Dreamcatcher(116)

Mr Gray paused a moment longer, trying to make his mind blank, not wanting Jonesy to have the slightest warning . . . and then he pounced.

He didn't know what he had expected, but not this. Not this dazzling white light.

6

Jonesy was nearly caught out. Would have been caught out if not for the fluorescents with which he had lit his mental storeroom. This place might not actually exist, but it was real enough to him, and that made it real enough to Mr Gray when Mr Gray arrived.

Jonesy, who was pushing the dolly filled with boxes marked DERRY, saw Mr Gray appear like magic at the head of a corridor of high-stacked cartons. It was the rudimentary humanoid that had been standing behind him at Hole in the Wall, the thing he had visited in the hospital. The dull black eyes were finally alive, hungry. It had crept up, caught him outside his office refuge, and it meant to have him.

But then its bulge of a head recoiled, and before its three?-fingered hand shielded its eyes (it had no lids, not even any lashes), Jonesy saw an expression on its gray sketch of a face that had to be bewilderment. Maybe even pain. It had been out there, in the snowy dark, disposing of the driver's body. It had come in here unprepared for the discount-mart glare. He saw something else, too: The invader had borrowed its expression of surprise from the host. For a moment, Mr Gray was a horrible caricature of Jonesy himself.

Its surprise gave Jonesy just enough time. Pushing the dolly ahead of him almost without realizing it and feeling like the impris?oned princess in some f**ked - up fairy - tale, he ran into the office. He sensed rather than saw Mr Gray reaching out for him with his three-fingered hands (the gray skin was raw-looking, like very old uncooked meat), and slammed the office door just ahead of their clutch. He bumped the dolly with his bad hip as he spun around  -  he accepted that he was inside his own head, but all of this was nevertheless completely real  -  and just managed to run the bolt before Mr Gray could turn the knob and force his way in. Jonesy engaged the thumb-lock in the center of the doorknob for good measure. Had the thumb-lock been there before, or had he added it? He couldn't remember.

Jonesy stepped back, sweating, and this time ran his butt into the handle of the dolly. In front of him, the doorknob turned back and forth, back and forth. Mr Gray was out there, in charge of the rest of his mind  -  and his body, as well  -  but he couldn't get in here. Couldn't force the door, didn't have the heft to break it down, didn't have the wit to pick the lock.

Why? How could that be?

'Duddits,' he whispered. 'No bounce, no play.'

The doorknob rattled. 'Let me in!' Mr Gray snarled, and to Jonesy he didn't sound like an emissary from another galaxy but like anyone who has been denied what he wants and is pissed off about it. Was that because he was interpreting Mr Gray's behavior in terms which he, Jonesy, understood? Humanizing the alien? Translating him?

'Let . . . me . . . IN!'

Jonesy responded without thinking: 'Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.' And thought: To which you say, 'Then I'll huff. . . and I'll PUFF . . . and I'll BLO W your house in!'

But Mr Gray only rattled the knob harder than ever. He was not used to being balked in this manner (or in any manner, Jonesy guessed) and was very pissed. Janas's momentary resistance had startled him, but this was resistance on a whole other level.  

'Where are you?' Mr Gray called angrily. 'How can you be in there? Come out!'

Jonesy didn't reply, only stood among the tumbled boxes, listening. He was almost positive Mr Gray couldn't get in, but it would be just as well not to provoke him.

And after a little more knob-rattling, he sensed Mr Gray leaving him.

Jonesy went to the window, stepping over the tumbled boxes marked DUDDITS and DERRY to get there, and stared out into the snowy night.

7

Mr Gray climbed Jonesy's body back behind the wheel of the truck, slammed the door, and pushed the accelerator. The truck bolted forward, then lost purchase. All four wheels spun, and the truck skidded into the guardrails with a jarring bang.

'Fuck!' Mr Gray cried, accessing Jonesy's profanity almost with?out being aware of it. 'Jesus-Christ-bananas! Kiss my bender! Doodly?f*ck! Bite my bag!'

Then he stopped and accessed Jonesy's driving skills again. Jonesy had some information on driving in weather like this, but nowhere near as much as Janas had possessed. Janas was gone, however, his files erased. What Jonesy knew would have to do. The important thing was to get beyond what Janas had thought of as the 'q-zone'. Beyond the q-zone he would be safe. Janas had been clear about that.

Jonesy's foot pressed down on the gas pedal again, much more gently this time. The truck started to move. Jonesy's hands steered the Chevrolet back into the fading path left by the plow.

Under the dash, the radio crackled to life. 'Tubby One, this is Tubby Four. I got a rig off the road and turned over on the median. Do you copy?'

Mr Gray consulted the files. What Jonesy knew about military communication was skimpy, mostly gleaned from books and some?thing called the movies, but it might do. He took the mike, felt for the button Jonesy seemed to think would be on the side, found it, pushed it. 'I copy,' he said. Would Tubby Four be able to tell that Tubby One was no longer Andy Janas? Based on Jonesy's files, Mr Gray doubted it.

'A bunch of us are going to get him up, see if we can get him back on the road. He's got the goddam food, you copy?'