Dreamcatcher(143)

'No!' several women screamed in unison, and Henry realized with a species of sick wonder that all of them, even those without children, had put their own faces on the burning woman.

They were up now, milling around like cattle in a thunderstorm. He had to move them before they had a chance to think once, let alone twice.

Gathering the force of the minds linked to his, Henry sent them an image of the store.

THERE! he called to them. IT'S YOUR ONLY CHANCE! THROUGH THE STORE IF YOU CAN, BREAK DOWN THE FENCE IF THE DOOR'S BLOCKED! DON'T STOP, DON'T HESITATE! GET INTO THE WOODS! HIDE IN THE WOODS! THEY'RE COMING TO BURN THIS PLACE DOWN, THE BARN AND EVERYONE IN IT, AND THE WOODS ARE YOUR ONLY CHANCE! NOW, NOW!

Deep in the well of his own imagination, flying on the pills Owen had given him and sending with all his strength  -  images of possible safety there, of certain death here, images as simple as those in a child's picture-book  -  he was only distantly aware that he had begun chanting aloud: 'Now, now, now.'

Marsha Chiles picked it up, then her brother-in-law, then Charles, the man with the overgrown solar sex-panel.

'Now! Now! Now!'

Although immune to the byrus and thus no more telepathic than the average bear, Darren was not immune to the growing vibe, and he also joined in.

'Now! Now! Now!'

It 'umped from person to person and group to group, a panic?-induced infection more catching than the byrus: 'Now! Now! Now!'

The barn shook with it. Fists were pumping in unison, like fists at a rock concert.

'NOW! NOW! NOW!'

Henry let them take it over and build it, pumping his own fist without even realizing it, flinging his hand into the air to the farthest reach of his aching arm even as he reminded himself not to be caught up in the cyclone of the mass mind he had created: when they went north, he was going south. He was waiting for some point of no return to be reached  -  the point of ignition and spontaneous combustion.

It came.

'Now,' he whispered.

He gathered Marsha's mind, Bill's, Charlie's . . . and then the others that were close and particularly locked in. He merged them, compressed them, and then flung that single word like a silver bullet into the heads of the three hundred and seventeen people in Old Man Gosselin's barn:

NOW.

There was a moment of utter silence before hell's door flew open.

8

Just before dusk, a dozen two-man sentry huts (they were actually Porta-Potties with the urinals and toilet-seats yanked out) had been set up at intervals along the security fence. These came equipped with heaters that threw a stuporous glow in the small spaces, and the guards had no interest in going outside them. Every now and then one of them would open a door to allow in a snowy swirl of fresh air, but that was the extent of the guards' exposure to the outside world. Most of them were peacetime soldiers with no gut understanding of how high the current stakes were, and so they swapped stories about sex cars, postings, sex, their families, their future, sex, drinking and drugging expeditions, and sex. They had missed Owen Underhill's two visits to the shed (he would have been clearly visible from both Post 9 and Post 10) and they were the last to be aware that they had a full-scale revolt on their hands.

Seven other soldiers, boys who had been with Kurtz a little longer and thus had a little more salt on their skins, were in the back of the store near the woodstove, playing five-card stud in the same office where Owen had played Kurtz the ne nous blessez pas tapes roughly two centuries ago. Six of the card-players were sentries. The seventh was Dawg Brodsky's colleague Gene Cambry. Cambry hadn't been able to sleep. The reason was concealed by a stretchy cotton wristlet. He didn't know how long the wristlet would serve, however, because the red stuff under it was spreading. If he wasn't careful, someone would see it . . . and then, instead of playing cards in the office, he might be out there in the barn with the John Q's.

And would he be the only one? Ray Parsons had a big wad of cotton in one ear. He said it was an earache, but who knew for sure? Ted Trezewski had a bandage on one meaty forearm and claimed he'd gouged himself stringing compound barbed wire much earlier in the day. Maybe it was true. George Udall, the Dawg's immediate superior in more normal times, was wearing a knitted cap over his bald head; damn thing made him look like some kind of elderly white rapper. Maybe there was nothing under there but skin, but it was warm in here for a cap, wasn't it? Especially a knitted one.

'Kick a buck,' Howie Everett said.

'Call,' said Danny O'Brian.

Parsons Called; so did Udall. Cambry barely heard. In his mind there rose an image of a woman with a child cradled in her arms. As she struggled across the drifted-in paddock, a soldier turned her into a napalm road-flare. Cambry winced, horrified, thinking this image had been served up by his own guilty conscience.

'Gene?' Al Coleman asked. 'Are you going to call, or - '

'What's that?' Howie asked, frowning.

'What's what?' Ted Trezewski said.

'If you listen, you'll hear it,' Howie replied. Dumb Polack: Cambry heard this unspoken corollary in his head, but paid it no mind. Once it had been called to their attention, the chant was clear enough, rising above the wind, quickly taking on strength and urgency.

'Now! Now! Now! Now! NOW!'

It was coming from the barn, directly behind them.