PLAY THAT DEAD BAND SONG 7 page

“What?” Linda nearly screamed, but only to Lissa; she didn’t depress the SEND button on the side of the mike.

“They’ve put him downstairs in the Coop with Barbie. He’s all right, but it looks to me like he’s got a broken hand—he was holding it against his chest and it was all swollen.” She lowered her voice. “It happened resisting arrest, they said. Over.”

This time Linda remembered to key the mike. “I’ll be right there. Tell him I’m coming. Over.”

“I can’t,” Stacey said. “No one’s allowed down there anymore except for officers on a special list … and I’m not one of them. There’s a whole basket of charges, including attempted murder and accessory to murder. Take it easy coming back to town. You won’t be allowed to see him, so there’s no sense wrecking your shop on the way—”

Linda keyed the mike three times: break-break-break. Then she said, “I’ll see him, all right.”

But she didn’t. Chief Peter Randolph, looking freshly rested from his nap, met her at the top of the PD steps and told her he’d need her badge and gun; as Rusty’s wife, she was also under suspicion of undermining the lawful town government and fomenting insurrection.

Fine, she wanted to tell him. Arrest me, put me downstairs with my husband. But then she thought of the girls, who would be at Marta’s now, waiting to be picked up, wanting to tell her all about their day at school. She also thought of the meeting at the parsonage that night. She couldn’t attend that if she was in a cell, and the meeting was now more important than ever.

Because if they were going to break one prisoner out tomorrow night, why not two?

“Tell him I love him,” Linda said, unbuckling her belt and sliding the holster off it. She hadn’t really cared for the weight of the gun, anyway. Crossing the little ones on the way to school, and telling the middle-school kids to ditch both their cigarettes and their foul mouths … those things were more her forte.

“I will convey that message, Mrs. Everett.”

“Has anyone looked at his hand? I heard from someone that his hand might be broken.”

Randolph frowned. “Who told you that?”

“I don’t know who called me. He didn’t identify himself. It was one of our guys, I think, but the reception out there on 117 isn’t very good.”

Randolph considered this, decided not to pursue it. “Rusty’s hand is fine,” he said. “And our guys aren’t your guys anymore. Go on home. I’m sure we’ll have questions for you later.”

She felt tears and fought them back. “And what am I supposed to tell my girls? Am I supposed to tell them their daddy is in jail? You know Rusty’s one of the good guys; you know that. God, he was the one who diagnosed your hot gallbladder last year!”

“Can’t help you much there, Mrs. Everett,” Randolph said—his days of calling her Linda seemed to be behind him. “But I suggest you don’t tell them that Daddy conspired with Dale Barbara in the murder of Brenda Perkins and Lester Coggins—the others we’re not sure of, those were clearly sex crimes and Rusty may not have known about them.”

“That’s insane!”

Randolph might not have heard. “He also tried to kill Selectman Rennie by withholding vital medication. Luckily, Big Jim had the foresight to conceal a couple of officers nearby.” He shook his head. “Threatening to withhold lifesaving medication from a man who’s made himself sick caring for this town. That’s your good guy; that’s your goddam good guy.”

She was in trouble here, and knew it. She left before she could make it worse. The five hours before the meeting at the Congo parsonage stretched long before her. She could think of nowhere to go, nothing to do.

Then she did.

Rusty’s hand was far from fine. Even Barbie could see that, and there were three empty cells between them. “Rusty—anything I can do?”

Rusty managed a smile. “Not unless you’ve got a couple of aspirin you can toss me. Darvocet would be even better.”

“Fresh out. They didn’t give you anything?”

“No, but the pain’s down a bit. I’ll survive.” This talk was a good deal braver than he actually felt; the pain was very bad, and he was about to make it worse. “I’ve got to do something about these fingers, though.”

“Good luck.”

For a wonder, none of the fingers was broken, although a bone in his hand was. It was a metacarpal, the fifth. The only thing he could do about that was tear strips from his tee-shirt and use them as a splint. But first …

He grasped his left index finger, which was dislocated at the proximal interphalangeal joint. In the movies, this stuff always happened fast. Fast was dramatic. Unfortunately, fast could make things worse instead of better. He applied slow, steady, increasing pressure. The pain was gruesome; he felt it all the way up to the hinges of his jaw. He could hear the finger creaking like the hinge of a door that hasn’t been opened in a long time. Somewhere, both close by and in another country, he glimpsed Barbie standing at the door of his cell and watching.

