Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1)

by Hughey, J.

  Dad paused for a moment. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “When will you get here?” Mom asked. “He should spend at least one night before he leaves for Nebraska, right?”

  “That’s what I thought. We’re taking Mia to the bus station on Thursday morning so we’ll probably get home by dinnertime, okay?”

  “Sounds good. I’ll get the guest room ready.”

  “Don’t fuss, Mom. He was worried about imposing on us so, you know, be cool.”

  She and Dad both laughed. “We’re parents,” Dad said, still chuckling. “We don’t do cool.”

  “Hey, Violet,” Mom added. “I’m gonna text you a list of things we need. Maybe you can check around your local stores. Stuff’s pretty picked over here.”

  My forehead crinkled. I pictured empty shelves in the Gardenburg discount mart. “Like what?”

  “Well, Daddy and Grandpa think we should have some more cartridges for the hunting rifles. Things like that.”

  “You want me to buy ammunition?”

  Text to Boone:

  I expected this to be greeted with alarm, or at least confusion.

  (The triple question marks were supposed to indicate I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.)

  I stared at the glowing screen of my phone. Who was I texting? Rambo?

  The texts from Mom continued to come in. I cringed at the feminine hygiene request but realized I didn’t want to go through the Yellowblown future without supplies. I’d have to try to buy those on the down low.

  Boone drove slowly off campus for our shopping trip, among students moving out in a complete reverse of the excitement of August. Instead of hot sun the sky offered gloomy gray. Parents looked harried instead of proud. All the head casers were grim about getting kicked to the curb.

  “Did you store Twyla’s stuff?”

  “Yeah. She’s got too much, especially considering the tiny foreign car she drives.”

  I wondered if he’d feel the same way about me, since I didn’t have a car at all but planned to fill his truck with Mom’s wish list items.

  We pulled in to a wood-sided store with a high front porch displaying an array of brightly colored kayaks and canoes, all chained together. A sign out front encouraged the early purchase of deer licenses. A telephone pole randomly planted in the parking lot sported several seats at various heights with flimsy ladders hanging from them.

  Boone circled to my side of the car.

  “So, this gun of yours, the one you’re stocking up for…is it in Nebraska?” I asked as I stepped down.

  “Nope,” he said. He reached in to pat the hatch of the glove box.

  My eyes went wide. “A little gun fits in there? Is that legal?”

  “It’s called a handgun, and I have concealed weapons permits for Nebraska and Pennsylvania, and the campus police know.”

  “You drive around with a loaded gun?” I’d always told myself I liked bad boys. I’d been coming to terms with the fact that, if I liked Boone, I didn’t really like bad boys ’cuz he made Clark Kent look rebellious. Yet I’d had a gun hovering over my knees every time I rode in his truck.

  “It’s not loaded, and don’t ask me where I keep the ammo.” He swung the heavy door closed behind me.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want you to shoot me if you ever get mad.”

  A bearded man dressed in camo cargo pants held the door open for us. The message on his T-shirt said, “Gun Control Means Using Both Hands.” A serenade from a deep-voiced country singer perfectly embellished the redneck vibe.

  “I meant, why do you need a gun?”

  He shrugged. “Nebraska cattle ranching is different than selling dental supplies. We’ve got cattle rustlers, snakes, coyotes. At home, I carry a shotgun in the truck, too.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. Dad said something about shells for one of those.” I dug my hand in the back pocket of my skinny jeans to retrieve a list of an alarming length. I pointed to the section allocated to crazy crap I never in a million years thought I’d buy.

  Boone nodded as if it all made perfect sense.

  We approached a glass display counter full of knives, ranging from tiny multi-tools to the nastiest serrated blade I’d ever seen. Boone nodded at the man behind it. “We need five boxes each of 22 and 308, both Remington, and three boxes each of target load birdshot for a 12 gauge.” He looked over at me with a frown. “Throw in two boxes of slug cartridges, too.”

