Hearts In Atlantis by Stephen King Page A

having an epilepsy attack or something. God, don’t they sometimes swallow their tongues when that happens?
    Ted’s tongue looked to be where it belonged, but his eyes . . . his eyes —
    â€œTed! Ted, wake up!”
    Bobby was around to Ted’s side of the table before he was even aware he was moving. He grabbed Ted by the shoulders and shook him. It was like shaking a piece of wood carved to look like a man. Under his cotton pullover shirt Ted’s shoulders were hard and scrawny and unyielding.
    â€œWake up! Wake up! ”
    â€œThey draw west now.” Ted continued to look out the window with his strange moving eyes. “That’s good. But they may be back. They  . . .”
    Bobby stood with his hands on Ted’s shoulders, frightened and awestruck. Ted’s pupils expanded and contracted like a heartbeat you could see. “Ted, what’s wrong?”
    â€œI must be very still. I must be a hare in the bush. They may pass by. There will be water if God wills it, and they may pass by. All things serve  . . .”
    â€œServe what?” Almost whispering now. “Serve what, Ted?”
    â€œAll things serve the Beam,” Ted said, and suddenly his hands closed over Bobby’s. They were very cold, those hands, and for a moment Bobby felt nightmarish, fainting terror. It was like being gripped by a corpse that could only move its hands and the pupils of its dead eyes.
    Then Ted was looking at him, and although his eyes were frightened, they were almost normal again. Not dead at all.
    â€œBobby?”
    Bobby pulled his hands free and put them around Ted’s neck. He hugged him, and as he did Bobby heard a bell tolling in his head—this was very briefbut very clear. He could even hear the pitch of the bell shift, the way the pitch of a train-whistle did if the train was moving fast. It was as if something inside his head were passing at high speed. He heard a rattle of hooves on some hard surface. Wood? No, metal. He smelled dust, dry and thundery in his nose. At the same moment the backs of his eyes began to itch.
    â€œShhh!” Ted’s breath in his ear was as dry as the smell of that dust, and somehow intimate. His hands were on Bobby’s back, cupping his shoulderblades and holding him still. “Not a word! Not a thought. Except . . . baseball! Yes, baseball, if you like!”
    Bobby thought of Maury Wills getting his lead off first, a walking lead, measuring three steps . . . then four . . . Wills bent over at the waist, hands dangling, heels raised slightly off the dirt, he can go either way, it depends on what the pitcher does . . . and when the pitcher goes to the plate Wills heads for second in an explosion of speed and dust and—
    Gone. Everything was gone. No bell ringing in his head, no sound of hooves, no smell of dust. No itching behind his eyes, either. Had that itching really ever been there? Or had he just made it up because Ted’s eyes were scaring him?
    â€œBobby,” Ted said, again directly into Bobby’s ear. The movement of Ted’s lips against his skin made him shiver. Then: “Good God, what am I doing?”
    He pushed Bobby away, gently but firmly. His face looked dismayed and a little too pale, but his eyes were back to normal, his pupils holding steady. For the moment that was all Bobby cared about. He felt strange, though—muzzy in the head, as if he’d justwoken up from a heavy nap. At the same time the world looked amazingly brilliant, every line and shape perfectly defined.
    â€œShazam,” Bobby said, and laughed shakily. “What just happened?”
    â€œNothing to concern you.” Ted reached for his cigarette and seemed surprised to see only a tiny smoldering scrap left in the groove where he had set it. He brushed it into the ashtray with his knuckle. “I went off again, didn’t