“Yes. Look I can't get a hold of Shirley, can you call her on the phone? Over.”
“Larry, our lines are down, we're on backup power. Look, how much fuel did you say you had?” Jack turned to Alice and moved his index finger against his thumb in the time honored symbol of “more money”. Alice nodded her head yes.
“Got an hour, maybe 1.2. Over.”
Jack looked at Alice and smiled. “Great, can you go observe Halema'uma'u and the ocean entry? I don't know if we can launch any helicopters at this point. Got a feeling things are messed up everywhere.”
“Love to you all of course, but not until I can find Shirley.” Larry had his priorities straight.
“Hold on, cowboy!” It was Shirley.
“Hey honey! Are you OK?” Larry yelled above the noise.
“Good to go, but I've got some bad news and some good news Larry. Over.”
Shirley was happy she had her two tiny dogs with her in the car and that it was relatively full of supplies.
“Go ahead, the bad, baby. Over.”
“Well, your wine cellar collapsed, all the bottles seem to have shattered.
Jack could be heard whistling a low salute to the now dead darkened bottles he had once hoped to have enjoyed.
“And, the good?” Larry's voice had quite a bit of hope in it. Maybe the lava tube had collapsed and in its place a hole full of gold bars had been discovered.
“I got ten bottles in the car before it happened. Over.”
~~~
Adam was on his cell phone while Agatha stood in line at the Honolulu counter for Hawaiian Airlines. All flights to Hilo and Kona were postponing and canceling. The TV monitors in the bars of the gate areas were all talking about the massive earthquake that had just rattled the entire state. The power was out in many places, even on Oahu. The airport emergency power was up, so Starbucks were doing a brisk business.
Finally Agatha walked away shaking her head.
“What are they saying?” Adam asked, putting his cell phone away as another call failed to connect.
“Nothing much,” she said, holding back tears. “They don't know much more than us.” She looked up at Adam. “The airports there are closed, that much they do know.”
“What a mess,” Adam swore under his breath. Their luggage was trapped as well, leaving them with their meager carry on supplies.
“I'm going to use a landline, honey,” Adam said, putting his worthless cell phone into his pocket and walking over to stand in line at the eight payphones against the wall. “I've got some favors I could call in with some boys at Hickam. Maybe we can weasel a military hop down there.”
Agatha smiled weakly, turned and walked over to the huge picture windows facing the ramp area and the distant Waianae mountains. She watched the gentle trade clouds, small and fluffy, move lazily across the deep blue of the tropical sky. Her heart reached out, looking for any sign of her son. Closing her eyes she began to listen as only a mother can do for her own children.
Several little songs she had often sung to him long ago came to her mind. She let them play gently in her mind as she continued her search, looking for any sign, any signal of her boy. She had always touched him this way when he was at war, in Afghanistan.
The gate announcement of another canceled flight interrupted her concentration. Opening her eyes she noticed a lone bird flying by, climbing higher and higher. It seemed to be carrying the same song she had in her heart, carrying it away.
~~~
Several powerful aftershocks were still pouring out of the earth, shaking everything off the walls of Dr. Zhung's office. Star had watched several hundred semi-ripe avocados bomb the parking lot on the first big shake, as she had trouble standing next to her car.
Even the doctor's sign had fallen off its evidently rotten post. The office staff were exiting the old two story wooden structure with their belongings.
From around the corner, where the parking lot disappeared into a well kept lawn, came Janet in a wheelchair, pushed by the doctor himself. A nurse followed them both with a small shopping bag full of something she couldn't make out.
Star rushed over to them even as a smaller trembler rolled a few of the avocados around the pavement. “Is she OK?”
“Yes, yes, she will be fine,” the doctor said, happy to be getting rid of her, so he could flee as well. “Here, you can have the wheelchair. We are leaving.” He turned and marched off to his Mercedes parked in front of the building.
Star was disgusted to the point of spitting at him as he left, but as she watched him climb into his car she was pleased to see several large dents in the roof of his car, no doubt from the avocado rain.
The nurse with the bag walked up and touched Star on the shoulder gently. “Look, she will be fine, but she did just give birth. She is sore, tired and should be watched closely for any excessive bleeding.”
Star stared at her with a confused look on her brow.
Handing her the plastic shopping bag, she added, “These supplies will keep her for a week. There are pain meds as well.”
The nurse looked deeply into Star's eyes until she saw a glimmer of comprehension, then stood back.
“Good luck.” She turned and left as well, walking down the long sidewalks toward the harbor.
Star turned to Janet and saw her slumped over in the wheelchair, breathing steadily, but heavily. Grasping the chair she wheeled it over to the passenger side of her Tercel. She reached over to open the door and pushed the wheels up against the car, set the chair brake and walked around to her side.
There she reached through and tried to get Janet into the passenger seat.
“Jimmie! Jimmie, come on and wake up a bit. We have to get going.”
Janet didn't respond, so Star tapped her on her leg. That must have hurt a little. Janet moaned in pain a bit and moved her head.
“Jimmie, please. I can't lift you. You have to get in...”
