Under the Dome

1

It was twelve-thirty on the morning of October twenty-sixth when Julia let herself into Andrea’s house. She did it quietly, but there was no need; she could hear music from Andi’s little portable radio: the Staples Singers, kicking holy ass with “Get Right Church.”

Horace came down the hall to greet her, wagging his rear end and grinning that slightly mad grin of which only Corgis seem capable. He bowed before her, paws splayed, and Julia gave him a brief scratch behind the ears—it was his sweet spot.

Andrea was sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of tea.

“Sorry about the music,” she said, turning it down. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“It’s your house, honey,” Julia said. “And for WCIK, that really rocks.”

Andi smiled. “It’s been uptempo gospel ever since this afternoon. I feel like I hit the jackpot. How was your meeting?”

“Good.” Julia sat down.

“Want to talk about it?”

“You don’t need the worry. What you need is to concentrate on feeling better. And you know what? You look a little better.”

It was true. Andi was still pale, and much too thin, but the dark circles under her eyes had faded a little, and the eyes themselves had a new spark. “Thanks for saying so.”

“Was Horace a good boy?”

“Very good. We played ball, and then we both slept a little. If I look better, that’s probably why. Nothing like a nap to improve a girl’s looks.”

“What about your back?”

Andrea smiled. It was an oddly knowing smile, without much humor in it. “My back isn’t bad at all. Hardly a twinge, even when I bend over. Do you know what I think?”

Julia shook her head.

“I think that when it comes to drugs, the body and the mind are co-conspirators. If the brain wants drugs, the body helps out. It says, ‘Don’t worry, don’t feel guilty, it’s okay, I really hurt.’ It’s not exactly hypochondria I’m talking about, nothing so simple. Just…” She trailed off and her eyes grew distant as she went somewhere else.

Where? Julia wondered.

Then she came back. “Human nature can be destructive. Tell me, do you think a town is like a body?”

“Yes,” Julia said instantly.

“And can it say it hurts so the brain can take the drugs it craves?”

Julia considered, then nodded. “Yes.”

“And right now, Big Jim Rennie is this town’s brain, isn’t he?”

“Yes, hon. I’d say he is.”

Andrea sat on the couch, head slightly lowered. Then she snapped off the little battery radio and got to her feet. “I think I’ll go up to bed. And do you know, I think I might actually be able to sleep.”

“That’s good.” And then, for no reason she could have articulated, Julia asked: “Andi, did anything happen while I was gone?”

Andrea looked surprised. “Why, yes. Horace and I played ball.” She bent down without the slightest wince of pain—a movement she would only a week ago have claimed was impossible for her—and held out one hand. Horace came to her and allowed his head to be stroked. “He’s very good at fetching.”

2

In her room, Andrea settled on her bed, opened the VADER file, and began to read through it again. More carefully this time. When she finally slid the papers back into the manila envelope, it was close to two AM. She put the envelope into the drawer of the table next to her bed. Also in the drawer was a.38 pistol, which her brother Douglas had given her for her birthday two years ago. She had been dismayed, but Dougie had insisted that a woman living alone should have protection.

Now she took it out, popped the cylinder, and checked the chambers. The one that would roll under the hammer when the trigger was pulled for the first time was empty, as per Twitch’s instructions. The other five were full. She had more bullets on the top shelf of her closet, but they would never give her a chance to reload. His little army of cops would shoot her down first.

And if she couldn’t kill Rennie with five shots, she probably didn’t deserve to live, anyway.

“After all,” she murmured as she put the gun back in the drawer, “what did I get straight for, anyway?” The answer seemed clear now that the Oxy had cleared her brain: she’d gotten straight to shoot straight.

“Amen to that,” she said, and turned out the light.

Five minutes later she was asleep.

3

Junior was wide awake. He sat by the window in the hospital room’s only chair, watching the bizarre pink moon decline and slip behind a black smudge on the Dome that was new to him. This one was bigger and much higher than the one left by the failed missile strikes. Had there been some other effort to breach the Dome while he’d been unconscious? He didn’t know and didn’t care. What mattered was that the Dome was still holding. If it hadn’t been, the town would have been lit like Vegas and crawling with GI Joes. Oh, there were lights here and there, marking a few diehard insomniacs, but for the most part, Chester’s Mill slept. That was good, because he had things to think about.

Namely Baaarbie and Barbie’s friends.

Junior had no headache as he sat by the window, and his memories had come back, but he was aware that he was a very sick boy. There was a suspicious weakness all down the left side of his body, and sometimes spit slipped from that side of his mouth. If he wiped it away with his left hand, sometimes he could feel skin against skin and sometimes he couldn’t. In addition to this, there was a dark keyhole shape, quite large, floating on the left side of his vision. As if something had torn inside that eyeball. He supposed it had.

He could remember the wild rage he’d felt on Dome Day; could remember chasing Angie down the hall to the kitchen, throwing her against the fridge, and hoicking his knee into her face. He could remember the sound it made, as if there were a china platter behind her eyes and his knee had shattered it. That rage was gone now. What had taken its place was a silken fury that flowed through his body from some bottomless source deep inside his head, a spring that simultaneously chilled and clarified.

The old fuck he and Frankie had rousted at Chester Pond had come in to examine him earlier this evening. The old fuck acted professional, taking his temperature and blood pressure, asking how his headache was, even checking his knee reflexes with a little rubber hammer. Then, after he left, Junior heard talk and laughter. Barbie’s name was mentioned. Junior crept to the door.

It was the old fuck and one of the candy stripers, the pretty dago whose name was Buffalo or something like Buffalo. The old fuck had her top open and was feeling her tits. She had his fly open and was jerking his dick. A poison green light surrounded them. “Junior and his friend beat me up,” the old fuck was saying, “but now his friend’s dead and soon he will be, too. Barbie’s orders.”

“I like to suck Barbie’s dick like a peppermint stick,” the Buffalo-girl said, and the old fuck said he enjoyed that, too. Then, when Junior blinked his eyes, the two of them were just walking down the hall. No green aura, no dirty stuff. So maybe it had been a hallucination. On the other hand, maybe not. One thing was for sure: they were all in it together. All in league with Baaarbie. He was in jail, but that was just temporary. To gain sympathy, probably. All part of Baaarbie ’s plaaan. Plus, he thought that in jail he was beyond Junior’s reach.

“Wrong,” he whispered as he sat by the window, looking out at the night with his now-defective vision. “Wrong.”

Junior knew exactly what had happened to him; it had come in a flash, and the logic was undeniable. He was suffering from thallium poisoning, like what had happened to that Russian guy in England. Barbie’s dog tags had been coated with thallium dust, and Junior had handled them, and now he was dying. And since his father had sent him to Barbie’s apartment, that meant he was a part of it, too. He was another of Barbie’s… his… what did you call those guys…

“Minions,” Junior whispered. “Just another one of Big Jim Rennie’s filet minions.”

Once you thought about it—once your mind was clarified—it made perfect sense. His father wanted to shut him up about Coggins and Perkins. Hence, thallium poisoning. It all hung together.

Outside, beyond the lawn, a wolf loped across the parking lot. On the lawn itself, two naked women were in the 69 position. Sixty-nine, lunchtime! he and Frankie used to chant when they were kids and saw two girls walking together, not knowing what it meant, only knowing that it was rude. One of the cracksnackers looked like Sammy Bushey. The nurse—Ginny, her name was—had told him that Sammy was dead, which was obviously a lie and meant that Ginny was in on it, too; in on it with Baaarbie.

Was there anyone in this whole town who wasn’t? Who he could be sure wasn’t?

Yes, he realized, there were two. The kids he and Frank had found out by the Pond, Alice and Aidan Appleton. He remembered their haunted eyes, and how the girl had hugged him when he picked her up. When he told her she was safe, she had asked Do you promise?, and Junior had told her yes. It made him feel really good to promise. The trusting weight of her had made him feel good, too.

He made a sudden decision: he would kill Dale Barbara. If anyone got in his way, he would kill them, too. Then he would find his father and kill him… a thing he had dreamed of doing for years, although he had never admitted it to himself fully until now.

Once that was done, he’d seek out Aidan and Alice. If someone tried to stop him, he’d kill them, too. He would take the kids back out to Chester Pond, and he would take care of them. He would keep the promise he had made to Alice. If he did, he wouldn’t die. God would not let him die of thallium poisoning while he was taking care of those kids.

Now Angie McCain and Dodee Sanders went prancing across the parking lot, wearing cheerleader skirts and sweaters with big Mills Wildcats Ws on their chests. They saw him looking and began to gyrate their hips and lift up their skirts. Their faces slopped and jiggled with decay. They were chanting, “Open up the pantry door! Come on in, let’s fuck some more! Go… TEAM!”

Junior closed his eyes. Opened them. His girlfriends were gone. Another hallucination, like the wolf. About the 69 girls he wasn’t so sure.

Maybe, he thought, he wouldn’t take the children out to the Pond, after all. That was pretty far from town. Maybe he would take them to the McCain pantry, instead. That was closer. There was plenty of food.

And, of course, it was dark.

“I’ll take care of you, kids,” Junior said. “I’ll keep you safe. Once Barbie’s dead, the whole conspiracy will fall apart.”

After a while he leaned his forehead against the glass and then he too slept.

4

Henrietta Clavard’s ass might only have been bruised instead of broken, but it still hurt like a sonofabitch—at eighty-four, she’d found, everything that went wrong with you hurt like a sonofabitch—and at first she thought it was her ass that woke her at first light on that Thursday morning. But the Tylenol she’d taken at three AM still seemed to be holding. Plus, she’d found her late husband’s fanny-ring (John Clavard had suffered hemorrhoids), and that helped considerably. No, it was something else, and shortly after awakening, she realized what it was.

The Freemans’ Irish setter, Buddy, was howling. Buddy never howled. He was the most polite dog on Battle Street, a short lane just beyond Catherine Russell Drive. Also, the Freemans’ generator had stopped. Henrietta thought that might have actually been what woke her up, not the dog. Certainly it had put her to sleep last night. It wasn’t one of those rackety ones, blowing blue exhaust smoke into the air; the Freemans’ generator gave off a low, sleek purr that was actually quite soothing. Henrietta supposed it was expensive, but the Freemans could afford it. Will owned the Toyota franchise Big Jim Rennie had once coveted, and although these were hard times for most car dealers, Will had always seemed the exception to the rule. Just last year, he and Lois had put a very nice and tasteful addition on the house.

But that howling. The dog sounded hurt. A hurt pet was the sort of thing nice people like the Freemans saw to immediately… so why weren’t they?

Henrietta got out of bed (wincing a little as her butt came out of the comforting hole in the foam doughnut) and went to the window. She could see the Freemans’ split-level perfectly well, although the light was gray and listless instead of sharp and clear, as it usually was on mornings in late October. From the window she could hear Buddy even better, but she couldn’t see anyone moving around over there. The house was entirely dark, not so much as a Coleman lantern glowing in a single window. She would have thought they’d gone somewhere, but both cars were parked in the driveway. And where was there to go, anyway?

Buddy continued to howl.

Henrietta got on her housecoat and slippers and went outside. As she was standing on the sidewalk, a car pulled up. It was Douglas Twitchell, no doubt on his way to the hospital. He looked puffy-eyed and was clutching a takeout cup of coffee with the Sweetbriar Rose logo on the side as he got out of his car.

“You all right, Mrs. Clavard?”

“Yes, but something’s wrong at the Freemans’. Hear that?”

“Yeah.”

“Then so must they. Their cars are there, so why don’t they stop it?”

“I’ll take a look.” Twitch took a sip of his coffee, then set it down on the hood of his car. “You stay here.”

“Nonsense,” said Henrietta Clavard.

They walked down twenty yards or so of sidewalk, then up the Freemans’ driveway. The dog howled and howled. The sound of it made Henrietta’s skin cold in spite of the morning’s limp warmth.

“The air’s very bad,” she said. “It smells like Rumford used to when I was just married and all the paper mills were still running. This can’t be good for people.”

Twitch grunted and rang the Freemans’ bell. When that brought no response, he first knocked on the door and then hammered.

“See if it’s unlocked,” Henrietta said.

“I don’t know if I should, Mrs.—”

“Oh, bosh.” She pushed past him and tried the knob. It turned. She opened the door. The house beyond it was silent and full of deep early morning shadows. “Will?” she called. “Lois? Are you here?”

