Dreamcatcher by Stephen King
He straightens up a little. "Ringing," he says to his friends, and immediately wishes he'd kept his mouth shut, because they lean in closer than ever. Pete's breath is fuckin awful, and Jonesy thinks, What do you do, Petesky? Brush em once a year, whether they need it or not?
The phone is picked up on the third ring. "Yes, hello?" It's Roberta, but sounding distracted and upset rather than cheery, as she usually does. Not that it's very hard to figure out why; in the background he can hear Duddits bawling. Jonesy knows that Alfie and Roberta don't feel that crying the way Jonesy and his friends do--they are grownups. But they are also his parents, they feel some of it, and he doubts if this has exactly been Mrs. Cavell's favorite morning.
Christ, how can it be so hot in here? What did they load that fuckin woodstove up with this morning, anyway? Plutonium?
"Come on, who is it?" Impatient, which is also completely unlike Mrs. Cavell. If being the mother of a special person like Duddits teaches you anything, she has told the boys on many occasions, it's patience. Not this morning, though. This morning she sounds almost pissed off, which is unthinkable. "If you're selling something, I can't talk to you. I'm busy right now, and . . ."
Duddits in the background, trumpeting and wailing. You're busy, all right, Jonesy thinks. He's been going on like that since dawn, and by now you must be just about out of your sneaker.
Henry throws an elbow into Jonesy's side and flicks a hand at him--Go on! Hurry up!--and although it hurts, the elbow is still a good thing. If she hangs up on him, Jonesy will have to deal with that bitch of an operator again.
"Miz Cavell--Roberta? It's me, Jonesy."
"Jonesy?" He senses her deep relief; she has wanted so badly for Duddie's friends to call that she half-believes she is imagining this. "Is it really you?"
"Yeah," he said. "Me and the other guys." He holds out the telephone.
"Hi, Mrs. Cavell," Henry says.
"Hey, what's up?" is Pete's contribution.
"Hi, beautiful," Beaver says with a goony grin. He has been more or less in love with Roberta from the day they met her.
Lamar Clarendon looks over at the sound of his son's voice, winces, then goes back to his contemplation of the Cheerios and Shredded Wheat. Go right ahead, Lamar told the Beav when Beaver said they wanted to call Duddits. Dunno why you'd want to talk to that meringue-head, but it's your buffalo nickel.
When Jonesy puts the phone back to his ear, Roberta Cavell is saying: "--get back to Derry? I thought you were hunting up in Kineo or someplace."
"We're still up here," Jonesy says. He looks around at his friends and is astounded to see they are hardly sweating at all--a slight sheen on Henry's forehead, a few beads on Pete's upper lip, and that's all. Totally Weirdsville. "We just thought . . . um . . . that we better call."
"You knew." Her voice was flat--not unfriendly but unquestioning.
"Um . . ." He pulls at his flannel shirt, fanning it against his chest. "Yeah."
There are a thousand questions most people would ask at this point, probably starting with How did you know? or What in God's name is wrong with him? but Roberta isn't most people, and she has already had the best part of a month to see how they are with her son. What she says is, "Hold on, Jonesy. I'll get him."
Jonesy waits. Far off he can still hear Duddits wailing and Roberta, softer. Talking to him. Cajoling him to the phone. Using what are now magic words in the Cavell household: Jonesy, Beaver, Pete, Henry. The blatting moves closer, and even over the phone Jonesy can feel it working its way into his head, a blunt knife that digs and gouges instead of cutting. Yowch. Duddits's crying makes Henry's elbow seem like a love-tap. Meanwhile, the old jungle-juice is rolling down his neck in rivers. His eyes fix on the two signs above the phone. PLEASE LIMIT ALL CALLS TO 5 MINS, reads one. PROFAINITY NOT TOLERIDED, reads the other. Beneath this someone has gouged Who the fuck says so. Then Duddits is on, those awful bellowing cries right there in his ear. Jonesy winces against them, but in spite of the pain it is impossible to be mad at Duds. Up here they are four, all together. Down there he is one, all alone, and what a strange one he is. God has hurt him and blessed him at the same time, it makes Jonesy giddy just to think of it.
