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.
"Don't know how he can be so tall, Duds," Pete says, laughing. He yanks a hank of blue floss from the cone in Duddits's hand and tucks it into Duddits's amazed mouth. "Must be magic."
They all laugh at how Duddits chews without even taking his eyes from the cowpoke on stilts. Duds is taller than all of them now, even taller than Henry. But he's still just a kid, and he makes them all happy. Magic is what he is; he won't find Josie Rinkenhauer for another year, but they know--he's fuckin magic. It was scary going up against Richie Grenadeau and his friends, but that was still the luckiest day of their lives--they all think so.
Don't say no, baby, come with me
We're gonna take a little ride on the C&C.
"Hey, Tex!" Beaver shouts, waving his own lid (a Derry Tigers baseball hat) up at the tall cowboy. "Kiss my bender, big boy! I mean, sit on it and spin!"
And they're all killing themselves laughing (it is a memory for the ages, all right, the night Beaver ranked on the stilt-walking cowboy in the Derry Days Parade beneath that burning gunpowder sky), all but Duddits, who is staring with that expression of stoned wonder, and Owen Underhill (Owen! Henry thinks, how did you get here, buddy?), who looks worried.
Owen is shaking him, Owen is once more telling him to wake up, Henry, wake up, wake
3
up, for God's sake!"
It was the fright in Owen's voice that finally roused Henry from his dream. For a moment he could still smell peanuts and Duddits's cotton candy. Then the world came back in: white sky, snow-covered turnpike lanes, a green sign reading AUGUSTA NEXT TWO EXITS. Also Owen shaking him, and from behind them a barking sound, hoarse and desperate. Duddits coughing.
"Wake up, Henry, he's bleeding! Will you please wake the fuck--"
"I'm awake, I'm awake."
He unbuckled his seatbelt, twisted around, got up on his knees. The overstrained muscles in his thighs shrieked in protest, but Henry paid no attention.
It was better than he expected. From the panic in Owen's voice, he had expected some sort of hemorrhage, but it was just a trickle from one nostril and a fine spray of blood from Duddits's mouth when he coughed. Owen had probably thought poor old Duds was coughing up his lungs, when in fact he'd probably strained something in his throat. Not that this wasn't potentially serious. In Duddits's increasingly fragile condition, anything was potentially serious; a random cold-germ could kill him. From the moment he'd seen him, Henry had known Duds was coming out of the last turn and heading for home.
"Duds!" he called sharply. Something different. Something different in him, Henry. What? No time to think about it now. "Duddits, breathe in through your nose! Your nose, Duds! Like this!"
Henry demonstrated, taking big breaths through flared nostrils . . . and when he exhaled, little threads of white flew from his nostrils. Like the fluff in milkweed pods, or dandelions gone to seed. Byrus, Henry thought. It was growing up my nose, but now it's dead. I'm sloughing it off, literally breath by breath. And then he understood the difference: the itching had stopped, in his leg and in his mouth and in the thatch of his groin. His mouth still tasted as if it had been lined with someone's old carpet, but it didn't itch.
Duddits began to imitate him, breathing deep through his nose, and his coughing began to ease as soon as it did. Henry took his paper bag, found a bottle of harmless no-alcohol cough medicine, and poured Duddits a capful. "This'll take care of you," Henry said. Confidence in the thought as well as the words; with Duddits, how you sounded was only part of it.
Duddits drank the capful of Robitussin, grimaced, then smiled at Henry. The coughing had stopped, but blood was still trickling from one nostril . . . and from the corner of one eye as well, Henry saw. Not good. Nor was Duddits's extreme pallor, much more noticeable than it had been at the house back in Derry. The cold . . . his lost night's sleep . . . all this untoward excitement in someone who was an invalid . . . not good. He was getting sick, and in a late-stage ALL patient, even a nasal infection could be fatal.
"He all right?" Owen asked.
"Duds? Duds is iron. Right, Duddits?"
"I ion," Duddits agreed, and flexed one woefully skinny arm. The sight of his face--thin and tired but still trying to smile--made Henry feel like screaming. Life was unfair; that was something he supposed he'd known for years. But this went far beyond unfair. This was monstrous.
"Let's see what she put in here for good boys to drink." Henry took the yellow lunchbox.
"Oooby-Doo," Duddits said. He was smiling, but his voice sounded thin and exhausted.
"Yep, got some work to do now," Henry agreed, and opened the Thermos. He gave Duds his morning Prednisone tablet, although it hadn't yet gone eight, and then asked Duddits if he wanted a Percocet, as well. Duddits thought about it, then held up two fingers. Henry's heart sank.
"Pretty bad, huh?" he asked, passing Duddits a couple of Percocet tablets over the seat between them. He hardly needed an answer--people like Duddits didn't ask for the extra pill so they could get high.
Duddits made a seesawing gesture with his hand--comme ci, comme ca. Henry remembered it well, that seesawing hand as much a part of Pete as the chewed pencils and toothpicks were of Beaver.
