Stephen King - Dreamcatcher

“Duddits, how are you making out?” Owen said, looking into the rearview mirror.

“I o-ay,” Duddits said, and immediately began to shiver. On his lap was his yellow lunchbox and the brown bag with his medicines in it… his medicines and that odd little string thing. Surrounding him was the voluminous blue duffel coat, yet inside it, he still shivered.

He’s going fast, Owen thought, as Henry began to swab his old friend’s face again.

The Humvee skidded on a slick patch, danced on the edge of disaster-a crash at seventy miles an hour would probably kill them all, and even if it didn’t, it would put paid to any final thin chance they might have of stopping Mr Gray-and then came back under control again.

Owen found his eyes drifting back to the paper bag, his mind going again to that string-thing.

Beaver sent to me. For my Christmas last week.

Trying to communicate now by telepathy was, Owen thought, like putting a message into a bottle and then tossing the bottle into the ocean. But he did it anyway, sending out a thought in what he hoped was Duddits’s direction: What do you call it, son?

Suddenly and unexpectedly, he saw a large space, combination living room, dining room, and kitchen. The mellow pine boards glowed with varnish. There was a Navajo rug on the floor and a tapestry on one wall-tiny Indian hunters surrounding a gray figure, the archetypal alien of a thousand supermarket tabloids. There was a fireplace, a stone chimney, an oak dining table. But what riveted Owen’s attention (it had to; it was at the center of the picture Duddits had sent him, and glowed with its own special light) was the string creation which hung from the center rafter. It was the Cadillac version of the one in Duddits’s medicine bag, woven in bright colors instead of drab white string, but otherwise the same. Owen’s eyes filled with tears. It was the most beautiful room in the world. He felt that way because Duddits felt that way. And Duddits felt that way because it was where his friends went, and he loved them.

“Dreamcatcher,” said the dying man in the back seat, and he pronounced the word perfectly.

Owen nodded. Dreamcatcher, yes.

It’s you, he sent, supposing that Henry was overhearing but not caring one way or the other. This message was for Duddits, strictly for Duddits. You’re the dreamcatcher, aren’t you? Their dreamcatcher. You always were.

In the mirror, Duddits smiled.

They passed a sign which read QUABBIN RESERVOIR 8 MILES NO FISHING NO SERVICES PICNIC AREA OPEN HIKING TRAILS OPEN PASS AT OWN RISK. There was more, but at eighty miles an hour, Henry had no time to read it.

“Any chance he’ll park and walk in?” Owen asked.

“Don’t even hope for it,” Henry said. “He’ll drive as far as he can. Maybe he’ll get stuck. That’s what you want to hope for. There’s a good chance it might happen. And he’s weak. He won’t be able to move fast.”

“What about you, Henry? Will you be able to move fast?”

Considering how stiff he was and how badly his legs ached, that was a fair question. “If there’s a chance,” he said, “I’ll go as hard as I can. In any case, there’s Duddits. I don’t think he’s going to be capable of a very strenuous hike.”

Any hike at all, he didn’t add.

“Kurtz and Freddy and Perlmutter, Henry. How far back are they?”

Henry considered this. He could feel Perlmutter clearly enough… and he could touch the ravening cannibal inside him, as well. It was like Mr Gray, only the weasel was living in a world made of bacon. The bacon was Archibald Perlmutter, once a captain in the United States Army. Henry didn’t like to go there. Too much pain. Too much hunger.

“Fifteen miles,” he said. “Maybe only twelve. But it doesn’t matter, Owen. We’re going to beat them. The only question is whether or not we’re going to catch Mr Gray. We’ll need some luck. Or some help.”

“And if we catch him, Henry. Are we still going to be heroes?”

Henry gave him a tired smile. “I guess we’ll have to try.”

Mr Gray drove the Subaru nearly three miles up East Street-muddy, rutted, and now covered with three inches of fresh snow-before crashing into a fault caused by a plugged culvert. The Subaru had fought its way gamely through several mires north of the Goodnough Dike, and had bottomed out in one place hard enough to tear off the muffler and most of the exhaust pipe, but this latest break in the road was too much. The car went forward nose-first into the crack and lodged on the pipe, unmuffled engine blatting stridently. Jonesy’s body was thrown forward and the seatbelt locked. His diaphragm clenched and he vomited helplessly onto the dashboard: nothing solid now, only bilious strings of saliva. For a moment the color ran out of the world and the rackety roar of the engine faded. He fought viciously for consciousness, afraid that if he passed out for even a moment, Jonesy might somehow be able to take control again.

The dog whined. Its eyes were still closed but its rear legs twitched spasmodically and its ears flicked. Its belly was distended, the skin rippling. Its moment was near.

A little at a time, color and reality began to return. Mr Gray took several deep breaths, coaxing this sick and unhappy body back to something resembling calm. How far was there still to go? He didn’t think it could be far now, but if the little car was really stuck, he would have to walk and the dog couldn’t. The dog must remain asleep, and it was already perilously close to waking again.

He caressed the sleep-centers of its rudimentary brain. He wiped at his slimy mouth as he did it. Part of his mind was aware of Jonesy, still in there, blind to the outside world but awaiting any chance to leap forward and sabotage his mission; and, incredibly, another part of his mind craved more food-craved bacon, the very stuff which had poisoned it.

Sleep, little friend. Speaking to the dog; speaking also to the byrum. And both listened. Lad ceased whining. His paws stopped twitching. The ripples running across the dog’s belly slowed… slowed… stopped. This calm wouldn’t last long, but for now all was well. As well as it could be.

Surrender, Dorothy.

“Shut up!” Mr Gray said. “Kiss my bender!” He put the Subaru in reverse and floored the accelerator. The motor howled, scaring birds up from the trees, but it was no good. The front wheels were caught firmly, and the back wheels were up, spinning in the air.

“ Fuck!” Mr Gray cried, and slanu-ned Jonesy’s fist down on the steering wheel. “ Jesus-Christ-bananas! Fuck me Freddy!”

He felt behind him for his pursuers and got nothing clear, only a sense of approach. Two groups of them, and the one that was closer had Duddits. Mr Gray feared Duddits, sensed that he was the one most responsible for how absurdly, infuriatingly difficult this job had become. If he could stay ahead of Duddits, all would end well. It would help to know how close Duddits was, but they were blocking him-Duddits, Jonesy, and the one called Henry. The three of them together made a force Mr Gray had never encountered before, and he was afraid.

“But I’m still enough ahead,” he told Jonesy, getting out. He slipped, uttered a Beaver-curse, then slammed the door shut. It was snowing again, great white flakes that filled the air like confetti and splashed against Jonesy’s cheeks. Mr Gray slogged around the back of the car, boots sliding and smooching in the mud. He paused for a moment to examine the corrugated silver back of the pipe rising from the bottom of the ditch which had trapped his car (he had also fallen victim in some degree to his host’s mostly useless but infernally sticky curiosity), then went on around to the passenger door. “I’m going to beat your asshole friends quite handily.”