by Tim Washburn
“Madame President, what’s the current status of the volcano?”
“I’m glad you asked, Bob. Joining us on a conference call is Dr. Jeremy Lyndsey, the Chief Scientist at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.” The president punches a button. “Dr. Lyndsey are you there?”
“I am, ma’am.”
“What’s the current status of the volcano?”
“The volcano is still erupting, but the amount of material being erupted has declined significantly. It is now mainly a hydrothermal event, with significant amounts of steam still being produced.”
“Will it ever stop?”
“Some day, but the worst is over as far as the eruption is concerned. We now have the larger global issues to deal with.”
“What are some of those issues, Dr. Lyndsey?” the president asks.
“The major issue is the enormous amounts of sulfur dioxide now present in the atmosphere, not just here in the states, but all across the world. Think of it as a thin blanket draped over the entire globe. We estimate only seventy percent of the sun’s energy is penetrating that veil, or blanket, so to speak.”
“And this causes the drop in temperatures as we’ve already witnessed?”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s exactly the cause. The growing season for most of the planet will be eliminated for the next year or two.”
“When can we look forward to conditions improving, Dr. Lyndsey?”
“Well, ma’am, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but things will get much, much worse before we see any improvement. We don’t know for sure how long the ash and sulfur will remain in the atmosphere. Years certainly, and maybe longer.”
“A grim prognosis, Dr. Lyndsey. Thank you for joining us, ” the president says before punching the off button. She glances up at the audience of journalists. “We still have a long way to go, but we will get there. That I can promise. Thank you.”
CHAPTER 82
London, United Kingdom
The muted morning sun is leaking through the window of their one-bedroom flat when Abby Stone-shire leans over to nibble her fiancé’s ear. She nibbles and kisses until he stirs awake. “I had the most wonderful dream last night.”
Roger stuffs a pillow behind his head and rubs his eyes. “Wild, passionate sex involving handcuffs and blindfolds?”
“No, I dreamt of a warm, steamy loaf of French bread fresh out of the oven. I think my mouth began to water in my sleep.”
He pounds a palm on the bed. “Do not talk about bread. You know how much I love bread.”
“God, I could smell it, too. That warm, yeasty aroma that has just the right amount of pungency.” Abby rolls up on her elbows. “Remember going to Benny’s Bakery every Sunday morning?”
“Abby, if you don’t shut up I’m going to put a pillow over your face.”
“Oh, that’d be great. ‘Local resident killed after sharing bread dream with fiancé.’ I can see the headlines now.” Abby pushes off the bed and wriggles into her jeans.
“Where are you going?”
“I told Mum I’d spell her at the food queue. Today’s their day for weekly rations and she’s been there since midnight. I bet she’s on the verge of wetting her knickers by now.” She pulls on a sweatshirt and puts her dark hair up in a ponytail.
“God, Abby, I wish you hadn’t mentioned bread. That’s all I can bloody think about.”
Abby belly flops onto the bed. “At least we don’t have it as bad as the Yanks. Ashley was telling me they barely have any food. They’re offering other countries these exorbitant sums just to purchase food. I think our government is in the process of sending food over, what with all they’ve done for our country in our times of need.”
“Why? We barely have enough for ourselves.”
“It’s the compassionate thing to do, Roger.”
“Screw compassion. I just want a loaf of bread. God, my mouth is watering, all thanks to you.”
Abby crawls over to kiss him. “Think about wild, passionate sex. I may be up for blindfolds, but the handcuffs are a deal killer.”
Roger reaches out to grab her ass, but she slithers away, laughing. “Hopefully, her queue will move as fast as ours does. But with all those old biddies, I could be a while. I’m hoping to be back in three or four hours.”
“I’ll have the blindfold ready.”
Abby smiles as she slips on a coat and takes the stairs down to ground level. People are out and about on the street, but their faces remind Abby of the pictures of Londoners during the war. The weather is cold and damp but she tries to shake off the melancholy mood, whistling a U2 tune as she strides down the street. After twelve blocks she cuts over four streets, and the whistle dies on her lips when she sees the queue nearly fifteen blocks long and her mother waving frantically only one block ahead. All thoughts of blindfolds are whisked from her mind.
CHAPTER 83
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
Thirteen-year-old Estuardo Carillo is trying to eke out the last few minutes of sleep before a long workday ahead. The oldest of five children, Estuardo’s parents require him to work to help provide for the family. Living in a two-room hut with dirt floors, the family’s needs are minimal—food, sometimes medicine, and an occasional article of clothing that will be passed down until threadbare. With the parents already gone for work, his younger brother races into the hut and tries to shake Estuardo awake.
Estuardo pushes him away, but the younger brother is relentless.
“Come see, Esty. You have to come see.”
Estuardo pulls the blanket over his head, only to have it ripped away moments later.
“Esty, get up. You have to see.”
