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
a used car dealer, for heaven’s sake.’
Silence greeted this.
‘Now look,’ Jackie said after it had stretched out a bit.’By telling you what Linda and I mean to do, I’ve made this a real conspiracy. I’m! going to ask for a vote. If you want to be a part of this, raise your hand. Those who don’t raise their hands can leave, contingent on a promise not to blab about what we’ve discussed. Which you wouldn’t want to do, anyway; if you don’t tell anybody who was here and what was discussed, you won’t have to explain how you heard. This is dangerous. We might end up in jail, or even worse. So let’s see some hands. Who wants to stay?’
Joe raised his hand first, but Piper, Julia, Rose, and Ernie Calvert were not far behind. Linda and Rommie raised their hands together. Lissa looked at Claire McClatchey. Claire sighed and nodded. The two women raised their hands.
‘Way to go, Mom,’ Joe said.
‘If you ever tell your father what I let you get into,’ she said, ‘you won’t need James Rennie to execute you. I’ll do it myself.’
19
‘Linda can’t go into the PD after them,’ Rommie said. He was speaking to Jackie.
‘Who, then?’
‘You and me, lion. Linda’s gonna go to the big meeting. Where six or eight hundred people can testify that they saw her.’
‘Why can’t I go?’ Linda asked. ‘That’s my husband they’ve got.’
‘That’s why,’Julia said simply.
‘How do you want to do it?’ Rommie asked Jackie.
‘Well, I suggest we wear masks—’
‘Duh,’ Rose said, and made a face.They all laughed.
‘Lucky us,’ Rommie said. T got: a great selection of Halloween masks at the store.’
‘Maybe I’ll be the Little Mermaid,’Jackie said, a little wistfully. She realized everyone was looking at her, and blushed. ‘Whatever. In any: case, we’ll need guns. I have an extra at home—a Beretta. Do youi have something, Rommie?’
‘I put away some rifles and shotguns in the store safe. Got at lease one wit’ a scope. I won’t say I saw this comin, but I saw somethin comin.’
Joe spoke up. ‘You’ll also need a getaway vehicle. And not your van, Rommie, because everyone knows it.’
‘I got an idea about that,’ Ernie said. ‘Let’s take a vehicle from Jim Rennie’s used car lot. He’s got half a dozen high-mileage phone company vans he picked up last spring. They’re out in the back. Using one of his’d be, whatdoyacallit, poetic justice.’
‘And exactly how you gonna get the key?’ Rommie asked.’Break into his office at the showroom?’
‘If the one we pick doesn’t have an electronic ignition, I can hotwire it,’ Ernie said. Fixing Joe with a frowning glance, he added: ‘I’d prefer you didn’t tell my granddaughter that, young man.’
Joe did a lip-zipping pantomime that made them all laugh again.
‘The special town meeting is scheduled to start at seven tomorrow night,’Jackie said. ‘If we go into the PD around eight—’
‘We can do better than that,’ Linda said. ‘If I have to go to the damn meeting, I might as well do some good. I’ll wear a dress with big pockets and carry my police radio—the extra that’s still in my personal vehicle. You two be in the van, ready to go.’
Tension was creeping into the room; they all felt it. This was starting to be real.
‘At the loadin dock behind my store,’ Rommie said.’Out of sight.’
‘Once Rennie really gets going on his speech,’ Linda said, ‘I’ll give you a triple break on the radio. That’s your signal to roll.’
‘How many police will there be at the station?’ Lissa asked.
‘I might be able to find out from Stacey Moggin,’ Jackie said. ‘There won’t be many, though. Why would there be? So far as Big Jim knows, there are no real Friends of Barbie—just the straw men he’s set up.’
‘He’ll also want to make sure his tender ass is well protected,’ Julia said.
There was some laughter at this, but Joe’s mother looked deeply troubled.’There’ll be some at the police station no matter what. What are you going to do if they resist you?’
‘They won’t,’ Jackie said. ‘We’ll have them locked in their own cells before they know what’s happening.’
‘But if they do?’
‘Then we’ll try not to kill them.’ Linda’s voice was calm, but her eyes were those of a creature who has screwed its courage up in some final desperate effort to save itself. ‘There’s probably going to be killing anyway if the Dome stays up much longer. The execution of Barbie and my husband in War Memorial Plaza will only be the start of it.’
‘Let’s say you get them out,’ Julia said. ‘Where will you take them? Here?’
‘No way,’ Piper said, and touched her still-swollen mouth. ‘I’m already on Rennie’s shit list. Not to mention that guy who’s now his personal bodyguard. Thibodeau. My dog bit him.’
‘Anywhere near the
