Under the Dome

He backed slowly away from the bed. Now that he wanted to feel like he was having a bad dream, he didn’t. He was having a bad reality, and that was something from which you could not wake. His stomach clenched and a column of vile liquid rose up his throat. He ran for the bathroom, where he was confronted by a glare-eyed intruder. He almost screamed before recognizing himself in the mirror over the sink.

He knelt at the toilet, grasping what he and Rory had called Grampy’s crip-rails, and vomited. When it was out of him, he flushed (thanks to the gennie and a good deep well, he could flush), lowered the lid, and sat on it, trembling all over. Beside him, in the sink, were two of Grampy Tom’s pill bottles and a bottle of Jack Daniels. All the bottles were empty. Ollie picked up one of the pill bottles. PERCOCET, the label said. He didn’t bother with the other one.

“I’m alone now,” he said.

The Morgans or Dentons or Rev Libby will take you in.

But he didn’t want to be taken in—it sounded like what his mom would have done to a piece of clothing in her sewing room. He had sometimes hated this farm, but he had always loved it more. The farm had him. The farm and the cows and the woodpile. They were his and he was theirs. He knew that just as he knew that Rory would have gone away to have a bright and successful career, first at college and then in some city far from here where he would go to plays and art galleries and things. His kid brother had been smart enough to make something of himself in the big world; Ollie himself might have been smart enough to stay ahead of the bank loans and credit cards, but not much more.

He decided to go out and feed the cows. He would treat them to double mash, if they would eat it. There might even be a bossy or two who’d want to be milked. If so, he might have a little straight from the teat, as he had when he was a kid.

After that, he would go as far down the big field as he could, and throw rocks at the Dome until the people started showing up to visit with their relatives. Big doins, his father would have said. But there was no one Ollie wanted to see, except maybe Private Ames from South Cah’lina. He knew that Aunt Lois and Uncle Scooter might come—they lived just over in New Gloucester—but what would he say if they did? Hey Unc, they’re all dead but me, thanks for coming?

No, once the people from outside the Dome started to arrive, he reckoned he’d go up to where Mom was buried and dig a new hole nearby. That would keep him busy, and maybe by the time he went to bed, he’d be able to sleep.

Grampy Tom’s oxygen mask was dangling from the hook on the bathroom door. His mother had carefully washed it clean and hung it there; who knew why. Looking at it, the truth finally crashed down on him, and it was like a piano hitting a marble floor. Ollie clapped his hands over his face and began to rock back and forth on the toilet seat, wailing.

18

Linda Everett packed up two cloth grocery sacks’ worth of canned stuff, almost put them by the kitchen door, then decided to leave them in the pantry until she and Thurse and the kids were ready to go. When she saw the Thibodeau kid coming up the driveway, she was glad she’d done so. That young man scared the hell out of her, but she would have had much more to fear if he’d seen two bags filled with soup and beans and tuna fish.

Going somewhere, Mrs. Everett? Let’s talk about that.

The trouble was, of all the new cops Randolph had taken on, Thibodeau was the only one who was smart.

Why couldn’t Rennie have sent Searles?

Because Melvin Searles was dumb. Elementary, my dear Watson.

She glanced out the kitchen window into the backyard and saw Thurston pushing Jannie and Alice on the swings. Audrey lay nearby, with her snout on one paw. Judy and Aidan were in the sandbox. Judy had her arm around Aidan and appeared to be comforting him. Linda loved her for that. She hoped she could get Mr. Carter Thibodeau satisfied and on his way before the five people in the backyard even knew he’d been there. She hadn’t acted since playing Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire back in junior college, but she was going onstage again this morning. The only good review she wanted was her continued freedom and that of the people out back.

She hurried through the living room, fixing what she hoped was a suitably anxious look on her face before opening the door. Carter was standing on the WELCOME mat with his fist raised to knock. She had to look up at him; she was five-nine, but he was over half a foot taller.

“Well, look at you,” he said, smiling. “All brighteyed and bushy-tailed, and it’s not even seven thirty.”

He did not feel that much like smiling; it hadn’t been a productive morning. The preacher lady was gone, the newspaper bitch was gone, her two pet reporters seemed to have disappeared, and so had Rose Twitchell. The restaurant was open and the Wheeler kid was minding the store, but said he had no clue as to where Rose might be. Carter believed him. Anse Wheeler looked like a dog who’s forgotten where he buried his favorite bone. Judging by the horrible smells coming from the kitchen, he had no clue when it came to cooking, either. Carter had gone around back, checking for the Sweetbriar van. It was gone. He wasn’t surprised.

After the restaurant he’d checked the department store, hammering first in front, then in back, where some careless clerk had left a bunch of roofing material rolls out for any Light-Finger Harry to steal. Except when you thought about it, who’d bother with roofing material in a town where it no longer rained?

Carter had thought Everett’s house would also be a dry hole, only went there so he could say he’d followed the boss’s instructions to the letter, but he had heard kids in the backyard as he walked up the driveway. Also, her van was there. No doubt it was hers; one of those stick-on bubble-lights was sitting on the dash. The boss had said moderate questioning, but since Linda Everett was the only one he could find, Carter thought he might go on the hard side of moderate. Like it or not—and she wouldn’t—Everett would have to answer for the ones he hadn’t been able to find as well as herself. But before he could open his mouth, she was talking. Not only talking, but taking him by the hand, actually pulling him inside.

“Have you found him? Please, Carter, is Rusty okay? If he’s not…” She let go of his hand. “If he’s not, keep your voice down, the kids are out back and I don’t want them any more upset than they are already.”

Carter walked past her into the kitchen and peered out through the window over the sink. “What’s the hippie doctor doing here?”

“He brought the kids he’s taking care of. Caro brought them to the meeting last night, and… you know what happened to her.”

This speed-rap babble was the last thing Carter had expected. Maybe she didn’t know anything. The fact that she’d been at the meeting last night and was still here this morning certainly argued in favor of the idea. Or maybe she was just trying to keep him off-balance. Making a what-did-you-call-it, preemptive strike. It was possible; she was smart. You only had to look at her to see that. Also sort of pretty, for an older babe.

“Have you found him? Did Barbara…” She found it easy to put a catch in her voice. “Did Barbara hurt him? Hurt him and leave him somewhere? You can tell me the truth.”

He turned to her, smiling easily in the diluted light coming in through the window. “You go first.”

“What?”

“You go first, I said. You tell me the truth.”

“All I know is he’s gone.” She let her shoulders slump. “And you don’t know where. I can see you don’t. What if Barbara kills him? What if he’s killed him alre—”

Carter grabbed her, spun her around as he would have spun a partner at a country dance, and hoisted her arm behind her back until her shoulder creaked. It was done with such eerie, liquid speed that she had no idea he meant to do it until it was done.

He knows! He knows and he’s going to hurt me! Hurt me until I tell—His breath was hot in her ear. She could feel his beard-stubble tickling her cheek as he spoke, and it made her break out in shivers.

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Mom.” It was little more than a whisper. “You and Wettington have always been tight—hip to hip and tit to tit. You want to tell me you didn’t know she was going to break your husband out? That