Decisions had been made by everyone who had left that place and equally so by the rest of them as well. None of them were easy, but Mia knew each was completely necessary in order for them to survive. When the human race was faced with big moments, it was in their nature to make big decisions.
“I think the highway is actually just over this ridge,” Stuart called out from the front of the group, one of the five who had left the small village below the airport. He gripped a map in his hands which he showed to Ethan, the two of them deliberating over it for a few minutes.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s far off,” Ethan agreed. “We can get up and over in an hour if we power through.”
Jesse—one of the young college students—laughed. “I hear that,” he remarked, nudging Miles, Ethan’s son, in the ribs. “You up for a race, kiddo?”
“Yeah!” Miles was bouncing up and down in a second, raring to go as he egged on Allie and Billy as well. Jesse, Jadon, and Marcus had been doing an incredible job looking after the three children, taking on the task and entertaining them throughout the walk. All the adults were incredibly grateful for it. It was draining enough being in their situation without having to worry about the wellbeing of children as well.
“Can we, Dad?” Miles continued, jogging on the spot as he sized up the hill ahead of them. There was no chance the children would be able to run all the way up, yet no one could deny them the opportunity to try.
“Be my guest,” Ethan laughed. “I’ll give you ten dollars if you can make it all the way to the top without stopping.”
“Game on,” Miles grinned. “Are you guys coming as well?”
Allie looked to her father for confirmation, while Billy looked up at Deb and Stuart, both his parents now absent from his life. None of the children were more than eleven years old—Miles the eldest among them—and yet since everything happened, they all seemed so independent and mature. They were holding themselves together better than Mia would have ever imagined, something she was incredibly grateful for.
“Go on,” Deb encouraged them all. “We’ll see you up there.”
“Come on then,” Jesse hollered, he, Marcus, and Jadon all cheering the children forward. “Three… two… one… Go!”
At his word, all six of them took off, Corker the dog chasing after them without a care in the world. The rest of the group stopped and applauded behind them for a few seconds, pleased to see their children so happy. It was nice to find small moments of joy amongst all the sadness and horror. None of them could even breathe without tasting a note of ash or smoke in the air, their lungs protesting with every breath and yet, the kids were sprinting full tilt uphill just for the fun of it. As always, there was something truly heartwarming about the innocence of youth.
“We better go up there after them,” Patrick chuckled to himself. “Don’t want to get left behind.” Everyone else laughed and started walking again, pacing up the incline behind their younger counterparts. “It’s nice to see a smile on her face again,” Patrick said in a lower voice to Mia once they were into their stride. “I’ve missed that.”
“I know what you mean,” Mia replied. “I wish life were still that simple.”
“You miss your family, huh?”
Mia nodded. “So much. I’m just worried about them. I know they can all look after themselves, but it bothers me that I don’t know what they know. Like, I have no idea what the effects of the eruption are over there. I don’t even know whether they know that a volcano has erupted or not! It’s driving me crazy trying to guess at their situation, and even crazier knowing that I won’t be back there for weeks. I just don’t like being so out of the loop.”
“I get that,” Patrick replied softly. “My wife was like that. She always had to be in control, always had to know what was going on. Take it from someone who was a part of it every single day: the people you’re worried about can survive without you. Sometimes they’re forced to,” he added after a pause.
“I’m sorry,” Mia spoke. “I didn’t mean to make you think of her.”
Patrick laughed. “Last time I checked, Mia, you couldn’t control what I thought about. Besides, I’m going to have to get used to it. She’s not coming back. No matter how much I want it.”
Mia looked down for a second, feeling guilty for reminding Patrick of what he had lost, even though he was right in telling her that she couldn’t control it. It was merely a fact of their journey now that everything they did or said would likely remind someone of something horrible that had happened. If Mia thought of everything they had been through already, there wasn’t more than half an hour which passed without drama. That was her life now, one she was going to have to get used to quicker than she was doing.
As the incline of the hill became steeper, the conversation ended between the adults. The children stopped running and sank back onto the grassy verge to catch their breath, running with scarves wound around their faces proving more difficult than they’d anticipated. They all stopped for a couple minutes when they grouped up, passing around a few bottles of water and a bag of nuts. Mia had been stern with her rationing at the farmhouse, spending her whole evening sorting through what provisions she could find and allocating them fairly amongst the group.
Once everyone was refreshed the walk continued, the summit finally in sight. It was a welcome relief to slam their boots down at the top, the grassy verge no longer expanding out ahead of them. Instead, the sight down below was exactly what Mia had hoped for. A clear highway. Route 90. Their ticket out of the smoky valleys and toward what was hopefully still a coast of thriving cities. Starting with Seattle.
“Yes!” Jadon celebrated, punching the air and then fist-bumping Marcus and Jesse. “And there are cars down there. We’ve nailed this!”
“Awesome,” Marcus joined in with the cheer, clapping his friend on the back and high-fiving Billy, Miles, and Allie in turn. “Well done, guys.”
“Those cars better work,” Stuart mumbled under his breath. “That was exhausting.”
