Escaping Darkness- The Complete Saga

by E S Richards

  Mia knew that people with pre-existing health conditions were in the most danger. The animal carcasses she was walking past now was enough evidence of that. If a weaker body—like her father’s—breathed in too much of the volcanic ash, their immune system would struggle to fight back. If inhaled in high volumes, Mia was all too aware of how her father’s lungs could be lacerated and he would start to suffocate to death. It was what was happening to Lizzie back in the village they had left behind. Who was to say it wasn’t happening to thousands of others as well?

  First, a troubling cough, followed by him hacking up bile and blood. His body would grow weak and he would struggle to complete the simplest of tasks. For someone like her father, who prided himself on being independent and looking after others, Mia knew he would struggle to sit back and let his body do what it needed to recover. She feared he would try and push himself too hard and then the worst would happen.

  It was Mia’s absolute worst nightmare that she would finally make it back to Houston, only to find that her family had become victims of the natural disaster.

  Shaking the thought from her head as the group finally approached the actual farmhouse, Mia started to wonder what they would find inside. She, Patrick, and Stuart appeared to be the ones truly invested in it, continuing to walk toward the front door while everyone else stopped and hung back. Mia locked eyes with Jorge, giving him a slight nod that implied he should wait outside with everyone until they knew the coast was clear. Upon receiving his understanding wink, she continued to move toward the door.

  Knocking twice, Mia, Patrick, and Stuart waited for a response. Internally, they were all hoping to hear a noise coming from inside. They all carried at least some shred of hope that there were still people living inside the farmhouse, even despite the state of the fields surrounding it. Holding their breath they waited, allowing Mia to knock twice more before she eventually tried the door and the three of them walked inside.

  The smell of death hit each of them immediately, the door swinging shut behind them, trapping them inside with it.

  “Oh my word,” Patrick muttered through his hand, trying to block the smell, even though he could already taste it at the back of his throat. “What is that?”

  Mia and Stuart both already knew. They looked at each other with a knowing glance, both unlucky enough to recognize the smell immediately for what it was. Death. Pure, unequivocal death. Following their noses, the three of them crept down the hallway to where the smell was coming from. By now, even Patrick knew what they were going to find, but they all had to see it with their own eyes.

  There, seated at the kitchen table with gaping holes in both of their heads, were the old farmer and his wife. Visions of her parents tore through Mia’s head with such ferocity she felt like she was going to throw up. It was too close to home. Too possible. Too real. Too much.

  Chapter 19

  Standing outside the farmhouse, Jorge waited nervously with the others. He already had reservations about staying on the farm, especially considering what they had already witnessed. All the animals had died—literally all of them. There wasn’t a shred of life left within the fields and the area had an eerie feel to it as a result.

  Jorge had never spent a large amount of time on farms. He was a city boy by upbringing and that was the way he liked things. He wanted a hot shower twice a day and a freshly pressed shirt to put on each morning. He liked his meals hot and his living space clean and tidy. Back home in Houston he had someone that came around to his apartment once a week to do all of that sort of stuff. It wasn’t that he thought he was above picking up after himself, it was just that he didn’t enjoy it and while he had the money to spend, he figured why not employ someone to do it for him?

  Back home in Spain, Jorge had lived what could only be described as a privileged life. His family had a fairly large estate just outside of Madrid, as well as an apartment in the center which he and his older brother had moved into when they were only fifteen and fourteen for school. They had a nanny of sorts who came in and cooked them dinner every evening, but aside from that they were pretty much left to their own devices. As a result, Jorge was very used to having his own way and that was a trait he had continued to carry well into his adult life.

  Since everything that happened, Jorge hadn’t really spared much time to think about his family. His mother had passed away just over ten years ago and his father had re-married. Last Jorge heard, they were still living on the estate, his father continuing to bring in a steady flow of money through his investment services. His brother had also married, leaving Jorge the only remaining bachelor of the family. When he had chosen to travel to America to pursue his education and career, Javier had stayed in Madrid, pursuing his romantic intentions for a young waitress.

  Jorge had traveled home for his brother’s wedding, the lovely Maria glistening in white as the two of them had a beachside wedding just outside of Valencia. Javier and Maria had a baby girl just eight months after the wedding, a surprise to the rest of the family as they had hidden it so well on the big day.

  His brother’s life wasn’t one that Jorge particularly envied, but he respected the choices that Javier had made. There were times when he wished he could have settled down, that he already had a wife and children, but all it took was one night of freedom for Jorge to revert back to his bachelor mindset. Deep down, he knew he would never settle, and it was something he was happy about. Being by himself gave Jorge more opportunity to focus on himself. He was always his top priority and nothing was going to change that.

  Although now, he was being forced to look out for several other people as well. Mia was fine; he didn’t care about needing to have her back and would always have it anyway. They’d worked together for years now and he truly regarded her as a friend. Once—many years ago—he had thought they might be more than that. Mia had shut him down fairly quickly on it though, which at the time had severely bruised his ego. But now he was over it. Occasionally he would still flirt with her—he was still a man, after all—but her friendship was what was most important to him. It always would be.

