Under the Dome: A Novel (111 page)

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 shouting, 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.

4

Rusty drove up the ridge—slowly now—and parked the van between the barn and the dilapidated farmhouse. The Sweetbriar Rose van was there; the Burpee’s Department Store van; also a Chevrolet Malibu. Julia had parked her Prius inside the barn. Horace the Corgi sat by its rear bumper, as if guarding it. He did not look like a happy canine, and he made no move to come and greet them. Inside the farmhouse, a couple of Coleman lanterns glowed.

Jackie pointed at the van with EVERY DAY IS SALE DAY AT
BURPEE’S on the side. “How’d that get here? Did your wife change her mind?”

Rommie grinned. “You don’t know Misha if you ever t’ink dat. No, I got Julia to thank. She recruited her two star reporters. Dose guys—”

He broke off as Julia, Piper, and Lissa Jamieson appeared from the moonlit shadows of the orchard. They were stumbling along three abreast, holding hands, and all of them were crying.

Barbie ran to Julia and took her by the shoulders. She was on the end of their little line, and the flashlight she had been holding in her free hand dropped to the weedy dirt of the dooryard. She looked up at him and made an effort to smile. “So they got you out, Colonel Barbara. That’s one for the home team.”

“What happened to you?” Barbie asked.

Now Joe, Benny, and Norrie came running up with their mothers close behind them. The kids’ shouts cut short when they saw the state the three women were in. Horace ran to his mistress, barking. Julia went to her knees and buried her face in his fur. Horace sniffed her, then suddenly backed away. He sat down and howled. Julia looked at him and then covered her face, as if in shame. Norrie had grabbed Joe’s hand on her left and Benny’s on her right. Their faces were solemn and scared. Pete Freeman, Tony Guay, and Rose Twitchell came out of the farmhouse but did not approach; they stood clustered by the kitchen door.

“We went to look at it,” Lissa said dully. Her usual gosh-the-world-is-wonderful brightness was gone. “We knelt around it. There’s a symbol on it I’ve never seen before … it’s not kabbalah …”

“It’s awful,” Piper said, wiping at her eyes. “And then Julia touched it. She was the only one, but we … we all …”

“Did you see them?” Rusty asked.

Julia dropped her hands and looked at him with something like wonder. “Yes. I did, we all did.
Them.
Horrible.”

“The leatherheads,” Rusty said.

“What?”
Piper said. Then she nodded. “Yes, I suppose you could call them that. Faces without faces.
High
faces.”

High faces,
Rusty thought. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew it was true. He thought again of his daughters and their friend Deanna exchanging secrets and snacks. Then he thought of his best childhood friend—for a while, anyway; he and Georgie had fallen out violently in second grade—and horror rolled over him in a wave.

Barbie grabbed him. “What?” He was almost shouting. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Only … I had this friend when I was little. George Lathrop. One year he got a magnifying glass for his birthday. And sometimes … at recess we …”

Rusty helped Julia to her feet. Horace had come back to her, as if whatever had scared him was fading like the glow had faded on the van.

“You did what?” Julia asked. She sounded almost calm again. “Tell.”

“This was at the old Main Street Grammar. Just two rooms, one for grades one to four, the other for five to eight. The playground wasn’t paved.” He laughed shakily. “Hell, there wasn’t even running water, just a privy the kids called—”

“The Honey House,” Julia said. “I went there, too.”

“George and I, we’d go past the monkey bars to the fence. There were anthills there, and we’d set the ants on fire.”

“Don’t take on about it, Doc,” Ernie said. “Lots of kids have done that, and worse.” Ernie himself, along with a couple of friends, had once dipped a stray cat’s tail in kerosene and put a match to it. This was a memory he would share with the others no more than he would tell them about the details of his wedding night.

Mostly because of how we laughed when that cat took off,
he thought.
Gosh, how we did laugh.

“Go on,” Julia said.

“I’m done.”

“You’re not,” she said.

“Look,” said Joanie Calvert. “I’m sure this is all very psychological, but I don’t think this is the time—”

“Hush, Joanie,” Claire said.

Julia had never taken her eyes from Rusty’s face.

“Why does it matter to you?” Rusty asked. He felt, at that moment, as though there were no onlookers. As if it were only the two of them.

“Just tell me.”

“One day while we were doing … that … it occurred to me that ants also have their little lives. I know that sounds like sentimental slop—”

Barbie said, “Millions of people all over the world believe that very thing. They live by it.”

“Anyway, I thought ‘We’re hurting them. We’re burning them on the ground and maybe broiling them alive in their underground houses.’ About the ones who were getting the direct benefit of Georgie’s magnifying glass there was no question. Some just stopped moving, but most actually caught fire.”

