Chase locked eyes with his grandfather, seeing the old man shake his head slightly as he held his wife in his arms. Chase could understand what he was indicating. Grandma needed time, but if this had made Chase realize one thing, it was that they didn’t have very much of it left. Pop did his best to stifle a cough as he stood in the doorway with his wife, making his body shudder slightly. Looking at both of his grandparents, Chase was more resolved than ever. They needed time, but that wasn’t a luxury they could just wait around for.
“Come on, love,” Pop whispered to Linda as he tried to start walking her out of the bedroom. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Looking up at her husband, Linda didn’t have the energy to argue with him. It was late and darkness had fallen outside several hours ago. In fact, daylight was something she couldn’t remember seeing for a good few days now, which only made their situation seem even bleaker. Surrendering, she let Jerry lead her away from Riley’s bedroom and down the hall to their own.
“What are we going to do?” Riley asked after her grandparents had closed their bedroom door. She was still in shock over what had happened, but like Chase, she knew they couldn’t just leave things as they were for very long. They would have to try and fix her bedroom. But how?
“I don’t know,” Chase replied honestly. “We’ll figure something out though; we always do.”
As he lay in bed that night, Chase desperately tried to work out a way to solve their problem. He didn’t think the construction was too far out of their capabilities. In an ideal world he would’ve had a few of his friends to help out with it—or in a really ideal world, his father—but Chase knew it was still possible. Pop had years of construction experience under his belt from his time running the farm and Riley was quick to pick things up. He wasn’t sure what Linda could offer, but he was positive that if they all worked together, they could get the wall and the roof fixed up in a half-decent manner.
The bigger problem that Chase worried about was where they would get the supplies. Realistically, they could salvage enough from the barn. It was only the cows that needed that shelter now, so they could tear it down and use it to re-build the farmhouse instead. Tossing and turning all night, Chase found himself coming up with several ideas but finding more and more faults with each of them. By morning, he was tired and grumpy, but equally as determined to fix things. This was his family and he wasn’t going to let another setback get in their way.
By the next morning, Linda was feeling more relaxed. Meaning she didn’t feel like she was on the verge of a panic attack any more. Jerry had kept her awake half the night with his coughing, which only added more stress to her plate. She couldn’t deal with him getting ill now, so for her sanity’s sake she desperately hoped that he would make a miraculous recovery somehow.
She left him in bed to sleep a little longer as she padded downstairs. The breeze that swept under Riley’s old bedroom door was unavoidable, causing her to shiver in her bathrobe. The doors to both Riley’s new room and Chase’s were already open, revealing that her grandchildren were downstairs before she reached the kitchen herself.
“Morning, Grandma,” Chase smiled as she walked into the kitchen. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m all right thank you, dear. Are you both okay? Sleep well?”
“Yeah,” Chase answered for the both of them, looking to his sister out of the corner of his eye cautiously. He knew she hadn’t slept well. Being in the bed that their parents used to share had brought back many uncomfortable memories for Riley and when Chase had eventually come downstairs at quarter past five, he’d found Riley already down there reading a book. They’d both spoken about it and he was hopeful that he’d made his sister feel better. If not, they’d both agreed at least not to tell their grandmother. She was working herself up into a state already over what had happened in Riley’s bedroom. She didn’t need anything else to worry about.
“Are you hungry, Grandma?” Riley piped up, walking forward and taking her grandma’s hand to pull her over to the table. “We’ve made banana pancakes.”
“Ooh, wonderful,” Linda smiled. “Yes please.”
Chase dutifully rose from his seat, offering it to his grandmother while he went to fetch her a plate. They had both decided to treat themselves after a couple of rough nights’ sleep and so not only were there banana pancakes aplenty, but chocolate sprinkles and maple syrup as well. Riley—who had declared herself chief rations officer during their disaster—had declared that both were necessary breakfast additions and Chase hadn’t even tried to argue.
“Where’s Pop?” Chase asked as he served his grandma, moving around to the other side of the table to sit opposite her, beside Riley.
“Oh, I left him in bed,” Linda replied. “I think he needed a few extra minutes.”
“Is he feeling okay?”
“As far as I know,” Linda nodded. “I’d hope he’d tell me if not, but you never know with your grandfather.”
“His cough was pretty bad yesterday,” Chase admitted awkwardly, remembering the support he’d had to offer his grandfather before heading out to find a way to board up the hole. He almost couldn’t believe that less than half a day ago, the problem had been so small. That tiny hole which they’d thought was the end of the world would be a joy to deal with now. Chase wished he’d never found the tarp in the barn after all.
“I know,” Linda pursed her lips. “He was coughing all through the night too. I’m hoping it’s just a bad spell while the weather is chilly.”
“I’m sure,” Chase replied, though he was still uncertain about his grandfather’s health. “That’s something we definitely need to address though. No one is going to get any healthier until we’ve fixed the hole in Riley’s room.”
“Do you really think we can do it ourselves?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Chase replied matter-of-factly to his grandma. “No one is going to come out and do it for us. I think we can. If we find the right equipment and get a lucky break with the weather. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Okay,” Linda nodded, admiring the determination of her grandson. “But what do we need?”
