Under the Dome

1

Barbie and Julia Shumway didn’t talk much; there wasn’t much to say. Theirs was, as far as Barbie could see, the only car on the road, but lights streamed from most of the farmhouse windows once they cleared town. Out here, where there were always chores to be done and no one fully trusted Western Maine Power, almost everyone had a gennie. When they passed the WCIK radio tower, the two red lights at the top were flashing as they always did. The electric cross in front of the little studio building was also lit, a gleaming white beacon in the dark. Above it, the stars spilled across the sky in their usual extravagant profusion, a never-ending cataract of energy that needed no generator to power it.

“Used to come fishing out this way,” Barbie said. “It’s peaceful.”

“Any luck?”

“Plenty, but sometimes the air smells like the dirty underwear of the gods. Fertilizer, or something. I never dared to eat what I caught.”

“Not fertilizer—bullshit. Also known as the smell of self-righteousness.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She pointed at a dark steeple-shape blocking out the stars. “Christ the Holy Redeemer Church,” she said. “They own WCIK just back the road. Sometimes known as Jesus Radio?”

He shrugged. “I guess maybe I have seen the steeple. And I know the station. Can’t very well miss it if you live around here and own a radio. Fundamentalist?”

“They make the hardshell Baptists look soft. I go to the Congo, myself. Can’t stand Lester Coggins, hate all the ha-ha-you’re-going-to-hell-and-we’re-not stuff. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Although I have often wondered how they afford a fifty thousand-watt radio station.”

“Love offerings?”

She snorted. “Maybe I ought to ask Jim Rennie. He’s a deacon.”

Julia drove a trim Prius Hybrid, a car Barbie would not have expected of a staunch Republican newspaper owner (although he supposed it did fit a worshipper at the First Congregational). But it was quiet, and the radio worked. The only problem was that out here on the western side of town, CIK’s signal was so powerful it wiped out everything on the FM band. And tonight it was broadcasting some holy accordion shit that hurt Barbie’s head. It sounded like polka music played by an orchestra dying of bubonic plague.

“Try the AM band, why don’t you?” she said.

He did, and got only nighttime gabble until he hit a sports station near the bottom of the dial. Here he heard that before the Red Sox–Mariners playoff game at Fenway Park, there had been a moment of silence for the victims of what the announcer called “the western Maine event.”

“Event,” Julia said. “A sports-radio term if ever I heard one. Might as well turn it off.”

A mile or so past the church, they began to see a glow through the trees. They came around a curve and into the glare of lights almost the size of Hollywood premiere kliegs. Two pointed in their direction; two more were tilted straight up. Every pothole in the road stood out in stark relief. The trunks of the birches looked like narrow ghosts. Barbie felt as if they were driving into a noir movie from the late nineteen forties.

“Stop, stop, stop,” he said. “This is as close as you want to go. Looks like there’s nothing there, but take my word for it, there is. It would likely blow the electronics in your little car, if nothing else.”

She stopped and they got out. For a moment they just stood in front of the car, squinting into the bright light. Julia raised one hand to shield her eyes.

Parked beyond the lights, nose to nose, were two brown canvas-back military trucks. Sawhorses had been placed on the road for good measure, their feet braced with sandbags. Motors roared steadily in the darkness—not one generator but several. Barbie saw thick electrical cables snaking away from the spotlights and into the woods, where other lights glared through the trees.

“They’re going to light the perimeter,” he said, and twirled one finger in the air, like an ump signaling a home run. “Lights around the whole town, shining in and shining up.”

“Why up?”

“The up ones to warn away air traffic. If any gets through, that is. I’d guess it’s mostly tonight they’re worried about. By tomorrow they’ll have the airspace over The Mill sewn up like one of Uncle Scrooge’s moneybags.”

On the dark side of the spotlights, but visible in their back-splash, were half a dozen armed soldiers, standing at parade rest with their backs turned. They must have heard the approach of the car, quiet as it was, but not one of them so much as looked around.

Julia called, “Hello, fellas!”

No one turned. Barbie didn’t expect it—on their way out, Julia had told Barbie what Cox had told her—but he had to try. And because he could read their insignia, he knew what to try. The Army might be running this show—Cox’s involvement suggested that—but these fellows weren’t Army.

“Yo, Marines!” he called.

Nothing. Barbie stepped closer. He saw a dark horizontal line hanging on the air above the road, but ignored it for the time being. He was more interested in the men guarding the barrier. Or the Dome. Shumway had said Cox called it the Dome.

“I’m surprised to see you Force Recon boys stateside,” he said, walking a little closer. “That little Afghanistan problem over, is it?”

Nothing. He walked closer. The grit of the hardpan under his shoes seemed very loud.

“A remarkably high number of pussies in Force Recon, or so I’ve heard. I’m relieved, actually. If this situation was really bad, they would have sent in the Rangers.”

“Pogeybait,” one of them muttered.

It wasn’t much, but Barbie was encouraged. “Stand easy, fellas; stand easy and let’s talk this over.”

More nothing. And he was as close to the barrier (or the Dome) as he wanted to go. His skin didn’t rash out in goosebumps and the hair on his neck didn’t try to stand up, but he knew the thing was there. He sensed it.

And could see it: that stripe hanging on the air. He didn’t know what color it would be in daylight, but he was guessing red, the color of danger. It was spray paint, and he would have bet the entire contents of his bank account (currently just over five thousand dollars) that it went all the way around the barrier.

Like a stripe on a shirtsleeve, he thought.

He balled a fist and rapped on his side of the stripe, once more producing that knuckles-on-glass sound. One of the Marines jumped.

Julia began: “I’m not sure that’s a good—”

Barbie ignored her. He was starting to be angry. Part of him had been waiting to be angry all day, and here was his chance. He knew it would do no good to go off on these guys—they were only spear-carriers—but it was hard to bite back. “Yo, Marines! Help a brother out.”

“Quit it, pal.” Although the speaker didn’t turn around, Barbie knew it was the CO of this happy little band. He recognized the tone, had used it himself. Many times. “We’ve got our orders, so you help a brother out. Another time, another place, I’d be happy to buy you a beer or kick your ass. But not here, not tonight. So what do you say?”

