Under the Dome

The news spreads by cell phone and e-mail, but mostly in the old way: mouth to ear. By quarter of ten, Main Street is full of people watching the silent fireworks display. Most are equally silent. A few are crying. Leo Lamoine, a faithful member of the late Reverend Coggins’s Holy Redeemer congregation, shouts it’s the Apocalypse, that he sees the Four Horsemen in the sky, that the Rapture will begin soon, et cetera, et cetera. Sloppy Sam Verdreaux—back on the street again since three that afternoon, sober and grumpy—tells Leo that if Leo doesn’t shut up about the Acrockashit, he’ll be seeing his own stars. Rupe Libby of the CMPD, hand on the butt of his gun, tells them both to shut the hell up and stop scaring people. As if they are not scared already. Willow and Tommy Anderson are in the parking lot of Dipper’s, Willow crying with her head on Tommy’s shoulder. Rose Twitchell stands beside Anson Wheeler outside Sweetbriar Rose; both are still wearing their aprons and they also have their arms around each other. Norrie Calvert and Benny Drake are with their parents, and when Norrie’s hand steals into Benny’s, he takes it with a thrill the falling pink stars cannot match. Jack Cale, the current manager of Food City, is in the supermarket parking lot. Jack called Ernie Calvert, the previous manager, late that afternoon and asked if Ernie would help him do a complete inventory of supplies on hand. They were well into this job, hoping to be done by midnight, when the furor on Main Street broke out. Now they stand side by side, watching the pink stars fall. Stewart and Fernald Bowie are outside their funeral parlor, gazing up. Henry Morrison and Jackie Wettington stand across from the funeral parlor with Chaz Bender, who teaches history up to the high school. “It’s just a meteor shower seen through a haze of pollution,” Chaz tells Jackie and Henry… but he still sounds awed.

The fact that accumulating particulate matter has actually changed the color of the stars brings the situation home to people in a new way, and gradually the weeping becomes more widespread. It is a soft sound, almost like rain.

Big Jim is less interested in a bunch of meaningless lights in the sky than he is in how people will interpret those lights. Tonight, he expects they’ll just go home. Tomorrow, though, things may be different. And the fear he sees on most faces may not be such a bad thing. Fearful people need strong leaders, and if there’s one thing Big Jim Rennie knows he can provide, it’s strong leadership.

He’s outside the police station doors with Chief Randolph and Andy Sanders. Standing below them, crowded together, are his problem children: Thibodeau, Searles, the Roux chippie, and Junior’s friend, Frank. Big Jim descends the steps that Libby fell down earlier (she could have done us all a favor if she’d broken her neck, he thinks) and taps Frankie on the shoulder. “Enjoying the show, Frankie?”

The boy’s big scared eyes make him look twelve instead of twenty-two or whatever he is. “What is it, Mr. Rennie? Do you know?”

“Meteor shower. Just God saying hello to His people.”

Frank DeLesseps relaxes a little.

“We’re going back inside,” Big Jim says, jerking his thumb at Randolph and Andy, who are still watching the sky. “We’ll talk for a while, then I’ll call you four in. I want you all to tell the same cotton-picking story when I do. Have you got that?”

“Yes, Mr. Rennie,” Frankie says.

Mel Searles looks at Big Jim, his eyes like saucers and his mouth hanging loose. Big Jim thinks the boy looks like his IQ might reach all the way up to seventy. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, either. “It looks like the end of the world, Mr. Rennie,” he says.

“Nonsense. Are you Saved, son?”

“I guess so,” Mel says.

“Then you have nothing to worry about.” Big Jim surveys them one by one, ending with Carter Thibodeau. “And the way to salvation tonight, young men, is all of you telling the same story.”

Not everyone sees the pink stars. Like the Appleton kids, Rusty Everett’s Little Js are fast asleep. So is Piper. So is Andrea Grinnell. So is The Chef, sprawled on the dead grass beside what might be America’s biggest methamphetamine lab. Ditto Brenda Perkins, who cried herself to sleep on her couch with the VADER printout scattered on the coffee table before her.

The dead also do not see, unless they look from a brighter place than this darkling plain where ignorant armies clash by night. Myra Evans, Duke Perkins, Chuck Thompson, and Claudette Sanders are tucked away in the Bowie Funeral Home; Dr. Haskell, Mr. Carty, and Rory Dinsmore are in the morgue of Catherine Russell Hospital; Lester Coggins, Dodee Sanders, and Angie McCain are still hanging out in the McCain pantry. So is Junior. He is between Dodee and Angie, holding their hands. His head aches, but only a little. He thinks he might sleep the night here.