Under the Dome

When the shambling newcomer answered, his voice was slightly muffled. By an oxygen mask of his own, it turned out.

“Well, thank God,” Sloppy Sam said. “I had me a little nap side of the road, and I thought I’d run out of air before I got up here. But here I am. Just in time, too, because I’m almost tapped out.”

6

The Army encampment at Route 119 in Motton was a sad place that early Saturday morning. Only three dozen military personnel and one Chinook remained. A dozen men were loading in the big tents and a few leftover Air Max fans that Cox had ordered to the south side of the Dome as soon as the explosion had been reported. The fans had never been used. By the time they arrived, there was no one to appreciate the scant air they could push through the barrier. The fire was out by six PM, strangled by lack of fuel and oxygen, but everyone on the Chester’s Mill side was dead.

The medical tent was being taken down and rolled up by a dozen men. Those not occupied with that task had been set to that most ancient of Army jobs: policing up the area. It was make-work, but no one on the shit patrol minded. Nothing could make them forget the nightmare they had seen the previous afternoon, but grubbing up the wrappers, cans, bottles, and cigarette butts helped a little. Soon enough it would be dawn and the big Chinook would fire up. They’d climb aboard and go somewhere else. The members of this ragtag crew absolutely could not wait.

One of them was Pfc Clint Ames, from Hickory Grove, South Carolina. He had a green plastic Hefty bag in one hand and was moving slowly through the beaten-down grass, picking up the occasional discarded sign or flattened Coke can so if that hardass Sergeant Groh glanced over he’d look like he was working. He was nearly asleep on his feet, and at first he thought the knocking he heard (it sounded like knuckles on a thick Pyrex dish) was part of a dream. It almost had to be, because it seemed to be coming from the other side of the Dome.

He yawned and stretched with one hand pressing into the small of his back. As he was doing this, the knocking resumed. It really was coming from behind the blackened wall of the Dome.

Then, a voice. Weak and disembodied, like the voice of a ghost. It gave him the chills.

“Is anybody there? Can anybody hear me? Please… I’m dying.”

Christ, did he know that voice? It sounded like—

Ames dropped his litter bag and ran to the Dome. He put his hands on its blackened, still-warm surface. “Cow-kid? Is that you?”

I’m crazy, he thought. It can’t be. No one could have lived through that firestorm.

“AMES!” Sergeant Groh bawled. “What the hell are you doing over there?”

He was about to turn away when the voice behind the charred surface came again. “It’s me. Don’t…” There was a ragged series of barking coughs. “Don’t go. If you’re there, Private Ames, don’t go.”

Now a hand appeared. It was as ghostly as the voice, the fingers smeared with soot. It was rubbing a clean place on the inside of the Dome. A moment later a face appeared. At first Ames didn’t recognize the cow-kid. Then he realized the boy was wearing an oxygen mask.

“I’m almost out of air,” the cow-kid wheezed. “Dial’s in the red. Has been… for the last half hour.”

Ames stared into the cow-kid’s haunted eyes, and the cow-kid stared back. Then a single imperative rose in Ames’s mind: he couldn’t let the cow-kid die. Not after all he had survived… although how he had survived was impossible for Ames to imagine.

“Kid, listen to me. Y’all drop down on your knees and—”

“Ames, you useless fuckdub!” Sergeant Groh hollered, striding over. “Stop goldbricking and get busy! I have zero patience for your weakass shit tonight!”

Pfc Ames ignored him. He was entirely fixed on the face that appeared to be staring at him from behind a grimy glass wall. “Drop down and scrape the gluck off the bottom! Do it now, kid, right now!”

The face dropped from view, leaving Ames to hope the cow-kid was doing as he’d been told, and hadn’t just passed out.

Sergeant Groh’s hand fell on his shoulder. “Are you deaf? I told you—”

“Get the fans, Sergeant! We have to get the fans!”

“What are you talking ab—”

Ames screamed into the dreaded Sergeant Groh’s face. “There’s somebody alive in there!”

7

Only a single oxygen tank remained in the red wagon by the time Sloppy Sam arrived at the refugee camp by the Dome, and the needle on the dial was resting just above zero. He made no objection when Rusty took the mask and clapped it over Ernie Calvert’s face, only crawled to the Dome next to where Barbie and Julia were sitting. There the new arrival got down on all fours and breathed deeply. Horace the Corgi, sitting at Julia’s side, looked at him with interest.

Sam rolled over on his back. “It ain’t much, but better’n what I had. The last little bit in them tanks never tastes good like it does fresh off the top.”

Then, incredibly, he lit a cigarette.

“Put that out, are you insane?” Julia said.

“Been dyin for one,” Sam said, inhaling with satisfaction. “Can’t smoke around oxygen, you know. Blow y’self up, likely as not. Although there’s people who does it.”

“Might as well let him go,” Rommie said. “It can’t be any worse than the crap we’re breathing. For all we know, the tar and nicotine in his lungs is protectin him.”

Rusty came over and sat down. “That tank’s a dead soldier,” he said, “but Ernie got a few extra breaths from it. He seems to be resting easier now. Thanks, Sam.”

Sam waved it away. “My air’s your air, doc. Or at least it was. Say, can’t you make more with somethin in your ambulance there? The guys who bring my tanks—who did, anyway, before this sack of shit hit the fan—they could make more right in their truck. They had a whatdoyoucallit, pump of some kind.”

“Oxygen extractor,” Rusty said, “and you’re right, we have one on board. Unfortunately, it’s broken.” He showed his teeth in what passed for a grin. “It’s been broken for the last three months.”

“Four,” Twitch said, coming over. He was looking at Sam’s cigarette. “Don’t suppose you got any more of those, do you?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Ginny said.

“Afraid of polluting this tropical paradise with secondary smoke, darlin?” Twitch asked, but when Sloppy Sam held out his battered pack of American Eagles, Twitch shook his head.

Rusty said, “I put in the request for a replacement O₂ extractor myself. To the hospital board. They say the budget’s maxed out, but maybe I can get some help from the town. So I send the request to the Board of Selectmen.”

“Rennie,” Piper Libby said.

“Rennie,” Rusty agreed. “I get a form letter back saying my request will be taken up at the budget meeting in November. So I guess we’ll see then.” He flapped his hands at the sky and laughed.

Others were gathering around now, looking at Sam with curiosity. And at his cigarette with horror.

“How’d you get here, Sam?” Barbie asked.

Sam was more than happy to tell his tale. He began with how, as a result of the emphysema diagnosis, he’d wound up getting regular oxygen deliveries thanks to THE MEDICAL, and how sometimes the full tanks backed up on him. He told about hearing the explosion, and what he’d seen when he went outside.