“I say okay,” Barbie said. “But seeing as how we’re all on the same side, I don’t have to like it.” He turned to Julia. “Got your phone?”

She held it up. “You should get one. They’re the coming thing.”

“I have one,” Barbie said. “A disposable Best Buy special. Hardly ever use it. Left it in a drawer when I tried to blow town. Saw no reason not to leave it there tonight.”

She handed him hers. “You’ll have to punch the number, I’m afraid. I’ve got work to do.” She raised her voice so the soldiers standing beyond the glaring lights could hear her. “I’m the editor of the local newspaper, after all, and I want to get some pix.” She raised her voice a little more. “Especially a few of soldiers standing with their backs turned on a town that’s in trouble.”

“Ma’am, I kind of wish you wouldn’t do that,” the CO said. He was a blocky fellow with a broad back.

“Stop me,” she invited.

“I think you know we can’t do that,” he said. “As far as our backs being turned, those are our orders.”

“Marine,” she said, “you take your orders, roll em tight, bend over, and stick em where the air quality is questionable.” In the brilliant light, Barbie saw a remarkable thing: her mouth set in a harsh, unforgiving line and her eyes streaming tears.

While Barbie dialed the number with the weird area code, she got her camera and began snapping. The flash wasn’t very bright compared to the big generator-driven spotlights, but Barbie saw the soldiers flinch every time it went off. Probably hoping their fucking insignia doesn’t show, he thought.

2

United States Army Colonel James O. Cox had said he’d be sitting with a hand on the phone at ten thirty. Barbie and Julia Shumway had run a little late and Barbie didn’t place the call until twenty of eleven, but Cox’s hand must have stayed right there, because the phone only managed half a ring before Barbie’s old boss said, “Hello, this is Ken.”

Barbie was still mad, but laughed just the same. “Yes sir. And I continue to be the bitch who gets all the good shit.”

Cox also laughed, no doubt thinking they were off to a good start. “How are you, Captain Barbara?”

“Sir, I’m fine, sir. But with respect, it’s just Dale Barbara now. The only things I captain these days are the grills and Fry-O-Lators in the local restaurant, and I’m in no mood for small talk. I am perplexed, sir, and since I’m looking at the backs of a bunch of pogey-bait Marines who won’t turn around and look me in the eye, I’m also pretty goddam pissed off.”

“Understood. And you need to understand something from my end. If there was anything at all those men could do to aid or end this situation, you would be looking at their faces instead of their asses. Do you believe that?”

“I’m hearing you, sir.” Which wasn’t exactly an answer.

Julia was still snapping. Barbie shifted to the edge of the road. From his new position he could see a bivouac tent beyond the trucks. Also what might have been a small mess tent, plus a parking area filled with more trucks. The Marines were building a camp here, and probably bigger ones where Routes 119 and 117 left town. That suggested permanence. His heart sank.

“Is the newspaper woman there?” Cox asked.

“She’s here. Taking pictures. And sir, full disclosure, whatever you tell me, I tell her. I’m on this side now.”

Julia stopped what she was doing long enough to flash Barbie a smile.

“Understood, Captain.”

“Sir, calling me that earns you no points.”

“All right, just Barbie. Is that better?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As to how much the lady decides to publish… for the sake of the people in that little town of yours, I hope she’s got sense enough to pick and choose.”

“My guess is she does.”

“And if she e-mails pictures to anyone on the outside—one of the newsmagazines or the New York Times, for instance—you may find your Internet goes the way of your landlines.”

“Sir, that’s some dirty sh—”

“The decision would be made above my pay grade. I’m just saying.” Barbie sighed. “I’ll tell her.”

“Tell me what?” Julia asked.

“That if you try to transmit those pictures, they may take it out on the town by shutting down Internet access.”

Julia made a hand gesture Barbie did not ordinarily associate with pretty Republican ladies. He returned his attention to the phone.

“How much can you tell me?”

“Everything I know,” Cox said.

“Thank you, sir.” Although Barbie doubted Cox would actually spill everything. The Army never told everything it knew. Or thought it knew.

“We’re calling it the Dome,” Cox said, “but it’s not a Dome. At least, we don’t think it is. We think it’s a capsule whose edges conform exactly to the borders of the town. And I do mean exactly.”

“Do you know how high it goes?”

“It appears to top out at forty-seven thousand and change. We don’t know if the top is flat or rounded. At least not yet.”

Barbie said nothing. He was flabbergasted.

“As to how deep… who knows. All we can say now is more than a hundred feet. That’s the current depth of an excavation we’re making on the border between Chester’s Mill and the unincorporated township to the north.”

“TR-90.” To Barbie’s ears, his voice sounded dull and listless.

“Whatever. We started in a gravel pit that was already dug down to forty feet or so. I’ve seen spectrographic images that blow my mind. Long sheets of metamorphic rock that have been sheared in two. There’s no gap, but you can see a shift where the northern part of the sheet dropped a little. We’ve checked seismographic reports from the Portland meteorological station, and bingo. There was a bump at eleven forty-four AM. Two point one on the Richter. So that’s when it happened.”

“Great,” Barbie said. He supposed he was being sarcastic, but he was too amazed and perplexed to be sure.

“None of this is conclusive, but it’s persuasive. Of course the exploring has just started, but right now it does look as if the thing is down as well as up. And if it goes up five miles…”

“How do you know that? Radar?”

“Negative, this thing doesn’t show on radar. There’s no way of telling it’s there until you hit it, or until you’re so close you can’t stop. The human toll when the thing went up was remarkably low, but you’ve got one hell of a bird-kill around the edges. Inside and outside.”

“I know. I’ve seen them.” Julia was done with her pictures now. She was standing next to him, listening to Barbie’s end of the conversation. “So how do you know how high it is? Lasers?”

“No, they also shoot right through. We’ve been using missiles with dummy warheads. We’ve been flying F-15A sorties out of Bangor since four this afternoon. Surprised you didn’t hear them.”

“I might have heard something,” Barbie said. “But my mind was occupied with other things.” Like the airplane. And the pulp-truck. The dead people out on Route 117. Part of the remarkably low human toll.

“They kept bouncing off… and then, at forty-seven thousand plus, just zippity-zoom, up up and away. Between you and me, I’m surprised we didn’t lose any of those fighter-jocks.”

