Dreamcatcher (41 page)

What do you mean?
Jonesy asks, afraid for Henry . . . but the dying thing in the bed doesn't answer. It's another card for the crib, so Jonesy plays another one from his hand:
Why did you call me here?

The gray creature expresses surprise, although its face still doesn't move.
No one wants to die alone,
it says.
I just want someone to be with. I know, we'll watch television.

I don't want
—

There's a movie I particularly want to see. You'll enjoy it, too. It's called
Sympathy for the Grayboys.
Bowser! The remote!

Bowser favors Jonesy with what seems a particularly ill-natured look, then slithers off the pillow, its flexing tail making a dry rasp like a snake crawling over a rock. On the table is a TV remote, also overgrown with fungus. Bowser seizes it, turns, and slithers back to the gray creature with the remote held in its teeth. The gray thing releases Jonesy's hand (its touch is not repulsive, but the release is still something of a relief), takes the controller, points it at the TV, and pushes the
ON
button. The picture that appears—blurred slightly but not hidden by the light fuzz growing on the glass—is of the shed behind the cabin. In the center of the screen is a shape hidden by a green tarp. And even before the door opens and he sees himself come in, Jonesy understands that this has already happened. The star of
Sympathy for the Grayboys
is Gary Jones.

Well,
the dying creature in the bed says from its comfortable spot in the center of his brain,
we missed the credits, but really, the movie's just starting.

That's what Jonesy's afraid of.

5

The shed door opens and Jonesy comes in. Quite the motley fellow he is, dressed in his own coat, Beaver's gloves, and one of Lamar's old orange hats. For a moment the Jonesy watching in the hospital room (he has pulled up the visitor's chair and is sitting by Mr. Gray's bed) thinks that the Jonesy in the snowmobile shed at Hole in the Wall has been infected after all, and that red moss is growing all over him. Then he remembers that Mr. Gray exploded right in front of him—his head did, anyway—and Jonesy is wearing the remains.

Only you didn't explode,
he says.
You . . . you what? Went to seed?

Shhh!
says Mr. Gray, and Bowser bares its formidable headful of teeth, as if to tell Jonesy to stop being so impolite.
I love this song, don't you?

The soundtrack is the Rolling Stones' “Sympathy for the Devil,” fitting enough since this is almost the name of the movie (
my screen debut,
Jonesy thinks,
wait'll Carla and the kids see it
), but in fact Jonesy doesn't love it, it makes him sad for some reason.

How can you love it?
he asks, ignoring Bowser's bared teeth—Bowser is no danger to him, and both of them know it.
How can you? It's what they were playing when they slaughtered you.

They always slaughter us,
Mr. Gray says.
Now be quiet, watch the movie, this part is slow but it gets a lot better.

Jonesy folds his hands in his red lap—the bleeding seems to have stopped, at least—and watches
Sympathy for the Grayboys,
starring the one and only Gary Jones.

6

The one and only Gary Jones pulls the tarp off the snowmobile, spots the battery sitting on the work-table in a cardboard box, and puts it in, being careful to clamp the cables to the correct terminals. This pretty well exhausts his store of mechanical knowledge—he's a history teacher, not a mechanic, and his idea of home improvement is making the kids watch the History Channel once in a while instead of
Xena.
The key is in the ignition, and the dashboard lights come on when he turns the key—got the battery right, anyway—but the engine doesn't start. Doesn't even crank. The starter makes a
tut-tutting
sound and that's all.

“Oh dear oh gosh dadrattit number two,” he says, running them all together in a monotone. He isn't sure he could manifest much in the way of emotion now even if he really wanted to. He's a horror-movie fan, has seen
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
two dozen times (he has even seen the wretched remake, the one with Donald Sutherland in it), and he knows what's going on here. His body has been snatched, most righteously and completely snatched. Although there will be no army of
zombies, not even a townful. He is unique. He senses that Pete, Henry, and the Beav are also unique (
was
unique, in the Beav's case), but he is the most unique of all. You're not supposed to be able to say that—like the cheese belonging to the Farmer in the Dell, unique supposedly stands alone—but this is a rare case where that rule doesn't apply. Pete and Beaver were unique, Henry is uniquer, and he, Jonesy, is uniquest. Look, he's even starring in his own movie! How unique is
that,
as his oldest son would say.

