Dreamcatcher

His eyes had closed. Roberta had sat beside him on the bed, looking down at her
hands, feeling sadder than sad, more alone than lonely.
Now she hurried downstairs and yes, it was singing, all right. Because she spoke such
fluent Duddits (and why not? it had been her second language for over thirty years), she
translated the rolling syllables without even thinking much about them:

Scooby-Dooby-Doo,where are you? We got some work to do now. I’ve been telling you, Scooby-Doo, we
need a helping hand, now.
She went into his room, not knowing what to expect. Certainly not what she found:
every light blazing, Duddits fully dressed for the first time since his last (and very likely
final, according to Dr Briscoe) remission. He had put on his favorite corduroy pants, his
down vest over his Grinch tee-shirt, and his Red Sox hat. He was sitting in his chair by the

window and looking out into the night. No frown now; no tears, either. He looked out into
the storm with a bright-eyed eagerness that took her back to long before the disease, which
had announced itself with such stealthy, easy-to-overlook symptoms: how tired and out of
breath he got after just a short game of Frisbee in the back yard, how big the bruises were
from even little thumps and bumps, and how slowly they faded. This was the way he used
to look when…

But she couldn’t think. She was too flustered to think.
“Duddits! Duddle, what-”
“Umma! Ere I unnox?”
Mumma! Where’s my lunchbox?
“In the kitchen, but Duddie, it’s the middle of the night. It’s snowing! You aren’t…”
Going anywhere
was the way that one ended, of course, but the words wouldn’t cross
her tongue. His eyes were so brilliant, so alive. Perhaps she should have been glad to see
that light so strongly in his eyes, that energy, but instead she was terrified.

“I eed I unnox! I eed I unch!”
I need my lunchbox, I need my lunch.
“
No, Duddits.” Trying to be firm. “You need to take off your clothes and get back into bed. That’s what you need and all you need. Here. I’ll help you.”
But when she approached, he raised his amis and crossed them over his narrow chest,
the palm of his right hand pressed against his left cheek, the palm of his left against the

right cheek. From earliest childhood, it was all he could muster in the way of defiance. It
was usually enough, and it was now. She didn’t want to upset him again, perhaps start another nosebleed. But she wasn’t going to put up a lunch for him in his Scooby lunchbox
at one-fifteen in the morning. Absolutely not.
She retreated to the side of his bed and sat down on it. The room was warm, but she

was cold, even in her heavy flannel nightgown. Duddits slowly lowered his arms,
watching her wanly. “You can sit up if you want,” she said, “but why? Did you have a dream, Duddie? A bad dream?”
Maybe a dream but not a bad one. Not with that eager look on his face, and
now
she
recognized it well enough: it was the way he had looked so often back in the eighties, in

the good years before Henry, Pete, Beaver, and Jonesy had all gone their separate ways, calling less frequently and coming by to see him less frequently still as they raced toward
their grownup lives and forgot the one who had to stay behind.

It was the look he got when his special sense told him that his friends were coming by to play. Sometimes they’d all go off together to Strawford Park or the Barrens (they weren’t supposed to go there but they did, both she and Alfie had known that they did, and
one of their trips there had gotten them all on the front page of the newspaper). Sometimes
Alfie or one of their moms or dads would take them to Airport Minigolf or to Fun Town in

Newport, and on those days she would always pack Duddits sandwiches and cookies and a
thermos of milk in his Scooby-Doo lunchbox.
He thinks his friends are coming. It must be Henry and Jonesy he’s thinking of,
because he says Pete and Beav
-
Suddenly a terrible image came to her as she sat on Duddits’s bed with her hands folded in her lap. She saw herself opening the door to a knock that came at the empty hour

of three in the morning, not wanting to open it but helpless to stop herself. And the dead
ones were there instead of the living ones. Beaver and Pete were there, returned to the childhood in which they had been living on the day she had first met them, the day they
had saved Duddie from God knew what nasty trick and then brought him home safe. In her mind’s eye Beaver was wearing his many-zippered motorcycle jacket and Pete was

wearing the crewneck sweater of which he had been so proud, the one with NASA on the
left breast. She saw them cold and pale, their eyes the lusterless grape-black glaze of corpses. She saw Beaver step forward-no smile for her now, no recognition of her now; when Joe “Beaver” Clarendon put out his pallid starfish hands, he was all business.
We’ve
come for Duddits, Missus Cavell. We’re dead, and now he is, too.

