Life Goes On Read online

  LIFE GOES ON

  The Yellowstone Event:

  Book 7

  By Darrell Maloney

  This is a work of fiction. All persons depicted in this book are fictional characters. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. A passage from The Snowdrift Fairies used with permission of Billie Holliman. Copyright 2019 by Darrell Maloney

  This book is dedicated to my lifelong friend Steve Fox.

  Why is it the good ones always die far too soon, while miserable wretches seem to live forever?

  Rest in peace, my friend. You will be missed.

  Here are some fun facts about the

  Yellowstone Caldera:

  - It’s a real thing. It really does exist

  - It’s a super volcano simmering just beneath the surface of Yellowstone National Park

  - It has erupted in the past, and will erupt again

  - Scientists believe that when it erupts again it will destroy 20 percent of the United States

  - You do NOT want to be in that 20 percent

  Bearing all that in mind, enjoy the book…

  *****************************************

  A BRIEF RECAP…

  *****************************************

  Americans’ most recent encounter with a volcano was Mount Kilauea in Hawaii.

  Now bear in mind that most Americans have never been to Hawaii. Although undoubtedly one of the most beautiful of the United States, it is also very distant from what Hawaiians call “the mainland.”

  The average flight time from Los Angeles to Honolulu is five hours.

  Mount Kilauea put on an impressive show. But most Americans didn’t see the performance live. They saw it on the evening news, or snippets of video on the internet.

  And what they saw wasn’t alarming at all.

  Tourists shooting selfies with their cell phones while a very slow-moving ribbon of lava rolled along behind them.

  The only casualty of Kilauea’s latest eruption was an abandoned Ford Mustang which was encased in the slow-moving lava and will presumably occupy the same spot for all eternity.

  A couple of years later, when those same Americans were told there was another volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park, they greeted the news with yawns instead of panic.

  Then they were given the details.

  This wasn’t another Kilauea. This was more like Krakatoa or Mount St. Helens.

  Times a hundred.

  Or even a thousand.

  Scientists qualified their estimates by saying that since the Yellowstone Caldera only erupted every three hundred thousand years or so, there wasn’t a lot of data available.

  But, they emphasized, it erupts every three hundred thousand years or so.

  And, they really emphasized, it was overdue.

  Julianna Cervelli was a Yellowstone park ranger who came from a family of fortune tellers.

  Tony and Hannah Carson were a young couple with a mystery to solve. When they were in high school a mysterious fortune teller came back from the dead to ask something spectacular of them.

  Someday, the old woman told them, they’d have the opportunity to save countless lives.

  “Beneath the great park they call Yellowstone, a great catastrophe is brewing. Some day the volcano beneath the park will explode, and kill millions of people. You will have the opportunity to save them. By warning them to get out of harm’s way.”

  Rocki and Darrell, two traveling writers who scoured the country in search of good stories, later heard the tale. They determined the old woman’s real motive was to have Hannah and Tony save the life of her granddaughter Julianna. The same Julianna who now worked as a ranger in the sprawling park.

  Our traveling writers were intrigued by the story. Intrigued enough to chance a trip to Yellowstone to interview Julianna, to ask her how it was possible for the old woman to know of the eruption. And, to know that Julianna would someday work at the park.

  They never made it to the interview.

  They were several hundreds of miles away when Yellowstone erupted and both were injured when their vehicle was blown off the highway.

  They came out better than Julianna, though.

  Julianna was nearer to ground zero, and was instantly vaporized.

  Tony and Hannah were like most of the smarter Americans who lived close to the blast zone.

  They decided to take their baby, a strapping young boy named Samson, and evacuate to someplace safer.

  Hannah’s best friend Gwen Lupson and her husband Melvyn came to the same decision.

  And like best friends often do, they chose to make the move together. To make it an adventure. To relocate to Alaska.

  Alaska, they agreed, wasn’t necessarily the most hospitable place in the world. But it was one of the most majestic, one of the prettiest.

  The winters could be rather harsh, but its splendor made up for that.

  The five of them… can’t forget little Samson… took advantage of a government program to ease overcrowding in the lower forty eight states once Yellowstone evacuees started looking for other places to live.

  About twenty percent of the nation, by government estimates, would relocate into the remaining eighty percent of the country.

  Moving several million to the Alaskan wilderness would, by their reckoning, give everyone a bit more space to breathe.

  “As an added bonus,” Tony was quick to point out, “Alaska’s one of the few places in the United States that won’t be covered in ash.”

  That ash covered everything in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Darrell and Rocki’s daughter Jennifer lived with her three children.

  Meadow, Autumn and Sam, who Darrell and Rocki lovingly called their “chitlins,” were worried beyond belief when they didn’t hear from their grandparents immediately following the eruption.

  Several days later they were told the couple survived, but that Rocki was in a hospital in Hays, Kansas.

