by E S Richards
Deb looked at her with a worried expression and pulled up her T-shirt, covering her nose and mouth. The other people from her village did the same too, all quite clearly listening in to the conversation. They even took a step forward as they did so, finally revealing to Mia the horror that their bodies had been hiding. The bodies. There had to be over thirty of them, all piled together in a heap at the bottom of a set of steps. It was gruesome, but Mia could tell instantly that it was the best thing anyone left in the village had been able to do. She had struggled enough seeing the bodies of the people she’d only known for a few hours at the airport. Seeing people who you lived so closely with die must have been a soul-destroying moment.
“Dude,” Mia heard one of the three college students mutter behind her, the sight of the bodies clearly affecting them all.
Mia coughed. “The air around here is likely toxic,” she continued, knowing that no one would want to talk about what they’d just noticed. “If you can, keep your mouths covered at all times. It’s probably best to avoid the water too; I imagine that has turned toxic here as well.”
“It has,” one of the men—Stuart—spoke up. “When those dirty rivers swept through here, killing most of our friends and destroying our houses, the water pipes were damaged as well. Any time you run a faucet or flush the toilet now, the water that comes out is brown and murky. It doesn’t look like it’s safe to drink, but none of us are sure how to test it.”
“Yep,” Mia nodded. “You don’t want to drink that. I think we should evacuate this place immediately to be honest. It’s too dangerous for anyone to stay here.”
“Whoa, whoa, hold up!” Ethan stepped forward to argue, uncomfortable with what Mia was suggesting. “We can’t just evacuate. I lost my wife and two daughters no more than a day ago. I can’t just leave this whole place behind because of that.”
“If you want to live,” Mia started, trying to choose her words carefully so she relayed to the people how serious this was without making them feel insignificant. “Look,” she explained, “I’m a volcanologist. I’ve studied this sort of thing my entire life. It’s not going to be safe to stay here. I understand that it’s hard, but we have to leave as soon as possible. Trust me when I say things will only get worse if you stay behind.”
“Jeez,” Ethan breathed, opening his mouth to reply when the group of them saw Michael approaching in the distance and stopped. “Mike, man!” Ethan changed his demeanor immediately. “Are you okay? How’s your mom?”
“She’s okay, thanks mate,” Michael replied to Ethan. “I can’t believe it though. Is this really all that’s left?”
“Yeah,” Ethan shook his head. “And now she’s saying that our water is contaminated too and that we should all leave.”
Michael looked to Mia, waiting for an explanation. “I can’t say for sure until I see a sample,” she started, “but I’m pretty sure it won’t be safe. Nothing is this close to the blast site. We need to get out of here. Where does your water come from?” Mia asked, not directing the question to anyone in particular.
“We’ve got a reservoir,” Michael replied. “Farther up in the valley.”
Mia nodded again. That wasn’t good. She was beginning to understand what was happening to the small village below the airport, and while everyone thought the lahars hitting it was the worst that could’ve happened, something even worse had probably already occurred. Their reservoir was contaminated. Volcanic ash had likely settled on the surface of the water and was now flooding through their pipes and out into the village.
There was no chance the people who lived here could stay behind any longer. If they drank the water they would die. Heck, if they continued to breathe the air without filtering it somehow, they would die. It might not be instant, but it would happen eventually. They would all have to evacuate or risk dooming themselves forever. The only issue now was, how was Mia going to convince them all to leave?
Chapter 9
“Oh my word! Chase, get away from there!”
Linda clung to her husband’s body, using his strength to help pull herself to her feet. By the time she was standing, Chase had obliged and had moved much farther from the huge hole that was now in the side of her home. She couldn’t believe it. Staggering forward, though Jerry kept a firm grip on her arm, Linda edged closer to what had not long ago been her thirteen-year-old granddaughter’s bedroom. The reality of it chilled Linda to her very core.
Her home was destroyed. Riley’s bed lay in splinters on the ground below, the rain still pounding down on it with no regard for the damage it had already done. The ceiling—or what was left of it—hung at a strange angle. It was wet to touch and the drywall felt soggy, like it could tear and fall apart even further at any minute. The whole room was ruined. There was no living in it. There was no saving it. There was no hope. With a sob, Linda curled her body into her husband’s and rested her forehead against his chest. This was too much. She had tried to remain strong for her family, but this was just too much for her to handle in one day.
“It’s okay, Grandma,” Chase said softly from the side of her. “We can fix this. Don’t worry.”
Appreciating her grandson’s words but unable to acknowledge them just then, Linda only sobbed harder. She knew he was only trying to make her feel better, but they were words she wasn’t ready to hear. She’d lived in the farmhouse ever since the day she’d married Jerry. Over fifty years had passed since that day and not once had she ever had a bad word to say about the place. They’d been through it all. Hard years of labor, parenthood, grandparenthood, and more. And now, after all that, it was rainwater that had brought them to their knees.
Chase locked eyes with his grandfather, seeing the old man shake his head slightly as he held his wife in his arms. Chase could understand what he was indicating. Grandma needed time, but if this had made Chase realize one thing, it was that they didn’t have very much of it left. Pop did his best to stifle a cough as he stood in the doorway with his wife, making his body shudder slightly. Looking at both of his grandparents, Chase was more resolved than ever. They needed time, but that wasn’t a luxury they could just wait around for.
