Under the Dome

Here came a car from the direction of Motton, the next town to the south. One of the smaller SUVs, and moving fast. Someone had either heard the crash or seen the flash. Help. Thank God for help. Straddling the white line and standing well clear of the fire that was still running down from the sky in that weird water-on-a-windowpane way, Barbie waved his arms over his head, crossing them in big Xs.

The driver honked once in acknowledgment, then slammed on his brakes, laying forty feet of rubber. He was out almost before his little green Toyota had stopped, a big, rangy fellow with long gray hair cascading out from under a Sea Dogs baseball cap. He ran toward the side of the road, meaning to skirt the main firefall.

“What happened?” he cried. “What in the blue fu—”

Then he struck something. Hard. There was nothing there, but Barbie saw the guy’s nose snap to the side as it broke. The man rebounded from the nothing, bleeding from the mouth, nose, and forehead. He fell on his back, then struggled to a sitting position. He stared at Barbie with dazed, wondering eyes as blood from his nose and mouth cascaded down the front of his workshirt, and Barbie stared back.

JUNIOR AND ANGIE

1

The two boys fishing near the Peace Bridge didn’t look up when the plane flew overhead, but Junior Rennie did. He was a block farther down, on Prestile Street, and he recognized the sound. It was Chuck Thompson’s Seneca V. He looked up, saw the plane, then dropped his head fast when the bright sunlight shining through the trees sent a bolt of agony in through his eyes. Another headache. He’d been having a lot of them lately. Sometimes the medication killed them. Sometimes, especially in the last three or four months, it didn’t.

Migraines, Dr. Haskell said. All Junior knew was that they hurt like the end of the world, and bright light made them worse, especially when they were hatching. Sometimes he thought of the ants he and Frank DeLesseps had burned up when they were just kids. You used a magnifying glass and focused the sun on them as they crawled in and out of their hill. The result was fricasseed formicants. Only these days, when one of his headaches was hatching, his brain was the anthill and his eyes turned into twin magnifying glasses.

He was twenty-one. Did he have this to look forward to until he was forty-five or so, when Dr. Haskell said they might let up?

Maybe. But this morning a headache wasn’t going to stop him. The sight of Henry McCain’s 4Runner or LaDonna McCain’s Prius in the driveway might have; in that case he might’ve turned around, gone back to his own house, taken another Imitrex, and lain down in his bedroom with the shades drawn and a cool washcloth on his forehead. Possibly feeling the pain start to diminish as the headache derailed, but probably not. Once those black spiders really got a foothold—

He looked up again, this time squinting his eyes against the hateful light, but the Seneca was gone, and even the buzz of its engine (also aggravating—all sounds were aggravating when he was getting one of these bitchkitties) was fading. Chuck Thompson with some flyboy or flygirl wannabe. And although Junior had nothing against Chuck—hardly knew him—he wished with sudden, childish ferocity that Chuck’s pupil would fuck up bigtime and crash the plane.

Preferably in the middle of his father’s car dealership.

Another sickish throb of pain twisted through his head, but he went up the steps to the McCains’ door anyway. This had to be done. This was over-fucking-due. Angie needed a lesson.

But just a little one. Don’t let yourself get out of control.

As if summoned, his mother’s voice replied. Her maddeningly complacent voice. Junior was always a bad-tempered boy, but he keeps it under much better control now. Don’t you, Junior?

Well. Gee. He had, anyway. Football had helped. But now there was no football. Now there wasn’t even college. Instead, there were the headaches. And they made him feel like one mean motherfucker.

Don’t let yourself get out of control.

No. But he would talk to her, headache or no headache.

And, as the old saying was, he just might have to talk to her by hand. Who knew? Making Angie feel worse might make him feel better.

Junior rang the bell.

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