Under the Dome

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 mind the bags! We'll take the tires and breathe directly from them!'

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?' Rusty 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.

When they were ready, Barbie, Julia, and Sloppy Sam hugged and kissed everybody, even the kids. There was little hope in the faces of the nearly two dozen exiles who would remain behind. Barbie tried to tell himself it was just because they were exhausted and now chronically short of breath, but he knew better. These were goodbye kisses.

'Good luck, Colonel Barbara,' Cox said.

Barbie gave him a brief nod of acknowledgment, then turned to Rusty. Rusty who really mattered, because he was under the Dome. 'Don't give up hope, and don't let them give up hope. If this doesn't work, take care of them as long as you can and as well as you can.'

II hear you. Give it your best shot.'

Barbie tilted his head toward Julia. 'It's mostly her shot, I think. And hell, maybe we'll make it back even if it doesn't work.'

'Sure you will,' Rusty said. He sounded hearty, but what he believed was in his eyes.

Barbie slapped him on the shoulder, then joined Sam and Julia at the Dome, once more taking deep breaths of the fresh air that came trickling through. To Sam he said,'Are you sure you really want to do; this?'

'Ayuh. I got somethin to make up for.'

'What would that be, Sam?'Julia asked.

'I druther not say.' He smiled a little. 'Specially not to the town newspaper lady'

'You ready?' Barbie asked Julia.

'Yes.' She grabbed his hand, gave it one brief hard squeeze. 'As much as I can be.'

6

Rommie and Jackie Wettington stationed themselves at the rear doors of the van. When Barbie shouted 'Go' Jackie opened the doorgate and Rommie threw the two Prius tires inside. Barbie and Julia hurled themselves in directly after, and the doors were slammed behind them a split-second later. Sam Verdreaux, old and booze-raddled but still spry as a cricket, was already behind the Odyssey's wheel and revving the engine.

The air inside the van stank of what was now the outside world - an aroma that was charred wood on top and a painty, turpentine-y stench beneath - but it was still better than what they had been breathing at the Dome, even with dozens of fans blasting.

Won't be better for long, Barbie thought. Not with three of us sucking it up.

Julia grabbed the distinctive yellow-and-black Best Buy sack and turned it over. What fell out was a plastic cylinder with the words PERFECT ECHO on it. And, beneath that: 50 RECORDABLE CDS. She began to pick at the sealed cellophane overwrap with no immediate success. Barbie reached for his pocketknife, and his heart sank. The knife wasn't there. Of course not. It was now just a hunk of slag under whatever remained of the PD.

'Sam! Please tell me you have a pocketknife!'

Without a word, Sam tossed one back. 'That was my dad's. I been carryin it my whole life, and I want it back.'

The knife's sides were wood-inlay rubbed almost smooth with age, but when he opened it, the single blade was sharp. It would work on the overwrap, and it would make nice neat punctures in the tires.

'Hurry up!' Sam yelled, and revved the Odyssey's engine harder. 'We ain't goin till you tell me you got the right thing, and I doubt the engine'll run forever in this air!'

Barbie slit the overwrap. Julia stripped it away. When she rotated the plastic cylinder half a turn to the left, it came off the base. The blank CDs that had been meant for Rusty Everett's birthday sat on a black plastic spindle. She dumped the CDs on the floor of the van, then closed her fist around the spindle. Her mouth tightened with effort.

'Let me do tha - ' he said, but then she snapped it off.

'Girls are strong, too. Especially when they're scared to death.' 'Is it hollow? If it isn't, we're back to square one.' She held the spindle up to her face. Barbie looked down one end ahd saw her blue eye staring back from the other. 'Go, Sam,' he said. 'We're in business.'