Someone 'was breathing in here.

Yes, of course. I'm breathing in here.

And yet he was quite sure he heard someone else. More than just one someone. It seemed to him that there were several people in here with him. And he thought he knew who they were.

That's ridiculous.

Yes, but one of the breathers was behind the couch. One was lurking in the corner. And one was standing not three feet in front of him.

No. Stop it!

Brenda Perkins behind the couch. Lester Coggins in the corner, his jaw unhinged and hanging.

And standing dead ahead—

'No,' Big Jim said. 'That's crap. That's bullshit!

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on taking those long slow breaths.

'It sure smells good in here, Dad,' Junior droned from in front of him. 'It smells like the pantry. And my girlfriends.'

Big Jim shrieked.

'Help me up, bro,' Carter said from where he lay on the floor. 'He cut me up pretty bad. Shot me, too.'

'Stop it,' Big Jim whispered. 'I don't hear any of that, so just stop it. I'm counting breaths. I'm settling my heart.'

'I still have the papers,' Brenda Perkins said. 'And lots of copies. Soon they'll be tacked to every telephone pole in town, the way Julia tacked up the last issue of her newspaper. "Be sure your sin will find you out"—Numbers, chapter thirty-two.'

'You're not there!'

But then something— it felt like a finger—kissed its way down his cheek.

Bigjim shrieked again.The fallout shelter was full of dead people who were nevertheless breathing the increasingly foul air, and they were moving in. Even in the dark he could see their pale faces. He could see his dead son's eyes.

Big Jim bolted up from the couch, flailing at the black air with his fists. 'Get away! All of you get away from me!'

He charged for the stairs and tripped over the bottom one. This time there was no carpet to cushion the blow. Blood began to drip into his eyes. A dead hand caressed the back of his neck.

'You killed me,' Lester Coggins said, but with his broken jaw it came out Ooo ill eee.

Big Jim ran up the stairs and hit the door at the top with all his considerable weight. It squalled open, pushing charred lumber and fallen bricks in front of it. It went just far enough for him to squeeze through.

'No!' he barked. 'No, don't touch me! None of you touch me!'

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.'