  For some reason I expected the clerk to laugh and tell us to go home to play, but he started pulling brown and green cardboard boxes off the shelf. Boone perused the rest of my list. “We can find some of these here, too,” he said, pointing to drinking water purification kit and five-gallon water carriers. “They’ll be a little pricier but other stores might be sold out.”

  The clerk pointed to the camping section of the store. After a brief but promising recon mission, I decided if I saw an item, I’d buy it so we didn’t have to circle back for anything. On my way to get a cart I heard Boone ordering 9-millimeter Smith and Wesson bullets.

  “Good thing you came in when you did, buddy. That’s the last of those,” the clerk said.

  Boone asked about a different size of bullet as I navigated past a round rack filled with fleece hoodies in every pattern of camo imaginable. He mentioned the number 40. My legs went wobbly as I loaded the cart. The guns and survival gear made this global catastrophe gig super-real. It was wigging me out.

  When Boone added a few boxes of the same size cartridges I’d listed, I stopped to look across the store at his broad shoulders. His hair was cropped tight on the back of his head. The cords in his neck stood out as he searched the shelves behind the clerk’s back. A housewife might peruse the cereal aisle in the same way to avoid forgetting somebody’s favorite breakfast. But, these were bullets.

  He felt my stare and turned to find me, his expression both protective and curious. I failed to play it cool.

  “This is nuts,” I said across the store.

  “Yep.” He thanked the clerk and hoisted a cardboard box under each arm, two cornucopias of ammunition.

  My share rattled like a deadly tambourine when he stowed it on top of my tidy stack of tarps. For some reason the movie line I’ll bust a cap in your ass skittered through my head.

  “Are we gonna end up in some kind of militia or something?” I asked, eyeing his box of 9-millimeters and 40-whatevers.

  “You aren’t.” He indicated my box with his chin. “Those are all hunting loads.”

  “And yours?”

  He shrugged. “Some hunting. Some self-defense.” I blinked, speechless. He shifted the apparently heavy box to his other arm. “Violet, you can’t tell me the farm boys in your town aren’t carrying. Guys who drive rusty pickups in Indiana can’t be that different.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I couldn’t imagine Parker with a pistol in the glove box of his classic truck. If he’d had one, it was only because the lead singer of The Blue Canoes carried the same kind.

  “I’ll get another cart,” he said.

  He grabbed one of the water purification kits, some bungee cords, dehydrated meal packets, and four five-gallon gas cans. He carried those straight to the checkout, big hands wrapped around two handles each. As a finishing touch, he balanced a heavy wire platform to mount in his rear hitch over the top of the loaded cart.

  At the register, I stared in shock at the line of green digital numbers showing my total due then handed over the only-use-this-in-emergencies-or-we-will-close-the-account credit card Dad entrusted to me the first day of my freshman year.

  Boone waited his turn behind me, humming along with the country music. I remembered him at the door of the dorm that day, his welcoming all-American face, his easy way of greeting everyone. Who would have guessed he had a concealed weapons permit, the gun to go with it, and the confidence to say he was buying ammunition for self-defense?

  Had I inadvertently caught the attention of a bad bo
y masquerading as a good boy? The possibility brought on a rash of goose bumps and, oddly, calmed my shaky nerves.

  The cashier returned my card. “We’re all end-of-days preppers now, aren’t we, hon?” A yellow pencil stuck out of her vigorously teased, unnaturally brunette hair. She winked at me. “At least us smart ones are.”

  Mia and I stayed up late on Wednesday night, two sad sacks in a room full of packed bags and boxes, most of them mine. Mia’s Army duffel and a wicked heavy backpack rested by the door.

  We no longer pretended our chosen lives weren’t ending before they had begun. We faced each other on my bed, the last of our junk food stash arrayed amid the eerie silence of the practically empty dorm. We weren’t college sophomores anymore. I suddenly realized how selfish I’d been, worrying about my cushy ride home and gathering all my outdoorsy supplies while Mia packed her comforter and Converse sneakers for a Greyhound trip back to the ’hood.

  “What’s it going to be like at home for you?” I asked as I settled Gloria in my lap.

