Chapter Seventeen

Survival of the Fittest

I turned on the radio to find channels of static. No news. As we made the arduous drive along a desolate Route 50 to Pueblo and central Colorado, I found my mind on Finn again. The relief of getting through the first hurdle at Lamar had worn off. I tapped a finger on my teeth and stared.

I silently apologized for cursing God. Perhaps I still needed those damn white pills.

The air conditioning whirred, unlike its usual robust hum. I looked in the side-view mirror. The ash was deeper here, and our tires stirred a trail behind us like a storm cloud. Crosswinds blew the ash across the surrounding hilly grasslands and onto our path. Drifts piled and curled around the occasional boulders, ramshackle buildings, homes, and signs along the road. Prairies comprised our landscape, but sagebrush and a few yucca plants dotted the edges. If there had been any flora like coneflowers or asters, they were gone, torn to bits by the power of the wind.

The car shook with each wind burst.

Reid focused on the road, white-knuckled and, well, bruise-knuckled. Shadows of dusk snaked along the highway. I yawned, stretched, and clasped my hands together. “We check Pueblo first, and then head north for Schriever?” I asked like an impatient child on a road trip.

“It depends on the roads. I don’t know, AJ, but that’s my plan.”

Will was quiet. We had quickly switched his booster seat and a tote. In fact, I looked back to find him snoozing with his helmet on. How was that comfortable? He never napped in the car. His breathing was heavier and hoarser than normal, and it drew my concern. I wanted to pull over and check him, but with the way the ash settled here, stopping could potentially strand us.

Another wary look at the fuel indicator—yeah, we had enough.

As if he sensed my look upon him, Will sneezed, rubbed his nose, and briefly opened his eyes. He cracked a smile and said, “Love you, Mom.” Then he returned to his catnap with wheezy snores.

“Love you, honey.”

The wind released its scratchy claws upon the car in short-tempered bursts. With the impending night, I was grateful that Will was sleeping. I didn’t need my anxiety to rub off on him more than it already had. Fewer and fewer tire tracks paved the way for us. Reid was careful, deliberately driving within the two thin lines of our predecessors. Those lines were quickly disappearing.

Neither of us needed to verbalize that fear. Reid had stopped asking if I was okay.

Each time a vehicle, usually a military Humvee, passed us traveling in the opposite direction, I counted my blessings. They had bigger things to contend with. Reid didn’t show an ounce of trepidation, except for his board-straight posture and tightened hand grip on the steering wheel. He stared forward, resolute in his task—his mission? I could only assume that the military passerby saw his uniform and didn’t care or dusk’s shadows helped. Luck remained with us as each vehicle continued on its way.

“Hey, Reid?” I whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Last night in the hotel…” Much had transpired since last night. I was quick to add, “Were you having a nightmare?” I didn’t mention the other thing, though it was still vivid in my memory.

He cracked his wrists and tightened his knuckle-grip on the wheel. “Yeah…”

“Do you remember…you said some things…” I fought all the sensations that begged my lips to be touched. His taste had long since left them. I shivered thinking of his hands upon me. No regrets.

“I didn’t mean to wake you. I sometimes get them when I’m stressed.” He cleared his throat. “And us…I shouldn’t have—”

A spindly stray branch scraped the windshield.

“Wha—?” My heartbeat quickened momentarily.

“It’s getting gusty.”

The moment was lost. “I’m not sorry,” I said anyway. “No regrets.”

He gave me a look that made my insides quiver again. “Me neither.”

When he spoke again a few minutes later, I almost jumped. “In the woods, when we were looking for Will, I didn’t mean to imply you had PTSD. It’s not my place to diagnose. I didn’t know about your husband…”

“No, it’s really okay. I get where you are coming from. Maybe I did, or do, have a form of it.”

“Maybe.”

Soon, we saw no vehicles. An hour passed. Nobody. Sleep lured me, and the sun, or what resembled it behind all the gloom, dipped lower in a brown-gray sky. I allowed sleep to take me. I needed it, even if just a few minutes.

****

Sudden movement jolted me awake.

“Shit,” I said, startled from a dream…where Reid had been kissing me.

Reid fought against the car, which was fish-tailing and wheezing like it, too, had inhaled too much ash. I whacked my shoulder against the window. The engine rumbled and struggled.

