Under the Dome

Groh shook his head. “Probably not long. Someone in the group on the other side already died this morning, and several of the others aren’t doing well. And it’s better over there. Cleaner. You have to prepare yourself.”

Ames felt close to tears. “Kid lost his whole family.”

“Go get yourself something to eat. I’ll watch until you come back.”

“But after that I can stay?”

“The kid wants you, Private, the kid gets you. You can stay until the end.”

Groh watched Ames double-time to the table near the helicopter, where some food was laid out. Out here, it was ten o’clock on a pretty late-fall morning. The sun was shining and melting off the last of a heavy frost. But only a few feet away there was a bubble-world of perpetual twilight, a world where the air was unbreathable and time had ceased to have any meaning. Groh remembered a pond in the local park where he’d grown up. Wilton, Connecticut, that had been. There had been golden carp in the pond, big old things. The kids used to feed them. Until one day when one of the groundskeepers had an accident with some fertilizer, that was. Goodbye fishies. All ten or a dozen of them, floating dead on the surface.

Looking at the dirty sleeping boy on the other side of the Dome, it was impossible not to think of those carp… only a boy was not a fish.

Ames came back, eating something he obviously didn’t want. Not much of a soldier, in Groh’s opinion, but a good kid with a good heart.

Private Ames sat down. Sergeant Groh sat with him. Around noon, they got a report from the north side of the Dome that another of the survivors over there had died. A little boy named Aidan Appleton. Another kid. Groh believed he might have met his mother the day before. He hoped he was wrong about that, but didn’t think he was.

“Who did it?” Ames asked him. “Who wound this shit up, Sarge? And why?”

Groh shook his head. “No idea.”

“It makes no sense!” Ames cried. Beyond them, Ollie stirred, lost his air, and moved his sleeping face once more to the scant breeze seeping through the barrier.

“Don’t wake him up,” Groh said, thinking: If he goes in his sleep, it’ll be better for all of us.

13

By two o’clock all of the exiles were coughing except—incredible but true—Sam Verdreaux, who seemed to be thriving in the bad air, and Little Walter Bushey, who did nothing but sleep and suck the occasional ration of milk or juice. Barbie sat against the Dome with his arm around Julia. Not far away, Thurston Marshall sat beside the covered corpse of little Aidan Appleton, who had died with terrifying suddenness. Thurse, now coughing steadily, was holding Alice on his lap. She had cried herself to sleep. Twenty feet further on, Rusty was huddled with his wife and girls, who had also cried themselves to sleep. Rusty had taken Audrey’s body to the ambulance so the girls wouldn’t have to look at it. He held his breath throughout; even fifteen yards inland from the Dome, the air became choking, deadly. Once he got his wind back, he supposed he should do the same with the little boy. Audrey would be good company for him; she’d always liked kids.

Joe McClatchey plopped down beside Barbie. Now he really did look like a scarecrow. His pale face was dotted with acne and there were circles of bruised-looking purple flesh under his eyes.

“My mom’s sleeping,” Joe said.

“Julia too,” Barbie said, “so keep your voice down.”

Julia opened one eye. “Nah sleepin,” she said, and promptly closed the eye again. She coughed, stilled, then coughed some more.

“Benny’s really sick,” Joe said. “He’s running a fever, like the little boy did before he died.” He hesitated. “My mom’s pretty warm, too. Maybe it’s only because it’s so hot in here, but… I don’t think that’s it. What if she dies? What if we all do?”

“We won’t,” Barbie said. “They’ll figure something out.”

Joe shook his head. “They won’t. And you know it. Because they’re outside. Nobody outside can help us.” He looked over the blackened wasteland where there had been a town the day before and laughed—a hoarse, croaking sound that was worse because there was actually some amusement in it. “Chester’s Mill has been a town since 1803—we learned that in school. Over two hundred years. And a week to wipe it off the face of the earth. One fuckin week is all it took. How about that, Colonel Barbara?”

Barbie couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Joe covered his mouth, coughed. Behind them, the fans roared and roared. “I’m a smart kid. You know that? I mean, I’m not bragging, but… I’m smart.”

Barbie thought of the video feed the kid had set up near the site of the missile strike. “No argument, Joe.”

“In a Spielberg movie, it’s the smart kid who’d come up with the last-minute solution, isn’t that right?”

Barbie felt Julia stir again. Both eyes were open now, and she was regarding Joe gravely.

Tears were trickling down the boy’s cheeks. “Some Spielberg kid I turned out to be. If we were in Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs would eat us for sure.”