Blood everywhere

It was twelve-thirty on the morning of October twenty-sixth when Julia let herself into Andrea’s house. She did it quietly, but there was no need; she could hear music from Andi’s little portable radio: the Staples Singers, kicking holy ass with “Get Right Church.”

Horace came down the hall to greet her, wagging his rear end and grinning that slightly mad grin of which only Corgis seem capable. He bowed before her, paws splayed, and Julia gave him a brief scratch behind the ears—it was his sweet spot.

Andrea was sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of tea.

“Sorry about the music,” she said, turning it down. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“It’s your house, honey,” Julia said. “And for WCIK, that really rocks.”

Andi smiled. “It’s been uptempo gospel ever since this afternoon. I feel like I hit the jackpot. How was your meeting?”

“Good.” Julia sat down.

“Want to talk about it?”

“You don’t need the worry. What you need is to concentrate on feeling better. And you know what? You look a little better.”

It was true. Andi was still pale, and much too thin, but the dark circles under her eyes had faded a little, and the eyes themselves had a new spark. “Thanks for saying so.”

“Was Horace a good boy?”

“Very good. We played ball, and then we both slept a little. If I look better, that’s probably why. Nothing like a nap to improve a girl’s looks.”

“What about your back?”

Andrea smiled. It was an oddly knowing smile, without much humor in it. “My back isn’t bad at all. Hardly a twinge, even when I bend over. Do you know what I think?”

Julia shook her head.

“I think that when it comes to drugs, the body and the mind are co-conspirators. If the brain wants drugs, the body helps out. It says, ‘Don’t worry, don’t feel guilty, it’s okay, I really hurt.’ It’s not exactly hypochondria I’m talking about, nothing so simple. Just …” She trailed off and her eyes grew distant as she went somewhere else.

Where? Julia wondered.

Then she came back. “Human nature can be destructive. Tell me, do you think a town is like a body?”

“Yes,” Julia said instantly.

“And can it say it hurts so the brain can take the drugs it craves?”

Julia considered, then nodded. “Yes.”

“And right now, Big Jim Rennie is this town’s brain, isn’t he?”

“Yes, hon. I’d say he is.”

Andrea sat on the couch, head slightly lowered. Then she snapped off the little battery radio and got to her feet. “I think I’ll go up to bed. And do you know, I think I might actually be able to sleep.”

“That’s good.” And then, for no reason she could have articulated, Julia asked: “Andi, did anything happen while I was gone?”

Andrea looked surprised. “Why, yes. Horace and I played ball.” She bent down without the slightest wince of pain—a movement she would only a week ago have claimed was impossible for her—and held out one hand. Horace came to her and allowed his head to be stroked. “He’s very good at fetching.”

In her room, Andrea settled on her bed, opened the VADER file, and began to read through it again. More carefully this time. When she finally slid the papers back into the manila envelope, it was close to two AM. She put the envelope into the drawer of the table next to her bed. Also in the drawer was a.38 pistol, which her brother Douglas had given her for her birthday two years ago. She had been dismayed, but Dougie had insisted that a woman living alone should have protection.

Now she took it out, popped the cylinder, and checked the chambers. The one that would roll under the hammer when the trigger was pulled for the first time was empty, as per Twitch’s instructions. The other five were full. She had more bullets on the top shelf of her closet, but they would never give her a chance to reload. His little army of cops would shoot her down first.

And if she couldn’t kill Rennie with five shots, she probably didn’t deserve to live, anyway.

“After all,” she murmured as she put the gun back in the drawer, “what did I get straight for, anyway?” The answer seemed clear now that the Oxy had cleared her brain: she’d gotten straight to shoot straight.

“Amen to that,” she said, and turned out the light.

Five minutes later she was asleep.

Junior was wide awake. He sat by the window in the hospital room’s only chair, watching the bizarre pink moon decline and slip behind a black smudge on the Dome that was new to him. This one was bigger and much higher than the one left by the failed missile strikes. Had there been some other effort to breach the Dome while he’d been unconscious? He didn’t know and didn’t care. What mattered was that the Dome was still holding. If it hadn’t been, the town would have been lit like Vegas and crawling with GI Joes. Oh, there were lights here and there, marking a few diehard insomniacs, but for the most part, Chester’s Mill slept. That was good, because he had things to think about.

Namely Baaarbie and Barbie’s friends.

Junior had no headache as he sat by the window, and his memories had come back, but he was aware that he was a very sick boy. There was a suspicious weakness all down the left side of his body, and sometimes spit slipped from that side of his mouth. If he wiped it away with his left hand, sometimes he could feel skin against skin and sometimes he couldn’t. In addition to this, there was a dark keyhole shape, quite large, floating on the left side of his vision. As if something had torn inside that eyeball. He supposed it had.

He could remember the wild rage he’d felt on Dome Day; could remember chasing Angie down the hall to the kitchen, throwing her against the fridge, and hoicking his knee into her face. He could remember the sound it made, as if there were a china platter behind her eyes and his knee had shattered it. That rage was gone now. What had taken its place was a silken fury that flowed through his body from some bottomless source deep inside his head, a spring that simultaneously chilled and clarified.

