Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) (29 page)

Danny’s mid-eighties two-door hogged more than its fair share of the driveway so I wasn’t surprised to see him with his arm draped around Sara’s shoulder when we walked into the living room during the eleven o’clock news. Well, Boone walked and I floated. I hadn’t gotten everything I wanted tonight, but what girl wouldn’t defy gravity when her freshman crush fessed up to thinking about her all summer. Of course, Sara’d probably get laid in a crappy sports car at 11:30 while I faced another night in a nun’s cell.

We stood near the steps to watch the TV for a minute.

Female announcer: Riots continue to break out in cities at the perimeter of the evacuation area. The National Guard stopped a two-day looting spree in Minneapolis, one of many cities crippled by failed public water supplies and dwindling food and fuel. Law enforcement and the military are hampered by the inability to use aircraft to monitor these explosive public crises.

Th
e screen flashed a map with alarming red explosion icons at the locations of the cities destroying themselves. “Look,” I whispered to Boone. “Nobody’s going crazy in Iowa.” I’d hoped to make him feel better about his parents, but he grimaced at my encouraging words.

Male announcer: The Federal government insists all insurance obligations will be met
, even as two major companies filed for bankruptcy protection, crushed by the seemingly limitless weight of claims amid their own losses of personnel and capital assets to the caldera. Analysts predict this will only accelerate the free fall of the stock market.

Mom muted the TV at the commercial. She and Sara stared up at us like they had a bad cancer diagnosis to tell us about while Dad and Danny
commented on a ticker of sports news listing cancellation after cancellation.

Sara chewed on her thumbnail. “Tighty texted Danny from Carpucci’s.”

“Who’s Tighty?” Her eyebrows arched to convey significance to me. “Oh, I get it. Great. Welcome back to the fishbowl.” I turned to Boone. “I think I’m going to head upstairs before the local gossip ruins a good night. Thanks for coming out with me.” I brushed my hand down his arm, not ready to let go of him, but knowing, if I couldn’t be alone with him, I needed to be alone, period. “A lot of it was fun, anyway.”

“I thought most of it was fun
.” He stepped back to let me pass.

I threw him a grateful smile before continuing my path to bed. I stopped at the top of the steps when I heard Dad ask him, “So, you met Parker?”

“You mean Jag?”

Everybody laughed
, and Dad snorted. “I hate that kid. Always have. Happiest day of my life when Violet kicked the little punk to the curb.”

“Matt, it was traumatic for her,” Mom chided.

“Nikki’s the witch,” Sara said.

I eased into the bathroom, letting the sound of running water drown out their discussion of the life I had tried
to encapsulate like nuclear waste and leave behind.

Text to Nikki:

The power flickered on and off sporadically Sunday and Monday. Boone and I finished the fencing and cover for the big spring. Dad wrestled with the fishpond for most of a day. He finally fit the tub, half the size of a blow-up kiddy pool and about two feet deep, into the ground near dusk on Sunday. He wanted to lay the pipe himself, too, so Boone dug the overflow channel while Dad froze his hands in the mud until he had a section of one-inch copper tube angled just so and anchored with some big rocks.

Mom diverted the flow with a piece of plastic s
heeting until the water cleared then they let it fill the pond.

Dad, who reeked of
muscle ointment after two days of physical work, sat on the patio to watch. He made us all come outside to see the first trickle of clear water swell then glide out the overflow. The swell carried the minute layer of ash gathered in the short time the black pool had been right side up in the ground. The jet stream had come back over Indiana, a fire hose discharging an imperceptible mist of grit.

Dad swung his arm onto Mom’s shoulders. “Those city slickers don’t have the resources to make do for themselves. That’s why all hell is breaking loose. If we take care of these springs, we’ll always have water. And there’s food right there in the woods. You have reams of paper printed out, don’t you, Candy, from the
Internet survivalists?” Mom nodded. “Who would have thought living in the backwoods of Indiana would pay off? We’ll be like the pioneer family in those books you used to read to the girls.”

“The Ingalls?” Mom said, laughing. “
Little House on the Prairie
?”

“That’s the one
.”

Sara and I groaned.

“You’re Mary.” Sara pointed at me.

“Mary went blind,” I protested.

“Oldest sister is Mary, which makes me Laura. I catch the handsome Almanzo,” she said with a toss of her head.

“Of course.” I
pretended to scowl at her retreating back then laughed.

Dad squeezed Mom’s shoulders again. “We’ll be ok
ay, Candy.”

