Dreamcatcher

Stephen King
FIRST, THE NEWS
SSDD
1993: PETE HELPS A LADY IN DISTRESS
1998: HENRY TREATS A COUCH MAN
2001: JONESY’S STUDENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Part Two
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Part Three
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue

AUTHOR’S NOTE
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Приятного чтения!
Stephen King
Dreamcatcher
This is for Susan Moldow and Nan Graham
FIRST, THE NEWS
From the
East Oregonian,
June 25, 1947
FIRE CONTROL OFFICER SPOTS “FLYING SAUCERS” Kenneth Arnold Reports
9 Disc-Shaped Objects “Shiny, Silvery, Moved Incredibly Fast”
From the Roswell
Daily Record,
July 8th, 1947

AIR FORCE CAPTURES “FLYING SAUCER” ON RANCH IN ROSWELL
REGION Intelligence Officers Recover Crashed Disc
From the Roswell
Daily Record,
July 9th, 1947
AIR FORCE DECLARES “SAUCER” WEATHER BALLOON
From the Chicago
Daily Tribune,
August 1st, 1947
USAF SAYS “CANNOT EXPLAIN” ARNOLD SIGHTING 850 Additional
Sightings Since Original Report
From the Roswell
Daily Record,
October 19th, 1947
SO-CALLED “SPACE WHEAT” A HOAX,
ANGRY FARMER DECLARES

Andrew Hoxon Denies “Saucer Connection”
Red-Tinged Wheat “Nothing But A Prank,” He Insists
From the
Courier Journal
(Ky), January 8th, 1948
AIR FORCE CAPTAIN KILLED CHASING UFO
Mantell’s Final Transmission:
“Metallic, Tremendous In Size”
Air Force Mum
From the Brazilian
Nacional,
March 12th, 1957
STRANGE RINGED CRAFT CRASHES IN MATO GROSSO!
2 WOMEN MENACED NEAR PONTO PORAN!
“We Heard Squealing Sounds From Within,” They Declare
From the Brazilian
Nacional,
March 12th, 1957

MATO GRASSO HORROR!
Reports of Gray Men with Huge Black Eyes Scientists Scoff! Reports Persist!
VILLAGES IN TERROR!
From the
Oklahoman,
May 12th, 1965
STATE POLICEMAN FIRES AT UFO Claims Saucer Was 40 Feet Above Highway
9 Tinker AFB Radar Confirms Sightings
From the
Oklahoman,
June 2nd, 1965
“ALIEN GROWTH’A HOAX, FARM BUREAU REP DECLARES “Red Weeds”
Said To Be Work Of Spray-Gun, Teenagers
From the Portland (Me.)
Press-Herald,
September 14th, 1965

NEW HAMPSHIRE UFO SIGHTINGS MOUNT Most Sightings in Exeter Area
Some Residents Express Fear of Alien Invasion
From the Manchester
Union-Leader
(N.H.), September 19th, 1965
ENORMOUS OBJECT SIGHTED NEAR EXETER WAS OPTICAL ILLUSION Air
Force Investigators Refute State Police Sighting Officer Cleland Adamant: “I Know What
I Saw”
From the Manchester
Union-Leader
(N.H.), September 30th, 1965
FOOD POISONING EPIDEMIC IN PLAISTOW STILL UNEXPLAINED Over 300
Affected, Most Recovering

FDA Officer Says May Have Been Contaminated Wells
From the Michigan
Journal,
October 9th, 1965
GERALD FORD CALLS FOR UFO INVESTIGATION
Republican House Leader Says “Michigan Lights”
May Be Extraterrestrial In Origin
From the Los Angeles Times, November 19th, 1978
CALTECH SCIENTISTS REPORT SIGHTING HUGE DISC-SHAPED OBJECT IN
MOJAVE Tickman: “Was Surrounded by Small Bright Lights” Morales: “Saw Red
Growth Like Angel Hair”
From the Los Angeles
Times,
November 24th, 1978

STATE POLICE, USAF INVESTIGATORS FIND NO “ANGEL HAIR” AT
MOJAVE SITE Tickman and Morales Take, Pass, Lie Tests Possibility of Hoax
Discounted
From the New York
Times,
August 16th, 1980
“ALIEN ABDUCTEES” REMAIN CONVINCED Psychologists Question Drawings
Of So-Called “Gray Men”
From the
Wall Street Journal,
February 9th, 1985
CARL SAGAN: “NO, WE ARE NOT ALONE”
Prominent Scientist Reaffirms Belief In ETs
Says, “Odds Of Intelligent Life Are Enormous”
From the Phoenix

