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NO, THE LIGHT WASN’T daylight, at least not daylight as she had once known it. But the cave’s entrance was visible, for the first time in four—or was it five?—days.
Shakily, Coral stood. Everything hurt—her scraped knees and belly, her muscles, her joints, but most of all her parched mouth and throat. She fumbled in her gear, found the bandana, and tied it over her face. All her other supplies she let stay where they were in the depths of the cave.
As she made her way to the entrance, the air around her grew hotter. She passed her original campsite, smelling now of her own waste, and she moved cautiously toward the dim daylight. The air continued to warm. Two days ago, though, it had scalded her lungs by this point, had been impossible to step into. Those oven-like temperatures had abated. Now the air at the entrance to the cave was only miserably hot, hotter than the worst summer day she’d ever known. But it wasn’t killing hot—she hoped.
For the first time in five days, she stepped over the threshold. She was free again. The relief, the sense of escaping prison, or her grave, made her lightheaded. The air was still thick with dirt or ash or soot, but the particles seemed smaller now. Maybe the big stuff had all fallen to the ground over the days. The forest smelled like the inside of a fire pit the day after a barbeque.
Two stumbling steps later, her brother’s motor home became visible through the gloom as a vague shape, a blur emerging out of the gray. It’s still there, she thought with hope—not exploded, not burned to the ground. Her feet moved over a thick cushion of fallen ash.
The urge to cough pressed at her chest. She resisted it as she made her way around the motor home to the driver’s door. As she approached it, she saw the side of the motor home was blasted clean of paint, scarred with streaks of black soot. The tires were all flat. She pulled the door open and crawled inside. Motes of dust danced in the dim light. Most of the windows were shattered, crazed safety glass still in place in the frames. The fire had not reached inside. Under a layer of dust, the table and countertops were still standing.
Shuffling along, she found her way to the kitchen area. She steadied herself at the sink and turned on the tap. A whisper of sound came from the faucet, but no water came out. She opened both taps full blast. Still nothing.
The thirst, so close to being slaked, was now a powerful animal urge. She went to the bathroom and tried the tap there. Nothing. The shower. Nothing. She could hear the water pump running, low and slow, driven by a dying battery, but nothing was coming out of the taps.
She yanked opened the refrigerator. She groped inside and found, warm to the touch, round objects. She pulled one out and squinted to make out the label. A jar of pickle relish, worse than nothing, with all that salt. She rooted in the refrigerator again. This time, she struck gold. A glass bottle of orange juice at the back, unopened. It was warm to the touch. With shaking hands, she opened it.
The juice stung her cracked lips. The liquid was as hot as fresh coffee. She gulped anyway. The glands behind her ears spasmed at the sweet taste. After a few swallows, she forced herself to put down the bottle. She didn’t want to make herself vomit up the precious liquid. Carefully, she screwed the cap back on and set the bottle on the countertop.
She probed into the refrigerator again. In a vegetable drawer, she found a can of white soda, straining at its seams, but still intact. These two finds were enough, enough liquid to save her, to rehydrate her and get her through one more day. She set the can next to her juice, then took another sip of the hot juice.
In the kitchen cabinets, she scored more finds. Bags of pasta and peanuts had been baked to brown bits, useless. But hidden behind those, there was a can of peaches, packed in pear juice, and two cans of green beans. Nothing else had survived. A bottle of canola oil had melted into an abstract sculpture and the cabinet’s bottom was sticky with the dried oil.
She pulled down the three cans of food and set them on the counter, lined up with the two drinks from the refrigerator. Each addition to her collection was a treasure. Such simple things, bits of uninteresting food she had taken for granted not ten days ago. Water she would have dumped out of the vegetable cans now was more valuable to her than a wallet full of hundred-dollar bills.
Another sip of orange juice. Sweat popped out on her face, as if her sweat glands had just now remembered how to work.
She had no way of knowing the temperature, but it had to be well over 100 degrees. If she stayed here, she and the air were going to battle for her body’s moisture—and the hot air would win. She had to get back into the cave’s cool air as soon as possible. More exploring could wait another day, and maybe the outside temperature would cool more by then. She gathered up her cans and carried them out.
As she returned to the darkness of the cave, she felt a resistance to going back inside. She wanted to be free of this place. She wanted to find other survivors, to discover what had happened, to take a shower, to get to a limitless water source. She wanted to call her family and best friends, let them know she was okay.