Then, suddenly, the finger was magically straight again and the pain was less. In that one, anyway. He sat down on the bunk, gasping like a man who has just run a race.

“Done?” Barbie asked.

“Not quite. I also have to fix my fuck-you finger. I may need it.” Rusty grasped his second finger and began again. And again, just when it seemed the pain could get no worse, the dislocated joint slipped back into place. Now there was just the matter of his pinkie, which was sticking out as if he meant to make a toast.

And I would if I could, he thought. “To the most fucked-up day in history.” In the history of Eric Everett, at least.

He began to wrap the finger. This also hurt, and for this there was no quick fix.

“What’d you do?” Barbie asked, then snapped his fingers twice, sharply. He pointed at the ceiling, then cupped one hand to his ear. Did he actually know the Coop was bugged, or only suspect it? Rusty decided it didn’t matter. It would be best to behave as if it were, although it was hard to believe anyone in this fumble-bunch had thought of it yet.

“Made the mistake of trying to get Big Jim to step down,” Rusty said. “I have no doubt they’ll add a dozen or so other charges, but basically I got jailed for telling him to quit pushing so hard or he’d have a heart attack.”

This, of course, ignored the Coggins stuff, but Rusty thought that might be just as well for his continued good health.

“How’s the food in here?”

“Not bad,” Barbie said. “Rose brought me lunch. You want to watch out for the water, though. It can be a trifle salty.”

He forked the first two fingers of his right hand, pointed them at his eyes, then pointed pointed at his own mouth: watch.

Rusty nodded.

Tomorrow night, Barbie mouthed.

I know, Rusty mouthed back. Making the exaggerated syllables caused his lips to crack open and start bleeding again.

Barbie mouthed We … need … a … safe … place.

Thanks to Joe McClatchey and his friends, Rusty thought he had that part covered.

Andy Sanders had a seizure.

It was inevitable, really; he was unused to glass and he’d been smoking a lot of it. He was in the WCIK studio, listening to the Our Daily Bread symphony soar through “How Great Thou Art” and conducting along with it. He saw himself flying down eternal violin strings.

Chef was somewhere with the bong, but he’d left Andy a supply of fat hybrid cigarettes he called fry-daddies. “You want to be careful with these, Sanders,” he said. “They are dynamite. ‘For thee not used to drinking must be gentle.’ First Timothy. It also applies to fries.”

Andy nodded solemnly, but smoked like a demon once Chef was gone: two of the daddies, one after the other. He puffed until they were nothing but hot nubs that burned his fingers. The roasting cat-pee smell of the glass was already rising to the top of his aromatherapy hit parade. He was halfway through the third daddy and still conducting like Leonard Bernstein when he sucked in a particularly deep lungful and instantly blacked out. He fell to the floor and lay twitching in a river of sacred music. Spitfoam oozed between his clenched teeth. His half-open eyes rolled around in their sockets, seeing things that weren’t there. At least, not yet.

Ten minutes later he was awake again, and lively enough to go flying along the path between the studio and the long red supply building out back.

“Chef!” he bawled. “Chef, where are you? THEY’RE COMING!”

Chef Bushey stepped from the supply building’s side door. His hair stood up from his head in greasy quills. He was dressed in a filthy pair of pajama pants, pee-stained at the crotch and grass-stained at the bottoms. Printed with cartoon frogs saying RIBBIT, they hung precariously from the bony flanges of his hips, displaying a fluff of pubic hair in front and the crack of his ass in back. He had his AK-47 in one hand. On the stock he had carefully painted the words GOD’S WARRIOR. The garage door opener was in his other hand. He put God’s Warrior down but not God’s Door Opener. He grasped Andy’s shoulders and gave him a smart shake.

“Stop it, Sanders, you’re hysterical.”

“They’re coming! The bitter men! Just like you said!”

Chef considered this. “Did someone call and give you a heads-up?”

“No, it was a vision! I blacked out and had a vision!”

Chef’s eyes widened. Suspicion gave way to respect. He looked from Andy to Little Bitch Road, and then back to Andy again. “What did you see? How many? Is it all of them, or just a few, like before?”

“I … I … I …”

Chef shook him again, but much more gently this time. “Calm down, Sanders. You’re in the Lord’s army now, and—”

“A Christian soldier!”

“Right, right, right. And I’m your superior. So report.”

“They’re coming in two trucks.”

