Nor are they the only ones who are affected by the sight of eight hundred people lining up along the invisible barrier, some with their hands planted on what appears to be thin air. Wolf Blitzer says, "I have never seen such longing on human faces. I ..." He chokes up. "I think I better let the images speak for themselves."
He falls silent, and that's a good thing. This scene needs no narration.
At his press conference, Cox said, Visitors will debark and walk... visitors will be allowed within two yards of the Dome, we consider that a safe distance. Nothing like that happens, of course. As soon as the doors of the buses open, people spill out in a flood, calling the names of their nearest and dearest. Some fall and are briskly trampled (one will be killed in this stampede and fourteen will be injured, half a dozen seriously). Soldiers who attempt to enforce the dead zone directly in front of the Dome are swept aside. The yellow DO NOT CROSS tapes are knocked down and disappear in the dust raised by running feet. The newcomers swarm forward and spread out on their side of the Dome, most crying and all of them calling for their wives, their husbands, their grandparents, their sons, their daughters, their fiancees. Four people have either lied about their various electronic medical devices or forgotten about them. Three of these die immediately; the fourth, who didn't see his battery-powered hearing-aid implant on the list of forbidden devices, will linger in a coma for a week before expiring of multiple brain hemorrhages.
Little by little they sort themselves out, and the pool TV cameras see it all. They observe the townspeople and the visitors pressing their hands together, with the invisible barrier between; they watch them try to kiss; they examine men and women weeping as they look into each other's eyes; they note the ones who faint, both inside the Dome and out, and those who fall to their knees and pray facing each other with their folded hands raised; they record the man on the outside who begins hammering his fists against the thing keeping him from his pregnant wife, hammering until his skin splits and his blood beads on thin air; they peer at the old woman trying to trace her fingers, the tips pressed white and smooth against the unseen surface between them, over her sobbing granddaughter's forehead.
The press helicopter takes off again and hovers, sending back images of a double human snake spread over a quarter of a mile. On the Motton side, the leaves flame and dance with late October color; on the Chester's Mill side they hang limp. Behind the townsfolk--on the road, in the fields, caught in the bushes--are dozens of discarded signs. At this moment of reunion (or almost-reunion), politics and protest have been forgotten.
Candy Crowley says: "Wolf, this is without a doubt the saddest, strangest event I've witnessed in all my years of reporting."
Yet human beings are nothing if not adaptable, and little by little the excitement and the strangeness begin to wear off. The reunions merge into the actual visiting. And behind the visitors, those who have been overwhelmed--on both sides of the Dome--are being carried away. On The Mill side, there's no Red Cross tent to drag them to. The police put them in such scant shade as the police cars allow, to wait for Pamela Chen and the schoolbus.
In the police station, the WCIK raiding party is watching with the same silent fascination as everyone else. Randolph lets them; there is a little time yet. He checks the names off on his clipboard, then motions Freddy Denton to join him on the front steps. He has expected grief from Freddy for taking over the head honcho role (Peter Randolph has been judging others by himself his whole life), but there is none. This is a far bigger deal than rousting scuzzy old drunks out of convenience stores, and Freddy is delighted to hand off the responsibility. He wouldn't mind taking credit if things went well, but suppose they don't? Randolph has no such qualms. One unemployed troublemaker and a mild-mannered druggist who wouldn't say shit if it was in his cereal? What can possibly go wrong?
And Freddy discovers, as they stand on the steps Piper Libby tumbled down not so long ago, that he isn't going to be able to duck the leadership role completely. Randolph hands him a slip of paper. On it are seven names. One is Freddy's. The other six are Mel Searles, George Frederick, Marty Arsenault, Aubrey Towle, Stubby Norman, and Lauren Conree.
"You will take this party down the access road," Randolph says. "You know the one?"
"Yep, busts off from Little Bitch this side of town. Sloppy Sam's father laid that little piece of roa--"
"I don't care who laid it," Randolph says, "just drive to the end of it. At noon, you take your men through the belt of woods there. You'll come out in back of the radio station. Noon, Freddy. That doesn't mean a minute before or a minute after."
