by E S Richards
Mia wasn’t surprised. To someone with no prior knowledge or experience with volcanoes, this was surely a doomsday scenario. They’d all heard the stories of Pompeii—the volcanic ash raining down on the city and burying everyone alive in a matter of seconds. Though those tales had technically been disproven several years ago, they were still what everyone remembered about the incident. With that in their heads, it was no wonder people were too afraid to set foot outside, but Mia knew Yellowstone was a different kind of eruption. While many people thought the worst part was over, she knew the more deadly effects were all still to come.
“Why didn’t your plane crash, then?” another voice from the semi-circle that surrounded Mia piped up, everyone desperately believing that she and Jorge had all the answers. “The one on the runway nosedived right after takeoff.”
Mia looked at the man curiously. He spoke more quietly and slowly than everyone else, less panic and worry present in his voice. Perhaps it was his age. Mia guessed he was close to seventy; the cane that was clutched in his right hand gave away that his body was no longer in its greatest shape. But his eyes also suggested a lot of wisdom and for some reason Mia was drawn to him, wanting to provide him with an adequate response.
“I don’t know,” she started, craning her neck slightly to see if she could see the runway through the large window at the end of the lobby. Unfortunately, too many people blocked her view, but there were the telltale signs of a wreckage out there. It made her shudder, memories of the wreckage she had watched her brother and his wife pulled from over a year ago filling her head. She had to fight against it. Now was not the time to mourn her family.
“Perhaps the pilot just panicked,” Mia suggested, though she knew it wouldn’t bring anyone any comfort. “At that velocity, I can’t think of any technical reason why the plane would fail. But then, I’m not an engineer or a pilot. You might be better off asking my friend about that.”
The old man ran a hand through his beard in thought, glancing over his shoulder to where Jorge was entertaining another crowd. He looked to be enjoying the situation much more than Mia was, throwing open his arms and really getting into the descriptions of their escape. He had always been a showboat. Back from when Mia had first met Jorge, she remembered that about him. Always chasing the limelight and rarely allowing himself to sit behind the curtain. It wasn’t a characteristic that Mia shared, her interests and passions lying much more with the data and the stories that it could tell her.
“Never mind about the plane,” yet another person butted in. “What do we do now? How do we get out of here?”
“Well…” Mia paused to think. She didn’t like that her decisions would ultimately become the decisions for most of the people around her. She could only give them her opinion; she didn’t want to make the choice for them. “I think I’m going to stay here for a bit and plan a route. I think it’s too dangerous to go outside now. The ash cloud is creeping in behind us and will blanket this area in a matter of hours. Walking out into it could be deadly, especially if you breathe it in. I think it’s best to stay inside and fully prepare for what is about to come.”
Mia waited for someone to reply. She was very aware that she’d used the phrase “I think” at the start of almost every sentence, something she’d done deliberately so no one could hold her completely to what she’d said. As a scientist, it went against everything that she’d been taught, knowing that theories were very rarely given the credit they deserved until they were proven. But as a human being, Mia knew she didn’t want to be responsible for all of their lives. She had to be selfish to some degree and put her own needs first. She had to get back to her family, find a way to contact them and warn them if possible. That was her key impetus. And with that in mind she managed to excuse herself from the crowd, making her way to the bathroom to try and find a minute of peace to plan her next move: contacting her family.
Closing the stall door, Mia pulled her cell out of her pocket. She knew why she hadn’t tried it already, the constant chaos without a second to think meaning she hadn’t been able to do what would’ve been the rational first steps in a disaster. It didn’t matter though. As she expected, her cell signal was down. She held her phone above her head and waggled her arm in the air for a few seconds, searching for just one elusive bar of cell reception. Nothing.
Shaking her head, Mia pulled up the notes section on her phone anyway and started typing. If the opportunity for her to send a message arose, she wanted to be ready.
Mom, she started, before holding down the delete button. It didn’t matter who the message was going to; what was more important was exactly what it said. Pausing to think, Mia tried to figure out just how much information her family would already have. Would there have been news broadcasts? Would they be aware that Yellowstone had erupted? She came up with equally likely arguments for both sides, knowing that the country would be desperate to transmit the message but also aware of how the ash cloud would disrupt the capability to do so. Going with the mantra of better safe than sorry, Mia eventually started to type.
Yellowstone volcano erupted. Plane went down nearby—I’m fine. Currently in Helena. All well and trying to make it back to Texas, but on foot. Ash cloud will cover the country in a matter of days. Don’t go outside. Don’t breathe it in. Harvest the crops and bring the animals inside. Fortify the roof. Pump as much water as you can from the well before it’s too late. Prepare for a long winter—a really long winter. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Stay safe, I love you x
Staring at the words on her screen, Mia wondered if they would be enough. Her family was smart. Once the first initial effects of the ash cloud were present, they would figure out something was wrong. Perhaps she needed to be more specific though, and detail exactly what the eruption meant for the country. Even for the world.
