“So this leads outside?” I asked.

Jack nodded.

“Is there air from outside in here now?” I asked hesitantly. I wondered if I was already breathing in toxic air.

“No. I’ll show you.” Still using the light from his tablet, he took my hand and led me to the back wall. “This is another door reinforced with lead that divides this chamber from an outer one. The floor we’re standing on is actually a conveyer belt. When it’s activated, this door opens, the garbage from this room is advanced into the next chamber, and the door closes. The weight of the garbage triggers a high-powered air current to turn on, an outer door opens, and the conveyer belt dumps the garbage outside. The air current is used to prevent air from outside coming into the chamber, so it doesn’t shut off until the outer door is sealed shut again. Then a ventilator comes on and sucks out any poisonous air that may have come into the room. The ventilator runs for at least twelve hours to ensure there is no radiation before the next load of garbage is moved forward. You can hear the hum of it now.”

“So if the ventilator is on, that means garbage has been dumped within the last twelve hours?”

“Yes. It won’t activate again until it’s done the twelve-hour cycle,” Jack said, raking a hand through his hair. I noticed almost all of the coal was gone. “You sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure.” I lied. I was scared to death. Even the thought that I could be breathing poisonous air right then was terrifying to me.

“We’re both exhausted. We should try and get some rest. We’ll need all our strength soon,” Jack said.

He led me to a corner of the dump and pulled me down beside him. I laid my head on his shoulder, positioning myself so nothing touched my bruised back. He wrapped his arms around me and held me against him.

It felt good to rest.

It felt safe in his arms.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The sound of a door opening and the floor moving startled me awake.

“Jack!” I screamed.

I felt his whole body jerk awake beside me. I tried to stand, but the moving floor was throwing me off balance. I took hold of a nearby barrel and pulled myself up.

“Take my hand!” I said.

He pulled himself up, and then gripped the barrel tight with both hands. The conveyer belt was far from being a smooth ride. It jerked and lurched and threw us both off balance more than once.

We passed through into the next chamber.

“This is it,” he yelled over the din of the machinery. “There’s no turning back.”

He took my arm and tried to hold it. I didn’t want to get separated from him so I clutched at his hand.

“Don’t let go!” I wanted to be brave, but I could feel the panic rising up.

The conveyor belt took us farther into the next chamber, and the ride got rougher. The barrel we were using for support fell over and rolled on the floor. Without its support, we both lost our balance and fell, too.

“Stay down. I’ll crawl to you,” Jack yelled, but another barrel came rolling at him, and he had to dive out of the way. We were getting farther apart.

I got to my hands and knees and tried crawling toward him, but the pitching of the floor kept throwing me from side to side. The more we advanced into the next chamber, the more vibration rattled the floor.

I heard the sound of the steel door shutting behind us. In a few seconds we would be completely cut off from the Dome. My whole body started to shake with fear. When the door shut, the floor stopped moving. Jack got up and ran to me.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

I shook my head. I couldn’t find my voice. The terror had stolen it.

The high-powered air current Jack had told me about clicked on, and he held my hands as tight as he could. The force of the current was so strong it pushed us along with the garbage in the direction of the door. The big steel door that led to the outside world started opening up.

Jack and I clung to each other.

“Still think this was a good idea?” he screamed over the hum of the machinery.

I grasped the lapels of his uniform and hung on tightly, but we were sharply torn apart by the conveyor belt jerking back to life. I tried to make my way back to him, but between the conveyor belt and the air current, that was impossible. The doors were halfway open now, and the brilliant light beaming into the room struck me. My eyes rolled up into the back of my head.

The conveyor belt continued to move me forward, but I was blind. I had no idea when I would be dumped out into the waiting world.

I think I screamed for Jack. I didn’t even know if he was still in the room or outside already. I heard garbage thud and clunk as it hit the ground, and then I was falling. It must have been only for a second or two, but it felt like an eternity before my body touched down on something. The pain from the bruise on my left side was excruciating, and I bit down on my lip.

I forced my eyes open, but I could only keep them open long enough to catch glimpses of the world around me. I didn’t see Jack. I screamed his name again, but the noise from the high-powered fan was too loud for me to hear even my own voice. Did he make it? Was he alive?

“Sunny!” I heard Jack yelling when the doors finally shut and the sound was gone. He was close by.

“I’m here!” I heard him making his way toward me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, feeling my arms and legs. “Did you break anything?”

“I’m fine. I just can’t open my eyes. The light is so strong.”

“I know. The sun is strong for me, too. Do you believe it? We’re seeing the sun!”

“Well, if I could open my eyes I could see it. It feels warm on my skin,” I said in wonder.

“I’ll get you off this slag heap and into some shade. That might help. Put your hands on my shoulders and follow in my footsteps.”

The terrain of the mound was jagged and unstable, and our progress was slow. As we worked our way through the heap, we discovered the sun’s rays weren’t just bright, they were hot, too. We finally reached the edge of the mound, and I opened my eyes long enough to catch a glimpse below.

I think I saw trees, which didn’t make any sense. We were always taught that the nuclear winter had destroyed every bit of life on earth. I opened my eyes again and peeked at the ground. It was a long way down.

“This should be easy for someone who’s used to climbing a dark and scary mineshaft,” Jack said.

“But I could see in the mineshaft. I’m blind right now.”

“I was blind in the shaft, and you made me do it.” He tugged at my hands, pulling me closer to the back of him. “Just hang on to me and follow my every move.”

I clung to him as we began our descent. The sides of the heap were even more unstable than the top, and every step we took had us sliding a few feet. Then the slag weakened at one point, and we slid a good fifteen feet. I forced my eyes open, bearing the pain of the sun on my eyes. I lost my grip on Jack, and he ended up sliding farther down the mound than I did.

“Just slide down to me,” Jack said.

I did as he instructed and found it a lot easier than trying to walk. After that, I opened my eyes more frequently, scared I might miss a step and send myself careening off the man-made hill. It seemed to take forever, but finally we reached the bottom.

“Not far now,” Jack said. He took my hand and led me into some trees. “Try opening your eyes.”

I did, and the shade provided some relief from the glaring sun, but my eyes were still extremely sensitive.

“Are we in the woods?” I asked in amazement.

“We are.” Jack was smiling. “This isn’t what I expected at all.”

“I thought everything on earth died with the nuclear winter, but… ” My voice trailed off as I looked in wonder at the world around me.

Trees taller than I could imagine were bursting with green leaves. I looked up at their canopies through narrowed eyes, trying to tolerate the pain of the bright sun. I caught glimpses of blue sky and white fluffy clouds floating past. A breeze blew against my face, bringing with it the foreign smells of earth and water. A screech that almost sounded human startled both of us, but when I found the source of the noise I saw a bird sitting in a tree looking at us curiously.