No one answered but more howls.

“The dog’s out back,” Twitch said.

It would have been quicker to cut straight through, but neither of them liked to do that, so they walked up the driveway and along the breezeway between the house and the garage where Will stored not his cars but his toys: two snowmobiles, an ATV, a Yamaha dirtbike and a bloated Honda Gold Wing.

There was a high privacy fence around the Freeman backyard. The gate was beyond the breezeway. Twitch pulled the gate open, and was immediately hit by seventy pounds of frantic Irish setter. He shouted in surprise and raised his hands, but the dog didn’t want to bite him; Buddy was in full please-rescue-me mode. He put his paws on the front of Twitch’s last clean tunic, smearing it with dirt, and began to slobber all over his face.

“Stop it!” Twitch shouted. He pushed Buddy, who went down but popped right back up, laying fresh tracks on Twitch’s tunic and swabbing his cheeks with a long pink tongue.

“Buddy, down!” Henrietta commanded, and Buddy shrank onto his haunches at once, whining and rolling his eyes between them. A puddle of urine began to spread out beneath him.

“Mrs. Clavard, this is not good.”

“No,” Henrietta agreed.

“Maybe you better stay with the d—”

Henrietta once more said bosh and marched into the Freemans’ backyard, leaving Twitch to catch up with her. Buddy slunk along behind them, head down and tail tucked, whining disconsolately.

There was a stone-flagged patio with a barbecue on it. The barbecue was neatly covered with a green tarp that said THE KITCHEN’S CLOSED. Beyond this, on the edge of the lawn, was a redwood platform. On top of the platform was the Freemans’ hot tub. Twitch supposed the high privacy fence was there so they could sit in it naked, maybe even pitch a little woo if the urge took them.

Will and Lois were in it now, but their woo-pitching days were done. They were wearing clear plastic bags over their heads. The bags appeared to have been cinched at the necks with either twine or brown rubber bands. They had fogged up on the inside, but not so much that Twitch couldn’t make out the empurpled faces. Sitting on the redwood apron between the earthly remains of Will and Lois Freeman was a whiskey bottle and a small medicine vial.

“Stop,” he said. He didn’t know if he was talking to himself, or Mrs. Clavard, or possibly to Buddy, who had just voiced another bereft howl. Certainly he couldn’t be talking to the Freemans.

Henrietta didn’t stop. She walked to the hot tub, marched up the two steps with her back as straight as a soldier’s, looked at the dis-colored faces of her perfectly nice (and perfectly normal, she would have said) neighbors, glanced at the whiskey bottle, saw it was Glenlivet (at least they’d gone out in style), then picked up the medicine vial with its Sanders Hometown Drug label.

“Ambien or Lunesta?” Twitch asked heavily.

“Ambien,” she said, and was gratified the voice emerging from her dry throat and mouth sounded normal. “Hers. Although I’d guess she shared it last night.”

“Is there a note?”

“Not here,” she said. “Maybe inside.”

But there wasn’t, at least not in any of the obvious places, and neither of them could think of a reason to hide a suicide note. Buddy followed them from room to room, not howling but whining deep in his throat.

“I guess I’ll bring him back t’house with me,” Henrietta said.

“You’ll have to. I can’t take him to the hospital. I’ll call Stewart Bowie to come and get… them.” He hooked a thumb back over his shoulder. His stomach was roiling, but that wasn’t the bad part; the bad part was the depression that came stealing into him, putting a shadow across his normally sunny soul.

“I don’t understand why they would do it,” Henrietta said. “If we’d been a year under the Dome… or even a month… yes, maybe. But less than a week? This is not how stable people respond to trouble.”

Twitch thought he understood, but didn’t want to say it to Henrietta: it was going to be a month, it was going to be a year. Maybe longer. And with no rain, fewer resources, and fouler air. If the most technologically hip country in the world hadn’t been able to get a handle on what had happened to Chester’s Mill by now (let alone solve the problem), it probably wasn’t going to happen soon. Will Freeman must have understood that. Or maybe it had been Lois’s idea. Maybe when the generator had died, she’d said Let’s do it before the water in the hot tub gets cold, honey. Let’s get out from under the Dome while our bellies are still full. What do you say? One more dip, with a few drinks to see us off.

“Maybe it was the plane that pushed them over the edge,” Twitch said. “The Air Ireland that hit the Dome yesterday.”

Henrietta didn’t answer with words; she hawked back and spat snot into the kitchen sink. It was a somehow shocking gesture of repudiation. They went back outside.

“More people will do this, won’t they?” she asked when they had reached the end of the driveway. “Because suicide gets in the air sometimes. Like a cold germ.”

“Some already have.” Twitch didn’t know if suicide was painless, as the song said, but under the right circumstances, it could certainly be catching. Maybe especially catching when the situation was unprecedented and the air started to smell as foul as it did on this windless, unnaturally warm morning.

“Suicides are cowards,” Henrietta said. “A rule to which there are no exceptions, Douglas.”

Twitch, whose father had died a long and lingering death as a result of stomach cancer, wondered about that but said nothing.

Henrietta bent to Buddy with her hands on her bony knees. Buddy stretched his neck up to sniff her. “Come next door, my furry friend. I have three eggs. You may eat them before they go bad.”

She started away, then turned back to Twitch. “They are cowards,” she said, giving each word its own special emphasis.

5

Jim Rennie checked out of Cathy Russell, slept soundly in his own bed, and woke refreshed. Although he would not have admitted it to anyone, part of the reason was knowing Junior was out of the house.

Now, at eight o’clock, his black Hummer was parked a door or two up from Rosie’s (in front of a fire hydrant, but what the hell; currently there was no fire department). He was having breakfast with Peter Randolph, Mel Searles, Freddy Denton, and Carter Thibodeau. Carter had taken up what was becoming his usual station, at Big Jim’s right hand. He wore two guns this morning: his own on his hip, and Linda Everett’s recently returned Beretta Taurus in a shoulder rig.

The quintet had taken over the bullshit table at the back of the restaurant, deposing the regulars without a qualm. Rose wouldn’t come near; she sent Anson to deal with them.

Big Jim ordered three fried eggs, double sausage, and home toast fried in bacon grease, the way his mother used to serve it. He knew he was supposed to be cutting down on his cholesterol, but today he was going to need all the energy he could pack in. The next few days, actually; after that, things would be under control. He could go to work on his cholesterol then (a fable he had been telling himself for ten years).

“Where’s the Bowies?” he asked Carter. “I wanted the goshdarn Bowies here, so where are they?”

“Had to roll on a call out to Battle Street,” Carter said. “Mr. and Mrs. Freeman committed suicide.”

“That cotton-picker topped himself?” Big Jim exclaimed. The few patrons—most at the counter, watching CNN—looked around, then looked away. “Well, there! I’m not a bit surprised!” It occurred to him that now the Toyota dealership could be his for the taking… but why would he want it? A much bigger plum had fallen into his lap: the whole town. He had already started drafting a list of executive orders, which he would begin putting into effect as soon as he was granted full executive powers. That would happen tonight. And besides, he had hated that smarmy sonofabuck Freeman and his titsy rhymes-with-witch wife for years.

“Boys, he and Lois are eating breakfast in heaven.” He paused, then burst out laughing. Not very political, but he just couldn’t help it. “In the servants’ quarters, I have no doubt.”

“While the Bowies were out there, they got another call,” Carter said. “Dinsmore farm. Another suicide.”

“Who?” Chief Randolph asked. “Alden?”

“No. His wife. Shelley.”

That actually was sort of a shame. “Let’s us bow our heads for a minute,” Big Jim said, and extended his hands. Carter took one; Mel Searles took the other; Randolph and Denton linked up.

“Ohgod pleaseblessthesepoorsouls, Jesussakeamen,” Big Jim said, and raised his head. “Little business, Peter.”

Peter hauled out his notebook. Carter’s was already laid beside his plate; Big Jim liked the boy more and more.

“I’ve found the missing propane,” Big Jim announced. “It’s at WCIK.”

“Jesus!” Randolph said. “We have to send some trucks out there to get it!”

“Yes, but not today,” Big Jim said. “Tomorrow, while everyone’s visiting their relatives. I’ve already started working on that. The Bowies and Roger will go out again, but we’ll need a few officers, too. Fred, you and Mel. Plus I’m going to say four or five more. Not you, Carter, I want you with me.”

“Why do you need cops to get a bunch of propane tanks?” Randolph said.

“Well,” Jim said, mopping up egg yolk with a piece of fried toast, “that goes back to our friend Dale Barbara and his plans to destabilize this town. There are a couple of armed men out there, and it looks like they may be protecting some kind of drug lab. I think Barbara had that in place long before he actually showed up in person; this was well planned. One of the current caretakers is Philip Bushey.”

“That loser,” Randolph grunted.

“The other one, I’m sorry to say, is Andy Sanders.”

Randolph had been spearing fried potatoes. Now he dropped his fork with a clatter. “Andy!”

“Sad but true. It was Barbara who set him up in business—I have that on good authority, but don’t ask me for my source; he’s requested anonymity.” Big Jim sighed, then stuffed a yolk-smeared chunk of fried bread into his cakehole. Dear Lord but he felt good this morning! “I suppose Andy needed the money. I understand the bank was on the verge of foreclosing his drugstore. He never did have a head for business.”

“Or town government, either,” Freddy Denton added.

Big Jim ordinarily did not enjoy being interrupted by inferiors, but this morning he was enjoying everything. “Unfortunately true,” he said, then leaned over the table as far as his large belly would allow. “He and Bushey shot at one of the trucks I sent out there yesterday. Blew the front tires. Those cotton-pickers are dangerous.”

“Drug addicts with guns,” Randolph said. “A law-enforcement nightmare. The men who go out there will have to wear vests.”

“Good idea.”

“And I can’t vouch for Andy’s safety.”

“God love you, I know that. Do what you have to do. We need that propane. The town’s crying for it, and I intend to announce at the meeting tonight that we’ve discovered a fresh source.”

“Are you sure I can’t go, Mr. Rennie?” Carter asked.

“I know it’s a disappointment to you, but I want you with me tomorrow, not out where they’re having their visitors’ party. Randolph, too, I think. Someone has to coordinate this business, which is apt to be a clustermug. We’ll have to try to keep people from being trampled. Although some probably will be, because people don’t know how to behave. Better tell Twitchell to get his ambulance out there.”

Carter wrote this down.

While he did, Big Jim turned back to Randolph. His face was long with sorrow. “I hate to say this, Pete, but my informant has suggested Junior may also have been involved with the drug lab.”

“Junior?” Mel said. “Naw, not Junior. ”

Big Jim nodded, and wiped a dry eye with the heel of his palm. “It’s hard for me to believe, too. I don’t want to believe it, but you know he’s in the hospital?”

They nodded.

“Drug overdose,” Rennie whispered, leaning even further over the table. “That seems to be the most likely explanation for what’s wrong with him.” He straightened and focused on Randolph again. “Don’t try going in from the main road, they’ll be expecting that. About a mile east of the radio station, there’s an access road—”

“I know the one,” Freddy said. “That used to be Sloppy Sam Verdreaux’s woodlot out there, ’fore the bank took it back. I think now all that land belongs to Holy Redeemer.”

Big Jim smiled and nodded, although the land actually belonged to a Nevada corporation of which he was president. “Go in that way, then approach the station from the rear. It’s mostly old growth out there, and you should have no trouble.”

Big Jim’s cell phone rang. He looked at the display, almost let the phone ring over to voice mail, then thought: What the heck. Feeling as he did this morning, listening to Cox foam at the mouth might be enjoyable.

“This is Rennie. What do you want, Colonel Cox?”

He listened, his smile fading a little.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth about this?”

He listened some more, then ended the call without saying goodbye. He sat frowning for a moment, processing whatever he’d heard. Then he raised his head and spoke to Randolph. “Do we have a Geiger counter? In the fallout shelter, maybe?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Al Timmons probably would.”

“Find him and have him check that out.”

“Is it important?” Randolph asked, and at the same time Carter asked, “Is it radiation, boss?”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Big Jim said. “As Junior would say, he’s just trying to freak me out. I’m sure of it. But check on that Geiger counter. If we do have one—and it still works—bring it to me.”

“Okay,” Randolph said, looking frightened.

