Under the Dome: A Novel

UNDER THE DOME
A NOVEL

SCRIBNER
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Stephen King

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First Scribner hardcover edition November 2009

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MAP BY PAUL J. PUGLIESE

DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2009018780

ISBN: 978-1-4391-4850-1
eISBN: 978-1-4391-6803-5

“Play It All Night Long,” copyright © 1980 Zevon Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Published by Zevon Music and Imagem Music.

“Talkin’ at the Texaco.” Words and music by James McMurtry, copyright © 1989 SHORT TRIP MUSIC (BMI). Administered by BUG MUSIC. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

In memory of Surendra Dahyabhai Patel.

We miss you, my friend.

Who you lookin for

What was his name

you can prob’ly find him

at the football game

it’s a small town

you know what I mean

it’s a small town, son

and we all support the team

—J
AMES
M
CMURTRY

SOME (BUT NOT ALL) OF THOSE
IN CHESTER’S MILL ON DOME DAY:

TOWN OFFICIALS

Andy Sanders, First Selectman

Jim Rennie, Second Selectman

Andrea Grinnell, Third Selectman

SWEETBRIAR ROSE STAFF

Rose Twitchell, Owner

Dale Barbara, Cook

Anson Wheeler, Dishwasher

Angie McCain, Waitress

Dodee Sanders, Waitress

POLICE DEPARTMENT

Howard “Duke” Perkins, Chief

Peter Randolph, Assistant Chief

Marty Arsenault, Officer

Freddy Denton, Officer

George Frederick, Officer

Rupert Libby, Officer

Toby Whelan, Officer

Jackie Wettington, Officer

Linda Everett, Officer

Stacey Moggin, Officer/Dispatch

Junior Rennie, Special Deputy

Georgia Roux, Special Deputy

Frank DeLesseps, Special Deputy

Melvin Searles, Special Deputy

Carter Thibodeau, Special Deputy

PASTORAL CARE

Reverend Lester Coggins, Christ the Holy Redeemer Church

Reverend Piper Libby, First Congregational Church

MEDICAL STAFF

Ron Haskell, Doctor

Rusty Everett, Physician’s Assistant

Ginny Tomlinson, Nurse

Dougie Twitchell, Nurse

Gina Buffalino, Volunteer Nurse

Harriet Bigelow, Volunteer Nurse

TOWN KIDS

Little Walter Bushey

“Scarecrow” Joe McClatchey

Norrie Calvert

Benny Drake

Judy and Janelle Everett

Ollie and Rory Dinsmore

TOWNSPEOPLE OF NOTE

Tommy and Willow Anderson, Owner/Operators of Dipper’s Roadhouse

Stewart and Fernald Bowie, Owner/Operators of Bowie Funeral Home

Joe Boxer, Dentist

Romeo Burpee, Owner/Operator of Burpee’s Department Store

Phil Bushey, Chef of Dubious Repute

Samantha Bushey, His Wife

Jack Cale, Supermarket Manager

Ernie Calvert, Supermarket Manager (ret.)

Johnny Carver, Convenience Store Operator

Alden Dinsmore, Dairy Farmer

Roger Killian, Chicken Farmer

Lissa Jamieson, Town Librarian

Claire McClatchey, Scarecrow Joe’s Mom

Alva Drake, Benny’s Mom

Stubby Norman, Antique Dealer

Brenda Perkins, Chief Perkins’s Wife

Julia Shumway, Owner/Editor of the Local Newspaper

Tony Guay, Sports Reporter

Pete Freeman, News Photographer

“Sloppy” Sam Verdreaux, Town Drunk

OUT-OF-TOWNERS

Alice and Aidan Appleton, Dome Orphans (“Dorphans”)

Thurston Marshall, Literary Man with Medical Skills

Carolyn Sturges, Graduate Student

DOGS OF NOTE

Horace, Julia Shumway’s Corgi

Clover, Piper Libby’s German Shepherd

Audrey, the Everetts’ Golden Retriever

UNDER THE DOME

1

From two thousand feet, where Claudette Sanders was taking a flying lesson, the town of Chester’s Mill gleamed in the morning light like something freshly made and just set down. Cars trundled along Main Street, flashing up winks of sun. The steeple of the Congo Church looked sharp enough to pierce the unblemished sky. The sun raced along the surface of Prestile Stream as the Seneca V overflew it, both plane and water cutting the town on the same diagonal course.

“Chuck, I think I see two boys beside the Peace Bridge! Fishing!” Her very delight made her laugh. The flying lessons were courtesy of her husband, who was the town’s First Selectman. Although of the opinion that if God had wanted man to fly, He would have given him wings, Andy was an extremely coaxable man, and eventually Claudette had gotten her way. She had enjoyed the experience from the first. But this wasn’t mere enjoyment; it was exhilaration. Today was the first time she had really understood what made flying great. What made it cool.

Chuck Thompson, her instructor, touched the control yoke gently, then pointed at the instrument panel. “I’m sure,” he said, “but let’s keep the shiny side up, Claudie, okay?”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Not at all.” He had been teaching people to do this for years, and he liked students like Claudie, the ones who were eager to learn something new. She might cost Andy Sanders some real money before
long; she loved the Seneca, and had expressed a desire to have one just like it, only new. That would run somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars. Although not exactly spoiled, Claudie Sanders had undeniably expensive tastes which, lucky man, Andy seemed to have no trouble satisfying.

Chuck also liked days like this: unlimited visibility, no wind, perfect teaching conditions. Nevertheless, the Seneca rocked slightly as she overcorrected.

“You’re losing your happy thoughts. Don’t do that. Come to one-twenty. Let’s go out Route 119. And drop on down to nine hundred.”

She did, the Seneca’s trim once more perfect. Chuck relaxed.

They passed above Jim Rennie’s Used Cars, and then the town was behind them. There were fields on either side of 119, and trees burning with color. The Seneca’s cruciform shadow fled up the blacktop, one dark wing briefly brushing over an ant-man with a pack on his back. The ant-man looked up and waved. Chuck waved back, although he knew the guy couldn’t see him.

“
Beautiful
goddam day!” Claudie exclaimed. Chuck laughed.

Their lives had another forty seconds to run.

2

The woodchuck came bumbling along the shoulder of Route 119, headed in the direction of Chester’s Mill, although the town was still a mile and a half away and even Jim Rennie’s Used Cars was only a series of twinkling sunflashes arranged in rows at the place where the highway curved to the left. The chuck planned (so far as a woodchuck can be said to plan anything) to head back into the woods long before he got that far. But for now, the shoulder was fine. He’d come farther from his burrow than he meant to, but the sun had been warm on his back and the smells were crisp in his nose, forming rudimentary images—not quite pictures—in his brain.