Under the Dome

  "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, motherfucker!"

  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.

  1

  They started seeing the glow on the other side of a rusty old bridge that now spanned nothing but a mudslick. Barbie leaned for
ward between the front seats of the van. "What's that? It looks like the world's biggest Indiglo watch."

  "It's radiation," Ernie said.

  "Don't worry," Rommie said.

  "We've got plenty of lead roll."

  "Norrie called me on her mother's cell phone while I was waiting for you," Ernie said. "She told me about the glow. She says Julia thinks it's nothing but a kind of ... scarecrow, I guess you'd say. Not dangerous."

  "I thought Julia's degree was in journalism, not science," Jackie said. "She's a very nice lady, and smart, but we're still going to armor this thing up, right? Because I don't much fancy getting ovarian or breast cancer as a fortieth birthday present."

  "We'll drive fast," Rommie said. "You can even slide a piece of dat lead roll down the front of your jeans, if it'll make you feel better, you."

  "That's so funny I forgot to laugh," she said ... then did just that when she got an image of herself in lead panties, fashionably high-cut on the sides.

  They came to the dead bear at the foot of the telephone pole. They could have seen it even with the headlights off, because by then the combined light from the pink moon and the radiation belt was almost strong enough to read a newspaper by.

  While Rommie and Jackie covered the van's windows with lead roll, the others stood around the rotting bear in a semicircle.

  "Not radiation," Barbie mused.

  "Nope," Rusty said. "Suicide."

  "And there are others."

  "Yes. But the smaller animals seem to be safe. The kids and I saw plenty of birds, and there was a squirrel in the orchard. It was just as lively as can be."

  "Then Julia's almost certainly right," Barbie said.

  "The glow-band's a scarecrow and the dead animals are another. It's the old belt-and -suspenders thing."

  "I'm not following you, my friend," Ernie said.

  But Rusty, who had learned the belt-and-suspenders approach as a medical student, absolutely was. "Two warnings to keep out," he said. "Dead animals by day, a glowing belt of radiation by night."

  "So far as I know," Rommie said, joining them at the side of the road, "radiation only glows in science fiction movies."

  Rusty thought of telling him they were living in a science fiction movie, and Rommie would realize it when he got close to that weird box on the ridge. But of course Rommie was right.

  "We're supposed to see it," he said. "The same with the dead animals. You're supposed to say, 'Whoa--if there's some kind of suicide ray out here that affects big mammals, I better stay away. After all, I'm a big mammal.'"

  "But the kids didn't back off," Barbie said.

  "Because they're kids," Ernie said. And, after a moment's consideration: "Also skateboarders. They're a different breed."

  "I still don't like it," Jackie said, "but since we have noplace else to go, maybe we could drive through yonder Van Allen Belt before I lose what's left of my nerve. After what happened at the cop-shop, I'm feeling a little shaky."

  "Wait a minute," Barbie said. "There's something out of kilter here. I see it, but give me a second to think how to say it."

  They waited. Moonlight and radiation lit the remains of the bear. Barbie was staring at it. Finally he raised his head.

  "Okay, here's what's troubling me. There's a they. We know that because the box Rusty found isn't a natural phenomenon."

  "Damn straight, it's a made thing," Rusty said. "But not terrestrial. I'd bet my life on that." Then he thought how close he'd come to losing his life not an hour ago and shuddered. Jackie squeezed his shoulder.

  "Never mind that part for now," Barbie said. "There's a they, and if they really wanted to keep us out, they could. They're keeping the whole world out of Chester's Mill. If they wanted to keep us away from their box, why not put a mini-Dome around it?"

  "Or a harmonic sound that would cook our brains like chicken legs in a microwave," Rusty suggested, getting into the spirit of the thing. "Hell, real radiation, for that matter."

  "It might be real radiation," Ernie said. "In fact, the Geiger counter you brought up here pretty much confirmed that."

  "Yes," Barbie agreed, "but does that mean that what the Geiger counter's registering is dangerous? Rusty and the kids aren't breaking out in lesions, or losing their hair, or vomiting up the linings of their stomachs."

  "At least not yet," Jackie said.

  "Dat's cheerful," Rommie said.

  Barbie ignored the byplay. "Surely if they can create a barrier so strong it bounces back the best missiles America can throw at it, they could set up a radiation belt that would kill quickly, maybe instantly. It would even be in their interest to do so. A couple of grisly human deaths would be a lot more apt to discourage explorers than a bunch of dead animals. No, I think Julia's right, and the so-called radiation belt will turn out to be a harmless glow that's been spiced up to register on our detection equipment. Which probably seems pretty damn primitive to them, if they really are extraterrestrial."