She clasped her hands tighter as a shudder twisted through her body. Duddits didn’t
see; he was looking out the window again, his face eager and expectant. And very softly,
he began to sing again.
“Ooby-Ooby-Ooo, eh ah ooo? Eee aht-sum urk-ooo ooo ow…”
10
“Mr Gray?”
No answer. Jonesy stood at the door of what was now most definitely
his
office, not a

trace of Tracker Brothers left except for the dirt on the windows (the matter-of-fact pornography of the girl with her skirt raised had been replaced by Van Gogh’s
Marigolds),
feeling more and more uneasy. What was the bastard looking for?
“Mr Gray, where are you?” No answer this time either, but there was a sense of Mr
Gray returning… and he was happy. The son of a bitch was
happy.
Jonesy didn’t like that at all.

“Listen,” Jonesy said. Hands still pressed to the door of his sanctuary; forehead now
pressed to it, as well. “I’ve got a proposal for you, my friend-you’re halfway human already; why not just go native? We can coexist, I guess, and I’ll show you around. Ice
cream’s good, beer’s even better. What do you say?”
He suspected Mr Gray was tempted, as only an essentially formless creature could be
tempted when offered form-a trade right out of a fairy-tale.

Not tempted enough, however.
There was the spin of the starter, the roar of the truck’s motor.
“Where are we going, chum? Always assuming we can get off Standpipe Hill, that
is?”
No answer, only that disquieting sense that Mr Gray had been looking for
something… and found it.
Jonesy hurried across to the window and looked out in time to see the truck’s
headlights sweep across the pillar erected to memorialize the lost. The plaque had drifted

in again, which meant they must have been here awhile.
Slowly, carefully, now pushing its way through bumper-high drifts, the Dodge Ram
started back down the hill.
Twenty minutes later they were on the turnpike again, once more headed south.
Chapter Seventeen
HEROES
1
Owen couldn’t raise Henry by calling out loud, the man was too deep in exhausted
sleep, and so he called with his mind. He found this was easier as the byrus continued to

spread. It was growing on three of the fingers on his right hand now, and had all but plugged the cup of his left ear with its spongy, itching growth. He had also lost a couple of
teeth, although nothing seemed to be growing in the sockets, at least not yet.
Kurtz and Freddy had stayed clean, thanks to Kurtz’s finely honed instincts, but the
crews of the two surviving Blue Boy gunships, Owen’s and Joe Blakey’s, were lousy with

byrus. Ever since talking to Henry in the shed, Owen had heard the voices of his compatriots, calling to each other across a previously unsuspected void. They were
covering up the infection for now, as he himself was; lots of heavy winter clothing helped.
But that wouldn’t be possible for much longer, and they didn’t know what to do.
In that regard, Owen supposed he was lucky. He at least had a wheel to which he could put his shoulder.

Standing outside the back of the shed and beyond the electrified wire, smoking
another cigarette he didn’t want, Owen went in search of Henry and found him working
his way down a steep, brushy slope. Above him was the sound of kids playing baseball or
softball. Henry was a boy, a teenager, and he was calling someone’s name-Janey? Jolie? It
didn’t matter. He was dreaming, and Owen needed him in the real world. He had let Henry

sleep as long as he could (almost an hour longer than he had really wanted to), but if they
were going to get this show on the road, now was the time.
Henry,
he called.
The teenager looked around, startled. There were other boys with him; three-no four
of them, one peering into some kind of pipe. They were indistinct, hard to see, and Owen
didn’t care about them, anyway. Henry was the one he wanted, and not this pimply, startled version of him, either. Owen wanted the man.

Henry, wake up.
No, she’s in there. We have to get her out. We
-
I don’t give a rat’s ass about her, whoever she is. Wake up,
No, I
-
It’s time, Henry, wake up. Wake up. Wake
2
the fuck up!
Henry sat up with a gasp, not sure who or where he was. That was bad, but there was
worse: he didn’t know
when
he was. Was he eighteen or almost thirty-eight or somewhere in between? He could smell grass, hear the crack of a bat on a ball (a softball bat; it had

been girls playing, girls in yellow shirts), and he could still hear Pete screaming
She’s in
here! Guys, I think she’s in here!
“Pete saw it, he saw the line,” Henry murmured. He didn’t know exactly what he was
talking about. The dream was already fading, its bright images being replaced by
something dark. Something he had to do, or try to do. He smelled hay and, more faintly,
the sweet-sour aroma of pot.
Mister, can you help us?

