.He shuffled forward two steps, and then the surprise disappeared from his eyes.everything is over.He fell dead.The rain fell on his raincoat, tinkling. "Oh, damn it, look at it!" exclaimed Bobby Terry in a panic. The judge thought: My arthritis is gone.If I survived, I would shock the medical world.Arthritis can be cured with a single shot in the gut.Oh dear God, they've been hunting me down.Did Flagg tell them?He must have told the person sent by the God Help Committee... The Garland rifle fell to the road.He bent down to pick it up, as if the internal organs were about to come out of his body.Strange feeling, but not a happy feeling.It doesn't matter.He grabbed the gun.Is the insurance still open?open it.He raised it.As heavy as a thousand pounds. Bobby Terry finally looked away in shock from Dave when he saw the Judge prepare to shoot him.The judge sat on the ground, his raincoat red from chest to toe, his gun resting on his lap. Bobby fired a shot, which missed.At that moment the Garand rifle also thundered, and shards of glass spattered Bobby Terry in the face.He screamed, thinking he was going to die.Then he realized that half of the windshield was missing, and he knew he still had a chance to win. The Judge struggled to re-aim the target, the Garunder turning nearly two degrees on his knee.Bobby Terry was on fire now, firing three shots in rapid succession.The first shot punched a hole in the side of the patrol car's cab.A second shot landed over the judge's right eye. The .45 caliber pistol is very powerful at close range.What a tragedy, the shot knocked off most of the Judge's skull and his head was thrown back violently.Bobby Terry's third shot landed exactly 1/4 inch below the judge's jaw, shattering his teeth and shattering his jaw and jaw.His fingers twitched and pressed against the trigger of the Garland rifle, but the bullet fired into the pale, rainy sky. There was silence all around. The rain was beating on the roofs of the patrol car and the Willys, and on the raincoats of the two dead men.It was the only sound until the crow croaked and flew away from the wires to break the silence.The cry startled Bobby Terry.He slowly stepped down from his seat, still clutching the smoking .45. "I did it," he yelled into the rain, "smacked his ass. You better believe it. Hit it right, fucking right. Bobby Terry beat that guy as you'd expect killed." But gradually the horror set in, and he realized that it wasn't the Judge's ass he'd smashed at all. The judge is dead, his body leaning against the patrol car.Bobby Terry grabbed the lapel of the judge's raincoat and jerked it forward, staring at the judge's mutilated features.Nothing but the nose. It can be anyone. In a horrible nightmare, Bobby Terry heard Flagg's voice again: I will send him back intact. Dear God, this could be anyone.It was as if he was deliberately confronting the "walker": two shots directly in the face, which didn't even have a tooth. Rain, ding dong ding dong. It's there, that's all.He dared not go to the east, nor did he dare to stay in the west.Either he was hanged from a telephone pole with his bare back, or... there were worse things. Is there anything more terrifying? He smiled queerly, and had no doubts about the question.Then what should be done? He ran his hands through his hair and looked down at the judge's mutilated face, trying to find out. south.This is the answer.South, without any border guards.Head south to Mexico, and if that's not far enough, continue south to Guatemala, Panama, and possibly the damned Brazil.Throw it all away, no more east, no more west, just Bobby Terry, fly away safely, as far away from the walkers as possible... In the afternoon rain, a new voice came. Bobby Terry looked up sharply. Rain, yes, rain was pounding on the trunks of the two motor vehicles with a metallic tinkle, and the rumble of the two engines, and... A strange ticking of a clock, like wellies treading lightly on a side road paved with gravel. "No," whispered Bobby Terry. He starts to turn around. The sound of the clock is speeding up.Go, trot, run, run full speed, Bobby Terry has gone round and round.It was too late, he was running, Flagg was running, like a creepy devil from the most horrible picture. The man in black was blushing with joy, his eyes gleamed with happiness, and he grinned his lips in a hungry and greedy smile, revealing huge and sharp teeth like tombstones. His hands were stretched out in front of him, and a few Shiny raven feathers fell from his hair. No, Bobby Terry wanted to say, but he couldn't say anything. "Hey, Bobby Terry, you're messing things up!" roared the Man in Black, and dealt the unfortunate Bobby Terry a fatal blow. There really are worse things than being crucified. teeth.