Stephen King - Under the Dome

When Julia Shumway came into Sweetbriar Rose that morning, most of the breakfast crowd had departed either for church or impromptu forums on the common. It was nine o’clock. Barbie was on his own; neither Dodee Sanders nor Angie McCain had shown up, which surprised no one. Rose had gone to Food City. Anson went with her. Hopefully they’d come back loaded with groceries, but Barbie wouldn’t let himself believe it until he actually saw the goodies.

“We’re closed until lunch,” he said, “but there’s coffee.”

“And a cinnamon roll?” Julia asked hopefully.

Barbie shook his head. “Rose didn’t make them. Trying to conserve the gennie as much as possible.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “Just coffee, then.”

He had carried the pot with him, and poured. “You look tired.”

“Barbie, everyone looks tired this morning. And scared to death.”

“How’s that paper coming?”

“I was hoping to have it out by ten, but it’s looking more like three this afternoon. The first Democrat extra since the Prestile flooded in oh-three.”

“Production problems?”

“Not as long as my generator stays online. I just want to go down to the grocery store and see if a mob shows up. Get that part of the story, if one does. Pete Freeman’s already there to take pictures.”

Barbie didn’t like that word mob. “Christ, I hope they behave.”

“They will; this is The Mill, after all, not New York City.”

Barbie wasn’t sure there was that much difference between city mice and country mice when they were under stress, but he kept his mouth shut. She knew the locals better than he did.

And Julia, as if reading his mind: “Of course I could be wrong. That’s why I sent Pete.” She looked around. There were still a few people at the counter up front, finishing eggs and coffee, and of course the big table at the back—the “bullshit table” in Yankee parlance—was full of old men chewing over what had happened and discussing what might happen next. The center of the restaurant, however, she and Barbie had to themselves.

“Couple of things to tell you,” she said in a lower voice. “Stop hovering like Willie the Waiter and sit down.”

Barbie did so, and poured his own cup of coffee. It was the bottom of the pot and tasted like diesel… but of course the bottom of the pot was where the caffeine motherlode was.

Julia reached into the pocket of her dress, brought out her cell, and slid it across to him. “Your man Cox called again at seven this morning. Guess he didn’t get much sleep last night, either. Asked me to give you this. Doesn’t know you have one of your own.”

Barbie let the phone stay where it was. “If he expects a report already, he’s seriously overestimated my abilities.”

“He didn’t say that. He said that if he needed to talk to you, he wanted to be able to reach out.”

That decided Barbie. He pushed the cell phone back to her. She took it, not looking surprised. “He also said that if you didn’t hear from him by five this afternoon, you should call him. He’ll have an update. Want the number with the funny area code?”

He sighed. “Sure.”

She wrote it on a napkin: small neat numbers. “I think they’re going to try something.”

“What?”

“He didn’t say; it was just a sense I got that a number of options are on the table.”

“I’ll bet there are. What else is on your mind?”

“Who says there’s anything?”

“It’s just a sense I get,” he said, grinning.

“Okay, the Geiger counter.”

“I was thinking I’d speak to Al Timmons about that.” Al was the Town Hall janitor, and a regular at Sweetbriar Rose. Barbie got on well with him.

Julia shook her head.

“No? Why no?”

“Want to guess who gave Al a personal no-interest loan to send Al’s youngest son to Heritage Christian in Alabama?”

“Would that be Jim Rennie?”

“Right. Now let’s go on to Double Jeopardy, where the scores can really change. Guess who holds the paper on Al’s Fisher plow.”

“I’m thinking that would also be Jim Rennie.”

“Correct. And since you’re the dogshit Selectman Rennie can’t quite scrape off his shoe, reaching out to people who owe him might not be a good idea.” She leaned forward. “But it so happens that I know who had a complete set of the keys to the kingdom: Town Hall, hospital, Health Center, schools, you name it.”

“Who?”

“Our late police chief. And I happen to know his wife—widow—very well. She has no love for James Rennie. Plus, she can keep a secret if someone convinces her it needs keeping.”

“Julia, her husband isn’t even cold yet.”

Julia thought of the grim little Bowie funeral parlor and made a grimace of sorrow and distaste. “Maybe not, but he’s probably down to room temperature. I take your point, though, and applaud your compassion. But…” She grasped his hand. This surprised Barbie but didn’t displease him. “These aren’t ordinary circumstances. And no matter how brokenhearted she is, Brenda Perkins will know that. You have a job to do. I can convince her of that. You’re the inside man.”

“The inside man,” Barbie said, and was suddenly visited by a pair of unwelcome memories: a gymnasium in Fallujah and a weeping Iraqi man, naked save for his unraveling keffiyeh. After that day and that gym, he had stopped wanting to be an inside man. And yet here he was.

“So shall I—”

It was a warm morning for October, and although the door was now locked (people could leave but not reenter), the windows were open. Through those facing Main Street, there now came a hollow metallic bang and a yelp of pain. It was followed by cries of protest.

Barbie and Julia looked at each other across their coffee cups with identical expressions of surprise and apprehension.

It begins right now, Barbie thought. He knew that wasn’t true—it had begun yesterday, when the Dome came down—but at the same time he felt sure it was true.

The people at the counter were running to the door. Barbie got up to join them, and Julia followed.

Down the street, at the north end of the town common, the bell in the steeple of the First Congregational Church began to ring, summoning the faithful to worship.

Junior Rennie felt great. He had not so much as a shadow of a headache this morning, and breakfast was sitting easy in his stomach. He thought he might even be able to eat lunch. That was good. He hadn’t had much use for food lately; half the time just looking at it made him feel throw-uppy. Not this morning, though. Flapjacks and bacon, baby.

If this is the apocalypse, he thought, it should have come sooner.

Each Special Deputy had been partnered with a regular full-time officer. Junior drew Freddy Denton, and that was also good. Denton, balding but still trim at fifty, was known as a serious hardass… but there were exceptions. He had been president of the Wildcat Boosters Club during Junior’s high school football years, and it was rumored he had never given a varsity football player a ticket. Junior couldn’t speak for all of them, but he knew that Frankie DeLesseps had been let off by Freddy once, and Junior himself had been given the old “I’m not going to write you up this time but slow down” routine twice. Junior could have been partnered with Wettington, who probably thought a first down was finally letting some guy into her pants. She had a great rack, but can you say loser ? Nor had he cared for the cold-eyed look she gave him after the swearing-in, as he and Freddy passed her on their way to the street.