As she had written, the ash cloud would cover the country in a matter of days, but that was only the beginning. Once the cloud was in place, it could take years for it to shift, meaning that Earth was about to experience a change in its climate like never before. It could be like an ice age. The sun’s rays would reflect back off the chemicals within the cloud, effectively blocking out the sun and creating a cooling effect. Climate change was a very frequently talked about thing on the news these days, but Mia knew this would take it to a whole new level. Their country had been preparing for extreme summers and heatwaves; the supervolcano eruption was about to send them in the complete opposite direction.
Giving her cell one last desperate wave in the air, Mia locked her screen and opened the stall door. The message was ready, she just had to find a way to send it. Hopefully one would present itself soon, but until then her family would just have to fend for themselves. Much like she hoped everyone else would start doing. Walking back out into the airport lobby, people’s heads instantly turned in her direction. Jorge was still surrounded by questioners, each person willing the new arrivals to somehow come up with a way to save them. Stopping in her tracks for a second, Mia pinched the bridge of her nose. This was her reality for the time being, so she was going to have to find a way to deal with it.
“Are you all right, dear?” A woman who was perhaps five or so years older than Mia—though she looked like she’d had a lot of work done to make herself appear younger—approached and asked, a concerned look on her face. “This is all quite a lot to take in, isn’t it?”
“You can say that again,” Mia smiled, the statement barely summing up the half of it. “But I’m fine, thank you. Are you okay?”
“Oh yes,” the woman nodded. “I’m just worried about my boys. We left them at home while my husband and I,” the woman paused and pointed to a man who was sitting in one of the hard airport chairs, his head in his hands. “We came up here for the weekend. We left them with a sitter but, well, you know how it is. I do hope they’re both okay.”
“You have children?” Mia questioned, trying to feign an interest in the woman’s life. In reality, she came across as ditzy and
shallow, not someone Mia would normally interact with if she could help it. “How old are they?”
“Oh no, dear,” the woman laughed. “Not children. Bichons Frises. They’re dogs, but they are my babies. Only a couple of years old, otherwise we would’ve brought them. Tell me, do you know if animals will be safe through all of this? I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to my boys.”
Mia tried her best not to roll her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people were already dead as a result of the eruption, and here this woman was asking questions about her dogs. Her initial assumptions about this woman had been accurate: she was definitely not the type of person that Mia would choose to interact with.
“Providing they don’t go outside,” Mia replied through gritted teeth. “Then they should be fine. But animals will be affected by the ash cloud just the same as humans I’m afraid.”
“Oh dear.” The woman shook her head. “They need to go outside for at least twenty minutes every four hours through the day. If they don’t get their regular exercise, then I’m afraid they’ll get fat.”
Mia was exasperated. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The situation was made even worse in that she had to actually engage in the conversation. “Well,” Mia sighed, “food will probably be in short supply as well, so that might help with them gaining weight.”
“Oh good,” the woman looked relieved, clearly not picking up on the sarcasm in Mia’s voice. “That’s something at least.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Mia interrupted as soon as she saw an opening. “I need to go and talk to my associate.” Before the woman even had a chance to reply, Mia was off, not wanting to spend another second in that forced conversation. She strode over to where Jorge was talking to yet another group of people and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him away.
“Hey, Mia!” Jorge sounded surprised to be whisked away from his conversation, clearly more pleasant than Mia’s had been. “What’s up?”
“What’re we going to do, Jorge? We can’t help all these people.”
“Calm down, Mia.” Jorge flashed her one of his signature charming Spanish smiles and took a slow look around the airport lobby. Several people were watching the two of them, it not going unnoticed that Mia had quickly pulled Jorge away for a quiet conversation. They were likely scared. Frightened that something more dangerous was about to happen that Mia and Jorge already knew about.
“They’re only asking questions; we just have to do our best to answer them. We’re stuck here just like they are for the time being, so we might as well try and be helpful.”
Mia was surprised by Jorge’s answer, seeing a different side to the man. Normally he was the selfish one, but now it seemed their roles had been reversed. Stopping to think, Mia tried to see their situation from a few steps backwards. Perhaps she was being too quick to judge. These people were within their rights to ask questions. They didn’t understand what had happened and they were panicking, their lives quite literally on the line.
She looked over at the woman who’d been speaking to her earlier and saw her sitting with her husband, her arms around the man in a soft embrace. Whether she had children back home or whether they were just dogs, she was still worried about their well-being. Plenty of people loved their pets like they were their children, who was Mia to judge a woman for doing that? Suddenly, she felt ashamed of herself.
“You’re right,” Mia nodded and looked up at Jorge, the man waiting for Mia’s response with his hands on his hips. “Sorry about that, Jorge.”
“Ah, Mia,” Jorge grinned. “I have three sisters back home in Sevilla. Nothing you say can worry me. Why don’t we go and see if the coffee machines are still working in this place? I bet that will make everything feel better.”
Mia laughed. Coffee would be a little cup of luxury. She just needed to keep her head, take it easy, and they would get through this.
