Under the Dome

There could be worse ways to go out, he thought as he reached both hands through the bars and shot Junior a nice double-bird. Remember Stubb, in Moby-Dick? “Whatever my fate, I’ll go to it laughing.”

Junior saw Barbie giving him the finger—in stereo—and forgot all about Rusty. He started down the short corridor with his gun held out in front of him. Barbie’s senses were very clear now, but he didn’t trust them. The people he thought he heard moving around and speaking upstairs were almost surely just his imagination. Still, you played your string out to the end. If nothing else, he could give Rusty a few more breaths and a little more time.

“There you are, fuckface,” he said. “Remember how I cleaned your clock that night in Dipper’s? You cried like a little bitch.”

“I didn’t.”

It came out sounding like an exotic special on a Chinese menu. Junior’s face was a wreck. Blood from his left eye was dribbling down one stubble-darkened cheek. It occurred to Barbie that he might just have a chance here. Not a good one, but bad chances were better than no chances. He began to pace from side to side in front of his bunk and his toilet, slowly at first, then faster. Now you know what a mechanical duck in a shooting gallery feels like, he thought. I’ll have to remember that, too.

Junior followed his movements with his one good eye. “Did you fuck her? Did you fuck Angie?” Dih-ooo fuh’er? Dih-oo fuh An’yee?

Barbie laughed. It was the crazy laugh, one he still didn’t recognize as his own, but there was nothing counterfeit about it. “Did I fuck her? Did I fuck her? Junior, I fucked her with her rightside up, her upside down, and her backside all present and accounted for. I fucked her until she sang ‘Hail to the Chief’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising.’ I fucked her until she pounded on the floor and yelled for a whole lot more. I—”

Junior tilted his head toward the gun. Barbie saw it and jigged to the left without delay. Junior fired. The bullet struck the brick wall at the back of the cell. Dark red chips flew. Some hit the bars—Barbie heard the metallic rattle, like peas in a tin cup, even with the gunshot ringing in his ears—but none of them hit Junior.

Shit. From down the hall, Rusty yelled something, probably trying to distract Junior, but Junior was done being distracted. Junior had his prime target in his sights.

Not yet, you don’t, Barbie thought. He was still laughing. It was crazy, nuts, but there it was. Not quite yet, you ugly one-eyed mother-fucker.

“She said you couldn’t get it up, Junior. She called you El Limpdick Supremo. We used to laugh about that while we were—” He leaped to the right at the same instant Junior fired. This time he heard the bullet pass the side of his head: the sound was zzzzzz. More brick chips jumped. One stung the back of Barbie’s neck.

“Come on, Junior, what’s wrong with you? You shoot like woodchucks do algebra. You a headcase? That’s what Angie and Frankie always used to say—”

Barbie faked to the right and then ran at the left side of the cell. Junior fired three times, the explosions deafening, the stink of the blown gunpowder rich and strong. Two of the bullets buried themselves in brick; the third hit the metal toilet low down with a spang sound. Water began to pour out. Barbie struck the far wall of the cell hard enough to rattle his teeth.

“Got you now,” Junior panted. Gah-ooo d’now. But deep down in what remained of his overheated thinking-engine, he wondered. His left eye was blind and his right one had blurred over. He saw not one Barbie but three.

The hateful sonofabitch hit the deck as Junior fired, and this bullet also missed. A small black eye opened in the center of the pillow at the head of the bunk. But at least he was down. No more jigging and jogging. Thank God I put in that fresh clip, Junior thought.

“You poisoned me, Baaarbie. ”

Barbie had no idea what he was talking about, but agreed at once. “That’s right, you loathsome little fuckpuppet, I sure did.”

Junior pushed the Beretta through the bars and closed his bad left eye; that reduced the number of Barbies he saw to just a pair. His tongue was snared between his teeth. His face ran with blood and sweat. “Let’s see you run now, Baaarbie. ”

Barbie couldn’t run, but he could and did crawl, scuttling right at Junior. The next bullet whistled over his head and he felt a vague burn across one buttock as the slug split his jeans and undershorts and removed the top layer of skin beneath them.

Junior recoiled, tripped, almost went down, caught the bars of the cell on his right, and hauled himself back up. “Hold still, mother-fucker!”