Rhyolite Drifts: Yellowblown™, #2

By J. Hughey

Abandoned by Hotness.

Held hostage by the Yellowstone eruption, I’m stuck at home instead of loving life at college.

Sanity is restored when my college roommate arrives, but I’m still trapped in my hometown with a bunch of people just trying to survive. Some of them are surprisingly interesting, like the HAM radio opera singer lady. Or the pop star who crushes on me while waiting for an air filter for his tour bus.

Unfortunately there’s also my roommate’s gangster little brother who pushes Grandma to her conservative edge, and the local entrepreneurs determined to capitalize on hard times. They tick me off.

Despite all this I’m determined to find a path to the fabled land of Adulthood even if my heart is broken and all the roads are ash covered.

And where the heck did that Nebraskan cattle rancher go, anyway?

Everything is changing but my heart and my hopes don’t want to change with it.

Rhyolite Drifts is book two in the Yellowblown™ Series by J. Hughey. Eruption: Yellowblown™ Book One is highly recommended to be read first, and was a BTS eMag Red Carpet finalist in 2014.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jill Hughey
• Release date: Apr 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9780996208130

Book preview

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November

The light switch of my life flicked back on the moment I saw Mia Carbone in my driveway. I’d been bumbling along in a depressed haze in the chilly autumn weeks since He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named left to find his parents, somewhere presumably east of Nebraska. With no forewarning, Mia, my college roommate, arrived looking rattier than I’d ever seen her in public—or in private, for that matter—and beleaguered by her sullen sixteen-year-old brother who plodded like a recalcitrant mule at her side.

I was ashamed when I thought about it later, ashamed of how her needing me, of how having someone from the perfect college life ended by the Yellowstone caldera, someone who understood what had been taken away, snapped me back into focus.

I shouldn’t need an outside force to do that, should I? I should be my own focus-snapper.

The bleached under layers of her hair had grown out about an inch, and though they were still funky, her general scruffiness, the lack of eye makeup, the slight hint of body odor, set her natural mojo askew. Even when not put together, Mia had always been put together, if you know what I mean. You could hand her an ugly plaid jacket, a tulle prom gown in the wrong size, and combat boots with a guy’s feet still in them and she’d figure out a way to rock it.

Not today.

She gushed with gratitude as Mom settled Tony—the brother—with a sandwich. Mia is not a gusher, I thought as I led her upstairs to my room. Her unblinking eyes drifted over the pastel mélange of tidy twin beds and yellow muslin curtains. She sank down to the floor. Her sobs pretty much ended the illusion that Mia the resilient street girl was who walked up my drive.

I’d seen her cry only once, a few silent tears in our dorm room the night before she’d gotten on a bus to New Jersey and I’d come home to Indiana.

Nothing like this.

Not that I thought she didn’t feel negative things. No. I knew her life had been shitty well before what was threatening to become an apocalypse, that she’d lived through plenty of things worth crying about, like having no father and a crackhead mother. Still, Mia didn’t express. She repressed.

Until now, that is. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her head, knocking her pilled knit beanie hat to the floor as she rocked forward and back.

I squatted down in front of her and opened my mouth to speak when my mom popped in the door. Oh dear, she sighed. I watched her maternal experience kick in to high gear. Without hesitation she sat down next to a girl she barely knew and pulled her into a tight embrace.

I expected Mia to come out of the attempted hug like a feral cat, all claws and snarling. Instead, my strong best friend leaned into Mom and really, really cried. Deep. From her diaphragm. Mom continued the rocking, kept talking to her, reassuring her. It’s okay now, Mia. You’re safe now. Tony’s downstairs eating another peanut butter sandwich. He looks good. You did a good job. Everything will be okay now.

I had no idea how Mom knew what to say, how she knew the responsibility Mia felt for her brother. I only knew I had tears in my eyes too, and I looped my arms around the both of them for a solid five minutes until Mia finally slowed down to sniffles. I scrambled to the nightstand between the two beds to grab a handful of tissues, one of the many items Mom had bought a lifetime supply of back in September, when I’d teased from a cheerful distance about her doomsday prepping.

Mia blew her nose and wiped her face, quickly using up three. She scooted away from Mom’s soothing back caresses to lean on the foot of the bed.