“Only two?”

“Yes.”

“Orange?”

“Yes!”

Chef hitched up his pjs (they subsided to their former position almost immediately) and nodded. “Town trucks. Probably those same three dumbwits—the Bowies and Mr. Chicken.”

“Mr.—?”

“Killian, Sanders, who else? He smokes the glass but doesn’t understand the purpose of the glass. He’s a fool. They’re coming for more propane.”

“Should we hide? Just hide and let them take it?”

“That’s what I did before. But not this time. I’m done hiding and letting people take things. Star Wormwood has blazed. It’s time for men of God to hoist their flag. Are you with me?”

And Andy—who under the Dome had lost everything that had ever meant anything to him—did not hesitate. “Yes!”

“To the end, Sanders?”

“To the end!”

“Where-at did you put your gun?”

As best as Andy could recollect, it was in the studio, leaning against the poster of Pat Robertson with his arm around the late Lester Coggins.

“Let’s get it,” Chef said, picking up GOD’S WARRIOR and checking the clip. “And from now on you carry it with you, have you got that?”

“Okay.”

“Box of ammo in there?”

“Yep.” Andy had toted one of these crates in just an hour ago. At least he thought it had been an hour ago; fry-daddies had a way of bending time at the edges.

“Just a minute,” Chef said. He went down the side of the supply building to the box of Chinese grenades and brought back three. He gave two to Andy and told him to put them in his pockets. Chef hung the third grenade from the muzzle of GOD’S WARRIOR by the pull-ring. “Sanders, I was told that you get seven seconds after you yank the pin to get rid of these cocksuckers, but when I tried one in the gravel-pit back yonder, it was more like four. You can’t trust your Oriental races. Remember that.”

Andy said he would.

“All right, come on. Let’s get your weapon.”

Hesitantly, Andy asked: “Are we going to take them out?”

Chef looked surprised. “Not unless we have to, no.”

“Good,” Andy said. In spite of everything, he didn’t really want to hurt anyone.

“But if they force the issue, we’ll do what’s necessary. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Andy said.

Chef clapped him on the shoulder.

Joe asked his mother if Benny and Norrie could spend the night. Claire said it was okay with her if it was okay with their parents. It would, in fact, be something of a relief. After their adventure on Black Ridge, she liked the idea of having them under her eye. They could make popcorn on the woodstove and continue the raucous game of Monopoly they’d begun an hour ago. It was too raucous, actually; their chatter and catcalls had a nervy, whistling-past-the-graveyard quality she didn’t care for.

Benny’s mother agreed, and—somewhat to her surprise—so did Norrie’s. “Good deal,” Joanie Calvert said. “I’ve been wanting to get schnockered ever since this happened. Looks like tonight’s my chance. And Claire? Tell that girl to hunt up her grandfather tomorrow and give him a kiss.”

“Who’s her grandfather?”

“Ernie. You know Ernie, don’t you? Everybody knows Ernie.

He worries about her. So do I, sometimes. That skateboard.” There was a shudder in Joanie’s voice.

“I’ll tell her.”

Claire had no more than hung up when there was a knock at the door. At first she didn’t know who the middle-aged woman with the pale, strained face was. Then she realized it was Linda Everett, who ordinarily worked the school-crossing beat and ticketed cars that overstayed their welcome in the two-hour parking zones on Main Street. And she wasn’t middle-aged at all. She just looked that way now.

“Linda!” Claire said. “What’s wrong? Is it Rusty? Has something happened to Rusty?” She was thinking of radiation … at least in the front of her mind. In the back, even worse ideas slithered around.

“He’s been arrested.”

The Monopoly game in the dining room had ceased. The participants now stood together in the living room doorway, gazing at Linda solemnly.

“It’s a whole laundry list of charges, including criminal complicity in the murders of Lester Coggins and Brenda Perkins.”

“No!” Benny cried.

Claire thought of telling them to leave the room and decided it would be hopeless. She thought she knew why Linda was here, and understood it, but still hated her a little for coming. And Rusty, too, for getting the kids involved. Except they were all involved, weren’t they? Under the Dome, involvement was no longer a matter of choice.

“He got in Rennie’s way,” Linda said. “That’s what it’s really about. That’s what it’s all about now, as far as Big Jim’s concerned: who’s in his way and who isn’t. He’s forgotten entirely what a terrible situation we’re in here. No, it’s worse than that. He’s using the situation.”

