Dreamcatcher (42 page)

Maybe . . . but maybe not. A deal like this, you could get into hack without even knowing why. He'd heard voices there for a minute or two—
a
voice, anyway—but he feels okay now. Still . . .

At Hole in the Wall, Jonesy roars out of the shed and heads up the Deep Cut Road. He senses Henry when he passes him—Henry hiding behind a tree, actually biting into the moss to keep from screaming—but successfully hides what he knows from the cloud which surrounds that last kernel of his awareness. It is almost certainly the last time he will be near his old friend, who will never make it out of these woods alive.

Jonesy wishes he could have said goodbye.

7

I don't know who made this movie,
Jonesy says,
but I don't think they have to bother pressing their tuxes for the Academy Awards. In fact
—

He looks around and sees only snow-covered trees. Eyes front again and nothing but the Deep Cut Road unrolling in front of him and the snowmobile vibrating between his thighs. There was never any hospital, never any Mr. Gray. That was all a dream.

But it wasn't. And there
is
a room. Not a hospital
room, though. No bed, no TV, no IV pole. Not much of anything, actually; just a bulletin board. Two things are tacked to it: a map of northern New England with certain routes mapped—the Tracker Brothers routes—and a Polaroid photo of a teenage girl with her skirt raised to reveal a golden tuft of hair. He is looking out at the Deep Cut Road from the window. It is, Jonesy feels quite sure, the window that used to be in the hospital room. But the hospital room was no good. He had to get out of that room, because—

The hospital room wasn't safe,
Jonesy thinks . . . as if this one is, as if anyplace is. And yet . . . this one's safe-
er,
maybe. This is his final refuge, and he has decorated it with the picture he supposed they all hoped to see when they went up that driveway back in 1978. Tina Jean Sloppinger, or whatever her name had been.

Some of what I saw was real . . . valid recovered memories, Henry might say. I really did think I saw Duddits that day. That's why I went into the street without looking. As for Mr. Gray . . . that's who I am now. Isn't it? Except for the part of me in this dusty, empty, uninteresting room with the used rubbers on the floor and the picture of the girl on the bulletin board, I'm all Mr. Gray. Isn't that the truth?

No answer. Which is all the answer he needs, really.

But how did it happen? How did I get here? And why? What's it
for?

Still no answers, and to these questions he can supply
none of his own. He's only glad he has a place where he can still be himself, and dismayed at how easily the rest of his life has been hijacked. He wishes again, with complete and bitter sincerity, that he had shot McCarthy.

8

A huge explosion ripped through the day, and although the source had to be miles away, it was still strong enough to send snow sliding off the trees. The figure on the snowmobile didn't even look around. It was the ship. The soldiers had blown it up. The byrum were gone.

A few minutes later, the collapsed lean-to hove into view on his right. Lying in front of it in the snow, one boot still caught beneath the tin roof, was Pete. He looked dead but wasn't. Playing dead wasn't an option, not in this game; he could hear Pete thinking. And as he pulled up on the snowmobile and shifted into neutral, Pete raised his head and bared his remaining teeth in a humorless grin. The left arm of his parka was blackened and melted. There seemed to be only one working finger remaining on his right hand. All of his visible skin was stippled with the byrus.

“You're not Jonesy,” Pete said. “What have you done with Jonesy?”

“Get on, Pete,” Mr. Gray said.

“I don't want to go anywhere with you.” Pete raised his right hand—the swooning fingers, the redgold
clumps of byrus—and used it to wipe his forehead. “The fuck out of here. Get on your pony and ride.”

Mr. Gray lowered the head that had once belonged to Jonesy (Jonesy watching it all from the window of his bolt-hole in the abandoned Tracker Brothers depot, unable to help or to change anything) and stared at Pete. Pete began to scream as the byrus growing all over his body tightened, the roots of the stuff digging into his muscles and nerves. The boot caught under the collapsed tin roof jerked free and Pete, still screaming, pulled himself up into a fetal position. Fresh blood burst from his mouth and nose. When he screamed again, two more teeth popped out of his mouth.

“Get on, Pete.”

