Dreamcatcher (74 page)

The dog. Lad. Did he still have the dog?

“Of course he does,” Jonesy whispered. “Of course the son of a bitch does, I can smell him even in here. Farting just like McCarthy.”

This world was inimical to the byrus, and this world's inhabitants fought with a surprising vigor which arose from deep wells of emotion. Bad luck. But now the last surviving grayboy had had an unbroken chain of
good
luck; he was like some daffy in-the-zone Vegas crapshooter rolling a string of sevens: four, six, eight, oh goddam, a dozen in a row. He had found Jonesy, his Typhoid Mary, had invaded him and conquered him. He had found Pete, who had gotten him where he wanted to go after the flashlight—the kim—had given out. Next, Andy Janas, the Minnesota boy. He had been hauling the corpses of two deer killed by the Ripley. The deer had been useless to Mr. Gray . . . but Janas had also been hauling the decomposing body of one of the aliens.

Fruiting bodies,
Jonesy thought randomly.
Fruiting bodies, what's that from?

No matter. Because Mr. Gray's next seven had been the Dodge Ram, old Mr.
I
♥
MY BORDER COLLIE.
What had Gray done? Fed some of the gray's dead body to the dog? Put the dog's nose to the corpse and forced him to inhale of that fruiting body? No, eating was much more likely; c'mon, boy, chow time. Whatever process started the weasels, it began in the gut, not the lungs. Jonesy had a momentary image of McCarthy lost in the woods. Beaver had asked
What the hell have you been eating? Woodchuck turds?
And what had McCarthy replied?
Bushes . . . and things . . . I don't
know just what . . . I was just so hungry, you know . . .

Sure. Hungry. Lost, scared, and hungry. Not noticing the red splotches of byrus on the leaves of some of the bushes, the red speckles on the green moss he crammed into his mouth, gagging it down because somewhere back there in his tame oh-gosh oh-dear lawyer's life, he had read that you could eat moss if you were lost in the woods, that moss wouldn't hurt you. Did everyone who swallowed some of the byrus (grains of it, almost too small to be seen, floating in the air) incubate one of the vicious little monsters that had torn McCarthy apart and then killed the Beav? Probably not, no more than every woman who had unprotected sex got pregnant. But McCarthy had caught . . . and so had Lad.

“He knows about the cottage,” Jonesy said.

Of course. The cottage in Ware, some sixty miles west of Boston. And he'd know the story of the Russian woman, everyone knew it; Jonesy had passed it on himself. It was too gruesomely good not to pass on. They knew it in Ware, in New Salem, in Cooleyville and Belchertown, Hardwick and Packardsville and Pel-ham.
All
the surrounding towns. And what, pray tell, did those towns surround?

Why, the Quabbin, that was what they surrounded. Quabbin Reservoir. The water supply for Boston and the adjacent metropolitan area. How many people drank their daily water from the Quabbin? Two million? Three? Jonesy didn't know for sure, but a lot more than had ever drunk from the supply stored in the Derry Standpipe. Mr. Gray,
rolling seven after seven, a run for the ages and now only one away from breaking the bank.

Two or three million people. Mr. Gray wanted to introduce them to Lad the border collie, and to Lad's new friend.

And delivered in this new medium, the byrus would take.

1

South and south and south.

By the time Mr. Gray passed the Gardiner exit, the first one below Augusta, the snow-cover on the ground was considerably less and the turnpike was slushy but two lanes wide again. It was time to trade the plow for something less conspicuous, partly because he no longer needed it, but also because Jonesy's arms were aching with the unaccustomed strain of controlling the oversized vehicle. Mr. Gray didn't care much for Jonesy's body (or so he told himself; in truth it was hard not to feel at least some affection for something capable of providing such unexpected pleasures as “bacon” and “murder”), but it
did
have to take him another couple of hundred miles. He suspected that Jonesy wasn't in very good shape for a man in the middle of his life. Part of that was the accident he'd been in, but it also had to do with his job. He was an
“academic.” As a result, he had pretty much ignored the more physical aspects of his life, which stunned Mr. Gray. These creatures were sixty percent emotion, thirty percent sensation, ten percent thought (and ten percent, Mr. Gray reflected, was probably on the generous side). To ignore the body the way Jonesy had seemed both willful and stupid to Mr. Gray. But, of course, that was not his problem. Nor Jonesy's, either. Not anymore. Now Jonesy was what he had apparently always wanted to be: nothing but mind. Judging from the way he'd reacted, he didn't actually care for that state much once he had attained it.

