Under the Dome

“Shut up,” Big Jim said. Blood was mounting in his heavy cheeks and dashing across his forehead in a wavy line. His eyes bulged in their sockets and his hands were clenched. “That’s Barbara. It’s that son-of-a-buck Dale Barbara!”

Carter saw him among the others. The picture was being transmitted from a camera with an extremely long lens, which made the image shaky—it was like looking at people through a heat-haze—but it was still clear enough. Barbara. The mouthy minister. The hippy doctor. A bunch of kids. The Everett woman.

That bitch was lying all along, he thought. She lied and stupid Carter believed her.

“The roaring sound you hear is not helicopters,” Jake Tapper was saying. “If we can pull back a little…”

The camera pulled back, revealing a line of huge fans on dollies, each connected to its own generator. The sight of all that power just miles away made Carter feel sick with envy.

“You see it now,” Tapper went on. “Not helicopters but industrial fans. Now… if we can move in again on the survivors…”

The camera did so. They were kneeling or sitting at the edge of the Dome, directly in front of the fans. Carter could see their hair moving in the breeze. Not quite rippling, but definitely moving. Like plants in a lazy underwater current.

“There’s Julia Shumway,” Big Jim marveled. “I should have killed that rhymes-with-witch when I had the chance.”

Carter paid no attention. His eyes were riveted on the TV.

“The combined blast from four dozen fans should be enough to knock those folks over, Charlie,” Jake Tapper said, “but from here it looks like they’re getting just enough air to keep them alive in an atmosphere that has become a poison soup of carbon dioxide, methane, and God knows what else. Our experts are telling us that Chester’s Mill’s limited supply of oxygen mostly went to feed the fire. One of those experts—chemistry professor Donald Irving of Princeton—told me via cell phone that the air inside the Dome now might not be all that much different from the atmosphere of Venus.”

The picture switched to a concerned-looking Charlie Gibson, safe in New York. (Lucky bastard, Carter thought.) “Any word yet on what may have caused the fire?”

Back to Jake Tapper… and then to the survivors in their small capsule of breathable air. “None, Charlie. It was some sort of explosion, that seems clear, but there’s been no further word from the military and nothing from Chester’s Mill. Some of the people you see on your screen must have phones, but if they are communicating, it’s only with Colonel James Cox, who touched down here about forty-five minutes ago and immediately conferenced with the survivors. While the camera pans this grim scene from our admittedly remote standpoint, let me give concerned viewers in America—and all over the world—the names of the people now at the Dome who have been positively identified. I think you might have still pictures of several, and maybe you can flash them on the screen as I go. I think my list’s alphabetical, but don’t hold me to that.”

“We won’t, Jake. And we do have some pictures, but go slow.”

“Colonel Dale Barbara, formerly Lieutenant Barbara, United States Army.” A picture of Barbie in desert camo came on the screen. He had his arm around a grinning Iraqi boy. “A decorated veteran and most recently a short-order cook in the town restaurant.

“Angelina Buffalino… do we have a picture of her?… no?… okay.

“Romeo Burpee, owner of the local department store.” There was a picture of Rommie. In it he was standing beside a backyard barbecue with his wife and wearing a tee-shirt that read KISS ME, I’M FRENCH.

“Ernest Calvert, his daughter Joan, and Joan’s daughter, Eleanor Calvert.” This picture looked like it had been taken at a family reunion; there were Calverts everywhere. Norrie, looking both grim and pretty, had her skateboard under one arm.

“Alva Drake… her son Benjamin Drake…”

“Turn that off,” Big Jim grunted.

“At least they’re in the open,” Carter said wistfully. “Not stuck in a hole. I feel like Saddam fucking Hussein when he was on the run.”

“Eric Everett, his wife, Linda, and their two daughters…”

“Another family!” Charlie Gibson said in a voice of approval that was almost Mormonesque. That was enough for Big Jim; he got up and snapped the TV off himself, with a hard twist of the wrist. He was still holding the sardine can, and spilled some of the oil on his pants when he did it.

You’ll never get that out, Carter thought but did not say.

I was watching that show, Carter thought but did not say.

“The newspaper woman,” Big Jim brooded, sitting back down. The cushions hissed as they collapsed beneath his weight. “She was always against me. Every trick in the book, Carter. Every trick in the cotton-picking book. Get me another can of sardines, would you?”

Get it yourself, Carter thought but did not say. He got up and grabbed another can of ’dines.