Frank woke up and stared around in wide-eyed befuddlement. His ass had migrated all the way to the edge of his chair, and when Georgia shrieked again, he jerked and fell onto the floor. He was wearing a sidearm now--they all were--and he grabbed for it, saying "Put it down, Sammy, just put it down, we're all friends here, let's be friends here."
Sammy said, "You ought to keep your mouth closed except for when you're on your knees gobbling your friend Junior's cock." Then she pulled the Springfield's trigger. The blast from the automatic was deafening in the small room. The first shot went over Frankie's head and shattered the window. Georgia screamed again. She was trying to get out of bed now, her IV line and monitor wires popping free. Sammy shoved her and she flopped askew on her back.
Frankie still didn't have his gun out. In his fear and confusion, he was tugging at the holster instead of the weapon, and succeeding at nothing but yanking his belt up on the right side. Sammy took two steps toward him, grasped the pistol in both hands like she'd seen people do on TV, and fired again. The left side of Frankie's head came off. A flap of scalp struck the wall and stuck there. He clapped his hand to the wound. Blood sprayed through his fingers. Then his fingers were gone, sinking into the oozing sponge where his skull had been.
"No more!" he cried. His eyes were huge and swimming with tears. "No more, don't! Don't hurt me!" And then: "Mom! MOMMY!"
"Don't bother, your mommy didn't raise you right," Sammy said, and shot him again, this time in the chest. He jumped against the wall. His hand left his wrecked head and thumped to the floor, splashing in the pool of blood that was already forming there. She shot him a third time, in the place that had hurt her. Then she turned to the one on the bed.
Georgia was huddled in a ball. The monitor above her was beeping like crazy, probably because she'd pulled out the wires connected to it. Her hair hung in her eyes. She screamed and screamed.
"Isn't that what you said?" Sammy asked. "Do that bitch, right?"
"I horry!"
"What?"
Georgia tried again. "I horry! I horry, Hammy!" And then, the ultimate absurdity: "I take it ack!"
"You can't. " Sammy shot Georgia in the face and again in the neck. Georgia jumped the way Frankie had, then lay still.
Sammy heard running footsteps and shouts in the corridor. Sleepy cries of concern from some of the rooms as well. She was sorry about causing a fuss, but sometimes there was just no choice. Sometimes things had to be done. And when they were, there could be peace.
She put the gun to her temple.
"I love you, Little Walter. Mumma loves her boy."
And pulled the trigger.
8
Rusty used West Street to get around the fire, then hooked back onto Lower Main at the 117 intersection. Bowie's was dark except for small electric candles in the front windows. He drove around back to the smaller lot as his wife had instructed him, and parked beside the long gray Cadillac hearse. Somewhere close by, a generator was clattering.
He was reaching for the door handle when his phone twittered. He turned it off without looking to see who might be calling, and when he looked up again, a cop was standing beside his window. A cop with a drawn gun.
It was a woman. When she bent down, Rusty saw a cloudburst of frizzy blond hair, and at last had a face to go with the name his wife had mentioned. The police dispatcher and receptionist on the day shift. Rusty assumed she had been pressed into full-time service on or just after Dome Day. He also assumed that her current duty-assignment had been self-assigned.
She holstered the pistol. "Hey, Dr. Rusty. Stacey Moggin. You treated me for poison oak two years ago? You know, on my--" She patted her behind.
"I remember. Nice to see you with your pants up, Ms. Moggin."
She laughed as she had spoken: softly. "Hope I didn't scare you."
"A little. I was silencing my cell phone, and then there you were."
"Sorry. Come on inside. Linda's waiting. We don't have much time. I'm going to stand watch out front. I'll give Lin a double-click on her walkie if someone comes. If it's the Bowies, they'll park in the side lot and we can drive out on East Street unnoticed." She cocked her head a little and smiled. "Well ... that's a tad optimistic, but at least unidentified. If we're lucky."
Rusty followed her, navigating by the cloudy beacon of her hair. "Did you break in, Stacey?"
"Hell, no. There was a key at the cop-shop. Most of the businesses on Main Street give us keys."
"And why are you in on this?"
"Because it's all fear-driven bullshit. Duke Perkins would have put a stop to it long ago. Now come on. And make this fast."