Big Jim wished now that he’d let the call go to voice mail after all. Or kept his mouth shut. Searles was apt to blab about this, start a rumor. Heck, Randolph was apt to. And it was probably nothing, just that brass-hat cotton-picker trying to spoil a good day. The most important day of his life, maybe.

Freddy Denton, at least, had kept what mind he had on the issue at hand. “What time do you want us to hit the radio station, Mr. Rennie?”

Big Jim mentally reran what he knew about the Visitors Day schedule, then smiled. It was a genuine smile, wreathing his slightly greasy chops with good cheer and revealing his tiny teeth. “Twelve o’clock. Everybody will be schmoozing out on highway 119 by then and the rest of the town will be empty. So you go in and take out those cotton-pickers sitting on our propane at high noon. Just like in one of those old Western movies.”

6

At quarter past eleven on that Thursday morning, the Sweetbriar Rose van went trundling south along Route 119. Tomorrow the highway would be clogged with cars and stinking of exhaust, but today it was eerily deserted. Sitting behind the wheel was Rose herself. Ernie Calvert was in the passenger bucket. Norrie sat between them on the engine housing, clutching her skateboard, which was covered with stickers bearing the logos of long-gone punk bands like Stalag 17 and the Dead Milkmen.

“The air smells so bad, ” Norrie said.

“It’s the Prestile, honey,” Rose said. “It’s turned into a big old stinky marsh where it used to run into Motton.” She knew it was more than just the smell of the dying river, but didn’t say so. They had to breathe, so there was no point in worrying about what they might be breathing in. “Have you talked to your mother?”

“Yeah,” Norrie said glumly. “She’ll come, but she’s not crazy about the idea.”

“Will she bring whatever groceries she has, when it’s time?”

“Yes. In the trunk of our car.” What Norrie didn’t add was that Joanie Calvert would load in her booze supply first; food supplies would play second fiddle to that. “What about the radiation, Rose? We can’t plaster every car that goes up there with lead roll.”

“If people only go once or twice, they should be okay.” Rose had confirmed this for herself, on the Internet. She had also discovered that safety when it came to radiation depended on the strength of the rays, but saw no sense in worrying them about things they couldn’t control. “The important thing is to limit exposure… and Joe says the belt isn’t wide.”

“Joey’s mom won’t want to come,” Norrie said.

Rose sighed. This she knew. Visitors Day was a mixed blessing. It might cover their retreat, but those with relatives on the other side would want to see them. Maybe McClatchey will lose the lottery, she thought.

Up ahead was Jim Rennie’s Used Cars, with its big sign: YOU’LL LUV THE FEELIN’ WHEN BIG JIM IS DEALIN’! A$K U$ 4 CREDIT!

“Remember—” Ernie began.

“I know,” Rose said. “If someone’s there, just turn around in front and head back to town.”

But at Rennie’s all the RESERVED FOR EMPLOYEE slots were empty, the showroom was deserted, and there was a whiteboard bearing the message CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE hanging on the main door. Rose drove around back in a hurry. Out here were ranks of cars and trucks with signs in the windows bearing prices and slogans like GREAT VALUE and CLEAN AS A WHISTLE and HEY LOOK ME OVER (with the Os turned into sexy long-lashed girl-eyes). These were the battered workhorses in Big Jim’s stable, nothing like the snazzy Detroit and German thoroughbreds out front. At the far end of the lot, ranked against the chainlink fence separating Big Jim’s property from a trash-littered patch of second-growth woods, was a line of phone company vans, some still bearing AT&T logos.

“Those,” Ernie said, reaching behind his seat. He brought out a long thin strip of metal.

“That’s a slim jim,” Rose said, amused in spite of her nerves. “Why would you have a slim jim, Ernie?”

“From when I was still working at Food City. You’d be surprised how many people lock their keys in their cars.”

“How will you get it started, Grampa?” Norrie asked.

Ernie smiled feebly. “I’ll figure somethin out. Stop here, Rose.”

He got out and trotted to the first van, moving with surprising nimbleness for a man approaching seventy. He peered through the window, shook his head, and went to the next in line. Then the third—but that one had a flat tire. After a look into the fourth, he turned back to Rose and gave her a thumbs-up. “Go on, Rose. Buzz.”

Rose had an idea that Ernie didn’t want his granddaughter seeing him use the slim jim. She was touched by that, and drove back around to the front without any further talk. Here she stopped again. “You okay with this, sweetie?”

“Yes,” Norrie said, getting out. “If he can’t get it started, we’ll just walk back to town.”

“It’s almost three miles. Can he do that?”

Norrie’s face was pale, but she managed a smile. “Grampa could walk me right into the ground. He does four miles a day, says it keeps his joints oiled. Go on, now, before someone comes and sees you.”

“You’re a brave girl,” Rose said.

“I don’t feel brave.”

“Brave people never do, honey.”

Rose drove back toward town. Norrie watched until she was out of sight, then began to do rails and lazy diamonds in the front lot. The hottop had a slight slope, so she only had to piss-pedal one way… although she was so wired she felt like she could push the board all the way up Town Common Hill and not feel it. Hell, right now she could probably ass-knife and not feel it. And if someone came along? Well, she had walked out here with her grampa, who wanted to look at some vans. She was just waiting for him, then they’d walk back to town. Grampa loved to walk, everybody knew that. Oiling the joints. Except Norrie didn’t think that was all of it, or even most of it. He had started doing his walks when Gramma started getting confused about stuff (no one came right out and said it was Alzheimer’s, although everyone knew). Norrie thought he was walking off his sorrow. Was such a thing possible? She thought it was. She knew that when she was riding her skateboard, pulling off some sick double-kink at the skate park in Oxford, there was no room in her for anything but joy and fear, and joy ruled the house. Fear lived in the shack out back.

After a short while that felt long, the ex–phone company van rolled from behind the building with Grampa at the wheel. Norrie tucked her skateboard under her arm and jumped in. Her first ride in a stolen vehicle.

“Grampa, you are so gnarly,” she said, and kissed him.

7

Joe McClatchey was headed for the kitchen, wanting one of the remaining cans of apple juice in their dead refrigerator, when he heard his mother say Bump and stopped.

He knew that his parents had met in college, at the University of Maine, and that back then Sam McClatchey’s friends had called him Bump, but Mom hardly ever called him that anymore, and when she did, she laughed and blushed, as if the nickname had some sort of dirty subtext. About that Joe didn’t know. What he knew was that for her to slip like that—slip back like that—must mean she was upset.

He came a little closer to the kitchen door. It was chocked open and he could see his mother and Jackie Wettington, who was today dressed in a blouse and faded jeans instead of her uniform. They’d be able to see him, too, if they looked up. He had no intention of actually sneaking around; that wouldn’t be cool, especially if his mom was upset, but for the time being they were only looking at each other. They were seated at the kitchen table. Jackie was holding Claire’s hands. Joe saw that his mother’s eyes were wet, and that made him feel like crying himself.

“You can’t,” Jackie was saying. “I know you want to, but you just can’t. Not if things go like they’re supposed to tonight.”

“Can I at least call him and tell him why I won’t be there? Or e-mail him! I could do that!”

Jackie shook her head. Her face was kind but firm. “He might talk, and the talk might get back to Rennie. If Rennie sniffs something in the wind before we break Barbie and Rusty out, we could have a total disaster on our hands.”

“If I tell him to keep it strictly to himself—”

“But Claire, don’t you see? There’s too much at stake. Two men’s lives. Ours, too.” She paused. “Your son’s.”

Claire’s shoulders sagged, then straightened again. “You take Joe, then. I’ll come after Visitors Day. Rennie won’t suspect me; I don’t know Dale Barbara from Adam, and I don’t know Rusty, either, except to say hi to on the street. I go to Dr. Hartwell over in Castle Rock.”

“But Joe knows Barbie, ” Jackie said patiently. “Joe was the one who set up the video feed when they shot the missiles. And Big Jim knows that. Don’t you think he might take you into custody and sweat you until you told him where we went?”

“I wouldn’t,” Claire said. “I would never tell.”

Joe came into the kitchen. Claire wiped her cheeks and tried to smile. “Oh hi, honey. We were just talking about Visitors Day, and—”

“Mom, he might not just sweat you,” Joe said. “He might torture you.”

She looked shocked. “Oh, he wouldn’t do that. I know he’s not a nice man, but he’s a town selectman, after all, and—”

“He was a town selectman,” Jackie said. “Now he’s auditioning for emperor. And sooner or later everybody talks. Do you want Joe to be somewhere imagining you having your fingernails pulled out?”

“Stop it!” Claire said. “That’s horrible!”

Jackie didn’t let go of Claire’s hands when Claire tried to pull them back. “It’s all or nothing, and it’s too late to be nothing. This thing is in motion, and we’ve got to move with it. If it was just Bar-bie escaping by himself with no help from us, Big Jim might actually let him go. Because every dictator needs a boogeyman. But it won’t just be him, will it? And that means he’ll try to find us, and wipe us out.”

“I wish I’d never gotten into this. I wish I’d never gone to that meeting, and never let Joe go.”

“But we’ve got to stop him!” Joe protested. “Mr. Rennie’s trying to turn The Mill into a, you know, police state!”

“I can’t stop anybody!” Claire nearly wailed. “I’m a goddam housewife!”

“If it’s any comfort,” Jackie said, “you probably had a ticket for this trip as soon as the kids found that box.”

“It’s not a comfort. It’s not. ”

“In some ways, we’re even lucky,” Jackie went on. “We haven’t sucked too many innocent people into this with us, at least not yet.”

“Rennie and his police force will find us anyway,” Claire said. “Don’t you know that? There’s only so much town in this town.”

Jackie smiled mirthlessly. “By then there’ll be more of us. With more guns. And Rennie will know it.”

“We have to take over the radio station as soon as we can,” Joe said. “People need to hear the other side of the story. We have to broadcast the truth.”

Jackie’s eyes lit up. “That’s a hell of a good idea, Joe.”

“Dear God,” Claire said. She put her hands over her face.

8

Ernie pulled the phone company van up to the Burpee’s loading dock. I’m a criminal now, he thought, and my twelve-year-old granddaughter is my accomplice. Or is she thirteen now? It didn’t matter; he didn’t think Peter Randolph would treat her as a juvenile if they were caught.

Rommie opened the rear door, saw it was them, and came out onto the loading dock with guns in both hands. “Have any trouble?”

“Smooth as silk,” Ernie said, mounting the steps to the dock. “There’s nobody on the roads. Have you got more guns?”

“Yuh. A few. Inside, back of the door. You help too, Miss Norrie.”

Norrie picked up two rifles and handed them to her grampa, who stowed them in the back of the van. Rommie rolled a dolly out to the loading dock. On it were a dozen lead rolls. “We don’t need to unload dis right now,” he said. “I’ll just cut some pieces for the windows. We’ll do the windshield once we get out there. Leave a slit to see through—like an old Sherman tank—n drive dat way. Norrie, while Ernie and I do dis, see if you can push that other dolly out. If you can’t, just leave it and we’ll get it after.”

The other dolly was loaded with cartons of food, most of it canned stuff or pouches of concentrate meant for campers. One box was stuffed with envelopes of cut-rate powdered drink mix. The dolly was heavy, but once she got it moving, it rolled easily. Stopping it was another matter; if Rommie hadn’t reached up and shoved from where he was standing at the back of the van, the dolly might have gone right off the dock.

Ernie had finished blocking the stolen van’s small rear windows with pieces of lead roll held by generous applications of masking tape. Now he wiped his brow and said, “This is risky as hell, Burpee—we’re planning on a damn convoy out to the McCoy Orchard.”

Rommie shrugged, then began loading in cartons of supplies, lining the walls of the van and leaving the middle open for the passengers they hoped to have later. A tree of sweat was growing on the back of his shirt. “We just gotta hope if we do it quick and quiet, the big meetin covers for us. Don’t have much choice.”

“Will Julia and Mrs. McClatchey get lead on their car windows?” Norrie asked.

“Yuh. This afternoon. I’ll help em. And den they’ll have to leave their cars behind the store. Can’t go sportin round town with lead-lined car windows—people’d ask questions.”

