'You sure it'll work?' Sam shouted back, dropping the van's transmission into drive.
'You bet!' Barbie returned, because How the hell should I know would cheer nobody up. Including himself.
7
The Survivors at the Dome watched silently as the van tore down the dirt track that led back to what Norrie Calvert had taken to calling 'the flash-box.' The Odyssey dimmed into the hanging smog, became a phantom, and then disappeared.
Rusty and Linda were standing together, each carrying a child. 'What do you think, Rusty?' Linda asked.
He said, 'I think we need to hope for the best.'
'And prepare for the worst?'
'That too,' he said.
8
They were passing the farmhouse when Sam called back,'We're goin into the orchard now. You want to hold onto your jockstraps, kiddies, because I ain't stoppin this bitch even if I rip the undercarriage right out'n it.'
'Go for it,' Barbie said, and then a vicious bump tossed him in the air with his arms wrapped around one of the spare tires. Julia was clutching the other one like a shipwreck victim clutching a life ring. JA.pple trees flashed by The leaves looked dirty and dispirited. Most of the fruit had fallen to the ground, shaken free by the wind that had sucked through the orchard after the explosion.
Another tremendous bump. Barbie and Julia went up and came down together, Julia sprawling across Barbie's lap and still holding onto her tire.
'Where'd you get your license, you old f**k?' Barbie shouted. 'Sears and Roebuck?'
'Walmart!' the old man shouted back. 'Everything's cheaper at Wally World!'Then he stopped cackling.'I see it. I see the blinky-ass whoremaster. Bright purple light. Gonna pull right up beside it.You wait until I stop before you go carvin on those tires, less you want to tear em wide open.'
A moment later he stamped on the brake and brought the Odyssey to a scrunching halt that sent Barbie and Julia sliding into the back of the rear seat. Now I know what a pinball feels like, Barbie thought.
'You drive like a Boston cabbie!'Julia said indignantly.
'You just make sure you tip' - Sam was stopped by a hard fit of coughing - 'twenty percent.' His voice sounded choked.
'Sam?'Julia asked.'Are you all right?'
'Maybe not,' he said matter-of-factly. 'I'm bleedin somewhere. Could be throat, but it feels deeper. B'lieve I might have ruptured a lung.' Then he was coughing again.
'What can we do?'Julia asked.
Sam got the coughing under control. 'Make em shut off their f**kin jammer so we can get out of here. I got no more smokes.'
9
'This is all me,' Julia said. 'Just so you know that.'
Barbie nodded. 'Yessum.'
'You're strictly my air-boy. If what I try doesn't work, we can change jobs.'
'It might help if I knew exactly what you had in mind.'
'There's nothing exact about it. All I have is intuition and a little hope.'
'Don't be such a pessimist.You've also got two tires, two garbage bags, and a hollow spindle.'
She smiled. It lit up her tense, dirty face. 'Duly noted.'
Sam was coughing again, doubled over the wheel. He spat something out. 'Dear God and sonny Jesus, don't that taste nasty,' he said. 'Hurry up!
Barbie punctured his tire with the knife and heard the pwoosh of air as soon as he pulled the blade free. Julia slapped the spindle into his hand as efficiently as an OR nurse. Barbie jammed it into the hole, saw the rubber grip it... and then felt a divine rush of air spurt into his sweaty face. He breathed deeply once, unable to help himself. The air was much fresher, much richer, than that pushed through the Dome by the fans. His brain seemed to wake up, and he came to an immediate decision. Instead of putting a garbage bag over their makeshift nozzle, he tore a large, ragged swatch from one of them.
'What are you doing? Julia screamed.
There was no time to tell her she wasn't the only one with intuitions.
He plugged the spindle with the plastic. 'Trust me. Just go to the box and do what you have to do.'
She gave him a final look that seemed to be all eyes, then opened the Odyssey's doorgate. She half fell to the ground, picked herself up, stumbled over a hummock, and went to her knees beside the flash-box. Barbie followed her with both tires. He had Sam's knife in his pocket. He fell on his knees and offered Julia the tire with the black spindle sticking out of it.
She yanked the plug, breathed in - her cheeks hollowing with the effort - exhaled to one side, then breathed in again. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, cutting clean places there. Barbie was crying, too. It had nothing to do with emotion; it was as if they had been caught out in the worlds nastiest acid rain. This was far worse than the air at the Dome.
Julia sucked in more. 'Good,' she said, speaking on the exhale and almost whistling the word.'So good. Not fishy. Dusty.' She breathed in again, then tilted the tire toward him.
He shook his head and pushed it back, although his lungs were beginning to pound. He patted his chest, then pointed at her.
She took another deep breath, then sucked in one more. Barbie pushed down on top of the tire to help her along. Faintly, in some other world, he could hear Sam coughing and coughing and coughing.
CHAPTER 35
He'll rip himself apart, Barbie thought. He felt as if he might come apart himself if he didn't breathe soon, and when Julia pushed the tife at him a second time, he bent over the makeshift straw and sucked in deeply, trying to draw the dusty, wonderful air all the way to the bottom of his lungs. There wasn't enough, it seemed there could never be enough, and there was a moment when panic
(God I'm drowning)
almost engulfed him. The urge to bolt back to the van - never mind Julia, let Julia take care of herself - was nearly too strong to resist;... but he did resist it. He closed his eyes, breathed, and tried to finid the cool, calm center that had to be there someplace.