Dreamcatcher (62 page)

There was something between the seats, a box with two blinking amber lights. As Henry bent over it, curious, Owen Underhill snatched back the tarp hanging beside the driver's seat and flung himself into the
'Cat. He was breathing hard and smiling as he looked at the burning store.

“Be careful of that, brother,” he said. “Mind the buttons.”

Henry lifted the box, which was about the size of Duddits's beloved Scooby-Doo lunchbox. The buttons of which Owen had spoken were under the blinking lights. “What are they?”

Owen turned the ignition key and the Sno-Cat's hot engine rumbled into immediate life. The transmission ran off a high stick, which Owen jammed into gear. Owen was still smiling. In the bright light falling through the Sno-Cat's windshield, Henry could now see a reddish-orange thread of byrus growing beneath each of the man's eyes, like mascara. There was more in his brows.

“Too much light in this place,” he said. “We're gonna dial em down a little.” He turned the 'Cat in a surprisingly smooth circle; it was like being on a motorboat. Henry collapsed back against the seat, holding the box with the blinking lights on his lap. He felt that if he didn't walk again for five years, that would be about right.

Owen glanced at him as he drove the Sno-Cat on a diagonal toward the snowbank-enclosed ditch that was the Swanny Pond Road. “You did it,” he said. “I doubted that you could, I freely admit it, but you pulled the fucker off.”

“I told you—I'm a motivational master.”
Besides,
he sent,
most of them really are going to die anyway.

Doesn't matter. You gave them a chance. And now—

There was more shooting, but it wasn't until a bullet whined off the metal just above their heads that Henry realized it was aimed at them. There was a brisk clank as another slug ricocheted off one of the Sno-Cat's treads and Henry ducked . . . as if
that
would do any good.

Still smiling, Owen pointed a gloved hand off to his right. Henry peered in that direction as two more slugs ricocheted off the 'Cat's squat pillbox body. Henry cringed both times; Owen seemed not even to notice.

Henry saw a cluster of trailer-boxes, some with brand names like Sysco and Scott Paper on them. In front of the trailers was a colony of motor homes, and in front of the biggest, a Winnebago that looked to Henry like a mansion on wheels, were six or seven men, all firing at the Sno-Cat. Although the range was long, the wind high, and the snow still heavy, too many were hitting. Other men, some only partially dressed (one bruiser came sprinting through the snow displaying a bare chest that would have looked at home on a comic-book superhero) were joining the group. At its center stood a tall man with gray hair. Beside him was a stockier guy. As Henry watched, the skinny man raised his rifle and fired, seemingly without bothering to aim. There was a
spanng
sound and Henry sensed something pass right in front of his nose, a small wicked droning thing.

Owen actually laughed. “The skinny one with the gray hair is Kurtz. He's in charge, and can that fucker shoot.”

More bullets spanged off the 'Cat's treads, its body.
Henry sensed another of those buzzing, hustling presences in the cab, and suddenly the radio was silent. The distance between them and the shooters clustered around the Winnebago was getting longer, but it didn't seem to matter. As far as Henry was concerned,
all
those fuckers could shoot. It was only a matter of time before one of them took a hit . . . and yet Owen looked
happy.
It occurred to Henry that he had hooked up with someone even more suicidal than himself.

“The guy beside Kurtz is Freddy Johnson. Those Mouseketeers are all Kurtz's boys, the ones who were supposed to—whoops, look out!”

Another spang, another whining steel bee—between them, this time—and suddenly the knob on the transmission stick was gone. Owen burst out laughing. “Kurtz!” he shouted. “Bet you a nickel! Two years from mandatory retirement age and he still shoots like Annie Oakley!” He hammered a fist on the steering yoke. “But that's enough. Fun is fun and done is done. Turn out their lights, beautiful.”

“Huh?”

Still grinning, Owen jerked a thumb at the box with the blinking amber bulbs. The curved streaks of byrus under his eyes now looked like warpaint to Henry. “Push the buttons, bub. Push the buttons and yank down the shades.”