The old fuck he and Frankie had rousted at Chester Pond had come in to examine him earlier this evening. The old fuck acted professional, taking his temperature and blood pressure, asking how his headache was, even checking his knee reflexes with a little rubber hammer. Then, after he left, Junior heard talk and laughter. Barbie’s name was mentioned. Junior crept to the door.

It was the old fuck and one of the candy stripers, the pretty dago whose name was Buffalo or something like Buffalo. The old fuck had her top open and was feeling her tits. She had his fly open and was jerking his dick. A poison green light surrounded them. “Junior and his friend beat me up,” the old fuck was saying, “but now his friend’s dead and soon he will be, too. Barbie’s orders.”

“I like to suck Barbie’s dick like a peppermint stick,” the Buffalo-girl said, and the old fuck said he enjoyed that, too. Then, when Junior blinked his eyes, the two of them were just walking down the hall. No green aura, no dirty stuff. So maybe it had been a hallucination. On the other hand, maybe not. One thing was for sure: they were all in it together. All in league with Baaarbie. He was in jail, but that was just temporary. To gain sympathy, probably. All part of Baaarbie ’s plaaan. Plus, he thought that in jail he was beyond Junior’s reach.

“Wrong,” he whispered as he sat by the window, looking out at the night with his now-defective vision. “Wrong.”

Junior knew exactly what had happened to him; it had come in a flash, and the logic was undeniable. He was suffering from thallium poisoning, like what had happened to that Russian guy in England. Barbie’s dog tags had been coated with thallium dust, and Junior had handled them, and now he was dying. And since his father had sent him to Barbie’s apartment, that meant he was a part of it, too. He was another of Barbie’s … his … what did you call those guys …

“Minions,” Junior whispered. “Just another one of Big Jim Rennie’s filet minions.”

Once you thought about it—once your mind was clarified—it made perfect sense. His father wanted to shut him up about Coggins and Perkins. Hence, thallium poisoning. It all hung together.

Outside, beyond the lawn, a wolf loped across the parking lot. On the lawn itself, two naked women were in the 69 position. Sixty-nine, lunchtime! he and Frankie used to chant when they were kids and saw two girls walking together, not knowing what it meant, only knowing that it was rude. One of the cracksnackers looked like Sammy Bushey. The nurse—Ginny, her name was—had told him that Sammy was dead, which was obviously a lie and meant that Ginny was in on it, too; in on it with Baaarbie.

Was there anyone in this whole town who wasn’t? Who he could be sure wasn’t?

Yes, he realized, there were two. The kids he and Frank had found out by the Pond, Alice and Aidan Appleton. He remembered their haunted eyes, and how the girl had hugged him when he picked her up. When he told her she was safe, she had asked Do you promise?, and Junior had told her yes. It made him feel really good to promise. The trusting weight of her had made him feel good, too.

He made a sudden decision: he would kill Dale Barbara. If anyone got in his way, he would kill them, too. Then he would find his father and kill him … a thing he had dreamed of doing for years, although he had never admitted it to himself fully until now.

Once that was done, he’d seek out Aidan and Alice. If someone tried to stop him, he’d kill them, too. He would take the kids back out to Chester Pond, and he would take care of them. He would keep the promise he had made to Alice. If he did, he wouldn’t die. God would not let him die of thallium poisoning while he was taking care of those kids.

Now Angie McCain and Dodee Sanders went prancing across the parking lot, wearing cheerleader skirts and sweaters with big Mills Wildcats W s on their chests. They saw him looking and began to gyrate their hips and lift up their skirts. Their faces slopped and jiggled with decay. They were chanting, “Open up the pantry door! Come on in, let’s fuck some more! Go … TEAM!”

Junior closed his eyes. Opened them. His girlfriends were gone. Another hallucination, like the wolf. About the 69 girls he wasn’t so sure.

Maybe, he thought, he wouldn’t take the children out to the Pond, after all. That was pretty far from town. Maybe he would take them to the McCain pantry, instead. That was closer. There was plenty of food.

And, of course, it was dark.

“I’ll take care of you, kids,” Junior said. “I’ll keep you safe. Once Barbie’s dead, the whole conspiracy will fall apart.”

After a while he leaned his forehead against the glass and then he too slept.

Henrietta Clavard’s ass might only have been bruised instead of broken, but it still hurt like a sonofabitch— at eighty-four, she’d found, everything that went wrong with you hurt like a sonofabitch—and at first she thought it was her ass that woke her at first light on that Thursday morning. But the Tylenol she’d taken at three AM still seemed to be holding. Plus, she’d found her late husband’s fanny-ring (John Clavard had suffered hemorrhoids), and that helped considerably. No, it was something else, and shortly after awakening, she realized what it was.

The Freemans’ Irish setter, Buddy, was howling. Buddy never howled. He was the most polite dog on Battle Street, a short lane just beyond Catherine Russell Drive. Also, the Freemans’ generator had stopped. Henrietta thought that might have actually been what woke her up, not the dog. Certainly it had put her to sleep last night. It wasn’t one of those rackety ones, blowing blue exhaust smoke into the air; the Freemans’ generator gave off a low, sleek purr that was actually quite soothing. Henrietta supposed it was expensive, but the Freemans could afford it. Will owned the Toyota franchise Big Jim Rennie had once coveted, and although these were hard times for most car dealers, Will had always seemed the exception to the rule. Just last year, he and Lois had put a very nice and tasteful addition on the house.

