The Journal: Ash Fall

by Moore, Deborah D.

  “How were you exposed, Alex?” Tom asked gently.

  “I was near them before I realized they were sick,” I admitted. “I’ve washed well and sanitized everything they touched, I don’t know if that’s enough though. How is it spread, do they know yet?”

  “No, they don’t. The ME said if it’s like the last one, it’s airborne and with a very short incubation. Have you been in to see Dr. Robbins yet?”

  “No, that’s my next call, though I doubt he can do anything either.” When I hung up, I washed my hands again, and sprayed the phone.

  With gloves and a mask firmly in place, Mark met me outside by the picnic table. I explained to him everything that had happened and he listened solemnly.

  “So you were exposed twenty-four hours ago?” he asked.

  “Yes, about that. It was mid-afternoon when they showed up.”

  “I talked with the ME after you called me. They’re getting a quick handle on this virus, Allexa. There are survivors,” Mark said with an air of hope. “Although the virus is fast, about twelve hours, and deadly if you get it, it’s also very hard to become infected. So far it’s hit only small children and those with weak immune systems. How are you feeling right now?” he asked as he listened to my lungs, flashed the pen-light in my eyes and looked down my throat.

  “Other than tired from not sleeping and a headache from worrying, I feel fine,” I answered.

  “No sore throat? Any coughing?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “I would say you escaped catching this nasty bug. You’re very lucky. Maybe next time you won’t be so trusting,” he admonished me as he removed his mask and gloves to prove that he wasn’t concerned with me being contagious.

  May 21

  “We found the family, Allexa,” Karen said. She sat down in my kitchen for a cup of coffee. “We were a bit late tracking them down.”

  “What do you mean ‘late’?” I asked, setting down a plate of scones.

  “The father, Maxwell Johnson, was sitting on the cabin porch with a gun in his lap when we arrived, almost like he was waiting for us. We kept our distance. He knew all along that the baby was dead, and that the boy, Aaron, was really sick. He said he expected the girl to get worse quickly. So he shot the two and buried all three children while his wife was asleep,” Karen said matter-of-factly. “The two older children were his from a previous marriage, but the baby was Lydia’s first child. He also knew that Lydia was well past the curve of sanity over the baby, so he killed her too. Right after he told us all that, he shot himself.”

  I was stunned at the news, although not really surprised. The world had indeed gone insane.

  CHAPTER 8

  May 22

  It was my day to see John and Sven for their massages. I needed his comfort, however, I just couldn’t tell him about the recent events involving being exposed to the flu. So I kept it to myself, like I did so much.

  It had only been a week, and it was good to see John, until I remembered I was mad at him for covertly deciding on all these building projects without discussing them with me first. I set my massage table up in the open hall, just like I’d been doing for almost two years, and waited, quietly seething. When he came around the corner, his face split with a genuine smile, and then it froze when he saw I was angry. Instinctively, he must have known the source of my ire.

  “Honey, I wanted to surprise you,” he pleaded as he enveloped me with his muscular arms. “And yes, I also knew you would protest.” He looked around and, seeing we were alone in the room, he gently kissed me. That’s all it took for me to forgive him.

  “The plans really are incredible and Jason already has the footings in,” I said as I spread some oil on his back and began to knead his tight muscles. “I’ve got some of the plants set in the garden too, mostly they’re just acclimating to being outside.” I told him about what I had planted, and intentionally left out any details about the pile of wood that was dwindling steadily.

  When the hour was over, John laid some cash down on the side table.

  “I don’t feel right about you paying me, John, you’re already doing way too much for me as it is!” I folded the table and put it back in its black canvas carrier.

  “This is your work, Allex. You work – you get paid, simple and no arguments.” He was quite adamant, so I folded the cash and slipped it into my pocket. The Resort hadn’t started up yet, and I did still have expenses, especially with gas at $20.00 per gallon. John carried the table to the car for me and loaded it in the back.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and he slid his around my waist. It was our hug time, just like always.