Another sizable aftershock rolled through the area, this one waking Janet. She looked around a moment and then down to where she was sitting.
“What the hell?” She rolled her head around like it was trying to come loose and then caught Star's eye.
“Please, Jimmie, please get in the car right away,” Star pleaded.
Janet tried pushing herself up from the chair, but the pain dropped her right back in with a heavy groan.
Sirens were going off everywhere, including now the civil defense wailing of an impending emergency. Star turned to look in the direction of those and saw smoke plumes all over the city. She worried it might be lava, but quickly dismissed that as silly. Just fires from the quake probably, knocking over things, gas lines and all that, she thought.
Janet pushed herself up again, this time anticipating the pain and powered through it. She pushed the front seat forward and dragged herself into the backseat.
Star had the engine started and as soon as Janet cleared the door she put it into reverse and quickly backed up. Another tremor was shaking the trees all around them, this time dropping small branches heavy with the avocados that were still too green to fall the first few times.
As she reversed her car the passenger door slammed shut and the wheelchair bumped into her side mirror, wedging itself there. Star was in a bit of a panic at this point. She wasn't about to get out and pull the wheelchair away, so she reversed up the parking lot. It was still attached. For some reason it struck her as demonic, a Stephen King prop.
“Be gone! I don't believe in you!” Star screamed, terrified now. She saw a telephone pole slowing falling across the street, dragging wires down with it.
Slamming the car brakes didn't dislodge the chair either. Finally she was backed all the way back up into the doctors private parking spot. The wheelchair followed until her rear wheels went up on the curb and the angle freed the chair from under the mirror.
Star slammed the gear shift into drive and floored it, until she realized she was going downhill, and again hit the brakes hard. Janet was moa
ning with pain in the back seat with every violent move of the car. As she stopped again, the wheelchair ran into the back of the trunk.
“I don't believe in you! I don't! Be gone!” Star screamed again, pushing ahead on the accelerator again. As she moved down the steep driveway, she looked back in her mirror. The wheelchair was rolling toward them, weaving slightly left and then right, but following her nonetheless.
At the bottom of the driveway she had to stop, going left looked bad. A block down there were poles crisscrossing the road. As she looked uphill, to the right, the wheelchair slammed into the trunk again.
“Shit!” she quickly spun the steering wheel to the right and floored it. The front wheel drive spun the tires in a scream themselves before grabbing and pulling Star and Janet rapidly ahead.
Star looked in the backseat quickly. Janet was curled up in a fetal position, moaning softly. She looked back up into her rear view mirror to see the wheelchair racing down the street in the opposite direction, toward the intersection below and the downed power lines.
~~~
Alice and Jack at the Hawaiian Volcanoes Observatories were actively trying to determine one thing and one thing only. Where would all this magma exit the earth? Jack was fielding the phone calls from the high level government types while Alice was gathering as much information as she could.
Her seismographs had now recorded seven aftershocks of 5.5 or greater. Literally hundreds of swarm quakes, measuring around 1.5 to 2.5 were coloring the graph paper with short little arcs.
The problem with this, was that all of her seismographs were doing this, all locations were showing the swarms. She felt like there must be magma moving under the entire southern flank of Mauna Loa.
“No sir, we don't expect Hilo to have any problems. The summit is not inflating. Stable up there, so we don't foresee any lava exiting to the east and the airport or the town,” Jack was telling the Governor on a conference call that included all the other island mayors as well.
He walked over to where Alice was busy scribbling a synopsis for him. She handed him the hand written paper with hands that were incapable of not shaking.
Jack looked at her, concerned. He leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head. “It's going to be fine, Alice.” They both appreciated the attempt to calm his and her nerves with the soothing lie.
“Sir, our problems are on the southern side of Mauna Loa. We are experiencing massive magma movement underground in the entire Volcano village area, through Pahoa, Kapoho and beyond the coastlines.”
Larry was approaching Halema'uma'u crater at 1000 feet above the ground level. The clouds around the massive pit were gone, vaporized by the heat of the venting gases. He figured it looked like at least twice the volume coming out, but the crater itself was obscured.
“Jack, this is Larry over Halema'uma'u. Over.”
Jack heard his friend calling and put the conference call on standby. “I have a report from the field now, we managed to launch a motorized paraglider before the earthquake. He is still airborne and over Halema'uma'u now...standby.”
Alice leaped up out of her chair to stand next to Jack, hoping to hear some news. Jack noticed she had put her hand on his back as she stood close.
“Go ahead, Larry, over.” Jack said, a smile hidden in his voice.
Larry was staying upwind of the massive plume, careful to avoid any contact with the sulfuric dioxide super heated gases. Small explosions could be heard from the half mile wide pit as well.
“Halema'uma'u looks to be double the normal volume plume, but the crater is hidden at the moment. Let me see if I can...”
Jack and Alice, and even those on the conference call heard the distant voice on the walkie talkie pause. In such a dangerous situation as this people got nervous immediately. It was quiet for half a minute.
“How is your man there Jack?” Governor Abercrombie asked.
“Larry, you got cut off. Say again. Over.”
