by E S Richards
“I agree,” Linda nodded, also trying to mediate the situation. “Mia will be fine. But she’d also want us to take care of ourselves. Chase, is there anything else online?”
As she watched her grandson dutifully lift the lid of his laptop once more and wait for the screen to react, Linda observed her husband carefully. He had been unraveling mentally ever since the stroke, but in the past couple of weeks things had started to become much more obvious. She’d hoped they would be able to hide it from Chase and Riley over the summer, but in light of this new revelation, Linda now knew that might be a stretch.
It had started out as such minor things. Forgetting where he’d left his glasses or leaving the milk out of the fridge overnight. Then it had escalated to putting his shoes on the wrong feet, or just forgetting to put on shoes completely and wandering out on the farm with bare feet, resulting in cuts and scratches from the uneven ground.
When Linda knew it was getting really bad was the first morning that they woke up and Jerry had forgotten who she was. It still brought tears to her eyes to think about it. She’d never forget the vacant expression on his face when she spoke to him, the blank canvas that showed there really was no recollection there. Then it was over. No more than thirty seconds later her husband was back, laughing and joking around with a smile on his face. But from that moment, she had known it was the start of a downward spiral, and in all truth, the start of the end for her husband.
Linda was a realist first and foremost, and it helped her to sleep better at night if she simply looked at things how they were and dealt with them. Her husband was fading away and now, much like her son, her daughter was dead. It caused a lump to form in her throat, but Linda knew what a supervolcano eruption would bring with it. Even if Mia’s plane had taken off, would she have made it out of what they referred to as “the kill zone”? Linda had always listened carefully when Mia had explained her work to her; she wanted to be as prepared and knowledgeable as possible if anything ever happened to her. Deep down, she knew there was a high possibility that her daughter was already dead. She had lost her son just fifteen months ago, and somehow it made the premise of her losing her daughter as well slightly easier to accept.
She had to look forward now and help her immediate family get through what was happening. Chase was a strong boy and he would be a great asset to have around, but Linda worried about Jerry and Riley. Her husband could come and go in such a flash these days; one moment he was the man she had fallen in love with all those years ago. A brave, resilient, and powerful farmer, not letting anyone or anything stand in his way. But the next, he was just a frail old man, the memories of his family fading away and being replaced only with whispers and darkness. It was incredibly painful to watch, but there was nothing Linda could do about it. Now more than ever, she just had to be there for her husband.
“The message just repeats,” Chase said in a low voice, drawing his grandma’s attention away from Pop. She hadn’t realized he’d put his headphones on to listen to the broadcast again, aware of how much it had traumatized everyone the first time. “It must be pre-recorded.”
“Okay,” Linda nodded. “That’s okay. We can still work with that.”
“What are we going to do, Grandma?” Riley finally spoke up, the young girl still not having moved from her seat at the dinner table. The mouthful of pot roast that had been on her fork remained there, untouched and no longer giving off steam. The meal was over now. Like many things, there was no going back to it.
“We’re going to do exactly what needs to be done,” Grandma Linda replied, straightening her back and adding a couple of extra inches to her height. “We’re going to gather our supplies and prepare to weather this storm, no matter how long it takes. This farm has outlived much more than you kids will ever know; we’ll be safe here for however long this takes.”
“You’re right,” Pop spoke up, coughing a few times at the end of his sentence. Linda looked up at her husband with hopeful eyes, anxious to hear what he had to say next. “We can get through this. Volcanic ash cloud or not, I won’t let anything else come between me and my family.”
Linda smiled. Her husband was back. Despite how terrifying whatever was happening to Pop was, she knew she just needed to make the most of the time she had left with him and not dwell on the darkness. He was back with her now and they all needed to make the most of it.
“Okay,” Riley finally slid off of her seat with a smile, skipping over into the middle of the room. “What’s first?”
Chapter 4
As Jorge landed on the opposite side of the bank to her, the river of lava coursing between them, Mia wished more than ever that she’d chosen a different profession. A single bubble of lava inflated and popped right in front of her, hissing like a cat and sprinkling glowing red embers into the sky around it. It wasn’t a violent eruption, but even still, it caused Mia to step back from nerves. She was well out of reach of the lava anyway, but just the sight of it made her feel nervous. Why had Jorge had to jump? Now they were separated and she had to follow him.
“Come on, Mia,” Jorge called from the bank just a few feet away from her. “It’s simple. Just jump.”
“Ha,” Mia laughed. “That’s very easy for you to say, Jorge. You’ve already made it to the other side.”
“Exactly!” Jorge grinned, spreading his arms wide in appreciation of the land he was standing on. “And I made it, didn’t I? Come over here and join me.” Following his jump, Jorge felt more confident that he had in fact managed to guide the plane out of the kill zone before they crashed. He had suspected it when they landed, considering the speed he knew a volcanic ash cloud could travel and how long he’d pushed the plane’s engines at their max speed. He kept it quiet though, not wanting to instill false hope in Mia before he knew for certain that they were safe.
