Jacqueline Druga - Under the Gray Skies

“If help is out there, our families are fine.”

Madison nodded. “That’s what I would hope.”

“Looks like you girls got it together,” Ruth said. “You don’t need help. You just need to get to your families.”

“Do you have family other than in California?” I asked.

Ruth shook her head. “No. Well… I think my grandson lives in Florida. Not sure.” She turned her head and looked out the window. “You girls better get moving. Daylight wasted is distance wasted.”

Madison nodded. “Forward, or back?” she asked me.

I knew what she was referring to. Did I want to walk backwards or forward when we carried Ruth down the stairs?

“Doesn’t matter,” I answered. “I can do either.”

Madison covered Ruth and then grabbed a facemask. “I want you to keep this on. We don’t need you breathing in too much ash. And if you need oxygen you let us know.”

Ruth stopped Madison. “I’m not going.”

“What?” Madison said with a laugh. “Of course, you are.”

“No. No. I’m not. You have a rough road ahead, the last thing you need is to have me as a burden.”

“Ruth?” I walked around for her to see me. “Do you want to stay because you don’t want to go, or are you just being a martyr?”

“Why does that matter?” Madison snapped.

I held my hand up. “It does. Trust me.”

Ruth exhaled. “I’m going to die soon anyhow.”

Madison chuckled emotionally. “Um, Ruth, you’ve been alive for ninety-two years, you lived through this, I don’t think you’re dying any time soon.”

“I will eventually run out of food and water and die.” She forced a smile.

“Alone,” Madison said. “You’ll die cold, hungry and alone. I won’t have that.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?” Madison asked.

“Okay.” I took off that hideous green coat I had found. “I’ll bring our stuff back up here.”

“What are you doing?” Madison asked.

“Staying. You don’t want her to die alone, I don’t want her to die alone and I’m pretty sure Ruth doesn’t want to die alone.”

“She’s super spry, Lace.” Madison pointed to Ruth. “We may be here for a while.”

“Not if we don’t give her much food and…” I lifted the blanket from Ruth. “Let her be cold and live like we found her. I mean… more than likely hypothermia will set in long before she starves. She’s not too spry for that.” I winked at Madison. “I hear that’s not too painful and is actually peaceful.”

“Oh my God,” Madison barked. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I kept a smug look on my face staring down at Ruth.

“You’re willing to let me starve and freeze to death?” Ruth asked.

“I got places to go. I refuse to walk with guilt over leaving you here alone to die. So I stay. I’ll just speed up the process.”

“You’re being a dick on purpose,” said Ruth.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “This is not the first time I dealt with something like this. I was apartment agent at public housing. One time, during a bad winter, all power went out to the senior building. One woman, eighty, refused to leave. I said the same thing to her. Know what happened?”

“She left?” Ruth asked.

“No, she died…” I paused. “Kidding. She left. Ready?”

Almost in shock, Ruth nodded and murmured. “Yes.”

Madison grabbed the blanket from my hand. “That was really twisted.”

“Yeah, but it needed to be done,” I said, putting my coat back on. “Would you leave her?”

“No.”

“Neither would I.”

Madison gave me another scolding look, hating my methods of convincing Ruth. What choice did we have? Every second was distance we didn’t get in the daylight.

Madison wheeled Ruth down the hall, and once at the stairs we carried her down. I walked backwards holding on to the bottom of the wheelchair. Once in the lobby, we gathered our items, hooked the oxygen to Ruth’s wheel chair, and we left for the next part of our journey.

We would head south once we got a sense of direction.

Ruth tried to hide the fact that she gasped, but it wasn’t from the air or ash, it was from the sight of everything. I suppose it was a lot different looking out a window than it was being in the thick of it.

She had spent days not seeing anything at all, the only light coming into her room was blocked by a mattress. Then when we moved her into another room, that view was limited.

She was facing destruction she wasn’t ready to see.

Moving her through the ash and around bodies and debris wasn’t easy. Ruth was lucky she weighed eighty pounds, but pushing that chair wasn’t easy. Madison and I switched off and on pushing her, and there were times it took us both to move the wheelchair. We weren’t moving fast, nor were we making much distance.

We had to find a means of transportation if we wanted to head southeast and try to clear the ash.

A hundred miles, maybe that would get us clear. A decent car with a half of tank of gas could get us there.

My fingers were cold and getting numb, not even moving kept them warm. We had Ruth covered from head to toe and she didn’t complain about anything.

Finally, after about three miles of walking, we spotted the building that could be our answer for shelter. The gray cinder block building would have been camouflaged between the overcast sky and the ash, had it not been for the bent yellow and black sign.

It was one of those instant oil change places. The ones that claimed it took only ten minutes, but in reality the wait was closer to an hour.

A car had crashed through the front window and one of the garage doors was open.

After saying, “Hold up,” Madison made her way over.

I watched as she entered, was in there for a few seconds and then came back out, making her way to us.

“There’s two cars in there. One, the hood is open. The other is just sitting there,” she said. “I’m gonna see if I can find the keys behind the counter if they aren’t in the car. It looks in good shape.”

“Think it will run?” I asked.

“If it starts, I don’t see why not. I mean, more than likely it was just in for oil, right?” Madison walked back to the garage and pushing Ruth, I followed. We waited just outside, behind the car that had gone through the front window. There were bodies in the car, I could see that. After a few minutes, the left side of the garage door opened,

“It started,” Madison said, then retreated back in.

She pulled the car out from the garage and we loaded the bags, then Ruth and finally her wheelchair. I left the driving to Madison and I got in.

We were fortunate, the economy sedan had nearly three quarters of a tank of gas. We could make some distance as long as obstacles didn’t get in our way.

The best choice for a route was a straight one. While back and secondary roads could be blocked with cars and debris, the highways presented a different problem. Overpasses could have collapsed or were in a dangerous state.

We opted for the secondary route. We had three good hours of daylight still and we headed south and south east.

I didn’t understand that at first. What was the difference? I wasn’t a cartographer, but by looking at the map, if Ruth’s theory was right, Long Valley Caldera was almost perpendicular to where we were. Going directly East would take us into dangerous territory.

Why not north?

Reasons were presented. More volcanoes? Possibly. Just in case the Yellowstone one decided to blow… got it.

Did it matter? We knew nothing. We hadn’t a clue what really happened. The only part about heading south that made sense to me was hoping for warmer weather.