Only a whisper, but Pete heard. He looked up, his face haggard and speckled with fungus-what Mr Gray called byrus. When Pete licked his lips, Jonesy saw it was growing on his tongue, too. Outer-space thrush. Once Pete Moore had wanted to be an astronaut. Once he had stood up to some bigger boys on behalf of someone who was smaller and weaker. He deserved better than this.
No bounce, no play.
Pete almost smiled. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking. This time he made it to his feet and plodded slowly toward the snowmobile.
In the deserted office to which he had been exiled, Jonesy saw the doorknob be in to twist back and forth. What does that mean? Mr Gray asked. What is no bounce, no play? What are you doing in there? Come back to the hospital and watch TV with me, why don’t you? How did you get in there to begin with?
It was Jonesy’s turn not to answer, and he did so with great pleasure.
I’ll get in, Mr Gray said. When I’m ready, I’ll come in. You may think you can lock the door against me, but you’re wrong.
Jonesy kept silent-there was no need to provoke the creature currently in charge of his body-but he didn’t think he was wrong. On the other hand, he didn’t dare leave; he would be swallowed up if he tried. He was just a kernel in a cloud, a bit of undigested food in an alien gut. Best to keep a low profile.
9
Pete got on behind Mr Gray and put his arms around Jonesy’s waist. Ten minutes later they motored past the over-turned Scout, and Jonesy understood what had made Pete and Henry so late back from the store. It was a wonder either of them had lived through it. He would have liked a longer look, but Mr Gray didn’t slow, just went on with the Cat’s skis bouncing up and down, riding the crown of the road between the two snow-filled ruts.
Three miles or so beyond the Scout, they topped a rise and Jonesy saw a brilliant hall of yellow-white light hanging less than a foot above the road, waiting for them. It looked as hot as the flame of a welder’s torch, but obviously wasn’t; the snow just inches below it hadn’t melted. It was almost certainly one of the lights he and Beaver had seen playing in the clouds, above the fleeing animals coming out of The Gulch.
That’s right, Mr Gray said. What your people call a flashlight. This is one of the last. Perhaps the very last.
Jonesy said nothing, only stared out the window of his office cell. He could feel Pete’s arms around his waist, holding on mostly by instinct now, the way a nearly beaten fighter clinches with his opponent to keep from hitting the canvas. The head lying against his back was as heavy as a stone. Pete was a culture-medium for the byrus now, and the byrus liked him fine; the world was cold and Pete was warm. Mr Gray apparently wanted him for something-what, Jonesy had no idea.
The flashlight led them another half a mile or so up the road, then veered into the woods. It slipped in between two big pines and then waited for them, spinning just above the snow. Jonesy heard Mr Gray instruct Pete to hold on as tight as he could.
The Arctic Cat bounced and growled its way up a slight incline, its skis digging into the snow, then splashing it aside. Once they were actually under the forest canopy there was less of it, in some places none at all. In those spots the snowmobile’s tread clattered angrily on the frozen ground, which was mostly rock beneath a thin cover of soil and fallen needles. They were headed north now.
Ten minutes later they bounced hard over a jut of granite and Pete went tumbling off the back with a low cry. Mr Gray let go of the snowmobile’s throttle. The flashlight also stopped, spinning above the snow. Jonesy thought it looked dimmer now.
“Get up,” Mr Gray said. He was turned around on the saddle, looking back at Pete.
“I can’t,” Pete said. “I’m done, fella. I-”
Then Pete began to howl and thrash on the ground again, feet kicking, his hands-one burned, the other mangled-jerking.
Stop it! Jonesy yelled. You’re killing him!
Mr Gray paid him no attention whatever, just remained as he was, swung around at the waist and watching Pete with deadly, emotionless patience as the byrus tightened and pulled at Pete’s flesh. At last Jonesy felt Mr Gray let up. Pete got groggily to his feet. There was a fresh cut on one cheek, and already it was swarming with byrus. His eyes were dazed and exhausted and swimming with tears. He got back on the snowmobile and his hands crept around Jonesy’s waist once more.
Hold onto my coat, Jonesy whispered, and as Mr Gray turned forward and clapped the snowmobile back into gear, he felt Pete take hold. No bounce, no play, right?
No play, Pete agreed, but faintly.
Mr Gray paid no attention this time. The flashlight, less bright but still speedy, started north again… or at least in a direction Jonesy assumed was north. As the snowmobile wove its way around trees, thick clumps of bushes, and knobs of rock, his sense of direction pretty much gave up. From behind them came a steady crackle of gunfire. It sounded as though someone was having a turkey-shoot.
10
About an hour later, Jonesy finally discovered why Mr Gray had bothered with Pete. That was when the flashlight, which had dimmed to an anemic shadow of its original self, finally went out. It disappeared with a soft plosive sound-as if someone had popped a paper sack. Some leftover bit of detritus fell to the ground.
They were on a tree-lined ridge spang in the middle of the God-only-knows. Ahead of them was a snowy, forested valley; on its far side were eroded hills and brush-tangled brakes where not a single light shone. And to finish things off, the day was fading toward dusk.
Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Jonesy thought, but he sensed no dismay on Mr Gray’s part. Mr Gray stopped the snowmobile by releasing the throttle, and then simply sat there. North, Mr Gray said. Not to Jonesy. Pete answered out loud, his voice weary and slow. “How am I supposed to know? I can’t even see where the sun’s going down, for Christ’s sake. One of my eyes is all fucked up, too.”
Mr Gray turned Jonesy’s head and Jonesy saw that Pete’s left eye was gone. The lid had been shoved up high, giving him a half-assed look of surprise. Growing out of the socket was a small jungle of byrus. The longest strands hung down, tickling against Pete’s stubbly cheek. More strands twined through his thinning hair in lush red-gold streaks.
You know.
“Maybe I do,” Pete said. “And maybe I don’t want to point you there.”
Why not?
“Because I doubt if what you want is healthy for the rest of us, fuckface,” Pete said, and Jonesy felt an absurd sense of pride.
Jonesy saw the growth in Pete’s eyesocket twitch. Pete screamed and clutched at his face. For a moment-brief but far too long-Jonesy fully imagined the reddish-gold tendrils reaching from that defunct eye into Pete’s brain, where they spread like strong fingers clutching a gray sponge.
Go on, Pete, tell him! Jonesy cried. For Christ’s sake, tell him!
The byrus grew still again. Pete’s hand dropped from his face, which was now deathly pale where it wasn’t reddish-gold. “Where are you, Jonesy?” he asked. “Is there room for two?”
The short answer, of course, was no. Jonesy didn’t understand what had happened to him, but knew that his continued survival that last kernel of autonomy-somehow depended on his staying right where he was. If he so much as opened the door, he would be gone for good.
Pete nodded. “Didn’t think so,” he said, and then spoke to the other. “Just don’t hurt me anymore, fella.”
Mr Gray only sat, looking at Pete with Jonesy’s eyes and making no promises.
Pete sighed, then raised his scorched left hand and extended one finger. He closed his eyes and began to tick his finger back and forth, back and forth. And as he did it, Jonesy came close to understanding everything. What had that little girl’s name been? Rinkenhauer, wasn’t it? Yes. He couldn’t remember the first name, but a clumsy handle like Rinkenhauer was hard to forget. She had also gone to Mary M. Snowe, aka The Retard Academy, although by then Duddits had gone on to Vocational. And Pete? Pete had always had a funny trick of remembering things, but after Duddits-
The words came back to Jonesy as he crouched in his dirty little cell, looking out at the world which had been stolen from him… only they weren’t really words at all, only those open vowel sounds, so strangely beautiful: