Owen had cut the fence--both the barbed wire and the smooth. Now he stood in front of the Sno-Cat (it was white to match the snow, and it was really no wonder Henry hadn't seen it) with an automatic rifle propped against his hip, attempting to look everywhere at once. The multiple lights gave him half a dozen shadows; they radiated out from his boots like crazy clock-hands.
Owen grabbed Henry around the shoulders. You okay?
Henry nodded. As Owen began to pull him toward the Sno-Cat, there was a loud, high-pitched explosion, as if someone had just fired the world's largest carbine. Henry ducked, stumbled over his own feet, and would have fallen if Owen hadn't held him up.
What--?
LP gas. Gasoline, too, maybe. Look.
Owen took him by the shoulders and turned him around. Henry saw a vast pillar of fire in the snowy night. Bits of the store--boards, shingles, flaming boxes of Cheerios, burning rolls of toilet paper--rose into the sky. Some of the soldiers were watching this, mesmerized. Others were running for the woods. In pursuit of the prisoners, Henry assumed, although he was hearing their panic in his head--Run! Run! Now! Now!--and simply could not credit it. Later, when he had time to think, he would understand that many of the soldiers were also fleeing. Now he understood nothing. Things were happening too fast.
Owen turned him around again and boosted him into the Sno-Cat's passenger seat, pushing him past a hanging canvas flap that smelled strongly of motor oil. It was blessedly warm in the 'Cat's cab. A radio bolted to the rudimentary dashboard chattered and squawked. The only thing Henry could make out clearly was the panic in the voices. It made him savagely happy--happier than he'd been since the afternoon the four of them had put the fear of God into Richie Grenadeau and his bullyrag buddies. And that's who was running this operation, as far as Henry could see: a bunch of grownup Richie Grenadeaus, armed with guns instead of dried-up pieces of dogshit.
There was something between the seats, a box with two blinking amber lights. As Henry bent over it, curious, Owen Underhill snatched back the tarp hanging beside the driver's seat and flung himself into the 'Cat. He was breathing hard and smiling as he looked at the burning store.
"Be careful of that, brother," he said. "Mind the buttons."
Henry lifted the box, which was about the size of Duddits's beloved Scooby-Doo lunchbox. The buttons of which Owen had spoken were under the blinking lights. "What are they?"
Owen turned the ignition key and the Sno-Cat's hot engine rumbled into immediate life. The transmission ran off a high stick, which Owen jammed into gear. Owen was still smiling. In the bright light falling through the Sno-Cat's windshield, Henry could now see a reddish-orange thread of byrus growing beneath each of the man's eyes, like mascara. There was more in his brows.
"Too much light in this place," he said. "We're gonna dial em down a little." He turned the 'Cat in a surprisingly smooth circle; it was like being on a motorboat. Henry collapsed back against the seat, holding the box with the blinking lights on his lap. He felt that if he didn't walk again for five years, that would be about right.
Owen glanced at him as he drove the Sno-Cat on a diagonal toward the snowbank-enclosed ditch that was the Swanny Pond Road. "You did it," he said. "I doubted that you could, I freely admit it, but you pulled the fucker off."
"I told you--I'm a motivational master." Besides, he sent, most of them really are going to die anyway.
Doesn't matter. You gave them a chance. And now--
There was more shooting, but it wasn't until a bullet whined off the metal just above their heads that Henry realized it was aimed at them. There was a brisk clank as another slug ricocheted off one of the Sno-Cat's treads and Henry ducked . . . as if that would do any good.
Still smiling, Owen pointed a gloved hand off to his right. Henry peered in that direction as two more slugs ricocheted off the 'Cat's squat pillbox body. Henry cringed both times; Owen seemed not even to notice.
Henry saw a cluster of trailer-boxes, some with brand names like Sysco and Scott Paper on them. In front of the trailers was a colony of motor homes, and in front of the biggest, a Winnebago that looked to Henry like a mansion on wheels, were six or seven men, all firing at the Sno-Cat. Although the range was long, the wind high, and the snow still heavy, too many were hitting. Other men, some only partially dressed (one bruiser came sprinting through the snow displaying a bare chest that would have looked at home on a comic-book superhero) were joining the group. At its center stood a tall man with gray hair. Beside him was a stockier guy. As Henry watched, the skinny man raised his rifle and fired, seemingly without bothering to aim. There was a spanng sound and Henry sensed something pass right in front of his nose, a small wicked droning thing.
