That evening was some time ago, and my memory has not improved between then and now (when a man reaches my age, the opposite is much more likely to be true), but I remember with perfect clarity the stab of fear that went through me when Stevens swung the oaken door wide–the cold certainty that I would see that alien landscape, cracked and hellish in the bloody light of those double suns, which might set and bring on an unspeakable darkness of an hour’s duration, or ten hours, or ten thousand years. I cannot explain it, but I tell you that world exists–I am as sure of that as Emlyn McCarron was sure that the severed head of Sandra Stansfield went on breathing. I thought for that one timeless second that the door would open and Stevens would thrust me out into that world and I would then hear that door slam shut behind me … forever.
Instead, I saw Thirty-fifth Street and a radio-cab standing at the curb, exhaling plumes of exhaust. I felt an utter, almost debilitating relief.
“Yes, always more tales,” Stevens repeated. “Goodnight, sir.”
Always more tales.
Indeed there have been. And, one day soon, perhaps I’ll tell you another.
– Stephen King
