A Land of Ash

TOWARD THE STORM by David Dalglish

It was always storming to the northwest. Gertrude decided that was why she struggled to maintain a cheery attitude through the long, dreary day. Before the ash had swept across her Kentucky home, she’d been bright as the morning sun when hosting potlucks and meeting with their church choir, of which she had been the undisputed leader. Now she walked with a stoop, her skin a permanent gray, her hair a scraggly stiff mess no comb had a hell’s chance of fixing. Every day, she travelled west, toward the forever looming gray wall.

Through her weeks of travel, Gertrude had made it to I-44. She almost felt like laughing sometimes when she looked around her. Before, she’d always been too scared to drive on the interstate, not feeling comfortable going above fifty, let alone anywhere near the ninety it seemed the other drivers wished her to go. Now she had it all to herself, and at walking speed no less. Vehicles rested on the sides, some wrecked, most not. When the ash had hit, the cars, trucks, and semis had sputtered and stalled, their engines ruined and their drivers blinded.

“Oh goodness,” Gertrude said, coming upon a particularly vicious wreck. A small sportscar lay perpendicular to the road. Sprawled further ahead was an ash-covered lump, most certainly a body. Gertrude wiped a hand across the twisted metal, cleaning away until she could see the color.

“Always red,” Gertrude said, her voice muffled by the thick scarf she wore wrapped around her face. “The careless ones always drive red. A smart driver picks blue.”

She peered through the broken windows, looking for anything useful. A suitcase lay half-open on the floor, full of clothes, a broken laptop beside it. Gertrude shook her head. Careless and ill-prepared. She doubted she’d have gotten along with him when he was alive.

“May God be kinder toward you than I would ever be,” she said to the lump as she walked on by. If there was one thing good about the ash, it was how it slowly, steadily buried the dead. That was just like God. He’d made his mess, and now he was helping to clean it up.

Gertrude walked with no particular haste, just fast enough to keep herself warm. She had a second scarf wrapped about her hair, two thick jackets, a sweater, long underwear, and tall black boots. Little of it matched, but that also mattered none. Once the world wiped it gray, it all matched. The clothing kept her warm enough, though come nightfall she’d still need a fire to keep the chill out of her old bones.

The next vehicle she came upon looked more promising, although every vehicle had potential. At times she closed her eyes and pretended she was garage-sailing, seeking out bargains with every stop. You never knew what you might find if you looked hard enough.

“Going to put you down now, Alice,” Gertrude said. She removed the strap to her thick pack from around her neck and set it upon the street. Her ‘garage’, a proper family car that turned out to be dark green, parked on the far side of the curb. After she struck the sides to break away chunks of ash, she opened the door, her hand over her nose. Sometimes the people remained within, rotted and bloated because they were and hidden from God’s burial snow. Thankfully, the car was empty. The family inside must have abandoned it in a mad attempt to walk to safety.

Gertrude found the button for the trunk underneath the steering wheel and pressed it. She heard a click. The trunk didn’t open immediately, waiting for her to clear off the excess weight atop it. Once free, it flipped open. The old woman stared greedily at the blankets and grocery bags. Evidently the family had stocked far more than they could carry. By her estimate, she could stay at least three nights before moving on. Excellent.

“I count two blankets,” she said to Alice. “Some canned food…let’s see here. Corn. Green beans. Spaghettios. Ooh, some pudding, how wonderful! Doubt I’ll find some cat food, but this, let me look, yes, this should do. Spam!”

From within the pack, a small feline head stuck out and looked around. It sneezed twice and then retreated back into warmth and safety. Gertrude grinned at it from behind her scarf. Alice was very calm for a cat. She slept in the pack, relaxing during the day while Gertrude walked. At night she cuddled on her chest for warmth and ate a little of the food Gertrude set out for her.

“Hrm, what else do we have?” Gertrude asked, her busy hands carefully adjusting the contents of the trunk. “If there’s food, then there is always a little bit of…well fiddlesticks. No water, Alice. We might have to move out sooner than I hoped.”

