SIX MONTHS
by
ian yates
DAY ZERO
The light blue Volkswagen camper-van is gleaming in the spring sunshine as if it has just rolled off the production line. Parked in the clearing of the national park, it catches the dappled light as it breaks its way through the trees and reflects off the polished chrome bumpers and spotless glass of the old vehicle’s windows. The side door slides open and a young woman clambers out. Her long, tanned legs seem to unfold and uncurl themselves out of the cramped space behind her. An almost indecently short pair of cut-off jeans is all she is wearing until she turns around and grabs a thin, white vest top to shrug on to her slim torso. It is at least a size too small and hugs her body like it has painted on, but she knows the effect it has and smiles as she catches sight of her body in the side view mirror of the camper-van. She bends over to adjust her hair and smoothes it back over her head before holding it back with a small, black, elastic headband that she had around her wrist like a bracelet.
‘Wakey, wakey sleepy head. It’s a wonderful morning,’ she says with a smile, half turning back towards the interior of the van, ‘get your butt out of bed and start making my breakfast. I’m hungry.’
The van rocks slightly and a loud yawn emerges from the open door, closely followed by an even louder but shorter explosion of wind. She tries to look disgusted but can’t stop herself from laughing,
‘You are such a damn caveman sometimes. Don’t you know you’re not meant to do that sort of thing in front of a lady.’
The young man who emerges from the interior smiles at her, ‘After the things you did to me last night, in full view of these beautiful, innocent forest creatures,’ he pauses as he grabs her and pulls her close to whisper in her ear, ‘you are definitely no lady.’
She tries to wriggle free, but not too hard, until they are facing each other and they passionately kiss. She pulls her face away from his and looks down between their bodies,
‘Easy tiger, we don’t want to scare those innocent creatures in the daytime.’
She reaches down and strokes her hand against him, feeling the silky hardness brush against her fingers. He groans slightly then groans again, louder, as she pulls away and skips off towards the edge of the lake.
‘Last one in makes the breakfast,’ her laughter drifts across the clearing, startling a small bird into flight.
He looks down at his boxer shorts and the all too apparent bulge that is growing there.
‘Damn it,’ he says, also laughing, ‘wait for me!’
The girl is already at the waters edge. By some trick of the morning light it looks like steam is rising from the surface of the lake and rising gently into the shimmering air. In one fluid movement she dives in to the smooth surface. She is under the water for only an instant before she instinctively kicks back to the surface. She was expecting a refreshing plunge into cool water, not this.
Her screams pierce the air as her head pushes out of the water. Her skin already turned pink by the scalding water. She tries to turn back for shore, just a few metres away, but her body is one huge slab of pain. Her boyfriend, reacting to her screams, runs into the water ignoring the burns to his legs and reaches down to drag her away.
Rippled skin bunches in his fists as her screams turn to tortuous shrieks. Before either of them can reach the safety of the shoreline an explosion in the middle of the lake sends a tsunami of seething, boiling water, steam and molten rock out in a perfect circular wall of death. There is a millisecond of relief from their agony and then neither of them feel anything more.
The explosion rapidly gains speed as it expands exponentially out in all directions. Over 400 cubic kilometres of magma are starting their explosive journey out from this angry Earth. A living ball of molten rock, fire, mud and ash that spreads out from a volcanic caldera that is 80 kilometres in diameter, in an attempt to devour the world.
In 24 hours most of North America is a vast, smouldering corpse.
They were the lucky ones.
DAY ONE
‘Oh my God, look at the size of that thing! Ben…BEN, get in here.’
Katie Lee is screaming out to her husband from the living room of their small, two bedroom apartment. The television is running its normal loop of bad news and trouble from around the world and Katie is backing away from it in revulsion.
Ben rushes into the room from the spare bedroom where he had just got their son, Russell off to sleep.
‘Shh, shh, shh, keep the noise down. Bloody hell,’ he looks around quickly, wondering what the panic is this time, ‘where’s the fire Katie? What’s up?’
Katie just points towards the TV in the corner and he turns to see what has caused the major emergency this time.
