Dreamcatcher

“I’m here.” Left leg itching. Mouth itching even worse; the goddam byrus was
growing on his lips now, too. He rubbed it off with his forefinger, surprised at how easily
it broke free. Like a crust.
“Listen up. And look. Can you look?”
Henry looked up the road, which was now dim and snow-ghostly-Owen had pulled
the Sno-Cat over and turned off the lights. Farther along, there were mental voices in the

dark, the auditory equivalent of a campfire. Henry went to them. There were four of them,
young men with no seniority in… in…
Blue Group,
Owen whispered.
This time we’re Blue Group.
Four young men with no seniority in Blue Group, trying not to be scared… trying to be tough… voices in the dark… a little campfire of voices in the dark…
By its light, Henry discovered he could see dimly: snow, of course, and a few

flashing yellow lights illuminating a turnpike entrance ramp. There was also the lid of a
pizza carton seen in the light of an instrument panel. It had been turned into a tray. On it
were Saltines, several blocks of cheese, and a Swiss Army knife. The Swiss Army knife
belonged to the one named Smitty, and they were all using it to cut the cheese. The longer
Henry looked, the better he saw. It was like having your eyes adjust to the dark, but it was

more than that too: what he saw had a creepy-giddy depth, as if all at once the physical world consisted not of three dimensions but of four or five. It was easy enough to understand why: he was seeing through four sets of eyes, all at the same time. They were
huddled together in the
Humvee,
Owen said, delighted.
It’s a fucking Humvee, Henry! Custom-equipped for
snow, too! Bet you anything it is!

The young men were sitting close together, yes, but still in four different places, looking at the world from four different points of view, and with four different qualities of
eyesight, ranging from eagle-eye sharp (Dana from Maybrook, New York) to the merely
adequate. Yet somehow Henry’s brain was processing them, just as it turned multiple still
images on a reel of film into a moving picture. This wasn’t like a movie, though, nor like

some tricky 3-D image. It was an entirely new way of seeing, the kind that could produce
a whole new way of thinking.
If this shit spreads,
Henry thought, both terrified and wildly excited,
if it spreads…
Owen’s elbow thumped into his side. “Maybe you could save the seminar for another
day,” he said. “Look across the road.”
Henry did so, employing his unique quadruple vision and realizing only belatedly

that he had done more than look; he had moved their eyeballs so he could peer over to the
far side of the turnpike. Where he saw more blinking lights in the storm.
“It’s a choke-point,” Owen muttered. “One of Kurtz’s insurance policies. Both exits
blocked, no movement onto the turnpike without authorization. I want the Humvee, it’s the best thing we could have in a shitstorm like this, but I don’t want to alert the guys on
the other side. Can we do that?”

Henry experimented with their eyes again, moving them. He discovered that as soon
as they weren’t all looking at the same thing, his sense of godlike four-or five-dimensional
vision evaporated, leaving him with a nauseating, shattered perspective his processing equipment couldn’t cope with. But he
was
moving them. Not much, just their eyeballs,
but…
I think we can if we work together,
Henry told him.
Get closer. And stop talking out
loud. Get in my head. Link up.

Suddenly Henry’s head was fuller. His vision clarified again, but this time the
perspective wasn’t quite as deep. Only two sets of eyes instead of four: his and Owen’s.
Owen put the Sno-Cat into first gear and crept forward with the lights off. The
engine’s low growl was lost beneath the constant shriek of the wind, and as they closed the
distance, Henry felt his hold on those minds ahead tightening.
Holy shit,
Owen said, half-laughing and half-gasping.

What? That is it?
It’s you, man-it’s like being on a magic carpet. Christ, but you’re strong.
You think I’m strong, wait’ll you meet Jonesy.
Owen stopped the Sno-Cat below the brow of a little hill. Beyond it was the turnpike.
Not to mention Bernie, Dana, Tommy, and Smitty, sitting in their Humvee at the top of the
southbound ramp, eating cheese and crackers off their makeshift tray. He and Owen were
safe enough from discovery. The four young men in the Humvee were clean of the byrus

and had no idea they were being scoped.
Ready?
Henry asked,
I guess.
The other person in Henry’s head, cool as that storied cucumber when Kurtz
and the others had been shooting at them, was now nervous.
You take the lead, Henry. I’m
just flying support this mission.
Here we go.
What Henry did next he did instinctively, binding the four men in the Humvee
together not with images of death and destruction, but by impersonating Kurtz. To do this

he drew on both Owen Underhill’s energy-much greater than his own, at this point-and Owen Underhill’s vivid knowledge of his OIC. The act of binding gave him a brilliant stab
of satisfaction. Relief, as well. Moving their eyes was one thing; taking them over completely was another. And they were free of the byrus. That could have made them immune. Thank God it had not.
There’s a Sno-Cat over that rise east of you, laddies,
Kurtz said.

