32
The car ride immediately following an argument is always awkward, and it turns out that’s especially true if the argument is concluded by someone being pummeled over the head with a snow globe. Rico and his guards hardly said a word the entire ride, and actually neither did Dan and Mara, but that was due in large part to the fact they’d been gagged with sweaty bandanas.
After a few minutes, they arrived at the tarmac in front of the hangars. Rico lifted them both—one over each shoulder—and slammed them face-first into the snow. Dan’s whole body ached as Rico bound his hands behind his back, and he heard Mara grunt as another guard worked on her. When they were finished, Rico yanked each of their faces from the snow and forced them onto their knees.
There was the plane, the one Alan had been working on, the one with the red stripe. And there was Lilyanna and Pete Collins, and Brody Sheridan, and Brody’s girlfriend, and they were loading luggage onto the plane and laughing with each other.
Rico hobbled between Dan and Mara. He bent over, smacked Dan lightly on the cheek, and then seized his jaw.
“I was gonna kill you, Foster,” he said. He pushed his finger into Dan’s forehead. “Was gonna put a bullet right here. But, nah. I’m gonna make you watch. Gonna make you watch as we fly away. My guards back here? They got orders to make sure you don’t move. You’re gonna freeze to death on this island.”
Dan laughed. He couldn’t help it. Fly away? They’d hit the dome. Just like the Brits, they’d crash into the dome, and that would be it.
“Laugh it up,” Rico said, and he gave Dan one more good smack. Then Rico bent over Mara. “Maybe I should take you with me. You got a lot of fight in you, girl, I like that.”
Dan’s laughs turned to screams, and he launched himself toward his wife, landing shoulder-deep in the snow. Rico snorted. “Damn, son,” he said. “Selfish much? At least she’d live . Nah. I’mma leave her here with you. Too much mouth on her.”
Near the plane, Lilyanna caught Dan’s eye and she grinned at him, like, How’d you think this would end? And then she and Pete strolled over, and she helped Dan back onto his knees. She brushed the snow off his face and pinched his cheek.
“Bless your heart. I hate that it’s come to this, y’all, I really do, but what choice did you leave us with? Really?”
“Yeah,” Pete said, scratching his head. “Gee. This isn’t what we had in mind, I can tell ya that. Just, you know, the plane’s only so big, and I doubt you can hang on to the wings! And then ya punched me and stole my wife during the wedding, and that just…well, that wasn’t real chill with us, if we’re keeping it one hundred. Whaddya think, though, Lily, do we leave ’em in the snow like this? Maybe ask Rico to cut ’em free. Gosh, I don’t know.”
Lilyanna ignored him. She caressed Mara’s face. “Oh, honey. Maybe you could’ve fixed him if you had more time. Ya just—ya can’t bet on the wrong horse so close to the finish line.”
Lilyanna glanced up at Madge, who stood behind Dan and Mara with the other guards. “Remember what I said now, Madge: executive earning potential, working part-time from home. Once we get the rest of these planes back for y’all, you’re joining team boss babe.”
“And you’ll waive that fee for the starter kit?”
Lilyanna winked at her. “We’ll talk about it.”
The Collinses returned to the plane, loaded the last of their luggage. Look at them. Completely oblivious. Those stupid assholes. Those selfish, stupid, greedy assholes. Lead the island into chaos and then escape by dark of night—dark of day—whatever. Well, they’d get theirs. In a decadent pageant of cosmic irony, they’d get theirs. And Dan was going to enjoy the fireworks.
Wait. Parts of Dan’s brain were still clicking on.
Wait .
Who was the pilot? There was only one pilot on the—
Oh, no. No, no, no.
The door to the cabin sprung open, and out stepped Alan Ferris, some paper rolled in his hand.
“These charts are ancient,” he said, “but I can get us there. Wheels up as soon as possible. Looks like it might storm again, and we can’t—” He stopped dead when he saw Dan and Mara. “Who brought them here?”
“Rico,” Brody said.
Alan tapped the map in his palm. “Fuck.” He hung his head, trudged through the snow to them. “Why are they gagged? Who gagged them?” Alan reached to undo Dan’s restraints, but Rico stepped in.
“They stay gagged. These two talk too much. They get in your head.”
“Rico, come on. Let me talk to them and—”
“So talk,” Rico said. “They can listen.”
