Death by Facebook

by Everett Peacock

  “Did she jump?” The leader was barking. “Is she climbing down?” He turned abruptly back to the old lady, demanding an answer from her. She only offered her pointed finger.

  “Let's go!” The four of them ran past the old lady and down the stairwell.

  The old lady smiled and lowered her arm. She looked beyond the open window and to the rising plume of the Kapoho cinder cone plume, climbing high into the brilliant blue sky.

  ~~~

  Janet made her way up the climb toward Kapoho and past the unmanned barricades across the road. The moped was perfect, since she could manhandle it around the concrete blocks. She was close to the turn where the road to Kapoho met the main belt highway, but decided to check her fuel anyhow.

  She had been riding for almost an hour and surprisingly the fuel seemed near the top. Hopping back on she motored up the few remaining miles, looking back often for her pursuers. At this speed though, she figured, if she ever saw them it would be too late.

  Thinking of Star, the wave of static pulled back a little, clearing her mind for a moment. Despite her desperate desire to stay away from the ocean she felt compelled to help Star somehow. Perhaps she could run supplies to her and then retreat uphill away from any more tsunami waves? Maybe just a hug from a friend would help? It sure would help her, Janet thought.

  The turn off was only another mile ahead. The plume from the cinder cone was dramatic, rising sharply into the clear sky as a column, then spreading out in a fan a few miles above. Janet wondered how Star could possibly survive anything that thing could throw at her. Her heart was breaking slowly, melting under the stress of overwhelming odds. No person, no sorcerer, no earth-mama or hippie love child, no one could stop a volcano!

  Star was a soul though, unlike any Janet had ever encountered. She was a light that penetrated her own dark static, one that showed a promise where she had never seen one. Star had a grasp on happiness that Janet had never known could exist. She was bravely standing her ground.

  Janet pulled over for a moment, to alleviate her legs aching still from the battering of the tsunami. Star had saved her there too. If not for her coaching she would have died that very night.

  The ocean stretched beyond the green jungles as it always had. Star only wanted a little more time on a little stretch of land. The universe, the world, this island had enough to give, all three had enough to share.

  “Whatever you need Star,” Janet said out loud to that same trinity. “Whatever it takes.”

  She looked back toward the barricades, some seven or eight miles below and behind her. Two sets of flashing blue lights were paused at the concrete barriers while a yellow construction machine of some sort moved them aside.

  Immediately she climbed back on the moped, her thighs aching in pain and headed for the Kapoho turnoff. The static was thickening.

  ~~~

  Despite Janet's adventures Poho and I remained distant, and I felt that situation would only increase with time. A bigger picture was showing itself to me, of which Janet was becoming a smaller and smaller portion.

  Poho and I moved as one in our new space. Everywhere we went, everything we did was together. Whatever one might call this grand place; heaven, nirvana, paradise or the cosmos, it was a dynamic place with many comings and goings.

  Ms. Debbie, the one who had first greeted me had already left, on to her next adventure and Poho and I were to replace her, as official greeter. It was an amazing request but one which we were not afraid to take on.

  It's funny, looking back, how fear keeps people from enjoying what they have been given. If anything, you learn this first after crossing over. It's probably impossible to eliminate it completely as a human, but the contrast is shocking when you no longer have humanity as an anchor.

  Our hearts went out to those whom we knew before, those living with fear and dread. We tried, Poho and I, to send them signals in dreams, music, and sometimes embedded in the happiness of people they might meet. Signals that they might do better, without fear.

