Natural Disaster (Book 1): Erupt

by Lou Cadle

“What?”

  “Come look.” Father waved Jim to his side at the window. Sure enough, the sky was visible, and while you couldn’t call it blue, through the thin airborne ash you could see that blue might still exist up there, somewhere too far away to help them.

  Jim’s heart lifted. “We can go?”

  “We must go. Your mother needs help.”

  “What about the roads?” They wouldn’t be any better than yesterday, would they?

  His father looked distraught. The expression made Jim’s insides feel cold. He had never seen his father helpless or this worried.

  “Don’t worry,” Jim said. “We’ll make it somehow.”

  “I will go out and see about the car,” his father said. “You keep watch on Mother.”

  While he kept half his attention on the coughing sounds in the bathroom, Jim filled water bottles at the kitchen sink and lined them up next to the door. He looked back at his sister huddled in the corner of the sofa. “Lida, go find Mother something to cover her face with. A handkerchief or men’s shirt.” His sister didn’t look up. He shut off the water and set down the last water bottle.

  He went to sit by his sister. “Lida, we need to get going.”

  No response. For a moment, his mother’s coughing stilled, too.

  He put his arm around Lida and pulled her to him. “It’s going to be fine, sister. We’re getting out of here. You’re safe. You’ll be fine. Mom will be fine.”

  She shook her head fractionally. Back in the bathroom, his mother began another round of coughing and he could feel Lida tense at the noise.

  “Everything will work out. You’ll see.” He gave Lida a last squeeze, disentangled himself, and went to check his mother. Through the bathroom door, she choked out that she was fine, which she obviously was not. There was nothing more he could think to do for her. He went to find a handkerchief in the back bedroom. He rifled through the drawers and closets, finding none, but finally deciding on a light pink shirt, a woman’s but with a button-down collar like a man’s. The material was a loose enough weave that his mother could still breathe through it when the coughing took her, but it might still give protection from the worst of the ash particles. Roughly, he ripped it into thick strips to use as masks for them all, glad for the chance to vent his frustration on something.

  By the time he was done, his father was back with his mother, in the living room, squatting in front of her and resting his hand on her knee. His mother was fighting back against her coughing fit, clamping her lips shut. Tears filled her eyes at the effort to not cough.

  Jim said, “I’m going up to get the shovel I left on the roof. Is the car unlocked?”

  His father nodded. “While you do that, I will write a note to the people here, say we are sorry and will pay for damage.”

  Jim took the filled water bottles with him. He carried them to the car and put them in the back. Then he climbed up on the roof, grateful for the growing daylight that made him feel less nervous about the height. He grabbed the shovel and tossed it off the roof. It hit the ground with a muffled thump, and a cloud of ash puffed out where it hit.

  Climbing down the hated roof for the last time, he put the shovel in the back seat of the car, on the floor where he could get to it, and he went to the front door of the trailer, brushed his pants off, and kicked his feet against the step to dislodge the worst of the ash on his shoes before opening the door. “Ready,” he said. “How ‘bout you guys?”

  “Yes,” said Father, and Mother struggled to her feet. Jim could see her working to draw in enough air. Why was she taking the ash so badly and he, who had been out in it so long, was fine? Doctors might be able to tell them, if only they had the chance to get to doctors.

  He looked at Lida, still huddled in the corner of the sofa. He walked over and offered her his hands. “Let’s go,” he said.

  She sat still, staring down at the floor.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Where’s your wildflower book?”

  She looked up at that, then around the room. The book was over on the table, and Jim pointed to it. Lida was too big to carry, or he’d just pick her up. He needed to get her moving on her own.

  He said, “You don’t want to leave the book here. Not after all the good work you did with those flowers.”

  She looked to the table, staring dumbly at it. Finally, she unfolded herself and walked over, taking her book and hugging it to her chest like a shield. Jim put a hand on her shoulder and guided her to the door. He could feel her muscles quivering, little earthquakes of muscle twitching under his hand all the way out to the car.

