Under the Dome, Page 85

  Linda opened the door. For a moment Thurse remained on the stoop. "Is Caro dead?" His voice was low and hoarse. As if he screamed it out at Woodstock doing the Fish Cheer and it just never came back, Linda thought. "Is she really dead?"

  "I'm afraid she is," Linda said, speaking low herself. Because of the children. "Mr. Marshall, I'm so sorry."

  For a moment he continued to just stand there. Then he grabbed the gray locks hanging on either side of his face and began to rock back and forth. Linda didn't believe in May-December romances; she was old-fashioned that way. She would have given Marshall and Caro Sturges two years at most, maybe only six months--however long it took their sex organs to stop smoking--but tonight there was no doubting the man's love. Or his loss.

  Whatever they had, those kids deepened it, she thought. And the Dome, too. Living under the Dome intensified everything. Already it seemed to Linda that they had been under it not for days but years. The outside world was fading like a dream when you woke up.

  "Come in," she said. "But be quiet, Mr. Marshall. The children are sleeping. Mine and yours."

  9

  She gave him sun-tea--not cold, not even particularly cool, but the best she could do under the circumstances. He drank half of it off, set the glass down, then screwed his fists into his eyes like a child up long past his bedtime. Linda recognized this for what it was, an effort to get himself under control, and sat quietly, waiting.

  He pulled in a deep breath, let it out, then reached into the breast pocket of the old blue workshirt he was wearing. He took out a piece of rawhide and tied his hair back. She took this as a good sign.

  "Tell me what happened," Thurse said. "And how it happened."

  "I didn't see it all. Someone kicked me a good one in the back of my head while I was trying to pull your ... Caro ... out of the way."

  "But one of the cops shot her, isn't that right? One of the cops in this goddam cop-happy, gun-happy town."

  "Yes." She reached across the table and took his hand. "Someone shouted gun. And there was a gun. It was Andrea Grinnell's. She might have brought it to the meeting with the idea of assassinating Rennie."

  "Do you think that justifies what happened to Caro?"

  "God, no. And what happened to Andi was flat-out murder."

  "Caro died trying to protect the children, didn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "Children that weren't even her own."

  Linda said nothing.

  "Except they were. Hers and mine. Call it fortunes of war or fortunes of Dome, they were ours, the kids we never would have had otherwise. And until the Dome breaks--if it ever does--they're mine."

  Linda was thinking furiously. Could this man be trusted? She thought so. Certainly Rusty had trusted him; had said the guy was a hell of a good medic for someone who'd been out of the game so long. And Thurston hated those in authority here under the Dome. He had reasons to.

  "Mrs. Everett--"

  "Please, Linda."

  "Linda, may I sleep on your couch? I'd like to be here if they wake up in the night. If they don't--I hope they don't--I'd like them to see me when they come downstairs in the morning."

  "That's fine. We'll all have breakfast together. It'll be cereal. The milk hasn't turned yet, although it will soon."

  "That sounds good. After the kids eat, we'll be out of your hair. Pardon me for saying this if you're a homegirl, but I've had a bellyful of Chester's Mill. I can't secede from it entirely, but I intend to do the best I can. The only patient at the hospital in serious condition was Rennie's son, and he checked himself out this afternoon. He'll be back, that mess growing in his head will make him come back, but for now--"

  "He's dead."

  Thurston didn't look particularly surprised. "A seizure, I suppose."

  "No. Shot. In the jail."

  "I'd like to say I'm sorry, but I'm not."

  "Neither am I," Linda said. She didn't know for sure what Junior had been doing there, but she had a good idea of how the grieving father would spin it.

  "I'll take the kids back to the pond where Caro and I were staying when this happened. It's quiet there, and I'm sure I'll be able to find enough comestibles to last for a while. Maybe quite a while. I may even find a place with a generator. But as far as community life goes"--he gave the words a satiric spin--"I'm quits. Alice and Aidan, too."

  "I might have a better place to go."

  "Really?" And when Linda said nothing, he stretched a hand across the table and touched hers. "You have to trust someone. It might as well be me."