  It was, of course, challenging. It seemed a lot like talking with hand signals, in a different language, difficult to get through. Impossible, if not for one thing – humans were just like us, they just didn't know it yet.

  ~~~

  The stop sign at the corner of the belt highway and the road down to Kapoho was bent over halfway to the ground, apparently run over by someone in a hurry. Janet paused a moment as she made the turn to look back down the road, toward the barricades and the police she presumed were chasing her.

  There was nothing to see beyond the last curve, Ohia trees were hiding her view of the distant road. They must be getting close, she thought, especially if they were speeding. Flashing blue lights had that habit.

  She dropped down the descending road toward Kapoho and saw the cinder cone, still active and in the distance the cobalt sea, dancing as it was in the bright light of noon. A smile moved up from whatever depths she had been storing them in, pushing some static aside and giving her a welcome pause. Star would be only a few minutes further.

  The moped seemed to welcome the break from a constant uphill struggle and almost purred as it idled in the gentle pull of gravity down toward Kapoho and Star's beach.

  Something seemed wrong, though. Something didn't match the last time she had come down this wonderful road to the sea. This time, this last time, Janet saw that the road abruptly ended ahead. Covered in lava close to the cinder cone, it became clear that there was no passage from there on. There was no path to Star, or the beach or sanctuary. Her heart sank as the static rose up.

  There was also no escape. Looking back uphill she saw the two police cars, light still flashing, just making the turn down hill. Quickly, she pulled her moped off the road and buried herself and the moped several yards into the jungle. If they hadn't already seen her, they never would find her in there.

  The first car slowed quickly as it approached the cooled black lava covering the road. Some three feet high the a'a had easily assumed control of the entire landscape.

  The second car screeched to a stop, both officers jumped out, including the leader from the hospital raid.

  “Shit, I would have bet she would have been down here.”

  “No way she can cross this sir,” a younger officer said with some unknown expertise. “No way.”

  “Get on the radio and have the watch boat tell me who is on the beach with that crazy old witch.” The leader was angry for two good reasons obvious to the other three officers. First, they were being outsmarted by an obviously mentally ill woman, and second, they had yet to even spot her.

  “No one there but the one lady sir.”

  “Shit! OK, lets get up to the Volcanoes Observatory. We might see her on the road.”

  A minute later both cars were rocketing up toward the belt highway, leaving the jungle and the lava to its devices.

  Janet was hyperventilating, her knees deep in the mud and ferns, her hands up against her head trying desperately to push the static noise out. With the exit of the police she finally broke, sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Goddammit Star! I tried!” Janet screamed into the empty jungle. “I can't help you now...” She rolled onto her side, sinking a few inches into the jungle muck. With the police hot on her trail her options were narrowing. “Star! Starshine!”

  Janet opened her eyes in a few moments, gazing blankly through the jungle and out to the cinder cone. It was turning paradise into a mass of gray and black rock, destroying everything that might have saved her, destroying the heart of her most amazing friend. Star, Janet knew, was all alone in her fight to save her home beach, her last remaining slice of all that was fabulous and happy and hers.

  The cinder cone was belching large balls of smoke up into the sky, angry at something. It spat in disgust at something. It would continue to destroy this wonderful place because of something. If nothing changed, this island would indeed be just another rock in the darkness of space. The volcano was angry at something, and Ja
net was beginning to understand what.

  ~~~

  Wally approached the beach quickly, beaching his boat and running over to Star, who was staring at the breakout of lava at the southern end of her little cove.

  “Starshine! Come on, we gotta go! Look, your ahu is gone and it's gonna wrap around from the south.”

  Star moved away from Wally and walked briskly over to the now covered ahu and the new a'a rocks starting to stack themselves up. She grabbed a handful of wet sand and threw it at the new land, in anger, in fear. It steamed its nonchalance.

  “Stay away from my beach!”

  Helicopters hovered overhead getting it all on camera. Star looked up and flipped them off, with both hands. “You, too!”

  Wally wasn't sure when it would be appropriate to just pick her up John Wayne style and throw her in the boat. If not right now, really soon.

  Star walked back over to him, and his boat. He reached out to take her hand.

  “No, Wally.” She implored him with her great big green eyes. “Wait here with me.” She took his hand then. “Please?”

  Wally looked at her closely. She wasn't out of her mind, she wasn't being anything other than herself. She was brave and resolute and if she was wrong, he would just have to be there for her. “No worries babe, I'm gonna wait right here, with you.”

  Star gently let his hand go. Walking slowly over to a higher part of the beach, she knelt down to both knees, put her forehead down into the sand and kissed the earth.

  “Pretty please...” she whispered.

  ~~~

  The static in Janet's head had finally overwhelmed any defenses she might have had left to mount. The battle she had attempted to wage had only made it chaotic inside her mind. Now, with no choices, no options to weigh, one thing became clear. The static moved into the background, replaced with a very soothing voice. It sounded so much like the old lady she had met in the hospital, Memitim.

  Pushing the mud covered moped out of the jungle and back onto the road almost exhausted her. Not bothering to shed any of the mud from her own clothes she mounted the machine. However, she couldn't start the machine pointing uphill. Rolling it back around to face the lava wall toward the ocean she let the machine roll downhill picking up speed before popping the clutch and kick starting it.

  Moving toward the lava, drawn to its glow, its texture of consumption seemed the right thing to do. She hit the leading edge of the already cooled layer with her front tire and immediately stalled, the machine falling off to the side.

  “Damn it!”

  This didn't seem quite right. Her new master, her new voice in a head finally relieved of the static said try again, try again elsewhere. Janet got up, turned the moped back uphill and pushed it to where she had started.

  As she looked back downhill again, toward the lava, she grinned, squinting her eyes, unaware of the drool moving down her chin. She let the moped roll toward the lava again, popped the clutch and immediately got on her brakes. Slowly turning the machine back uphill she spun the accelerator back toward her and went as fast as she could uphill to the belt highway.

  ~~~

  Larry and Shirley were still cleaning up broken window glass when he got a call from Jack at the Observatory.

  “Howzit going Larry?”

  Larry put down his broom and walked outside for a better signal. “Good Jack, how about you guys?”

  The Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory was operational again, as long as it didn't rain too hard. Many windows were still missing but plywood was going up where it could and plastic sheeting where the plywood couldn't.

  “We'll manage. Hey, look, Larry, you feel like a short observation flight? You know, something to get you out of housework?”

  Larry grinned. Of course. “Sure Jack, what's the mission this time?”

