Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

“I know,” McCarthy said. The color was fading out of his cheeks again, that leaden look coming back in. “I don’t even remember when I put it down, or-” There was a sudden low rasping noise, like a locust. Jonesy felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen, thinking it was something caught in the fireplace chimney. Then he realized it was

McCarthy. Jonesy had heard some loud farts in his time, some long ones, too, but nothing like this. It seemed to go on forever, although it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Then the smell hit.

McCarthy had picked up his spoon; now he dropped it back into his barely touched soup and raised his right hand to his blemished cheek in an almost girlish gesture of embarrassment. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry,” he said.

“Not a bit, more room out than there is in,” Beaver said, but that was just instinct running his mouth, instinct and the habits of a lifetime-Jonesy could see he was as shocked by that smell as Jonesy was himself It wasn’t the sulfurous rotten-egg odor that made you laugh and roll your eyes and wave your hand in front of your face, yelling Ah, Jesus, who cut the cheese? Nor one of those methane swamp-gas farts, either. It was the smell Jonesy had detected on McCarthy’s breath, only stronger-a mixture of ether and overripe bananas, like the starter-fluid you shot into your carburetor on a subzero morning.

“Oh dear, that’s awful,” McCarthy said. “I am so darned sorry.”

“It’s all right, really” Jonesy said, but his stomach had curled up into a ball, like something protecting itself from assault. He wouldn’t be finishing his own early lunch; no way in hell could he finish it. He wasn’t prissy about farts as a rule, but this one really reeked.

The Beav got up from the couch and opened a window, letting in a swirl of snow and a draft of blessedly fresh air. “Don’t you worry about it, partner… but that is pretty ripe. What the hell you been eatin? Woodchuck turds?”

“Bushes and moss and other stuff, I don’t know just what,” McCarthy said. “I was just so hungry, you know, I had to eat something, but I don’t know much about that sort of thing, never read any of those books by Euell Gibbons… and of course it was dark.” He said this last almost as if struck by an inspiration, and Jonesy looked up at Beaver, catching his eye to see if the Beav knew what Jonesy did-McCarthy was lying. McCarthy didn’t know what he’d eaten in the Woods, or if he had eaten anything at all. He just wanted to explain that ghastly unexpected frog’s croak. And the stench which had followed it.

The wind gusted again, a big, gaspy whoop that sent a fresh skein of snow in through the open window, but at least it was turning the air over, and thank God for that.

McCarthy leaned forward so suddenly he might have been propelled by a spring, and when he hung his head forward between his knees, Jonesy had a good idea of what was coming next; so long Navajo rug, it’s been good to know ya. The Beav clearly thought the same; he pulled back his legs, which had been splayed out before him, to keep them from being splattered.

But instead of vomit, what came out of McCarthy was a long, low buzz-the sound of a factory machine which has been put under severe strain. McCarthy’s eyes bulged from his face like glass marbles, and his cheeks were so taut that little crescents of shadow appeared under the comers of his eyes. It went on and on, a rumbling, rasping noise, and when it finally ceased, the genny out back seemed far too loud.

“I’ve heard some rm’ghty belches, but that’s the all-time blue ribbon winner,” Beav said. He spoke with quiet and sincere respect.

McCarthy leaned back against the couch, eyes closing, mouth downturned in what Jonesy took for embarrassment, pain, or both. And once again he could smell that aroma of bananas and ether, a fermenting active smell, like something which has just started to go over.

“Oh God, I am so sorry,” McCarthy said without opening his eyes. “I’ve been doing that all day, ever since light. And my stomach hurts again.” Jonesy and the Beav shared a silent, concerned look.

“You know what I think?” Beaver asked. “I think you need to lie down and take you a little sleep. You were probably awake all night, listening to that pesky bear and God knows what else. You’re tired out and stressed out and fuck-a-duck knows what else out. You just need some shuteye, a few hours and you’ll be right as the goddam rain.”