Big doe eyes. Marsha, her name had been. Things coming into focus now.
Probably
not,
he’d answered her, then added
but maybe.
Wake up, Henry! It’s quarter of four, time to drop your cock and grab your socks.
That voice was stronger and more immediate than the others, overwhelming them
and damping them out; it was like a voice from a Walkman when the batteries were fresh
and the volume was turned all the way up to ten. Owen Underhill’s voice. He was Henry

Devlin. And if they were going to try this, the time was now.
Henry got up, wincing at the pain in his legs, his back, his shoulders, his neck. Where
his muscles weren’t screaming, the advancing byrus was itching abominably. He felt a hundred years old until he took his first step toward the dirty window, then decided it was
more like a hundred and ten.
3
Owen saw the man’s shape come into view inside the window and nodded, relieved.

Henry was moving like Methuselah on a bad day, but Owen had something that would fix
that, at least temporarily. He had stolen it from the brand-new infirmary, which was so busy no one had noticed him coming or going. And all the time he had protected the front
of his mind with the two blocking mantras Henry had taught him:
Ride a cock horse to
Banbury Cross and Yes we can-can, yes we can, yes we can-can, great gosh a’mighty.
So

far they seemed to be working-he’d gotten a few strange looks but no questions. Even the
weather continued in their favor, the storm roaring on unabated.
Now he could see Henry’s face at the window, a pale oval blur looking out at him.
I don’t know about this,
Henry sent.
Man, I can hardly walk.
I can help with that. Stand clear of the window.
Henry moved back with no questions.
In one pocket of his parka, Owen had the small metal box (USMC stamped on the

steel top) in which he kept his various IDs when he was on active duty-the box had been a
present from Kurtz himself after the Santo Domingo mission last year, a fine irony. In his
other pocket were three rocks which he had picked up from beneath his own helicopter, where the fall of snow was thin.
He took one of them-a good-sized chunk of Maine granite-then paused, appalled, as a
bright image filled his mind. Mac Cavanaugh, the fellow from Blue Boy Leader who had

lost two of his fingers on the op, was sitting inside one of the semi trailer-boxes in the compound. With him was Frank Bellson from Blakey’s Blue Boy Three, the other gunship
that had made it back to base. One of them had turned on a powerful eight-cell flashlight
and set it on its base like an electric candle. Its bright glow sprayed up into the gloom.
This was happening right now, not five hundred feet from where Owen stood with a rock

in one hand and his steel box in the other. Cavanaugh and Bellson sat side by side on the
floor of the trailer. Both wore what looked like heavy red beards. Luxuriant growth had burst apart the bandages over the stumps of Cavanaugh’s fingers. They had service
automatics, the muzzles in their mouths. Their eyes were linked. So were their minds.
Bellson was counting down:
Five…four…three…

“Boys, no!” Owen cried, but got no sense they heard him; their link was too strong,
forged with the resolve of men who have made up their minds. They would be the first of
Kurtz’s command to do this tonight; Owen did not think they would be the last.
Owen?
That was Henry.
Owen, what’s
-
Then he tapped into what Owen was seeing and fell silent, horrified.
…
two… one.
Two pistol-shots, muffled by the roar of the wind and four Zimmer electrical

generators. Two fans of blood and brain-tissue appearing like magic over the heads of Cavanaugh and Bellson in the dim light. Owen and Henry saw Bellson’s right foot give a

final dying jump. It struck the barrel of the flashlight, and for a moment they could see Cavanaugh’s and Bellson’s distorted, byrus-speckled faces. Then, as the flashlight went rolling across the bed of the box, casting cartwheels of light on the aluminum side, the picture went dark, like the picture on a TV when the plug has been pulled.
“Christ,” Owen whispered. “Good Christ.”

Henry had appeared behind the window again. Owen motioned him back, then threw
the rock. The range was short, but his first shot missed anyway, bouncing harmlessly off
the weathered boards to the left of the target. He took the second, pulled in a deep, settling
breath, and threw. This one shattered the glass.
Got mail for you, Henry. Coming through.
He tossed the steel box through the hole where the glass had been.
4

It bounced across the shed floor. Henry picked the box up and undid the clasp. Inside
were four foil-wrapped packets.
What are these?
Pocket rockets,
Owen returned.
How’s your heart?
Okay, as far as I know.
Good, because that shit makes cocaine feel like Valium. There are two in each pack.
Take three. Save the rest.
I don’t have any water.
Owen sent a clear picture-south end of a northbound horse.
Chew them, beautiful-
you’ve got a few teeth left, don’t you?