  His father got his mother settled, started the car and put it into gear, but the wheels spun uselessly on the thick ash. Without a word, Jim pulled up his mask, got out of the car with the shovel and dug around the tires, clearing ash until he felt asphalt. Was there something about rear-wheel or front-wheel drive that mattered to how he should do this? Since he had no idea if that was so, or which their car was anyway, he took the time to dig out all four tires and a short path in front of each. Though the ashfall was very light now, he still needed the mask, for his shoveling stirred up the fallen ash and created a small cloud of ash drifting about him.

  Should he get in the car? No, he’d wait to see if it worked. He stood out of the way and motioned his father to drive. This time, the tires bit and the car moved forward. When it went up the ramp of ash he had dug, he saw it skid at once, the tires skiing sideways. Jim backed off further, not wanting to get hit if the car came swinging around without warning.

  Fishtailing through the ash, the car made slow progress. Jim followed. The brake lights came on. What the—? Wondering why his father has braked, Jim hurried up to the driver’s door. His father pointed to the back seat, emphatic. Jim held up a finger and went about shoveling out the tires again, giving his father another runway of clear road to start with, this one longer than the first.

  He climbed back in the car. Shifting into drive again, his father inched them forward. Jim could feel the car slipping sideways beneath him as it hit the deeper ash. The instinct to fling out a hand and grab onto something was strong, but it wasn’t necessary. Instead of holding on, he reached over and rested his hand on Lida’s arm. “We’re getting there,” he said, intending encouragement.

  But honestly, they weren’t getting much of anywhere. His mother was coughing again, trying to hide it by covering her face with both hands, but failing. The sound made Jim more anxious. After ten nerve-wracking minutes, the car reached the turnoff onto the fire road. His father slowed further for the turn. The car bogged down once more.

  “It might be better if I stayed out there, walked behind you. You won’t be going much faster than I can walk,” Jim said. “And every time I open the door, ash will drift in. Mother’s cough will get worse.”

  His father nodded, but his eyes, when he turned them on Jim, looked miserable. He looked older, the lines on his face having deepened in the last twenty hours. Jim felt older himself, but on his father the overnight aging looked bad.

  “You’re doing great,” he said to his father, and he left the car to dig them out a third time.

  When the car began moving again, he walked well to the side, trying to stay out of the ash cloud its tires tossed up. The rear end kept fishtailing in the ash. His father must be growing weary from the strain of fighting the skid all the time. As they moved down the mountain, the road got worse, and now a skid off the edge could send them tumbling down a steep slope. And listening to Mother coughing next to him would also be wearing on him. Jim felt a welling of sympathy and love for his father, doing everything he could for the family. And behind that, a deep ocean of guilt. They wouldn’t even be here on this mountain in the first place if his father hadn’t have been concerned about Jim. He really had let his grades slip this year. He knew he could do better. Everything his father had said had been right, hadn’t it?

  The car died. Maybe the air filter again? Jim walked to the hood and motioned for his father
to pop it. Again, he cleaned the filter. The skies overhead were light enough that he could look through it. No light at all shone through. He took it over to a tree and banged it hard against the trunk, sending bits of grit sailing out from it. Looking through it again, he thought he had done better that time, with little spots of light showing through the weave of the filter. He replaced it and slammed the hood.

  In this way they drove slowly down the road, Jim walking, digging out the car when it got stuck. The car died. Again, Jim cleaned out the air filter, replaced it, and shut the hood. His father leaned forward to turn the key.

  This time the car didn’t start.

  Jim and his father looked at each other, his father’s face mirroring what Jim felt: wide-eyed horror. They could not get stuck here. Again his father focused on the ignition. Still no sound from the car.