McCarthy looked at Beaver with such wretched gratitude that Jonesy felt a little ashamed to be seeing it. Although McCarthy’s complexion was still leaden, he had begun to break a sweat-great big beads that formed on his brow and temples, and then ran down his cheeks like clear oil. This in spite of the cold air now circulating in the room.

“You know,” he said, “I bet you’re right. I’m tired, that’s all it is. My stomach hurts, but that part’s just stress. And I was eating all sorts of things, bushes and just… gosh, oh dear, I don’t know… all sorts of things.” He scratched his cheek. “Is this darn thing on my face bad? Is it bleeding?”

“No,” Jonesy said. “Just red.”

“It’s a reaction,” McCarthy said dolefully. “I get the same thing from peanuts. I’ll lie down. That’s the ticket, all right.”

He got to his feet, then tottered. Beaver and Jonesy both reached for him, but McCarthy steadied on his feet before either of them could take hold. Jonesy could have sworn that what he had taken for a middle-aged potbelly was almost gone. Was it possible? Could the man have passed that much gas? He didn’t know. All he knew for sure was that it had been a mighty fart and an even mightier belch, the sort of thing you could yarn on for twenty years or more, starting off We used to go up to Beaver Clarendon’s camp the first week of hunting season every year, and one November-it was “01, the year of the big fall storm-this fella wandered into camp… Yes, it would make a good story, people would laugh about the big fart and the big burp, people always laughed at stories about farts and burps. He wouldn’t tell the part about how he had come within eight ounces of press on a Garand’s trigger of taking McCarthy’s life, though. No, he wouldn’t want to tell that part. Would he?

Pete and Henry were doubling, and so Beaver led McCarthy to the other downstairs bedroom, the one Jonesy had been using. The Beav shot him a little apologetic look, and Jonesy shrugged. It was the logical place, after all. Jonesy could double in with Beav tonight-Christ knew they’d done it enough as kids-and in truth, he wasn’t sure McCarthy could have managed the stairs, anyway. He liked the man’s sweaty, leaden look less and less.

Jonesy was the sort of man who made his bed and then buried it-books, papers, clothes, bags, assorted toiletries. He swept all this off as quick as he could, then turned back the coverlet. “You need to take a squirt, partner?” the Beav asked.

McCarthy shook his head. He seemed almost hypnotized by the clean blue sheet Jonesy had uncovered. Jonesy was once again struck by how glassy the man’s eyes were. Like the eyes of a stuffed trophy head. Suddenly and unbidden, he saw his living room back in Brookline, that upscale municipality next door to Boston. Braided rugs, early American furniture… and McCarthy’s head mounted over the fireplace. Bagged that one up in Maine, he would tell his guests at cocktail parties. Big bastard, dressed out at one-seventy.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the Beav was looking at him with something like alarm. “Twinge in the hip,” he said. “Sorry. Mr McCarthy-Rick-you’ll want to take off your sweater and pants. Boots too, of course.

McCarthy looked around at him like a man roused from a dream. “Sure,” he said. “You bet.”

“Need help?” Beaver asked.

“No, gosh no.” McCarthy looked alarmed or amused or both. “I’m not that far gone.”

“Then I’ll leave Jonesy to supervise.”

Beaver slipped out and McCarthy began to undress, starting by pulling his sweater off over his head. Beneath it he wore a red-and-black hunter’s shirt, and beneath that a thermal undershirt. And yes, there was less gut poking out the front of that shirt, Jonesy was sure of it.

Well… almost sure. Only an hour ago, he reminded himself, he had been sure McCarthy’s coat was the head of a deer.

McCarthy sat down in the chair beside the window to take off his shoes, and when he did there was another fart-not as long as the first one, but just as loud and hoarse. Neither of them commented on it, or the resulting smell, which was strong enough in the little room to make Jonesy’s eyes feel like watering.

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