“What about that Escalade of yours?” Ernie asked. “That’d swallow the rest of these supplies without so much as a burp. Your wife could drive it out h—”

“Misha won’t come,” Rommie said. “Won’t have nuthin t’do widdit, her. I asked, did all but get down on my knees n beg, but I might as well have been a gust of wind blowin round the house. I guess I already knew, because I didn’t tell her no more than she knew already… which isn’t much, but won’t keep her out of trouble if Rennie comes down on her. But she won’t see it, her.”

“Why won’t she?” Norrie asked, eyes wide, aware that the question might be rude only after it was out and she saw her grampa frown.

“Because she’s one stubborn honey. I told her she might get hurt. ‘Like to see em try,’ she said. That’s my Misha. Well, hell. If I get a chance later on, I may sneak down and see if she change her mind. They say it’s a woman’s prerogative. Come on, let’s put in a few more of those boxes. And don’t cover up the guns, Ernie. We might need em.”

“I can’t believe I got you into this, kiddo,” Ernie said.

“It’s okay, Grampa. I’d rather be in than out.” And this much, at least, was true.

9

BONK. Silence.

BONK. Silence.

BONK. Silence.

Ollie Dinsmore sat cross-legged four feet from the Dome with his old Boy Scout pack beside him. The pack was full of rocks he’d picked up in the dooryard—so full, in fact, that he’d staggered down here rather than walked, thinking that the canvas bottom would tear out of the pack and spill his ammo. But it hadn’t, and here he was. He selected another rock—a nice smooth one, polished by some ancient glacier—and threw it overhand at the Dome, where it struck what appeared to be thin air and bounced back. He picked it up and threw it again.

BONK. Silence.

The Dome had one thing going for it, he thought. It might be the reason his brother and his mother were dead, but by the hairy old Jesus, one load of ammunition was enough to last all day.

Rock boomerangs, he thought, and smiled. It was a real smile, but it made him look somehow terrible, because his face was far too thin. He hadn’t been eating much, and he thought it would be a good long while before he felt like eating again. Hearing a shot and then finding your mother lying beside the kitchen table with her dress flipped up to show her underpants and half her head blown off… a thing like that did nothing for a fellow’s appetite.

BONK. Silence.

The other side of the Dome was a hive of activity; a tent city had sprung up. Jeeps and trucks scooted to and fro, and hundreds of military guys went buzzing around while their superiors shouted orders and cussed them out, often in the same breath.

In addition to the tents that had already been erected, three long new ones were being put up. The signs already planted in front of them read VISITORS’ HOSPITALITY STATION 1, VISITORS’ HOSPITALITY STATION 2, and FIRST AID STATION. Another tent, even longer, had a sign in front of it reading LIGHT REFRESHMENTS. And shortly after Ollie sat down and began tossing his trove of rocks at the Dome, two flatbed trucks loaded with Port-A-Potties had arrived. Now ranks of cheery-looking blue shithouses stood over there, well away from the area where relatives would stand to speak with loved ones they could look at but not touch.

The stuff that had come out of his mother’s head had looked like moldy strawberry jam, and what Ollie couldn’t understand was why she’d done it that way, and in that place. Why in the room where they ate most of their meals? Had she been so far gone that she hadn’t realized she had another son, who might eat again (assuming he didn’t starve to death first) but who would never forget the horror of what lay there on the floor?

Yep, he thought. That far gone. Because Rory was always her favorite, her pet. She hardly knew I was around, unless I forgot to feed the cows or swab out the stalls when they were afield. Or if I brought home a D on my rank card. Because he never got nothing but As.

He threw a rock.

BONK. Silence.

There were several Army guys putting up pairs of signs over there near the Dome. The ones facing in toward The Mill read

Ollie guessed the signs pointing the other way said the same, and on the other side they might work, because on the other side there would be lots of guys to keep order. Over here, though, there were going to be maybe eight hundred townies and maybe two dozen cops, most of them new to the job. Keeping people back on this side would be like trying to protect a sand castle from the incoming tide.

Her underpants had been wet, and there had been a puddle between her splayed legs. She’d pissed herself either right before she pulled the trigger, or right after. Ollie thought probably after.

He threw a rock.

BONK. Silence.

There was one Army guy close by. He was pretty young. There wasn’t any kind of insignia on his sleeves, so Ollie guessed he was probably a private. He looked about sixteen, but Ollie supposed he had to be older. He’d heard of kids lying about their age to get into the service, but he guessed that was before everybody had computers to keep track of such things.

The Army guy looked around, saw no one was paying him any attention, and spoke in a low voice. He had a southern accent. “Kid? Would y’all stop doing that? It’s drivin me bugshit.”

“Go someplace else, then,” Ollie said.

BONK. Silence.

“Caint. Orders.”

Ollie didn’t reply. He threw another rock, instead.

BONK. Silence.

“Why y’all doin it?” the Army guy asked. He was now just fiddling with the pair of signs he was putting up so he could talk to Ollie.

“Because sooner or later, one of them won’t bounce back. And when that happens, I’m going to get up and walk away and never see this farm again. Never milk another cow. What’s the air like out there?”

“Good. Chilly, though. I’m from South Cah’lina. It ain’t like this in South Cah’lina in October, I can tell you that.”

Where Ollie was, less than three yards from the southern boy, it was hot. Also stinky.

The Army guy pointed beyond Ollie. “Why don’t y’all quit on the rocks and do somethin about those cows?” He said it cay-ows. “Herd em into the barn and milk em or rub soothin shit on their udders; somethin like at.”

“We don’t need to herd them. They know where to go. Only now they don’t need to be milked, and they don’t need any Bag Balm, either. Their udders are dry.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. My dad says something’s wrong with the grass. He says the grass is wrong because the air’s wrong. It doesn’t smell good in here, you know. It smells like crap.”

“Yeah?” The Army guy looked fascinated. He gave the tops of the back-to-back signs a tap or two with his hammer, although they already looked well seated.

“Yeah. My mother killed herself this morning.”

The Army guy had raised his hammer for another hit. Now he just dropped it to his side. “Are you shittin me, kid?”

“No. She shot herself at the kitchen table. I found her.”

“Oh fuck, that’s rough.” The Army guy approached the Dome.

“We took my brother to town when he died last Sunday, because he was still alive—a little—but my mom was dead as dead can be, so we buried her on the knoll. My dad and me. She liked it there. It was pretty there before everything got so cruddy. ”

“Jesus, kid! You been through hell!”

“Still there,” Ollie said, and as if the words had turned a valve somewhere inside, he began to weep. He got up and went to the Dome. He and the young soldier faced each other, less than a foot apart. The soldier raised his hand, wincing a little as the transient shock whipped through him and then out of him. He laid his hand on the Dome, fingers spread. Ollie lifted his own and pressed it against the Dome on his side. Their hands seemed to be touching, finger to finger and palm to palm, but they weren’t. It was a futile gesture that would be repeated over and over the following day: hundreds of times, thousands.

“Kid—”

“Private Ames!” someone bawled. “Get your sorry ass away from there!”

Private Ames jumped like a kid who’s been caught stealing jam.

“Get over here! Double time!”

“Hang in there, kid,” Private Ames said, and ran off to get his scolding. Ollie imagined it had to be a scolding, since you couldn’t very well demote a private. Surely they wouldn’t put him in the stockade or whatever for talking to one of the animals in the zoo. I didn’t even get any peanuts, Ollie thought.

For a moment he looked up at the cows that no longer gave milk—that hardly even cropped grass—and then he sat down by his pack. He searched for and found another nice round rock. He thought about the chipped polish on the nails of his dead mother’s outstretched hand, the one with the still-smoking gun beside it. Then he threw the rock. It hit the Dome and bounced back.

BONK. Silence.

10

At four o’clock on that Thursday afternoon, while the overcast held over northern New England and the sun shone down on Chester’s Mill like a bleary spotlight through the sock-shaped hole in the clouds, Ginny Tomlinson went to check on Junior. She asked if he needed something for headache. He said no, then changed his mind and asked for some Tylenol or Advil. When she came back, he walked across the room to get it. On his chart she wrote, Limp is still present but seems improved.

When Thurston Marshall poked his head in forty-five minutes later, the room was empty. He assumed Junior had gone down to the lounge, but when he checked there it was empty except for Emily Whitehouse, the heart attack patient. Emily was recovering nicely. Thurse asked her if she’d seen a young man with dark blond hair and a limp. She said no. Thurse went back to Junior’s room and looked in the closet. It was empty. The young man with the probable brain tumor had dressed and checked himself out without benefit of paperwork.

11

Junior walked home. His limp seemed to clear up entirely once his muscles were warm. In addition, the dark keyhole shape floating on the left side of his vision had shrunk to a ball the size of a marble. Maybe he hadn’t gotten a full dose of thallium after all. Hard to tell. Either way, he had to keep his promise to God. If he took care of the Appleton kids, then God would take care of him.

As he left the hospital (by the back door), killing his father had been first on his to-do list. But by the time he actually got to the house—the house where his mother had died, the house where Lester Coggins and Brenda Perkins had died—he had changed his mind. If he killed his father now, the special town meeting would be canceled. Junior didn’t want that, because the town meeting would provide good cover for his main errand. Most of the cops would be there, and that would make gaining access to the Coop easier. He only wished he had the poisoned dog tags. He’d enjoy stuffing them down Baaarbie ’s dying throat.

Big Jim wasn’t at home, anyway. The only living thing in the house was the wolf he’d seen loping across the hospital parking lot in the small hours of the morning. It was halfway down the stairs, looking at him and growling deep in its chest. Its fur was ragged. Its eyes were yellow. Around its neck hung Dale Barbara’s dog tags.

Junior closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, the wolf was gone.

“I’m the wolf now,” he whispered to the hot and empty house. “I’m the werewolf, and I saw Lon Chaney dancing with the queen.”

He went upstairs, limping again but not noticing. His uniform was in the closet, and so was his gun—a Beretta 92 Taurus. The PD had a dozen of them, mostly paid for with federal Homeland Security money. He checked the Beretta’s fifteen-round mag and saw it was full. He put the gun into its holster, cinched the belt around his shrinking waist, and left his room.

At the top of the stairs he paused, wondering where to go until the meeting was well under way and he could make his move. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t even want to be seen. Then it came to him: a good hiding place that was also close to the action. He descended the stairs carefully—the goddam limp was all the way back, plus the left side of his face was so numb it might have been frozen—and lurched down the hall. He stopped briefly outside his father’s study, wondering if he should open the safe and burn the money inside. He decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He vaguely remembered a joke about bankers marooned on a desert island who’d gotten rich trading each other their clothes, and he uttered a brief yapping laugh even though he couldn’t exactly recall the punchline and had never completely gotten the joke, anyway.

The sun had gone behind the clouds to the west of the Dome and the day had grown gloomy. Junior walked out of the house and disappeared into the murk.

12

At quarter past five, Alice and Aidan Appleton came in from the back yard of their borrowed house. Alice said, “Caro? Will you take Aidan and I… Aidan and me… to the big meeting?”

Carolyn Sturges, who had been making PB&J sandwiches for supper on Coralee Dumagen’s counter with Coralee Dumagen’s bread (stale but edible), looked at the children with surprise. She had never heard of kids wanting to attend an adults’ meeting before; would have said, if asked, that they’d probably run the other way to avoid such a boring event. She was tempted. Because if the kids went, she could go.

“Are you sure?” she asked, bending down. “Both of you?”

Before these last few days, Carolyn would have said she had no interest in having children, that what she wanted was a career as a teacher and a writer. Maybe a novelist, although it seemed to her that writing novels was pretty risky; what if you spent all that time, wrote a thousand-pager, and it sucked? Poetry, though… going around the country (maybe on a motorcycle)… doing readings and teaching seminars, free as a bird… that would be cool. Maybe meeting a few interesting men, drinking wine and discussing Sylvia Plath in bed. Alice and Aidan had changed her mind. She had fallen in love with them. She wanted the Dome to break—of course she did—but giving these two back to their mom was going to hurt her heart. She sort of hoped it would hurt theirs a little too. Probably that was mean, but there it was.

“Ade? Is it what you want? Because grownup meetings can be awfully long and boring.”

“I want to go,” Aidan said. “I want to see all the people.”

Then Carolyn understood. It wasn’t the discussion of resources and how the town was going to use them as it went forward that interested them; why would it be? Alice was nine and Aidan was five. But wanting to see everybody gathered together, like a great big extended family? That made sense.

“Can you be good? Not squirm and whisper too much?”

“Of course,” Alice said with dignity.

