Halloween and Other Seasons

DUST

By Al Sarrantonio

They passed the signs, three in a row a half-mile apart, off Route 40 just after the sun went down. The first read:

G

It was white metal, with green lettering, just like all the road markers and speed limit signs they’d passed all the way through the Appalachians.

“What do you suppose it means?” Mary asked, and then they came to the second, which read:

2

followed by the third, which stated simply:

7

Mary strained her eyes ahead, looking for more signs, but that was all. She was propped forward in the front seat, in the same expectant position she’d held through the whole car trip. Though it had started out as a vacation, with a short side trip to Chapel Hill to pick up a few personal effects (a favorite serving dish, a bible, a picture book Mary had loved to look at when she was a child) of her Aunt Clara, who had passed away the year before, it had turned into something more: a revisit to her childhood.

She turned in the seat to regard her husband. “What do you suppose they were? I don’t remember them ever being there when I was young.”

“Beats me,” Adam answered, shrugging. He was mid-thirtyish and open faced, a man who worked for an aerospace firm and looked it: there was always a semi-dreaming look on his features. He grinned. “Maybe they’re like those old Burma Shave signs that used to line the highways—some kind of advertising. Maybe a come-on for another one of those antique places or phony country stores we’ve been stopping at for the last three days.”

“We’ve gotten some good bargains!” Mary protested. “That old chest for the hallway, and—”

“A lot of other junk,” Adam laughed, hitching a thumb at the back of the minivan, behind the kids.

“Oh, pooh.”

They drove in silence for a stretch, listening to the soft rock station Mary had found on the radio, the road winding at the edge of the mountain down into a little dip, hiding the sky from them momentarily. Mary drank it all in. After two weeks at this rental-car driving they’d gotten so used to being in the Ford Windstar that it seemed like the natural thing to go exploring through the countryside she’d grown up in. Up until tonight they’d stuck religiously to the main roads; but the late afternoon had looked so gorgeous, with the promise of a high crescent moon later in the evening, that it seemed like the only thing to do would be to take a detour through the inner mountain passes she remembered. After all, Adam was from the Northeast, where they lived now, and the Appalachians were something he and the kids had never seen before. They’d even planned to possibly camp out, though they had hotel reservations a hundred miles further on Route 40. Adam wanted badly to take the telescope out of the trunk and do a little of the sky-gazing he hadn’t managed yet. Such a clear sky. Such a beautiful Moon.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Mary said, pointing up the dark mountain to their left, “But the hills and hollows around here are packed with people. There are cabins and cottages—”

A moment later, when they emerged into sky again, everything had suddenly changed.

“I don’t believe it,” Mary said, her mouth opening.

Swirling clouds of dusty fog had appeared out of nowhere. Adam cursed; now they’d have to drive on without stopping and find their way back to Route 40.

“Sorry, Adam,” Mary said, putting a hand on his arm.

“Oh, well. I can always see the stars when we get back to Boston. I love that light pollution.”

Mary smiled, and checked on the two girls in the back, who were gazing sleepily out the window.

Five minutes later a wind picked up, and what at first looked like rain began. It came on gently enough, and Adam immediately snapped on the headlights and wipers, but it increased in a steady, serious blowing way that soon alarmed him, to the point where he could barely see the road. The wind increased, and Adam realized that what was swirling around them was not rain but dust.

“What the—”

Dust or ash had completely blanketed the road in front of them, and suddenly, incredibly, when the car shifted to the side under him, he knew that they were in trouble.

He stopped the car when he couldn’t see anything at all. Rolling down the window, he put his head out to check how close to the end of the road the car was. With a sudden drop in his stomach, he discovered that not only couldn’t he see the road but that the road was disappearing beneath them, melting in an upward build of dust. To their right was a steep slope that seemed to be growing closer.

“Jesus,” he said, pulling his head back in and rolling the window back up, trying not the let his hands tremble.

“Adam—”

“Don’t panic.” He wanted to panic himself, but some deeper instinct than fear took over.

Gently, he tried to pull the Windstar to the left, away from the edge of the road. There was no response from the car. It was like being on an icy road in New England winter, only worse. This stuff was worse than ice. It reminded him of some of the dry lubricants he had used at work.

He put his head out the window again, and saw that they were sliding toward the edge of the slope.