I clung to the handhold on my door. “What’s happening?”

Reid shut off the sputtering air conditioning. The lights on the dashboard blinked off, then on. “Dammit,” he growled.

The tailpipe roared as he worked the accelerator. “Dammit,” he repeated. Slowing, the car rolled into a grooved area beside the shoulder. The dashboard lights flickered a few times, all the freak-out lights coming on. The car shuddered and then came to a halting stop, rasping its last breath as it succumbed to its ashy battle.

Reid tried the ignition and pumped the pedal. Nothing.

Again. Nothing.

He stopped and took the keys out. “Don’t want to flood the engine.”

“Glad I had my helmet on!” Will, now awake, said from the back seat.

I rubbed my aching shoulder. Ash obscured the road signs. “Where are we, anyway?” My gut twisted. I thought we’d make it farther before this would happen. Or maybe I’d been hopefully optimistic that it wouldn’t happen at all.

“Just east of Pueblo.”

“How much east?”

“I think a few miles based on the last signpost we passed.”

High undulating hills of plains surrounded us. I already disliked Colorado. Add that to Missouri on the never-to-visit-again list. And New York.

“I pushed the car too much.”

“No, you didn’t.” I flipped to the Colorado page in the atlas. “We’re not near Colorado Springs yet.”

“We’ve got a few options.”

I closed the atlas and looked around the dark car. I exhaled and listed them for him. “Wait for help. Call somebody…,” I began, pulling my phone out of the cup holder. One bar. I dropped it in the holder.

Reid stated the third option. “Or we bike into Pueblo and get a ride from there.”

I swallowed. “If we can get somebody to give us a ride.”

Reid shrugged. “We can try. At least first check Pueblo, right? Then work our way up to the Springs and Denver.”

“Yeah.” We’d be stuck here if we waited.

“Want me to check under the hood? See what’s going on?”

“Yeah. Maybe you can fix it?”

“I can try but don’t want to get your hopes up. We might be able to get the replacement parts in Pueblo. However, it may need a tow,” Reid added.

“Okay.”

My phone pinged at nothing short of a fateful moment. I jumped. Reid stopped in his opening of the door. I grabbed the phone from the cup holder. It only read one bar of reception, but I saw that it showed “caller unknown,” and I hit talk. “Hello?” I said, sharing a look with Reid.

“AJ. It’s me.”

“Brandon!”

“I’m in…Springs…” His voice faded and was drowned by a buzzing crackle, but I recognized that voice anywhere.

“Brandon! I can’t hear you! Colorado Springs?”

His mangled voice returned. “At…the base…”

Crackling.

“Finn…he…”

More damn crackles.

“Brandon, repeat that.”

“AJ…”

“Is Finn okay? Brandon?”

Silence.

“I’m coming, Brandon! I’m coming! I’m on my way. Stay there!”

Muffled words.

Click.

Shit. Had he heard me? Did he know I was coming?

I turned to Reid. “It was Brandon! He’s in Colorado Springs. At a base, I think.”

“Which?”

“I don’t know. He said something about a base and springs, but it was hard to understand.”

“Finn?”

“I don’t know. It was garbled.”

Reid clasped my hand. “He’s okay. He’s going to be okay. Let’s check Schriever first. That’s my bet.”

I tucked the phone in my pocket, determined, trying to convince myself. “Okay. Yes. He’s going to be okay.”

“I’ll check the engine, then we can decide what to do, okay?”

“Okay. Please be quick.”

****

“Put on your jacket, Will.”

I put mine on, too, and pulled out a baseball cap. I grabbed my sunglasses, even though a thick gray haze obscured the sunset.

Reid buttoned his jacket. He put on sunglasses. I handed him a surgical mask.

I put on a mask as well and handed one to Will.

“Can’t we fix the car?” Will asked again.

“We can’t. Not with what we have here. We need to take the bikes, Will,” I said.

“I don’t understand.” His fingers danced on his legs, and he looked outside.

“It’s the only way, honey. Here, put this mask on. You need to wear your goggles. There,” I said, pointing to the goggles in the seat beside him.

He protested.

“Will!”

He began to sob, dimples appearing on his pink cheeks.