Owen actually laughed. "The skinny one with the gray hair is Kurtz. He's in charge, and can that fucker shoot."
More bullets spanged off the 'Cat's treads, its body. Henry sensed another of those buzzing, hustling presences in the cab, and suddenly the radio was silent. The distance between them and the shooters clustered around the Winnebago was getting longer, but it didn't seem to matter. As far as Henry was concerned, all those fuckers could shoot. It was only a matter of time before one of them took a hit . . . and yet Owen looked happy. It occurred to Henry that he had hooked up with someone even more suicidal than himself.
"The guy beside Kurtz is Freddy Johnson. Those Mouseketeers are all Kurtz's boys, the ones who were supposed to--whoops, look out!"
Another spang, another whining steel bee--between them, this time--and suddenly the knob on the transmission stick was gone. Owen burst out laughing. "Kurtz!" he shouted. "Bet you a nickel! Two years from mandatory retirement age and he still shoots like Annie Oakley!" He hammered a fist on the steering yoke. "But that's enough. Fun is fun and done is done. Turn out their lights, beautiful."
"Huh?"
Still grinning, Owen jerked a thumb at the box with the blinking amber bulbs. The curved streaks of byrus under his eyes now looked like warpaint to Henry. "Push the buttons, bub. Push the buttons and yank down the shades."
12
Suddenly--it was always sudden, always magical--the world fell away and Kurtz was in the zone. The scream of the blizzard wind, the pelt of the snow, the howl of the siren, the beat of the buzzer--all gone. Kurtz lost his awareness of Freddy Johnson next to him and the other Imperial Valleys gathering around. He fixed on the departing Sno-Cat and nothing else. He could see Owen Underhill in the left seat, right through the steel shell of the cab he could see him, as if he, Abe Kurtz, were all at once equipped with Superman's X-ray vision. The distance was incredibly long, but it didn't matter. The next round he fired was going right into the back of Owen Underhill's treacherous, line-crossing head. He raised the rifle, sighted down--
Two explosions ripped the night, one of them close enough to hammer Kurtz and his men with the shockwave. A trailer-box with the words INTEL INSIDE printed on it rose into the air, turned over, and came down on Spago's, the cook-tent. "Holy Christ!" one of the men shouted.
Not all of the lights went out--a half hour wasn't long and Owen had had time to equip only two of the gennies with thermite charges (all the time muttering "Banbury Cross, Banbury Cross, ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross" under his breath), but suddenly the fleeing Sno-Cat was swallowed in moving fire-flecked shadows, and Kurtz dropped his rifle into the snow without discharging it.
"Fuck a duck," he said tonelessly. "Cease firing. Cease firing, you humps. Quit it, praise Jesus. Inside. Every one of you but Freddy. Join hands and pray for God the Father Almighty to get our asses out of the sling they're in. Come here, Freddy. Step lively."
The others, nearly a dozen, trooped up the steps to the Winnebago, looking uneasily at the burning generators, the blazing cook-tent (already the commissary-tent next door was catching; the infirmary and the morgue would be next). Half the pole lights in the compound were out.
Kurtz put his arm around Freddy Johnson's shoulders and walked him twenty paces into the blowing snow, which t
he wind was now lifting and carrying in veils that looked like mystic steam. Directly ahead of the two men, Gosselin's--what was left of it--was burning merry hell. The barn had already caught. Its shattered doors gaped.
"Freddy, do you love Jesus? Tell me the truth."
Freddy had been through this before. It was a mantra. The boss was clearing his head.
"I love Him, boss."
"Do you swear that's true?" Kurtz looking keenly. Looking through him, more than likely. Planning ahead, if such creatures of instinct could be said to plan. "As you face the eternal pit of hell for a lie?"
"I swear it's true."
"You love Him a lot, do you?"
"Lots, boss."
"More than the group? More than going in hot and getting the job done?" A pause. "More than you love me?"
Not questions you wanted to answer wrong if you wanted to go on living. Fortunately, not hard ones, either. "No, boss."
"Telepathy gone, Freddy?"
"I had a touch of something, I don't know if it was telepathy, exactly, voices in my head--"
Kurtz was nodding. Red-gold flames the color of the Ripley fungus burst through the roof of the barn.