He forced the wheel to the left, but it was too late to do anything.

Mary saw the cliff, too, and let out a strangled cry—but she quickly muffled it. She reached over the back seat to grab at the two girls, who had begun to wail.

“Hang on,” Adam said grimly.

“Oh, God,” Mary moaned.

The car slid over.

Then stopped.

At that moment, as if by magic, the dust storm let up. Adam pushed out his breath evenly, gradually unclenching his hands from the steering wheel, and forced himself to look through the slashing wiper blades and dust-caked windshield.

The car was tipped forward at an ominous angle, but was anchored, at least for the moment. He gave silent thanks for the weighty antiques cluttering the rear of the minivan.

“Mary—don’t move.”

She looked wide-eyed at him, still clutching at the crying girls, but said nothing.

Slowly, deliberately, Adam rolled down the window and put his head out.

Just as he’d thought, the car was braced on the brow of the ledge. There was more of it on the road than off, but he could distinctly see the left front bumper dangling over a long, deep drop to the bottom of a shallow canyon.

The sky was an angry, sallow gray-yellow color, filled with swirling dust.

“Oh God,” he said under his breath, and forced himself to begin breathing again.

He brought his head back into the car and rolled up the window.

The car glided forward a foot, then stopped.

“Mary,” he said, forcing his mouth to say the words calmly, “we’re going to have to leave the van.”

She stared at him with animal fear in her eyes. “No,” she said. “We can’t. We’ll fall—”

“We have to, Mary. I want you to move the kids over to my side; I’m going to get out and then open their door and help them out. I want you to slide across after me.”

The wind was howling again, throwing a ticking hail of ash at the van.

“Now, Mary.”

The car edged forward another foot, jerking a little to the right, and once more came to rest.

“Put your baseball cap on, Cindy,” Mary said, trying to sound calm.

“No, Mommy, no! I’m scared!”

“It’s all right to be scared. Just do what I say.”

Adam pulled at his door handle, moving the door open a bare inch.

The dust swirled in at him—there was silt nearly up to the floorboards.

Sucking in a breath, Adam stepped out into it.

The viscous dust, like quicksand, took hold, tried to drive him subtly forward toward the precipice.

He put both feet firmly into the silty mass, sliding them back away from the softly insistent pull. It was like the waves they’d played in at the Massachusetts shore, a gentle but strong undertow. Calmly, with light, constant pressure, he pulled open the passenger compartment door of the van, sliding it back on its rail. He tried to keep all pressure out of his hold on the handle; he had the distinct feeling that any slight push from him on the side of the vehicle would send it tumbling off into the valley below.

“Come on, kids,” he said evenly.

“I want to bring my Harry doll!” Lucy said, straining to reach under the seat for a floppy thing made of felt and buttons.

“Leave Harry, we’ll get him later,” Adam said. He reached in and pulled gently on her arm. She resisted for a moment and then stepped out into the mud.

“Yuck,” she said, as her little sister, crying, followed.

Adam turned back to help Mary out of the front seat.

“My God,” she exclaimed, stepping into the silt and suddenly seeing where the front of the car was. “Oh, sweet Jesus.”

The car tipped forward, halted.

“Lucy!” Mary screeched.

Lucy had crawled back into the van and was reaching for her Harry doll.

The van began to move again and this time it wasn’t going to stop.

Pushing Cindy down into the dust out of the way, Adam lurched into the back seat, catching Lucy by the back of her light jacket and yanking her out before she could get to the doll.

“My Harry doll!”

For a moment Adam lost his footing in the slippery dust and fell forward, half in the van and half out, still holding the child.

With Mary screaming hysterically, he felt the two of them being pulled over the cliff along with the vehicle. But then his dragging foot miraculously found a rock under the dust and he pulled himself backward, out of the van, bearing his daughter with him.

As he fell to his knees in the dust the van, with agonizing inevitability, slipped over the cliff and was gone. They watched its tail lights disappear like angry red eyes into the surging storm.

“Oh, Adam,” Mary sobbed.

“It’s all right,” Adam answered. As he stood, his hand brushed against something in the mass of dust and he grabbing it; it vaguely resembled a chicken bone but then disintegrated in his hand. He pulled Lucy up after him. She stood unsteadily, crying over the loss of her doll.