12

Suddenly—it was always sudden, always magical—the world fell away and Kurtz was in the zone. The scream
of the blizzard wind, the pelt of the snow, the howl of the siren, the beat of the buzzer—all gone. Kurtz lost his awareness of Freddy Johnson next to him and the other Imperial Valleys gathering around. He fixed on the departing Sno-Cat and nothing else. He could see Owen Underhill in the left seat, right through the steel shell of the cab he could see him, as if he, Abe Kurtz, were all at once equipped with Superman's X-ray vision. The distance was incredibly long, but it didn't matter. The next round he fired was going right into the back of Owen Underhill's treacherous, line-crossing head. He raised the rifle, sighted down—

Two explosions ripped the night, one of them close enough to hammer Kurtz and his men with the shockwave. A trailer-box with the words
INTEL INSIDE
printed on it rose into the air, turned over, and came down on Spago's, the cook-tent. “Holy Christ!” one of the men shouted.

Not all of the lights went out—a half hour wasn't long and Owen had had time to equip only two of the gennies with thermite charges (all the time muttering “Banbury Cross, Banbury Cross, ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross” under his breath), but suddenly the fleeing Sno-Cat was swallowed in moving fire-flecked shadows, and Kurtz dropped his rifle into the snow without discharging it.

“Fuck a duck,” he said tonelessly. “Cease firing. Cease firing, you humps. Quit it, praise Jesus. Inside. Every one of you but Freddy. Join hands and pray for God the Father Almighty to get our asses out of the sling they're in. Come here, Freddy. Step lively.”

The others, nearly a dozen, trooped up the steps to the Winnebago, looking uneasily at the burning generators, the blazing cook-tent (already the commissary-tent next door was catching; the infirmary and the morgue would be next). Half the pole lights in the compound were out.

Kurtz put his arm around Freddy Johnson's shoulders and walked him twenty paces into the blowing snow, which the wind was now lifting and carrying in veils that looked like mystic steam. Directly ahead of the two men, Gosselin's—what was left of it—was burning merry hell. The barn had already caught. Its shattered doors gaped.

“Freddy, do you love Jesus? Tell me the truth.”

Freddy had been through this before. It was a mantra. The boss was clearing his head.

“I love Him, boss.”

“Do you swear that's true?” Kurtz looking keenly. Looking through him, more than likely. Planning ahead, if such creatures of instinct could be said to plan. “As you face the eternal pit of hell for a lie?”

“I swear it's true.”

“You love Him a lot, do you?”

“Lots, boss.”

“More than the group? More than going in hot and getting the job done?” A pause. “More than you love me?”

Not questions you wanted to answer wrong if you wanted to go on living. Fortunately, not hard ones, either. “No, boss.”

“Telepathy gone, Freddy?”

“I had a touch of something, I don't know if it was telepathy, exactly, voices in my head—”

Kurtz was nodding. Red-gold flames the color of the Ripley fungus burst through the roof of the barn.

“—but that's gone.”

“Other men in the group?”

“Imperial Valley, you mean?” Freddy nodded toward the Winnebago.

“Who else would I mean, The Firehouse Five Plus Two? Yes, them!”

“They're clean, boss.”

“That's good, but it's also bad. Freddy, we need a couple of infected Americans. And when I say
we,
I mean you and I. I want Americans who are
crawling
with that red shit, understand me?”

“I do.” What Freddy didn't understand was why, but at the moment the why didn't matter. He could see Kurtz taking hold, visibly taking hold, and that was a relief. When Freddy needed to know, Kurtz would tell him. Freddy looked uneasily at the blazing store, the blazing barn, the blazing cook-tent. This situation was FUBAR.

Or maybe not. Not if Kurtz was taking hold.

“Goddam telepathy's responsible for most of this,” Kurtz mused, “but it wasn't telepathy that
triggered
it. That was pure human fuckery, praise Jesus. Who betrayed Jesus, Freddy? Who gave Him that traitor's kiss?”

Freddy had read his Bible, mostly because Kurtz had given it to him. “Judas Iscariot, boss.”

Kurtz was nodding rapidly. His eyes were moving
everywhere, tabulating the destruction, calculating the response, which would be severely limited by the storm. “That's right, buck. Judas betrayed Jesus and Owen Philip Underhill betrayed us. Judas got thirty pieces of silver. Not much of a payday, do you think?”