Estuardo mutters a string of Guatemalan curse words he’s not supposed to know and rises from bed. He suddenly feels cold, a very uncommon feeling for this part of the world. He slips on his shorts and follows his brother outside. He stops and stares up at the sky in amazement as big, fat snowflakes drift down from the heavens. They don’t stay long on the warm ground, and for two boys who’ve never seen snow, they’re bewildered by this sudden appearance. Estuardo holds out his hand and several flakes hit his palm, melting on impact but leaving faint traces of moisture behind.
“What is it, Esty?”
Estuardo shrugs and sticks out his tongue, hoping to land one of the fat flakes. Darting one way, then the other, the boys are giggling as they race to see who can capture the most. Both are shivering, but the game is afoot and neither is worried about being cold. But just as suddenly as it started the flakes stop falling, leaving the boys to wonder if they had imagined the entire episode. But no, the cold is real, as is the moisture Estuardo felt in the palm of his hand. He leads his brother back into the hut and throws a blanket around them.
“What was that, Esty?”
Estuardo slips from the blanket and digs through a small stack of magazines the missionaries had left on their last trip. He finds the one he wants and carries it back to his brother. He can’t read the letters on the cover, so he doesn’t know he’s holding a copy of ESPN The Magazine. He quickly thumbs through the pages, stopping on an image he’s already seen a hundred times. An alien-looking creature is moving down a white mountain with something attached to his feet. Estuardo points to the picture: “Snow.”
CHAPTER 84
The White House
The Cabinet Room is back to its usual state—empty. Most everyone left a week after the last major eruption. There is a small team of advisors camped out in the Roosevelt Room, but their numbers pale in comparison to the former crowd of occupants. Dressed casually in navy slacks and a maroon sweater, President Drummond passes by the room on her way to the Oval. Her steps are slower, as if the weight of the nation’s problems are resting on her shoulders. She offers a tepid good morning to her secretary before slipping into the office. Before she can make it to her desk, Ethan Granger taps on the door and enters.
“Ma’am, I wanted to update you on our farmer’s initiative.”
�
�Let me guess. More bad news?” The President turns and walks to her desk, sagging into her chair.
Ethan walks over and sits in one of the chairs flanking the desk. “Unfortunately, yes. All of those crops we paid the farmers to plant were wiped out by a hard freeze overnight. It’ll be spring before we can try again, and even then the predicted outcomes are dismal. It may be two to three years before we have viable crop outputs from states such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. It could be decades before we see any production from our biggest crop-producing states.”
“Is there nothing we can do?”
“Some scientists suggest building greenhouses on a massive scale, but even then we couldn’t produce enough grain to make much of a difference. Besides, the costs far exceed any expected output.”
“The Ag Department making any inroads?”
“They have a standing order for any surplus crops from around the world, the price to be negotiated. So far there have been no takers, and no one realistically believes the order will ever be filled. The State Department is also working every available angle. Everyone’s running scared.”
“Can’t we trade oil for food? We’ve fought wars for the damn stuff. Surely China needs oil.”
“The Chinese government would love nothing better than to corner the oil market at our expense, but they have too many mouths to feed. They’ve halted all building projects and instituted very strict travel policies, to tamp down the demand for oil. The entire country is locked up tighter than a drum.”
President Drummond massages her temples. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to start a war, just to take advantage of our situation.”
“I don’t think anyone has the stomach for war. They harvested crops this year, but next year will be a different story. For everyone.”
The President sighs and leans back in her chair. “God help us all. Aren’t you going to say I told you so?”
“Concerning what, ma’am?”
“My declaration of martial law.”
“There were no other options. It was either martial law or total loss of control. I know you’re catching hell for the decision, but it had to be done.”
President Drummond stands from her chair and walks over to the window. “The attorney general is already inundated with lawsuits that will take years to wade through. And members of my own party are voicing extreme displeasure with my decision.”
“The declaration of martial law will trump most, if not all, of those lawsuits. If we hadn’t activated the military and streamlined the judicial system, this country would have collapsed. As for our fellow party members––fuck them. It’s easy to judge from afar, but to sit in your chair and make extremely difficult decisions for the greater good of the nation takes real courage, ma’am.”
The President turns from the window. “Well, the decision’s been made and I’ll live with the consequences. Where are we in camp construction?”
“I think the latest tally is around two hundred and fifty. And construction has tapered off. The outbreak of the flu was devastating. Some are leery of the camps.”
“Where are those people living?”
“Wherever they can find a place to bed down. Even with the overcrowding issues, violence is down. It seems as if there’s some implicit agreement that we’re all in this together. Or it could simply be that people are too hungry to fight.”
The President turns to face her aide. “I think hunger’s a part of it, Ethan, but not the driving force. This country has the innate ability to bond together during times of crisis. Time and again we have united for a common cause. Social, racial, and socioeconomic barriers fall by the wayside, exposing us for who we really are—a kind, caring society with a natural tendency to help our fellow man. It’s the American way, Ethan, this intertwining of cultures and beliefs that have the ability to solidify into one voice in the face of calamity. We’re down, but we’re damn sure not out. We will overcome.”