He looked into his wife’s eyes, but said nothing.

“Okay, kids,” Adam said, “it’s time to walk.”

As they began to work their way through the silty dust to the lee side of the road, the wind came again, and the dust began to blow.

~ * ~

A flash of lightning, without thunder.

Ahead of them, down in a little hollow, in the midst of the roaring storm, stood a small cottage. Lightning came again, and in this second flash Adam grabbed Mary’s arm and pointed the dwelling out to her.

“I don’t remember anything like that being there,” she said.

“Well, it’s here now. Let’s get the kids down,” Adam answered, peering unsteadily through the whorls of dust.

Mary nodded, and then, in the next lightning illumination, looked behind them.

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

A solid wall of silt was flowing down the mountainside toward them. There was no hint now that there had ever been a road where they stood. It was as if some mammoth volcano had reared up within the mountain and spewed a hundred thousand tons of ash down on itself, obliterating everything. They could see, up the mountainside, by the light of now almost continual, thunderless lightning, a few weather-beaten tips of pine trees, but nothing else. The dust, like liquid, flowed with silent determination down the mountain, toward what had once been the road.

“Quickly,” Adam said, and this time he couldn’t hide the fear in his voice.

There was a broken stone path down the hollow to the cabin, already slicked with viscous silt. They half walked, half slid their way down.

When they reached the front porch Adam saw with sinking hope how delicate and vulnerable the structure was. It was painted an odd dark color that might have looked quaint in summer sunshine but couldn’t hide the fragility of the place.

Above and around it loomed most of the mountain.

The door opened easily. Inside, it looked like some sort of summer weekend place, one large room outfitted with the barest of necessities: a wash sink, cupboard, a few sticks of furniture including a small table with four chairs. Everything was painted in dark colors. There was a low ceiling of unpainted boards, and a picture window that looked out on the mountain and where the road had been.

Mary closed the door, took hold of Adam’s arm and pointed through the window. There was awe and fear in her voice.

“Look.”

Where the wall of dust had been flowing determinedly toward them, covering everything, it had stopped short of the hollow they were in.

“There wasn’t any wall up there,” Adam stated.

“It’s almost as it if’s waiting,” Mary whispered.

They heard a loud creak and felt the cottage shudder.

~ * ~

Night came on, and stayed. The dust storm beat without mercy against the cliffs, drove in whistling tornados around the hollow. Intermittently, lightning flashed, without sound. By its light, they could see the wall of dust at the base of the mountain, hanging over them.

Inside, the small family, in the half-light of candles Mary had found in a cupboard, waited for sunrise.

“It sounds like it won’t ever end,” Adam said. He glanced furtively out the front picture window.

Mary stared at him without speaking.

The wind picked up with renewed fury, blowing its dry, moaning burden of dust against the fragile structure.

“I wish to hell daylight would come,” Adam said.

His wife moved the blankets closer around the two children, who lay side by side on the cabin’s single bed. They slept fitfully, their young minds drifting in and out of reality. “Mommee…” Cindy said suddenly, half asleep, then sank back into unconsciousness with a fitful breath.

For a few moments, there was only the moaning of the wind, the dry sound of ash washing against the front window.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t have stayed outside?” Mary asked abruptly. “I keep thinking of that mass of dust above us. If it comes down…”

Adam took a shuddering breath. “We did the right thing.”

“But—”

“I said we did the right thing!” He covered his face with his hands. “God, I hope we did…”

Outside, the wind and dust lashed mightily.

With a great rending groan, something above the ceiling was torn away.

The children awoke, screaming.

“My God!” Mary shouted, as Adam thrust himself up to go look outside. “Don’t go near the window!” she pleaded.

But he was already there, peering into the foggy swirls of dust. “I can’t see anything. It had to be part of the roof.”

Mary set about calming the children down. Lucy began to cry, and Cindy, the older, tried to go back to sleep.

“Adam, please, get away from the window!”

“I see…”

Another tearing groan from above.

“Adam!”

He shrank away from the window as something hard hit it. It rattled, but, somehow, it did not break.

“What was that?” Mary asked anxiously.

Adam moved cautiously to the window again. “I don’t know. But I thought I saw something moving out there. A light.”

