by Paul Curtin
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“And if the power goes out?” Michael asked.
“The furnace is wood burning. We have a few solar panels on the roof—won’t be much good covered in ash though. We have a generator too and a propane supply, and the fireplace in the living room is a secondary furnace. It’ll heat that room. We’ll be all right if we all stay inside.”
Michael said, “I don’t think any of us are in any hurry to go out there.”
“We have to seal all the cracks in the doors and the sides of the windows. As a precaution. There’s tape down here and in the junk drawer upstairs. Molly, Kelly, Michael and I will do that first.”
“What about me?” Elise asked.
“You and Aidan watch the TV. We need more information, and you can keep him calm.”
“I’m not a baby,” Aidan said.
“I know you’re not, bud. We just can’t have you running around. Especially now.”
Elise’s guts drained to the bottom of her abdomen, and she felt like vomiting. Especially now. They had limited medication for Aidan. For his asthma. For his seizures. But she didn’t need to worry. Whatever was causing the ash would stop soon enough and they wouldn’t have to get anxious about shortages. Yeah, that was right. Don’t freak out yet. “I can do that.”
“Let’s get to work then,” Michael said.
“I’m not done,” Sean said.
Elise looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. They needed to get working. “Babe—”
“We need to bar all the doors too.”
“Bar the doors?” Michael asked.
“And the windows. Nail them shut. Make sure they can’t be opened. Board them up.”
“What does that have to do with the ash?”
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
“We need to be prepared.”
It struck her—the fear that begins in the diaphragm and steals the air before it can reach the lungs. Sean didn’t think this was temporary. Elise said, “Babe, I think we should focus on first things first.”
“I am,” he said. “That’s why nobody comes back into the reserves unless I say.”
Michael blinked. “What?”
“We don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here, so we need to calm down and make sure we have enough.”
“You mean make sure we don’t steal anything.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“Both of you shut up!” Kelly yelled. “We have ash falling from the sky. The children are terrified. I’m terrified. And all you two can do is bicker.” She pointed at her husband. “You shut up and do everything he says.”
“Kelly—” Michael began.
“Save it. Listen and do what he says.”
Elise caught Sean’s glance and rubbed the smile from her lips. She had always thought of Kelly as a doormat, a little mouse who never questioned Michael for fear he would leave her and take his money with him.
“We need to start taping the cracks first,” Sean said. “Follow me.”
Everyone ditched their gas masks for surgical ones before leaving the basement. Elise carried Aidan to the living room couch and set him down. She searched around and put her hands on her hips. “You know where the remote is?” She got on her knees to look around, ran her hands inside the contours of the cushions. Aidan stayed quiet before saying, “They said there was activity under Yellowstone yesterday.”
She stopped and brushed the hair out of her face. “Who’s they?”
“The man on the TV.”
“The man said something about Yellowstone?”
“Just that there was activity under the park.”
She paused. “Do you know where the remote is?”
He shook his head. Molly charged into the living room, duct tape in hand. “I’ll do my room,” she said, more as a statement than a question.
Sean came in behind her. “Start there and move to each of the rooms around yours.”
She dashed up the stairs as if something were chasing her. Sean pointed to Kelly. “Start with the guest bedroom,” he said and pointed to Michael. “You start with the mudroom and move out back to this room.”
Michael made eye contact with his sister but didn’t argue. Sean lifted his medical mask and leaned down to kiss his son on the head. “Stay strong, bud.” He put his hand on top of hers and gently squeezed. She held on when he tried to leave. “Sean.”
He stopped.
“I don’t know about this.”
“About what?”
“Do we need to do all this? Board up the windows?”
He bit down on his tongue for a minute and said, “Remember when we moved out here? You said you trusted me.”
“Yeah.”
“You still do?”
She considered this for a second and nodded. He kissed her cheek and left. As soon as he was gone, she longed to have him back, to keep her calm. She kept a strong face, but felt her grip wearing thin. She lifted the skirt around the bottom of the couch and found the remote. Clicked the button. The TV warmed up. Her hand trembled, awaiting the deluge of fear about to come onto the screen. The media always laid it on thick.
Aidan said, “Mom, I’m scared.”
She sat next to him and pulled him close, praying for him. For her family.
The TV audio ended her talk with God. The signal was fuzzy, probably from the snow accumulation on the satellite dish, and every few seconds the screen lagged and then resumed. She recognized the anchor from the national news. He looked haggard. The audio began midsentence: “…this cataclysmic volcanic eruption. We are going now to Kayla Petacki in our Kansas City affiliate KCTV4.”
She came on the TV, standing outdoors. The image was a little fried, but Kayla was wearing a medical mask and held an open umbrella. Ash fell around her like a blizzard. No white in that snow. Just gray. It should have been sunrise there, but it was dark. She stood in front of a shopping center.
