by Stephen King
Even that wouldn't be the end. She'd have to see about putting out some sort of extra edition of the Democrat. It was important to her and she thought it might be important to the town. Of course, all this might be over tomorrow, but Julia had a feeling--partly in her head, partly in her heart--that it wouldn't be.
And yet. Dodee Sanders should not have been left alone. She'd seemed to be holding herself together, but that might only have been shock and denial masquerading as calm. And the dope, of course. But she had been coherent.
"You don't need to wait. I don't want you to wait."
"I don't know if being alone right now is wise, dear."
"I'll go to Angie's," Dodee said, and seemed to brighten a little at the thought even as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks. "She'll go with me to find Daddy." She nodded. "Angie's the one I want."
In Julia's opinion, the McCain girl had only marginally more sense than this one, who had inherited her mother's looks but--unfortunately--her father's brains. Angie was a friend, though, and if ever there was a friend in need who needed a friend indeed, it was Dodee Sanders tonight.
"I could go with you...." Not wanting to. Knowing that, even in her current state of fresh bereavement, the girl could probably see that.
"No. It's only a few blocks."
"Well ..."
"Ms. Shumway ... are you sure ? Are you sure my mother--?"
Very reluctantly, Julia had nodded. She'd gotten confirmation of the airplane's tail number from Ernie Calvert. She'd gotten something else from him as well, a thing that should more properly have gone to the police. Julia might have insisted that Ernie take it to them, but for the dismaying news that Duke Perkins was dead and that incompetent weasel Randolph was in charge.
What Ernie gave her was Claudette's bloodstained driver's license. It had been in Julia's pocket as she stood on the Sanders stoop, and in her pocket it had stayed. She'd give it either to Andy or to this pale, mussy-haired girl when the right time came ... but this was not the time.
"Thank you," Dodee had said in a sadly formal tone of voice. "Now please go away. I don't mean to be crappy about it, but--" She never finished the thought, only closed the door on it.
And what had Julia Shumway done? Obeyed the command of a grief-stricken twenty-year-old girl who might be too stoned to be fully responsible for herself. But there were other responsibilities tonight, hard as that was. Horace, for one. And the newspaper. People might make fun of Pete Freeman's grainy black-and-white photos and the Democrat 's exhaustive coverage of such local fetes as Mill Middle School's Enchanted Night dance; they might claim its only practical use was as a cat-box liner--but they needed it, especially when something bad happened. Julia meant to see that they had it tomorrow, even if she had to stay up all night. Which, with both of her regular reporters out of town for the weekend, she probably would.
Julia found herself actually looking forward to this challenge, and Dodee Sanders's woeful face began to slip from her mind.
3
Horace looked at her reproachfully when she came in, but there were no damp patches on the carpet and no little brown package under the chair in the hall--a magic spot he seemed to believe invisible to human eyes. She snapped his leash on, took him out, and waited patiently while he pissed by his favorite sewer, tottering as he did it; Horace was fifteen, old for a Corgi. While he went, she stared at the white bubble of light on the southern horizon. It looked to her like an image out of a Steven Spielberg science fiction movie. It was bigger than ever, and she could hear the whupapa-whuppa-whuppa of helicopters, faint but constant. She even saw one in silhouette, speeding across that tall arc of brilliance. How many Christing spotlights had they set up out there, anyway? It was as if North Motton had become an LZ in Iraq.
Horace was now walking in lazy circles, sniffing out the perfect place to finish tonight's ritual of elimination, doing that ever-popular doggie dance, the Poop Walk. Julia took the opportunity to try her cell phone again. As had been the case all too often tonight, she got the normal series of peeping tones ... and then nothing but silence.
I'll have to Xerox the paper. Which means seven hundred and fifty copies, max.
The Democrat hadn't printed its own paper for twenty years. Until 2002, Julia had taken each week's dummy over to View Printing in Castle Rock, and now she didn't even have to do that. She e-mailed the pages on Tuesday nights, and the finished papers, neatly bound in plastic, were delivered by View Printing before seven o'clock the next morning. To Julia, who'd grown up dealing with penciled corrections and typewritten copy that was "nailed" when it was finished, this seemed like magic. And, like all magic, slightly untrustworthy.
