by David McAfee
But the quakes didn’t return, and aside from a few scrapes on his hands and elbows, he made it to the cave more or less unscathed. He looked up at the sun. Mid afternoon. Probably around 2 or 3 o’clock. The climb had taken him half a day. No wonder he was exhausted. Down in the valley, the animals continued their mad dash eastward. A pack of wolves padded by, leaving a group of quail in relative peace as the flightless birds made their own haste. He would be joining them soon, but he needed tools. And a weapon. Wherever those animals were going, they’d get hungry sooner or later. He had no intention of surviving an earthquake just to become dinner for a panicked bear or a starving band of coyotes.
The entrance to the cave was partially covered by rocks and pieces of broken trees, and he wasted another hour clearing an opening big enough for him to get through and take a few supplies with him. Once inside, he was surprised at how relatively unscathed the inside of the cave was. A few packs of dried meat had fallen off the wall, and a few small rocks had settled onto his pallet, but other than that it looked much like it was supposed to look.
I could have stayed in here and been just fine, he thought, rubbing the side of his head where the rock hit. The lump had grown to the size of a duck egg, and hurt to touch. He forced himself to remain still while he poured cold water into the wound, as well as the one on his shoulder. Then he wrapped both in strips of cloth he tore from his threadbare blanket. It wasn’t much, but it would do the job.
His wounds tended, he grabbed two packs of dried meat and a canteen of water. The canteen held two quarts, which would be enough to get from one body of water to the next, at least until he reached the eastern foothills. Once there, he would be out of familiar territory and would have to search for water. He’d done it before, though, and he could do it again. His old leather sack hung on a wooden pike set into the floor, and he grabbed it, filling it with all the spare clothing he had left. If he were stuck outside in the coming winter, he’d need every scrap, and probably more. Finally, he grabbed his bow and three remaining arrows. They would be clumsy to carry, but he’d feel better having them along.
He squeezed his supplies through the opening, then pushed his way through the hole and out into the sunlight. The sun’s position told him it was close to six o’clock. He only had a couple hours of daylight left. Better make the most of them.
Below him, the number of animals running east had thinned considerably. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean. Using a strong, sturdy stick for balance, he set off down the slope. It had been a long time since he’d carried this much on his back, and his aching muscles and joints let him know they didn’t appreciate the extra weight. He ignored the protests of his aging body.
Halfway down, and still a good eighty feet above the valley floor, he slipped in some loose rocks. Overbalanced by his heavy load, he was unable to correct himself, and tumbled over the edge. He saw the rock ledge below him, and braced for the impact.
There was a sudden, blinding flash of pain, then nothing at all.
Ash
He drifted slowly back to consciousness, more a gradual increase of awareness than actual clear thought. He didn’t open his eyes, preferring the dark of his eyelids. His head throbbed, a constant pounding that threatened to make him nauseous again. He rolled onto his side and dry heaved. There was nothing in his stomach to expel.
Pain assaulted him from every angle. His head felt like it had split open. His arm screamed a fiery curse at the rest of his body, and his left leg felt broken. But if he didn’t open his eyes, he could go back to sleep, and then the pain would go away.
Through the fog of dizziness and pain, he caught a strange smell in the air. It almost smelled like smoke, but not quite. It smelled more like ashes. As if the world had burned to death while he was unconscious. He didn’t know what it meant, but it couldn’t be good.
He tried to lose himself into the darkness again. But the more he tried, the more the pain kept him awake. Finally. He couldn’t ignore it anymore, and he tried to open his eyes. The lids were stuck together by some gummy, sticky mess - probably blood - and he had to open them with the fingers on his good arm.
It took a moment for his eyes to focus. He lay on a rocky outcrop about twenty feet off the valley floor. He must have bounced along a little further down the slope after hitting the ledge. That would certainly account for the pain in his arm and leg, which shouted at him even louder now that he was conscious again. He had some herbs in his pack that might help, although if his leg were truly broken they wouldn’t do much good. He’d need a splint, and he damn sure wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
The world around him had a soft, gray quality, as though he’d awakened at dusk or early dawn. He could not see the sun through the haze. The sky was thick with gray clouds. And it was snowing.
Already? he thought. It’s not time yet. And it’s nowhere near cold enough.
He took another look, noting the dingy gray color of the flakes falling from the sky. Not snow, he realized, but something else.
One of the flakes landed on his forearm, and he noticed for the first time that there were hundreds of them covering his body.
Ash.
He brushed the ashes off his arm, immediately regretting it as another flare of pain shot through him. He almost screamed, but held it in, lest some hungry predators hear him and think about a nice, helpless meal.
He coughed. A thick wad of gray matter shot from his mouth to smack into the dingy tree to his right. Not good.
Down in the valley, no animals remained. As the ash piled up, it covered any tracks left behind by the stragglers.
It was getting harder and harder to breathe.
A shadow fell over the valley, and he looked up into the sky. The soft gray clouds had been replaced by an angry black wall.
More ash. Lots more.
He coughed again, his lungs trying desperately to clear themselves. I should have just left with the animals, he thought. Too late, now.
