by Stephen King
"What's that?" Junior's hand closed around the butt of the pistol.
"Will you play your part? You and your friends? Frankie? Carter and the Searles boy?"
Junior was silent, waiting. What was this shit?
"Peter Randolph's acting chief now. He's going to need some men to fill out the police roster. Good men. Are you willing to serve as a deputy until this damn clustermug is over?"
Junior felt a wild urge to scream with laughter. Or triumph. Or both. Big Jim's hand was still on the nape of his neck. Not squeezing. Not pinching. Almost ... caressing.
Junior took his hand off the gun in his pocket. It occurred to him that he was still on a roll--the roll of all rolls.
Today he had killed two girls he'd known since childhood.
Tomorrow he was going to be a town cop.
"Sure, Dad," he said. "If you need us, we are there. " And for the first time in maybe four years (it could have been longer), he kissed his father's cheek.
PRAYERS
1
Barbie and Julia Shumway didn't talk much; there wasn't much to say. Theirs was, as far as Barbie could see, the only car on the road, but lights streamed from most of the farmhouse windows once they cleared town. Out here, where there were always chores to be done and no one fully trusted Western Maine Power, almost everyone had a gennie. When they passed the WCIK radio tower, the two red lights at the top were flashing as they always did. The electric cross in front of the little studio building was also lit, a gleaming white beacon in the dark. Above it, the stars spilled across the sky in their usual extravagant profusion, a never-ending cataract of energy that needed no generator to power it.
"Used to come fishing out this way," Barbie said. "It's peaceful."
"Any luck?"
"Plenty, but sometimes the air smells like the dirty underwear of the gods. Fertilizer, or something. I never dared to eat what I caught."
"Not fertilizer--bullshit. Also known as the smell of self-righteousness."
"I beg your pardon?"
She pointed at a dark steeple-shape blocking out the stars. "Christ the Holy Redeemer Church," she said. "They own WCIK just back the road. Sometimes known as Jesus Radio?"
He shrugged. "I guess maybe I have seen the steeple. And I know the station. Can't very well miss it if you live around here and own a radio. Fundamentalist?"
"They make the hardshell Baptists look soft. I go to the Congo, myself. Can't stand Lester Coggins, hate all the ha-ha-you're-going-to-hell-and-we're-not stuff. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Although I have often wondered how they afford a fifty thousand-watt radio station."
"Love offerings?"
She snorted. "Maybe I ought to ask Jim Rennie. He's a deacon."
Julia drove a trim Prius Hybrid, a car Barbie would not have expected of a staunch Republican newspaper owner (although he supposed it did fit a worshipper at the First Congregational). But it was quiet, and the radio worked. The only problem was that out here on the western side of town, CIK's signal was so powerful it wiped out everything on the FM band. And tonight it was broadcasting some holy accordion shit that hurt Barbie's head. It sounded like polka music played by an orchestra dying of bubonic plague.
"Try the AM band, why don't you?" she said.
He did, and got only nighttime gabble until he hit a sports station near the bottom of the dial. Here he heard that before the Red Sox-Mariners playoff game at Fenway Park, there had been a moment of silence for the victims of what the announcer called "the western Maine event."
"Event," Julia said. "A sports-radio term if ever I heard one. Might as well turn it off."
A mile or so past the church, they began to see a glow through the trees. They came around a curve and into the glare of lights almost the size of Hollywood premiere kliegs. Two pointed in their direction; two more were tilted straight up. Every pothole in the road stood out in stark relief. The trunks of the birches looked like narrow ghosts. Barbie felt as if they were driving into a noir movie from the late nineteen forties.
"Stop, stop, stop," he said. "This is as close as you want to go. Looks like there's nothing there, but take my word for it, there is. It would likely blow the electronics in your little car, if nothing else."
She stopped and they got out. For a moment they just stood in front of the car, squinting into the bright light. Julia raised one hand to shield her eyes.