She shut the trunk and returned to the front, not at all worried that Alice might slip out and run away. Inside the car were a few more possessions, which Gertrude rifled through with numb fingers. Part of her wondered what the family had been like. Had they been good church-going folk, on their knees every Sunday like God expected? Or perhaps they were the football-worshipping type, more likely to cheer at a touchdown than God’s daily miracles come his day of rest?

Gertrude found a child-seat strapped in the back. Her lips quivered, and shaking her head she struck her breast.

“Forgive me, God,” she said. “It’s wrong of me to judge. Your job, not mine, and old Gertrude Henderson isn’t much good at anything to dare take your place.”

She leaned back inside and moved a jacket. As if in reward for her prayer, she found a six-pack of bottled water resting on the floor. Tears welled in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away. The land was too hard for tears. She had to remain upbeat, positive.

“We got water!” Gertrude shouted to Alice. “Hallelujah! Let’s make us a fire!”

Gertrude claimed one of the blankets, then piled the remaining two together behind the car. She sat on its eastern side, using it to block the wind. Night was falling, and while it looked like a storm, it was hard to tell. Clouds forever billowed from the west, and even though she marched toward them every day, they never seemed to come closer. Sure, a piece of it might break off and rage eastward, rumbling with thunder but always withholding its rain. But the vast wall always stayed still.

One of the things she had the most of were lighters. It seemed every other car had at least one stored in their glove compartments. Gertrude would be no cavemen, not as long as she traveled her precious highway. Toward the storm, not away, that was the key.

“God doesn’t reward those who run from their troubles,” Gertrude told Alice as she used a lighter to set the remaining blankets aflame. For hundreds of miles, trees lined the outer edge of the interstate, sometimes near, sometimes far. With so much ash weighing down their branches, most had collapsed or snapped in half. Finding kindling and logs for fire was never difficult, just sometimes tiresome. But the treeline was particularly close that night, so she had extra firewood lined up beside the tire of the car.

Once the blankets were going good, she tossed on the branches and huddled closer. She opened the top of her pack, letting Alice come out on her own terms. She pet the cat a few times as she reached inside, then pulled out one of her most treasured possessions: a can opener. Not one of those modern plastic pieces of crap that Gertrude hated, either. It was an old fashioned can opener, made of steel and requiring only the strength of her hands to work. The ones with knobs and gears always seemed to warp and break on her. Not this one. Not her Trusty.

“Not nothing Trusty can’t open,” she said as she placed a can of Spaghettios near the fire. Using the tip of the can opener, she punched a hole at the top to make sure it didn’t rupture or get too hot. Alice poked out her head, looked around, and then leapt free. She seemed perfectly suited to the land of ash, her fur solid gray but for many white lines running along her ribs and tail. The cat curled up beside the fire and lay still.

“Don’t sleep too deep,” Gertrude said. “Supper’s almost ready.”

She reached into her pack and pulled out a small ziplock bag. Inside were two spoons, three knives, and a fork. She unzipped the bag, retrieved the spoon, and then quickly closed it and stashed it in her pack. More than anything, she wanted her silverware clean. There was enough ash everywhere in the world; the least she could do was keep it out of her food.

Gertrude didn’t lower her scarf to eat until she’d pulled up the sides of her coat, hunkering down away from the wind. Now that the burial snow had ceased falling, and the initial storms had passed, it seemed much safer to breathe the open air, but Gertrude never risked herself any longer than she needed to. Her lungs were old, and more importantly, they were the only pair she had. No sense in ruining them while they still worked.

Once a bit of steam trickled out the hole in the can, Gertrude pulled it away and let it cool for a moment. While she did, she retrieved one of the pudding cups. She felt like a giddy schoolgirl as she held it. How long had it been since she’d tasted a real dessert? Two weeks? Three? No matter. She’d taste one now, but only after eating! Trusty did its work on the rest of the lid, and then she wolfed down the Spaghettios, red sauce dripping down her chin. After that, she made quick work of the pudding. Between the two, she felt just like a child.

