Under the Dome

The ex–phone company van made it to the Dome, and now the five of them watched as the two huge CH-47s waddled toward an overgrown hayfield on the TR-90 side. The road continued over there, and the Chinooks’ rotors churned dust up in great clouds. Barbie and the others shielded their eyes, but that was only instinct, and unnecessary; the dust billowed as far as the Dome and then rolled off to either side.

The choppers alit with the slow decorum of overweight ladies settling into theater seats a tad too small for their bottoms. Barbie heard the hellish screeee of metal on a protruding rock, and the copter to the left lumbered thirty yards sideways before trying again.

A figure jumped from the open bay of the first one and strode through the cloud of disturbed grit, waving it impatiently aside. Barbie would have known that no-nonsense little fireplug anywhere. Cox slowed as he approached, and put out one hand like a blindman feeling for obstructions in the dark. Then he was wiping away the dust on his side.

“It’s good to see you breathing free air, Colonel Barbara.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cox shifted his gaze. “Hello, Ms. Shumway. Hello, you other Friends of Barbara. I want to hear everything, but it will have to be quick—I’ve got a little dog-and-pony show going on across town, and I want to be there for it.”

Cox jerked a thumb over his shoulder where the unloading had already begun: dozens of Air Max fans with attached generators. They were big ones, Barbie saw with relief, the kind used for drying tennis courts and racetrack pit areas after heavy rains. Each was bolted to its own two-wheeled dolly-platform. The gennies looked twenty-horsepower at most. He hoped that would be enough.

“First, I want you to tell me those aren’t going to be necessary.”

“I don’t know for sure,” Barbie said, “but I’m afraid they might be. You may want to get some more on the 119 side, where the townspeople are meeting their relatives.”

“By tonight,” Cox said. “That’s the best we can do.”

“Take some of these,” Rusty said. “If we need them all, we’ll be in extremely deep shit, anyway.”

“Can’t happen, son. Maybe if we could cut across Chester’s Mill airspace, but if we could do that, there wouldn’t be a problem, would there? And putting a line of generator-powered industrial fans where the visitors are going to be kind of defeats the purpose. Nobody would be able to hear anything. Those babies are loud. ” He glanced at his watch. “Now how much can you tell me in fifteen minutes?”

HALLOWEEN COMES EARLY

1

At quarter to eight, Linda Everett’s almost-new Honda Odyssey Green rolled up to the loading dock behind Burpee’s Department Store. Thurse was riding shotgun. The kids (far too silent for children setting off on an adventure) were in the backseat. Aidan was hugging Audrey’s head. Audi, probably sensing the little boy’s distress, bore this patiently.

Linda’s shoulder was still throbbing in spite of three aspirin, and she couldn’t get Carter Thibodeau’s face out of her mind. Or his smell: a mixture of sweat and cologne. She kept expecting him to pull up behind her in one of the town police cars, blocking their retreat. The next load I shoot is going straight up the old wazoo. Whether the kids are watching or not.

He’d do it, too. He would. And while she couldn’t get all the way out of town, she was wild to put as much distance between herself and Rennie’s new Man Friday as possible.

“Grab a whole roll, and the metal-snips,” she told Thurse. “They’re under that milk box. Rusty told me.”

Thurston had opened the door, but now he paused. “I can’t do that. What if somebody else needs them?”

She wasn’t going to argue; she’d probably wind up screaming at him and scaring the children.

“Whatever. Just hurry up. This is like a box canyon.”

“As fast as I can.”

Yet it seemed to take him forever to snip pieces of the lead roll, and she had to restrain herself from leaning out the window and asking if he had been born a prissy old lady or just grew into one.

Keep it shut. He lost someone he loved last night.

Yes, and if they didn’t hurry, she might lose everything. There were already people on Main Street, heading out toward 119 and the Dinsmore dairy farm, intent on getting the best places. Linda jumped every time a police loudspeaker blared, “CARS ARE NOT ALLOWED ON THE HIGHWAY! UNLESS YOU ARE PHYSICALLY DISABLED, YOU MUST WALK.”

Thibodeau was smart, and he had sniffed something. What if he came back and saw that her van was gone? Would he look for it? Meanwhile, Thurse just kept snipping pieces of lead from the roofing roll. He turned and she thought he was done, but he was only visually measuring the windshield. He started cutting again. Whacking off another piece. Maybe he was actually trying to drive her mad. A silly idea, but once it had entered her mind it wouldn’t leave.