Under the Dome

down the camp lane that led to Little Bitch Road, Carolyn tried to reach her father on her cell. She got nothing but silence.

At the intersection of Little Bitch and Route 119, a town police car was pulled across the road. A stocky female cop with red hair pointed at the soft shoulder, then waved at them to use it. Carolyn pulled over instead, and got out. She held up her puffy wrist.

“We were assaulted! By two guys calling themselves cops! One named Junior and one named Frankie! They—”

“Get your ass gone or I’ll assault you myself,” Georgia Roux said. “I ain’t shittin, honeypie.”

Carolyn stared at her, stunned. The whole world had turned sideways and slipped into a Twilight Zone episode while she was asleep. That had to be it; no other explanation made even marginal sense. They’d hear the Rod Serling voice-over anytime now.

She got back into the Volvo (the sticker on the bumper, faded but still readable: OBAMA ’12! YES WE STILL CAN) and detoured around the police car. Another, older cop was sitting inside it, going over a checklist on a clipboard. She thought of appealing to him, then thought better of it.

“Try the radio,” she said. “Let’s find out if something really is going on.”

Thurston turned it on and got nothing but Elvis Presley and the Jordanaires, trudging through “How Great Thou Art.”

Carolyn snapped it off, thought of saying The nightmare is officially complete, and didn’t. All she wanted was to get out of Weirdsville as soon as possible.

2

On the map, the Chester Pond camp road was a thin hooklike thread, almost not there. After leaving the Marshall cabin, Junior and Frankie sat for a moment in Frankie’s car, studying this.

“Can’t be anybody else down there,” Frankie said. “Not at this time of the year. What do you think? Say fuck it and go back to town?” He cocked a thumb at the cabin. “They’ll be along, and if they’re not, who really gives a shit?”

Junior considered it for a moment, then shook his head. They had taken the Oath of Duty. Besides, he wasn’t anxious to get back and face his father’s pestering about what he’d done with the Reverend’s body. Coggins was now keeping his girlfriends company in the McCain pantry, but there was no need for his dad to know that. At least not until the big man figured out how to nail Barbara with it. And Junior believed his father would figure it out. If there was one thing Big Jim Rennie was good at, it was nailing people.

Now it doesn’t even matter if he finds out I left school, Junior thought, because I know worse about him. Way worse.

Not that dropping out seemed very important now; it was chump change compared to what was going on in The Mill. But he’d have to be careful, just the same. Junior wouldn’t put it past his father to nail him, if the situation seemed to call for it.

“Junior? Earth to Junior.”

“I’m here,” he said, a little irritated. “Back to town?”

“Let’s check out the other cabins. It’s only a quarter of a mile, and if we go back to town, Randolph’ll find something else for us to do.”

“Wouldn’t mind a little chow, though.”

“Where? At Sweetbriar? Want some rat poison in your scrambled eggs, courtesy of Dale Barbara?”

“He wouldn’t dare.”

“You positive?”

“Okay, okay.” Frankie started the car and backed down the little stub of driveway. The brightly colored leaves hung moveless on the trees, and the air felt sultry. More like July than October. “But the Massholes better be gone when we come back, or I just might have to introduce Titsy McGee to my helmeted avenger.”

“I’ll be happy to hold her down,” Junior said. “Yippee-ki-yi-yay, motherfucker.”

3

The first three cabins were clearly empty; they didn’t even bother getting out of the car. By now the camp road was down to a pair of wheelruts with a grassy hump between them. Trees overhung it on both sides, some of the lower branches almost close enough to scrape the roof.

“I think the last one’s just around this curve,” Frankie said. “The road ends at this shitpot little boat land —”

“Look out!” Junior shouted.

They came out of the blind curve and two kids, a boy and a girl, were standing in the road. They made no effort to get out of the way. Their faces were shocked and blank. If Frankie hadn’t been afraid of tearing the Toyota’s exhaust system out on the camp road’s center hump—if he’d been making any kind of speed at all—he would have hit them. Instead he stood on the brake, and the car stopped two feet short.

“Oh my God, that was close,” he said. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“If my father didn’t, you won’t,” Junior said.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Junior got out. The kids were still standing there. The girl was taller and older. Maybe nine. The boy looked about five. Their faces were pale and dirty. She was holding his hand. She looked up at Junior, but the boy looked straight ahead, as if examining something of interest in the Toyota’s driver’s side headlamp.

Junior saw the terror on her face and dropped to one knee in front of her. “Honey, are you okay?”

It was the boy who answered. He spoke while still examining the headlamp. “I want my mother. And I want my breffus.”

Frankie joined him. “Are they real?” Speaking in a voice that said I’m joking, but not really. He reached out and touched the girl’s arm.

She jumped a little, and looked at him. “Mumma didn’t come back.” She spoke in a low voice.

“What’s your name, hon?” Junior asked.

“And who’s your mommy?”

“I’m Alice Rachel Appleton,” she said. “This is Aidan Patrick Appleton. Our mother is Vera Appleton. Our father is Edward Appleton, but he and Mommy got a divorce last year and now he lives in Plano, Texas. We live in Weston, Massachusetts, at Sixteen Oak Way. Our telephone number is—” She recited it with the toneless accuracy of a directory assistance recording.

Junior thought, Oh boy. More Massholes. But it made sense; who else would burn expensive gasoline just to watch the fucking leaves fall off the fucking trees?

Frankie was also kneeling now. “Alice,” he said, “listen to me, sweetheart. Where is your mother now?”

“Don’t know,” Tears—big clear globes—began to roll down her cheeks. “We came to see the leaves. Also, we were going to go in the kayak. We like the kayak, don’t we, Aide?”

“I’m hungry,” Aidan said mournfully, and then he too began to cry.

Seeing them like that made Junior feel like crying himself. He reminded himself he was a cop. Cops didn’t cry, at least not on duty. He asked the girl again where her mother was, but it was the little boy who answered.

“She went to get Woops.”

“He means Whoopie Pies,” Alice said. “But she went to get other stuff, too. Because Mr. Killian didn’t caretake the cabin like he was supposed to. Mommy said I could take care of Aidan because I’m a big girl now and she’d be right back, she was only going to Yoder’s. She just said don’t let Aide go near the pond.”