Mom smiled at her, though Mia didn’t see the perky, triangular face and spiky dark hair. Matt’s heating some water on the camp stove so you can get at least a bird bath. That’ll feel good, won’t it?

Tears flooded over her bottom lashes again, but she dashed them away. Yes, Mrs. Perch. That sounds super.

And maybe a hot chocolate, Mom promised briskly as she retreated downstairs.

Mia stretched her grubby jean-clad legs straight out on the blue shag carpet. She stared blindly at my closet door. The word shell-shocked pinged into my head from high school English lit. Some story about World War I. I guess they call it post-traumatic stress disorder now, but I thought shell-shocked suited this situation better.

Sorry about that, she said.

No biggie. I’m glad you’re here, I replied, wanting to start out with something positive.

Not as glad as I am, Mia answered.

Yeah, I was getting that vibe.

She flicked me off.

The rude gesture thrilled me. No one around here would dream of giving me the finger because no one was a friend like her. I stepped over her legs. This is your bed, I said. I gave the mattress a showroom hand-test even though it was probably as old as us.

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An hour later Mia was sound asleep in it, her hair still damp from being shampooed in the steaming hot water Mom and Dad had carried upstairs. A mug of hot chocolate cooled next to the box of tissues. I read a book and kept a vigil so she wouldn’t be alone and confused when she woke.

Later that night, with the familiar snuffling sound of her breathing softening the empty corners of my room, a heavy ache settled in my chest. I’d told myself a few weeks ago I was letting go of what I thought my life would be. I’d released the ideas of college and career, marriage and kids (a long time from now), let them float away like so many particles of volcanic ash. Living for this moment in this day, making the best choices I could in this instant, was the only plan.

’Cuz thinking about what should have been, the path I thought I’d earned and laid out, offered only a hollow pain behind my breastbone. Mia in a twin bed in the same room shoved me toward Past.

The balls of my hands pressed into my eyes until the pressure squeezed them at the corners. I remembered a day last September, Mia and I on a blanket on the quad, studying. I’d been thinking about geologic time in a very theoretical sense. I’d had all the time in the world and geology was a series of concepts to learn for a grade in a class, another step on the path.

How real was geology now? The entire world watched a super caldera no one could get close to. Predictions of a major human mortality event (lots of peeps dying) became direr and more mainstream every day the eruption continued dumping its shady little bits of crap into the atmosphere.

We’d starve, or freeze, or murder each other to avoid starvation and freezing.

On September 13, the day Yellowblown began, I thought lava would be the main worry from a volcano. And Yellowstone was producing enough to finish what it had started with its initial blast. Hundreds of square miles, generally north and east, were being submerged by the flow, if we trusted the satellite thermal imaging.

On that day, though, my geology professor tried to impress upon me and the Nebraskan the volume of ejecta this volcano could produce, and that lava sticking tamely to the ground was the no-worries part. Ash would wreak the most havoc as it whirled in volumes measured by cubic kilometers with a line of zeroes at the end. Some particles would drop, too heavy to be carried past the Dakotas or Kansas, say. The finer bits would soar and float and linger, slowly dispersing around the earth like the shield around Asgard in the Marvel movie, spreading like glaze on a donut hole, first drizzling along the latitude of Yellowstone then swirling toward the poles with the help of the jet stream and weather patterns. 

Only it was not a shield for protection or confectionary deliciousness. It blocked the warmth and light of the sun, the original source of nearly every calorie of energy on our planet, the engine for our weather and the seas, the fuel for most plant life.

We could not turn Yellowblown’s shield off or blast it away, and each infinitesimal decrease in the sun’s energy wiggling through put another nail in our rather large coffin.

I hadn’t seen Dr. Potter again after that eye-opening Friday. We—the Nebraskan and I—assumed he’d left to find his wife and baby who’d been unlucky enough to be visiting family in North Dakota when the cork popped. He’d called to warn his wife when he saw the first alerts from the United States Geological Survey, but before he could be sure she understood and was evacuating, the communications grid we all depended on had started to fail. Texts and cell phone calls to the states on the margins were as likely to succeed as me becoming a super model.

