'What's that?' Carter asked.
Big Jim, now slumped on the couch with his eyes partly closed (and sardine grease on his jowls), sat up and listened. 'Air purifier,' he said. 'Kind of like a big Ionic Breeze. We've got one of those in the car showroom down at the store. Good gadget. Not only does it keep the air nice and sweet, it stops those static electricity shocks you tend to get in cold wea - '
'If the air in town's clearing, why did the air purifier start up?'
'Why don't you go upstairs, Carter? Crack the door a little bit and see how things are. Would that ease your mind?'
Carter didn't know if it would or not, but he knew just sitting here was making him feel squirrelly. He mounted the stairs.
As soon as he was gone, Big Jim got up himself and went to the line of drawers between the stove and the little refrigerator. For such a big man, he moved with surprising speed and quiet. He found what he was looking for in the third drawer. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone, then helped himself
On the door at the top of the stairs, Carter was confronted by a rather ominous sign:
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.