But if she got voice mail the second time? And the third? Why had she ever let him go in the first place? She must have been mad.
She closed her eyes and saw a picture of nightmare clarity: the telephone poles and storefronts of Main Street plastered with photos of Joe, Benny, and Norrie, looking like any kids you ever saw on a turnpike rest area bulletin board, where the captions always contained the words LAST SEEN ON.
She opened her eyes and dialed quickly, before she could lose her nerve. She was preparing her message - I'm calling back in ten seconds and this time you better answer, mister - and was stunned when her son answered, loud and clear, halfway through the first ring.
'Mom! Hey, Mom!' Alive and more than alive: bubbling over with excitement, from the sound.
Where are you? she tried to say, but at first she couldn't manage anything. Not a single word. Her legs felt rubbery and elastic; she leaned against the wall to keep from falling on the floor.
'Mom? You there?'
In the background she heard the swish of a car, and Benny, faint but clear, hailing someone: 'Dr Rusty! Yo, dude, whoa!'
She was finally able to throw her voice in gear. 'Yes. I am. Where are you?'
'Top of Town Common Hill. I was gonna call you because it's gettin near dark - tell you not to worry - and it rang in my hand. Surprised the heck out of me.'
Well, that put a spoke in the old parental scolding-wheel, didn't it? Top of Town Common Hill. They'll be here in ten minutes. Benny probably wanting another three pounds of food. Thank You, God.
Norrie was talking to Joe. It sounded like Tell her, tell her. Then her son was in her ear again, so loudly jubilant that she had to hold the receiver away from her ear a little bit. 'Mom, I think we found it! I'm almost positive! It's in the orchard on top of Black Ridge!'
'Found what, Joey?'
'I don't know for sure, don't want to jump to conclusions, but probably the thing generating the Dome. Almost gotta be. We saw a blinker, like the ones they put on radio towers to warn planes, only on the ground and purple instead of red. We didn't go close enough to see anything else. We passed out, all of us. When we woke up we were okay, but it was starting to get la - '
'Passed out?' Claire almost screamed this. 'What do you mean, you passed out? Get home! Get home right now so I can look at you!'
'It's okay, Mom,' Joe said soothingly. 'I think it's like... you know how when people first touch the Dome they get a little shock, then they don't? I think it's like that. I think you pass out the first time and then you're, like, immunized. Good to go. That's what Norrie thinks, too.'
'I don't care what she thinks or what you think, mister! You get home right now so I can see you're all right or I'm going to immunize your ass!'
'Okay, but we have to get in touch with that guy Barbara. He's the one who thought of the Geiger counter in the first place, and boy, he was right on the money. We should get Dr Rusty, too. He just drove by us. Benny tried to wave him down, but he didn't stop. We'll get him and Mr Barbara to come to the house, okay? We hafta figure out our next move.'
'Joe... Mr Barbara is...'
Claire stopped. Was she going to tell her son that Mr Barbara - whom some people had begun referring to as Colonel Barbara - had been arrested on multiple murder charges?
'What?' Joe asked. 'What about him?' The happy triumph in his voice had been replaced by anxiety. She supposed he could read her moods as well as she could read his. And he had clearly pinned a lot of hope on Barbara - Benny and Norrie had too, probably. This wasn't news she could keep from them (much as she would have liked to), but she didn't have to give it to them on the phone.
'Come home,' she said. 'We'll talk about it here. And Joe - I'm awfully proud of you.'
8
Jimnjiy Sirois died late that afternoon, as Scarecrow Joe and his friends were tearing back toward town on their bikes.
Rusty sat in the hallway with his arm around Gina Buffalino and let her cry against his chest. There was a time when he would have felt exceedingly uncomfortable about sitting this way with a girl who was barely seventeen, but times had changed. You only had to look at this hallway - lit now with hissing Coleman lanterns instead of by fluorescents shining calmly down from the paneled ceiling - to know that times had changed. His hospital had become an arcade of shadows.
'Not your fault,' he said. 'Not your fault, not mine, not even his. He didn't ask to have diabetes.'
Although, God knew, there were people who coexisted with it for years. People who took care of themselves. Jimmy, a semi-hermit who had lived by himself out on the God Creek Road, had not been one of those. When he had finally driven himself in to the Health Center - last Thursday, this had been - he hadn't even been able to get out of his car, just kept honking until Ginny came out to see who it was and what was wrong. When Rusty got the old fellow's pants off, he had observed a flabby right leg that had turned a cold, dead blue. Even if everything had gone right with Jimmy, the nerve damage probably would have been irreversible.
'Don't hurt at all, Doc,' Jimmy had assured Ron Haskell just before slipping into a coma. He had been in and out of consciousness ever since, the leg getting worse, Rusty putting off the amputation even though he knew it had to come if Jimmy were to have any chance at all.
When the power went out, the IVs feeding antibiotics to Jimmy and two other patients continued to drip, but the flowmeters stopped, making it impossible to fine-tune the amounts. Worse, Jimmy's cardiac monitor and respirator failed. Rusty disconnected the respirator, put a valve mask over the old man's face, and gave Gina a refresher course on how to use the Ambu bag. She was good with it, and very faithful, but around six o'clock, Jimmy had died anyway.
Now she was inconsolable.
She lifted her tear-streaked face from his chest and said, 'Did I give him too much? Too little? Did I choke him and kill him?'