Dreamcatcher(208)

'Goodness, no,' Kurtz replied. 'Perish the thought. I believe the time has come  -  regrettably, it comes in almost every life  -  when we must step off the path, buck. Mingle with the trees. See who stays and who comes back. If anyone does. We'll give it ten minutes, shall we? I think ten minutes should be more than enough.'

29

The words which filled Owen Underhill's mind were nonsensical but unmistakable: Scooby! Scooby-Doo! Got some work to do now!

The carbine came up. He wasn't the one who did it, but when the force lifting the rifle left him, Owen was able to take over smoothly. He flicked the auto's selector-switch to single-shot fire, sighted, and squeezed the trigger twice. The first round missed, hitting the concrete in front of the weasel and ricocheting. Chips of concrete flew. The thing pulled back, turned, saw him, and bared its mouthful of needle teeth.

'That's right, beautiful,' Owen said. 'Smile for the camera.'

His second shot went right through the weasel's humorless grin. It tumbled backward, struck the wall of the shaft house, then fell to the concrete. Yet even with its rudiment of a head blown off, its instincts remained. It began to crawl slowly forward again. Owen aimed, and as he centered the sight, he thought of the Rapeloews, Dick and Irene. Nice people. Good neighbors. If you needed a cup of sugar or a pint of milk (or a shoulder to cry on, for that matter), you could always go next door and get fixed up. 7hey said it was a stroke! Mr Rapeloew had called, only Owen had thought he was saying stork. Kids got everything wrong.

So this was for the Rapeloews. And for the kid who had kept getting it wrong.

Owen fired a third time. This slug caught the byrum amidships and tore it in two. The ragged pieces twitched . . . twitched . . . lay still.

With that done, Owen swung his carbine in a short arc. This time he settled the sight on the middle of Gary Jones's forehead.

Jonesy looked unblinkingly back at him. Owen was tired almost to death, that was what it felt like  -  but this guy looked far past even that point. Jonesy raised his empty hands.

'You have no reason to believe this,' he said, 'but Mr Gray is dead. I cut his throat while Henry held a pillow over his face  -  it was right out of The Godfather.'

'Really,' Owen said. There was no inflection in his voice whatsoever. 'And where, exactly, did you perform this execu?tion?'

'In a Massachusetts General Hospital of the mind,' Jonesy said. He then uttered the most joyless laugh Owen had ever heard in his life. 'One where deer roam the halls and the only TV program is an old movie called Sympathy for the Devil.'

Owen jerked a little at that.

'Shoot me if you have to, soldier. I saved the world  -  with a little ninth-inning relief help from you, I freely admit. You might as well pay me for the service in the traditional manner. Also, the bastard broke my hip again. A little going-away present from the little man who wasn't there. The pain is . . . ' Jonesy bared his teeth. 'It's very large.'

Owen held the gun where it was a moment longer, then lowered it. 'You can live with it,' he said.

Jonesy fell backward on the points of his elbows, groaned, turned his weight as well as he could on to his unhurt side. 'Duddits is dead. He was worth both of us put together  -  more  -  and he's dead.' He covered his eyes for a moment, then dropped his arm. 'Man, what a f**karow this is. That's what Beaver would have called it, a total f**karow. That is opposed to a f**karee, you understand, which in Beaver-ese means a particularly fine time, possibly but not necessarily of a sexual nature.'

Owen had no idea what the man was talking about; likely he was delirious. 'Duddits may be dead, but Henry's not. There are some people after us, Jonesy. Bad people. Do you hear them? Know where they are?'  

Lying on the cold, leaf-littered floor, Jonesy shook his head. 'I'm back to the standard five senses, I'm afraid. ESP's all gone. The Greeks may come bearing gifts, but they're Indian givers.' He laughed.' Jesus, I could lose my job for a crack like that. Sure you don't want to just shoot me?'

Owen paid no more attention to this than he had to the semantical differences between f**karow and f**karee. Kurtz was coming, that was the problem he had to deal with now. He hadn't heard him arrive, but he might not have done. The snow was falling heavily enough to damp all but loud sounds. Gunshots, for instance.

'I have to go back to the road,' he said. 'You hang in there.'

'What choice?' Jonesy asked, and closed his eyes. 'Man, I wish I could go back to my nice warm office. I never thought I'd say that, but there it is.'

Owen turned and went back down the steps, slipping and sliding but managing to keep his feet. He scanned the woods to either side of the path, but not closely. If Kurtz and Freddy were laid up, waiting someplace between here and the Hummer, he doubted be would see them in time to do anything. He might see tracks, but by then he'd be so close to them they'd likely be the last things he saw. He had to hope he was still ahead, that was all. Had to trust to plain old baldass luck, and why not? He'd been in plenty of tight places, and baldass luck had always pulled him through. Maybe it would do so ag -

The first bullet took him in the belly, knocking him backward and blowing the back of his coat out in a bee-shape. He pumped his feet, trying to stay upright, also trying to hang onto the MP5. There was no pain, just a feeling of having been sucker-punched by a large boxing glove on the fist of a mean opponent. The second round shaved the side of his head, producing a bum-and-sting like rubbing alcohol poured into an open wound. The third shot hit him high up on the right side of the chest and that was Katie bar the door; he lost both his feet and the carbine.