Dreamcatcher

Jonesy points to the legless weasel, and it bares a mouthful of needle teeth in a grotesque grin.
Is Bowser a vegetarian?
You know he’s not
, the gray thing says, its slit of a mouth not moving-this guy is one
hell of a ventriloquist, you had to give him that; they’d love him in the Catskills.
But you
know you have nothing to fear from him.
Why? How am I different?
The dying gray thing (of course it’s dying, its body is breaking down, decaying from

the inside out) doesn’t reply, and Jonesy once again thinks
No bounce, no play
. He has an idea this is one thought the gray fellow would dearly love to read, but no chance of that;
the ability to shield his thoughts is another part of what makes him different, unique, and
vive la difference
is all Jonesy can say (not that he
does
say it).
How am I different?
Who is Duddits?
the gray thing asks, and when Jonesy doesn’t answer, the thing once
more smiles without moving its mouth.
There

, the gray thing says.
We both have questions
the other will not answer. Let’s put them aside, shall we? Facedown. They are… what do
you call it? What do you call it in the game?
The crib
, Jonesy says. Now he can smell the thing’s decay. It’s the smell McCarthy
brought into camp with him, the smell of ether-spray. He thinks again that he should have
shot the ohgosh oh-dear son of a bitch, shot him before he could get in where it was warm.

Left the colony inside him to die beneath the deer-stand in the old maple as the body grew
cold.
The crib, yes,
the gray thing says. The dreamcatcher is now in here, suspended from the ceiling and spinning slowly above the gray thing’s head.
These things we each don’t
want the other to know, we’ll set them aside to count later. We’ll put them in the crib.
What do you want from me?

The gray creature gazes at Jonesy unblinkingly. So far as Jonesy can tell, it can’t blink; it has neither lids nor lashes. Nyther
lids nor lashes
, it says, only it’s Pete’s voice Jonesy hears.
Always nyther, never neether. who’s Duddits?
And Jonesy is so surprised to hear Pete’s voice that he almost by-God tells him…
which, of course, was the intention: to surprise it out of him. This thing is crafty, dying or

not. He would do well to be on his guard. He sends the gray fellow a picture of a big brown cow with a sign around its neck. The sign reads DUDDITS THE COW.
Again the gray fellow smiles without smiling, smiles inside Jonesy’s head.
Duddits
the cow, it says. I think not
Where are you from? Jonesy asks.
Planet X. We come from a dying planet to eat Domino’s Pizza, buy on easy credit
terms, and learn Italian the easy Berlitz way.

Henry’s voice this time. Then Mr ET-Phone-Home reverts to its own voice… except, Jonesy realizes with a weary lack of surprise, its
voice is
his
voice, Jonesy’s voice. And he knows what Henry would say: that he’s having one whopper of a hallucination in the wake of Beaver’s death.
Not anymore, he wouldn’t
, Jonesy thinks.
Not anymore. Now he’s the eggman, and the
eggman knows better.
Henry? He’ll be dead soon
, the gray fellow says indifferently. Its hand steals across

the counterpane; the trio of long gray fingers enfolds Jonesy’s hand. Its skin is warm and
dry.
What do you mean?
Jonesy asks, afraid for Henry… but the dying thing in the bed doesn’t answer. It’s another card for the crib, so Jonesy plays another one from his hand:
Why did you call me here?
The gray creature expresses surprise, although its face still doesn’t move.
No one
wants to die alone, it says. I just want someone to be with. I know, we’ll watch television. I

don’t want-There’s a movie I particularly want to see. You’ll enjoy it, too. It’s called
Sympathy for the Grayboys
. Bowser! The remote!
Bowser favors Jonesy with what seems a particularly ill-natured look, then slithers
off the pillow, its flexing tail making a dry rasp like a snake crawling over a rock. On the

table is a TV remote, also overgrown with fungus. Bowser seizes it, turns, and slithers back to the gray creature with the remote held in its teeth. The gray thing releases Jonesy’s
hand (its touch is not repulsive, but the release is still something of a relief), takes the controller, points it at the TV, and pushes the ON button. The picture that appears-blurred

slightly but not hidden by the light fuzz growing on the glass-is of the shed behind the cabin. In the center of the screen is a shape hidden by a green tarp. And even before the
door opens and he sees himself come in, Jonesy understands that this has already
happened. The star of
Sympathy for the Grayboys
is Gary Jones.
Well, the dying creature in the bed says from its comfortable spot in the center of his brain,