“And will you both pee yourselves dry before we go?”

“Yes!” This time the girl rolled her eyes to show what an annoying stupidnik Caro was being… and Caro sort of loved it.

“Then what I’ll do is just pack these sandwiches to go,” Carolyn said. “And we’ve got two cans of soda for kids who can be good and use straws. Assuming the kids in question have peed themselves dry before dumping any more liquid down their throats, that is.”

“I use straws like mad,” Aidan said. “Any Woops?”

“He means Whoopie Pies,” Alice said.

“I know what he means, but there aren’t any. I think there might be some graham crackers, though. The kind with cinnamon sugar on them.”

“Cinnamon graham crackers rock,” Aidan said. “I love you, Caro.”

Carolyn smiled. She thought no poem she’d ever read had been so beautiful. Not even the Williams one about the cold plums.

13

Andrea Grinnell descended the stairs slowly but steadily while Julia stared in amazement. Andi had undergone a transformation. Makeup and a comb-out of the frizzy wreck that had been her hair had played a part, but that wasn’t all of it. Looking at her, Julia realized how long it had been since she’d seen the town’s Third Selectman looking like herself. This evening she was wearing a knockout red dress belted at the waist—it looked like Ann Taylor—and carrying a large fabric bag with a drawstring top.

Even Horace was gawking.

“How do I look?” Andi asked when she reached the bottom of the stairs. “Like I could fly to the town meeting, if I had a broom?”

“You look great. Twenty years younger.”

“Thanks, hon, but I have a mirror upstairs.”

“If it didn’t show you how much better you look, you better try one down here, where the light’s better.”

Andi switched her bag to her other arm, as if it were heavy. “Well. I guess I do. A little, anyway.”

“Are you sure you have strength enough for this?”

“I think so, but if I start to shake and shiver, I’ll slip out the side door.” Andi had no intention of slipping away, whether she shook or not.

“What’s in the bag?”

Jim Rennie’s lunch, Andrea thought. Which I intend to feed him in front of this whole town.

“I always take my knitting to town meeting. Sometimes they’re just so slow and dull.”

“I don’t think this one will be dull,” Julia said.

“You’re coming, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I imagine,” Julia said vaguely. She expected to be well away from downtown Chester’s Mill before the meeting ended. “I have a few things to do first. Can you get there on your own?”

Andi gave her a comical Mother, please look. “Down the street, down the hill, and it’s right there. Been doing it for years.”

Julia looked at her watch. It was quarter to six. “Aren’t you leaving awfully early?”

“Al will open the doors at six o’clock, if I’m not mistaken, and I want to be sure and get a good seat.”

“As a selectwoman, you should be right up there onstage,” Julia said. “If it’s what you want.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Andi switched the bag to her other arm again. Her knitting was inside; so was the VADER file and the.38 her brother Twitch had given her for home protection. She thought it would serve just as well for town protection. A town was like a body, but it had one advantage over the human one; if a town had a bad brain, a transplant could be effected. And maybe it wouldn’t come to killing. She prayed it wouldn’t.

Julia was looking at her quizzically. Andrea realized she’d drifted off.

“I think I’ll just sit with the common folk tonight. But I’ll have my say when the time comes. You can count on that.”

14

Andi was right about Al Timmons opening the doors at six. By then Main Street, next to empty all day, was filling with citizens headed for the Town Hall. More walked in little groups down Town Common Hill from the residential streets. Cars began to arrive from Eastchester and Northchester, most filled to capacity. No one, it seemed, wanted to be alone tonight.

She was early enough to have her pick of seats, and chose the third row from the stage, on the aisle. Just ahead of her in the second row were Carolyn Sturges and the Appleton children. The kids were gawking wide-eyed at everything and everyone. The little boy had what appeared to be a graham cracker clutched in his fist.

Linda Everett was another early arriver. Julia had told Andi about Rusty being arrested—utterly ridiculous—and knew his wife must be devastated, but she was hiding it well behind great makeup and a pretty dress with big patch pockets. Given her own situation (mouth dry, head aching, stomach roiling), Andi admired her courage.

“Come sit with me, Linda,” she said, patting the spot beside her. “How is Rusty?”

“I don’t know,” Linda said, slipping past Andrea and sitting down. Something in one of those amusing pockets clunked on the wood. “They won’t let me see him.”

“That situation will be rectified,” Andrea said.

“Yes,” Linda said grimly. “It will.” Then she leaned forward. “Hello, kids, what are your names?”

“This is Aidan,” Caro said, “and this is—”

“I’m Alice.” The little girl held out a regal hand—queen to loyal subject. “Me and Aidan… Aidan and I… are Dorphans. That means Dome orphans. Thurston made it up. He knows magic tricks, like pulling a quarter out of your ear and stuff.”

“Well, you seem to have landed on your feet,” Linda said, smiling. She didn’t feel like smiling; she had never been so nervous in her life. Only nervous was too mild a word. She was scared shitless.

15

By six thirty, the parking lot behind the Town Hall was full. After that the spaces on Main Street went, and those on West Street and East Street. By quarter of seven, even the post office and FD parking lots were loaded, and every almost seat in the Town Hall was taken.

Big Jim had foreseen the possibility of an overflow, and Al Timmons, assisted by some of the newer cops, had put benches from the American Legion Hall on the lawn. SUPPORT OUR TROOPS was printed on some; PLAY MORE BINGO! on others. Large Yamaha speakers had been placed on either side of the front door.

Most of the town’s police force—and all of the veteran cops, save one—were present to keep order. When latecomers grumbled about having to sit outside (or stand, when even the benches had filled up), Chief Randolph told them they should have come earlier: if you snooze, you lose. Also, he added, it was a pleasant night, nice and warm, and later there was apt to be another big pink moon.

“Pleasant if you don’t mind the smell,” Joe Boxer said. The dentist had been in an unrelievedly crappy mood ever since the confrontation at the hospital over his liberated waffles. “I hope we can hear all right through those things.” He pointed at the speakers.

“You’ll hear fine,” Chief Randolph said. “We got them from Dipper’s. Tommy Anderson says they’re state-of-the-art, and he set them up himself. Think of it as a drive-in movie without the picture.”

“I think of it as a pain in my ass,” Joe Boxer said, then crossed his legs and plucked fussily at the crease on his pants.

Junior watched them come from his hiding place inside the Peace Bridge, peeking through a crack in the wall. He was amazed to see so much of the town in the same place at the same time, and gratified by the speakers. He would be able to hear everything from where he was. And once his father got really cranked up, he would make his move.

God help anyone who gets in my way, he thought.

His father’s slope-bellied bulk was impossible to miss even in the growing gloom. Also, the Town Hall was fully powered this evening, and light from one of the windows drew an oblong down to where Big Jim stood on the edge of the jammed parking lot. Carter Thibodeau was at his side.

Big Jim had no sense of being watched—or rather, he had a sense of being watched by everybody, which comes to the same. He checked his watch and saw it had just gone seven. His political sense, honed over many years, told him that an important meeting should always begin ten minutes late; no more and no less. Which meant this was the time to start down the taxiway. He was holding a folder with his speech inside it, but once he got going, he wouldn’t need it. He knew what he was going to say. It seemed to him that he had given the speech in his sleep last night, not once but several times, and each time it had been better.

He nudged Carter. “Time to put this show on the road.”

“Okay.” Carter ran over to where Randolph was standing on the Town Hall steps (probably thinks he looks like Julius-Cotton-Picking-Caesar, Big Jim thought) and brought the Chief back.

“We go in the side door,” Big Jim said. He consulted his watch. “Five—no, four—minutes from now. You’ll lead, Peter, I’ll go second, Carter, you come behind me. We’ll go straight to the stage, all right? Walk confidently—no goshdarn slouching. There’ll be applause. Stand at attention until it starts to taper off. Then sit. Peter, you’ll be on my left. Carter, on my right. I’ll step forward to the podium. Prayer first, then everybody stands to sing the National Anthem. After that, I’ll speak and run the agenda just as fast as poop through a goose. They’ll vote yea on everything. Got it?”

“I’m nervous as a witch,” Randolph confessed.

“Don’t be. This is going to be fine.”

He was certainly wrong about that.

16

While Big Jim and his entourage were walking toward the side door of the Town Hall, Rose was turning the restaurant van into the McClatchey driveway. Following her was a plain Chevrolet sedan driven by Joanie Calvert.

Claire came out of the house, holding a suitcase in one hand and a canvas carry-bag filled with groceries in the other. Joe and Benny Drake also had suitcases, although most of the clothes in Benny’s had come from Joe’s dresser drawers. Benny was carrying another, smaller, canvas sack loaded with loot from the McClatchey pantry.

From down the hill came the amplified sound of applause.

“Hurry up,” Rose said. “They’re starting. Time for us to get out of Dodge.” Lissa Jamieson was with her. She slid open the van’s door and began handing stuff inside.

“Is there lead roll to cover the windows?” Joe asked Rose.

“Yes, and extra pieces for Joanie’s car as well. We’ll drive as far as you say it’s safe, then block the windows. Give me that suitcase.”

“This is insane, you know,” Joanie Calvert said. She walked a fairly straight line between her car and the Sweetbriar van, which led Rose to believe she’d had no more than a single drink or two to fortify herself. That was a good thing.

“You’re probably right,” Rose said. “Are you ready?”

Joanie sighed and put her arm around her daughter’s slim shoulders. “For what? Going to hell in a handbasket? Why not? How long will we have to stay up there?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said.

Joanie gave another sigh. “Well, at least it’s warm.”

Joe asked Norrie, “Where’s your gramps?”

“With Jackie and Mr. Burpee, in the van we stole from Rennie’s. He’ll wait outside while they go in to get Rusty and Mr. Barbara.” She gave him a scared-to-death smile. “He’s going to be their wheelman.”

“No fool like an old fool,” Joanie Calvert remarked. Rose felt like hauling off and hitting her, and a glance at Lissa told her that Lissa felt the same. But this was no time for argument, let alone fisticuffs.

Hang together or hang separately, Rose thought.

“What about Julia?” Claire asked.

“She’s coming with Piper. And her dog.”

From downtown, amplified (and with the bench-sitters outside adding their own voices), came the United Choir of Chester’s Mill, singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”

“Let’s go,” Rose said. “I’ll lead the way.”

Joanie Calvert repeated, with a kind of dolorous good cheer: “At least it’s warm. Come on, Norrie, copilot your old mom.”

17

There was a delivery lane on the south side of LeClerc’s Maison des Fleurs, and here the stolen phone company van was parked, nose out. Ernie, Jackie, and Rommie Burpee sat listening to the National Anthem coming from up the street. Jackie felt a sting behind her eyes and saw that she wasn’t the only one who was moved; Ernie, sitting behind the wheel, had produced a handkerchief from his back pocket and was dabbing at his eyes with it.

“Guess we won’t need Linda to give us a heads-up,” Rommie said. “I didn’t expect them speakers. They didn’t get em from me.”

“It’s still good for people to see her there,” Jackie said. “Got your mask, Rommie?”

He held up Dick Cheney’s visage, stamped in plastic. In spite of his extensive stock, Rommie hadn’t been able to provide Jackie with an Ariel mask; she had settled for Harry Potter’s chum, Hermione. Ernie’s Darth Vader mask was behind the seat, but Jackie thought they’d probably be in trouble if he actually had to put it on. She had not said this aloud.

And really, what does it matter? When we’re suddenly not around town anymore, everybody’s going to have a good idea why we’re gone.

But suspecting wasn’t the same as knowing, and if suspicion was the best Rennie and Randolph could do, the friends and relatives they were leaving behind might be subjected to no more than harsh questioning.

Might. Under circumstances like these, Jackie realized, that was a mighty big word.

The anthem ended. There was more applause, and then the town’s Second Selectman began to speak. Jackie checked the pistol she was carrying—it was her extra—and thought that the next few minutes were probably going to be the longest of her life.

18

Barbie and Rusty stood at the doors of their respective cells, listening as Big Jim launched into his speech. Thanks to the speakers outside the main doors of the Town Hall, they could hear pretty well.

“Thank you! Thank you, one and all! Thank you for coming! And thank you for being the bravest, toughest, can-do-ingest people in these United States of America!”

Enthusiastic applause.

“Ladies and gentlemen… and kiddies, too, I see a few of those in the audience….”

Good-natured laughter.

