Dreamcatcher(37)

'STAY WHERE YOU ARE! THIS SITUATION WILL BE RESOLVED IN TWENTY-FOUR TO FORTY-EIGHT HOURS! IF YOU NEED FOOD, CROSS YOUR ARMS OVER, YOUR HEAD!'

'There are more of us!' Beaver screamed at the man leaning out of the helicopter. He screamed so loudly red dots danced in front of his eyes. 'We got a hurt guy here! We . . . have got . . . A HURT GUY!' The idiot in the helicopter tossed his bullhorn back into the cabin behind him, then made a thumb-and-forefinger circle down at Beaver, as if to say, Okay! Gotcha! Beaver felt like dancing in frustration. Instead, he raised one open hand above his head  -  a finger each for him and his friends, plus the thumb for McCarthy. The man in the helicopter took this in, then grinned. For one truly wonderful moment, Beaver thought he had gotten through to the mask-wearing f**kwad. Then the f**kwad returned what he thought was Beaver's wave, said something to the pilot behind him, and the ANG helicopter began to rise. Beaver Clarendon was still standing there, frosted with swirling snow and screaming. There's five of us and we need help! There's five of us and we need somef*cking HELP!'

The copter vanished back into the clouds.

5

Jonesy heard some of this  -  certainly he heard the amplified voice from the Thunderbolt helicopter  -  but registered very little, He was too concerned with McCarthy, who had given a number of small and breathless screams, then fallen silent. The stench coming under the door continued to thicken.

'McCarthy!' he yelled as Beaver came back in. 'Open this door or we break it down!'

'Get away from me!' McCarthy screamed back in a thin, distracted voice. 'I have to shit, that's all, I HAVE TO SHIT! If I can shit I'll be all right!'

Such straight talk, coming from a man who seemed to consider oh gosh and oh dear strong language, frightened Jonesy even more than the bloody sheet and underwear. He turned to Beaver, barely noticing that the Beav was powdered with snow and looking like Frosty. 'Come on, help me break it down. We've got to try and help him.'

Beaver looked scared and worried. Snow was melting on his cheeks. 'I dunno. The guy in the helicopter said something about quarantine  -  what if he's infected or something? What if that red thing on his face - '

In spite of his own ungenerous feelings about McCarthy, Jonesy felt like striking his old friend. This previous March he himself had lain bleeding in a street in Cambridge. Suppose people had refused to touch him because he might have AIDS? Refused to help him? Just left him there to bleed because there were no rubber gloves handy?

'Beav, we were right down in his face  -  if he's got something really infectious, we've probably caught it already. Now what do you say?'

For a moment what Beaver said was nothing. Then Jonesy felt that click in his head. For just a moment he saw the Beaver he'd grown up with, a kid in an old beat-up motorcycle jacket who had cried Hey, you guys, quit it! Just f**king QUIT it! and knew it was going to be all right.

Beaver stepped forward. 'Hey, Rick, how about opening up?

We just want to help.'

Nothing from behind the door. Not a cry, not a breath, not so much as the sound of shifting cloth. The only sounds were the steady rumble of the gennie and the fading whup of the helicopter.

'Okay,' Beaver said, then crossed himself 'Let's break the f**ker down.'

They stepped back together and turned their shoulders toward the door, half-consciously miming cops in half a hundred movies.

'On three,' Jonesy said.

'Your leg up to this, man?'

In fact, Jonesy's leg and hip hurt badly, although he hadn't pre?cisely realized this until Beaver brought it up. 'I'm fine,' he said.

'Yeah, and my ass is king of the world.'

'On three. Ready?' And when Beaver nodded: 'One . . . two . . . three.'

They rushed forward together and hit the door together, almost four hundred pounds behind two dropped shoulders. It gave way with an absurd ease that spilled them, stumbling and grabbing at each other, into the bathroom. Their feet skidded in the blood on the tiles.

'Ah, f**k,' Beaver said. His right hand crept to his mouth, which was for once without a toothpick, and covered it. Above his hand, his eyes were wide and wet. 'Ah, f**k, man  -  f**k.'

Jonesy found he could say nothing at all.

PART ONE CANCER CHAPTER FIVE

DUDDITS, PART ONE

1

'Lady', Pete said.

The woman in the duffel coat said nothing. Lay on the sawdusty piece of tarp and said nothing. Pete could see one eye, staring at him, or through him, or at the jellyroll center of the f**king universe, who knew. Creepy. The fire crackled between them, really starting to take hold and throw some heat now. Henry had been gone about fifteen minutes. It would be three hours before he made it back, Pete calculated, three hours at the very least, and that was a long time to spend under this lady's creepy jackalope eye.

'Lady,' he said again. 'You hear me?'

Nothing. But once she had yawned, and he'd seen that half her goddam teeth were gone. What the f**k was up with that? And did he really want to know? The answer, Pete had discovered, was yes and no. He was curious  -  he supposed a man couldn't help being curious  -  but at the same time he didn't want to know. Not who she was, not who Rick was or what had happened to him, and not who 'they' were. They're back! the woman had screamed when she saw the lights in the sky, They're back!