Jensen

Apart from waking up with a splitting headache, Ash’s crying woke me up. Even though I didn’t remember why I woke up in a sleeping bag on the floor of a church, I rushed over to my crying brother.

“What’s the matter, buddy?”

Ash sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. “I just miss Mom and Dad.”

I hugged and stroked his back. “Don’t worry, I miss them, too.” I rubbed my now itchy and dry eyes which were damp with tears, meaning I probably had cried in my sleep. My nine-year-old brother fell asleep while I hugged him, and eventually, I did, too.

By the time I woke up again, the people who prayed the night before And Roger's body were gone. Jadance and Ash played a hand game while the others whispered.

Everyone else packed their belongings, so I knew they were waiting for me to wake up. “Morning,” I stretched, stood up, and packed my things.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Piper said, hugging me. “From what I can see outside, the ash doesn’t seem too thick. Doesn’t mean it won’t be a pain to travel in.”

“At least that’s somewhat good news,” I said. “Alright, let’s go.”

Jadance was on the verge of tears. “What about breakfast? I’m hungry!” She chewed her lips and she constantly rubbed her throat with trembling fingers.

“Right,” I mumbled, then said aloud. “Listen, it won’t be what you’re used to, but it’ll be something.”

“When?” she whined, sticking out her bottom lip.

Piper crouched down to her level and ruffled her hair. “Just give us a minute to figure it out, alright?” Jadance nodded, walking back over to Ash.

Amy took a deep breath. “What are we going to do? Those guys probably picked the diner clean last night.”

“That’s a good point,” Desi sighed dramatically.

“Desi, just go watch Jadance and Ash, will ya?” I groaned. Why did I invite her to come with us? It just means there’s another mouth to feed.

"Of course," she replied, suddenly no longer bored as she went to play a game with the kids. As a child, Desi probably was a spoiled brat.

Jace stayed silent for a while, thinking. “We’ve got stuff in our go-bags. It’ll hold them over until we get something else.”

“That’ll work,” I said, “but where and when would we go?”

My brother shrugged, "Not here.”

“I know that. You could try the diner again. There aren’t too many options,” Piper suggested.

Jace and Cayler both watched me, awaiting their orders. “Cayler and I will go to the diner. The rest of you can watch the kids.”

My brother pursed his lips and clenched his jaw with his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall. “Why can’t I go with you guys?”

Piper rolled her eyes. “Do you really think us girls can protect ourselves?”

Amy nodded, “You could at least be here if we need protection.”

“I guess it would be safer if I was here too,” he mumbled.

“Believe me, it would be more heroic if you saved us if need be,” Jace's girlfriend took his hand.

Finally, everyone was okay with the plan, so Cayler and I donned our masks and headed out of the church.

Going outside, I barely saw Cayler ahead of me and immediately, I wrapped my arms around my chest, tucking my hands into my armpits. Snow fell last night, making me extra grateful for the coats in our go-bags.

Walking over to the diner, I pushed the door open with my foot while holding my pistol at the ready. Even though darkness cloaked everything, the amount of light still served its purpose. Again, nobody else sought shelter here except for the dead bodies of customers and workers. The gang from last night left.

Of course, we still snuck around since I didn’t want to be wrong about the empty building. The dishes and silverware that used to be on the tables were now on the floor, meaning someone took the scraps. As I noticed everything on the floor, I thought an animal had eaten them, but then I realized someone else had been in the diner. If an animal had, the plates probably would’ve been broken and strewn everywhere.

“Please don’t hurt me,” a young girl said, suddenly, shaking with fear. Powdery ash covered the lens of a pair of red glasses on her nose. Perplexed, I glanced over at Cayler, but he already knelt in front of her.

He asked questions without thinking and I hoped it proved we wouldn’t harm her. “Can you see out of those? Are you breathing okay? Coughing up blood?”

“I’m okay. I had an old rag around my mouth when the ash fell,” she answered, sobbing breaking her words. “I’m Mary-Anne Johnson, by the way.”

“Cayler Reynolds,” he replied gently then pointed in my direction. “He’s Jensen Michaels.”

I smiled softly even though I knew she wouldn’t see it behind the mask. “Judging by the ash on your glasses, you were outside during the ashfall. Is there anyone with you?”

Mary-Anne’s head dropped as she took her glasses off, sobbing. “My dad, but he’s dead. He died last night; a group of bandits brought us into this diner after they had tortured my dad. I hid in a cabinet, but I could hear everything that had happened. I had even heard your voice and a couple of others.”

Roger distracted me too much to notice Mary-Anne. “I’m sorry for your loss. Where’s your mother?”

