Under the Dome

It was much more than a second; more than a minute. Big Jim’s heart had been slowing toward its normal speed (if a hundred and twenty beats per minute can be so characterized), but now it sped up again and took one of those looping misbeats. He coughed and pounded at his chest. His heart seemed almost to settle, then went into a full-blown arrhythmia. He felt sweat pop on his brow. The day, formerly dull, all at once seemed too bright.

“Jim?” It was Al Timmons, and although he was standing right beside Big Jim, his voice seemed to be coming from a galaxy far, far away. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Big Jim said. “Stay right there. I may want you.”

Cox was back. “It was indeed the Air Ireland flight. I just watched ABC’s streamed footage of the crash. A reporter was doing a stand-up, and it occurred right behind her. They caught the whole thing.”

“I’m sure their ratings will go up.”

“Mr. Rennie, we may have had our differences, but I hope you’ll convey to your constituents that this is nothing for them to worry about.”

“Just tell me how a thing like that—” His heart looped again. His breath tore in, then stopped. He pounded his chest a second time—harder—and sat down on a bench beside the brick path which ran from the Town Hall to the sidewalk. Al was looking at him instead of at the crash scar on the Dome now, his forehead furrowed with concern—and, Big Jim thought, fright. Even now, with all this happening, he was glad to see that, glad to know he was seen as indispensable. Sheep need a shepherd.

“Rennie? Are you there?”

“I’m here.” And so was his heart, but it was far from right. “How did it happen? How could it? I thought you people got the word out.”

“We’re not positive and won’t be until we recover the black box, but we’ve got a pretty good idea. We sent out a directive warning all commercial air carriers away from the Dome, but this is 179’s usual flight path. We think someone neglected to reprogram the autopilot. Simple as that. I’ll get you further details as soon as we get them here, but right now the important thing is to quell any panic in town before it can take hold.”

But under certain circumstances, panic could be good. Under certain circumstances, it could—like food riots and acts of arson—have a beneficial effect.

“This was stupidity on a grand scale, but still just an accident,” Cox was saying. “Make sure your people know that.”

They’ll know what I tell them and believe what I want them to, Rennie thought.

His heart skittered like grease on a hot griddle, settled briefly into a more normal rhythm, then skittered again. He pushed the red END CALL button without responding to Cox and dropped the phone back into his pocket. Then he looked at Al.

“I need you to take me to the hospital,” he said, speaking as calmly as he could manage. “I seem to be in some discomfort here.”

Al—who was wearing a Solidarity Armband—looked more alarmed than ever. “Accourse, Jim. You just sit right there while I get my car. We can’t let anything happen to you. The town needs you.”

Don’t I know it, Big Jim thought, sitting on the bench and looking at the great black smear on the sky.

“Find Carter Thibodeau and tell him to meet me there. I want him on hand.”

There were other instructions he wanted to give, but just then his heart stopped completely. For a moment forever yawned at his feet, a clear dark chasm. Rennie gasped and pounded his chest. It burst into a full gallop. He thought at it: Don’t you quit on me now, I’ve got too much to do. Don’t you dare, you cotton-picker. Don’t you dare.

20

“What was it?” Norrie asked in a high, childish voice, and then answered her own question. “It was an airplane, wasn’t it? An airplane full of people.” She burst into tears. The boys tried to hold their own tears back, and couldn’t. Rommie felt like crying himself.

“Yuh,” he said. “I think that’s what it was.”

Joe turned to look at the van, now heading back toward them. When it got to the foot of the ridge it sped up, as if Rusty couldn’t wait to get back. When he arrived and jumped out, Joe saw he had another reason for hurry: the lead apron was gone.

Before Rusty could say anything, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open, looked at the number, and took the call. He expected Ginny, but it was the new guy, Thurston Marshall. “Yes, what? If it’s about the plane, I saw—” He listened, frowning a little, then nodding. “Okay, yes. Right. I’m coming now. Tell Ginny or Twitch to give him two milligrams of Valium, IV push. No, better make it three. And tell him to be calm. That’s foreign to his nature, but tell him to try. Give his son five milligrams.”