“We are in a terrible predicament here. This you know. Tonight I intend to tell you how we got into it. I don’t know everything, but I will share what I know, because you deserve that. When I’ve finished putting you in the picture, we have a brief but important agenda to go through. But first and foremost, I want to tell you how PROUD I am of you, how HUMBLED I am to be the man God—and you—have chosen to be your leader at this critical juncture, and I want to ASSURE you that together we will come through this trial, together and with God’s help we will emerge STRONGER and TRUER and BETTER than we ever were before! We may be Israelites in the desert now—”

Barbie rolled his eyes and Rusty made a jacking-off gesture with his fist.

“—but soon we will reach CANAAN and the feast of milk and honey which the Lord and our fellow Americans will surely set before us!”

Wild applause. It sounded like a standing O. Fairly certain that even if there was a bug down here, the three or four cops upstairs would now be clustered in the PD doorway, listening to Big Jim, Barbie said: “Be ready, my friend.”

“I am,” Rusty said. “Believe me, I am.”

Just as long as Linda’s not one of them planning to bust in, he thought. He didn’t want her killing anyone, but more than that, he didn’t want her to risk being killed. Not for him. Let her stay right where she is. He may be crazy, but at least if she’s with the rest of the town, she’s safe.

That was what he thought before the gunfire started.

19

Big Jim was exultant. He had them exactly where he wanted them: in the palm of his hand. Hundreds of people, those who had voted for him and those who hadn’t. He had never seen so many in this hall, not even when school prayer or the school budget was under discussion. They sat thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder, outside as well as in, and they were doing more than listening to him. With Sanders AWOL and Grinnell sitting in the audience (that red dress in the third row was hard to miss), he owned this crowd. Their eyes begged him to take care of them. To save them. What completed his exultancy was having his bodyguard beside him and seeing the lines of cops—his cops—ranged along both sides of the hall. Not all of them were kitted out in uniforms yet, but all were armed. At least a hundred more in the audience were wearing blue armbands. It was like having his own private army.

“My fellow townspeople, most of you know that we have arrested a man named Dale Barbara—”

A storm of boos and hisses arose. Big Jim waited for it to subside, outwardly grave, inwardly grinning.

“—for the murders of Brenda Perkins, Lester Coggins, and two lovely girls we all knew and loved: Angie McCain and Dodee Sanders.”

More boos, interspersed with cries of “Hang him!” and “Terrorist!” The terrorist-shouter sounded like Velma Winter, the day manager at Brownie’s Store.

“What you do not know,” Big Jim continued, “is that the Dome is the result of a conspiracy perpetrated by an elite group of rogue scientists and covertly funded by a government splinter group. We are guinea pigs in an experiment, my fellow townspeople, and Dale Barbara was the man designated to chart and guide that experiment’s course from the inside! ”

Stunned silence greeted this. Then there was a roar of outrage.

When it had quieted, Big Jim continued, hands planted on either side of the podium, his large face shining with sincerity (and, perhaps, hypertension). His speech lay in front of him, but it was still folded. There was no need to look at it. God was using his vocal cords and moving his tongue.

“When I speak of covert funding, you may wonder what I mean. The answer is horrifying but simple. Dale Barbara, aided by an as yet unknown number of townspeople, set up a drug-manufacturing facility which has been supplying huge quantities of crystal methamphetamine to drug lords, some with CIA connections, all up and down the Eastern Seaboard. And although he hasn’t given us the names of all his co-conspirators yet, one of them—it breaks my heart to tell you this—appears to be Andy Sanders.”

Hubbub and cries of wonder from the audience. Big Jim saw Andi Grinnell start to rise from her seat, then settle back. That’s right, he thought, just sit there. If you’re reckless enough to question me, I’ll eat you alive. Or point my finger at you and accuse you. Then they’ll eat you alive.

And in truth, he felt as if he could do that.

“Barbara’s boss—his control—is a man you have all seen on the news. He claims to be a colonel in the U.S. Army, but in fact he is high in the councils of the scientists and government officials responsible for this Satanic experiment. I have Barbara’s confession to this much right here.” He tapped his sportcoat, whose inner pocket contained his wallet and a digest-sized New Testament with the words of Christ printed in red.

Meanwhile, more cries of “Hang him!” had arisen. Big Jim lifted one hand, head lowered, face grave, and the cries eventually stilled.

“We will vote on Barbara’s punishment as a town—one unified body dedicated to the cause of freedom. It’s in your hands, ladies and gentlemen. If you vote to execute, he will be executed. But there will be no hanging while I am your leader. He will be executed by police firing squad—”

Wild applause interrupted him, and most of the assembly rose to its feet. Big Jim leaned into the microphone.

“—but only after we get every bit of information which is still hidden in his MISERABLE TRAITOR’S HEART!”

Now almost all of them were up. Not Andi, though; she sat in the third row next to the center aisle, looking up at him with eyes that should have been soft and hazy and confused but were not. Look at me all you want, he thought. Just as long as you sit there like a good little girl.

Meanwhile, he basked in the applause.

20

“Now?” Rommie asked. “What you t’ink, Jackie?”

“Wait a little longer,” she said.

It was instinct, nothing else, and usually her instincts were dependable.

Later she would wonder how many lives might have been saved if she had told Rommie okay, let’s roll.

21

Looking through his crack in the sidewall of the Peace Bridge, Junior saw that even the people on the benches outside had risen to their feet, and the same instinct that told Jackie to stay a little longer told him it was time to move. He limped from beneath the bridge on the Town Common side and cut across to the sidewalk. When the creature who had sired him resumed speaking, he started toward the Police Department. The dark spot on the left side of his field of vision had expanded again, but his mind was clear.

I’m coming, Baaarbie. I’m coming for you right now.

22

“These people are masters of disinformation,” Big Jim continued, “and when you go out to the Dome to visit with your loved ones, the campaign against me will kick into high gear. Cox and his surrogates will stop at nothing to blacken me. They’ll call me a liar and a thief, they may even say I ran their drug operation myself—”

“You did,” a clear, carrying voice said.

It was Andrea Grinnell. Every eye fixed upon her as she rose, a human exclamation point in her bright red dress. She looked at Big Jim for a moment with an expression of cool contempt, then turned to face the people who had elected her Third Selectwoman when old Billy Cale, Jack Cale’s father, had died of a stroke four years ago.

“You people need to put your fears aside for a moment,” she said. “When you do, you’ll see that the story he’s telling is ludicrous. Jim Rennie thinks you can be stampeded like cattle in a thunderstorm. I’ve lived with you all my life, and I think he’s wrong.”

Big Jim waited for cries of protest. There were none. Not that the townspeople necessarily believed her; they were just stunned by this sudden turn of events. Alice and Aidan Appleton had turned all the way around and were kneeling on their benches, goggling at the lady in red. Caro was equally stunned.

“A secret experiment? What bullshit! Our government has gotten up to some pretty lousy stuff over the last fifty years or so, and I’d be the first to admit it, but holding a whole town prisoner with some sort of force field? Just to see what we’ll do? It’s idiotic. Only terrified people would believe it. Rennie knows that, so he’s been orchestrating the terror.”

Big Jim had been momentarily knocked off his stride, but now he found his voice again. And, of course, he had the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, Andrea Grinnell is a fine woman, but she’s not herself tonight. She’s as shocked as the rest of us, of course, but in addition, I’m sorry to say that she herself has a serious drug-dependency problem, as a result of a fall and her consequent use of an extremely addictive drug called—”

“I haven’t had anything stronger than aspirin for days now,” Andrea said in a clear, carrying voice. “And I have come into possession of papers which show—”

“Melvin Searles?” Big Jim boomed. “Will you and several of your fellow officers gently but firmly remove Selectwoman Grinnell from the room and escort her home? Or perhaps to the hospital for observation. She’s not herself.”

There were some approving murmurs, but not the clamor of approbation he’d expected. And Mel Searles had taken only a single step forward when Henry Morrison swept a hand into Mel’s chest and sent him back against the wall with an audible thump.

“Let’s let her finish,” Henry said. “She’s a town official too, so let her finish.”

Mel looked up at Big Jim, but Big Jim was watching Andi, almost hypnotized, as she drew a brown manila envelope from her big bag. He knew what it was the instant he saw it. Brenda Perkins, he thought. Oh, what a bitch. Even dead, her bitchery continues.

As Andi held the envelope up, it began to waver back and forth.

The shakes were coming back, the fucking shakes. They couldn’t have picked a worse time, but she wasn’t surprised; in fact, she might have expected it. It was the stress.

“The papers in this envelope came to me from Brenda Perkins,” she said, and at least her voice was steady. “They were compiled by her husband and the State Attorney General. Duke Perkins was investigating James Rennie for a laundry list of high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Mel looked at his friend Carter for guidance. And Carter was looking back, his gaze bright and sharp and almost amused. He pointed at Andrea, then held the side of his hand against his throat: Shut her up. This time when Mel started forward, Henry Morrison didn’t stop him—like almost everyone else in the room, Henry was gaping at Andrea Grinnell.

Marty Arsenault and Freddy Denton joined Mel as he hurried along the front of the stage, bent over like a man running in front of a movie screen. From the other side of the Town Hall, Todd Wendlestat and Lauren Conree were also in motion. Wendlestat’s hand was on a sawed-off piece of hickory cane he was carrying as a nightstick; Conree’s was on the butt of her gun.

Andi saw them coming, but didn’t stop. “The proof is in this envelope, and I believe it’s proof—”… that Brenda Perkins died for, she intended to finish, but at that moment her shaking, sweat-slicked left hand lost her grip on the drawstring top of her bag. It fell into the aisle, and the barrel of her home protection.38 slid from the bag’s puckered mouth like a periscope.

Clearly, heard by everyone in the now silent hall, Aidan Appleton said: “Wow! That lady has a gun!”

Another instant of thunderstruck silence followed. Then Carter Thibodeau leaped from his seat and ran in front of his boss, screaming “Gun! Gun! GUN!”

Aidan slipped into the aisle to investigate more closely. “No, Ade!” Caro shouted, and bent over to grab him just as Mel fired the first shot.

It put a hole in the polished wood floor right in front of Carolyn Sturges’s nose. Splinters flew up. One struck her just below the right eye and blood began to pour down her face. She was vaguely aware that everyone was screaming now. She knelt in the aisle, grabbed Aidan by the shoulders, and hiked him between her thighs like a football. He flew back into the row where they’d been sitting, surprised but unhurt.

“GUN! SHE’S GOT A GUN!” Freddy Denton shouted, and swept Mel out of his way. Later he would swear that the young woman was reaching for it, and that he had only meant to wound her, anyway.

23

Thanks to the speakers, the three people in the stolen van heard the change in the festivities at the town hall. Big Jim’s speech and the accompanying applause were interrupted by some woman who was talking loudly but standing too far from the mike for them to make out the words. Her voice was drowned in a general uproar punctuated by screams. Then there was a gunshot.

“What the hell?” Rommie said.

More gunshots. Two, perhaps three. And screams.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jackie said. “Drive, Ernie, and fast. If we’re going to do this, and we have to do it now.”

24

“No!” Linda cried, leaping to her feet. “No shooting! There are children! THERE ARE CHILDREN!”

The Town Hall erupted in pandemonium. Maybe for a moment or two they hadn’t been cattle, but now they were. The stampede for the front doors was on. The first few got out, then the crowd jammed up. A few souls who had retained a scrap of common sense beat feet down the side and center aisles toward the exit doors which flanked the stage, but they were a minority.

Linda reached for Carolyn Sturges, meaning to pull her back to the relative safety of the benches, when Toby Manning, sprinting down the center aisle, ran into her. His knee connected with the back of Linda’s head and she fell forward, dazed.

“Caro!” Alice Appleton was screaming from somewhere far away. “Caro, get up! Caro, get up! Caro, get up!”

Carolyn started getting to her feet and that was when Freddy Denton shot her squarely between the eyes, killing her instantly. The children began to shriek. Their faces were freckled with her blood.

Linda was vaguely aware of being kicked and stepped on. She got to her hands and knees (standing was currently out of the question) and crawled into the aisle opposite the one she’d been sitting in. Her hand squelched in more of Carolyn’s blood.

Alice and Aidan were trying to get to Caro. Knowing they might be seriously hurt if they made it into the aisle (and not wanting them to see what had become of the woman she assumed was their mother), Andi reached over the bench just ahead of her to grab them. She had dropped the VADER envelope.

