That clip had been videotaped at 9:45 A.M., according to the news anchor. The next clip--shaky footage from a hand-held video camera--had been taken from a Cessna chartered by Channel 9 News to overfly the Jefferson Tract. The air had obviously been bumpy and there was a lot of snow, but not enough to obscure the two helicopters which had appeared and flanked the Cessna on either side like big brown dragonflies. There was a radio transmission, so blurry that Roberta needed to read the transcript printed in yellow at the bottom of the TV screen: "This area is interdicted. You are ordered to turn back to your point of flight origination. Repeat, this area is interdicted. Turn back."
Did interdicted mean the same as quarantined? Roberta Cavell thought it probably did, although she also thought fellows like that man Kurtz might quibble. The letters on the flanking helicopters were clearly visible: ANG. One of them might have been the very one that took Abraham Kurtz north.
Cessna pilot: "Under whose orders is this operation being carried out?"
Radio: "Turn back, Cessna, or you will be forced to turn back."
The Cessna had turned back. It had been low on fuel anyway, the news anchor reported, as if that explained everything. Since then they had just been rehashing the same stuff and calling it updates. The major networks supposedly had correspondents en route.
She was getting up to turn the TV off--watching had begun to make her nervous--when Duddits screamed. Roberta's heart stopped in her chest, then jackrabbited into doubletime. She whirled around, bumping the table by the La-Z-Boy which had been Alfie's and was now hers, overturning her coffee cup. It soaked the TV Guide, drowning the cast of The Sopranos in a puddle of brown.
The scream was followed by high, hysterical sobbing, the sobs of a child. But that was the thing about Duddits--he was in his thirties now, but he would die a child, and long before he turned forty.
For a moment all she could do was stand still. At last she got moving, wishing that Alfie were here . . . or even better, one of the boys. Not that any of them were boys now, of course; only Duddits was still a boy; Down's syndrome had turned him into Peter Pan, and soon he would die in Never-Never Land.
"I'm coming, Duddie!" she called, and so she was, but she felt old to herself as she went hurrying down the hall to the back bedroom, her heart banging leakily against her ribs, arthritis pinging her hips. No Never Land for her.
"Coming, Mummy's coming!"
Sobbing and sobbing, as if his heart had broken. He had cried out the first time he realized his gums were bleeding after he brushed his teeth, but he had never screamed and it had been years since he'd cried like this, the kind of wild sobbing that got into your head and tore at your brains. Thump and hum, thump and hum, thump and hum.
"Duddie, what is it?"
She burst into his room and looked at him, wide-eyed, so convinced he must be hemorrhaging that at first she actually saw blood. But there was only Duddits, rocking back and forth in his crank-up hospital bed, cheeks wet with tears. His eyes were that same old brilliant green, but the rest of his color was gone. His hair was gone, too, his lovely blond hair that had reminded her of the young Art Garfunkel. The faint winterlight coming in through the window gleamed on his skull, gleamed on the bottles ranked on the bedside table (pills for infection, pills for pain, but no pills that would stop what was happening to him, or even slow it down), gleamed on the IV pole standing in front of the table.
But there was nothing wrong that she could see. Nothing that would account for the almost grotesque expression of pain on his face.
She sat down beside him, captured the restlessly whipping head and held it to her bosom. Even now, in his agitation, his skin was cool; his exhausted, dying blood could bring no heat to his face. She remembered reading Dracula long ago, back in high school, the pleasurable terror that had been quite a bit less pleasurable once she was in bed, the lights out, her room filled with shadows. She remembered being very glad there were no real vampires, except now she knew different. There was at least one, and it was far more terrifying than any Transylvanian count; its name wasn't Dracula but leukemia, and there was no stake you could put through its heart.
"Duddits, Duddie, honey, what is it?"
And he screamed it out as he lay against her breast, making her forget all about what might or might not be happening up in the Jefferson Tract, freezing her scalp to her skull and making her skin crawl and horripilate. "Eeyer-eh! Eeeyer-eh! Oh Amma, Eeeyer-eh!" There was no need to ask him to say it again or to say it more clearly; she had been listening to him her whole life, and she knew well enough:
Beaver's dead! Beaver's dead! Oh, Mamma, Beaver's dead!