But that howling. The dog sounded hurt. A hurt pet was the sort of thing nice people like the Freemans saw to immediately … so why weren’t they?

Henrietta got out of bed (wincing a little as her butt came out of the comforting hole in the foam doughnut) and went to the window. She could see the Freemans’ split-level perfectly well, although the light was gray and listless instead of sharp and clear, as it usually was on mornings in late October. From the window she could hear Buddy even better, but she couldn’t see anyone moving around over there. The house was entirely dark, not so much as a Coleman lantern glowing in a single window. She would have thought they’d gone somewhere, but both cars were parked in the driveway. And where was there to go, anyway?

Buddy continued to howl.

Henrietta got on her housecoat and slippers and went outside. As she was standing on the sidewalk, a car pulled up. It was Douglas Twitchell, no doubt on his way to the hospital. He looked puffy-eyed and was clutching a takeout cup of coffee with the Sweetbriar Rose logo on the side as he got out of his car.

“You all right, Mrs. Clavard?”

“Yes, but something’s wrong at the Freemans’. Hear that?”

“Yeah.”

“Then so must they. Their cars are there, so why don’t they stop it?”

“I’ll take a look.” Twitch took a sip of his coffee, then set it down on the hood of his car. “You stay here.”

“Nonsense,” said Henrietta Clavard.

They walked down twenty yards or so of sidewalk, then up the Freemans’ driveway. The dog howled and howled. The sound of it made Henrietta’s skin cold in spite of the morning’s limp warmth.

“The air’s very bad,” she said. “It smells like Rumford used to when I was just married and all the paper mills were still running. This can’t be good for people.”

Twitch grunted and rang the Freemans’ bell. When that brought no response, he first knocked on the door and then hammered.

“See if it’s unlocked,” Henrietta said.

“I don’t know if I should, Mrs.—”

“Oh, bosh.” She pushed past him and tried the knob. It turned. She opened the door. The house beyond it was silent and full of deep early morning shadows. “Will?” she called. “Lois? Are you here?”

No one answered but more howls.

“The dog’s out back,” Twitch said.

It would have been quicker to cut straight through, but neither of them liked to do that, so they walked up the driveway and along the breezeway between the house and the garage where Will stored not his cars but his toys: two snowmobiles, an ATV, a Yamaha dirtbike and a bloated Honda Gold Wing.

There was a high privacy fence around the Freeman backyard. The gate was beyond the breezeway. Twitch pulled the gate open, and was immediately hit by seventy pounds of frantic Irish setter. He shouted in surprise and raised his hands, but the dog didn’t want to bite him; Buddy was in full please-rescue-me mode. He put his paws on the front of Twitch’s last clean tunic, smearing it with dirt, and began to slobber all over his face.

“Stop it!” Twitch shouted. He pushed Buddy, who went down but popped right back up, laying fresh tracks on Twitch’s tunic and swabbing his cheeks with a long pink tongue.

“Buddy, down!” Henrietta commanded, and Buddy shrank onto his haunches at once, whining and rolling his eyes between them. A puddle of urine began to spread out beneath him.

“Mrs. Clavard, this is not good.”

“No,” Henrietta agreed.

“Maybe you better stay with the d—”

Henrietta once more said bosh and marched into the Freemans’ backyard, leaving Twitch to catch up with her. Buddy slunk along behind them, head down and tail tucked, whining disconsolately.

There was a stone-flagged patio with a barbecue on it. The barbecue was neatly covered with a green tarp that said THE KITCHEN’S CLOSED. Beyond this, on the edge of the lawn, was a redwood platform. On top of the platform was the Freemans’ hot tub. Twitch supposed the high privacy fence was there so they could sit in it naked, maybe even pitch a little woo if the urge took them.

Will and Lois were in it now, but their woo-pitching days were done. They were wearing clear plastic bags over their heads. The bags appeared to have been cinched at the necks with either twine or brown rubber bands. They had fogged up on the inside, but not so much that Twitch couldn’t make out the empurpled faces. Sitting on the redwood apron between the earthly remains of Will and Lois Freeman was a whiskey bottle and a small medicine vial.

“Stop,” he said. He didn’t know if he was talking to himself, or Mrs. Clavard, or possibly to Buddy, who had just voiced another bereft howl. Certainly he couldn’t be talking to the Freemans.

Henrietta didn’t stop. She walked to the hot tub, marched up the two steps with her back as straight as a soldier’s, looked at the dis-colored faces of her perfectly nice (and perfectly normal, she would have said) neighbors, glanced at the whiskey bottle, saw it was Glenlivet (at least they’d gone out in style), then picked up the medicine vial with its Sanders Hometown Drug label.

“Ambien or Lunesta?” Twitch asked heavily.

“Ambien,” she said, and was gratified the voice emerging from her dry throat and mouth sounded normal. “Hers. Although I’d guess she shared it last night.”

