Under the Dome

'No.'

'Fearless leader, someone is stealing our propane.'

Rusty didn't want to believe this, but saw no way around it.

Twitch squatted down. 'Look here.'

Rusty dropped to one knee.The quarter-acre behind the hospital had been asphalted the previous summer, and without any cold weather to crack or buckle it - not yet, anyway - the area was a smooth black sheet. It made it easy to see the tire tracks in front of the shed's sliding doors.

'That looks like it could have been a town truck,' Twitch remarked.

'Or any other big truck.'

'Nevertheless, you might want to check the storage shed behind the town hall. Twitch no trust-um Big Chief Rennie. Him bad medicine.'

'Why would he take our propane? The Selectmen have plenty of their own.'

They walked to the door leading into the hospital's laundry - also shut down, at least for the time being. There was a bench beside the door. A sign posted on the bricks read SMOKING HERE WILL BE BANNED AS OF JANUARY 1st. QUIT NOW AND AVOID THE RUSH!

Twitch took out his Marlboros and offered them to Rusty. Rusty waved them away, then reconsidered and took one. Twitch lit them up. 'How do you know?' he asked.

'How do I know what?'

'That they've got plenty of their own. Have you checked?'

'No,' Rusty said. 'But if they were going to poach, why from us? Not only is stealing from the local hospital usually considered bad form by the better class of people, the post office is practically right next door. They must have some.'

'Maybe Rennie and his friends already snatched the post office's gas. How much would they have, anyway? One tank? Two? Peanuts.'

'I don't understand why they'd need any. It makes no sense.'

'Nothing about any of this makes sense,'Twitch said, and yawned so hugely that Rusty could hear his jaws creak.

'You finished rounds, I take it?' Rusty had a moment to consider the surreal quality of that question. Since Haskell's death, Rusty had become the hospital's head doc, and Twitch - a nurse just three days ago - was now what Rusty had been: a physician's assistant.

'Yep.' Twitch sighed. 'Mr Carty isn't going to live out the day.'

Rusty had thought the same thing about Ed Carty, who was suffering from end-stage stomach cancer, a week ago, and the man was still hanging in. 'Comatose?'

'Roger that, sensei.'

Twitch was able to count their other patients off on the digits of one' hand - which, Rusty knew, was extraordinarily lucky. He thought he might even have felt lucky, if he hadn't been so tired and worried.

'George Werner I'd call stable.'

Werner, an Eastchester resident, sixty years old and obese, had suffered a myocardial infarction on Dome Day. Rusty thought he would pull through... this time.

'As for Emily Whitehouse...' Twitch shrugged. 'It ain't good, sensei.'

Emmy Whitehouse, forty years old and not even an ounce overweight, had suffered her own MI an hour or so after Rory Dins-mores accident. It had been much worse than George Werner's because she'd been an exercise freak and had suffered what Doc Haskell had called 'a health-club blowout.'

'The Freeman girl is getting better, Jimmy Sirois is holding up, and Nora Coveland is totally cool. Out after lunch. On the whole, not so bad.'

'No,' Rusty said, 'but it'll get: worse. I guarantee you. And... if you suffered a catastrophic head injury, would you want me to operate on you?'

'Not really,' Twitch said. 'I keep hoping Gregory House will show up.'

Rusty butted his cigarette in the can and looked at the nearly empty supply shed. Maybe he should have a peek into the storage facility behind the Town Hall - what could it hurt?

This time he was the one who yawned.

'How long can you keep this up?' Twitch asked. All the banter had gone out of his voice.'I only ask because right now you're what this town's got.'

'As long as I have to. What worries me is getting so tired I screw something up. And of facing stuff that's way beyond my skill set.' He thought of Rory Dinsmore... and Jimmy Sirois. Thinking of Jimmy was worse, because Rory was now beyond the possibility of medical mistakes. Jimmy, on the other hand...

Rusty saw himself back in the operating room, listening to the soft bleep of the equipment. Saw himself looking down at Jimmy's pale bare leg, with a black line drawn on it where the cut would have to be made. Thought of Dougie Twitchell trying out his anesthesiologist skills. Felt Ginny Tomlinson slapping a scalpel into his gloved hand and then looking at him over the top of her mask with her cool blue eyes.

God spare me from that, he thought.

Twitch put a hand on Rusty's arm. 'Take it easy,' he said. 'One day at a time.'

'Fuck that, one hour at a time,' Rusty said, and got up. 'I have to go over to the Health Center, see what's shaking there. Thank Christ this didn't happen in the summer; we would've had three thousand tourists and seven hundred summer-camp kids on our hands.'

'Want me to come?'

Rusty shook his head. 'Check on Ed Carty again, why don't you? See if he's still in the land of the living.'

Rusty took one more look at the supply shed, then plodded around the corner of the building and on a diagonal toward the Health Center on the far side of Catherine Russell Drive.

10

Ginny was at the hospital, of course; she would give Mrs Coveland's new bundle of joy a final weigh-in before sending them home. The receptionist on duty at the Health Center was seventeen-year-old Gina BufFalino, who had exactly six weeks' worth of medical experience. As a candy striper. She gave Rusty a deer-in-the-headlights look when he came in that made his heart sink, but the waiting room was empty, and that was a good thing. A very good thing.

'Any call-ins?' Rusty asked.

'One. Mrs Venziano, out on the Black Ridge Road. Her baby got his head caught between the bars of his playpen. She wanted an ambulance. I... I told her to grease the kid's head up with olive oil and see if she could get him out that way. It worked.'