Buried Flames (7 page)

“Do what?” Mason didn’t take his eyes off of the road. There had been quite a few animals scurrying across the hard surface to try and beat what Mother Nature was sending their way. “Drive?”

“Make your jaw muscle tic on the side of your face,” Brenna described with a frustrated wave of her hand, shifting sideways in her seat so she could face him. Either that or she was adjusting herself to pet the dog who had made his way back over to her. “It was a legitimate question. Not everyone carries cheesecloth and a bag of wool around with them, not to mention modified blinders.”

Mason didn’t carry the fabric around with him on a daily basis either, but he’d had time to store some useful items in the horse trailer for just this reason. It wasn’t the best eye protection for Sergeant or Major, but it would get his stallions to Washington alive with a bit of luck. As for the current situation he found himself in…well, this type of conversation he could do—impersonal.

“Depending on how heavy the ash is, we’ll have to stop and clean the makeshift filters every couple of hours or so during the worst of it.” Mason glanced out his window, estimating the dark cloud coming their way would be here sooner rather than later. The wind was picking up speed according to the leaves on the trees, and that certainly didn’t help their cause. “My hope is to find shelter this evening where we can grab a few hours of sleep. I don’t want to waste more time than we need to, but we’re going to need our strength for the long distance ride ahead of us.”

“And Sam?” Brenna asked, her fingers sliding over the dog’s back in a protective manner. “Can we do the same with him?”

“I’m sure we can rig something up,” Mason sighed, having already accepted he was responsible for the mutt as well. It was hard to tell what kind of breeds went into the making of Sam, but there was mostly Australian Shepherd from the look of him. His long shaggy fur was mostly black, brown and white, while his body was shaped like that of a Collie or German Shepherd mix. He had the ears of a Collie and one eye was eerily blue while the other was brown. “Although he’s going to have to ride with one of us. His paws won’t last long walking through the ash, considering the deposits are made up of pulverized rock and shards of glass. I have a stiff bristled brush for us to clean the horses’ hooves when we stop to replace the wool in their masks. We’ll figure out anything we need to along the way though. There should be a few barns in the rural areas we can use as we cross Montana and the northern tip of Idaho. Slow and steady wins the race.”

Brenna appeared to relax back against her door and Mason had to admit this type of conversation was better than being at each other’s throats. He found himself wanting to ask her a ton of questions about the past few years, but he refrained. It was better to keep things status quo. The silence wasn’t so uncomfortable now.

“Can you tell me a bit more about where we’re going to and who we’re meeting up with?” Brenna asked as her eyes slid past him to the murky horizon. Mason understood her need for information. The more knowledge a person had, the better off he or she would be in the long run. “This is the same place you just came back from vacation, right?”

“My old Tank Battalion Operations Chief retired up in a town called Lost Summit, Washington. The year-round population might be eighty-some people, at most.” Mason could name each and every one of them if he tried. The residents of Lost Summit were different. Most of them were more like extended family. He’d considered moving there once or twice, but the peace and quiet he’d found on his farm gave him the tranquility he needed in his life. He hadn’t been quite ready to leave it, but that didn’t matter anymore. “Master Gunnery Sergeant Ernie Yates, although we all call him Tank, bought up an old rundown fishing lodge after he retired years and years ago. He wanted to go off the grid, but that didn’t surprise us much. He’s, well, he’s different.”

“You don’t do different,” Brenna said bluntly, pulling her hand away from Sam when he made his way back over to Mason’s open window.

Mason almost bit back that Brenna didn’t know him at all, but that would have only instigated another round of insults. He moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth, resting it in between his lips as he gave himself time to filter his words.

“Tank and the boys saved my life multiple times while I was in the service,” Mason divulged, trying to ignore Sam’s heavy breathing and lolling tongue in his left ear. “Tank’s allowed to be different. The land he purchased included an old silver mine—there are a couple of them up in that area that were mined out before World War II—with a decent amount of inheritance money he received after selling his family’s lumber business and a mess of associated tracts of old growth forests in the New England states. He started converting it into a fairly large-sized bunker. He managed to rope me and the guys into helping him out with building things. We assisted with the more complex projects over the years as his plans grew. He also built a number of log cabins onsite for the guests and modernized the power grid. The lodge and the bunker are now able to run off the natural gas well he bought the rights to when he purchased the property.”

“A bunker?”

Mason figured he would pique Brenna’s attention with that last morsel of information, but it wouldn’t matter if they couldn’t reach their destination. She should know what was waiting for them though should they make it.

“Tank’s land also has a natural gas well and native mountain spring water. Both provide the lodge with everything it needs to be self-sustaining. There’s no doubt we can survive there for an extended amount of time, Brenna,” Mason shared, noticing the wind coming through the crack in his window was slightly cooler than it was an hour ago. He stepped on the gas pedal, already pushing the speed at which it was safe to transport the horses. He and Brenna were maintaining their luck with these out-of-the-way back roads, but it wouldn’t last long. There was another two-lane blacktop up ahead in around twenty miles and there wasn’t a way around it unless they wanted to lose more time…which they didn’t. “Our only goal at this moment is to face what is in front of us and come out the other end…alive and together.”

B
renna leaned down
slightly in order to glance into the side mirror at the small town they’d just driven through as quickly as they could. She was honestly surprised Mason had even attempted it, given how many people were still milling about and the risks it posed of being swamped in the crowds. He’d gone into graphic detail before about the lengths frantic people would go to in desperate times like these. It hadn’t been a pretty picture looking into their faces as they passed by and it certainly made her wary of any future strangers they might encounter.