Mia rolled her eyes. Jorge was ever the dramatist and more often than not she didn’t appreciate it—that was definitely true in their current situation. Trying to block her friend out of her vision, Mia looked at the gap she would have to jump and calculated what sort of a run up she would need. In reality, she knew it was a jump that could easily be made. Her niece, Riley, would leap across without a second thought and her nephew, Chase, could probably just stride across it if he tried. The fact that deadly lava meandered along below made it a little bit more difficult though, Mia very aware that one slip and her life could be over.
She could only imagine what it would be like to drown in a pool of lava. First of all, the substance was so dense it would make it almost impossible to struggle or move. Once your body was even half submerged the lava would pool around you, trapping you within its firm grip. If that wasn’t bad enough, there were the obvious instant and immense burns that you would suffer. Mia knew the lava would be over two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Touching it would cause clothes to burn off in a fraction of a second and human flesh to follow. Your skin would be burnt away before you even registered it, your body literally melting into nothing.
They probably weren’t the thoughts that should’ve been occupying Mia’s head as she prepared to jump, but she couldn’t escape them. Jorge had folded his arms on the opposite bank and stood somewhat impatiently, waiting for Mia to jump. She wouldn’t let him rush her though. She knew this needed to be done right.
“Mia,” Jorge suddenly straightened up. “You need to jump. The ash cloud is getting closer again!”
Turning around to look in the same direction as Jorge, Mia noticed the relentless cloud of ash floating through the air toward them. It moved slower closer to the ground, meaning they stood more of a chance of outrunning it, but the sight still chilled her to her bones. It looked equally as angry as before, consuming everything in its path and encapsulating it in darkness. Jorge was right. She needed to jump and she needed to do it now. Backing up several feet, Mia focused on the gap in front of her and started to jog toward it.
“Arrrghhhh!”
The desperate cry escaped Mia’s throat
as she leapt into the air, her body instantly feeling weightless as her feet left the grassy verge below. It was such a short distance, surely she would make it. Her breath heaved out of her lungs as her feet hit the ground on the other side, her heels just hanging over the edge of the verge. She looked down. Yes, her feet were definitely on the ground. She was safe.
“See?” Jorge grinned as he took a step toward her. “Simple.”
Mia hadn’t even managed to think of a sarcastic quip back before the ground gave way beneath her, the side of the bank weakened as the lava ate away at it from below. Her stomach rose into her chest and she felt a sudden sinking feeling. She was going to fall.
“¡Dios! I’ve got you, Mia!” Jorge leapt forward, his arms outstretched in front of him as he just managed to grab the front of Mia’s shirt and jerk her toward him before all the ground gave way. The two of them fell into a heap on the ground, almost unable to process what had just happened.
“You—you saved my life,” Mia breathed once her head had stopped spinning, the heat from the lava current and the adrenaline from the moment causing her to break out into a sweat as she lay on top of Jorge.
“Es nada,” Jorge smiled, lapsing back into his native Spanish as he waited for Mia to climb up from his body. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Mia exhaled deeply. “Thank you.”
“Oh, Mia,” Jorge continued to smile as he wiped down his clothes, both of them now back on their feet. “Don’t mention it. We’ve got to make it out of here so we can tell this story to the world. Everyone is going to want to know what’s happened here today.”
Mia nodded. That wasn’t at all what she was thinking about as they fled for their lives from the violent supervolcano. But whatever motivation Jorge needed to get out alive was fine with her. She wasn’t going to argue with the man who had just saved her life. Especially not while they still stood so close to the danger.
“We should keep going,” Jorge continued. “I think this is the best way.”
Pointing in the direction the lava was flowing, Jorge chose their route and started walking. Mia was happy to follow, keeping her distance from the bank of the newly made river. They would surely reach somewhere familiar soon where they could recover and figure out their next move. She was still determined to get back to Texas somehow, her family at the forefront of Mia’s desires—just after staying alive herself.
Everything would still be fine in Texas right now; they were only a matter of hours into the aftereffects of the eruption. But Mia knew it wouldn’t take long for the air to become toxic and if Chase and Mia were outside playing like they usually were, they would both be at great risk of breathing in something deadly. She tried to remember what times of year her parents brought in a harvest—while the farm no longer housed the large number of cattle it once had, they were still very self-sufficient.
Her mother grew all sorts of vegetables in the garden around the front, enough for the two of them, but surely enough to stretch to cover Chase and Riley as well. Mia hoped that they had the good sense to pick everything before the ash contaminated the crop; it would only take a few hours of ash fall to decimate the entire thing.
There were a few remaining animals as well: Riley’s chickens and a couple of old cows that they kept around for eggs and milk. They were more pets than farm animals now though, their productive use lessening each day. Still, Mia hoped her family would take the animals inside. Unlike humans, they didn’t have the option to stop eating damaged crops or to not breathe in the poisoned air. She knew thousands of animals would end up dead over the next several weeks, their bodies not evolved to deal with an eruption of such magnitude.