“Oh, I almost forgot about you,” Gertrude said, dumping the last bits of sauce and noodle out beside the cat. “I seem to do that lately, don’t I?”

She didn’t remember if she’d fed Alice the night before, but it didn’t seem to matter. Alice gave her a look that said, very clearly, ‘You woke me up for this?’ The cat laid her head back down and closed her eyes. Gertrude chuckled.

“Fine, you be that way. I’m… I’m… quite fine without you, thank you very much! Hrmph.”

She decided she deserved another pudding cup before curling up beside the fire and drifting off to sleep under a mountain of blankets.

When she awoke, the night remained deep, and her fire roared healthily. A figure sat opposite of her, cracking some branches in his hands and throwing them onto the flame.

Gertrude screamed.

“Shit, lady!” the figure, a man, shouted. He stood and took a step back, as if worried she were dangerous. Gertrude kicked and squirmed until her back was against the car. Underneath her blankets, she clutched a steak knife, the one she slept with every night for the past three weeks.

“Go away!” Gertrude yelled. “Take – take – whatever you want, take. Go! Leave!”

“Stop screaming at me!” the man yelled back.

“No!”

The man sighed and rubbed his hand against his eyes. He sat back down. Gertrude shrunk deeper into her blankets at the sight of him. His face was ashen, his eyes sunken deep into his skull. A newly-grown beard curled around his chin. His hair was long and dark. When he smiled, his teeth were crooked.

“I’m not here to rob you, woman,” he said. “My name is Samuel.”

He waited. As if from a distant life, Gertrude remembered her firmly entrenched standards of politeness.

“Ms. Gertrude Henderson,” she said. She pulled down her scarf so she didn’t look like one of those women from the Middle East they sometimes showed on the news. “A pleasure to meet you, mister, assuming you aren’t here to take my things.”

“Might have been a time in my life I would have done just that,” Samuel said. He smiled at her, but it reminded her of a wolf’s smile, all teeth and lolling tongue. Except he looked tired, so tired. “But not now. Doesn’t feel much point to it. The world’s changing. Think we should be changing with it.”

“A sensible thing to do,” Gertrude said. She looked around. “What’d you do with Alice?”

“Alice?” asked Samuel.

“My cat.”

The man shrugged.

“Haven’t seen a cat. I’ve eaten a couple on the trip here, though. That meat’s tough as nails. No good. Your cat is safe with me, miss.”

Gertrude shot him a look that showed she very much doubted that. Samuel coughed and tossed another log onto the fire.

“So where you headed?” he asked.

Gertrude slowly put the knife down on the ground beside her, still hidden by her blankets. Pulling a hand free, she pointed west, following the highway.

“Well, I keep traveling that way, just me and Alice. You’re the first I’ve seen in…blast this old memory. A week? Two? They weren’t going my way, either. Nice people, good people. But they don’t know what’s smart to do!”

“And what is that?” asked Samuel. His face flickered in the light of the fire.

“Go west,” Gertrude said, grinning wide. “People keep breaking into homes, but that’s not where the food is. It ain’t in the stores, neither. The cars, Samuel! I look in the cars because that’s where people ran when they heard. They stole and they hid and they grabbed everything and then tried to drive away. I’m following the food.”

“Toward the storm?” Samuel asked.

Gertrude nodded, her head bobbing rapidly up and down.

“Everyone went the other way. Such a gosh-darned gaggle of people, can’t think they’ll have but each other to eat soon! But no one’s west. Just me. And you, I see, not that I expect you to keep coming with me. You’re going east, aren’t you, young man?”

“And if I am?” he asked.

“Then I should say goodbye, shouldn’t I?” She laughed. “And good luck too, of course. We all could use a bit of luck, even with God keeping his eye so close.”

Samuel shifted as if uncomfortable.

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“What?”

“God keeping his eye close on us.”

Gertrude gestured about wildly.