"I thought we were all supposed to go in that way, Pete."
"Plans have changed."
"Does Big Jim know they've changed?"
"Big Jim is a selectman, Freddy. I'm the Police Chief. I'm also your superior, so would you kindly shut up and listen?"
"Soh-ree, " Freddy says, and cups his hands to his ears in a way that is impudent, to say the least.
"I'll be parked down the road that runs past the front of the station. I'll have Stewart and Fern with me. Also Roger Killian. If Bushey and Sanders are foolish enough to engage you--if we hear shooting from behind the station, in other words--the three of us will swoop in and take them from behind. Have you got it?"
"Yeah." It actually sounds like a pretty good plan to Freddy.
"All right, let's synchronize watches."
"Uh ... sorry?"
Randolph sighs. "We have to make sure they're the same, so noon comes at the same time for both of us."
Freddy still looks puzzled, but he complies.
From inside the station, someone--it sounds like Stubby--shouts: "Whoop, another one bites the dust! The fainters're stacked up behind them cruisers like cordwood!" This is greeted by laughter and applause. They are pumped up, excited to have pulled what Melvin Searles calls "possible shootin duty."
"We saddle up at eleven fifteen," Randolph tells Freddy. "That gives us almost forty-five minutes to watch the show on TV."
"Want popcorn?" Freddy asks. "We got a whole mess of it in the cupboard over the microwave."
"Might as well, I guess."
Out at the Dome, Henry Morrison goes to his car and helps himself to a cool drink. His uniform is soaked through with sweat and he can't recall ever feeling so tired (he thinks a lot of that is down to bad air--he can't seem to completely catch his breath), but on the whole he is satisfied with himself and his men. They have managed to avoid a mass crushing at the Dome, nobody has died on this side--yet--and folks are settling down. Half a dozen TV cameramen race to and fro on the Motton side, recording as many heartwarming reunion vignettes as possible. Henry knows it's an invasion of privacy, but he supposes America and the world beyond may have a right to see this. And on the whole, people don't seem to mind. Some even like it; they are getting their fifteen minutes. Henry has time to search for his own mother and father, although he's not surprised when he doesn't see them; they live all the way to hell and gone up in Derry, and they're getting on in years now. He doubts if they even put their names in the visitor lottery.
A new helicopter is beating in from the west, and although Henry doesn't know it, Colonel James Cox is inside. Cox is also not entirely displeased with the way Visitors Day has gone so far. He has been told no one on the Chester's Mill side seems to be preparing for a press conference, but this doesn't surprise or discommode him. Based on the extensive files he has been accumulating, he would have been more surprised if Rennie had put in an appearance. Cox has saluted a lot of men over the years, and he can smell a bully-pulpit coward a mile away.
Then Cox sees the long line of visitors and the trapped townspeople facing them. The sight drives James Rennie from his mind. "Isn't that the damndest thing," he murmurs. "Isn't that just the damndest thing anyone ever saw."
On the Dome side, Special Deputy Toby Manning shouts: "Here comes the bus!" Although the civilians barely notice--they are either raptly engaged with their relatives or still search
ing for them--the cops raise a cheer.
Henry walks to the back of his cruiser, and sure enough, a big yellow schoolbus is just passing Jim Rennie's Used Cars. Pamela Chen may not weigh more than a hundred and five pounds soaking wet, but she's come through bigtime, and with a big bus.
Henry checks his watch and sees that it's twenty minutes past eleven. We're going to get through this, he thinks. We're going to get through this just fine.
On Main Street, three big orange trucks are rolling up Town Common Hill. In the third one, Peter Randolph is crammed in with Stew, Fern, and Roger (redolent of chickens). As they head out 119 northbound toward Little Bitch Road and the radio station, Randolph is struck by a thought, and barely restrains himself from smacking his palm against his forehead.
They have plenty of firepower, but they have forgotten the helmets and Kevlar vests.