“Is there a note?”

“Not here,” she said. “Maybe inside.”

But there wasn’t, at least not in any of the obvious places, and neither of them could think of a reason to hide a suicide note. Buddy followed them from room to room, not howling but whining deep in his throat.

“I guess I’ll bring him back t’house with me,” Henrietta said.

“You’ll have to. I can’t take him to the hospital. I’ll call Stewart Bowie to come and get … them.” He hooked a thumb back over his shoulder. His stomach was roiling, but that wasn’t the bad part; the bad part was the depression that came stealing into him, putting a shadow across his normally sunny soul.

“I don’t understand why they would do it,” Henrietta said. “If we’d been a year under the Dome … or even a month … yes, maybe. But less than a week? This is not how stable people respond to trouble.”

Twitch thought he understood, but didn’t want to say it to Henrietta: it was going to be a month, it was going to be a year. Maybe longer. And with no rain, fewer resources, and fouler air. If the most technologically hip country in the world hadn’t been able to get a handle on what had happened to Chester’s Mill by now (let alone solve the problem), it probably wasn’t going to happen soon. Will Freeman must have understood that. Or maybe it had been Lois’s idea. Maybe when the generator had died, she’d said Let’s do it before the water in the hot tub gets cold, honey. Let’s get out from under the Dome while our bellies are still full. What do you say? One more dip, with a few drinks to see us off.

“Maybe it was the plane that pushed them over the edge,” Twitch said. “The Air Ireland that hit the Dome yesterday.”

Henrietta didn’t answer with words; she hawked back and spat snot into the kitchen sink. It was a somehow shocking gesture of repudiation. They went back outside.

“More people will do this, won’t they?” she asked when they had reached the end of the driveway. “Because suicide gets in the air sometimes. Like a cold germ.”

“Some already have.” Twitch didn’t know if suicide was painless, as the song said, but under the right circumstances, it could certainly be catching. Maybe especially catching when the situation was unprecedented and the air started to smell as foul as it did on this windless, unnaturally warm morning.

“Suicides are cowards,” Henrietta said. “A rule to which there are no exceptions, Douglas.”

Twitch, whose father had died a long and lingering death as a result of stomach cancer, wondered about that but said nothing.

Henrietta bent to Buddy with her hands on her bony knees. Buddy stretched his neck up to sniff her. “Come next door, my furry friend. I have three eggs. You may eat them before they go bad.”

She started away, then turned back to Twitch. “They are cowards,” she said, giving each word its own special emphasis.

Jim Rennie checked out of Cathy Russell, slept soundly in his own bed, and woke refreshed. Although he would not have admitted it to anyone, part of the reason was knowing Junior was out of the house.

Now, at eight o’clock, his black Hummer was parked a door or two up from Rosie’s (in front of a fire hydrant, but what the hell; currently there was no fire department). He was having breakfast with Peter Randolph, Mel Searles, Freddy Denton, and Carter Thibodeau. Carter had taken up what was becoming his usual station, at Big Jim’s right hand. He wore two guns this morning: his own on his hip, and Linda Everett’s recently returned Beretta Taurus in a shoulder rig.

The quintet had taken over the bullshit table at the back of the restaurant, deposing the regulars without a qualm. Rose wouldn’t come near; she sent Anson to deal with them.

Big Jim ordered three fried eggs, double sausage, and home toast fried in bacon grease, the way his mother used to serve it. He knew he was supposed to be cutting down on his cholesterol, but today he was going to need all the energy he could pack in. The next few days, actually; after that, things would be under control. He could go to work on his cholesterol then (a fable he had been telling himself for ten years).

“Where’s the Bowies?” he asked Carter. “I wanted the goshdarn Bowies here, so where are they?”

“Had to roll on a call out to Battle Street,” Carter said. “Mr. and Mrs. Freeman committed suicide.”

“That cotton-picker topped himself?” Big Jim exclaimed. The few patrons—most at the counter, watching CNN—looked around, then looked away. “Well, there! I’m not a bit surprised!” It occurred to him that now the Toyota dealership could be his for the taking … but why would he want it? A much bigger plum had fallen into his lap: the whole town. He had already started drafting a list of executive orders, which he would begin putting into effect as soon as he was granted full executive powers. That would happen tonight. And besides, he had hated that smarmy sonofabuck Freeman and his titsy rhymes-with-witch wife for years.

“Boys, he and Lois are eating breakfast in heaven.” He paused, then burst out laughing. Not very political, but he just couldn’t help it. “In the servants’ quarters, I have no doubt.”

“While the Bowies were out there, they got another call,” Carter said. “Dinsmore farm. Another suicide.”

“Who?” Chief Randolph asked. “Alden?”

“No. His wife. Shelley.”

That actually was sort of a shame. “Let’s us bow our heads for a minute,” Big Jim said, and extended his hands. Carter took one; Mel Searles took the other; Randolph and Denton linked up.

“Ohgod pleaseblessthesepoorsouls, Jesussakeamen,” Big Jim said, and raised his head. “Little business, Peter.”

Peter hauled out his notebook. Carter’s was already laid beside his plate; Big Jim liked the boy more and more.