‘Oh Katie, it’s just a spider.’
He walks towards his wife and gives her a hug, ‘I’ll get rid of it straight away.’
‘Don’t touch it. It’s huge, look at it.’
Ben picks up an empty glass and the coaster it was sitting on from the coffee table.
‘No problem, I’ll scoop it up and let it free outside,’ he realises his mistake, ‘far away from the house. It won’t find its way back.’
Ever since the birth of Russell, Katie had been an emotional wreck and Ben was working overtime to keep her, and himself, from going insane. He bends down in front of the TV and moves the glass towards the little creature.
‘He’s more afraid of us than we are of him, look at him, he’s…’
The sentence remains unfinished as onscreen a huge wall of water is shown from an aerial shot, obviously from a helicopter of some kind. A banner across the bottom of the screen reads,
‘Volcanic eruption and earthquake hits US. Tsunami to hit Hawaii, residents no time to evacuate.’
Ben turns to his wife as the spider scurries off behind the television set. All thoughts of the insect are forgotten by the couple who are now transfixed by the news in front of them.
‘Turn the sound up love. Let’s find out what the hell’s going on here.’
She reaches over and stabs a button on the remote control several times. The news readers voice increases in volume with each press.
‘…unsure as to scale of eruption due to blackouts and communications loss. Satellite data is yet to be offered but some scientists are already saying this is on a scale we have never seen before.’
The pictures on the screen split suddenly, the left half showing the aerial shot, the right half showing a very emotional reporter.
‘We go live now to Hawaii and KITV reporter Karen Rushton. Karen, please tell us what is happening there with you.’
Wiping away a tear the woman on screen takes a deep breath to compose herself and looks directly into the camera lens.
‘At around 0800 this morning pacific standard time a huge volcano erupted in the area of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. We are struggling to get information on the scale of this event but it is feared it is the super volcanic event that many scientists have talked about in recent years.
This eruption set loose a chain of events that resulted in a violent earthquake hitting the San Francisco Bay area. It…it..’ her voice cracks with emotion, ‘I am sorry ladies and gentlemen, one second please.’
She turns away from the camera her shoulders shaking as she sobs. The microphone she holds in her hand picks up her soft crying. A man appears in shot from the side of the screen and runs towards her. He wraps his left arm around her and gently takes the microphone from her with his right hand.
‘Umm, this is Steve Mann, cameraman with KITV. As Karen was trying to say, San Francisco and a huge chunk of the Western seaboard has gone. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people are feared dead and injured. A tsunami is on its way here, thousands have been evacuated to Japan, but they too will also be hit by this tidal wave, and it’s fucking huge…sorry about that. It’s a huge wave…Jesus,’
Karen looks up at her cameraman and nods, tears are still glistening in her eyes as she holds out her hand for the microphone,
‘It’s been great working with you Steve, how about we try and make this the report of our lives?’
He bends down and kisses her on the cheek,
‘You bet,’ he turns back to the camera, ‘sorry about the language guys,’ he says as he walks back and disappears from view behind the camera again. The picture shakes slightly as he picks it up and places it on his shoulder pacing in a small semi circle so that Karen’s backdrop is the ocean and view of Hawaii’s coastline.
The aerial picture on the left side suddenly has an arm burst into shot as it points off to one side. The camera swings round sharply to follow it and the coastline of the 50th State comes into view. With the perspective of the land you can see the wave towers above the volcanic island mountain range.
Ben, staring at the horror unfurling before him, feels his legs tremble and has to sit down on the floor to stop them from collapsing beneath him.
The aerial view suddenly starts to shake and the view spirals. It is a screen of ocean, land and sky in rapid motion before a burst of static streaks across the screen, then blackness.
Katie rushes forward and grabs her husband as she falls to the floor next to him. The news reporter now enters full screen.
‘Hundreds of thousands of people are still on the island with no way of getting away. Many have resigned themselves to their fate, with some already out there to surf their last. We have had only a few hours notice and it must be stressed that the occupants of these beautiful islands have done themselves proud. Many of the churches are full to capacity and..’ a huge gust of wind almost knocks the petite woman off her feet. The camera turns slightly so that over her shoulder the tsunami is seen in all its ferocity, Karen turns also.