  Jim motioned for his father to pop the hood again. He made sure he had the air filter back in there correctly, though he imagined that couldn’t be the problem. He looked at everything else under the hood, all of it coated with ash. Damn, he should have brought the broom, too. He tried blowing at it, but that did little to disturb the ash, still slightly damp and sticky. He stripped off his mask and used that to beat at every surface he could see that looked important, every electrical connection and piece that looked like it touched another working part. Without tools, he could do no more.

  When the surfaces were clear of ash, he slammed the hood and gave his father a thumbs-up. His father leaned forward.

  Only a faint click from the under the hood. Click. Click, a third time. Then silence. It wasn’t going to start.

  They were stranded.

  Jim motioned for his father to roll down the window an inch. “I’ll walk out to the main highway,” he said.

  “No.” His father’s tone brooked no disagreement. “It’s too far.”

  Shit. Jim got back in the car.

  Mother wasn’t coughing. But her breathing was raspy now, loud in the confined space. There was a hitch to it, too, every time she tried to inhale. It was a frightening sound, a desperate sound.

  His father turned. “The main road will be covered too. It must be many miles before you can find people. And what direction is best?”

  He nodded, appreciating that his father was bothering to explain why he’d said no.

  If it weren’t for his mother’s awful reaction to the ash—why her? Jim wondered again—they could walk back to the trailer. But they were stuck here. The skies were clear, though. He could even see some patches of blue outside the car window.

  “Turn on the hazard lights,” said Jim. “It can’t hurt.”

  They sat for another half-hour, not speaking, the hazard light click accompanying his mother’s increasingly labored breathing. She seemed to be running out of energy to cough.

  He thought again about asking permission to find help, but he didn’t really believe there was anyone for many miles around. If there were someone, they were sure to be in just as bad a situation. If he was going to die—he blinked at the thought, realizing this was the first time he had applied that word to himself. Fine. If he was going to die, he’d rather be with his family. And if his mother was going to die, it should be with her firstborn child at her side. His throat closed in grief.

  Another coughing fit overwhelmed his mother. Jim reached over and put his arm around Lida as they listened to Mother coughing. In between coughs, she wheezed horribly as she tried to get enough air.

  Jim remembered his shaman’s bracelet and dug in his pockets. He reached forward and handed it to his father. “For Mother,” he said.

  Father took the bracelet and slipped it on her wrist. Jim knew it wouldn’t help her, but it might help Father.

  A moment later, Father began to click the headlights off and on. He honked the horn, the thin sound making Jim feel even more remote and helpless. His mother was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Then a thrumming noise came from outside. Out of the sky a helicopter appeared, like a good air spirit. It swooped down in front of them. Jim leapt out of the car and waved his arms. “We’re here!” he cried, running down the road, waving madly.

  The helicopter hovered for a moment and moved off ahead. Jim’s heart crawled into his throat. They had surely seen him. They wouldn’t leave them here, would they? As the helicopter started coming down far ahead, he realized it had to find a treeless place to land. It must have found one, as it slipped down behind some trees and out of sight. Jim ran in its direction, kicking up ash with his feet, yelling the whole way.

  A man got out of the green military helicopter and called something Jim couldn’t hear. The rotor blades were stirring up the ash on the ground, creating a cloud that nearly obscured the man.

  He strode forward out of the ash to meet Jim, leaning down to yell nearly in his ear. “You okay, son?”

  “My mother is awfully sick. She needs help, fast.”

  “You got it.” He turned and waved his arm in a circle. A second man came out and Jim led them back to the car. The two men made a seat of their forearms and carried his mother to the helicopter, his father trailing anxiously just behind. Jim had to pull Lida out of the car, and she kept stumbling. He couldn’t lift her, but he could pull her along. Finally, about halfway there, she came out of her daze and began walking on her own toward the noisy whirring blades of the helicopter.

  In moments, they lifted off and cleared the little cloud of ash the blades had kicked up. The helicopter swung over the trees. Out the window, Jim could see the eruption now, and the ash cloud drifting off to the west, over other people, putting them into the same troubles his family had just been in. Jim watched the eruption boiling up and out, unnerved by the sight. He was happy when the helicopter changed directions and the eruption was behind him, out of sight.

