Under the Dome

'In the Garden of Eden there was a Tree,' Chef said, passing him the pipe. Tendrils of green smoke drifted from both ends. 'The Tree of Good and Evil. Dig that shit?'

'Yes. It's in the Bible.'

'Bet your jackdog. And on that Tree was an Apple.'

'Right, right.' Andy took a puff so small it was actually a sip. He wanted more - he wanted it all -  but feared that if he helped himself to a deep lungful, his head would explode off his neck and fly around the lab like a rocket, shooting fiery exhaust from its stump.

'The flesh of that Apple is Truth, and the skin of that Apple is Meth,' Chef said.

Andy looked at him. 'That's amazing.'

Chef nodded. 'Yes, Sanders. It is.' He took back the pipe. 'Is this good shit or what?'

'Amazing shit.'

'Christ is coming back on Halloween,' Chef said. 'Possibly a few days earlier; I can't tell. It's already the Halloween season, you know. Season of the motherfucking witch.' He handed Andy the pipe, then pointed with the hand holding the garage door opener. 'Do you see that? Up at the end of the gallery. Over the door to the storage side.'

Andy looked. 'What? That white lump? Looks like clay?'

'That's not clay,' Chef said. 'That's the Body of Christ, Sanders.'

'What about those wires coming out of it?'

'Vessels with the Blood of Christ running through em.'

Andy considered this concept and found it quite brilliant.'Good.' He considered some more. 'I love you, Phil. Chef, I mean. I'm glad I came out here.'

'Me too,' Chef said. 'Listen, do you want to go for a ride? I've got a car here somewhere - I think - but I'm a little shaky'

'Sure,' Andy said. He stood up. The world swam for a moment or two, then steadied. 'Where do you want to go?'

Chef told him.

19

Ginny Tomlinson was asleep at the reception desk with her head on the cover of a People magazine - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie frolicking in the surf on some horny little island where waiters brought you drinks with little paper parasols stuck in them. When something woke her up at quarter of two on Wednesday morning, an apparition was standing before her: a tall, scrawny man with hollow eyes and hair that stuck out in all directions. He was wearing a WCIK tee-shirt and jeans that floated low on his meager hips. At first she thought she was having a nightmare about walking corpses, but then she caught a whiff of him. No dream had ever smelled that bad.

'I'm Phil Bushey,' the apparition said. 'I've come for my wife's body. I'm gonna bury her. Show me where it is.'

Ginny didn't argue. She would have given him all the bodies, just to get rid of him. She led him past Gina BufFalino, who stood next to a gurney, watching Chef with pale apprehension. When he turned to look at her, she shrank back.

'Got your Halloween costume, kid?' Chef inquired.

'Ves...'

'Who you gonna be?'

'Glinda,' the girl said faintly 'Although I guess I won't be going to the party, after all. It's in Motton.'

'I'm coming as Jesus,' Chef said. He followed Ginny, a dirty ghost in decaying Converse Hi-Tops. Then he turned back. He was smiling. His eyes were empty. 'And am I pissed.'

Chef Bushey came out of the hospital ten minutes later bearing Sammy's sheet-wrapped body in his arms. One bare foot, the toenails painted with chipped pink polish, nodded and dipped. Ginny held the door for him. She didn't look to see who was behind the wheel of the car idling in the turnaround, and for this Andy was vaguely grateful. He waited until she'd gone back inside, then got out and opened one of the back doors for Chef who handled his burden easily for a man who now looked like no more than skin wrapped on an armature of bone. Perhaps, Andy thought, meth conveys strength, too. If so, his own was flagging. The depression was creeping back in. The weariness, too.

'All right,' Chef said. 'Drive. But pass me that, first.'

He had given Andy the garage door opener for safekeeping. Andy handed it over. 'To the funeral parlor?'

Chef looked at him as if he were mad. 'Back out to the radio station, That's where Christ will come first when He comes back.'

'On Halloween.'

'That's right,' Chef said.'Or maybe sooner. In the meantime, will you help me bury this child of God?'

'Of course,' Andy said. Then, timidly: 'Maybe we could smoke a little more first.'

Chef laughed and clapped Andy on the shoulder.'Like it, don't you? I knew you would.'

'A medicine for melancholy' Andy said.

'True-dat, brother. True-dat.'

21

Barbie lay on the bunk, waiting for dawn and whatever came next. He had trained himself during his time in Iraq not to worry about what came next, and although this was an imperfect skill at best, he had mastered it to some degree. In the end, there were only two rules for living with fear (he had come to believe conquering fear was a myth), and he repeated them to himself now as he lay waiting.

I must accept those things over which I have no control.

I must turn my adversities into advantages.

The second rule meant carefully husbanding any resources and planning with those in mind.

He had one resource tucked into the mattress: his Swiss Army knife. It was a small one, only two blades, but even the short one would be capable of cutting a man's throat. He was incredibly lucky to have it, and he knew it.

Whatever intake routines Howard Perkins might have insisted upon had fallen apart since his death and the ascension of Peter Randolph. The shocks the town had endured over the last four days would have knocked any police department off its pins, Barbie supposed, but there was more to it than that. What it came down to was Randolph was both stupid and sloppy, and in any bureaucracy the rank-and-file tended to take their cues from the man at the top.

They had fingerprinted him and photographed him, but it had been five full hours before Henry Morrison, looking tired and disgusted, came downstairs and stopped six feet from Barbie's cell. Well out of grabbing distance.