  Shirley stood up straight from her sweeping and looked at her husband with a bit of a scowl. If he was going to go flying she was going to sit down with her current book, In the Middle of the Third Planet's Most Wonderful of Oceans. Its feel good theme about life on Maui would take her mind off the mess here.

  “Great Larry. We just need a survey of the roads surrounding Halema'uma'u. The trails as well. We want to send some rangers out but need to know what they might expect in country.”

  “No problem,” Larry held a thumbs up to Shirley. She gave him one back. “I can get airborne in ten.”

  ~~~

  The military police hunting Janet had run through the few roads they could navigate in the National Park. Nothing, no one. They had even looked inside the Lava Lounge. Only the bartender was there, sweeping up broken bottles.

  The leader was beginning to question the anonymous tip they had received. They had not seen anyone on a moped, much less the redheaded woman they were seeking.

  They made their way back out to the belt highway. At the intersection, as they were turning left, Janet came screaming around the corner on her muddy moped, heading into the National Park.

  She looked at the officers for the briefest of moments, her face a maddened, wide eyed mess.

  “Shit, is that her?” The younger officer said over the radio.

  Everyone turned in their seats to see the rapidly disappearing moped rider.

  “Has to be right? Only moped for miles. Let's go!”

  The wet jungle mud on either side of the asphalt forced them all into four point turns. By the time they were headed after Janet, she was out of sight. Both cars put their sirens on as well as their lights.

  Janet heard the banshee behind her, the screams of the monster with the flashing blue eyes. The new voice in her mind told her to look for a side trail, to get off of the road. She did, finding one that ran the edge of the vast crater wall of Kilauea caldera. She hugged the railing as she rocketed down the little paved tourist pathway.

  The police cars kept heading down the road.

  “I'm going to slow down and look around these side trails. You guys head to the lookout and the trail head,” the leader told the other car of officers.

  “Roger that, sir.” The young officer was excited to be in an honest to god suspect chase.

  “Finally, eh?” he said, turning to his partner. “We get to actually apprehend a live one!”

  “Yeah, well, sonny,” the seasoned partner deadpanned. “It's the crazy ones that will hurt you the worse. Biting, spitting, who knows what they'll do.” He looked out the window trying to find a clue to Janet's position. “Personally, I prefer the ones that are already passed out.”

  Janet's trail was going to intersect the trailhead down into the crater in a few yards, right where the second police car would be in moments. As she saw the parking area appear from behind the rapidly thinning Ohia trees she caught a glimpse of Halema'uma'u's plume in the distance - the lava pit within the massive Kilauea caldera, the same lava pit where she had taken Jimmy Turner.

  She knew the trail head was there, could see it just on the other side of the park garbage cans. The jungle path that wound down from here to the floor of the massive crater would be a perfect place to escape the screaming banshee chasing her.

  Except now there was one pulling into the parking area, ahead of her. Her mind froze into a single determination. She would not stop for them, convinced they would certainly eat her very skin, which the voice was insisting they would do.

  As the young officer and his partner pulled up into the lot, sitting comfortably in their car, Janet sped right past their front windshield, headed down the trail head.

  “Oh shit, there she goes!” The young officer leaped out of his seat and half ran after her.

  “Suspect in sight, headed down the trail into the crater. On her moped!” The older officer reported on the radio.

  “Goddammit! Go after her!” The leader barked, not really knowing what he was asking.

  The young man, full of adrenaline now and excitement called back. “I'm on it!” He began running toward the trail head and quickly found himself picking his way down rocks
and a dirt trail riddled with roots. He saw Janet not too far ahead and yelled at her.

  “Stop! You're under arrest!” stumbling on a root and falling to his hands. “Bitch!” Quickly he got up and continued his chase. This collar would make his reputation on an island where boredom was all anyone could claim.

  Janet saw one officer running after her as she made the first hairpin turn. Her moped was small enough to maneuver well down the trail, but it was beating against her sore hips and legs terribly. Somehow in her compromised mind she thought the banshee, sirens still screaming in the parking lot above, devil still chasing her along the trail, was actually eating her flesh now. The pain was excruciating, but the horror of being consumed was overpowering.

  It propelled her faster and faster. She could see the exit of the trail head not much farther ahead. From there it was a relatively smooth path across old pahoehoe lava to the plume. Her moped would easily outdistance the blue devil gaining on her.

  Janet took one turn too quickly and fell, the moped falling on her skin and the hot exhaust searing her bare leg.

  “Ahhh!” she screamed. She saw the officer only one switchback above her, his eyes wide with anticipation. He would surely devour her where she lay! Quickly, she was up, the moped still running. Hopping back on she felt another severe shot of pain rocket up into her brain from her now broken ankle.

  “Stop! Police!” The young officer knew that with his natural speed he could probably catch the moped in the first twenty or thirty yards of flat lava. He picked his way down the trail carefully, even if it was leaps of six and seven feet at a time, downhill.

  Janet made the flats of the old lava crater and immediately found the smooth trail she and Jimmy had walked that dark night so very long ago. She slowed a moment as the memory hit her hard.