Under the Dome

He wasn't mistaken. It was a flashlight, a nice bright one. He'd have to be careful about shining it around the kitchen - easing down the shades would be an excellent idea - but in the laundry room he could shine it around to his heart's content. In here he was fine.

Soap powder. Bleach. Fabric softener. A bucket and i Swiffer. Good. With no generator there'd only be cold water, but there would probably be enough to fill one bucket from the taps, and then, of course, there were the various toilet tanks. And cold was what he wanted. Cold for blood.

He would clean like the demon housekeeper his mother had once been, mindful of her husband's exhortation:'Clean house, clean hands, clean heart.' He would clean up the blood. Then he'd wipe everything he could remember touching and everything he might have touched without remembering. But first;...

The body. He had to do something with the body.

Junior decided the pantry would do for the time being. He dragged her in by the arms, then let them go: flump. After that he set to work. He sang under his breath as he first replaced the fridge magnets, then drew the shades. He had filled the bucket almost to the top before the faucet started spitting. Another bonus.

He was still scrubbing, the work well begun but nowriere near done, when the knock came at the front door.

Junior looked up, eyes wide, lips drawn back in a hunic rless grin of horror.

'Angie?' It was a girl, and she was sobbing.'Angie, are you there?' More knocking, and then the door opened. His roll, it seemed, was over. 'Angie, please be here. I saw your car in the garage...'

Shit. The garage! He never checked the f**king garage!

'Angie?' Sobbing again. Someone he knew. Oh God, was it that idiot Dodee Sanders? It was. 'Angie, she said my mom's dead! Mrs Shumway said that she died!

Junior hoped she'd go upstairs first, check Angie's room. But she came down the hall toward the kitchen instead, moving slowly and tentatively in the dark.

'Angie? Are you in the kitchen? I thought I saw a light.'

Junior's head was starting to ache again, and it was this interfering dope-smoking cunt's fault. Whatever happened next... that would be her fault, too.

5

Dodee Sanders was still a little stoned and a little drunk; she was hungover; her mother was dead; she was fumbling up the hall of her best friend's house in the dark; she stepped on something that slid away under her foot and almost "went ass over teapot. She grabbed at the stair railing, bent two of her fingers painfully back, and cried out. She sort of understood all this was happening to her, but at the same time it was impossible to believe. She felt as if she'd wandered into some parallel dimension, like in a science fiction movie.

She bent to see what had nearly spilled her. It looked like a towel. Some fool had left a towel on the front hall floor. Then she thought she heard someone moving in the darkness up ahead. In the kitchen.

'Angie? Is that you?'

Nothing. She still felt someone was there, but maybe not.

'Ajngie?' She shuffled forward again, holding her throbbing right hand - her fingers were going to swell, she thought they were swelling already - against her side. She held her left hand out before her, feeling the dark air. 'Angie, please be there! My mother's dead, it's not a joke, Mrs Shumway told me and she doesn't joke, I need you!'

The day had started so well. She'd been up early (well... ten; early for her) and she'd had no intention of blowing off work. Then Samantiha Bushey had called to say she'd gotten some new Bratz on eBay and to ask if Dodee wanted to come over and help torture them. Bratz-torture was something they'd gotten into in high school

- buy them at yard sales, then hang them, pound nails into their stupid little heads, douse them with lighter fluid and set them on fire

- and Dodee knew they should have grown out of it, they were adults now, or almost. It was kid-stuff. Also a little creepy, - when you really thought about it. But the thing was, Sammy had her own place out on the Motton Road - just a trailer, but all hers since her husband had taken off in the spring - and Little Walter slept practically all day. Plus Sammy usually had bitchin weed. Dodee guessed she got it from the guys she partied with. Her trailer was a popular place on the weekends. But the thing was, Dodee had sworn off weed. Never again, not since all that trouble with the cook. Never again had lasted over a week on the day Sammy called.

'You can have jade and Yasmin,' Sammy coaxed. 'Also, I Ve got some great you-know.1 She always said that, as if someone listening in wouldn't know what she was talking about. 'Also, we can you-know.'

Dodee knew what that you-know was, too, and she felt a little tingle Down There (in her you-know), even though that was also kid stuff, and they should have left it behind long ago.

'I don't think so, Sam. I have to be at work at two, and - '

'Yasmin awaits; Sammy said. 'And you know you hate dat bitch.'

Well, that was true. Yasmin was the bitchiest of the Bratz, in Dodee's opinion. And it was almost four hours until two o'clock. Further and, if she was a little late, so what? Was Rose going to fire her? Who else would work that shit job?

'Okay. But just for a little while. And only because I hate Yasmin.'

Sammy giggled.

'But I don't you-know anymore. Either you-know.'

'Not a problem,' Sammy said. 'Come quick.'

So Dodee had driven out, and of course she discovered Bratz-torture was no fun if you weren't a little high, so she got a little high and so did Sammy. They collaborated on giving Yasmin some drain-cleaner plastic surgery, which was pretty hilarious.Then Sammy wanted to show her this sweet new camisole she'd gotten at Deb, anc although Sam was getting a little bit of a potbelly, she still lookec good to Dodee, perhaps because they were a little bit stoned - wrecked, in fact - and since Little Walter was still asleep (his father had insisted on naming the kid after some old bluesman, and all that sleeping, yow, Dodee had an idea Little Walter was retarded, which would be no surprise given the amount of rope Sam had smoked while carrying him), they ended up getting into Sammy's bed and doing a little of the old you-know. Afterward they'd fallen asleep, and when Dodee woke up Little Walter was blatting - holy shit, call NewsC enter 6 - and it was past five. Really too late to go in to work, and besides, Sam had produced a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, and they had one-shot two-shot three-shot-four, and Sammy decided she wanted to see what happened to a Baby Bratz in the microwave, only the power was out.