The rawhide lacings of the snowshoes had been chewed by so many mice that the shoes were little more than empty frames. After some sorting, however, he found a stubby pair of cross country skis that looked as if they might have been state-of-the-art around 1954 or so. The clamps were rusty, but when he pushed them with both thumbs, he was able to move them enough to take a reluctant grip on his boots.

There was a steady crackling sound coming from inside the cabin now. Henry laid one hand on the wood and felt the heat. There was a clutch of assorted ski-poles leaning under the eave, their handgrips buried in a dirty cobweb caul. Henry didn't like to touch that stuff - the memory of the eggs and the weasel-thing's wriggling spawn was still too fresh - but at least he had his gloves on. He brushed the cobwebs aside and sorted through the poles, moving quickly. He could now see sparks dancing inside the window beside his head.

He found a pair of poles that were only a little short for his lanky height and skied clumsily to the comer of the building. He felt like a Nazi snow-trooper in an Alistair MacLean film, with the old skis on his feet and Jonesy's rifle slung over his shoulder. As he turned around, the window beside which he had been standing blew out with a surprisingly loud report - as if someone had dropped a large glass bowl from a second-story window. Henry hunched his shoulders and felt pieces of glass spatter against his coat. A few landed in his hair. It occurred to him that if he had spent another twenty or thirty seconds sorting through the skis and poles, that exploding glass would have erased most of his face.

He looked up at the sky, spread his hands palms-out beside his cheeks like Al Jolson, and said, 'Somebody up there likes me! Hotcha!'

Flames were shooting through the window now, licking up under the eaves, and he could hear more stuff breaking inside as the heat-gradient zoomed. Lamar Clarendon's father's camp, originally built just after World War Two, now burning merry hell. It was a dream, surely.

Henry skied around the house, giving it a wide berth, watching as gouts of sparks rose from the chimney and swirled toward the low-bellied clouds. There was still a steady crackle of gunfire off to the east. Someone was bagging their limit, all right. Their limit and more. Then there was that explosion in the west - what in God's name had that been? No way of telling. If he got back to other people in one piece, perhaps they would tell him.

'If they don't just decide to bag me, too,' he said. His voice came out in a dry croak, and he realized he was all but dying of thirst. He bent down carefully (he hadn't been on skis of any type in ten years or more), scooped up a double handful of snow, and took a big mouthful. He let it melt and trickle down his throat. The feeling was heavenly. Henry Devlin, psychiatrist and onetime author of a paper about the Hemingway Solution, a man who had once been a virgin boy and who was now a tall and geeky fellow whose glasses always slid down to the tip of his nose, whose hair was going gray, whose friends were either dead, fled, or changed, this man stood in the open gate of a place to which he would never come again, stood on skis, stood eating snow like a kid eating a Sno-Cone at the Shrine Circus, stood and watched the last really good place in his life bum. The flames came through the cedar shingles. Melting snow turned to steaming water and ran hissing down the rusting gutters. Arms of fire popped in and out of the open door like enthusiastic hosts encouraging the newly arrived guests to hurry up, hurry up, dammit, get your asses in here before the whole place bums down. The mat of red-gold fuzz growing on the granite slab had crisped, lost its color, turned gray. 'Good,' Henry muttered under his breath. He was clenching his fists rhythmically on the grips of his ski-poles without being aware of it. 'Good, that's good.'

He stood that way for another fifteen minutes, and when he could bear it no more, he set his back to the flames and started back the way he had come.

7

There was no hustle left in him. He had twenty miles to go (22.2 to be exact to be exact, he told himself), and if he didn't pace himself he'd never make it. He stayed in the packed track of the snowmobile, and stopped to rest more frequently than he had going the other way.

Ah, but I was younger then, he thought with only slight irony.

