Winter Fall

by Byron Tucker

  Still smiling, she said, “Oh, we saw the doctor today.”

  Surprised, Sam asked, “Oh, you and Jimmy both?”

  In the midst of chewing a hefty mouthful of roast beef, Jimmy said, “Yeah, the doc says I'm in top physical condition. He couldn't be happier. And guess what?”

  Sam dug into his food, realizing he still had a lot left to eat. “Yes?”

  “I'm six-three and a half now. Another half inch and I'll be the same height as Uncle Ryan. Isn't that awesome or what?”

  Sam nodded, not wanting to raise his wife's ire by talking with his mouth full. He held up his thumb, amazed at how much his son had shot up in the past couple of years. It seemed like yesterday when he had been able to look down into his son's eyes. Now, Jimmy towered almost as tall as Ryan, who stood a couple inches taller than his younger brother.

  “And yeah, he said I should top out at about six-five or so, which would be perfect. Nice and tall, but not freakishly tall.”

  Turning his attention back to his daughter, Sam said, “So, what did the doctor say about you?”

  Eliza kept her face downward, idly picking at her food. “Okay, I guess. He just said to make sure I carry the rescue inhaler with me wherever I go and to do the treatment before bed each night. He frowned when I did the puff test, though.”

  “Oh, you mean the one that you blow into the tube?”

  “Yeah, that. I try blowing as fast as I can, but it's hard.”

  Irene got his attention by poking his arm. She leaned over and whispered, “We'll talk about it later.”

  Sam got the message, digging into the remainder of his supper with gusto, hoping that Jimmy wouldn't keep boasting about his glowing good health or how big he was getting, as he knew that made Eliza feel bad about her asthma.

  As luck would have it, Jimmy wanted to get back to his game as soon as he finished wolfing down his dinner, and Eliza had no interest in lingering at the table either, leaving Sam and Irene alone. Scraping up the last forkful of potatoes on his plate, Sam looked at his wife and waited for her to make the first move.

  Irene's expression darkened slightly. “Yes, about Eliza. No major changes from three months ago, except he's worried about her lung capacity. That number came in a bit low. But he did say if we could get her out of the city for a while, that should help, with the air quality being so poor lately. So this vacation out West might do her a lot of good, don't you think?”

  “Yes, I agree. I'm just sorry she's suffering like that, not being able to ride bikes with the other kids and everything.”

  Irene stood up and began clearing the table. “Oh, she's not having a bad summer. She's having fun with her independent study courses, for one thing. You wouldn't believe how much she's learned this summer so far. I sure wish I could talk Jimmy into doing some of those. He's playing that horrible Stalker game all day long, except when his friends drag him out to the pool every so often. You know how much I disapprove of him playing those violent things.”

  Sam laughed, getting up to assist her. “Well, this will get him away from that for a couple of weeks. And what red-blooded American boy does not play those kinds of games? Pretty harmless, in my opinion.”

  Irene frowned. “Well, in my opinion, it's not harmless. He's not getting any more games, as he's way too involved with the one he's got now.”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders. You couldn't agree on everything, so why raise a fuss? They both knew Jimmy represented the best kind of teenager parents could ever hope for. He wasn't into body mods (thank heavens!) or going out with the wrong crowd, or getting into sex and drugs and other teenage pitfalls. He achieved excellent grades in school, and was a member of the track team as well. He was a kid who did his parents proud.

  Irene turned to face him, holding a stack of dishes in her hands. “I've got this. You go call your mother about that motorhome.”

  Genuinely excited about the upcoming vacation with his wonderful family, Sam reached for his phone and dialed the number of his seventy-nine year-old mother.

  Chapter 2

  Ryan Durant sat up in his bed, recollecting the dream he just had. He pictured himself running through the snowy woods, chased by a pack of hungry wolves, his legs bogging down in calf-deep snow. He fell down face-forward, the wolves nipping at his heels, then realizing he hadn't fallen into snow, but ash. Volcanic ash. And just as the first of the wolves got to him, he woke.