Anyway, this was Now. I was lucky enough to have Mia here as part of it. All the other stuff, the past, and what Yellowblown would do to us, was better to let float over my head because, near as I could tell, there was no path to a bright future from here.

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Mia hardly stirred until the next morning. I was staring at her when her eyes finally fluttered open. My face made the memory of yesterday click immediately into place. Where’s Tony? she asked.

He slept on the couch. I think Sara might move in here so he can have her room.

Mia blinked at me. I can sleep on the couch, she said. She started to sit up as if she had to go there now.

Naw. Mom doesn’t want to do that. She’s already given up her dining room and the garage, and has her in-laws living here, and says the kitchen looks like a Girl Scout campsite. She’s kind of adamant the living room is going to stay a living room.

Mia flopped back down on the pillow. Well, I guess she’s the boss.

Oh yeah.

She reached up to touch a Hunger Games poster on the wall above the bed, a throwback to high school I didn’t even notice was there anymore. Where’s Hotness sleeping these days?

Past. He left.

That crappy tidbit got her to sit up for real, her striking blue eyes pinning me. When?

A few weeks ago. Around your birthday, actually. Why didn’t you text me back? I definitely did not want to talk about the Nebraskan, even with my best friend.

She looked out the window at the tangled pattern of leafless tree branches not much different than they’d be any other November in spite of the ash drifting above us, high in the atmosphere. The geology department head had called it rhyolite ash because of the mineral makeup.

My mom stole my phone. She traded it for a dime of crack, which, by the by, is a lot less crack than it used to be. Mia traced the top of the white headboard with her black polished fingernail. What do you guys use for money out here?

Well, money most of the time, though I don’t know if my dad is getting paid much anymore. Dentists aren’t exactly buying equipment and supplies like crazy. People bring us stuff sometimes ’cuz we have a spring in front of our house with good water.

No kidding, Mia said. Free water.

And my mom bought enough stuff to see us through the end of the world. Wait ’til you see her inventory. It’s like walking through a discount mart. I guess if they can keep paying the electric bill and the mortgage, we’ll be okay. I tugged at the hem of my pajama pants. How long were you on the road?

She shrugged her thin shoulders. Ten days or so.

What was it like? Out there, I mean. I haven’t been any farther than Gardenburg since they closed college.

She shrugged again, though a pained hardness to her jaw negated the carefree attitude. It’s weird. Some of the gas stations were out of gas, and you mostly have to show some special card to get diesel. A truck driver gave us a ride to Cincinnati. Then we hitched and walked. You know, did what we had to do.

I thought she might be about to cry again, but she bottled up. How did you find a truck driver?

Gram tricked us. At my confused expression, she sighed. She set it up with a guy from our church, promised we were all going, then said goodbye in the parking lot. I feel like I left her in a concentration camp. She knew what she was doing. Knew I’d be so busy convincing Tony to go I’d leave her behind. I’m never going to speak to that old bitch again.

I wasn’t sure if she meant this in the angry way or literally, as in ‘I’m never going to see that old bitch to speak to her again.’

Tony didn’t want to leave Camden?

Tony was working his way up the ladder from dealing drugs in the cafeteria at school to getting shot on the street corner. His favorite phrase right now is ‘bust a cap,’ and he’s too dumb to even realize he’s five years behind the lingo. He thinks he’s all that while the older guys, the guys higher on the ladder, laugh at him. I had to get him out of there. Things were getting out of hand. She frowned. I didn’t want to leave Gram though.

Our land line still works most of the time. You could call her.

Maybe. I need to get another cell. Even something old that can still be activated. Or one of those burner phones.

Dad might have an old phone lying around.

She leaned forward to peer in the mug on the nightstand, then picked up the cold, coagulated hot chocolate and gulped it down.

Hey, you’re probably starving. Let’s go downstairs for breakfast.

Tony sprawled on the couch in the living room, still wearing the jeans loose enough to show the top of his boxer shorts, with the bottom of each leg caked in mud where they had dragged, presumably picking up dirt from Cincinnati to here. His long, skinny bare feet were propped up on the coffee table. He’d been staring at the blank TV, but now glared at Mia as she sat down next to him. Colossal fake diamonds gleamed dully from each of his lobes, and I wondered why his mom hadn’t stolen them out of his ears.