Weeping, holding his savaged right hand to his chest, Pete tried to get to his feet. The first effort was a failure; he sprawled in the snow again. Mr. Gray made no comment, simply sat astride the idling Arctic Cat and watched.

Jonesy felt Pete's pain and despair and wretched fear. The fear was by far the worst, and he decided to take a risk.

Pete.

Only a whisper, but Pete heard. He looked up, his face haggard and speckled with fungus—what Mr. Gray called byrus. When Pete licked his lips, Jonesy saw it was growing on his tongue, too. Outer-space thrush. Once Pete Moore had wanted to be an astronaut. Once he had stood up to some bigger boys on
behalf of someone who was smaller and weaker. He deserved better than this.

No bounce, no play.

Pete almost smiled. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking. This time he made it to his feet and plodded slowly toward the snowmobile.

In the deserted office to which he had been exiled, Jonesy saw the doorknob begin to twist back and forth.
What does that mean?
Mr. Gray asked.
What is no bounce, no play? What are you doing in there? Come back to to the hospital and watch TV with me, why don't you? How did you get in there to begin with?

It was Jonesy's turn not to answer, and he did so with great pleasure.

I'll get in,
Mr. Gray said.
When I'm ready, I'll come in. You may think you can lock the door against me, but you're wrong.

Jonesy kept silent—there was no need to provoke the creature currently in charge of his body—but he didn't think he
was
wrong. On the other hand, he didn't dare leave; he would be swallowed up if he tried. He was just a kernel in a cloud, a bit of undigested food in an alien gut.

Best to keep a low profile.

9

Pete got on behind Mr. Gray and put his arms around Jonesy's waist. Ten minutes later they motored past the overturned Scout, and Jonesy understood what had made Pete and Henry so late back from the store.
It was a wonder either of them had lived through it. He would have liked a longer look, but Mr. Gray didn't slow, just went on with the Cat's skis bouncing up and down, riding the crown of the road between the two snow-filled ruts.

Three miles or so beyond the Scout, they topped a rise and Jonesy saw a brilliant ball of yellow-white light hanging less than a foot above the road, waiting for them. It looked as hot as the flame of a welder's torch, but obviously wasn't; the snow just inches below it hadn't melted. It was almost certainly one of the lights he and Beaver had seen playing in the clouds, above the fleeing animals coming out of The Gulch.

That's right,
Mr. Gray said.
What your people call a flashlight. This is one of the last. Perhaps the very last.

Jonesy said nothing, only stared out the window of his office cell. He could feel Pete's arms around his waist, holding on mostly by instinct now, the way a nearly beaten fighter clinches with his opponent to keep from hitting the canvas. The head lying against his back was as heavy as a stone. Pete was a culture-medium for the byrus now, and the byrus liked him fine; the world was cold and Pete was warm. Mr. Gray apparently wanted him for something—what, Jonesy had no idea.

The flashlight led them another half a mile or so up the road, then veered into the woods. It slipped in between two big pines and then waited for them, spinning just above the snow. Jonesy heard Mr. Gray instruct Pete to hold on as tight as he could.

The Arctic Cat bounced and growled its way up a slight incline, its skis digging into the snow, then splashing it aside. Once they were actually under the forest canopy there was less of it, in some places none at all. In those spots the snowmobile's tread clattered angrily on the frozen ground, which was mostly rock beneath a thin cover of soil and fallen needles. They were headed north now.

Ten minutes later they bounced hard over a jut of granite and Pete went tumbling off the back with a low cry. Mr. Gray let go of the snowmobile's throttle. The flashlight also stopped, spinning above the snow. Jonesy thought it looked dimmer now.

“Get up,” Mr. Gray said. He was turned around on the saddle, looking back at Pete.

“I can't,” Pete said. “I'm done, fella. I—”

Then Pete began to howl and thrash on the ground again, feet kicking, his hands—one burned, the other mangled—jerking.

Stop it!
Jonesy yelled.
You're killing him!

Mr. Gray paid him no attention whatever, just remained as he was, swung around at the waist and watching Pete with deadly, emotionless patience as the byrus tightened and pulled at Pete's flesh. At last Jonesy felt Mr. Gray let up. Pete got groggily to his feet. There was a fresh cut on one cheek, and already it was swarming with byrus. His eyes were dazed and exhausted and swimming with tears. He got back on the snowmobile and his hands crept around Jonesy's waist once more.