“Come on, love,” Pop whispered to Linda as he tried to start walking her out of the bedroom. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Looking up at her husband, Linda didn’t have the energy to argue with him. It was late and darkness had fallen outside several hours ago. In fact, daylight was something she couldn’t remember seeing for a good few days now, which only made their situation seem even bleaker. Surrendering, she let Jerry lead her away from Riley’s bedroom and down the hall to their own.
“What are we going to do?” Riley asked after her grandparents had closed their bedroom door. She was still in shock over what had happened, but like Chase, she knew they couldn’t just leave things as they were for very long. They would have to try and fix her bedroom. But how?
“I don’t know,” Chase replied honestly. “We’ll figure something out though; we always do.”
As he lay in bed that night, Chase desperately tried to work out a way to solve their problem. He didn’t think the construction was too far out of their capabilities. In an ideal world he would’ve had a few of his friends to help out with it—or in a really ideal world, his father—but Chase knew it was still possible. Pop had years of construction experience under his belt from his time running the farm and Riley was quick to pick things up. He wasn’t sure what Linda could offer, but he was positive that if they all worked together, they could get the wall and the roof fixed up in a half-decent manner.
The bigger problem that Chase worried about was where they would get the supplies. Realistically, they could salvage enough from the barn. It was only the cows that needed that shelter now, so they could tear it down and use it to re-build the farmhouse instead. Tossing and turning all night, Chase found himself coming up with several ideas but finding more and more faults with each of them. By morning, he was tired and grumpy, but equally as determin
ed to fix things. This was his family and he wasn’t going to let another setback get in their way.
By the next morning, Linda was feeling more relaxed. Meaning she didn’t feel like she was on the verge of a panic attack any more. Jerry had kept her awake half the night with his coughing, which only added more stress to her plate. She couldn’t deal with him getting ill now, so for her sanity’s sake she desperately hoped that he would make a miraculous recovery somehow.
She left him in bed to sleep a little longer as she padded downstairs. The breeze that swept under Riley’s old bedroom door was unavoidable, causing her to shiver in her bathrobe. The doors to both Riley’s new room and Chase’s were already open, revealing that her grandchildren were downstairs before she reached the kitchen herself.
“Morning, Grandma,” Chase smiled as she walked into the kitchen. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m all right thank you, dear. Are you both okay? Sleep well?”
“Yeah,” Chase answered for the both of them, looking to his sister out of the corner of his eye cautiously. He knew she hadn’t slept well. Being in the bed that their parents used to share had brought back many uncomfortable memories for Riley and when Chase had eventually come downstairs at quarter past five, he’d found Riley already down there reading a book. They’d both spoken about it and he was hopeful that he’d made his sister feel better. If not, they’d both agreed at least not to tell their grandmother. She was working herself up into a state already over what had happened in Riley’s bedroom. She didn’t need anything else to worry about.
“Are you hungry, Grandma?” Riley piped up, walking forward and taking her grandma’s hand to pull her over to the table. “We’ve made banana pancakes.”
“Ooh, wonderful,” Linda smiled. “Yes please.”
Chase dutifully rose from his seat, offering it to his grandmother while he went to fetch her a plate. They had both decided to treat themselves after a couple of rough nights’ sleep and so not only were there banana pancakes aplenty, but chocolate sprinkles and maple syrup as well. Riley—who had declared herself chief rations officer during their disaster—had declared that both were necessary breakfast additions and Chase hadn’t even tried to argue.
“Where’s Pop?” Chase asked as he served his grandma, moving around to the other side of the table to sit opposite her, beside Riley.
“Oh, I left him in bed,” Linda replied. “I think he needed a few extra minutes.”
“Is he feeling okay?”
“As far as I know,” Linda nodded. “I’d hope he’d tell me if not, but you never know with your grandfather.”
“His cough was pretty bad yesterday,” Chase admitted awkwardly, remembering the support he’d had to offer his grandfather before heading out to find a way to board up the hole. He almost couldn’t believe that less than half a day ago, the problem had been so small. That tiny hole which they’d thought was the end of the world would be a joy to deal with now. Chase wished he’d never found the tarp in the barn after all.
“I know,” Linda pursed her lips. “He was coughing all through the night too. I’m hoping it’s just a bad spell while the weather is chilly.”
“I’m sure,” Chase replied, though he was still uncertain about his grandfather’s health. “That’s something we definitely need to address though. No one is going to get any healthier until we’ve fixed the hole in Riley’s room.”
“Do you really think we can do it ourselves?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Chase replied matter-of-factly to his grandma. “No one is going to come out and do it for us. I think we can. If we find the right equipment and get a lucky break with the weather. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Okay,” Linda nodded, admiring the determination of her grandson. “But what do we need?”