“Have you actually overflown it yet?”

“Less than two hours ago. Mission successful.”

“Who did it, Colonel?”

“We don’t know.”

“Was it us? Is this an experiment that went wrong? Or, God help us, some kind of test? You owe me the truth. You owe this town the truth. These people are goddam terrified.”

“Understood. But it wasn’t us.”

“Would you know if it was?”

Cox hesitated. When he next spoke, his voice was lower. “We have good sources in my department. When they fart in the NSA, we hear it. The same is true about Group Nine at Langley and a couple of other little deals you never heard of.”

It was possible that Cox was telling the truth. And it was possible he wasn’t. He was a creature of his calling, after all; if he had been drawing sentry duty out here in the chilly autumn dark with the rest of the pogeybait Marines, Cox too would have been standing with his back turned. He wouldn’t have liked it, but orders were orders.

“Any chance it’s some sort of natural phenomenon?” Barbie asked.

“One that conforms exactly to the man-made borders of a whole town? Every nook and fucking cranny? What do you think?”

“I had to ask. Is it permeable? Do you know?”

“Water goes through,” Cox said. “A little, anyway.”

“How is that possible?” Although he’d seen for himself the weird way water behaved; both he and Gendron had seen it.

“We don’t know, how could we?” Cox sounded exasperated. “We’ve been working on this less than twelve hours. People here are slapping themselves on the back just for figuring out how high it goes. We may figure it out, but for now we just don’t know.”

“Air?”

“Air goes through to a greater degree. We’ve set up a monitoring station where your town borders on… mmm…” Faintly, Barbie heard paper rustle. “Harlow. They’ve done what they call ‘puff tests.’ I guess that must measure outgoing air pressure against what bounces back. Anyway, air goes through, and a lot more freely than water does, but the scientists say still not completely. This is going to severely fuck up your weather, pal, but nobody can say how much or how bad. Hell, maybe it’ll turn Chester’s Mill into Palm Springs.” He laughed, rather feebly.

“Particulates?” Barbie thought he knew the answer to that one.

“Nope,” Cox said. “Particulate matter doesn’t go through. At least we don’t think so. And you want to be aware that works both ways. If particulate matter doesn’t get in, it won’t get out. That means auto emissions—”

“Nobody’s got that far to drive. Chester’s Mill is maybe four miles across at its widest. Along a diagonal—” He looked at Julia.

“Seven, tops,” she said.

Cox said, “We don’t think oil-heat pollutants are going to be a big deal, either. I’m sure everybody in town has a nice expensive oil furnace—in Saudi Arabia they have bumper stickers on their cars these days saying I Heart New England—but modern oil furnaces need electricity to provide a constant spark. Your oil reserves are probably good, considering the home-heating season hasn’t started yet, but we don’t think it’s going to be very useful to you. In the long run, that may be a good thing, from the pollution standpoint.”

“You think so? Come on up here when it’s thirty below zero and the wind’s blowing at—” He stopped for a moment. “Will the wind blow?”

“We don’t know,” Cox said. “Ask me tomorrow and I may at least have a theory.”

“We can burn wood,” Julia said. “Tell him that.”

“Ms. Shumway says we can burn wood.”

“People have to be careful about that, Captain Barbara—Barbie. Sure, you’ve got plenty of wood up there and you don’t need electricity to ignite it and keep it going, but wood produces ash. Hell, it produces carcinogens.”

“Heating season here starts…” Barbie looked at Julia.

“November fifteenth,” she said. “Or thereabouts.”

“Ms. Shumway says mid-November. So tell me you’re going to have this worked out by then.”

“All I can say is that we intend to try like hell. Which brings me to the point of this conversation. The smart boys—the ones we’ve been able to convene so far—all agree that we’re dealing with a force field—”

“Just like on Star Trick, ” Barbie said. “Beam me up, Snotty.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Doesn’t matter. Go on, sir.”

“They all agree that a force field doesn’t just happen. Something either close to the field of effect or in the center of it has to generate it. Our guys think the center is most likely. ‘Like the handle of an umbrella,’ one of them said.”

“You think this is an inside job?”

“We think it’s a possibility. And we just happen to have a decorated soldier in town—”

Ex-soldier, Barbie thought. And the decorations went into the Gulf of Mexico eighteen months ago. But he had an idea his term of service had just been extended, like it or not. Held over by popular demand, as the saying went.

“—whose specialty in Iraq was hunting down Al Qaeda bomb factories. Hunting them down and shutting them down.”

So. Basically just another gennie. He thought of all those he and Julia Shumway had passed on the way out here, roaring away in the dark, providing heat and light. Eating propane to do it. He realized that propane and storage batteries, even more than food, had become the new gold standard in Chester’s Mill. One thing he knew: people would burn wood. If it got cold and the propane was gone, they’d burn plenty. Hardwood, softwood, trashwood. And fuck the carcinogens.

“It won’t be like the generators working away in your part of the world tonight,” Cox said. “A thing that could do this… we don’t know what it would be like, or who could build such a thing.”

“But Uncle Sammy wants it,” Barbie said. He was gripping the phone almost tightly enough to crack it. “That’s actually the priority, isn’t it? Sir? Because a thing like that could change the world. The people of this town are strictly secondary. Collateral damage, in fact.”

“Oh, let’s not be melodramatic,” Cox said. “In this matter our interests coincide. Find the generator, if it’s there to be found. Find it the way you found those bomb factories, and then shut it down. Problem solved.”

“If it’s there.”

“If it’s there, roger that. Will you try?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not that I can see, but I’m career military. For us, free will isn’t an option.”

“Ken, this is one fucked-up fire drill.”

Cox was slow to reply. Although there was silence on the line (except for a faint high hum that might mean the proceedings were being recorded), Barbie could almost hear him reflecting. Then he said: “That’s true, but you still get all the good shit, you bitch.”

Barbie laughed. He couldn’t help it.

3

On the way back, passing the dark shape that was Christ the Holy Redeemer Church, he turned to Julia. In the glow of the dashboard lights, her face looked tired and solemn.

“I won’t tell you to keep quiet about any of this,” he said, “but I think you should hold one thing back.”

