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—'

'We had to,' Nome said, looking at the stolen phone company van. 'The air-conditioning was busted. G-Grampy said' A tear rolled slowly out of her left eye and cut through the dirt on her cheek. There was dirt everywhere noAv, and soot, almost too fine to see, sifting down from the murky sky.

'That's fine, honey' Sam told her. 'The tires ain't worth a tin shit, anyway. One look and you know whose used car lot that pup came from.'

'Guess that means my van if we need another vehicle,' Rommie said. 'I'll get it.'

'But Sam was shaking his head. 'It better be Missus Shumway's car, on account of the tires are smaller and easier to handle. Also, they're brand-new. The air inside them'll be fresher.'

Joe McClatchey broke into a sudden grin. 'The air from the tires! Put the air from the tires in the garbage bags! Homemade scuba tanks! Mr Verdreaux, that is geniusV

Sloppy Sam grinned himself, showing all six of his remaining teeth. 'Can't take the credit, son. Pete Bergeron gets the credit. He told about a couple of men got trapped behind that fire in Bar Harbor after it went and crowned. They were okay, but the air wasn't fit to breathe. So what they did was bust the cap off a pulp-truck tire and took turns breathin right from the stem until the wind cleared the air. Pete said they told him it was nasty-tasting, like old dead fish, but it kep em alive.'

'Will one tire be enough?'Julia asked.

'Might be, but we dassn't trust the spare if it's one of those little emergency doughnuts built to get you twenty miles down the highway and no more.'

'It's not,' Julia said. 'I hate those things. I asked Johnny Carver to get me a new one, and he did.' She looked toward town.T suppose Johnny's dead now. Carrie, too.'

'We better take one off the car as well, just to be safe,' Barbie said. 'You've got your jack, right?'

Julia nodded.

Rommie Burpee grinned without much humor. 'I'll race you back here, Doc. Your van against Julia's hybrid.'

'I'll drive the Prius over,' Piper said. 'You stay where you are, Rommie. You look like shit.'

'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 can get out to the box without tire-air, but I don't know if you can get back without it.'

'They ain't gonna be driving, neither one of them,' Sam said. 'I'm gonna drive.'

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 hijab and putting a gun to his head. The blood had hit the wall like it always hits the wall, right back to the time when men fought with clubs.

'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 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?'