one on the morning of monday the 21st of june in the year of '99 , the sun shone down on new york city just as if jake chambers did not lie dead in one world and eddie dean in another ; as if stephen king did not lie in a lewiston hospital 's intensive care ward , drifting out into the light of consciousness only for brief intervals ; as if susannah dean did not sit alone with her grief aboard a train racing on ancient , chancy tracks across the dark wastes of thunderclap toward the ghost-town of fedic .