Alan glanced at the grotesque bruise spreading across the dome of Rico’s head and nodded. He stepped back. Why did he step back? He’d really leave them gagged like this? In the snow? The dread in Dan’s belly sidled against the rage in his chest. He twisted in his restraints, snarled like a muzzled dog.
After everything— everything —you’re flying them out of here? The Collinses? And Sheridan? Rico? You were the best man at my wedding! You only found this plane because me and Lenny risked our necks to help you. Remember Lenny? He’s dead, by the way. The thug you’re about to private charter shot him to death. I can’t even look at you. Don’t do this, man, don’t do this. You don’t even know what you’re doing. Look at my eyes, Alan. You’re usually the one who knows what to do, but I need you to look into my eyes this time, man, please.
“Look, kid.” Alan got eye level with Dan, placed a hand on his shoulder. “This, ah…” He paused. “I’m sorry about this. It’s a tough deal.”
A tough deal? Accidentally liking an ex-girlfriend’s photo on Instagram is a tough deal. Realizing too late a public bathroom has no toilet paper in a tough deal. This…this was betrayal. And stupid betrayal too, because—Alan, please, you don’t know everything.
Alan made like he was about to stand, like that was all he had to say, but something occurred to him. “Listen. You realize when you get older—there are things that’re bigger than right and wrong. Okay? There just are. Family. Your people. They come first. They have to come first. It’s all we have.”
There was a dramatic gasp from somewhere near the plane. No doubt who that belonged to. God, Charles. Sweet Charles. Mara shrieked for him, pleaded with him, pointed her chin to the sky like, Look, dummy, look, you’re gonna experience some turbulence. Charles fell to his knees and hugged her.
“Alan,” Charles said, his voice shattered. “Alan. We can’t leave them. We just can’t. Maybe—could they sit on our laps?”
“It’s a weight thing, Charles.”
“Then dump my bags. Leave the bags. All my clothes, honey, I don’t care. But please. I thought I could do it, but I can’t. We can’t—oh, how can we live with ourselves?”
Alan clutched Charles’s shoulders and stood him up. “We have to get home to our boys.”
“Alan—”
“ We have to get home to our boys. ”
Charles returned to his knees, ran his fingers through Mara’s bloodied hair. “I am so, so sorry. Mara, honey. I…we have to get home to our boys.” Charles and Mara sobbed into each other. “I love you.” He turned to Dan. “We’ll send help—as soon as we get back to the States, we’ll send help. I swear to God.”
“Come on, Charles,” Alan said. “The storm’s coming.”
And that was it. Lilyanna, Pete, Alan, Charles, Brody, and his girlfriend looked out from the tarmac one last time, into the woods and at the island beyond. They were leaving Tizoc. Really leaving.
Kind of.
Dan didn’t want to throw up, not with a bandana in his mouth, but he—
Wait a minute.
Dan cycled through the passengers again. The plane’s a six-seater. Lilyanna, Pete, Alan, Charles, Brody, and his girlfriend. Dan was no mathematician, but what about—
Rico cleared his throat. “Lilyanna.” He staggered between Dan and Mara, closer to the plane, closer to its passengers. “Hold on a minute. I didn’t know the fat one was coming. This math don’t add up. I count seven.”
Lilyanna smiled at him, a big fake smile, a smile that was meant to disarm him but had the opposite effect. “Well, now, Rico, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
He recoiled. “Don’t do it, lady.”
She held up her hands. “Listen, Rico, hun, listen to me now. We’re gonna come right back for y’all, okay? Right back.”
Rico spit in the snow. It was red. “You fuckin’ kidding me? We had a deal.”
“Yes, we did. Yes, we did. And the deal’s still on, son. You’ll get paid. We’ll send a plane for you. Lord as my witness. And for your men too. I swear on my babies. Alan refused to fly without his husband, okay? And it’s only six seats, Rico. Simon Cowell didn’t even make it.”
“Only six seats,” Rico repeated.
“That’s right. Only six seats.”
“Okay,” Rico said, and he pulled Lenny’s pistol from his pants and shot Pete Collins in the face. Lilyanna caught her husband’s limp body as it folded into the tarmac, dead before he hit the ground. Dan could hardly look. Rich crimson stained the snow. Lilyanna screamed, begged. Everyone screamed actually, besides Alan, who shook his head in disgust. Rico holstered the gun.
“Guess we got room now.” Rico approached the plane, but Brody and his girlfriend retreated, shielded themselves behind Alan and Charles. Rico laughed. “Anyone else got a problem with me catching this flight? No? Okay.” He turned around. “Lilyanna. Come on. Leave it. You heard the man. Storm’s coming.”