Carter Thibodeau had been waiting for this. He was still standing in front of Rennie, shielding him with his body, but he had drawn his gun and laid it over his forearm. Now he squeezed the trigger, and the troublesome woman in the red dress—the one who had caused this ruckus—went flying backward.

The Town Hall was in chaos, but Carter ignored it. He descended the stairs and walked steadily to where the woman in the red dress had fallen. When people came running down the center aisle, he threw them out of his way, first left and then right. The little girl, crying, tried to cling to his leg and Carter kicked her aside without looking at her.

He didn’t see the envelope at first. Then he did. It was lying beside one of the Grinnell woman’s outstretched hands. A large foot-track printed in blood had been stamped across the word VADER. Still calm in the chaos, Carter glanced around and saw that Rennie was staring at the shambles of his audience, his face shocked and unbelieving. Good.

Carter yanked out the tails of his shirt. A screaming woman—it was Carla Venziano—ran into him, and he hurled her aside. Then he jammed the VADER envelope into his belt at the small of his back and bloused the tails of his shirt out over it.

A little insurance was always a good thing.

He backed toward the stage, not wanting to be blindsided. When he reached the stairs, he turned and trotted up them. Randolph, the town’s fearless Chief, was still in his seat with his hands planted on his meaty thighs. He could have been a statue except for the single vein pulsing in the center of his forehead.

Carter took Big Jim by the arm. “Come on, boss.”

Big Jim looked at him as if he did not quite know where or even who he was. Then his eyes cleared a little. “Grinnell?”

Carter pointed to the body of the woman sprawled in the center aisle, the growing puddle around her head matching her dress.

“Okay, good,” Big Jim said. “Let’s get out of here. Downstairs. You too, Peter. Get up.” And when Randolph continued to sit and stare at the maddened crowd, Big Jim kicked him in the shin. “Move.”

In the pandemonium, no one heard the shots from next door.

25

Barbie and Rusty stared at each other.

“What the hell is going on over there?” Rusty asked.

“I don’t know,” Barbie said, “but it doesn’t sound good.”

There were more gunshots from the Town Hall, then one that was much closer: from upstairs. Barbie hoped it was their guys… and then he heard someone yell, “No, Junior! What are you, crazy? Wardlaw, back me up!” More gunshots followed. Four, maybe five.

“Ah, Jesus,” Rusty said. “We’re in trouble.”

“I know,” Barbie said.

26

Junior paused on the PD steps, looking over his shoulder toward the newly hatched uproar at the Town Hall. The people on the benches outside were now standing and craning their necks, but there was nothing to see. Not for them, and not for him. Perhaps someone had assassinated his father—he could hope; it would save him the trouble—but in the meantime, his business was inside the PD. In the Coop, to be specific.

Junior pushed through the door with WORKING TOGETHER: YOUR HOMETOWN POLICE DEPARTMENT AND YOU printed on it. Stacey Moggin came hurrying toward him. Rupe Libby was behind her. In the ready-room, standing in front of the grumpy sign reading COFFEE AND DONUTS ARE NOT FREE, was Mickey Wardlaw. Hulk or not, he looked very frightened and unsure of himself.

“You can’t come in here, Junior,” Stacey said.

“Sure, I can.” Sure came out surrr. It was the numbness at the side of his mouth. Thallium poisoning! Barbie! “I’m on the force.” Um onna forsh.

“You’re drunk, is what you are. What’s going on over there?” But then, perhaps deciding he was incapable of any coherent reply, the bitch gave him a push in the center of his chest. It made him stagger on his bad leg and almost fall. “Go away, Junior.” She looked back over her shoulder and spoke her last words on Earth. “You stay where you are, Wardlaw. No one goes downstairs.”

When she turned back, meaning to bulldoze Junior out of the station ahead of her, she found herself looking into the muzzle of a police-issue Beretta. There was time for one more thought—Oh no, he wouldn’t—and then a painless boxing glove hit her between the breasts and drove her backward. She saw Rupe Libby’s amazed face upside down as her head tilted back. Then she was gone.

“No, Junior! What are you, crazy?” Rupe shouted, clawing for his gun. “Wardlaw, back me up!”

But Mickey Wardlaw only stood gaping as Junior pumped five bullets into Piper Libby’s cousin. His left hand was numb, but his right was still okay; he didn’t even need to be a particularly good shot, with a stationary target just seven feet away. The first two rounds went into Rupe’s belly, driving him against Stacey Moggin’s desk and knocking it over. Rupe doubled up, holding himself. Junior’s third shot went wild, but the next two went into the top of Rupe’s head. He went down in a grotesquely balletic posture, his legs splaying out to either side and his head—what remained of it—coming to rest on the floor, as if in a final deep bow.

Junior limped into the ready room with the smoking Beretta held out in front of him. He couldn’t remember exactly how many shots he had fired; he thought seven. Maybe eight. Or eleventy-nine—who could know for sure? His headache was back.

Mickey Wardlaw raised his hand. There was a frightened, placa-tory smile on his large face. “No trouble from me, bro,” he said. “You do what you got to do.” And made the peace sign.

“I will,” Junior said. “Bro.”

He shot Mickey. The big boy went down, peace sign now framing the hole in his head that had lately held an eye. The remaining eye rolled up to look at Junior with the dumb humility of a sheep in the shearing pen. Junior shot him again, just to be sure. Then he looked around. He had the place to himself, it appeared.

“Okay,” he said. “Oh… kay. ”

He started toward the stairs, then went back to Stacey Moggin’s body. He verified the fact that she was carrying a Beretta Taurus like his, and ejected the mag from his own gun. He replaced it with a full one from her belt.

Junior turned, staggered, went to one knee, and got up again. The black spot on the left side of his vision now seemed as big as a manhole cover, and he had an idea that meant his left eye was pretty much fucked. Well, that was all right; if he needed more than one eye to shoot a man locked in a cell, he wasn’t worth a hoot in a henhouse, anyway. He walked across the ready room, slipped in the late Mickey Wardlaw’s blood, and almost fell again. But he caught himself in time. His head was thumping, but he welcomed it. It’s keeping me sharp, he thought.

“Hello, Baaarbie, ” he called down the stairs. “I know what you did to me and I’m coming for you. If you’ve got a prayer to say, better make it a quick one.”

27

Rusty watched the limping legs descend the metal stairs. He could smell gunsmoke, he could smell blood, and he understood perfectly well that his time of dying had come round. The limping man was here for Barbie, but he would almost certainly not neglect a certain caged physician’s assistant on his way by. He was never going to see Linda or the Js again.

Junior’s chest came into view, then his neck, then his head. Rusty took one look at the mouth, which was dragged down on the left in a frozen leer, and at the left eye, which was weeping blood, and thought: Very far gone. A wonder he’s still on his feet and a pity he didn’t wait just a little longer. A little longer and he wouldn’t have been capable of crossing the street.

Faintly, in another world, he heard a bullhorn-amplified voice from the Town Hall: “DO NOT RUN! DO NOT PANIC! THE DANGER IS OVER! THIS IS OFFICER HENRY MORRISON, AND I REPEAT: THE DANGER IS OVER!”

Junior slipped, but by then he was on the last stair. Instead of falling and breaking his neck, he only went to one knee. He rested that way for a few moments, looking like a prizefighter waiting for the mandatory eight-count to rise and resume the bout. To Rusty everything seemed clear, near, and very dear. The precious world, suddenly grown thin and insubstantial, was now only a single gauze wrapping between him and whatever came next. If anything.

Go all the way down, he thought at Junior. Fall on your face. Pass out, you motherfucker.

But Junior laboriously rose to his feet, gazed at the gun in his hand as if he had never seen such a thing before, then looked down the corridor to the cell at the end, where Barbie stood with his hands wrapped around the bars, looking back.

“Baaarbie,” Junior said in a crooning whisper, and started forward.

Rusty stepped backward, thinking that perhaps Junior would miss him on his way by. And perhaps kill himself after finishing with Barbie. He knew these were craven thoughts, but he also knew they were practical thoughts. He could do nothing for Barbie, but he might be able to survive himself.

And it could have worked, had he been in one of the cells on the left side of the corridor, because that was Junior’s blind side. But he had been put in one on the right, and Junior saw him move. He stopped and peered in at Rusty, his half-frozen face simultaneously bewildered and sly.

“Fusty,” he said. “Is that your name? Or is it Berrick? I can’t remember.”

Rusty wanted to beg for his life, but his tongue was pasted to the roof of his mouth. And what good would begging do? The young man was already raising the gun. Junior was going to kill him. No power on earth would stop him.

Rusty’s mind, in its last extremity, sought an escape many other minds had found in their last moments of consciousness—before the switch was pulled, before the trap opened, before the pistol pressed against the temple spat fire. This is a dream, he thought. All of it. The Dome, the craziness in Dinsmore’s field, the food riot; this young man, too. When he pulls the trigger the dream will end and I’ll wake up in my own bed, on a cool and crisp fall morning. I’ll turn to Linda and say, “What a nightmare I had, you won’t believe it.”

“Close your eyes, Fusty,” Junior said. “It’ll be better that way.”

28

Jackie Wettington’s first thought upon entering the PD lobby was Oh my dear God, there’s blood everywhere.

Stacey Moggin lay against the wall below the community out-reach bulletin board with her cloud of blond hair spread around her and her empty eyes staring up at the ceiling. Another cop—she couldn’t make out which one—was sprawled on his face in front of the overturned reception desk, his legs spread out to either side in an impossibly deep split. Beyond him, in the ready room, a third cop lay dead on his side. That one had to be Wardlaw, one of the new kids on the block. He was too big to be anyone else. The sign over the coffee-station table was spattered with the kid’s blood and brains. It now read C FEE AND DO ARE OT FREE.

There was a faint clacking sound from behind her. She whirled, unaware that she had raised her gun until she saw Rommie Burpee in the front sight. Rommie didn’t even notice her; he was staring at the bodies of the three dead cops. The clack had been his Dick Cheney mask. He had taken it off and dropped it on the floor.

“Christ, what happened here?” he asked. “Is this—”

Before he could finish, a shout came from downstairs in the Coop: “Hey, fuckface! I got you, didn’t I? I got you good!”

And then, incredibly, laughter. It was high-pitched and maniacal. For a moment Jackie and Rommie could only stare at each other, unable to move.

Then Rommie said, “I t’ink dat’s Barbara.”

29

Ernie Calvert sat behind the wheel of the phone company van, which was idling at a curb stenciled POLICE BUSINESS 10 MINS ONLY. He had locked all the doors, afraid of being carjacked by one or more of the panic-stricken people fleeing down Main Street from the Town Hall. He was holding the rifle Rommie had stowed behind the driver’s seat, although he wasn’t sure he could shoot anybody who tried to break in; he knew these people, had for years sold them their groceries. Terror had rendered their faces strange but not unrecognizable.

He saw Henry Morrison coursing back and forth on the Town Hall lawn, looking like a hunting dog searching for scent. He was shouting into his bullhorn and trying to bring a little order out of the chaos. Someone knocked him over and Henry got right back up, God bless him.

And now here were others: Georgie Frederick, Marty Arsenault, the Searles kid (recognizable by the bandage he was still wearing on his head), both Bowie brothers, Roger Killian, and a couple of the other newbies. Freddy Denton was marching down the Hall’s broad front steps with his gun drawn. Ernie didn’t see Randolph, although anyone who didn’t know better would have expected the Chief of Police to be in charge of the pacification detail, which was itself teetering on the edge of chaos.

Ernie did know better. Peter Randolph had always been an ineffectual bluster-bug, and his absence at this particular Snafu Circus did not surprise Ernie in the least. Or concern him. What did concern him was that no one was coming out of the Police Department, and there had been more gunshots. These were muffled, as if they’d originated downstairs where the prisoners were kept.

Not ordinarily a praying fellow, Ernie prayed now. That none of the people fleeing the Town Hall would notice the old man behind the wheel of the idling van. That Jackie and Rommie would come out safe, with or without Barbara and Everett. It occurred to him that he could just drive away, and was shocked by how tempting the idea was.

His cell phone rang.

For a moment he just sat there, not sure of what he was hearing, and then he yanked it off his belt. When he opened it, he saw JOANIE in the window. But it wasn’t his daughter-in-law; it was Norrie.