  Ryan rubbed his eyes and checked the glowing numerals of his bedside clock: 2:23 a.m. Despite his efforts to push it out of his mind, his thoughts kept drifting back to the last scene in his dream, when he found himself laying in a bed of ash.

  Yellowstone. Not the national park that was an American vacation favorite, but the volcano. Or more specifically, a supervolcano. One which would surely affect the majority of the United States and even the whole world, should it erupt. Could this really be it? He rubbed his eyes with his thick-fingered hands. Not the first time I've dreamed of this.

  With any hope of additional sleep all but lost, Ryan hefted his large, muscular body out of bed and slipped on a bathrobe. He decided to make himself a cup of coffee and check up on his web forum he owned and administrated: Conspiracies Unlimited with its primary focus on Yellowstone and the continuing government cover-up of its impending eruption. Ryan knew the big kahuna was coming, and probably sooner rather than later. The evidence was flat-out undeniable, so it was just a matter of when, and how powerful the supervolcano would be when it finally did erupt.

  The latest word he had received from several of his trusted sources – scientists who weren't beholden to any governmental agencies – indicated it had the potential to rival the truly catastrophic Huckleberry Ridge eruption of 2.1 million years ago. The two eruptions at Yellowstone following that one, the most recent of which took place 640,000 years ago, were quite a bit weaker, and the traditional line of thinking pointed to Yellowstone heading into a state of geologic decline, with any future eruptions a whimper compared to the super-eruptions in the past. However, in recent months, this select group of scientists had revealed difficult-to-deny data that the massive magma plume under the Yellowstone Caldera was, in fact, growing, and the next eruption had the potential to be the worst one yet in Yellowstone's storied history.

  Ryan paused for a moment to think about the unfortunate professor and his two assistants who had lost their lives some weeks back while attempting to collect data from a newly-formed sinkhole in a remote corner of the Park. With a twinge of regret, he realized how the would have had the potential to blow the whole thing wide open had he survived and succeeded in collecting the data.

  Of course, nobody was willing to go out on a limb and actually forecast exactly when this might take place, but Ryan just knew that the time was coming – and soon. The evidence and data were there, for all to see. The earthquakes that had been affecting the area around Yellowstone for years were more frequent than ever, hitting ever-higher numbers on the Richter scale. Hot spots were appearing everywhere, sometimes melting paved roads. New geysers were forming daily, delighting recent visitors to the famed national park, but there wasn't a moose or a buffalo to be found within fifty miles of the place. Animals had instincts, and they knew something huge was coming.

  And when the thing did go off, then the world as everyone knew it would be coming to an end. If Yellowstone erupted like it had 2.1 million years ago, ash would cover half the United States at least a foot deep. Huge volumes of fine particulates would be lofted into the stratosphere, encircling the globe in a matter of weeks. This would block out sunlight, causing temperatures to plunge. A truly devastating volcanic winter would follow, lasting several years to a decade. Crops around the Northern Hemisphere would fail, causing a famine with the potential to bring death to billions.

  And that was just the climate end of things. Ryan had sense enough to know that the big military powers of the world wouldn't just stand idly by as their people starved by the millions. In all likelihood, war would break out and
it would probably go nuclear. Even if by some miracle war didn't break out, the worldwide collapse of trade and the economy would tear at the all-too-fragile fabric of society, hampering global recovery for generations, if not centuries.

  Ryan fussed at himself as he poured the freshly-brewed coffee into a mug and walked over to his computer workstation, framed by three large monitors. He knew his thoughts tended to get the better of him, and he was likely getting way ahead of himself. It was just a dream, no different than other dreams he'd had for years.

