Under the Dome

  "Look at you!" Mel said. "All dressed up and no one to blow."

  More laughter. Sammy raised an arm to shield her eyes, but it did no good; the people behind the flashlights were just shapes. But one of the laughers sounded female. That was probably good.

  "Turn off those lights before I go blind! And shut up, you'll wake the baby!"

  More laughter, louder than ever, but three of the four lights went out. She trained her own flashlight out the door, and wasn't comforted by what she saw: Frankie DeLesseps and Mel Searles flanking Carter Thibodeau and Georgia Roux. Georgia, the girl who'd put her foot on Sammy's tit that afternoon and called her a dyke. A female, but not a safe female.

  They were wearing their badges. And they were indeed drunk.

  "What do you want? It's late."

  "Want some dope," Georgia said. "You sell it, so sell some to us."

  "I want to get high as apple pie in a red dirt sky," Mel said, and then laughed: Nyuck-nyuck-nyuck.

  "I don't have any," Sammy said.

  "Bullshit, the place reeks of it," Carter said. "Sell us some. Don't be a bitch."

  "Yeah," Georgia said. In the light of Sammy's flash, her eyes had a silvery glitter. "Never mind that we're cops."

  They all roared at this. They would wake the baby for sure.

  "No!" Sammy tried to shut the door. Thibodeau pushed it open again. He did it with just the flat of his hand--easy as could be--but Sammy went stumbling backward. She tripped over Little Walter's goddam choo-choo and went down on her ass for the second time that day. Her tee-shirt flew up.

  "Ooo, pink underwear, are you expecting one of your girlfriends?" Georgia asked, and they all roared again. The flashlights that had gone out now came back on, spotlighting her.

  Sammy yanked the tee-shirt down almost hard enough to rip the neck. Then she got unsteadily to her feet, the flashlight beams dancing up and down her body.

  "Be a good hostess and invite us in," Frankie said, barging through the door. "Thank you very much." His light flashed around the living room. "What a pigsty."

  "Pigsty for a pig!" Georgia bellowed, and they all broke up again. "If I was Phil, I might come back out of the woods just long enough to kick your fuckin ass!" She raised her fist; Carter Thibodeau knuckle-dapped her.

  "He still hidin out at the radio station?" Mel asked. "Tweekin the rock? Gettin all paranoid for Jesus?"

  "I don't know what you ..." She wasn't mad anymore, only afraid. This was the disconnected way people talked in the nightmares that came if you smoked weed dusted with PCP. "Phil's gone!"

  Her four visitors looked at each other, then laughed. Searles's idiotic nyuck-nyuck-nyuck rode above the others.

  "Gone! Bugged out!" Frankie crowed.

  "Fuckin as if !" Carter replied, and then they bumped knucks.

  Georgia grabbed a bunch of Sammy's paperbacks off the top shelf of the bookcase and looked through them. "Nora Roberts? Sandra Brown? Stephenie Meyer? You read this stuff? Don't you know fuckin Harry Potter rules?" She held the books out, then opened her hands and dropped them on the floor.

  The baby still hadn't awakened. It was a miracle. "If I sell you some dope, will you go?" Sammy asked.

  "Sure," Frankie said.

  "And hurry up," Carter said. "We got an early call tomorrow. Eee-vack -u-ation detail. So shag that fat ass of yours."

  "Wait here."

  She went into the kitchenette and opened the freezer--warm now, everything would be thawed, for some reason that made her feel like crying--and took out one of the gallon Baggies of dope she kept in there. There were three others.

  She started to turn around, but someone grabbed her before she could, and someone else plucked the Baggie from her hand. "I want to check out that pink underwear again," Mel said in her ear. "See if you got SUNDAY on your ass." He yanked her shirt up to her waist. "Nope, guess not."

  "Stop it! Quit it!"

  Mel laughed: Nyuck-nyuck-nyuck.

  A flashlight stabbed her in the eyes, but she recognized the narrow head behind it: Frankie DeLesseps. "You gave me lip today," he said. "Plus, you slapped me and hurt my little hannie. And all I did was this." He reached out and grabbed her breast again.

  She tried to jerk away. The beam of light that had been trained on her face tilted momentarily up to the ceiling. Then it came down again, fast. Pain exploded in her head. He had hit her with his flashlight.

