Dreamcatcher(90)

'Not true,' he said. 'Jonesy's still there. Jonesy's in the hospital with Mr Gray. That's what the cloud is  -  Mr Gray.' And then, apropos of nothing (at least that he could tell): 'Fit wha? Fit neek?' Henry looked up into the sifting snow (it was much less urgent than the earlier snowfall, at least so far, but it was starting to accumulate) as if he believed there was a God above it somewhere, studying him with all the genuine if detached interest of a scientist looking at a wriggling paramecium. 'What the f**k am I talking about? Any idea?'

No answer, but an odd memory came, He, Pete, Beaver, and Jonesy's wife had kept a secret among them last March. Carla had felt Jonesy could do without knowing that his heart had stopped twice, once just after the EMTs put him in the back of their ambulance, and again shortly after he had arrived at Mass General. Jonesy knew he'd come close to stepping out, but not (at least as far as Henry knew) just how close. And lf Jonesy had had any Kübler-Ross step-into-the-light experiences, he had either kept them to himself or forgotten thanks to repeated doses of anesthetic and lots of pain-killers.

A roar built out of the south with terrifying speed and Henry ducked, putting his hands to his ears as what sounded like a full squadron of 'et fighters passed in the clouds overhead. He saw nothing, but when the roar of the 'ets faded as fast as it had come, he straightened with his heart beating hard and fast. Yow! Christ! It occurred to him that this was what the airbases surrounding Iraq must have sounded like during the days leading up to Operation Desert Storm.

That big boom. Did it mean the United States of America had just gone to war against beings from another world? Was he now living in an H.G. Wells novel? Henry felt a hard, squeezing flutter under his breastbone. If so, this enemy might have more than a few hundred rusty Soviet Scuds to throw back at Uncle Sammy.

Let it go. You can't do anything about any of that. What's next for you, that's the question. What's next for you?

The rave of the jets had already faded to a mutter. He guessed that they would be back, though. Maybe with friends.

'Two paths diverged in a snowy wood, is that how it goes? Something like that, anyway.'

But following the snowmobile's track any farther was really not an option. He'd lose it in the dark half an hour from now, and this new snowfall would wipe it out in any case. He would end up wandering and lost . . . as Jonesy very likely was now.

Sighing, Henry turned away from the snowmobile track and continued along the road.

13

By the time he neared the place where the Deep Cut joined up with the two-lane blacktop known as the Swanny Pond Road, Henry was almost too tired to stand, let alone ski. The muscles in his thighs felt like old wet teabags. Not even the lights on the northwestern horizon, now much brighter, or the sound of the motors and helicopters could offer him much comfort. Ahead of him was a final long, steep hill. On the other side, Deep Cut ended and Swanny Pond began. There he might actually encounter traffic, especially if there were troops being moved in.

'Come on,' he said. 'Come on, come on, come on.' Yet he stood where he was awhile longer. He didn't want to go over that hill. 'Better Underhill than overhill,' he said. That seemed to mean something but it was probably just another idiotic non sequitur. Besides, there was nowhere else to go.

He bent, scooped up more snow  -  in the dark the double handful looked like a small pillowcase. He nibbled some, not because he wanted it but because he really didn't want to start moving again. The lights coming from Gosselin's were more understandable than the lights he and Pete had seen playing in the sky (They're back! Becky had screamed, like the little girl sitting in front of the TV in that old Steven Spielberg movie), but Henry liked them even less, somehow. All those motors and generators sounded somehow . . . hungry.

'That's right, rabbit,' he said. And then, because there really were no other options, he started up the last hill between him and a real road.

14

He paused at the top, gasping for breath and bent over his skipoles. The wind was stronger up here, and it seemed to go right through his clothing. His left leg throbbed where it had been gored by the turnsignal stalk, and he wondered again if he was incubating a little red-gold colony under the makeshift bandage. Too dark to see, and when the only possible good news would be no news, maybe that was just as well.

'Time slowed, reality bent, on and on the eggman went.' No yuks left in that one, so he started down the hill toward the T-junction where the Deep Cut Road ended.

This side of the hill was steeper and soon he was skiing rather than walking. He picked up speed, not knowing if what he felt was terror, exhilaration, or some unhealthy mix of the two. Certainly he was going too fast for the visibility, which was almost nil, and his abilities, which were as rusty as the clamps holding the skis to his boots. The trees blurred past on either side, and it suddenly occurred to him that all his problems might be solved at a stroke. Not the Hemingway Solution after all. Call this way out the Bono Solution.

His hat blew off his head. He reached for it automatically, one of his poles flailing out ahead of him, half-seen in the dark, and all at once his balance was gone. He was going to take a tumble. And maybe that was good, as long as he didn't break his goddam leg. Falling would stop him, at least. He would just pick himself up, and -

Lights blazed out, big truck-mounted spotlights, and before his vision disappeared into dazzle, Henry glimpsed what might have been a flatbed pulp-truck pulled across the end of the Deep Cut Road. The lights were undoubtedly motion-sensitive, and there was a line of men standing in front of them,