"Duddits," he says. "Duddits, it's us. Jonesy . . ."
He hands the phone to Henry. "Hi, Duddits, it's Henry . . ."
Henry hands the phone to Pete. "Hi, Duds, it's Pete, stop crying now, it's all right . . ."
Pete hands the phone to Beaver, who looks around, then stretches the phone as far toward the corner as the cord will allow. Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece so the old men by the stove (not to mention his own old man, of course) won't hear him, he sings the first two lines of the lullaby. Then he falls quiet, listening. After a moment he flashes the rest of them a thumb-and-forefinger circle. Then he hands the phone back to Henry.
"Duds? Henry again. It was just a dream, Duddits. It wasn't real. Okay? It wasn't real and it's over. Just . . ." Henry listens. Jonesy takes the opportunity to strip off his flannel shirt. The tee-shirt beneath is soaked right through.
There are a billion things in the world Jonesy doesn't know--what kind of link he and his friends share with Duddits, for one--but he knows he can't stay in here in Gosselin's much longer. He feels like he's in the goddam stove, not just looking at it. Those old farts around the checkerboard must have ice in their bones.
Henry is nodding. "That's right, like a scary movie." He listens, frowning. "No, you didn't. None of us did. We didn't hurt him. We didn't hurt any of them."
And just like that--bingo--Jonesy knows they did. They didn't mean to, exactly, but they did. They were scared Richie would make good on his threat to get them . . . and so they got him first.
Pete is holding out his hand and Henry says, "Pete wants to talk to you, Dud."
He hands the phone to Pete and Pete is telling Duddits to just forget it, be chilly, Willy, they'll be home soon and they'll all play the game, they'll have fun, they'll have a fuckin roll, but in the meantime--
Jonesy raises his eyes and sees one of the signs over the phone has changed. The one on the left still says PLEASE LIMIT ALL CALLS TO 5 MINS, but the one on the right now says WHY NOT GO OUTSIDE IT'S COOLER. And that's a good idea, such a good idea. No reason not to, either--the Duddits situation is clearly under control.
But before he can make his move, Pete is holding the phone out to him and saying, "He wants to talk to you, Jonesy."
For a moment he almost bolts anyway, thinking to hell with Duddits, to hell with all of them. But these are his friends, together they all caught the same terrible dream, did something they didn't mean to do
(liar fuckin liar you meant it you did)
and their eyes hold him where he is in spite of the heat, which is now clamped around his chest like a suffocating pad. Their eyes insist that he's a part of this and mustn't leave while Duddits is still on the phone. It's not how you play the game.
It's our dream and it's not over yet, their eyes insist--Henry's most of all. It's been going on since the day we found him there behind Tracker Brothers, down on his knees and all but naked. He sees the line and now we see it, too. And although we may perceive it in different ways, part of us will always see the line. We'll see it until the day we die.
There's something else in their eyes, too, something that will haunt them, all unacknowledged, until the day they die, and cast its shadow over even their happiest days. The fear of what they did. What they did in the unremembered part of their shared dream.
That's what keeps him where he is and makes him take the telephone even though he is sweltering, roasting, fucking melting.
"Duddits," he says, and even his voice sounds hot. "It's really okay. I'm gonna let you talk to Henry again, it's super-hot in here and I have to get a breath of fresh--"
Duddits interrupts him, his voice strong and urgent. "Oh-oh-ow! Ohee, oh-oh-ow! Ay! Ay! Isser AY!"
They have always understood his gabble from the very first, and Jonesy understands it
Jonesy's mouth drops open. He looks past the heat-shimmering stove, down the aisle where Beaver's hung-over father is now making a listless examination of the canned beans, past Mrs. Gosselin at the old scrolled cash register, and out the front window. That window is dirty, and it's filled with signs advertising everything from Winston cigarettes and Moosehead Ale to church suppers and Fourth of July picnics that happened back when the peanut-farmer was still President . . . but there's still enough glass for him to look through and see the thing that's waiting for him outside. It's the thing that came up behind him while he was trying to hold the bathroom door closed, the thing that has snatched his body. A naked gray figure standing beside the Citgo pump on its toeless feet, staring at him with its black eyes. And Jonesy thinks: It's not how they really are, it's just the way we see them.