Lilyanna was draped over her husband. “My love,” she said. “My love, my love, my love. I’m so sorry, Pete. Please, please.” She burrowed her face into his chest, probably listening for a pulse, listening for anything, but there was only wind.
Rico approached her. “Lilyanna. You coming? Last call.”
She didn’t budge.
“Okay,” Rico said. “Up to you, ma’am. Well, now we got an extra seat. Do we—” He put his hands on his hips. “We could take the girl. I know I said she talks too much, but—” He smiled. “You know, she’s growing on me.”
“No,” Dan screamed, and his mouth was still muffled, but it was very clearly the word no . He was shoulder to shoulder with Mara now, and he wanted to chew through these restraints, wanted to smother Rico and his gold tooth in the snow.
Charles wiped the snot from his nose and refused to look at Rico. He spoke softly. “Mara, honey. Do you want to come with us? We could take you. We’ll send help for Dan, for everyone, but in the meantime, you can get home to your mom.”
Rico shrugged. “Let’s take her.”
Mara scrambled to get away, and Dan threw himself atop her, but Rico kicked him in the gut, snatched Mara, and tossed her over his shoulder in one swift motion. Dan could hardly breathe, but Mara’s screams lifted him from the ground. She thrashed and kicked in Rico’s arms, and Dan tried to tackle him, but he was backhanded.
One of Mara’s kicks connected. Rico dropped her, and she scrambled to Dan.
“Fuck,” Rico said with a laugh. “You can’t pry these two apart. Bitch, you’d rather die with him than go back home? I really like her. I’m keeping her.”
“Leave her,” Alan said.
Rico glared at him, raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“Leave her.”
“I want her. I’m taking her.”
“You’re leaving her with her husband, or I’m not flying this plane.”
“Alan…” Charles said.
“She wants to be with her husband. Rico, if you’re coming, get in. We’re leaving now.”
Rico spit. “Fine. Fucking freeze here.” He considered his guards. “’Ey, Madge. You want a ride?”
“Hell, yeah,” Madge said.
She broke from the others and climbed onto the plane. Brody and his girlfriend attempted to board next, but Rico seized Brody by the collar. His eyes shifted between his two remaining guards and Brody.
Brody stammered. “I-I can pay you double.”
“Tell me I’m a good stuntman,” Rico demanded.
“Dude. What? You’re an amazing stuntman. The—the best.”
“Now tell me you’ll pay me triple.”
“Yeah—bet. Bet. Triple.”
Rico’s bloody grin touched both ears. “All aboard then.” He turned to the others. “Sorry, boys, we’ll send help if we can. Just make sure these pieces of shit are frozen to the tarmac when it gets here.”
“What did he say?” Charles asked. Alan shoved Charles into the plane. “What did he say? He can’t do that. He can’t make them stay out there. Alan. Alan, I’ll never forgive you. Alan—”
“Get in ,” Alan said.
The plane door slammed shut. Charles’s face was plastered against one of the windows, and he was shouting something and banging on the frame, but Dan couldn’t hear it over the wind, over Lilyanna’s cries, over the engines. The plane had started up, by God, it started right up because Alan knew what he was doing, he really was a capable man even if he couldn’t always see what was right in front of him. The propeller spun faster and faster until it vanished, and Mara wept into Dan’s shoulder because she couldn’t bear to watch. The plane turned, straightened itself on the tarmac, and then was off, leaving dual tracks in the snow. Maybe it won’t lift off, Dan thought, maybe it won’t fly. But it reached the end of the runway and took to the sky, its taillights like stars in all that black.
It flew higher and higher until it could hardly be heard anymore. A bead of doubt formed in Dan’s mind, because gosh, they were getting high up there now, surely they should’ve hit the dome. What if everything Shae said was a lie? The new stuff anyway. What if the sun really had exploded, and the experiment wasn’t actually a dome, but it was lying to people about a dome and seeing how they reacted? What if…? Of course there wasn’t a dome. A dome . A fucking dome ? Over an entire island? How stupid could he be? Dan was beginning to feel really silly, really—
Oh.
There it is.
Mara screamed as the plane exploded, the flaming wreckage falling from the sky like comets. The nauseating sound of twisted metal and the flash of light momentarily pulled Lilyanna from her grief.
“What the fuck?” one of the guards said.