Then the black wall poured into the valley.
Shelter
by David Dalglish
Jason pushed aside the curtains to watch as the rumbling clouds neared. Melissa squirmed in his arms.
“Daddy, I’m scared,” she said.
“We all are,” he told her. “Sit still. This’ll be pretty, I promise.”
“I want to watch Spongebob,” Melissa insisted.
“Not now,” Jason said, his eyes wide as the sky suddenly cleared. Calm red sky shone above, clean, ominous. Then it was gone, a rolling black wall of cloud and ash sweeping over it.
“Daddy, Spongebob!”
Jason kissed the top of her head, wondering if she felt his tears dripping down. He’d give anything to send her to that underwater paradise forever. Instead, he had only his arms, his walls, and his love to offer. The house shook as wind slammed against it. The darkness deepened, broken only by thick bursts of lightning.
“Is it going to rain?” Melissa asked.
“No, sweetie,” he said. “Not now.”
Not ever.
*
It’d taken six rolls of duct tape, but Jason was confident he’d sealed the building. Every side of every window he’d layered. After locking and barring his front door, he’d stuffed old shirts into the crack below, then started taping. He lived in a modular home on his property not too far out of town. He thanked god it was fairly new. Last summer he’d looked at a two-story fixer-upper in the middle of town. The extra room would have been nice, but there’d been so many windows needing fixed, walls painted, and floors retiled that he’d passed. Sitting against the front door, a half-used roll of duct tape in hand, Jason couldn’t imagine trying to seal that old place up.
Melissa sat on the couch, huddled under a mountain of pink princess blankets.
“Can we have candles?” she asked. “The dark is scary.”
“We can’t, babe,” Jason said. “Air is precious now.”
“When will the lights come back on?
”
Jason sighed. He debated whether to lie or tell the truth. Biting down on his lower lip, he told the lie. In the darkness, unable to see her wide eyes, it came easy.
“In a week or two. We’ll rough it until then. We’re like pioneers. You read about pioneers in school, right?”
“They lived in dirt houses,” Melissa said. “How’d they keep the bugs out?”
“They didn’t,” Jason said. “The bugs were their friends. They named them and built them little houses to live in beside their cabinets.”
“Daddy!”
“What? They didn’t teach you that in school?”
Jason smiled when he heard her laugh. Thank God for small miracles.
“Tell you what,” he said. “You be a good girl and stay on the couch, and I’ll get us a flashlight.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice muffled by the blankets.
Jason stretched out his arms and took baby steps toward the kitchen, feeling like a blind Frankenstein. Vague blobs grew in the darkness, outlines of the sink or the fridge. He stubbed his toe on a toy, something plastic with wheels. It rolled into kitchen, the sound grating. Without the television, air conditioners, his computer, cars outside, planes above, and water heater below, the resulting quiet was shocking. Sometimes the wind picked up, whipping against the side of his house. Other times the clouds grumbled in angry thunder. But mostly there was silence.
“You okay, dad?” Melissa asked him, sounding so far away.
“I’m fine,” he said. “When the lights come on, you’re cleaning up your toys.”
She didn’t respond, and inwardly he cursed himself. Why’d he have to remind her of what they didn’t have?
His hand brushed the counter. He used it to guide himself along until reaching a drawer he’d purposefully left open. Inside was a handful of flashlights. He grabbed one of the smaller ones and clicked it on. The white microwave shone into view for half a second before he shut it back off. Tempting as it was, he kept it off on his way back to the couch.
“Where you at?” he asked when he felt his toes bump the couch’s edge. “Come on, let’s see, where you hiding?”
He waved his arms around him blindly, and when his fingers brushed blanket, he dove them forward, his fingers tickling. Giggles rewarded his efforts.
“St-stop!” Melissa shouted.
Jason plopped down next to her. He felt her slide closer, her head pressed against his chest.
“You got the flashlight?” she asked.
In answer he aimed it at her face and flicked it twice.
“Dad!” she grumbled, elbowing him. Jason chuckled, then flipped it around in his hand.
“So you still scared?” he asked her.
“A little,” she said.
“Of what? Are there monsters?”
Melissa snorted, as if she were insulted. She was six: way too old to be believing in monsters. It was ghosts she was afraid of.
“I think there’s something in the corner,” she said.
“Which corner?”
“That corner.”
Jason waited a moment.
“Dear, are you pointing?”
Melissa giggled.
“Maybe.”
Jason aimed the flashlight and flicked it on for a half-second, revealing their coat rack.
“No monsters there,” he said.
“Not there!”
He switched places, flicking the light off and on as he continued his elusive search.
“Any monsters there? How about there? Oops, none there, either. What are we looking for again?”
Melissa’s tiny fingers jabbed into his sides and under his arms. Jason laughed, swinging the flashlight down so he could see her face. She smiled up at him, wincing at the bright light. Her hair was a dark mess, wet strands clinging to her cheeks. She was smiling, but it was fragile and trembling. A dammed ocean of tears swirled within her. Come bedtime, he knew she’d let them loose.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, letting the light linger so he could burn the image into his mind. “I’ll be beating the boys away with a stick when you hit high school.”
