by E S Richards
“He’s in the big house,” the boy replied, turning and pointing toward the hub of the city. “With the tower.”
Jorge followed the direction the young boy was pointing in and looked up, realizing what he was referring to. While Phoenix didn’t carry a large number of high-rise buildings like most big cities, there was certainly one identifiable “tower” within it, a sort of crosshatched addition to what Jorge guessed was a hotel, pointing up into the cloud and disappearing within it.
Turning from the building, Jorge looked at the boy again and thanked him, before standing to his full height and locking eyes with the elderly woman. Neither of them said anything, but Jorge could’ve sworn he saw a ghost of fear in her eyes. Either way, it didn’t matter to him. He had located where the person in charge of the city was and he was certain that would be the best place to start spreading his news about the fracking. Phoenix was already starting to get back on its feet; in a way, Jorge doubted he could’ve picked a better town to start his information-based mission from.
Taking off down the street at a faster pace than before, Jorge started to weave between people, dodging pedestrians as he once had in Houston and making a beeline to the mysterious leader. The number of people milling about in the streets grew and grew as he got closer to the center, life bubbling around every corner and thriving in the buildings. It was strange to see, considering how barren everywhere else had been, and it made Jorge feel slightly apprehensive about the man he was about to meet, though that was nothing compared to the excitement he felt as he bounced up the steps to the building with the tower that the young boy had described.
“I’m here to see the leader!” Jorge announced as he reached the top of the steps to the building, the entrance blocked by two men in matching uniforms. They didn’t look like soldiers or anyone dangerous; it was simply by their position of power that Jorge knew to be careful around them.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No,” Jorge shook his head. “But I’ve got information that he needs to know. I’ve come all the way from Yellowstone itself and I have vital details about what caused all of this and who is responsible.”
The two security guards looked at each other quizzically for a second, communicating silently and trying to decide what to do about Jorge. “Wait here,” one of them said before turning and walking into the building, leaving Jorge and his colleague outside. Jorge nodded and stepped back slightly, waiting for the moment where he would be invited into the building and given the opportunity to meet the leader—whoever it was. He was nervous, but he was much more excited and enthusiastic to finally tell someone important what had happened. This was his chance, his moment to shine, and finally, there was no one to take the spotlight away from him.
Chapter 11
“I’m sorry girls,” Linda whispered into the air as she left the barn and stepped out into the cold air. “I wish things could’ve been different.” Things seemed to be going from bad to worse for the elderly woman. Jerry was deteriorating by the hour, and while she was left to look after both of them by herself, Linda was being forced to make impossible decisions and carry out impossible tasks.
Milk and Shake were dead. Rushing back into the main farmhouse and shedding a few layers of clothing, Linda shivered from both the chill of the cold air rattling around her bones and the horrible memory of what she’d just done. It was necessary though. The cows were without food and water now and leaving them alive to die a slow and painful death wouldn’t have been fair. Linda had spent almost all of her adult life on the dairy farm. She knew that the cows were more than just a source of milk; they were living animals and they had feelings too.
She had killed them in the most humane way she could manage, yet despite her best intentions, the act had still been messy and brutal. Their meat would be valuable for her and Jerry, she knew. Still, immediately following the act Linda just needed to take some time to herself and regroup before she could continue. Milk and Shake had been like a part of the family and she felt incredibly guilty for what she had done to them, especially with Riley not around to say goodbye.
But that was why she was doing this, Linda reminded herself. For Riley. For Chase and Mia and most importantly, for Jerry. Walking into the front room, Linda looked at her husband, who lay fast asleep on the couch. Seeing him in that position made her frightened; not two days earlier she had thought she’d lost him there, her husband struggling for breath and appearing to give up. Jerry was a fighter. He knew he had to keep clinging on for his family, just like Linda did. They were in this fight together and they were going to support each other through it, even if Linda was forced to shoulder most of the burden alone.
“We’ll have a good meal inside you soon,” Linda whispered to her sleeping husband. “That’ll help. It’ll put some strength back in your bones and a bit more life in your body.”
Jerry’s chest moved softly up and down in response to Linda’s words, the old man unaware of his wife’s presence in the room. Since his most recent episode, Jerry had been even weaker than before, his lungs really starting to fail inside of his chest and any movement causing him a great deal of pain. Linda had managed to move everything they needed downstairs so Jerry could stay on the couch and be comfortable there, even as she knew even that wasn’t enough.
Her husband needed proper care and either reconstructive surgery or a lung transplant, two things she just couldn’t give to him. Linda had finally come to accept that Jerry was going to die. It was now just a matter of time and a case of making his few remaining days as comfortable and pain-free as possible. She desperately hoped that Chase, Riley, and Mia would all somehow find their way home before it happened, but Linda was a realist and she had accepted that it was more than likely it would just be her and Jerry when their relationship finally came to an end. It wouldn’t really be the end of their marriage, though: she had committed to Jerry for the rest of her life and Linda already knew nothing could change that.