“I’m sorry, honey. But we must. You understand?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He finally put them all on.

We each had a backpack. Reid tucked Will’s in his own oversized pack. We had the essentials: water, food, equipment, clothes, the last of my money, walkie-talkies, flashlights, and headlamp. Not essential, but unwilling to leave it behind, I tossed my journal in mine as well.

“Wait! We need the compass.” Will dug through his messy back seat, grabbed it, and plopped it in Reid’s pack. “What about my books?”

I shook my head. “Too heavy. We’ll be back for them. I promise.”

“Just two small ones?”

“Okay,” I relented as he grabbed the Alaska adventure book and his wizard-cat book. Reid didn’t object to the added weight.

Reid and I both pocketed a set of keys. The wind whipped around us as we emerged from the suffocating cocoon of the car. Sulfur burned my nostrils even with the mask. Reid lowered the bikes off the rack, and I instantly missed the smell of leather and crayons and stale air conditioning. My refuge, guiding compass, conveyance, and home for the past ten days—eleven?—had been the confines of a vehicle the size of a bathroom. I wanted to crawl in there, smashed crackers and all. I set my bike aside and then held Will’s upright for him.

“You’ve got this, Will. Volcanologist adventure, right? Here.” I double-checked his goggles, mask, and helmet. “See? All ready.”

“I want to drive there.” He fidgeted with the mask straps.

I gave his arm a tender squeeze. “We can do this, Will. I know you can.”

“Show time, buddy,” Reid assured. He glanced at me, his voice muffled behind the mask. “We’ll bike into Pueblo. It’s only a few miles from here. Then, we’ll find a hospital or mobile unit and go from there.”

“Okay,” I said, doubtful. If the ash had besieged my car, what would it do when we tried to bike through it?

****

Will didn’t mind the helmet, but he wanted to take off the goggles. They dug into his head, and that stupid face mask pinched behind his ears. Ash blew all around them, and he had to focus on his pedaling. His training wheels kept getting stuck in the ash and dry dirt on the road, and Mom or Reid gave him nudges. He focused harder. He wished he could ride a bike without the trainers, the way Finn was learning now. Finn rode laps around him. He wasn’t as good at that kind of stuff as Finn.

The ash was cool. It was also scary. He was glad it wasn’t dark yet. As the sunlight dwindled, it looked like another planet. Like Mars, but Mars had dry red dirt. Not gray. He couldn’t see the sun anymore; there was a hazy yellow glow to their west, sinking to the horizon.

He got stuck again. The goggles dug. The mask pinched. He hopped off his bike and removed the helmet, goggles, and mask, tossing them to the ground. “I can’t do it!”

His heart thumped. More buzzing. He coughed and cried. The ash scratched his hands and his face.

“Oh, Will!” Mom picked up his helmet. “Please, sweetie. You’ll get hurt. Please wear it.”

He cried into her chest, and she wrapped her arms around him to protect him from the biting, smothering ash wind.

“You two should return and wait at the car. I could go ahead and get help,” Reid said.

“No. That will take longer. What if they relocate? What if you can’t make it back?” Her voice competed with the growling wind, and it rumbled into Will’s face as he cried into her chest. “Our phones won’t work, and who knows if the walkie-talkies will.”

“Mom, I want to help find Finn. I do,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Will. I’m sorry. Do you want to go back with me?” Dirty gray tears ran down her cheeks like a little trickle between her oversized sunglasses and facemask. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this.”

He grabbed his goggles and put them on. “I’m your brave wizard.” He coughed. It hurt his chest. Mom gave him a sip of her water. It tasted like dirt.

She clicked on his helmet and wiped off his face mask, assisting him with putting that tight fuzzy annoying thing back on.

“Reid, I think we need to walk,” Mom said. “His training wheels keep getting stuck and even our bikes are struggling. It can’t be any slower than riding. We can leave the bikes here and come back for them.”

“Can you manage, buddy?” Reid asked. “Just a few miles left.”

Will nodded. He would try his best. “A few? Do you think one, or two, or more?”

“I’m not sure, buddy.”

“We hiked for three miles at Yellowstone, on the geyser trail,” Mom reminded him.

“But there was no ash,” he said. His head ached again. He rubbed it.

