Dreamcatcher(183)

Simple or not, sociology or great leadership, the speech was about what Owen and Henry had expected . . . and Kurtz could have predicted every word and turn. At the center were two simple ideas, both presented as absolute facts and both calculated to soothe the terror which beat that morning in the ordinarily complacent American breast. The first idea was that, while they had not come waving olive branches and handing out free intro?ductory gifts, the newcomers had evinced absolutely no signs of aggressive or hostile behavior. The second was that, while they had brought some sort of virus with them, it had been contained within the Jefferson Tract (the President pointed it out on a Chroma?-Key green-screen as adeptly as any weatherman pointing out a low-pressure system). And even there it was dying, with absolutely no help from the scientists and military experts who were on the scene.

'While we cannot say for sure at this Juncture,' the Presi?dent told his breathless watchers (those who found themselves at the New England end of the Northeast Corridor were, perhaps understandably, the most breathless of all), 'we believe that our visitors brought this virus with them much as travellers from abroad may bring certain insects into their country of origin in their luggage or on the produce they've purchased. This is something customs officials look for, but of course'  -  big smile from Great White Father  -  'our recent visitors did not pass through a customs checkpoint.'

Yes, a few people had succumbed to the virus. Most were military personnel. The great in majority of those who contracted it ('a fungal growth not unlike athlete's foot,' said the Great White Father) beat it quite easily on their own. A quarantine had been imposed around the area, but the people outside that zone were in no danger, repeat, no danger. 'If you are in Maine and have left your homes,' said the President, 'I suggest you return. In the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Nothing about the slaughter of the grayboys, the blown ship, the interred hunters, the fire at Gosselin's, or the breakout. Nothing about the last of Gallagher's Imperial Valleys being hunted down like dogs (they were dogs, in the view of many; worse than dogs). Nothing about Kurtz and not a whisper about Typhoid Jonesy. The President gave them just enough to break the back of the panic before it surged out of control.

Most people followed his advice and went home.

For some, of course, this was impossible.

For some, home had been cancelled.

8

The little parade moved south under dark skies, led by the rusty red Subaru that Marie Turgeon of Litchfield would never see again. Henry, Owen, and Duddits were fifty-five miles, or about fifty minutes, behind. Pulling out of the Mile 81 rest area (Pearly was greedily glugging down his second bottle of Naya water by the time they rejoined the traffic flow), Kurtz and his men were roughly seventy-five miles behind Jonesy and Mr Gray, twenty miles behind Kurtz's prime quarry.

If not for the cloud cover, a spotter in a low-flying plane might have been able to see all three at the same time, the Subaru and both Humvees, at 11:43 EST, when the President finished his speech by saying, 'God bless you, my fellow Americans, and God bless America.'

Jonesy and Mr Gray were crossing the Kittery-Portsmouth bridge into New Hampshire; Henry, Owen, and Duddits were passing Exit 9, which gives access to the communities of Falmouth, Cumberland, and Jerusalem's Lot; Kurtz, Freddy, and Perlmutter (Perlmutter's belly was swelling again; he lay back groaning and passing noxious gas, perhaps a kind of critical comment on the Great White Father's speech) were near the Bowdoinham exit of 295, not far north of Brunswick. All three vehicles would have been easy enough to pick out because so many people had pulled in somewhere to watch the President give his soothing, Chroma-Key-aided lecture.

Drawing on Jonesy's admirably organized memories, Mr Gray left 95 for 495 just after crossing over the New Hampshire? Massachusetts border . . . and directed by Duddits, who saw Jonesy's passage as a bright yellow line, the lead Humvee would follow. At the town of Marlborough, Mr Gray would leave 495 for 1-90, one of America's major east-west highways. In the Bay State this road is known as the Mass Pike. Exit 8, according to Jonesy, was marked Palmer, UMass, Amherst, and Ware. Six miles beyond Ware was the Quabbin.

Shaft 12 was what he wanted; Jonesy said so, and Jonesy couldn't lie, much as he might have liked to. There was a Massachusetts Water Authority office at the Winsor Dam, on the south end of the Quabbin Reservoir. Jonesy could get him that far, and then Mr Gray would do the rest.

9

Jonesy couldn't sit behind the desk anymore  -  if he did, he'd start to blubber. From blubbering he would no doubt progress to gibbering, from gibbering to yammering, and once he started to yammer, he'd probably be out and rushing into Mr Gray's arms, totally bonkers and ready to be extinguished.

Where are we now, anyway? he wondered. Marlborough yet? Leaving 495 for 90? 7hat sounds about right.

Not that there was any way to tell for sure, with his window shuttered. Jonesy looked at the window . . . and grinned in spite of himself. Had to. GIVE UP COME OUT had been replaced with what he'd been thinking of -  SURRENDER DOROTHY.

I did that, he thought, and I bet I could make the goddam shutters vanish, if I wanted to.

And so what? Mr Gray would put up another set, or maybe just slop some black paint on the glass. If he didn't want Jonesy looking out, Jonesy would stay blind. The point was, Mr Gray controlled the outside part of him. Mr Gray's head had exploded, he'd sporulated right in front of Jonesy's eyes  -  Dr Jekyll turns into Mr Byrus  -  and Jonesy had inhaled him. Now Mr Gray was . . .