On the floor of the plow, where Lad lay in a litter of cigarette butts, cardboard coffee cups, and balled-up snack-wrappers, the dog whined in pain. Its body was grotesquely bloated, the torso the size of a water-barrel. Soon the dog would pass gas and its midsection would deflate again. Mr. Gray had established contact with the byrum growing inside the dog, and would hence regulate its gestation.

The dog would be his version of what his host thought of as “the Russian woman.” And once the dog had been placed, his job would be done.

He reached behind him with his mind, feeling for the others. Henry and his friend Owen were entirely gone, like a radio station that has ceased to broadcast, and that was troubling. Farther behind (they were just passing the Newport exits, sixty or so miles north of Mr. Gray's current position), was a group of three with one clear contact: “Pearly.” This Pearly, like the dog, was incubating a byrum, and Mr. Gray could receive him clearly.
He had also been receiving another of that group—“Freddy”—but now “Freddy” was gone. The byrus on him had died; “Pearly” said so.

Here was one of the green turnpike signs:
REST AREA
. There was a Burger King here, which Jonesy's files identified as both a “restaurant” and a “fast-food joint.” There would be bacon there, and his stomach gurgled at the thought. Yes, it would be hard in many ways to give this body up. It had its pleasures, definitely had its pleasures. No time for bacon now, however; now it was time to change vehicles. And he had to be fairly unobtrusive about it.

This exit into the rest area split in two, with one road for
PASSENGER VEHICLES
and one for
TRUCKS AND BUSES
. Mr. Gray drove the big orange plow into the parking lot for trucks (Jonesy's muscles trembling with the strain of turning the big steering wheel), and was delighted to see four other plows, practically identical to his own, all parked together. He nosed into a space at the end of the line and killed the engine.

He felt for Jonesy. Jonesy was there, hunkered in his perplexing safety zone. “What you up to, partner?” Mr. Gray murmured.

No answer . . . but he sensed Jonesy listening.

“What you doing?”

No answer still. And really, what
could
he be doing? He was locked in and blind. Still, it would behoove him not to forget Jonesy . . . Jonesy with his somehow exciting suggestion that Mr. Gray forgo the imperative—the need to seed—and simply enjoy life on earth.
Every now and then a thought would occur to Mr. Gray, a letter pushed under the door from Jonesy's haven. This sort of thought, according to Jonesy's files, was a “slogan.” Slogans were simple and to the point. The most recent said:
BACON IS JUST THE BEGINNING.
And Mr. Gray was sure that was true. Even in his hospital room (
what hospital room? what hospital? who is Marcy? who wants a shot?
), he understood that life here was very delicious. But the imperative was deep and unbreakable: he would seed this world and then die. And if he got to eat a little bacon along the way, why, so much the better.

“Who was Richie? Was he a Tiger? Why did you kill him?”

No answer. But Jonesy was listening. Very carefully. Mr. Gray
hated
having him in there. It was (the simile came from Jonesy's store) like having a tiny fishbone stuck in your throat. Not big enough to choke you, but plenty big enough to “bug” you.

“You annoy the shit out of me, Jonesy.” Putting on his gloves now, the ones that had belonged to the owner of the Dodge Ram. The owner of Lad.

This time there was a reply.
The feeling is mutual, partner. So why don't you go someplace where you're wanted? Take your act and put it on the road?

“Can't do that,” Mr. Gray said. He extended a hand to the dog, and Lad sniffed gratefully at the scent of its master on the glove. Mr. Gray sent it a be-calm thought, then got out of the plow and began to walk toward the side of the restaurant. Around back would be the “employee's parking lot.”

Henry and the other guy are right on top of you, asshole. Sniffing up your tailpipe. So relax. Spend as much time here as you want. Have a
triple
order of bacon.