  “Next week is shift change,” he reminded me. “Can you pick me up around nine in the morning?”

  May 23

  The morning began with clear blue skies and just a hint of coolness that was refreshing to work in.

  The garden called to me. I took the hoe from its corner in the barn and worked on the first row, digging away at the weeds that were already starting to grow. I still needed the markers to show me where some of the rows were. The beans and peas had popped through the soil and were starting on their second and third leaves already so they were easy to work around.

  By noon, I had half the garden done. I also felt a new chill in the air and noticed some dark clouds forming over Lake Superior. We needed the rain. With such deep, sandy soil that drained away quickly, we always needed the rain.

  Jason had come by yesterday and showed Eric how to put the gutters and drain spouts back up on the barn eaves, and together they turned the cistern over and readied it for summer usage. If these distant clouds did produce rain for us, at least we could start collecting again.

  Within minutes, the sky turned very dark and I felt a few drops of cold rain hit my face. The gray and black clouds were roiling low overhead. Just as I was putting the hoe away, there was an earsplitting crack of thunder simultaneous to a jagged streak of lightning and the sky poured out hail. Large, icy balls the size of quarters pounded the ground, bouncing in all directions. It was stunning in its beauty and fury and I stood just inside the barn, mesmerized, as a thick carpet of ice started forming. From inside the metal barn, the noise was deafening and I pulled myself out of my reverie when I realized that ice was pounding away at the tender seedlings in my garden!

  I grabbed a tarp and headed out into the downpour, quickly covering my head from the onslaught. Ice beat down on my arms, stinging the exposed flesh with every strike.

  My tray of unplanted seedlings was taking a beating. I covered them with the tarp while dragging them closer to the plants already in the ground. The ten by twelve foot plastic tarp didn’t cover much. I squatted next to a tomato cage, pulling the tray closer and trying to spread the covering to protect more ground. The hail continued to pound on my back the whole time.

  It was over in minutes. I stood, shook the ice off the tarp, and surveyed the loss. Stunned was the only word that fit. The hail storm had lasted maybe five minutes, however, the destruction wiped out two weeks of new plant growth, eighty percent of the newly planted seedlings, and weeks of work.

  * * *

  “Mom! Mom! Where are you?” Eric yelled as he came running across the road.

  “In the garden,” I called out.

  He came to a halt at the fence and just stared at all the ice, piled up like small Ping-Pong balls. The winds had come out of the north, depositing much of the hail along the inside of the southern fence line.

  He stepped carefully around the damaged plants. “I’ve never seen hail this big.”“Me neither,” I sighed.

  “What are we going to do?” he said as it sunk in what this meant.

  “We’re going to replant, that’s what. First we’re going to get this ice off the plants so it doesn’t give them freezer burn,” I said with a confidence I really didn’t feel, and we started raking the balls of ice away from the damaged plants, piling them in the pathways.

  “I have an idea, Mom, but it has t
o be done quickly and it won’t wait until tomorrow.”

  Eric was trying to splice and tape some of the plants he felt might survive. The idea he came up with didn’t surprise me, but it did impress me. He took a Master Gardening class in Florida and although some things were different here because of the climate, some things just don’t change.

  He set the pile of sticks he collected to one side, most of them about two feet long.

  “I’ve heard this works, Mom, and now is a good time to try it out.”

  He started to break some of the long sticks into six inch pieces. Very gently he straightened out some of the broken tomato plants and splinted them in place with two sticks and wrapped it with some of my plant tape, then loosely tied the entire plant to one of the longer sticks he shoved into the ground, propping it up.

  “If the outer cambium layer is still partially intact it will continue to feed the plant from the roots, growing and healing the broken layers,” Eric said. “At least that’s the theory. It’s worth a shot.”

