Under the Dome

“Fire the other one,” Cox said dully, and Gene Ray did. It broke more windows and scared more people in eastern New Hampshire and western Maine.

Otherwise, the result was the same.

IN THE FRAME

1

At 19 Mill Street, home of the McClatchey family, there was a moment of silence when the recording ended. Then Norrie Calvert burst into fresh tears. Benny Drake and Joe McClatchey, after looking at each other over her bowed head with identical What do I do now expressions, put their arms around her quaking shoulders and gripped each other’s wrists in a kind of soul shake.

“That’s it?” Claire McClatchey asked unbelievingly. Joe’s mother wasn’t crying, but she was close; her eyes glistened. She was holding her husband’s picture in her hands, had taken it off the wall shortly after Joe and his friends had come in with the DVD. “That’s all?”

No one answered. Barbie was perched on the arm of the easy chair where Julia was sitting. I could be in big trouble here, he thought. But it wasn’t his first thought; that had been that the town was in big trouble.

Mrs. McClatchey got to her feet. She still held her husband’s picture. Sam had gone to the flea market that ran at Oxford Speedway each Saturday until the weather got too cold. His hobby was refinishing furniture, and he often found good stuff at the stalls there. Three days later he was still in Oxford, sharing space at the Raceway Motel with several platoons of reporters and TV people; he and Claire couldn’t speak to each other on the phone, but had been able to stay in touch by e-mail. So far.

“What happened to your computer, Joey?” she asked. “Did it blow up?”

Joe, his arm still around Norrie’s shoulders, his hand still gripping Benny’s wrist, shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “It probably just melted.” He turned to Barbie. “The heat might set the woods on fire out there. Someone ought to do something about that.”

“I don’t think there are any fire engines in town,” Benny said. “Well, maybe one or two old ones.”

“Let me see what I can do about that,” Julia said. Claire McClatchey towered over her; it was easy enough to see where Joe had gotten his height. “Barbie, it would probably be best if I handled this on my own.”

“Why?” Claire looked bewildered. One of her tears finally over-spilled and ran down her cheek. “Joe said the government put you in charge, Mr. Barbara—the President himself!”

“I had a disagreement with Mr. Rennie and Chief Randolph about the video feed,” Barbie said. “It got a little hot. I doubt if either of them would welcome my advice just now. Julia, I don’t think they’d exactly welcome yours, either. At least not yet. If Randolph’s halfway competent, he’ll send a bunch of deputies out there with whatever’s left in the firebarn. At the very least, there’ll be hoses and Indian pumps.”

Julia considered this, then said: “Would you step outside with me for a minute, Barbie?”

He looked at Joe’s mother, but Claire was no longer paying them any attention. She had moved her son aside and was sitting next to Norrie, who pressed her face against Claire’s shoulder.

“Dude, the government owes me a computer,” Joe said as Barbie and Julia walked toward the front door.

“Noted,” Barbie said. “And thank you, Joe. You did well.”

“A lot better than their damn missile,” Benny muttered.

On the front stoop of the McClatchey home, Barbie and Julia stood silent, looking toward the town common, Prestile Stream, and the Peace Bridge. Then, in a voice that was low-pitched and angry, Julia said: “He’s not. That’s the thing. That’s the goddam thing.”

“Who’s not what?”

“Peter Randolph is not halfway competent. Not even one-quarter.

I went to school with him all the way from kindergarten, where he was a world-champion pants-wetter, to twelfth grade, where he was part of the Bra-Snapping Brigade. He was a C-minus intellect who got B-minus grades because his father was on the school board, and his brainpower has not increased. Our Mr. Rennie has surrounded himself with dullards. Andrea Grinnell is an exception, but she’s also a drug addict. OxyContin.”

“Back problems,” Barbie said. “Rose told me.”

Enough of the trees on the common had shed their leaves for Barbie and Julia to be able to see Main Street. It was deserted now—most people would still be at Dipper’s, discussing what they had seen—but its sidewalks would soon fill with stunned, disbelieving townsfolk drifting back to their homes. Men and women who would not yet even dare ask each other what came next.