“At home with my uncle. I wanted to thank you both for trying to save Dad.” The girl glanced up at me. “I saw your twin dump his body outside the church. Just tell me you did everything you could. I know you weren’t able to do much since you were in a church, not a hospital.”

“We did everything we could,” my friend confirmed. “What are you going to do?”

Mary-Anne smiled as she hugged us, hands trembling. “I’ll go back home, I guess. I don’t care if I make it or not. And there’s food in the kitchen. There's too much for me to take all of it. See you around, guys.” She released me from her hug and sauntered to the door.

We followed but headed back to the church. “I need your help to get all this extra food out of the kitchen. And Jace, we need to talk.” The six of us wandered back to the diner and into the kitchen.

“What is it?” Jace inquired as he rummaged through the cabinets.

“Remember Roger from last night? His daughter, Mary-Anne, was hiding in a cabinet. She saw you dump her father’s body, but she thanked us for trying everything we could. But seriously, you dumped his body?”

“I couldn’t do much!”

I sighed. "It doesn’t matter now. Just hope those other people didn’t see you.”

“Why does it matter if they did?” he asked as he stuffed peach cans into his go-bag.

I rolled my eyes, quoting Desi a few days ago, “Apparently you don’t respect the dead.

Jace glared at me. “I don’t care what Desi says, she’s not my girlfriend. Amy is and Amy knows I served in the army, just as you and her brother.”

“Clearly you do care, I don’t think that fantasy of yours ever truly went away.”

“What fantasy?”

“The one where you were your own leader.”

Jace grinned, slugging my shoulder. “So now you’re finally letting me loose after all these years?”

“No, I was just seeing if you were still stuck in that crazy fantasy of yours, and you still are.”

“So you never thought we would be better leaders than those old scumbags we had?” Jace faced me fully and placed a hand on my shoulder. “You never thought of leading your own organization?”

Scoffing, I pushed his hand off my shoulder. “We? Never once was there a “we.” It was always you. How many times do I have to tell you that, Jace?”

Jace didn’t say anything as he marched out of the diner. Amy started after her boyfriend, but I stepped in front of her. “Amy, just let him go. He’s gone.” I stood there in shock, hoping he would return sooner than later, but I also prepared myself for the worst.

In an attempt to act like nothing happened, I shrugged my shoulders and wore a fake smile. “Jace just went to find Mommy, Daddy, and Danny, alright?” I asked Jadance and Ash who smothered my girlfriend with questions. I hoped Jace would do that instead of leaving permanently. It would make things easier for us anyway, and he probably didn’t tell me because he didn’t want me to follow him.

The rest of us finished gathering food in silence as Jadance and Ash quietly shared a can of peaches. About thirty minutes later, we continued walking to Piper’s mom’s house. Even though it took us days to arrive at our destination, we never were in any danger since we didn't run into anyone else.

Our mouths fell open as the destroyed house came into view. The tree that used to sit near the building fell into the house, despite that, I carefully entered the ruined building while muttering “please” repeatedly under my breath, hoping to find Colombe and Pierre alive.

To my horror, the forty-seven-year-old woman lay dead in the recliner, the tree having crushed her skull. I snatched the Star of David necklace off Colombe’s neck and slipped it into my pocket. Groaning from Piper’s bedroom caught my attention, so I carefully headed toward the broken door.

Pierre lay on the blood-stained carpet in his sister's room. Next to him was a broken branch, the tip was red with blood, telling me he had removed it. He pressed his blue shirt, which was now purple to the wound on his leg. Tears streamed down his face as the teenage boy gasped for air. He glanced up, hearing my footsteps.

“Pierre, it’s Jensen. You’ll be alright.”

Through gritted teeth, the fifteen-year-old boy asked, "What happened? Is Mom okay?”

I shook my head, trying not to cry. "Your mom’s dead. The roof crushed her skull. A tree fell into the house.” I smiled wearily. I managed to choke out the words, "I’ll be back soon," before I turned around and left the room, leaving him alone and in shock.

I easily moved around the rubble and rushed into the laundry room. The sewing supplies in the cabinet above the dryer weren't medical, but they were the only thing able to close the wound, otherwise, he’d bleed out. Going to the bathroom, I snatched a first aid kit from underneath the sink.

My eyes watered as the thought of me telling Piper about her mother’s death came to mind. Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself that even though I arrived too late, but I had arrived in time to save Pierre.

