Under the Dome

Anson Wheeler joined them, pushing a shopping cart full of supplies. He looked slightly shamefaced, and his arm was bleeding. 'Someone hit me with a jar of olives,' he explained. 'Now I smell like an Italian sandwich.'

Rose handed the bullhorn to Julia, who began broadcasting the same message in the same pleasant voice: Finish up, shoppers, and leave in orderly fashion.

'We can't take that stuff,' Rose said, pointing at Anson's cart.

'But we need it, Rosie,' he said. He sounded apologetic but firm. 'We really do.'

'We'll leave some money, then,' she said. 'If no one's stolen my purse out of the truck, that is.'

'Um... I don't think that'll work,' Anson said. 'Some guys were stealing the money out of the registers.' He had seen which guys, but didn't want to say. Not with the editor of the local paper walking next to him.

Rose was horrified. 'What's happening here? In the name of God, what's happening?'

'I don't know,' Anson said.

Outside, the ambulance pulled up, the siren dying to a growl. A minute or two later, while Barbie, Rose, and Julia were still canvassing the aisles with the bullhorn (the crowd was thinning out now), someone behind them said, 'That's enough. Give me that.'

Barbie was not surprised to see acting chief Randolph, tricked out to the nines in his dress uniform. Here he was, a day late and a dollar short. Right on schedule.

Rose was working the bullhorn, extolling the virtues of free coffee at Sweetbriar. Randolph plucked it from her hand and immediately began giving orders and making threats.

'LEAVE NOW! THIS IS CHIEF PETER RANDOLPH, ORDERING YOU TO LEAVE NOW! DROP WHAT YOU ARE HOLDING AND LEAVE NOW! IF YOU DROP WHAT YOU'RE HOLDING AND LEAVE NOW, YOU MAY AVOID CHARGES!'

Rose looked at Barbie, dismayed. He shrugged. It didn't matter. The spirit of the mob had departed. The cops who were still ambulatory - even Carter Thibodeau, staggering but on his feet - started hustling people out. When the 'shoppers' wouldn't drop their loaded baskets, the cops struck several to the ground, and Frank DeLesseps overturned a loaded shopping cart. His face was grim and pale and angry.

'Are you going to make those boys stop that?' Julia asked Randolph.

'No, Ms Shumway, I am not,' Randolph said. 'Those people are looters and they're being treated as such.'

'Whose fault is that? Who closed the market?'

'Get out of my way,' Randolph said. 'I've got work to do.'

'Shame you weren't here when they broke in,' Barbie remarked.

FLandolph looked at him. The glance was unfriendly yet satisfied. Barbie sighed. Somewhere a clock was ticking. He knew it, and Randolph did, too. Soon the alarm would ring. If not for the Dome, he could run. But, of course, if not for the Dome, none of this would be happening.

Down front, Mel Searles tried to take Al Timmons's loaded shopping basket. When Al wouldn't give it up, Mel tore it away... and then pushed the older man down. Al cried out in pain and shame and outrage. Chief Randolph laughed. It was a short, choppy, unamused sound - Haw! Haw! Haw! -  and in it Barbie thought he heard what Chester's Mill might soon become, if the Dome didn't lift,

'Come on, ladies,' he said. 'Let's get out of here.'

13

Rusty and Twitch were lining up the wounded - about a dozen in all - along the cinderblock side of the market when Barbie, Julia, and Rose came out. Anson was standing by the Sweetbriar panel truck with a paper towel pressed to his bleeding arm.

Rusty s face was grim, but when he saw Barbie, he lightened up a little. 'Hey, sport. You're with me this morning. In fact, you're my new RN.'

'You wildly overestimate my triage skills,' Barbie said, but he walked toward Rusty.

Linda Everett ran past Barbie and threw herself into Rusty's arms. He gave her a brief hug. 'Can I help, honey?' she asked. It was Ginny she was looking at, and with horror. Ginny saw the look and wearily closed her eyes.

'No,' Rusty said. 'You do what you need to. I've got Gina and Harriet, and I've got Nurse Barbara.'

'I'll do what I can,' Barbie said, and almost added: Until I'm arrested, that is.

'You'll be fine,' Rusty said. In a lower voice he added, 'Gina and Harriet are the most willing helpers in the world, but once they get past giving pills and slapping on Band-Aids, they're pretty much lost.'

Linda bent to Ginny. 'I'm so sorry,' she said.

'I'll be fine,' Ginny said, but she did not open her eyes.

Linda gave her husband a kiss and a troubled look, then walked back toward where Jackie Wettington was standing with a pad in her hand, taking Ernie Calvert's statement. Ernie wiped his eyes repeatedly as he talked.

Rusty and Barbie worked side by side for over an hour, while the cops strung yellow police tape in front of the market. At some point, Andy Sanders came down to survey the damage, clucking and shaking his head. Barbie heard him ask someone what the world was coming to, when hometown folks could get up to a thing like this.

He also shook Chief Randolph's hand and told him he was doing a hell of a job.

Hell of a job.

14

When you're feeling it, lousy breaks disappear. Strife becomes your friend. Bad luck turns hit-the-Megabucks good. You do not accept these things with gratitude (an emotion reserved for wimps and losers, in Big Jim Rennie's opinion) but as your due. Feeling it is like riding in a magic swing, and one should (once more in Big Jim's opinion) glide imperiously.

If he had emerged from the big old Rennie manse on Mill Street a little later or a little earlier, he would not have seen what he did, and he might have dealt with Brenda Perkins in an entirely different way. But he came out at exactly the right time. That was how it went when you were feeling it; the defense collapsed and you rushed through the magical hole thus created, making the easy layup.

It was the chanted cries of Oh-pun UP! Oh-pun UP! that got him out of his study, where he had been making notes for what he planned to call the Disaster Administration... of which cheerful, grinning Andy Sanders would be the titular head and Big Jim would be the power behind the throne. If it ain't broke, don't fix it was Rule One in Big Jim's political operating manual, and having Andy out front always worked like a charm. Most of Chester's Mill knew he was an idiot, but it didn't matter. You could run the same game on people over and over, because ninety-eight percent of them were even bigger idiots. And although Big Jim had never planned a political campaign on such a grand scale - it amounted to a municipal dictatorship - he had no doubt it would work.