“
“Nice talk from a minister,” Rommie grumbled. “You ought to be thankful I still feel lively enough to talk some trash.” In truth Reverend Libby looked far from lively, but Julia handed over her keys anyway. None of them looked ready to go out drinking and juking, and Piper was in better shape than some; Claire McClatchey was as pale as milk.
“Okay,” Sam said. “We got one other little problem, but first—”
“What?” Linda asked. “What other problem?”
“Don’t worry about that now. First let’s get our rollin iron over here. When do you want to try it?”
Rusty looked at The Mill’s Congregational minister. Piper nodded. “No time like the present,” Rusty said.
3
The remaining townies watched, but not alone. Cox and almost a hundred other soldiers had gathered on their side of the Dome, looking on with the silent attention of spectators at a tennis match.
Rusty and Piper hyperventilated at the Dome, loading their lungs with as much oxygen as possible. Then they ran, hand-in-hand, toward the vehicles. When they got there they separated. Piper stumbled to one knee, dropping the Prius keys, and all the watchers groaned.
Then she snatched them from the grass and was up again. Rusty was already in the Odyssey van with the motor running as she opened the door of the little green car and flung herself inside.
“Hope they remembered to turn off the air-conditioning,” Sam said.
The vehicles turned in almost perfect tandem, the Prius shadowing the much larger van like a terrier herding a sheep. They drove quickly to the Dome, bouncing over the rough ground. The exiles scattered before them, Alva carrying Alice Appleton and Linda with a coughing Little J under each arm.
The Prius stopped less than a foot away from the dirty barrier, but Rusty swung the Odyssey around and backed it in.
“Your husband’s got a good set of balls on him and an even better set of lungs,” Sam told Linda matter-of- factly.
“It’s because he gave up smoking,” Linda said, and either did not hear Twitch’s strangled snort or affected not to.
Good lungs or not, Rusty didn’t linger. He slammed the door behind him and hustled to the Dome. “Piece of cake,” he said… and began to cough.
“Is the air inside the van breathable, like Sam said?”
“Better than what’s here.” He laughed distractedly. “But he’s right about something else—every time the doors open, a little more good air gets out and a little more bad air gets in. You probably
“They ain’t gonna be driving, neither one of them,” Sam said. “
Barbie felt his lips turn up in the first genuine grin to grace his face in days. “Thought you lost your license.”
“Don’t see any cops out here,” Sam said. He turned to Cox. “What about you, Cap? See any local yokels or County Mounties?”
“Not a one,” Cox said.
Julia drew Barbie aside. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“You know the chances hover somewhere between slim and none, right?”
“Yes.”
“How are you at begging, Colonel Barbara?”
He flashed back to the gym in Fallujah: Emerson kicking one prisoner’s balls so hard they flew up in front of him, Hackermeyer pulling another up by his
“I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is it’s my turn.”
4
Rommie, Pete Freeman, and Tony Guay jacked up the Prius and pulled off one of the working tires. It was a small car, and under ordinary circumstances they might have been able to lift the rear end with their bare hands. Not now. Although the car was parked close to the fans, they had to run back to the Dome repeatedly for air before the job was done. In the end, Rose took over for Tony, who was coughing too hard to continue.
Finally, though, they had two new tires leaning against the Dome.
“So far, so good,” Sam said. “Now for that other little problem. I hope somebody’s got an idear, because I sure don’t.”
They looked at him.
“My friend Peter said those guys busted off the valve and breathed direct from the tire, but that ain’t gonna work here. Gotta fill up those garbage bags, and that means a bigger hole. You can punch into the tires, but without somethin to stick in the holes—somethin like a straw—you’re gonna lose more air than you catch. So… what’s it gonna be?” He looked around hopefully. “Nobody brought a tent, I don’t suppose? One of them with the hollow aluminum poles?”
“The girls have a play-tent,” Linda said, “but it’s back home in the garage.” Then she remembered that the garage was gone, along with the house it was attached to, and laughed wildly.
“How about the barrel of a pen?” Joe asked. “I’ve got a Bic….”
“Not big enough,” Barbie said. “Rusty? What about the ambulance?”
“A trach tube?” Rusty asked doubtfully, then answered his own question. “No. Still not big enough.”
Barbie turned. “Colonel Cox? Any ideas?”
Cox shook his head reluctantly. “We’ve probably got a thousand things over here that would work, but that doesn’t help much.”
“We can’t let this stop us!” Julia said. Barbie heard frustration and a raw edge of panic in her voice. “Never
Sam was already shaking his head. “Not good enough, Missus. Sorry, but it’s not.”
Linda bent close to the Dome, took several deep breaths, held the last. Then she went to the back of her Odyssey van, rubbed some of the soot from the back window, and peered in. “The bag’s still there,” she said. “Thank God.”
“What bag?” he asked, taking her by the shoulders.
“The one from Best Buy with your birthday present in it. November eighth, or did you forget?”
“I did. On purpose. Who the hell wants to turn forty? What is it?”
“I knew if I brought it in the house before I was ready to wrap it, you’d find it….” She looked at the others, her face solemn and as dirty as a street-urchin’s. “He’s a nosy old thing. So I left it in the van.”
“What did you get him, Linnie?” Jackie Wettington asked.
“I hope a present for all of us,” Linda said.
5
