They piled into the van, Rommie behind the wheel, and drove slowly up Black Ridge Road. Rusty had the Geiger counter in his lap. It clucked steadily. He watched the needle rise toward the +200 mark.
"Stop here, Mr. Burpee!" Norrie cried. "Before you come out of the woods! If you're gonna pass out, I'd just as soon you didn't do it while you were driving, even at ten miles an hour."
Rommie obediently pulled the van over. "Jump out, kids. I'm gonna babysit you. The doc's going on by himself." He turned to Rusty. "Take the van, but drive slow and stop the second the radiation count gets too high to be safe. Or if you start to feel woozy. We'll walk behind you."
"Be careful, Mr. Everett," Joe said.
Benny added, "Don't worry if you pass out and Wilson the van. We'll push you back onto the road when you come to."
"Thanks," Rusty said. "You're all heart and a mile wide."
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
Rusty got behind the wheel and closed the driver's-side door. On the passenger bucket, the Geiger counter clicked. He drove--very slowly--out of the woods. Up ahead, Black Ridge Road rose toward the orchard. At first he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and had a moment of bone-deep disappointment. Then a bright purple flash hit him in the eyes and he jammed on the brakes in a hurry. Something up there, all right, a bright something amid the scrabble of untended apple trees. Just behind him, in the van's outside mirror, he saw the others stop walking.
"Rusty?" Rommie called. "Okay?"
"I see it."
He counted to fifteen, and the purple light flashed again. He was reaching for the Geiger counter when Joe looked in at him through the driver's-side window. The new pimples stood out on his skin like stigmata. "Do you feel anything? Woozy? Swimmy in the head?"
"No," Rusty said.
Joe pointed ahead. "That's where we blacked out. Right there." Rusty could see scuff-marks in the dirt at the left side of the road.
"Walk that far," Rusty said. "All four of you. Let's see if you pass out again."
"Cheesus," Benny said, joining Joe. "What am I, a guinea pig?"
"Actually, I think Rommie's the guinea pig. You up for it, Rommie?"
"Yuh." He turned to the kids. "If I pass out and you don't, drag me back here. It seems to be out of range."
The quartet walked to the scuff-marks, Rusty watching intently from behind the wheel of the van. They had almost reached them when Rommie first slowed, then staggered. Norrie and Benny reached out on one side to steady him, Joe on the other. But Rommie didn't fall. After a moment he straightened up again.
"Dunno if it was somethin real or only ... what do you call it ... the power of suggestion, but I'm okay now. Was just a little lightheaded for a second, me. You kids feel anything?"
They shook their heads. Rusty wasn't surprised. It was like chick-enpox: a mild sickness mostly suffered by children, who only caught it once.
"Drive ahead, Doc," Rommie said. "You don't want to be carryin all those pieces of lead sheet up there if you don't have to, but be careful."
Rusty drove slowly forward. He heard the accelerating pace of clicks from the Geiger counter, but felt absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. From the ridge, the light flashed out at fifteen-second intervals. He reached Rommie and the children, then passed them.
"I don't feel anyth--" he began, and then it came: not lightheadedness, exactly, but a sense of strangeness and peculiar clarity. While it lasted he felt as if his head were a telescope and he could see anything he wanted to see, no matter how far. He could see his brother making his morning commute in San Diego, if he wanted to.
Somewhere, in an adjacent universe, he heard Benny call out: "Whoa, Dr. Rusty's losin it!"
But he wasn't; he could still see the dirt road perfectly well. Divinely well. Every stone and chip of mica. If he had swerved--and he supposed he had--it was to avoid the man who was suddenly standing there. The man was skinny, and made taller by an absurd red, white, and blue stovepipe hat, comically crooked. He was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt that read SWEET HOME ALABAMA PLAY THAT DEAD BAND SONG.
That's not a man, it's a Halloween dummy.
Yes, sure. What else could it be, with green garden trowels for hands and a burlap head and stitched white crosses for eyes?
"Doc! Doc! " It was Rommie.
The Halloween dummy burst into flames.
A moment later it was gone. Now there was just the road, the ridge, and the purple light, flashing at fifteen-second intervals, seeming to say Come on, come on, come on.