“I’ve found the missing propane,” Big Jim announced. “It’s at WCIK.”

“Jesus!” Randolph said. “We have to send some trucks out there to get it!”

“Yes, but not today,” Big Jim said. “Tomorrow, while everyone’s visiting their relatives. I’ve already started working on that. The Bowies and Roger will go out again, but we’ll need a few officers, too. Fred, you and Mel. Plus I’m going to say four or five more. Not you, Carter, I want you with me.”

“Why do you need cops to get a bunch of propane tanks?” Randolph said.

“Well,” Jim said, mopping up egg yolk with a piece of fried toast, “that goes back to our friend Dale Barbara and his plans to destabilize this town. There are a couple of armed men out there, and it looks like they may be protecting some kind of drug lab. I think Barbara had that in place long before he actually showed up in person; this was well planned. One of the current caretakers is Philip Bushey.”

“That loser,” Randolph grunted.

“The other one, I’m sorry to say, is Andy Sanders.”

Randolph had been spearing fried potatoes. Now he dropped his fork with a clatter. “Andy!”

“Sad but true. It was Barbara who set him up in business—I have that on good authority, but don’t ask me for my source; he’s requested anonymity.” Big Jim sighed, then stuffed a yolk-smeared chunk of fried bread into his cakehole. Dear Lord but he felt good this morning! “I suppose Andy needed the money. I understand the bank was on the verge of foreclosing his drugstore. He never did have a head for business.”

“Or town government, either,” Freddy Denton added.

Big Jim ordinarily did not enjoy being interrupted by inferiors, but this morning he was enjoying everything. “Unfortunately true,” he said, then leaned over the table as far as his large belly would allow. “He and Bushey shot at one of the trucks I sent out there yesterday. Blew the front tires. Those cotton-pickers are dangerous.”

“Drug addicts with guns,” Randolph said. “A law-enforcement nightmare. The men who go out there will have to wear vests.”

“Good idea.”

“And I can’t vouch for Andy’s safety.”

“God love you, I know that. Do what you have to do. We need that propane. The town’s crying for it, and I intend to announce at the meeting tonight that we’ve discovered a fresh source.”

“Are you sure I can’t go, Mr. Rennie?” Carter asked.

“I know it’s a disappointment to you, but I want you with me tomorrow, not out where they’re having their visitors’ party. Randolph, too, I think. Someone has to coordinate this business, which is apt to be a clustermug. We’ll have to try to keep people from being trampled. Although some probably will be, because people don’t know how to behave. Better tell Twitchell to get his ambulance out there.”

Carter wrote this down.

While he did, Big Jim turned back to Randolph. His face was long with sorrow. “I hate to say this, Pete, but my informant has suggested Junior may also have been involved with the drug lab.”

“Junior?” Mel said. “Naw, not Junior. ”

Big Jim nodded, and wiped a dry eye with the heel of his palm. “It’s hard for me to believe, too. I don’t want to believe it, but you know he’s in the hospital?”

They nodded.

“Drug overdose,” Rennie whispered, leaning even further over the table. “That seems to be the most likely explanation for what’s wrong with him.” He straightened and focused on Randolph again. “Don’t try going in from the main road, they’ll be expecting that. About a mile east of the radio station, there’s an access road—”

“I know the one,” Freddy said. “That used to be Sloppy Sam Verdreaux’s woodlot out there, ’fore the bank took it back. I think now all that land belongs to Holy Redeemer.”

Big Jim smiled and nodded, although the land actually belonged to a Nevada corporation of which he was president. “Go in that way, then approach the station from the rear. It’s mostly old growth out there, and you should have no trouble.”

Big Jim’s cell phone rang. He looked at the display, almost let the phone ring over to voice mail, then thought: What the heck. Feeling as he did this morning, listening to Cox foam at the mouth might be enjoyable.

“This is Rennie. What do you want, Colonel Cox?”

He listened, his smile fading a little.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth about this?”

He listened some more, then ended the call without saying goodbye. He sat frowning for a moment, processing whatever he’d heard. Then he raised his head and spoke to Randolph. “Do we have a Geiger counter? In the fallout shelter, maybe?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Al Timmons probably would.”

“Find him and have him check that out.”

“Is it important?” Randolph asked, and at the same time Carter asked, “Is it radiation, boss?”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Big Jim said. “As Junior would say, he’s just trying to freak me out. I’m sure of it. But check on that Geiger counter. If we do have one—and it still works—bring it to me.”

“Okay,” Randolph said, looking frightened.

Big Jim wished now that he’d let the call go to voice mail after all. Or kept his mouth shut. Searles was apt to blab about this, start a rumor. Heck, Randolph was apt to. And it was probably nothing, just that brass-hat cotton-picker trying to spoil a good day. The most important day of his life, maybe.

Freddy Denton, at least, had kept what mind he had on the issue at hand. “What time do you want us to hit the radio station, Mr. Rennie?”

Big Jim mentally reran what he knew about the Visitors Day schedule, then smiled. It was a genuine smile, wreathing his slightly greasy chops with good cheer and revealing his tiny teeth. “Twelve o’clock. Everybody will be schmoozing out on highway 119 by then and the rest of the town will be empty. So you go in and take out those cotton-pickers sitting on our propane at high noon. Just like in one of those old Western movies.”

