PART THREE
Notes from the Dead Zone
Dear Dad,
Portsmouth, N. H. January 23, 1979
This is a terrible letter to have to write, and I will try to keep it short. When you get it, I guess I will probably be dead. An awful thing has happened to me, and I think now that it may have started a long time before the car accident and the coma. You know about the psychic business, of course, and you may remember Mom swearing on her deathbed that God had meant for it to be this way, that God had something for me to do. She asked me not to run from it, and I promised her that I wouldn't-not meaning it seriously, but wanting her mind to be easy. Now it looks as if she was right, in a funny sort of way. I still don't really believe in God, not in a real Being who plans for us and gives us all little jobs to do, like Boy Scouts winning merit badges on The Great Hike of Life. But neither do I believe that all the things that have happened to me are blind chance.
In the summer of 1976, Dad, I went to a Greg Stillson rally in Trim bull, which is in New Hampshire's third district. He was running for the first time then, you may recall. When he was on his way to the speaker's rostrum he shook a lot of hands, and one of them was mine. This is the part you may find hard to believe, even though you have seen the ability in action. l had one of my “flashes”, only this one was no flash, Dad. It was a vision, either in the biblical sense or in something very near it. Oddly enough, it wasn't as clear as some of my other “insights” have been-there was a Puzzling blue glow over every-thing that has never been there before-but it was incredibly powerful. I saw Greg Stillson as president of the United States. How far in the future I can't say, except that he had lost most of his hair. I would say fourteen years, or perhaps eighteen at the most. Now, my ability is to see and not to interpret, and in this case my ability to see was impeded by that funny blue filter, but l saw enough. If Stillson becomes president, he's going to worsen an international situation that is going to be pretty awful to begin with. If Stillson becomes president, he is going to end up precipitating a full-scale nuclear war. I believe that the initial flash point for this war is going to be in South Africa. And I also believe that in the short, bloody course of this war, it's not going to be just two or three nations throwing warheads, but maybe as many as twenty-plus terrorist groups.
Daddy, I know how crazy this must look. It looks crazy to me. But I have no doubts, no urge to look back over my shoulder and try to second-guess this thing into something less real and urgent than it is. You never knew -no one did-but l didn't run away from the Chatsworths because of that restaurant fire. I guess I was running away from Greg Stillson and the thing I am supposed to do. Like Elijah hiding in his cave or Jonah, who ended up in the fish's belly. I thought I would just wait and see, you know. Wait and see if the preconditions for such a horrible future began to come into place. I would probably be waiting still, but in the fall of last year the headaches began to get worse, and there was an incident on the roadcrew I was working with. l guess Keith Strang, the foreman, would remember that…
Excerpt from testimony given before the so-called “Stillson Committee”, chaired by Senator William Cohen of Maine. The questioner is Mr. Norman D. Verizer, the Committee's Chief Counsel. The witness is Mr. Keith Strang, of 1421 Desert Boulevard, Phoenix, Arizona. Date of testimony: August 17, 1979.
Verizer: And at this time, John Smith was in the employ of the Phoenix Public Works Department, was he not?
Strang: Yes, Sir, he was.
V: This was early December of 1978.
S: Yes, Sir.
V: And did something happen on December 7 that you particularly remember? Something concerning John Smith?
S: Yes, Sir. It sure did.
V: Tell the Committee about that, if you would.
S: Well, I had to go back to the central motor pool to get two forty-gallon drums of orange paint. We were lining roads, you understand. Johnny-that's Johnny Smith -was out on Rosemont Avenue on the day you're talking about, putting down new lane markings. Well, I got back out there at approximately four-fifteen-about forty-five minutes before knocking-off time-and this fellow Herman Joellyn that you've already talked to, he comes up to me and says, “You better check on Johnny, Keith. Something's wrong with Johnny. I tried to talk to him and he acted like he didn't hear. He almost run me down. You better get him straight. “That's what he said. So I said, “What's wrong with him, Hermie?” And Hermie says, “Check it out for yourself, there's something offwhack with that dude. “So I drove on up the road, and at first everything was all right, and then-wow!
V: What did you see?
S: Before I saw Johnny, you mean.
V: Yes, that's right.
S: The line he was putting down started to go haywire. Just a little bit at first-a jig here and there, a little bubble-it wasn't perfectly straight, you know. And Johnny had always been the best liner on the whole crew. Then it started to get really bad. It started to go all over the road in these big loops and swirls. Some places it was like he'd gone right round in circles a few times. For about a hundred yards he'd put the stripe right along the dirt shoulder.
V: What did you do?
S: I stopped him. That is, eventually I stopped him. I pulled up right beside the lining machine and started yelling at him. Must have yelled half a dozen times. It was like he didn't hear. Then he swooped that thing toward me and put a helluva ding in the side of the car I was driving. Highway Department Property, too. So I laid on the horn and yelled at him again, and that seemed to get through to him. He threw it in neutral and looked over at me. I asked him what in the name of God he thought he was doing.
V: And what was his response?
S: He said hi. That was all. “Hi, Keith. “Like everything was hunky-dory.
V: And your response was…?
S: My response was pretty blue. I was mad. And Johnny is just standing there, looking all around and holding onto the side of the liner like he would fall down if he let go. That was when I realized how sick he looked. He was always thin, you know, but now he looked as white as paper, and the side of his mouth was kind of… you know… drawn down. At first he didn't even seem to get what I was saying. Then he looked around and saw the way that line was-all over the road.
V: And he said…?
S: Said he was sorry. Then he kind of-I don't know -staggered, and put one hand up to his face. So I asked him what was wrong with him and he said… oh, a lot of confused stuff. It didn't mean anything.
Cohen: Mr. Strang, the Committee is particularly interested in anything Mr. Smith said that might cast a light on this matter. Can you remember what he said?
S: Well, at first he said there was nothing wrong except that it smelled like rubber tires. Tires on fire. Then he said, “That battery will explode if you try to jump it. “And something like, “I got potatoes in the chest and both radios are in the sun. So it's all out for the trees. “That's the best I can remember. Like I say, it was all confused and crazy.
V: What happened then?
S: He started to fall down. So I grabbed him by the shoulder and his hand-he had been holding it against the side of his face-it came away. And I saw his right eye was full of blood. Then he passed out.
V: But he said one more thing before he passed out, did he not?
S: Yes, Sir, he did.
V: And what was that?
S: He said, “We'll worry about Stillson later, Daddy, he's in the dead zone now.”
V: Are you sure that's what he said?
S: Yes, Sir, I am. I'll never forget it.
…and when I woke up I was in the small equipment. shed at the base of Rosemont Drive. Keith said I'd better get to see a doctor right away, and I wasn't to come back to work until I did. I was scared, Dad, but not for the reasons Keith thought,. I guess. Anyway, I made an appointment to see a neurologist that Sam Weizak had mentioned to me in a letter he wrote in early November. You see, I had written to Sam telling him that I was afraid to drive a car because I was having some incidents of double vision. Sam wrote back right away and told me to go see this Dr. Vann-said he considered the symptoms very alarming, but wouldn't presume to diagnose long-distance.