  The others though, Jorge could take them or leave them. He had never been very good with children, so even though Lizzie had specifically asked him to look after Billy, he hadn’t spent much time with the kid. Thankfully the other people from the village had looked after him, so Jorge didn’t need to bother with any of them too much. While they were part of the group, they still kept to themselves. Although, after what they had been through, Jorge could understand why.

  He wished Lizzie had come with them too. Even without being a father, Jorge understood that making the decision to stay behind while her son left must have been incredibly difficult for her. He had talked it over with her through the night while Billy slept upstairs. Lizzie had known something was wrong with her. She had known there was nothing she could do and she didn’t want her son to watch her get worse and worse with each passing day. As a result, she had pushed Billy to leave the village, while she stayed behind. It was a truly noble thing to do and even if Jorge hadn’t been able to say it out loud, he would always admire Lizzie for her actions. It had felt nice to listen to someone for once in his life.

  In truth, Jorge didn’t usually care about building relationships with anyone, especially not in their new group. He and Mia had been so close to the eruption at the start that he was positive their days were limited anyway, much like Lizzie had believed about herself. It felt unrealistic to be walking around like nothing had happened, when days earlier they had literally watched Yellowstone blow its top. There had to be some level of toxins in his bloodstream as a result. The way Jorge saw it, he was just a ticking time bomb now and so if he only had a finite amount of time left, he wanted to make it count for himself.

  That meant gathering as much data as he could about this eruption, publishing a paper, and somehow making a name for himself. That’s what excited Jorge. He wanted to be remembered and he knew that this was probably going to be hi
s one and only chance.

  Mia’s theory about fracking was one that interested him. Jorge didn’t know a great deal about it, but he did understand how earthquakes and volcanos worked. The increased vibrations in the ground caused by fracking could very well have been the catalyst for everything. If that was the case, then it meant there was someone to blame. And—as Jorge had learned very early on in his life—if there was someone to blame, then there was someone to pay.

  Thinking about all the big moments in his field—or even in the entirety of science—people were only really praised when they discovered or created something that helped people, or they uncovered a great wrongdoing by someone else. It wasn’t hard to think of an example. Everyone who worked in a remotely scientific field remembered the great chemical imbalance that occurred in Europe a few years ago when a massive pharmaceutical company changed the genetic makeup of their drugs to make them just ever so slightly addictive.

  It wasn’t just an issue for those in the industry, but for people around the world as well. Everyone heard the story about people getting hooked on aspirin or common cold remedies. The way modern technology continued to advance each day meant that there was something for every tiny tickly cough or aching back now. If a person wandered out into the street and picked a handful of random people, it was almost guaranteed that at least half of them would be on regular medication. It was something that controlled the world, and so it was almost like the company had been trying to do that themselves.

  What most people didn’t know was how rich Damien Ashcroft had become off the back of it. He was the man who’d uncovered everything, gathered the research, and filed the lawsuit. As a result, he was the one who walked away from it all with nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. That was what Jorge yearned for. Fame. Money. Power.

  Acquiring it was a lot easier planned than done though. Currently he was stranded at some random farm, surrounded by strangers and dead animals. If Jorge was ever going to make something of himself, he had to get things moving just a little bit quicker than they currently were.

  “What’s taking them so long?” he muttered under his breath, deliberately loud enough for several people around him to hear.

  “Do you think everything is okay?” Jadon asked, leaning forward from where he sat on an overturned—but thankfully clean—pig trough.

  “I don’t know.” Jorge turned to look at the door. “It has been a while.”

  Curling his hand into a fist, Jorge knocked a couple of times, shouting Mia’s name into the house as he did so. Turning back to look at Jadon, he shrugged and pushed the door open, walking inside. As it had with the others, the smell hit him like a train and Jorge jumped backwards out of the house, one hand over his mouth as he coughed.

  “Jeez, what is that?” Deb questioned, sniffing the air. “That is vile.”

  “Mia?” Jorge shouted into the farmhouse, cupping his hands around his mouth to carry his voice farther. “What’s going on?”

  In response to Jorge’s cry, Patrick appeared in the hallway again. There was a strange look on the man’s face as he exited the house, the color somewhat drained from his face.

  “Daddy?” Allie asked innocently, separating herself from where she’d been standing with Miles and Billy—the children all under Deb and Ethan’s care. “What’s going on? Can we come inside?”

  “Not yet, darling,” Patrick shook his head. “We’re just sorting out a few more things inside.”

  With a forlorn expression on her face, Allie slunk back to the two boys without saying a word. Jorge watched her turn around before tapping Patrick on the shoulder, attracting his attention. Jadon, Jesse, and Marcus all crowded around too, the five of them at least somewhat familiar with each other.

  “What’s happened?” Jorge questioned, understanding that something strange must have been found inside the house. “Is everything okay?”

  Patrick bowed his head. “The farmer and his wife are both dead. Shot themselves at the kitchen table.”