Hold onto my coat,
Jonesy whispered, and as Mr.
Gray turned forward and clapped the snowmobile back into gear, he felt Pete take hold.
No bounce, no play, right?

No play,
Pete agreed, but faintly.

Mr. Gray paid no attention this time. The flashlight, less bright but still speedy, started north again . . . or at least in a direction Jonesy assumed was north. As the snowmobile wove its way around trees, thick clumps of bushes, and knobs of rock, his sense of direction pretty much gave up. From behind them came a steady crackle of gunfire. It sounded as though someone was having a turkey-shoot.

10

About an hour later, Jonesy finally discovered why Mr. Gray had bothered with Pete. That was when the flashlight, which had dimmed to an anemic shadow of its original self, finally went out. It disappeared with a soft plosive sound—as if someone had popped a paper sack. Some leftover bit of detritus fell to the ground.

They were on a tree-lined ridge spang in the middle of the God-only-knows. Ahead of them was a snowy, forested valley; on its far side were eroded hills and brush-tangled brakes where not a single light shone. And to finish things off, the day was fading toward dusk.

Another fine mess you've gotten us into,
Jonesy thought, but he sensed no dismay on Mr. Gray's part. Mr. Gray stopped the snowmobile by releasing the throttle, and then simply sat there.

North,
Mr. Gray said. Not to Jonesy.

Pete answered out loud, his voice weary and slow. “How am I supposed to know? I can't even see where the sun's going down, for Christ's sake. One of my eyes is all fucked up, too.”

Mr. Gray turned Jonesy's head and Jonesy saw that Pete's left eye was gone. The lid had been shoved up high, giving him a half-assed look of surprise. Growing out of the socket was a small jungle of byrus. The longest strands hung down, tickling against Pete's stubbly cheek. More strands twined through his thinning hair in lush red-gold streaks.

You know.

“Maybe I do,” Pete said. “And maybe I don't want to point you there.”

Why not?

“Because I doubt if what you want is healthy for the rest of us, fuckface,” Pete said, and Jonesy felt an absurd sense of pride.

Jonesy saw the growth in Pete's eyesocket twitch. Pete screamed and clutched at his face. For a moment—brief but far too long—Jonesy fully imagined the reddish-gold tendrils reaching from that defunct eye into Pete's brain, where they spread like strong fingers clutching a gray sponge.

Go on, Pete, tell him!
Jonesy cried.
For Christ's sake, tell him!

The byrus grew still again. Pete's hand dropped from his face, which was now deathly pale where it wasn't reddish-gold. “Where are you, Jonesy?” he asked. “Is there room for two?”

The short answer, of course, was no. Jonesy didn't understand what had happened to him, but knew that his continued survival—that last kernel of autonomy—somehow depended on his staying right where he was. If he so much as opened the door, he would be gone for good.

Pete nodded. “Didn't think so,” he said, and then spoke to the other. “Just don't hurt me anymore, fella.”

Mr. Gray only sat, looking at Pete with Jonesy's eyes and making no promises.

Pete sighed, then raised his scorched left hand and extended one finger. He closed his eyes and began to tick his finger back and forth, back and forth. And as he did it, Jonesy came close to understanding everything. What had that little girl's name been? Rinkenhauer, wasn't it? Yes. He couldn't remember the first name, but a clumsy handle like Rinkenhauer was hard to forget. She had also gone to Mary M. Snowe, aka The Retard Academy, although by then Duddits had gone on to Vocational. And Pete? Pete had always had a funny trick of remembering things, but after Duddits—

The words came back to Jonesy as he crouched in his dirty little cell, looking out at the world which had been stolen from him . . . only they weren't really words at all, only those open vowel sounds, so strangely beautiful:

Ooo eee a yine, Ete? Do you see the line, Pete?

Pete, his face full of dreamy, surprised wonder, had said yes, he saw it. And he had been doing the thing
with his finger then, that tick-tock thing, just as he was now.