Under the Dome

Like most veteran medicos, Rusty was a pretty fair long-distance diagnostician. He would never have based a course of treatment on it, but you could tell a man who’d had a hip replacement six months ago from one currently suffering with hemorrhoids simply by the way he walked; you could tell a neck strain by the way a woman would turn her whole body instead of just looking back over her shoulder; you could tell a kid who’d picked up a good crop of lice at summer camp by the way he kept scratching his head. Big Jim held his arm against the upper slope of his considerable gut as he went up the steps, the classic body language of a man who has recently suffered either a shoulder strain, an upper arm strain, or both. Not so surprising that Sanders had been delegated to pilot the beast after all.

The three of them talked. Junior didn’t get up but Sanders sat down beside him, rummaged in his pocket, and brought out something that twinkled in the hazy afternoon sunlight. Rusty’s eyes were good, but he was at least fifty yards too far away to make out what the object might have been. Either glass or metal; that was all he could tell for sure. Junior put it in his pocket, then the three of them talked some more. Rennie gestured to the Hummer—he did it with his good arm—and Junior shook his head. Then Sanders pointed to the Hummer. Junior declined it again, dropped his head, and went back to working his temples. The two men looked at each other, Sanders craning his neck because he was still sitting on the steps. And in Big Jim’s shadow, which Rusty thought appropriate. Big Jim shrugged and opened his hands—a what can you do gesture. Sanders stood up and the two men went into the PD building, Big Jim pausing long enough to pat his son’s shoulder. Junior gave no response to that. He went on sitting where he was, as if he intended to sit out the age. Sanders played doorman for Big Jim, ushering him inside before following.

The two selectmen had no more than left the scene when a quartet came out of the Town Hall: an oldish gent, a young woman, a girl and a boy. The girl was holding the boy’s hand and carrying a checkerboard. The boy looked almost as disconsolate as Junior, Rusty thought… and damned if he wasn’t also rubbing one temple with his free hand. The four of them cut across Comm Lane, then passed directly in front of Rusty’s bench.

“Hello,” the little girl said brightly. “I’m Alice. This is Aidan.”

“We’re going to live at the passionage,” the little boy named Aidan said dourly. He was still rubbing his temple, and he looked very pale.

“That will be exciting,” Rusty said. “Sometimes I wish I lived in a passionage.”

The man and woman caught up with the kids. They were holding hands. Father and daughter, Rusty surmised.

“Actually, we just want to talk to the Reverend Libby,” the woman said. “You wouldn’t know if she’s back yet, would you?”

“No idea,” Rusty said.

“Well, we’ll just go over and wait. At the passionage.” She smiled up at the older man when she said this. Rusty decided they might not be father and daughter, after all. “That’s what the janitor said to do.”

“Al Timmons?” Rusty had seen Al hop into the back of a Burpee’s Department Store truck.

“No, the other one,” the older man said. “He said the Reverend might be able to help us with lodgings.”

Rusty nodded. “Was his name Dale?”

“I don’t think he actually gave us his name,” the woman said.

“Come on!” The boy let go of his sister’s hand and tugged at the woman’s instead. “I want to play that other game you said.” But he sounded more querulous than eager. Mild shock, maybe. Or some physical ailment. If the latter, Rusty hoped it was only a cold. The last thing The Mill needed right now was an outbreak of flu.

“They’ve misplaced their mother, at least temporarily,” the woman said in a low voice. “We’re taking care of them.”

“Good for you,” Rusty said, and meant it. “Son, does your head hurt?”

“No.”

“Sore throat?”

“No,” the boy named Aidan said. His solemn eyes studied Rusty. “Know what? If we don’t trick-or-treat this year, I don’t even care.”

“Aidan Appleton!” Alice cried, sounding shocked out of her shoes. Rusty jerked a little on the bench; he couldn’t help it. Then he smiled. “No? Why is that?”

“Because Mommy takes us around and Mommy went for splies.”

“He means supplies,” the girl named Alice said indulgently.

“She went for Woops,” Aidan said. He looked like a little old man—a little old worried man. “I’d be ascairt to go Halloweenin without Mommy.”

“Come on, Caro,” the man said. “We ought to—”

Rusty rose from the bench. “Could I speak to you for a minute, ma’am? Just a step or two over here.”

Caro looked puzzled and wary, but stepped with him to the side of the blue spruce.

“Has the boy exhibited any seizure activity?” Rusty asked. “That might include suddenly stopping what he’s doing… you know, just standing still for a while… or a fixed stare… smacking of the lips—”

“Nothing like that,” the man said, joining them. “No,”