  “Camden in the autumn,” she said in her best British accent. “My favorite locale for an extended house party.”

  “Hey, if you don’t think you’ll be safe there, you should come home with me. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

  “Wish I could. Bu-u-t,” she dragged the word out for emphasis, “Gram’s ancient and, if crack is as scarce as every other vegetable product, my mom’s probably going through withdrawal.” She wiped her greasy fingers on a paper towel. “I especially can’t leave Tony there on his own. He’s only sixteen.”

  “I hate this,” I said, taking her cheese curl stained hand in mine. “I’ve dreaded saying goodbye. I’m gonna be so worried about you.”

  “I’ll be worried about me, too,” she said. “I’m street-smart and everything, but my neighbors don’t need much excuse to go off the chain. I think a global disaster might make things kind of interesting on my block.”

  She usually joked about home. Her admitting she had any concerns at all spiked my heart rate. “Oh, no, Mia. Are you sure you can’t come to Indiana?”

  “I’m sure.”

  I sniffled and forced myself to tell her what I might never have the chance to say face-to-face again. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  She gulped.

  “If you ever need anything…if you need me to come rescue you, call me. Okay?”

  Her bleak eyes flooded, like mine. “You’re my best friend, too. Believe me, there’s nobody like you at home. Nobody has a goal without a prison sentence attached. Nobody thinks I can be normal.”

  We shared a damp hug. “I’m being serious,” I insisted. “I love you like a sister, you know?”

  “I know,” she said. She trembled like a dry leaf on a tree branch, primed to tumble down from its secure height. A few hiccupping sobs escaped her restraint. “Oh, you are such a bitch for making me do this.” She pulled away first and carefully ran an orange finger under her lower lashes. “What if we can’t text, or anything?”

  “I know. I might murder my mom if I can’t complain to you. God knows I have enough bullets to do it.”

  “Your tampon supply will last thirty percent longer.”

  I smirked at Mia’s dark joke.

  She sobered. “You won’t murder your mom. Your family is awesome. You guys will be like the Swiss Family Robinson, or whoever they were. The ones who lived in the fab tree houses?”

  I reached for scrap paper in the trashcan and scribbled on the back. “Here. I know you already have my address, but keep this safe. If you ever need a place to go—you and your brother and your gramma—you come to us at The Perch. Or call me to come get you. My Dad would come. I know he would. Promise? And promise me you’ll tell me if you go anywhere else.”

  Mia bit her trembling bottom lip as she traced my sloppy printing. She nodded.

  Mia wore bravado and eyeliner thick as armor the next day. She left big red lip prints on both Boone’s and my cheeks and waved her martini-embossed scarf at us from the step of the bus bound for Pittsburgh, the first stop on her trip back to the ghetto. We stayed until the tired silver coach chugged away, a billow of black acrid exhaust hanging in its wake.

  The first major Yellowblown break scored my heart. I didn’t hide my tears as effectively as I thought. Boone wrapped a comforting arm around my waist. I pressed my cheek to his shoulder, glad he didn’t offer any false reassurances about my seeing her again soon.

  “Did Cramer cry over you last night?” I asked, embarrassed.

  “Cramer mostly swore at me. He’s pissed as hell. Says he’s not leaving his apartment until Ellis gives him a diploma.”

  I had to laugh at my mental picture of Cramer hunkered down on his couch waiting for the president of the college to personally deliver his degree. Something dug into my side as I giggled through tears. I looked down to see a nylon holster cinched on Boone’s belt. “Multi-tool,” he said. He looked cute today, ready for anything in his Copperheads baseball hat and a scuffed pair of hiking boots. Mom would probably drool.

  He’d shown up to get Mia with his gear mostly packed. We were going straight back to get mine. I’d worried about fitting everything and had done my best to organize all Mom’s supplies in empty boxes I’d bummed off the cafeteria ladies. Even my awesome bike rack waited, now resting on the durable mattress. It was such a fixture, I’d been afraid I’d forget it if I left it leaning at the foot of the bed.