CHAPTER 85
Survivor Camp 136, Fort Polk, Louisiana
In the heart of the Kisatchie National Forest, where the army owns 100,000 acres and the U.S. Forest Service owns another 98,000 acres, is Fort Polk, home to survivor camps 136 and 137. The temperatures at Fort Polk range between fifty-five and eighty-seven degrees year round, with humidity levels between comfortable and dripping wet. Today is pleasant and the humidity is being held at bay by a ridge of high pressure over southern Louisiana.
Working on her master’s thesis on the complications of human displacement, Casey Cartwright closes her notebook and shakes hands with the interviewee. This is Casey’s fourteenth camp over the last thirty days. She stands from her chair, puts a fist against her lower back, and arches backward, trying to free the stiffened muscles. At twenty-four, Casey still has a runner’s body—light and lean, with an oval face and deep-set hazel-colored eyes. Today her long, dark hair is covered by a baseball cap, with a ponytail that snakes through the back, drifting across her shoulders with every turn of her head.
“How many more?” Dylan Hellfort, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, asks. This month they’re on, and he comes when he wants a break from studying. But he doesn’t necessarily like it. Too much misery, he says.
“I have one more person, but you don’t need to hang around here.”
“Where am I going to go? Hang out by the latrine?” Dylan is working on his MBA, but job prospects are expected to be slim and none. He’s grown out his dark hair and let his beard go as a form of protest. Tall and stocky, he likes to think of himself as Casey’s protector.
Casey is set up beneath an ancient oak tree, its gracefully arching limbs draped with moss. She’s hoping the serene setting will help the interviewees open up about their experiences. Around them, neatly ordered tents, aligned precisely to army standards, stretch as far as the eye can see. The olive and khaki fabric blends well with the forested environment and is interrupted only by the gravel paths that cut through the camp like city streets.
“You could go for a walk,” Casey says.
“I’ll hang here. I’d feel like a Peeping Tom walking past all those families.”
“This is their home, Dylan. It’s not any different than walking through a neighborhood.”
“Yeah, it is. The tents are only about two feet apart, and the only thing between me and being inside is a thin piece of cloth. It just makes me uncomfortable. Like I’m invading their space.”
“If we didn’t live in Mississippi, we’d be in a place just like this.”
“Chalk one up for the home state,” Dylan says
The next interviewee arrives, shakes hands, and takes a seat, while Dylan slinks away.
“How many of the camps have you been to?” he asks.
“Fourteen, so far. Not sure how much longer I can do this. What about you?” Casey asks.
“This is number 43 for me. I’m trying to compile as many eyewitness reports as I can.”
“Thanks for taking some time to meet with me, Dr. Snider. How bad were things in Salt Lake City?”
“You’re welcome and Salt Lake City is a ghost town. We lost power on the second day after the larger eruption. That was the start of the mass exodus. I was lucky to get out. I know there were many who didn’t,” Eric Snider says.
Casey glances down at her notes, then swallows and glances up. “You played a role with Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, correct?”
“I’m still in that role. My work, now, will hopefully provide further information. We’ll be studying this eruption for the next several hundred years.”
“Why did your group not order an evacuation sooner?”
Snider stares off into the distance. After a few moments, he turns back to Casey. “That’s a question that haunts all of us: myself, Jeremy Lyndsey and Tucker Mayfield. Unfortunately, there’s no right answer. I guess we couldn’t wrap our heads around the possibility for an eruption. Hell, it’s been 640,000 years since the last one.” Snider returns his gaze to some faraway object. “Th
ings snowballed quickly. The time frame between the first seismic swarm and the first eruption was measured in hours.” He pauses and looks down at his hands fisted in his lap. Slowly, he unfurls his fingers. “We issued the evacuation order the moment we felt the situation escalating. There just wasn’t enough time.”
Casey gives him a moment then says, “What have you learned from the eyewitness accounts?”
“Some are too horrific to repeat. There are some heart-warming stories but they pale in comparison. To tell you the truth, the last couple of months have been especially difficult for me. I go to bed with what-ifs buzzing my brain and they linger there all the next day.” Snider releases a long sigh. “Hopefully, the reports will allow us to firm up the time line before that last eruption. I do have one heartwarming story. I ran into a former student of mine, a fellow named Josh Tolbert. His family was camping at Yellowstone when it all started. They all made it home alive. Did lose a fairly new pickup in the process, though.”
Casey waves a hand in a long arc. “How long do you believe these people will be housed in camps?”
Snider sighs, again. “Years. A great swath of the United States may not be habitable for generations. ”
Casey leans back in her chair, surprised. “Really, that long?”
“Yes, really.”
“Will they be able to survive in these camps for that long?”
“What choice do they have? Humans haven’t experienced a natural disaster on this scale. And the results will linger for years. The only thing we can do is push on.”
“Are there other volcanoes that are a threat for eruption?”