You need to wash up and change your clothes, Mia said.

Why? Some hot girl be comin’ out the woods?

Knock it off. We’re in someone else’s house. Get cleaned up.

He scowled. I don’t have any privacy here. Baby sister walked through before the sun was even up, he said, jerking his chin toward me. What the hell?

Mom’s gonna rearrange things so you have a room, I said.

Why was Sara up so early? Mia asked.

She has school three days a week, I said. Mia’s eyes lit up hopefully.

Forget it, Tony growled. This bro not going to a bum-freakin’ hick school.

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I gave Mia the tour of The Perch, the name my family had always used for our house since our last name was Perch. Ha ha. I realized, as we walked around, the term now encompassed more than the house. We had a compound as if we were Kennedys. I showed her the two springs of water—one out back trickled into a decorative fish pond Dad had never quite gotten around to installing in the landscaping, and a larger one across the driveway protected with a shelter and piped so water could be collected easily, courtesy of the Nebraska boy.

When I mentioned it, Mia raised her eyebrows. Why did he leave?

Went to find his parents.

So, he’s coming back.

I doubt it, I said with a shrug.

You doubt it.

I led her toward the yard where more memories waited. A rectangular garden with a deer fence engineered by him had plastic-covered rows with a suggestion of green showing through the translucent makeshift greenhouses. Mom’s attempt to grow cold weather crops like kale and chard had been only marginally successful, but she’d stored about a million paper packets of seeds in the dining room supply area ready to burst into fruitfulness this summer. One thing I’d learned was you couldn’t cook kale long enough to make the stems less tough. Kale was like the most aggressive spinach you’d ever encounter, but when it was the only fresh vegetable you had, you ate it. Or at least I did. Sara refused despite Mom’s warnings of pending anemia.

Mom and Dad made this garden. He helped with the fence and stuff.

"And why isn’t Hotness coming back?" Mia said. Freakin’ pit bull.

He didn’t say he would, I answered defensively. I haven’t heard a word from him since he left. And he made it pretty clear he didn’t want much to do with me his last few days here.

I could feel her trying to see through the back of my head as I led her toward the garage a few strides away. I dunno. He was pretty into you. Maybe he doesn’t have cell coverage.

I stopped without looking at her. You’re great for trying to make me feel better, but you know what Mia? He’s gone and he didn’t make any promises. He didn’t want to make any promises. All this crap is bad enough—this stupid volcano and being stuck here and not knowing what kind of life I’m going to have, if the human race even survives long enough for me to have any life—all is bad enough without wasting my time pining for some rancher who couldn’t get away from me fast enough once he’d decided to go.

Mia’s stifled laugh made me want to punch something. "Wow. I thought my outlook was bleak."

I turned to smirk at her, chagrined. I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through a lot worse than me the past few weeks.

Now Mia was trying to see through the front of my head, trying to read my mind. I’m not buying it, sista-friend. You two were too good together for him to be gone forever.

Well, Yellowblown has a way of changing things.

That’s the understatement of the century.

I’d just started to explain our garage full of the supplies we didn’t talk about so we didn’t get robbed when a dusty Tahoe pulled up to the big spring. A tired woman, apparently too overwhelmed by life to dress in matching clothes, slid out of one side while two boys squirted out the other. They were old enough to help with the assortment of empty gallon milk jugs and white orange juice bottles but chose to screech and throw bits of gravel at each other instead.

Grampa hobbled across the porch in his well-worn work boots, watched the chaos for a minute, then thumped the stock of his shotgun on the wood floor. The boys studied the gun and the crazy coot, fascinated. Go help your mother, Grampa ordered as if he was related to them and had some authority. They stared. He pointed a finger at the woman. Go on, now! Help your mother!

Each dropped a fistful of pebbles to scurry away from stranger danger. She gave one the job of preparing the empties to be filled and capping the full jugs she handed to him while the older, bigger boy grudgingly lugged the heavy containers back to the SUV. He gave Grampa a cautious scowl every time he loaded one. Grampa monitored their progress from behind his rectangular dark rimmed glasses, shoulders pulled back over the slight paunch of old age and retirement.

The scene engrossed Mia’s attention, blessedly removing it from my ex-whatever-he-had-been. Your parents let people drive up here and take as much as they want?