  "Ow! Ow, that hurts! STOP it!"

  "Shit, that didn't hurt. You're just lucky I don't arrest you for pushing dope. Stand still if you don't want another one."

  "This dope smells skanky," Mel said in a matter-of-fact voice. He was behind her, still holding up her shirt.

  "So does she," Georgia said.

  "Gotta confiscate the weed, bee-yatch," Carter said. "Sorry."

  Frankie had glommed onto her breast again. "Stand still." He pinched the nipple. "Just stand still." His voice, roughening. His breathing, quickening. She knew where this was going. She closed her eyes. Just as long as the baby doesn't wake up, she thought. And as long as they don't do more. Do worse.

  "Go on," Georgia said. "Show her what she's been missing since Phil left."

  Frankie gestured into the living room with his flashlight. "Get on the couch. And spread em."

  "Don't you want to read her her rights, first?" Mel asked, and laughed: Nyuck-nyuck-nyuck. Sammy thought if she had to hear that laugh one more time, her head would split wide open. But she started for the couch, head down, shoulders slumped.

  Carter grabbed her on the way by, turned her, and sprayed the beam of his flashlight up his own face, turning it into a goblin-mask. "Are you going to talk about this, Sammy?"

  "N-N-No."

  The goblin-mask nodded. "You hold that thought. Because no one would believe you, anyway. Except for us, of course, and then we'd have to come back and really fuck you up."

  Frankie pushed her onto the couch.

  "Do her," Georgia said excitedly, training her light on Sammy. "Do that bitch!"

  All three of the young men did her. Frankie went first, whispering "You gotta learn to keep your mouth shut except for when you're on your knees" as he pushed into her.

  Carter was next. While he was riding her, Little Walter awoke and began to cry.

  "Shut up, kid, or I'll hafta readja your rights!" Mel Searles hollered, and then laughed.

  Nyuck-nyuck-nyuck.

  11

  It was almost midnight.

  Linda Everett lay fast asleep in her half of the bed; she'd had an exhausting day, she had an early call tomorrow (eee-vack -u-ation detail), and not even her worries about Janelle could keep her awake. She didn't snore, exactly, but a soft queep-queep-queep sound came from her half of the bed.

  Rusty had had an equally exhausting day, but he couldn't sleep, and it wasn't Jan he was worried about. He thought she was going to be all right, at least for a while. He could keep her seizures at bay if they didn't get any worse. If he ran out of Zarontin at the hospital dispensary, he could get more from Sanders Drug.

  It was Dr. Haskell he kept thinking about. And Rory Dinsmore, of course. Rusty kept seeing the torn and bloody socket where the boy's eye had been. Kept hearing Ron Haskell telling Ginny, I'm not death. Deaf, I mean.

  Except he had been death.

  He rolled over in bed, trying to leave these memories behind, and what came in their place was Rory muttering It's Halloween. Overlapping that, his own daughter's voice: It's the Great Pumpkin's fault! You have to stop the Great Pumpkin!

  His daughter had been having a seizure. The Dinsmore kid had taken a ricochet to the eye and a bullet fragment to the brain. What did that tell him?

  It tells me nothing. What did the Scottish guy say on Lost? "Don't mistake coincidence for fate?"

  Maybe that had been it. Maybe it had. But Lost had been a long time ago. The Scottish guy could have said Don't mistake fate for coincidence.

  He rolled over the other way and this time saw the black headline of that night'
s Democrat one-sheet: EXPLOSIVES TO BE FIRED AT BARRIER!

  It was hopeless. Sleep was out of the question for now, and the worst thing you could do in a situation like that was try to flog your way into dreamland.

  There was half a loaf of Linda's famous cranberry-orange bread downstairs; he'd seen it on the counter when he came in. Rusty decided he'd have a piece of it at the kitchen table and thumb through the latest issue of American Family Physician. If an article on whooping cough wouldn't put him to sleep, nothing would.

  He got up, a big man dressed in the blue scrubs that were his usual nightwear, and left quietly, so as not to wake Linda.

  Halfway to the stairs, he paused and cocked his head.

  Audrey was whining, very soft and low. From the girls' room. Rusty went down there and eased the door open. The golden retriever, just a dim shape between the girls' beds, turned to look at him and voiced another of those low whines.