“Grampa! Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said, looking at the chaos in front of him.

“Did you get them out?”

“It’s happening right now, honey,” he said, hoping it was the truth. “I can’t talk. Are you safe? Are you at… at the place?”

“Yes! Grampy, it glows at night! The radiation belt! The cars glowed too, but then they stopped! Julia says she thinks it isn’t dangerous! She says she thinks it’s a fake, to scare people away!”

You better not count on that, Ernie thought.

Two more muffled, thudding gunshots came from inside the PD. Someone was dead downstairs in the Coop; just about had to be.

“Norrie, I can’t talk now.”

“Is it going to be all right, Grampa?”

“Yes, yes. I love you, Norrie.”

He closed the phone. It glows, he thought, and wondered if he would ever see that glow. Black Ridge was close (in a small town, everything’s close), but just now it seemed far away. He looked at the PD’s doors, trying to will his friends to come out. And when they didn’t, he climbed from the van. He couldn’t just sit out here any longer. He had to go inside and see what was happening.

30

Barbie saw Junior raise the gun. He heard Junior tell Rusty to close his eyes. He shouted without thinking, with no idea of what he was going to say until the words emerged from his mouth. “Hey, fuckface! I got you, didn’t I? I got you good!” The laughter that followed sounded like the laugh of a lunatic who has been ditching his meds.

So that’s how I laugh when I’m fixing to die, Barbie thought. I’ll have to remember that. Which made him laugh harder.

Junior turned toward him. The right side of his face registered surprise; the left was frozen in a scowl. It reminded Barbie of some supervillain he’d read about in his youth, but he couldn’t remember which. Probably one of Batman’s enemies, they were always the creepiest. Then he remembered that when his little brother Wendell tried to say enemies it came out enemas. This made him laugh harder than ever.

There could be worse ways to go out, he thought as he reached both hands through the bars and shot Junior a nice double-bird. Remember Stubb, in Moby-Dick? “Whatever my fate, I’ll go to it laughing.”

Junior saw Barbie giving him the finger—in stereo—and forgot all about Rusty. He started down the short corridor with his gun held out in front of him. Barbie’s senses were very clear now, but he didn’t trust them. The people he thought he heard moving around and speaking upstairs were almost surely just his imagination. Still, you played your string out to the end. If nothing else, he could give Rusty a few more breaths and a little more time.

“There you are, fuckface,” he said. “Remember how I cleaned your clock that night in Dipper’s? You cried like a little bitch.”

“I didn’t.”

It came out sounding like an exotic special on a Chinese menu. Junior’s face was a wreck. Blood from his left eye was dribbling down one stubble-darkened cheek. It occurred to Barbie that he might just have a chance here. Not a good one, but bad chances were better than no chances. He began to pace from side to side in front of his bunk and his toilet, slowly at first, then faster. Now you know what a mechanical duck in a shooting gallery feels like, he thought. I’ll have to remember that, too.

Junior followed his movements with his one good eye. “Did you fuck her? Did you fuck Angie?” Dih-ooo fuh’er? Dih-oo fuh An’yee?

Barbie laughed. It was the crazy laugh, one he still didn’t recognize as his own, but there was nothing counterfeit about it. “Did I fuck her? Did I fuck her? Junior, I fucked her with her rightside up, her upside down, and her backside all present and accounted for. I fucked her until she sang ‘Hail to the Chief’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising.’ I fucked her until she pounded on the floor and yelled for a whole lot more. I—”

Junior tilted his head toward the gun. Barbie saw it and jigged to the left without delay. Junior fired. The bullet struck the brick wall at the back of the cell. Dark red chips flew. Some hit the bars—Barbie heard the metallic rattle, like peas in a tin cup, even with the gunshot ringing in his ears—but none of them hit Junior.

Shit. From down the hall, Rusty yelled something, probably trying to distract Junior, but Junior was done being distracted. Junior had his prime target in his sights.

Not yet, you don’t, Barbie thought. He was still laughing. It was crazy, nuts, but there it was. Not quite yet, you ugly one-eyed mother-fucker.

“She said you couldn’t get it up, Junior. She called you El Limpdick Supremo. We used to laugh about that while we were—” He leaped to the right at the same instant Junior fired. This time he heard the bullet pass the side of his head: the sound was zzzzzz. More brick chips jumped. One stung the back of Barbie’s neck.

“Come on, Junior, what’s wrong with you? You shoot like woodchucks do algebra. You a headcase? That’s what Angie and Frankie always used to say—”

Barbie faked to the right and then ran at the left side of the cell. Junior fired three times, the explosions deafening, the stink of the blown gunpowder rich and strong. Two of the bullets buried themselves in brick; the third hit the metal toilet low down with a spang sound. Water began to pour out. Barbie struck the far wall of the cell hard enough to rattle his teeth.

“Got you now,” Junior panted. Gah-ooo d’now. But deep down in what remained of his overheated thinking-engine, he wondered. His left eye was blind and his right one had blurred over. He saw not one Barbie but three.

The hateful sonofabitch hit the deck as Junior fired, and this bullet also missed. A small black eye opened in the center of the pillow at the head of the bunk. But at least he was down. No more jigging and jogging. Thank God I put in that fresh clip, Junior thought.

“You poisoned me, Baaarbie. ”

Barbie had no idea what he was talking about, but agreed at once. “That’s right, you loathsome little fuckpuppet, I sure did.”

Junior pushed the Beretta through the bars and closed his bad left eye; that reduced the number of Barbies he saw to just a pair. His tongue was snared between his teeth. His face ran with blood and sweat. “Let’s see you run now, Baaarbie. ”

Barbie couldn’t run, but he could and did crawl, scuttling right at Junior. The next bullet whistled over his head and he felt a vague burn across one buttock as the slug split his jeans and undershorts and removed the top layer of skin beneath them.

Junior recoiled, tripped, almost went down, caught the bars of the cell on his right, and hauled himself back up. “Hold still, mother-fucker!”

Barbie whirled to the bunk and groped beneath it for the knife. He had forgotten all about the fucking knife.

“You want it in the back?” Junior asked from behind him. “Okay; that’s all right with me.”

“Get him!” Rusty shouted. “Get him, GET HIM!”

Before the next gunshot came, Barbie had just time to think, Jesus Christ, Everett, whose side are you on?

31

Jackie came down the stairs with Rommie behind her. She had time to register the haze of gunsmoke drifting around the caged overhead lights, and the stink of expended powder, and then Rusty Everett was screaming Get him, get him.

She saw Junior Rennie at the end of the corridor, crowding against the bars of the cell at the far end, the one the cops sometimes called the Ritz. He was screaming something, but it was all garbled.

She didn’t think. Nor did she tell Junior to raise his hands and turn around. She just put two in his back. One entered his right lung; the other pierced his heart. Junior was dead before he slid to the floor with his face pressed between two bars of the cell, his eyes pulled up so stringently he looked like a Japanese death mask.

What his collapsing body revealed was Dale Barbara himself, crouching on his bunk with the carefully secreted knife in his hand. He had never had a chance to open it.

32

Freddy Denton grabbed Officer Henry Morrison’s shoulder. Denton was not his favorite person tonight, and was never going to be his favorite person again. Not that he ever was, Henry thought sourly.

Denton pointed. “Why’s that old fool Calvert going into the PD?”

“How the hell should I know?” Henry asked, and grabbed Donnie Baribeau as Donnie ran by, shouting some senseless shit about terrorists.

“Slow down!” Henry bellowed into Donnie’s face. “It’s all over! Everything’s cool!”

Donnie had been cutting Henry’s hair and telling the same stale jokes twice a month for ten years, but now he looked at Henry as if at a total stranger. Then he tore free and ran in the direction of East Street, where his shop was. Perhaps he meant to take refuge there.

“No civilians got any business being in the PD tonight,” Freddy said. Mel Searles steamed up beside him.

“Well, why don’t you go check him out, killer?” Henry said. “Take this lug with you. Because neither of you are doing the slightest bit of damn good here.”

“She was going for a gun,” Freddy said for the first of what would be many times. “And I didn’t mean to kill her. Only wing her, like.”

Henry had no intention of discussing it. “Go in there and tell the old guy to leave. You can also make sure nobody’s trying to free the prisoners while we’re out here running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.”

A light dawned in Freddy Denton’s dazed eyes. “The prisoners! Mel, let’s go!”

They started away, only to be frozen by Henry’s bullhorn-amplified voice three yards behind them: “AND PUT AWAY THOSE GUNS, YOU IDIOTS!”

Freddy did as the amplified voice commanded. Mel did the same. They crossed War Memorial Plaza and trotted up the PD steps with their guns holstered, which was probably a very good thing for Norrie’s grandfather.

33

Blood everywhere, Ernie thought, just as Jackie had. He stared at the carnage, dismayed, and then forced himself to move. Everything inside the reception desk had spilled out when Rupe Libby hit it. Lying amid the litter was a red plastic rectangle which he prayed the people downstairs might still be able to put to use.

He was bending down to get it (and telling himself not to throw up, telling himself it was still a lot better than the A Shau Valley in Nam) when someone behind him said, “Holy fucking God in the morning! Stand up, Calvert, slow. Hands over your head.”

But Freddy and Mel were still reaching for their weapons when Rommie came up the stairs to search for what Ernie had already found. Rommie had the speed-pump Black Shadow he’d put away in his safe, and he pointed it at the two cops without a moment’s hesitation.

“You fine fellas might as well come all the way in,” he said. “And stay together. Shoulder to shoulder. If I see light between you, I’ll shoot. Ain’t fuckin the dog on dis, me.”

“Put that down,” Freddy said. “We’re police.”

“Prime assholes is what you are. Stand over dere against that bulletin board. And keep rubbin shoulders while you do it. Ernie, what the damn hell you doin in here?”

“I heard shooting. I was worried.” He held up the red key card that opened the cells in the Coop. “You’ll need this, I think. Unless… unless they’re dead.”

“They ain’t dead, but it was fuckin close. Take it down to Jackie. I’ll watch these fellas.”

“You can’t release em, they’re prisoners,” Mel said. “Barbie’s a murderer. The other one tried to frame Mr. Rennie with some papers or… or somethin like that.”

Rommie didn’t bother replying. “Go on, Ernie. Hurry.”

“What happens to us?” Freddy asked. “You ain’t gonna kill us, are you?”

“Why would I kill you, Freddy? You still owe on that rototiller you bought from me las’ spring. Behind in payments, too, is my recollection. No, we’ll just lock you in the Coop. See how you like it down dere. Smells kinda pissy, but who knows, you might like it.”

“Did you have to kill Mickey?” Mel asked. “He wasn’t nothing but a softheaded boy.”

“We didn’t kill none of em,” Rommie said. “Your good pal Junior did dat.” Not that anybody will believe it come tomorrow night, he thought.

“Junior!” Freddy exclaimed. “Where is he?”

“Shoveling coal down in hell would be my guess,” Rommie said. “Dat’s where they put the new help.”

34

Barbie, Rusty, Jackie, and Ernie came upstairs. The two erstwhile prisoners looked as if they did not quite believe they were still alive. Rommie and Jackie escorted Freddy and Mel down to the Coop. When Mel saw Junior’s crumpled body, he said, “You’ll be sorry for this!”

Rommie said, “Shut your hole and get in your new home. Bot’ in the same cell. You’re chums, after all.”

As soon as Rommie and Jackie had returned to the top floor, the two men began to holler.

“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” Ernie said.

35

On the steps, Rusty looked up at the pink stars and breathed air which stank and smelled incredibly sweet at the same time. He turned to Barbie. “I never expected to see the sky again.”

“Neither did I. Let’s blow town while we’ve got the chance. How does Miami Beach sound to you?”

Rusty was still laughing when he got into the van. Several cops were on the Town Hall lawn, and one of them—Todd Wendlestat—looked over. Ernie raised his hand in a wave; Rommie and Jackie followed suit; Wendlestat returned the wave, then bent to help a woman who had gone sprawling to the grass when her high heels betrayed her.

Ernie slid behind the wheel and mated the electrical wires hanging below the dashboard. The engine started, the side door slammed shut, and the van pulled away from the curb. It rolled slowly up Town Common Hill, weaving around a few stunned meeting-goers who were walking in the street. Then they were out of downtown and headed toward Black Ridge, picking up speed.