Under the Dome

They were quiet for a moment, listening to the steady roar of the almost-new Honda behind the restaurant.

Anson Wheeler came over and sat down.'The gennie sucks two gallons of propane an hour at sixty percent utilization,' he said.

'How do you know that?' Barbie asked.

'Read it on the tag. Running everything, like we have since around noon, when the power went out, it probably ate three an hour. Maybe a little more.'

Rose's response was immediate. 'Anse, kill all the lights but the ones in the kitchen. Right now. And turn the furnace thermostat down to fifty.' She considered. 'No, turn it off:

Barbie smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. She got it. Not everyone in The Mill would. Not everyone in The Mill would want to.

'Okay.'But Anson looked doubtful.'You don't think by tomorrow morning... tomorrow afternoon at the latest...?'

'The President of the United States is going to make a TV speech,' Barbie said. 'At midnight. What do you think, Anse?'

'I think I better turn off the lights,' he said.

'And the thermostat, don't forget that,' Rose said. As he hurried away, she said to Barbie: 'I'll do the same in my place when I go up.' A widow for ten years or more, she lived over her restaurant.

Barbie nodded. He had turned over one of the paper placemats ('Have You Visited These 20 Maine Landmarks?') and was figuring on the back. Twenty-seven to thirty gallons of propane burned since the barrier went up. That left five hundred and seventy. If Rose could cut her use back to twenty-five gallons a day, she could theoretically keep going for three weeks. Cut back to twenty gallons a day - which she could probably do by closing between breakfast and lunch and again between lunch and dinner - and she could press on for nearly a month.

Which is fine enough, he thought. Because if this town isn't open again after a month, there won't be anything here to cook, anyway.

'What are you thinking?' Rose asked.'And what's up with those numbers? I have no idea what they mean.'

'Because you're looking at them upside down,' Barbie said, and realized everyone in town was apt to do the same. These were figures no one would want to look at rightside up.

Rose turned Barbie's makeshift scratchpad toward her. She ran the numbers for herself. Then she raised her head and looked at Barbie, shocked. At that moment Anson turned most of the lights out, and the two of them were staring at each other in a gloom that was - to Barbie, at least - horribly persuasive. They could be in real trouble here.

'JTwenty-eight days?' she asked. 'You think we need to plan for four weeks?'

'I don't know if we do or not, but when I was in Iraq, someone gave hie a copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. I carried it around in my pocket, read it cover to cover. Most of it makes more sense than our politicians do on their sanest days. One thing that stuck with me was this: Wish for sunshine, but build dykes. I think that's what we - you, I mean - '

'We,' she said, and touched his hand. He turned his over and clasped it.

'Okay, we. I think that's what we have to plan for. Which means closing between meals, cutting back on the ovens - no cinnamon rolls, even though I love em as much as anybody - and no dishwasher. It's old and energy inefficient. I know Dodee and Anson won't love the idea of washing dishes by hand...'

'I don't think we can count on Dodee coming back soon, maybe not at: all. Not with her mother dead.' Rose sighed. 'I almost hope she did go to the Auburn Mall. Although I suppose it'll be in the papers tomorrow.'

'Maybe.' Barbie had no idea how much information was going to come out of or into Chester's Mill if this situation didn't resolve quickly, and with some rational explanation. Probably not much. He thought Maxwell Smart's fabled Cone of Silence would descend soon, if it hadn't already.

Anson came back to the table where Barbie and Rose were sitting. He had his jacket on. 'Is it okay for me to go now, Rose?'

'Sure,' she said. 'Six tomorrow?'

'Isn't that a little late?' He grinned and added, 'Not that I'm complaining.'

'We're going to open late.' She hesitated. 'And close between meals.'

'Really? Cool.' His gaze shifted to Barbie. 'You got a place to stay tonight? Because you can stay with me. Sada went to Derry to visit her folks.' Sada was Anson's wife.

Barbie in fact did have a place to go, almost directly i cross the street.

'Thanks, but I'll go back to my apartment. I'm paid up until the end of the month, so why not? I dropped off the keys with Petra Searles in the drugstore before I left this morning, but I sttll have a dupe on my key ring.'

'Okay. See you in the morning, Rose. Will you be here, Barbie?'

'Wouldn't miss it.'

Anson's grin widened. 'Excellent.'

When he was gone, Rose rubbed her eyes, then looked at Barbie grimly. 'How long is this going to go on? Best guess.'

T don't have a best guess, because I don't know what h appened. Or when it will stop happening.'

Very low, Rose said: 'Barbie, you're scaring me.'

'I'm scaring myself. We both need to go to bed. Things will look better in the morning.'

'After this discussion, I'll probably need an Ambien 1:0 get to sleep,' she said, 'tired as I am. But thank God you came back.'

Barbie remembered what he'd been thinking about supplies.

'One other thing. If Food City opens tomorrow - '

'It's always open on Sundays. Ten to six.'

'If it opens tomorrow, you need to go shopping.'

'But Sysco delivers on - ' She broke off and stared at him dismally. 'On Tuesdays, but we can't count on that, can we? Of course not.'

'No,' he said. 'Even if what's wrong suddenly becomes right, the Army's apt to quarantine this burg, at least for a while.'

'What should I buy?'

'Everything, but especially meat. Meat, meat, meat. If the store opens. I'm not sure it will.Jim Rennie may persuade whoever manages it now - '