Tonight, the mistrust was justified. She might still be able to e-mail comps to View Printing, but no one would be able to deliver the finished papers in the morning. She guessed that by the morning, nobody would be able to get within five miles of The Mill's borders. Any of its borders. Luckily for her, there was a nice big generator in the former print room, her photocopying machine was a monster, and she had over five hundred reams of paper stacked out back. If she could get Pete Freeman to help her ... or Tony Guay, who covered sports ...
Horace, meanwhile, had finally assumed the position. When he was done, she swung into action with a small green bag labeled Doggie Doo, wondering to herself what Horace Greeley would have thought of a world where picking up dogshit from the gutter was not just socially expected but a legal responsibility. She thought he might have shot himself.
Once the bag was filled and tied off, she tried her phone again.
Nothing.
She took Horace back inside and fed him.
4
Her cell rang while she was buttoning her coat to drive out to the barrier. She had her camera over her shoulder and almost dropped it, scrabbling in her pocket. She looked at the number and saw the words PRIVATE CALLER.
"Hello?" she said, and there must have been something in her voice, because Horace--waiting by the door, more than ready for a nighttime expedition now that he was cleaned out and fed--pricked up his ears and looked around at her.
"Mrs. Shumway?" A man's voice. Clipped. Official-sounding.
"Ms. Shumway. To whom am I speaking?"
"Colonel James Cox, Ms. Shumway. United States Army."
"And to what do I owe the honor of this call?" She heard the sarcasm in her voice and didn't like it--it wasn't professional--but she was afraid, and sarcasm had ever been her response to fear.
"I need to get in touch with a man named Dale Barbara. Do you know this man?"
Of course she did. And had been surprised to see him at Sweetbriar earlier tonight. He was crazy to still be in town, and hadn't Rose herself said just yesterday that he had given notice? Dale Barbara's story was one of hundreds Julia knew but hadn't written. When you published a smalltown newspaper, you left the lids on a great many cans of worms. You had to pick your fights. The way she was sure Junior Rennie and his friends picked theirs. And she doubted very much if the rumors about Barbara and Dodee's good friend Angie were true, anyway. For one thing, she thought Barbara had more taste.
"Ms. Shumway?" Crisp. Official. An on-the-outside voice. She could resent the owner of the voice just for that. "Still with me?"
"Still with you. Yes, I know Dale Barbara. He cooks at the restaurant on Main Street. Why?"
"He has no cell phone, it seems, the restaurant doesn't answer--"
"It's closed--"
"--and the landlines don't work, of course."
"Nothing in this town seems to work very well tonight, Colonel Cox. Cell phones included. But I notice you didn't have any trouble getting through to me, which makes me wonder if you fellows might not be responsible for that." Her fury--like her sarcasm, born of fear--surprised her. "What did you do ? What did you people do ?"
"Nothing. So far as I know now, nothing."
She was so surprised she could think of no follow-up. Which was very unlike the Julia Shumway longtime Mill residents
knew.
"The cell phones, yes," he said. "Calls in and out of Chester's Mill are pretty well shut down now. In the interests of national security. And with all due respect, ma'am, you would have done the same, in our position."
"I doubt that."
"Do you?" he sounded interested, not angry. "In a situation that's unprecedented in the history of the world, and suggestive of technology far beyond what we or anyone else can even understand?"
Once more she found herself stuck for a reply.
"It's quite important that I speak to Captain Barbara," he said, returning to his original scripture. In a way, Julia was surprised he'd wandered as far off-message as he had.
"Captain Barbara?"
"Retired. Can you find him? Take your cell phone. I'll give you a number to call. It'll go through."
"Why me, Colonel Cox? Why didn't you call the police station? Or one of the town selectmen? I believe all three of them are here."
"I didn't even try. I grew up in a small town, Ms. Shumway--"
"Bully for you."
