29. Ava
TWENTY-NINE
AVA
We are on the road for an hour or so, crammed in the Chevy. With the uneven, cracked pavement, and the smoke hovering around us like mist, it’s been slow going, bumpy, and the cab is taut with silence. Without a backseat, Lucy is camped in the truck bed with the provisions we brought from Julio’s. We already had jerky, a few MREs, and protein bars in our packs, and we picked Julio’s pantry and garden clean.
The more I think of him, the thicker the lump in my throat forms. As much as I wish things were different, what affects me most is how numb I feel about his death now, and the guilt that quickly follows.
I peer through the passenger window, watching the ash stir along the shoulder as we pass. It blankets the world like freshly fallen snow in a never-ending desert and mutes everything much the same. With the return of smoke comes the strange, orange haze that breaks through the cloud cover, and everything feels unnatural, down to the unexpected cold. I’d put long sleeves on when we returned to Julio’s with the trailer, and despite the late morning, it hasn’t warmed yet.
What would Mavey say about all this? Where would we be right now if she was alive? I consider how much harder it would have been had she lived, and another wave of guilt hits me like a slap to the face.
It was supposed to be this way. That’s what Mavey would’ve said. She wouldn’t have wanted to live in this world, and more than that, she wouldn’t have wanted to make it harder on me. In fact, I can practically see Mavey and Mitch dying on the proverbial hill together, stubborn as they both are. As stubborn as they both were .
Knox reaches into the bag of apples by my feet. We haven’t talked about the kiss, nor are we likely to, and I’m okay with that. Whatever Knox and I are at the moment is a product of anomalies, so why would kissing him feel any different? Nothing is normal, and finding comfort and affection in Knox Bennett isn’t as surprising as it would have been a week ago. And I’ve had far too many surprises to overthink it.
Instead, I busy my mind with pragmatic thoughts, like how long our food will last us without rationing it. Even if it’s theoretically only a day of driving, it will take us longer than that to get to Kansas at the rate the road conditions are worsening. On top of what was in our backpacks, we grabbed the four jars of homemade tomato sauce Julio had made, the noodle boxes, a pot, as well as every canteen and bottle we could find, and filled them with well water. If we don’t find another stove, we have apples for days, and can eat the sauce alone, if needed.
Our goal remains: stay away from people to limit risk and potential danger. And I don’t even allow myself to consider there could be nothing for us in Kansas—that Knox’s aunt and uncle are gone.
As my mind shifts back to meal planning, the world shakes. I hear it more than feel it quaking beneath us as we continue driving. Knox’s hands tighten around the steering wheel, but we don’t stop. Lucy’s head pops up in the back, but otherwise she barely seems to care.
The earthquake is over as quickly as it started, and Knox and I exchange a look of apprehension. The earth has been grumbling more frequently, and even if we’re growing used to them, the tremors linger like omens of something yet to come.
Knox maneuvers off the road and onto the shoulder, giving a large hole in the asphalt a wide berth as we continue down the frontage route.
“Do you think we’d have better luck on the freeway?”
Knox glances at the side mirror. “Maybe. We’ll check it out at the next junction, see if it’s cleared up at all. I figure the farther away we get from the San Antonio area, from where everyone was fleeing, the luckier we might be.” He eyes the next turnoff, like he might consider taking it, but continues straight.
Turning in my seat, I check the sign before it disappears in the smoke. Amarillo. Twenty miles northeast.
If it weren’t in the opposite direction, I might propose a stop in Amarillo, to see if we can find anything out about the fires that have flared up again and to check the area for more fuel. But the fuel we’d waste heading that direction could present more complications than we can afford, especially if there’s nothing for us there.
So, I stare into the smoky gloom, a few hundred feet in front of us is all that’s visible. I can tell Knox is driving more carefully than last time, taking special care around every turn and avoiding every pothole he can manage.
Licking his lips, he swallows a bite of apple. “These have to be new fires. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”
“Agreed. I’ll check the radio for a working station. Maybe a?—”
“Uh...Ava.” Knox’s tone is so sober, my hand stills. Slowly—reluctantly—I look at him. He stares beyond the windshield, slowing the truck a little. It takes me a few heartbeats to realize what I’m looking at through the smoke.
The truck rolls to a stop, and both of us stare at a tear in the desert floor, barely visible save for the black smoke rising from it.
I don’t know how long my mouth is gaping before I ask, “Is that what I think it is?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Shutting down the engine, Knox grabs his N95 mask from the dash and climbs out. Lucy jumps out of the truck bed after him.
I follow, glancing at the horses in the trailer, and I meet Loca’s gaze through one of the openings before I catch up with Knox, a few paces ahead.
Intermittent ash still falls from the sky, muffling our footsteps as we walk closer, each step more cautious than the last. The coolness in the air is chased instantly away by the heat emanating from the rift in the ground, and hardening lava spills onto the road. Like Lucy, I find my head tilting in awed curiosity.
“Stay,” Knox commands. Lucy and I halt and look at him. He’s talking to her of course, and bracing myself, I continue closer.
Since Gerty, dozens of extinct volcanoes around the world have been waking up, and new ones emerge with every shift in the earth. I’d watched the news footage of an eruption every morning while eating my cereal. Or a volcanologist rappelling into the bowels of the earth to study Mother Nature’s advancing stages of unrest after the asteroid collision. And every week, a new theory would emerge from an award-winning scientist, or someone would win an honorific for their invention or dedication to understanding the shifting landscape. It was only a matter of time before we’d start to see the physical effects above ground.
Living in a state surrounded and inhabited by waking volcanoes, we learned all about them. Fire and earthquake drills and evacuation routes were ingrained in us. None of it prepared any of us for sinkholes swallowing half the state, and none of it quite prepared me for this. “This is what the woman meant about the ground splitting,” I realize aloud. We stop when a strong wave of heat presses against us, and I gape at the lava trail, two meters wide. The way the lava carves through the ground right in front of me is damn near mesmerizing. “Breaking glass,” I whisper.
“What?”
“I never knew lava sounded like breaking glass as it moves.” The flow is so slow it’s almost imperceptible beneath the hardening surface. And the heat, oppressive as it is, comes and goes with the slightest shift in the air. It’s there one minute and gone the next, making chills prickle over my skin.
“These are causing all the quakes,” Knox murmurs, and I look at him.
“Do you think they’re responsible for the fires too?”
He nods, ever so slightly, as his gaze follows the molten river until it disappears in the haze. “New Mexico is riddled with volcanoes, and that’s only one hundred miles from here.”
Sinkholes or erupting volcanoes—I don’t know which is worse. My brow beads with sweat, and not because of the lava inching its way through North Texas. The unpleasant and persistent question what next? forms on the tip of my tongue.
“We have to turn around.” Knox looks at me. “We have to get to Amarillo and find out what’s going on.” His jaw flexes as if he’s trying to talk himself out of it, and he glances back at the truck and trailer. “If this gets worse north of here, then leaving Texas...” He shakes his head. He doesn’t need to continue; I already know that if we’re stuck here, that’s a whole new wave of problems, and the day has just begun.