Go back and get them? If they do that, they won't be in position until quarter past twelve, maybe even later. And the vests would almost certainly turn out to be a needless precaution, anyway. It's eleven against two, and the two are probably stoned out of their gourds.
Really, it should be a tit.
8
Andy Sanders was stationed behind the same oak he'd used for cover the first time the bitter men came. Although he hadn't taken any grenades, he had six ammo clips stuck in the front of his belt, plus four more poking into the small of his back. There were another two dozen in the wooden crate at his feet. Enough to hold off an army ... although he supposed if Big Jim actually sent an army, they'd take him out in short order. After all, he was just a pill-roller.
One part of him couldn't believe he was doing this, but another part--an aspect of his character he might never have suspected without the meth--was grimly delighted. Outraged, too. The Big Jims of the world didn't get to have everything, nor did they get to take everything away. There would be no negotiation this time, no politics, no backing down. He would stand with his friend. His soul-mate. Andy understood that his state of mind was nihilistic, but that was all right. He had spent his life counting the cost, and stoned don't-give-a-shit-itis was a delirious change for the better.
He heard trucks approaching and checked his watch. It had stopped. He looked up at the sky, and judged by the position of the yellow-white blear that used to be the sun that it must be close to noon.
He listened to the swelling sound of diesel engines, and when the sound diverged, Andy knew his compadre had smelled out the play--smelled it out as surely as any wise old defensive lineman on a Sunday day afternoon. Some of them were swinging around toward the back of the station to the access road there.
Andy took one more deep drag of his current fry-daddy, held his breath as long as he could, then huffed it out. Regretfully, he dropped the roach and stepped on it. He didn't want any smoke (no matter how deliciously clarifying) to give away his position.
I love you, Chef, Andy Sanders thought, and pushed off the safety of his Kalashnikov.
9
There was a light chain across the rutted access road. Freddy, behind the wheel of the lead truck, did not hesitate, simply hit it and snapped it with the grill. The lead truck and the one behind it (piloted by Mel Searles) headed into the woods.
Stewart Bowie was behind the wheel of the third truck. He stopped in the middle of Little Bitch Road, pointed at the WCIK radio tower, then looked at Randolph, who was jammed against the door with his HK semiauto between his knees.
"Go another half a mile," Randolph instructed, "then pull up and kill the engine." It was just eleven thirty-five. Excellent. Plenty of time.
"What's the plan?" Fern asked.
"The plan is we wait until noon. When we hear shooting, we roll at once, and take them from behind."
"These trucks is pretty noisy," Roger Killian said. "What if those guys hear em comin? We'll lose that whatdoyoucallit, elephant of surprise."
"They won't hear us," Randolph said. "They'll be sitting in the station, watching television in air-conditioned comfort. They're not going to know what hit them."
"Shouldn't we have gotten some bulletproof vests or something?" Stewart asked.
"Why carry all that weight on such a hot day? Stop worrying. Ole Cheech and Chong there are going to be in hell before they even know they're dead."
10
Shortly before twelve o'clock, Julia looked around and saw that Barbie was gone. When she walked back to the farmhouse, he was loading canned goods into the rear of the Sweetbriar Rose van. He'd put several bags in the stolen phone company van as well.
"What are you doing? We just unloaded those last night."
Barbie turned a strained, unsmiling face toward her. "I know, and I think we were wrong to do it. I don't know if it's being close to the box or not, but all at once I seem to feel that magnifying glass Rusty talked about right over my head, and pretty soon the sun's going to come out and start shining through it. I hope I'm wrong."
She studied him. "Is there more stuff? I'll help you if there is. We can always put it back later."
"Yes," Barbie said, and gave her a strained grin. "We can always put it back later."
11
At the end of the access road there was a small clearing with a long-abandoned house in it. Here the two orange trucks pulled up, and the raiding party disembarked. Teams of two swung down long, heavy duffle bags that had been stenciled with the words HOME-LAND SECURITY. On one of the bags some wit had added REMEMBER THE ALAMO in Magic Marker. Inside were more HK semiautos, two Mossberg pump shotguns with eight-round capacity, and ammo, ammo, ammo.