“No, boss.” He delivered this reply partially turned away from Kurtz because something in the commissary had exploded. A steel hand clutched his shoulder and turned him back. Kurtz's eyes were wide and burning. The white lashes made them look like ghost-eyes.

“Look at me when I talk to you,” Kurtz said. “Listen to me when I speak to you.” Kurtz put his free hand on the nine-millimeter's grip. “Or I'll blow your guts out on the snow. I have had a hard night here and
don't you make it any worse, you hound, do you understand me? Catch the old drift-ola?
”

Johnson was a man of good physical courage, but now he felt something turn over in his stomach and try to crawl away. “Yes, boss, I'm sorry.”

“Accepted. God loves and forgives, we must do the same. I don't know how many pieces of silver Owen got, but I can tell you this: we're going to catch him, we're going to spread his cheeks, and we are going to tear that boy a splendid new asshole. Are you with me?”

“Yes.” There was nothing Freddy wanted more than to find the person who had turned his previously ordered world upside down and fuck that person over. “How much of this do you reckon Owen's responsible for, boss?”

“Enough for me,” Kurtz said serenely. “I have an idea I'm finally going down, Freddy—”

“No, boss.”

“—but I won't go down alone.” Arm still around Freddy's shoulders, Kurtz began to lead his new second back toward the 'Bago. Squat, dying pillars of fire marked the burning gennies. Underhill had done that; one of Kurtz's own boys. Freddy still found it difficult to believe, but he had begun to get steamed, just the same.
How many pieces of silver, Owen? How many did you get, you traitor?

Kurtz stopped at the foot of the steps.

“Which one of those fellows do you like to command a search-and-destroy mission, Freddy?”

“Gallagher, boss.”

“Kate?”

“That's right.”

“Is she a cannibal, Freddy? The person we leave in charge has to be a cannibal.”

“She eats em raw with slaw, boss.”

“Okay,” Kurtz said. “Because this is going to be dirty. I need two Ripley Positives, hopefully Blue Boy guys. The rest of them . . . like the animals, Freddy. Imperial Valley is now a search-and-destroy mission. Gallagher and the rest are to hunt down as many as they can. Soldiers and civilians alike. From now until 1200 hours tomorrow, it's feeding time. After that, it's every man for himself. Except for us, Freddy.” The firelight painted Kurtz's face with byrus, turned his eyes into weasel's eyes. “We're going to hunt down Owen Underhill and teach him to love the Lord.”

Kurtz bounded up the Winnebago's steps, sure as a mountain-goat on the packed and slippery snow. Freddy Johnson followed him.

13

The Sno-Cat plunged down the embankment to the Swanny Pond Road fast enough to make Henry's stomach roll over. It slued, then turned south. Owen worked the clutch and mangled the stick-shift, working the 'Cat up through the gears and into high. With the galaxies of snow flying at the windshield, Henry felt as if they were traveling at approximately mach one. He guessed it might actually be thirty-five miles an hour. That would get them away from Gosselin's, but he had an idea Jonesy was moving much faster.

Turnpike ahead?
Owen asked.
It is, isn't it?

Yes. About four miles.

We'll need to switch vehicles when we get there.

No one gets hurt if we can help it. And no one gets killed.

Henry . . . I don't know how to break it to you, but this isn't high-school basketball.

“No one gets hurt. No one gets killed. At least not when we're swapping vehicles. Agree to that or I'm rolling out this door right now.”

Owen glanced at him. “You would, too, wouldn't you? And goddam what your friend's got planned for the world.”

“My friend isn't responsible for any of this. He's been kidnapped.”

“All right. No one gets hurt when we swap over. If we can help it. And no one gets killed. Except maybe us. Now where are we going?”

Derry.

That's where he is? This last surviving alien?

I think so. In any case, I have a friend in Derry who can help us. He sees the line.

What line?

“Never mind,” Henry said, and thought:
It's complicated.

“What do you mean, complicated? And no bounce, no play—what's that?”

I'll tell you while we're driving south. If I can.

The Sno-Cat rolled toward the Interstate, a capsule preceded by the glare of its lights.