Sun,
March 14th, 1997
HUGE
UFO
SIGHTED
NEAR
PRESCOTT
DOZENS
DESCRIBE
“BOOMERANG-SHAPED” OBJECT Switchboard At Luke AFB Deluged With Reports
From the Phoenix
Sun
, March 20th, 1997
“PHOENIX LIGHTS” REMAIN UNEXPLAINED Photos Not Doctored, Expert
Says Air Force Investigators Mum
From the Paulden
Weekley,
(Ariz.), April 9th, 1997
FOOD POISONING OUTBREAK UNEXPLAINED REPORTS OF “RED GRASS”
DISCOUNTED AS HOAX
From the Derry
Daily News
(Me.), May 15th, 2000

MYSTERY LIGHTS ONCE AGAIN REPORTED IN JEFFERSON TRACT Kineo
Town Manager: “I Don’t Know What They Are, But They Keep Coming Back”
SSDD
It became their motto, and Jonesy couldn’t for the life of him remember which of
them started saying it first.
Payback’s a bitch
, that was his.
Fuck me Freddy
and half a dozen even more colorful obscenities originated with Beaver. Henry was the one who
taught them to say

What goes around comes around
, it was the kind of Zen shit Henry liked, even when they were kids. SSDD, though; what about SSDD? Whose brainstorm
had that been?
Didn’t matter. What mattered was that they believed the first half of it when they were a quartet and all of it when they were five and then the second half of it when they
were a quartet again.
When it was just the four of them again, the days got darker. There were more fuck-

me-Freddy days. They knew it, but not why. They knew something was wrong with them-
different, at least-but not what. They knew they were caught, but not exactly how. And all
this long before the lights in the sky. Before McCarthy and Becky Shue.
SSDD: Sometimes it’s just what you say. And sometimes you believe in nothing but
the darkness. And then how do you go along?
1988: Even Beaver Gets the Blues
To say that Beaver’s marriage didn’t work would be like saying that the launch of the

Challenger space shuttle went a little bit wrong. Joe “Beaver” Clarendon and Laurie Sue
Kenopensky make it through eight months and then
kapow
, there goes my baby, somebody help me pick up the fuckin pieces.
The Beav is basically a happy guy, any of his hang-out buddies would tell you that,
but this is his dark time. He doesn’t see any of his old friends (the ones he thinks of as his
real

friends) except for the one week in November when they are together every year, and last November he and Laurie Sue had still been hanging on. By a thread, granted, but still
hanging on. Now he spends a lot of his time-too much, he knows-in the bars of Portland’s
Old Port district, The Porthole and The Seaman’s Club and The Free Street Pub. He is drinking too much and smoking too much of the old rope-a-dope and come most mornings

he doesn’t like to look at himself in the bathroom mirror; his red-rimmed eyes skitter away
from his reflection and he thinks
I ought to quit the clubs. Pretty soon I’m gonna have a
problem the way Pete’s got one. Jesus-Christ-bananas.
Quit the clubs, quit the partying, good fuckin idea, and then he’s back again, kiss my

bender and how ya doin. This Thursday it’s the Free Street, and damned if there isn’t a beer in his hand, a joint in his pocket, and some old instrumental, sounds a little bit like
The Ventures, pouring from the juke. He can’t quite remember the name of this one, which
was popular before his time. Still, he knows it; he listens a lot to the Portland oldies station since he got divorced. Oldies are soothing. A lot of the new stuff… Laurie Sue knew and

liked a lot of it, but Beaver doesn’t get it.
The Free Street is mostly empty, maybe half a dozen guys at the bar and another half
a dozen shooting eightball in the back, Beaver and three of his hang-out buddies in one of
the booths, drinking draft Millers and cutting a greasy deck of cards to see who pays for
each round. What is that instrumental with all the burbling guitars? “Out of Limits’?

“Telstar’? Nah, there’s a synthesizer in “Telstar” and no synth in this. And who gives a shit? The other guys are talking about Jackson Browne, who played the Civic Center last
night and put on a kick-ass show, according to George Pelsen, who was there.
“I’ll tell you something else that was kick-ass,” George says, looking at them
impressively. He raises his undershot chin, showing them all a red mark on the side of his
neck. “You know what that is?”

“Hickey, ain’t it?” Kent Astor asks, a bit timidly.
“You’re fuckin-A,” George says. “I was hanging around the stage door after the
show, me and a bunch of other guys, hopin to get Jackson’s autograph. Or maybe, I don’t
know, David Lindley. He’s cool.”
Kent and Sean Robideau agree that Lindley is cool-not a guitar god, by any means
(Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits is a guitar god; and Angus Young of AC/DC; and-of

course-Clapton), but very cool just the same. Lindley has great licks; he has awesome dreads, as well. All down to his shoulders.
Beaver doesn’t join in the talk. All at once he wants to get out of here, out of this stale going-nowhere bar, and cop some fresh air. He knows where George is going with this, and it’s all a lie.
Her name wasn’t Chantay, you don’t know what her name was, she blew right past

you like you weren’t there, what would you be to a girl like her anyway, just another
working-class longhair in another working-class New England town, into the band bus
she went and out of your life. Your fuckin uninteresting life. The Chantays is the name of
the group we’re listening to, not the Mar-Kets or the BarKays but the Chantays, it’s
“Pipeline” by the Chantays and that thing on your neck isn’t a hickey it’s a razor burn.

