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
on the other side of a rusty old bridge that now spanned nothing but a mudslick. Barbie leaned forward between the front seats of the van. ‘What’s that? It looks like the world’s biggest Indiglo watch.’
‘It’s radiation,’ Ernie said.
‘Don’t worry,’ Rommie said. ‘We’ve got plenty of lead roll.’
‘Norrie called me on her mother’s cell phone while I was waiting for you,’ Ernie said. ‘She told me about the glow. She says Julia thinks it’s nothing but a kind of… scarecrow, I guess you’d say. Not dangerous.’
‘I thought Julia’s degree was in journalism, not science,’ Jackie said. ‘She’s a very nice lady, and smart, but we’re still going to armor this thing up, right? Because I don’t much fancy getting ovarian or breast cancer as a fortieth birthday present.’
‘We’ll drive fast,’ Rommie said. ‘You can even slide a piece of dat lead roll down the front of your jeans, if it’ll make you feel better, you.’
‘That’s so funny I forgot to laugh,’ she said… then did just that when she got an image of herself in lead panties, fashionably high-cut on the sides.
They came to the dead bear at the foot of the telephone pole. They could have seen it even with the headlights off, because by then the combined light from the pink moon and the radiation belt was almost strong enough to read a newspaper by.
While Rommie and Jackie covered the van’s windows with lead roll, the others stood around the rotting bear in a semicircle.
‘Not radiation,’ Barbie mused.
‘Nope,’ Rusty said. ‘Suicide.’
‘And there are others.’
‘Yes. But the smaller animals seem to be safe. The kids and I saw plenty of birds, and there was a squirrel in the orchard. It was just as lively as can be.’
‘Then Julia’s almost certainly right,’ Barbie said. ‘The glowband’s a scarecrow and the dead animals are another. It’s the old belt-and-suspenders thing.’
‘I’m not following you, my friend,’ Ernie said.
But Rusty, who had learned the belt-and-suspenders approach as a medical student, absolutely was. ‘Two warnings to keep out,’ he said, ‘Dead animals by day, a glowing belt of radiation by night.’
‘So far as I know,’ Rommie said, joining them at the side of the road, ‘radiation only glows in science fiction movies.’
Rusty thought of telling him they were living in a science fiction movie, and Rommie would realize it when he got close to that weird box on the ridge. But of course Rommie was right.
‘We’re supposed to see it,’ he said. ‘The same with the dead animals. You’re supposed to say, «Whoa—if there’s some kind of suicide-ray out here that affects big mammals, I better stay away. After all, I’m a big mammal.'»
‘But the kids didn’t back off,’ Barbie said.
‘Because they’re kids,’ Ernie said. And, after a moment’s consideration: ‘Also skateboarders. They’re a different breed.’
‘I still don’t like it,’Jackie said,’but since we have noplace else to go, maybe we could drive through yonder Van Allen Belt before I lose what’s left of my nerve. After what happened at the cop-shop, I’mjfeeling a little shaky.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Barbie said. ‘There’s something out of kilter here. I see it, but give me a second to think how to say it.’
They waited. Moonlight and radiation lit the remains of the bear. Barbie was staring at it. Finally he raised his head.
‘Okay, here’s what’s troubling me. There’s a they. We know that because the box Rusty found isn’t a natural phenomenon.’
‘Damn straight, it’s a made thing,’ Rusty said. ‘But not terrestrial. I’d bet my life on that.’ Then he thought how close he’d come to losing his life not an hour ago and shuddered. Jackie squeezed his shoulder.
‘Never mind that part for now,’ Barbie said. ‘There’s a they, and if they really wanted to keep us out, they could. They’re keeping the whqle world out of Chester’s Mill. If they wanted to keep us away front their box, why not put a mini-Dome around it?’
‘Or a harmonic sound that would cook our brains like chicken legs in a microwave,’ Rusty suggested, getting into the spirit of the thing. ‘Hell, real radiation, for that matter.’
‘It might be real radiation,’ Ernie said.’In fact, the Geiger counter you I brought up here pretty much confirmed that.’
‘Yes,’ Barbie agreed, ‘but does that mean that what the Geiger counters registering is dangerous? Rusty and the kids aren’t breaking out in lesions, or losing their hair, or vomiting up the linings of their stomachs.’
‘At least not yet,’ Jackie said.
‘Dat’s cheerful,’ Rommie said.
Barbie ignored the byplay. ‘Surely if they can create a barrier so strong it bounces back the best missiles America can throw at it, they could set up a radiation belt that would