"--and in my experience, town politicians know a little, the town cops know a lot, and the local newspaper editor knows everything."
That made her laugh in spite of herself.
"Why bother with a call when you two can meet face-to-face? With me as your chaperone, of course. I'm going out to my side of the barrier--was leaving when you called, in fact. I'll hunt Barbie up--"
"Still calling himself that, is he?" Cox sounded bemused.
"I'll hunt him up and bring him with me. We can have a mini press conference."
"I'm not in Maine. I'm in D.C. With the Joint Chiefs."
"Is that supposed to impress me?" Although it did, a little.
"Ms. Shumway, I'm busy, and probably you are, too. So, in the interests of resolving this thing--"
"Is that possible, do you think?"
"Quit it," he said. "You were undoubtedly a reporter before you were an editor, and I'm sure asking questions comes naturally to you, but time is a factor here. Can you do as I ask?"
"I can. But if you want him, you get me, too. We'll come out 119 and call you from there."
"No," he said.
"That's fine," she said pleasantly. "It's been very nice talking to you, Colonel C--"
"Let me finish. Your side of 119 is totally FUBAR. That means--"
"I know the expression, Colonel, I used to be a Tom Clancy reader. What exactly do you mean by it in regard to Route 119?"
"I mean it looks like, pardon the vulgarity, opening night at a free whorehouse out there. Half your town has parked their cars and pickups on both sides of the road and in some dairy farmer's field."
She put her camera on the floor, took a notepad from her coat pocket, and scrawled Col. James Cox and Like open night at free w'house. Then she added Dinsmore farm? Yes, he was probably talking about Alden Dinsmore's place.
"All right," she said, "what do you suggest?"
"Well, I can't stop you from coming, you're absolutely right about that." He sighed, the sound seeming to suggest it was an unfair world. "And I can't stop what you print in your paper, although I don't think it matters, since no one outside of Chester's Mill is going to see it."
She stopped smiling. "Would you mind explaining that?"
"I would, actually, and you'll work it out for yourself. My suggestion is that, if you want to see the barrier--although you can't actually see it, as I'm sure you've been told--you bring Captain Barbara out to where it cuts Town Road Number Three. Do you know Town Road Number Three?"
For a moment she didn't. Then she realized what he was talking about, and laughed.
"Something amusing, Ms. Shumway?"
"In The Mill, folks call that one Little Bitch Road. Because in mud season, it's one little bitch."
"Very colorful."
"No crowds out on Little Bitch, I take it?"
"No one at all right now."
"All right." She put the pad in her pocket and picked up the camera. Horace continued waiting patiently by the door.
"Good. When may I expect your call? Or rather, Barbie's call on your cell?"
She looked at her watch and saw it had just gone ten. How in God's name had it gotten that late so early? "We'll be out there by ten thirty, assuming I can find him. And I think I can."
"That's fine. Tell him Ken says hello. That's a--"
"A joke, yes, I get it. Will someone meet us?"
There was a pause. When he spoke again, she sensed reluctance. "There will be lights, and sentries, and soldiers manning a roadblock, but they have been instructed not to speak to the residents."
"Not to--why ? In God's name, why ?"
"If this situation doesn't resolve, Ms. Shumway, all these things will become clear to you. Most you really will figure out on your own--you sound like a very bright lady."
"Well fuck you very much, Colonel!" she cried, stung. At the door, Horace pricked up his ears.
Cox laughed, a big unoffended laugh. "Yes, ma'am, receiving you five-by-five. Ten thirty?"
She was tempted to tell him no, but of course there was no way she could do that.
"Ten thirty. Assuming I can hunt him up. And I call you?"
"Either you or him, but it's him I need to speak with. I'll be waiting with one hand on the phone."
"Then give me the magic number." She crooked the phone against her ear and fumbled the pad out again. Of course you always wanted your pad again after you'd put it away; that was a fact of life when you were a reporter, which she now was. Again. The number he gave her to call somehow scared her more than anything else he'd said. The area code was 000.
