Just as my eyes gazed upon the windshield, Madison opened her door.
“Oh God,” she said in almost a groan.
A hint of dim daylight seeped into the car, and after telling Ruth, I’d be back, I opened my car door. I didn’t need to step out fully to know what Madison saw.
It was cold and I closed my car door to conserve what heat remained in that car. I wanted to scream, but I was in too much shock.
Nothing was recognizable.
It was a tormented winter wonderland. Tiny flakes floated downward at a slow but steady rate, but instead of everything being blanketed under a few inches of glistening white snow, the area was covered in a light gray ash. More was falling.
NOTE Book – Day Fifteen
Davis,
Remember how I wrote last night about regretting that we didn’t think ahead? I made a list of things we need to consider and work on. Although I don’t know how we will ever build a fire because we can’t be outside too long with all the ash. Anyhow, right now, it was like that one time we got stuck in your father’s car and it snowed while we waited for help. When we woke up, everything was covered in ash. So much so, we couldn’t see.
This is insane. It really is. I don’t know what is going on?
SIXTEEN - ROUND TWO
For a brief moment, Ruth wasn’t ninety-two years old and a helpless resident in an assisted living facility. I read that studious look upon her face and she just seemed so scholarly. What a gem we found in her. Who needed Google when we had Ruth? Her mind was sharp and she attributed it to continuous reading and puzzles.
But as she held a pen, my notebook and the map, her frail hand trembled as she wrote.
“How much ash again?” she asked.
“About two inches,” I answered.
“Is it darker or more of a pale gray?”
“Pale,” I answered.
“Weight?” she questioned further. “Was it heavy, light, wet?”
Madison opened the car door again, stepped out and after a moment, got back in. “It’s fine. Lightweight, not wet.”
Ruth nodded.
Madison looked at me and spoke with a whispering voice. “She doesn’t know.”
“I’m old, not deaf,” Ruth snapped.
“Thought those two went together,” Madison said. “Sorry Ruth.”
Ruth flung out her hand. “Okay, so…” She handed me the map. “People don’t know that there are twenty active volcanoes in the state of California. We’re about a hundred miles from the Coso Volcanic range and about two hundred and fifty from Long Valley. They didn’t erupt last night. We’d feel it. Hear it. They’re close. They could be letting off steam.” She shrugged. “Chances are, with this amount of ash we’re either a few hundred miles from a smaller volcano or a thousand miles from a huge one.”
“Yellowstone is a thousand miles away,” I said.
“True, but it’s not a single eruption, we always hypothesized it would erupt for a month straight, eventually burying Los Angeles in thirty inches of ash. If that’s the case, we got another week to get farther south and east or we will be buried and stuck.” She stared down to her hands. “I just… it just doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t match up to what we thought.”
“No one was around when it erupted before,” Madison said. “So no one knows.”
“True,” Ruth nodded.
“Could it be something else?” I asked. “Something we didn’t think of?”
“It could be,” Ruth said.
“We’ll know soon enough,” said Madison. “If Ruth is right and this ash thins out then we’ll probably and eventually run into people. Anyone outside of this area has to have information.”
We had plenty of time to talk, and had already used a good forty minutes of daylight going over the map and transferring our belongings. We took it slow as we drove, it was hard to see and even more gray than the day before.
Hopefully, before the end of the day, we’d clear it.
Hopefully.
Sand and ash aren’t a great mix, especially when the road disappears beneath the fallout. The ash wasn’t any thinner the farther east we went, and as we got about fifty miles on Highway Forty, we lost the road. We ended up off the trail and got stuck. At least the ash stopped falling. It was hard to tell if we were in the Mojave Desert, or the Antarctic. Visually, it looked like a frozen tundra, but it wasn’t.
By our calculation we had about two hours of good, sunless daylight left. We had to decide whether to abandon the car and walk, or stay put. For all we knew there wasn’t anything ahead of us for miles, we could walk and have no shelter for the night, or stay put and wake up to even more problems. There was no clear cut better option. Having Ruth with us, we opted to stay put.
We did, however, get some good miles behind us. The only positive thing was the daylight temperature was fifty-five, but night was coming.
It was another night in the car with candles as our only light in a dark dead world. We didn’t leave the car running like before. There was no need to, unless the temperature dropped even more.
The ash seemed to be doing a number on my skin, making it feel uncomfortably dry. Despite wearing a facemask, my throat was constantly tickling and all three of us coughed a little more than we did the previous night. I prayed for one of those fluke rain storms so I could go out and stand in it.
One never came.
We needed the rain. While our food held up, it was evident that our water supply wasn’t going to make it much longer. We had to ration our water intake. That alone didn’t help with the dry throat. In my planning, I didn’t believe that we should even spend one night in a car with Ruth, let alone a second.
Our happy little traveling party would turn desperate before long. We all knew it and sensed it. Our lack of conversation that night was evidence of that. No one wanted to talk much. Because of that, we never saw it coming.
The cold crept in, slowly as we slept. The car wasn’t running so there was no way to know how far the temperature dropped. Shivering, despite the covers was my body’s way of trying to warm up and wake me.
It was the beginning of daylight, still dark, but not pitch black.
I was shaking, it was so cold. I reached over and turned the ignition, it cranked but didn’t start. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” Madison asked then sat up with a groan. “Oh my God, it’s freezing in here.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Do you think it’s better outside?”
“I don’t know, but we need to bundle up and move. Staying put is not helping. If we could get the heater going we could warm up first.” I could feel my fingers tingle. “Why won’t the car start?”
“I don’t know.” Madison tried to start the car. Again, like with me, it cranked. She shifted her eyes. “Battery’s not dead. Sounds like the starter. Switch spots with me.” She opened the car door, popped the hood and stepped out. “It’s actually a little warmer out here, leave the door open.”
“Okay,” I replied, then opened my door and looked back to Ruth. She had her covers to her neck. ‘Be right back, we’re gonna try to start the car. Warm up before heading out.”
Ruth groaned, I believed it was her acknowledging me.
I stepped outside and realized how cold it had gotten over night. The ash was hard and crunchy, almost as if ice formed in it. Madison was peering under the hood, a wrench in her hand. “Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked.
“Knowledge by proxy.” Madison smiled. “Go start the car when I say. I’m gonna bang on the starter.”
“Will that work?”
“It can. We just need to get the car hot so we can get warm, right? Worth a shot. Go on.”