  And besides, he was far more prepared than most. Having cashed out of his share of the military hardware firm he had founded with George Barnes (who later went into politics and worked his way up to becoming Speaker of the House in Congress, much to Ryan's chagrin,) Ryan became a “prepper” in a big way. He began with the purchase of eighty acres of land in the remote Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and he spent the following four years building a personal compound designed to be operated “off grid,” not requiring the need of electric or gas service should the occasion arise. The buildings of his compound were quite modest, as he was a long-time bachelor, and had every reason to think he'd remain that way. The house he built for himself barely touched nine hundred square feet, plus the cellar. The attached shop was a bit larger, but nothing grandiose, at a bit over two thousand square feet. Both were heated by efficient wood burners, in addition to the propane furnace he had for the house. Ryan cut and split his own wood to burn, as he had plenty of it on his mostly wooded acreage. He also had a couple hundred foot-tall windmills and several solar power arrays, used in winter and summer respectively, along with deep-cycle batteries.

  However, this wasn't the most important thing. Far from it. What really counted was preps, and having a lot of them. A short list of his preps consisted of ten years' worth of food for one person, along with a well that could be operated via a hand pump. He had several large tanks of propane, to provide fuel for cooking and limited hot water for as long as three years. He had two hundred and fifty gallons of gasoline on hand, enough to last a year or more with the use of stabilizing agents. And then there were the endless supplies that he had squirreled away in his cellar. Medical supplies. Boxes and boxes of spare parts. Bottles of booze for trade and “community relations.” Ammo. Oh yes, he had a lot of that. Thousands of rounds of ammo for each class of gun he owned, fifty thousand bullets in total. There was also the gold and silver, a thousand ounces of gold bullion and twenty-five thousand ounces of silver. And boy, that stuff was heavy. The loot was stored in his walk-in safe located under a cleverly hidden access panel under his shop. No one, not even his brother, knew of his vast hoard of precious metals, which was just as well, considering it was worth nearly three million at current market prices.

  Clicking into the admin panel of Conspiracies Unlimited, Ryan scanned the list of private postings. There were just a few, and from the tone of the first couple he checked, there was essentially nothing new to report. No new earthquakes, no ground shifts or the formation of new geysers. He took a couple sips of his steaming coffee, clicking onto the public area of his web forum. Just the usual there, just the typical cocktail of UFO fanatics, doomtards, preppers and lurkers killing some time at this particular corner of the Internet.

  In regard to Yellowstone, they were ready for it to happen, Right Now. Every little twitch that came out of Yellowstone was rewarded with all sorts of posts along the likes of, “She's Gonna Blow!” and “This is It Guys, Get Your Final Preps in Now!” Oh boy. It was good entertainment, for those who saw it as such.

  As for Ryan himself, he used his website as a way to keep tabs on what was really going on over there. And if there was just one conspiracy to be believed throughout the whole history of the United States government, it was the cover-up of the impending eruption of Yellowstone. Scientists who tried to get their message out into the mainstream media were muzzled, counteracted by “shills” hired to discredit their theories. Repeated pleas for increased funding for Yellowstone research fell on deaf ears amid an apathetic public.

  And yet, the data was there, undeniable as the daily sunrise. There was no refuting the land rising an average of eight feet in five years across the vast caldera. All those new geysers were a clear indication of increased pressure building from below. There was no denying the earthquakes, with a number of scientists forecasting a major one to hit any day now.

  That was really the last major piece of the puzzle of the whole thing, since a super-eruption would most likely be preceded by one or more major earthquakes, possibly over eight on the Richter scale. If that were to hit, then...

  The shriek of the earthquake alarm filled the small room around him, startling Ryan to the point of spilling his coffee. He had it rigged to go off when any earthquake over 7.0 hit within North America. He hastily pulled up the USGS page on his center monitor and his eyebrows shot up when he saw the huge red circle on his screen, centered directly over Yellowstone. The initial reading came in at 7.8, but as the data rolled in, he started seeing a lot of 7.9s and even some 8.0s. In addition to being a major, the earthquake was shallow, less than seven miles deep, centered just a few miles south of Yellowstone Lake. Within minutes, it was clear that Yellowstone just had its biggest earthquake ever recorded.