Want you to take it
back to base. Right now, if you please-no questions, no comments, just get moving. You’ll
find the quarters a little tight compared to your current accommodations, but I think you
can all fit in, praise Jesus. Now move your humps, God love you.
Henry saw them getting out, their faces calm and blank around the eyes. He started to

get out himself, then saw Owen was still sitting in the Sno-Cat’s driver’s seat, his own eyes wide. His lips moved, forming the words in his head:
Move your humps, God love
you.
Owen! Come on!
Owen looked around, startled, then nodded and pushed out through the canvas
hanging over his side of the “Cat.
4
Henry stumbled to his knees, picked himself up, and looked wearily into the

streaming dark. Not far to go, God knew it wasn’t, but he didn’t think he could slog through another twenty feet of drifted snow, let alone a hundred and fifty yards.
On and on
the eggman went,
he thought, and then:
I did it. 7hat’s the answer, Of course. I offed myself
and now I’m in hell. This is the eggman in h
-
Owen’s arm went around him… but it was more than his arm. He was feeding Henry
his strength.
Thank y
-

Thank me later. Sleep later, too. For now, keep your eye on the ball.
There
was
no ball. There were only Bernie, Dana, Tommy, and Smitty trooping through the snow, a line of silent somnambulists in coveralls and hooded parkas. They trooped east on the Swanny Pond Road toward the Sno-Cat while Owen and Henry
struggled on west, toward the abandoned Humvee. The cheese and Saltines had also been
abandoned, Henry realized, and his stomach rumbled.

Then the Humvee was dead ahead. They’d drive it away, no headlights at first, low
gear and quiet-quiet-quiet, skirting the yellow flashers at the base of the ramp, and if they
were lucky, the fellows guarding the northbound ramp would never know they were gone.
If they do see us, could we make them forget?
Owen asked.
Give them-oh, I don’t
know-give them amnesia?
Henry realized they probably could.
Owen?
What?
If this ever got out, it would change eve thing. Everything.

A pause as Owen considered this. Henry wasn’t talking about knowledge, the usual
coin of Kurtz’s bosses up the food-chain; he was talking about abilities that apparently went well beyond a little mind-reading.
I know,
he replied at last.
5
They headed south in the Humvee, south into the storm. Henry Devlin was still gobbling
crackers and cheese when exhaustion turned out the lights in his overstimulated head.
He slept with crumbs on his lips.

And dreamed of Josie Rinkenhauer.
6
Half an hour after it caught fire, old Reggie Gosselin’s barn was no more than a dying
dragon’s eye in the booming night, waxing and waning in a black socket of melted snow.
From the woods east of the Swanny Pond Road came the
pop-pop-pop
of rifle fire, heavy

at first, then diminishing a little in both frequency and volume as the Imperial Valleys (Kate Gallagher’s Imperial Valleys now) pursued the escaped detainees. It was a turkey shoot, and not many of the turkeys were going to get away. Enough of them to tell the tale,
maybe, enough to rat them all out, but that was tomorrow’s worry.
While this was going on-also while the traitorous Owen Underhill was getting farther

and farther ahead of them-Kurtz and Freddy Johnson stood in the command post (except,
Freddy supposed, it was now nothing but a Winnebago again; that feeling of power and importance had gone), flipping playing-cards into a hat.
No longer telepathic in the slightest, but as sensitive to the men under him as ever-

that his command had been reduced to a single soldier really made no difference-Kurtz looked at Freddy and said, “Make haste slowly, buck-that’s one saw that’s still sharp.”
“Yes, boss,” Freddy said without much enthusiasm.
Kurtz flipped the two of spades. It fluttered down through the air and landed in the
hat. Kurtz crowed like a child and prepared to flip again. There was a knock at the “Bago’s

door. Freddy turned in that direction, and Kurtz fixed him with a forbidding look. Freddy
turned back and watched Kurtz flip another card. This one started out well, then went long
and landed on the cap’s bill. Kurtz muttered something under his breath, then nodded at the door. Freddy, with a mental prayer of thanks, went to open it.
Standing on the top step was Jocelyn McAvoy, one of the two female Imperial

Valleys. Her accent was soft country Tennessee; the face under the boy-cropped blonde hair was hard as stone. She was holding a spectacularly non-reg Israeli burp-gun by the strap. Freddy wondered where she had gotten such a thing, then decided it didn’t matter. A
lot of things had ceased to matter, most of them in the last hour or so.
“Joss,” Freddy said. “What’s up with your bad self?” “Delivering two Ripley

Positives as ordered.” More shooting from the woods, and Freddy saw the woman’s eyes
shift minutely in that direction. She wanted to get back over there across the road, wanted
to bag her limit before the game was gone. Freddy knew how she felt.