And she wanted to know what the hell had happened.
But all that had to wait until more immediate needs had been met. It was cooler at the rear of the cave, and the air was free of dust. Here she had to stay, for at least a little while longer.
As she drank her way through the bottle of juice, her head began to clear. The clearer her mind got, the more she understood how foggy her thinking had been the last twenty-four hours. She had been lucky to have survived that time with nothing worse than a few scrapes and a lost flashlight.
She ate a can of green beans and fell, still hungry, into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, THE OUTSIDE temperature had dropped. She wanted to move back into the motor home. But without water, it was useless to stay here. She’d have to pack up and walk out. Maybe she’d find a forest ranger, or a sheriff, or someone in charge who could help her.
The clothes closet held more unpleasant surprises. Her cotton shirts were yellowed, baked from the heat. A thin woven shirt broke like a cracker when she touched it. A nylon jacket hadn’t melted, but the material of the zipper and threads had turned brittle. Plastic bottles with shampoo in the bathroom had melted. At least she knew that the severity of the heat hadn’t been in her imagination. It had to have been damned hot to melt plastic and turn cotton so brittle. And all the laminates on the table and counters had peeled up, the heat too much for the glue holding it there.
In a pile of clothes in a cupboard, she found a set of sweats at the bottom that hadn’t been too awfully damaged by the heat. She changed. She still stank, but at least the clothes were clean.
She had to consolidate everything into the one frame backpack, paying attention to weight. Weak from lack of food, she wouldn’t be able to carry much—not for long. Her knife stayed, along with her sleeping bag and other standard camping supplies. She had been wearing her boots, but her running shoes seemed okay too, except for the laces, which she could replace with unbraided paracord, so she decided they were worth the weight. What if her boots got soaked? If she had backup shoes, she could still hike. Her daypack she emptied, filled with dirty clothes, and shoved down into the bigger pack. Maybe she’d eventually get a chance to wash them.
She considered each item carefully before allowing it to stay. She had a rod and reel in storage, and she decided to take it and the tackle box that she’d had with her in the cave. The monofilament line had melted on the reel in the motor home, but she had the short length in the emergency kit that had been with her. She simply didn’t know how long she would be on her feet, or how far she was from the nearest town and the nearest food. But if she could find a stream or lake, she’d have water, and she might find fish. That chance made the weight of the fishing gear worth carrying.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have a camp stove—with the motor home’s propane oven, she hadn’t needed to bring one. Since she didn’t have anything to cook, she supposed it didn’t matter. She packed her empty water bottles and tied the empty juice bottle and empty milk carton onto the outside of her pack. If she found water, with all these empty containers, she could carry plenty with her.
Her cell phone wouldn’t even turn on. The heat must have fried something important there too, so she left it behind.
Breakfast before leaving was the can of peaches. She might as well eat them now as carry the weight. She tidied up the ruined RV before she left, throwing away the can and closing cabinets and closet doors, thinking as she did it that it was a ridiculous gesture. This might be the last she ever saw of the place. Her brother wouldn’t be able to go hunting in it any more, that was for sure. The thought made her feel guilty. He had loved this thing. Despite the cracked windows, she locked the place as she left, though there was nothing in there to steal.
In the parking area, she tried on the pack—maybe forty pounds, at a guess—and walked back and forth with it on. She shrugged out of it and rearranged some gear to balance it more comfortably. The fishing pole, disassembled, she lashed to the outside of the pack. She wore her bandana mask, to filter out as much dust as possible. The air was still thick with it. The outside temperature might be around 90, 95 degrees. Hot, but not unbearable.
In the other outside net pouch of the backpack was the small water bottle—all the liquid she had. Instead of water, it held the juice from the peach can. She was still thirsty, but she would ration it, no more than a half today. If she couldn’t find water today, she’d drink what was left tomorrow. She might be able to hike a third day without water. Then if she hadn’t found another water source, she would start to get spacey again. Without water, in five days, in this heat, surely she’d be dead.
In the dim light, the gravel road was barely visible. Two columns of skeleton trees flanked it. As she moved between the trees, she could see they were all scorched by the fire. Not a leaf or needle remained. Smaller trees and brush were consumed entirely, leaving only the frames of the largest bushes standing, and the trees, giant black toothpicks with a few short branches poking out like spines.