  Section IV. After

  31

  Dawn. Camas Firehouse.

  Chad limped in to the firehouse, still exhausted despite eight hours of sleeping like the dead. He needed to figure out where a refugee center was so that he could shower there and maybe get some clean clothes, if someone had organized donated clothing this soon. If not, maybe he’d take his muddy self into Walmart and buy something fresh. He thought of his clothes back at the duplex, some in milk crates on the floor, and he winced. He couldn’t afford to replace everything he owned. His laptop was on the kitchen counter, he thought. He hoped. Something else he couldn’t pay for, along with a doctor.

  Inside the firehouse, everyone else looked exhausted, too. He raised a hand at A.J., who detoured over. “You haven’t been working all night, have you?”

  “No, only until seven or eight last night. Then I slept in my car and here I am again.” He realized his hearing was better. He still had vague ringing in his ears, but no worse than the day after a concert. One more thing to feel grateful for. “Have you heard anything about Francie?”

  “She’s doing fine. You did great, I heard, getting them both out of there on your own, her and the injured woman. That woman is in ICU, and she has you to thank for her projected recovery.” AJ slapped him on his shoulder.

  Chad couldn’t help wincing.

  “I’m sorry. You’re hurt somewhere?”

  “I’m hurt everywhere,” Chad said, managing to laugh. “I’ll let you know if I find a spot that isn’t aching.” He looked down at the dried gray mud all over him. “Or muddy.”

  “Take a shower here. There’s plenty of water, so don’t skimp. Go on up and I’ll get you some coveralls to wear. They’ll be a little scratchy but better that what you have on. I can’t do anything about shoes, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll have to go through the mud again to get to my car anyway. And I have my work shoes in there. I want to go see Francie in the hospital. Which is she in?”

  “Pacific. Get your shower. I’ll be right up.”

  Chad got to the bottom of the stairs and eyed them with doubt. He grabbed the railing and started hopping up on his goo
d foot. After three steps, he was too tired to continue. Gingerly, he put his weight back on his bad foot and stayed up on his toes while he continued up on both feet. Two steps from the top, he saw Kane come from the hallway and stop dead at the top of the stairs.

  “You headed somewhere, young man?”

  Old man, more like it. Chad ached like his arthritic grandmother must. “Shower.”

  “There are refugee centers, you know.”

  “I do know. Excuse me,” he said, limping up the last two steps.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Maybe not,” said Chad calmly, looking Kane up and down. “But that’s a real funny thing to hear from a man who doesn’t have a drop of dirt on him.”

  Kane gawped at him.

  “I bet you didn’t ever get out into it, did you? Not for a minute. Just stayed right here, safe and clean.” Chad shook his head in disgust and walked away from the man.

  He heard Kane sputtering behind him, but he pushed through to the showers and the noise was gone. Chad stripped off his filthy clothes and looked around for a trashcan, but there wasn’t one big enough to hold them. He kicked them into a corner and stepped into the large shower. What he wanted was one of those old-people seat things like his grandmother had in her tub. Ah, jeez, it hurt to move. He made it to the faucets and turned them on.

  The water stung him in a dozen places. Chad bit his lip against making a sound and gingerly began to soap himself. Dried mud gave way to the water and sluiced off him. He could see bruises coming up on his left arm and above his left hipbone. Both thighs had a horizontal line of bruising like he’d braced a board against himself, but he couldn’t remember doing so. Mystery bruises. Where the jack had flew out and hit his shin, there was a gigantic purple bruise and broken skin. He reached down to feel a knot there. He twisted around to check his Achilles—clearly swollen. His feet each had five to ten stinging cuts on the bottom. The scratch from the dog’s claw was outlined in red, and he thought it might be getting infected. He was washing his hair for the second time when he heard the door open. Let it not be Kane. He was willing to kick the man’s butt, but not naked.