  Rocki had suffered a severe concussion and was now in a medically-induced coma.

  The doctor’s prognosis was grim.

  “There’s been some swelling in her brain, and a couple of blood clots brought on by dehydration.”

  Darrell pleaded with him, “Please, Doc… just tell me she’s going to be alright.”

  “Only time will tell. If she survives the next seventy two hours she should be out of the woods. But even if she does make it, be prepared… there will be some permanent damage.”

  Darrell told Jennifer not to try to drive to them. The roads were treacherous because of the ash which covered everything.

  Besides, he told her, even if Jenn and the chitlins were there by her side, there was absolutely nothing they could do. They couldn’t help. And they couldn’t change things. They may as well stay home where it was safer.

  Jennifer did what most children would do under similar circumstances.

  She ignored everything she was told.

  She made arrangements with an old friend to borrow his Hummer for a few days and packed it full of food and water.

  “Pack your bags,” she told the chitlins. “We’re going on a road trip.”

  Darrell was right. The roads were treacherous. The highway departments were doing their best by plowing most of the ash off to the shoulder.

  The problem was that this wasn’t snow. It was ash, and ash doesn’t melt. Putting it off to the side helped the situation, but was only a temporary fix. Something had to be done with it. And the sooner the better.

  Luckily, the Hummer scoffed at the ash, rolling over it with ease.

  They made it to Rocki’s bedside and stood vigil, holding her hand and talking to her in soft whispers in an effort to coax some type of response.

  After four
days she finally turned her head. Her mouth slowly opened and it appeared she was about to speak.

  Then she flat-lined. All her monitors went to zero and several alarms went off at once.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurses said as they ushered everyone from the room.

  “You’ll have to leave now.”

  And now, the seventh installment of the series:

  LIFE GOES ON

  Chapter 1

  It was a big thing at Etlunka Lake.

  It probably shouldn’t have been, for it happened every single day of the week. Usually at least three or four times each day.

  From that respect it certainly wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.

  But in the two months or so since this refugee area officially opened for business it had become a tradition of sorts. Something that, although it happened with some frequency, was worthy of being celebrated each and every time.

  For each time it happened marked an occasion which was special for someone.

  In that way it was like a birthday being recognized in a restaurant. For employees tasked with gathering around a woman named Sheila and singing happy birthday to her it was just another day. They did this three or four times a night. To them it was no big deal. Some actually resented having to do it, since it took them away from the myriad of other tasks they were required to do.

  Ah, but for Sheila, who was in her golden years and far past the time people made a big deal of her birthday, the event was a bit special.

  For of all the other times she’d been in this or similar restaurants and heard birthday songs sung for others, this was her special day. Hers and hers alone.

  It was her time to shine, to be the center of attention, to be the recipient of many smiles and well wishes and kind words.

  Hannah Carson said it best when she observed, “Wow! It’s almost like an angel receiving his wings.”

  On the face of it, it sounded like an absolutely ridiculous analogy.

  But maybe not.

  When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers helicopter appeared on the horizon, it wasn’t unlike an angel appearing out of nowhere.

  The large bundle of wrapped goods dangling from the heavy-lift chopper was something significant to present to an antsy but well-deserved individual.

  And its arrival was an event of some note. It must be, for everyone on the ground, when they saw the chopper, let out cheers and catcalls.

  Even though the bundle hanging beneath the chopper just above the treetops was meant for only one of them.

  Yes, it was a significant event, though it happened all the time.

  They wouldn’t know, until the chopper actually set the bundle down, who it actually belonged to.

  But someone would, in the minutes ahead, be overjoyed to find their building materials had finally arrived.

  They’d be overjoyed because this, the bundle they’d been awaiting with great anticipation since the day they’d completed their paperwork, signified the light at the end of their tunnel.

  For it meant the next time the loggers came through they’d stop at their home site.

  They’d cut their trees down to make the first few logs for their log cabin.

  They’d show them how to notch their logs so they fit tightly together.

  And they’d explain what to do over the next few days until the construction crew came along to help them in their next step.

  In short, this was the day they could stop sleeping all day long and actually start work on their new home.

  Maybe it wasn’t the equivalent of an angel finally getting his or her wings.

  But for one lucky family who’d been waiting for weeks to get the building process started, it was pretty darned special.

  The bundles came from a huge work site in Seattle, where a standard package was assembled on what used to be a high school football field.

  Eighty pieces of PVC pipe of various lengths and types. Seven hundred twenty board feet of lumber of varying sizes. Bagged plaster. A huge box containing faucets, valves, wiring, light fixtures, electrical boxes and a dozen other things.

