Dreamcatcher (13 page)

This was no dewy damsel in distress. She was forty at least, and heavyset. Although her parka was thick
and she was wearing God knew how many layers beneath it, it swelled noticeably in front, indicating the sort of prodigious jugs for which breast-reduction surgery had been made. The hair whipping out from beneath and around the flaps of her cap was cut in no particular style. Like them, she was wearing jeans, but one of her thighs would have made two of Henry's. The first word to occur to him was
country-woman
—the kind of woman you saw hanging out her wash in the toy-littered yard beside her doublewide trailer while Garth or Shania blared from a radio stuck in an open window . . . or maybe buying a few groceries at Gosselin's. The orange gear suggested that she might have been hunting, but if so, where was her rifle? Already covered in snow? Her wide eyes were dark blue and utterly blank. Henry looked for her tracks and saw none. The wind had erased them, no doubt, but it was still eerie; she might have dropped from the sky.

Henry pulled his glove off and snapped his fingers in front of those staring eyes. They blinked. It wasn't much, but more than he had expected, given the fact that a multi-ton vehicle had just missed her by inches and never a twitch from her.

“Hey!” he shouted in her face. “Hey, come back! Come back!”

He snapped his fingers again and could hardly feel them—when had it turned so cold?
We're in a goddam situation here,
he thought.

The woman burped. The sound was startlingly loud even with the wind in the trees, and before it
was snatched away by the moving air, he got a whiff of something both bitter and pungent—it smelled like medicinal alcohol. The woman shifted and grimaced, then broke wind—a long, purring fart that sounded like ripping cloth.
Maybe,
Henry thought,
it's how the locals say hello.
The idea got him laughing again.

“Holy shit,” Pete said, almost in his ear. “Sounds like she ripped out the seat of her pants with that one. What you been drinkin, lady, Prestone?” And then, to Henry: “She's been drinkin
somethin,
by Christ, and if it ain't antifreeze, I'm a monkey.”

Henry could smell it, too.

The woman's eyes suddenly shifted, met Henry's own. He was shocked by the pain he saw in them. “Where's Rick?” she asked. “I have to find Rick—he's the only one left.” She grimaced, and when her lips peeled back, Henry saw that half her teeth were gone. Those remaining looked like stakes in a dilapidated fence. She belched again, and the smell was strong enough to make his eyes water.

“Aw, holy
Christ
!” Pete nearly screamed. “What's wrong with her?”

“I don't know,” Henry said. The only things he knew for sure were that the woman's eyes had gone blank again and that they were in a goddam situation here. Had he been alone, he might have considered sitting down next to the woman and putting his arm around her—a much more interesting and unique answer to the final problem than the Hemingway Solution. But there was Pete to think about—Pete hadn't
even been through his first alcohol rehab yet, although that was undoubtedly in the cards.

And besides, he was curious.

4

Pete was sitting in the snow, working at his knee again with his hands, looking at Henry, waiting for him to do something, which was fair enough, since so often he had been the idea man of their quartet. They hadn't had a leader, but Henry had been the closest thing to it. Even back in junior high school that had been true. The woman, meanwhile, was looking at no one, just staring off into the snow again.

Settle,
Henry thought.
Just take a deep breath and settle.

He took the breath, held it, and let it out. Better. A little better. All right, what was up with this lady? Never mind where she'd come from, what she was doing here, or why she smelled like diluted antifreeze when she burped. What was up with her right now?

Shock, obviously. Shock so deep it was like a form of catatonia—witness how she had not so much as stirred when the Scout went skidding by her at shaving distance. And yet she hadn't retreated so far inside that only a hypo of something excitable could reach her; she had responded to the snap of his fingers, and she had spoken. Had inquired about someone named Rick.

“Henry—”

“Quiet a minute.”

He took off his gloves again, held his hands in
front of her face, and clapped them smartly. He thought the sound very small compared to the steady whoosh of the wind in the trees, but she blinked again.