“Why, there’s so much fewer of us to watch, ain’t there? Guess everyone might be raising a din up in heaven to distract him, but I don’t know that and neither do you!”

Samuel chuckled.

“What if,” he said, letting his voice trail off for a moment. “What if I were actually going west instead of east?” he asked.

“Was that where you were going before tonight?” she asked. “You been following me?”

“No,” he said, chuckling. “I was going east, but I’m thinking of changing directions now that I’ve met you. Is that all right with you, miss?”

“Ms. Henderson,” she snapped. “If you’re to call me a miss, you might as well use the name meant to go with it.”

His smile faded for an instant, then returned, as if a cloud had passed over his face.

“But you called me mister,” he said.

“That’s because you told me nothing more,” she said.

Gertrude looked about, her lips twitching.

“Now where’d Alice run off to?” she asked. “Alice? Alice! Come on back, girl. Silly, stupid cat. She’ll be back by morning. Now if you excuse me, Samuel, I should get back to sleeping. I don’t know how you are for food, but I have a bit to share come morning. Until then, good night. You’re welcome to share the fire, especially since you got it going so well.”

She curled back up under her blankets, her arm for a pillow, her knife for a teddy bear.

Samuel picked at his teeth, watching her sleep.

“Gertrude,” he said.

“What?” she snapped.

“There’s a question I’ll need to ask you,” he said, biting down on a fingernail. “But I won’t ask you it just yet. I like travelling with you, you understand?”

Gertrude didn’t, but she nodded anyway. It seemed like what he wanted, as well as the easiest way to get some shuteye. Just before she drifted off, she felt Alice pawing on her blankets, as if massaging her to sleep.

Gertrude startled awake come morning, jerking upward and letting out a soft cry. Samuel was already up, and his arms jolted, nearly dropping the bundle of wood he carried.

“Oh, morning,” she said, acting as if nothing were the matter. “Surprised to see you up. Old bones, I guess. Used to be I was up in my apartment before any of the other youngsters. Funny dreams. Funny times.”

“Morning,” Samuel said. “I thought to keep the fire going throughout the day. The wind picked up while you slept. Today will be a cold one.”

“Fire won’t do us no good,” Gertrude said as she tightened the scarf about her face and slowly disentangled herself from the blankets. “We can’t stay here to enjoy it. With you here, I don’t have enough food and water. That is, unless you brought your own.”

“I have very little,” Samuel admitted.

“Thought so,” she said. “Now put your back to the car and keep your eyes to yourself. I need to pass water, and I won’t have a funny-fuddy watching me go.”

Samuel did as he was told, slowly shaking his head as she left. When he heard her footsteps, he turned back around. He held up a can of spam, the top popped open.

“Thought some hot breakfast might do us both good,” he said.

“Thoughtful,” she said. “You made sure it ain’t spoiled, right?”

“Spam don’t spoil,” he replied.

Gertrude thought it did, but she decided not to argue. The top still on, Samuel tossed the spam into the middle of the fire for it to cook. He found another can of Spaghettios and tossed it in as well. Gertrude retrieved two bottles of water. She handed one to Samuel, and opened the other. Grabbing a small tin from within her pack, she set it on the ground and poured a bit of the water into it. Alice poked her head out from the pack, meowed, and then went over for a drink.

“Good girl,” Gertrude said as she leaned back and watched. Samuel raised an eyebrow at her but said nothing.

At Samuel’s insistence, they mixed the contents of the spam and Spaghettios together, adding a bit of flavor to each. It almost felt like cooking, something Gertrude ached to do again. Nothing made her feel alive like being amid a mess of flour, salt, tomatoes, and pasta. Reading a recipe correctly was an art, and she considered herself devoted to the craft.

“So what do you miss?” she asked Samuel as they ate.

“What?” he asked.

“Miss. Since this mess started. Anything you miss in particular?”

Samuel took a big bite from the can, using a spoon of his own he’d pulled out of his pocket. He chewed on it, both the question and the spoonful.

“Toilet paper,” he said.