On the main road, she turned left, continuing down the hill in the same direction she had been traveling when all this started, not even a full week ago. Behind her, it was thirty miles to the nearest town. She hoped in the other direction she’d find a stream, a house, a town, a gas station, or a rescue vehicle.
Under her feet, the road was covered with a thick layer of ash. Her boots shushed in it like in fine powder snow, sinking down in it to the laces. She wiggled her feet experimentally and found herself sinking lower. There had to be four or five inches of it on the ground.
It was slow going, hiking through it. Coral walked through a still, dim landscape of an ashen roadway that passed through a dead forest of black skeleton trees. No animal noises, no car noises, no sound at all pierced the thick air. She was used to silence from backcountry packing, but this was eerie, this padded silence. It seemed like some empty vision of the afterlife that nomadic desert dwellers might have invented, a limbo for lost souls.
When she got to the bottom of the long hill, before the next one started to rise, she left the roadway, making her way to the lowest point between the two hills, the place where water might be. She hunted for a creek, a stream, or any trickle of water. Despite spending what seemed a full hour at the search, she found no trace of moisture. If she could tell how the land sloped away to one direction or the other from here, she would have followed the slope down, but without clear skies and light to reveal distant trees, it was impossible for her to guess how the land changed farther than a dozen feet away.
She made her way back to the roadway and trudged on. Within steps, she had to stop. Her heart was pounding and her breath was coming in gasps, pulling fine silt through her mask. She thought she couldn’t have lost that much fitness in just a few days, but this climb was far harder than she had anticipated. She wondered what sort of elevation she was at—probably something like 5000 feet. Still, she had been hiking in high country for over a week. She was fit, young, and strong.
But then again, she was hungry, thirsty, and worried, and she was breathing dust through a makeshift mask. Irritated at having to make the adjustment, she lowered her expectations of her drained body. At this rate, in two days, she’d only cover a dozen miles before thirst stopped her. Maybe she’d get twenty miles before thirst killed her.
She had to find water—or help—soon.
She started off again, slower, taking the sort of short steps she’d normally take only on a much steeper grade. Each footfall she moved only a couple inches ahead. After two hundred paces, she had to stop to catch her breath, even at this turtle’s pace. She took the pack off and sat, waiting until her breathing had slowed to normal. She looked at the water bottle but refused herself its relief. Next stop, she’d allow herself a scant mouthful.
The next stage was no easier. You’d think it would get easier, she kept telling herself. The straps of the heavy pack dug into her shoulders. She kept her pace slow, but still it was as hard a hike as she’d ever taken. In the hot air, pulling herself up this hill, she was sweating and resented it, resented the loss of water from a body already too dehydrated.
It seemed to take hours to reach the top of the next long rise. It probably wasn’t hours, but having no way to check a clock, she couldn’t be sure. No car passed her during the time she walked. No tire tracks showed...if cars could even drive on the fallen ash, which she doubted. The ash in the air would surely clog up something in a car’s mechanical system, wouldn’t it?
Finally, she crested the hill. She sat and allowed herself a quick drink. The warm moisture felt so good on her dry throat, she wanted to gulp and gulp. Forcing herself to stop took a powerful act of will. She capped the bottle and sat, her head hanging with weariness.
Coral jerked awake. She had almost nodded off. The water bottle was still in her hand. She gripped it harder, her stomach lurching at the thought she might have dropped it or let it roll off. It was her salvation.
A thin layer of ash had coated her arms below her sleeves and had turned to a gray mud as she walked and sweated. As she rested, the mud dried to a thin layer of mortar; this cracked as she stretched and stood. It itched, and she rubbed her arms against her sides to ease the irritation.
The downhill walk was easier. The air was still hot, the pack was still heavy, and she was still weak from hunger and thirst, but at least she wasn’t fighting gravity too. Still, her breath came harder than it should have and she felt as if she wasn’t getting enough air. She wondered if her lungs were filling with fine ash, and if she could suffocate from it.
Probably. Another thing to avoid thinking about. She had to do what she could, which was put one foot in front of the other, to keep going. Finally, she reached the bottom of the hill.
