The Forensic Geology Box Set

by Toni Dwiggins

  It wasn’t.

  I had known, of course, that the ash fall originated somewhere but I couldn’t believe in the eruption—not fully—until I saw. You can’t believe there is a snake in the sleeping bag with you until the hissing starts, and even then you aren’t willing to believe but finally you have to look and you find in raw shock the very thing you knew all along was there.

  Through the screen of ash, I saw. Boiling clouds of black and white, black metamorphosing into white, black lobes splitting open like mouths and breathing white puffs. The white clouds climbed and the black fell.

  I saw the core, a black column that anchored earth to sky. It swelled, contracted, swelled, and pulsed. The snake. Not creeping on the ground but risen to strike.

  I saw how the thing was put together, snake cloaked in clouds. The vertical black jet threw off black clouds and as they rose and split, dark rock debris fell back to earth and the white water vapor rose higher. Steam white.

  The noise, which pulsed with the column, was the roar of a giant.

  Nothing for me to worry about. Not yet. It’s down there, I’m up here. The larger heavier stuff was falling in the south moat, and downwind the clouds strung out and appeared to be dragging a curtain of ash over the caldera. All I was getting up here was drift from the winds.

  I watched the eruption, growing giddy at the sight. I know just what this is. Heard about it from Lindsay, saw the evidence laid down by ancient beasts just like this one. Phreatic, a steam-blast explosion. That hot tongue of magma in the south moat had pushed all the way to the surface where it met ground water, flashing the water into steam. And now the steam is pulverizing old rock, grinding it to pebbles and ash, and shotgunning the lot into the sky. I know this is probably a prelude. I know what happened here hundreds of thousands of years ago and what can happen again tomorrow, or a week from now, or today even, but I can’t seem to make myself move. I can’t stop looking. This is astonishing. This isn’t like my dreams. The ground isn’t rotting, and right now I’m more dazzled than scared. I know I should be getting out of here but this is incredible. This is like watching fireworks in the meadow behind my house when I was little enough that fireworks took my breath away.

  Lindsay you should be here to see this. The Survey alert level WARNING does not do this justice. They need another level. HOLY SHIT.

  Even for this, she would not come.

  And it was her silence that brought me out of my slack-jawed gawking. I started downhill, looking constantly over my shoulder to see if the sight was still there. I took shelter briefly in the tunnel to clean ash off my face, out of my ears, from the folds of my lingerie mask.

  Hightailing it down the Lake Mary Road, I kept replaying the image of that snake. I went over every detail, turning that eruption column around in my head wondering, is this big? Small? How is this going to progress? I wanted to go back and look again and at the same time I wanted to get as far away as possible. I was buzzed. I was scared again, but looking that thing in the eye had kicked me into a kind of thrill-ride fear. I wanted to scream and close my eyes and then look and see it all again. You’re nuts, I told myself, you’re crazier than the guy who challenges the volcano but I had come to this weird space where I felt that because I’d looked it dead on, that I was free. I was above it. I had come out of an avalanche and seen this and here I was free to go on my way. I was alive.

  I was a cat with nine lives.

  I came to the outskirts of town and cut off the Lake Mary Road, toward Walter’s neighborhood. The streets, the houses, were gray. Everybody gone but me. Me and the houses with their coatings of ash like sheet-draped furniture in unused rooms.

  Walter’s house was dark. I pounded on the door. He didn’t answer so I got the key he hides behind the rain gutter. Dim inside. I flipped a light switch. No power. Okay; ash had shorted out the transformers. I yelled for him. Silence. I ran through his house, tracking his carpet with ash, knocking into his captain’s chair—and why hadn’t he moved that to storage, one more good chair left behind. He wasn’t home. Okay. I knew now where he was. At her office.

  Outside, the ash fall had thickened.

  I hesitated. I’d promised her not to do anything foolish. I decided to go home first and gear up.

  Stuff’s getting deep, I thought as I walked it. Get skis.

  My street was like the others, my house like Walter’s. Dark. I broke into a run, cutting up the empty driveway past the lawn chairs. Keys were in my purse; purse was in the pack. Gone. I got the snow shovel that Jimbo left last time he cleared the path to the woodpile, and smashed the kitchen-sink window. Nothing stops me. I climbed onto the sill then stepped into the sink. Glass crunched. I leaped to the floor, crunched across the kitchen, and grabbed the flashlight from the catch-all drawer.