CHAPTER NINE
PETE AND BECKY
1
Pete lay screaming in the snow-covered rut where he had landed until he could scream no more and then just lay there for awhile, trying to cope with the pain, to find some way to compromise with it. He couldn't. This was no-compromise pain, blitzkrieg agony. He'd had no idea the world had such pain--had he known, surely he would have stayed with the woman. With Marcy, although Marcy wasn't her name. He almost knew her name, but what did it matter? He was the one who was in trouble here, the pain coming up from his knee in baked spasms, hot and terrible.
He lay shivering in the road with the plastic bag beside him. THANKS FOR SHOPPING AT OUR PLACE! on the side. Pete reached for it, wanting to see if there was a bottle or two in there that wasn't broken, and when his leg shifted, a bolt of agony flew up from the knee. It made the others feel like twinges. Pete screamed again, and passed out.
2
He didn't know how long he'd been out when he came to--the light suggested it hadn't been long, but his feet were numb and his hands were going as well, in spite of the gloves.
Pete lay partially turned on his side, the beer-bag lying beside him in a puddle of freezing amber slush. The pain in his knee had receded a little--probably that was numbing up, too--and he found he could think again. That was good, because this was a fuckin pisser he'd gotten himself into here. He had to get back to the lean-to and the fire, and he had to do it on his own. If he simply lay here waiting for Henry and the snowmobile, he was apt to be a Petesicle when Henry arrived--a Petesicle with a bag of busted beer-bottles beside him, thank you for shopping at our place, you fucking alcoholic, thanks a lot. And there was the woman to think of. She might die, too, and all because Pete Moore had to have his brewskis.
He looked at the bag with distaste. Couldn't throw it into the woods; couldn't risk waking his knee up again. So he covered it with snow, like a dog covering its own scat, and then he began to crawl.
The knee wasn't that numb after all, it seemed. Pete crawled on his elbows and pushed with his good foot, teeth clenched, hair hanging in his eyes. No animals now; the stampede had stopped and there was only him--the gaspy sound of his breathing and the stifled moans of pain each time his knee bumped. He could feel sweat running down his arms and back, but his feet remained numb and so did his hands.
He might have given up, but halfway along the straight stretch he caught sight of the fire he and Henry had made. It had burned down considerably, but it was there. Pete began to crawl toward it, and each time he bumped his leg and the bolts of agony came, he tried to project them into the orange spark of the fire. He wanted to get there. It hurt like plu-perfect hell to move, but oh how he wanted to get there. He didn't want to die freezing to death in the snow.
"I'll make it, Becky," he muttered. "I'll make it, Becky." He spoke her name half a dozen times before he heard himself using it.
As he approached the fire he paused to glance at his watch and frowned. It said eleven-forty or thereabouts, and that was nuts--he remembered checking it before starting back to the Scout, and it had said twenty past twelve then. A slightly longer look revealed the source of the confusion. His watch was running backward, the second hand moving counterclockwise in irregular, spasmodic jerks. He looked at this without much surprise. His ability to appreciate anything so fine as mere pecul
iarity had passed. Even his leg was no longer his chief concern. He was very cold, and big shudders began to course his body as he elbowed his way and pushed with his rapidly tiring good leg, covering the last fifty yards to the dying fire.
The woman was no longer on the tarp. She now lay on the far side of the fire, as if she had crawled toward the remaining wood and then collapsed.
"Hi, honey, I'm home," he panted. "Had a little trouble with my knee, but now I'm back. Goddam knee's your fault anyway, Becky, so don't complain, all right? Becky, is that your name?"
Maybe, but she made no response. Just lay there staring. He could still see only one of her eyes, although whether it was the same one or the other he didn't know. Didn't seem so creepy now, but maybe that was because he had other things to worry about. Like the fire. It was guttering, but there was a good bed of coals and he thought he was in time. Get some wood on that sweetheart, really build her up, then lie here with his gal Becky (but upwind, please God--those bangers were bad). Wait for Henry to show up. Wouldn't be the first time Henry had pulled his nuts out of the fire.
