Under the Dome

"Tell me something I don't know,' Twitch said. 'According to the inventory card on the door, there's supposed to be seven of those puppies, but there are only two.' He stowed the cigarette in the pocket of his own white coat. 'I checked the other shed just to make sure, thought somebody might have moved the tanks—'

'Why would anyone do that?'

'I dunno, O Great One. Anyway, the other shed's for the really important hospital supplies: gardening and landscaping shit. In that one the tools are present and accounted for, but the fucking fertilizer's gone.'

Rusty didn't care about the fertilizer; he cared about the propane. 'Well—if push comes to shove, we'll get some from the town supplies.'

'You'll get a fight from Rennie.'

'When Cathy Russell might be his only option if that ticker of his vapor-locks? I doubt it. You think there's any chance I can get away for a while this afternoon?'

'That'd be up to The Wiz. He now appears to be the ranking officer,'

'Where is he?'

'Sleeping in the lounge. Snores like a mad bastard, too.You want to—wake him up?'

'No,' Rusty said. 'Let him sleep. And I'm not going to call him The Wiz anymore. Given how hard he's worked since this shit came down, I think he deserves better.'

'Ah so, sensei.You have reached a new level of enlightenment.'

'Blow me, grasshopper,' Rusty said.

10

Now see this; see it very well.

It's two forty p.m. on another eye-bustingly gorgeous autumn day in Chester's Mill. If the press were not being kept away they'd be in photo-op heaven—and not just because the trees are in full flame. The imprisoned people of the town have migrated to Alden Dinsmore's dairy field en masse. Alden has struck a use-fee deal with Romeo Burpee: six hundred dollars. Both men are happy, the farmer because he jacked the businessman up considerable from Burpee's starting offer of two hundred, Romeo because he would have gone to a thousand, if pressed.

From the protestors and Jesus-shouters Alden collected not a single crying dime.That doesn't mean he isn't charging them, however; Farmer Dinsmore was born at night, but not last night. When this opportunity came along, he marked out a large parking area just north of the place where the fragments of Chuck Thompson's plane came to rest the day before, and there he has stationed his wife (Shelley), his older son (Ollie; you remember Ollie), and his hired man (Manuel Ortega, a no-greencard Yankee who can ayuh with the best of them). Alden's knocking down five dollars a car, a fortune for a shirttail dairyman who for the last two years has been keeping his farm out of Keyhole Bank's hands by the skin of his teeth. There are complaints about the fee, but not many; they charge more to park at the Fryeburg Fair, and unless folks want to park by the side of the road—which has already been lined on both sides by early arrivals—and then walk half a mile to where all the excitement is, they have no choice.

And what a strange and varied scene! A three-ring crcus for sure, with the ordinary citizens of The Mill in all the starring roles. When Barbie arrives with Rose and Anse Wheeler (the restaurant is closed again, will reopen for supper—just cold sandwiches, no grill orders), they stare in openmouthed silence. Both Julia Shumway and Pete Freeman are taking pictures. Julia stops long enough to give Barbie her attractive but somehow inward-turning smile.

'Some show, wouldn't you say?'

Barbie grins. 'Yessum.'

In the first ring of this circus, we have the townsfolk who have responded to the posters put up by Scarecrow Joe and his cadre. The protest turnout has been quite satisfying, almost two hundred, and the sixty signs the kids made (the most popular: LET US OUT, DAMN IT!!) were gone in no time. Luckily, many people did bring their own signs. Joe's favorite is the one with prison bars inked over a map ofThe Mill. Lissa Jamieson is not just holding it but pumping it aggressively up and down. Jack Evans is there, looking pale and grim. His sign is a collage of photographs featuring the woman who bled to death the day before. WHO KILLED MY WIFE? it screams. Scarecrow Joe feels sorry for him… but what an awesome sign! If the press could see that one, they'd fill their collective pants with joyshit.