Under the Dome

Fern could have done without this chore, but he was an obedient brother. He walked down the aisle between the piles of propane tanks. They ended ten feet from the door—and the door, he saw with a sinking heart, was standing ajar. Behind him he heard the clank of the chain, then the whine of the winch and the low clatter of the first tank being dragged back to the truck. It sounded far away, especially when he imagined The Chef crouching on the other side of that door, red-eyed and crazy. All smoked up and toting a TEC-9.

“Chef?” he asked. “You here, buddy?”

No answer. And although he had no business doing so—was probably crazy himself for doing so—curiosity got the better of him and he used his makeshift club to push open the door.

The fluorescents in the lab were on, but otherwise this part of the Christ Is King storage building looked empty. The twenty or so cook-ers—big electric grills, each hooked to its own exhaust fan and propane canister—were off. The pots, beakers, and expensive flasks were all on their shelves. The place stank (always had, always would, Fern thought), but the floor was swept and there was no sign of disarray. On one wall was a Rennie’s Used Cars calendar, still turned to August. Probably when the motherfucker finished losing touch with reality, Fern thought. Just flooaated away. He ventured a little farther into the lab. It had made them all rich men, but he had never liked it. It smelled too much like the funeral parlor’s downstairs prep room.

One corner had been partitioned off with a heavy steel panel. There was a door in the middle of it. This, Fern knew, was where The Chef’s product was stored, long-glass crystal meth put up not in gallon Baggies but in Hefty garbage bags. Not shitglass, either. No tweeker scruffing the streets of New York or Los Angeles in search of a fix would have been able to credit such stocks. When the place was full, it held enough to supply the entire United States for months, perhaps even a year.

Why did Big Jim let him make so fucking much? Fern wondered.And why did we go along? What were we thinking of? He could come up with no answer to this question but the obvious one: because they could. The combination of Bushey’s genius and all those cheap Chinese ingredients had intoxicated them. Also, it funded the CIK Corporation, which was doing God’s work all up and down the East Coast. When anyone questioned, Big Jim always pointed this out. And he would quote scripture: For the laborer is worthy of his hire—Gospel of Luke—and Thou shalt not muzzle the ox while he is threshing—First Timothy.

Fern had never really gotten that one about the oxes.

“Chef?” Advancing in a little farther still. “Goodbuddy?”

Nothing. He looked up and saw galleries of bare wood running along two sides of the building. These were being used for storage, and the contents of the cartons stacked there would have interested the FBI, the FDA, and the ATF a great deal. No one was up there, but Fern spied something he thought was new: white cord running along the railings of both galleries, affixed to the wood by heavy staples. An electrical cord? Running to what? Had that nutball put more cookers up there? If so, Fern didn’t see them. The cord looked too thick to be powering just a simple appliance, like a TV or a ra—

“Fern!” Stewart cried, making him jump. “If he ain’t there, come on and help us! I want to get out of here! They said there’s gonna be an update on TV at six and I want to see if they’ve figured anything out!”

In Chester’s Mill, “they” had more and more come to mean anything or anyone in the world beyond the town’s borders.

Fern went, not looking over the door and thus not seeing what the new electrical cords were attached to: a large brick of white clay-like stuff sitting on its own little shelf. It was explosive.

The Chef’s own recipe.

4

As they drove back toward town, Roger said: “Halloween. That’s a thirty-one, too.”

“You’re a regular fund of information,” Stewart said.

Roger tapped the side of his unfortunately shaped head. “I store it up,” he said. “I don’t do it on purpose. It’s just a knack.”

Stewart thought: Jamaica. Or Barbados. Somewhere warm, for sure. As soon as the Dome lets go. I never want to see another Killian. Or anyone from this town.

“There’s also thirty-one cards in a deck,” Roger said.

Fern stared at him. “What the fuck are you—”

“Just kiddin, just kiddin with you,” Roger said, and burst into a terrifying shriek of laughter that hurt Stewart’s head.

They were coming up on the hospital now. Stewart saw a gray Ford Taurus pulling out of Catherine Russell.