Pete crawled toward the woman and the little stockpile of wood beyond her, and as he got close--close enough to start picking up that ethery chemical smell again--he understood why her gaze no longer bothered him. That creepy jackalope look had gone out of it. Everything had. She'd crawled halfway around the fire and died. The crusting of snow around her waist and hips had gone a dark red.
Pete stopped for a moment, up on his aching arms and peering at her, but his interest in her, dead or alive, was not much more than the passing interest he'd felt in his back-turning watch. What he wanted to do was get some wood on the fire and get warm. He would consider the problem of the woman later. Next month, maybe, when he was sitting in his own living room with a cast on his knee and a cup of hot coffee in his hand.
He finally made it to the wood. Only four pieces were left, but they were big pieces. Henry might be back before they burned down, and Henry would pick up some more before going on to get help. Good old Henry. Still wearing his dorky horn-rims, even in this age of soft contacts and laser surgery, but you could count on him.
Pete's mind tried to return to the Scout, crawling into the Scout and smelling the cologne Henry had not, in fact, been wearing, and he wouldn't let it. Let's not go there, as the kids said. As if memory was a destination. No more ghost-cologne, no more memories of Duddits. No more no bounce, no more no play. He had enough on his plate already.
He threw the wood onto the fire one branch at a time, sidearming the pieces awkwardly, wincing at the pain in his knee but enjoying the way the sparks rose in a cloud, whirling beneath the lean-to's canted tin ceiling like crazy fireflies before winking out.
Henry would be back soon. That was the thing to hold onto. Just watch the fire blaze up and hold that thought.
No, he won't. Because things have gone wrong back at Hole in the Wall. Something to do with--
"Rick," he said, watching the flames taste the new wood. Soon they would feed and grow tall.
He stripped off his gloves, using his teeth, and held his hands up to the warmth of the fire. The cut on the pad of his right hand, where the busted bottle had gotten him, was long and deep. Was going to leave a scar, but so what? What was a scar or two between friends? And they were friends, weren't they? Yeah. The old Kansas Street Gang, the Crimson Pirates with their plastic swords and battery-powered Star Wars ray-guns. Once they had done something heroic--twice, if you counted the Rinkenhauer girl. They had even gotten their pictures in the paper that time, and so what if he had a few scars? And so what if they had once maybe--just maybe--killed a guy? Because if ever there was a guy who deserved killing--
But he wasn't going to go there, either. No way, baby.
He saw the line, though. Like it or not, he saw the line, more clearly than he'd seen it in years. Primarily he saw Beaver . . . and heard him, too. Right in the center of his head.
Jonesy? You there, man?
"Don't get up, Beav," Pete said, watching the flames crackle and climb. The fire was hot now, beating warmth against his face, making him feel sleepy. "You stay right where you are. Just . . . you know, just sit tight."
What, exactly, was all this about? What's all this jobba-nobba? as the Beav himself had sometimes said when they were kids, a phrase that meant nothing but still cracked them up. Pete sensed he could know if he wanted to, the line was that bright. He got a glimpse of blue tiles, a filmy blue shower curtain, a bright orange cap--Rick's cap, McCarthy's cap, old Mr. I-Stand-at-the-Door's cap--and sensed he could have all the rest if he wanted it. He didn't know if this was the future, the past, or what was happening right this minute, but he could have it if he wanted it, if he--
"I don't," he said, and pushed the whole thing away.
There were a few sticks and twigs left on the ground. Pete fed them to the fire, then looked at the woman. Her open eye had no menace in it now. It was dusty, the way a deer's eyes got dusty after you shot it. All that blood around her . . . he supposed she'd hemorrhaged. Something inside had gone bust. Hell of a tough break. He supposed maybe she'd known it was coming and had sat down in the road because she wanted to be sure of being seen if someone came along. Someone had, but look how it had turned out. Poor bitch. Poor unlucky bitch.