12
Rommie pulled open the driver's door. "Doc ... Rusty ... you okay?"
"Fine. It came, it went. I assume it was the same for you. Rommie, did you see anything?"
"No. For a minute I t'ought I smelled fire. But I think that's cause the air smells so smoky."
"I saw a bonfire of burning pumpkins," Joe said. "I told you that, right?"
"Yes." Rusty hadn't attached enough significance to it, in spite of what he'd heard from his own daughter's mouth. Now he did.
"I heard screaming," Benny said, "but I forget the rest."
"I heard it too," Norrie said. "It was daytime, but still dark. There was that screaming. And--I think--there was soot falling on my face."
"Doc, maybe we better go back," Rommie said.
"Isn't gonna happen," Rusty said. "Not if there's a chance I can get my kids--and everyone else's kids--out of here."
"Bet some adults would like to go too," Benny remarked. Joe threw him an elbow.
Rusty looked at the Geiger counter. The needle was pegged on +200. "Stay here," he said.
"Doc," Joe said, "what if the radiation gets heavy and you pass out? What do we do then?"
Rusty considered this. "If I'm still close, drag me out of there. But not you, Norrie. Only the guys."
"Why not me?" she asked.
"Because you might like to have kids someday. Ones with only two eyes and all the limbs attached in the right places."
"Right. I'm totally here," Norrie said.
"For the rest of you, short-term exposure should be okay. But I mean very short term. If I should go down halfway up the ridge or actually in the orchard, leave me."
"Dat's harsh, Doc."
"I don't mean for good," Rusty said. "You've got more lead roll back at the store, don't you?"
"Yeah. We should have brought it."
"I agree, but you can't think of everything. If worst comes to worst, get the rest of the lead roll, stick pieces in the windows of whatever you're driving, and scoop me up. Hell, by then I might be on my feet again and walking toward town."
"Yeah. Or still layin knocked out an' gettin a lethal dose."
"Look, Rommie, we're probably worrying about nothing. I think the wooziness--the actual passing-out, if you're a kid--is like the other Dome-related phenomena. You feel it once, then you're okay."
"You could be bettin your life on dat."
"We've got to start placing bets at some point."
"Good luck," Joe said, and extended his fist through the window.
Rusty pounded it lightly, then did the same with Norrie and Benny. Rommie also extended his fist. "What's good for the kids is good enough for me."
13
Twenty yards beyond the place where Rusty had had the vision of the dummy in the stovepipe hat, the clicks from the Geiger counter mounted to a staticky roar. He saw the needle standing at +400, just into the red.
He pulled over and hauled out gear he would have preferred not to put on. He looked back at the others. "A word of warning," he said. "And I'm talking to you in particular, Mr. Benny Drake. If you laugh, you're walking home."
"I won't laugh," Benny said, but in short order they were all laughing, including Rusty himself. He took off his jeans, then pulled a pair of football practice pants up over his undershorts. Where pads on the thighs and buttocks should have gone, he stuffed precut pieces of lead roll. Then he donned a pair of catcher's shinguards and curved more lead roll over t
hem. This was followed by a lead collar to shield his thyroid gland, and a lead apron to shield his testes. It was the biggest one they had, and hung all the way down to the bright orange shinguards. He had considered hanging another apron over his back (looking ridiculous was better than dying of lung cancer, in his view), and had decided against it. He had already pushed his weight to over three hundred pounds. And radiation didn't curve. If he faced the source, he thought he'd be okay.
Well. Maybe.
To this point, Rommie and the kids had managed to restrict themselves to discreet chuckles and a few strangulated giggles. Control wavered when Rusty stuffed a size XL bathing cap with two pieces of lead roll and pulled it down over his head, but it wasn't until he yanked on the elbow-length gloves and added the goggles that they lost it entirely.
"It lives!" Benny cried, striding around with his arms outstretched like Frankenstein's monster. "Master, it lives!"
Rommie staggered to the side of the road and sat on a rock, bellowing with laughter. Joe and Norrie collapsed on the road itself, rolling around like chickens taking a dustbath.
"Walking home, every one of you," Rusty said, but he was smiling as he climbed (not without difficulty) back into the van.