“Scott, the eruption last night was heard as far as southern Colorado and into North and South Dakota. The VAAC said the ash release is unprecedented in modern times.”
Elise covered her mouth.
“Authorities here in Kansas City have been trying to calm the crowds, but reports of widespread looting have been coming into our station. The temperature has plummeted today from the expected high. Behind me you can see the shopping center here on the west side of Kansas City,” she said, moving out of the shot to show the cars and people scrambling around the parking lot. “So far, everything is orderly, but the police have been dispatched to make sure it remains that way.”
Elise saw no blue or red lights. In the center of the image, as Kayla talked, a man came around a car and set a dozen grocery bags on the ground. Another man joined him, yelling. A gun glimmered in the parking lot lights. The muzzle popped three times, and the first man collapsed.
The image came back to the anchor. “Cut it away,” he yelled. “Get off it, get off it, get off it.”
Too late.
“We’re so sorry about that,” he said, and the screen cut to a commercial.
Elise looked away and pulled Aidan closer to herself, stroking the top of his head. She clicked the television off. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked off the seconds. She tried to think of something—anything—other than those gunshots, but couldn’t. She hoped Aidan didn’t understand what had happened. Tears lined her eyes. She wiped them away. For Aidan. For everyone.
Sensing something behind her, she turned her head. Sean stood in the doorframe of the kitchen, his jaw tight, staring at the blank screen. He had seen it. His eyes told her everything. His mouth opened like he had something to say, but he left the room instead.
She was hit by a familiar e
motion she couldn’t quite place at first. It was the feeling of finality, of loss. Like when her mom and dad had died. The feeling she had at their funerals.
Sean
He lifted the last piece of wood onto the frame of the backdoor. “Hold it there, Molls,” he said. She came up to his side and held it steady. He marked a few dots with a pencil and then nailed the board into the frame. “You can let go,” he said.
They stood back and looked at the door, at the two by fours nailed into the doorframe, each piece six inches apart and parallel to the next. All the other window and doors had been boarded the same way except the one leading to the garage and the garage doors themselves. The cracks had been sealed too, so their surgical masks now hung around their necks.
There was still a chance, he hoped, this whole thing would blow over and life would return to normal. He doubted it. He had studied this before—not volcanic eruptions, but disasters in general. Things always got worse. But he was prepared. More so than if he had moved back to the city like his moron boss had wanted.
It felt good to be right.
“I can’t believe we need to do this,” Molly said.
Sean looked around the mudroom, at the laundry units, the utility sink, the deep freezer. He picked up his tools. “Boarding up the house is the best way to keep us safe.”
“That’s not it.” Molly sighed and leaned against the humming deep freezer.
Sean turned to her.
“I can’t believe we actually have to board the house up.”
“We don’t get to choose when big things happen to us. We all like to believe we’re in control until that illusion slips away. Then you realize you don’t really have control at all.” He cleared his throat, realizing he was lecturing. “We just have to do it, is all.”
“Are we in danger?”
She wiped her face, on the verge of tears. His heart always broke seeing her cry, ever since she was a baby. Even when the cries were silly. Now, there was real fear and pain in her face, and it tore him up. “Come here,” he said, setting the tools on the washer next to him.
She hugged him tight, the first real hug she had given him in a while. Her tears soaked into his shirt. He said, “We’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it.”
“I’m really scared.”
“We’ll be all right, okay?”
A beat passed. “Are you mad at me?”
He leaned back, looking at her. “Why would I be mad at you?”
“For taking my mask off.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders. “You just need to be careful. Think things through. One mistake could mean—” He stopped. “I’m not mad at you, Molls.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” She rested her head back onto his chest. He said, “We’ll be fine,” planted a kiss on the top of her head and picked up the tools. “Let’s go check the other rooms.”
He started out of the room when he heard her say, Dad. Molly stood in place, her cheeks red. Not fear in her face like before, but a look he couldn’t place.
“What’s wrong?”
“A lot of things.” Her eyes down at the floor.
“What is it?”
She tried to smile but couldn’t manage it. She picked up a few wood boards, passed her dad, and left.
He watched her walk away. When she disappeared behind a wall, his heart swelled with nostalgia for the years when she was still a little girl—when she would come to him with anything. Another reminder that those days were over.
He frowned and came into the living room. As soon as he entered, Elise turned off the TV. “The signal’s getting really bad,” she said.
“It’ll only make us more scared. How’re the others doing?”
“They just finished this room ten minutes ago. Molly went upstairs. Did you finish the mudroom?”
Sean nodded. “Where’s the little guy?”
“Around. I think he’s just fidgety.”
“And the news?”
“Some looting. I think most people are still afraid to go outside.”