Joe looked at Linda solemnly. “Does Mr. Rennie know where we went this morning, Miz Everett? Does he know about the box? I don’t think he should know about the box.”

“What box?”

“The one we found on Black Ridge,” Norrie said. “We only saw the light it puts out; Rusty went right up and looked at it.”

“It’s the generator,” Benny said. “Only he couldn’t shut it off. He couldn’t even lift it, although he said it was real small.”

“I don’t know anything about this,” Linda said.

“Then neither does Rennie,” Joe said. He looked as if the weight of the world had just slipped off his shoulders.

“How do you know?”

“Because he would have sent the cops to question us,” Joe said.

“And if we didn’t answer the questions, they’d take us to jail.”

At a distance, there came a pair of faint reports. Claire cocked her head and frowned. “Were those firecrackers or gunshots?”

Linda didn’t know, and because they hadn’t come from town—they were too faint for that—she didn’t care. “Kids, tell me what happened on Black Ridge. Tell me everything. What you saw and what Rusty saw. And later tonight there’s some other people you may have to tell. It’s time we put together everything we know. In fact, it’s past time.”

Claire opened her mouth to say she didn’t want to get involved, then didn’t. Because there was no choice. None, at least, that she could see.

The WCIK studio was set well back from Little Bitch Road, and the driveway leading to it (paved, and in far better shape than the road itself) was almost a quarter of a mile long. At the Little Bitch end, it was flanked by a pair of hundred-year oaks. Their fall foliage, in a normal season brilliant enough to qualify for a calendar or tourism brochure, now hung limp and brown. Andy Sanders stood behind one of these crenellated trunks. Chef was behind the other. They could hear the approaching diesel roar of big trucks. Sweat ran into Andy’s eyes and he wiped it away.

“Sanders!”

“What?”

“Is your safety off?”

Andy checked. “Yes.”

“All right, listen and get it right the first time. If I tell you to start shooting, spray those motherfuckers! Top to bottom, fore and aft! If I don’t tell you to shoot, just stand there. Have you got that?”

“Y-Yes.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be any killing.”

Thank God, Andy thought.

“Not if it’s just the Bowies and Mr. Chicken. But I can’t be sure. If I do have to make a play, will you back me?”

“Yes.” No hesitation.

“And keep your finger off that damn trigger or you’re apt to blow your own head off.”

Andy looked down, saw his finger was indeed curled around the trigger of the AK, and removed it in a hurry.

They waited. Andy could hear his heartbeat in the middle of his head. He told himself it was stupid to be afraid—if not for a fortuitous phone call, he’d already be dead—but it did no good. Because a new world had opened in front of him. He knew it might turn out to be a false world (hadn’t he seen what dope had done to Andi Grinnell?), but it was better than the shitty world he’d been living in.

God, please let them just go away, he prayed. Please.

The trucks appeared, rolling slow and blowing dark smoke into the muted remains of the day. Peeking from behind his tree, Andy could see two men in the lead truck. Probably the Bowies.

For a long time Chef didn’t move. Andy was beginning to think he’d changed his mind and meant to let them take the propane after all. Then Chef stepped out and triggered off two quick rounds.

Stoned or not, Chef’s aim was good. Both front tires of the lead truck went flat. The front end pogoed up and down three or four times, and then the truck came to a halt. The one behind almost rear-ended it. Andy could hear the faint sound of music, some hymn, and guessed that whoever was driving the second truck hadn’t heard the gunshots over the radio. The cab of the lead truck, meanwhile, looked empty. Both men had ducked down out of sight.

Chef Bushey, still barefooted and wearing nothing but his RIBBIT pjs (the garage door opener was hooked over the sagging waist-band like a beeper), stepped out from behind his tree. “Stewart Bowie!” he called. “Fern Bowie! Come on out of there and talk to me!” He leaned GOD’S WARRIOR against the oak.

Nothing from the cab of the lead truck, but the driver’s door of the second truck opened and Roger Killian got out. “What’s the holdup?” he bawled. “I got to get back and feed my chick—” Then he saw Chef. “Hey there, Philly, what’s up?”

“Get down!” one of the Bowies bawled. “Crazy sonofabitch is shooting!”

Roger looked at Chef, then at the AK-47 leaning against the tree. “Maybe he was, but he’s put the gun down. Besides, it’s just him. What’s the deal, Phil?”

“I’m Chef now. Call me Chef.”

