Dreamcatcher

  "How far ahead is he now?" Owen asked, not daring to ask the real question, the only one that mattered: Are we already too late? He assumed that Henry would tell him, were that the case.

  "He's there," Henry said absently. He had turned around in the seat and was wiping Duddits's face with a damp cloth. Duddits looked at him gratefully and tried to smile. His ashy cheeks were sweaty now, and the black patches under his eyes had spread, turning them into raccoon's eyes.

  "If he's there, why did we have to come here?" Owen asked. He had the Hummer up to seventy, very dangerous on this slick stretch of two-lane blacktop, but now there was no choice.

  "I didn't want to risk Duddits losing the line," Henry said. "If that happens . . ."

  Duddits uttered a vast groan, wrapped his arms around his midsection, and doubled over them. Henry, still kneeling on the seat, stroked the slender column of his neck.

  "Take it easy, Duds," Henry said. "You're all right."

  But he wasn't. Owen knew it and so did Henry. Feverish, crampy in spite of a second Prednisone pill and two more Percocets, now spraying blood every time he coughed, Duddits Cavell was several country miles from all right. The consolation prize was that the Jonesy-Gray combination was also a very long way from all right.

  It was the bacon. All they'd hoped to do was to make Mr. Gray stop for awhile; none of them had guessed how prodigious his gluttony would turn out to be. The effect on Jonesy's digestion had been fairly predictable. Mr. Gray had vomited once in the parking lot of the little store, and had had to pull over twice more on the road to Ware, leaning out the window and offloading several pounds of raw bacon with almost convulsive force.

  Diarrhea came next. He had stopped at the Mobil on Route 9, southeast of Ware, and had barely made it into the men's room. The sign outside the station read CHEAP GAS CLEAN TOILETS, but the CLEAN TOILETS part was certainly out of date by the time Mr. Gray left. He didn't kill anyone at the Mobil, which Henry counted as a plus.

  Before turning onto the Quabbin access road, Mr. Gray had needed to stop twice more and dash into the sopping woods, where he tried to evacuate Jonesy's groaning bowels. By then the rain had changed over to huge flakes of wet snow. Jonesy's body had weakened considerably, and Henry was hoping for a faint. So far it hadn't happened.

  Mr. Gray was furious with Jonesy, railing at him continuously by the time he slipped back behind the wheel of the car after his second trip into the woods. This was all Jonesy's fault, Jonesy had trapped him. He chose to ignore his own hunger and the compulsive greed with which he had eaten, pausing between bites only to lick the grease from his fingers. Henry had seen such selective arrangements of the facts--emphasizing some, ignoring others completely--many times before, in his patients. In some ways, Mr. Gray was Barry Newman all over again.

  How human he's becoming, he thought. How curiously human.

  "When you say he's there," Owen asked, "just how there do you mean?"

  "I don't know. He's closed down again, at least pretty much. Duddits, do you hear Jonesy?"

  Duddits looked at Henry wearily, then shook his head. "Isser Ay ookar cards," he said--Mr. Gray took our cards--but that was like a literal translation of a slang phrase. Duddits hadn't the vocabulary to express what had actually happened, but Henry could read it in his mind. Mr. Gray was unable to enter Jonesy's office stronghold and take the playing-cards, but he had somehow turned them all blank.

  "Duddits, how are you making out?" Owen said, looking into the rearview mirror.

  "I o-ay," Duddits said, and immediately began to shiver. On his lap was his yellow lunchbox and the brown bag with his medicines in it . . . his medicines and that odd little string thing. Surrounding him was the voluminous blue duffel coat, yet inside it, he still shivered.

  He's going fast, Owen thought, as Henry began to swab his old friend's face again.

  The Humvee skidded on a slick patch, danced on the edge of disaster--a crash at seventy miles an hour would probably kill them all, and even if it didn't, it would put paid to any final thin chance they might have of stopping Mr. Gray--and then came back under control again.

  Owen found his eyes drifting back to the paper bag, his mind going again to that string-thing. Beaver sent to me. For my Christmas last week.

  Trying to communicate now by telepathy was, Owen thought, like putting a message into a bottle and then tossing the bottle into the ocean. But he did it anyway, sending out a thought in what he hoped was Duddits's direction: What do you call it, son?