  Ryan downed a slug of his coffee and hunched toward the screen. Adrenaline raced through his veins as he scanned the data feed. Maybe, just maybe, this was going to be it.

  Only time would tell.

  * * *

  George Barnes enjoyed these rare one-on-one meetings with the President. Although they didn't always see eye-to-eye, he felt a special kinship with the gray-haired man, having worked together in the trenches in years past, before working their way up to their respective positions of power within the U.S. government. However, there was no denying the tension in the air. A uniformed attendant served them fresh-roasted coffee in turn, with neither of them speaking until they were alone in the Oval Office.

  After taking a cautious sip of the hot coffee, the President said, “I think this charade has gone on long enough. The media just isn't willing to hold back any longer about this. I may regret saying this, but I think it's time to sound the alarm.”

  Barnes leaned forward and stared at the President's crisply-dressed figure for a few moments before replying. “And what do you think is going to happen when we do sound the alarm?” Before he had a chance to reply, Barnes straightened himself in his chair and said, “Here's a short list of what will happen if we tell the nation that Yellowstone is about to blow its top: Stock market crash. Crash of the US Dollar. Panic like we've never seen in this country. Retribution against public figures for not telling them sooner. And let's not forget North Korea. If they see any kind of ...”

  The President held up his hand. “Yes, I am aware of all of that, most especially North Korea. To be honest with you, that's my greatest worry, this current stand-off between us going hot. Now, I am fully aware of what's going on with Yellowstone, but we simply do not know how this is going to play out. The eruption could be much smaller than feared, affecting just the immediate area. Or all of this could be a false alarm, and all of this worrying could be for naught. And there's no telling when this might happen. It could be next week, next month, or in the next decade. The prudent thing to do is to watch it with a close eye and deal with whatever comes.”

  Barnes took a long sip of his coffee to hide his annoyance. “But if we don't take action now, it'll be too late once this thing does go off.”

  The President managed a slight smile. “Trust me, if this thing does go off, there's little that we won't be able to accomplish. And if it makes you feel any better, the Pentagon has assured me they have a plan in place to cordon the big cities within forty-eight hours should this type of calamity take place. The zombies aren't going to overrun this country, if that's what you're fearing.”

  Barnes laughed despite himself. “You're right. And this is a very bad time to be looking we
ak in front of the North Koreans. I just hope we can get everyone to remain on board with this.”

  The President stood up, indicating that the meeting had come to an end. Extending his hand for a friendly shake, he said, “Yes, I doubt that will be a problem, as this isn't even on the radar for many of us, both inside and outside the Beltway. Steady as she goes is almost always the best policy.”

  Barnes pumped a couple quick shakes with his hand and gave the rotund man a chummy pat on the shoulder. “I agree. Steady as she goes until circumstances demand otherwise.”

  Chapter 3

  The task of taking the cover off the motorhome had been an arduous one, but when Sam and his son finally got the enormous vehicle exposed, it looked almost as new as the day it rolled off the showroom floor, despite being nearly five years old.

  Jimmy took a long look at it and whistled through his teeth. “Sure is a beaut, huh?”

  Sam glanced at the owner's manual he had in his hands. “This is a 2014 Winnebago Itasca Suncruiser 35P.”

  “Awesome. What kind of engine does it have?”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders and handed the book to his son. “You figure it out while I attempt to pilot this beast to the dealership.”

  Jimmy pointed to the passenger entry door on the right side of the motorhome. “Come on then, let's get going. I wanna see how this baby rides.”

  Despite what people said about driving a motorhome being as easy as driving a car, Sam couldn't help but feel a bit intimidated when he sat down in the plush driver's seat and panned his eyes over the cockpit. Looking out the expansive windshield, he realized he didn't have a great deal of confidence driving this huge vehicle halfway across the country to Yellowstone. With his kind of luck, he'd have a wreck pulling out of his mother's driveway.