  "But why?" Rusty burst out. "Why any barrier? I couldn't lift the damn thing, I couldn't even rock it! And when I put a lead apron on it, the apron caught fire. Even though the box itself is cool to the touch!"

  "If they're protecting it, there must be some way of destroying it or turning it off," Jackie said. "Except ..."

  Barbie was smiling at her. He felt strange, almost as if he were floating above his own head. "Go on, Jackie. Say it."

  "Except they're not protecting it, are they? Not from people who are determined to approach it."

  "There's more," Barbie said. "Couldn't we say they're actually pointing at it? Joe McClatchey and his friends were practically following a trail of bread crumbs."

  "Here it is, puny Earthlings," Rusty said. "What can you do about it, ye who are brave enough to approach?"

  "That feels about right," Barbie said. "Come on. Let's get up there."

  2

  "You better let me drive from here," Rusty told Ernie. "Up ahead's where the kids passed out. Rommie almost did. I felt it too. And I had a kind of hallucination. A Halloween dummy that burst into flames."

  "Another warning?" Ernie asked.

  "I don't know."

  Rusty drove to where the woods ended and open, rocky land sloped up to the McCoy Orchard. Just ahead, the air glowed so brightly they had to squint, but there was no source; the brightness was just there, floating. To Barbie it looked like the sort of light fireflies gave off, only magnified a million times. The belt appeared to be about fifty yards wide. Beyond it, the world was again dark except for the pink glow of the moonlight.

  "You're sure that faintness won't happen to you again?" Barbie asked.

  "It seems to be like touching the Dome: the first time vaccinates you." Rusty settled behind the wheel, dropped the transmission into drive, and said: "Hang onto your false teeth, ladies and germs."

  He hit the gas hard enough to spin the rear tires. The van sped into the glow. They were too well armored to see what happened next, but several people already on the ridge saw it from where they had been watching--with increasing anxiety--from the edge of the orchard. For a moment the van was clearly visible, as if centered in a spotlight. When it ran out of the glow-belt it continued to shine for several seconds, as if the stolen van had been dipped with radium. And it dragged a fading cometary tail of brightness behind it, like exhaust.

  "Holy shit," Benny said. "It's like the best special effect I ever saw."

  Then the glow around the van faded and the tail disappeared.

  3

  As they passed through the glow-belt, Barbie felt a momentary lightheadedness; no more than that. For Ernie, the real world of this van and these people seemed to be replaced by a hotel room that smelled of pine and roared with the sound of Niagara Falls. And here was his wife of just twelve hours coming to him, wearing a nightgown that was really no more than a breath of lavender smoke, taking his hands and putting them on her breasts and saying This time we don't have to stop, honey.

  Then he heard Barbie shoutin
g, and that brought him back.

  "Rusty! She's having some kind of fit! Stop!"

  Ernie looked around and saw Jackie Wettington shaking, her eyes rolled up in their sockets, her fingers splayed.

  "He's holding up a cross and everything's burning!" she screamed. Spittle sprayed from her lips. "The world is burning! THE PEOPLE ARE BURNING!" She let loose a shriek that filled the van.

  Rusty almost ditched the van, pulled back into the middle of the road, leaped out, and ran around to the side door. By the time Barbie slid it open, Jackie was wiping spit from her chin with a cupped hand. Rommie had his arm around her.

  "Are you all right?" Rusty asked her.

  "Now, yes. I just ... it was ... everything was on fire. It was day, but it was dark. People were b-b-burning...." She started to cry.

  "You said something about a man with a cross," Barbie said.

  "A big white cross. It was on a string, or a piece of rawhide. It was on his chest. His bare chest. Then he held it up in front of his face." She drew in a deep breath, let it out in little hitches. "It's all fading now. But ... hoo. "

  Rusty held two fingers up in front of her and asked how many she saw. Jackie gave the correct answer, and followed his thumb when he moved it first from side to side, then up and down. He patted her on the shoulder, then looked mistrustfully back at the glow-belt. What was it Gollum had said of Bilbo Baggins? It's tricksy, precious. "What about you, Barbie? Okay?"

  "Yeah. A little lightheaded for a few seconds, that's all. Ernie?"

  "I saw my wife. And the hotel room we stayed in on our honeymoon. It was as clear as day."

  He thought again of her coming to him. He hadn't thought of that in years, and what a shame to neglect such an excellent memory. The whiteness of her thighs below her shortie nightgown; the neat dark triangle of her pubic hair; her nipples hard against silk, almost seeming to scrape the pads of his palms as she darted her tongue into his mouth and licked the inner lining of his lower lip.

  This time we don't have to stop, honey.

  Ernie leaned back and closed his eyes.