Parked beyond the lights, nose to nose, were two brown canvas-back military trucks. Sawhorses had been placed on the road for good measure, their feet braced with sandbags. Motors roared steadily in the darkness--not one generator but several. Barbie saw thick electrical cables snaking away from the spotlights and into the woods, where other lights glared through the trees.
"They're going to light the perimeter," he said, and twirled one finger in the air, like an ump signaling a home run. "Lights around the whole town, shining in and shining up."
"Why up?"
"The up ones to warn away air traffic. If any gets through, that is. I'd guess it's mostly tonight they're worried about. By tomorrow they'll have the airspace over The Mill sewn up like one of Uncle Scrooge's moneybags."
On the dark side of the spotlights, but visible in their back-splash, were half a dozen armed soldiers, standing at parade rest with their backs turned. They must have heard the approach of the car, quiet as it was, but not one of them so much as looked around.
Julia called, "Hello, fellas!"
No one turned. Barbie didn't expect it--on their way out, Julia had told Barbie what Cox had told her--but he had to try. And because he could read their insignia, he knew what to try. The Army might be running this show--Cox's involvement suggested that--but these fellows weren't Army.
"Yo, Marines!" he called.
Nothing. Barbie stepped closer. He saw a dark horizontal line hanging on the air above the road, but ignored it for the time being. He was more interested in the men guarding the barrier. Or the Dome. Shumway had said Cox called it the Dome.
"I'm surprised to see you Force Recon boys stateside," he said, walking a little closer. "That little Afghanistan problem over, is it?"
Nothing. He walked closer. The grit of the hardpan under his shoes seemed very loud.
"A remarkably high number of pussies in Force Recon, or so I've heard. I'm relieved, actually. If this situation was really bad, they would have sent in the Rangers."
"Pogeybait," one of them muttered.
It wasn't much, but Barbie was encouraged. "Stand easy, fellas; stand easy and let's talk this over."
More nothing. And he was as close to the barrier (or the Dome) as he wanted to go. His skin didn't rash out in goosebumps and the hair on his neck didn't try to stand up, but he knew the thing was there. He sensed it.
And could see it: that stripe hanging on the air. He didn't know what color it would be in daylight, but he was guessing red, the color of danger. It was spray paint, and he would have bet the entire contents of his bank account (currently just over five thousand dollars) that it went all the way around the barrier.
Like a stripe on a shirtsleeve, he thought.
He balled a fist and rapped on his side of the stripe, once more producing that knuckles-on-glass sound. One of the Marines jumped.
Julia began: "I'm not sure that's a good--"
Barbie ignored her. He was starting to be angry. Part of him had been waiting to be angry all day, and here was his chance. He knew it would do no good to go off on these guys--they were only spear-carriers--but it was hard to bite back. "Yo, Marines! Help a brother out."
"Quit it, pal." Although the speaker didn't turn around, Barbie knew it was the CO of this happy little band. He recognized the tone, had used it himself. Many times. "We've got our orders, so you help a brother out. Another time, another place, I'd be happy to buy you a beer or kick your ass. But not here, not tonight. So what do you say?"
"I say okay," Barbie said. "But seeing as how we're all on the same side, I don't have to like it." He tur
ned to Julia. "Got your phone?"
She held it up. "You should get one. They're the coming thing."
"I have one," Barbie said. "A disposable Best Buy special. Hardly ever use it. Left it in a drawer when I tried to blow town. Saw no reason not to leave it there tonight."
She handed him hers. "You'll have to punch the number, I'm afraid. I've got work to do." She raised her voice so the soldiers standing beyond the glaring lights could hear her. "I'm the editor of the local newspaper, after all, and I want to get some pix." She raised her voice a little more. "Especially a few of soldiers standing with their backs turned on a town that's in trouble."
"Ma'am, I kind of wish you wouldn't do that," the CO said. He was a blocky fellow with a broad back.
"Stop me," she invited.
"I think you know we can't do that," he said. "As far as our backs being turned, those are our orders."
"Marine," she said, "you take your orders, roll em tight, bend over, and stick em where the air quality is questionable." In the brilliant light, Barbie saw a remarkable thing: her mouth set in a harsh, unforgiving line and her eyes streaming tears.