  Suddenly and unexpectedly, he saw a large space, combination living room, dining room, and kitchen. The mellow pine boards glowed with varnish. There was a Navajo rug on the floor and a tapestry on one wall--tiny Indian hunters surrounding a gray figure, the archetypal alien of a thousand supermarket tabloids. There was a fireplace, a stone chimney, an oak dining table. But what riveted Owen's attention (it had to; it was at the center of the picture Duddits had sent him, and glowed with its own special light) was the string creation which hung from the center rafter. It was the Cadillac version of the one in Duddits's medicine bag, woven in bright colors instead of drab white string, but otherwise the same. Owen's eyes filled with tears. It was the most beautiful room in the world. He felt that way because Duddits felt that way. And Duddits felt that way because it was where his friends went, and he loved them.

  "Dreamcatcher," said the dying man in the back seat, and he pronounced the word perfectly.

  Owen nodded. Dreamcatcher, yes.

  It's you, he sent, supposing that Henry was overhearing but not caring one way or the other. This message was for Duddits, strictly for Duddits. You're the dreamcatcher, aren't you? Their dreamcatcher. You always were.

  In the mirror, Duddits smiled.

  23

  They passed a sign which read QUABBIN RESERVOIR 8 MILES NO FISHING NO SERVICES PICNIC AREA OPEN HIKING TRAILS OPEN PASS AT OWN RISK. There was more, but at eighty miles an hour, Henry had no time to read it.

  "Any chance he'll park and walk in?" Owen asked.

  "Don't even hope for it," Henry said. "He'll drive as far as he can. Maybe he'll get stuck. That's what you want to hope for. There's a good chance it might happen. And he's weak. He won't be able to move fast."

  "What about you, Henry? Will you be able to move fast?"

  Considering how stiff he was and how badly his legs ached, that was a fair question. "If there's a chance," he said, "I'll go as hard as I can. In any case, there's Duddits. I don't think he's going to be capable of a very strenuous hike."

  Any hike at all, he didn't add.

  "Kurtz and Freddy and Perlmutter, Henry. How far back are they?"

  Henry considered this. He could feel Perlmutter clearly enough . . . and he could touch the ravening cannibal inside him, as well. It was like Mr. Gray, only the weasel was living in a world made of bacon. The bacon was Archibald Perlmutter, once a captain in the United States Army. Henry didn't like to go there. Too much pain. Too much hunger.

  "Fifteen miles," he said. "Maybe only twelve. But it doesn't matter, Owen. We're going to beat them. The only question is whether or not we're going to catch Mr. Gray. We'll need some luck. Or some help."

  "And if we catch him, Henry. Are we still going to be heroes?"

  Henry gave him a tired smile. "I guess we'll have to try."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SHAFT 12

  1

  Mr. Gray drove the Subaru nearly three miles up East Street--muddy, rutted, and now covered with three inches of fresh snow--before crashing into a fault caused by a plugged culvert. The Subaru had fought its way gamely through several mires north of the Goodnough Dike, and had bottomed out in one place hard enough to tear off the muffler and most of the exhaust pipe, but this latest break in the road was too much. The car went forward nose-first into the crack and lodged on the pipe, unmuffled engine blatting stridently. Jonesy's body was thrown forward and the seatbelt locked. His diaphragm clenched and he vomited helplessly onto the dashboard: nothing solid no
w, only bilious strings of saliva. For a moment the color ran out of the world and the rackety roar of the engine faded. He fought viciously for consciousness, afraid that if he passed out for even a moment, Jonesy might somehow be able to take control again.

  The dog whined. Its eyes were still closed but its rear legs twitched spasmodically and its ears flicked. Its belly was distended, the skin rippling. Its moment was near.

  A little at a time, color and reality began to return. Mr. Gray took several deep breaths, coaxing this sick and unhappy body back to something resembling calm. How far was there still to go? He didn't think it could be far now, but if the little car was really stuck, he would have to walk . . . and the dog couldn't. The dog must remain asleep, and it was already perilously close to waking again.

  He caressed the sleep-centers of its rudimentary brain. He wiped at his slimy mouth as he did it. Part of his mind was aware of Jonesy, still in there, blind to the outside world but awaiting any chance to leap forward and sabotage his mission; and, incredibly, another part of his mind craved more food--craved bacon, the very stuff which had poisoned it.

