Under the Dome

It all seemed so long ago.

She tried the front door. It was locked. She picked up one of the decorative stones that bordered Myra’s flowerbed and stood in front of the picture window, hefting it in her hand. After some thought, she went around back instead of throwing it. Climbing through a window would be difficult in her current condition. And even if she was able (and careful), she might cut herself badly enough to interfere with the rest of her plans for the evening.

Also, it was a nice house. She didn’t want to vandalize it if she didn’t have to.

And she didn’t. Jack’s body had been taken away, the town was still functioning well enough for that, but no one had thought to lock the back door. Sammy walked right in. There was no generator and it was darker than a raccoon’s asshole, but there was a box of wooden matches on the kitchen stove, and the first one she lit showed her a flashlight on the kitchen table. It worked just fine. The beam illuminated what looked like a bloodstain on the floor. She switched it away from that in a hurry and started for Jack Evans’s office-den. It was right off the living room, a cubby so small that there was really room for no more than a desk and a glass-fronted cabinet.

She ran the beam of the flashlight across the desk, then raised it so that it reflected in the glassy eyes of Jack’s most treasured trophy: the head of a moose he’d shot up in TR-90 three years before. The moosehead was what Phil had called her in to see.

“I got the last ticket in the lottery that year,” Jack had told them. “And bagged him with that.” He pointed at the rifle in the cabinet. It was a fearsome-looking thing with a scope.

Myra had come into the doorway, the ice rattling in her own glass of iced coffee, looking cool and pretty and amused—the kind of woman, Sammy knew, she herself would never be. “It cost far too much, but I let him have it after he promised he’d take me to Bermuda for a week next December.”

“Bermuda,” Sammy said now, looking at the moosehead. “But she never got to go. That’s too sad.”

Phil, putting the envelope with the cash in it into his back pocket, had said: “Awesome rifle, but not exactly the thing for home protection.”

“I’ve got that covered, too,” Jack had replied, and although he hadn’t shown Phil just how he had it covered, he’d patted the top of his desk meaningfully. “Got a couple of damn good handguns.”

Phil had nodded back, just as meaningfully. Sammy and Myra had exchanged a boys will be boys look of perfect harmony. She still remembered how good that look had made her feel, how included, and she supposed that was part of the reason she had come here instead of trying someplace else, someplace closer to town.

She paused to chew down another Percocet, then started opening the desk drawers. They were unlocked, and so was the wooden box in the third one she tried. Inside was the late Jack Evans’s extra gun: a .45 Springfield XD automatic pistol. She took it, and after a little fumbling, ejected the magazine. It was full, and there was a spare clip in the drawer. She took that one, too. Then she went back to the kitchen to find a bag to carry it in. And keys, of course. To whatever might be parked in the late Jack and Myra’s garage. She had no intention of walking back to town.

19

Julia and Rose were discussing what the future might hold for their town when their present nearly ended. Would have ended, if they had met the old farm truck on Esty Bend, about a mile and a half from their destination. But Julia got through the curve in time to see that the truck was in her lane, and coming at her head-on.

She swung the wheel of her Prius hard left without thinking, getting into the other lane, and the two vehicles missed each other by inches. Horace, who’d been sitting on the backseat wearing his usual expression of oh-boy- going-for-a-ride delight, tumbled to the floor with a surprised yip. It was the only sound. Neither woman screamed, or even cried out. It was too quick for that. Death or serious injury passed them by in an instant and was gone.

Julia swung back into her own lane, then pulled onto the soft shoulder and put her Prius in park. She looked at Rose. Rose looked back, all big eyes and open mouth. In back, Horace jumped onto the seat again and gave a single bark, as if to ask what the delay was. At the sound, both women laughed and Rose began patting her chest above the substantial shelf of her bosom.

“My heart, my heart,” she said.

“Yeah,” Julia said. “Mine, too. Did you see how close that was?”

Rose laughed again, shakily. “You kidding? Hon, if I’d had my arm cocked out the window, that sonofabitch would have amputated my elbow.”

Julia shook her head. “Drunk, probably.”

“Drunk assuredly, ” Rose said, and snorted.

“Are you okay to go on?”

“Are you?” Rose asked.

“Yes,” Julia said. “How about you, Horace?”

Horace barked that he had been born ready.

“A near-miss rubs the bad luck off,” Rose said. “That’s what Granddad Twitchell used to claim.”

“I hope he was right,” Julia said, and got rolling again. She watched closely for oncoming headlights, but the next glow they saw was from the spots set up at the Harlow edge of the Dome. They didn’t see Sammy Bushey. Sammy saw them; she was standing in front of the Evans garage, with the keys to the Evans Malibu in her hand. When they had gone by, she raised the garage door (she had to do it by hand, and it hurt considerably) and got behind the wheel.

20

There was an alley between Burpee’s Department Store and the Mill Gas & Grocery, connecting Main Street and West Street. It was used mostly by delivery trucks. At quarter past nine that night, Junior Rennie and Carter Thibodeau walked up this alley in almost perfect darkness. Carter was carrying a five-gallon can, red with a yellow diagonal stripe on the side, in one hand. GASOLINE, read the word on the stripe. In the other hand he held a battery-powered bullhorn. This had been white, but Carter had wrapped the horn in black masking tape so it wouldn’t stand out if anyone looked their way before they could fade back down the alley.

Junior was wearing a backpack. His head no longer ached and his limp had all but disappeared. He was confident that his body was finally beating whatever had fucked it up. Possibly a lingering virus of some kind. You could pick up every kind of shit at college, and getting the boot for beating up that kid had probably been a blessing in disguise.

At the head of the alley they had a clear view of the Democrat. Light spilled out onto the empty sidewalk, and they could see Freeman and Guay moving around inside, carrying stacks of paper to the door and then setting them down. The old wooden structure housing the newspaper and Julia’s living quarters stood between Sanders Hometown Drug and the bookstore, but was separated from both—by a paved walkway on the bookstore side and an alley like the one in which he and Carter were currently lurking on the drugstore side. It was a windless night, and he thought that if his father mobilized the troops quickly enough, there would be no collateral damage. Not that he cared. If the entire east side of Main Street burned, that would be fine with Junior. Just more trouble for Dale Barbara. He could still feel those cool, assessing eyes on him. It wasn’t right to be looked at that way, especially when the man doing the looking was behind bars. Fucking Baaarbie.

“I should have shot him,” Junior muttered.

“What?” Carter asked.

“Nothing.” He wiped his forehead. “Hot.”

“Yeah. Frankie says if this keeps on, we’re all apt to end up stewed like prunes. When are we supposed to do this?”