Chapter 7
An hour later, Mia was feeling a lot more like herself again. She’d had a cup of coffee, washed the ash and dirt from her face, and changed out of her once-pressed blouse into a looser fitting T-shirt from the airport duty-free. She looked a lot more like a tourist than a scientist now, but that didn’t concern her one bit. What was, was the increasingly dangerous situation outside the airport doors.
The sky had grown multiple shades darker, the airport now fully surrounded by the ash cloud. It was only possible to see a couple of feet out of the windows before the haze from the cloud obstructed the view, blinding everyone inside to what was happening beyond the airport itself. Mia knew eventually this would pass, once the winds picked up and the ash was carried up into the stratosphere and away from Yellowstone. That would free the airport of its shroud, but also doom the rest of the country at the same time. In a way, Mia knew that the longer the effects of the eruption dwelled in her immediate vicinity, the longer her family would have to prepare for the worst—if they even knew what was coming.
The mood within the airport lobby had changed considerably as well. As more people took note of what was happening outside the conversations became muted and eventually stopped altogether. Mia and Jorge were now left alone, people glancing over in their direction from time to time when they heard the scientists whispering to one another. Mia knew what was going through their heads. They were thinking that if they left her and Jorge to it, hopefully they would come up with a way out of this mess. Unlikely.
“Do you think it’s still getting thicker?” Mia asked Jorge in a low voice, once again turning a few heads in the quiet lobby.
Jorge looked over at her and raised his eyebrows. He knew what she was asking about. The two of them were both experienced enough in the science of volcanic eruptions that they understood how the events would unfold next. “Leveling off perhaps,” he mused quietly, casting a look out of the nearest window. “It’s been what, four hours now?”
“Nearly five,” Mia replied, looking down at her watch. “But it has been theorized that it could go on for months, remember?”
Jorge nodded. He’d read those journals several times. Historically, the median duration of volcanic eruptions was about seven weeks. Fifty days. That included the draining of the magma chamber—Yellowstone had two—plus the constant onslaught of smoke and ash that was churned up into the sky. With Yellowstone being the biggest eruption possibly ever recorded, Jorge found it easy to believe the journals. This would undoubtedly be a life-changing phenomenon.
“Mommy…what’s that noise?”
A low rumble filled everyone’s ears just seconds after a young boy broke the silence. Mia pushed herself up to her feet. She’d heard that sound before, but it couldn’t be.
“Everyone! Quiet!” She shouted, the murmurings of people questioning what was happening and moving around drowning out the sound. Thankfully she retained some level of authority amongst the group and everyone fell silent again, giving Mia a chance to properly listen. Her first instincts had been correct—it was a helicopter. But why was it approaching them? Flying this close to the eruption was near suicide—who in their right mind would be piloting a bird right now?
“It’s a chopper!” Someone shouted from across the room. “They’re coming to rescue us!”
Immediately the lobby broke out into cheers, people punching the air and hugging one another in celebration. Mia looked to Jorge with a concerned expression on her face. They both knew this wasn’t good news. Remaining in place, the two scientists watched as everyone flooded to the windows, desperately searching the skies for a glimpse of the helicopter. Of course, they couldn’t see anything. The ash cloud was too thick for them to see through and so, Mia knew that would be the same for whoever was in the helicopter as well. They wouldn’t be able to fly straight, which could only mean one thing.
“Where do you think it is?” Mia asked, straining her ears once more to try and place the helicopter. The task was even harder now with everyone else banging on the windows and shouting to one another, trying
to be the first to spot the chopper.
“I’m not sure,” Jorge mimicked Mia’s actions, he too trying to place the bird in the sky. Their reasoning for doing so was simple: so they could avoid it when it came crashing down. Neither of them was uncertain about that fact. The helicopter would crash. There was no way they could fly through the ash cloud when it was so thick and, even if by some miracle they figured it out, the weight of the cloud combined with the bits of rock fragments that were thrown about within it would bring them down. It was almost a certainty and neither Mia nor Jorge wanted to be in the way when the metal bird came hurtling back down to Earth.
“I see it!” a woman shouted from one of the windows, pointing up into the cloud. “Over there!”
“Where?” at least five other voices chorused, the horde of people shifting to the right to get a better view of where the woman had pointed.
“There’s nothing there!”
“There is, look!”
“No. I see it! It’s over here!”
“Where?”
Cries echoed amongst the group excitedly, the roar from the helicopter’s engine getting louder but the vehicle itself still invisible. Mia stepped forward slightly, angling her head to look out of the window closest to where she believed the noise came from. Like a monster appearing from its cave, the helicopter chose that exact moment to reveal itself. It was almost like it had been waiting for Mia to take an interest and search for it, the dark metal body swaying into view.
“Oh my God—it’s actually there!”
The swarm of people in the lobby did a double take, reacting to the cry that had come from yet another bemused tourist who stood across from Mia. As soon as everyone saw the helicopter though, the level of excitement in the lobby fell—like the helicopter itself started to do. Even to an untrained eye it was obvious the pilot was having difficulty keeping the chopper in the air, the propeller practically slowing in front of their eyes.