He and the townsfolk request the ka-tet's assistance in battling against the Wolves of Thunderclap, who come once a generation to take one child from each pair of the town's twins.

After a few months of being away, the children are then returned "roont" (ruined) – mentally handicapped and destined to grow to enormous size and die young.

Walter transports Callahan to the mountains near Calla Bryn Sturgis, where the Manni people find him in a place called the Doorway Cave.

Tower agrees to do so but, in exchange, he asks that he can hide his valuable books in Roland's world for safekeeping, where they are hidden in Doorway Cave.

While planning the battle with the Wolves, Roland and Jake notice bizarre changes in Susannah's behavior, which are linked to the time when she coupled with the demon in the stone circle.

[N 5] There, he discovers a surveillance system that monitors the entire Calla, and overhears Andy and Slightman communicating with someone named Finli o'Tego.

The gunslingers, aided by plate-throwing women in the Calla, defeat the wolves with only a few casualties (including Benny Slightman, to Jake's dismay), while the children are safely hidden in a rice patch nearby.

While looking through Tower's books in the cave, Callahan makes a discovery that causes him to question his own existence: a fictional novel called 'Salem's Lot, written by someone named Stephen King, that seems to recount his encounters with Barlow and the vampires.

Stephen King has acknowledged multiple sources of influence for this story, including Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, its remake The Magnificent Seven, Sergio Leone's "Man with No Name" trilogy, and other works by Howard Hawks and John Sturges, among others.

Such instances include: several of the Wolves carrying weapons that resemble lightsabers and a "messenger robot" similar in demeanor to the android C-3PO from the Star Wars movies, with the look of an Isaac Asimov robot; the Wolves themselves seeming to bear a physical resemblance to Doctor Doom from the Marvel Comics comic books,[2] and flying grenades named "sneetches" that are stated as being from the Harry Potter product line (a direct reference to the Golden Snitch from the J. K. Rowling books, and to the Dr. Seuss characters).