“You trying to make me blush?” Gertrude said, slapping his shoulder and laughing. “Good heavens, that’s what you miss? I’d love to bake a nice lasagna and share it with my choir. I wish I could watch my soaps again, see those handsome men fighting with each other over gals I could only dream of being as pretty as. But you? Toilet paper. Your mind is in the gutter, mister.”

“Just the practical,” Samuel said. “Always have.”

“A dull way to live.”

He gave her a strange look at that, as if he were aware of a great secret that hung right before her nose. She bit her lips, swallowed one more spoonful of spamghettios, as Samuel called them, and then set the can down.

“Between the two of us, we can carry most of what’s left,” she said.

“I say we wait,” Samuel said. “A storm is coming, a real one. Can’t you feel it in the air?”

Gertrude rubbed her bony knuckles. Her arthritis was flaring like the devil, but it could mean plenty of things besides a storm. But the air had an energy to it, and the wind blew cold and full of promise.

“I haven’t seen rain since the ash,” she said. “Was starting to think it couldn’t happen.”

“Might not still,” Samuel said. “But should it hit, I’m thinking it’d be best if we had shelter.”

He nodded at the car. Gertrude glanced around to look at it, then shrugged.

“By golly, I guess we can use that when it comes down to it.” She reached into her pack and stroked Alice on the head. “You won’t mind being in there, will you, Alice? In where it’ll stay nice and dry?”

Samuel hid his laugh with a cough.

The storm came on sudden and strong. Gertrude sat in the front passenger seat, her pack on her lap. Samuel sat in the back. Just before the winds picked up, he’d cleaned the windows, saying he was determined to watch.

The sky darkened, the light fading as if they were in the center of an eclipse. The wind beat against the car, howling as it slipped through unseen holes and gaps in the metal.

“Wonder how bad it’ll be?” Samuel asked, his fingers against the glass.

“I could do with some rain,” Gertrude said, removing her scarf and letting Alice out of her pack. The cat hopped into the driver’s seat and lay down, cleaning her paws. The old lady put her hands underneath her armpits and frowned at the west.

“I don’t like this storm that’s coming,” she said. “I feel ill. This ain’t fun, Samuel. My heart’s saying we might go the way of Dorothy and Toto when it hits.”

The top layer of ash blew with the wind, but underneath remained still, hardened together as it had cooled over the past week. It made the world look sick, as if the storm had picked a scab off the land, revealing the ugliness underneath. Gertrude wondered how many bodies might have suddenly lost their burial shroud.

With a sudden gust of air, the storm arrived. Lightning struck in constant waves, illuminating the land in a dizzying flash, a hellish strobe light. The thunder hit like a physical force, booming and crashing as if the foundations of heaven were being torn asunder.

“Sweet Jesus!” Gertrude cried, her palms across her eyes.

Samuel watched, fascinated. His eyes ached in the brightness, but he could not look away. White veins pulsed in the clouds. The ash blew not eastward but upward, as if lifted to the heavens by God’s command. The car groaned. Its windows cracked. Deep in the distance, he watched a line of trees crack and fall.

Through it all, the world remained dry.

“Please, Jesus, save us!” Gertrude wailed.

As if a monster had suddenly awakened within him, Samuel pulled a pistol from his pocket and struck her atop the head with the butt. Before she even knew she was hurt, Gertrude slumped in her seat, the storm mercifully absent in her dreams.

When Gertrude awoke, her ankles were tied together, her hands bound separately behind her. The storm was a rumbling thing in the far distance. Their fire burned anew in its pit, and standing in the red light, gun in hand, was Samuel.

She let out a low moan, every bone in her body aching. The image of Samuel was so terrible she told herself it was a dream. Her eyes closed, but not for long. A rough hand grabbed her face and pulled it upward. She looked and saw Samuel, monster Samuel, his bloodshot eyes wide and wild.

“Do you know why I was travelling east?” he asked her.

“Where’s Alice?” she asked, ignoring him.

He struck her. Blood dripped down her lip.