Ahead of him, the purple light flashed out like a beacon.
14
Henry Morrison left the PD when the raucous, locker-room-at halftime banter of the new recruits finally became too much to bear. It was going wrong, all of it. He supposed he'd known that even before Thibodeau, the thug who was now guarding Selectman Rennie, showed up with a signed order to can Jackie Wettington--a fine officer and an even finer woman.
Henry regarded this as the first move in what would probably be a comprehensive effort to remove the older officers, the ones Rennie would see as Duke Perkins partisans, from the force. He himself would be next. Freddy Denton and Rupert Libby would probably stay; Rupe was a moderate asshole, Denton severe. Linda Everett would go. Probably Stacey Moggin, too. Then, except for that dim-bulb Lauren Conree, the Chester's Mill PD would be an all-boys' club again.
He cruised slowly down Main Street, which was almost entirely empty--like a ghost-town street in a Western. Sloppy Sam Verdreaux was sitting under the marquee of the Globe, and that bottle between his knees probably did not contain Pepsi-Cola, but Henry didn't stop. Let the old sot have his tipple.
Johnny and Carrie Carver were boarding up the front windows of the Gas & Grocery. They were both wearing the blue armbands that had started to pop up all over town. They gave Henry the creeps.
He wished he'd taken the slot on the Orono police when it had been offered the previous year. It wasn't a step up careerwise, and he knew college kids could be shits to deal with when drunk or stoned, but the money was better, and Frieda said the Orono schools were top-of-the-line.
In the end, though, Duke had persuaded him to stay by promising to ram through a five-grand raise at the next town meeting, and by telling Henry--in absolute confidence--that he was going to fire Peter Randolph if Randolph wouldn't retire voluntarily. "You'd move up to APC, and that's another ten grand a year," Duke had said. "When I retire, you can move all the way up to the top job, if you want to. The alternative, of course, is driving UMO kids with puke drying on their pants back to their dorms. Think 'er over."
It had sounded good to him, it had sounded good (well ... fairly good) to Frieda, and of course it relieved the kids, who had hated the idea of moving. Only now, Duke was dead, Chester's Mill was under the Dome, and the PD was turning into something that felt bad and smelled worse.
He turned onto Prestile Street and saw Junior standing outside the yellow police tape strung around the McCain house. Junior was wearing pajama pants and slippers and nothing else. He was swaying noticeably, and Henry's first thought was that Junior and Sloppy Sam had a lot in common today.
His second thought was of--and for--the PD. He might not be a part of it for much longer, but he was now, and one of Duke Perkins's firmest rules had been Never let me see the name of a Chester's Mill PD officer in the Democrat's Court Beat column. And Junior, whether Henry liked it or not, was an officer.
He pulled unit Three to the curb and went to where Junior was rocking back and forth. "Hey, Junes, let's get you back to the station, pour some coffee into you and ..." Sober you up was how he intended to finish this, but then he observed that the kid's pajama pants were soaked. Junior had pissed himself.
Alarmed as well as disgusted--no one must see this, Duke would spin in his grave--Henry reached out and grasped Junior's shoulder. "Come on, son. You're making a spectacle of yourself."
"They were my goolfreds," Junior said without turning. He rocked faster. His face--what Henry could see of it--was dreamy and rapt. "I shilled them so I could fill them. No gooby. French." He laughed, then spat. Or tried to. A thick white string hung down from his chin, swinging like a pendulum.
"That's enough. I'm taking you home."
This time Junior turned, and Henry saw he wasn't drunk. His left eye was bright red. Its pupil was too big. The left side of his mouth was pulled down, exposing some of his teeth. That frozen glare made Henry think momentarily of Mr. Sardonicus, a movie that had scared him as a kid.
Junior didn't need to go to the station for coffee, and he didn't need to go home to sleep it off. Junior needed to go to the hospital.
"Come on, kid," he said. "Walk."
At first, Junior seemed willing enough. Henry escorted him most of the way to the car before Junior stopped again. "They smelled alike and I liked it," he said. "Horry horry horry, the snow is about to start."
