Under the Dome

“ABC says it was an Air Ireland jetliner. Fully loaded.”

“Let me guess. It was on its way to Boston or New York and some not-so-bright spark forgot to reprogram the autopilot.”

“I don’t know. They’re not saying about that part yet.”

“Come on.” Mel came back and took her arm. “That’s enough chitter-chatter. You need to leave before I get in trouble.”

“Are you okay?” Rose asked Barbie, resisting this command—at least for a moment.

“Yeah,” Barbie said. “How about you? Did you patch it up with Jackie Wettington yet?”

And what was the correct answer to that one? So far as Rose knew, she had nothing to patch up with Jackie. She thought she saw Barbie give a tiny shake of the head, and hoped it wasn’t just her imagination.

“Not yet,” she said.

“You ought to. Tell her to stop being a bitch.”

“As if,” Mel muttered. He locked onto Rose’s arm. “Come on, now; don’t make me drag you.”

“Tell her I said you’re all right,” Barbie called as she went up the stairs, this time leading the way with Mel at her heels. “You two really should talk. And thanks for the sandwiches.”

Tell her I said you’re all right.

That was the message, she was quite sure of it. She didn’t think Mel had caught it; he’d always been dull, and life under the Dome did not seem to have smartened him up any. Which was probably why Barbie had taken the risk.

Rose made up her mind to find Jackie as soon as possible, and pass on the message: Barbie says I’m all right. Barbie says you can talk to me.

“Thank you, Mel,” she said when they were back in the ready room. “It was kind of you to let me do that.”

Mel looked around, saw no one of greater authority than himself, and relaxed. “No problem-o, but don’t think you’re gettin down there again with supper, because it ain’t happenin.” He considered, then waxed philosophical. “He deserves somethin nice though, I guess. Because come next week this time, he’s gonna be as toasty as those samwidges you made im.”

We’ll see about that, Rose thought.

22

Andy Sanders and The Chef sat beside the WCIK storage barn, smoking glass. Straight ahead of them, in the field surrounding the radio tower, was a mound of earth marked with a cross made out of crate-slats. Beneath the mound lay Sammy Bushey, torturer of Bratz, rape victim, mother of Little Walter. Chef said that later on he might steal a regular cross from the cemetery by Chester Pond. If there was time. There might not be.

He lifted his garage door opener as if to emphasize this point.

Andy felt sorry for Sammy, just as he felt sorry about Claudette and Dodee, but now it was a clinical sorrow, safely stored inside its own Dome: you could see it, could appreciate its existence, but you couldn’t exactly get in there with it. Which was a good thing. He tried to explain this to Chef Bushey, although he got a little lost in the middle—it was a complex concept. Chef nodded, though, then passed Andy a large glass bong. Etched on the side were the words NOT LEGAL FOR TRADE.

“Good, ain’t it?” Chef said.

“Yes!” Andy said.

For a little while then they discussed the two great texts of born-again dopers: what good shit this was, and how fucked up they were getting on this good shit. At some point there was a huge explosion to the north. Andy shielded his eyes, which were burning from all the smoke. He almost dropped the bong, but Chef rescued it.

“Holy shit, that’s an airplane!” Andy tried to get up, but his legs, although buzzing with energy, wouldn’t hold him. He settled back.

“No, Sanders,” Chef said. He puffed at the bong. Sitting with legs akimbo as he was, he looked to Andy like an Indian with a peace pipe.

Leaning on the side of the shed between Andy and Chef were four full-auto AK-47s, Russian in manufacture but imported—like many other fine items stocked in the storage facility—from China. There were also five stacked crates filled with thirty-round clips and a box of RGD-5 grenades. Chef had offered Andy a translation of the ideograms on the box of grenades: Do Not Drop This Motherfucker.

Now Chef took one of the AKs and laid it across his knees. “That was not an airplane,” he amplified.

“No? Then what was it?”

“A sign from God.” Chef looked at what he had painted on the side of the storage barn: two quotes (liberally interpreted) from the Book of Revelation with the number 31 featured prominently. Then he looked back at Andy. To the north, the plume of smoke in the sky was dissipating. Below it, fresh smoke was rising from where the plane had impacted in the woods. “I got the date wrong,” he said in a brooding voice. “Halloween really is coming early this year. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after tomorrow.”

“Or the day after that,” Andy added helpfully.

“Maybe,” Chef allowed, “but I think it’ll be sooner. Sanders!”

“What, Chef?”