we missed the credits, but really, the movie’s just starting.
That’s what Jonesy’s afraid of.
5
The shed door opens and Jonesy comes in. Quite the motley fellow he is, dressed in
his own coat, Beaver’s gloves, and one of Lamar’s old orange hats. For a moment the Jonesy watching in the hospital room (he has pulled up the visitor’s chair and is sitting by
Mr Gray’s bed) thinks that the Jonesy in the snowmobile shed at Hole in the Wall has been

infected after all, and that red moss is growing all over him. Then he remembers that Mr
Gray exploded right in front of him-his head did, anyway-and Jonesy is wearing the remains.
Only you didn’t explode, he says. You… you what? Went to seed?
Shhh!
says Mr Gray, and Bowser bares its formidable headful of teeth, as if to tell Jonesy to stop being so impolite.
I love this song, don’t you?

The soundtrack is the Rolling Stones” “Sympathy for the Devil,” fitting enough since
this is almost the name of the movie (
my screen debut
, Jonesy thinks,
wait’ll Carla and the
kids see it
), but in fact Jonesy doesn’t love it, it makes him sad for some reason.
How can you love it?
he asks, ignoring Bowser’s bared teeth Bowser is no danger to
him, and both of them know it,
How can you? It’s what they were playing when they
slaughtered you
.
They always slaughter us,

Mr Gray says
. Now be quiet, watch the movie, this part is
slow but it gets a lot better.
Jonesy folds his hands in his red lap-the bleeding seems to have stopped, at least-and
watches Sympathy for the Grayboys, starring the one and only Gary Jones.
6
The one and only Gary Jones pulls the tarp off the snowmobile, spots the battery

sitting on the worktable in a cardboard box, and puts it in, being careful to clamp the cables to the correct terminals. This pretty well exhausts his store of mechanical
knowledge-he’s a history teacher, not a mechanic, and his idea of home improvement is making the kids watch the History Channel once in a while instead of
Xena
. The key is in the ignition, and the dashboard lights come on when he turns the key-got the battery right,

anyway-but the engine doesn’t start. Doesn’t even crank. The starter makes a
tut-tutting
sound and that’s all.
“Oh dear oh gosh dadrattit number two,” he says, running them all together in a
monotone. He isn’t sure he could manifest much in the way of emotion now even if he really wanted to. He’s a horror-movie fan, has seen
Invasion of the Body Snatchers

two dozen times (he has even seen the wretched remake, the one with Donald Sutherland in it),
and he knows what’s going on here. His body has been snatched, most righteously and completely snatched. Although there will be no army of zombies, not even a townful. He
is unique. He senses that Pete, Henry, and the Beav are also unique (
was

unique, in the Beav’s case), but he is the most unique of all. You’re not supposed to be able to say that-like the cheese belonging to the Farmer in the Dell, unique supposedly stands alone-but this is a rare case where that rule doesn’t apply. Pete and Beaver were unique, Henry is uniquer, and he, Jonesy, is uniquest. Look, he’s even starring in his own movie! How unique is
that
, as his oldest son would say.

The gray fellow in the hospital bed looks from the TV where Jonesy I is sitting
astride the Arctic Cat to the chair where Jonesy II sits in his blood-sodden johnny.
What are you hiding?
Mr Gray asks.
Nothing.
Why do you keep seeing a brick wall? What is 19, besides a prime number? Who said
“Fuck the Tigers’? What does that mean? What is the brick wall?
When
is the brick wall?
What does it mean, why do you keep seeing it?

He can feel Mr Gray prying at him, but for the time being that one kernel is safe. He
can be carried, but not changed. Not entirely opened, either, it seems. Not yet, at least.
Jonesy puts his finger to his lips and gives the gray fellow’s own words back to him:
Be quiet, watch the movie.
It studies him with the black bulbs of its eyes (they are insectile, Jonesy thinks, the
eyes of a praying mantis), and Jonesy can feel it prying for a moment or two longer. Then

the sensation fades. There is no hurry; sooner or later it will dissolve the shell over that last kernel of pure uninvaded Jonesy, and then it will know everything it wants to know.
In the meantime, they watch the movie. And when Bowser crawls into Jonesy’s lap-
Bowser with his sharp teeth and his ethery antifreeze smell-Jonesy barely notices.
Jonesy I, Shed Jonesy (only that one’s now actually Mr Gray), reaches out. There are

many minds to reach out to, they are hopping all over each other like late-night radio transmissions, and he finds one with the information he needs easily enough. It’s like opening a file on your personal computer and finding a wonderfully detailed 3-D movie instead of words.
Mr Gray’s source is Emil “Dawg” Brodsky, from Menlo Park, New Jersey. Brodsky
is an Army Tech Sergeant, a motor-pool munchkin. Only here, as part of Kurtz’s Tactical

Response Team, Tech Sergeant Brodsky has no rank. No one else does, either. He calls his
superiors boss and those who rank below him (there are not many of those at this particular barbecue) hey you. If he doesn’t know which is which, pal or buddy will do.