“I love you so much, my darling,” she whispered as she stroked the hair on her husband’s head. “Stay safe. I’ll be back soon.”
Turning her back, Linda knew she couldn’t just watch her love sleep all day. While Jerry was granted the luxury of rest, she had to work for the both of them and that meant making her way back out to the barn. She hadn’t yet taken off her thick walking boots, grateful for the fur lining which kept her feet warm despite the layer of snow that now coated the ground. She put her large overcoat and gloves back on to accompany the boots, with the addition of one of Riley’s Re-Breathers strapped to her face. Her hat and hood were pulled down low over her face as well, so that when Linda stepped outside again there was only a small slit of skin showing across her eyes.
Though the weather wasn’t quite as deadly as it had been before, nevertheless it was still incredibly unpleasant. The wind had stopped howling through the farmhouse at such an overpowering speed and the rain wasn’t lashing against the wall and leaking into Riley’s old bedroom anymore. Filthy snow the color of charred coal covered the ground as far as the eye could see. The temperature had dropped well below freezing and sunlight was well and truly a thing of the past. Linda couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the sun break through the dark cloud that hung above her house, day and night replaced by an eternal dusk.
Quickly crossing the yard and tugging open the door to the barn, Linda forced herself to walk inside. The sight caused her to go weak at the knees, even though it was exactly what she had known was there. Milk and Shake lay dead on the ground, puddles of their combined blood pooled around the poor creatures. Linda had administered them both a strong sedative before committing the act earlier that morning—she knew it had perhaps been a waste of the drug, but she couldn’t bring herself to kill either of the cows while they were still alive and staring up at her with their dark brown eyes. They had been such gentle beasts; they didn’t deserve to have their lives end the way they had.
“Okay, here we go,” Linda
encouraged herself to walk forward. “Can’t back down now. Got to finish the job.”
Finishing the job was a lot easier said than done. The next stage was hanging the carcasses, and with each cow weighing over twelve hundred pounds, Linda knew she wouldn’t be able to just hang them up herself. Padding over to where the animals lay, she leaned down and stroked their faces, apologizing silently again for what she had done to them. She gave herself another sixty seconds of mourning and self-pity before snapping into action, refusing to forget the work that had to be done.
Working silently and quickly, Linda tied two long ropes around both Milk and Shake’s hind legs so she could string them up individually. She knew where she was going to do it, the roof of the barn crisscrossed with beams that were ideal for the purpose, though without the use of electricity Linda didn’t know how she would get them up there. Throwing one end of one of the ropes up and over a beam, she tried just pulling on it herself at first but she couldn’t even get Shake to shift on the ground even when exerting all of her effort.
“Come on, Linda,” she muttered to herself. “There’s got to be a way to do this. Think, woman, think!”
Looking around the barn with her hands on her hips, Linda racked her brain to come up with an idea. This had been her goal all along, for all that she had been working in the moment rather than planning ahead and she had finally reached her limit. Sitting down on an overturned trough, she put her head in her hands and closed her eyes, willing a solution to pop into her head. They always came eventually; Linda knew she just needed to trust herself and wait for the answer to appear.
The flagpole. Snapping her eyes open and letting a smile creep over her face, Linda knew she had solved her problem. She had been so against it when all those years ago Brogan had turned up at the farmhouse with a twenty-foot flagpole and an excited eleven-year-old boy. Her son had bought the flag for Chase to plant next to his treehouse at their house, then the neighbors had complained and forced them to take it down. So a week later when Brogan and Chase had asked if they could erect the flag at the farmhouse, Linda had been unable to deny the request.
The flag still fluttered in the wind now, a handmade design which Chase had revised for the farmhouse and the family. Even as he grew up, Chase had maintained his routine of raising the flag whenever he was staying at the farmhouse and dropping it when he left. Even though he had driven off many nights ago, the flag was still up and Linda knew that the pulley system which was rigged to it could easily be repurposed in order to hoist her dearly departed cows to the roof of the barn.
Picking up what she needed from the toolbox they kept in the barn, Linda gripped the equipment in her right hand and pushed her way outside. The snow was continuing to fall and reducing visibility even further; regardless, Linda knew where she was going. She didn’t need to see to move around her property, the farmhouse and its land home to her in every sense of the word.
Thankfully, lowering the flag and removing the pulley system from the pole was an easier task than she had anticipated. Linda had the materials down on the ground in a matter of minutes and then, following a quick pit stop in the house to check on her husband—who thankfully remained peacefully asleep—she hurried back into the barn to get her mission with the cows over and done with.
It was still incredibly hard work to pull their heavy bodies up and suspend them from the barn roof. As the minutes ticked by, Linda made steady progress and slowly but surely she completed her work. Sweat made her clothes stick to her body by the end of it, the act almost certainly the most strenuous activity the woman had done in years. She felt good for it, though; she and Jerry would be able to harvest the meat and eat well again soon and despite the effort and strain on her body, it made Linda feel strong and powerful. Mentally she had crossed a massive hurdle and she was incredibly proud of what she had achieved that day.
