Seven more miles, seven more miles, and all the animals are running, all the animals are headed for Disneyland. And when they get there they’ll form a conga line and sing “It’s a Small World After All.”
The steady, muted thud of his booted feet. The feel of his glasses bouncing up and down on the bridge of his nose. His breath coming out in balloons of cold vapor. But he felt warm now, felt good, those endorphins kicking in. Whatever was wrong with him, it was no shortage of those; he was suicidal but by no means dysthytmic.
That at least some of his problem-the physical and emotional emptiness that was like a near-whiteout in a blizzard-was physical, hormonal, he had no doubt. That the problem could be addressed if not entirely corrected by pills he himself had prescribed by the bushel… he had no doubt of that, either, But like Pete, who undoubtedly knew there was a rehab and years of AA meetings in his most plausible future, Henry did not want to be fixed, was somehow convinced that the fix would be a he, something that would lessen him.
He wondered if Pete had gone back for the beer, and knew the answer was probably yes. Henry would have suggested bringing it along if he’d thought of it, making such a risky return trip (risky for the woman as well as Pete himself) unnecessary, but he’d been pretty freaked out-and the beer hadn’t even crossed his mind. He bet it had crossed Pete’s, though. Could Pete make it roundtrip on that sprung knee? It was
possible, but Henry would not have bet on it. They’re back! the woman had screamed, looking up at the sky. They’re back! They’re back! Henry put his head down and jogged a little faster.
2
Six more miles, six more to Banbury Cross. Was it down to six yet, or was he being optimistic? Giving those old endorphins a little too much free rein? Well, so what if he was? Optimism couldn’t hurt at this point. The snow had almost stopped falling and the tide of animals had slackened, and that was also good-What wasn’t so good was the thoughts in his head, some of which seemed less and less like his own. Becky, for instance, who was Becky? The name had begun to resonate in his head, had become another part of the mantra. He supposed it was the woman he’d just avoided killing. Whose little girl are you? Becky, why I’m Becky, I’m pretty Becky Shue.
Except she hadn’t been pretty, not pretty at all. One heavyset smelly mama was what she’d been, and now she was in Pete Moore’s less than reliable care.
Six. Six. Six more miles to Banbury Cross.
Jogging steadily-as steadily as was possible, given the footing-and hearing strange voices in his head. Except only one of them was really strange, and that one wasn’t a voice at all but a kind of hum with a rhythmic beat
(whose little girl, whose little girl, pretty Becky Shue)
caught in it. The rest were voices he knew, or voices his friends knew. One was a voice Jonesy had told him about, a voice he’d heard after his accident and associated with all his pain: Please stop, I can’t stand it, give me a shot, where’s Marcy.
He heard Beaver’s voice: Go look in the chamber pot.
Jonesy, answering: Why don’t we just knock on the bathroom door and ask him how he is?
A stranger’s voice saying that if he could just do a number two he’d be okay…
… only he was no stranger, he was Rick, pretty Becky’s friend Rick. Rick what? McCarthy? McKinley? McKeen? Henry wasn’t sure, but he leaned toward McCarthy, like Kevin McCarthy in that old horror movie about the pods from space that made themselves look like people. One of Jonesy’s raves. Get a few drinks in him and mention that movie and Jonesy would respond
with the key line at once: “They’re here! They’re here!”
The woman, looking up at the sky and screaming They’re back, they’re back.
Dear Christ, there’d been nothing like this since they were kids and this was worse, like picking up a power-line filled with voices instead of electricity.
All those patients over the years, complaining of voices in their heads. And Henry, the big psychiatrist (Young Mr God, one state hospital patient called him back in the early days), had nodded as if he knew what they were talking about. Had in fact believed he did know what they were talking about. But maybe only now did he really know.
Voices. Listening to them so hard he missed the whup-whup-whup of the helicopter passing overhead, a dark rushing shark-shape barely obscured by the bottoms of the clouds. Then the voices began to fade as radio signals from faraway places do when daylight comes and the atmosphere once more begins to thicken. At last there was only the voice of his own thoughts, insisting that something terrible had happened or was about to happen at Hole in the Wall; that something equally terrible was about to happen or had happened back there at the Scout or the loggers” shelter.
Five more miles. Five more miles.
In an effort to turn his mind away from his friend behind and his friends ahead, or what might be happening all around him, he let his mind go to where he knew Pete’s mind had already gone: to 1978, and Tracker Brothers, and to Duddits. How Duddits Cavell could have anything to do with this fuckarow Henry didn’t understand, but they had all been thinking about him, and Henry didn’t even need that old mental connection to know it. Pete had mentioned Duds while they were dragging the woman to the loggers” shelter on that piece of tarp, Beaver had been talking about Duddits Just the other day when Henry and the Beav had been in the woods together-the day Henry had tagged his deer, that had been, The Beav reminiscing about how the four of them had taken Duddits Christmas shopping in Bangor one year. just after Jonesy had gotten his license that was; Jonesy would have driven anyone anywhere that winter. The Beav laughing about how Duddits had worried Santa Claus wasn’t real, and all four of them-big high-school galoots by then, thinking they had the world by the tail-working to reconvince Duddits that Santa was a true thing, the real deal. Which of course they’d done. And Jonesy had called Henry from Brookline Just last month, drunk (drunkenness was much rarer for Jonesy, especially since his accident, than it was for Pete, and it was the only maudlin call Henry had ever gotten from the man), saying that he’d never done anything in his life that was as good, as plain and simple baldass fine, as what they had done for poor old Duddits Cavell back in 1978. That was our finest hour, Jonesy had said on the phone, and with a nasty jolt, Henry realized he had told Pete exactly the same thing. Duddits, man. Fucking Duds.
Five more miles… or maybe four. Five more miles… or maybe four.
They had been going to see a picture of a girl’s pussy, the picture supposedly tacked up on the bulletin board of some deserted office. Henry couldn’t remember the girl’s name, not after all these years, only that she’d been that prick Grenadeau’s girlfriend and the 1978 Homecoming Queen at Derry High. Those things had made the prospect of seeing her pussy especially interesting. And then, just as they got to the driveway, they had seen a discarded red-and-white Derry Tigers shirt. And a little way down the driveway there had been something else.
I hate that fuckin show, they never change their clothes, Pete had said, and Henry opened his mouth to reply, only before he could…
“The kiddo screamed,” Henry said. He slipped in the snow, tottered for a moment, then ran on again, remembering that October day under that white sky. He ran on remembering Duddits. How Duddits had screamed and changed all their lives. For the better, they had always assumed, but now Henry wondered.
Right now he wondered very much.
3
When they get to the driveway-not much of a driveway, weeds are growing even in the gravelly wheelruts now-Beaver is in the lead. Beaver is, indeed, almost foaming at the jaws. Henry guesses that Pete is nearly as wrought-up, but Pete is holding it in better, even though he’s a year younger. Beaver is… what’s the word? Agog. Henry almost laughs at the aptness of it, and then the Beav stops so suddenly Pete almost runs into him.
“Hey!” Beaver says. “Fuck me Freddy! Some kid’s shirt!”
It is indeed. Red and white, and not old and dirty, as if it had been there a thousand years. In fact, it looks almost new.
“Shirt, schmirt, who gives a shit?” Jonesy wants to know.