Under the Dome

'Are you exhibiting your sense of humor, Ms Shumway, or are you always this way?'

'I'm tired and scared. Chalk it up to that.'

There was a pause on Cox's end. She thought she heard the click of computer keys. Then he said, 'It's forty-seven Fahrenheit in Castle Rock. Will that do?'

'Yes.'The disparity wasn't as bad as she had feared, but still considerable. 'I'm looking at the thermometer in the window of the Mill Gas and Grocery. It says fifty-eight. That's an eleven-degree difference between locations less than twenty miles apart. Unless there's a hell of a big warm front pushing through western Maine this evening, I'd say something's going on here. Do you agree?'

He didn't answer her question, but what he did say took her mind off it. 'We're going to try something else. Around nine this evening. It's what I wanted to tell Barbie.'

'One hopes Plan B will work better than Plan A. At this moment, I believe the President's appointee is feeding the multitudes at Sweet-briar Rose. Chicken a la king is the rumor.' She could see the lights down the street, and her belly rumbled.

'Will you listen and pass on a message?'And she heard what he did not add: You contentious bitch?

'Happy to,' she said. Smiling. Because she was a contentious bitch. When she had to be.

'We're going to try an experimental acid. A hydrofluoric compound, man-made. Nine times as corrosive as the ordinary stuff.'

'Living better through chemistry.'

'I'm told you could theoretically burn a hole two miles deep in the bedrock with it.'

'What highly amusing people you work for, Colonel.'

'We're going to try where Motton Road crosses—'There was a rustle of paper. 'Where it crosses into Harlow. I expect to be there.'

'Then I'll tell Barbie to have someone else wash up.'

'Will you also be favoring us with your company, Ms Shumway?'

She opened her mouth to say I wouldn't miss it, and that was when all hell broke loose up the street.

'What's going on there?' Cox asked.

Julia didn't reply. She closed her phone and stuck it in her pocket, already running toward the sound of yelling voices. And something else. Something that sounded like snarling.

The gunshot came while she was still half a block away.

6

Piper went back to the parsonage and discovered Carolyn, Thurston, and the Appleton kids waiting there. She was glad to see them, because they took her mind off Sammy Bushey. At least temporarily.

She listened to Carolyn's account of Aidan Appleton's seizure, but t!he boy seemed fine now—chowing ever deeper into a stack of Fig Newtons. When Carolyn asked if the boy should see a doctor, Piper said, 'Unless there's a recurrence, I think you can assume it was brought on by hunger and the excitement of the game.'

Thurston smiled ruefully 'We were all excited. Having fun.'

When it came to possible lodging, Piper first thought of the McCain house, which was close by. Only she didn't know where their spare key might be hidden.

Alice Appleton was on the floor, feeding Fig Newton crumbs to Clover. The shepherd was doing the old my-muzzle's-on-your-ankle-because-I'm-your-best-friend routine in between offerings.'This is the best dog I've ever seen,' she told Piper. 'I wish we could have a dog.'

'I've got a dragon,'Aidan offered. He was sitting comfortably on Carolyn's lap.

Alice smiled indulgently. 'That's his invisible F-R-E-I-N-D.'

'I see,' Piper said. She supposed they could always break a window at trie McCain place; needs must when the devil drives.

But as she got up to check on the coffee, a better idea occurred. 'The Dumagens'. I should have thought of them right away. They went to Boston for a conference. Coralee Dumagen asked me to water her plants while they're gone.'

'I teach in Boston,' Thurston said. 'At Emerson. I edited the current issue of Ploughshares! And sighed.

'The key is under a flowerpot to the left of the door,' Piper said. T dc^n't believe they have a generator, but there's a woodstove in the kitchen.' She hesitated, thinking City people. 'Can you use a wood-stove to cook on without setting the house on fire?'

'I grew up in Vermont,'Thurston said.'Was in charge of keeping the stoves lit—house and barn—until I went off to college. What goes| around comes around, doesn't it?' And sighed again.

'There'll be food in the pantry, I'm sure,' Piper said.

Carolyn nodded. 'That's what the janitor at the Town Hall saidf

'Also Joooon-yerl Alice put in.'He's a cop. A foxy one.'

Thurston's mouth turned down. 'Alice's foxy cop assaulted me,' he said. 'Him or the other one. I couldn't tell them apart, myself.'

Piper's eyebrows went up.

'Punched Thurse in the stomach,' Carolyn said quietly. 'Called us Massholes—which, I suppose, we technically are—and laughed at us. For me, that was the worst part, how they laughed at us. They were better once they had the kids with them, but,..' She shook her head. 'They were out of control.'