  When we pulled up to the curb, Boone opened the back door on his side to flip the back seat forward. I tried to do the same on my side then proved myself a doofus when I couldn’t figure out the latch. He completed the job, opening a cavernous amount of space behind the crumpled box of crackers still riding in the seat pocket.

  “This way, we’ll be able to unload your stuff without moving any of mine,” he said.

  I cocked my head. “Is that a big plastic tank?” The cylinder lay on its side, with a flattened base to keep it stable.

  “Yep. Twenty-five gallons. I saw it at the building supply store and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I put water in it for now.”

  We’d gone there after the gun store, seeking filter materials and clear plastic sheeting, then to the auto supply for the rest of their inventory on air and oil filters for every model of car anyone in either of our families owned.

  After cramming the interior with all my boxes and bags, he loaded my bike next to his with familiar motions. I hadn’t allowed myself to stare wistfully at the empty dorm room and now pretended we were heading out for another rail-trail ride. The illusion didn’t hold on the silent, empty campus.

  We swung by his dorm for his four gas cans and a bag of road-trip food.

  He pulled the door to his room closed then stood there, staring at the dry erase board where my drawing of a bike, now smudged and flaking, huddled in the bottom right corner. “Hey, let me take a picture of you with your creation.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah, come on. I don’t have any pictures of you.”

  I couldn’t argue with his wanting a photo of me, so I reluctantly stood next to the board and tried to arrange my face in the welcoming expression I’d always want him to remember. His phone emitted the artificial camera shutter click, and he smiled at the image he’d captured. I made him stand beside me while I snapped a selfie of us, and he did, too.

  In an unexpected act of near-vandalism, he pulled the board off his door. “I like that bike,” he said, tucking it under his arm.

  We dropped our keys at the Housing office.

  “Well, I guess that’s that,” he said before he started the motor.

  He waved me off when I tried to swipe my card to pay at the gas station. “I’d be driving anyway. Forget it.”

  He filled the gas cans then set the nozzle to auto-fill the truck while he bungee corded the cans to the shelf mounted in the truck’s hitch.

  In no time, we crossed the western border of Pennsylvania. As I surreptitiousl
y set my phone’s wallpaper to the picture of Boone and me, something in my gut told me I’d never be back.

  Text to Mom: (10:16AM)

  We had normal road trip conversations, inspired by the radio. His musical preferences veered a little closer to country-western than mine. No surprise there. We both had a good laugh at Rod and the Hot Salsas, a singing competition show winner who’d spun its thirty seconds of fame into a whole new genre of music the DJ called salsa fusion. Thank goodness Boone never mentioned Jordan Blue or The Blue Canoes. I’d had enough conversations about them to last a lifetime.

  A song from a movie soundtrack sent us off on the Hollywood tangent (I surprised him by liking action movies while he didn’t surprise me at all by making a choking noise when I mentioned a romantic comedy). That led to books made into movies (always read the book first), and then TV shows (enough with the reality shows already.)

  We ate a fast food lunch at an outside table west of Columbus, near Route 70. The eastbound lanes carried a normal mix of vehicles, while westerly traffic consisted of tractor-trailers and utility repair trucks, with very few regular vehicles mixed in.

  As I chewed a chicken tender dipped in honey mustard, I watched a road-worn family unload from a beat up Subaru. The wiry young father toted a baby in a car seat while the mother held the hand of an inconsolable girl in pink cowboy boots, maybe old enough for kindergarten, if that. When they returned with their food, the kid was still crying. The mother smiled contritely at us, knowing whatever little peace we’d derived from sitting outside near a busy highway was now shattered.

  “I…w-w-want…Fluffy,” the girl said. I recognized her uncontrollable inhalations as the sign of a full-fledged crying jag.

  “Look, honey, here’s a new toy with your lunch,” the desperate mom said.

  Chubby hands pushed a plastic dolphin figure away. Couldn’t blame the kid. A tiny hard figurine couldn’t possibly console like a beloved Fluffy.