Mia looked over at Stuart to see the man gasping for air. He didn’t look particularly healthy, red-faced and his chest heaving up and down like he’d just ran a marathon. It hadn’t been easy going walking up the hill, but no one else seemed to be as strained by it all. A shred of worry crossed Mia’s mind. What if there was something else that was making Stuart feel under the weather? He was one of the strongest members of the group and they couldn’t afford to lose him. Crossing her fingers, Mia willed a speedy recovery for the large man.
“They’ll work,” Mia said determinedly as she started striding down the other side of the hill toward the road. “They have to,” she murmured under her breath so only she could hear it. Her whole plan hinged on them getting a couple of cars up and running. There were twelve of them in total, so they needed at least two cars. Even then that would be a bit of a squeeze, making three working vehicles preferable.
Mia tried not to think of what they would find in the cars as they neared them. There was one that was completely rolled over, lying on its roof with the windows smashed out. Shaking her head, Mia tried to not think what had caused the accident. What effects of the eruption would’ve been seen on this stretch of road? What reaction would the driver have had to it all?
They weren’t questions she needed answers to. The driver was perfectly visible still buckled into the chair, a middle-aged gentlemen wearing a casual T-shirt and bomber jacket. The windshield was cracked from the impact of his head hitting it, but that was all the damage his body did. The rest—Mia assumed—had been inflicted by the crash itself, though there was no way to tell how many times the car had rolled before coming to a halt.
Of the other six cars, another three were crashed against each other or against the guardrail of the highway. Of them, two contained bodies. The remaining three seemed to be in working condition, their drivers and passengers nowhere to be seen. Like everyone else in the group, Mia naturally gravitated toward these empty cars. Ethan, Deb, an
d Stuart took the children away this time, none of them wanting the kids to see what was trapped inside the majority of vehicles. It was impossible to avoid, really—even if their intentions were good. If they could be protected in any way, everyone was willing to try and make it happen.
“Okay,” Patrick clapped his hands as he stood beside one of the vacant cars with Mia, Jorge, Jesse, Marcus, and Jadon surrounding him. “Let’s hope all three of these work. Look here and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Patrick previously mentioned on the walk that he knew how to hotwire a car, so everyone else gathered around to watch him demonstrate. Mia was both impressed and surprised that he knew how to do it, Jadon asking the father where he’d learned it and receiving only a wink in response. It looked remarkably easy and within minutes, Patrick had the first car—a five-seater Mazda CX-5—up and running. The vehicle looked to be fairly new, the interior in incredibly good condition and thankfully, the tank was almost completely full of gas.
“Everyone got it?” Patrick asked, smiling at the look on people’s faces at what he’d just done. He knew he wasn’t the type of guy who should have that skill, but everyone had their secrets and their own pasts. He was happy to keep his fairly close to his chest and keep everyone guessing about where he’d learned to hotwire a car.
Mia was certainly doing that. But however much she wanted to know Patrick’s secret, she was more grateful that he was around and had been able to help them. Without him, she wasn’t sure what they would’ve done. As the three boys and Jorge went off in pairs to attempt the other undamaged cars, Mia locked eyes with Patrick again. It was all well and good hotwiring the working cars and filling them, but they had been abandoned for a reason. The road was blocked and in order to drive away, they would need to unblock it. To do that, they would need to move more than the cars. They’d need to move the bodies as well.
Chapter 3
Hanging his head, Michael slowly made his way back to his home, where his mother and Angelica waited. Hardly any of his skin was exposed as he walked, the wind buffeting against his body and the murky cloud almost surrounding him, it was now so low. He could practically see the dirt and grime floating through the air in front of his face, his nose and mouth completely covered to protect him from inhaling the toxic dust. After the day he’d had, he just wanted to get inside, let his head hit the pillow, and conk out.
Lizzie had died. It was the third day since Mia and everyone had left the village, and every morning since, Michael had been going to visit Lizzie to check up on her. It had been obvious from the second he saw her on the day everyone left. She was incredibly sick, her face a deathly white and her skin wet and clammy from sweat. He was impressed she’d managed to hide it so well when everyone else was around—the wonders of makeup able to do incredible things, she had told him with a smile.
The poor woman had barely been holding on when Michael had arrived that morning. She could hardly breathe, her voice coming out as nothing more than a whisper when she tried to speak and her voice box failed her. Michael could tell she was in a great deal of pain too, something he hated to see happen to a woman as sweet as she. Lizzie had never hurt a fly. She was an innocent woman; not the brightest of sparks, but she cared deeply for those around her and that was what people admired most about her.
That was perhaps why it hadn’t come as such a surprise to Michael to learn what had happened to her son Billy. It was obvious that he was the most important thing in the world to Lizzie. She lit up when he was around and naturally Lizzie wanted to protect him. When Michael thought of his own children, he knew Lizzie had done the right thing.
Michael, on the other hand, still couldn’t decide whether he had. He didn’t feel ill at all yet, but they were rapidly running out of clean water and he was sure his lungs were at least slightly damaged by the air. His mother wasn’t getting any better either and life in the village felt different; everyone was aware that there was an expiration date on their time there.
