Under the Dome

Alice and Aidan had been terribly upset - dear God, of course they had been - but being with Jannie and Judy had helped. So had doses of Benadryl all around. At the request of her girls, Linda had spread sleeping bags in their room, and now all four of them were conked out on the floor between the beds, Judy and Aidan with their arms wrapped around each other.

Just as she was getting herself under control again, there was a knock at the kitchen door. Her first thought was the police, although given the bloodshed and confusion downtown, she hadn't expected them so soon. But there was nothing authoritative about that soft rapping.

She went to the door, pausing to snatch a dish towel from the end of the counter and wipe her face. At first she didn't recognize her visitor, mostly because his hair was different. It was no longer in a ponytail; it fell to Thurston Marshall's shoulders, framing his face, making him look like an elderly washerwoman who has gotten bad news - terrible news - after a long, hard day.

Linda opened the door. For a moment Thurse remained on the stoop. 'Is Caro dead?' His voice was low and hoarse. As if he screamed it out at Woodstock doing the Fish Cheer and it just never came back, Linda thought. 'Is she really dead?'

'I'm afraid she is,' Linda said, speaking low herself. Because of the children. 'Mr Marshall, I'm so sorry.'

For a moment he continued to just stand there. Then he grabbed the gray locks hanging on either side of his face and began to rock back and forth. Linda didn't believe in May-December romances; she was old-fashioned that way. She would have given Marshall and Caro Sturges two years at most, maybe only six months - however long it took their sex organs to stop smoking - but tonight there was no doubting the man's love. Or his loss.

Whatever they had, those kids deepened it, she thought. And the Dome, too. Living under the Dome intensified everything. Already it seemed to Linda that they had been under it not for days but years. The outside world was fading like a dream when you woke up.

'Come in,' she said. 'But be quiet, Mr Marshall. The children are sleeping. Mine and yours.'

She gave him sun-tea - not cold, not even particularly cool, but the best she could do tinder the circumstances. He drank half of it off, set the glass down, then screwed his fists into his eyes like a child up long past his bedtime. Linda recognized this for what it was, an effort to get himself under control, and sat quietly, waiting.

He pulled in a deep breath, let it out, then reached into the breast pocket of the old blue workshirt he was wearing. He took out a piece of rawhide and tied his hair back. She took this as a good sign.

'Tell me what happened,' Thurse said. 'And how it happened.'

'I didn't see it all. Someone kicked me a good one in the back of my head while I was trying to pull your... Caro... out of the way'

'But one of the cops shot her, isn't that right? One of the cops in this goddam cop-happy, gun-happy town.'

'Yes.' She reached across the table and took his hand. 'Someone shouted gun. And there was a gun. It was Andrea Grinnell's. She might have brought it to the meeting with the idea of assassinating Rennie.'

'Do you think that justifies what happened to Caro?'

'God, no. And what: happened to Andi was flat-out murder.'

'Caro died trying to protect the children, didn't she?'

'Yes.'

'Children that weren't even her own.'

Linda said nothing.

'Except they were. Hers and mine. Call it fortunes of war or fortunes of Dome, they were ours, the kids we never would have had otherwise. And until the Dome breaks - if it ever does - they're mine.'

Linda was thinking furiously. Could this man be trusted? She thought so. Certainly Rusty had trusted him; had said the guy was a hell of a good medic for someone who'd been out of the game so long. And Thurston hated those in authority here under the Dome. He had reasons to.

'Mrs Everett - '

'Please, Linda.'

'Linda, may I sleep on your couch? I'd like to be here if they wake up in the night. If they don't - I hope they don't - I'd like them to see me when they come downstairs in the morning.'

'That's fine. We'll all have breakfast together. It'll be cereal. The milk hasn't turned yet, although it will soon.'

'That sounds good. After the kids eat, we'll be out of your hair. Pardon me for saying this if you're a homegirl, but I've had a bellyful of Chester's Mill. I can't secede from it entirely, but I intend to do the best I can. The only patient at the hospital in serious condition was Rennie's son, and he checked himself out this afternoon. He'll be back, that mess growing in his head will make him come back, but for now - '

'He's dead.'

Thurston didn't look particularly surprised. 'A seizure, I suppose.'

'No. Shot. In the jail'

'I'd like to say I'm sorry, but I'm not.'

'Neither am I,' Linda said. She didn't know for sure what Junior had been doing there, but she had a good idea of how the grieving father would spin it.

'I'll take the kids back to the pond where Caro and I were staying when this happened. It's quiet there, and I'm sure I'll be able to find enough comestibles to last for a while. Maybe quite a while. I may even find a place with a generator. But as far as community life goes' - he gave the words a satiric spin - 'I'm quits. Alice and Aidan, too.'

'I might have a better place to go.'

'Really?' And when Linda said nothing, he stretched a hand across the table and touched hers. 'You have to trust someone. It might as well be me.'

So Linda told him everything, including how they'd have to stop for lead roll behind Burpee's before leaving town for Black Ridge. They talked until almost midnight.

10

The north end of the McCoy farmhouse was useless - thanks to the previous winter's heavy snow, the roof was now in the parlor - but there was a country-style dining room almost as long as a railroad car on the west side, and it was there that the fugitives from Chester's Mill gathered. Barbie first questioned Joe, Norrie, and Benny about what they had seen, or dreamed about, when they passed out on the edge of what they were now calling the glow-belt.