Just under an hour later, the four of them were sitting upstairs in the den preparing for Chase to go over his plans. He’d thought them through very carefully in the early hours of the morning, running the information past Riley to see what she thought as well. Then during the drawn-out hours of eating breakfast, he’d snuck outside to the barn to see what supplies lay inside and what they could do to fix up the roof. He knew he wasn’t necessarily the expert in the matter, but he’d come to a conclusion and he was fairly certain it was the only option. Now he just needed to break it to the rest of his family.
“I need to go out,” he started, drawing confused expressions from everyone in the room. That hadn’t been the decisive start to his explanation that he’d planned. Shaking his head, Chase began again.
“We need things to rebuild the roof that we just don’t have here,” he explained. “There’s a hardware store not that far north of here, isn’t there? I think I can be there and back in a day and get everything we need.”
“Chase,” Jerry started to reply, already shaking his head. “That is out of the question. You can’t seriously be suggesting you leave the house?”
“I don’t see any other option, Pop,” Chase argued back. “We can’t keep living here with the roof falling down and there isn’t enough stuff in the barn to rebuild.”
“What if we took part of the barn down?” Jerry questioned, thinking things through as he spoke. “There are only the cows in there now. They don’t really need...”
“I already thought of that,” Chase cut in. “And I went out there to check this morning. There just isn’t enough, Pop. We need several support beams and I’m thinking corrugated metal sheeting for the actual roof? It’s lightweight, so it’ll be easier to put on, and also the design of it will mean the rainwater can easily run off of it too. We don’t have that sor
t of stuff out in the barn. I need to go and pick it up from somewhere.”
“But the hardware store is miles away,” Linda complained, dead set against her grandson leaving the farmhouse. She had felt like she’d lost him and Jerry once already during the storm, when Chase went outside to search for her confused husband. She couldn’t feel that again.
“It’s not, Grandma,” Chase shook his head. “I’ve checked the maps. I can definitely be there and back in a day. Look,” he paused, “I know neither of you like the sound of this, but I really do think it’s the only option. If we want to be able to stay here indefinitely through this nightmare, this is something that I need to do.”
Linda looked at her husband. She could see Jerry weighing the options in his head, trying to determine if there was a way that it was possible for Chase not to have to leave. She was trying to work it out too, but no matter how she thought about it, it seemed Chase had already covered that area. He had arguments for everything and she had to give it to the boy, he was unwavering in his decision to get out of the house and get them the supplies they needed.
“You’re sure you can be there and back in a day?” Pop questioned, uttering the words that made Linda realize he hadn’t been able to come up with another option either. She was about to lose her grandson again and the thought of it was already tearing her apart inside. She couldn’t bear to watch him go, even if deep down she knew it was the right thing to do.
“I’m sure of it,” Chase nodded, a faint smile creeping onto his face as he understood he’d won his grandparents over. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Okay,” Pop sighed. “Not today though. Tomorrow. I want to make sure you’re as prepared as possible for this journey. I want to go over every tiny detail with you.”
“Me too.”
Three pairs of eyes swung over to Riley, the young girl not having said anything throughout the rest of their discussion until that very moment. She looked at everyone innocently in turn, her young face not giving away whatever she was thinking.
“You’ll have to go over the details with me too, Pop,” she continued. “If Chase is going, I’m going with him.”
Chapter 10
“Holy cow,” Miles breathed. “So we’re all basically gonna die? What’s that about, man?”
“You’re not going to die,” Mia reiterated, trying to calm the people around her. Everyone from the village aside from Michael’s mother, Kim, who looked after the old lady, and Angelica were now present. Everyone who was still alive, at least. They crowded around Mia like vultures pecking at a piece of carrion, each one of them vying for information.
“All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t stay here for very long,” Mia continued. “The air is dangerous. Please,” Mia paused, pointing at Brady, “cover your mouth and nose!”
“I’m sorry, lady,” Brady remarked, tugging the collar of his shirt up over his mouth in a halfhearted manner. “But who are you to tell us that we can’t stay here anymore?”
Mia sighed. This wasn’t the reaction she had expected. Everyone else was panicking and grieving, their village destroyed by the lahars, and their friends and family killed. And yet, there was still someone who was willing to argue, just for the very sake of it.
“Your water source is contaminated,” she stated firmly, not a single soul around her daring to open their mouths as she explained. “Not just from the lahars which flooded this place, but from the volcanic ash cloud which is hanging above us as we speak.” Heads tilted upwards to look at the sky as Mia instructed, each person acknowledging the dark mass that floated above them.
“The ash must have settled on your reservoir, polluting the water and filling it with toxins which are extremely harmful to ingest.” Mia continued, aware that she finally had everyone’s full and undivided attention. “These toxins aren’t going to go away after a couple of days. They’ll be around for as long as the cloud is, which realistically could be weeks. Even months.”