“I know,” she replied. “And I know you’re a mountain man now and everything, but don’t forget your mom and I want to go to Gardenburg Tuesday. We aren’t quite ready to live off the land yet.”

“I’ll try to fit you into my busy schedule,” he said. “And protect you from the gangsters of Gardenburg.”

I hadn’t asked if Dad
got paid anymore. I didn’t know what happened if he couldn’t sell anything to his dentist customers, though I figured we would all find out soon enough. I glanced over at Boone, whose cattle ranch with a herd recently plummeted to zero couldn’t exactly be turning a profit.

People everywhere, of all professions,
were losing the ability to earn money. Mom still worked at the paper, though, and everyone devoured the news, so hopefully her pay would tide us over, though with gas pushing above fifteen dollars a gallon, I didn’t see how, since she’d complained more than once she practically worked for free.

“I can ride along
, too,” Boone suggested, “if you’re worried about trouble.”

“Oh, I don’t think little Gardenburg is too riled up yet. And I like knowing somebody will be here with the girls.”

Boone wiped his hands on his jeans. “Speaking of that, Mr. and Mrs. Perch, there’s something I should mention to you if I’m going to be staying here longer.”

A spurt of trepidation curdled my stomach. I had
no idea what he planned to say.

“I
have a concealed weapon permit. There’s a handgun in the glove box of my truck. I’d feel more comfortable bringing it inside the house, along with some other supplies that might be…attractive to anybody looking. But, this is your home, and I don’t want to do something you’re uncomfortable with.”

Mom’s mouth went slack with
distaste. She thought weapons were the instruments of evil, and only tolerated Dad’s because they were for hunting, which he didn’t do often. Or well. “Why do you feel you need a gun?” Her tone suggested no reason would be good enough.

“Things are d
ifferent on a ranch in Nebraska,” he said evenly.

“Well, this isn’t Nebraska,” she countered.

“Yes, ma’am. But, the Wild West might be moving east.”

Dad cleared his throat. “What would you do with it if you got it out of your truck?”

“I’d like to put it back in the guest room. Unloaded, of course. We can keep the ammunition separate if you’d feel better. It doesn’t seem you have the kinds of people coming here who will get into trouble with a gun and bullets side by side, but you never know.”

Mom shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I don’t like the idea of it. But then I don’t like the idea of a gun out in your truck where somebody could find it and use it against us
, either.” She looked up at Dad and they did that unspoken married-persons’ communication thing.

“Give us a chance to talk about it, Boone.”

“Sure, Mr. Perch.”

Dad clapped a hand on his shoulder. “And how
’bout you start calling me Matt? This ‘Mr. Perch’ and ‘sir’ stuff makes me feel old.”
 

 

Boone met Grandma for the first time on Tuesday morning while she and Dad waited for Mom to double check her shopping list. Grandma was a homemaker in the truest sense. She’d gardened and canned and sewn her own clothes for most of her life. I loved Grandma in spite of her rigid conservatism. Her grandparents had been Mennonites, and her parents raised her that way, though they strayed off the strictest path. She still had enough of the Brethren in her to eye Boone like a pedophile at the nursery school playground.

“Herb says you come from over there in Nebraska,” she said. Herb was Grampa.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said over his cup of coffee.

Grandma didn’t drink coffee,
black tea, or spirits. Grampa didn’t either, except beer, when he could get hold of one. He’d developed a taste when he worked construction in his youth. In Grandma’s view, his beer days ended with retirement. We kept his occasional transgression a secret, though Grandma wasn’t an idiot. I’m sure she smelled it on him every time. Right now, she clutched a glass of temperate milk. I say temperate ’cuz the refrigerator had been off all night.

“
Boone worked on hooking up solar panels yesterday, Mother,” Dad said. “He’ll probably have some big batteries charging today. If the sun comes out.”

A scud of
flat gray obscured the sky, mainly cloud cover, though ash muted even the sunniest days now. When you looked up, a pall hung between you and the blue you were used to, and you rubbed your eyes to clear a blurring film that wasn’t there.

“What will you do with big batteries?”
Grandma asked.

Dad grabbed his shopping list from the counter. “We’re going to look for an…inverter today
.” He had to search for the electrical word. “An inverter to make the battery power into something we might be able to plug into. They won’t run much but it might be better than nothing.”

“I need to get my prescription filled,” Grandma said for the second time.

“I know, Mother. I have it on the list here.”

“I don’t like medication,” she said to Boone. “But my doctor says I have a heart condition. I feel fine.”

“Yes, ma’am. My dad takes some medicine every day too. It hasn’t slowed him down.”