He thinks this, then he hears crying. Not in the Free Street but in his mind. Long-gone crying. It goes right into your head, that crying, goes in like splinters of glass, and oh fuck, fuck me Freddy, somebody make him stop
crying
.
I was the one who made him stop
, Beaver thinks.
That was
me.
I was the one who
made him stop. I took him in my arms and sang to him
.
Meanwhile George Pelsen is telling them about how the stage door finally opened,

but it wasn’t Jackson Browne who came out, not David Lindlev, either; it was the trio of
chick singers, one named Randi, one named Susi, and one named Chantay. Yummy ladies,
oh so tall and tasty.
“
Man
,” Sean says, rolling his eyes. He’s a chubby little fellow whose sexual exploits
consist of occasional field-trips to Boston, where he eyes the strippers at the Foxy Lady and the waitresses at Hooters. “Oh man, fuckin
Chantay
.” He makes jacking-off gestures

in the air. At that, at least, Beav thinks, he looks like a pro.
“So I started talkin to them… to her, mostly, Chantay, and I ast her if she’d like to see
some of the Portland night-life. So we…”
The Beav takes a toothpick from his pocket and slides it into his mouth, timing the
rest out. All at once the toothpick is just what he wants. Not the beer in front of him, not

the joint in his pocket, certainly not George Pelsen’s empty kahoot about how he and the mythical Chantay got it on in the back of his pickup, thank God for that camper cap, when
George’s Ram is rockin, don’t come knockin.
It’s all puff and blow
, Beaver thinks, and suddenly he is desperately depressed, more

depressed than he has been since Laurie Sue packed her stuff and moved back to her mother’s. This is utterly unlike him, and suddenly the only thing he wants is to get the fuck out of here, fill his lungs with the cool, salt-tanged seaside air, and find a phone. He
wants to do that and then to call Jonesy or Henry, it doesn’t matter which, either one will
do; he wants to say
Hey man, what’s going on
and have one of them say back
Oh, you

know, Beav, SSDD. No bounce, no play
.
He gets up. “Hey, man,” George says. Beaver went to Westbrook junior College with
George, and then he seemed cool enough, but juco was many long beers ago. “Where you
goin?” “Take a leak,” Beaver says, rolling his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the
other.
“Well, you want to hurry your bad ass back, I’m just getting to the good part,”
George says, and Beaver thinks
crotchless panties

. Oh boy, today that old weird vibe is strong, maybe it’s the barometer or something.
Lowering his voice, George says, “When I got her skirt up-” “I know, she was wearin
crotchless panties,” Beaver says. He registers the look of surprise-alnost shock-in
George’s eyes but pays no attention. “I sure want to hear that part.”
He walks away, walks toward the men’s room with its yellow-pink smell of piss and

disinfectant, walks past it, walks past the women’s, walks past the door with OFFICE on
it, and escapes into the alley. The sky overhead is white and rainy, but the air is good. So
good. He breathes it in deep and thinks again.
No bounce no play
. He grins a little.
He walks for ten minutes, just chewing toothpicks and clearing his head. At some

point, he can’t remember exactly when, he tosses away the joint that has been in his pocket. And then he calls Henry from the pay phone in Joe’s Smoke Shop, up by
Monument Square. He’s expecting the answering machine-Henry is still in school-but
Henry is actually there, he picks up on the second ring.
“How you doing, man?” Beaver asks. “Oh, you know,” Henry says. “Same shit,

different day. How about you, Beav?” Beav closes his eyes. For a moment everything is
all right again; as right as it can be in such a piss-ache world, anyway. “About the same,
buddy,” he replies. “Just about the same.”
1993: PETE HELPS A LADY IN DISTRESS
Pete sits behind his desk just off the showroom of Macdonald Motors in Bridgton,
twirling his keychain. The fob consists of four enameled blue letters: NASA.

Dreams age faster than dreamers, that is a fact of life Pete has discovered as the years
pass. Yet the last ones often die surprisingly hard, screaming in low, miserable voices at
the back of the brain. It’s been a long time since Pete slept in a bedroom papered with pictures of Apollo and Saturn rockets and astronauts and space-walks (EVAs, to those in
the know) and space capsules with their shields smoked and fused by the fabulous heat of

re-entry and LEMs and Voyagers and one photograph of a shiny disc over Interstate 80, people standing in the breakdown lane and looking up with their hands shielding their eyes, the photo’s caption reading THIS OBJECT, PHOTOGRAPHED NEAR ARVADA,
COLORADO IN 1971, HAS NEVER BEEN EXPLAINED. IT IS A GENUINE UFO.
A long time.
Yet he still spent one of his two weeks of vacation this year in Washington DC, where

he went to the Smithsonian every day and spent nearly all of his time wandering among
the displays with a wondering grin on his face. And most of that time he spent looking at
the moon rocks and thinking,
Those rocks came from a place where the skies are always
black and the silence is everlasting. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took twenty
kilograms of another world and now here it is.

