Under the Dome

“We’re not equipped for DNA matching,” Rusty said. Also, there are no sperm samples. Because Gina Buffalino washed her up, at Sammy’s own request. “I’ll get you something to drink. All the fridges except for the ones in the lab are turned off to save juice, but there’s an Igloo cooler at the nurses’ station.”

“Juice,” she said, closing her eyes. “Yes, juice would be good. Orange or apple. Not V8. Too salty.”

“Apple,” he said. “You’re on clear liquids tonight.”

Piper whispered: “I miss my dog,” then turned her head away. Rusty thought she’d probably be out by the time he got back with her juice box.

Halfway down the corridor, Twitch rounded the corner from the nurses’ station at a dead run. His eyes were wide and wild. “Come outside, Rusty.”

“As soon as I get Reverend Libby a—”

“No, now. You have to see this.”

Rusty hurried back to room 29 and peeped in. Piper was snoring in a most unladylike way—not unusual, considering her swelled nose.

He followed Twitch down the corridor, almost running to keep up with the other man’s long strides. “What is it?” Meaning, What now?

“I can’t explain, and you probably wouldn’t believe me if I did. You have to see it for yourself.” He banged out through the lobby door.

Standing in the driveway beyond the protective canopy where drop-off patients arrived were Ginny Tomlinson, Gina Buffalino, and Harriet Bigelow, a friend whom Gina had recruited to help out at the hospital. The three of them had their arms around each other, as if for comfort, and were staring up into the sky.

It was filled with blazing pink stars, and many appeared to be falling, leaving long, almost fluorescent trails behind them. A shudder worked up Rusty’s back.

Judy foresaw this, he thought. “The pink stars are falling in lines.” And they were. They were.

It was as if heaven itself was coming down around their ears.

16

Alice and Aidan Appleton were asleep when the pink stars began falling, but Thurston Marshall and Carolyn Sturges weren’t. They stood in the backyard of the Dumagen house and watched them come down in brilliant pink lines. Some of the lines crisscrossed each other, and when this happened, pink runes seemed to stand out in the sky before fading.

“Is it the end of the world?” Carolyn asked.

“Not at all,” he said. “It’s a meteor swarm. They’re most commonly observed during autumn here in New England. I think it’s too late in the year for the Perseids, so this one’s probably a wandering shower—maybe dust and chunks of rock from an asteroid that broke up a trillion years ago. Think of that, Caro!”

She didn’t want to. “Are meteor showers always pink?”

“No,” he said. “I think it probably looks white on the outside of the Dome, but we’re seeing it through a film of dust and particulate matter. Pollution, in other words. It’s changed the color.”

She thought about that as they watched the silent pink tantrum in the sky. “Thurse, the little boy… Aidan… when he had that fit or whatever it was, he said…”

“I remember what he said. ‘The pink stars are falling, they make lines behind them.’”

“How could he know that?”

Thurston only shook his head.

Carolyn hugged him tighter. At times like this (although there had never been a time exactly like this in her life), she was glad Thurston was old enough to be her father. Right now she wished he was her father.

“How could he know this was coming? How could he know?”

17

Aidan had said something else during his moment of prophecy: Everyone is watching. And by nine thirty on that Monday night, when the meteor shower was at its height, that was true.