  Each bundle was gathered together and strapped with steel banding. It was inspected closely to ensure it wouldn’t break apart and nothing would come loose. Then it was wrapped in a heavy blue plastic tarp and spray painted with two things:

  One was a five digit serial number, so this particular bundle could be tracked throughout the process until it was finally dropped at a home site somewhere in Alaska.

  The other was a big check mark, made with a can of yellow spray paint by one of the project’s supervisors.

  The yellow check was somebody’s personal guarantee that the bundle had everything it was supposed to have, that everything was secure, and that the bundle was ready to go to make someone’s dreams come true.

  From the assembly area the bundles were placed on a flatbed trailer for transport to the Port of Seattle. Two per trailer, all day long, twenty four hours a day.

  At the port they were placed upon barges, which were then dispatched up the western coast of Canada toward Alaska.

  Most of the barges stopped to unload in Anchorage Harbor, where they were placed upon different flatbed trailers for over-the-road transport. Again, two per trailer, twenty four hours a day.

  Many of them ended up almost three hundred miles away at a staging area north of Fairbanks, and were distributed to eight new settlements nearby.

  The bulk of them, though, didn’t spend quite so much time on the back of a truck.

  The bulk of them were taken to a different staging area near Anchorage. From there they were picked up one bundle at a time by Sikorsky CH-53 heavy-lift helicopters and taken to their drop sites.

  The pilots must have felt like rock stars, for whether each bundle’s final destination was at Etlunka Lake or another of the fourteen settlements in the Anchorage area, they were always greeted by cheering and waving crowds.

  They weren’t just delivering building supplies.

  They were, in essence, bringing wings for new angels.

  Chapter 2

  The pilots never landed at Etlunka Lake. They took their breaks between runs at the Anchorage staging area.

  That was too bad, really. For if they had stopped for lunch at the lake they’d have been greeted like conquering heroes. They’d have been gang-tackled by children, hugged half to death by the women at the lake, and slapped on the back by the men until their shoulders hurt.

  Then they’d have been fed the best food in ten counties. And ten Alaskan counties cover a lot of area.

  The pilots were instructed to land at the home sites only in case of emergency. In case an alarm sounded from the control panel. Or they were experiencing a loss in power. Or if they detected a strange noise or vibration coming from the chopper’s big GE engines.

  There were several reasons for this policy, but it was mainly because there were no maintenance crews posted at the home sites.

  Any mechanical problem would require several hours of downtime, while a maintenance team was assembled in Anchorage and trucked out to the site.

  Downtime meant a further delay in getting building supplies to anxious families who’d been looking forward to starting their home build.

  Now, that wasn’t a problem, necessarily. The CH-53 had been the primary heavy-lift platform for several of the military services for a very long time.

  It was a workhorse. Tough, durable and dependable, in that it seldom broke.

  That was a good thing, especially considering the joy it brought in with each and every drop it made.

  But in the minds of the Yellowstone refugees it was also a bit of a problem.

  Especially with the women of Etlunka Lake.

  They saw the same pilots come in day after day and do their drops. They saw the tears in peoples’ eyes when their own bundle of materials finally arrived and wanted to find a way to thank them somehow.

  Sure, they cheered each time the choppers appeared on the horizon.

&
nbsp; Sure, they always waved to the pilot and co-pilot.

  Some women went so far as to blow kisses to them, which invariably put smiles on the flyers’ faces.

  But they wanted to do more.

  They wanted to do something for the men who brought such joy into their lives six to eight times a day.

  Gwen and Hannah happened to be discussing that very thing on a beautiful Alaskan morning when they heard a familiar sound far in the distance.

  They knew by now the exact route the chopper pilots took when they made their approach each day.

  They knew the drill. First they heard the chopper in the distance. Faintly at first, then the sound grew louder until the big green machine appeared between two tall pine trees on the west side of the lake.

  They knew which home sites were on the “short list,” or those due to receive their bundle of goodies.

  They knew because every Monday a representative from FEMA came around to each of the sites expecting its bundle that week.

  They took a can of orange spray paint and painted the site’s number in large letters about a hundred yards from the front of the property.

  The FEMA rep made it easy on the chopper crew.

  When a chopper picked up his load at the Anchorage staging area it was already prepped by the ground crew.

  The bundle for Site 4506, for example, would already have a very large “4506” spray painted on the plastic tarp it was wrapped in.

  It would then be placed atop a large net made of two-inch wide nylon strips. The ends of the net would be gathered and attached to a QRC, or a quick-release connector.

  The QRC would then be handed to the chopper’s loadmaster, who’d hop off the bird and walk around the load to make sure it was secure.

  Then he’d attach the QRC to the bottom of the chopper, re-board and buckle in, then tell the pilot he was good to go.

  “Good to go” meant the pilot was cleared for takeoff.

  The helicopter would slowly rise until the bundle was clear, then hover while the ground crew walked around it, checking one last time to make sure everything looked secure.