Under the Dome

“Not necessarily. When his wife passed, there were rumors that he might have helped her along. I don’t say they were true, but for rumors like that to start in the first place says something about how people see the man in question.”

Cox grunted agreement.

“But for the life of me I can’t see how murdering and sexually abusing two teenage girls could be political.”

“Barbie would never, ” Rose said again.

“The same with Coggins, although that ministry of his—especially the radio station part—is suspiciously well endowed. Brenda Perkins, now? That could have been political.”

“And you can’t send in the Marines to stop him, can you?” Rose asked. “All you guys can do is watch. Like kids looking into an aquarium where the biggest fish takes all the food, then starts eating the little ones.”

“I can kill the cellular service,” Cox mused. “Also Internet. I can do that much.”

“The police have walkie-talkies,” Julia said. “He’ll switch to those. And at the meeting on Thursday night, when people complain about losing their links to the outside world, he’ll blame you.”

“We were planning a press conference on Friday. I could pull the plug on that.”

Julia grew cold at the thought. “Don’t you dare. Then he wouldn’t have to explain himself to the outside world.”

“Plus,” Rose said, “if you kill the phones and the Internet, no one can tell you or anyone else what he’s doing.”

Cox stood quiet for a moment, looking at the ground. Then he raised his head. “What about this hypothetical generator that’s maintaining the Dome? Any luck?”

Julia wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Cox that they had put a middle-school kid in charge of hunting for it. As it turned out, she didn’t have to, because that was when the town fire whistle went off.

22

Pete Freeman dropped the last stack of papers by the door. Then he straightened up, put his hands in the small of his back, and stretched his spine. Tony Guay heard the crackle all the way across the room. “That sounded like it hurt.”

“Nope; feels good.”

“My wife’ll be in the sack by now,” Tony said, “and I’ve got a bottle ratholed in my garage. Want to come by for a nip on your way home?”

“No, I think I’ll just—” Pete began, and that was when the first bottle crashed through the window. He saw the flaming wick from the corner of his eye and took a step backward. Only one, but it saved him from being seriously burned, perhaps even cooked alive.

The window and the bottle both shattered. The gasoline ignited and flared in a bright manta shape. Pete simultaneously ducked and pivoted from the hips. The fire-manta flew past him, igniting one sleeve of his shirt before landing on the carpet in front of Julia’s desk.

“What the FU—” Tony began, and then another bottle came arcing through the hole. This one smashed on top of Julia’s desk and rolled across it, spreading fire among the papers littered there and dripping more fire down the front. The smell of burning gas was hot and rich.

Pete ran for the water cooler in the corner, beating the sleeve of his shirt against his side. He lifted the water bottle awkwardly against his middle, then held his flaming shirt (the arm beneath now felt as if it were developing a bad sunburn) under the bottle’s spouting mouth.

Another Molotov cocktail flew out of the night. It fell short, shattering on the sidewalk and lighting a small bonfire on the concrete. Tendrils of flaming gasoline ran into the gutter and went out.

“Dump the water on the carpet!” Tony shouted. “Dump it before the whole place catches fire!”

Pete only looked at him, dazed and panting. The water in the cooler bottle continued to gush onto a part of the carpet that did not, unfortunately, need wetting.

Although his sports reporting was always going to be strictly junior varsity, Tony Guay had been a three-letter man in high school. Ten years later, his reflexes were still mostly intact. He snatched the spouting cooler bottle from Pete and held it first over the top of Julia’s desk and then over the carpet-blaze. The fire was already spreading, but maybe… if he was quick… and if there was another bottle or two in the hallway leading to the supply closet…

“More!” he shouted at Pete, who was gaping at the smoking remains of his shirtsleeve. “Back hall!”

For a moment Pete didn’t seem to understand. Then he got it, and booked for the hall. Tony stepped around Julia’s desk, letting the last pint or two of water fall on the flames trying to get a foothold there.