Larry couldn't believe his eyes and had to look over his shoulder as he turned his paraglider again, keeping well upwind. A burst of trade winds was threatening to push him downwind with the plume but it was also clearing the mouth of the crater.
“Jack! Jack, we've got a problem. The crater is full. I say again, the crater is full. It even seems to be spilling out the south side!”
Everyone heard that.
Alice sat down quickly and grabbed her calculator. They regularly measured the volume of space occupying Halema'uma'u with lasers, its depth on a normal day, measured against its current width. As she punched in the numbers she felt sweat trickling down her back.
“Roger that, Larry. Understand the crater is full and spilling over.” Jack repeated for both Larry and the conference call. “How is your fuel now? Over.”
Larry looked down at his gauges and with the current winds, if he wanted to use any of his preferred landing areas in this wind he had about twenty five minutes left.
“Jack, I've got fifteen minutes left, over.” Larry always kept ten minutes of fuel to himself. Life insurance.
“Roger that Larry. Safe landings! Call me when you are parked. Over.”
Larry signed off and headed toward his house, another mile or two upwind. The clouds were nearly gone with the day's heat, probably helped a little with all the stress the poor humans were feeling down there as well.
~~~
“Jack, come here a moment would you?” Alice asked.
“Another moment guys, I may have one more data point for you.” Jack put the phone down and walked quickly to Alice's desk. He leaned over, putting his hand on her shoulder.
“Look, I figure that we now have a fresh 22 million cubic meters of magma, well lava now, in the crater. Ring any bells?” Alice turned slightly, enjoying Jack's touch as she peered into his eyes.
“Hmmm, not really. Should I know that number Alice?”
“1960 Kapoho, Jack. That was the volume held in Halema'uma'u that time. When the lava tubes below finally couldn't handle the pressure it all flushed out like a giant toilet bowl. Right into the downhill tubes leading to Kapoho.”
Jack looked into Alice's eyes, loving her look. That look of knowledge, that look of danger. He never thought vulcanology would be this exciting, in all different kinds of ways.
“Evacuation?” Jack asked walking back to the Governor's conference call.
“Yes!” Alice confirmed. “I've been right once today,” turning back to her computer screens. “I'm afraid I'm going to be right again.”
~~~
Star saw blinking blue lights ahead on the road toward Pahoa, where she would have to turn to get to her seaside cabin in Kapoho. Janet was still asleep in the back seat, snoring lightly now. As she slowed to a stop behind the other cars she rolled down her window.
The civil defense sirens were wailing like lost children. She quickly turned on her radio to A.M. 1060 KHBC. Her car no longer seemed to ingest FM radio.
“...catch Uncle Kimo and his band tonight at Tiwaka's Tiki Bar and Grill, home of the famous Coco Loco Moco. Remember Tuesdays are Ladies and Dudes night. $3 Hinano and $2 Primo. Come on down. All empty bottles are being donated to the Build a Lava Dyke Around Hilo project.”
“Not funny,” Star sneered and switched the radio off. Cars up ahead of her were turning around, being directed by a very tall police officer. She used the opportunity to move forward, intent of getting through the road block.
Finally she was stopped at the barrier. Another police officer, somewhat of a familiar face she thought, approached her window.
“Sorry, ma'am. Road is closed, you need to turn around.”
Star looked at the guy for a moment and then recognized him as the son of one of the fishermen who lived down at her cove.
“Henry? It's me, Star.” She leaned out the window.
“Auntie?” He came closer and leaned down to talk with her. “Sorry, Auntie, the road is closed. No can go. You felt the earthquakes, yeah?”
“Yes, I sure d
id. Look, Henry, I need to get to my place, get some clothes and all. Plus, my friend, here in the back,” she pointed to Janet. “She has all her stuff at my cabin too.”
Henry stood up and looked over at the really tall officer he was working with, shook his head and then leaned back down.
“Look, we were letting only residents through until about half an hour ago. Now, they're telling us nobody.”
Star was fearful she wouldn't be let through, even knowing the cops. Her mind was racing with options and alternatives.
“Henry, where's your dad? He's down there right?”
Henry shook his head no. “No, Auntie. I talked to him already. All the guys took their boats out to sea right after the first quake. Tsunami you know. Better to be in deep water.”
Star leaned back into her seat. “Tsunami?” she whispered. Her heart was sinking. Opening the car door, she had to try one more thing.
“Henry, dear. Look, I'll be OK. I just need my stuff, you know?” she looked him directly in the eye. “You know, I don't have much. I need my stuff, my cats, Henry.”
Henry wasn't saying anything, trying to look away at the increasing line of cars behind Star.
“Henry, did your dad say there had been any tsunami yet?” Star implored.
Henry looked at her, eager to solve this and get on with his traffic duties. “Auntie, yes. He said they thought there was a small one, but there were only looking through binoculars from their boats, yeah?”
He came closer to her, whispering. “You might not have anything left down there anyhow, you know?”
That thought was the one thing Star would not accept ever again. She remembered vividly being told the same thing when in 1960 the lava had claimed her parents house and eventually their happiness. She was too old to start somewhere new.
Then she had a great idea, Henry would have to go with this.
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