  Sleep, little friend. Speaking to the dog; speaking also to the byrum. And both listened. Lad ceased whining. His paws stopped twitching. The ripples running across the dog's belly slowed . . . slowed . . . stopped. This calm wouldn't last long, but for now all was well. As well as it could be.

  Surrender, Dorothy.

  "Shut up!" Mr. Gray said. "Kiss my bender!" He put the Subaru in reverse and floored the accelerator. The motor howled, scaring birds up from the trees, but it was no good. The front wheels were caught firmly, and the back wheels were up, spinning in the air.

  "Fuck!" Mr. Gray cried, and slammed Jonesy's fist down on the steering wheel. "Jesus-Christ-bananas! Fuck me Freddy!"

  He felt behind him for his pursuers and got nothing clear, only a sense of approach. Two groups of them, and the one that was closer had Duddits. Mr. Gray feared Duddits, sensed that he was the one most responsible for how absurdly, infuriatingly difficult this job had become. If he could stay ahead of Duddits, all would end well. It would help to know how close Duddits was, but they were blocking him--Duddits, Jonesy, and the one called Henry. The three of them together made a force Mr. Gray had never encountered before, and he was afraid.

  "But I'm still enough ahead," he told Jonesy, getting out. He slipped, uttered a Beaver-curse, then slammed the door shut. It was snowing again, great white flakes that filled the air like confetti and splashed against Jonesy's cheeks. Mr. Gray slogged around the back of the car, boots sliding and smooching in the mud. He paused for a moment to examine the corrugated silver back of the pipe rising from the bottom of the ditch which had trapped his car (he had also fallen victim in some degree to his host's mostly useless but infernally sticky curiosity), then went on around to the passenger door. "I'm going to beat your asshole friends quite handily."

  No answer to this goad, but he sensed Jonesy just as he sensed the others, Jonesy silent but still the bone in his throat.

  Never mind him. Fuck him. The dog was the problem. The byrum was poised to come out. How to transport the dog?

  Back into Jonesy's storage vault. For a moment there was nothing . . . and then an image from "Sunday School," where Jonesy had gone as a child to learn about "God" and "God's only begotten son," who appeared to be a byrum, creator of a byrus culture which Jonesy's mind identified simultaneously as "Christianity" and "bullshit." The image was very clear, from a book called "the Holy Bible." It showed "God's only begotten son" carrying a lamb--wearing it, almost. The lamb's front legs hung over one side of "begotten son's" chest, its rear legs over the other.

  It would do.

  Mr. Gray pulled out the sleeping dog and draped it around his neck. It was heavy already--Jonesy's muscles were stupidly, infuriatingly weak--and it would be much worse by the time he got where he was going . . . but he would get there.

  He set off up East Street through the thickening snow, wearing the sleeping border collie like a fur stole.

  2

  The new snow was extremely slippery, and once they were on Route 32, Freddy was forced to drop his speed back to forty. Kurtz felt like howling with frustration. Worse, Perlmutter was slipping away from him, into something like a semi-coma. And this at a time, goddam him, when he had suddenly been able to read the one Owen and his new friends were after, the one they called Mr. Gray.

  "He's too busy to hide," Pearly said. He spoke dreamily, like someone on the edge of sleep. "He's afraid. I don't know about Underhill, boss, but Jonesy . . . Henry . . . Duddits . . . he's afraid of them. And he's right to be afraid. They killed Richie."

  "Who's Richie, buck?" Kurtz didn't give much of a squirt, but he wanted Perlmutter to stay awake. He sensed they were coming to a place where he wouldn't need Perlmutter anymore, but for now he still did.

  "Don't . . . know . . ." The last word became a snore. The Humvee skidded almost sideways. Freddy cursed, fought the wheel, and managed to regain control just before the Hummer hit the ditch. Kurtz took no notice. He leaned over the seat and slapped Perlmutter on the side of the face, hard. As he did so, they passed the store with the sign reading BEST BAIT, WHY WAIT? in the window.

  "Owwww!" Pearly's eyes fluttered open. The whites were now yellowish. Kurtz cared about this no more than he cared about Richie. "Dooon't, boss . . ."

  "Where are they now?"