As if to emphasize this, Mr. Gray raises one of his hands and brings it down. From the tips of his three fingers, little specks of reddish-gold float upward like thistle.
Byrus, Jonesy thinks.
As if it were a magic word in a fairy-tale, everything freezes. Gosselin's Market becomes a still-life. Then the color drains out of it and it becomes a sepia-toned photograph. His friends are growing transparent and fading before his eyes. Only two things still seem real: the heavy black receiver of the pay phone, and the heat. The stifling heat.
"Ay UH!" Duddits cries into his ear. Jonesy hears a long, choking intake of breath which he remembers so well; it is Duddits readying himself to speak as clearly as he possibly can. "Ownzy! Ownzy, ake UH! Ake UH! Ake
2
up! Wake up! Jonesy, wake up!
Jonesy raised his head and for a moment could see nothing. His hair, heavy and sweat-clotted, hung in his eyes. He brushed it away, hoping for his own bedroom--either the one at Hole in the Wall, or, even better, the one back home in Brookline--but no such luck. He was still in the office at Tracker Brothers. He'd fallen asleep at the desk and had dreamed of how they'd called Duddits all those years ago. That had been real enough, but not the stuporous heat. If anything, Old Man Gosselin had always kept his place cold; he was chintzy that way. The heat had crept into his dream because it was hot in here, Christ, it had to be a hundred degrees, maybe a hundred and ten.
Furnace has gone nuts, he thought, and got up. Or maybe the place is on fire. Either way, I have to get out. Before I roast.
Jonesy went around the desk, barely registering the fact that the desk had changed, barely registering the feel of something brushing the top of his head as he hurried toward the door. He was reaching for the knob with one hand and the lock with the other when he remembered Duddits in the dream, telling him not to go out, Mr. Gray was out there waiting.
And he was. Right outside this door. Waiting in the storehouse of memories, to which he now had total access.
Jonesy spread his sweaty fingers on the wood of the door. His hair fell down over his eyes again, but he barely noticed. "Mr. Gray," he whispered. "Are you out there? You are, aren't you?"
No response, but Mr. Gray was, all right. He was standing with his hairless rudiment of a head cocked and his glass-black eyes fixed on the doorknob, waiting for it to turn. Waiting for Jonesy to come bursting out. And then--?
Goodbye annoying human thoughts. Goodbye distracting and disturbing human emotions.
Goodbye Jonesy.
"Mr. Gray, are you trying to smoke me out?"
Still no answer. Jonesy didn't need one. Mr. Gray had access to all the controls, didn't he? Including the ones that controlled his temperature. How high had he pushed it? Jonesy didn't know, but he knew it was still going up. The band around his chest was hotter and heavier than ever, and he could hardly breathe. His temples were pounding.
The window. What about the window?
Feeling a burst of hope, Jonesy turned in that direction, putting his back to the door. The window was dark now--so much for the eternal afternoon in October of 1978--and the driveway which ran up the side of Tracker Brothers was buried under shifting drifts of snow. Never, even as a child, had snow looked so inviting to Jonesy. He saw himself bursting through the window like Errol Flynn in some old pirate movie, saw himself charging into the snow and then throwing himself into it, bathing his burning face in its blessed white chill--
Yes, and then the feel of Mr. Gray's hands closing around his neck. Those hands had only three digits each, but they would be strong; they would choke the life out of him in no time. If he even cracked the window, tried to let in some of the cold night air, Mr. Gray would be in and battening on him like a vampire. Because that part of JonesyWorld wasn't safe. That part was conquered territory.
Hobson's choice. Fucked either way.
"Come out." Mr. Gray at last spoke through the door, and in Jonesy's own voice. "I'll make it quick. You don't want to roast in there . . . or do you?"
Jonesy suddenly saw the desk standing in front of the window, the desk that hadn't even been here when he first found himself in this room. Before he'd fallen asleep it had just been a plain wooden thing, the sort of bottom-of-the-line model you might buy at Office Depot if you were on a budget. At some point--he couldn't remember exactly when--it had gained a phone. Just a plain black phone, as utilitarian and undecorative as the desk itself.
