Dreamcatcher(159)

There is an ancient and incredibly complex system of drains and sewers beneath Derry, a town which exists in what was once swampland shunned even by the Micmac Indians who lived all around it. Most of the sewer-system was built in the thirties, with New Deal money, and most of it will collapse in 1985, during the big storm that will flood the town and destroy the Derry Standpipe. Now the pipes still exist. This one slopes downward as it bores into the hill. josie Rinkenhauer ventured in, fell, then slid on fifty years' worth of dead leaves. She went down like a kid on a slide and lies at the bottom. She has exhausted herself in her efforts to climb back up the greasy, crumbling incline; she has eaten the two or three cookies she had in the pocket of her pants and for the last series of endless hours  -  twelve, perhaps fourteen  -  has only lain in the reeking darkness, listening to the faint hum of the outside world she cannot reach and waiting to die.

Now at the sound of Pete's voice, she raises her head and calls with all of her remaining strength: 'Help mee! I can't get out! Pleeease, help meee!'

It never occurs to them that they should go for an adult ?perhaps for Officer Nell, who patrols this neighborhood. They are crazy to get her out; she has become their responsibility. They won't let Duddits in, they maintain at least that much sanity, but the rest of them create a chain into the dark without so much as thirty seconds' discussion: Pete first, then the Beav, then Henry, then Jonesy, the heaviest, as their anchor.

In this fashion they crawl into the sewage-smelling dark (there's the stench of something else, too, something old and nasty beyond belief), and before he's gotten ten feet Henry finds one of Josie's sneakers in the muck. He puts it in a back pocket of his jeans without even thinking about it.

A few seconds later, Pete calls back over his shoulder: 'Whoa, stop.'

The girl's weeping and pleas for help are very loud now, and Pete can actually see her sitting at the bottom of the leaf-lined slope. She's peering up at them, her face a smudged white circle in the gloom.

They stretch their chain farther, being as careful as they can despite their excitement. Jonesy has got his feet braced against a huge chunk of fallen concrete. Josie reaches up . . . gropes . . . cannot quite touch Pete's outstretched hand. At last, when it seems they must admit defeat, she scrambles a little way up. Pete grabs her scratched and filthy wrist.

'Yeah!' he screams triumphantly. 'Gotcha!'

They pull her carefully back up the pipe toward where Duddits is waiting, holding up her purse in one hand and the two dolls in the other, shouting in to Josie not to worry, not to worry because he's got BarbieKen. There's sunlight, fresh air, and as they help her out of the pipe -

15

There was no telephone in the Humvee  -  two different radios but no telephone. Nevertheless, a phone rang loudly, shattering the vivid memory Henry had spun between them and scaring the hell out of both of them.

Owen jerked like a man coming out of a deep sleep and the Humvee lost its tenuous hold on the road, first skidding and then going into a slow and ponderous spin, like a dinosaur dancing.

'Holy f**k - '

He tried to turn into the skid. The wheel only spun, turning with sick ease, like the wheel of a sloop that has lost its rudder. The Humvee went backward down the single treacherous lane that was left on the southbound side of 1-95, and at last fetched up askew in the snowbank on the median side, headlights opening a cone of snowy light back in the direction they had come.

Brring! Brring! Brring! Out of thin air.

It's in my head, Owen thought. I'm projecting it, but I think it's actually in my head, more goddam telep -

There was a pistol on the seat between them, a Glock. Henry picked it up, and when he did, the ringing stopped. He put the muzzle against his ear with his entire fist wrapped around the gunbutt.

Of course, Owen thought. Makes perfect sense. He got a call on the Glock, that's all. Happens all the time.

'Hello,' Henry said. Owen couldn't hear the reply, but his companion's tired face lit in a grin. 'Jonesy! I knew it was you!'

Who else would it be? Owen wondered. Oprah Winfrey?

'Where - '

Listening.

'Did he want Duddits, Jonesy? Is that why . . .' Listening again. Then: 'The Standpipe? Why . . .. Jonesy? Jonesy?'

Henry held the pistol against the side of his head a moment longer, then looked at it without seeming to realize what it was.

He laid it on the seat again. The smile had gone.

'He hung up. I think the other one was coming back. Mr Gray, he calls him.'

'He's alive, your buddy, but you don't look happy about it.' It was Henry's thoughts that weren't happy about it, but there was no longer any need to say this. Happy at first, the way you were always happy when someone you liked gave you a little ringy-dingy on the old Glock, but not happy now. Why?

'He  -  they  -  are south of Derry. They stopped to eat at a truck stop called Dysart's . . . only Jonesy called it Dry Farts, like when we were kids. I don't think he even knew it. He sounded scared.'

'For himself? For us?'

Henry gave Owen a bleak look. 'He says he's afraid Mr Gray means to kill a State Trooper and take his cruiser. I think that was mostly it. Fuck.' Henry struck his leg with his fist.

'But he's alive.'

'Yeah,' Henry said with a marked lack of enthusiasm. 'He's immune. Duddits . . . you understand about Duddits now?'