"Right, absolutely." Henry had hoped to get Junior around the hood of the cruiser and into the front seat, but now this seemed impractical. The rear would have to do, even though the backseats of their cruisers usually smelled pretty fragrant. Junior looked back over his shoulder at the McCain house, and an expression of longing came over his partially frozen face.
"Goolfreds!" Junior cried. "Extendable! No gooby, French! All French, you fum-nuck!" He stuck out his tongue and flapped it rapidly against his lips. The noise was similar to the one Roadrunner makes before speeding away from Wile E. Coyote in a cloud of dust. Then he laughed and started back to the house.
"No, Junior," Henry said, and grabbed him by the waistband of his pajama pants. "We have to--"
Junior wheeled around with surprising speed. No laughter now; his face was a twitching cat's cradle of hate and rage. He rushed at Henry, flailing his fists. He stuck out his tongue and bit it with his champing teeth. He was gobbling in some strange language that seemed to have no vowels.
Henry did the only thing he could think of: stood aside. Junior plunged past him and began to hammer punches at the jackpot lights on top of the cruiser, smashing one of them and lacerating his knuckles. Now people were coming out of their houses to see what was happening.
"Gthn bnnt mnt!" Junior raved. "Mnt! Mnt! Gthn! Gthn!"
One foot slipped off the curb and into the gutter. He staggered but kept his feet. There was blood as well as spit hanging from his chin now; both hands were badly cut and dripping.
"She just made me so franning mad!" Junior screamed. "I kit her with my knee to shed her ump, and she frew a tit! Shit everywhere! I ... I..." He quit. Appeared to consider. Said: "I need help." Then popped his lips--the sound as loud as the report of a.22 pistol in the still air--and fell forward between the parked police car and the sidewalk.
Henry drove him to the hospital, using lights and siren. What he didn't do was think about the last things Junior had said, things that almost made sense. He wouldn't go there.
He had problems enough.
15
Rusty drove slowly up Black Ridge, looking frequently at the Geiger counter, which was now roaring like an AM radio set between stations. The needle rose from +400 to the +1K mark. Rusty was betting it would be swung all the way over to the +4K post by the time he topped the ridge. He knew this couldn't be good news--his "radiation suit" was makeshift at best--but
he kept going, reminding himself that rads were cumulative; if he moved fast, he wouldn't pick up a lethal dose. I might temporarily lose some hair, but no way I'll get a lethal dose. Think of it as a bombing run: get in, do your business, and get back out again.
He turned on the radio, got the Mighty Clouds of Joy on WCIK, and immediately turned it off again. Sweat rolled into his eyes and he blinked it away. Even with the air-conditioner blasting, it was devilishly hot in the van. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw his fellow explorers clustered together. They looked very small.
The roaring from the Geiger counter quit. He looked. The needle had dropped back to zero.
Rusty almost stopped, then realized if he did, Rommie and the kids would think he was in trouble. Besides, it was probably just the battery. But when he looked again, he saw that the power lamp was still glowing brightly.
At the top of the hill the road ended in a turnaround in front of a long red barn. An old truck and an even older tractor stood in front of it, the tractor leaning on a single wheel. The barn looked to be in pretty good condition, although some of the windows were broken. Behind it stood a deserted farmhouse with part of the roof crushed in, probably by the weight of winter snow.
The end of the barn was standing open, and even with the windows shut and the air-conditioning running full tilt, Rusty could smell the cidery aroma of old apples. He stopped next to the steps leading up to the house. There was a chain across these with a sign hanging from it: TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. The sign was old, rusty, and obviously ineffective. Beer cans were scattered the length of the porch where the McCoy family must once have sat on summer evenings, catching the breeze and looking over long vistas: the entire town of Chester's Mill to the right, all the way into New Hampshire if you looked left. Someone had spray-painted WILDCATS RULE on a wall that had once been red and was now a faded pink. On the door, in spray paint of a different color, was ORGY DEPOT. Rusty guessed that was wishful thinking on the part of some sex-starved teenager. Or maybe it was the name of a heavy-metal band.
He picked up the Geiger counter and tapped it. The needle jumped and the instrument clucked a few times. It seemed to be working fine; it just wasn't picking up any major radiation.