“I asked you a question. You know why I was travelling east? Because I have something now. I have hope. Too long our nation rotted under old ideas, worn archaic foundations to an otherwise great society. But we’ll have to build anew, don’t you understand that, Gertrude?”

“Ms. Henderson,” she said, her head lolling side to side as if her neck were rubber. Her body was propped against the side of the car. She missed the protection of her scarf. The storm had awakened the ash, filling the air with its sting. “Impolite brat like you should learn manners.”

“Manners?” Samuel laughed. “Billions of people are dying, and you want me to use manners? You see what I mean? Everyone’s blind. No one sees the big picture, but I do. Remember when I said I had a question to ask you? Well, I’m asking now. You just couldn’t keep your little vanity, your ‘Sweet Jesus’ and your feeble prayers to yourself. So now I’m asking, Ms. Henderson.”

He knelt down, the gun rocking in his hand. He looked her in the eye, and she glared back, unafraid.

“Do you believe in God, Gertrude?” he asked.

“Believe in him more than I believe in you,” she said.

He tilted his head to one side.

“Is that so? Might I ask how? Or more importantly, why?”

“Because he’s been so good to me,” she said. Samuel laughed before she could continue.

“Good to you? Good! Have you lost your eyes, old hag? Look around you. How many corpses have you passed on your walk east? How many cars filled with families huddled together, sobbing as they fucking died in each other’s arms? Hell, even God’s precious trees and flowers are nothing but death beneath the ash.”

“We walk in the end of days,” Gertrude said. “But I wouldn’t expect a Sunday school-skipping truant like you to know a thing about that.”

Samuel shoved the barrel against her neck. He didn’t appear mad. He seemed calm, and that scared her far more than anything else he’d done.

“If God exists, he’s a murderer,” he said. “My wife, my son, he filled their lungs with ash and tossed me their bodies to bury. So I deny him. He doesn’t exist. Those that can look upon this wasteland and say he does are diseased. They’re sick. Now I’ll ask you again, Gertrude: do you believe in God? You still think he exists?”

She swallowed. The knot on her head from where he’d struck her pounded with rhythmic throbs of pain.

“I do,” she said. “And he does.”

Samuel reached around her back and untied one of her hands. He crushed her arthritic fingers in his grip, then slammed it against the car. Holding her wrist, he aimed and pulled the trigger. The gun fired, the noise loud and painful. Gertrude screamed as blood erupted from her palm. She tensed and pulled, sobbing as she tried to hold her wounded hand against her chest, but Samuel would not relent.

“Please,” she cried. “Just take care of Alice. She’s just a dumb cat, ain’t done nothing wrong. When I’m, When I…”

Samuel let go of her hand and knelt down. He suddenly spoke with compassion, his voice soft and his smile warm.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked her. “God is like your damn cat. Alice doesn’t exist, Gertrude. You’ve spent your days talking to no one.”

Samuel paced before the fire while Gertrude bled atop her jacket. Her sobs quickened, and she felt like she might faint. Her hurried breaths gagged as ash pooled on her tongue.

“We can be a stronger nation,” Samuel said, talking to the hidden stars. “A better nation, smaller perhaps, but a fit man can defeat a sickly giant. For years the world looked to the U.S. for guidance, but now they look to us with pity. They mock what they have long abandoned.”

Gertrude closed her eyes, and slowly her lips mouthed words. When Samuel saw this, he snapped. His fist struck her cheek, rattling her teeth.

“Don’t you dare pray for yourself,” he snarled at her.

“Not myself,” she said, looking at him with her tired, weepy eyes.

Samuel turned cold at that. He aimed the gun at her forehead.

“I’ll ask you again,” he said.

“I know you will,” she replied.

“No one will hear your answer. You won’t be a saint. There’s no one to impress, no one to convince.”

“I’m here.”

“Last chance. Don’t be a fool, Gertrude. Open your eyes. Like your cat. Like your goddamn cat.”

“Ask already.”

“Do you believe in God, Gertrude?”

“I do.”

He pulled the trigger.