Escaping Darkness- The Complete Saga

by E S Richards

  “Okay,” Chase sighed eventually. “But you do exactly what I tell you to, got it?”

  “Really?” Riley grinned at her brother, ecstatic that he wasn’t arguing with her being there or trying to take her back home. “Yes, of course, Chase. Thank you!” She flung her arms around her brother from behind him, hugging him tightly against the driver’s seat.

  “All right, all right,” Chase wriggled free. “Get up here in the front with me. You’ve already caused enough trouble back there.”

  Riley laughed. “I’m sorry I scared you, bro.”

  “I could’ve crashed, you know,” Chase replied, his words suddenly much more serious as thoughts of their parents entered both his and Riley’s heads. “Not like that,” he quickly added, seeing his sister’s face fall. “It’s just…we need to be careful. We need to look out for each other and make sure we both stay safe. Okay?”

  “Deal,” Riley nodded. “I’m sorry I jumped out and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was doing this. I just couldn’t stand to be left behind. I can help and I want to prove that.”

  Chase looked at his sister with an understanding gaze and a sympathetic smile. “I know,” he spoke, turning the key in the truck’s ignition again. “I understand how it can be hard sometimes with Grandma. I think she’s just scared.”

  “I get that,” Riley confirmed as Chase pulled the truck off the side of the road and started driving again. “But I think Mom and Dad would’ve let me come with you.”

  “Yeah,” Chase replied after a few seconds. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But you can see why Grandma is nervous about this sort of thing. Especially with Pop being sick at the moment.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Riley agreed. “I wish things didn’t have to be like this. I miss Mom and Dad.”

  “Me too.”

  “Like, Dad would’ve been able to fix my room so easily. And Mom would stop Grandma from freaking out.”

  “What do you think they would’ve said about you sneaking out and coming with me though?”

  “I think Mom would’ve been proud,” Riley smiled. “I think she would’ve told me that girls can do anything that boys can do and that even you know that you need my help.”

  Chase laughed. A real, hearty laugh that he felt in his stomach—something he hadn’t done since they first saw the effects of the eruption. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But Dad would’ve probably wanted you to stay at home too. You know what he was like. He wouldn’t have wanted any harm to come to his little princess.”

  “I wish people didn’t still see me like that,” Riley grumbled, folding her arms and sliding down in the passenger seat slightly. “I’m nearly fourteen now, remember? It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks. I’m not a little kid anymore.”

  “I actually know what you mean,” Chase replied, turning his head briefly to look at his sister. “Sometimes I feel like I’m only being treated the way I am because Mom and Dad are dead. It’s like I gained extra responsibility by default. Doesn’t feel like I earned it.”

  Reaching over, Riley placed a hand on her brother’s arm, drawing his attention away from the road again for a quick second. “I think you have,” she smiled. “You’ve been great since that day. You’ve helped me so much.”

  “Thanks, Riley,” Chase smiled back. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be there for you. If there’s one positive thing that came from that crash, it’s how much closer you and I are. But even still, I just wish…”

  “I get it,” Riley interrupted. “I feel the same way. Obviously, I wish they were still alive, but what I’m saying, Chase, is that since they died, you’ve been great. They’d both be proud of you.”

  “Well, thanks,” Chase repeated. “For what it’s worth, I think they’d both be proud of you too.”

  “Aha, of course,” Riley grinned. “Especially the sneaking out and stowing away in the truck part of things, right?”

  “Exactly,” Chase laughed. “Ah well,” he slowed the truck slightly, peering at a passing sign. “You’ve made it now. Hardware store is the next exit.”

  Riley glanced out of the window just in time, seeing the same sign that Chase had. He was right. The hardware store was less than half a mile away now. They would be there in no time, gathering the supplies they needed. Then it was just a simple drive back to the farmhouse and Riley was certain that once her grandparents saw that both she and Chase were okay, and that they’d gathered all the necessary equipment, they wouldn’t be able to stay mad at her for sneaking off.

  “Here we are,” Chase grinned, revving the engine a couple of times as he pulled into the large parking lot. “Safe and…” His words suddenly failed him. Parking the truck just outside of the main entrance, both Riley and Chase saw that the doors had been smashed in and the windows shattered. The place had been ransacked, items scattering the ground outside among discarded shopping carts and a layer of litter.

  “Oh no,” Riley exclaimed. “What happened?”

  “Looks like the place has been ransacked already,” Chase answered as he switched off the truck’s engine. “Probably by looters. I don’t know how much stuff will still be left inside.”

  “That’s not good,” Riley looked around, a note of fear creeping into her voice. “What do we do if we can’t get everything here?”

  “I don’t know,” Chase shook his head. “It’s not come to that yet. Let’s go and have a look inside. There might still be enough stuff we can use.”

  Following her brother’s lead, Riley jumped out of the truck and opened the rear door, pulling her rucksack out and tugging a Re-Breather over her face just like Chase had. When she’d packed it the night before she had tried to bring equipment with her for any eventuality they might encounter. Sadly, she hadn’t been able to gather much out of the ordinary, meaning her rucksack only contained a few granola bars, a bottle of water, a flashlight, and a notepad and pen.