  So Linda told him everything, including how they'd have to stop for lead roll behind Burpee's before leaving town for Black Ridge. They talked until almost midnight.

  10

  The north end of the McCoy farmhouse was useless--thanks to the previous winter's heavy snow, the roof was now in the parlor--but there was a country-style dining room almost as long as a railroad car on the west side, and it was there that the fugitives from Chester's Mill gathered. Barbie first questioned Joe, Norrie, and Benny about what they had seen, or dreamed about, when they passed out on the edge of what they were now calling the glow-belt.

  Joe remembered burning pumpkins. Norrie said everything had turned black, and the sun was gone. Benny at first claimed to remember nothing. Then he clapped a hand over his mouth. "There was screaming," he said. "I heard screaming. It was bad."

  They considered this in silence. Then Ernie said, "Burnin punkins doesn't narrow things down much, if that's what you're trying to do, Colonel Barbara. There's probably a stack of em on the sunny side of every barn in town. It's been a good season for em." He paused. "At least it was."

  "Rusty, what about your girls?"

  "Pretty much the same," Rusty said, and told them what he could remember.

  "Stop Halloween, stop the Great Pumpkin," Rommie mused.

  "Dudes, I'm seeing a pattern here," Benny said.

  "No shit, Sherlock," Rose said, and they all laughed.

  "Your turn, Rusty," Barbie said. "How about when you passed out on your way up here?"

  "I never exactly passed out," Rusty said. "And all of this stuff could be explained by the pressure we've been under. Group hysteria--including group hallucinations--are common when people are under stress."

  "Thank you, Dr. Freud," Barbie said. "Now tell us what you saw."

  Rusty got as far as the stovepipe hat with its patriotic stripes when Lissa Jamieson exclaimed, "That's the dummy on the library lawn! He's wearing an old tee-shirt of mine with a Warren Zevon quote on it--"

  "'Sweet home Alabama, play that dead band's song,'" Rusty said. "And garden trowels for hands. Anyway, it caught on fire. Then, poof, it was gone. So was the lightheadedness."

  He looked around at them. Their wide eyes. "Relax, people, I probably saw the dummy before all this happened, and my subconscious just coughed it back up." He leveled a finger at Barbie. "And if you call me Dr. Freud again, I'm apt to pop you one."

  "Did you see it before?" Piper asked. "Maybe when you went to pick up your girls at school, or something? Because the library's right across from the playground."

  "Not that I remember, no." Rusty didn't add that he hadn't picked up the girls at school since very early in the month, and he doubted that any of the town's Halloween displays had been up then.

  "Now you, Jackie," Barbie said.

  She wet her lips. "Is it really so important?"

  "I think it is."

  "People burning," she said. "And smoke, with fire shining through it whenever it shifted. The whole world seemed to be burning."

  "Yeah," Benny said. "The people were screaming because they were on fire. Now I remember." Abruptly he put his face against Alva Drake's shoulder. She put her arm around him.

  "Halloween's still five days away," Claire said.

  Barbie said, "I don't think so."

  11

  The woodstove in the corner of the Town Hall conference room was dusty and neglected but still usable. Big Jim made su
re the flue was open (it squeaked rustily), then removed Duke Perkins's paperwork from the envelope with the bloody footprint on it. He thumbed through the sheets, grimaced at what he saw, then tossed them into the stove. The envelope he saved.

  Carter was on the phone, talking to Stewart Bowie, telling him what Big Jim wanted for his son, telling him to get on it right away. A good boy, Big Jim thought. He may go far. As long as he remembers which side his bread's buttered on, that is. People who forgot paid a price. Andrea Grinnell had found that out tonight.

  There was a box of wooden matches on the shelf beside the stove. Big Jim scratched one alight and touched it to the corner of Duke Perkins's "evidence." He left the stove door open so he could watch it burn. It was very satisfying.

  Carter walked over. "Stewart Bowie's on hold. Should I tell him you'll get back to him later?"

  "Give it to me," Big Jim said, and held out his hand for the phone.

  Carter pointed at the envelope. "Don't you want to throw that in, too?"

  "No. I want you to stuff it with blank paper from the photocopy machine."