  “Oh man.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know,” Patrick continued before everyone was able to react too strongly and give it away. Deb and Ethan were still hanging back with the kids, but they could both tell Patrick had just dropped some pretty serious information. “Mia and Stuart are trying to move the bodies now. But we need to keep the kids out for as long as possible.”

  “Yeah, man,” Jesse nodded. “Of course. Don’t worry about them.”

  “Yeah, we can keep them entertained and out of the way,” Marcus added with a smile. “It’s no bother.”

  “Do you need any help inside?” Jorge asked, his mind recalling a story Mia had told him once about her parents. They lived on a farm just outside of Houston. After everything here, Jorge could only guess that Mia was thinking of them in this position.

  “Yeah, actually,” Patrick confirmed. “That would be great.”

  “I’ll help too,” Jadon offered. “It’ll help speed things up.”

  “Are you sure?” Patrick questioned uncertainly. He was comfortable with Jorge helping out, but Jadon was still only about twenty years old. The father inside Patrick wanted to protect the young man.

  But Jadon replied firmly, refusing to be sidelined in the matter. “Yeah, it’s nothing. We’ve already seen plenty of dead bodies since all of this started. The way I see it, now we need to focus on how we can help those of us who are still alive. If that means seeing a few ugly things or dealing with a few messy problems, that’s what we have to do.”

  “Dude,” Marcus breathed beside his friend, holding out his fist which Jadon dutifully bumped with his own.

  Jorge watched the exchange with a smile. Perhaps he had underestimated the three college students. While he had his intentions for the long run of the disaster, he had to remind himself that if he wanted to achieve the end goal of a successful paper or even an exposé on what had happened, he had to fully immerse himself in all parts of it.

  “Okay,” Patrick replied with a smile. “Thanks. It’s this way.”

  Turning on his heel, Allie’s father led Jorge and Jadon into the farmhouse. Immediately the smell got even stronger, despite Jorge having left the door open for the past several minutes. All three men tugged at the covers they wore over their mouths, the cloth previously designed to filter out dangerous air now used to mask the smell of death.

  Jorge tried to prepare himself mentally for what he was about to see. He’d seen dead people before. His mother’s funeral was open casket, as both his grandparents’ had been. He’d seen the pilot die next to him in the small plane he and Mia had fled Yellowstone in too, and then countless others after that. He wasn’t unfamiliar with death by any means, but he still felt the blood drain from his face as his eyes fell on the scene in the kitchen. He couldn’t have prepared himself for it, no matter how hard he tried.

  Immediately he could also tell that his estimation about Mia had been correct. Her eyes were puffy and red, evidence that she had been crying. Silently, Jorge moved to stand next to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her into a hug. Normally she would’ve resisted, uncomfortable with that much contact between the two of them ever since Jorge had tried to flirt with her in the early days. This time she didn’t protest. She flung her arms around Jorge in return and held him tight. Breathing in Mia’s scent, Jorge understood that there was more to the disaster than just making a name for himself. He was never going to get through it if he didn’t have a support network around him. As it happened, that was Mia. He needed her just as much as she needed him.

  Chapter 20

  “What the… Holy cow! Riley? What?”

  Chase yanked the steering wheel of the old truck as Riley reared her head behind him, startling him and nearly causing him to lose control of the vehicle. He had been completely in his own little world when she appeared, scaring the life out of him and making it harder to maintain control of the truck. The weather was already horrible to drive in, Chase concentrating more than
he ever had before. Finally getting the wheels to straighten out again, he pulled the truck over to the side of the road and switched the engine off, turning around in his seat to face his sister.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Hey, Chase,” Riley smiled bashfully. “I, er, I thought I’d come with you.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Chase sighed, putting his head in his hands and shaking it from side to side. “Do Grandma and Pop know you’re here?”

  “Not exactly…”

  “Riley?” Chase wore a stern expression, showing his younger sister how concerned he was by what was happening.

  “I left a note,” Riley excused herself, trying to convince her brother of her plan. “Technically no, they didn’t give me permission to come and they didn’t know I was going to. But I left a note in my bed that explained what I’ve done. So if they found that then at least they’ll know where I am.”

  “Oh, Riley,” Chase shook his head again, trying to figure out what to do. His grandma had been adamant the night before: Riley was not to join him on the journey. And yet, here she was. Chase didn’t know what he was supposed to do now. He’d been driving for almost two hours so he was closer to the hardware store than he was to the farmhouse. It seemed stupid to turn back just to take Riley home and he couldn’t deny she would be helpful to him once they reached the store.

  “I’m here now, Chase,” Riley spoke up, echoing his thoughts. “We might as well get this done together.”

  Chase furrowed his brow. He’d always known his little sister was stubborn, but this was taking it to a whole new level. She appeared to have planned this perfectly, waiting until just the right moment to reveal herself to him. And she was right. They might as well just get things done together now. There was no point in going back; it would waste too much time and the bottom line was that they needed to fix the damage to Riley’s bedroom.