‘Mom, Dad. I hope your safe, I love you and will see you soo..’
She doesn’t get to finish her sentence as the wave travelling at hundreds of miles an hour crashes into the coastline behind her. The roar drowns out her words and a split second later the onrushing water crashes into the area where she stands.
The screen stays blank for a moment before returning to the stunned anchorwoman in the studio.
SIX MONTHS LATER
1
Ben wakes up gasping for breath and clutching at the dark emptiness in front of him. Instinctively he looks left and right, reassuring himself that his wife and child are still with him. He sees Katie sitting in a skeletonised metal chair her thin body framed in the grey light of the window. Her head has dropped to her chest as she sleeps. Ben feels a rush of anger. She is meant to be on guard, watching out for people who might creep up on them during the long nights. His anger almost instantly turns to guilt as he thinks he should be the one protecting his family, not her, as he sleeps.
Shrugging off the thin blanket he slowly pushes himself to his feet and walks over to the cardboard box that doubles as a makeshift crib for their son. Russell is awake and Ben is always in awe at how bright his eyes look even in the semi-darkness. At just nine months old he seems to already know the perils of crying aloud. The danger and destruction it would bring about if someone heard him.
Ben smiles at his child and picks him gently out of his bed and cradles him against his chest.
‘How are you doing big fella? No bad dreams for you I hope.’
His voice stirs the sleeping figure behind him,
‘Oh Ben…I’m sorry. I must have dropped off.’
‘It’s OK,’ he says stiffly, his back to her and holding his son tight against his chest, ‘no harm done. I shouldn’t be asking you to do this, it’s not fair.’
He turns and walks the short distance towards her.
‘I don’t think there are too many people to watch out for anymore, it’s just a precaution I guess.’ He holds Russel out towards her, ‘Here, take him and get yourself comfortable. I’ll go out and see if I can find anything.’
Katie takes the silent, wide eyed baby from him and he picks up the rifle that was propped against the window frame.
‘The pistol is under the pillow, if there’s any trouble, use it.’
He removes the magazine from the rifle and cocks it, no shell is ejected from the chamber.
‘What have I told you about keeping it ready at all times,’ his anger is slowly creeping back, ‘a round in the chamber means you only have to take off the safety and you’re ready to fire. Jesus Katie, our lives could depend on this.’
She looks defiantly up at him, ‘I don’t like it loaded. It won’t make any difference anyway. We might as well just use it to put us all out of misery.’
He props the weapon against the wall and goes to her, concern on his face.
‘Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. There is always a way out of this…whatever this is. We will survive it and get through it. We have to be strong.’
‘This is not life Ben. This is just a long, slow, drawn out death. Moving around all the time, fighting to find food and water, seeing…’ she pauses and stares off into the distance as she recalls in her mind the atrocities they have witnessed, ‘seeing dreadful things.’
She focuses back on Ben, ‘Is this all we can expect for us now? Is this what our child has to look forward to for the rest of his life?’
Ben cannot answer her questions, instead he picks up the rifle, jams the magazine home and pulls the cocking handle back with an angry clunk.
‘I’m going to find us something to eat.’
He turns away and strides angrily to the door. Not angry with his wife, but angry with himself. Angry with the knowledge that he has also been thinking the same thoughts of taking the quick way out, but in his mind he knows he could never hold the barrel of a gun to his son’s head. Not yet anyway.
‘Be careful Ben,’ she calls after him, ‘I love you.’
He pauses for a second, she waits for a reply, but he moves on and out of the doorway without saying a word.
Stopping at the front door of the old building he picks up the small black rucksack placed to one side and checks his ‘noisemakers’ as he calls them. A thin rope stretched across the room at ankle height threaded with empty tin cans. Each can has a couple of small stones inside and as he touches the string, the cans metallically crash together and the stones rattle inside.
‘Ben…is that you?’ Katie whispers urgently.