“The generator that may or may not be in town.” She took a hand off the wheel, reached back, and stroked Horace’s head, as if for comfort and reassurance.

“Yes.”

“Because if there’s a generator spinning the field—creating your Colonel’s Dome—then somebody must be running it. Somebody here.”

“Cox didn’t say that, but I’m sure it’s what he thinks.”

“I’ll withhold that. And I won’t e-mail any pictures.”

“Good.”

“They should run first in the Democrat anyway, dammit.” Julia continued stroking the dog. People who drove one-handed usually made Barbie nervous, but not tonight. They had both Little Bitch and 119 to themselves. “Also, I understand that sometimes the greater good is more important than a great story. Unlike the New York Times. ”

“Zing,” Barbie said.

“And if you find the generator, I won’t have to spend too many days shopping at Food City. I hate that place.” She looked startled. “Do you think it’ll even be open tomorrow?”

“I’d say yes. People can be slow to catch up with the new deal when the old deal changes.”

“I think I better do a little Sunday shopping,” she said thoughtfully.

“When you do, say hello to Rose Twitchell. She’ll probably have the faithful Anson Wheeler with her.” Remembering his earlier advice to Rose, he laughed and said, “Meat, meat, meat.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“If you have a generator at your house—”

“Of course I do, I live over the newspaper. Not a house; a very nice apartment. The generator was a tax deduction.” She said this proudly.

“Then buy meat. Meat and canned goods, canned goods and meat.”

She thought about it. Downtown was just ahead now. There were far fewer lights than usual, but still plenty. For how long? Barbie wondered. Then Julia asked, “Did your Colonel give you any ideas about how to find this generator?”

“Nope,” Barbie said. “Finding shit used to be my job. He knows that.” He paused, then asked: “Do you think there might be a Geiger counter in town?”

“I know there is. In the basement of the Town Hall. Actually the subbasement, I guess you’d say. There’s a fallout shelter there.”

“You’re shittin me!”

She laughed. “No shit, Sherlock. I did a feature story on it three years ago. Pete Freeman took the pictures. In the basement there’s a big conference room and a little kitchen. The shelter’s half a flight of stairs down from the kitchen. Pretty good-sized. It was built in the fifties, when the smart money was on us blowing ourselves to hell.”

“On the Beach,” Barbie said.

“Yep, see you that and raise you Alas, Babylon. It’s a pretty depressing place. Pete’s pictures reminded me of the Führerbunker, just before the end. There’s a kind of pantry—shelves and shelves of canned goods—and half a dozen cots. Also some equipment supplied by the government. Including a Geiger counter.”

“The canned stuff must be extremely tasty after fifty years.”

“Actually, they rotate in new goods every so often. There’s even a small generator that went in after nine-eleven. Check the Town Report and you’ll see an appropriation item for the shelter every four years or so. Used to be three hundred dollars. Now it’s six hundred. You’ve got your Geiger counter.” She shifted her eyes to him briefly. “Of course, James Rennie sees all things Town Hall, from the attic to the fallout shelter, as his personal property, so he’ll want to know why you want it.”

“Big Jim Rennie isn’t going to know,” he said.

She accepted this without comment. “Would you like to come back to the office with me? Watch the President’s speech while I start comping the paper? It’ll be a quick and dirty job, I can tell you that. One story, half a dozen pictures for local consumption, no Burpee’s Autumn Sales Days circular.”

Barbie considered it. He was going to be busy tomorrow, not just cooking but asking questions. Starting the old job all over again, in the old way. On the other hand, if he went back to his place over the drugstore, would he be able to sleep?

“Okay. And I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I have excellent office-boy skills. I also make a mean cup of coffee.”

“Mister, you are on.” She raised her right hand off the wheel and Barbie slapped her five.

“Can I ask you one more question? Strictly not for publication?”

“Sure,” he said.

“This sci-fi generator. Do you think you’ll find it?”

Barbie thought it over as she pulled in beside the storefront that housed the Democrat ’s offices.

“No,” he said at last. “That would be too easy.”

She sighed and nodded. Then she grasped his fingers. “Would it help, do you think, if I prayed for your success?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Barbie said.

4

There were only two churches in Chester’s Mill on Dome Day; both purveyed the Protestant brand of goods (although in very different ways). Catholics went to Our Lady of Serene Waters in Motton, and the town’s dozen or so Jews attended Congregation Beth Shalom in Castle Rock when they felt in need of spiritual consolation. Once there had been a Unitarian church, but it had died of neglect in the late eighties. Everyone agreed it had been sort of hippydippy, anyway. The building now housed Mill New & Used Books.

Both Chester’s Mill pastors were what Big Jim Rennie liked to call “kneebound” that night, but their modes of address, states of mind, and expectations were very different.

The Reverend Piper Libby, who ministered to her flock from the pulpit of the First Congregational Church, no longer believed in God, although this was a fact she had not shared with her congregants. Lester Coggins, on the other hand, believed to the point of martyrdom or madness (both words for the same thing, perhaps).

The Rev. Libby, still wearing her Saturday grubs—and still pretty enough, even at forty-five, to look good in them—knelt in front of the altar in almost total darkness (the Congo had no generator), with Clover, her German shepherd, lying behind her with his nose on his paws and his eyes at half-mast.

“Hello, Not-There,” Piper said. Not-There was her private name for God just lately. Earlier in the fall it had been The Great Maybe. During the summer, it had been The Omnipotent Could-Be. She’d liked that one; it had a certain ring. “You know the situation I’ve been in—You should, I’ve bent Your ear about it enough—but that’s not what I’m here to talk about tonight. Which is probably a relief to You.”

She sighed.

“We’re in a mess here, my Friend. I hope You understand it, because I sure don’t. But we both know this place is going to be full of people tomorrow, looking for heavenly disaster assistance.”

It was quiet inside the church, and quiet outside. “Too quiet,” as they said in the old movies. Had she ever heard The Mill this quiet on a Saturday night? There was no traffic, and the bass thump of whatever weekend band happened to be playing at Dipper’s (always advertised as being DIRECT FROM BOSTON!) was absent.

