Dreamcatcher(61)

As if it had read his mind  -  and who could say that was impossible?  -  there was a slithering sound on the other side of the door and he felt the doorknob trying to turn, Whatever the thing was, it was incredibly strong. Jonesy had been holding the knob with his right hand; now he added his left, as well. There was a bad moment when the pressure on the knob continued to mount, when he felt sure the thing in there would be able to turn the knob in spite of his doubled grip, and Jonesy almost panicked, almost turned and ran.

What stopped him was his memory of how quick it was. It'd run me down before I could get halfway across the room, he thought, wondering in the back of his mind why the room had to be so goddam big in the first place. It'd run me down, go up my leg, and then right up my -

Jonesy redoubled his grip on the doorknob, cords standing out on his forearms and on the sides of his neck, lips skinned back to show his teeth. His hip hurt, too. His goddam hip, if he did try to run his hip would slow him down even more thanks to the retired professor, f**king elderly ass**le shouldn't have been driving in the first place, thanks a lot, prof, thanks a f**king pantload, and if he couldn't hold the door shut and he couldn't run, what then?

What had happened to Beaver, of course. It had had the Beav's nose stuck in its teeth like a shish kebab.

Moaning, Jonesy held the knob. For a moment the pressure increased even more, and then it stopped. From behind the thin wood of the door, the thing yammered angrily. Jonesy could smell the ethery aroma of starter fluid.

How was it holding on in there? It had no limbs, not that Jonesy had been able to see, just that reddish tail-thing, so how -

He heard the minute crackle-crunch-splinter of wood on the other side of the door, directly in front of his own head by the sound, and knew. It was clinging by its teeth. The idea filled Jonesy with unreasoning horror. That thing had been inside McCarthy, he had absolutely no doubt of it. Inside McCarthy and growing like a giant tapeworm in a horror movie. Like a cancer, one with teeth. And when it had grown enough, when it was ready to go to bigger and better things, you might say, it had simply chewed its way out.

'No, man, no,' Jonesy said in a watery, almost weeping voice.

The knob of the bathroom door began trying to turn the other way. Jonesy could see it in there, on its side of the bathroom door, battened to the wood like a leech with its teeth, its tall or single tentacle wrapped around the doorknob like a loop ending in a hangman's noose, pulling -

'No, no, no,' Jonesy panted, hanging onto the knob with all of his strength. It was on the verge of slipping away from him. There was sweat on his face and on his Palms, too, he could feel it.

In front of his bulging, frightened eyes, a constellation of bumps appeared in the wood. Those were where its teeth were planted and working deeper all the time. Soon the points would burst through (if he didn't lose his grip on the doorknob first, that was) and he'd actually have to look at the fangs that had torn his friend's nose off his face.

That brought it home to him: Beaver was dead. His old friend.

'You killed him!' Jonesy cried at the thing on the other side of the door. His voice quivered with sorrow and terror. 'You killed the Beav!'

His cheeks were hot, the tears which now began to course down them even hotter. Beaver in his black leather jacket (What a lot of zippers! Duddits's Mom had said on the day they met her), Beaver next door to shitfaced at the Senior Prom and dancing like a Cossack, arms folded across his chest and his feet kicking, Beaver at Jonesy and Carla's wedding reception, hugging Jonesy and whispering fiercely in his ear, 'You got to be happy, man. You got to be happy for all of us.' And that had been the first he knew that Beaver wasn't  -  Henry and Peter, of course, about them there had never been a question, but the Beav? And now Beaver was dead, Beaver was lying half in and half out of the tub, lying noseless on top of Mr Richard Fucking I-Stand-at-the-Door-and-Knock McCarthy.

'You killed him, you f**k!' he shouted at the bulges in the door  -  there had been six of them and now there were nine, hell, a dozen.

As if surprised by his rage, the widdershins pressure on the doorknob eased again. Jonesy looked around wildly for anything that might help him, saw nothing, then looked down. The roll of friction tape was there. He might be able to bend and snatch it up, but then what? He would need both hands to pull lengths of tape off it, both hands and his teeth to rip them, and even supposing the thing gave him time, what was the good of it, when he could barely hold the doorknob still against its pressure?

And now the knob began to turn again. Jonesy held it on his side, but he was getting tired now, the adrenaline in his muscles starting to decay and turn to lead, his palms more slippery than ever, and that smell the ethery smell, was clearer now and somehow purer, untainted by the wastes and gases of McCarthy's body, and how could it be so strong on this side of the door? How could it unless -

In the half-second or so before the rod connecting the doorknobs on the inside and outside of the bathroom door snapped, Jonesy became aware that it was darker now. just a little. As if someone had crept up behind him, was standing between him and the light, him and the back door -

The rod snapped. The knob in Jonesy's hand pulled free and the bathroom door immediately swung in a little, pulled by the weight of the eelish thing clinging to it. Jonesy shrieked and dropped the knob. It hit the roll of tape and bounced askew.

He turned to run and there stood a gray man.