‘Just checking, don’t worry,’ he says, shrugging the rucksack onto his shoulders. He puts his hand on the door handle to open it, pauses and turns his head back towards his family, ‘I love you too Katie, I love you both.’
With that he pulls open the door and steps outside into the darkness.
With each step he makes, small clouds of grey dust rise into the still air for a brief moment before settling heavily back down. Ben adjusts the green scarf around his face, covering his mouth and nose to avoid breathing in the fine pumice dust.
When it gets into your lungs it causes a racking cough that won’t stop even when blood is being brought up. Many people drowned in their own blood in the early days when the air was full of the grey, deathly ash. It found its way into every pore, every part of the body, clogging airways and turning into this semi-liquid cement like substance. Watching people claw at their throats, ripping themselves apart as they suffocated is something that thankfully does not happen anymore. There are no people left to watch.
He stops to take in his surroundings. What was once probably a majestic, sweeping driveway leading up to the house behind him is now just a blanket of ash and grey humps. Barren trees thrust their naked branches skywards in a vain attempt to breathe life back into the dead air. Dark lines against a drab, slab of colourless sky where nothing breaks the monotonous heavy clouds. Ben thinks back to when he last the sun and cannot remember. He closes his eyes and imagines the feeling of the warmth of it against his face and smiles at the memory. But that is all it is. A memory. His smile fades.
Gripping the rifle in his hands he sets off towards the small row of houses they passed in the valley yesterday evening. They were on the verge of turning back towards them as darkness settled last night when they came upon the big house. There were no fresh tracks in the slurry and ash leading to the once imposing building and more importantly the roof was intact. Unfortunately the cupboards and rooms were bare of food but there was water in the toilet cistern to slake their thirst and they had an unidentified tin left in their pack. Shaking the tin can gave no clues either. It wasn’t sloppy or liquid sounding. Just solid. Ben was hoping it was dog food, the meatiness of it made his mouth water. Just thinking about it made his stomach rumble. They were disappointed when it turned out to be cooked, tinned rice but at least it meant they could eat it without having to build a fire. A fire drew attention. Attention meant trouble. Trouble means death.
Also it meant that Russell could manage a few mouthfuls without it having to be chewed first by either him or Katie. Ben hated having to do that because he always felt like swallowing some of it.
After about a half hour of walking, Ben is looking down on the narrow row of houses. There are five on either side of the small country lane and just behind them is what used to be a stream, but is now just a dark grey line of slow moving ash. Raising the rifle to his shoulder he peers through the x3 magnification sight and scours the area for any sign of life. He sees no smoke, no movement, no indications of any human presence at all. The houses look oddly out of place in the middle of nowhere. He wonders what sort of people used to live here and where they are now.
‘Probably dead.’ He says aloud, breaking the muffled silence that surrounds him.
Slowly, cautiously he makes his way down the slope, both hands on the rifle in wary anticipation. He is looking towards his destination and not paying attention to the ground in front of him as his right foot catches on something jutting out from the inches thick layer of ash. Before he can right his balance he is tumbling head over heels, his shoulder crashing painfully into a boulder that is hidden under the grey blanket. The collision is enough to force his right hand to release its hold on the pistol grip of the rifle and makes his whole right arm go numb with the pain. Unable to check his fall he slips and trolls the rest of the way down the slope, the scarf around his face is ripped away during the descent and he ends up coughing and spluttering, breathing in the fine particles as he tumbles. Finally he comes to rest at the bottom of the slope, the ash that is making him choke also a cushion for his body as he fell. He lies there, stunned as a small avalanche of debris follows his trail down the hill. With snot streaming from his nose and his mouth full of grit, he stands up on shaky feet, checking himself for injuries as he dies so. Apart from his right shoulder he is miraculously unharmed.
‘Bravo mister. At least a 5.9 for technical execution but your landing needs to be improved.’
He swings around to the muffled voice to see a figure dressed head to toe in black and wearing a military respirator. He bends over to cough more dust from his lungs as the figure speaks again,
‘Now how about you drop that gun and you tell me what you are doing here.’
2
To be continued