As I tripped over a piece of the ceiling, I caught myself on a piece of wood and sliced my palm, but at least I made it back to Piper’s bedroom with a minor injury instead of something worse. Taking a cotton swab out of the package, I applied alcohol to it and then started cleaning the wound. Pierre closed his hand into a fist and held his breath. After I cleaned the area, I started getting ready for the next part and to give him a break. “This is going to hurt even worse.” I threaded the needle and stuck the needle into his skin. The teenage boy went between screaming in French and panting. After a while, I tied it off, done.

Even though Pierre could walk by himself, I knew it would be faster and less painful for him, so I carefully carried him out of the house. His sister rushed over when she saw me. “Pierre,” her voice shaking as her green eyes widened. It took her a moment to realize Colombe wasn’t with me. “I’ma?” she asked, her voice cracking. I shook my head and handed her the Star of David necklace as a way of telling Piper her mom died. 

Piper cursed in French under her breath, evidently understanding what it meant, but she seemed a little bit relieved seeing Pierre in my arms. “At least Pierre is alive.”

“There’s that.” I gave her a forgiving smile. “We can take him to the hospital after he rests a bit.” I turned to Desi. “We’ll be staying in the garage for a couple of days until Pierre gets better.” Desi didn’t complain, finally realizing complaining wouldn't change the fact Yellowstone erupted.

The moment we got our things into the garage, Piper stormed outside, hands clenched into fists. I ran after her but didn’t approach. The twenty-year-old girl started sobbing uncontrollably and screamed in Hebrew so I stayed silent. 

We spent the next couple of days searching the destroyed house for supplies. The only real things we could use were bottles of water, cans of food, a few medicines, and sewing needles and thread.

As soon as Pierre stood without falling, we rushed to the hospital where I hoped to find Mom, Dad, Danny, and Jace. A week and a half later, the hospital came into view.

Holding up my hand, everyone else halted as I pulled out my pistol. A small group of bandits patrolled the area close by. Taking a deep breath, I aimed at one of them and squeezed the trigger. Another shot came from the top of the building and then another bandit dropped. They had a sniper stationed in a window. The last bandit tried getting away but they dropped into the snow as the sniper shot them in the back.

We held our hands up to let them know we weren’t robbing the hospital and slowly headed closer to the building, I hoped they wouldn’t shoot us.

Once we were close enough, someone yelled, “Jensen, come on. I know it’s you.” I grinned because the voice belonged to Jace. I asked if the rest of my family were still here the second I got into the hospital. “They were here, but Danny died weeks ago. He accidentally breathed in the ash. Mom and Dad died of the flu yesterday. Let’s get you checked for frostbite.”

The flu and frostbite completely slipped my mind until Jace mentioned them. Piper told Jace about  Jace noticing how tired Jadance was, so he grabbed a wheelchair. I did the same thing for Ash and we pushed them along with the others up to one of the exam rooms.

“Jace, where have you been living?” I asked, peeling my socks off.

“With August,” Jace examined Ash’s feet. I nodded. August and her family were our family friends since my parents were August’s and her siblings’ teachers. Back then, Mom was their preschool teacher and Dad was their high school teacher after serving in the army for 23 years. August stayed at the house because she used a wheelchair due to being paralyzed from the waist down after falling off her uncle’s horse at the age of six.

“They won’t mind if we move in too?”

“They won’t. They already knew you guys were coming this way.”

“How did you know we’d be going to the hospital? What about when you left us at the diner? We thought you had left to start your own group.”

Jace shook his head and hugged me. “It was more of hoping you would, but during something like this then it would be more likely. I thought about starting one, but it seemed stupid, especially since I didn’t have a following beforehand. I also didn’t want to be like Porter or Chase.”

I stared at him long and hard, trying to process what he had just said. “That’s… good,” I intoned. “That’s what I’ve been telling you for years.” I mumbled, “so, I don’t believe you. Taking a deep breath, I mentally prepared myself to wake up or just turn around and not see Jace standing there.

Once we cleared of frostbite, Jace and August’s siblings helped us get to their practical mansion. We could have a room to ourselves. It was that huge. They gave us clean clothes to change into after we wiped off the ash with damp rags. Watching the ash disappear, a wave of freshness helped me breathe easier.

As I finally lay on a mattress with Piper at my side for the first time in weeks, I thought about how the normal thirty-minute drive became a month-long trip. I couldn’t believe Colombe, my parents, and my cousin died in that small amount of time.

“Hey, sorry about your parents and Danny,” Piper said as my younger siblings slept beside us. My girlfriend wrapped her arms around my chest. Tears rolled down my face as I croaked out a thank you. I ended up crying myself to sleep, only to be woken up as dinner was ready.

After thirteen of us sat at the table, there were several more seats open. Cans of fruit and bowls of stale dry cereal sat on the table. It wasn’t much, but it was food. “Thank you.” My group practically inhaled everything.