  It took a moment for Carter to get it. "She was just having a bunch of dope-ass hallucinations, wasn't she?"

  "Poor woman," Big Jim agreed. "Go down to the fallout shelter, son. There." He cocked his thumb at a door--unobtrusive except for an old metal plaque showing black triangles against a yellow field--not far from the woodstove. "There are two rooms. At the end of the second one there's a small generator."

  "Okay ..."

  "In front of the gennie there's a trapdoor. Hard to see, but you will if you look. Lift it and look inside. There should be eight or ten little canisters of LP snuggled down in there. At least there were the last time I looked. Check and tell me how many."

  He waited to see if Carter would ask why, but Carter didn't. He just turned to do as he was told. So Big Jim told him.

  "Only a precaution, son. Dot every i and cross every t, that's the secret of success. And having God on your side, of course."

  When Carter was gone, Big Jim pushed the hold button ... and if Stewart wasn't still there, his butt was going to be in a high sling.

  Stewart was. "Jim, I'm so sorry for your loss," he said. Right up front with it, a point in his favor. "We'll take care of everything. I'm thinking the Eternal Rest casket--it's oak, good for a thousand years."

  Go on and pull the other one, Big Jim thought, but kept silent.

  "And it'll be our best work. He'll look ready to wake up and smile."

  "Thank you, pal," Big Jim said. Thinking, He damn well better.

  "Now about this raid tomorrow," Stewart said.

  "I was going to call you about that. You're wondering if it's still on. It is."

  "But with everything that's happened--"

  "Nothing's happened," Big Jim said. "For which we can thank God's mercy. Can I get an amen on that, Stewart?"

  "Amen," Stewart said dutifully.

  "Just a clustermug caused by a mentally disturbed woman with a gun. She's eating dinner with Jesus and all the saints right now, I have no doubt, because none of what happened was her fault."

  "But Jim--"

  "Don't interrupt me when I'm talking, Stewart. It was the drugs. Those damn things rotted her brain. People are going to realize that as soon as they calm down a little. Chester's Mill is blessed with sensible, courageous folks. I trust them to come through, always have, always will. Besides, right now they don't have a thought in their heads except for seeing their nearest and dearest. Our operation is still a go for noon. You, Fern, Roger. Melvin Searles. Fred Denton will be in charge. He can pick another four or five, if he thinks he needs them."

  "He the best you can do?" Stewart asked.

  "Fred is fine," Big Jim said.

  "What about Thibodeau? That boy who's been hanging around with y--"

  "Stewart Bowie, every time you open your mouth, half your guts fall out. You need to shut up for once and listen. We're talking about a scrawny drug addict and a pharmacist who wouldn't say boo to a goose. You got an amen on that?"

  "Yeah, amen."

  "Use town trucks. Grab Fred as soon as you're off the phone--he's got to be around there someplace--and tell him what's what. Tell him you fellows should armor up, just to be on the safe side. We've got all that happy Homeland Security crappy in the back room of the police station--bulletproof vests and flak jackets and I don't know whatall--so we might as well make use of it. Then you go in there and take those fellows out. We need that propane."

  "What about the lab? I was thinking maybe we should burn it--"

  "Are you crazy ?" Carter, who had just walked back into the room, looked at him in surprise. "With all those chemicals stored there? The Shumway woman's newspaper is one thing; that storage building is an entirely different kettle of chowder. You want to look out, pal, or I'll start thinking you're as stupid as Roger Killian."

  "All right." Stewart sounded sulky, but Big Jim reckoned he would do as told. He had no more time for him, anyway; Randolph would be arriving any minute.

  The parade of fools never ends, he thought.

  "Now give me a big old praise God," Big Jim said. In his mind he had a picture of himself sitting on Stewart's back and grinding his face into the dirt. It was a cheering picture.

  "Praise God," Stewart Bowie muttered.

  "Amen, brother," Big Jim said, and hung up.

  12

  Chief Randolph came in shortly thereafter, looking tired but not unsatisfied. "I think we've lost some of the younger recruits for good--Dodson, Rawcliffe, and the Richardson boy are all gone--but most of the others stuck. And I've got some new ones. Joe Boxer ... Stubby Norman ... Aubrey Towle ... his brother owns the bookstore, you know ..."

