Page 53 of Under the Dome

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Haskell, although pushing seventy, had stayed at the hospital with Rusty last night until eleven, when Rusty had literally forced him out the door, and he'd been back by seven this morning, when Rusty and Linda arrived with daughters in tow. Also with Audrey, who seemed to take the new environment of Cathy Russell calmly enough. Judy and Janelle had walked on either side of the big golden, touching her for comfort. Janelle had looked scared to death.

'What's with the dog?' Haskell asked, and when Rusty filled him in, Haskell had nodded and said to Janelle: 'Let's check you out, hon.'

'Will it hurt?'Janelle had asked apprehensively.

'Not unless getting a piece of candy after I look in your eyes hurts.'

When the exam was over, the adults left the two girls and the dog in the examining room and went into the hall. Haskell's shoulders were slumped. His hair seemed to have whitened overnight.

'What's your diagnosis, Rusty?' Haskell had asked.

'Petit mal. I'd think brought on by excitement and worry, but Audi's been doing that Whining Thing of hers for months.'

'Right. We'll start her on Zarontin.You agree?'

'Yes.' Rusty had been touched to be asked. He was beginning to regret some of the mean things he'd said and thought about Haskell.

'And keep the dog with her, yes?'

'Absolutely'

'Will she be all right, Ron?' Linda asked. She'd had no plans to work then; her plan then had been to spend the day in quiet activities with the girls.

'She 15 all right,' Haskell said. 'Many children suffer petit mal seizures. Most have only one or two. Others have more, over a course of years, and then stop. There's rarely any lasting damage.'

Linda looked relieved. Rusty hoped she would never have to know what Haskell wasn't telling her: that instead of finding their way out of the neurological thicket, some unlucky kids went in deeper, progressing to grand mal. And grand mal seizures could do damage. They could kill.

Now, after finishing morning rounds (only half a dozen patients, one a new mom with no complications) and hoping for a cup of coffee before jetting over to the Health Center, this call from Linda.

'I'm sure Marta will be fine with having Audi,' she said.

'Good.You'll have your cop walkie while you're on duty, right?'

'Yes. Of course.'

'Then give your personal walkie to Marta. Agree on a com channel. If something should go wrong with Janelle, I'll come on the run.'

'All right. Thanks, honeybunch. Is there any chance you could get out there this afternoon?'

As Rusty considered that, he saw DougieTwitchell coming down the hall. He had a cigarette tucked behind his ear and was walking in his usual don't-give-a-shit amble, but Rusty saw concern on his face.

'I might be able to play hookey for an hour. No promises.'

'I understand, but it would be so great to see you.'

'You too. Be careful out there. And tell folks not to eat the hotdogs. Burpee's probably had them in cold storage for ten thousand years.'

'Those are his mastadon steaks,' Linda said. 'Over and oat, sweet man. I'll look for you.'

Rusty stuck the walkie in the pocket of his white coat and turned to Twitch. 'What's up? And get that cigarette out from behind your ear. This is a hospitaL'

Twitch plucked the cigarette from its resting place and looked at it. T was going to smoke it out by the storage shed.'

'Not a good idea,' Rusty said. 'That's where the extra propane's stored.'

'That's what I came to tell you. Most of the tanks are gone.'

'Bullshit. Those things are huge. I can't remember if they hold three thousand gallons each or five thousand.'

'So what are you saying? I forgot to look behind the door?'

Rusty began to rub his temples. 'If it takes them - whoever they are - more than three or four days to short out that forcefield, we're going to need mucho LP.'

"Tell me something I don't know,' Twitch said. 'According to the inventory card on the door, there's supposed to be seven of those puppies, but there are only two.' He stowed the cigarette in the pocket of his own white coat. 'I checked the other shed just to make sure, thought somebody might have moved the tanks - '

'Why would anyone do that?'

'I dunno, O Great One. Anyway, the other shed's for the really important hospital supplies: gardening and landscaping shit. In that one the tools are present and accounted for, but the f**king fertilizer's gone.'

Rusty didn't care about the fertilizer; he cared about the propane. 'Well - if push comes to shove, we'll get some from the town supplies.'

'You'll get a fight from Rennie.'

'When Cathy Russell might be his only option if that ticker of his vapor-locks? I doubt it. You think there's any chance I can get away for a while this afternoon?'

'That'd be up to The Wiz. He now appears to be the ranking officer,'

'Where is he?'

'Sleeping in the lounge. Snores like a mad bastard, too.You want to - wake him up?'

'No,' Rusty said. 'Let him sleep. And I'm not going to call him The Wiz anymore. Given how hard he's worked since this shit came down, I think he deserves better.'

'Ah so, sensei.You have reached a new level of enlightenment.'

'Blow me, grasshopper,' Rusty said.

10

Now see this; see it very well.

It's two forty p.m. on another eye-bustingly gorgeous autumn day in Chester's Mill. If the press were not being kept away they'd be in photo-op heaven - and not just because the trees are in full flame. The imprisoned people of the town have migrated to Alden Dinsmore's dairy field en masse. Alden has struck a use-fee deal with Romeo Burpee: six hundred dollars. Both men are happy, the farmer because he jacked the businessman up considerable from Burpee's starting offer of two hundred, Romeo because he would have gone to a thousand, if pressed.

From the protestors and Jesus-shouters Alden collected not a single crying dime.That doesn't mean he isn't charging them, however; Farmer Dinsmore was born at night, but not last night. When this opportunity came along, he marked out a large parking area just north of the place where the fragments of Chuck Thompson's plane came to rest the day before, and there he has stationed his wife (Shelley), his older son (Ollie; you remember Ollie), and his hired man (Manuel Ortega, a no-greencard Yankee who can ayuh with the best of them). Alden's knocking down five dollars a car, a fortune for a shirttail dairyman who for the last two years has been keeping his farm out of Keyhole Bank's hands by the skin of his teeth. There are complaints about the fee, but not many; they charge more to park at the Fryeburg Fair, and unless folks want to park by the side of the road - which has already been lined on both sides by early arrivals - and then walk half a mile to where all the excitement is, they have no choice.


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