  He managed to repair ten of the plants. Whether or not they survived was the question we wouldn’t have an answer to for at least a week.

  JOURNAL ENTRY: May 24

  With the temperature back into the low eighties, the hail from yesterday has completely melted and now I need to fix the damage done and replant what I can.

  My back is sore and bruised from the hail stones. My arms are worse. I never thought hail could be sharp, but it is and I have small cuts and large black and blue bruises everywhere there was exposed flesh.

  I hurt, but the work still needs to be done.

  * * *

  I planted two more rows of beans in and around the sprouts that were broken and still alive. Beans are very hardy, even so I lost a lot. The tomato and pepper plants took the biggest hit. Of the three dozen I grew indoors, I had already planted twenty of them, only the six I managed to protect are left, plus what was in the tray. Fourteen irreplaceable food sources are gone unless Eric’s quick thinking works.

  Had this been another time, I would have just gone to the nursery and bought more. There is no nursery now; it’s one of those businesses that have remained closed. These twenty-two plants will have to be tended carefully and guarded. Hopefully they will produce well.

  The only fortunate part was many of the seeds had not come up yet, so they were saved from the brutality that befell the rest of the garden. The sprouted seeds that were destroyed are fast growers so a replanting will still give us a crop. Using extra seed could hurt us in the long run though. I’ll have to designate a few extra plants for saving seed to replace the additional used.

  I suppose I should go into town and see how Bradley’s Backyard fared, however I need to tend my own first.

  May 25

  “What hail storm?” Anna asked, looking bewildered.

  “Two days ago, Anna! Quarter sized hail! Are you saying you didn’t get that here? You’re only five miles from me.” I sat down abruptly. “That’s amazing. My garden was severely damaged and you’re telling me that Bradley’s Backyard just got a light watering?”

  “That’s all, Allexa. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that it hasn’t been planted yet. The town is going to depend on the food that the community garden produces.” She looked away, embarrassed by what she just said. I depend on what I grow too.

  “Don’t worry about it, Anna. I did get to replant some of it. We’ll be fine.” I hope.

  Maybe it wasn’t so strange after all that Moose Creek didn’t get any hail. The wind currents from Lake Superior shifted directions and changed all the time. During the winter there might be a heavy squall of snow just down the road and I would only be getting flurries. The Big Lake was something we just couldn’t second guess.

  We needed to plant more and there was only so much room in my garden space. Maybe Eric could clear away some of Nancy’s flowers and plant something over there.

  JOURNAL ENTRY: May 28

  This week has really passed quickly. I’ve finished getting the remaining plants in the garden, and have delighted in seeing more new green sprouts everywhere. The green beans I covered and saved from the hail damage are now 4” high, while the special red foot long beans I bought last fall have barely broken ground. The heirloom honey and cream corn was well soaked before going in the ground, so it only took a week for it to come up and the rows are so obvious now, I can take down the yellow marker tape. The last minute decision to put in potatoes has paid off with new leaves pushing up. Each day there’s something new to see, and it always makes me smile in spite of how much was lost.

  I picked John up at 9:00 A.M. so we could spend some time together before he reported back for his change to night shift. It’s only for a few hours, but it’s better than nothing and I’m anxious for him to see the progress Jason has made.

  * * *

  John wanted to see the garden first and it gave me a good way to break the news to him about how much we lost.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner about this, Allex?”

  “It happened right after the last time I was over to Eagle Beach. There wasn’t any reason to call and burden you with the news,” I said. “Besides, there wasn’t anything you could do and I’ve managed to get everything replanted.” He looked really concerned.

  “Don’t worry, we will have enough.”

  * * *

  John was impressed with Jason’s progress. “This is incredible, Jason, you work really fast.” The footings cured quickly in the dry heat, allowing Jason to start on the walls as soon as the lumber arrived. Most construction yards in the area had been very slow, so they filled the order within a few days. The outside walls were only four feet high to allow the steep pitch of the glass roof.