Outside of the village, though, life could and would carry on. In Portland, his kids were weathering the storm without him and now they would be forced to weather the rest of their lives that way too. He had taken the luxury of a father away from them and only now that his decision was final was Michael slowly starting to regret it. Talking to Lizzie had made him see that. Children were the greatest joy a parent was ever granted. How could he have been so stupid as to throw that away?
“I’m back, Mom!” Michael called out as he entered his home again, immediately seeing the front room was empty. He eyed the couch and desperately wanted to collapse onto it, his devotion to his mother the only thing stopping him. “How’re you doing?” He asked sweetly as he walked into the back bedroom where his mother lived. She hadn’t left the room in what had to be close to five years now.
“Mike,” his mother croaked, her voice sounding hoarse and painful, much like Lizzie’s had. “How is she?”
Michael’s head dropped again, afraid of uttering the words out loud. “She’s dead, Mom. She died about an hour ago.”
“Oh, Mike.” The old woman shook her head, reaching out with her right arm and beckoning her son to her. “I’m sure you did everything you could.”
Michael nodded, wincing slightly as he heard his mother’s voice. She seemed to be croaking just like Lizzie had, a strange phenomenon when one considered the fact that she hadn’t been outside in years. Was there a way that the air was getting into the house too? Should they be covering their mouths all the time? Michael worried too much that he didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know nearly enough about what was going on to protect his mother properly. He’d stayed behind to try and save her and only now was he realizing that wasn’t possible.
“Do you think I made the right choice, Mom?” Michael asked out of the blue, the question of his decision to stay behind tormenting him more than it ever had done before. “Do you think I should’ve stayed?”
“Michael Aaron Browne,” his mother smiled, “you know I think you made the wrong decision. I think you should’ve left with that woman, just like I told you to do. I think you’re a fool for staying behind. A wonderful, incredible fool.”
“Mom,” Michael moaned, his cheeks flushing a slight shade of pink at his mother’s words. “Don’t tell me that.”
“Michael,” his mother coughed, trying to push her body more upright in her bed and failing completely. “You know how much I appreciate you staying here,” she paused to cough again, her whole body shaking as she did so. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t think you made the wrong decision. You could have had a life with your children. I’ve already had mine. What kind of a mother would I be if I was happy about you throwing your future away?”
“I can’t abandon you, Mom,” Michael argued. “I won’t do that to you again.”
“You’re not abandoning me, sweetheart. This is different, don’t you see that? You can’t keep living your life in your father’s shadow—or Angelica’s. Those men have both done enough damage to this family already. Now is your chance to do something good.”
Michael didn’t say anything, letting his mother’s words truly sink in. He hadn’t listened to her before and now he felt like he was being given a second chance. But was it too late? Mia and her group were long gone by now and he didn’t have the knowledge or skill set they seemed to possess. If he set out on his own for Portland, would he even be able to make it?
“I don’t know,” Michael pinched the bridge of his nose in thought. “It just doesn’t feel right leaving you.”
“Listen,” Michael’s mother took her son’s hand in her own, holding it as tightly as she could manage. “I think my time is up anyway. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I think I’m ready. I’m ready to die.”
“Mom, what the…? No!” Michael was speechless, unable to believe what he’d just heard his mother say. “That’s ridiculous,” he argued. “You can’t…”
“Michael,” she interrupted, her
voice sounding strained but serious. “Think about it rationally. At best, I’ve got a couple of weeks left. At worst, it could be tomorrow. It was how I felt even before all this mess happened with the volcano. I was going to tell you and Angie when you both got back from work. I want to die on my own terms. I’m ready.”
“This is ridiculous.” Michael sank into the chair beside his mother’s bed. “I won’t let this happen.”
“You don’t have a choice,” his mother smiled. “And Angelica agrees with me.”
“What?” Michael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Surely his sister couldn’t be on board with this. “Where is she?”
“She’s gone to see Tom; he’s got something that’ll do it.”
Michael felt a sudden sob get caught in his throat. Tom kept horses. He had drugs that were designed to put them to sleep when they got lame or no longer had any use to him. He raced them in the summer, heading out to events all across the country. It was weird, in a way, that he always came back to the village. Everyone knew he had the money to move away and live a very different life if he wanted to, but he always chose to come home. In that moment, Michael wished that Tom had left years ago. If Angelica had gone to get the drugs from Tom, then that truly meant that his mother’s mind was made up. She wanted to die. As if the timing couldn’t be any better, Angelica chose his exact moment of realization to return home.
“Mom?”
Michael heard his sister’s voice come from the front of the house, muffled thanks to the bedroom door having swung closed as it always did. Seconds later it was opening, revealing Angelica and Tom, the abettor standing awkwardly by her side.
“Hi, Dawn,” Tom smiled, “you all right?”
“No need for pleasantries,” Michael’s mom cut the chat short. “We all know what we’re here to do.”
“Mom, please,” Michael pleaded. “Can we talk about this first?”
Escaping Darkness (Book 3): Landslide Page 2