There was real anger in this, and at first Henry didn’t understand it, but then of course he did. If there was anything he should be able to
understand this early morning, it was the sudden loss of friends.
The pills were white, unmarked by the name of any pharmaceutical company, and
terribly bitter in his mouth as they crumbled. Even his throat tried to pucker as he swallowed.
The effect was almost instantaneous. By the time he had tucked Owen’s USMC box

into his pants pocket, Henry’s heartbeat had doubled. By the time he stepped back to the
window, it had tripled, His eyes seemed to pulse from their sockets with each quick rap in
his chest. This wasn’t distressing, however; he actually found it quite pleasant. No more
sleepiness, and his aches seemed to have flown away.
“Yow!” he called. “Popeye should try a few cans of
this

shit!” And laughed, both because speaking now seemed so odd-archaic, almost-and because he felt so fine.
Keep it down, what do you say?
Okay! OKAY!
Even his
thoughts
seemed to have acquired a new, crystalline force, and Henry didn’t
think this was just his imagination. Although the light behind the old feed shed was a little
less than in the rest of the compound, it was still strong enough for him to see Owen wince

and raise a hand to the side of his head, as if someone had shouted directly into his ear.
Sorry
, he sent.
It’s all right. It’s just that you’re so strong. You must be
covered
with that shit.
Actually, I’m not,
Henry returned. A wink of his dream came back to him: the four of
them on that grassy slope. No, the
five
of them, because Duddits had been there, too.
Henry-do you remember where I said I’d be?

Southwest corner of the compound. All the way across from the barn, on the
diagonal, But
-
No buts. That’s where I’ll be. If you want a ride out of here, it’s where you better be,
too. It’s…
A pause as Owen checked his watch. If it was still working, it must be the kind you wind up, Henry thought…
two minutes to four. I’ll give you half an hour, then if the
folks in the barn haven’t started to move, I’m going to short the fence.
Half an hour may not be long enough,

Henry protested. Although he was standing still, looking out at Owen’s form in the blowing snow, he was breathing fast, like a man in
a race. His heart felt as if it
was
in a race.
It’ll have to be,
Owen sent.
The fence is alarmed. 7here’ll be sirens. Even more
lights. A general alert. I’ll give you five minutes after the shit starts hitting the fan-that’s a
three hundred count-and if you haven’t shown up, I’m on my merry way.
You’ll never find Jonesy without me

That doesn’t mean I have to stay here and die with you, Henry.
Patient. As if talking
to a small child.
If you don’t make it to where I am in five minutes, there’ll be no chance
for either of us, anyway.
Those two men who just committed suicide…they’re not the only ones who are fucked
up.
I know.
Henry caught a brief mental glimpse of a yellow school bus with MILLINOCKET
SCHOOL DEPT. printed up the side. Looking out the windows were two score of grinning

skulls. They were Owen Underhill’s mates, Henry realized. The ones he’d arrived with yesterday morning. Men who were now either dying or already dead.
Never mind them,
Owen replied.
It’s Kurtz’s ground support we have to worry about
now. Especially the Imperial Valleys. If they exist, you better believe they’ll follow orders
and that they’re well-trained. And training wins out over confusion every time-that’s what

training is for. If you stick around, they’ll roast you and toast you. Five minutes is what
you have once the alarms go. A three hundred count.
Owen’s logic was hard to like and impossible to refute.
All right,
Henry said.
Five minutes.
You have no business doing this in the first place,
Owen told him. The thought came

to Henry encrusted with a complex filigree of emotion: frustration, guilt, the inevitable fear-in Owen Underhill’s case, not of dying but of failure.
If what you say is true,
everything depends on whether or not we get out of here clean. For you to maybe put the
entire world at risk because of a few hundred schmoes in a barn…
It’s not the way your boss would do it, right?
Owen reacted with surprise-no words, but a kind of comicbook
!
in Henry’s mind.

Then, even over the ceaseless howl and hoot of the wind, he heard Owen laugh.
You got me there, beautiful.
Anyway, I’ll get them moving. I’m a motivational master.
I know you’ll try.
Henry couldn’t see Owen’s face, but felt him smiling. Then Owen
spoke aloud. “And after that? Tell me again.”
“
Why?”
“Maybe because soldiers need motivation, too, especially when they’re derailing.
And belay the telepathy-I want you to say it out loud. I want to hear the word.”

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