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
* * *
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.
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