Pete shifted to the left, slowly, until he could snag the tarp, then began to move forward again. It had been her makeshift sled; now it could be her makeshift shroud. "I'm sorry," he said. "Becky or whatever your name is, I'm really sorry. But I couldn't have helped you by staying, you know; I'm not a doctor, I'm a fucking car salesman. You were--"
--fucked from the start was how he'd meant to finish, but the words dried up in his throat as he saw the back of her. That part hadn't been visible until he got close, because she had died facing the fire. The seat of her jeans was blown out, as if she'd finally finished farting fumes and had gotten down to the dynamite. Torn rags of denim fluttered in the breeze. Also fluttering were fragments of the garments she had been wearing beneath, at least two pairs of longjohns--one heavy white cotton, the other pink silk. And something was growing on both the legs of the jeans and the back of her parka. It looked like mildew or some kind of fungus. Red-gold, or maybe that was just reflected firelight.
Something had come out of her. Something--
Yes. Something. And it's watching me right now.
Pete looked into the woods. Nothing. The flood of animals had dried up. He was alone.
Except I'm not.
No, he wasn't. Something was out there, something that didn't do well in the cold, something that preferred warm, wet places. Except--
Except it got too big. And it ran out of food.
"Are you out there?"
Pete thought that calling out like that would make him feel foolish, but it didn't. What it made him feel was more frightened than ever.
His eye fastened on a sketchy track of that mildewy stuff. It stretched away from Becky--yeah, she was a Becky, all right, as Becky as Becky could be--and around the corner of the lean-to. A moment later Pete heard a scaly scraping sound as something slithered on the tin roof. He craned up, following the sound with his eyes.
"Go away," he whispered. "Go away and leave me alone. I . . . I'm fucked up."
There was another brief slither as the thing moved farther up the tin. Yes, he was fucked up. Unfortunately, he was also food. The thing up there slithered again. Pete didn't think it would wait long, maybe couldn't wait long, not up there; it would be like a gecko in a refrigerator. What it was going to do was drop on him. And now he realized a terrible thing: he had gotten so fixated on the beer that he had forgotten the fucking guns.
His first impulse was to crawl deeper into the lean-to, but that might be a mistake, like running into a blind alley. He grabbed the jutting end of one of the fresh branches he'd just put on the fire instead. He didn't take it out, not yet, just made a loose fist around it. The other end was burning briskly. "Come on," he said to the tin roo
f. "You like it hot? I've got something hot for you. Come on and get it. Yum-fuckin-yum."
Nothing. Not from the roof, anyway. There was a soft flump of snow falling from one of the pines behind him as the lower branches shed their burden. Pete's hand tightened on his makeshift torch, half-lifting it from the fire. Then he let it settle back in a little swirl of sparks. "Come on, motherfucker. I'm hot, I'm tasty, and I'm waiting."
Nothing. But it was up there. It couldn't wait long, he was sure of it. Soon it would come.
3
Time passed. Pete wasn't sure how much; his watch had given up entirely. Sometimes his thoughts seemed to intensify, as they sometimes had when he and the others were hanging with Duddits (although as they grew older and Duddits stayed the same, there had been less of that--it was as though their changing brains and bodies had lost the knack of picking up Duddits's strange signals). This was like that, but not exactly like that. Something new, maybe. Maybe even something to do with the lights in the sky. He was aware that Beaver was dead and that something terrible might have happened to Jonesy, but he didn't know what.
Whatever had happened, Pete thought Henry knew about it, too, although not clearly; Henry was deep inside his own head and he thought Banbury Cross, Banbury Cross, ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross.
The stick burned down further, closer to his hand, and Pete wondered what he'd do if it burned down too far to be of use, if the thing up there could out-wait him after all. And then a new thought came to him, bright as day and red with panic. It filled his head and he began to cry it aloud, masking the sound of the thing on the roof as it slithered quickly down the slope of the tin.
"Please don't hurt us! Ne nous blessez pas!"
But they would, they would, because . . . what?
Because they are not helpless little ETs, boys, waiting around for someone to give them a New England Tel-phone card so they can phone home, they are a disease. They are cancer, praise Jesus, and boys, we're one big hot radioactive shot of chemotherapy. Do you hear me, boys?