They walked for ages. Mom held his hand the entire time. Reid assured him it was close. With the wind pelting him, it felt like forever. Mom and Susie and his teacher always told him to focus, that he could get through it. He hummed to himself to drown the buzzing. He pretended the scratchy particles of ash were asteroids, and he had to dart and weave to avoid them. He focused like he had the magic within him even though wizards were only pretend.

Finally, they came upon what appeared to be another roadblock or checkpoint. This time, there were two military vehicles and people in camouflage uniforms. They had guns and wore face masks a lot different than their own. The masks covered their eyes, nose, and mouth. He counted four of them outside of the two vehicles.

Will was happy to be done walking. His knees shook. Reid approached one of the guards, his hands up. He began talking with a guard. Mom stood next to Will and put her arm around his shoulder. He coughed and wheezed. “Mom, my throat really hurts. My—”

Then…

****

Will was on the ground and his helmet was off. Did he fall? Who took off his helmet?

Mom was above him, swimming against the grainy sky. There were other people around.

Her mask and sunglasses were off. The sky was darker.

Her lips moved, but he didn’t hear any words. He reached for her, but his arm didn’t budge. Up, up! He commanded it. He looked at it and told his fingers to move. They didn’t. Slowly, his other hand rose to touch the skin on her cheek. His chest tightened as his heart pounded in his ears.

He said, “Mom,” but heard nothing.

Something had happened for him to be on the ground, but it was like he was missing a span of time. Had he time-traveled? No. That wasn’t real.

Blinking, fear welled within him. What happened? He wasn’t sleeping, but he felt weary like he had just run laps in gym class. He was awake.

Black spots danced in his vision as dizziness erupted in his head. He thought he would go black again, but he didn’t. He felt that he might puke.

Her lips continued to move. She was crying. No sound at all, like he was out in the universe, because there was no sound there.

It reminded him of the one time in swim class where he jumped in and went all the way under the water by accident. He never swam beneath the water. Ever. But that one time, with that mean swim instructor who lied when he said he’d catch him, he went under the water.

All the way under…

He remembered.

He sank like a rock to the bottom. It was only four feet deep. He swallowed the gross chlorine water. It burned his nostrils and filled his throat. He thrashed, but his arms moved slowly in the tepid water. He kicked hard on the bottom and surfaced, warm red blood oozing from his nose. Mom ran to him and spoke with her comforting words, wrapping his oversized towel around him.

He never returned to that class.

Then Mom put him in a different class, with two boys. One flapped his arms a lot and bit his fingertips, and the other one always said “No” or “Go home, go home” and ran away from his dad and sometimes screeched.

They didn’t go to that class anymore either.

He blinked and focused on Mom. The edges of his vision were dark, like black oil was dumped in his eyes. Mom, Mom, Mom! His brain cried. Tears burned, and his vision grew murky with the black oil.

She touched his face, her palm warm on his cheek. He cried and shook as the dark oil left his vision and it became fuzzy, like when he first woke up in the morning. Slowly, the world with all its buzzing returned to him. He wheezed, “I want Dad.”

Mom said, “I’m here. You’re okay. We’re going to take you to a hospital. Honey, you had a seizure. It will be okay.”

Sei-what? Like fissures? The kind of vents that came out of volcanoes?

He felt his head. No, there weren’t holes in it, no lava spitting out. A seizure must not be like a fissure.

Then he saw Reid. Strong arms lifted him, cradling him like a baby. He didn’t dislike that; tight hugs were a great way to block the ceaseless lights and droning of the world. He heard the doors of a heavy vehicle open and close, people step in, deep voices murmuring, Mom’s lovey voice. The ride was bumpy and slow.

Mom offered him his water bottle, and he shook his head. He could still taste the chlorine from the pool memory.

“Wha…my…wha…” The words babbled. His mouth was not working.

She stroked his cheek. “Hush, Will, honey. It’s okay. We’re going to a hospital now. You’ll be all right.”

His head roared. Why did it hurt so much? He’d been wearing his helmet.

Mom was good at making him feel better. She was smart and gave him the best hugs. He felt the pain in her voice. Tear droplets bubbled in her eyes.

“I’m okay, Mom. I’m okayyyy…,” he said.

“Rest, Will. Mom’s here. Rest. We’ll be there soon.”