Beginning of the End

June 1, 2043:

The move went well, and without much fuss from the kids. Which was shocking considering all the commotion going on. I was sure the disaster sirens would have made it impossible to keep them calm, but I was wrong. I guess Penny and I prepared them enough on the evacuation plan afterall.

It still feels like a dream to me and Penny- though how could it? We always heard warnings about the eruptions being overdue, they told us what the fallout would be like in school. But we thought our little Wisconsin town was far enough away to not really have to worry about it. Or at least, not worry about the ash.

It all started a few months back, just around Ellie's third birthday in March. People started moving as far away from the midwestern states as possible, in any direction they could. I heard that Texas and the southern states got flooded with people so badly that the military were turning folks away, saying there was no room left anywhere.

Then the quakes began. Small at first, but all too frequent to be normal. For months all we heard was news about the coming eruptions. People began hoarding food and water and supplies of all sorts. As of a month ago, the last grocer in town closed up shop. That's when we knew we had to leave.

- - -

June 6th, 2043:

Despite being further away from the warning zones, we still don't feel safe. I haven't heard or seen any birds in our feeders for almost a week. Every morning the military searches the house to make sure we aren't hiding any extra family or friends.

"Just gotta have an accurate account of everyone, for even rations."

That's what they always say when Penny complains about it, but we know better than to protest with any intention. They know more than we do, I'm sure, and I can't imagine how terrifying that must be.

The girls think it's some sort of adventure, I think. They're still too young to understand what "martial law" or "volcanic winter" mean. So we tell them that an evil wizard cursed the land, and we have to hide and do what they say to stay safe. We even gave Maisy the heart locket that Penny wears. She's obsessed with it. She thinks it'll stop the wizard. If only the world's most dangerous disaster could be stopped by a little, white-gold heart with her and her sister's pictures in it.

They so badly want to explore the woods around town but we aren't allowed outside of the county lines yet.

Not until the dust settles at least.

- - -

June 8, 2043:

The quake sirens woke us all in the middle of the night. We had drills before but this was... different. The girls were crying - screaming more like it. They don't deserve this. Does anyone?

The sirens seemed to go on endlessly, alerting everyone it was time to head into town and gather in the fallout shelter.

Sounds simple enough, but the control the military had on the roads was surprising, even when we knew what to expect.

I almost wish we hid out at my parents cabin by the lake instead.

Not that it's any safer, but it's ours, and not surrounded by tanks and armored guards. I'm afraid it's going to be harder to keep the adventure illusion going for the girls.

At least we're being fed daily while we wait out the eruptions and ash clouds, and who knows what else is going on out there.

- - -

June 15, 2043:

This truly is the end of the world. How can it be anything else? At the very least it's the end of society as we know it. Knew it? It feels weird to say it's already in the past. That we're already into the end of days.

The shelter is warm at least, with all the people inside, and the cooking of food keeps things feeling as homely as they can. Under any other circumstances you'd think we were all planning for a big fair day potluck. But our faces are far too solemn for such parties.

I've heard some of the other parents saying they've received calls from relatives talking about the sky being covered fully by the ash. Before the towers all fell, I guess. Nobody has any service now but the military, or those smart enough to hide a satellite phone.

Apparently the immediate states around the eruption were wiped out - completely. Between the quakes crumbling cities to the ground and the ash clouds burying the rubble that was left, nothing is said to have survived.

I didn't think there were windows in here, and that's why it's been so dark. Apparently ash covered the skylights over the last couple days. They moved us further underground in case they broke under the weight.

What I wouldn't give for a proper shower. Or some fresh air.

If there's any left out there…

- - -

June 21, 2043:

First day of summer. Or, so it should be. We're still stuck inside the shelter. Still under the control and orders of the military. No idea whose orders they're under. Not sure I even care about anything except getting through the next day.

We all wish we could go home. Even the army men. They're less and less strict with some things as the days drag on. Even let some woman get away with an extra ration pack for her kids to share.

It's kind of funny. You expect everyone to be selfish and jaded when this sort of thing hits. But I look around and see the same community we had in the years before the Eruption.

Sure we're almost out of real food and MRE packs are what most of us are getting now, but people share what they can, and nobody has fought over space or blankets or anything.

