Under the Dome

his heart to see the rose-glow of dawn dirtied by the film of filth that still remained on his side of the Dome. The light was good, because in here everything was dark and scorched and hard and silent.

They tried to relieve Ames of duty at five AM, but Ollie screamed for him to stay, and Ames refused to leave. Whoever was in charge relented. Little by little, pausing to press his mouth to the Dome and suck in more air, Ollie told how he had survived.

“I knew I’d have to wait for the fire to go out,” he said, “so I took it real easy on the oxygen. Grampy Tom told me once that one tank could last him all night if he was asleep, so I just laid there still. For quite a while I didn’t have to use it at all, because there was air under the potatoes and I breathed that.”

He put his lips to the surface, tasting the soot, knowing it might be the residue of a person who had been alive twenty-four hours previous, not caring. He sucked greedily and hacked out blackish crud until he could go on.

“It was cold under the potatoes at first, but then it got warm and then it got hot. I thought I’d burn alive. The barn was burning down right over my head. Everything was burning. But it was so hot and so quick it didn’t last long, and maybe that was what saved me. I don’t know. I stayed where I was until the first tank was empty. Then I had to go out. I was afraid the other one might have exploded, but it didn’t. I bet it was close, though.”

Ames nodded. Ollie sucked more air through the Dome. It was like trying to breathe through a thick, dirty cloth.

“And the stairs. If they’d been wood instead of concrete block, I couldn’t have gotten out. I didn’t even try at first. I just crawled back under the spuds because it was so hot. The ones on the outside of the pile cooked in their jackets—I could smell em. Then it started to get hard to pull air, and I knew the second tank was running out, too.”

He stopped as a coughing fit shook him. When it was under control, he went on.

“Mostly I just wanted to hear a human voice again before I died. I’m glad it was you, Private Ames.”

“My name’s Clint, Ollie. And you’re not going to die.”

But the eyes that looked through the dirty slot at the bottom of the Dome, like eyes peering through a glass window in a coffin, seemed to know some other, truer truth.

9

The second time the buzzer went off, Carter knew what it was, even though it awakened him from a dreamless sleep. Because part of him wasn’t going to really sleep again until this was over or he was dead. That was what the survival instinct was, he guessed: an unsleeping watchman deep in the brain.

The second time was around seven thirty on Saturday morning.

He knew that because his watch was the kind that lit up if you pressed a button. The emergency lights had died during the night and the fallout shelter was completely black.

He sat up and felt something poke against the back of his neck. The barrel of the flashlight he’d used last night, he supposed. He fumbled for it and turned it on. He was on the floor. Big Jim was on the couch. It was Big Jim who had poked him with the flashlight.

Of course he gets the couch, Carter thought resentfully. He’s the boss, isn’t he?

“Go on, son,” Big Jim said. “Quick as you can.”

Why does it have to be me? Carter thought… but did not say. It had to be him because the boss was old, the boss was fat, the boss had a bad heart. And because he was the boss, of course. James Rennie, the Emperor of Chester’s Mill.

Emperor of used cars, that’s all you are, Carter thought. And you stink of sweat and sardine oil.

“Go on.” Sounding irritable. And scared. “What are you waiting for?”

Carter stood up, the flashlight-beam bouncing off the fallout shelter’s packed shelves (so many cans of sardines!), and made his way into the bunkroom. One emergency light was still on in here, but it was guttering, almost out. The buzzer was louder now, a steady AAAAAAAAAAAA sound. The sound of oncoming doom.

We’re never getting out of here, Carter thought.

He shone the flashlight beam on the trapdoor in front of the generator, which continued to utter the toneless irritating buzz that for some reason made him think of the boss when the boss was speechifying. Maybe because both noises came down to the same stupid imperative: Feed me, feed me, feed me. Give me propane, give me sardines, give me premium unleaded for my Hummer. Feed me. I’ll still die, and then you’ll die, but who cares? Who gives a ripe red fuck? Feed me, feed me, feed me.

Inside the storage bin there were now only six tanks of propane. When he replaced the one that was almost empty, there would be five. Five piss-little containers, not much bigger than Blue Rhino tanks, between them and choking to death when the air purifier quit.

Carter pulled one out of the storage space, but he only set it beside the gennie. He had no intention of replacing the current tank until it was totally empty, in spite of that irritating AAAAAAA. Nope. Nope. Like they used to say about Maxwell House coffee, it was good to the last drop.

But that buzzer could certainly get on a person’s nerves. Carter reckoned he could find the alarm and silence it, but then how would they know when the gennie was running dry?

Like a couple of rats trapped in an overturned bucket, that’s what we are.

He ran the numbers in his head. Six tanks left, each good for about eleven hours. But they could turn off the air-conditioner, and that might stretch it to twelve or even thirteen hours per tank. Stay on the safe side and say twelve. Twelve times six was… let’s see…

The AAAAAAAA made the math harder than it should have been, but he finally got there. Seventy-two hours between them and a miserable choking death down here in the dark. And why was it dark? Because no one had bothered to replace the batteries in the emergency lights, that was why. They probably hadn’t been changed for twenty years or more. The boss had been saving money. And why only seven little shitlicking tanks in the storage cubby when there had been about a zillion gallons out at WCIK, just waiting to blow up? Because the boss liked to have everything right where he wanted it.

Sitting there, listening to the AAAAAAA, Carter remembered one of his dad’s sayings: Hoard a penny and lose a dollar. That was Rennie right down to the floor. Rennie the Emperor of Used Cars. Rennie the bigshot politician. Rennie the drug kingpin. How much had he made with his drug operation? A million dollars? Two? And did it matter?

He probably never would have spent it, Carter thought, and he’s sure as shit not gonna spend it now. Nothing to spend it on down here. He’s got all the sardines he can eat, and they’re free.

“Carter?” Big Jim’s voice came floating through the darkness. “Are you going to change that out, or are we just going to listen to it buzz?”

Carter opened his mouth to holler they were going to wait, that every minute counted, but just then the AAAAAAA finally quit. So did the queep-queep-queep of the air purifier.

“Carter?”

“I’m on it, boss.” With the flashlight clamped in his armpit, Carter pulled the empty, put the full one on a metal platform that was big enough to hold a tank ten times this one’s size, and hooked up the connector.

Every minute counted… or did it? Why did it, if it was going to come down to the same choking conclusion?