"One more thing, Ms. Shumway: do you have a pacemaker implant? Hearing-aid implants? Anything of that nature?"
"No. Why?"
She thought he might again decline to answer, but he didn't. "Once you're close to the Dome, there's some kind of interference. It's not harmful to most people, they feel it as nothing more than a low-level electric shock which goes away a second or two after it comes, but it plays hell with electronic devices. Shuts some down--most cell phones, for instance, if they come closer than five feet or so--and explodes others. If you bring a tape recorder out, it'll shut down. Bring an iPod or something sophisticated like a BlackBerry, it's apt to explode."
"Did Chief Perkins's pacemaker explode? Is that what killed him?"
"Ten thirty. Bring Barbie, and be sure to tell him Ken says hello."
He broke the connection, leaving Julia standing in silence beside her dog. She tried calling her sister in Lewiston. The numbers peeped ... then nothing. Blank silence, as before.
The Dome, she thought. He didn't call it the barrier there at the end; he called it the Dome.
5
Barbie had taken off his shirt and was sitting on his bed to untie his sneakers when the knock came at the door, which one reached by climbing an outside flight of stairs on the side of Sanders Hometown Drug. The knock wasn't welcome. He had walked most of the day, then put on an apron and cooked for most of the evening. He was beat.
And suppose it was Junior and a few of his friends, ready to throw him a welcome-back party? You could say it was unlikely, even paranoid, but the day had been a festival of unlikely. Besides, Junior and Frank DeLesseps and the rest of their little band were among the few people he hadn't seen at Sweetbriar tonight. He supposed they might be out on 119 or 117, rubbernecking, but maybe somebody had told them he was back in town and they'd been making plans for later tonight. Later like now.
The knock came again. Barbie stood up and put a hand on the portable TV. Not much of a weapon, but it would do some damage if thrown at the first one who tried to cram through the door. There was a wooden closet rod, but all three rooms were small and it was too long to swing effectively. There was also his Swiss Army Knife, but he wasn't going to do any cutting. Not unless he had t--
"Mr. Barbara?" It was a woman's voice. "Barbie? Are you in there?"
He took his hand off the TV and cr
ossed the kitchenette. "Who is it?" But even as he asked, he recognized the voice.
"Julia Shumway. I have a message from someone who wants to speak to you. He told me to tell you that Ken says hello."
Barbie opened the door and let her in.
6
In the pine-paneled basement conference room of the Chester's Mill Town Hall, the roar of the generator out back (an elderly Kelvinator) was no more than a dim drone. The table in the center of the room was handsome red maple, polished to a high gleam, twelve feet long. Most of the chairs surrounding it were empty that night. The four attendees of what Big Jim was calling the Emergency Assessment Meeting were clustered at one end. Big Jim himself, although only the Second Selectman, sat at the head of the table. Behind him was a map showing the athletic-sock shape of the town.
Those present were the selectmen and Peter Randolph, the acting Chief of Police. The only one who seemed entirely with it was Rennie. Randolph looked shocked and scared. Andy Sanders was, of course, dazed with grief. And Andrea Grinnell--an overweight, graying version of her younger sister, Rose--just seemed dazed. This was not new.
Four or five years previous, Andrea had slipped in her icy driveway while going to the mailbox one January morning. She had fallen hard enough to crack two discs in her back (being eighty or ninety pounds overweight probably hadn't helped). Dr. Haskell had prescribed that new wonder-drug, OxyContin, to ease what had been no doubt excruciating pain. And had been giving it to her ever since. Thanks to his good friend Andy, who ran the local drugstore, Big Jim knew that Andrea had begun at forty milligrams a day and had worked her way up to a giddy four hundred. This was useful information.
Big Jim said, "Due to Andy's great loss, I'm going to chair this meeting, if no one objects. We're all very sorry, Andy."
"You bet, sir," Randolph said.
"Thank you," Andy said, and when Andrea briefly covered his hand with her own, he began to ooze at the eyes again.
"Now, we all have an idea of what's happened here," Big Jim said, "although no one in town understands it yet--"