“I’m not going to ask that You show me Your will, because I’m no longer convinced You actually have a will. But on the off chance that You are there after all—always a possibility, I’m more than happy to admit that—please help me to say something helpful. Hope not in heaven, but right here on earth. Because…” She was not surprised to find that she had started to cry. She bawled so often now, although always in private. New Englanders strongly disapproved of public tears from ministers and politicians.

Clover, sensing her distress, whined. Piper told him to hush, then turned back to the altar. She often thought of the cross there as the religious version of the Chevrolet Bowtie, a logo that had come into being for no other reason than because some guy saw it on the wallpaper of a Paris hotel room a hundred years ago and liked it. If you saw such symbols as divine, you were probably a lunatic.

Nevertheless, she persevered.

“Because, as I’m sure You know, Earth is what we have. What we’re sure of. I want to help my people. That’s my job, and I still want to do it. Assuming You’re there, and that You care—shaky assumptions, I admit—then please help me. Amen.”

She stood up. She had no flashlight, but anticipated no trouble finding her way outside with unbarked shins. She knew this place step for step and obstacle for obstacle. Loved it, too. She didn’t fool herself about either her lack of faith or her stubborn love of the idea itself.

“Come on, Clove,” she said. “President in half an hour. The other Great Not-There. We can listen on the car radio.”

Clover followed placidly, untroubled by questions of faith.

5

Out on Little Bitch Road (always referred to as Number Three by Holy Redeemer worshippers), a far more dynamic scene was taking place, and under bright electric lights. Lester Coggins’s house of worship possessed a generator new enough for the shipping tags still to be pasted on its bright orange side. It had its own shed, also painted orange, next to the storage barn behind the church.

Lester was a man of fifty so well maintained—by genetics as well as his own strenuous efforts to take care of the temple of his body—that he looked no more than thirty-five (judicious applications of Just For Men helped in this regard). He wore nothing tonight but a pair of gym shorts with ORAL ROBERTS GOLDEN EAGLES printed on the right leg, and almost every muscle on his body stood out.

During services (of which there were five each week), Lester prayed in an ecstatic televangelist tremolo, turning the Big Fellow’s name into something that sounded as if it could have come from an overamped wah-wah pedal: not God but GUH-UH-UH-ODD! In his private prayers, he sometimes fell into these same cadences without realizing it. But when he was deeply troubled, when he really needed to take counsel with the God of Moses and Abraham, He who traveled as a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night, Lester held up his end of the conversation in a deep growl that made him sound like a dog on the verge of attacking an intruder. He wasn’t aware of this because there was no one in his life to hear him pray. Piper Libby was a widow who had lost her husband and both young sons in an accident three years before; Lester Coggins was a lifelong bachelor who as an adolescent had suffered nightmares of masturbating and looking up to see Mary Magdalene standing in his bedroom doorway.

The church was almost as new as the generator, and constructed of expensive red maple. It was also plain to the point of starkness. Behind Lester’s bare back stretched a triple rank of pews beneath a beamed ceiling. Ahead of him was the pulpit: nothing but a lectern with a Bible on it and a large redwood cross hanging on a drape of royal purple. The choir loft was above and to the right, with musical instruments—including the Stratocaster Lester himself sometimes played—clustered at one end.

“God hear my prayer,” Lester said in his growly I’m-really-praying voice. In one hand he held a heavy length of rope that had been knotted twelve times, one knot for each disciple. The ninth knot—the one signifying Judas—had been painted black. “God hear my prayer, I ask it in the name of the crucified and risen Jesus.”

He began to whip himself across the back with the rope, first over the left shoulder and then over the right, his arm rising and flexing smoothly. His not inconsiderable biceps and delts began to pop a sweat. When it struck his already well-scarred skin, the knotted rope made a carpet-beater sound. He had done this many times before, but never with such force.

“God hear my prayer! God hear my prayer! God hear my prayer! God hear my prayer!”

Whack and whack and whack and whack. The sting like fire, like nettles. Sinking in along the turnpikes and byroads of his miserable human nerves. Both terrible and terribly satisfying.

“Lord, we have sinned in this town, and I am chief among sinners. I listened to Jim Rennie and believed his lies. Yea, I believed, and here is the price, and it is now as it was of old. It’s not just the one that pays for the sin of one, but the many. You are slow to anger, but when it comes, Your anger is like the storms that sweep a field of wheat, laying low not just one stalk or a score but every one. I have sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind, not just for one but for many.”

There were other sins and other sinners in The Mill—he knew that, he was not naïve, they swore and danced and sexed and took drugs he knew far too much about—and they no doubt deserved to be punished, to be scourged, but that was true of every town, surely, and this was the only one that had been singled out for this terrible act of God.

And yet… and yet… was it possible that this strange curse was not because of his sin? Yes. Possible. Although not likely.

“Lord, I need to know what to do. I’m at the crossroads. If it’s Your will that I should stand in this pulpit tomorrow morning and confess to what that man talked me into—the sins we participated in together, the sins I have participated in alone—then I will do so. But that would mean the end of my ministry, and it’s hard for me to believe that’s Your will at such a crucial time. If it’s Your will that I should wait… wait and see what happens next… wait and pray with my flock that this burden should be lifted… then I’ll do that. Your will be done, Lord. Now and always.”

He paused in his scourging (he could feel warm and comforting trickles running down his bare back; several of the rope knots had begun to turn red) and turned his tearstained face up toward the beamed roof.

“Because these folks need me, Lord. You know they do, now more than ever. So… if it’s Your will that this cup should be removed from my lips… please give me a sign.”

He waited. And behold, the Lord God said unto Lester Coggins, “I will shew you a sign. Goest thou to thy Bible, even as you did as a child after those nasty dreams of yours.”

“This minute,” Lester said. “This second. ”

He hung the knotted rope around his neck, where it printed a blood horseshoe on his chest and shoulders, then mounted to the pulpit with more blood trickling down the hollow of his spine and dampening the elastic waistband of his shorts.

He stood at the pulpit as if to preach (although never in his worst nightmares had he dreamed of preaching in such scant garb), closed the Bible lying open there, then shut his eyes. “Lord, Thy will be done—I ask in the name of Your Son, crucified in shame and risen in glory.”

And the Lord said, “Open My Book, and see what you see.”

