Under the Dome

fool in the universe. “But we’ll be fine, that’s the point. God will take care. He always does. In the meantime, we’ve got good air down here, it’s not too hot, and there’s plenty to eat. Why don’t you see what there is for sweets, son? Candybars and such? I’m still feeling peckish.”

I’m not your son, your son is dead, Carter thought… but didn’t say. He went into the bunkroom to see if there were any candybars on the shelves in there.

5

Around ten o’clock that night, Barbie fell into a troubled sleep with Julia close beside him, their bodies spooned together. Junior Rennie danced through his dreams: Junior standing outside his cell in The Coop. Junior with his gun. And this time there would be no rescue because the air outside had turned to poison and everyone was dead.

These dreams finally slipped away, and he slept more deeply, his head—and Julia’s—cocked toward the Dome and the fresh air seeping through it. It was enough for life, but not enough for ease.

Something woke him around two o’clock in the morning. He looked through the smudged Dome at the muted lights of the Army encampment on the other side. Then the sound came again. It was coughing, low and harsh and desperate.

A flashlight gleamed off to his right. Barbie got up as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake Julia, and walked to the light, stepping over others who lay sleeping in the grass. Most had stripped down to their underwear. The sentries ten feet away were bundled up in duffle coats and gloves, but over here it was hotter than ever.

Rusty and Ginny were kneeling beside Ernie Calvert. Rusty had a stethoscope around his neck and an oxygen mask in his hand. It was attached to a small red bottle marked CRH AMBULANCE DO NOT REMOVE ALWAYS REPLACE. Norrie and her mother looked on anxiously, their arms around each other.

“Sorry he woke you,” Joanie said. “He’s sick.”

“How sick?” Barbie asked.

Rusty shook his head. “I don’t know. It sounds like bronchitis or a bad cold, but of course it’s not. It’s bad air. I gave him some from the ambo, and it helped for awhile, but now…” He shrugged. “And I don’t like the sound of his heart. He’s been under a lot of stress, and he’s not a young man anymore.”

“You have no more oxygen?” Barbie asked. He pointed to the red bottle, which looked quite a lot like the kind of fire extinguisher people keep in their kitchen utility closets and always forget to recharge. “That’s it?”

Thurse Marshall joined them. In the beam of the flashlight he looked grim and tired. “There’s one more, but we agreed—Rusty, Ginny, and me—to save it for the little kids. Aidan’s started to cough too. I moved him as close to the Dome—and the fans—as I could, but he’s still coughing. We’ll start giving Aidan, Alice, Judy, and Janelle the remaining air in rationed whiffs when they wake up. Maybe if the officers brought more fans—”

“No matter how much fresh air they blow at us,” Ginny said, “only so much comes through. And no matter how close to the Dome we get, we’re still breathing in that crap. And the people who are hurting are exactly the ones you’d expect.”

“The oldest and the youngest,” Barbie said.

“Go back and lie down, Barbie,” Rusty said. “Save your strength. There’s nothing you can do here.”

“Can you?”

“Maybe. There’s also nasal decongestant in the ambo. And epinephrine, if it comes to that.”

Barbie crawled back along the Dome with his head turned to the fans—they were all doing this now, without thinking—and was appalled by how tired he felt when he reached Julia. His heart was pounding and he was out of breath.

Julia was awake. “How bad is he?”

“I don’t know,” Barbie admitted, “but it can’t be good. They were giving him oxygen from the ambulance, and he didn’t wake up.”

“Oxygen! Is there more? How much?”

He explained, and was sorry to see the light in her eyes dim a little.

She took his hand. Her fingers were sweaty but cold. “This is like being trapped in a mine cave-in.”

They were sitting now, facing each other, shoulders leaning against the Dome. The faintest of breezes sighed between them. The steady roar of the Air Max fans had become background noise; they raised their voices to speak over it, but otherwise didn’t notice it at all.

We’d notice it if it stopped, Barbie thought. For a few minutes, anyway. Then we wouldn’t notice anything, ever again.

She smiled wanly. “Quit worrying about me, if that’s what you’re doing. I’m okay for a middle-aged Republican lady who can’t quite catch her breath. At least I managed to get myself rogered one more time. Right, good, and proper, too.”

Barbie smiled back. “It was my pleasure, believe me.”

“What about the pencil nuke they’re going to try on Sunday? What do you think?”

“I don’t think. I only hope.”

“And how high are your hopes?”

He didn’t want to tell her the truth, but the truth was what she deserved. “Based on everything that’s happened and the little we know about the creatures running the box, not very.”

“Tell me you haven’t given up.”

“That I can do. I’m not even as scared as I probably should be. I think because… it’s insidious. I’ve even gotten used to the stench.”

“Really?”

He laughed. “No. How about you? Scared?”

“Yes, but sad, mostly. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a gasp.” She coughed again, curling a fist to her mouth. Barbie could hear other people doing the same thing. One would be the little boy who was now Thurston Marshall’s little boy. He’ll get some better stuff in the morning, Barbie thought, and then remembered how Thurston had put it: Air in rationed whiffs. That was no way for a kid to have to breathe.

No way for anyone to have to breathe.

Julia spat into the grass, then faced him again. “I can’t believe we did this to ourselves. The things running the box—the leather-heads—set up the situation, but I think they’re only a bunch of kids watching the fun. Playing the equivalent of a video game, maybe. They’re outside. We’re inside, and we did it to ourselves.”

“You’ve got enough problems without beating yourself up on that score,” Barbie said. “If anyone’s responsible, it’s Rennie. He’s the one who set up the drug lab, and he’s the one who started raiding propane from every source in town. He’s also the one who sent men out there and caused some sort of confrontation, I’m sure of it.”

“But who elected him?” Julia asked. “Who gave him the power to do those things?”

“Not you. Your newspaper campaigned against him. Or am I wrong?”

“You’re right,” she said, “but only about the last eight years or so. At first the Democrat—me, in other words—thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. By the time I found out what he really was, he was entrenched. And he had poor smiling stupid Andy Sanders out front to run interference for him.”

“You still can’t blame—”

“I can and do. If I’d known that pugnacious, incompetent sonofabitch might end up in charge during an actual crisis, I’d have… have… I’d have drowned him like a kitten in a sack.”

He laughed, then started coughing. “You sound less like a Republican all the ti—” he began, then broke off.

“What?” she asked, and then she heard it, too. Something was rattling and squeaking in the dark. It got closer and they saw a shambling figure tugging a child’s wagon.

“Who’s there?” called Dougie Twitchell.