  I shone the light. Cabinet doors stood open. The floor was a sea of broken glass and crockery and dented cans and supine boxes.

  I ran to the living room and found the phone table tipped over. Phone was dead.

  It’s okay. Just gear up and go.

  I ran upstairs to the bathroom and rooted through the stuff spilled out of the medicine cabinet and found bandages and tape and Neosporin. I turned on the faucet and was glad to find that quakes hadn’t ruptured the water pipes. Water sluiced gray mud from my hands and it hurt like hell. My right hand was raw, my left fingertips chewed. The wounds were clotted with dark stuff; ash, blood, I couldn’t tell. I looked in horror. I wanted Lindsay here to bandage my hands. No, I wanted someone alive. Walter.

  There was a small earthquake. I bandaged myself, making a mess of the job.

  I went into my parents’ room and ransacked Mom’s drawers and fumbled out of my wet clothes and put on hers. Too big; I added layers. Cold as shit in here and getting darker outside.

  I moved downstairs. Walk, don’t run. Don’t fall and break an ankle.

  Down in the garage, everything was on the floor. I waded in, striking gold again and again. Folding snow shovel. Rope. Pitons—take them, who knew? Water bottles, backpacking stove, very good. A compass—yes, yes, good, great. Flashlights. I chose three. Batteries in the kitchen drawer. I shone my light over the helmets and found Jimbo’s old spelunking hard hat with the caver’s headlamp. Pure gold. I reached for skis, then reconsidered. Snowshoes more versatile, take those. What else, from my father’s emporium? I moved to his workshop and selected knife, duct tape, two screwdrivers, flat and Phillips head—who knew? A new appreciation for my father’s skills flooded me. Walter can’t change a water filter. Walter wouldn’t know where the water filter is. I hunted for my father’s dust masks. Couldn’t find them. Come on, he’s got a million of those things. Buried somewhere. Shit.

  The garage shook.

  And then like a gift I knew what to do, mind leaping ahead. Nothing stops me.

  Back into the kitchen, crunching glass and kicking cans. Ash coming in through the broken window. What a mess. I dropped my gear and went to the catch-all drawer. Batteries, matches, safety pins. I took them all. An old windup watch; I took it. I dug around. Ahhh, rubber bands. I moved to the counter and found the nesting coffee filters, beautiful just beautiful. I put together two coffee-filter-rubber-band dust masks and packed the materials for more. I filled the water bottles.

  I ran upstairs and took the first-aid supplies and carried the stuff back down.

  Done?

  Breathing hard, I swept the flashlight around the kitchen. Must be something else. I hefted the pack. Weighed a ton. I wanted more.

  Food.

  Nearly blew that. Cans, packages, bags on the counters, on the floor. I started to grab. Wait, prioritize. I emptied a box of granola bars into my pack. Dried apricots, there’s a prize. A package of Oreos. My mouth watered. I spun to the freezer and there was the sweet potato pie. Hard luck, Jimbo. Then my heart sank. No power to nuke it.

  I opened the fridge. Empty as Siberia. Bottle of catsup on its side and a sponge. My stomach growled. Back to the cupboard and I found an open sack of
pretzels and crammed them into my mouth. Stale. Salty. Wonderful. I drank long and deep from the kitchen faucet, eschewing a glass. I’m alive, I’m surviving, I have no time for such niceties as a drinking glass, should one be left intact.

  Now go.

  I got Jimbo’s caving helmet and, thank you very much, found batteries to fit. I strapped on the helmet, put on goggles, fitted the dust mask—a success—and put on heavy work gloves. That hurt. Pain didn’t stop me. I got into the pack. Lord in heaven, heavy. I grabbed the snowshoes and went out the door. Didn’t lock it, didn’t look back. I’m outta here.

  And I walked into night.

  Three in the afternoon and the street was gone. Jimbo’s headlamp caught ash like infinitesimal insects, and beyond that, nothing. Blackness. How am I going to find Minaret and Lindsay’s office if I can’t find my own driveway?