“On your feet!”

Henry took her gloved hands and was encouraged when they closed reflexively around his. He leaned forward, getting into her face, smelling that ethery odor. No one who smelled like that could be very well.

“On your feet, get up! With me! On three! One, two,
three
!”

He stood, holding her hands. She rose, her knees popping, and burped again. She broke wind again as well. Her hat went askew, dipping over one eye. When she made no move to straighten it, Henry said, “Fix her hat.”

“Huh?” Pete had also gotten up, although he didn't look very steady.

“I don't want to let go of her. Fix her hat, get it out of her eye.”

Gingerly, Pete reached out and straightened her hat. The woman bent slightly, grimaced, farted.

“Thank you very much,” Pete said sourly. “You've been a wonderful audience, good night.”

Henry could feel her sagging and tightened his grip.

“Walk!” he shouted, getting into her face again. “Walk with me! On three! One, two,
three
!”

He began walking backward, toward the front of the Scout. She was looking at him now and he held her gaze. Without glancing at Pete—he didn't want
to risk losing her—he said, “Take my belt. Lead me.”

“Where?”

“Around the other side of the Scout.”

“I'm not sure I can—”

“You have to, Pete, now do it.”

For a moment there was nothing, and then he felt Pete's hand slip under his coat, fumble, and catch hold of his belt. They shuffled across the narrow string of road in an awkward conga-line, through the staring yellow spotlight of the Scout's remaining headlamp. On the far side of the overturned vehicle they were at least partly sheltered from the wind, and that was good.

The woman abruptly pulled her hands out of Henry's and leaned forward, mouth opening. Henry stepped back, not wanting to be splattered when she let go . . . but instead of vomiting she belched, the loudest one yet. Then, while still bent over, she broke wind again. The sound was like nothing Henry had ever heard before, and he would have sworn he'd heard everything on the wards in western Massachusetts. She kept her feet, though, breathing through her nose in big horselike snuffles of air.

“Henry,” Pete said. His voice was hoarse with terror, awe, or both. “My God,
look.
”

He was staring up at the sky, jaw loose and mouth gaping. Henry followed his gaze and could hardly believe what he was seeing. Bright circles of light, nine or ten of them, cruised slowly across the low-hanging clouds. Henry had to squint to look at them. He thought briefly of spotlights stabbing the
night sky at Hollywood film premieres, but of course there were no such lights out here in the woods, and if there had been he would have seen the beams themselves, rising in the snowy air. Whatever was projecting those lights was above or in the clouds, not below them. They ran back and forth, seemingly at random, and Henry felt a sudden atavistic terror invade him . . . except it actually seemed to rise up from inside, somewhere deep inside. All at once his spinal cord felt like a column of ice.

“What is it?” Pete asked, nearly whining. “Christ, Henry, what is it?”

“I don't—”

The woman looked up, saw the dancing lights, and began to shriek. They were amazingly loud, those shrieks, and so full of terror they made Henry feel like shrieking himself.

“They're back!”
she screamed.
“They're back! They're back!”

Then she covered her eyes and put her head against the front tire of the overturned Scout. She quit screaming and only moaned, like something caught in a trap with no hope of getting free.

5

For some unknown length of time (probably no more than five minutes, although it felt longer) they watched those brilliant lights run across the sky—circling, skidding, hanging lefts and rights, appearing to leapfrog each other. At some point Henry became aware there
were only five instead of nearly a dozen, and then there were only three. Beside him the woman with her face against the tire farted again, and Henry realized they were standing out here in the middle of nowhere, gawping at some sort of storm-related celestial phenomenon which, while interesting, would contribute absolutely nothing toward getting them into a place that was dry and warm. He could remember the final reading on the tripmeter with perfect clarity: 12.7. They were nearly ten miles from Hole in the Wall, a good hike under the best of circumstances, and here they were in a storm only two steps below a blizzard.
Plus,
he thought,
I'm the only one who can walk.

