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Kineo Town Manager: 'I Don't Know What They 26 page

'—and off we go.'

'Leaving Kurtz with a barnful of innocent civilians he plans to turn into crispy critters. Not to mention Blue Group. What's that, a couple-three hundred more?'

Owen, who had been full-time military since the age of nineteen and one of Kurtz's eraserheads for the last eight years, sent two hard words along the mental conduit the two of them had established: Acceptable losses.

Behind the dirty glass, the vague shape that was Henry Devlin stirred, then stood.

No, he sent back.

 

 

No? What do you mean, no?

No. That's what I mean.

Do you have a better idea?

And Owen realized, to his extreme horror, that Henry thought he did. Fragments of that idea — it would be far too generous to call it a plan — shot through Owen's mind like the brightly fragmented tail of a comet. It took his breath away. The cigarette dropped unnoticed from between his fingers and zipped away on the wind.

You're nuts.

No, I'm not. We need a diversion in order to get away, you already know that. This is a diversion.

They'll be killed anyway!

Some will. Maybe even most of them. But it's a chance. What chance will they have in a burning barn?

Out loud, Henry said: 'And there's Kurtz. If he's got a couple of hundred escapees to worry about — most of whom who'd be happy to tell the first reporters they came across that the panic—stricken U.S. government had sanctioned a My Lai massacre right here on American soil — he's going to be a lot less concerned about us.'

You don't know Abe Kurtz, Owen thought. You don't know about the Kurtz Line. Of course, neither had he. Not really. Not until today.

Yet Henry's proposal made a lunatic kind of sense. And it contained at least a measure of atonement. As this endless November fourteenth marched toward midnight and as odds of living until the end of the week grew longer, Owen was not surprised to find that the idea of atonement had its attractions.

'Henry.'

'Yes, Owen. I'm here.'

'I've always felt badly about what I did in the Rapeloews' house that day.'

'I know.'

'And yet I've done it again and again. How tucked up is that?' Henry, an excellent psychiatrist even after his thoughts had turned to suicide, said nothing. Fucked up was normal human behavior. Sad but true.

'All right,' Owen said at last. 'You can buy the house, but I'm going to furnish it. Deal?'

'Deal,' Henry replied at once.

'Can you really teach me that jamming technique? Because I think I may need it.'

'I'm pretty sure I can.'

'All right. Listen.' Owen talked for the next three minutes, sometimes out loud, sometimes mind to mind. The two men had reached a point where they no longer differentiated between the modes of communication; thoughts and words had become one.


 

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

DERRY

 

It's hot in Gosselin's — it's so hot! The sweat pops out on Jonesy's face almost immediately, and by the time the four of them get to the pay phone (which is near the woodstove, wouldn't you know it), it's rolling down his cheeks, and his armpits feel like jungle growth after a heavy rain . . . not that he has all that much growth there yet, not at fourteen. Don't you wish, as Pete likes to say.



So it's hot, and he's still partly in the grip of the dream, which hasn't faded the way bad dreams usually do (he can still smell gasoline and burning rubber, can still see Henry holding that moccasin . . . and the head, he can still see Richie Grenadeau's awful severed head), and then the operator makes things worse by being a bitch. When Jonesy gives her the Cavells' number, which they call frequently to ask if they can come over (Roberta and Alfie always say yes, but it is only polite to ask permission, they have all been taught that at home), the operator asks: 'Do your parents know you're calling long-distance?' The words come out not in a Yankee drawl but in the slightly Frenchified tones of someone who grew up in this part of the world, where Letourneau and Bissonette are more common than Smith or Jones. The tightwad French, Pete's Dad calls them. And now he's got one on the telephone, God help him.

'They let me make toll calls if I pay the charges,' Jonesy says. And boy, he should have known that he would end up being the one to actually make it. He rakes down the zipper of his jacket. God, but it's boiling in here! How those old geezers can sit around the stove like they're doing is more than Jonesy can understand. His own friends are pressing in close around him, which is probably understandable — they want to know how things go — but still, Jonesy wishes they would step back a little. Having them so close makes him feel even hotter.

'And if I were to call them, mon fils, your mère et père, d'ey say the same?'

'Sure,' Jonesy says. Sweat runs into one of his eyes, stinging, and he wipes it away like a tear. 'My father's at work, but my Mom should be home. Nine-four-nine, six-six-five-eight. Only I wish you'd make it quick, because—'

'I'll jus' ring on your party,' she says, sounding disappointed. Jonesy slips out of his coat, switching the phone from one ear to the other in order to accomplish this, and lets it puddle around his feet. The others are still wearing theirs; Beav, in fact, hasn't even unzipped his Fonzie Jacket. How they can stand it is beyond Jonesy. Even the smells are getting to him: Musterole and beans and floor—oil and coffee and brine from the pickle—barrel. Usually he likes the smells in Gosselin's, but today they make Jonesy feel like blowing chunks.