  Chase watched his sister take the flashlight out of her rucksack and did the same with his own. Despite it being no later than mid-morning, the sun had still failed to make an appearance and the darkness that the ash cloud caused hung low over their heads. They could both see there was no power inside the hardware store either, so they would both need flashlights to see where they were going in there.

  “You ready?”

  “Yeah,” Riley nodded, taking in a deep breath. She knew she couldn’t chicken out of this now. She was the one who had fought to be at the hardware store with Chase. Now she had to deal with her decisions. “Lead the way.”

  Walking in front of his sister, Chase could see that she was frightened. He didn’t blame her though. He could understand exactly why she hid in the truck and exactly why she had wanted to come on the supply run so desperately. He remembered being her age and how difficult it was when you thought of yourself as an adult, but no one else did. Like he’d said to her earlier, he still felt like he was in that stage a bit himself, but no way near as much as Riley must.

  Flicking on his flashlight, Chase stepped into the raided store, his boots crunching on broken glass. “Be careful,” he warned Riley. “Watch your step here.”

  It was his instinct to look out for his sister and something that Chase had always tried to do. He knew just as well as anyone that his level of care for her had increased following the death of his parents. As he’d said to her earlier, it was the one good thing that had come from that crash. Now, as the two of them crept into the abandoned hardware store, Chase was focused on two things: finding the supplies his grandparents needed and keeping his sister safe.

  “What are we looking for?” Riley asked as they started walking down one of the aisles, finding the shelves almost completely bare.

  Chase pulled the handwritten list from his pocket that his grandfather had given him, shining his flashlight on it for a second so he could read and refresh his memory. There were several things that had been written down that Chase hadn’t even recognized initially, meaning his grandfather had to explain th
em further. A month ago he would’ve simply brought up the internet on his cell and done a quick search. How to rebuild a roof had to have thousands of videos and instruction manuals assigned to it—fat lot of good any of them were now. That was yet another thing that Chase needed: an instruction manual. He figured that was probably the best place to start.

  “Over at the back,” he replied eventually. “They normally have those ‘how to’ books stuck to the walls back there.” Chase was basing his assumption off of the couple of trips to the hardware store he’d made with his dad over the years. He definitely remembered them having guides on the back wall the time he’d come before building the treehouse. If they hadn’t been there, his construction project would’ve likely taken a lot longer.

  “Okay,” Riley answered, her voice echoing off the walls due to how empty the store seemed. “If they haven’t been taken like everything else.”

  Chase was trying to stay positive, but he couldn’t deny that his sister sounded right. There was hardly a single nail left behind by the looters who got to the store first. Many days had passed since they first became aware of what had happened; Chase was certain that hundreds if not thousands of people would’ve flooded there in search of supplies. The store was massive. It had everything you needed for rebuilding and repairs, plus gear for hunting, fishing, and outdoor sports. That included camping and hiking gear and even vacuum-packed food and water filtration devices. Chase knew it would’ve been incredibly useful to get in there early on. He and Riley were now left to pick through the scraps that had been overlooked by the masses.

  “Is this what you mean?” Riley asked, standing over a hardcover instruction manual with its covers nailed to a worktop.

  “Yes!” Chase squeezed his hand into a fist, air-pumping it briefly. Truth be told, after seeing the rest of the store, he was almost certain that the books would’ve been taken too. “Nice one, Riley.”

  Riley grinned to herself as she stepped to one side, allowing her brother space to pore over the heavy manual. In the back of her mind, though, she knew it wasn’t enough. They needed more than a book to reconstruct the farmhouse roof, and part of the wall too. Looking around the hardware store, it was obvious to Riley that they just weren’t going to find what they needed there. The place had been stripped down to its very minimum; if they seriously wanted to save their home, the two of them were going to have to go elsewhere.

  “Chase,” Riley started, preparing herself to share her thoughts with her brother.

  “I know, Riley,” he replied before she’d even gotten the rest of her sentence out. “We can’t get what we need here.” Ripping a few pages out of the manual—that, at least, was useful for clearer instructions on what they needed to do—Chase moved to stand by his sister. “What do you think we should do?”

  “Well, we need to get the equipment,” Riley responded in a straightforward manner. “The farmhouse will probably collapse if we don’t do something.”

  “I agree,” Chase nodded. “But you know what that means, don’t you?”

  “We need to try another hardware store?”

  Chase took in a deep breath, placing a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “No, another hardware store won’t be any good. They’ll all be looted just the same as this one. That won’t work.”

  “So where?” Riley asked, a confused expression on her face. She knew they needed supplies, but she couldn’t think of where else they could get them from.

  “The city,” Chase explained solemnly. “We need to go into the city.”

  Chapter 21

  Mia splashed her face with cold water once more, finally looking up at her reflection in the dusty mirror. This was the closest she’d come to washing in days, at least since she had set out that fateful morning to gather more information on Yellowstone. Along with Jorge and Tyler, the three of them had been so unaware of what was to come, believing it was nothing more than just a normal day on site. How wrong they had been.