There are jets overlying the area, but not many (they’ll be able to get all the pix they need from low earth orbit if the clouds ever clear), and they are not Brodsky’s job, anyway. The jets fly out of the Air National Guard base in Bangor, and he is here in Jefferson Tract. Brodsky’s job is the choppers and the trucks in the rapidly growing motorpool (since noon, all the roads in this part of the state have been closed and the only traffic is olive-green trucks with their insignia masked), He’s also in charge of setting up at least

four generators to provide the electricity needed to serve the compound growing around Gosselin’s Market. These needs include motion sensors, Pole lights, perimeter lights, and
the makeshift operating theatre which is being hastily equipped in a Windstar motor home.
Kurtz has made it clear that the lights are a big deal-he wants this place as bright as

day all night long. The greatest number of pole lights is going up around the barn and what used to be a horse corral and paddock behind the barn. In the field where old Reggie
Gosselin’s forty milkers once grazed away their days, two tents have been erected. The larger has a sign on its green roof: COMMISSARY. The other tent is white and unmarked.
There are no kerosene heaters in it, as there are in the larger tent, and no need of them.

This is the temporary morgue, Jonesy understands. There are only three bodies in there now (one is a banker who tried to run away, foolish man), but soon there may be lots more. Unless there’s an accident that makes collecting bodies difficult or impossible. For
Kurtz, the boss, such an accident would solve all sorts of problems.
And all that is by the way. Jonesy I’s Job is Emil Brodsky of Menlo Park.

Brodsky is striding rapidly across the snowy, muddy, churned-up ground between the
helicopter landing zone and the paddock where the Ripley-positives are to be kept (there
are already a good number of them in there, walking around with the bewildered
expressions of freshly interned prisoners the world over, calling out to the guards, asking
for cigarettes and information and making vain threats). Emil Brodsky is squat and

crewcut, with a bulldog face that looks made for cheap cigars (in fact, Jonesy knows, Brodsky is a devout Catholic who has never smoked). He’s as busy as a one-armed
paperhanger just now. He’s got earphones on and a receptionist’s mike hung in front of his
lips. He is in radio contact with the fuel-supply convoy coming up I-95-those guys are critical, because the helicopters out on mission are going to come back low-but he’s also

talking to Cambry, who is walking next to him, about the control-and-surveillance center
Kurtz wants set up by nine P.m… midnight at the latest. This mission is going to be over
in forty-eight hours at the outside, that’s the scuttlebutt, but who the fuck knows for sure?
According to the scuttlebutt, their prime target, Blue Boy, has already been taken out, but

Brodsky doesn’t know how anyone can be sure of that, since the big assault choppers haven’t come back yet. And anyhow, their “ob here is simple: turn the whole works up to
eleven and then yank the knobs off.
And ye gods, all at once there are
three
Jonesys: the one watching TV in the fungus-
crawling hospital room, the one in the snowmobile shed… and Jonesy III, who suddenly
appears in Emil Brodsky’s crewcut Catholic head. Brodsky stops walking and simply

looks up into the white sky.
Cambry walks on three or four steps by himself before realizing that Dawg has
stopped cold, is just standing there in the middle of the muddy cow pasture. In the midst of
all this frantic bustle-running men, hovering helicopters, revving engines-he’s standing
there like a robot with a dead battery.
“Boss?” Cambry asks. “Everything all right?” Brodsky makes no reply… at least not
to Cambry, he doesn’t. To Jonesy I- Shed Jonesy- he says:

Open the engine cowling and
show me the plugs.
Jonesy has some trouble finding the catch that opens the cowling, but Brodsky directs
him. Then Jonesy leans over the small engine, not looking for himself but turning his eyes
into a pair of high-res cameras and sending the picture back to Brodsky.
“Boss?” Cambry asks with increasing concern. “Boss, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing wrong,” Brodsky says, slowly and distinctly. He puts the headphones down

around his neck; the chatter in them is a distraction. “Just let me think a minute.”
And to Jonesy:
Someone yanked the plugs. Look around… yeah, there they are. End
of the table.
On the end of the worktable is a mayonnaise jar half filled with gasoline. The jartop
has been vented-two punches with the tip of a screwdriver-to keep the fumes from
building up. Sunk in it like exhibits preserved in formaldehyde are two Champion
sparkplugs.