Just under an hour later, the four of them were sitting upstairs in the den preparing for Chase to go over his plans. He’d thought them through very carefully in the early hours of the morning, running the information past Riley to see what she thought as well. Then during the drawn-out hours of eating breakfast, he’d snuck outside to the barn to see what supplies lay inside and what they could do to fix up the roof. He knew he wasn’t necessarily the expert in the matter, but he’d come to a conclusion and he was fairly certain it was the only option. Now he just needed to break it to the rest of his family.
“I need to go out,” he started, drawing confused expressions from everyone in the room. That hadn’t been the decisive start to his explanation that he’d planned. Shaking his head, Chase began again.
“We need things to rebuild the roof that we just don’t have here,” he explained. “There’s a hardware store not that far north of here, isn’t there? I think I can be there and back in a day and get everything we need.”
“Chase,” Jerry started to reply, already shaking his head. “That is out of the question. You can’t seriously be suggesting you leave the house?”
“I don’t see any other option, Pop,” Chase argued back. “We can’t keep living here with the roof falling down and there isn’t enough stuff in the barn to rebuild.”
“What if we took part of the barn down?” Jerry questioned, thinking things through as he spoke. “There are only the cows in there now. They don’t really need…”
“I already thought of that,” Chase cut in. “And I went out there to check this morning. There just isn’t enough, Pop. We need several support beams and I’m thinking corrugated metal sheeting for the actual roof? It’s lightweight, so it’ll be easier to put on, and also the design of it will mean the rainwater can easily run off of it too. We don’t have that sort of stuff out in the barn. I need to go and pick it up from somewhere.”
“But the hardware store is miles away,” Linda complained, dead set against her grandson leaving the farmhouse. She had felt like she’d lost him and Jerry once already during the storm, when Chase went outside to search for her confused husband. She couldn’t feel that again.
“It’s not, Grandma,” Chase shook his head. “I’ve checked the maps. I can definitely be there and back in a day. Look,” he paused, “I know neither of you like the sound of this, but I really do think it’s the only option. If we want to be able to stay here indefinitely through this nightmare, this is something that I need to do.”
Linda looked at her husband. She could see Jerry weighing the options in his head, trying to determine if there was a way that it was possible for Chase not to have to leave. She was trying to work it out too, but no matter how she thought about it, it seemed Chase had already covered that area. He had arguments for everything and she had to give it to the boy, he was unwavering in his decision to get out of the house and get them the supplies they needed.
“You’re sure you can be there and back in a day?” Pop questioned, uttering the words that made Linda realize he hadn’t been able to come up with another option either. She was about to lose her grandson again and the thought of it was already tearing her apart inside. She couldn’t bear to watch him go, even if deep down she knew it was the right thing to do.
“I’m sure of it,” Chase nodded, a faint smile creeping onto his face as he understood he’d won his grandparents over. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Okay,” Pop sighed. “Not today though. Tomorrow. I want to make sure you’re as prepared as possible for this journey. I want to go over every tiny detail with you.”
“Me too.”
Three pairs of eyes swung over to Riley, the young girl not having said anything throughout the rest of their discussion until that very moment. She looked at everyone innocently in turn, her young face not giving away whatever she was thinking.
“You’ll have to go over the details with me too, Pop,” she continued. “If Chase is going, I’m going with him.”
Chapter 10
“Holy cow,” Miles breathed. “So we’re all basically gonna die? What’s that about, man?”
“You’re not going to die,” Mia re
iterated, trying to calm the people around her. Everyone from the village aside from Michael’s mother, Kim, who looked after the old lady, and Angelica were now present. Everyone who was still alive, at least. They crowded around Mia like vultures pecking at a piece of carrion, each one of them vying for information.
“All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t stay here for very long,” Mia continued. “The air is dangerous. Please,” Mia paused, pointing at Brady, “cover your mouth and nose!”
“I’m sorry, lady,” Brady remarked, tugging the collar of his shirt up over his mouth in a halfhearted manner. “But who are you to tell us that we can’t stay here anymore?”
Mia sighed. This wasn’t the reaction she had expected. Everyone else was panicking and grieving, their village destroyed by the lahars, and their friends and family killed. And yet, there was still someone who was willing to argue, just for the very sake of it.
“Your water source is contaminated,” she stated firmly, not a single soul around her daring to open their mouths as she explained. “Not just from the lahars which flooded this place, but from the volcanic ash cloud which is hanging above us as we speak.” Heads tilted upwards to look at the sky as Mia instructed, each person acknowledging the dark mass that floated above them.
“The ash must have settled on your reservoir, polluting the water and filling it with toxins which are extremely harmful to ingest.” Mia continued, aware that she finally had everyone’s full and undivided attention. “These toxins aren’t going to go away after a couple of days. They’ll be around for as long as the cloud is, which realistically could be weeks. Even months.”
Pausing again, Mia locked eyes with Jorge, who had appeared with Billy’s mother a few minutes earlier. It looked like he had done a fine job of consoling her somewhat, though the woman’s eyes were still red and puffy—evidence that she had been crying. “If that wasn’t enough,” she carried on speaking, “there’s the air as well. Surely, you’re already aware that breathing in all of this”—Mia stopped and spread her arms open wide, encompassing the dirty air that surrounded them—“isn’t good for you.”