  "The water," Pearly said. His voice was weak, that of a petulant invalid. The belly under his coat was a distended, occasionally twitching mountain. Ma Joad in her ninth month, God bless and keep us, Kurtz thought. "The waaaa . . ."

  His eyes closed again. Kurtz drew his hand back to slap.

  "Let him sleep," Freddy said.

  Kurtz looked at him, eyebrows raised.

  "It's got to be the Reservoir he means. And if it is, we don't need him anymore." He pointed through the windshield at the tracks of the few cars that had been out this afternoon ahead of them on Route 32. They were black and stark against the fall of fresh white snow. "There won't be anyone up there today but us, boss. Just us."

  "Praise God." Kurtz sat back, picked his nine-millimeter up off the seat, looked at it, and put it back in its holster. "Tell me something, Freddy."

  "I will if I can."

  "When this is over, how does Mexico sound to you?"

  "Good. As long as we don't drink the water."

  Kurtz burst out laughing and patted Freddy on the shoulder. Beside Freddy, Archie Perlmutter slipped deeper into coma. Inside his lower intestine, in that rich dump of discarded food and worn-out dead cells, something for the first time opened its black eyes.

  3

  Two stone posts marked the entrance to the vast acreage surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir. Beyond them, the road closed down to what was essentially a single lane, and Henry had a sense of having come full circle. It wasn't Massachusetts, but Maine, and although the sign said Quabbin Access, it was really the Deep Cut Road all over again. He actually found himself looking up at the leaden sky, half-expecting to see the dancing lights. What he saw instead was a bald eagle, soaring almost close enough to touch. It landed on the lower branch of a pine tree and watched them go by.

  Duddits raised his head from where it had lain against the cool glass and said, "Isser Ay walkin now."

  Henry's heart leaped. "Owen, did you hear?"

  "I heard," Owen said, and pressed the Humvee a little harder. The wet snow beneath them was as treacherous as ice, and with the state roads behind them, there was now only a single set of tracks leading north toward the Reservoir.

  We'll be leaving our own set, Henry thought. If Kurtz gets this far, he won't need telepathy.

  Duddits groaned, clutched his middle, and shivered all over. "Ennie, I sick. Duddits sick."

  Henry brushed Duddits's hairless brow, not liking the heat of the skin. What came next? Seizures, probably. A big one might take Duds off in a hurry, given his weakened condition, and God knew that might be a mercy. The b
est thing. Still, it hurt to think of it. Henry Devlin, the potential suicide. And instead of him, the darkness had swallowed his friends, one by one.

  "You hang in there, Duds. Almost done now." But he had an idea the toughest part might still be ahead.

  Duddits's eyes opened again. "Isser Ay--ot tuck."

  "What?" Owen asked. "I didn't get that one."

  "He says Mr. Gray got stuck," Henry said, still brushing Duddits's brow. Wishing there was hair to brush, and remembering when there had been. Duddits's fine blond hair. His crying had hurt them, had chopped into their heads like a dull blade, but how happy his laughter had made them--you heard Duddits Cavell laugh and for a little while you believed the old lies again: that life was good, that the lives of boys and men, girls and women, had some purpose. That there was light as well as darkness.

  "Why doesn't he just throw the goddam dog into the Reservoir?" Owen asked. His voice cracked with weariness. "Why does he feel he has to go all the way to this Shaft 12? Is it just because the Russian woman did?"

  "I don't think the Reservoir is sure enough for him," Henry said. "The Standpipe would have been good, but the aqueduct is even better. It's an intestine sixty-five miles long. And Shaft 12 is the throat. Duddits, can we catch him?"

  Duddits looked at him from his exhausted eyes, then shook his head. Owen pounded his own thigh in frustration. Duddits wet his lips. Spoke two words in a hoarse near-whisper. Owen heard them but couldn't make them out.

  "What? What did he say?"

  " 'Only Jonesy.' "

  "What does that mean? Only Jonesy what?"

  "Only Jonesy can stop him, I guess."

  The Hummer skidded again and Henry grabbed hold of the seat. A cold hand closed over his. Duddits was looking at him with desperate intensity. He tried to speak and began coughing instead, gruesome wet hacking sounds. Some of the blood that came out of his mouth was markedly lighter, frothy and almost pink. Henry thought it was lung-blood. And even while the coughs shook him, Duddits's grip on Henry's hand didn't loosen.