“Okay, Chef, what’s the deal?”

“Come on out, Stewart,” Chef called. “You too, Fern. Nobody’s going to get hurt here, I guess.”

The doors of the lead truck opened. Without turning his head, Chef said: “Sanders! If either of those two fools has a gun, you open up. Never mind single-shot; turn em into taco cheese.”

But neither Bowie had a gun. Fern had his hands hoisted.

“Who you talkin to, buddy?” Stewart asked.

“Step out here, Sanders,” Chef said.

Andy did. Now that the threat of immediate carnage seemed to have passed, he was starting to enjoy himself. If he’d thought to bring one of Chef’s fry-daddies with him, he was sure he’d be enjoying himself

even more.

“Andy?” Stewart said, astounded. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been drafted into the Lord’s army. And you are bitter men. We know all about you, and you have no place here.”

“Huh?” Fern said. He lowered his hands. The nose of the lead truck was slowly canting toward the road as the big front tires continued to deflate.

“Well said, Sanders,” Chef told him. Then, to Stewart: “All three of you get in that second truck. Turn it around and haul your sorry asses back to town. When you get there, tell that apostate son of the devil that WCIK is ours now. That includes the lab and all the supplies.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Phil?”

“Chef. ”

Stewart made a flapping gesture with one hand. “Call yourself whatever you want, just tell me what this is ab—”

“I know your brother’s stupid,” Chef said, “and Mr. Chicken there probably can’t tie his own shoes without a blueprint—”

“Hey!” Roger cried. “Watch your mouth!”

Andy raised his AK. He thought that, when he got a chance, he would paint CLAUDETTE on the stock. “No, you watch yours.”

Roger Killian went pale and fell back a step. That had never happened when Andy spoke at a town meeting, and it was very gratifying.

Chef went on talking as if there had been no interruption. “But you’ve got at least half a brain, Stewart, so use it. Leave that truck setting right where it is and go back to town in t’other one. Tell Rennie this out here doesn’t belong to him anymore, it belongs to God. Tell him Star Wormwood has blazed, and if he doesn’t want the Apocalypse to come early, he better leave us alone.” He considered. “You can also tell him we’ll keep putting out the music. I doubt he’s worried about that, but there’s some in town might find it a comfort.”

“Do you know how many cops he’s got now?” Stewart asked.

“I don’t give a tin shit.”

“I think about thirty. By tomorrow it’s apt to be fifty. And half the damn town’s wearing blue support-armbands. If he tells em to posse up, it won’t be no trouble.”

“It won’t be no help, either,” Chef said. “Our faith is in the Lord, and our strength is that of ten.”

“Well,” Roger said, flashing his math skills, “that’s twenty, but you’re still outnumbered.”

“Shut up, Roger,” Fern said.

Stewart tried again. “Phil—Chef, I mean—you need to chill the fuck out, because this ain’t no thang. He don’t want the dope, just the propane. Half the gennies in town are out. By the weekend it’ll be three-quarters. Let us take the propane.”

“I need it to cook with. Sorry.”

Stewart looked at him as if he had gone mad. He probably has, Andy thought. We probably both have. But of course Jim Rennie was mad, too, so that was a wash.

“Go on, now,” Chef said. “And tell him that if he tries sending troops against us, he will regret it.”

Stewart thought this over, then shrugged. “No skin off my rosy red chinchina. Come on, Fern. Roger, I’ll drive.”

“Fine by me,” Roger Killian said. “I hate all them gears.” He gave Chef and Andy a final look rich with mistrust, then started back to the second truck.

“God bless you fellas,” Andy called.

Stewart threw a sour dart of a glance back over his shoulder. “God bless you, too. Because God knows you’re gonna need it.”

The new proprietors of the largest meth lab in North America stood side by side, watching the big orange truck back down the road, make a clumsy K-turn, and drive away.

“Sanders!”

“Yes, Chef?”

“I want to pep up the music, and immediately. This town needs some Mavis Staples. Also some Clark Sisters. Once I get that shit cued up, let’s smoke.”

Andy’s eyes filled with tears. He put his arm around the former Phil Bushey’s bony shoulders and hugged. “I love you, Chef.”

“Thanks, Sanders. Right back atcha. Just keep your gun loaded. From now on we’ll have to stand watches.”