At quarter past eleven on that Thursday morning, the Sweetbriar Rose van went trundling south along Route 119. Tomorrow the highway would be clogged with cars and stinking of exhaust, but today it was eerily deserted. Sitting behind the wheel was Rose herself. Ernie Calvert was in the passenger bucket. Norrie sat between them on the engine housing, clutching her skateboard, which was covered with stickers bearing the logos of long-gone punk bands like Stalag 17 and the Dead Milkmen.

“The air smells so bad, ” Norrie said.

“It’s the Prestile, honey,” Rose said. “It’s turned into a big old stinky marsh where it used to run into Motton.” She knew it was more than just the smell of the dying river, but didn’t say so. They had to breathe, so there was no point in worrying about what they might be breathing in. “Have you talked to your mother?”

“Yeah,” Norrie said glumly. “She’ll come, but she’s not crazy about the idea.”

“Will she bring whatever groceries she has, when it’s time?”

“Yes. In the trunk of our car.” What Norrie didn’t add was that Joanie Calvert would load in her booze supply first; food supplies would play second fiddle to that. “What about the radiation, Rose? We can’t plaster every car that goes up there with lead roll.”

“If people only go once or twice, they should be okay.” Rose had confirmed this for herself, on the Internet. She had also discovered that safety when it came to radiation depended on the strength of the rays, but saw no sense in worrying them about things they couldn’t control. “The important thing is to limit exposure … and Joe says the belt isn’t wide.”

“Joey’s mom won’t want to come,” Norrie said.

Rose sighed. This she knew. Visitors Day was a mixed blessing. It might cover their retreat, but those with relatives on the other side would want to see them. Maybe McClatchey will lose the lottery, she thought.

Up ahead was Jim Rennie’s Used Cars, with its big sign: YOU’LL LUV THE FEELIN’ WHEN BIG JIM IS DEALIN’! A$K U$ 4 CREDIT!

“Remember—” Ernie began.

“I know,” Rose said. “If someone’s there, just turn around in front and head back to town.”

But at Rennie’s all the RESERVED FOR EMPLOYEE slots were empty, the showroom was deserted, and there was a whiteboard bearing the message CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE hanging on the main door. Rose drove around back in a hurry. Out here were ranks of cars and trucks with signs in the windows bearing prices and slogans like GREAT VALUE and CLEAN AS A WHISTLE and HEY LOOK ME OVER (with the O s turned into sexy long-lashed girl-eyes). These were the battered workhorses in Big Jim’s stable, nothing like the snazzy Detroit and German thoroughbreds out front. At the far end of the lot, ranked against the chainlink fence separating Big Jim’s property from a trash-littered patch of second-growth woods, was a line of phone company vans, some still bearing AT&T logos.

“Those,” Ernie said, reaching behind his seat. He brought out a long thin strip of metal.

“That’s a slim jim,” Rose said, amused in spite of her nerves. “Why would you have a slim jim, Ernie?”

“From when I was still working at Food City. You’d be surprised how many people lock their keys in their cars.”

“How will you get it started, Grampa?” Norrie asked.

Ernie smiled feebly. “I’ll figure somethin out. Stop here, Rose.”

He got out and trotted to the first van, moving with surprising nimbleness for a man approaching seventy. He peered through the window, shook his head, and went to the next in line. Then the third—but that one had a flat tire. After a look into the fourth, he turned back to Rose and gave her a thumbs-up. “Go on, Rose. Buzz.”

Rose had an idea that Ernie didn’t want his granddaughter seeing him use the slim jim. She was touched by that, and drove back around to the front without any further talk. Here she stopped again. “You okay with this, sweetie?”

“Yes,” Norrie said, getting out. “If he can’t get it started, we’ll just walk back to town.”

“It’s almost three miles. Can he do that?”

Norrie’s face was pale, but she managed a smile. “Grampa could walk me right into the ground. He does four miles a day, says it keeps his joints oiled. Go on, now, before someone comes and sees you.”

“You’re a brave girl,” Rose said.

“I don’t feel brave.”

“Brave people never do, honey.”

Rose drove back toward town. Norrie watched until she was out of sight, then began to do rails and lazy diamonds in the front lot. The hottop had a slight slope, so she only had to piss-pedal one way … although she was so wired she felt like she could push the board all the way up Town Common Hill and not feel it. Hell, right now she could probably ass-knife and not feel it. And if someone came along? Well, she had walked out here with her grampa, who wanted to look at some vans. She was just waiting for him, then they’d walk back to town. Grampa loved to walk, everybody knew that. Oiling the joints. Except Norrie didn’t think that was all of it, or even most of it. He had started doing his walks when Gramma started getting confused about stuff (no one came right out and said it was Alzheimer’s, although everyone knew). Norrie thought he was walking off his sorrow. Was such a thing possible? She thought it was. She knew that when she was riding her skateboard, pulling off some sick double-kink at the skate park in Oxford, there was no room in her for anything but joy and fear, and joy ruled the house. Fear lived in the shack out back.