Now, he saw, the desk was an oak rolltop, the twin of the one in his Brookline study. And the phone was a blue Trimline, like the one in his office at Jay. He wiped a palmful of piss-warm sweat off his forehead, and as he did it he saw what he had brushed with the top of his head.
It was the dreamcatcher.
The dreamcatcher from Hole in the Wall.
"Holy shit," he whispered. "I'm decorating the place."
Of course he was, why not? Didn't even prisoners on Death Row decorate their cells? And if he could add a desk and a dreamcatcher and a Trimline phone in his sleep, then maybe--
Jonesy closed his eyes and concentrated. He tried to call up an image of his study in Brookline. For a moment this gave him trouble, because a question intruded: if his memories were out there, how could he still have them in here? The answer, he realized, was probably simple. His memories were still in his head, where they had always been. The cartons in the storeroom were what Henry might call an externalization, his way of visualizing all the stuff to which Mr. Gray had access.
Never mind. Pay attention to what needs doing. The study in Brookline. See the study in Brookline.
"What are you doing?" Mr. Gray demanded. The smarmy self-confidence had left his voice. "What the doodlyfuck are you doing?"
Jonesy smiled a little at that--he couldn't help it--but he held onto his image. Not just the study, but one wall of the study . . . there by the door leading into the little half-bath . . . yes, there it was. The Honeywell thermostat. And what was he supposed to say? Was there a magic word, something like alakazam?
Yeah.
With his eyes still closed and a trace of a smile still on his sweat-streaming face, Jonesy whispered: "Duddits."
He opened his eyes and looked at the dusty, nondescript wall.
The thermostat was there.
3
"Stop it!" Mr. Gray shouted, and even as Jonesy crossed the room he was amazed by the familiarity of that voice; it was like listening to one of his own infrequent tantrums (the wild disorder of the kids' rooms was a likely flashpoint) on a tape recorder. "You just stop it! This has got to stop!"
"Kiss my bender, beautiful," Jonesy replied, and grinned. How many times had his kids wished they could say something like that to him, when he started quacking? Then a nasty thought occurred to him. He'd probably never see the inside of his Brookline duplex again, but if he did, it would be through eyes which now belonged to Mr. Gray. The cheek the kids kissed ("Eeu, scratchy, Daddy!" Misha would say) would now be Mr. Gray's cheek. The lips Carla kissed would likewise be Mr. Gray's. And in bed, when she gripped him and guided him into her--
Jonesy shivered, then reached for
"How are you doing that?" Mr. Gray shouted through the door. "Why doesn't your body incorporate the byrus? How can you be there at all?"
Jonesy burst out laughing. There was simply no way to hold it in.
"Stop that," Mr. Gray said, and now his voice was chilly. This was the voice Jonesy had used when he had given Carla his ultimatum: rehab or divorce, hon, you choose. "I can do more than just turn up the heat, you know. I can burn you out. Or make you blind yourself."
Jonesy remembered the pen going into Andy Janas's eye--that terrible thick popping sound--and winced. Yet he recognized a bluff when he heard one. You're the last and I'm your delivery-system, Jonesy thought. You won't beat the machinery up too much. Not until your mission's accomplished, anyhow.
He walked slowly back to the door, reminding himself to be wary . . . because, as Gollum had said of Bilbo Baggins, it was tricksy, precious, aye, very tricksy.
"Mr. Gray?" he asked softly.
No answer.
"Mr. Gray, what do you look like now? What do you look like when you're yourself? A little less gray and a little more pink? A couple more fingers on your hands? Little bit of hair on your head? Starting to get some toesies and some testes?"
No answer.
"Starting to look like me, Mr. Gray? To think like me? You don't like that, right? Or do you?"
Still no answer, and Jonesy realized Mr. Gray was gone. He turned and hurried across to the window, aware of even more changes: a Currier and Ives woodcut on one wall, a Van Gogh print on another--Marigolds, a Christmas gift from Henry--and on this desk the Magic 8-Ball he kept on his desk at home. Jonesy barely noticed these things. He wanted to see what Mr. Gray was up to, what had engaged his attention now.