Big Jim was sitting at his son’s bedside as approaching sunset turned the day orange. Douglas Twitchell had come in to give Junior a shot. Now the boy was deeply asleep. In some ways, Big Jim knew, it would be better if Junior died; alive and with a tumor pressing down on his brain, there was no telling what he might do or say. Of course the kid was his own flesh and blood, but there was the greater good to think about; the good of the town. One of the extra pillows in the closet would probably do it—

That was when his phone rang. He looked at the name in the window and frowned. Something had gone wrong. Stewart would hardly be calling so soon if it were otherwise. “What.”

He listened with growing astonishment. Andy out there? Andy with a gun ?

Stewart was waiting for him to answer. Waiting to be told what to do. Get in line, pal, Big Jim thought, and sighed. “Give me a minute. I need to think. I’ll call you back.”

He ended the call and considered this new problem. He could take a bunch of cops out there tonight. In some ways it was an attractive idea: whip them up at Food City, then lead the raid himself. If Andy died, so much the better. That would make James Rennie, Senior, the entire town government.

On the other hand, the special town meeting was tomorrow night. Everyone would come, and there would be questions. He was sure he could lay the meth lab off on Barbara and the Friends of Barbara (in Big Jim’s mind, Andy Sanders had now become an official Friend of Barbara), but still … no.

No.

He wanted his flock scared, but not in an outright panic. Panic wouldn’t serve his purpose, which was to establish complete control of the town. And if he let Andy and Bushey stay where they were for a little while, what harm? It might even do some good. They’d grow complacent. They might fancy themselves forgotten, because drugs were full of Vitamin Stupid.

Friday, on the other hand—the day after tomorrow—was that cotton-picker Cox’s designated Visitors Day. Everybody would stream out to the Dinsmore farm again. Burpee would no doubt set up another hotdog stand. While that clustermug was going on, and while Cox was conducting his one-man press conference, Big Jim himself could lead a force of sixteen or eighteen police up to the radio station and wipe those two troublesome stoners out.

Yes. That was the answer.

He called Stewart back and told him to leave well enough alone.

“But I thought you wanted the propane,” Stewart said.

“We’ll get it,” Big Jim said. “And you can help us take care of those two, if you want to.”

“You’re damn right I want to. That sonofabitch—sorry, Big Jim—that sonofabuck Bushey needs a payback.”

“He’ll get it. Friday afternoon. Clear your schedule.”

Big Jim felt fine again, heart beating slowly and steadily in his chest, nary a stutter or flutter. And that was good, because there was so much to do, starting with tonight’s police pep talk at Food City: just the right environment in which to impress the importance of order on a bunch of new cops. Really, there was nothing like a scene of destruction to get people playing follow-the-leader.

He started out of the room, then went back and kissed his sleeping son’s cheek. Getting rid of Junior might become necessary, but for the time being, that too could wait.

Another night is falling on the little town of Chester’s Mill; another night under the Dome. But there is no rest for us; we have two meetings to attend, and we also ought to check up on Horace the Corgi before we sleep. Horace is keeping Andrea Grinnell company tonight, and although he is for the moment biding his time, he has not forgotten the popcorn between the couch and the wall.

So let us go then, you and I, while the evening spreads out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go while the first discolored stars begin to show overhead. This is the only town in a four-state area where they’re out tonight. Rain has overspread northern New England, and cable-news viewers will soon be treated to some remarkable satellite photographs showing a hole in the clouds that exactly mimics the sock-shape of Chester’s Mill. Here the stars shine down, but now they’re dirty stars because the Dome is dirty.

Heavy showers fall in Tarker’s Mills and the part of Castle Rock known as The View; CNN’s meteorologist, Reynolds Wolf (no relation to Rose Twitchell’s Wolfie), says that while no one can as yet be entirely sure, it seems likely that the west-to-east airflow is pushing the clouds against the western side of the Dome and squeezing them like sponges before they can slide away to the north and south. He calls it “a fascinating phenomenon.”

Suzanne Malveaux, the anchor, asks him what the long-term weather under the Dome might be like, if the crisis continues.

“Suzanne,” Reynolds Wolf says, “that’s a great question. All we know for sure is that Chester’s Mill isn’t getting any rain tonight, although the surface of the Dome is permeable enough so that some moisture may be seeping through where the showers are heaviest. NOAA meteorologists tell me the long-term prospects of precip under the Dome aren’t good. And we know their principal waterway, Prestile Stream, has pretty much dried up.” He smiles, showing a great set of TV teeth. “Thank God for artesian wells!”

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 550