“Pete.”

“It's somethin, isn't it?” Pete breathed. “They're fucking UFOs, just like on
The X-Files.
What d'you suppose—”

“Pete.” He took Pete's chin in his hand and turned his face away from the sky, to his own. Overhead, the last two lights were paling. “It's some sort of electrical phenomenon, that's all.”

“You think?” Pete looked absurdly disappointed.

“Yeah—something related to the storm. But even if it's the first wave of the Butterfly Aliens from Planet Alnitak, it isn't going to make any difference to us if we turn into Popsicles out here. Now I need you to help me. I need you to do that trick of yours. Can you?”

“I don't know,” Pete said, venturing one final look at the sky. There was only one light now, and so dim you wouldn't have known it was there if you hadn't
been looking for it. “Ma'am? Ma'am, they're almost gone. Mellow out, okay?”

She made no reply, only stood with her face pressed against the tire. The streamers on her hat flapped and flew. Pete sighed and turned to Henry.

“What do you want?”

“You know the loggers' shelters along this road?” There were eight or nine of them, Henry thought, nothing but four posts each, with pieces of rusty corrugated tin on top for roofs. The pulpers stored cut logs or pieces of equipment beneath them until spring.

“Sure,” Pete said.

“Where's the closest one? Can you tell me?”

Pete closed his eyes, raised one finger, and began moving it back and forth. At the same time he made a little ticking sound with the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. This had been a part of Pete ever since high school. It didn't go back as far as Beaver's gnawed pencils and chewed toothpicks, or Jonesy's love of horror movies and murder stories, but it went back a long way. And it was usually reliable. Henry waited, hoping it would be reliable now.

The woman, her ears perhaps catching that small regular ticking sound beneath the boom of the wind, raised her head and looked around. There was a large dark smear across her forehead from the tire.

At last Pete opened his eyes. “Right up there,” he said, pointing in the direction of Hole in the Wall. “Go around that curve and then there's a hill. Go down the other side of the hill and there's a straight
stretch. At the end of the straight there's one of those shelters. It's on the left. Part of the roof's fallen in. A man named Stevenson had a nosebleed there once.”

“Yeah?”

“Aw, man, I don't know.” And Pete looked away, as if embarrassed.

Henry vaguely remembered the shelter . . . and the fact that the roof had partially fallen in was good, or could be; if it had fallen the right way, it would have turned the wall-less shelter into a lean-to.

“How far?”

“Half a mile. Maybe three-quarters.”

“And you're sure.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you walk that far on your knee?”

“I think so—but will she?”

“She better,” Henry said. He put his hands on the woman's shoulders, turned her wide-eyed face to his, and moved in until they were almost nose to nose. The smell of her breath was awful—antifreeze with something oily and organic beneath it—but he stayed close, and made no move to draw back.

“We need to walk!” he told her, not quite shouting but speaking loudly and in a tone of command. “Walk with me now, on three! One, two,
three
!”

He took her hand and led her back around the Scout and into the road. There was one moment of resistance and then she followed with perfect docility, not seeming to feel the push of the wind when it struck them. They walked for about five minutes,
Henry holding the woman's gloved right hand in his left one, and then Pete lurched.

“Wait,” he said. “Bastardly knee's tryin to lock up on me again.”

While he bent and massaged it, Henry looked up at the sky. There were no lights up there now. “Are you all right? Can you make it?”

“I'll make it,” Pete said. “Come on, let's go.”

6

They made it around the curve all right and halfway up the hill all right and then Pete dropped, groaning and cursing and clutching his knee. He saw the way Henry was looking at him and made a peculiar sound, something caught between a laugh and a snarl. “Don't you worry about me,” he said. “Petiebird's gonna make it.”

“You sure?”

“Ayuh.” And to Henry's alarm (although there was amusement, too, that dark amusement which never seemed to leave him now), Pete balled his gloved hands into fists and began pounding on his knee.