Twice he checked his watch, forgetting that it was now Eastern Standard No Time At All in the Jefferson Tract. With the mat of clouds firmly in place overhead, all he knew for sure was that it was daytime. Afternoon, of course, but whether mid or late he couldn't tell. On another afternoon his appetite might have served as a gauge, but not today. Not after the thing on Jonesy's bed, and the eggs, and the hairs with their protuberant black eyes. Not after the foot sticking out of the bathtub. He felt that he would never eat again . . . and if he did, he would never eat anything with even a slight tinge of red. And mushrooms? No thanks.

Skiing, at least on cross-country stubs like these, was sort of like riding a bike, he discovered: you never forgot how to do it. He fell once going up the first hill, the skis slipping out from under him, but glided giddily down the other side with only a couple of wobbles and no spills. He guessed that the skis hadn't been waxed since the peanut-farmer was President, but if he stayed in the crimped and flattened track of the snowmobile, he should be all right. He marvelled at the stippling of animal tracks on the Deep Cut Road he had never seen a tenth as many. A few critters had gone walking along it, but most of the tracks only crossed it, west to east. The Deep Cut took a lazy northwest course, and west was clearly a point of the compass the local animal population wanted to avoid.

I'm on a journey, he told himself he told himself. Maybe someday someone will write an epic poem about it: 'Henry's journey'.

'Yeah,' he said. "'Time slowed and reality bent; on and on the eggman went."' He laughed at that, and in his dry throat the laughter turned to hacking coughs. He skied to the side of the snowmobile track, got another double handful of snow, and ate it down.

'Tasty and good for you!' he proclaimed. 'Snow! Not just for breakfast anymore!'

He looked up at the sky, and that was a mistake. For a moment he was overwhelmed with dizziness and thought he might go right over on his back. Then the vertigo retreated. The clouds overhead looked a little darker. Snow coming? Night coming? Both coming at the same time? His knees and ankles hurt from the steady shuffle-shuffle of the skis, and his arms hurt even worse from wielding the poles. The pads of muscle on his chest were the worst. He had already accepted as certainty that he wouldn't make it to Gosselin's before dark; now, standing here and eating more snow, it occurred to him that he might not make it at all.

He loosened the Red Sox tee-shirt he'd tied around his leg, and terror leaped in him when he saw a brilliant thread of scarlet against his bluejeans. His heart beat so hard that white dots appeared in his field of vision, flocking and pumping. He reached down to the red with shaking fingers.

What do you think you're going to do? he jeered at himself. he jeered at himself. Pick it off like it was a thread or a piece of lint? Pick it off like it was a thread or a piece of lint?

Which was exactly what he did did do, because it do, because it was was a thread: a red one from the shirt's printed logo. He dropped it and watched it float down to the snow. Then he retied the shirt around the tear in his jeans. For a man who had been considering all sorts of final options not four hours ago - the rope and the noose, the tub and the plastic bag, the bridge abutment and the ever-popular Hemingway Solution, known in some quarters as The Policeman's Farewell - he had been pretty goddamned scared there for a second or two. a thread: a red one from the shirt's printed logo. He dropped it and watched it float down to the snow. Then he retied the shirt around the tear in his jeans. For a man who had been considering all sorts of final options not four hours ago - the rope and the noose, the tub and the plastic bag, the bridge abutment and the ever-popular Hemingway Solution, known in some quarters as The Policeman's Farewell - he had been pretty goddamned scared there for a second or two.

Because I don't want to go like that, he told himself. Not eaten alive by . . . Not eaten alive by . . .

'By toadstools from Planet X,' he said.

The eggman got moving again.

8

The world shrank, as it always does when we approach exhaustion with our work not done, or even close to done. Henry's life was reduced to four simple, repetitive motions: the pump of his arms on the poles and the push of the skis in the snow. His aches and pains faded, at least for the time being, as he entered some other zone. He only remembered anything remotely like this happening once before, in high school, when he'd been the starting center on the Derry Tigers basketball team. During a crucial pre-playoff game, three of their four best players had somehow fouled out before three minutes of the third quarter were gone. Coach had left Henry in for the rest of the game - he didn't get a single blow except for time-outs and trips to the foul line. He made it, but by the time the final buzzer honked and put an end to the affair (the Tigers had lost gaudily), he had been floating in a kind of happy dream. Halfway down the corridor to the boys' locker room, his legs had given out and down he had gone, with a silly smile still on his face, while his teammates, clad in their red travelling unis, laughed and cheered and clapped and whistled.

