Under the Dome

Twitch cried out: 'Jesus, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!' And then, childishly, hurting Rusty's heart even in his shock: I take it back!

'I gotta go back,' Gendron said. He took off his Sea Dogs cap and wiped his bloody, grimy, pallid face with it. His nose had swollen until it looked like a giant's thumb. His eyes peered out of da—k circles. 'I'm sorry, but my schnozz is hurting like hell, and… well, I ain't as young as I used to be. Also…' He raised his arms and dropped them. They were facing each other, and Barbie would have taken the guy in his arms and given him a pat on the back, if it were possible.

'Shock to the system, isn't it?' he asked Gendron.

Gendron gave a bark of laughter. 'That copter was the final touch.' And they both looked toward the fresh column of smoke.

Barbie and Gendron had gone on from the accident site on 117 after making sure that the witnesses were getting help for Elsa Andrews, the sole survivor. At least she didn't seem badly hurt, although she was clearly heartbroken over the loss of her friend.

'Go on back, then. Slow. Take your time. Rest when you need to.'

'Pushing on?'

'Yes.'

'Still think you're gonna find the end of it?'

Barbie was silent for a moment. At first he'd been sure, but now—

'I hope so,' he said.

'Well, good luck.' Gendron tipped his cap to Barbie before putting it back on. 'I hope to shake your hand before the day's out.'

'Me, too,' Barbie said. He paused. He had been thinking. 'Can you do something for me, if you can get to your cell phone?'

'Sure.'

'Call the Army base at Fort Benning. Ask for the liaison officer and tell them you need to get in touch with Colonel James O. Cox. Tell them it's urgent, that you're calling for Captain Dak Barbara. Can you remember that?'

'Dale Barbara. That's you. James Cox, that's him. Got it.'

'If you reach him… I'm not sure you will, but if… tell him what's going on here. Tell him if no one's gotten in touch with Homeland Security, he's the man. Can you do that?'

Gendron nodded. 'If I can, I will. Good luck, soldier.'

Barbie could have done without ever having been called that again, but he touched a finger to his forehead. Then he went on, ^looking for what he no longer thought he would find.

He found a woods road that roughly paralleled the barrier. It was overgrown and disused, but much better than pushing through the puckerbrush. Every now and then he diverted to the west, feeling for the wall between Chester's Mill and the outside world. It was always there.

When Barbie came to where 119 crossed into The Mill's sister town of Tarker's Mills, he stopped. The driver of the overturned delivery truck had been taken away by some good Samaritan on the other side of the barrier, but the truck itself lay blocking the road like a big dead animal. The back doors had sprung open on impact. The tar was littered with Devil Dogs, Ho Hos, Ring Dings, Twinkies, and peanut butter crackers. A young man in a George Strait tee-shirt sat on a stump, eating one of the latter. He had a cell phone in hand. He looked up at Barbie. 'Yo. Did you come from…' He pointed vaguely behind Barbie. He looked tired and scared and disillusioned.

'From the other side of town,' Barbie said. 'Right.'

'Invisible wall the whole way? Border closed?'

'Yes.'

The young man nodded and hit a button on his cell. 'Dusty? You there yet?' He listened some more, then said: 'Okay.' He ended the call. 'My friend Dusty and I started east of here. Split up. He went south. We've been staying in touch by phone. When we can get through, that is. He's where the copter crashed now. Says it's getting crowded there.'

Barbie bet it was. 'No break in this thing anywhere on your side?'

The young man shook his head. He didn't say more, and didn't need to.They could have missed breaks, Barbie knew that was possible—holes the size of windows or doors—but he doubted it.

He thought they were cut off.

WE ALL SUPPORT THE TEAM

1

Barbie walked back down Route 119 into the center of town, a distance of about three miles. By the time he got there, it was six o'clock. Main Street was almost deserted, but alive with the roar of generators; dozens of them, by the sound. The traffic light at the intersection of 119 and 117 was dark, but Sweetbriar Rose was lit and loaded. Looking through the big front window, Barbie siw that every table was taken. But when he walked in the door, he heard none of the usual big talk: politics, the Red Sox, the local economy, the Patriots, newly acquired cars and pickemups, the Celtics, the price of gas, the Bruins, newly acquired power tools, the Twin Mills Wildcats. None of the usual laughter, either.

There was a TV over the counter, and everyone was watching it. Barbie observed, with that sense of disbelief and dislocation everyone who actually finds him or herself at the site of a major disaster must feel, that CNN's Anderson Cooper was standing out on Route 119 with the still-smoldering hulk of the wrecked pulp-truck in the background.