Under the Dome

  "What?" Linda was now sitting on the edge of Judy's bed with Judy on her lap. "What?"

  "It's over," Rusty said.

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

  "The Great Pumpkin!" Janelle cried. "It's the Great Pumpkin's fault! You have to stop the Great Pumpkin!"

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

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

  "Okay, honey, I will. Halloween's off. Completely."

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

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

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

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

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

  "Does she have to go to the hospital?" Linda asked.

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

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

  "No shots, sweetheart. Pills."

  "Are you sure?" Lin asked.

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

  "Audrey 's sure," he said. "But she ought to sleep in here with the girls for tonight."

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

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

  "Why now?" she asked. "Why now ?"

  "I don't know. Just be grateful it was only petit mal."

  On that score, his prayer had been answered.

  MADNESS, BLINDNESS, ASTONISHMENT OF THE HEART

  1

  Scarecrow Joe wasn't up early; he was up late. All night, in fact.

  This would be Joseph McClatchey, age thirteen, also known as King of the Geeks and Skeletor, residing at 19 Mill Street. Standing six-two and weighing one-fifty, he was indeed skeletal. And he was a bona fide brain. Joe remained in the eighth grade only because his parents were adamantly opposed to the practice of "skipping forward."

  Joe didn't mind. His friends (he had a surprising number for a scrawny thirteen-year-old genius) were there. Also, the work was a tit and there were plenty of computers to goof with; in Maine, every middle school kid got one. Some of the better websites were blocked, of course, but it hadn't taken Joe long to conquer such minor annoyances. He was happy to share the information with his homies, two of whom were those dauntless board-benders Norrie Calvert and Benny Drake. (Benny particularly enjoyed surfing the Blondes in White Panties site during his daily library period.) This sharing no doubt explained some of Joe's popularity, but not all; kids just thought he was cool. The bumper sticker plastered on his backpack probably came closest to explaining why. It read FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE.

  Joe was a straight-A student, a dependable and sometimes brilliant basketball center on the middle school team (varsity as a seventh-grader!), and a foxy-good soccer player. He could tickle the piano keys, and two years previous had won second prize in the annual Town Christmas Talent Competition with a hilariously laid-back dance routine to Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman." It had the adults in attendance applauding and screaming with laughter. Lissa Jamieson, the town's head librarian, said he could make a living doing that if he wanted to, but growing up to be Napoleon Dynamite was not Joe's ambition.

  "The fix was in," Sam McClatchey had said, gloomily fingering his son's second-place medal. It was probably true; the winner that year had been Dougie Twitchell, who happened to be the Third Selectman's brother. Twitch had juggled half a dozen Indian clubs while singing "Moon River."

  Joe didn't care if the fix was in or not. He had lost interest in dancing the way he lost interest in most things once he had to some degree mastered them. Even his love of basketball, which as a fifth-grader he had assumed to be eternal, was fading.

  Only his passion for the Internet, that electronic galaxy of endless possibilities, did not seem to pall for him.

  His ambition, unexpressed even to his parents, was to become President of the United States. Maybe, he sometimes thought, I'll do the Napoleon Dynamite thing at my inaugural. That shit would be on YouTube for eternity.

  Joe spent the entire first night the Dome was in place on the Internet. The McClatcheys had no generator, but Joe's laptop was juiced and ready to go. Also, he had half a dozen spare batteries. He had urged the other seven or eight kids in his informal computer club to also keep spares on hand, and he knew where there were more if they were needed. They might not be; the school had a kick-ass generator, and he thought he could recharge there with no trouble. Even if Mill Middle went into lockdown, Mr. Allnut, the janitor, would no doubt hook him up; Mr. Allnut was also a fan of blondesinwhitepanties.com. Not to mention country music downloads, which Scarecrow Joe saw he got for free.

  Joe all but wore out his Wi-Fi connection that first night, going from blog to blog with the jitter-jive agility of a toad hopping on hot rocks. Each blog was more dire than the last. The facts were thin, the conspiracy theories lush. Joe agreed with his dad and mom, who called the weirder conspiracy theorists who lived on (and for) the Internet "the tinfoil-hat folks," but he was also a believer in the idea that, if you were seeing a lot of horseshit, there had to be a pony in the vicinity.

  As Dome Day became Day Two, all the blogs were suggesting the same thing: the pony in this case was not terrorists, invaders from space, or Great Cthulhu, but the good old military-industrial complex. The specifics varied from site to site, but three basic theories ran through all of them. One was that the Dome was some sort of heartless experiment, with the people of Chester's Mill serving as guinea pigs. Another was that it was an experiment that had gone wrong and out of control ("Exactly like in that movie The Mist, " one blogger wrote). A third was that it wasn't an experiment at all, but a coldly created pretext to justify war with America's stated enemies. "And WE'LL WIN!" ToldjaSo87 wrote. "Because with this new weapon, WHO CAN STAND AGAINST US? My friends, WE HAVE BECOME THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS OF NATIONS!!!!"