After a short while that felt long, the ex–phone company van rolled from behind the building with Grampa at the wheel. Norrie tucked her skateboard under her arm and jumped in. Her first ride in a stolen vehicle.

“Grampa, you are so gnarly,” she said, and kissed him.

Joe McClatchey was headed for the kitchen, wanting one of the remaining cans of apple juice in their dead refrigerator, when he heard his mother say Bump and stopped.

He knew that his parents had met in college, at the University of Maine, and that back then Sam McClatchey’s friends had called him Bump, but Mom hardly ever called him that anymore, and when she did, she laughed and blushed, as if the nickname had some sort of dirty subtext. About that Joe didn’t know. What he knew was that for her to slip like that—slip back like that—must mean she was upset.

He came a little closer to the kitchen door. It was chocked open and he could see his mother and Jackie Wettington, who was today dressed in a blouse and faded jeans instead of her uniform. They’d be able to see him, too, if they looked up. He had no intention of actually sneaking around; that wouldn’t be cool, especially if his mom was upset, but for the time being they were only looking at each other. They were seated at the kitchen table. Jackie was holding Claire’s hands. Joe saw that his mother’s eyes were wet, and that made him feel like crying himself.

“You can’t,” Jackie was saying. “I know you want to, but you just can’t. Not if things go like they’re supposed to tonight.”

“Can I at least call him and tell him why I won’t be there? Or e-mail him! I could do that!”

Jackie shook her head. Her face was kind but firm. “He might talk, and the talk might get back to Rennie. If Rennie sniffs something in the wind before we break Barbie and Rusty out, we could have a total disaster on our hands.”

“If I tell him to keep it strictly to himself—”

“But Claire, don’t you see? There’s too much at stake. Two men’s lives. Ours, too.” She paused. “Your son’s.”

Claire’s shoulders sagged, then straightened again. “You take Joe, then. I’ll come after Visitors Day. Rennie won’t suspect me; I don’t know Dale Barbara from Adam, and I don’t know Rusty, either, except to say hi to on the street. I go to Dr. Hartwell over in Castle Rock.”

“But Joe knows Barbie, ” Jackie said patiently. “Joe was the one who set up the video feed when they shot the missiles. And Big Jim knows that. Don’t you think he might take you into custody and sweat you until you told him where we went?”

“I wouldn’t,” Claire said. “I would never tell.”

Joe came into the kitchen. Claire wiped her cheeks and tried to smile. “Oh hi, honey. We were just talking about Visitors Day, and—”

“Mom, he might not just sweat you,” Joe said. “He might torture you.”

She looked shocked. “Oh, he wouldn’t do that. I know he’s not a nice man, but he’s a town selectman, after all, and—”

“He was a town selectman,” Jackie said. “Now he’s auditioning for emperor. And sooner or later everybody talks. Do you want Joe to be somewhere imagining you having your fingernails pulled out?”

“Stop it!” Claire said. “That’s horrible!”

Jackie didn’t let go of Claire’s hands when Claire tried to pull them back. “It’s all or nothing, and it’s too late to be nothing. This thing is in motion, and we’ve got to move with it. If it was just Bar-bie escaping by himself with no help from us, Big Jim might actually let him go. Because every dictator needs a boogeyman. But it won’t just be him, will it? And that means he’ll try to find us, and wipe us out.”

“I wish I’d never gotten into this. I wish I’d never gone to that meeting, and never let Joe go.”

“But we’ve got to stop him!” Joe protested. “Mr. Rennie’s trying to turn The Mill into a, you know, police state!”

“I can’t stop anybody!” Claire nearly wailed. “I’m a goddam housewife!”

“If it’s any comfort,” Jackie said, “you probably had a ticket for this trip as soon as the kids found that box.”

“It’s not a comfort. It’s not. ”

“In some ways, we’re even lucky,” Jackie went on. “We haven’t sucked too many innocent people into this with us, at least not yet.”

“Rennie and his police force will find us anyway,” Claire said. “Don’t you know that? There’s only so much town in this town.”

Jackie smiled mirthlessly. “By then there’ll be more of us. With more guns. And Rennie will know it.”

“We have to take over the radio station as soon as we can,” Joe said. “People need to hear the other side of the story. We have to broadcast the truth.”

Jackie’s eyes lit up. “That’s a hell of a good idea, Joe.”

“Dear God,” Claire said. She put her hands over her face.

Ernie pulled the phone company van up to the Burpee’s loading dock. I’m a criminal now, he thought, and my twelve-year-old granddaughter is my accomplice. Or is she thirteen now? It didn’t matter; he didn’t think Peter Randolph would treat her as a juvenile if they were caught.

Rommie opened the rear door, saw it was them, and came out onto the loading dock with guns in both hands. “Have any trouble?”

“Smooth as silk,” Ernie said, mounting the steps to the dock. “There’s nobody on the roads. Have you got more guns?”

“Yuh. A few. Inside, back of the door. You help too, Miss Norrie.”