“A car?” There was desperation edged by hope in Mary’s voice.

“I don’t see how it could be a car, with the road gone. Maybe some sort of plow or truck…”

Silence stretched between them, as Lucy again fell into a shuddering sleep.

“Mary, I have to go out there,” Adam said finally.

“No!”

“This place won’t last the night. I have to see what that light was.”

As if in answer, there came a great rumbling sound from above them on the mountain. Something huge and heavy-sounding slammed into the cottage.

Mary looked with fear from the shuddering back wall to her husband. “You won’t come back.”

“I…just have to know if there’s a safer place for us.” He looked down at the two fitfully sleeping children. “You want me to take the chance of not going?”

Mary was silent.

Adam retrieved his parka and began to shrug into it.

The wind and dust whipped into a fierce cacophony of sound, as if waiting hungrily for him to leave the cabin.

He hesitated a moment, looked back at his wife, then unbolted the door and stepped out.

~ * ~

Immediately, the wind tried to yank the door from his hands. Groaning with effort, he pulled the door shut behind him. He stood with his back plastered to it for a moment, trying to see through his dust-blinded glasses.

There was movement ahead of him.

Something…

Up where the road had been, the wall of dust was still held in check. Adam tried to pick up some hint of why so much silt could flow so fast so far and then suddenly stop. He knew that was the spot where the car had been washed over the cliff—he could see the vehicle canted on its side at the bottom, its headlights like beacons, dust duned slightly up one side—and he could swear there had been no natural obstruction, a wall or damn, to keep the wall of dust at bay.

Dry lightning flashed again.

In front of that wall, something did move. A lone figure in a dark parka, barely visible against the black background through the churning wind and dust, was moving along the heaving backdrop, making its way to the path down to the bottom of the valley and the cottage.

The figure made its way to the bottom of the slope.

It stood motionless.

“Hey!” Adam called, but he could feel the word ripped from his mouth and snuffed out by the storm. His lips were coated with dust.

The figure turned toward him.

Carefully, Adam stepped away from the cottage—and was immediately thrown down by the wind.

He nearly panicked. It felt as if hands had taken hold of him from below and were yanking him down into the dust, trying to suffocate him. There were little bits of something in the ash that broke apart—he remembered the chicken bone he had found before.

Then, abruptly, whatever had held him let go. He was up on his knees, panting into the wind.

Behind him he heard frantic tapping on a window and looked back to see Mary’s frightened face at the picture window, gesturing wildly with her hands—

There were hands on Adam, helping him up.

“Wha—?”

He looked up into a dark, hooded face. He could make out no features.

“Thank you!” he shouted into the wind, regaining his footing.

The figure made a gesture and the two of them made their way to the front door of the cottage.

Mary pulled the door open, then slammed it closed behind them.

“Are you all right?” she said frantically to Adam, clutching his arm.

Adam nodded, spitting dust, beginning to regain his breath.

The children had stirred, and sat up, rubbing their eyes. Lucy sobbed out, “I want my Harry doll!”

The newcomer, turning away from them, shrugged out of his coat and began to shake the dust out of it.

“Some night,” he said, matter-of-factly, turning around. He was tall, strong-looking, a weather-beaten, dark, almost cordovan color. His voice was deep and his large yet delicate hands looked as if they could pull a tree out of the ground without cracking any of the roots.

“That was your van that slid over the precipice?” the man asked. He was smiling, and he hung his parka over the back of one of the chairs at the small table.

“Yes, it was,” Adam replied, realizing that even with the mud and rain and what he had been through, it was nevertheless time for social conventions, including chitchat, to be adhered to. “You’re from around here?”

“You might say that,” the man said, laughing softly. “This place belongs to me.”

He thrust out his hand, so quickly that Adam nearly jumped.

“Please forgive me!” Adam said, taking the hand and noting the soft yet firm grip. “We just didn’t know. We never would have barged in if we’d known someone was living—”

The man’s laughter cut him off. “Did you have a choice?”

“As a matter of fact, no,” Adam answered. He gave a short laugh himself, then asked, “Have you ever had a storm like this before?”

“Never anything quite like this,” the man answered. He glanced out the picture window, then back at Adam. “Shall we have some tea?”

“I grew up here, and never heard of a dust storm in North Carolina before,” Mary said suddenly, almost belligerently.