“Send them in, lassie,” Kurtz said. He was still standing over the cap on the floor (the floor that was still faintly stained with Cook’s Third Melrose’s blood), still holding the deck of cards in his hand, but his eyes were bright and interested. “Let’s see who you found.” Jocelyn gestured with her gun. A male voice at the foot of the stairs growled, “The
fuck up there. Don’t make me say it twice.” The first man to step past Jocelyn was tall and

very black. There was a cut down one of his cheeks and another on his neck. Both cuts had been clogged with Ripley. More was growing in the creases in his brow. Freddy knew
the face but not the name. The old man, of course, knew both. Freddy supposed he remembered the names of all the men he had commanded, both the quick and the dead.
“Cambry!” Kurtz said, eyes lighting even more brightly. He dropped the playing

cards into the hat, approached Cambry, seemed about to shake hands, thought better of it,
and snapped off a salute instead. Gene Cambry did not return it. He looked sullen and disoriented. “Welcome to the justice League of America.”
“Spotted him running through the woods along with the detainees he was supposed to
be guarding,” Jocelyn McAvoy said. Her face was expressionless; all her contempt was in

her voice. “Why not?” Cambry asked. He looked at Kurtz. “You were going to kill me, anyway. Kill all of us. Don’t bother lying about it, either. I can see it in your mind.”
Kurtz wasn’t discomfited by this in the slightest. He rubbed his hands together and smiled at Cambry in a friendly way. “Do a good job and p’raps you’ll
change
my mind,

buck. Hearts were made to be broken and minds were made to be changed, that’s a big praise God. Who else have you got for me, Joss?”
Freddy regarded the second figure with amazement. Also with pleasure. The Ripley
could not have found a better home, in his humble opinion. Nobody liked the son of a bitch much in the first place.
“Sir… boss… I don’t know why I’m here… I was in proper pursuit of the escapees

when this… this… I’m sorry, I have to say it, when this officious
bitch
pulled me out of the sweep area and…”
“He was running with them,” McAvoy said in a bored voice. “Running with them
and infected up the old wazoo.”
“A he!” said the man in the doorway. “A total lie! I’m perfectly clean! One hundred
per cent-”
McAvoy snatched off the watchcap her second prisoner was wearing. The man’s
thinning blond hair was much thicker now, and appeared to have been dyed red.

“I can explain, sir,” Archie Perlmutter said, his voice fading even as he spoke. “There
is… you see… Then it died away entirely.
Kurtz was beaming at him, but he had donned his filter-mask again-they all had-and
it gave his reassuring smile an oddly sinister look, the expression of a child molester inviting a little kid in for a piece of pie.
“Pearly, it’s going to be all right,” Kurtz said. “We’re going for a ride, that’s all.

There’s someone we need to find, someone you know-”
“Owen Underhill,” Perlmutter whispered.
“That’s right, buck,” Kurtz said. He turned to McAvoy. “Bring this soldier his clipboard, McAvoy. I’m sure he’ll feel better once he has his clipboard. Then you can carry on hunting, which I feel quite sure you’re eager to do.”
“Yes, boss.”
“But first, watch this-a little trick I learned back in Kansas.” Kurtz sprayed the cards.

In the crazy blizzard-wind coming through the door, they flew every whichway. Only one
landed faceup in the hat, but it was the ace of spades.
7
Mr Gray held the menu, looking at the lists of stuff-meatloaf, sliced beets, roast chicken, chocolate silk pie-with interest and an almost total lack of understanding. Jonesy
realized it wasn’t just not knowing how food tasted; Mr Gray didn’t know what taste
was.

How could he? When you cut to the chase, he was nothing but a mushroom with a high
IQ.
Here came a waitress, moving under a vast tableland of frozen ash-blonde hair. The
badge on her not inconsiderable bosom read WELCOME TO DYSART’s, I AM YOUR
WAITRESS DARLENE.
“Hi, hon, what can I get you?”
“I’d like scrambled eggs and bacon. Crisp, not limp.”
“Toast?”
“How about canpakes?”
She raised her eyebrows and looked at him over her pad. Beyond her, at the counter,

the State Trooper was eating some kind of drippy sandwich and talking with the short-order cook.
“Sorry-cakepans, I meant to say.”
The eyebrows went higher. Her question was plain, blinking at the front of her mind
like a neon sign in a saloon window: was this guy a mushmouth, or was he making fun of
her?
Standing at his office window, smiling, Jonesy relented.
“
Pancakes,”
Mr Gray said.
“Uh-huh, I sort of figured. Coffee with that?”
“Please.”

