As she turned to look in the direction of the big water tank, she saw there were four more forty-pound propane tanks stored under a pair of door-size plywood sheets joined like a peaked roof. She rolled two of them to the place where she’d left the others so they’d be ready.

She crawled away from the house and then walked back up to the water tank, sat down, and held her rifle across her knees, listening for the sound of a door.

At the end of a half hour, Leah went back to the rear of the house, checked the float gauges on the two propane tanks, and saw that they were down to 10 percent. She replaced the two tanks with the full ones she had brought from their storage shelter and turned on the valves. Then she went back to sit beside the water tank, waiting for somebody to move.

24

Paul Duquesne woke. It was dark in the house, but he knew that something was terribly wrong. He tried to sit up in the narrow bed but needed to put his hand on the wall to help himself up. There was pain. He felt as though an ice pick were being pushed into his right temple, an excruciating headache that took up the space behind his eyes. He coughed, and pain came in a sharp throb. He knew that whatever was going on, he must stand up, but he was weak and dizzy. He rose unsteadily, started to topple, but pushed his hand against the wall and held himself there.

His room smelled horrible. Had a skunk somehow gotten caught in this cramped space and sprayed? He tried to see, but the only place a skunk could be was under the bed, and he knew if he crawled down there to look, he might not be able to get up. The next minute, the smell was like rotten eggs.

So much seemed to be happening—to him, to his thoughts. He tried to clear his mind but couldn’t focus on anything except pain and discomfort. But after an indeterminate time standing there, he began to recover a bit. He coughed a few times, and that seemed to help. Something awful was going on. Was the horrible smell from a fire—an electrical fire? No, it was a chemical smell, like sulfur dioxide.

He had to wake everyone and then start opening doors and windows. He headed for the doorway, managed to grasp both sides and hold himself there, and then stepped into the hall. He pounded on the first door, not caring whose room it was. “Wake up!” he shouted, but then he had to cough a few times. He knew he had to be louder, so he yelled as loudly as he could, “Come on! Get up! The air is poisoned!” He staggered to the next door and the next, pounded on the doors and shouted, “Help! Help me!”