Under the Dome

“Roger, I’ve got a job for you and your three oldest sons.”

“Only got two t’home,” Roger said. In his thick Yankee accent, home came out hum. “Ricky and Randall are here, but Roland was in Oxford buying feed when the Christing Dome came down.” He paused and considered what he had just said. In the background, the chickens clucked. “Sorry about the profanity.”

“I’m sure God forgives you,” Big Jim said. “You and your two oldest, then. Can you get them to town by—” Big Jim calculated. It didn’t take long. When you were feeling it, few decisions did. “Say, nine o’clock, nine fifteen at the latest?”

“I’ll have to rouse em, but sure,” Roger said. “What are we doin? Bringin in some of the extra propa—”

“No,” Big Jim said, “and you hush about that, God love you. Just listen.”

Big Jim talked.

Roger Killian, God love him, listened.

In the background roughly eight hundred chickens clucked as they stuffed themselves with steroid-laced feed.

8

“What? What? Why? ”

Jack Cale was sitting at his desk in the cramped little Food City manager’s office. The desk was littered with inventory lists he and Ernie Calvert had finally completed at one in the morning, their hopes of finishing earlier dashed by the meteor shower. Now he swept them up—handwritten on long yellow legal-pad sheets—and shook them at Peter Randolph, who stood in the office doorway. The new Chief had dolled up in full uniform for this visit. “Look at these, Pete, before you do something foolish.”

“Sorry, Jack. Market’s closed. It’ll reopen on Thursday, as a food depot. Share and share alike. We’ll keep all the records, Food City Corp won’t lose a cent, I promise you—”

“That’s not the point, ” Jack nearly groaned. He was a baby-faced thirtysomething with a thatch of wiry red hair he was currently torturing with the hand not holding out the yellow sheets… which Peter Randolph showed no signs of taking.

“Here! Here! What in the name of jumped-up Jack Sprat Jesus are you talking about, Peter Randolph?”

Ernie Calvert came barreling up from the basement storage area. He was broad-bellied and red-faced, his gray hair mowed into the crewcut he’d worn all his life. He was wearing a green Food City duster.

“He wants to close the market!” Jack said.

“Why in God’s name would you want to do that, when there’s still plenty of food?” Ernie asked angrily. “Why would you want to go scaring people like that? They’ll be plenty scared in time, if this goes on. Whose dumb idea was this?”

“Selectmen voted,” Randolph said. “Any problems you have with the plan, take them up at the special town meeting on Thursday night. If this isn’t over by then, of course.”

“What plan?” Ernie shouted. “Are you telling me Andrea Grinnell was in favor of this? She knows better!”

“I understand she’s got the flu,” Randolph said. “Flat on her back. So Andy decided. Big Jim seconded the decision.” No one had told him to put it this way; no one had to. Randolph knew how Big Jim liked to do business.

“Rationing might make sense at some point,” Jack said, “but why now?” He shook the sheets again, his cheeks almost as red as his hair. “Why, when we’ve still got so much?”

“That’s the best time to start conserving,” Randolph said.

“That’s rich, coming from a man with a powerboat on Sebago Lake and a Winnebago Vectra in his dooryard,” Jack said.

“Don’t forget Big Jim’s Hummer,” Ernie put in.

“Enough,” Randolph said. “The Selectmen decided—”

“Well, two of them did,” Jack said.

“You mean one of them did,” Ernie said. “And we know which one.”

“—and I carried the message, so there’s an end to it. Put a sign in the window. MARKET CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.”

“Pete. Look. Be reasonable.” Ernie no longer seemed angry; now he seemed almost to be pleading. “That’ll scare the dickens out of people. If you’re set on this, how about I put CLOSED FOR INVENTORY, WILL REOPEN SOON? Maybe add SORRY FOR THE TEMPORARY INCONVENIENCE. Put TEMPORARY in red, or something.”

Peter Randolph shook his head slowly and weightily. “Can’t let you, Ern. Couldn’t let you even if you were still an official employee, like him.” He nodded to Jack Cale, who had put down the inventory sheets so he could torture his hair with both hands. “CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. That’s what the Selectmen told me, and I carry out their orders. Besides, lies always come back to bite you on the ass.”

“Yeah, well, Duke Perkins would have told them to take this particular order and wipe their asses with it,” Ernie said. “You ought to be ashamed, Pete, carrying that fat shit’s water. He says jump, you ask how high.”

“You want to shut up right now, if you know what’s good for you,” Randolph said, pointing at him. The finger shook a little. “If you don’t want to spend the rest of the day in jail on a disrespect charge, you just want to close your mouth and follow orders. This is a crisis situation—”

Ernie looked at him unbelievingly. “ ‘Disrespect charge?’ No such animal!”

“There is now. If you don’t believe it, go on and try me.”

9