"I can't promise that. In fact, I can't promise anything. I'm not a pathologist."
"Fast as you can, then."
Rusty followed her inside. A moment later, Linda's arms were around him.
9
Harriet Bigelow screamed twice, then fainted. Gina Buffalino only stared, glassy with shock. "Get Gina out of here," Thurse snapped. He had gotten as far as the parking lot, heard the shots, and come running back. To find this. This slaughter.
Ginny put an arm around Gina's shoulders and led her back into the hall, where the patients who were ambulatory--this included Bill Allnut and Tansy Freeman--were standing, big-eyed and frightened.
"Get this one out of the way," Thurse told Twitch, pointing at Harriet. "And pull her skirt down, give the poor girl some modesty."
Twitch did as he was told. When he and Ginny reentered the room, Thurse was kneeling by the body of Frank DeLesseps, who had died because he'd come in place of Georgia's boyfriend and over-stayed visiting hours. Thurse had flapped the sheet over Georgia, and it was already blooming with blood-poppies.
"Is there anything we can do, Doctor?" Ginny asked. She knew he wasn't a doctor, but in her shock it came automatically. She was looking down at Frank's sprawled body, and her hand was over her mouth.
"Yes." Thurse rose and his bony knees cracked like pistol shots. "Call the police. This is a crime scene."
"All the ones on duty will be fighting that fire downstreet," Twitch said. "Those who aren't will either be on their way or sleeping with their phones turned off."
"Well call somebody, for the love of Jesus, and find out if we're supposed to do anything before we clean up the mess. Take photographs, or I don't know what. Not that there's much doubt about what happened. You'll have to excuse me for a minute. I'm going to vomit."
Ginny stood aside so Thurston could go into the tiny WC attached to the room. He closed the door, but the sound of his retching was still loud, the sound of a revving engine with dirt caught in it somewhere.
Ginny felt a wave of faintness rush through her head, seeming to lift her and make her light. She fought it off. When she looked back at Twitch, he was just closing his cell phone. "No answer from Rusty," he said. "I left a voice mail. Anyone else? What about Rennie?"
"No!" She almost shuddered. "Not him."
"My sister? Andi, I mean?"
Ginny only looked at him.
Twitch looked back for a moment, then dropped his eyes. "Maybe not," he mumbled.
Ginny touched him above the wrist. His skin was cold with shock. She supposed her own was, too. "If it's any comfort," she said, "I think she's trying to get clean. She came to see Rusty, and I'm pretty sure that was what it was about."
Twitch ran his hands down the sides of his face, turning it for a moment into an opera bouffe mask of sorrow. "This is a nightmare."
"Yes," Ginny said simply. Then she took out her cell phone again.
"Who you gonna call?" Twitch managed a little smile. "Ghost-busters?"
"No. If Andi and Big Jim are out, who does that leave?"
"Sanders, but he's dogshit-useless and you know it. Why don't we just clean up the mess? Thurston's right, what happened here is obvious."
Thurston came out of the bathroom. He was wiping his mouth with a paper towel. "Because there are rules, young man. And under the circumstances, it's more impor
tant than ever that we follow them. Or at least give it the good old college try."
Twitch looked up and saw Sammy Bushey's brains drying high on one wall. What she had used to think with now looked like a clot of oatmeal. He burst into tears.
10
Andy Sanders was sitting in Dale Barbara's apartment, on the side of Dale Barbara's bed. The window was filled with orange fireglare from the burning Democrat building next door. From above him he heard footsteps and muffled voices--men on the roof, he assumed.
He had brought a brown bag with him when he climbed the inside staircase from the pharmacy below. Now he took out the contents: a glass, a bottle of Dasani water, and a bottle of pills. The pills were OxyContin tablets. The label read HOLD FOR A. GRINNELL. They were pink, the twenties. He shook some out, counted, then shook out more. Twenty. Four hundred milligrams. It might not be enough to kill Andrea, who'd had time to build up a tolerance, but he was sure it would do quite well for him.
The heat from the fire next door came baking through the wall. His skin was wet with sweat. It had to be at least a hundred in here, maybe more. He wiped his face with the coverlet.