And here he is, sitting behind his desk on a day when he hasn’t sold a single car (people don’t like to buy cars when it’s raining, and it has been drizzling in Pete’s part of
the world ever since first light), twirling his NASA key-chain and looking up at the clock.
Time moves slowly in the afternoons, ever more slowly as the hour of five approaches. At
five it will be time for that first beer. Not before five; no way. You drank during the day,

maybe you had to look at how much you were drinking, because that’s what alcoholics did. But if you could wait… just twirl your keychain and wait…
As well as that first beer of the day, Pete is waiting for November. Going to
Washington in April had been good, and the moon rocks had been stunning (they still stun
him, every time he thinks about them), but he had been alone. Being alone wasn’t so good.

In November, when he takes his other week, he’ll be with Henry and Jonesy and the Beav.
Then
he’ll allow himself to drink during the day. When you’re off in the woods, hunting with your friends, it’s all right to drink during the day. It’s practically a tradition. It-The door opens and a good-looking brunette comes in. About five-ten (and Pete likes
them tall), maybe thirty. She glances around at the showroom models (the new

Thunderbird, in dark burgundy, is the pick of the litter, although the Explorer isn’t bad),
but not as if she has any interest in buying. Then she spots Pete and walks toward him.
Pete gets up, dropping his NASA keychain on his desk-blotter, and meets her at the
door of his office. He’s wearing his best professional smile by now-two hundred watts, baby, you better believe it-and has his hand outstretched. Her grip is cool and firm, but she’s distracted, upset.

“This probably isn’t going to work,” she says. “Now, you never want to start that way
with a car salesman,” Pete says. “We love a challenge. I’m Pete Moore.”
“Hello,” she says, but doesn’t give her name, which is Trish. “I have an appointment

in Fryeburg in Just-” She glances at the clock which Pete watches so closely during the slow afternoon hours. “-in just forty-five minutes. It’s with a client who wants to buy a house, and I think I have the right one, there’s a sizeable commission involved, and…”
Her eyes are now brimming with tears and she has to swallow to get rid of the thickness
creeping into her voice. “… and I’ve lost my goddam
keys
! My goddam
car

keys!” She opens her purse and rummages in it.
“But I have my registration… plus some other papers… there are all sorts of
numbers, and I thought maybe, just maybe you could make me a new set and I could be on
my way. This sale could make my year, Mr…” She has forgotten. He isn’t offended.
Moore is almost as common as Smith or Jones. Besides, she’s upset. Losing your keys will
do that. He’s seen it a hundred times.
“Moore. But I answer just as well to Pete.”

“Can you help me, Mr Moore? Or is there someone in the service department who
can?”
Old Johnny Damon’s back there and he’d be happy to help her, but she wouldn’t
make her appointment in Fryeburg, that’s for sure.
“We can get you new car keys, but it’s liable to take at least twenty-four hours and
maybe more like forty-eight,” he says.
She looks at him from her brimming eyes, which are a velvety brown, and lets out a
dismayed cry. “Damn it!
Damn
it!”

An odd thought comes to Pete then: she looks like a girl he knew a long time ago.
Not well, they hadn’t known her well, but well enough to save her life. Josie Rinkenhauer,
her name had been.
“I
knew
it!” Trish says, no longer trying to keep that husky thickness out of her voice.
“Oh boy, I just
knew
it!” She turns away from him, now beginning to cry in earnest.
Pete walks after her and takes her gently by the shoulder. “Wait, Trish. Wait just a minute.”

That’s a slip, saying her name when she hasn’t given it to him, but she’s too upset to
realize they haven’t been properly introduced, so it’s okay.
“Where did you come from?” he asks. “I mean, you’re not from Bridgton, are you?”
“No,” she says. “Our office is in Westbrook. Dennison Real Estate. We’re the ones
with the lighthouse?”
Pete nods as if this means something to him.
“I came from there. Only I stopped at the Bridgton Pharmacy for some aspirin

because I always get a headache before a big presentation… it’s the stress, and oh boy, it’s
pounding like a hammer now…” Pete nods sympathetically. He knows about headaches.
Of course most of his are caused by beer rather than stress, but he knows about them, all
right. “I had some time to kill, so I also went into the little store next to the pharmacy for a
coffee… the caffeine, you know, when you have a headache the caffeine can help…”

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