  You fool, I thought, you fool with a coffee filter on your face and everything but the kitchen sink on your back.

  I went back inside and slammed the door.

  My pack weighed a ton. My legs weighed twice as much. I got out of my gear and would have curled up on the floor but for the breccia of glass and ash. I took a water bottle and the bag of pretzels and headed into the living room. I dropped into the big corduroy armchair by the fireplace. From here I could see out the front window, should light return. I considered shutting off Jimbo’s headlamp, to save batteries, but I didn’t want to sit in the dark.

  I thought about Walter, unable to change a water filter.

  I let my head drop to the arm of the chair and cradle there, knocking Jimbo’s light askew. I thought about the pie defrosting in the kitchen.

  CHAPTER 43

  It’s morning in the High Sierra, Lindsay, but this place looks like Los Angeles on a bad smog day.

  You hear what I’m saying? Air’s ash dirty. Everything’s coated. You know the term ghost town? When I was a kid Dad took the family over to Bodie to see a ghost town and I was disappointed—just a bunch of old mining buildings, no ghosts. Guess what? This, here, is a ghost town. Buildings are here but the people are gone. It’s silent. Far as I can tell, the south moat’s not in eruption anymore so there’s simply no sound. It’s gray. No color, Lindsay, you’d hate that, although gray I realize is one of your colors. This gray is nobody’s color. This is the color of ghosts.

  I just came out of the lab, Lindsay. Had to break the storefront window to get in. Walter’s not inside. It’s so spectral in there I sensed him, though.

  There’s more ash on the ground today so I’m assuming the eruption continued last night. I can’t say for sure—I was asleep. You hear that? I curled up in that corduroy armchair of Dad’s, the chair you once called too ugly for Goodwill, and I slept through part of your eruption. I’m assuming this beast is still in its phreatic phase, judging from the type of ash. Don’t know when, or if, it will progress to the next stage, erupting fresh magma.

  If you were here you’d no doubt get yourself down to the moat while nothing’s going on and whack off a fresh sample close to the vent.

  I don’t really care to do that.

  When I say nothing’s happening, I mean visibly. There are still quakes. Low-mag, little bumps. Not doing any damage. Here, anyway, I suppose they’re tearing up rock somewhere, magma trying to clear itself a path. You hear what I’m saying, Lindsay? These quakes of yours are getting on my nerves.

  No, you don’t hear me. You’ve just packed your ghost bags and gone where the real ghosts go. So I’ll be on my way.

  I trudged up the road. I’ll go talk to Walter.

  I passed the Ski Tip then came to the building that houses Lindsay’s office. I dropped my gear, tried the heavy glass main doors, and they were unlocked. I went inside, switching on my light. The crime-scene tape was gone from her door. I prepared to knock, then paused. Door was just off-plumb. I angled my light; latch bolts jammed open. Adrenaline shot through me. He is here. And he didn’t have a key so he broke in. “Walter,” I yelled, pushing inside.

  Fallen bookcases. Books, binders, artwork, knickknacks on the floor. Map cabinet skidded halfway across the room. The apothecary cabinet still stood in place, its doors open.

  “Walter?”

  “Huh?”

  I went rigid. Sweet Jesus he really is here.

  There was another soft sound, an exhale.

  “Walter?” I looked around, my headlamp sweeping the room. On the floor between the desk and a supine white bookcase was a body. I choked back a scream. My headlamp caught a face. And then relief hit me. The body was Adrian Krom.

  His arm came up to shield his eyes from the glare of my light.

  “Where’s Walter?” I said.

  His arm went limp.

  I was on my knees, cupping his chin, comparing his pupils, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, running my hand down his leg to where it disappeared beneath the bookcase, and he flinched, and I was surprised to find myself glad to suddenly have some company. It could have been the devil himself and I’d be glad.

  His eyes were open and tracking. I had to suppress the urge to tug on the leg; if it could be pulled free, I guessed he would have freed it.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered.

  “Evac sweep.” Hardly words. More like croaks. “Water?”

  I pushed up. “It’s outside.”

  I ran, leaving him in the dark. As I picked up my pack, the thought came: I could just go. Continue my search for Walter as though I’d never stumbled across Adrian Krom. If he remembers me at all, he’ll call it a hallucination.