So far, it’s worked. Grampa plays policeman from the porch. People need water and we have more than we’ll ever use, so why not?

That’s really nice, she said with the mystified expression of someone watching an unfamiliar aboriginal ritual.

Another vehicle pulled up behind the Tahoe. They’re the Trentons. Bob and Vicky. They’re regulars.

Busy place.

A black classic pickup eased around the two cars. Ugh.

Nice truck, Mia said.

I snorted, earning a questioning look. That’s Parker.

Her blue eyes went wide. I realized she still wasn’t wearing any eyeliner, though she had painted on her usual movie-star lipstick. "The Parker?"

In the flesh.

You weren’t kidding about the Jordan Blue obsession, she muttered as we walked toward the matte black truck complete with logos for Jordan Blue and his group, The Blue Canoes.

It was kind of disconcerting, as I introduced them, to realize they could have been brother and sister, with their dark hair and pale skin and lean builds. I wondered if some sick remnant of what attracted me to Parker as a junior in high school led to my friendship with Mia. At least Mia had proved herself to be a real friend instead of an immature, suffocating ass-hat. And thank goodness the last man I’d been attracted to had been blond and beefy, or I’d really be questioning my psychological makeup right now.

I stood back as Parker and Mia exchanged small talk. Parker kept looking around and finally showed his hand with a question. I heard down at Carpucci’s the zero cattle guy left.

I’d give Sara an earful later for shooting her big mouth off at the local Italian restaurant. I never went there since they mostly had to make pizza without cheese now, plus it had been where Parker met the Nebraskan he’d just referred to as zero cattle guy. His family’d had to abandon their herd due to the volcano, and even though I had no connection anymore I didn’t appreciate the casual reference to their tragedy. Maybe I should call Parker zero compassion guy.

You heard right. How’s Nikki? I zinged back.

Don’t be like that, Vie, he said.

You haven’t been to my house in two years. Why now?

Mia watched the two of us like we were playing tennis, now smirking at Parker as she awaited his return volley.

My mom said to bring your family some milk. The stupid milk truck isn’t picking up as often, plus we’re having a hell of a time keeping the refrigeration on, so, rather than dump it, we’re trying to help people out like you’re doing with the water. He reached into the passenger side of his pickup for a gallon of milk with a layer of cream floating on top.

Oh. Thanks. That was nice, I admitted. Should we boil it or something?

I heard my mom tell some other people to heat it to, like, 165 degrees or something.

Or something. Mom would be search-engining that, for sure.

He looked around again. Whose camper?

Grampa’s. They’re staying with us now. He’s up there on the porch. I knew Grampa was watching us. He was still standing there despite the departure of the mom and two hellions. I gave up and invited Parker to come say hello while I took the milk in to Mom.

She said, Good Lord, when I told her Parker was outside and presented his gift.

Tony unfolded himself from the couch and arranged the waistline of his jeans at the fullest part of his butt cheeks before strolling out the front door. I followed, and Dad followed me. Something inside me slithered as my old discarded life met my real life met my I’m-supposed-to-be-in-college life. I wanted a set of tongs like snake handlers used, except human sized, to clamp delicately around Parker’s neck, thus to deposit him back in his truck so he could return to his den, free and unharmed but off of my front porch.

In the end, Tony left with Parker, feigning interest in the classic pickup when we all knew he really wanted away from us, with a bonus introduction to the Sycamore Springs scene I had no doubt he’d find super disappointing.

Mia watched them drive away with her hands on her hips.

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Dinner with Sara and Tony, Mia, my parents and my grandparents at the same table was a real trip. Parker had tried to wrangle an invitation too, but I wasn’t going down that road. The eight of us were packed tight as sticks of gum around the kitchen table as it was.

Tony leaned over his plate long before Grampa had a chance to say grace, both elbows firmly on the table as he shoved baking mix biscuits in his mouth. Mom did her best to ration food, and he ate way more than his share.

Mia asked about school. Mom and Dad sang the praises of Gardenburg Senior High, then Sara, our current sophomore, listed all the ways it sucked.

