On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field.
Авторы: King Stephen Edwin
in their ER days—began to cry. She slid down the side of the car (ripping her own coat on a jag of metal) and sat on the asphalt of 117. She was still sitting there and still crying when Barbie and his new friend in the Sea Dogs cap came upon her.
3
Sea Dogs turned out to be Paul Gendron, a car salesman from upstate who had retired to his late parents’ farm in Motton two years before. Barbie learned this and a great deal more about Gendron between their departure from the crash scene on 119 and their discovery of another one—not quite so spectacular but still pretty horrific—at the place where Route 117 crossed into The Mill. Barbie would have been more than willing to shake Gendron’s hand, but such niceties would have to remain on hold until they found the place wiere the invisible barrier ended.
Ernie Calvert had gotten through to the Air National Guard in Bangor, but had been put on hold before he had a chance to say why he was calling. Meanwhile, approaching sirens heralded the imminent arrival of the local law.
‘Just don’t expect the Fire Department,’ said the farmer who’d come running across the field with his sons. His name was Alden Dinsmore, and he was still getting his breath back. ‘They’re over to Castle Rock, burnin down a house for practice. Could have gotten plenty of practice right h—’ Then he saw his younger son approaching the place where Barbie’s bloody handprint appeared to be drying on nothing more than sunny air. ‘Rory, get away from there!’
Pvory, agog with curiosity, ignored him. He reached out and knocked on the air just to the right of Barbie’s handprint. But before he did, Barbie saw goosebumps rash out on the kid’s arms below the ragged sleeves of his cut-ofFWildcats sweatshirt. There was something there, something that kicked in when you got close. The only place Barbie had ever gotten a similar sensation was close to the big powrer generator in Avon, Florida, where he’d once taken a girl necking.
The sound of the kid’s fist was like knuckles on the side of a Pyrex casserole dish. It silenced the little babbling crowd of spectators, who had been staring at the burning remains of the pulp-truck (and in some cases taking pictures of it with their cell phones).
‘I’ll be dipped in shit,’ someone said.
Alden Dinsmore dragged his son away by the ragged collar of his sweatshirt, then whapped him backside of the head as he had the older brother not long before. ‘Don’t you ever!’ Dinsmore cried, shaking the boy. ‘Don’t you ever, when you don’t know what it is!’
‘Pa, it’s like a glass wall! It’s—’
Dinsmore shook him some more. He was still panting, and Barbie feared for his heart. ‘Don’t you everV he repeated, and pushed the kid at his older brother. ‘Hang onto this fool, Ollie.’
‘Yessir,’ Ollie said, and smirked at his brother.
Barbie looked toward The Mill. He could now see the approaching flashers of a police car, but far ahead of it—as if escorting the cops by virtue of some higher authority—was a large black vehicle that looked like a rolling coffin: Big Jim Rennie’s Hummer. Barbie’s fading bumps and bruises from the fight in Dipper’s parking lot seemed to give a sympathetic throb at the sight.
P^ennie Senior hadn’t been there, of course, but his son had been the prime instigator, and Big Jim had taken care of Junior. If that—KXfirA making life in The Mill tough for a certain itinerant short-order cook—tough enough so the short-order cook in question would decide to just haul stakes and leave town—even better.
Barbie didn’t want to be here when Big Jim arrived. Especially xnot with the cops. Chief Perkins had treated him okay, but the other one—Randolph—had looked at him as if Dale Barbara were a piece of dogshit on a dress shoe.
Barbie turned to Sea Dogs and said: ‘You interested in taking a little hike? You on your side, me on mine? See how far tiis thing goes?’
‘And get away from here before yonder gasbag arrives?’ Gendron had also seen the oncoming Hummer. ‘My friend, you’re on. East or west?’
4
They went west, toward Route 117, and they didn’t find the end of the barrier, but they saw the wonders it had created wher. it came down. Tree branches had been sheared off, creating pathways to the sky where previously there had been none. Stumps had been cut in half. And there were feathered corpses everywhere.
‘Lotta dead birds,’ Gendron said. He resettled his cap on his head with hands that trembled slightly. His face was pale. ‘Never seen so many’
‘Are you all right?’ Barbie asked.
‘Physically? Yeah, I think so. Mentally, I feel like I’ve lost my frickin mind. How about you?’
‘Same,’ Barbie said.
Two miles west of 119, they came to God Creek Road and the body