“There are still decent people out there,” Brenna argued, although thinking now about how it might not be the most appropriate time to bring that up. The majority of the residents they just passed had been standing on the street and staring at the dark cloud hovering mere miles away, in no way making a run for it. She would have thought they would be in their vehicles and trying frantically to get away from the on-rushing ash, but they appeared to be staying. Why? “Not all of them would make immoral choices when it comes to dealing with their neighbors.”

“I didn’t say they all would.” Mason had become rather quiet in the last hour or so, especially after having to stop for Sam to relieve himself. Brenna didn’t feel too guilty since it wasn’t as if Mason hadn’t used the opportunity to top off on gas and go himself anyway. “I’m just saying you’re not to go around announcing we’re heading to a bunker that will sustain us for years in relative safety. You’d be making us a huge target.”

Brenna understood where Mason was going with his warning, but that didn’t mean she’d be able to leave a child stranded on the side of the road without losing her humanity. They were both adults and they both had the ability to gauge a situation as right or wrong. She wasn’t about to argue over something that hadn’t happened yet and might not. So far all they’d encountered were vehicles driving at breakneck speed going in the opposite direction. She was just a tad bit envious considering the visual lying in front of them.

“Didn’t that seem odd to you?” Brenna asked guardedly, casting a glance toward the green LED lights on the radio to keep track of the time. It was after six o’clock in the evening and they were fifty-five miles north of Billings, Montana, having just passed through Roundup on Interstate 87. To their southwest, a massive, grayish-black cloud descended unlike anything she’d ever seen before. It didn’t even appear to be real. It was like something out of a disaster movie and she kept waiting for someone to wake her up and tell her everything was going to be all right. She’d been trying to avoid looking at it, but that was getting harder and harder to do. “Those people back there were waiting for the ash as if the first Christmas snow of the season was arriving on their doorstep. It was…disturbing.”

“Some people refuse to understand. They think it can’t happen to them.” Mason rolled his left shoulder, almost as if he were in pain. Brenna wondered if it had anything to do with the raised scar she’d seen earlier underneath his shirt, but his next words caught her attention. “Some want the experience of an apocalypse and refuse to accept just how bad things will get. And then there are the ones who don’t want to live through this and see it as God’s wrath.”

“The will to survive is instinctive, though,” Brenna said, noticing that Sam had sat up in the backseat and was staring out the back windshield. The low whine he emitted caused her stomach to roll. She almost couldn’t bring herself to look behind them, but she couldn’t resist. “Mason…”

The ash cloud was suddenly rolling over them. There had been a flake or two a mile back, but this…this was like being overtaken by a sandstorm. Mason was suddenly muttering curses and braking the truck, immediately turning onto a side road that would take them farther west. It wouldn’t matter. They were about to be engulfed and their current means of transportation was about to eventually stall.

Brenna’s first thought was for the horses, afraid they would suffocate if the material Mason had used to cover the vents failed to keep the ash out. It would be a horrible death. She held her breath instinctively when Mason turned on the windshield wipers, only managing to smear the accumulated ash residue.

“Look for a farm, ranch, or someplace where we can have enough cover for the truck and trailer.” Mason was already pulling off the back road to turn onto a dirt road, making her realize he was gambling this path would lead them to a place with shelter. What did he think he was going to do? Just drive up to someone’s farm and ask for refuge? Ranchers in these parts didn’t take too kindly to strangers and the end of the world wasn’t likely to change their disposition for the better. The only saving grace now was that they probably wouldn’t be outside to intercept them. “Stay inside the truck when I do find something and keep that rifle in hand.”

Brenna shot Mason an annoyed look, wondering if he thought he was talking to some chick in the city whose idea of a disaster consisted of breaking a nail. She was as tough as he was and she wouldn’t be sitting on the sidelines if something went sideways. She closed her fingers around the octagon barrel of her Winchester, reality finally closing in on her that this was actually happening. She’d been doing her best to think of this as any other road trip, but the massive black cloud hovering above them now made that impossible. The sight in front of her sped up her insight.

“What the…”

“Shit,” Mason muttered, breaking fast and then jamming the truck in reverse. He jackknifed the trailer and flipped it back into drive. He stomped on the gas pedal and swung it around while Brenna stared in horror at the people bearing down on them with their vehicles while various types of wildlife were scrambling for their lives. “Hold on.”

The only thing Brenna could come up with was that this dirt road had somehow connected to another small town on the other side of the outlying properties. The trailer started to jostle as the horses were trying to keep their footing, the horrifying thumping sounds causing a lump to form in her throat. She had glanced to her right, wanting to make sure Mason was clear on her side of the road when she spotted it.

“There!” Brenna yelled, pointing ahead toward her side of the road at what appeared to be an old abandoned barn a hundred yards back off the road. There were a few wooden boards missing from the side and the door was hanging half-open, but it was better than nothing. It would hopefully give Mason time to rig the special masks to the horses’ harnesses. “Turn now!”

Mason expertly spun the steering wheel to the right, causing the trailer and the truck’s back end to skid a bit sideways. It happened so fast that the vehicles and animals kept going right past them. The panic, desperation, and fear written on their faces weren’t something Brenna would ever forget and she wondered how long it would be before she felt the same. Days? Hours? Minutes?

Brenna refused to let it be now and had her hand on the door handle before Mason’s warning penetrated her thinking. She didn’t care. He’d slowed down when the truck was only feet away from the damaged door of the almost black-colored wooden barn. It was probably that color from rot, but shelter was shelter. She was outside before he could stop her, pulling the entry open with all her might. It ever so slowly started to open and she was yelling for him to pull the truck and trailer inside.