Under the Dome

Hb hadn't made arrangements to have the stuff shipped, Junior decided. He hadn't needed to, because he had never planned to leave at all. Once the idea occurred, Junior wondered why he hadn't seen it before. Baaarbie liked it here; would never leave of his own free will. He was as happy as a maggot in dog-puke.

Find something he can't talk away, Big Jim had instructed. Something that can only he his. Do you understand me?

What do you think I am, Had, stupid? Junior thought now. If I'm stupid, how come it was me who saved your ass last night?

But his father had a mighty swing on him when he got his mad on, that much was undeniable. He had never slapped or spanked Junior as a child, something Junior had always attributed to his late mother's ameliorating influence. Now he suspected it was because his father understood, deep in his heart, that once he started, he might not be able to stop.

'Like father, like son,' Junior said, and giggled. It hurt his head, but he giggled, anyway. What was that old saying about laughter being the best medicine?

He went into Barbie's bedroom, saw the bed was neatly made, and thought briefly of how wonderful it would be to take a big shit right in the middle of it. Yes, and then wipe himself with the pillowcase. How would you like that, Baaarbie?

He went to the dresser instead. Three or four pairs of jeans in the top drawer, plus two pairs of khaki shorts. Under the shorts was a cell phone, and for a moment he thought that was what he wanted. But no. It was a discount store special; what the kids at college called a burner or a throw-away. Barbie could always say it wasn't his.

There were half a dozen pairs of skivvies and another four or five pairs of plain white athletic socks in the second drawer. Nothing at all in the third drawer.

He looked under the bed, his head thudding and whamming—not better after all, it seemed. And nothing under there, not even dust-kitties. Baaarbie was a neatnik.Junior considered taking the Imitrex in his watch-pocket, but didn't. He'd taken two already, with absolutely no effect except for the metallic aftertaste in the back of his throat. He knew what medicine he needed: the dark pantry on Prestile Street. And the company of his girlfriends.

Meantime, he was here. And there had to be something.

'Sumpin,' he whispered. 'Gotta have a little sumpin-sumpin.'

He started back to the living room, wiping water from the corner of his throbbing left eye (not noticing it was tinged with blood), then stopped, struck by an idea. He returned to the dresser, opened the sock-and-underwear drawer again. The socks were balled. When he was in high school, Junior had sometimes hidden a little weed or a couple of uppers in his balled-up socks; once one of Adriette Nedeau's thongs. Socks were a good hiding place. He took out the neatly made bundles one at a time, feeling them up.

He hit paydirt on the third ball, something that felt like a flat piece of metal. No, two of them. He unrolled the socks and shook the heavy one over the top of the dresser.

What fell out were Dale Barbara's dog tags. And in spite of his terrible headache, Junior smiled.

In the frame, Baaarbie, he thought. You are in the fucking frame.

11

On the Tarker's Mill side of Little Bitch Road, the fires set by the Fasthawk missiles were still raging, but would be out by dark; fire departments from four towns, augmented by a mixed detachment of Marine and Army grunts, were working on it, and gaining. It would have been out even sooner, Brenda Perkins judged, if the firefighters over there hadn't had a brisk wind to contend with. On The Mill side, they'd had no such problem. It was a blessing today. Later on, it might be a curse. There was no way to know.

Brenda wasn't going to let the question bother her this afternoon, because she felt good. If someone had asked her this morning when she thought she might feel good again, Brenda would have said, Maybe next year. Maybe never. And she was wise enough to know this feeling probably wouldn't last. Ninety minutes of hard exercise had a lot to do with it; exercise released endorphins whether the exercise was jogging or pounding out brushfires with the flat of a spade. But this was more than endorphins. It was being in charge of a job that was important, one that she could do.