“You’re welcome,” August’s mother, Brianna, smiled and then introduced herself to Desi.

Brianna’s husband cleared the dishes off the table as he said his name which was Alex. August’s brothers were Tony and Jack and she also had two sisters, one older, Olivia, and a twin named Laya.

“If there are only seven of you, how come you’ve got a table this big?” Desi asked after she introduced herself.

Alex chortled, "Oh, I’ve got three siblings myself, and between all of us, we’ve got sixteen kids.” Shock overwhelmed me when Alex explained the reason behind his big family. Now, I knew my parents told the truth, telling us about the Hayner family and the stories August and her siblings had told them.

We stumbled back into our bedrooms after the dishes were washed. Due to this, it seemed like Yellowstone's eruption a month ago never happened and seemed like a nightmare.

The sky somehow seemed darker, as I woke up the next morning. The Hayner House seemed emptier as I walked to the dining room and everyone sat at the table except Pierre and Jace. “What’s going on?” I asked, now fully awake, realizing they weren’t there.

“Jace and Pierre left last night,” Piper said, with a hint of annoyance. “I knew he was being too sudden, saying he thought it was stupid after fighting with you for years about it.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “It makes sense my brother left, but why would Pierre go with him?”

She shrugged, “Keine ahnung.” Piper closed her eyes and clutched the Star of David charm she wore around her neck, praying in Hebrew. I watched her lips move and remembered she hadn’t properly said a prayer in the four years I dated her. The necklace and praying were the only way Piper stayed connected with her mother.

The second Piper’s lips stopped moving, someone knocked on the door. I rushed to the window and peeked through the blinds. “August, it’s Ellie. Wyatt is missing from the hospital.” I pulled the door open and yanked my cousin’s wife into a hug.

Ellie was silent for a few seconds, not expecting me to be there. “Jensen,” she stuttered, stepping back to examine me. “What are you doing here?”

I sighed and told her about my parents, the diner, the hospital, and Jace leaving. Suddenly, I remembered Roger’s bag, so I told Ellie to follow me and to keep talking. Going to Jace’s room, I searched for the green backpack since my brother was the last one who had it. When I couldn't find it, I punched the desk and thought Jace had given it to Pierre.

“Jensen, I need your help. Kenneth is with his mom, trying to stop her from starving. I don’t know how much longer she’ll last.”

“I’ll come with you, and I need to talk to Piper about it. Just come inside for now. We’ll leave as soon as we can.” I slipped the carton of cigarettes into my pocket as I walked over to my girlfriend, who was still sitting at the table.

“Can I see you for a moment, Piper?” I asked with a warm smile.

Her green eyes looked me straight in the face, sending shivers down my spine. “What is it? Judging by that look on your face, I won’t like it.”

“I’m leaving to help Kenneth. Ellie and I should hopefully be back in a couple of days.”

“Alright,” she planted a kiss on my cheek. “You better come back.” With a smile, I said I would, pecking her cheek.

“You said something about Wyatt leaving the hospital,” I walked back to Ellie who had Cayler with her. “So, what are we doing? Helping Kayla or looking for Wyatt?”

Cayler opened the door, and we stepped into the ash and powdered snow. “Since I was a combat medic and Ellie is a doctor, one of us should help Kayla. The other two should go with Wyatt.” He reached into his coat pocket for his cigarettes. I cleared my throat when Cayler placed the cigarette in his mouth but didn't reach for his lighter. “What? I know smoking will be the death of me.”

“You're an idiot. We can trade those.”

“I won’t light it,” Cayler scoffed.

Rolling my eyes, I held my hand out so he would give me the carton. “Still, no one wants cigarettes that have been in your mouth. Can you hand them over? Please?”

Cayler sighed, “fine.” He slapped the carton into my hand. “Of course, I’m keeping my lighter since I might need it later.”

We arrived a day later to find Kayla lying on the tile floor. Kenneth hovered over her, crying. His tears landed on the woman’s cheeks as her limp body lay in her son’s arms.

Instinctively, I dropped onto my knees and checked for a pulse. Danny fainted a lot when he was younger, so I was used to it.

“Her pulse is fine,” I sighed, relieved. Kayla said something, but her speech was so slurred I couldn’t understand her. “You fainted. Listen, Ellie and I will take care of you. Kenneth and Cayler have been looking for Wyatt since he left the hospital.”

I smiled at my best friend and his boyfriend to say farewell. They stood by the front door, said goodbye, and stepped into the ash-covered world, leaving me with Ellie and Kayla.