Not that her own was either. Despite the years of research, everything about this supervolcano going off was new and unprecedented to Mia. No matter how hard any human tried, they couldn’t have been prepared for this. They were only a couple of hours in and already Mia knew things would get so much worse.
“A road!”
Jorge’s shout pulled Mia out of her morbid thoughts and back to the present, watching as her friend jogged off ahead of her, running toward something in the distance. Mia couldn’t see what he had, but his choice of words excited her nonetheless. Without hesitating, she picked up her pace too, running after Jorge and whatever he had sighted.
“We’re saved, Mia!” Jorge cried, sinking to his knees in a dramatic fashion and picking up handfuls of gravel in his fists. Looking down at where he knelt, Mia saw that they had indeed happened upon some sort of roadway. It wasn’t anything like the highways she was used to, but it was a dirt path that weaved through the valley and ultimately had to lead somewhere.
“Where do you think it goes?” Mia questioned, Jorge’s face sinking slightly when he realized Mia did not share the same excitement he felt. She was more of a realist, taking after her mother in that sense.
“Does it matter? Anywhere is better than being lost out here with that cloud creeping in.”
Mia turned her head once again at Jorge’s words, watching the ash cloud behind them. She knew there was little point trying to flee from it. Soon it would cover not only the whole state, but the whole country too. Factually speaking, it would cover most of the northern hemisphere. There was no escaping the cloud. It was ravenous; there was nothing it would not consume over the coming days, weeks, months, and maybe even years.
“Yeah, okay,” Mia agreed with her companion. “Let’s just find out for ourselves.”
It didn’t take long walking down the dirt road before it began to develop some more robust features. It was obvious they were approaching civilization at last, the path often trodden by several pairs of feet—though it wasn’t clear exactly what for. The end of it hadn’t held any sort of significance to Mia or Jorge, just an opening in a valley. They hadn’t looked around, of course, and as the thought entered Mia’s head, she realized that she didn’t really care. It didn’t matter where they had come from; what was more important was where they were going to end up.
“Is that…?” The question hung in Mia’s mouth as she stopped, regarding the buildings that had appeared in the distance.
Jorge stopped beside her too, a puzzled look on her face. “Surely not? It can’t be.”
The two of them continued to walk forward, angling their heads to try and get a better view of the collection of buildings in front of them. They only needed to walk another hundred yards before Mia felt a huge surge of relief. For a second she had thought they were right back where they’d started.
“I can’t believe it,” Mia sighed. “I was so certain that was Yellowstone airport for a second. How did you manage to get us to Helena?”
“I kept flying for quite a bit after you passed out,” Jorge smiled, proud of himself for making it out of the kill zone. “I thought that was Yellowstone for a second, too. Even though it’s not, I don’t think we’re safe just yet.”
Even though they were over two hundred miles from the supervolcano by now, Mia completely agreed with Jorge’s statement. The environment they had just traveled through confirmed that to her—the effects of the eruption were reaching farther than even she had originally thought.
“Let’s get inside,” Mia spoke hurriedly, the reality of their location not lessening the amount of panic that she’d let herself shoulder thus far. “See if we can find a way out of here. I still think we’re too close.”
“Agreed,” Jorge nodded. As much as the Spaniard wanted to document the super-eruption, he knew that to do so he had to be alive. Even he didn’t want fame so badly that he was willing to risk his life for it. As was the essence of any selfish person, Jorge’s own wellbeing was the most important thing to him.
Moving at a brisk pace along the side of the building, the pair of researchers trekked around the small airport and made their way to where they guessed the exit of the departures lounge was. It was one of the smallest airports in the area, supplying less than fifty flights in and out every day. But both Mia and Jorge knew that if
it was an airport, there would likely be planes there and that was their best bet of escape.
“Hello?” Mia called out as they entered the departure lounge, retracing their steps from earlier that day. She had walked out of the building believing that that was it. Her research trip was over and she would be back with her family in a matter of hours. Mia almost laughed to herself as she processed how far from the truth that was. Yellowstone was much more than just a research trip now: it was her life.
“Hello?” Jorge echoed Mia’s cry, cupping his hands around his mouth to try and make his voice louder. “Is anyone here?”
A distant clanging sound from further down the terminal answered their cry, whether it had meant to or not. It sounded like someone had knocked something over, the noise echoing down the corridor toward them on its own—no voice or spoken word to accompany it.
“Hello?” Mia called out again, understanding that whoever was left in the airport would likely be scared of what was happening. She and Jorge had an advantage in some ways; they understood the eruption and what it would bring. For everyone else, it was likely that they saw this as the end of the world. “We’re researchers who’ve been out at Yellowstone. We escaped the eruption, but now we need to get out of here. Is anyone there?”
Nothing but silence met Mia’s call, leaving her with no option but to turn to Jorge and shrug. If there was someone still in the airport, they were doing their best to keep themselves hidden.
“What do we do?” Mia whispered, suddenly more nervous than before.
“What can we do?” Jorge replied. “We’ve as much right to be here as anyone else. Let’s go and find out what’s happening.”