Staggering back into the farmhouse, Linda was just lowering herself down into an armchair so she could rest for a second when she heard her husband’s raspy voice calling out her name from the other room. Forcing more strength into her body, she pushed up from the chair and walked into the front room, her boots leaving dirty footprints on the floorboards behind her.
“What is it, darling?” Linda asked as she saw her husband looking at her, Jerry having managed to maneuver himself into a more upright sitting position. “Are you okay?”
Jerry nodded. “I’m fine,” he croaked out with a smile. “How are you? What’ve you been doing?”
Linda could see that each word caused her husband pain, and while she didn’t want to put him through that, she was still touched that he continued to try and communicate with her and didn’t just close himself off. “Good,” she smiled back, “I’m okay. I’ve just been out in the barn with the cows.” Linda paused, uncertain how to tell her husband exactly how she had spent her morning. She didn’t want him to be in any more pain, so she forced herself to continue before he asked another question.
“I’ve had to put Milk and Shake down,” Linda disclosed. “I strung them both up in the barn, so we can butcher them in a few days. It just didn’t make sense for us to keep them alive any longer. There wasn’t enough food for them, and I didn’t want them to die like that.”
Linda hung her head in shame, still upset by what she had done. She knew it was the right thing and that it was necessary for them to survive, but that still didn’t make things any easier. One by one, Linda was losing her family and each blow hurt just as much as the last.
Jerry looked at his wife, finding the single tear that escaped from her eye and rolled down her cheek. Taking in her appearance, he noticed how exhausted and broken Linda seemed. He could only imagine what that task must’ve been like for her, not only in a physical sense, but also on an emotional level. Once again, he hadn’t been there to help her; once again, he was only making her life more difficult than it should be. He was a hindrance, a part of him almost wishing his body would hurry up and die so he didn’t have to be a burden for much longer.
“I’m sorry, my love,” he whispered to his wife, cradling her body in his arms as best he could while still managing to breathe relatively comfortably. “You did what had to be done, and I’m proud of you.”
Linda sniffed and allowed her body to be rocked by her husband, feeling a small note of peace as she settled into his arms. It was—as it always had been—her happy place. Letting her eyes drift shut, Linda willed for it all to be over. She was done with the eruption and everything it had brought with it now, she just wanted things to return to normal. Or at the very least, she wanted to forget it all.
Chapter 12
America was vast. It was a fact that Mia had always known very well in theory, but after driving around the country like she had been for weeks on end, she was starting to have a whole new understanding of just how large the place she called home was. Since leaving the scene of the almost-shooting behind, Mia had driven for nearly three hours before swapping with Marcus so the two of them shared the burden. Jesse and Jadon were tasked with keeping them entertained and so, thankfully, the morale had remained mostly high, with a cheerful exchange of stories being shared throughout the car.
When Mia wasn’t driving though, she did find it hard not to get distracted by the scenery outside. They were much farther from Yellowstone by then and while the effects of the eruption were still obvious and everywhere, they were much less so. It gave her hope that things would be all right in Houston and the surrounding area. Mia knew that things would’ve been worse at the beginning of everything. Now, as she looked outside, she truly believed it would be possible to survive things. The only aspect holding them all back was the cold.
That was something that was present no matter how far you traveled. The cold front would not only be affecting America, but the entire world. So far, the effects of the eruption would’ve likely been restricted to the country for the most part. Now the cold was spreading and nowhere would be safe. People on a beach in Australia would suff
er just as much as men and women in China, India, South Africa, and everywhere else anyone could think of.
It was called a volcanic winter. Mia remembered the most recent one happening in 1991 when the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled global temperatures for about three years. This was already much more serious and fast-acting, which meant the effects would last for much longer and be much more intense. First the ash cloud would start to cool the planet by blocking out the sun. Following that, the toxic ash particles layered with sulfuric acid created a sort of barrier that the sun’s rays couldn’t break through, meaning they were reflected back out into space rather than warming the planet. That effectively stopped any heat from reaching the Earth’s surface, meaning the planet would slowly start to become one without a sun.
It was extremely dangerous and Mia knew that there was no way to stop it. Yellowstone had already erupted. The toxic gases and substances were in the air already, and there was no way to get them back. There were some people within the scientific community that Mia was aware of who had been looking forward to the next volcanic eruption, seeing it as a way to combat global warming. None of them could have expected something on this scale though. Mia had seen the papers and research into it—Yellowstone was probably about two hundred times the size of what they had been hoping for. An irreversible effect that no one could control.
Picturing her parents’ farmhouse in her head as they passed by a similar-looking abandoned property, Mia thought about how her mom and dad would be affected by the cold. The house was sadly pretty ancient, which meant it wasn’t very well insulated. A breeze always swept under the door in the mudroom and half of the windows hadn’t yet been upgraded to double panes. The ones in the kitchen had only been done two years ago, following an unfortunate incident with a football.