Dreamcatcher(113)

And what was left here? What was left guarding the office where the last shred of Jonesy cowered  -  Jonesy who had been turned out of his own body like lint out of a pocket? The cloud, of course; the stuff Jonesy had breathed in. Stuff that should have killed him but had for some reason not done so.

The cloud couldn't think, not the way Mr Gray could. The man of the house (who was now Mr Gray instead of Mr Jones) had departed, leaving the place under the control of the thermostats, the refrigerator, the stove. And, in case of trouble, the smoke detector and the burglar alarm, which automatically dialed the police.

Still, with Mr Gray gone, he might be able to get out of the office. Not to regain control; if he tried that, the redblack cloud would report him and Mr Gray would return from his scouting expedition at once. Jonesy would almost certainly be seized before he could retreat to the safety of the Tracker Brothers office with its bulletin board and its dusty floor and its one dirt - crusted window on the world . . . only there were four crescent - shaped clean patches in that dirt, weren't there? Patches where four boys had once leaned their foreheads, hoping to see the picture that was pinned to the bulletin board now: Tina Jean Schlossinger with her skirt up.

No, seizing control was far beyond his ability and he'd better accept that, bitter as it was.

But he might be able to get to his files.

Was there any reason to risk it? Any advantage? There might be, if he knew what Mr Gray wanted. Beyond a ride, that was. And speaking of that, a ride where?

The answer was unexpected because it came in Duddits's voice: Ow. Ih-her Ay onna oh ow.

Mr Gray wanna go south.

Jonesy stepped back from his dirty window on the world. There wasn't much to be seen out there just now, anyway; snow and dark and shadowy trees. This morning's snow had been the appetizer; here was the main course.

Mr Gray wanna go south.

How far? And why? What was the big picture?

On these subjects Duddits was silent.

Jonesy turned and was surprised to see that the route-map and the picture of the girl were no longer on the bulletin board. Where they had been were four color snapshots of four boys. Each had the same background, Derryjunior High, and the same caption beneath: SCHOOL DAYS, 1978. Jonesy himself on the far left, face split in a trusting ear-to-ear grin that now broke his heart. Beav next to him, the Beav's grin revealing the missing tooth in front, victim of a skating fall, which had been replaced by a false one a year or so later . . . before high school, anyway. Pete, with his broad, olive-tinted face and his shame?fully short hair, mandated by his father, who said he hadn't fought in Korea so his kid could look like a hippie. And Henry on the end, Henry in his thick glasses that made Jonesy think of Danny Dunn, Boy Detective, star of the mysteries Jonesy had read as a kid.

Beaver, Pete, Henry. How he had loved them, and how unfairly sudden the severing of their long friendship had been. No, it wasn't a bit fair -

All at once the picture of Beaver Clarendon came alive, scaring the hell out of Jonesy. Beav's eyes widened and he spoke in a low voice. 'His head was off, remember? It was laying in the ditch and his eyes were full of mud. What a f**karow! I mean, Jesus-Christ-bananas.'

Oh my God, Jonesy thought, as it came back to him  -  the one thing about that first hunting trip to Hole in the Wall that he had forgotten . . . or suppressed. Had all of them suppressed it? Maybe so. Probably so. Because over the years since, they had talked about everything in their childhoods, all those shared memories . . . except that one.

His head was qff. . . his eyes were full of mud.

Something had happened to them then, something that had to do with what was happening to him now.

If only I knew what it was, Jonesy thought. If I only knew.

2

Andy Janas had lost the other three trucks in his little squadron ?had gotten ahead of them because they weren't used to driving in shit like this and he was. He had grown up in northern Minnesota, and you better believe he was used to it. He was by himself in one of Chevrolet's finer Army vehicles, a modified four-wheel-drive pickup, and he had the four-wheel drive engaged tonight. His father hadn't raised any fools.

Still, the turnpike was mostly clear; a couple of Army plows had gone by an hour or so ago (he would be catching up to them soon, he guessed, and when he did he would cut speed and fall in behind them like a good boy), and no more than two or three inches had piled up on the concrete since then. The real problem was the wind, which lifted the fluff and turned the road into a ghost. You had the reflectors to guide you, though. Keeping the reflectors in sight was the trick those other gomers didn't understand . . . or maybe with the convoy trucks and the Humvees, the headlights were set too high to pick the reflectors up properly. And when the wind really gusted, even the reflectors disappeared; the goddam world went totally white and you had to take your foot off the go-pedal until the air stilled again and just try to stay on course in the meantime. He would be all right, and if anything happened, he was in radio contact and more plows would be coming up behind, keeping the southbound barrel of the turnpike open all the way from Presque Isle to Millinocket.

In the back of his truck were two triple-wrapped packages. In one were the bodies of two deer which had been killed by the Ripley. In the other  -  this Janas found moderately to seriously gruesome ?was the body of a grayboy turning slowly to a kind of reddish-orange soup. Both were bound for the docs at Blue Base, which had been set up at a place called . . .