Under the Dome

early was Those who can, do; those who can’t, question the decisions of those who can. They might not understand that everything he’d done or ordered done, even the rock-throwing at the market this morning, had been of a caretaking nature. Barbara’s friends on the outside would be especially prone to misunderstanding, because they would not want to understand. That Barbara had friends, powerful ones, on the outside was a thing Big Jim hadn’t questioned since seeing that letter from the President. But for the time being they could do nothing. Which was the way Big Jim wanted it to stay for at least a couple of weeks. Maybe even a month or two.

The truth was, he liked the Dome.

Not for the long term, of course, but until the propane out there at the radio station was redistributed? Until the lab was dismantled and the supply barn that had housed it had been burned to the ground (another crime to be laid at the door of Dale Barbara’s co-conspirators)? Until Barbara could be tried and executed by police firing squad? Until any blame for how things were done during the crisis could be spread around to as many people as possible, and the credit accrued to just one, namely himself?

Until then, the Dome was just fine.

Big Jim decided he’d get kneebound and pray on it before turning in.

7

Sammy limped down the hospital corridor, looking at the names on the doors and checking behind those with no names just to be sure. She was starting to worry that the bitch wasn’t here when she came to the last one and saw a get-well card thumbtacked there. It showed a cartoon dog saying “I heard you weren’t feeling so well.”

Sammy drew Jack Evans’s gun from the waistband of her jeans (that waistband a little looser now, she’d finally managed to lose some weight, better late than never) and used the automatic’s muzzle to open the card. On the inside, the cartoon dog was licking his balls and saying, “Need a hindlick maneuver?” It was signed Mel, Jim Jr., Carter, and Frank, and was exactly the sort of tasteful greeting Sammy would have expected of them.

She pushed the door open with the barrel of the gun. Georgia wasn’t alone. This did not disturb the deep calm that Sammy felt, the sense of peace nearly attained. It might have if the man sleeping in the corner had been an innocent—the bitch’s father or uncle, say—but it was Frankie the Tit Grabber. The one who’d raped her first, telling her she’d better learn to keep her mouth for when she was on her knees. That he was sleeping didn’t change anything. Because guys like him always woke up and recommenced their fuckery.

Georgia wasn’t asleep; she was in too much pain, and the longhair who’d come in to check her hadn’t offered her any more dope. She saw Sammy, and her eyes widened. “D’yew,” she said. “Ged outta here.”

Sammy smiled. “You sound like Homer Simpson,” she said.

Georgia saw the gun and her eyes widened. She opened her now mostly toothless mouth and screamed.

Sammy continued to smile. The smile widened, in fact. The scream was music to her ears and balm to her hurts.

“Do that bitch,” she said. “Right, Georgia? Isn’t that what you said, you heartless cunt?”

Frank woke up and stared around in wide-eyed befuddlement. His ass had migrated all the way to the edge of his chair, and when Georgia shrieked again, he jerked and fell onto the floor. He was wearing a sidearm now— they all were—and he grabbed for it, saying “Put it down, Sammy, just put it down, we’re all friends here, let’s be friends here.”

Sammy said, “You ought to keep your mouth closed except for when you’re on your knees gobbling your friend Junior’s cock.” Then she pulled the Springfield’s trigger. The blast from the automatic was deafening in the small room. The first shot went over Frankie’s head and shattered the window. Georgia screamed again. She was trying to get out of bed now, her IV line and monitor wires popping free. Sammy shoved her and she flopped askew on her back.

Frankie still didn’t have his gun out. In his fear and confusion, he was tugging at the holster instead of the weapon, and succeeding at nothing but yanking his belt up on the right side. Sammy took two steps toward him, grasped the pistol in both hands like she’d seen people do on TV, and fired again. The left side of Frankie’s head came off. A flap of scalp struck the wall and stuck there. He clapped his hand to the wound. Blood sprayed through his fingers. Then his fingers were gone, sinking into the oozing sponge where his skull had been.

“No more!” he cried. His eyes were huge and swimming with tears. “No more, don’t! Don’t hurt me!” And then: “Mom! MOMMY!”

“Don’t bother, your mommy didn’t raise you right,” Sammy said, and shot him again, this time in the chest. He jumped against the wall. His hand left his wrecked head and thumped to the floor, splashing in the pool of blood that was already forming there. She shot him a third time, in the place that had hurt her. Then she turned to the one on the bed.

Georgia was huddled in a ball. The monitor above her was beeping like crazy, probably because she’d pulled out the wires connected to it. Her hair hung in her eyes. She screamed and screamed.

“Isn’t that what you said?” Sammy asked. “Do that bitch, right?”

“I horry!”

“What?”

Georgia tried again. “I horry! I horry, Hammy!” And then, the ultimate absurdity: “I take it ack!”

“You can’t. ” Sammy shot Georgia in the face and again in the neck. Georgia jumped the way Frankie had, then lay still.

Sammy heard running footsteps and shouts in the corridor. Sleepy cries of concern from some of the rooms as well. She was sorry about causing a fuss, but sometimes there was just no choice. Sometimes things had to be done. And when they were, there could be peace.

She put the gun to her temple.

“I love you, Little Walter. Mumma loves her boy.”

And pulled the trigger.

8

Rusty used West Street to get around the fire, then hooked back onto Lower Main at the 117 intersection. Bowie’s was dark except for small electric candles in the front windows. He drove around back to the smaller lot as his wife had instructed him, and parked beside the long gray Cadillac hearse. Somewhere close by, a generator was clattering.

He was reaching for the door handle when his phone twittered. He turned it off without looking to see who might be calling, and when he looked up again, a cop was standing beside his window. A cop with a drawn gun.

It was a woman. When she bent down, Rusty saw a cloudburst of frizzy blond hair, and at last had a face to go with the name his wife had mentioned. The police dispatcher and receptionist on the day shift. Rusty assumed she had been pressed into full-time service on or just after Dome Day. He also assumed that her current duty- assignment had been self-assigned.

She holstered the pistol. “Hey, Dr. Rusty. Stacey Moggin. You treated me for poison oak two years ago? You know, on my—” She patted her behind.

“I remember. Nice to see you with your pants up, Ms. Moggin.”

She laughed as she had spoken: softly. “Hope I didn’t scare you.”

“A little. I was silencing my cell phone, and then there you were.”

“Sorry. Come on inside. Linda’s waiting. We don’t have much time. I’m going to stand watch out front. I’ll