  She and Tyler had been discussing Mia’s fracking theory on the way up there. The two of them had always been a lot closer than Mia ever had been with Jorge; they were real friends outside of work, not just associates. For the first time since their plane had gone down, she spared a thought for Tyler and his partner back home. Mia had gone to their house for many a barbeque during the summer months, Tyler’s boyfriend always putting out an incredible feast with leftover meat cuts he could scavenge from the restaurant he ran. Mia wondered what Nathaniel was doing now. Whether he had managed to find somewhere safe to outlast the effects of the eruption, or whether he was still sitting at home waiting for Tyler to return.

  Tyler had been on board with Mia’s theory. He was an activist in his spare time, always campaigning for equal rights or for the environment in one way or another. He’d hated fracking ever since it first began and was more than happy to join Mia’s tirade against it, if it was in fact contributing to the increased earthquakes and tremors in the area.

  Because that was all it had been back then. A few small-scale earthquakes or shifts underneath the Earth’s crust. None of them had even considered the fact that it might trigger a supervolcanic eruption; none of them had believed it was possible. In some sense, Tyler being so on board with the fracking theory had dissuaded Mia from it. As a result of how involved he got with environmental tangents—joining rallies and protests in his spare time—she wondered whether he was agreeing with her because he truly believed it, or because he just wanted another reason to hate “the man”.

  It didn’t matter much now, Mia supposed. She still wasn’t any closer to determining whether her theory was correct or not and she doubted she ever would be. The cause of it didn’t really bother her so much anymore. Now that it had really happened, now that Yellowstone had really erupted, the most important thing was surviving it, not working out its origin. She would much rather be reunited with her family and not have a clue why it was going on, than understand everything that was related to the eruption by experiencing it on her own. In a way, the latter was much closer to her current reality.

  Looking at her reflection in the mirror, Mia could see how much she appeared to have aged over the past few days. She was finally approaching forty, but in her opinion, she already looked like she’d passed that milestone several years ago. Scrubbing her face once more, Mia tried to remove the layer of dirt that had built up on her skin. It wasn’t pleasant, but with at least five more people waiting to use the bathroom she was in, she knew she needed to hurry up.

  The decision to stay in the farmhouse hadn’t been taken lightly. Mia had been against it, but based on the fact that they now had three children with them, the general consensus had been it was better for them to rest up overnight—especially seeing as they at least had a roof over their heads. Along with Stuart, Patrick, Jorge, and Jadon, they had moved the bodies of the old farmer and his wife into the basement. It was fairly crude and callous of them, but again, with young children around, they couldn’t think of anywhere else to hide them. They wouldn’t be at the farmhouse for longer than a day, Mia hoped, so the smell hopefully wouldn’t cause too many problems.

  “It’s all yours.” Mia smiled to Patrick as she exited the bathroom, holding the door open for the father to walk inside. Allie trailed in after him, her long hair desperately in need of washing. Mia thought about offering to help Patrick with her, but decided against it. If she’d learned anything about that man, it was that he was strong enough to handle anything. He’d watched his wife and one of his daughters be torn away from him by lahars in the airport; he could certainly handle washing a girl’s hair.

  Making her way downstairs, Mia tried to avoid noticing the similarities between the farmhouse she inhabited now and the one she’d grown up in. The one where—hopefully—her family were all safely waiting for her return. By design, the two buildings weren’t actually very similar, it was just the feelings the place evoked in Mia that felt extremely close. She remembered running through the halls as a child, her mot
her chasing after her as she played with her brother, Brogan. Chase and Riley had continued those games after she herself had grown up and Mia wanted nothing more than to know for certain that that was still the cheerful vibe that filled the farmhouse to that day.

  She had no way of knowing whether her family was safe, but she had faith in each and every one of them. They all brought a different set of skills to the table and, working together, Mia believed there was nothing they couldn’t tackle. As she walked past the front room where Miles, Billy, Stuart, Ethan, and Deb sat, Mia saw visions of her own family positioned in the same way. All they were missing was her, and she knew she would join them eventually.

  Continuing into the kitchen where they had originally found the dead homeowners, Mia now found Jesse, Jadon, and Marcus. The three boys had rearranged the kitchen somewhat, hiding any evidence that two people had killed themselves there.

  “Wow,” Mia remarked, looking around and picturing the room how it had been before. “Did you three do all this?”

  “Yeah,” Jesse smiled. “Figured it was necessary if we’re going to have kids running around the place.”

  “Incredible,” Mia thanked them. “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “Honestly, Mia,” Jadon argued with her, “we really don’t mind chipping in and helping. We’re perfectly capable of doing so.”

  “I know,” Mia suddenly backtracked, worried the boys thought she was saying they weren’t well-equipped enough to help out. “I just meant…”

  “Aha, don’t worry about it,” Jadon cut in again. “There’s no harm done.”

  “Yeah,” Marcus added, jumping down from the kitchen stool he sat on. “Why don’t you sit down for a bit? Take a load off.”

  “All right,” Mia found herself saying. “Thanks, guys.” Just like when she was washing her face, Mia now felt like she was sitting down and resting for the first time in an eternity. She’d been on the go nonstop for days, always looking out for someone or trying to prevent something from happening.