just looked at the rat, which looked back with those beady black eyes. The wind blew around the cabin, sometimes gusting hard enough to shake the walls; the sleet rattled.
Pancreatic, Al had said when Drew commented on his startling weight loss. But, he had added, there was no need for anyone to be crafting obituaries just yet. The docs caught it relatively early. Confidence is high.
Looking at him, though—sallow skin, sunken eyes, lifeless hair—Drew had felt no confidence whatsoever. The key word in what Al had said was relatively. Pancreatic cancer was sly; it hid. The diagnosis was almost always a death sentence. And if he did die? There would be mourning, of course, and Nadine Stamper would be the chief mourner—they had been married for something like forty-five years. The members of the English Department would wear black armbands for a month or so. The obituary would be long, noting Al’s many accomplishments and awards. His books on Dickens and Hardy would be mentioned. But he was seventy-two at least, maybe even seventy-four, and nobody would say he died young, or with his promise unfulfilled.
Meanwhile, the rat was looking at him, its pink paws now curled against its furry chest.
What the hell? Drew thought. It’s only a hypothetical question. And one inside a dream, at that.
“I guess I’d take the deal and make the wish,” Drew said. Dream or no dream, hypothetical question or not, he felt uneasy saying it. “He’s dying, anyway.”
“You finish your book and Stamper dies,” the rat said, as if to make sure Drew understood.
Drew gave the rat a cunning sideways look. “Will the book be published?”
“I’m authorized to grant the wish if you make it,” the rat said. “I’m not authorized to predict the future of your literary endeavor. Were I to guess…” The rat cocked his head. “I’d guess it will be. As I said, you are talented.”
“Okay,” Drew said. “I finish the book, Al dies. Since he’s going to die anyway, that seems okay to me.” Only it didn’t, not really. “Do you think he’ll live long enough to read it, at least?”
“I just told you—”
Drew raised a hand. “Not authorized to predict the future of my literary endeavor, right. Are we done here?”
“There’s one more thing I need.”
“If it’s my signature in blood on a contract, you can forget the whole deal.”
“It’s not all about you, Mister,” the rat said. “I’m hungry.” He jumped onto the desk’s chair, and from the chair to the floor. He sped across to the kitchen table and picked up an oyster cracker, one Drew must have dropped on the day he had the grilled cheese and tomato soup. The rat sat up, grasping the oyster cracker in its paws, and went to work. The cracker was gone in seconds.
“Good talking to you,” the rat said. It disappeared almost as quickly as the oyster cracker, zipping across the floor and into the dead fireplace.
“Goddam,” Drew said.
He closed his eyes, then sprang them open. It didn’t feel like a dream. He closed them again, opened them again. The third time he closed them, they stayed closed.
23
He awoke in his bed, with no memory of how he’d gotten there… or had he been here all night? That was more than likely, considering how fucked up he’d been thanks to Roy DeWitt and his snotty bandanna. The whole previous day seemed like a dream, his conversation with the rat only the most vivid part of it.
The wind was still blowing and the sleet was still sleeting, but he felt better. There was no question of it. The fever was either going or entirely gone. His joints still ached and his throat was still sore, but neither was as bad as they had been last night, when part of him had been convinced he was going to die out here. Died of pneumonia on Shithouse Road—what an obituary that would have been.
He was in his boxers, the rest of his clothes heaped on the floor. He had no memory of undressing, either. He put them back on and went downstairs. He scrambled four eggs and this time ate them all, chasing each bite with orange juice. It was concentrate, all the Big 90 carried, but cold and delicious.
He looked across the room at Pop’s desk and thought about trying to work, maybe switching from the laptop to the portable typewriter to save the laptop’s battery. But after putting his dishes in the sink, he trudged up the stairs and went