Lester did as instructed (taking care not to open the big Bible too close to the middle—this was an Old Testament job if ever there had been one). He plunged his finger down to the unseen page, then opened his eyes and bent to look. It was the second chapter of Deuteronomy, the twenty-eighth verse. He read:

“The Lord shalt smite thee with madness and blindness and astonishment of the heart.”

Astonishment of the heart was probably good, but on the whole this wasn’t encouraging. Or clear. Then the Lord spake again, saying: “Don’t stop there, Lester.”

He read the twenty-ninth verse.

“And thou shalt grope at noonday—”

“Yes, Lord, yes,” he breathed, and read on.

“—as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.”

“Will I be struck blind?” Lester asked, his growly prayer-voice rising slightly. “Oh God, please don’t do that—although, if it is Thy will—”

The Lord spake unto him again, saying, “Did you get up on the stupid side of the bed today, Lester?”

His eyes flew wide. God’s voice, but one of his mother’s favorite sayings. A true miracle. “No, Lord, no.”

“Then look again. What am I shewing you?”

“It’s something about madness. Or blindness.”

“Which of the two dost thou thinkest most likely?”

Lester scored the verses. The only word repeated was blind.

“Is that… Lord, is that my sign?”

The Lord answered, saying, “Yea, verily, but not thine own blindness; for now thine eyes see more clearly. Lookest thou for the blinded one who has gone mad. When you see him, you must tell your congregation what Rennie has been up to out here, and your part in it. You both must tell. We’ll talk about this more, but for now, Lester, go to bed. You’re dripping on the floor.”

Lester did, but first he cleaned up the little splatters of blood on the hardwood behind the pulpit. He did it on his knees. He didn’t pray as he worked, but he meditated on the verses. He felt much better.

For the time being, he would speak only generally of the sins which might have brought this unknown barrier down between The Mill and the outside world; but he would look for the sign. For a blind man or woman who had gone crazy, yea, verily.

6

Brenda Perkins listened to WCIK because her husband liked it (had liked it), but she would never have set foot inside the Holy Redeemer Church. She was Congo to the core, and she made sure her husband went with her.

Had made sure. Howie would only be in the Congo church once more. Would lie there, unknowing, while Piper Libby preached his eulogy.

This realization—so stark and immutable—struck home. For the first time since she’d gotten the news, Brenda let loose and wailed. Perhaps because now she could. Now she was alone.

On the television, the President—looking solemn and frighteningly old—was saying, “My fellow Americans, you want answers. And I pledge to give them to you as soon as I have them. There will be no secrecy on this issue. My window on events will be your window. That is my solemn promise—”

“Yeah, and you’ve got a bridge you want to sell me,” Brenda said, and that made her cry harder, because it was one of Howie’s faves. She snapped off the TV, then dropped the remote on the floor. She felt like stepping on it and breaking it but didn’t, mostly because she could see Howie shaking his head and telling her not to be silly.

She went into his little study instead, wanting to touch him somehow while his presence here was still fresh. Needing to touch him. Out back, their generator purred. Fat n happy, Howie would have said. She’d hated the expense of that thing when Howie ordered it after nine-eleven (Just to be on the safe side, he’d told her), but now she regretted every sniping word she’d said about it. Missing him in the dark would have been even more terrible, more lonely.

His desk was bare except for his laptop, which was standing open. His screen saver was a picture from a long-ago Little League game. Both Howie and Chip, then eleven or twelve, were wearing the green jerseys of the Sanders Hometown Drug Monarchs; the picture had been taken the year Howie and Rusty Everett had taken the Sanders team to the state finals. Chip had his arms around his father and Brenda had her arms around both of them. A good day. But fragile. As fragile as a crystal goblet. Who knew such things at the time, when it still might be possible to hold on a little?

She hadn’t been able to get hold of Chip yet, and the thought of that call—supposing she could make it—undid her completely. Sobbing, she got down on her knees beside her husband’s desk. She didn’t fold her hands but put them together palm to palm, as she had as a child, kneeling in flannel pajamas beside her bed and reciting the mantra of God bless Mom, God bless Dad, God bless my goldfish who doesn’t have a name yet.

“God, this is Brenda. I don’t want him back… well, I do, but I know You can’t do that. Only give me the strength to bear this, okay? And I wonder if maybe… I don’t know if this is blasphemy or not, probably it is, but I wonder if You could let him talk to me one more time. Maybe let him touch me one more time, like he did this morning.”

At the thought of it—his fingers on her skin in the sunshine—she cried even harder.

“I know You don’t deal in ghosts—except of course for the Holy one—but maybe in a dream? I know it’s a lot to ask, but… oh God, there’s such a hole in me tonight. I didn’t know there could be such holes in a person, and I’m afraid I’ll fall in. If You do this for me, I’ll do something for You. All You have to do is ask. Please, God, just a touch. Or a word. Even if it’s in a dream.” She took a deep, wet breath. “Thank you. Thy will be done, of course. Whether I like it or not.” She laughed weakly. “Amen.”

She opened her eyes and got up, holding the desk for support. One hand nudged the computer, and the screen brightened at once. He was always forgetting to turn it off, but at least he kept it plugged in so the battery wouldn’t run down. And he kept his electronic desktop far neater than she did; hers was always cluttered with downloads and electronic sticky-notes. On Howie’s desktop, always just three files stacked neatly below the hard-disc icon: CURRENT, where he kept reports of ongoing investigations; COURT, where he kept a list of who (including himself) was down to testify, and where, and why. The third file was MORIN ST. MANSE, where he kept everything having to do with the house. It occurred to her that if she opened that one she might find something about the generator, and she needed to know about that so she could keep it running as long as possible. Henry Morrison from the PD would probably be happy to change the current propane canister, but what if there were no spares? If that were the case, she should buy more at Burpee’s or the Gas & Grocery before they were all gone.

She put her fingertip on the mousepad, then paused. There was a fourth file on the screen, lurking way down in the lefthand corner. She had never seen it before. Brenda tried to remember the last time she’d happened to look at the desktop of this computer, and couldn’t.

VADER, the filename read.

Well, there was only one person in town Howie referred to as Vader, as in Darth: Big Jim Rennie.