No one to clap or whistle here; only the steady crackle-and-stutter of gunfire off to the east. Slowing a little bit now, maybe, but still heavy.

More ominous were the occasional gunshots from up ahead. Maybe from Gosselin's? It was impossible to tell.

He heard himself singing his least favorite Polling Stones song, 'Sympathy for the Devil' (Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed His fate, thank you very much, you've been a wonderful audience, good night), and made himself stop when lie realized the song had gotten all mixed up with memories of Jonesy in the hospital, Jonesy as he had looked last March, not just gaunt but somehow reduced, as if his essence had pulled itself in to form a protective shield around his surprised and outraged body. Jonesy had looked to Henry like someone who was probably going to die, and although he hadn't hadn't died, Henry realized now that it was around that time that his own thoughts of suicide had become really serious. To the rogues gallery of images that haunted him in the middle of the night blue-white milk running down his father's chin, Barry Newman's giant economy-sized buttocks jiggling as he flew from the office, Richie Grenadeau holding out a dog-turd to the weeping and nearly naked Duddits Cavell, telling him to eat it, he had to eat it - there was now the image of Jonesy's too-thin face and addled eyes, Jonesy who had been swopped into the street without a single rhyme or reason, Jonesy who looked all too ready to put on his boogie shoes and get out of town. They said he was in stable condition, but Henry had read critical in his old fi7iend's eyes. Sympathy for the devil? Please. There was no god, no devil, no sympathy. And once you realized that, you were in trouble. Your days as a viable, paying customer in the great funhouse that was Kulture Amerika were numbered. died, Henry realized now that it was around that time that his own thoughts of suicide had become really serious. To the rogues gallery of images that haunted him in the middle of the night blue-white milk running down his father's chin, Barry Newman's giant economy-sized buttocks jiggling as he flew from the office, Richie Grenadeau holding out a dog-turd to the weeping and nearly naked Duddits Cavell, telling him to eat it, he had to eat it - there was now the image of Jonesy's too-thin face and addled eyes, Jonesy who had been swopped into the street without a single rhyme or reason, Jonesy who looked all too ready to put on his boogie shoes and get out of town. They said he was in stable condition, but Henry had read critical in his old fi7iend's eyes. Sympathy for the devil? Please. There was no god, no devil, no sympathy. And once you realized that, you were in trouble. Your days as a viable, paying customer in the great funhouse that was Kulture Amerika were numbered.

He heard himself signing it again - But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game - But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game - and made himself stop it. What, then? Something really Undress. Mindless and pointless and tasty, something just oozing Kulture Amerika. How about that one by the Pointer Sisters? That was a good one. and made himself stop it. What, then? Something really Undress. Mindless and pointless and tasty, something just oozing Kulture Amerika. How about that one by the Pointer Sisters? That was a good one.

Looking down at his shuffling skis and the horizontal crimps left by the snowmobile treads, he began to sing it. Soon he was droning it over and over in a whispery, tuneless monotone while the sweat soaked through his shirts and clear mucus ran from his nose to freeze on his upper lip: 'I know we can make it, I know we can, we can work it out, yes we can-can yes we can yes we can . . .' 'I know we can make it, I know we can, we can work it out, yes we can-can yes we can yes we can . . .'

Better. Much better. All those yes we can-cans yes we can-cans were as Amerikan Kulture as a Ford pickup in a bowling alley parking lot, a lingerie sale at JC Penney, or a dead rock star in a bathtub. were as Amerikan Kulture as a Ford pickup in a bowling alley parking lot, a lingerie sale at JC Penney, or a dead rock star in a bathtub.