  Joe didn't know which if any of these theories was the truth. He didn't really care. What he cared about was the expressed common denominator, which was the government.

  It was time for a demonstration, which he of course would lead. Not in town, either, but out on Route 119, where they could stick it directly to The Man. It might only be Joe's guys at first, but it would grow. He had no doubt of that. The Man was probably still keeping the press corps away, but even at thirteen, Joe was wise enough to know that didn't necessarily matter. Because there were people inside those uniforms, and thinking brains behind at least some of those expressionless faces. The military presence as a whole might constitute The Man, but there would be individuals hiding in the whole, and some of them would be secret bloggers. They'd get the word out, and some would probably accompany their reports with camera-phone pictures: Joe McClatchey and his friends carrying signs readin
g END THE SECRECY, STOP THE EXPERIMENT, FREE CHESTER'S MILL, etc., etc.

  "Need to post signs around town, too," he murmured. But that would be no problem. All of his guys had printers. And bikes.

  Scarecrow Joe began sending e-mails by the dawn's early light. Soon he'd make the rounds on his own bike, and enlist Benny Drake to help him. Maybe Norrie Calvert, too. Ordinarily the members of Joe's posse were late weekend risers, but Joe thought everyone in town would be up early this morning. No doubt The Man would shut down the Internet soon, as He had the phones, but for now it was Joe's weapon, the weapon of the people.

  It was time to fight the power.

  2

  "Fellas, raise your hands," Peter Randolph said. He was tired and baggy-eyed as he stood in front of his new recruits, but he also felt a certain grim happiness. The green Chief's car was parked in the motor pool parking lot, freshly gassed and ready to go. It was his now.

  The new recruits--Randolph intended to call them Special Deputies in his formal report to the Selectmen--obediently raised their hands. There were actually five of them, and one was not a fella but a stocky young woman named Georgia Roux. She was an unemployed hairdresser and Carter Thibodeau's girlfriend. Junior had suggested to his father that they probably ought to add a female just to keep everybody happy, and Big Jim had concurred at once. Randolph initially resisted the idea, but when Big Jim favored the new Chief with his fiercest smile, Randolph had given in.

  And, he had to admit as he administered the oath (with some of his regular force looking on), they certainly looked tough enough. Junior had lost some pounds over the previous summer and was nowhere near his weight as a high school offensive linemen, but he still had to go one-ninety, and the others, even the girl, were authentic bruisers.

  They stood repeating the words after him, phrase for phrase: Junior on the far left, next to his friend Frankie DeLesseps; then Thibodeau and the Roux girl; Melvin Searles on the end. Searles was wearing a vacant going-to-the-county-fair grin. Randolph would have wiped that shit off his face in a hurry if he'd had three weeks to train these kids (hell, even one), but he didn't.

  The only thing on which he hadn't caved to Big Jim was the issue of sidearms. Rennie had argued for them, insisting that these were "levelheaded, Godfearing young people," and saying he'd be glad to provide them himself, if necessary.

  Randolph had shaken his head. "The situation's too volatile. Let's see how they do first."

  "If one of them gets hurt while you're seeing how they do--"

  "Nobody's gonna get hurt, Big Jim," Randolph said, hoping he was right. "This is Chester's Mill. If it was New York City, things might be different."

  3

  Now Randolph said, "'And I will, to the best of my ability, protect and serve the people of this town.'"

  They gave it back as sweetly as a Sunday School class on Parents' Day. Even the vacantly grinning Searles got it right. And they looked good. No guns--yet--but at least they had walkie-talkies. Nightsticks, too. Stacey Moggin (who would be pulling a street shift herself) had found uniform shirts for everyone but Carter Thibodeau. They had nothing to fit him because he was too broad in the shoulders, but the plain blue workshirt he'd fetched from home looked okay. Not reg, but it was clean. And the silver badge pinned over the left pocket sent the message that needed sending.

  Maybe this was going to work.

  "So help me God," Randolph said.

  "So help me God," they repeated.

  From the corner of his eye, Randolph saw the door open. It was Big Jim. He joined Henry Morrison, wheezy George Frederick, Fred Denton, and a dubious-looking Jackie Wettington at the back of the room. Rennie was here to see his son sworn in, Randolph knew. And because he was still uneasy about refusing the new men sidearms (refusing Big Jim anything ran counter to Randolph's politically attuned nature), the new Chief now extemporized, mostly for the Second Selectman's benefit.

  "And I will take no shit from anybody."

  "And I will take no shit from anybody!" they repeated. With enthusiasm. All smiling now. Eager. Ready to hit the streets.

  Big Jim was nodding and giving him a thumbs-up in spite of the cussword. Randolph felt himself expand, unaware the words would come back to haunt him: I will take no shit from anybody.

  4

  When Julia Shumway came into Sweetbriar Rose that morning, most of the breakfast crowd had departed either for church or impromptu forums on the common. It was nine o'clock. Barbie was on his own; neither Dodee Sanders nor Angie McCain had shown up, which surprised no one. Rose had gone to Food City. Anson went with her. Hopefully they'd come back loaded with groceries, but Barbie wouldn't let himself believe it until he actually saw the goodies.