Aloud, Brodsky says “Dry them off good,” and when Cambry asks, “Dry
what
off good?” Brodsky tells him absently to put a sock in it.
Jonesy fishes the plugs out, dries them off, then seats and connects them as Brodsky
directs.
Try it now
, Brodsky says, this time without moving his lips, and the snowmobile starts up with a roar.
Check the gas, too.
Jonesy does, and says thank you.
“No problem, boss,” Brodsky says, and starts walking briskly again. Cambry has to

trot a little to catch up. He sees the faintly bewildered look on Dawg’s face when Dawg
discovers his headphones are now around his neck.
“What the hell was that all about?” Cambry asks.
“Nothing,” Brodsky says, but it was something, all right; it sure as shit was
something. Talking. A conversation. A… consultation? Yeah, that. He just can’t remember
exactly what the subject was. What he
can

remember is the briefing they got this morning, before daylight, when the team went hot. One of the directives, straight from Kurtz, had
been to report anything unusual. Was this unusual? What, exactly, had it been?
“Had a brain-cramp, I guess,” Brodsky says. “Too many things to do and not enough
time to do them in. Come on, son, keep up with me.”
Cambry keeps up. Brodsky resumes his divided conversation convoy there, Cambry

here-but remembers something else, some third conversation, one that is now over.
Unusual or not? Probably not, Brodsky decides. Certainly nothing he could talk about to
that incompetent bastard Perlmutter-as far as Pearly’s concerned, if it isn’t on his ever-present clipboard, it doesn’t exist. Kurtz? Never. He respects the old buzzard, but fears him even more. They all do. Kurtz is smart, Kurtz is brave, but Kurtz is also the craziest

ape in the jungle. Brodsky doesn’t even like to walk where Kurtz’s shadow has run across
the ground.
Underhill? Could he talk to Owen Underhill?
Maybe… but maybe not. A deal like this, you could get into hack without even
knowing why. He’d heard voices there for a minute or two-a voice, anyway-but he feels
okay now. Still…
At Hole in the Wall, Jonesy roars out of the shed and heads up the Deep Cut Road.

He senses Henry when he passes him Henry hiding behind a tree, actually biting into the
moss to keep from screaming-but successfully hides what he knows from the cloud which
surrounds that last kernel of his awareness. It is almost certainly the last time he will be
near his old friend, who will never make it out of these woods alive.
Jonesy wishes he could have said goodbye.
7
I don’t know who made this movie, Jonesy says, but I don’t think they have to bother

pressing their tuxes for the Academy Awards. In fact-
He looks around and sees only snow-covered trees. Eyes front again and nothing but
the Deep Cut Road unrolling in front of him and the snowmobile vibrating between his thighs. There was never any hospital, never any Mr Gray. That was all a dream.
But it wasn’t. And there is a room. Not a hospital room, though. No bed, no TV, no
IV pole. Not much of anything, actually; just a bulletin board. Two things are tacked to it:

a map of northern New England with certain routes mapped-the Tracker Brothers routes and a Polaroid photo of a teenage girl with her skirt raised to reveal a golden tuft of hair.
He is looking out at the Deep Cut Road from the window. It is, Jonesy feels quite sure, the
window that used to be in the hospital room. But the hospital room was no good. He had
to get out of that room, because
The hospital room wasn’t safe
, Jonesy thinks as if this one is, as if anyplace is. And

yet… this one’s safe-
er
, maybe. This is his final refuge, and he has decorated it with the picture he supposed they all hoped to see when they went up that driveway back in 1978.
Tina Jean Sloppinger, or whatever her name had been.
Some of what I saw was real… valid recovered memories, Henry might say. I really
did think I saw Duddits that day. That’s why I went into the street without looking. As for

Mr Gray… that’s who I am now. Isn’t it? Except for the part of me in this dusty, empty,
uninteresting room with the used rubbers on the floor and the picture of the girl on the
bulletin board, I’m all Mr Gray. Isn’t that the truth?
No answer. Which is all the answer he needs, really.
But how did it happen? How did I get here? And why? What’s it for?

Все материалы, размещенные в боте и канале, получены из открытых источников сети Интернет, либо присланы пользователями  бота. 
Все права на тексты книг принадлежат их авторам и владельцам. Тексты книг предоставлены исключительно для ознакомления. Администрация бота не несет ответственности за материалы, расположенные здесь