Pausing again, Mia locked eyes with Jorge, who had appeared with Billy’s mother a few minutes earlier. It looked like he had done a fine job of consoling her somewhat, though the woman’s eyes were still red and puffy—evidence that she had been crying. “If that wasn’t enough,” she carried on speaking, “there’s the air as well. Surely, you’re already aware that breathing in all of this”—Mia stopped and spread her arms open wide, encompassing the dirty air that surrounded them—“isn’t good for you.”
“But we can’t just leave,” another man—Tom—started to speak, having not even bothered to cover his mouth. “We have families here. Young children and old people. Not everyone is able to travel.”
“That may be the case,” Mia dipped her head slightly in what she hoped was an apologetic motion. “But if you stay here, your odds of survival are low. The body needs clean air and water to survive. Without it our internal organs cannot function for longer than a few days. Drinking dirty water does nothing more than prolong the inevitable. Your organs will keep functioning for longer, but you are likely to contract disease, and when that happens, you’ll wish you hadn’t drunk the water in the first place. Trust me.”
Mia had seen children who were infected after drinking dirty water in various corners of the world. When she visited South Africa to record measurements following a large earthquake, she happened across a group of orphaned children who had become immensely sick from drinking polluted water. Their skin was inflamed and their eyes bulging from their faces. There was no telling what sort of toxins were mixed in with the water when you looked at it, but the after-effects were impossible to avoid. It was devastating—likely the biggest unspoken killer around the world.
“Where will we go?” Deb asked, her small dog now wrapped up in the folds of her coat as Deb tried to stop it from breathing in the contaminated air as well.
“My group will continue to head west to Washington,” Mia answered. “You’re welcome to join us. Or, if any of you have family or friends closer by, I would recommend seeking refuge with them.”
“This is ridiculous,” Brady mumbled off to Mia’s left. “We can’t just evacuate the town on this random woman’s word. None of us even know who she is!”
“Yeah!” Tom agreed, “I don’t want to take orders from some stranger!”
“You can trust Mia,” Michael cut in, doing his best to maintain the peace and stop a riot from breaking out. “She saved us at the airport. She’s only trying to do the same here.”
“So what are you going to do, Mike? Are you going to go with her and leave your mom behind?”
Silence descended on the group at the question, Michael’s face falling. He knew he could never leave his mother behind, but by staying with her in the village was he only condemning both himself and her to death? He did have a family out there that he wanted to see again. He had children that he wanted to watch grow up and a relationship that deep down he’d never completely given up on. But to side with them was to abandon his mother, a choice he hadn’t been able to make all those years ago.
“I’ll do what I think is right for my family,” Michael eventually replied quietly. “I suggest everyone else does the same. I can’t promise you that if we leave this place life will get any easier, but I can promise you that we’ll at least have a chance. Everyone can make his or her own decision. That’s what I will be doing too.”
At the end of his statement, Michael pushed his way out of the center of the crowd and started walking away. Mia presumed he was going back to his mother’s house to check on her and share the news, a horrible burden to carry. She wondered what he would do. Abandoning his mother or saving himself was an impossible decision to make, and one Mia was immensely glad she didn’t have to play any part in.
Following Michael’s departure, other people began to sidle away from the group. The original inhabitants of the town all wandered back to their own homes—or at least the ones that hadn’t been destroyed by the lahars—whispering among themselves about what had happene
d. Five minutes later, only Mia’s group from the airport with the addition of Stuart, Lizzie, Deb, and Ethan remained standing out in the open. The silence hung between them with an increasing amount of pressure woven into it.
“This is a nightmare,” Ethan shook his head, his voice muffled underneath his large coat. “We need to leave—we need to leave now!”
“Slow down, Ethan.” Deb rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s getting too late to be going anywhere else tonight, don’t you think?”
“But we’re all getting infected,” Ethan’s voice rose a notch, fear obviously consuming him. “Nothing here is safe.”
“That’s not strictly true,” Mia interjected. “We can still spend the night here; I think that’s a good idea. Then we can move on in the morning.”
“Are you sure?” Ethan asked, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder. Everyone could see his father’s reaction was increasingly worrying to Miles too and Mia needed to calm things down. Yes, they were all in danger, but so long as they didn’t do anything stupid, they could easily spend the night there. Hopefully the other people within the village would come to their decisions overnight as well, and then they could all get an early start the next morning.
“I can probably squeeze three of you into my place,” Stuart cut in, joining Mia in trying to calm down Ethan and his son. He turned to look at them both, standing beside Lizzie and Deb. “Do you guys have space at yours for the rest?”
“Not a lot of space at mine I’m afraid,” Lizzie quickly interjected. “I can probably only house one.” She smiled at Jorge wryly at the end of her sentence, the Spaniard barely having time to agree before he was whisked away and back into Lizzie’s house.
“I should be able to get you three boys in my place,” Ethan offered, indicating Jadon, Jesse, and Marcus. His voice was still shaking but he sounded less deranged and had a much less worried look on his face. “If you can put Miles up at your place overnight, Deb?”
Escaping Darkness (Book 2): The Cloud Page 7