Roberta had filled Duddits's Thermos with chocolate milk, his favorite. Henry poured him a cup, held it a moment as the Humvee skidded on a slick patch, then handed it over. Duddits took his pills.
"Where does it hurt, Duds?"
"Here." Hand to the throat. "More here." Hand to the chest. Hesitating, coloring a little, then a hand to his crotch. "Here, ooo."
A urinary-tract infection, Henry thought. Oh, goody.
"Ills ake ee etter?"
Henry nodded. "Pills'll make you better. Just give em a chance to work. Are we still on the line, Duddits?"
Duddits nodded emphatically and pointed through the windshield. Henry wondered (not for the first time) just what he saw. Once he'd asked Pete, who told him it was something like a thread, often faint and hard to see. It's best when it's yellow, Pete had said. Yellow's always easier to pick up. I don't know why. And if Pete saw a yellow thread, perhaps Duddits saw something like a broad yellow stripe, perhaps even Dorothy's yellow brick road.
"If it goes off on another road, you tell us, okay?"
"I tell."
"Not going to go to sleep, are you?"
Duddits shook his head. In fact he had never looked more alive and awake, his eyes glowing in his exhausted face. Henry thought of how lightbulbs would sometimes go mysteriously bright before burning out for good.
"If you do start to get sleepy, you tell me and we'll pull over. Get you some coffee. We need you awake."
"O-ay."
Henry started to turn around, moving his aching body with as much care as he could muster, when Duddits said something else.
"Isser Ay ont aykin."
"Does he, now?" Henry said thoughtfully.
"What?" Owen asked. "I didn't get that one."
"He says Mr. Gray wants bacon."
"Is that important?"
"I don't know. Is there a regular radio in this heap, Owen? I'd like to get some news."
The regular radio was hanging under the dash, and looked freshly installed. Not part of the original equipment. Owen reached for it, then hit the brakes as a Pontiac sedan--two-wheel drive and no snow-tires--cut in front of them. The Pontiac slued from side to side, finally decided to stay on the road a little longer, and squirted ahead. Soon it was doing at least sixty, Henry estimated, and was pulling away. Owen was frowning after it.
"You driver, me passenger," Henry said, "but if that guy can do it with no snows, why can't we? It might be a good idea to make up some ground."
"Hummers are better in mud than snow. Take my word for it."
"Still--"
"Also, we're going to pass that guy in the next ten minutes. I'll bet you a quart of good Scotch. He'll either be through the guardrails and down the embankment or spun out on the median. If he's lucky, he'll be right-side up. Plus--this is just a technicality--we're fugitives running from duly constituted authority, and we can't save the world if we're locked up in some County . . . Jesus!"
A Ford Explorer--four-wheel drive but moving far too fast for the conditions, maybe seventy miles an hour--roared past them, pulling a rooster-tail of snow. The roof-rack had been piled high and covered with a blue tarp. This had been indifferently lashed down, and Henry could see what was beneath: luggage. He guessed that much of it would soon be in the road.
With Duddits seen to, Henry took a clear-eyed look at the highway. What he saw did not exactly surprise him. Although the turnpike's nor
thern barrel was still all but deserted, the southbound lanes were now filling up fast . . . and yes, there were cars off it everywhere.
Owen turned on the radio as a Mercedes hurried past him, throwing up fans of slush. He hit SEEK, found classical music, hit it again, found Kenny G tootling away, hit it a third time . . . and happened on a voice.
". . . great big fucking bomber joint," the voice said, and Henry exchanged a glance with Owen.
"He say uck onna rayo," Duddits observed from the back seat.
"That's right," Henry said, and, as the owner of the voice inhaled audibly into the mike: "Also, I'd say he's smoking a fatty."
"I doubt if the FCC'd be in favor," the deejay said after a long and noisy exhale, "but if half of what I'm hearin is true, the FCC is the least of my worries. Interstellar plague on the loose, brothers and sisters, that's the word. Call it the Hot Zone, the Dead Zone, or the Twilight Zone, you want to cancel your trip up north."
Another long and noisy inhale.
"Marvin the Martian's on the march, brothers and sisters, that's the word from Somerset County and Castle County. Plague, deathrays, the living will envy the dead. I got a spot here for Century Tire, but fuck that shit." Sound of something breaking. Plastic, from the sound. Henry listened, fascinated. Here it was once more, here was darkness his old friend, not in his head but on the goddam radio. "Brethren and sistern, if you're north of Augusta right now, here's a little tip from your pal Lonesome Dave at WWVE: relocate south. Like, immediately. And here's a little relocation music."
Lonesome Dave at WWVE spun The Doors, of course. Jim Morrison droning "The End." Owen switched to the AM band.
Eventually he found a newscast. The fellow giving it didn't sound wrecked, which was a step forward, and he said there was no need to panic, which was another step forward. He then played sound-bites from both the President and Maine's Governor, both saying essentially the same thing: take it easy, people, chill. It's all under control. Nice soothing stuff, Robitussin for the body politic. The President was scheduled to make a complete report to the American people at eleven A.M., EST.