While Barbie dialed the number with the weird area code, she got her camera and began snapping. The flash wasn't very bright compared to the big generator-driven spotlights, but Barbie saw the soldiers flinch every time it went off. Probably hoping their fucking insignia doesn't show, he thought.
2
United States Army Colonel James O. Cox had said he'd be sitting with a hand on the phone at ten thirty. Barbie and Julia Shumway had run a little late and Barbie didn't place the call until twenty of eleven, but Cox's hand must have stayed right there, because the phone only managed half a ring before Barbie's old boss said, "Hello, this is Ken."
Barbie was still mad, but laughed just the same. "Yes sir. And I continue to be the bitch who gets all the good shit."
Cox also laughed, no doubt thinking they were off to a good start. "How are you, Captain Barbara?"
"Sir, I'm fine, sir. But with respect, it's just Dale Barbara now. The only things I captain these days are the grills and Fry-O-Lators in the local restaurant, and I'm in no mood for small talk. I am perplexed, sir, and since I'm looking at the backs of a bunch of pogeybait Marines who won't turn around and look me in the eye, I'm also pretty goddam pissed off."
"Understood. And you need to understand something from my end. If there was anything at all those men could do to aid or end this situation, you would be looking at their faces instead of their asses. Do you believe that?"
"I'm hearing you, sir." Which wasn't exactly an answer.
Julia was still snapping. Barbie shifted to the edge of the road. From his new position he could see a bivouac tent beyond the trucks. Also what might have been a small mess tent, plus a parking area filled with more trucks. The Marines were building a camp here, and probably bigger ones where Routes 119 and 117 left town. That suggested permanence. His heart sank.
"Is the newspaper woman there?" Cox asked.
"She's here. Taking pictures. And sir, full disclosure, whatever you tell me, I tell her. I'm on this side now."
Julia stopped what she was doing long enough to flash Barbie a smile.
"Understood, Captain."
"Sir, calling me that earns you no points."
"All right, just Barbie. Is that better?"
"Yes, sir."
"As to how much the lady decides to publish ... for the sake of the people in that little town of yours, I hope she's got sense enough to pick and choose."
"My guess is she does."
"And if she e-mails pictures to anyone on the outside--one of the newsmagazines or the New York Times, for instance--you may find your Internet goes the way of your landlines."
"Sir, that's some dirty sh--"
"The decision would be made above my pay grade. I'm just saying." Barbie sighed. "I'll tell her."
"Tell me what?" Julia asked.
"That if you try to transmit those pictures, they may take it out on the town by shutting down Internet access."
Julia made a hand gesture Barbie did not ordinarily associate with pretty Republican ladies. He returned his attention to the phone.
"How much can you tell me?"
"Everything I know," Cox said.
"Thank you, sir." Although Barbie doubted Cox would actually spill everything. The Army never told everything it knew. Or thought it knew.
"We're calling it the Dome," Cox said, "but it's not a Dome. At least, we don't think it is. We think it's a capsule whose edges conform exactly to the borders of the town. And I do mean exactly."
"Do you know how high it goes?"
"It appears to top out at forty-seven thousand and change. We don't know if the top is flat or rounded. At least not yet."
Barbie said nothing. He was flabbergasted.
"As to how deep ... who knows. All we can say now is more than a hundred feet. That's the current depth of an excavation we're making on the border between Chester's Mill and the unincorporated township to the north."
"TR-90." To Barbie's ears, his voice sounded dull and listless.
"Whatever. We started in a gravel pit that was already dug down to forty feet or so. I've seen spectrographic images that blow my mind. Long sheets of metamorphic rock that have been sheared in two. There's no gap, but you can see a shift where the northern part of the sheet dropped a little. We've checked seismographic reports from the Portland meteorological station, and bingo. There was a bump at eleven forty-four AM. Two point one on the Richter. So that's when it happened."
"Great," Barbie said. He supposed he was being sarcastic, but he was too amazed and perplexed to be sure.