  Judy was lying on her side with one hand tucked under her cheek, breathing long and slow. Jannie was a different story. She rolled restlessly from one side to the other, kicking at the bed-clothes and muttering. Rusty stepped over the dog and sat down on her bed, under Jannie's latest boy-band poster.

  She was dreaming. Not a good dream, by her troubled expression. And that muttering sounded like protests. Rusty tried to make out the words, but before he could, she ceased.

  Audrey whined again.

  Jan's nightdress was all twisted. Rusty straightened it, pulled up the covers, and brushed Jannie's hair off her forehead. Her eyes were moving rapidly back and forth beneath her closed lids, but he observed no trembling of the limbs, no fluttering fingers, no characteristic smacking of the lips. REM sleep rather than seizure, almost certainly. Which raised an interesting question: could dogs also smell bad dreams?

  He bent and kissed Jan's cheek. When he did, her eyes opened, but he wasn't entirely sure she was seeing him. This could have been a petit mal symptom, but Rusty just didn't believe it. Audi would have been barking, he felt sure.

  "Go back to sleep, honey," he said. "He has a golden baseball, Daddy."

  "I know he does, honey, go back to sleep."

  "It's a bad baseball."

  "No. It's good. Baseballs are good, especially golden ones."

  "Oh," she said.

  "Go back to sleep."

  "Okay, Daddy." She rolled over and closed her eyes. There was a moment of settling beneath the covers, and then she was still. Audrey, who had been lying on the floor with her head up, watching them, now put her muzzle on her paw and went to sleep herself.

  Rusty sat there awhile, listening to his daughters breathe, telling himself there was really nothing to be frightened of, people talked their way in and out of dreams all the time. He told himself that everything was fine--he only had to look at the sleeping dog on the floor if he doubted--but in the middle of the night it was hard to be an optimist. When dawn was still long hours away, bad thoughts took on flesh and began to walk. In the middle of the night thoughts became zombies.

  He decided he didn't want the cranberry-orange bread after all. What he wanted was to snuggle against his bedwarm sleeping wife. But before leaving the room, he stroked Audrey's silky head. "Pay attention, girl," he whispered. Audi briefly opened her eyes and looked at him.

  He thought, Golden retriever. And, following that--the perfect connection: Golden baseball. A bad baseball.

  That night, despite the girls' newly discovered feminine privacy, Rusty left their door open.

  12

  Lester Coggins was sitting on Rennie's stoop when Big Jim got back. Coggins was reading his Bible by flashlight. This did not inspire Big Jim with the Reverend's devotion but only worsened a mood that was already bad.

  "God bless you, Jim," Coggins said, standing up. When Big Jim offered his hand, Coggins seized it in a fervent fist and pumped it.

  "Bless you too," Big Jim said gamely.

  Coggins gave his hand a final hard shake and let go. "Jim, I'm here because I've had a revelation. I asked for one last night--yea, for I was sorely troubled--and this afternoon it came. God has spoken to me, both through scripture and through that young boy."

  "The Dinsmore kid?"

  Coggins kissed his clasped hands with a loud smack and then held them skyward. "The very same. Rory Dinsmore. May God keep him for all eternity."

  "He's eating dinner with Jesus right this minute," Big Jim said automatically. He was examining the Reverend in the beam of his own flashlight, and what he was seeing wasn't good. Although the night was cooling rapidly, sweat shone on Coggins's skin. His eyes were wide, showing too much of the whites. His hair stood out in wild curls and bumbershoots. All in all, he looked like a fellow whose gears were slipping and might soon be stripping.

  Big Jim thought, This is not good.

  "Yes," Coggins said, "I'm sure. Eating the great feast ... wrapped in the everlasting arms ..."

  Big Jim thought it would be hard to do both things at the same time, but kept silent on that score.

  "And yet his death was for a purpose, Jim. That's what I've come to tell you."

  "Tell me inside," Big Jim said, and before the minister could reply: "Have you seen my son?"

  "Junior? No."

  "How long have you been here?" Big Jim flicked on the hall light, blessing the generator as he did so.

  "An hour. Maybe a little less. Sitting on the steps ... reading ... praying ... meditating."

  Rennie wondered if anyone had seen him, but did not ask. Coggins was upset already, and a question like that might upset him more.