“Dude,” said the other.
Dan screamed for Lilyanna, slapped the restraints against his ass. Dazed, she scurried across the pavement to him, made quick work of the knots. Super quick. It would have been impressive, actually, had Dan had time to reflect on it.
“Hey,” one guard said, his heart barely in it. “Hey, don’t—”
The entire sky flashed royal blue—the color blue like when a computer crashes—and then immediately gave way to a disorienting static, a crack fracturing from the plane’s impact site. For a few seconds, Tizoc Grand Islands Resort and Spa existed inside a TV with poor signal, the X-rated channel no one paid for, and the convulsive locomotion of the universe made Dan feel lost in time and space.
“ Is this it? ” asked one of the guards frantically. “Is this the end of the world?”
Lilyanna undid the bandana from Dan’s mouth.
“It’s a dome!” he screamed. He dove for Mara, pulled helplessly at her restraints. “Undo hers! Undo hers!”
Lilyanna did as she was told, yanked wildly at Mara.
“There’s a dome over the whole island!” Dan said.
“ What? ” Lilyanna freed her.
“A dome!” Mara said.
The static ceased and the island was plunged into a sickening darkness. Electricity had been severed—the lights along the runway faded like memories. Dan clutched the shape of Mara to his chest. Not like this. Not like this .
There was rumbling, the sound of a thousand drums pounded upon in Heaven, and a large chunk of dome near the crash site crumbled. It broke off in pieces, one by one, monstrous fragments of distorted metal and rebar falling thousands of feet in seconds and crashing into the ocean below. Through the hole, as if it’d been trying to push its way through this whole time, was something Dan and Mara were sure they’d never see again.
Sunlight.
It poured through the opening like a spotlight, pristine, and blinding, and probably warm—so warm. Dan wanted to swim out there and wrap himself in it, strip off his clothes and bathe in it, run it through his hair like shampoo and make love to his wife in it, melanoma and sunspots and SPF 30 be damned.
That one swatch of light gave Dan a sense of things, helped him calibrate the world around him. He could see the dome for what it was now. A grid of dark ribbed metal. LCD screens, tinted glass. He could see the seams where it was welded together, where repairs had been made, its curvature against the horizon. It was like being inside a theme park ride with the lights switched on. How could they have been fooled by something so ridiculous?
Everyone, even Lilyanna, sauntered toward the light like zombies, like moths. Lilyanna whispered quiet, bewildered gibberish, the guards said the f-word a lot, and Mara pushed Dan in the shoulder, like, You seeing this?
It was over. There was light up ahead— light! —a way out.
Something to crawl toward.
Then more rumbling. Ground-shaking, earth-shattering, eardrum-pulverizing rumbling. Cracks from the crash site splintered over the dome, light poking through the fissures. Another piece of dome broke off, this one nearer the airport. It landed like a lost spaceship, creating a smoldering crater. Mara shrieked and spun Dan just in time to see yet another piece fall, past the woods where the resort stood. Wind carried guests’ screams.
Dan and Mara shared a panicked glance. “The tunnels,” they said in unison. They sprinted for the guards’ Jeep, yelling for the others to follow, but the guards blocked their path and shoved them backward. One cocked his pistol.
“Rico said you stay put!” he said, resolute.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Dan said. “The sky is literally falling!”
“Yeah, well, an order’s an ord—”
A chunk of dome obliterated both guards. It was so close that Dan felt a draft as it passed.
“Fuck,” Mara screeched. “Fuck!”
Dan seized her wrist and swung her over the hole containing guard compote and pointed toward the waiting Jeep. “Get in! Find the keys!” He turned back for Lilyanna, who hadn’t moved, her head off-kilter and makeup running. “Lilyanna. Come on!” Dan grabbed her, but she resisted, pulling for her husband.
“I can’t—Pete—I can’t—”
Dan twirled her toward him, shook her frail body. “Look at me! Hey, Lilyanna, look at me ! Your kids. This means they’re alive. They’re back home in Tennessee! You get that, right?”
Mara screamed at Dan as another mass of metal landed feet away, showering them in earth and snow. At the mention of her kids, Lilyanna snapped back to reality—whatever this version of it was—and she nodded. She took one last longing gaze at her husband before sprinting toward the Jeep, her hand in Dan’s.
Mara tossed Dan the keys from the passenger side, Lilyanna climbed in back, and Dan took off, the Jeep spinning out before catching the remains of the runway.