  I felt, suddenly, every ache. The memory of yesterday’s crazy high astonished me. The more calculated confidence with which I’d set out from the house this morning, full on sweet potato pie, just evaporated. I gripped the snowshoes, seeing clearly. Get going, find Walter, get out while you both can. You want revenge? Here it is. Leave Krom. You think he’d hang around this ghost town if you were in there pinned on Lindsay’s rug? You can’t prove he killed Georgia. You can’t prove he killed Lindsay. But you’ve got him. Walk away and he’s nailed.

  Only, he might know about Walter. I turned and went back inside.

  Krom was up on one elbow. I opened the water bottle and gave it to him. He sipped with surprising restraint. I realized, he’s been there before, trapped in his truck screaming with a burned arm as the tribe’s volcano rained fire on him. He’s learned to survive. Ration supplies, don’t be greedy. He drank for a long while, pausing finally like he was going to speak but he was unable to take his eyes from the bottle and he drank again, draining it. In the end, greedy after all.

  “Have you seen Walter?”

  He took so long to answer I thought he hadn’t heard. Then he shook his head.

  My heart turned over. I stood and headed for the door, and it was his stone cold silence that stopped me. Even now, pinned beneath Lindsay’s bookcase, he seemed able to reel me in. I turned. He simply watched me, eyes flat in my light, waiting to see if I’d really go. I felt pity, astonishing myself. Evidently, I’m capable of anything. I asked, “Are you hurt?”

  “Leg.”

  I came back and got on my stomach and shined Jimbo’s light into the space beneath the bookcase. Leg looked intact. There were books under here, and they had probably cushioned his leg. I pushed on the bookcase. Like pushing a wall. I worked my tender hands under the edges. “If I can lift this, can you pull free?”

  He nodded. I wondered. It didn’t matter anyway, because I could not budge the case. My mind raced. Car jack? No, no room to slide it underneath. Some kind of pulley? Maybe, if I knew how to rig a pulley and what parts I’d need, I could break into the hardware store, assuming there was any hardware left. First, though, I’d need to break into the library and find a book that explained pulleys. Or was it a block and tackle I wanted? Shit. I was helpless as Walter. Not my father’s daughter after all.

  I had to fight off the sudden impression that the walls of Lindsay’s office, beyond the gloom, were made of compa
cted snow.

  He coughed. “What...” He swallowed, and gestured at the window.

  I said, “What’s going on? That what you’re asking?”

  He nodded.

  I thought hard about that one. Didn’t need him to panic. Had he panicked during his stay in that truck? I said, flat, “Phreatic eruption in the moat. Stopped, for now.”

  He nodded. Not the type to panic.

  I dug in my pack and set up an emergency supply kit beside him: water bottle, flashlight, granola bars, Tylenol. I said, “I’m going to look for Walter.”

  “I’m cold.” He jerked his chin, toward the chair. “Parka.” He added, “Please.”

  How about pretty please, you shit? But I went over to Lindsay’s chair and picked up his big heavy parka and dropped it on him, then walked out the door before he could demand something more.

  I left the building and headed down the road. Nothing was happening, no black column in the sky, just fine ash hanging in the air until it lost wing and idled down.

  I walked the town. The Ski Tip. Community center. Hardware store, Von’s, Grumpy’s, hospital, Center Snowmobiles. No snowmobiles to be had. I walked home, got skis, tried Walter’s house again. I skied out of town, along 203, passing that long line of cars—abandoned vehicles of the refugees. I looked; no keys. I found his Explorer, just where Eric said it was. Locked. No keys. Cartons of casework and equipment inside. Wouldn’t he have taken that? He hadn’t. He hadn’t got out. I moved on, all the way to the chasm and in the ashy daylight it looked more savage than it had on TV. Guard trucks parked here. No keys.

  How simple, on my skis, to detour the chasm and keep going. Get out.

  I worked my way back to town, zigzagging across 203, checking every ditch, every hollow. He was nowhere.

  Finally I made my way back to Lindsay’s office. Krom lay flat, arms folded beneath his head. The water bottle was half-empty, the food gone.