“They can't feel me,” Mr. Gray said, his breath puffing out in front of him (the sensation of the cold air in his mouth and throat and lungs was exquisite, invigorating—even the smells of gasoline and diesel fuel were wonderful). “If I can't feel them, they can't feel me.”

Jonesy laughed—actually
laughed.
It stopped Mr. Gray in his tracks beside the Dumpster.

The rules have changed, my friend. They stopped for Duddits, and Duddits sees the line.

“I don't know what that means.”

Of course you do, asshole.

“Stop calling me that!” Mr. Gray snapped.

If you stop insulting my intelligence, maybe I will.

Mr. Gray started walking again, and yes, here, around the corner, was a little clutch of cars, most of them old and battered.

Duddits sees the line.

He knew what it meant, all right; the one named Pete had possessed the same thing, the same
talent,
although likely not as strongly as this puzzling other, this Duddits.

Mr. Gray didn't like the idea of leaving a trail “Duddits” could see, but he knew something Jonesy didn't. “Pearly” believed that Henry, Owen, and Duddits were only fifteen miles south of Pearly's own position. If that was indeed the case, Henry and Owen were forty-five miles back, somewhere
between Pittsfield and Waterville. Mr. Gray didn't believe that actually qualified as “sniffing up one's tailpipe.”

Still, it would not do to linger here.

The back door of the restaurant opened. A young man in a uniform the Jonesy-files identified as “cook's whites” came out carrying two large bags of garbage, clearly bound for the Dumpsters. This young man's name was John, but his friends called him “Butch.” Mr. Gray thought it would be enjoyable to kill him, but “Butch” looked a good deal stronger than Jonesy, not to mention younger and probably much quicker. Also, murder had annoying side effects, the worst being how quickly it rendered a stolen car useless.

Hey, Butch.

Butch stopped, looking at him alertly.

Which car is yours?

Actually, it wasn't his but his mother's, and that was good. Butch's own rustbucket was back home, victim of a dead battery. He had his Mom's unit, an all-wheel-drive Subaru. Mr. Gray, Jonesy would have said, had just rolled another seven.

Butch handed over the keys willingly enough. He still looked alert (“bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” was how Jonesy put it, although the young cook had no tail Mr. Gray could see), but his consciousness was gone. “Out on his feet,” Jonesy thought.

You won't remember this,
Mr. Gray said.

“No,” Butch agreed.

Just back to work.

“You bet,” Butch agreed. He picked up his bags of garbage and headed for the Dumpsters again. By the time his shift was over and he realized his mother's car was gone, all this would likely be over.

Mr. Gray unlocked the red Subaru and got in. There was half a bag of barbecue potato chips on the seat. Mr. Gray gobbled them greedily as he drove back to the plow. He finished by licking Jonesy's fingers. Greasy. Good. Like the bacon. He got the dog. Five minutes later he was on the turnpike again.

South and south and south.

2

The night roars with music and laughter and loud voices; the air is big with the smell of grilled hot dogs, chocolate, roasted peanuts; the sky blooms with colored fire. Binding it all together, identifying it, signing it like summer's own autograph, is an amplified rock-and-roll song from the speakers that have been set up in Strawford Park:

Hey pretty baby take a ride with me,
We're goin down to Alabama on the C&C.

And here comes the tallest cowboy in the world, a nine-foot Pecos Bill under the burning sky, towering over the crowd, little kids with their ice cream–smeared mouths dropped open in wonder, their eyes wide; laughing parents hold them up or put them on their shoulders so they can see better. In one hand Pecos Bill
waves his hat; in the other a banner which reads
DERRY DAYS
1981.

We're gonna walk the tracks, stay up all night,
If we get a little bored, then we'll have a little fight.

“Ow eee-oh all?” Duddits asks. He has a cone of blue cotton candy in one hand, but it is forgotten; as he watches the stilt-walking cowboy pass under the burning fireworks sky, his eyes are as wide as any three-year-old's. Standing on one side of Duddits are Pete and Jonesy; on the other are Henry and the Beav. Behind the cowboy comes a retinue of vestal virgins (surely
some
of them are still virgins, even in this year of grace 1981) in spangly cowboy skirts and white cowboy boots, tossing the batons that won the West.