  “Once the walls were up and insulated I installed the plumbing,” Jason said. “The floor is in removable segments in case we have to get to the pipes for some reason. And everything is raised on triple joists to hold the weight of soil and the fish tank. You can see the markings on the floor of where things are going to go, John. What do you think?”

  “It’s really amazing, Jason,” John repeated. “I’m impressed.”

  “It won’t take long to finish once I can get the glass. I’m having trouble finding a local glass company that’s still in business. What I would like are long, triple paned sheets of glass. Each one to be two feet wide by four feet long and there needs to be a lot of them. I think it’s safer to have lots of smaller sections in case something breaks. Like I said, I’m not having much luck, so I might have to rethink this.”

  Jason had already explained this to me, nevertheless, he delighted in rehashing it with John. It’s a guy thing, I think.

  “I’ll build the growing boxes in place next, while I’m thinking out the glass thing. Each box will be high enough for working in while standing up, almost level to the exterior walls, with lots of storage underneath.” He pulled out the rumpled blueprints to show John. “All the solar equipment has arrived, including the batteries, however, I won’t put it in until after the place is weather tight. Since wiring is next on the agenda, I might ask Eric to build the boxes. The fish tank should be here tomorrow.” He made it sound like a big aquarium when it was actually a five hundred gallon pond.

  I was really proud of what Jason had accomplished, and in such a short time. John was astounded.

  “Oh, and the deck is done,” he announced proudly as he led us around the back of the house to show John the new roof. “Eric and I worked at the supports and trusses. That took two days, and then I left Eric to do all the panels on his own while I kept on the greenhouse.” The roof made me smile. Following the lines of the house pitch, the new roof sloped over the deck, hot tub and generator, and extended two feet over the edge. The opaque white panels allowed the sun to shine through and seemed to enhance the light.

  I nudged John and said, “No more shoveling the generator out from under a foot of snow.” He grinned.

  “What about the exhaust from
the gennie?” John asked.

  “It’s vented over here,” Jason said. “I attached a dryer hose to the muffler, reduced it to a PVC pipe, and it goes up here and out the roof.” He tapped the white plastic pipe in the corner. John nodded in appreciation. We talked more about the project, and then Jason said he had some things to do at home and left. This was prearranged. John would be here today for only a few hours and I wanted some private time with him, so I had asked Jason to take the afternoon off.

  3:00 P.M. came way too quickly, and I took John back to Eagle Beach so he could change and catch a ride with the guys back to the mine for their late shift. I would see him in another week for his regular massage.

  It surprised me that he didn’t notice the pile of firewood was almost gone.

  CHAPTER 9

  May 29

  I had managed to do that last load of wood with very little help from either Eric or Jason, and without so much as a splinter, until today. I had nosed the wheelbarrow into the woodshed to unload, and stepped around it to start stacking, when my shoe caught on some bark debris. I tripped, bouncing off the stacked wood and falling against the sharp metal rails that hold the wheel on the cart.

  The gash on my left shin was pretty bad and I couldn’t ignore the severity of it when I saw blood welling from the new wound. It wasn’t long, moments really, and the blood started to run down my leg, soaking my foot and the bark chips. I limped into the house, leaving a trail of large red drops across the kitchen floor as I headed to the bathroom. I grabbed a couple of clean rags from under the sink, and then set my leg on the edge of the marble basin where I could wash it with the cool running water. It was really bad and wouldn’t stop bleeding. I sighed with impatience at the thought of having to seek medical help. I wrapped the rag towels around my shin, securing them with an elastic bandage, and grabbed my wallet and keys. As I headed to the door, I stopped long enough to get one of the few plastic garbage bags I had left. I wasn’t about to get my shiny new car all bloody. I hoped the new doctor was in his office. Sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, I pulled the plastic bag over my foot and up to my knee before getting fully in, thinking that should contain any wayward droplets.