The man turned his eyes on her, and smiled.

“And for that matter,” Mary continued, “I don’t remember there ever being a cabin down here.”

There came a loud banging, which made Mary gasp: it sounded like something living was being ripped away from the roof.

“Don’t you think—?” Adam began.

The man waved a hand in dismissal. “Nothing can be done, now. Come, have some hot tea.” He was already drawing water into a pot and laying out utensils and cups on the table.

The two girls had risen; Cindy padded over to Adam and tugged at his sleeve.

Her voice was small: “Daddy, are we going to slide away like the car?”

Adam was about to answer when Mary spoke up. She had wandered to the picture window, and was staring out through the swirling dust to the top of the valley where the road had been.

“Why hasn’t the wall of dust come down on us?” she said, in a careful, even voice.

There was sudden silence in the room.

“Come, don’t be bothered with that,” the man said after a moment. He put his hand out to Mary, seeking to draw her away from the window. “Best not to think about it.”

“Why not?” Mary replied quickly.

“It’s just that, there’s nothing to be done about it now,” the man said, smiling.

“When we found this cabin,” Adam said, “we saw that the dust that had come down from the mountain was in some way impeded from coming into this valley. You must have noticed it, you came down that way. Is there some sort of natural wall or outcropping up there that’s holding it back?”

“No,” the man said simply. “But I really don’t think you should worry about it.”

“The dust can’t come pouring down on us?” Mary asked.

“It hasn’t yet, has it?”

Something was ripped from the roof and whipped away by the wind.

“Come,” the man continued, “have something hot to drink. It will calm you.”

Mary was staring around, over the ceiling and down the walls. Adam couldn’t help following her eyes with his own as another loud rip sounded somewhere up above.

“What were you doing outside?” Mary asked. A subtly suspicious tone had crept into her voice. Adam almost scolded her, but held his tongue.

He spread his hands wide. “This all belongs to me.” He held out his hand to Mary again, but she stared at it and he gently lowered it.

“I don’t like this,” Mary said, turning to Adam. “I grew up here, and I know this cabin was not here.”

“Mary!” Adam said, shocked. “How can you talk that way? The man lives here. This is his home.” He was suddenly aware of his social obligation again. “Please forgive—” he began, turning to the man.

“It’s nothing. Please.” He gestured toward the steaming tea, set neatly at the table.

Mary stood with her arms folded staring out the picture window as Adam sat uneasily at the table, with the two girls in dainty chairs to either side of him.

Mary said quietly, “I read a story once, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, about a visitor to an inn on a mountainside. During the night, there was an avalanche, and everyone ran out and was killed. The inn was left untouched.” She turned her head slowly from the window to face the four figures sitting at the table. Adam was staring at her as though she were mad.

“What do those signs out on the road mean—G, and 2, and 7?” she asked sharply.

“Mary—”

“Like I said,” she continued, “ there never was a cabin here. And the more I think about it, the more sure I am that there wasn’t even a valley here.” She turned back to look out the window. “I think this cabin is a trap.”

The cabin’s owner smiled evenly. “Then what about your story? If you leave, won’t the dust come down on you in an avalanche and smother you?”

“I think if we stay that’s what will happen.”

“What if I told you it made no difference?”

Now Adam looked at the man, who only shrugged, smiling enigmatically. “Hawthorne was something of a philosopher. I’ve always enjoyed philosophy. It tries to explain so many unexplainable things.”

There was a tentative rip at the roof above them, which cut off as the wind suddenly wound down a few notches. The dust storm was not beating quite as hard on the picture window, which now showed the first tints of a sallow dawn.

Mary turned back to look outside.

“The dust is moving,” she gasped, terrified.

“Is it?” the man said, still sitting at his table, smiling.

Adam got up. He could not be sure, but it did look as though the wall of ash was closer, roiling up, looming larger.

“I don’t know—”

“We have to get out of here now!” Mary insisted.

She made a sudden movement toward the children, who began to cry. She thrust them into their coats.

She pushed the children toward the front door and opened it. Though it had abated, the dust storm was still fierce; the wind that met her nearly drove her back into the little bungalow.

“Mary, don’t!”

But she was outside, the two howling, frightened girls in tow.