She snapped her pad closed and started away. Mr Gray was back at the locked door
of Jonesy’s office at once, and furious all over again.
How could you do that?
he asked.
How could you do that from in there?
An ill-natured thump as Mr Gray hit the door. And he was more than angry, Jonesy realized. He
was frightened, as well. Because if Jonesy could interfere, everything was in jeopardy.
I don’t know,
Jonesy said, and truthfully enough.
But don’t take it so hard. Enjoy your

breakfast. I was just fucking with you a little.
Why
? Still furious. Still drinking from the well of Jonesy’s emotions, and liking it in spite of himself.
Why would you do that?
Call it payback for trying to roast me in my office while I was sleeping,
Jonesy said.
With the restaurant section of the truck stop almost deserted, Darlene was back with
the food in no time. Jonesy considered seeing if he could gain control of his mouth long
enough to say something outrageous

(Darlene, can I bite your hair?
was what came to mind), and thought better of it.
She set his plate down, gave him a dubious look, then started away. Mr Gray, looking
at the bright yellow lump of eggs and the dark twigs of bacon (not just crispy but almost
incinerated, in the great Dysart’s tradition) through Jonesy’s eyes, was feeling the same dubiety.
Go on,
Jonesy said. He was standing at his office window, watching and waiting with

amusement and curiosity. Was it possible that the bacon and eggs would kill Mr Gray?
Probably not, but it might at least make the hijacking motherfucker good and sick.
Go on,
Mr Gray, eat up. Bon-fuckin-appetit.
Mr Gray consulted Jonesy’s files on the proper use of the silverware, then picked up
a tiny clot of scrambled eggs on the tines of his fork, and put them in Jonesy’s mouth.
What followed was both amazing and hilarious. Mr Gray gobbled everything in huge

bites, pausing only to drown the pancakes in fake maple syrup. He loved it all, but most
particularly the bacon.
Flesh! Jonesy heard him exulting-it was almost the voice of the creature in one of those corny old monster movies from the thirties.
Flesh! Flesh! This is the taste of flesh!
Funny… but maybe not all
that
funny, either. Maybe sort of horrible. The cry of a new-made vampire.

Mr Gray looked around, ascertained that he wasn’t being watched (the State Bear was
now addressing a large piece of cherry pie), then picked up the plate and licked the grease
from it with big swipes of Jonesy’s tongue. He finished by licking the sticky syrup from
the ends of his fingers.
Darlene returned, poured more coffee, looked at the empty dishes. “Why, you get a
gold star,” she said. “Anything else?” “More bacon,” Mr Gray said. He consulted Jonesy’s

files for the correct terminology, and added: “A double order.”
And may you choke on it,
Jonesy thought, but now without much hope.
“Gotta stoke the stove,” Darlene said, a comment Mr Gray didn’t understand and
didn’t bother hunting down in Jonesy’s files. He put two sugars in his coffee, looked around to make sure he wasn’t observed, then poured the contents of a third packet down

his throat. Jonesy’s eyes half-closed for a few seconds as Mr Gray drowned happily in the bliss of sweet.
You can have that any time you want it,
Jonesy said through the door. Now he supposed he knew how Satan felt when he took Jesus up on the mountaintop and tempted
him with all the cities of the earth. Not good; not really bad; just doing the job, selling the product.
Except… check that. It
did feel

good, because he knew he was getting through. He wasn’t opening stab-wounds exactly, but he was at least pricking Mr Gray. Making him sweat little blood-beads of desire.
Give it up,
Jonesy coaxed.
Go native. You can spend years exploring my senses.
They’re pretty sharp; I’m still under forty.
No reply from Mr Gray. He looked around, saw no one looking his way, poured fake

maple syrup into his coffee, slurped it, and looked around again for his supplemental bacon. Jonesy sighed. This was like being with a strict Muslim who has somehow wound
up on a Las Vegas holiday.
On the far side of the restaurant was an arch with a sign reading TRUCKERS”
LOUNGE amp; SHOWERS above it. In the short hallway beyond, there was a bank of
pay telephones. Several drivers stood there, no doubt explaining to spouses and bosses that

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