It takes a village...to weather a disaster? Sure, let's go with that.

They said we can go outside for an hour a day starting in a few days.

Somehow that scares me more than staying inside does now. The girls are excited. I don't think they realize that outside isn't the same anymore.

- - -

July 1, 2043:

Are we sure this is summer? I think the calendars are lying.

They let us out earlier today for two hours! We finally took the girls outside, though there was not much to do.

You'd think it was a November chill, not the beginning of summer. It was...extremely unsettling. And hazy. The sun was out, you could see, but it was like looking through a miles thick yellow fog.

The tanks had apparently shoveled the ash away from the immediate area so we could walk around the 'courtyard' without too much worry.

I am still very worried.

I haven't been able to reach my brother in Maine. Penny hasn't been able to reach her family in Toronto. If any of them even stayed there…

Never have I felt so isolated from everything.

Other than making up games or stories to tell the kids, Penny and I barely even know what to talk about. Every topic seems too grim or too mournful.

I thought I heard a bird in the trees around the back of the shelter, but it was only an alarm going off somewhere in the distance.

I wonder what triggered it.

I should have known better. We haven't seen any animals for…weeks I suppose. Even before the Eruption, there were less and less of them.

I even miss the skunks that would lurk around on garbage days.

- - -

July 18, 2043:

I have been…incapacitated. And unable to write as of late. You could say cabin fever got the better of some of us. Maisy said she lost her locket. She was inconsolable for two days. Then I saw it laying amongst the bedding of a neighboring family, their pictures still inside it.

I had checked to be sure it was ours and not a look-alike.

Whoever that father was didn't like me going through their things, and though I tried to tell him that wasn't the case, he would have none of it.

So be it. If neighborly attitude had reached its end in the godforsaken place, then I too would fight for mine and mine alone.

The Guard didn't like that very much, and put us both in Isolation for two weeks. Other than food being brought to us, he was my only company. And even then, steel walls separated us.

I am a fool. I embarrassed my family and myself. I even apologized, but he didn't care.

So much for community in the face of adversity.

- - -

July 28, 2043:

There's a transport coming tomorrow to take us away from here.

Finally.

We cannot live as a whole town inside the fallout shelter forever. Apparently the government, what's left of it - DC was obliterated - was setting up large sprawling shelters all down the east coast, as far from the blast as we can get on land.

Everyone is on edge. Leaving holds more anxiety and fear than staying, but I am not staying. At least maybe the girls can see the beach, see Big Water, as Maisy would say. The Big Water is nothing like Lake Superior I told her.

I hope I am right.

- - -

August 6, 2043:

We have been driving for almost ten days now, with pit stops in between if we can afford them, but not many. The guards are very strict about stopping.

It is a bleak, cold world now. Everything is grey and dead, the light from the sun seems to never quite reach us, like it can never break through that yellow fog clouding up the atmosphere.

I never imagined I'd be wearing a coat and mittens in August, but then again, I never pictured a world without summer. How could I?

A perpetual frost seems to blanket everything, every morning. On the days the guards permitted us to stop and stretch our legs, the ground was frozen, and lifeless. Even our most brutal winters previous had held beauty. But not this. This was a winter directly from Hell itself.

I am not a praying man, but I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought of this as a Divine Wrath. I am scared. Penny is terrified. The girls…well, it's safe to say the adventure is no longer fun.

- - -

August 9, 2043:

The cities we have passed are like ghost towns. The kind of thing you remember from disaster movies, but somehow so much worse. This is the disaster movie.

We are driving through New York now and…I don't even bother to look out the tiny windows of the transport bus anymore. The rain, as we saw one day, was black. One lady, who was a teacher at the high school, said it's because of the soot and ash mixing in as it falls.

I don't care why the rain is black. I never want to see such things again.

The buildings are all corroding and crumbling around us as we navigate the roads. Between abandoned cars and debris, the streets and highways are a maze, it seems.

Animals as well, lay in the streets, but we make sure the girls do not see them. It is...the most crushing of sights.

The scientists on the army radios predict a decade without summer. I do not know what will become of the world, or humanity.

This is the last page of this journal, and we have another two days at least of driving. I do not know when I'll write again, but I hope when I do, it will write about brighter days.