"--but that's gone."
"Other men in the group?"
"Imperial Valley, you mean?" Freddy nodded toward the Winnebago.
"Who else would I mean, The Firehouse Five Plus Two? Yes, them!"
"They're clean, boss."
"That's good, but it's also bad. Freddy, we need a couple of infected Americans. And when I say we, I mean you and I. I want Americans who are crawling with that red shit, understand me?"
"I do." What Freddy didn't understand was why, but at the moment the why didn't matter. He could see Kurtz taking hold, visibly taking hold, and that was a relief. When Freddy needed to know, Kurtz would tell him. Freddy looked uneasily at the blazing store, the blazing barn, the blazing cook-tent. This situation was FUBAR.
Or maybe not. Not if Kurtz was taking hold.
"Goddam telepathy's responsible for most of this," Kurtz mused, "but it wasn't telepathy that triggered it. That was pure human fuckery, praise Jesus. Who betrayed Jesus, Freddy? Who gave Him that traitor's kiss?"
Freddy had read his Bible, mostly because Kurtz had given it to him. "Judas Iscariot, boss."
Kurtz was nodding rapidly. His eyes were moving everywhere, tabulating the destruction, calculating the response, which would be severely limited by the storm. "That's right, buck. Judas betrayed Jesus and Owen Philip Underhill betrayed us. Judas got thirty pieces of silver. Not much of a payday, do you think?"
"No, boss." He delivered this reply partially turned away from Kurtz because something in the commissary had exploded. A steel hand clutched his shoulder and turned him back. Kurtz's eyes were wide and burning. The white lashes made them look like ghost-eyes.
"Look at me when I talk to you," Kurtz said. "Listen to me when I speak to you." Kurtz put his free hand on the nine-millimeter's grip. "Or I'll blow your guts out on the snow. I have had a hard night here and don't you make it any worse, you hound, do you understand me? Catch the old drift-ola?"
Johnson was a man of good physical courage, but now he felt something turn over in his stomach and try to crawl away. "Yes, boss, I'm sorry."
"Accepted. God loves and forgives, we must do the same. I don't know how many pieces of silver Owen got, but I can tell you this: we're going to catch him, we're going to spread his cheeks, and we are going to tear that boy a splendid new asshole. Are you with me?"
"Yes." There was nothing Freddy wanted more than to find the person who had turned his previously ordered world upside down and fuck that person over. "How much of this do you reckon Owen's responsible for, boss?"
"Enough for me," Kurtz said serenely. "I have an idea I'm finally going down, Freddy--"
"No, boss."
"--but I won't go down alone." Arm still around Freddy's shoulders, Kurtz began to lead his new second back toward the 'Bago. Squat, dying pillars of fire marked the burning gennies. Underhill had done that; one of Kurtz's own boys. Freddy still found it difficult to believe, but he had begun to get steamed, just the same. How many pieces of silver, Owen? How many did you get, you traitor?
Kurtz stopped at the foot of the steps.
"Which one of those fellows do you like to command a search-and-destroy mission, Freddy?"
"Gallagher, boss."
"Kate?"
"That's right."
"Is she a cannibal, Freddy? The person we leave in charge has to be a cannibal."
"She eats em raw with slaw, boss."
"Okay," Kurtz said. "Because this is going to be dirty. I need two Ripley Positives, hopefully Blue Boy guys. The rest of them . . . like the animals, Freddy. Imperial Valley is now a search-and-destroy mission. Gallagher and the rest are to hunt down as many as they can. Soldiers and civilians alike. From now until 1200 hours tomorrow, it's feeding time. After that, it's every man for himself. Except for us, Freddy." The firelight painted Kurtz's face with byrus, turned his eyes into weasel's eyes. "We're going to hunt down Owen Underhill and teach him to love the Lord."
Kurtz bounded up the Winnebago's steps, sure as a mountain-goat on the packed and slippery snow. Freddy Johnson followed him.
13
The Sno-Cat plunged down the embankment to the Swanny Pond Road fast enough to make Henry's stomach roll over. It slued, then turned south. Owen worked the clutch and mangled the stick-shift, working the 'Cat up through the gears and into high. With the galaxies of snow flying at the windshield, Henry felt as if they were traveling at approximately mach one. He guessed it might actually be thirty-five miles an hour. That would get them away from Gosselin's, but he had an idea Jonesy was moving much faster.