She stopped for another rest, taking another sip of precious water. Her water bottle was half empty and it couldn’t yet be noon. She simply could not hike at this level of effort and keep to her rationing plan.
She had to find a water source, and today. If she didn’t, she’d die out here, alone in the dim, gray world.
What to do? She was at the bottom of another hill. Somewhere in these hills, there should be a stream or a trickle of water, snowmelt. Even if the heat had evaporated some standing water, it would have melted snow and glacier at higher elevations too, and sent water downhill. She didn’t know if she could make it up another long grade. This was her best chance, to commit right now to finding a stream by following the cleft in the hills.
Turning right, she kept her back to the road, making her way to lower and lower ground. Before the fire, this route would have been impassible, with undergrowth tearing at her, and thick brush blocking her path. Little of that growth remained, only the occasional charred skeleton of a fire-resistant bush. She stumbled over rocks made slick by the carpet of ash. Once she slipped and fell, landing hard on her butt. For an instant, she considered lying there for about a week or so, but after a few shaky breaths, she forced herself up again. To stop now was to choose death.
When the land began to rise again, she backed up a few feet and sought the lowest course instead. Keeping to the deepest part of the valley, she hiked on. Every once in a while, she stopped to listen for the sound of water, holding her breath to listen better, but she heard nothing but the hard beating of her own heart.
Mid-afternoon, as she reckoned it, Coral had to stop and rest. She was about to fall asleep on her feet She hunted for a flat space for her sleeping bag, finally settling on laying it out in the V of the path she was walking. Sleep came over her.
Thirst woke her an hour or so later. It nattered and poked at her as she rolled up her bag and stowed it. She couldn’t guess the time—still daylight, still hot. Irrationally, she felt like screaming at the heat to back off. She took only a tiny sip of liquid and set off again.
She could die out here. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live, to know what had happened, to get to a phone. She wanted to see a town again, a store, a damned drinking fountain. She wanted to hear her brothers’ voices, and her grandmother’s. She stopped and closed her eyes, forcing an end to this spiral of useless thoughts.
After steady minutes more of hiking, she could tell the daylight had begun to fade. Was this day five ending, or six, or a different day? She tried to work it out, setting her mind to the puzzle as a diversion from her thirst and exhausting. But she couldn’t work out how long had passed.
Abruptly, she came to her body again, noticing her surroundings. The ground beneath her feet was sloping downward more rapidly now. Hope sprang up in her and sped her steps. She had to force herself to stop every few dozen strides and listen for running water. As she hiked downhill, the daylight continued to fade.
She never heard the water flowing. She had to step into it to know it was there. Her boot splashed into a stream of snowmelt.
Coral dropped to her knees and thrust her hands into the water. It was wonderfully cool, the first cool thing she had touched since leaving the walls of the deep cave. She splashed water on her face, sucking water through her dry lips.
Mud. Grit. This was water, but it wasn’t pure. Still, it was wet. If swallowing a bit of dirt would hurt her, so be it. She needed the moisture.
After several swallows, she stopped drinking and took out her water bottle, draining the liquid remaining there in a few swallows. She sat cross-legged, filling her bottle again in the snowmelt stream. Maybe if she let it sit, the grit would precipitate out of it, and she could decant clearer water.
Night came on. Coral let herself drink. The water in her bottle felt clearer, now, though she couldn’t see it—or anything else, for that matter. She luxuriated in the taste and feel of water sliding down her throat. Despite the bits of grit, it was still the best thing she had ever tasted. She decanted the fresh water, stopping when she felt mud touch her lips.
She laughed aloud in pleasure as she rinsed then refilled the bottle and unpacked all her others too. She had found water; she was going to live.
For a few days, at least.
She slept again, and when she woke, she felt her body coming alive. For the first time in almost a week, her bowels rumbled to life. Her kidneys and bladder, she was happy to find, still remembered how to work, though peeing burned like acid.
As day broke, and the valley turned from black to dark gray, she drank her fill from the bottles, filled them again, and let the sediments settle for about an hour, then drank again. She used more water to rinse dust out of her bandana. Her thirst was nearly slaked. She filled every bottle to the brim, giving herself nearly a gallon of water spread over five bottles.
She broke camp. It was time to move on, to find other people, to get back to civilization. And find something to eat. Her thirst relieved, she was made aware of her weakness. She needed fuel, and soon.