Norrie picked up two rifles and handed them to her grampa, who stowed them in the back of the van. Rommie rolled a dolly out to the loading dock. On it were a dozen lead rolls. “We don’t need to unload dis right now,” he said. “I’ll just cut some pieces for the windows. We’ll do the windshield once we get out there. Leave a slit to see through—like an old Sherman tank—n drive dat way. Norrie, while Ernie and I do dis, see if you can push that other dolly out. If you can’t, just leave it and we’ll get it after.”

The other dolly was loaded with cartons of food, most of it canned stuff or pouches of concentrate meant for campers. One box was stuffed with envelopes of cut-rate powdered drink mix. The dolly was heavy, but once she got it moving, it rolled easily. Stopping it was another matter; if Rommie hadn’t reached up and shoved from where he was standing at the back of the van, the dolly might have gone right off the dock.

Ernie had finished blocking the stolen van’s small rear windows with pieces of lead roll held by generous applications of masking tape. Now he wiped his brow and said, “This is risky as hell, Burpee—we’re planning on a damn convoy out to the McCoy Orchard.”

Rommie shrugged, then began loading in cartons of supplies, lining the walls of the van and leaving the middle open for the passengers they hoped to have later. A tree of sweat was growing on the back of his shirt. “We just gotta hope if we do it quick and quiet, the big meetin covers for us. Don’t have much choice.”

“Will Julia and Mrs. McClatchey get lead on their car windows?” Norrie asked.

“Yuh. This afternoon. I’ll help em. And den they’ll have to leave their cars behind the store. Can’t go sportin round town with lead-lined car windows—people’d ask questions.”

“What about that Escalade of yours?” Ernie asked. “That’d swallow the rest of these supplies without so much as a burp. Your wife could drive it out h—”

“Misha won’t come,” Rommie said. “Won’t have nuthin t’do widdit, her. I asked, did all but get down on my knees n beg, but I might as well have been a gust of wind blowin round the house. I guess I already knew, because I didn’t tell her no more than she knew already … which isn’t much, but won’t keep her out of trouble if Rennie comes down on her. But she won’t see it, her.”

“Why won’t she?” Norrie asked, eyes wide, aware that the question might be rude only after it was out and she saw her grampa frown.

“Because she’s one stubborn honey. I told her she might get hurt. ‘Like to see em try,’ she said. That’s my Misha. Well, hell. If I get a chance later on, I may sneak down and see if she change her mind. They say it’s a woman’s prerogative. Come on, let’s put in a few more of those boxes. And don’t cover up the guns, Ernie. We might need em.”

“I can’t believe I got you into this, kiddo,” Ernie said.

“It’s okay, Grampa. I’d rather be in than out.” And this much, at least, was true.

BONK. Silence.

BONK. Silence.

BONK. Silence.

Ollie Dinsmore sat cross-legged four feet from the Dome with his old Boy Scout pack beside him. The pack was full of rocks he’d picked up in the dooryard—so full, in fact, that he’d staggered down here rather than walked, thinking that the canvas bottom would tear out of the pack and spill his ammo. But it hadn’t, and here he was. He selected another rock—a nice smooth one, polished by some ancient glacier—and threw it overhand at the Dome, where it struck what appeared to be thin air and bounced back. He picked it up and threw it again.

BONK. Silence.

The Dome had one thing going for it, he thought. It might be the reason his brother and his mother were dead, but by the hairy old Jesus, one load of ammunition was enough to last all day.

Rock boomerangs, he thought, and smiled. It was a real smile, but it made him look somehow terrible, because his face was far too thin. He hadn’t been eating much, and he thought it would be a good long while before he felt like eating again. Hearing a shot and then finding your mother lying beside the kitchen table with her dress flipped up to show her underpants and half her head blown off … a thing like that did nothing for a fellow’s appetite.

BONK. Silence.

The other side of the Dome was a hive of activity; a tent city had sprung up. Jeeps and trucks scooted to and fro, and hundreds of military guys went buzzing around while their superiors shouted orders and cussed them out, often in the same breath.

In addition to the tents that had already been erected, three long new ones were being put up. The signs already planted in front of them read VISITORS’ HOSPITALITY STATION 1, VISITORS’ HOSPITALITY STATION 2, and FIRST AID STATION. Another tent, even longer, had a sign in front of it reading LIGHT REFRESHMENTS. And shortly after Ollie sat down and began tossing his trove of rocks at the Dome, two flatbed trucks loaded with Port-A-Potties had arrived. Now ranks of cheery-looking blue shithouses stood over there, well away from the area where relatives would stand to speak with loved ones they could look at but not touch.

The stuff that had come out of his mother’s head had looked like moldy strawberry jam, and what Ollie couldn’t understand was why she’d done it that way, and in that place. Why in the room where they ate most of their meals? Had she been so far gone that she hadn’t realized she had another son, who might eat again (assuming he didn’t starve to death first) but who would never forget the horror of what lay there on the floor?

Yep, he thought. That far gone. Because Rory was always her favorite, her pet. She hardly knew I was around, unless I forgot to feed the cows or swab out the stalls when they were afield. Or if I brought home a D on my rank card. Because he never got nothing but As.

He threw a rock.

BONK. Silence.

There were several Army guys putting up pairs of signs over there near the Dome. The ones facing in toward The Mill read

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26