Turnpike ahead? Owen asked. It is, isn't it?
Yes. About four miles.
We'll need to switch vehicles when we get there.
No one gets hurt if we can help it. And no one gets killed.
Henry . . . I don't know how to break it to you, but this isn't high-school basketball.
"No one gets hurt. No one gets killed. At least not when we're swapping vehicles. Agree to that or I'm rolling out this door right now."
Owen glanced at him. "You would, too, wouldn't you? And goddam what your friend's got planned for the world."
"My friend isn't responsible for any of this. He's been kidnapped."
"All right. No one gets hurt when we swap over. If we can help it. And no one gets killed. Except maybe us. Now where are we going?"
Derry.
That's where he is? This last surviving alien?
I think so. In any case, I have a friend in Derry who can help us. He sees the line.
What line?
"Never mind," Henry said, and thought: It's complicated.
"What do you mean, complicated? And no bounce, no play--what's that?"
I'll tell you while we're driving south. If I can.
The Sno-Cat rolled toward the Interstate, a capsule preceded by the glare of its lights.
"Tell me again what we're going to do," Owen said.
"Save the world."
"And tell me what that makes us--I need to hear it."
"It makes us heroes," Henry said. Then he put his head back and closed his eyes. In seconds he was asleep.
PART 3
QUABBIN
As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there;
He wasn't there again today!
I wish, I wish he'd stay away.
HUGHES MEARNS
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CHASE BEGINS
1
Jonesy had no idea what time it was when the green DYSART'S sign twinkled out of the snowy gloom--the Ram's dashboard clock was bitched up, just flashing 12:00 A.M. over and over--but it was still dark and still snowing hard. Outside of Derry, the plows were losing their battle with the storm. The stolen Ram was "a pretty good goer," as Jonesy's Pop would have said, but it too was losing its bat
tle, slipping and slueing more frequently in the deepening snow, fighting its way through the drifts with increasing difficulty. Jonesy had no idea where Mr. Gray thought he was going, but Jonesy didn't believe he would get there. Not in this storm, not in this truck.
The radio worked, but not very well; so far everything that came through was faint, blurred with static. He heard no time-checks, but picked up a weather report. The storm had switched over to rain from Portland south, but from Augusta to Brunswick, the radio said, the precipitation was a wicked mix of sleet and freezing rain. Most communities were without power, and nothing without chains on its wheels was moving.
Jonesy liked this news just fine.
2
When Mr. Gray turned the steering wheel to head up the ramp toward the beckoning green sign, the Ram pickup slid broadside, spraying up great clouds of snow. Jonesy knew he likely would have gone off the exit ramp and into the ditch if he'd been in control, but he wasn't. And although he was no longer immune to Jonesy's emotions, Mr. Gray seemed much less prone to panic in a stress situation. Instead of wrenching blindly against the skid, Mr. Gray turned into it, held the wheel over until the slide stopped, then straightened the truck out again. The dog sleeping in the passenger footwell never woke up, and Jonesy's pulse barely rose. If he had been in control, Jonesy knew, his heart would have been hammering like hell. But, of course, his idea of what to do with the car when it stormed like this was to put it in the garage.
Mr. Gray obeyed the stop-sign at the top of the ramp, although Route 9 was a drifted wasteland in either direction. Across from the ramp was a huge parking lot brilliantly lit by arc-sodiums; beneath their glare, the wind-driven snow seemed to move like the frozen respiration of an enormous, unseen beast. On an ordinary night, Jonesy knew, that yard would have been full of rumbling diesel semis, Kenworths and Macks and Jimmy-Petes with their green and amber cab-lights glimmering. Tonight the area was almost deserted, except for the area marked LONG-TERM SEE YARD MANAGER MUST HAVE TICKET. In there were a dozen or more freight-haulers, their edges softened by the drifts. Inside, their drivers would be eating, playing pinball, watching Spank-O-Vision in the truckers' lounge, or trying to sleep in the grim dormitory out back, where ten dollars got you a cot, a clean blanket, and a scenic view of a cinderblock wall. All of them no doubt thinking the same two thoughts: When can I roll? And How much is this going to cost me?