The gray fellow in the hospital bed looks from the TV where Jonesy I is sitting astride the Arctic Cat to the chair where Jonesy II sits in his blood-sodden johnny.

What are you hiding?
Mr. Gray asks.

Nothing.

Why do you keep seeing a brick wall? What is 19, besides a prime number? Who said “Fuck the Tigers”? What does that mean? What is the brick wall?
When
is the brick wall? What does it mean, why do you keep seeing it?

He can feel Mr. Gray prying at him, but for the time being that one kernel is safe. He can be carried, but not changed. Not entirely opened, either, it seems. Not yet, at least.

Jonesy puts his finger to his lips and gives the gray fellow's own words back to him:
Be quiet, watch the movie.

It studies him with the black bulbs of its eyes (they are insectile, Jonesy thinks, the eyes of a praying mantis), and Jonesy can feel it prying for a moment or two
longer. Then the sensation fades. There is no hurry; sooner or later it will dissolve the shell over that last kernel of pure uninvaded Jonesy, and then it will know everything it wants to know.

In the meantime, they watch the movie. And when Bowser crawls into Jonesy's lap—Bowser with his sharp teeth and his ethery antifreeze smell—Jonesy barely notices.

Jonesy I, Shed Jonesy (only that one's now actually Mr. Gray), reaches out. There are many minds to reach out to, they are hopping all over each other like late-night radio transmissions, and he finds one with the information he needs easily enough. It's like opening a file on your personal computer and finding a wonderfully detailed 3-D movie instead of words.

Mr. Gray's source is Emil “Dawg” Brodsky, from Menlo Park, New Jersey. Brodsky is an Army Tech Sergeant, a motor-pool munchkin. Only here, as part of Kurtz's Tactical Response Team, Tech Sergeant Brodsky has no rank. No one else does, either. He calls his superiors boss and those who rank below him (there are not many of those at this particular barbecue) hey you. If he doesn't know which is which, pal or buddy will do.

There are jets overflying the area, but not many (they'll be able to get all the pix they need from low earth orbit if the clouds ever clear), and they are not Brodsky's job, anyway. The jets fly out of the Air National Guard base in Bangor, and he is here in Jefferson Tract. Brodsky's job is the choppers and the trucks in the rapidly growing motor-pool (since noon, all the roads in this part of the state have been closed
and the only traffic is olive-green trucks with their insignia masked). He's also in charge of setting up at least four generators to provide the electricity needed to serve the compound growing around Gosselin's Market. These needs include motion sensors, pole lights, perimeter lights, and the makeshift operating theater which is being hastily equipped in a Windstar motor home.

Kurtz has made it clear that the lights are a big deal—he wants this place as bright as day all night long. The greatest number of pole lights is going up around the barn and what used to be a horse corral and paddock behind the barn. In the field where old Reggie Gosselin's forty milkers once grazed away their days, two tents have been erected. The larger has a sign on its green roof:
COMMISSARY
. The other tent is white and unmarked. There are no kerosene heaters in it, as there are in the larger tent, and no need of them. This is the temporary morgue, Jonesy understands. There are only three bodies in there now (one is a banker who tried to run away, foolish man), but soon there may be lots more. Unless there's an accident that makes collecting bodies difficult or impossible. For Kurtz, the boss, such an accident would solve all sorts of problems.

And all that is by the way. Jonesy I's job is Emil Brodsky of Menlo Park.