He flicked off the light. Melissa sniffled, so he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
“Is mom alright?” she asked after their silence stretched for several minutes.
Jason thought of his ex-wife’s phone call. Karen had been at the office when the news hit.
“It’s only an hour drive,” she’d insisted. “I’ll be back in time, alright? Just please, don’t go anywhere. Promise me, Jason.”
“I won’t,” he’d said.
“Promise.”
“Alright, I promise.”
The drive from her office to his house normally took an hour, but Jason imagined the frantic drivers, the wrecks, the police squads and rioters. When the clouds hit, she’d most likely been in her car, her windows flimsy protection against the tiny granules of ash that poured into her lungs, solidified, and killed her.
Jason kissed Melissa’s fingers.
“She’s fine,” he said. “She’s just late in joining us.”
Thunder rolled.
“She’s with God in heaven, isn’t she?” Melissa asked.
Jason’s eyes ran with tears. He felt his lower lip tremble. He clutched his daughter to his chest and fought the trembling of his voice.
“I hope so,” he told her. “I really do.”
Melissa broke, same as he. In the darkness they cried.
*
Once Melissa was asleep, Jason shifted her to the side and stood. He flicked on the flashlight, wincing at its brightness. Knowing there was nothing so important as this, he calmly and patiently checked the tape. In the thin stream of light, any ash sneaking through would be readily visible. He saw none at the door, nor his bathroom window.
The kitchen had a tiny bit puffing in on one side. An extra layer of duct tape put an end to that. The back door had a bit more coming in, and he smelled the distinct odor of sulfur. Jason used two layers on that one, then sat and watched. Bits of everyday household dust floated before him, but no more ash pushed through the cracks. He wiped a bit of cold sweat from his forehead and continued.
When finished, Jason was satisfied. A little bit of ash might still be filtering in, but nowhere near enough to cause them any immediate danger. It might give him cancer twenty years down the road, but hell, he’d accept the compromise.
In his living room, just beside his computer desk, was a giant window facing west. Jason pulled back the curtain. Outside he saw only darkness. He pressed his fingers to the glass, shocked by the cold. Summer was in mid-swing, but sweltering heat waves were years from returning. He wished he’d bought a gas generator like he’d always wanted to. Too late now. Everything was too late.
He shone his light through the window and stared. Even though he was wasting batteries, he couldn’t make himself shut it off.
“Is it snowing?” he heard Melissa ask from the couch. Jason startled at the sound of her voice.
“It is,” he said. “But it’s warm snow. You wouldn’t like it.”
“Doesn’t feel warm,” Melissa said. “It’s cold in here.”
“Stay under the blankets,” he told her. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
Thick flakes of ash fell through his beam of light, drifting lazily downward. Everything he saw was covered in a thin layer of gray and white. The sight was oddly beautiful. He felt a bit uneasy watching it fall. It was too gray, he decided. It lacked the purity of snow. More worrisome was the way it covered the ground. Every blade of grass, every flower, lay crumpled flat by the weight. A heavy snow. A killing snow.
He shut off the flashlight.
*
Jason’s watch claimed it was half past nine, but still the outside remained dark. Slowly he rubbed his eyes and tried to convince his body daytime had arrived. Melissa had awoken every couple of hours throughout the night, crying hysterically and asking for her mother. The first few times Jason
had whispered to her, telling stories and zapping monsters with his flashlight. The final time he’d simply held her and silently cried.
“You hungry?” he asked as he pushed the blankets off and stood.
“I guess,” Melissa said.
He didn’t turn on the flashlight until he reached the kitchen. Opening and closing cabinet doors, he looked for what might go bad first. The most obvious was the cereal, sickly sweet and coated with sugar. He poured two great bowls and opened the refrigerator. He yanked out the milk, hoping to keep in the cold for as long as possible. Food coloring from the marshmallows swirled the milk red and pink as Jason poured. Popping on the lid, he flung it back into the fridge, closed it with his hip, and then plopped two spoons into the bowls.
“Soup’s up,” he said, his voice muffled by the flashlight in his teeth. He carried a bowl in each hand. By the time he set them down upon the table, his jaw ached. Flicking the flashlight about, he shone it near Melissa’s bowl until she sat down before it. With a click, he shut it off.
“I can’t see,” she whined.
“You can eat cereal in the dark,” he said. “Not rocket science.”
“You would say that,” Melissa muttered.
The cereal was far from his favorite, but Jason ate every bit. His search through the cabinets hadn’t been very hopeful. Much of what he had, things like macaroni, spaghetti, and noodles, needed boiled. Thankfully he had cans of soup, which would help a ton. There was plenty of juice and soda in his fridge, which would last far longer than the milk. He’d tried the faucet only once, and the gray smudge that spurted out was certainly nothing he planned on drinking.
Milk dribbling down his chin, Jason wiped it with his arm and then let out a weak burp. A few moments later, Melissa responded in kind. Her giggles were far brighter in their gray world than any flashlight.