Won't feel it much longer. There'll be cool breezes in heaven, and we'll all sit down to dinner together at the Lord's table.
He used the bottom of the glass to grind the pink pills into powder, making sure the dope would hit him all at once. Like a hammer on a steer's head. Just lie down on the bed, close his eyes, and then good night, sweet pharmacist, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Me ... and Claudie ... and Dodee. Together for eternity.
Don't think so, brother.
That was Coggins's voice, Coggins at his most dour and declamatory. Andy paused in the act of crushing the pills.
Suicides don't eat supper with their loved ones, my friend; they go to hell and dine on hot coals that burn forever in the belly. Can you give me hallelujah on that? Can you say amen?
"Bullspit," Andy whispered, and went back to grinding the pills. "You were snout-first in the trough with the rest of us. Why should I believe you?"
Because I speak the truth. Your wife and daughter are looking down on you right now, pleading with you not to do it. Can't you hear them?
"Nope," Andy said. "And that's not you, either. It's just the part of my mind that's cowardly. It's run me my whole life. It's how Big Jim got hold of me. It's how I got into this meth mess. I didn't need the money, I don't even understand that much money, I just didn't know how to say no. But I can say it this time. Nosir. I've got nothing left to live for, and I'm leaving. Got anything to say to that?"
It seemed that Lester Coggins did not. Andy finished reducing the pills to powder, then filled the glass with water. He brushed the pink dust into the glass using the side of his hand, then stirred with his finger. The only sounds were the fire and the dim shouts of the men fighting it and from above, the thump-thud-thump of other men walking around on his roof.
"Down the hatch," he said ... but didn't drink. His hand was on the glass, but that cowardly part of him--that part that didn't want to die even though any meaningful life was over--held it where it was.
"No, you don't win this time," he said, but he let go of the glass so he could wipe his streaming face with the coverlet again. "Not every time and not this time."
He raised the glass to his lips. Sweet pink oblivion swam inside. But again he put it down on the bed table.
The cowardly part, still ruling him. God damn that cowardly part.
"Lord, send me a sign," he whispered. "Send me a sign that it's all right to drink this. If for no other reason than because it's the only way I can get out of this town."
Next door, the roof of the Democrat went down in a stew of sparks. Above him, someone--it sounded like Romeo Burpee--shouted: "Be ready, boys, be on the goddam ready!"
Be ready. That was the sign, surely. Andy Sanders lifted the glassful of death again, and this time the cowardly part didn't hold his arm down. The cowardly part seemed to have given up.
In his pocket, his cell phone played the opening phrases of "You're Beautiful," a sentimental piece of crap that had been Claudie's choice. For a moment he almost drank, anyway, but then a voice whispered that this could be a sign, too. He couldn't tell if that was the voice of the cowardly part, or of Coggins, or of his own true heart. And because he couldn't, he answered the phone.
"Mr. Sanders?" A woman's voice, tired and unhappy and frightened. Andy could relate. "This is Virginia Tomlinson, up at the hospital?"
"Ginny, sure!" Sounding like his old cheery, helpful self. It was bizarre.
"We have a situation here, I'm afraid. Can you come?"
Light pierced the confused darkness in Andy's head. It filled him with amazement and gratitude. To have someone say Can you come. Had he forgotten how fine that felt? He supposed he had, although it was why he'd stood for Selectman in the first place. Not to wield power; that was Big Jim's thing. Only to lend a helping hand. That was how he'd started out; maybe it was how he could finish up.
"Mr. Sanders? Are you there?"
"Yes. You hang in, Ginny. I'll be right there." He paused. "And none of that Mr. Sanders stuff. It's Andy. We're all in this together, you know."
He hung up, took the glass into the bathroom, and poured its pink contents into the commode. His good feeling--that feeling of light and amazement--lasted until he pushed the flush-lever. Then depression settled over him again like a smelly old coat. Needed? That was pretty funny. He was just stupid old Andy Sanders, the dummy who sat on Big Jim's lap. The mouthpiece. The gabbler. The man who read Big Jim's motions and proposals as if they were his own. The man who came in handy every two years or so, electioneering and laying on the cornpone charm. Things of which Big Jim was either incapable or unwilling.