Connections click in his ear. So slow. His friends pushing in too close to the pay phone on the back wall, crowding him. Two or three aisles over, Lamar is looking fixedly at the cereal shelf and rubbing his forehead like a man with a severe headache. Considering how much beer he put away last night, Jonesy thinks, a headache would be natural. He's coming down with a headache himself, one that beer has nothing to do with, it's just so gosh-damn hot in h—

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 walling. 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 says. '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 now: Don't go out! Jonesy, don't go out! Gray! Gray! Mister GRAY!

Jonesy's mouth drops open. He looks past the heat-shimmering stove, down the aisle where Beaver's hungover 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

 

up! Wake up! Jonesy, ake 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 burned 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.

 

 

 

'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! 7'his has got to stop!'

'Kiss my bender, beautlful,' 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 the thermostat . . . which, he saw, was set to 120. The only one in the world that went so high, no doubt. He backed it half a turn to the left, not knowing what to expect, and was delighted to feel an immediate waft of cool air on his cheeks and brow. He turned his face gratefully up to catch the breeze more fully, and saw a heating/cooling grate set high in one wall. One more fresh touch.

'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.

 

 

 

For one thing, the interior of the truck had changed. Instead of the olive-drab plainness of Andy Janas's government-issue pickup (clipboard of papers and forms on the passenger side, squawking radio beneath the dash), he was now in a luxy Dodge Ram with a club cab, gray velour seats, and roughly as many controls as a Learjet. On the glove compartment was a sticker reading I ¤ my BORDER, COLLIE. The border collie in question was still present and accounted for, asleep in the passenger-side footwell with its tail curled neatly around it. It was a male named Lad. Jonesy sensed that he could access the name and the fate of Lad's master, but why would he want to? Somewhere north of their present position, Janas's Army truck was now off the road, and the driver of this one would be lying nearby. Jonesy had no idea why the dog had been spared.

Then Lad lifted his tail and farted, and Jonesy did.

 

 

 

He discovered that by looking out the Tracker Brothers' office window and concentrating, he could look out through his own eyes. The snow was coming down more heavily than ever, but like the Army truck, the Dodge was equipped with four-wheel drive, and it poked along steadily enough. Going the other way, north toward Jefferson Tract, was a chain of headlights set high off the road: Army convoy trucks. Then, ahead on this side, a reflectorized sign — white letters, green background — loomed out of the flying Snow. DERRY NEXT 5 EXITS.

The city plows had been out, and although there was hardly any traffic (there wouldn't have been much at this hour even on a clear night), the turnpike was in passable shape. Mr Gray increased the Ram's speed to forty miles an hour. They passed three exits Jonesy knew well from his childhood (KANSAS STREET, AIRPORT, UPMILE HILL/STRAWFORD PARK) then slowed.

Suddenly Jonesy thought he understood.

He looked at the boxes he'd dragged in here, most marked DUDDITS, a few marked DERRY. The latter ones he'd taken as an afterthought. Mr Gray thought he still had the memories he needed — the information he needed — but if Jonesy was right about where they were going (and it made perfect sense), Mr Gray was in for a surprise. Jonesy didn't know whether to be glad or afraid, and found he was both.

Here was a green sign reading EXIT 25 — WITCHAM STREET. His hand flicked on the Ram's turnsignal.

At the top of the ramp, he turned left onto Witcham, then left again, half a mile later, onto Carter Street. Carter went up at a steep angle, heading back toward Upmile Hill and Kansas Street on the other side of what had once been a high, wooded ridge and the site of a thriving Micmac Indian village. The street hadn't been plowed in several hours, but the four-wheel drive was up to the task. The Ram threaded its way among the snow-covered humps on either side — cars that had been street-parked in defiance of municipal snow-emergency regulations.

Halfway up Mr Gray turned again, this time onto an even narrower track called Carter Lookout. The Ram skidded, its rear end fishtailing. Lad looked up briefly, whined, then put his nose back down on the floormat as the tires took hold, biting into the snow and puffing the Ram the rest of the way up.

Jonesy stood at his window on the world, fascinated, waiting for Mr Gray to discover . . . well, to discover.

At first Mr Gray wasn't dismayed when the Ram's high beams showed nothing at the crest but more swirling snow. He was confident he'd see it in a few seconds, of course he would . . . just a few more seconds and he'd see the big white tower which stood here overlooking the drop to Kansas Street, the tower with the windows marching around it in a rising spiral. In just a few more seconds . . .

Except now there were no more seconds. The Ram had chewed its way to the top of what had once been called Standpipe Hill. Here Carter Lookout — and three or four other similar little lanes — ended in a large open circle. They had come to the highest, most open spot in Derry. The wind howled like a banshee, a steady fifty miles an hour with gusts up to seventy and even eighty. In the Ram's high beams, the snow flew horizontally, a storm of daggers.


Date: 2015-12-17; view: 648


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