Under the Dome

the body helps out. It says, ‘Don’t worry, don’t feel guilty, it’s okay, I really hurt.’ It’s not exactly hypochondria I’m talking about, nothing so simple. Just…” She trailed off and her eyes grew distant as she went somewhere else.

Where? Julia wondered.

Then she came back. “Human nature can be destructive. Tell me, do you think a town is like a body?”

“Yes,” Julia said instantly.

“And can it say it hurts so the brain can take the drugs it craves?”

Julia considered, then nodded. “Yes.”

“And right now, Big Jim Rennie is this town’s brain, isn’t he?”

“Yes, hon. I’d say he is.”

Andrea sat on the couch, head slightly lowered. Then she snapped off the little battery radio and got to her feet. “I think I’ll go up to bed. And do you know, I think I might actually be able to sleep.”

“That’s good.” And then, for no reason she could have articulated, Julia asked: “Andi, did anything happen while I was gone?”

Andrea looked surprised. “Why, yes. Horace and I played ball.” She bent down without the slightest wince of pain—a movement she would only a week ago have claimed was impossible for her—and held out one hand. Horace came to her and allowed his head to be stroked. “He’s very good at fetching.”

2

In her room, Andrea settled on her bed, opened the VADER file, and began to read through it again. More carefully this time. When she finally slid the papers back into the manila envelope, it was close to two AM. She put the envelope into the drawer of the table next to her bed. Also in the drawer was a.38 pistol, which her brother Douglas had given her for her birthday two years ago. She had been dismayed, but Dougie had insisted that a woman living alone should have protection.

Now she took it out, popped the cylinder, and checked the chambers. The one that would roll under the hammer when the trigger was pulled for the first time was empty, as per Twitch’s instructions. The other five were full. She had more bullets on the top shelf of her closet, but they would never give her a chance to reload. His little army of cops would shoot her down first.

And if she couldn’t kill Rennie with five shots, she probably didn’t deserve to live, anyway.

“After all,” she murmured as she put the gun back in the drawer, “what did I get straight for, anyway?” The answer seemed clear now that the Oxy had cleared her brain: she’d gotten straight to shoot straight.

“Amen to that,” she said, and turned out the light.

Five minutes later she was asleep.

3

Junior was wide awake. He sat by the window in the hospital room’s only chair, watching the bizarre pink moon decline and slip behind a black smudge on the Dome that was new to him. This one was bigger and much higher than the one left by the failed missile strikes. Had there been some other effort to breach the Dome while he’d been unconscious? He didn’t know and didn’t care. What mattered was that the Dome was still holding. If it hadn’t been, the town would have been lit like Vegas and crawling with GI Joes. Oh, there were lights here and there, marking a few diehard insomniacs, but for the most part, Chester’s Mill slept. That was good, because he had things to think about.

Namely Baaarbie and Barbie’s friends.

Junior had no headache as he sat by the window, and his memories had come back, but he was aware that he was a very sick boy. There was a suspicious weakness all down the left side of his body, and sometimes spit slipped from that side of his mouth. If he wiped it away with his left hand, sometimes he could feel skin against skin and sometimes he couldn’t. In addition to this, there was a dark keyhole shape, quite large, floating on the left side of his vision. As if something had torn inside that eyeball. He supposed it had.

He could remember the wild rage he’d felt on Dome Day; could remember chasing Angie down the hall to the kitchen, throwing her against the fridge, and hoicking his knee into her face. He could remember the sound it made, as if there were a china platter behind her eyes and his knee had shattered it. That rage was gone now. What had taken its place was a silken fury that flowed through his body from some bottomless source deep inside his head, a spring that simultaneously chilled and clarified.

The old fuck he and Frankie had rousted at Chester Pond had come in to examine him earlier this evening. The old fuck acted professional, taking his temperature and blood pressure, asking how his headache was, even checking his knee reflexes with a little rubber hammer. Then, after he left, Junior heard talk and laughter. Barbie’s name was mentioned. Junior crept to the door.

It was the old fuck and one of the candy stripers, the pretty dago whose name was Buffalo or something like Buffalo. The old fuck had her top open and was feeling her tits. She had his fly open and was jerking his dick. A poison green light surrounded them. “Junior and his friend beat me up,” the old fuck was saying, “but now his friend’s dead and soon he will be, too. Barbie’s orders.”

“I like to suck Barbie’s dick like a peppermint stick,” the Buffalo-girl said, and the old fuck said he enjoyed that, too. Then, when Junior blinked his eyes, the two of them were just walking down the hall. No green aura, no dirty stuff. So maybe it had been a hallucination. On the other hand, maybe not. One thing was for sure: they were all in it together. All in league with Baaarbie. He was in jail, but that was just temporary. To gain sympathy, probably. All part of Baaarbie ’s plaaan. Plus, he thought that in jail he was beyond Junior’s reach.

“Wrong,” he whispered as he sat by the window, looking out at the night with his now-defective vision. “Wrong.”

Junior knew exactly what had happened to him; it had come in a flash, and the logic was undeniable. He was suffering from thallium poisoning, like what had happened to that Russian guy in England. Barbie’s dog tags had been coated with thallium dust, and Junior had handled them, and now he was dying. And since his father had sent him to Barbie’s apartment, that meant he was a part of it, too. He was another of Barbie’s… his… what did you call those guys…

“Minions,” Junior whispered. “Just another one of Big Jim Rennie’s filet minions.”

Once you thought about it—once your mind was clarified—it made perfect sense. His father wanted to shut him up about Coggins and Perkins. Hence, thallium poisoning. It all hung together.

Outside, beyond the lawn, a wolf loped across the parking lot. On the lawn itself, two naked women were in the 69 position. Sixty-nine, lunchtime! he and Frankie used to chant when they were kids and saw two girls walking together, not knowing what it meant, only knowing that it was rude. One of the cracksnackers looked like Sammy Bushey. The nurse—Ginny, her name was—had told him that Sammy was dead, which was obviously a lie and meant that Ginny was in on it, too; in on it with Baaarbie.

Was there anyone in this whole town who wasn’t? Who he could be sure wasn’t?

Yes, he realized, there were two. The kids he and Frank had found out by the Pond, Alice and Aidan Appleton. He remembered their haunted eyes, and how the girl had hugged him when he picked her up. When he told her she was safe, she had asked Do you promise?, and Junior had told her yes. It made him feel really good to promise. The trusting weight of her had made him feel good, too.

He made a sudden decision: he would kill Dale Barbara. If anyone got in his way, he would kill them, too. Then he would find his father and kill him… a thing he had dreamed of doing for years, although he had never admitted it to himself fully until now.