“I’m afraid to go outside,” he said.
“So far the world hasn’t ended yet.”
Sean stifled his reaction. When the winter got worse, it might. Desperate people were like any other desperate animal: back them into a corner and they’ll show you their true nature. These sorts of events brought out the worst. It was just a matter of time before people got hungry and had no grocery stores to go to. Then they’d see if the end had come. “You holding up?”
She strained a smile. Dark circles sagged below her eyelids, a sharp contrast to the whites of her eyes. “I don’t know how to feel.”
Sean set the hammer and nails on the coffee table and joined his wife. “We’ll be okay.”
“Then why are we boarding up the windows?”
Because the world outside was dangerous—people were dangerous. He tensed his jaw. “It’s just a precaution.”
“You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie?”
“To make me feel better.”
“We prepared for this, remember? For this. Right now. We’re ready.”
“I don’t know.”
“We are.”
“I never thought—”
This would happen. He did. That was why he had moved his family to this house.
Elise whispered, “We have two extra mouths to feed and I don’t know if we stored enough food—”
“We have plenty. And one of those mouths only drinks juice, so…”
Elise laughed, hearty and full, tears forming in her eyes, and smacked his arm. “You’re so bad.”
He smiled. She laughed for another few seconds before settling down. Sean said, “We’re ready.”
Her smile faded. “Things aren’t going back to the way they used to be.”
“We play it safe and stick to the plan, we’ll be fine.” He chuckled. “And to think my boss demanded I go back to the office, move back to the city. Can you imagine what trouble we’d be in if we were in the city right now?”
Elise tilted her head to the side. “What’re you talking about?”
Shit. He coughed. “It’s not important.”
“Was he going to fire you if we didn’t move back?”
“I didn’t want you to worry about it while Michael and Kelly were here.”
“How much time did he give you to decide?”
“What difference does it make? We weren’t going back.”
“So you weren’t going to discuss it with me?”
“Elise—”
“You think I didn’t deserve to know?”
He sucked in his lips. Elise handled things emotionally. If she had the opportunity, she would have gone back to her comfortable life in the city and put her entire family at risk. “We’ll talk about this later,” Sean said.
“We’ll talk about this now.”
“This is—I’m not doing this right now.”
“Of course you don’t want to.”
“Know what? This’s why I didn’t tell you. Because you overreact,” he said, his voice growing louder. “You’re going to debate me about whether going back to the city was an option when there’s ash falling from the sky?”
He forced air out of his nose like an angry bull, put his hands up, fingers splayed, and motioned for her to forget it. She wouldn’t listen to him, and he couldn’t even imagine the nonsense she might have to say. He went straight to the stairs. It was time to get the guns, anyway.
Even with his temper flared.
Michael
Michael looked between the wooden boards to the outside. The light faded with each passing minute. Sunset. The ash accumulation increased. Instead of picturesque white mounds, the ground was dark and speckled, as if stained wit
h mildew.
He pulled back from the window and dropped the hammer. “Is that the last one?”
Kelly nodded. “I think.”
“You think, or you know?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
He rubbed his temples, each hand servicing one side in a circular motion. “This is insane.”
“I can’t get over it.”
“Not the ash. Does it make any sense why we’re boarding up the windows?”
“For our safety.”
“Safety from what? Are deer going to be breaking in through the windows? There’s, like, a hundred people within twenty miles of us. Who’d want to get in here?”
“I don’t know.”
He wanted to laugh, but was too exhausted. Sure, there was ash falling outside from a volcano that exploded half a country away, but it would be gone in another two days. In the meantime, the whole house was panicking, and Michael was slaving away boarding up windows so that mysterious boogeymen didn’t break in and steal anything.
“Think about it,” he said. “Volcanoes erupt all the time and ash falls a long way away. Nobody freaks out about it.”
“You don’t think this is a good idea?”
“I think it’s making things worse,” he said, softer. “Sean’s scaring everyone—putting gas masks on us. Boarding up the windows.”
“You seemed pretty convinced down there. When you tried to get his mask.”
“That’s what I’m saying. He’s scaring people—he scared me. Poor Molly and Aidan have to hear the world’s ending every time something unusual happens.”
“Yeah, well, I’m freaking out.”
“Exactly what I’m saying. It’s because of all this,” he said, motioning. “It’s ridiculous.”
“You’re wrong.”
He stared at her. “You’re falling for it?”
“I don’t get why you hate him so much.”
“Where do I start?”
“I don’t know. He seems to love your sister. He has two great kids—”
“He had three great kids.”
“I loved my niece too, Michael. It wasn’t his fault.”
“There’s more than that.” He grunted. “Listen, you want to get caught up in this little fantasy, sure. Fine. But I’m out of here the moment the snow melts.”