“Seat belts!” Dan screamed as he veered left and then back right. Another missile hit just outside the Jeep, catching the edge of the rear passenger wheel and sending them careening. Dan regained control, prayed the wheel hadn’t popped, and slammed the gas. He swung off the airstrip and onto the wooded road leading to Tizoc.
Lilyanna, even in mourning, was just the worst backseat driver. She dug her nails into Dan’s shoulder. He repeatedly shook her off, but seconds later she’d reattach. “Look out,” she screeched, “up ahead, up ahead, left, left—right! Go right, Dan, there’s a big one. Y’all!”
“You’re not helping!” Dan swerved to narrowly avoid a fracture that split part of the road in two.
Mara slapped Lilyanna’s hands. “Get off him!”
“I’m tryin’ to help!”
“You’re not helping!”
“Will you two shut up ?” Dan curved left to avoid a flaming hollow. The Jeep’s side mirror collided with a tree and snapped off.
Mara’s knuckles were white as she gripped the passenger handrest. “Shut up, Lilyanna. He doesn’t perform well under pressure!”
Dan scoffed. “What? Sure I d—”
“Look!”
The manicured entrance of the resort rose in the distance, and Mara opened the center console and found a radio. She clicked it on: static. “Whoever can hear this—guests of Tizoc! Get underground! Underground now! It’s a dome! I know it sounds crazy, but I swear to you, it’s a dome! Get underground n—”
Everyone screamed as debris the size of a Buick pulverized the earth directly in front of them. There was no avoiding it. Dan turned too quickly to the right and felt the Jeep’s tires leave the pavement. His stomach entered his mouth, and the airbags deployed—he was sure of that—but then he briefly lost consciousness. When he awoke, he was upside down in the Jeep. He saw Mara outside through the open passenger door, and she was all cut up but okay, and she cried his name and scraped her knees on the broken glass. She reached in, seized his arm, tried to tug him free.
Dan groaned as he stretched for her. “My…my leg.” His left leg was lodged somewhere in the bent metal frame. He couldn’t free it. And he smelled…he smelled gasoline. Oh, shit. Smoke. Dan smelled smoke. A fire had started in the engine. Flames licked up the windshield.
“Come on!” Mara said. Her eyes were panicked, feral. “Danny! Danny! Pull, baby, pull! Fuck. I can’t—I can’t get you out!”
The heat was quickly becoming a factor. Dan’s body was slick with sweat. If his heart pounded any harder against the steering wheel, the horn would honk. He tried to wrench himself free using the hand brake, anything to leverage himself, but he was stuck.
This is how I go? Fire? During the fake apocalypse?
Dan quit struggling. He winced as another sliver of dome landed somewhere nearby. “Go,” he said to Mara, waving her off. “Go! Get underground!”
Mara shook her head. “I’m not leaving you.”
Lilyanna Collins limped into view.
“Help me!” Mara shouted. “Lilyanna. Lilyanna. Danny’s stuck. Help me get him out!”
Lilyanna ignored her.
“Don’t you dare ,” Mara said, furious, but then she pleaded. “Lilyanna. Please. He’s my husband. Please.”
Lilyanna stopped. Her fists clenched, her head shook as if in an imaginary argument. She took a deep breath and turned.
“Come on,” she said. “Grab the other arm, girl.” They each seized one of Dan’s clammy hands. “Okay. Put your back into it now. Pull! One more. Pull!”
Dan used his loose foot to apply pressure. Somehow, the three of them working together did it, and Dan was pulled from the wreckage as flames overtook the cabin. Mara pulled him into her, kissed his face a thousand times.
“Come on,” he said, unsteady in the melting snow. “We have to—”
A deafening roar. The dome wasn’t breaking off in pieces anymore. What remained was collapsing, the entire thing, thousands of tons of metal returning to the earth in violent black sheets. It started from the north, flattening the airstrip and working its way over the dense woods, bringing the trees to their knees, snapping them like toothpicks. They no longer had minutes, they had seconds, and Lilyanna signaled toward a service door next to the resort entrance wall. Without a word—they wouldn’t have heard each other anyway—they sprinted for it. Please be open, please be open, please be—
Dan burst through the steel door and immediately toppled down a flight of cement stairs, his leg screaming through the adrenaline. Mara and Lilyanna joined him in a flash. They yanked him to his feet, and together they bolted down another flight and then another, before a wave of incomprehensible destruction swallowed them whole.