"Uh, Fred?" It was Stubby Norman. "Shouldn't we have vests, or somethin?"
"We're hitting them from behind, Stubby. Don't worry about it."
Freddy hoped he sounded better than he felt. He had a gutful of butterflies.
"Do we give em a chance to surrender?" Mel asked. "I mean, Mr. Sanders being a selectman and all?"
Freddy had thought about this. He'd also thought about the Honor Wall, where photographs of the three Chester's Mill cops who had died in the line of duty since World War II were hung. He had no urge to have his own photo on that wall, and since Chief Randolph hadn't given him specific orders on this subject, he felt free to issue his own.
"If their hands are up, they live," he said. "If they're unarmed, they live. Anything else, they fucking die. Anyone got a problem with that?"
No one did. It was eleven fifty-six. Almost showtime.
He surveyed his men (plus Lauren Conree, so hard-faced and small-busted she almost could have passed for one), pulled in a deep breath, and said: "Follow me. Single-file. We'll stop at the edge of the woods and scope things out."
Randolph's concerns about poison ivy and poison oak proved groundless, and the trees were spaced widely enough to make the going quite easy, even loaded down with ordnance. Freddy thought his little force moved through the clumps of juniper they couldn't avoid with admirable stealth and silence. He was starting to feel that this was going to be all right. In fact, he was almost looking forward to it. Now that they were actually on the move, the butterflies in his stomach had flown away.
Easy does it, he thought. Easy and quiet. Then, bang! They'll never know what hit em.
12
Chef, crouched behind the blue panel truck parked in the high grass at the rear of the supply building, heard them almost as soon as they left the clearing where the old Verdreaux homestead was gradually sinking back into the earth. To his drug-jacked ears and Condition Red brain, they sounded like a herd of buffalo looking for the nearest waterhole.
He scurried to the front of the truck and knelt with his gun braced on the bumper. The grenades which had been hung from the barrel of GOD'S WARRIOR now lay on the ground behind him. Sweat gleamed on his skinny, pimple-studded back. The door opener was clipped to the waistband of his RIBBIT pajamas.
Be patient, he counseled himself. You don't know how many there are. Let them get out into the open before you start shooting, then mow them down in a hu
rry.
He scattered several extra clips for GOD'S WARRIOR in front of him and waited, hoping to Christ Andy wouldn't have to whistle. Hoping he wouldn't either. It was possible they could still get out of this and live to fight another day.
13
Freddy Denton reached the edge of the woods, pushed a fir bough aside with the barrel of his rifle, and peered out. He saw an overgrown hayfield with the radio tower in the middle of it, emitting a low hum he seemed to feel in the fillings of his teeth. A fence posted with signs reading HIGH VOLTAGE surrounded it. To the far left of his position was the one-story brick studio building. In between was a big red barn. He assumed the barn was for storage. Or making drugs. Or both.
Marty Arsenault eased in beside him. Circles of sweat darkened his uniform shirt. His eyes looked terrified. "What's that truck doing there?" he asked, pointing with the barrel of his gun.
"That's the Meals On Wheels truck," Freddy said. "For shut-ins and such. Haven't you seen that around town?"
"Seen it and helped load it," Marty said. "I gave up the Catholics for Holy Redeemer last year. How come it's not inside the barn?" He said barn the Yankee way, making it sound like the cry of a discontented sheep.
"How do I know and why would I care?" Freddy asked. "They're in the studio."
"How do you know?"
"Because that's where the TV is, and the big show out at the Dome is on all the channels."
Marty raised his HK. "Let me put a few rounds in that truck just to be sure. It could be booby-trapped. Or they could be inside it."
Freddy pushed the barrel down. "Jesus-please-us, are you crazy? They don't know we're here and you just want to give it away? Did your mother have any kids that lived?"
"Fuck you," Marty said. He considered. "And fuck your mother, too."
Freddy looked back over his shoulder. "Come on, you guys. We'll cut across the field to the studio. Look through the back windows and make sure of their positions." He grinned. "Smooth sailing."