  "Let's go in my study," he said, and led the way, head down, lumbering slowly along in his big flat strides. Seen from behind, he looked a bit like a bear dressed in human clothes, one who was old and slow but still dangerous.

  13

  In addition to the picture of the Sermon on the Mount with his safe behind it, there were a great many plaques on the walls of Big Jim's study, commending him for various acts of community service. There was also a framed picture of Big Jim shaking hands with Sarah Palin and another of him shaking with the Big Number 3, Dale Earnhardt, when Earnhardt had done a fundraiser for some children's charity at the annual Oxford Plains Crash-A-Rama. There was even a picture of Big Jim shaking hands with Tiger Woods, who had seemed like a very nice Negro.

  The only piece of memorabilia on his desk was a gold-plated baseball in a Lucite cradle. Below it (also in Lucite) was an autograph reading: To Jim Rennie, with thanks for your help in putting on the Western Maine Charity Softball Tournament of 2007! It was signed Bill "Spaceman" Lee.

  As he sat behind his desk in his high-backed chair, Big Jim took the ball from its cradle and began tossing it from hand to hand. It was a fine thing to toss, especially when you were a little upset: nice and heavy, the golden seams smacking comfortably against your palms. Big Jim sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a solid gold ball. Perhaps he would look into that when this Dome business was over.

  Coggins seated himself on the other side of the desk, in the client's chair. The supplicant's chair. Which was where Big Jim wanted him. The Reverend's eyes went back and forth like the eyes of a man watching a tennis match. Or maybe a hypnotist's crystal.

  "Now what's this all about, Lester? Fill me in. But let's keep it short, shall we? I need to get some sleep. Got a lot to do tomorrow."

  "Will you pray with me first, Jim?"

  Big Jim smiled. It was the fierce one, although not turned up to maximum chill. At least not yet. "Why don't you fill me in before we do that? I like to know what I'm praying about before I get kneebound."

  Lester did not keep it short, but Big Jim hardly noticed. He listened with growing dismay that was close to horror. The Reverend's narrative was disjointed and peppered with Biblical quotations, but the gist was clear: he had decided that their little business had displeased the Lord enough for Him to clap a big glass bowl over the whole town. Lester had prayed on what to do about this, scourging himself as he did so
(the scourging might have been metaphorical--Big Jim certainly hoped so), and the Lord had led him to some Bible verse about madness, blindness, smiting, etc., etc.

  "The Lord said he would shew me a sign, and--"

  "Shoe?" Big Jim raised his tufted eyebrows.

  Lester ignored him and plunged on, sweating like a man with malaria, his eyes still following the golden ball. Back ... and forth.

  "It was like when I was a teenager and I used to come in my bed."

  "Les, that's ... a little too much information." Tossing the ball from hand to hand.

  "God said He would shew me blindness, but not my blindness. And this afternoon, out in that field, He did! Didn't he?"

  "Well, I guess that's one interpretation--"

  "No!" Coggins leaped to his feet. He began to walk in a circle on the rug, his Bible in one hand. With the other he tugged at his hair. "God said that when I saw that sign, I had to tell my congregation exactly what you'd been up to--"

  "Just me?" Big Jim asked. He did so in a meditative voice. He was tossing the ball from hand to hand a little faster now. Smack. Smack. Smack. Back and forth against palms that were fleshy but still hard.

  "No," Lester said in a kind of groan. He paced faster now, no longer looking at the ball. He was waving the Bible with the hand not busy trying to tear his hair out by the roots. He did the same thing in the pulpit sometimes, when he really got going. That stuff was all right in church, but here it was just plain infuriating. "It was you and me and Roger Killian the Bowie brothers and ..." He lowered his voice. "And that other one. The Chef. I think that man's crazy. If he wasn't when he started last spring, he sure is now."

  Look who's talking, little buddy, Big Jim thought.

  "We're all involved, but it's you and I who have to confess, Jim. That's what the Lord told me. That's what the boy's blindness meant; it's what he died for. We'll confess, and we'll burn that Barn of Satan behind the church. Then God will let us go."

  "You'll go, all right, Lester. Straight to Shawshank State Prison."

  "I will take the punishment God metes out. And gladly."

  "And me? Andy Sanders? The Bowie brothers? And Roger Killian! He's got I think nine kids to support! What if we're not so glad, Lester?"