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.”
“That won’t be for a while,” Sean said, poking his head in the doorway before disappearing.
Michael cleared his throat. He didn’t really care if Sean had heard him. Last night’s dinner had left everything out in the open. He followed Sean, Kelly behind him, and said, “Why do you say that?”
“Why listen to me? I’m living in a fantasy.”
He clenched his teeth. “Humor me.”
Sean paused as if to savor the moment, Michael not knowing something. “Volcanic eruptions don’t just send ash into the air. A lot of it gets trapped in the upper atmosphere. And that blocks the sun. All sorts of chemicals get released too. Even with small eruptions, the temperature of the earth cools afterward. This kind of eruption—it’s worse. It’ll be global.”
“How do you know that?”
“Read about it.”
Michael shook his head. “So, you’re saying it won’t stop snowing?”
“Not saying that. Just that—this might be a long-haul kind of situation.”
Sean grabbed a set of keys from his pocket. They came into the master bedroom. He placed a key into one of the gun safes and let the door ease open. Opened another. There were fewer weapons than Michael had expected—only a dozen handguns, a few hunting rifles, two shotguns, and a few thousand rounds of ammunition. Still overkill, but less than he had expected.
“Listen, Mike.”
He cocked his head.
“We’re stuck here with one another. Like it or not.”
“We’re not stuck here, Sean. I’m leaving as soon as the snow melts.”
Sean whistled. “You don’t listen, do you?”
“I listen fine. You’re being a little paranoid.”
“There’s ash falling outside, and you’re still holding onto the idea that I’m paranoid.”
“Who’s to say this won’t blow over in a few days?”
Sean reached into the gun safe and pulled out a shotgun. “It won’t. I’ve read about this before—Yellowstone. Ash raining in Pennsylvania means this’s way worse than anything they could have expected.” He sighed. “You know, we don’t have to like each other. But we’re sure as hell going to have to learn to work together.” He paused. “Ever shot a gun?”
“I have a 9mm at home.”
“Ever shot it?”
He shook his head.
Sean extended the black weapon to him, the barrel catching the light, shimmering dark and cold. No stock, just a pistol grip. An efficient contraption for killing. Sean said, “A twelve gauge. Close range loaded with bird shot. Just point and shoot. Nothing fancy.”
Michael’s heart sped up just looking at it. “I’m not taking that.”
“We need to be able to defend ourselves.”
“From what?”
“Everything out there.”
“There’s nothing out there. All we have is you, and you’re scaring the shit out of everyone.”
“Maybe we should be a little scared,” he said, grabbing a rifle. He shut the doors, locked them, and grabbed the keys. “We’re meeting downstairs.”
Sean left.
Kelly stood in the doorway. “You just can’t help yourself.”
“What?”
“From being an asshole.”
She shook her head and left too. He listened to her footsteps, tilted his head back, face angled toward the ceiling, and closed his eyes. Just perfect. Now he was the bad guy.
THE TELEVISION, PRONE to spats of snowy pixels, played the news silently behind the group. Nobody spoke. Molly hugged her little brother. Kelly had already joined them. As Michael took a seat, she looked at him and then away. She whispered something to the kids, and they smiled. Elise sat across from them as if stewing on something.
Sean set a shotgun on the coffee table with a clank. That brought an end to any smiles. “Everyone did great today,” he said.
Michael resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Thanks, brave leader.
“We need to cover the ground rules and make sure we all understand the situation.”
Or at least his interpretation of the situation.
“We’re going to stick to the house. As of right now, the electricity is holding strong, but I don’t expect it to stay that way. But we have our backups. We have a ton of wood outside for the furnace and the fireplace, and we can always cut more down. We can charge the chainsaw battery with the generator and we have the wood-chopping machine on standby. Regardless, everyone needs to stay inside.”
“So we’re prisoners?” Michael asked.
Sean sighed. “I didn’t say that.”
“It was implied.”
Kelly hissed Michael’s name.
“I implied that it’s not safe outside,” Sean said, “and that we should probably err on the side of caution.”
Kelly silenced Michael with another sharp look. He bit his tongue.
“We’ll boil our water, just in case. We have a sealed well on the property—a mechanical pump as a backup, so we’ll be good on water. Food is looking fine for now. I’ll make a ledger after we’re done here to track that too.”
The kids shifted.
“We need to be ready at all times. So, I’m asking the adults to be armed.”
Michael understood that it was key to control his volume and tone when he spoke. His wife was already at his throat, and he didn’t need to add fuel to her indignation. He spoke softly as if in disbelief. “Sean, you know how crazy this sounds?”
“I know it does. But that doesn’t make it less real.”