He forced himself to go on. "Lucy, do you ever dream about... well, about a place in Nebraska?"
"I had a dream one night about an old Negro woman," Lucy said, "but it didn't last very long. She said something like, 'You come see me.' Then I was back in Enfield and that... that scary guy was chasing me. Then I woke up."
Larry looked at her so long that she colored and dropped her eyes.
He looked at Joe. "Joe, do you ever dream about... uh, corn? An old woman? A guitar?" Joe only looked at him from Nadine's encircling arm.
"Leave him alone, you'll upset him more," Nadine said, but she was the one who sounded upset.
Larry thought. "A house, Joe? A little house with a porch up on jacks?"
He thought he saw a gleam in Joe's eyes.
"Stop it, Larry!" Nadine said.
"A swing, Joe? A swing made out of a tire?"
Joe suddenly jerked in Nadine's arms. His thumb came out of his mouth. Nadine tried to hold him, but Joe broke through.
"The swing!" Joe said exultantly. "The swing! The swing!" He whirled away from them and pointed first at Nadine, then at Larry. "Her! You! Lots!"
"Lots?" Larry asked, but Joe had subsided again.
Lucy Swann looked stunned. "The swing," she said. "I remember that, too." She looked at Larry. "Why are we all having the same dreams? Is somebody using a ray on us?"
"I don't know." He looked at Nadine. "Have you had them, too?"
"I don't dream," she said sharply, and immediately dropped her eyes. He thought: You're lying. But why?
"Nadine, if you - " he began.
"I told you I don't dream! " Nadine cried sharply, almost hysterically. "Can't you just leave me alone? Do you have to badger me?"
She stood up and left the fire, almost running.
Lucy looked after her uncertainly for a moment and then stood up. "I'll go after her."
"Yes, you better. Joe, stay with me, okay?"
"Kay," Joe said, and began to unsnap the guitar case.
Lucy came back with Nadine ten minutes later. They had both been crying, Larry saw, but they seemed to be on good terms now.
"I'm sorry," Nadine said to Larry. "It's just that I'm always upset. It comes out in funny ways."
"Its all right."
The subject did not come up again. They sat and listened to Joe run through his repertoire. He was getting very good indeed now, and in with the hootings and grunts, fragments of the lyrics were coming through.
At last they slept, Larry on one end, Nadine on the other, Joe and Lucy between.
Larry dreamed first of the black man on the high place, and then of the old black woman sitting on her porch. Only in this dream he knew the black man was coming, striding through the corn, knocking his own twisted swathe through the corn, his terrible hot grin spot-welded to his face, coming toward them, closer and closer.
Larry woke up in the middle of the night, out of breath, his chest constricted with terror. The others slept like stones. Somehow, in that dream he had known. The black man had not been coming empty handed. In his arms, borne like an offering as he strode through the corn, he held the decaying body of Rita Blakemore, now stiff and swollen, the flesh ripped by woodchucks and weasels. A mute accusation to be thrown at his feet to scream his guilt at the others, to silently proclaim that he wasn't no nice guy, that something had been left out of him, that he was a loser, that he was a taker.
At last he slept again, and until he woke up the next morning at seven, stiff, cold, hungry, and needing to go to the bathroom, his sleep was dreamless.
"Oh God," Nadine said emptily. Larry looked at her and saw a disappointment too deep for tears. Her face was pale, her remarkable eyes clouded and dull.
It was quarter past seven, July 19, and the shadows were drawing long. They had ridden all day, their few rest stops only five minutes long, their lunch break, which they had taken in Randolph, only half an hour. None of them had complained, although after six hours on a cycle Larry's whole body felt numb and achy and full of pins.
Now they stood together in a line outside a wrought-iron fence. Below and behind them lay the town of Stovington, not much changed from the way Stu Redman had seen it on his last couple of days in this institution. Beyond the fence and a lawn that had once been well kept but which was now shaggy and littered by sticks and leaves that had blown onto it during afternoon thunderstorms, was the institution itself, three stories high, more of it buried underground, Larry surmised.
The place was deserted, silent, empty.
In the center of the lawn was a sign which read:
STOVINGTON PLAGUE CONTROL CENTER
THIS IS A GOVERNMENT INSTALLATION!
VISITORS MUST CHECK IN AT MAIN DESK
Beside it was a second sign, and this was what they were looking at.
ROUTE 7 TO RUTLAND
ROUTE 4 TO SCHUYLERVILLE
ROUTE 29 TO I-87
I-87 SOUTH TO I-90
I-90 WEST
EVERYONE HERE IS DEAD
WE ARE MOVING WEST TO NEBRASKA
STAY ON OUR ROUTE
WATCH FOR SIGNS
HAROLD EMERY LAUDER
FRANCES GOLDSMITH
STUART REDMAN
GLENDON PEQUOD BATEMAN
JULY 8, 1990