Curious, she moved the cursor to the file and double-clicked it, wondering if it was password protected.

It was. She tried WILDCATS, which opened his CURRENT file (he hadn’t bothered to protect COURT), and it worked. In the file were two documents. One was labeled ONGOING INVESTIGATION. The other was a PDF doc titled LETTER FROM SMAG. In Howie-speak, that stood for State of Maine Attorney General. She clicked on it.

Brenda scanned the AG’s letter with growing amazement as the tears dried on her cheeks. The first thing her eye happened on was the salutation: not Dear Chief Perkins but Dear Duke.

Although the letter was couched in lawyer-speak rather than Howie-speak, certain phrases leaped out at her as if in boldface type. Misappropriation of town goods and services was the first. Selectman Sanders’s involvement seems all but certain was the next. Then This malfeasance is wider and deeper than we could have imagined three months ago.

And near the bottom, seeming not just in boldface but in capital letters: MANUFACTURE AND SALE OF ILLEGAL DRUGS.

It appeared that her prayer had been answered, and in a completely unexpected way. Brenda sat down in Howie’s chair, clicked ONGOING INVESTIGATION in the VADER file, and let her late husband talk to her.

7

The President’s speech—long on comfort, short on information—wrapped up at 12:21 AM. Rusty Everett watched it in the third-floor lounge of the hospital, made a final check of the charts, and went home. He had ended days more tired than this during his medical career, but he had never been more disheartened or worried about the future.

The house was dark. He and Linda had discussed buying a generator last year (and the year before), because Chester’s Mill always lost its power four or five days each winter, and usually a couple of times in the summer as well; Western Maine Power was not the most reliable of service providers. The bottom line had been that they just couldn’t afford it. Perhaps if Lin went full-time with the cops, but neither of them wanted that with the girls still small.

At least we’ve got a good stove and a helluva woodpile. If we need it.

There was a flashlight in the glove compartment, but when he turned it on it emitted a weak beam for five seconds and then died. Rusty muttered an obscenity and reminded himself to stock up on batteries tomorrow—later today, now. Assuming the stores were open.

If I can’t find my way around here after twelve years, I’m a monkey.

Yes, well. He felt a little like a monkey tonight—one fresh-caught and slammed into a zoo cage. And he definitely smelled like one. Maybe a shower before bed—

But nope. No power, no shower.

It was a clear night, and although there was no moon, there were a billion stars above the house, and they looked the same as ever. Maybe the barrier didn’t exist overhead. The President hadn’t spoken to that issue, so perhaps the people in charge of investigating didn’t know yet. If The Mill were at the bottom of a newly created well instead of caught underneath some weird bell jar, then things might still work out. The government could airdrop supplies. Surely if the country could spend hundreds of billions for corporate bailouts, then it could afford to parachute in extra Pop-Tarts and a few lousy generators.

He mounted the porch steps, taking out his housekey, but when he got to the door, he saw something hanging over the lockplate. He bent closer, squinting, and smiled. It was a mini-flashlight. At Burpee’s End of Summer Blowout Sale, Linda had bought six for five bucks. At the time he’d thought it a foolish expenditure, even remembered thinking, Women buy stuff at sales for the same reason men climb mountains—because they’re there.

A small metal loop stuck out on the bottom of the light. Threaded through it was a lace from one of his old tennis shoes. A note had been taped to the lace. He took it off and trained the light on it.

He was scared, too, and not crazy about his wife working a twelve tomorrow when he was likely to be working a sixteen or even longer. Also not crazy about Judy and Janelle spending a whole day with Marta when they were undoubtedly scared, too.

But the thing he was least crazy about was having to walk their golden retriever at nearly one in the morning. He thought it was possible she had sensed the advent of the barrier; he knew that dogs were sensitive to many impending phenomena, not just earthquakes. Only if that were the case, what he and Linda called the Whining Thing should have stopped, right? The rest of the dogs in town had been grave-quiet on his way back tonight. No barking, no howling. Nor had he heard other reports of dogs doing the Whining Thing.

Maybe she’ll be asleep on her bed beside the stove, he thought as he unlocked the kitchen door.

Audrey wasn’t asleep. She came to him at once, not bounding joyfully as she usually did—You’re home! You’re home! Oh thank God, you’re home!—but sidling, almost slinking, with her tail tucked down over her withers, as if expecting a blow (which she had never received) instead of a pat on the head. And yes, she was once more doing the Whining Thing. It had actually been going on since before the barrier. She’d stop for a couple of weeks, and Rusty would begin to hope it was over, and then it would start again, sometimes soft, sometimes loud. Tonight it was loud—or maybe it only seemed that way in the dark kitchen where the digital readouts on the stove and the microwave were out and the usual light Linda left on for him over the sink was dark.

“Stop it, girl,” he said. “You’ll wake the house.”

But Audrey wouldn’t. She butted her head softly against his knee and looked up at him in the bright, narrow beam of light he held in his right hand. He would have sworn that was a pleading look.

“All right,” he said. “All right, all right. Walkies.”

Her leash dangled from a peg beside the pantry door. As he went to get it (dropping the light around his neck to hang by the shoelace as he did), she skittered in front of him, more like a cat than a dog. If not for the flashlight, she might have tripped him up. That would have finished this whore of a day in grand fashion.

“Just a minute, just a minute, hold on.”

But she barked at him and backed away.

“Hush! Audrey, hush!”

Instead of hushing she barked again, the sound shockingly loud in the sleeping house. He jerked in surprise. Audrey darted forward and seized the leg of his pants in her teeth and began to back toward the hall, trying to pull him along.

Now intrigued, Rusty allowed himself to be led. When she saw he was coming, Audry let go and ran to the stairs. She went up two, looked back, and barked again.

A light went on upstairs, in their bedroom. “Rusty?” It was Lin, her voice muzzy.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he called, keeping it as low as he could. “Actually it’s Audrey.”

He followed the dog up the stairs. Instead of taking them at her usual all-out lope, Audrey kept pausing to look back. To dog-people, their animals’ expressions are often perfectly readable, and what Rusty was seeing now was anxiety. Audrey’s ears were laid flat, her tail still tucked. If this was the Whining Thing, it had been raised to a new level. Rusty suddenly wondered if there was a prowler in the house. The kitchen door had been locked, Lin was usually good about locking all the doors when she was alone with the girls, but—

Linda came to the head of the stairs, belting a white terry-cloth robe. Audrey saw her and barked again. A get-out-of-my-way bark.

