Mike Mullin - Ashfall

I wasn’t making very good time. I used to ride my bike to taekwondo; it took less than fifteen minutes if I rode hard. I don’t know exactly how long it took me, skiing through the ash. Two hours, minimum. The slow pace was disheartening. At this rate, how long would it take me to get to Warren? Could I make it before my food ran out and I starved to death?

Across from the dojang was a restaurant I ate at sometimes, The Pita Pit. The skiing had left me hungry enough to eat two gyro specials and chase them with a two-liter Coke. I would have, too, if The Pita Pit had been more than a freestanding sign with a completely collapsed building behind it.

Amazingly, the strip mall that held the Cedar Falls Taekwondo Academy still stood. A pickup truck had rammed the front of the school, breaking most of the plate-glass windows. It had stopped with the cab inside the building and the bed on the sidewalk.

I unsnapped my boots from the skis. The mechanism had fouled with ash, and it took some work to scrape it clear. I walked through the window alongside the truck, carrying my skis in one hand and poles in the other. I tried to walk quietly, listening and looking around-it occurred to me that the occupants of the truck might still be there.

I didn’t see or hear anything. The truck was empty. I leaned my skis and poles against the front bumper and looked around.

The school was one big practice area with a padded floor plus an office and restrooms off to the side. I could see the front part of the school okay. The back and the office were shrouded in darkness.

I dug a candle out of my pack and lit it. Exploring by candlelight, I found that the place had been looted. The office was a shambles. Master Parker’s sword collection was gone. Someone had pulled the drawers out of the desks and file cabinets and dumped the contents, searching for God knows what. All the water bottles were missing from the mini-fridge.

I walked to the rear of the training room. That had been ransacked as well. Every one of the school’s edged weapons was gone, and the other stuff was scattered all over, as if someone had gone though it in a hurry, throwing aside everything they hadn’t wanted. I’d had a bag with my personal weapons on a rack at the back of the room. The rack was overturned, my bag gone.

I kicked the rack, feeling suddenly furious. What was it with Cedar Falls? People here had always been nice enough. But somehow the volcano had turned them into looters. Was everyone crazy now? We should have been sticking together and helping each other, not wrecking stuff.

I picked through the detritus on the practice floor. Most of it was junk that I hurled aside. Wooden practice swords. Soft foam bahng mahng ees, or short sticks. A set of padded ssahng jeol bongs, or nunchucks. Great to practice with, useless in a real fight. In the candlelight, I saw a dark gleam from the corner of the room and went to check it out. A long hardwood pole nestled against the edge of the mat. Master Parker’s personal jahng bong, or bo staff. I wondered if she’d mind if I borrowed it. Under normal circumstances, yes, she would mind. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even ask.

It was a beautiful weapon. Six feet long, an inch and a quarter thick at the middle, and tapered to one inch at each end. Stained a deep chocolate color. The varnish was worn at the middle of the staff from hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours of practice. I carried it to the pickup truck where I’d left my skis and poles

I blew out the candle and sat on the front bumper to eat. I decided to have a can of pineapple for lunch on the theory that I’d get rid of some of the heavy stuff in my pack. I was still hungry when I finished but knew I needed to conserve food. I sucked down all the juice then tossed the empty can through the broken plate-glass window into the ash. With the ash and shards of plate glass everywhere, littering just didn’t seem to matter.

Three of my water bottles were empty now, so I relit the candle and went to check the restrooms. The toilet tank in the girls’ room was full. The water smelled fine and tasted okay, so I drank as much as I could and refilled my water bottles.

Judging time was tricky in the dim light. I thought about sacking out in the dojang. I was sore and hungry but not sleepy. I knocked as much of the ash off my makeshift bandanna as I could, wetted it down, and tied it around my face.

The bo staff was a problem. I couldn’t figure out any way to attach it to my pack, yet still keep it easy to grab in a hurry. Finally, I decided to leave one of my ski poles behind and use the staff instead. Planting the end into the ash over and over wasn’t going to do it any good, but I had little choice.

I pushed my skis east along First Street. Four blocks later, I turned south onto Division Street, which would take me past Cedar Falls High. I wanted to see if any of my friends were there. It didn’t seem likely-the building would probably be deserted. Surely school was canceled on account of the volcano.

Actually, the school was packed.

As I approached my school, I saw a group of four people wearing backpacks, trudging toward the athletic entrance. I couldn’t tell who they were-they were covered in ash and had their backs to me-so I hung back and watched. They must have been dead tired; none of them so much as glanced around.

As I got closer to the building, I could make out a few figures on the roof. They were tossing shovelsful of ash over the edge.

The group ahead of me disappeared through the double doors that led to the school’s ticket office and basketball courts. I stopped, trying to decide whether to follow them or not.

I waited a few minutes. Nothing changed. The people on the roof were still shoveling ash. The fact that they were clearing the roof, trying to keep the ash from collapsing it, seemed like a good sign. Perhaps there were more people here working together to fight the ash. It was worth checking out. I skied to the doors, cracked one open, and peeked in.

The light in the short hallway was bright enough to hurt my eyes, which were adjusted to the dimness outside. A kerosene lantern hung from the ceiling. At the far edge of the light, somebody who looked a bit like Mr. Kloptsky, the principal, sat slumped in a folding chair. Next to him was a wiry old guy with a shotgun across his lap and a big guy I sort of recognized, although I couldn’t remember his name-a senior on the football team, I thought. He had an aluminum baseball bat between his knees. A couple of brooms leaned against the wall near the doors.

“Either move on or come in. You’re letting the ash in.” Definitely Mr. Kloptsky. I’d recognize that growl anywhere.

I closed the door, bent down, and popped the bindings on my skis. I reopened the door and stepped through, carrying my skis, pole, and staff awkwardly in both hands.

The guy with the shotgun walked up, eyeing me. He had the gun ready but pointed at the floor. “Bob’ll get some of that ash off ya. Stand still.”

The football player leaned his baseball bat against the wall and grabbed a broom. He proceeded to try to beat me senseless with it, scouring my clothing, backpack, and skis with the bristles. Wet ash fell off me in clumps.

When he finished, he started sweeping up the considerable pile of ash he’d knocked off me. The guy with the shotgun said, “Go on, Kloptsky’ll talk to ya now.”

I walked down the short hall to where Mr. Kloptsky sat hunched in his chair. He gestured at the empty metal folding chair beside him, and I sat down.

“You look familiar,” he said.

“Yeah. I go to school here. Went, I guess. I’m Alex Halprin.”

“Freshman last year. Mrs. Sutton’s homeroom, right?”

“Yeah.” Damn, I was impressed. Eleven hundred students, and he remembered one quiet freshman?