“That’s awful,” Lissa said. She was twisting her ankh again.

“Yes, ma’am. And this one day I told Georgie to stop. He wouldn’t. He said, ‘It’s jukular war.’ I remember that. Not
nuclear
but
jukular.
I tried to take the magnifying glass away from him. Next thing you know, we were fighting, and his magnifying glass got broken.”

He stopped. “That’s not the truth, although it’s what I said at the time and not even the hiding my father gave me could make me change my story. The one George told
his
folks was the true one: I broke the goddam thing on purpose.” He pointed into the dark. “The way I’d break that box, if I could. Because now we’re the ants and that’s the magnifying glass.”

Ernie thought again of the cat with the burning tail. Claire McClatchey remembered how she and her third-grade best friend had sat on a bawling girl they both hated. The girl was new in school and had a funny southern accent that made her sound like she was talking through mashed potatoes. The more the new girl cried, the harder they laughed. Romeo Burpee remembered getting drunk the night Hillary Clinton cried in New Hampshire, toasting the TV screen and saying, “Dat’s it for you, you goddam baby, get out the way and let a man do a man’s job.”

Barbie remembered a certain gymnasium: the desert heat, the smell of shit, and the sound of laughter.

“I want to see it for myself,” he said. “Who’ll go with me?” Rusty sighed. “I will.”

5

While Barbie and Rusty were approaching the box with its strange symbol and brilliant pulsing light, Selectman James Rennie was in the cell where Barbie had been imprisoned until earlier this evening.

Carter Thibodeau had helped him lift Junior’s body onto the bunk. “Leave me with him,” Big Jim said.

“Boss, I know how bad you must feel, but there are a hundred things that need your attention right now.”

“I’m aware of that. And I’ll take care of them. But I need a little time with my son first. Five minutes. Then you can get a couple of fellows to take him to the funeral parlor.”

“All right. I’m sorry for your loss. Junior was a good guy.”

“No he wasn’t,” Big Jim said. He spoke in a mild just-telling-it-like-it-is tone of voice. “But he was my son and I loved him. And this isn’t all bad, you know.”

Carter considered. “I know.”

Big Jim smiled. “I
know
you know. I’m starting to think you’re the son I should have had.”

Carter’s face flushed with pleasure as he trotted up the stairs to the ready room.

When he was gone, Big Jim sat on the bunk and lowered Junior’s head into his lap. The boy’s face was unmarked, and Carter had closed his eyes. If you ignored the blood matting his shirt, he could have been sleeping.

He was my son and I loved him.

It was true. He had been ready to sacrifice Junior, yes, but there was precedent for that; you only had to look at what had happened on Calvary Hill. And like Christ, the boy had died for a

cause. Whatever damage had been caused by Andrea Grinnell’s raving would be repaired when the town realized that Barbie had killed several dedicated police officers, including their leader’s only child. Barbie on the loose and presumably planning new deviltry was a political plus.

Big Jim sat awhile longer, combing Junior’s hair with his fingers and looking raptly into Junior’s reposeful face. Then, under his breath, he sang to him as his mother had when the boy was an infant lying in his crib, looking up at the world with wide, wondering eyes. “Baby’s boat’s a silver moon, sailing o’er the sky; sailing o’er the sea of dew, while the clouds float by … sail, baby, sail … out across the sea …”

There he stopped. He couldn’t remember the rest. He lifted Junior’s head and stood up. His heart did a jagged taradiddle and he held his breath … but then it settled again. He supposed he would eventually have to get some more of that verapa-whatsis from Andy’s pharmacy supplies, but in the meantime, there was work to do.

6

He left Junior and went slowly up the stairs, holding the railing. Carter was in the ready room. The bodies had been removed, and a double spread of newspapers was soaking up Mickey Wardlaw’s blood.

“Let’s go over to the Town Hall before this place fills up with cops,” he told Carter. “Visitors Day officially starts in”—he looked at his watch—“about twelve hours. We’ve got a lot to do before then.”

“I know.”

“And don’t forget my son. I want the Bowies to do it right. A respectful presentation of the remains and a fine coffin. You tell Stewart if I see Junior in one of those cheap things from out back, I’ll kill him.”

Carter was scribbling in his notebook. “I’ll take care of it.”

“And tell Stewart that I’ll be talking to him soon.” Several officers came in the front door. They looked subdued, a little scared, very young and green. Big Jim heaved himself out of the chair he’d been sitting in while he recovered his breath. “Time to move.”