Brodsky is striding rapidly across the snowy, muddy, churned-up ground between the helicopter landing zone and the paddock where the Ripley-positives are to be kept (there are already a good number of them in
there, walking around with the bewildered expressions of freshly interned prisoners the world over, calling out to the guards, asking for cigarettes and information and making vain threats). Emil Brodsky is squat and crewcut, with a bulldog face that looks made for cheap cigars (in fact, Jonesy knows, Brodsky is a devout Catholic who has never smoked). He's as busy as a one-armed paperhanger just now. He's got earphones on and a receptionist's mike hung in front of his lips. He is in radio contact with the fuel-supply convoy coming up I-95—those guys are critical, because the helicopters out on mission are going to come back low—but he's also talking to Cambry, who is walking next to him, about the control-and-surveillance center Kurtz wants set up by nine
P.M
., midnight at the latest. This mission is going to be over in forty-eight hours at the outside, that's the scuttlebutt, but who the fuck knows for sure? According to the scuttlebutt, their prime target, Blue Boy, has already been taken out, but Brodsky doesn't know how anyone can be sure of that, since the big assault choppers haven't come back yet. And anyhow, their job here is simple: turn the whole works up to eleven and then yank the knobs off.

And ye gods, all at once there are
three
Jonesys: the one watching TV in the fungus-crawling hospital room, the one in the snowmobile shed . . . and Jonesy III, who suddenly appears in Emil Brodsky's crewcut Catholic head. Brodsky stops walking and simply looks up into the white sky.

Cambry walks on three or four steps by himself before realizing that Dawg has stopped cold, is just
standing there in the middle of the muddy cow pasture. In the midst of all this frantic bustle—running men, hovering helicopters, revving engines—he's standing there like a robot with a dead battery.

“Boss?” Cambry asks. “Everything all right?”

Brodsky makes no reply . . . at least not to Cambry, he doesn't. To Jonesy I—Shed Jonesy—he says:
Open the engine cowling and show me the plugs.

Jonesy has some trouble finding the catch that opens the cowling, but Brodsky directs him. Then Jonesy leans over the small engine, not looking for himself but turning his eyes into a pair of high-res cameras and sending the picture back to Brodsky.

“Boss?” Cambry asks with increasing concern. “Boss, what is it? What's wrong?”

“Nothing wrong,” Brodsky says, slowly and distinctly. He pulls the headphones down around his neck; the chatter in them is a distraction. “Just let me think a minute.”

And to Jonesy:
Someone yanked the plugs. Look around. . . yeah, there they are. End of the table.

On the end of the worktable is a mayonnaise jar half filled with gasoline. The jartop has been vented—two punches with the tip of a screwdriver—to keep the fumes from building up. Sunk in it like exhibits preserved in formaldehyde are two Champion sparkplugs.

Aloud, Brodsky says “Dry them off good,” and when Cambry asks, “Dry
what
off good?” Brodsky tells him absently to put a sock in it.

Jonesy fishes the plugs out, dries them off, then
seats and connects them as Brodsky directs.
Try it now,
Brodsky says, this time without moving his lips, and the snowmobile starts up with a roar.
Check the gas, too.

Jonesy does, and says thank you.

“No problem, boss,” Brodsky says, and starts walking briskly again. Cambry has to trot a little to catch up. He sees the faintly bewildered look on Dawg's face when Dawg discovers his headphones are now around his neck.

“What the hell was that all about?” Cambry asks.

“Nothing,” Brodsky says, but it was something, all right; it sure as shit was something. Talking. A conversation. A . . . consultation? Yeah, that. He just can't remember exactly what the subject was. What he
can
remember is the briefing they got this morning, before daylight, when the team went hot. One of the directives, straight from Kurtz, had been to report anything unusual. Was this unusual? What, exactly, had it been?

“Had a brain-cramp, I guess,” Brodsky says. “Too many things to do and not enough time to do them in. Come on, son, keep up with me.”

Cambry keeps up. Brodsky resumes his divided conversation—convoy there, Cambry here—but remembers something else, some third conversation, one that is now over. Unusual or not? Probably not, Brodsky decides. Certainly nothing he could talk about to that incompetent bastard Perlmutter—as far as Pearly's concerned, if it isn't on his ever-present clipboard, it doesn't exist. Kurtz? Never. He respects the old buzzard, but fears him even more. They all
do. Kurtz is smart, Kurtz is brave, but Kurtz is also the craziest ape in the jungle. Brodsky doesn't even like to walk where Kurtz's shadow has run across the ground.

Underhill? Could he talk to Owen Underhill?