  Big Jim listened to this recitation patiently enough, if with only half an ear. When Randolph finally ran down, Big Jim slid the VADER envelope across the polished conference table to him. "That's what poor old Andrea was waving around. Have a look."

  Randolph hesitated, then bent back the clasps and slid out the contents. "There's nothing here but blank paper."

  "Right you are, right as rain. When you assemble your force tomorrow--seven o'clock sharp, at the PD, because you can believe your Uncle Jim when he says the ants are going to start trekking out of the hill mighty early--you might make sure they know the poor woman was just as deluded as the anarchist who shot President McKinley."

  "Isn't that a mountain?" Randolph asked.

  Big Jim spared a moment to wonder which dumbtree Mrs. Randolph's little boy had fallen out of. Then he pressed ahead. He wouldn't get a good eight hours' sleep tonight, but with the blessing he might manage five. And he needed it. His poor old heart needed it.

  "Use all the police cars. Two officers to a car. Make sure everyone has Mace and Tasers. But anyone who discharges a firearm in sight of reporters and cameras and the cotton-picking outside world ... I'll have that man's guts for garters."

  "Yessir."

  "Have them drive along the shoulders of 119, flanking the crowd. No sirens, but lights flashing."

  "Like in a parade," Randolph said.

  "Yes, Pete, like in a parade. Leave the highway itself for the people. Tell those in cars to leave them and walk. Use your loudspeakers. I want them good and tired when they get out there. Tired people tend to be well-behaved people."

  "You don't think we should spare a few troops to hunt for the escaped prisoners?" He saw Big Jim's eyes flash and raised one hand. "Just asking, just asking."

  "Well, and you deserve an answer. You're the Chief, after all. Isn't he, Carter?"

  "Yup," Carter said.

  "The answer is no, Chief Randolph, because ... listen closely now ... they can't escape. There's a Dome around Chester's Mill and they absotively ... posilutely ... cannot escape. Now do you follow that line of reasoning?" He observed the color rising in Randolph's cheeks and said, "Be careful how you answer, now. I would, anyway."

  "I follow it."

  "Then follow this, as well
: with Dale Barbara on the loose, not to mention his co-conspirator Everett, the people will look even more fervently to their public servants for protection. And hard-pressed though we may be, we'll rise to the occasion, won't we?"

  Randolph finally got it. He might not know that there was a president as well as a mountain named McKinley, but he did seem to grasp that a Barbie in the bush was in many ways more useful to them than a Barbie in the hand.

  "Yes," he said. "We will. Damn straight. What about the press conference? If you're not going to do it, do you want to appoint--"

  "No, I do not. I will be right here at my post, where I belong, monitoring developments. As for the press, they can darn well conference with the thousand or so people that are going to be grubbed up out there on the south side of town like gawkers at a construction site. And good luck to them translating the babble they'll get."

  "Some folks may say things that aren't exactly flattering to us," Randolph said.

  Big Jim flashed a wintery smile. "That's why God gave us the big shoulders, pal. Besides, what's that meddling cotton-picker Cox going to do? March in here and turn us out of office?"

  Randolph gave a dutiful chuckle, started for the door, then thought of something else. "There are going to be a lot of people out there, and for a long time. The military's put up Porta-Potties on their side. Should we do something like that on ours? I think we've got a few in the supply building. For road crews, mostly. Maybe Al Timmons could--"

  Big Jim gave him a look that suggested he thought the new Chief of Police had gone mad. "If it had been left up to me, our folks would be safe in their homes tomorrow instead of streaming out of town like the Israelites out of Egypt." He paused for emphasis. "If some of them get caught short, let them poop in the goshdarn woods."

  13

  When Randolph was finally gone, Carter said: "If I swear I'm not brown-nosing, can I tell you something?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "I love to watch you operate, Mr. Rennie."

  Big Jim grinned--a great big sunny one that lit his whole face. "Well, you're going to get your chance, son; you've learned from the rest, now learn from the best."