9

And so he eventually returned to the shelter where he had left Pete and the woman. Pete was gone. No sign of him at all.

The rusty tin roof of the lean-to had fallen, and Henry lifted it, peeking under it like a metal bedsheet to make sure Pete wasn't there. He wasn't, but the woman was. She had crawled or been moved from where she'd been when Henry set out for Hole in the Wall, and somewhere along the line she'd come down with a bad case of dead. Her clothes and face were covered with the rust-colored mold that had choked the cabin, but Henry noticed an interesting thing: while the growth on her was doing pretty well (especially in her nostrils and her visible eye, which had sprouted a jungle), the stuff which had spread out from her, outlining her body in a ragged sunburst, was in trouble. The fungus behind her, on the side blocked from the fire, had turned gray and stopped spreading. The stuff in front of her was doing a little better - it had had warmth, and ground to grow on which had been melted clear of snow - but the tips of the tendrils were turning the powdery gray of volcanic ash.

Henry was pretty sure it was dying.

So was the daylight - no question of that now. Henry dropped the rusty piece of corrugated tin back on the body of Becky Shue and on the embery remains of the fire. Then he looked at the track of the Cat again, wishing as he had back at the cabin that he had Natty Bumppo with him to explain what he was seeing. Or maybe Jonesy's good friend Hercule Poirot, he of the little gray cells.

The track swerved in toward the collapsed roof of the lean-to before continuing on northwest toward Gosselin's. There was a pressed-down area in the snow that almost made the shape of a human body. To either side, there were round divots in the snow.

'What do you say, Hercule?' Henry asked. 'What means this, mon ami? mon ami?' But Hercule said nothing.

Henry began to sing under his breath again and leaned closer to one of the round divots, unaware that he had left the Pointer Sisters behind and switched back to the Rolling Stones.

There was enough light for him to see a pattern in the three dimples to the left of the body shape, and he recalled the patch on the right elbow of Pete's duffel coat. Pete had told him with an odd sort of pride that his girlfriend had sewed that on there, declaring he had no business going off hunting with a ripped jacket. Henry remembered thinking it was sad and funny at the same time, how Pete had built up a wistful fantasy of a happy future from that single act of kindness . . . an act which probably had more to do, in the end, with how the lady in question had been raised than with any feelings she might have for her beer-soaked boyfriend.

Not that it mattered. What mattered was that Henry felt he could draw a bona fide deduction at last. Pete had crawled out from under the collapsed roof Jonesy - or whatever was now running Jonesy, the cloud - had come along, swerved over to the remains of the lean-to, and picked Pete up.

Why?

Henry didn't know.

Not all of the splotches in the flattened shape of his thrashing friend, who had crawled out from under the piece of tin by hooking himself along on his elbows, were that mold stuff. Some of it was dried blood. Pete had been hurt. Cut when the roof fell in? Was that all?

Henry spotted a wavering trail leading away from the depression which had held Pete's body. At the end of it was what he first took to be a fire-charred stick. Closer examination changed his mind. It was another of the weasel things, this one burned and dead, now turning gray where it wasn't seared. Henry flipped it aside with the toe of his boot. Beneath it was a small frozen mass. More eggs. It must have been laying them even as it died.

Henry kicked snow over both the eggs and the little monster's corpse, shuddering. He unwrapped the makeshift bandage for another look at the wound on his leg, and as he did it he realized what song was coming out of his mouth. He quit singing. New snow, just a scattering of light flakes, began to skirt down.

'Why do I keep singing that?' he asked. 'Why does that fucking song keep coming back?' do I keep singing that?' he asked. 'Why does that fucking song keep coming back?'

He expected no answer; these were questions uttered aloud mostly for the comfort of hearing his own voice (this was a death place, perhaps even a haunted place), but one came anyway.