There were more pills in the bottle. There was more Dasani in the cooler downstairs. But Andy didn't seriously consider these things; he had made Ginny Tomlinson a promise, and he was a man who kept his word. But suicide hadn't been rejected, only put on the back burner. Tabled, as they said in the smalltown political biz. And it would be good to get out of this bedroom, which had almost been his death chamber.
It was filling up with smoke.
11
The Bowies' mortuary workroom was belowground, and Linda felt safe enough turning on the lights. Rusty needed them for his examination.
"Look at this mess," he said, waving an arm at the dirty, foot-tracked tile floor, the beer and soft drink cans on the counters, an open trashcan in one corner with a few flies buzzing over it. "If the State Board of Funeral Service saw this--or the Department of Health--it'd be shut down in a New York minute."
"We're not in New York," Linda reminded him. She was looking at the stainless steel table in the center of the room. The surface was cloudy with substances probably best left unnamed, and there was a balled-up Snickers wrapper in one of the runoff gutters. "We're not even in Maine anymore, I don't think. Hurry up, Eric, this place stinks."
"In more ways than one," Rusty said. The mess offended him--hell, outraged him. He could have punched Stewart Bowie in the mouth just for the candy wrapper, discarded on the table where the town's dead had the blood drained from their bodies.
On the far side of the room were six stainless steel body-lockers. From somewhere behind them, Rusty could hear the steady rumble of refrigeration equipment. "No shortage of propane here," he muttered. "The Bowie brothers are livin large in the hood."
There were no names in the card slots on the fronts of the lockers--another sign of sloppiness--so Rusty pulled the whole sixpack. The first two were empty, which didn't surprise him. Most of those who had so far died under the Dome, including Ron Haskell and the Evanses, had been buried quickly. Jimmy Sirois, with no close relatives, was still in the small morgue at Cathy Russell.
The next four contained the bodies he had come to see. The smell of decomposition bloomed as soon as he pulled out the rolling racks. It overwhelmed the unpleasant but less aggressive sm
ells of preservatives and funeral ointments. Linda retreated farther, gagging.
"Don't you vomit, Linny," Rusty said, and went across to the cabinets on the far side of the room. The first drawer he opened contained nothing but stacked back issues of Field & Stream, and he cursed. The one under it, however, had what he needed. He reached beneath a trocar that looked as if it had never been washed and pulled out a pair of green plastic face masks still in their wrappers. He handed one mask to Linda, donned the other himself. He looked into the next drawer and appropriated a pair of rubber gloves. They were bright yellow, hellishly jaunty.
"If you think you're going to throw up in spite of the mask, go upstairs with Stacey."
"I'll be all right. I should witness."
"I'm not sure how much your testimony would count for; you're my wife, after all."
She repeated, "I should witness. Just be as quick as you can."
The body-racks were filthy. This didn't surprise him after seeing the rest of the prep area, but it still disgusted him. Linda had thought to bring an old cassette recorder she'd found in the garage. Rusty pushed RECORD, tested the sound, and was mildly surprised to find it was not too bad. He placed the little Panasonic on one of the empty racks. Then he pulled on the gloves. It took longer than it should have; his hands were sweating. There was probably talcum or Johnson's Baby Powder here somewhere, but he had no intention of wasting time looking for it. He already felt like a burglar. Hell, he was a burglar.
"Okay, here we go. It's ten forty-five PM, October twenty-fourth. This examination is taking place in the prep room of the Bowie Funeral Home. Which is filthy, by the way. Shameful. I see four bodies, three women and a man. Two of the women are young, late teens or early twenties. Those are Angela McCain and Dodee Sanders."
"Dorothy," Linda said from the far side of the prep table. "Her name is ... was ... Dorothy."
"I stand corrected. Dorothy Sanders. The third woman is in late middle age. That's Brenda Perkins. The man is about forty. He's the Reverend Lester Coggins. For the record, I can identify all these people."
He beckoned his wife and pointed at the bodies. She looked, and her eyes welled with tears. She raised the mask long enough to say, "I'm Linda Everett, of the Chester's Mill Police Department. My badge number is seven-seven-five. I also recognize these four bodies." She put her mask back in place. Above it, her eyes pleaded.