Dreamcatcher(149)

No one gets hurt if we can help it. And no one gets killed.

Henry . . . I don't know how to break it to you, but this isn't high? school basketball.

'No one gets hurt. No one gets killed. At least not when we're swapping vehicles. Agree to that or I'm rolling out this door right now.'

Owen glanced at him. 'You would, too, wouldn't you? And goddam what your friend's got planned for the world.'

'My friend isn't responsible for any of this. He's been kid?napped.'

'All right. No one gets hurt when we swap over. If we can help it. And no one gets killed. Except maybe us. Now where are we going?'

Derry.

That's where he is? This last surviving alien?

I think so. In any case, I have a friend in Derry who can help us. He sees the line.

What line?

'Never mind,' Henry said, and thought: It's complicated.

'What do you mean, complicated? And no bounce, no play ?what's that?'

I'll tell you while we're driving south. If I can.

The Sno-Cat rolled toward the Interstate, a capsule preceded by the glare of its lights.

'Tell me again what we're going to do,' Owen said.

'Save the world.'

'And tell me what that makes us  -  I need to hear it.'

'It makes us heroes,' Henry said. Then he put his head back and closed his eyes. In seconds he was asleep.

PART THREE QUABBIN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

As I was going up the stair

I met a man who wasn't there;

He wasn't there again today!

I wish, I wish he'd stay away.

Hughes Meams

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE CHASE BEGINS

1

Jonesy had no idea what time it was when the green DYSART'S Sign twinkled out of the snowy gloom  -  the Ram's dashboard clock was bitched up, just flashing 12:00 A.M. over and over  -  but it was still dark and still snowing hard. Outside of Derry, the plows were losing their battle with the storm. The stolen Ram was 'a pretty good goer', as Jonesy's Pop would have said, but it too was losing its battle, slipping and slueing more frequently in the deepening snow, fighting its way through the drifts with increasing difficulty. Jonesy had no idea where Mr Gray thought he was going, but Jonesy didn't believe he would get there. Not in this storm, not in this truck.

The radio worked, but not very well; so far everything that came through was faint, blurred with static. He heard no time-checks, but picked up a weather report. The storm had switched over to rain from Portland south, but from Augusta to Brunswick, the radio said, the precipitation was a wicked mix of sleet and freezing rain. Most communities were without power, and nothing without chains on its wheels was moving.

Jonesy liked this news just fine.

2

When Mr Gray turned the steering wheel to head up the ramp toward the beckoning green sign, the Ram pickup slid broadside, spraying up great clouds of snow. Jonesy knew he likely would have gone off the exit ramp and into the ditch if he'd been in control, but he wasn't. And although he was no longer immune to Jonesy's emotions, Mr Gray seemed much less prone to panic in a stress situation. Instead of wrenching blindly against the skid, Mr Gray turned into it, held the wheel over until the slide stopped, then straightened the truck out again. The dog sleeping in the passenger footwell never woke up, and Jonesy's pulse barely rose. If he had been in control, Jonesy knew, his heart would have been hammering like hell. But, of course, his idea of what to do with the car when it stormed like this was to put it in the garage.

Mr Gray obeyed the stop-sign at the top of the ramp, although Route 9 was a drifted wasteland in either direction. Across from the ramp was a huge parking lot brilliantly lit by arc-sodiums; beneath their glare, the wind-driven snow seemed to move like the frozen respiration of an enormous, unseen beast. On an ordinary night, Jonesy knew, that yard would have been full of rumbling diesel semis, Kenworths and Macks and Jimmy-Petes with their green and amber cab-lights glimmering. Tonight the area was almost deserted, except for the area marked LONG-TERM SEE YARD MANAGER   MUST HAVE TICKET. In there were a dozen or more freight-haulers, their edges softened by the drifts. Inside, their drivers would be eating, playing pinball, watching Spank-O-Vision in the truckers' lounge, or trying to sleep in the grim dormitory out back, where ten dollars got you a cot, a clean blanket, and a scenic view of a cinderblock wall. All of them no doubt thinking the same two thoughts: When can I roll? And How much is this going to cost me?

Mr Gray stepped down on the gas, and although he did it gently, as Jonesy's file concerning winter driving suggested, all four of the pickup's wheels spun, and the truck began to jitter sideways, digging itself in.

Go on! Jonesy cheered from his position at the office window. Go on, stick it! Stick it right up to the rocker-panels! Because when you're stuck in a four-wheel drive, you're really stuck!

Then the wheels caught  -  first the front ones, where the weight of the motor gave the Ram a little more traction  -  then the back ones. The Ram trundled across Route 9 and toward the sign marked ENTRANCE. Beyond it was another: WELCOME TO THE BEST TRUCK STOP IN NEW ENGLAND. Then the truck's headlights picked out a third, snowcaked but readable: HELL, WELCOME TO THE BEST TRUCK STOP ON EARTH.

Is this the best truck stop on earth? Mr Gray asked.

Of course, Jonesy said. And then  -  he couldn't help it  -  he burst out laughing.