  "We're closed until lunch," he said, "but there's coffee."

  "And a cinnamon roll?" Julia asked hopefully.

  Barbie shook his head. "Rose didn't make them. Trying to conserve the gennie as much as possible."

  "Makes sense," she said. "Just coffee, then."

  He had carried the pot with him, and poured. "You look tired."

  "Barbie, everyone looks tired this morning. And scared to death."

  "How's that paper coming?"

  "I was hoping to have it out by ten, but it's looking more like three this afternoon. The first Democrat extra since the Prestile flooded in oh-three."

  "Production problems?"

  "Not as long as my generator stays online. I just want to go down to the grocery store and see if a mob shows up. Get that part of the story, if one does. Pete Freeman's already there to take pictures."

  Barbie didn't like that word mob. "Christ, I hope they behave."

  "They will; this is The Mill, after all, not New York City."

  Barbie wasn't sure there was that much difference between city mice and country mice when they were under stress, but he kept his mouth shut. She knew the locals better than he did.

  And Julia, as if reading his mind: "Of course I could be wrong. That's why I sent Pete." She looked around. There were still a few people at the counter up front, finishing eggs and coffee, and of course the big table at the back--the "bullshit table" in Yankee parlance--was full of old men chewing over what had happened and discussing what might happen next. The center of the restaurant, however, she and Barbie had to themselves.

  "Couple of things to tell you," she said in a lower voice. "Stop hovering like Willie the Waiter and sit down."

  Barbie did so, and poured his own cup of coffee. It was the bottom of the pot and tasted like diesel ... but of course the bottom of the pot was where the caffeine motherlode was.

  Julia reached into the pocket of her dress, brought out her cell, and slid it across to him. "Your man Cox called again at seven this morning. Guess he didn't get much sleep last night, either. Asked me to give you this. Doesn't know you have one of your own."

  Barbie let the phone stay where it was. "If he expects a report already, he's seriously overestimated my abilities."

  "He didn't say that. He said that if he needed to talk to you, he wanted to be able to reach out."

  That decided Barbie. He pushed the cell phone back to her. She took it, not looking surprised. "He also said that if you didn't hear from him by five this afternoon, you should call him. He'll have an update. Want the number with the funny area code?"

  He sighed. "Sure."

  She wrote it on a napkin: small neat numbers. "I think they're going to try something."

  "What?"

  "He didn't say; it was just a sense I got that a number of options are on the table."

  "I'll bet there are. What else is on your mind?"

  "Who says there's anything?"

  "It's just a sense I get," he said, grinning.

  "Okay, the Geiger counter."

  "I was thinking I'd speak to Al Timmons about that." Al was the Town Hall janitor, and a regular at Sweetbriar Rose. Barbie got on well with him.

  Julia shook her head.

  "No? Why no?"

  "Want to guess who
gave Al a personal no-interest loan to send Al's youngest son to Heritage Christian in Alabama?"

  "Would that be Jim Rennie?"

  "Right. Now let's go on to Double Jeopardy, where the scores can really change. Guess who holds the paper on Al's Fisher plow."

  "I'm thinking that would also be Jim Rennie."

  "Correct. And since you're the dogshit Selectman Rennie can't quite scrape off his shoe, reaching out to people who owe him might not be a good idea." She leaned forward. "But it so happens that I know who had a complete set of the keys to the kingdom: Town Hall, hospital, Health Center, schools, you name it."

  "Who?"

  "Our late police chief. And I happen to know his wife--widow--very well. She has no love for James Rennie. Plus, she can keep a secret if someone convinces her it needs keeping."

  "Julia, her husband isn't even cold yet."

  Julia thought of the grim little Bowie funeral parlor and made a grimace of sorrow and distaste. "Maybe not, but he's probably down to room temperature. I take your point, though, and applaud your compassion. But ..." She grasped his hand. This surprised Barbie but didn't displease him. "These aren't ordinary circumstances. And no matter how brokenhearted she is, Brenda Perkins will know that. You have a job to do. I can convince her of that. You're the inside man."

  "The inside man," Barbie said, and was suddenly visited by a pair of unwelcome memories: a gymnasium in Fallujah and a weeping Iraqi man, naked save for his unraveling keffiyeh. After that day and that gym, he had stopped wanting to be an inside man. And yet here he was.

  "So shall I--"

  It was a warm morning for October, and although the door was now locked (people could leave but not reenter), the windows were open. Through those facing Main Street, there now came a hollow metallic bang and a yelp of pain. It was followed by cries of protest.

  Barbie and Julia looked at each other across their coffee cups with identical expressions of surprise and apprehension.

  It begins right now, Barbie thought. He knew that wasn't true--it had begun yesterday, when the Dome came down--but at the same time he felt sure it was true.

  The people at the counter were running to the door. Barbie got up to join them, and Julia followed.