Big Jim bolted up from the couch, flailing at the black air with his fists. 'Get away! All of you get away from me!'
He charged for the stairs and tripped over the bottom one. This time there was no carpet to cushion the blow. Blood began to drip into his eyes. A dead hand caressed the back of his neck.
'You killed me,' Lester Coggins said, but with his broken jaw it came out Ooo ill eee.
Big Jim ran up the stairs and hit the door at the top with all his considerable weight. It squalled open, pushing charred lumber and fallen bricks in front of it. It went just far enough for him to squeeze through.
'No!' he barked. 'No, don't touch me! None of you touch me!'
It was almost as dark in the ruins of the Town Hall conference room as in the shelter, but with one big difference: the air was worthless.
Big Jim realized this when he pulled in his third breath. His heart, tortured beyond endurance by this final outrage, once more rose into his throat. This time it stuck there.
Big Jim suddenly felt as if he were being crushed from throat to navel by a terrible weight: a long burlap sack filled with stones. He struggled back to the door like a man moving through mud. He tried to squeeze through the gap, but this time he stuck fast. A terrible sound began to emerge from his gaping mouth and closing throat, and the sound was AAAAAAA: feed me feed me feed me.
He flailed once, again, then once more: a hand reaching out, grasping for some final rescue.
It was caressed from the other side. 'Daaaddy,' a voice crooned.
16
Someone shook Barbie awake just before dawn on Sunday morning. He came to reluctantly, coughing, turning instinctively to the Dome and the fans beyond. When the coughing finally eased, he looked to see who had awakened him. It was Julia. Her hair hung lankly and her cheeks were blooming with fever, but her eyes were clear. She said, 'Benny Drake died an hour ago.'
'Oh, Julia. Jesus. I'm sorry.' His voice was cracked and hoarse, not his own voice at all.
T have to get to the box that's making the Dome,' she said. 'How do I get to the box?'
Barbie shook his head. 'It's impossible. Even if you could do something to it, it's on the ridge, almost half a mile from here. We can't even go to the vans without holding our breaths, and they're onlyi fifty feet away.'
'There's a way,' someone said.
They looked around and saw Sloppy Sam Verdreaux. He was smoking the last of his cigarettes and looking at them with sober eyes.: He was sober; entirely sober for the first time in eight years.
He repeated, 'There's a way. I could show you.'
WEAR IT HOME, IT'LL LOOK LIKE A DRESS
1
It was seven thirty a.m. They had all gathered round, even the late Benny Drake's wretched, red-eyed mother. Alva had her arm around Alice Appleton's shoulders. All that little girl's former sass and spunk were gone now, and as she breathed, rales rattled in her narrow chest.
When Sam finished what he had to say, there was a moment of silence... except, of course, for the omnipresent roar of the fans. Then Rusty said:'It's crazy. You'll die.'
'If we stay here, will we live?' Barbie asked.
'Why would you even try to do such a thing?' Linda asked. 'Even if Sam's idea works and you make it - '
'Oh, I t'ink it'll work,' Rommie said.
'Sure it will,' Sam said. 'Guy named Peter Bergeron told me, not long after the big Bar Harbor fire back in forty-seven. Pete was a lot of things, but never a liar.'
'Even if it does,' Linda said, 'why?
'Because there's one thing we haven't tried,'Julia said. Now that her mind was made up and Barbie had said he would go with her, she was composed. 'We haven't tried begging.'
'You're crazy, Jules,' Tony Guay said. 'Do you think they'll even hear? Or listen if they do?'
Julia turned her grave face to Rusty. 'That time your friend George Lathrop was burning ants alive with his magnifying glass, did you hear them beg?'
'Ants can't beg, Julia.'
'You said, "It occurred to me that ants also have their little lives." Why did it occur to you?'
'Because...' He trailed off, then shrugged.
'Maybe you did hear them,' Lissa Jamieson said.
'With all due respect, that's bullshit,' Pete Freeman said,'Ants are ants. They can't beg.'
'But people can,' Julia saicL 'And do we not also have our little lives?'
To this no one replied.
'What else is there to try?'
From behind them, Colonel Cox spoke up. They had all but forgotten him. The outside world and its denizens seemed irrelevant now. 'I'd try it, in your shoes. Don't quote me, but... yes. I would. Barbie?'
'I've already agreed,' Barbie said. 'She's right. There's nothing else.'
'Let's see them sacks,' Sam said.
Linda handed over three green Hefty bags. In two of them she had packed clothes for herself and Rusty and a few books for the girls (the shirts, pants, socks, and underwear now lay carelessly discarded behind the little group of survivors). Rommie had donated the third, which he'd used to carry two deer rifles. Sam examined all three, found a hole in the bag that had held the guns, and tossed it aside. The other two were intact.
'All right,' he said, 'listen close. It should be Missus Everett's van that goes out to the box, but we need it over here first.' He pointed to the Odyssey.'You sure about the windows bein rolled up, Missus? You jgotta be sure, because lives are gonna depend on it.'
'They were rolled up,' Linda said. 'We were using the air-conditioner.'
Sam looked at Rusty. 'You're gonna drive it over here, Doc, but the first thing you do is turn off the fac'try air. You understand why, right?'
'To protect the environment inside the cabin.'
'Some of the bad air'U get in when you open die door, sure, but not much if you're quick. There'll be good air inside still. Town air. The folks inside can breathe easy all the way to the box. That old van's no good, and not just because the windows're open - '