Dreamcatcher

by Stephen King

At least this part is real, he thought. This part is outside the dreamcatcher.

What brought him back was pain. Not in his throat, that was gone and he could breathe again—he could hear the air going in and out of him in great dry gasps. No, this pain was an old acquaintance. It was in his hip. It caught him and swung him back into the world around its swollen, howling axis, winding him up like a tether-ball on a post. There was concrete under his knees, his hands were full of fur, and he heard an inhuman chittering sound. At least this part is real, he thought. This part is outside the dreamcatcher.

Lying on the cold, leaf-littered floor, Jonesy shook his head. “I’m back to the standard five senses, I’m afraid. ESP’s all gone. The Greeks may come bearing gifts, but they’re Indian givers.” He laughed. “Jesus, I could lose my job for a crack like that. Sure you don’t want to just shoot me?”

The first bullet took him in the belly, knocking him backward and blowing the back of his coat out in a bell-shape. He pumped his feet, trying to stay upright, also trying to hang onto the MP5. There was no pain, just a feeling of having been sucker-punched by a large boxing glove on the fist of a mean opponent. The second round shaved the side of his head, producing a burn-and-sting like rubbing alcohol poured into an open wound. The third shot hit him high up on the right side of the chest and that was Katie bar the door; he lost both his feet and the carbine.

That’s an eagle, Owen thought.

There was another scream from somewhere out over the Reservoir, perhaps from one of the islands that were actually hills poking up from a purposely drowned landscape.

There was another scream from somewhere out over the Reservoir, perhaps from one of the islands that were actually hills poking up from a purposely drowned landscape. “That’s an eagle,” Kurtz said, and patted Owen’s shoulder. “Count yourself lucky, laddie. God sent you a warbird to sing you to—”

Kurtz’s head exploded in a spray of blood and brains and bone.

Kurtz’s head exploded in a spray of blood and brains and bone. Owen saw one final expression in the man’s blue, white-lashed eyes: amazed disbelief. For a moment Kurtz remained on his knees, then toppled forward on what remained of his face. Behind him, Freddy Johnson stood with his carbine still raised and smoke drifting from the muzzle. Freddy, Owen tried to say. No sound came out, but Freddy must have read his lips. He nodded. “Didn’t want to, but the bastard was going to do it to me. Didn’t have to read his mind to know that. Not after all these years.” Finish it, Owen tried to say. Freddy nodded again. Perhaps there was a vestige of that goddam telepathy left inside Freddy, after all. Owen was fading. Tired and fading. Goodnight, sweet ladies, goodnight, David, goodnight, Chet. Goodnight, sweet prince. He lay back on the snow and it was like falling back into a bed stuffed with the softest down. From somewhere, faint and far, he heard the eagle scream again. They had invaded its territory, disturbed its snowy autumn peace, but soon they would be gone. The eagle would have the Reservoir to itself again. We were heroes, Owen thought. Damned if we weren’t. Fuck your hat, Kurtz, we were h— He never heard the final shot.

There had been more firing; now there was silence. Henry sat in the back seat of the Humvee beside his dead friend, trying to decide what to do next.

There had been more firing; now there was silence. Henry sat in the back seat of the Humvee beside his dead friend, trying to decide what to do next. The chances that they had all killed each other seemed slim. The chances that the good guys—correction, the good guy—had taken out the bad ones seemed slimmer still.

And then they came. The byrum. Stupid spores in spaceships built by some other race. Is that what they were? All they were?”

And then they came. The byrum. Stupid spores in spaceships built by some other race. Is that what they were? All they were?” “I don’t think we’ll ever know. Only one question got answered last fall. For centuries we’ve looked up at the stars and asked ourselves if we’re alone in the universe. Well, now we know we’re not. Big whoop, huh? Gerritsen . . . do you remember Gerritsen?” Jonesy nodded. Of course he remembered Terry Gerritsen. Navy psychologist, in charge of the Wyoming debriefing team, always joking about how typical it was that Uncle Sammy would post him to a place where the nearest water was Lars Kilborn’s cow-wallow. Gerritsen and Henry had become close—if not quite friends, only because the situation didn’t quite allow it. Jonesy and Henry had been well-treated in Wyoming, but they hadn’t been guests. Still, Henry Devlin and Terry Gerritsen were professional colleagues, and such things made a difference. “Gerritsen started by assuming two questions had been answered: that we’re not alone in the universe and that we’re not the only intelligent beings in the universe. I labored hard to convince him that the second postulate was based on faulty logic, a house built on sand. I don’t think I entirely succeeded in getting through, but I may have planted a seed of doubt, at least. Whatever else the byrum may be, they’re not shipbuilders, and the race that built the ships may be gone. May in fact be byrum themselves by now.”

“Mr. Gray wasn’t stupid.”

“Mr. Gray wasn’t stupid.” “Not once he got inside your head, that much I agree with. Mr. Gray was you, Jonesy. He stole your emotions, your memories, your taste for bacon—” “I don’t eat it anymore.” “I’m not surprised. He also stole your basic personality. That included the subconscious kinks. Whatever there is in you that liked the Mario Bava horror movies and the Sergio Leone westerns, whatever it is that got off on the fear and the violence . . . man, Mr. Gray loved that shit. And why wouldn’t he? Those things are primitive survival tools. As the last of his kind in a hostile environment, he grabbed every damned tool he could lay his hands on.” “Bullshit.” Jonesy’s dislike of this idea was plain on his face. “It’s not. At Hole in the Wall, you saw what you expected to see, which was an X-Files–slash–Close Encounters of the Third Kind alien. You inhaled the byrus . . . I have no doubt there was at least that much physical contact . . . but you were completely immune to it. As, we now know, at least fifty percent of the human race seems to be. What you caught was an intention . . . a kind of blind imperative. Fuck, there’s no word for it, because there’s no word for them. But I think it got in because you believed it was there.”

Our wickedest motions, in a cosmic sense, come down to no more than counting someone’s crib, pegging it backward, then playing dumb about it.”

“If we’re Duddits, who sings to us? Who sings the lullaby, helps us go to sleep when we’re sad and scared?”

“All I’m saying is that, to a greater or lesser degree, we are a species living in the dreamcatcher.

“All I’m saying is that, to a greater or lesser degree, we are a species living in the dreamcatcher. I hate the way that sounds, phony transcendentalism, rings on the ear like pure tin, but we don’t have the right words for this part of it, either. We may have to invent some eventually, but in the meantime, dreamcatcher will have to do.” Henry turned in his seat. Jonesy did the same, shifting Noel a little bit on his lap. A dreamcatcher hung over the door to the cabin. Henry had brought it as a house present, and Jonesy had put it up at once, like a Catholic peasant nailing a crucifix to the door of his cottage during a time of vampires.

Henry took Noel from Jonesy. For a moment their hands touched, their eyes touched, and their minds touched—for a moment they saw the line. Henry smiled. Jonesy smiled back. Then they walked down the steps and across the lawn side by side, Jonesy limping, Henry with the sleeping child in his arms, and for that moment the only darkness was their shadows trailing behind them on the grass.