Adam looked at the man, who hadn’t moved from his chair.

“You said it made no difference,” Adam said, making it a question.

The man, who looked older, browner, larger and at the same time less distinct, said, “Your wife fears it has to do with this valley. It’s much more than that. Read her Aunt Clara’s bible.” He added: “The G is for Genesis.”

His smile was gone, replaced by something truly unreadable.

At his wife’s sudden cry out in the storm, Adam turned toward her. Night had given way completely, the sky was filled with a sickly yellow cast, and he could see that she had fallen. The two girls were struggling to help her up.

“I have to go—”

When he looked back into the cabin it was empty.

He turned back into the storm, and soon reached Mary, who was back on her feet. Lucy had charged ahead, toward the fallen Windstar, whose headlights stabbed out of the swirling dust.

“My Harry doll!” she cried.

Mary gasped, “Catch up with her!”

Adam forged ahead, with Mary and Cindy close behind.

Lucy had mounted the van’s grill and was climbing up toward the open sliding door, which now faced the sky.

Adam grabbed her, but she wriggled away from him and dropped into the interior.

As Adam tried to hoist himself up after her, he felt Mary’s hands dig into him like claws.

“Oh, God, Adam! Look!”

Her voice held a note of terror he had never heard in a human voice before.

He turned toward the mountain, and gasped with disbelief. Nearly on top of them, moving like a tsunami, was a monstrous wall of dust. As it grew closer it grew higher, and there were things swirling in it that broke apart as they watched.

“Lord God Almighty…”

Mary was already pushing Cindy up and into the open door of the van, and now Adam helped Mary to follow. The ground began to tremble, and there was a sound like a freight train bearing down on them.

Adam pulled himself into the opening, and then struggled with the sliding door. The wall was right on top of them. Debris began to swirl in, dust and what looked to be bits of brittle bone, and just as Adam slammed the door shut the Windstar rocked as if a wave of water hit it. It nearly rolled over onto its roof, then slowly settled back into position on its side.

It became very dark in the van, and Adam switched on the interior lights.

Lucy was in the back seat, nestled next to the blanket chest they had bought for the hall, which was broken, holding her Harry doll, rocking it tightly against her, her eyes closed.

“Do you think—” Mary began.

“Find your Aunt Clara’s bible,” Adam said, leaving no room for discussion in his voice.

Mary looked at him for a moment, and then made her way into the back seat to rummage in the box of keepsakes they had taken from her Aunt’s home.

The radio was still on, low, though there was no longer light rock playing. A voice was droning, and Adam, his fingers shaking, turned up the volume.

“Can we go home soon?” Cindy asked, with a young child’s innocence bordering on incomprehension.

“…the entire planet,” the voice on the radio was saying in a monotone. It sounded very tired, or drunk. “Reports from every corner of the globe of massive dust storms…”

Mary held up the bible. “What—”

“Look up Genesis, chapter 2, verse 7,” Adam said. His voice was barely above a whisper, his eyes glued to the radio, it’s readout glowing green.

The car rocked, an underwater wave.

“…and this dust is not being whipped up by the wind—it is not dust from the earth or falling from the sky…”

Mary angled the bible closer to the van’s dome light, which was to her back.

“Here it is,” she said. “It says, ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul.” She looked up, perplexed. “Wha—”

Adam held up his hand; his eyes were on the radio with a fixed look.

“…humans. I repeat: the dust itself is composed of human bone and flesh. Every human on earth, apparently, one by one, is disintegrating into the dust from which we were made…”

The tired voice said: “I think…” and then there was a small gasp and then nothing but static from the radio.

Adam looked at Mary, whose eyes were impossibly wide with fright; she was clutching Cindy to her. She seemed to be fighting for breath.

“I—”

But already she was changed, turning to something brittle and dry before Adam’s eyes, and Cindy, and Lucy, who was hugging her Harry doll in the farthest reaches of the rear seat, the same.

And then they broke into dust and bone and more dust, and were gone.

Adam reached out, and gave a choked cry, and watched his arm fall into dust from the fingertips back.

“But—”

He felt the breath sucked back out of his lungs, which went hot and dry and collapsed.

And then, at the last, he heard a voice, filled not with rage, or spite, or even wrath, but with mortification—

“Go back.”