Under the Dome

The supermarket’s big front windows have been covered with plywood requisitioned from Tabby Morrell’s lumberyard, and the worst of the gluck on the floor has been mopped up by Jack Cale and Ernie Calvert, but Food City is still a godawful mess, with boxes and dry goods strewn from hell to breakfast. The remaining merchandise (what hasn’t been carted away to various town pantries or stored in the motor pool behind the PD, in other words) is scattered helterskelter on the shelves. The soft-drink cooler, beer cooler, and ice cream freezer are busted in. There’s the high stink of spilled wine. This leftover chaos is exactly what Big Jim Rennie wants his new—and awfully young, for the most part—cadre of enforcement officers to see. He wants them to realize the whole town could look like this, and he’s canny enough to know he doesn’t need to say it right out loud. They will get the point: this is what happens when the shepherd fails in his duty and the flock stampedes.

Do we need to listen to his speech? Nah. We’ll be listening to Big Jim tomorrow night, and that should be enough. Besides, we all know how this one goes; America’s two great specialties are demagogues and rock and roll, and we’ve all heard plenty of both in our time.

Yet we should examine the faces of his listeners before we go. Notice how rapt they are, and then remind yourself that many of these (Carter Thibodeau, Mickey Wardlaw, and Todd Wendlestat, to name just three) are chumps who couldn’t get through a single week of school without scoring detention for causing trouble in class or fighting in the bathrooms. But Rennie has them hypnotized.

He’s never been much of a shake one-on-one, but when he’s in front of a crowd… rowdy-dow and a hot-cha-cha, as old Clayton Brassey used to say back in the days when he still had a few working brain cells. Big Jim’s telling them “thin blue line” and “the pride of standing with your fellow officers” and “the town is depending on you.” Other stuff, too. The good stuff that never loses its charm.

Big Jim switches to Barbie. He tells them that Barbie’s friends are still out there, sowing discord and fomenting dissension for their own evil purposes. Lowering his voice, he says: “They’ll try to discredit me. The lies they’ll tell have no bottom.”

A growl of displeasure greets this.

“Will you listen to the lies? Will you let them discredit me? Will you allow this town to go without a strong leader in its time of greatest need?”

The answer, of course, is a resounding NO! And although Big Jim continues (like most politicians, he believes in not just gilding the lily but spray-painting it), we can leave him now.

Let’s head up these deserted streets to the Congo parsonage. And look! Here’s someone we can walk with: a thirteen-year-old girl dressed in faded jeans and an old-school Winged Ripper skate-board tee. The tough riot grrrl pout that is her mother’s despair is gone from Norrie Calvert’s face this evening. It has been replaced by an expression of wonder that makes her look like the eight-year-old she not so long ago was. We follow her gaze and see a vast full moon climbing from the clouds to the east of town. It is the color and shape of a freshly cut pink grapefruit.

“Oh… my… God, ” Norrie whispers. One fisted hand is pressed between the scant nubs of her breasts as she looks at that pink freak of a moon. Then she walks on, not so amazed that she fails to look around herself from time to time to make sure she’s not being noticed. This is as per Linda Everett’s order: they were to go alone, they were to be unobtrusive, and they were to make absolutely sure they weren’t followed.

“This isn’t a game,” Linda told them. Norrie was more impressed by her pale, strained face than by her words. “If we get caught, they won’t just take away hit points or make us miss a turn. Do you kids understand that?”

“Can I go with Joe?” Mrs. McClatchey asked. She was almost as pale as Mrs. Everett.

Mrs. Everett shook her head. “Bad idea.” And that had impressed Norrie most of all. No, not a game; maybe life and death.

Ah, but there is the church, and the parsonage tucked in right beside it. Norrie can see the bright white light of Coleman lanterns around back, where the kitchen must be. Soon she’ll be inside, out from under the gaze of that awful pink moon. Soon she’ll be safe.

So she’s thinking when a shadow detaches itself from one of the thicker shadows and takes her by the arm.

17

Norrie was too startled to scream, which was just as well; when the pink moon lit the face of the man who had accosted her, she saw it was Romeo Burpee.

“You scared the crap out of me,” she whispered.

“Sorry. Just keepin an eye out, me.” Rommie let go of her arm, and looked around. “Where are your boyfriens?”

Norrie smiled at that. “Dunno. We were supposed to come by ourselves, and different ways. That’s what Mrs. Everett said.” She looked down the hill. “I think that’s Joey’s mom coming now. We should go in.”