Under the Dome

Georgia beckoned Thurse, and when he bent over her, she whispered something. Because of the low voice and her broken, mostly toothless mouth, he only got a word or two. He leaned closer.

'Doh wake im.' To Thurse, she sounded like Homer Simpson. 'He'th the oney one who cay to visih me.'

Thurse nodded. Visiting hours were long over, of course, and given his blue shirt and his sidearm, the young man would probably be gigged for not responding to the fire whistle, but still - what harm? One firefighter more or less probably wouldn't make any difference, and if the guy was too far under for the sound of the whistle to wake him, he probably wouldn't be much help, anyway. Thurse put a finger to his lips and blew the young woman a shhh to show they were conspirators. She tried to smile, then winced.

Thurston didn't offer her pain medication in spite of that; according to the chart at the end of the bed, she was maxed until two a.m. Instead he just went out, closed the door softly behind him, and walked back down the sleeping hallway. He didn't notice that the door to the BABY ON BOARD room was once more ajar.

The couch in the lounge called to him seductively as he went by, but Thurston had decided to go back to Highland Avenue after all.

And check the kids.

4

Sammy sat by the bed with Little Walter in her lap until the new doctor went by. Then she kissed her son on both cheeks and the mouth. 'You be a good baby,' she said. 'Mama is going to see you in heaven, if they let her in. I think they will. She's done her time in hell.'

She laid him in his crib, then opened the drawer of the bedtable.

She had put the gun inside so Little Walter wouldn't feel it poking into him while she held him and fed him for the last time. Now she took it out.

5

Lower Main Street was blocked off by nose-to-nose police cars with their jackpot lights flashing. A crowd, silent and unexcited - almost sullen - stood behind them, watching.

Horace the Corgi was ordinarily a quiet dog, limiting his vocal repertoire to a volley of welcome-home barks or the occasional yap to remind Julia he was still present and accounted for. But when she pulled over to the curb by Maison des Fleurs, he let out a low howl from the backseat. Julia reached back blindly to stroke his head.Taking comfort as much as giving it.

'Julia, my God,' Rose said.

They got out. Julia's original intention was to leave Horace behind, but when he uttered another of those small, bereft howls - as if he knew, as if he really knew - she fished under the passenger seat for his leash, opened the rear door for him to jump out, and then clipped the leash to his collar. She grabbed her personal camera, a pocket-sized Casio, from the seat pocket before closing the door. They pushed through the crowd of bystanders on the sidewalk, Horace leading the way, straining at his leash.

Piper Libby's cousin Rupe, a part-time cop who'd come to The Mill five years ago, tried to stop them. 'No one beyond this point, ladies.'

"That's my place,' Julia said. 'Up top is everything I own in the world - clothes, books, personal possessions, the lot. Underneath is the newspaper my great-grandfather started. It's only missed four press dates in over a hundred and twenty years. Now it's going; up in smoke. If you want to stop me from watching it happen - at close range - you'll have to shoot me.'

Rupe looked unsure, but when she started forward again (Horace now at her knee and looking up at the balding man mistrustfully), Rupe stood aside. But only momentarily.

'Not you,' he told Rose.

'Yes, me. Unless you want ex-lax in the next chocolate frappe you order.'

'Ma'am... Rose... I have my orders.'

'Devil take your orders,' Julia said, with more weariness than defiance. She took Rose by the arm and led her down the sidewalk, stopping only when she felt the shimmer against her face rise from preheat to bake.

The Democrat was an inferno. The dozen or so cops weren't even trying to put it out, but they had plenty of Indian pumps (some still bearing stickers she could read easily in the firelight: ANOTHER BURPEE'S SALE DAYS SPECIAL!) and they were wetting down the drugstore and the bookstore. Given the windless conditions, Julia thought they might save both... and thus the rest of the business buildings on the east side of Main.

'Wonderful that they turned out so quick,' Rose said.

Julia said nothing, only watched the flames whooshing up into the dark, blotting out the pink stars. She was too shocked to cry.

Everything, she thought. Everything.

Then she remembered the one bundle of newspapers she had tossed in her trunk before leaving to meet with Cox and amended that to Almost everything.

Pete Freeman pushed through the ring of police who were currently dousing the front and north side of Sanders Hometown Drug. The only clean spots on his face were where tears had cut through the soot.

'Julia, I'm so sorry!' He was nearly wailing. 'We almost had it stopped... would have had it stopped... but then the last one... the last bottle the bastards threw landed on the papers by the door and...' He wiped his remaining shirtsleeve across his face, smearing the soot there. 'I'm so goddam sorry!'

She took him in her arms as if he were a baby, although Pete was six inches taller and outweighed her by a hundred pounds. She hugged him, trying to mind his hurt arm, and said: 'What happened?'

'Firebombs,' he sobbed. 'That f**king Barbara.'

'He's in jail, Pete.'

'His friends! His goddam friendsl They did it!'

'What?You saw them?'

'Heard em,' he said, pulling back to look at her. 'Would've been hard not to. They had a bullhorn. Said if Dale Barbara wasn't freed, they'd burn the whole town.' He grinned bitterly.'Free him? We ought to hang him. Give me a rope and I'll do it myself.'

Big Jim came strolling up. The fire painted his cheeks orange. His eyes glittered. His smile was so wide that it stretched almost to his earlobes.