Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano :Eruption

“I’m alive,” she greeted her father when he answered her call.

“You would have had a harder time phoning if you weren’t,” he agreed.

“Dad!” She might have known he would come out with something like that, especially when she handed him such a juicy straight line. All the same…

“It’s good to hear from you,” he said. “I’m sure your mother will think so, too.”

Call her next, that meant. Vanessa was less than thrilled. For one thing, Mom still treated her like a baby, and no doubt would till the end of time. For another, Vanessa blamed Mom for breaking up her folks’ marriage. But, if blood was even slightly thicker than water, it needed doing. Otherwise, Dad would have to take care of it himself. He would, too, and then probably get plowed to wash it out of his system.

So she sighed and said, “Right.” Then she added the essentials: “I’m in Camp Constitution. The refugee camps are all over the news, I bet.”

“Yup,” Dad said. “How bad is it?”

“Camp Concentration would be a better name,” she dished. “It sucks.”

He wasn’t impressed. She might have known he wouldn’t be. “They’re swamped,” he said. He wasn’t here, either, or he wouldn’t have added, “I’m sure they’re trying as hard as they can.”

“My ass!” Vanessa said, and then, quickly, “Listen, I’m gonna go, and save my battery. You wouldn’t believe what a hassle recharging is, and that’s almost the only electricity here.” He might have said good-bye, but she didn’t wait to hear.

Mom said, “Oh, thank God!” and burst into tears when Vanessa called. Vanessa kept the call even shorter than the one to her father. Again, hanging up was a relief.

After that, Rob. She got his voicemail. He’d updated it to include gigs in Maine, so she figured he was up there. Denver winter was bad enough. Maine was bound to be worse. She left a message and called Marshall.

“Yankee Stadium, second base.” Yeah, that was him.

“Hey, kid bro. Believe it or else, I’m alive.” Vanessa waited for him to do the same kind of number on her as Dad had a few minutes earlier.

“Good kind of way to be,” was as far as Marshall went. He asked the next reasonable question: “Like where are you alive?”

“Camp Constitution.”

“Where’s that?”

“About five miles southeast of the middle of nowhere. Don’t you ever watch the news?”

“Huh? No.” By the way Marshall said it, that was one of your basic dumb questions. He was probably sitting there in Santa Barbara, totally wasted, without a clue about how lucky he was. Then he said, “Guess what I did.”

“I don’t know. Are you out on bail because of it?” Vanessa was thinking about getting busted for dope, although these days that wasn’t easy in California. The acid bite of malice felt good any which way.

It would have felt even better if Marshall had noticed it. As if she hadn’t spoken, he went on, “I sold a story. To New Fictions. They’re gonna pay me real money for it.”

“You did what? No way!” That was more sea-green envy than disbelief. Like any good editor, Vanessa was sure she would make a good writer as soon as she found the time. As with a lot of good editors, somehow she never did. That Marshall could have appalled her.

“Way,” he said, and she couldn’t doubt the smugness in his voice, however much she wanted to. “I bet I never would have done it if I wasn’t taking that writing class that made me submit.”

“Rrr.” Vanessa wasn’t grinding her teeth, just making a noise as if she were. How many times had she told herself that quitting school and making a real living instead was a good idea? “ Weren’t taking. It’s contrary to fact,” she said automatically.

“Whatever.” He not only didn’t know, he didn’t care. And he was in Santa Barbara, with electricity and hot water and food that didn’t come out of cardboard boxes and taste like cardboard, and he’d sold a fucking story? As a matter of fact, yes. Where was the justice in that?

“I’ll talk with you more later. I’m going to save my battery.” Vanessa trotted out her built-in excuse once more.

“Right. Take care, y’know?” How baked was Marshall? Short of calling the Santa Barbara PD and having them bust him, Vanessa had no way of doing thing one about that. And, since it was Santa Barbara, half the cops probably got lit when they were off duty.

“Shit!” she said loudly. People were walking by her through the mud. Nobody even looked up. You heard plenty worse than that in Camp Constitution. Vanessa heard plenty worse in her own tent from the trailer-trash single mom whose eleven-, eight-, and six-year-old girls were going out of their tree because they couldn’t watch TV or play video games or get on Facebook-and from the little darlings, too.

She looked up to the uncaring heavens. The uncaring heavens started raining on her. Well, where else would the mud have come from? By the look and feel of things, it was liable to start snowing pretty damn soon. Wouldn’t that be fun, when she was living under canvas?

And speaking of shit… The wind blew harder, from out of the west. It brought the stink of row upon row of outhouses. Running water? A sewage system? It was to laugh. How long since cholera last broke out in the land of the free and the home of the brave? How long till it did again? The only thing Vanessa could do about it was hope she didn’t get sick.

“Wow!” Rob said, and then, “Oh, wow!”

Justin Nachman nodded. “This is white like white on rice.” They’d both seen snow before, on Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles’ earlier winter forays into the cold parts of the country. Only this wasn’t winter, and Rob didn’t think anyone this side of an Eskimo had ever seen snow like his.

Justin’s thoughts ran along different, though related, lines. He was driving, and had his nose about six inches from the windshield-it looked that way to Rob, anyhow-to try to see out better. He said, “I keep expecting to spot a St. Bernard by the side of the road. I wouldn’t mind, either. A slug of brandy right now would go down nice.”

“Uh-huh.” Rob nodded. The SUV’s heater was doing its brave best, but how long would that stay good enough? He had no idea what the outside temperature was, but he would have bet dollars to dill pickles he’d never been anywhere colder. “You might want to be careful if you do see a St. Bernard,” he added. “This is Maine, remember. Stephen King country. It could be Cujo.”

“You know how to cheer a guy up, don’t you?” Justin said.

The wipers on the SUV went back and forth, back and forth. So far, they were staying pretty much even with the swirling snow. Rob just hoped they could keep doing it. Justin had the lights on, but sensibly kept them on low beam. All the blowing white would have reflected brights straight back into his face, making it even harder for him to see where he was going.

“Hey, there are worse things than giant rabid dogs.” Rob was determined to be helpful-or something like that. “Maybe some vampires from ’Salem’s Lot still flitting around.”

“It’s daytime,” Justin pointed out.

“Oh, yeah. That’s really gonna bother ’em in weather like this,” Rob said. “Besides, nowadays they probably wear shades and smear themselves with SPF 50 sunscreen. Using technology to solve problems. That’s what engineering’s all about.”

“Thank you, Albert Speer.” Justin gave a straight-armed salute truncated by the SUV’s roof.

Rob had only a vague notion who Albert Speer was. A Nazi: what more did you need to know? “That wasn’t him,” he said. “That was Professor Dinwiddie, explaining why engineering majors should be proud of what they were doing.”