Jacqueline Druga - Under the Gray Skies

The five minute ride over the bridge seemed like an hour. I felt as if I were waiting for it to just let go and crash to the frozen water below at any second.

It didn’t.

There was another obstacle to overcome though. The roads. Unlike the Midwest, West Virginia had many hills. Even the highways weren’t straight and even. We figured by looking at the map, if we could make it mid way south through the state, things would ease up.

That was our logic.

Another goal.

But first… my family.

My heart pounded from my chest when we pulled onto my street and then I lost it. I felt it drop to my stomach and my insides twisted and turned. My ears filled with a buzz as my rising blood pressure pounded and burned them.

The family van was still out front.

The windows of the house were iced over. A tree had fallen across the yard. If nothing else, my home screamed death.

I stopped the Humvee. “I can’t go in there.” I lifted my eyes to Madison.

“You sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure.”

She squeezed my hand, put up her hood, grabbed her gloves and reached for the door.

“No,” I stopped her. “You don’t have to.”

“You need to know. I’ll be back.”

“I’m coming with you,” Del said.

I felt the blast of cold air when they both opened the doors. My forehead dropped to the steering wheel.

How long had it been since I prayed. I wanted to believe it was years, but that wasn’t true. I prayed in that hole.

Eyes closed tight I prayed that it was fast, that they didn’t suffer. I hoped it was peaceful at least.

Did they die knowing I loved them?

Hand clutching the steering wheel, my body tensed up while waiting on the final verdict.

The driver’s door flung open.

“Stop torturing yourself,” Madison said, then handed me a frozen solid baggie. Inside was a note. “They left.”

July 19

Lace,

I tried to wait for you. I really did, but I had to think of the kids. If you are reading this note, I am so sorry we aren’t here. We know you are out there, alive, trying to get home.

The weather is predicted to take a turn for the worst, it’s already cold and without power, staying warm is hard. Last word from Mr. Johnson and his ham radio was that Yellowstone was on the brink of joining whatever set off the cascade of eruptions. Your mother made it here a few days ago. We’re taking her SUV and heading to Moundsville to hopefully follow the convoy to Virginia.

Our destination is Norfolk. Refugee ships are leaving there in a few days and then again, two weeks later. I don’t know whether we will make the ship on the twenty-fifth. Please know that we had to go. I will be waiting for you and pray you find us.

I know there are millions heading south. They’ll probably put us in one of those camps. I don’t know. I took that stupid Sun Flag with us. I will put it out wherever we are. So no matter how many people, no matter how many tents or trailers, look for that flag.

Find us Lacey. I hope and pray you do. We are all fine and alive, and we all miss and love you very much.

The letter was written nearly a week earlier. Placed in a baggie and taped to the table just inside the front door. He stated my mother arrived a few days earlier. Which meant my mother went directly to my home after getting my call. The day he wrote it was the day me and Madison left with Callie and Stone. We were still out west.

They left before the exodus.

They had a jump on it.

I wondered why he picked that day and why he went to Moundsville and not straight to Norfolk. Did he hear something, see something?

I stood in my frozen living room taking in one final look, then like Madison, I gathered some items. I took photographs, and other things that perhaps someone else would understand my reasoning behind. I put them in my backpack.

Madison and Del both asked about the sun flag. A flag I should have noticed right away was missing, but I didn’t. I explained that I had flags for all occasions. I placed them on a pole from our porch. Before I left for California I hung the summer one. A bright blue flag with a huge yellow sun with a smile face and the words, ‘summer is here’. How ironic he took that one. In the midst of a wintery hell, I was to look for a huge smiling sun.

Perhaps, it would be the only sun we would find for a long time, but it wasn’t the only sun I wanted to see.

We didn’t stay long. It was time to go. I knew no matter how fast we drove, even under the best road conditions, we were missing the Seven-Twenty-five. Our best bet and hope was to get to Norfolk and find out what ship they took.

I knew they wrote down names in Kansas, I only hoped they did the same in Virginia.

The biggest problem we had was the weather. Not the snow or ice, but the cold. Callie said orders were changed because they expected uninhabitable weather in a week.

When she said it, I found it hard to believe. As I stood in my home, the bone chilling cold showed me the reality of it.

Bottom line, for our safety we had to get south as quickly as we could.

We debated on how we would do it. Would we stop or drive through the night with the spotlights on? Stopping was just as dangerous as driving.

We had made it from one end of the country to the other and still had not found what we were looking for.

By joint decision, we were going to push through, drive into the blackness of the night. That choice only took us so far. Fear of going over the side of the road, seeing only twenty feet in front of us, caused us to stop and pull over.

We didn’t quit for the entire night, just long enough to get brave again. Despite refueling, and leaving the vehicle running, stopping for those two hours was our biggest mistake.

As we originally believed, it was too cold to stop.

We only needed to make it another two hundred miles.

Half way through West Virginia was our goal. Things had to switch up there, they had to.

A mere hour after we resumed our trip, the engine felt sluggish. I felt I had to push it, depress the gas as much as I could just to get juice.

Before long, the Humvee sputtered and choked. On the highway south, for some reason, it just died.

It reminded me of the night with Callie and Stone. The night we were attacked. Out on the road, everything so black, the headlights reflecting off of nothingness.

We had lights, but the engine wouldn’t start.

“The fuel line is frozen,” Madison said. “It has to be the fuel line. We have battery power.”

“What do we do?” I asked.

Del shook his head. “If that is what’s going on, unless some freak warmer weather happens, then there is nothing we can do.”

The Humvee was done. None of us knew how to fix it. Even if we did, we didn’t have the means or parts. But even if we had all the parts and know how, we still couldn’t fix it as we wouldn’t last five minutes outside.

“Well, this sucks,” Madison said.

“Yeah,” I glanced over to my notebook and the picture of Davis and the kids clipped to the front. “Yeah, it does.”

We were done.

We knew it.

Our journey, although unfinished had come to an end on a cold, dark West Virginia highway.

“They say,” Madison said. “That freezing to death isn’t a bad death. Not supposed to feel anything. You just get tired, the shivering stops and you die.”

“Who says?” Del asked. “I don’t think those who froze to death got to say how it felt.”

Madison shrugged. “It’s better than falling from a building.”

“True,” I said. “We could have suffocated like those people in California.”