We have to bring our own lunches, and we dress like we’re going to hike up Mt. Everest because there’s no heat. Most days we don’t have lights or water either. The teachers use books and chalkboards and we have to use porta-pots for bathrooms most of the time. Gross. I haven’t learned anything since October except how to hold my pee for ten hours. She ignored Grandma’s clucking at her vulgarity and tugged her long, hair-mag worthy locks off her forehead. You’re wasting your time to send him there.

A boy his age needs to go to school, Grampa announced.

I don’t need a damn thing but to get the hell out of here, he retorted, shocking us into silence.

Mia’s face flushed bright red as she started to reprimand him. Grandma spoke over her. We have a cussing board over there. One mark for every cuss word and one chore for every mark.

Tony laughed in her face as he shoved away from the table. Good luck with that, Grannie.

Grandma glared at his retreating back while the rest of us shifted uncomfortably in our seats.

Mrs. Perch, I’m so sorry, Mia said, too ashamed to even meet Grandma’s eyes.

Shouldn’t be your job to raise him, Grandma said curtly, the curved wrinkles in her cheeks deepening with disapproval. She meant to relieve Mia of the responsibility, but I knew the comment only highlighted how alone in the world Mia and Tony were.

Except now they had us.

As we had them. Good luck with that, indeed.

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Other than Mia’s arrival the only thing keeping me sane was my voluntary job delivering the local mail by bicycle. I’d accidentally fallen into this when our rural carrier abandoned his route due to gas prices. I’d ridden my bike to Gardenburg thinking I’d pick up our mail and got guilted into carrying some back for the neighbors. 

There were worse ways to spend one or two days a week than cranking out twenty or thirty miles. Riding my bike got me out of the goldfish bowl (i.e. my house) and cleared my head. I usually rode alone though Mia had worryingly followed me outside this morning. She’d poked her finger into the rubber grips on Sara’s bike’s handlebars. Mia was a trim girl and I’d give her even odds in a street fight against Bodacious, the toughest wrestler at college, but I didn’t think she had much cardio. Nor was I looking for company.

If you want to ride with me, I think we’d better work up to it, I said as I took my usual backpack inventory. Full water bladder? Check. Spare tube? Check. Multi-tool? Tire tool? Cell phone with the track me app running? Check check check.

For sure, Mia said. I remember at school how you’d disappear for hours. I probably wouldn’t survive a pleasant stroll for that long, plus I haven’t ridden a pedal bike in ages. Motorcycles, on the other hand….

Plus you’d better ask Sara. She never uses her bike, but she can be kind of touchy about stuff. She won’t mind as long as it’s you.

Got it.

Ride around here a little bit and you can come part of the way with me next time. Make sure you get Sara’s helmet, too! I yelled over my shoulder as I coasted down the driveway.

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People on my self-imposed mail route—a loose knot of back roads strictly north of Route 50 and the tiny burg of Sycamore Springs—knew I wasn’t a government employee. If they wanted a letter carried back to the post office at Gardenburg, they put their little flag up on the mailbox but most also attached a note to their letter to ask politely or thank me in advance and tell me there was no hurry. I tried to watch for the flags though I did get distracted by the simple act of pedaling to the next stop as determined by my packet of mail to be delivered.

By some fluke, I noticed the flag up at a house I’d never dropped mail at before. It was mint green aluminum sided and appeared perfectly square from the street, single story, with green shingles lacking the right minty freshness to match the walls. Bad choice, I whispered to myself, breathing hard from the climb and kind of annoyed I had to stop in the middle of it. I dutifully opened the front of the rusting black box. Inside was a note written in flourishing script.

Mail Lady, can you please come to my door? I have a message.

Mail Lady? Is that

Reviews for Rhyolite Drifts

[643cade · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I laughed, I despaired, I railed against injustice, I cried, got mad and laughed again. This truly was a perfect sequel to Eruption and I read it all non-stop in two to three hours. It's not often that characters sink their hooks in me when it comes to disaster novels and their sequels but everyone in this book did. I won't give up spoilers because spoilers but I cried for certain ones and wanted to knee other ones (okay, specifically one) in the nuts and wanted to kind of sort of strangle another while rolling my eyes as a parent of sons. In short, this is truly a fantastic series and I've immensely enjoyed it and want to read more. Bravo.