"None of this is conclusive, but it's persuasive. Of course the exploring has just started, but right now it does look as if the thing is down as well as up. And if it goes up five miles ..."
"How do you know that? Radar?"
"Negative, this thing doesn't show on radar. There's no way of telling it's there until you hit it, or until you're so close you can't stop. The human toll when the thing went up was remarkably low, but you've got one hell of a bird-kill around the edges. Inside and outside."
"I know. I've seen them." Julia was done with her pictures now. She was standing next to him, listening to Barbie's end of the conversation. "So how do you know how high it is? Lasers?"
"No, they also shoot right through. We've been using missiles with dummy warheads. We've been flying F-15A sorties out of Bangor since four this afternoon. Surprised you didn't hear them."
"I might have heard something," Barbie said. "But my mind was occupied with other things." Like the airplane. And the pulp-truck. The dead people out on Route 117. Part of the remarkably low human toll.
"They kept bouncing off ... and then, at forty-seven thousand plus, just zippity-zoom, up up and away. Between you and me, I'm surprised we didn't lose any of those fighter-jocks."
"Have you actually overflown it yet?"
"Less than two hours ago. Mission successful."
"Who did it, Colonel?"
"We don't know."
"Was it us? Is this an experiment that went wrong? Or, God help us, some kind of test? You owe me the truth. You owe this town the truth. These people are goddam terrified."
"Understood. But it wasn't us."
"Would you know if it was?"
Cox hesitated. When he next spoke, his voice was lower. "We have good sources in my department. When they fart in the NSA, we hear it. The same is true about Group Nine at Langley and a couple of other little deals you never heard of."
It was possible that Cox was telling the truth. And it was possible he wasn't. He was a creature of his calling, after all; if he had been drawing sentry duty out here in the chilly autumn dark with the rest of the pogeybait Marines, Cox too would have been standing with his back turned. He wouldn't have liked it, but orders were orders.
"Any chance it's some sort of natural phenomenon?" Barbie asked.
"One that confo
rms exactly to the man-made borders of a whole town? Every nook and fucking cranny? What do you think?"
"I had to ask. Is it permeable? Do you know?"
"Water goes through," Cox said. "A little, anyway."
"How is that possible?" Although he'd seen for himself the weird way water behaved; both he and Gendron had seen it.
"We don't know, how could we?" Cox sounded exasperated. "We've been working on this less than twelve hours. People here are slapping themselves on the back just for figuring out how high it goes. We may figure it out, but for now we just don't know."
"Air?"
"Air goes through to a greater degree. We've set up a monitoring station where your town borders on ... mmm ..." Faintly, Barbie heard paper rustle. "Harlow. They've done what they call 'puff tests.' I guess that must measure outgoing air pressure against what bounces back. Anyway, air goes through, and a lot more freely than water does, but the scientists say still not completely. This is going to severely fuck up your weather, pal, but nobody can say how much or how bad. Hell, maybe it'll turn Chester's Mill into Palm Springs." He laughed, rather feebly.
"Particulates?" Barbie thought he knew the answer to that one.
"Nope," Cox said. "Particulate matter doesn't go through. At least we don't think so. And you want to be aware that works both ways. If particulate matter doesn't get in, it won't get out. That means auto emissions--"
"Nobody's got that far to drive. Chester's Mill is maybe four miles across at its widest. Along a diagonal--" He looked at Julia.
"Seven, tops," she said.
Cox said, "We don't think oil-heat pollutants are going to be a big deal, either. I'm sure everybody in town has a nice expensive oil furnace--in Saudi Arabia they have bumper stickers on their cars these days saying I Heart New England--but modern oil furnaces need electricity to provide a constant spark. Your oil reserves are probably good, considering the home-heating season hasn't started yet, but we don't think it's going to be very useful to you. In the long run, that may be a good thing, from the pollution standpoint."
"You think so? Come on up here when it's thirty below zero and the wind's blowing at--" He stopped for a moment. "Will the wind blow?"
"We don't know," Cox said. "Ask me tomorrow and I may at least have a theory."
"We can burn wood," Julia said. "Tell him that."
