DO YOU NEED TO CHECK THE RADIATION COUNT?
THINK!!!
Carter thought. And the conclusion he came to was that Big Jim was almost certainly full of shit about the air clearing out. Those folks lined up in front of the fans proved that the air exchange between Chester's Mill and the outside world was almost nil.
Still, it wouldn't do any harm to check.
At first the door wouldn't budge. Panic, sparked by dim thoughts of being buried alive, made him push harder. This time the door moved just a little. He heard bricks falling and lumber scraping. Maybe he could open it wider, but there was no reason to. The air coming in through the inch-wide gap he'd opened wasn't air at all, but something that smelled like the inside of an exhaust pipe when the motor it was attached to was running. He didn't need any fancy instruments to tell him that two or three minutes outside the shelter would kill him.
The question was, what was he going to tell Rennie?
Nothing, the cold voice of the survivor inside suggested. Hearing something like that will only make him worse. Harder to deal with.
And what exactly did that mean? What did it matter, if they were going to die in the fallout shelter when the generator ran out of fuel? If that was the case, what did anything matter?
He went back down the stairs. Big Jim was sitting on the sofa. 'Well?'
'Pretty bad,' Carter said.
'But breathable, right?'
'Well, yeah. But it'd make you damn sick. We better wait, boss.'
'Of course we better wait,' Big Jim said, as if Carter had suggested otherwise. As if Carter were the biggest fool in the universe. 'But we'll be fine, that's the point. God will take care. He always does. In the meantime, we've got good air down here, it's not too hot, and there's plenty to eat. Why don't you see what there is for sweets, son? Candybars and such? I'm still feeling peckish.'
I'm not your son, your son is dead. Carter thought... but didn't say. He went into the bunkrooni to see if there were any candybars on the shelves in there.
Around ten o'clock that night, Barbie fell into a troubled sleep. with Julia close beside him, their bodies spooned together. Junior Rennie danced through his dreams: Junior standing outside his cell in The Coop. Junior with his gun. And this time there would be no rescue because the air outside had turned to poison and everyone was dead.
These dreams finally slipped away, and he slept more deeply, his head - and Julia's - cocked toward the Dome and the fresh air seeping through it. It was enough for life, but not: enough for ease.
Something woke him around two o'clock in the morning. He looked through the smudged Dome at the muted lights of the Army encampment on the other side. Then the sound came again. It was coughing, low and harsh and desperate.
A flashlight gleamed off to his right. Barbie got up as quietly as he c0uld, not wanting to wake Julia, and walked to the light, stepping over others who lay sleeping in the grass. Most had stripped down to their underwear. The sentries ten feet away were bundled up in duffle coats and gloves, but over here it was hotter than ever.
Rusty and Ginny were kneeling beside Ernie Calvert. Rusty had a stethoscope around his neck and an oxygen mask in his hand. It was attached to a small red bottle marked CRH AMBULANCE DO NOT REMOVE ALWAYS REPLACE Nome and her mother looked on anxiously, their arms around each other.
'Sorry he woke you,' Joanie said. 'He's sick.'
'How sick?' Barbie asked.
Rusty shook his head. 'I don't know. It sounds like bronchitis or a ibad cold, but of course it's not. It's bad air. I gave him some from the ambo, and it helped for awhile, but now...' He shrugged. 'And I don't like the sound of his heart. He's been under a lot of stress, and he's not a young man anymore.'
'You have no more oxygen?' Barbie asked. He pointed to the red bottle, which looked quite a lot like the kind of fire extinguisher people keep in their kitchen utility closets and always forget to recharge. 'That's it?'
Thurse Marshall joined them. In the beam of the flashlight he looked grim and tired. 'There's one more, but we agreed - Rusty, Ginny, and me - to save it for the little kids. Aidan's started to cough too. I moved him as close to the Dome - and the fans - as I could, but he's still coughing. We'll start giving Aidan, Alice, Judy, and Janelle the remaining air in rationed whiffs when they wake up. Maybe if the officers brought more fans - '
'No matter how much fresh air they blow at us,' Ginny said, 'only so much comes through. And no matter how close to the Dome we get, we're still breathing in that crap. And the people who are hurting are exactly the ones you'd expect.'
'The oldest and the youngest,' Barbie said.
'Go back and lie down, Barbie,' Rusty said. 'Save your strength. There's nothing you can do here.'
'Can you?'
'Maybe. There's also nasal decongestant in the ambo. And epinephrine, if it comes to that.'
Barbie crawled back along the Dome with his head turned to the fans - they were all doing this now, without thinking - and was appalled by how tired he felt when he reached Julia. His heart was pounding and he was out of breath.
Julia was awake. 'How bad is he?'
'I don't know,' Barbie admitted,'but it can't be good. They were giving him oxygen from the ambulance, and he didn't wake up.'
'Oxygen! Is there more? How much?'
He explained, and was sorry to see the light in her eyes dim a little.
She took his hand. Her fingers were sweaty but cold. 'This is like being trapped in a mine cave-in.'
They were sitting now, facing each other, shoulders leaning against the Dome. The faintest of breezes sighed between them. The steady roar of the Air Max fans had become background noise; they raised their voices to speak over it, but otherwise didn't notice it at all.
We'd notice it if it stopped, Barbie thought. For a few minutes, anyway. Then we wouldn't notice anything, ever'again.