“Audi, stop that!” she said, but Audrey ran past her, striking against Lin’s right leg hard enough to knock her back against the wall. Then the golden ran down the hall toward the girls’ room, where all was still quiet.

Lin fished her own mini-flashlight from a pocket of her robe. “What in the name of heaven—”

“I think you better go back to the bedroom,” Rusty said.

“Like hell I will!” She ran down the hall ahead of him, the bright beam of the little light bouncing.

The girls were seven and five, and had recently entered what Lin called “the feminine privacy phase.” Audrey reached their door, rose up, and began scratching on it with her front paws.

Rusty caught up with Lin just as she opened the door. Audrey bounded in, not even giving Judy’s bed a look. Their five-year-old was fast asleep, anyway.

Janelle wasn’t asleep. Nor was she awake. Rusty understood everything the moment the two flashlight beams converged on her, and cursed himself for not realizing earlier what was happening, what must have been happening since August or maybe even July. Because the behavior Audrey had been exhibiting—the Whining Thing—was well documented. He just hadn’t seen the truth when it was staring him in the face.

Janelle, eyes open but showing only whites, wasn’t convulsing—thank God for that—but she was trembling all over. She had pushed the covers down with her feet, probably at onset, and in the double flashlight beams he could see a damp patch on her pajama bottoms. Her fingertips wiggled, as if she were loosening up to play the piano.

Audrey sat by the bed, looking up at her little mistress with rapt attention.

“What’s happening to her?” Linda screamed.

In the other bed Judy stirred and spoke. “Mumma? Is it brefkus? Did I miss the bus?”

“She’s having a seizure,” Rusty said.

“Well help her!” Linda cried. “Do something! Is she dying?”

“No,” Rusty said. The part of his brain that remained analytical knew this was almost certainly just petit mal—as the others must have been, or they would have known about this already. But it was different when it was one of your own.

Judy sat bolt upright in bed, spilling stuffed animals everywhere. Her eyes were wide and terrified, nor was she much comforted when Linda tore the child out of bed and clasped her in her arms.

“Make her stop! Make her stop, Rusty!”

If it was petit mal, it would stop on its own.

Please God let it stop on its own, he thought.

He placed his palms on the sides of Jan’s trembling, thrumming head and tried to rotate it upward, wanting to make sure her airway remained clear. At first he wasn’t able to—the goddam foam pillow was fighting him. He tossed it on the floor. It struck Audrey on the way down, but she didn’t so much as flinch, only maintained her rapt gaze.

Rusty was now able to cock Jannie’s head back a little, and he could hear her breathing. It wasn’t rapid; there was no harsh tearing for oxygen, either.

“Mommy, what’s the matter with Jan-Jan?” Judy asked, beginning to cry. “Is she mad? Is she sick?”

“Not mad and only a little sick,” Rusty was astounded at how calm he sounded. “Why don’t you let Mommy take you down to our—”

“No!” they cried together, in perfect two-part harmony.

“Okay,” he said, “but you have to be quiet. Don’t scare her when she wakes up, because she’s apt to be scared already.

“A little scared,” he amended. “Audi, good girl. That’s a very very good girl.”

Such compliments usually sent Audrey into paroxysms of joy, but not tonight. She didn’t even wag her tail. Then, suddenly, the golden gave a small woof and lay down, dropping her muzzle onto one paw. Seconds later, Jan’s trembling ceased and her eyes closed.

“I’ll be damned,” Rusty said.

“What?” Linda was now sitting on the edge of Judy’s bed with Judy on her lap. “What?”

“It’s over,” Rusty said.

But it wasn’t. Not quite. When Jannie opened her eyes again, they were back where they belonged, but they weren’t seeing him.

“The Great Pumpkin!” Janelle cried. “It’s the Great Pumpkin’s fault! You have to stop the Great Pumpkin!”

Rusty gave her a gentle shake. “You were having a dream, Jannie. A bad one, I guess. But it’s over and you’re all right.”

For a moment she still wasn’t completely there, although her eyes shifted and he knew she was seeing and hearing him now. “Stop Halloween, Daddy! You have to stop Halloween!”

“Okay, honey, I will. Halloween’s off. Completely.”

She blinked, then raised one hand to brush her clumped and sweaty hair off her forehead. “What? Why? I was going to be Princess Leia! Does everything have to go wrong with my life?” She began to cry.

Linda came over—Judy scurrying behind and holding onto the skirt of her mother’s robe—and took Janelle in her arms. “You can still be Princess Leia, honeylove, I promise.”

Jan was looking at her parents with puzzlement, suspicion, and growing fright. “What are you doing in here? And why is she up?” Pointing to Judy.

“You peed in your bed,” Judy said smugly, and when Jan realized—realized and started to cry harder—Rusty felt like smacking Judy a good one. He usually felt like a pretty enlightened parent (especially compared to those he sometimes saw creeping into the Health Center with their arm-broke or eye-blackened children), but not tonight.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rusty said, hugging Jan close. “It wasn’t your fault. You had a little problem, but it’s over now.”

“Does she have to go to the hospital?” Linda asked.

“Only to the Health Center, and not tonight. Tomorrow morning. I’ll get her fixed up with the right medicine then.”

“NO SHOTS!” Jannie screamed, and began to cry harder than ever. Rusty loved the sound of it. It was a healthy sound. Strong.

“No shots, sweetheart. Pills.”

“Are you sure?” Lin asked.

Rusty looked at their dog, now lying peacefully with her snout on her paw, oblivious of all the drama.

“Audrey ’s sure,” he said. “But she ought to sleep in here with the girls for tonight.”

“Yay!” Judy cried. She fell to her knees and hugged Audi extravagantly.

Rusty put an arm around his wife. She laid her head on his shoulder as if too weary to hold it up any longer.

“Why now?” she asked. “Why now?”

“I don’t know. Just be grateful it was only petit mal.”

On that score, his prayer had been answered.