“St-stop!” Melissa shouted.
Jason plopped down next to her. He felt her slide closer, her head pressed against his chest.
“You got the flashlight?” she asked.
In answer he aimed it at her face and flicked it twice.
“Dad!” she grumbled, elbowing him. Jason chuckled, then flipped it around in his hand.
“So you still scared?” he asked her.
“A little,” she said.
“Of what? Are there monsters?”
Melissa snorted, as if she were insulted. She was six: way too old to be believing in monsters. It was ghosts she was afraid of.
“I think there’s something in the corner,” she said.
“Which corner?”
“That corner.”
Jason waited a moment.
“Dear, are you pointing?”
Melissa giggled.
“Maybe.”
Jason aimed the flashlight and flicked it on for a half-second, revealing their coat rack.
“No monsters there,” he said.
“Not there!”
He switched places, flicking the light off and on as he continued his elusive search.
“Any monsters there? How about there? Oops, none there, either. What are we looking for again?”
Melissa’s tiny fingers jabbed into his sides and under his arms. Jason laughed, swinging the flashlight down so he could see her face. She smiled up at him, wincing at the bright light. Her hair was a dark mess, wet strands clinging to her cheeks. She was smiling, but it was fragile and trembling. A dammed ocean of tears swirled within her. Come bedtime, he knew she’d let them loose.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, letting the light linger so he could burn the image into his mind. “I’ll be beating the boys away with a stick when you hit high school.”
He flicked off the light. Melissa sniffled, so he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
“Is mom alright?” she asked after their silence stretched for several minutes.
Jason thought of his ex-wife’s phone call. Karen had been at the office when the news hit.
“It’s only an hour drive,” she’d insisted. “I’ll be back in time, alright? Just please, don’t go anywhere. Promise me, Jason.”
“I won’t,” he’d said.
“Promise.”
“Alright, I promise.”
The drive from her office to his house normally took an hour, but Jason imagined the frantic drivers, the wrecks, the police squads and rioters. When the clouds hit, she’d most likely been in her car, her windows flimsy protection against the tiny granules of ash that poured into her lungs, solidified, and killed her.
Jason kissed Melissa’s fingers.
“She’s fine,” he said. “She’s just late in joining us.”
Thunder rolled.
“She’s with God in heaven, isn’t she?” Melissa asked.
Jason’s eyes ran with tears. He felt his lower lip tremble. He clutched his daughter to his chest and fought the trembling of his voice.
“I hope so,” he told her. “I really do.”
Melissa broke, same as he. In the darkness they cried.
Once Melissa was asleep, Jason shifted her to the side and stood. He flicked on the flashlight, wincing at its brightness. Knowing there was nothing so important as this, he calmly and patiently checked the tape. In the thin stream of light, any ash sneaking through would be readily visible. He saw none at the door, nor his bathroom window.
The kitchen had a tiny bit puffing in on one side. An extra layer of duct tape put an end to that. The back door had a bit more coming in, and he smelled the distinct odor of sulfur. Jason used two layers on that one, then sat and watched. Bits of everyday household dust floated before him, but no more ash pushed through the cracks. He wiped a bit of cold sweat from his forehead and continued.
When finished, Jason was satisfied. A little bit of ash might still be filtering in, but nowhere near enough to cause them any immediate danger. It might give him cancer twenty years down the road, but hell, he’d accept the compromise.
In his living room, just beside his computer desk, was a giant window facing west. Jason pulled back the curtain. Outside he saw only darkness. He pressed his fingers to the glass, shocked by the cold. Summer was in mid-swing, but sweltering heat waves were years from returning. He wished he’d bought a gas generator like he’d always wanted to. Too late now. Everything was too late.
He shone his light through the window and stared. Even though he was wasting batteries, he couldn’t make himself shut it off.
“Is it snowing?” he heard Melissa ask from the couch. Jason startled at the sound of her voice.
“It is,” he said. “But it’s warm snow. You wouldn’t like it.”
“Doesn’t feel warm,” Melissa said. “It’s cold in here.”
“Stay under the blankets,” he told her. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
Thick flakes of ash fell through his beam of light, drifting lazily downward. Everything he saw was covered in a thin layer of gray and white. The sight was oddly beautiful. He felt a bit uneasy watching it fall. It was too gray, he decided. It lacked the purity of snow. More worrisome was the way it covered the ground. Every blade of grass, every flower, lay crumpled flat by the weight. A heavy snow. A killing snow.
He shut off the flashlight.
Jason’s watch claimed it was half past nine, but still the outside remained dark. Slowly he rubbed his eyes and tried to convince his body daytime had arrived. Melissa had awoken every couple of hours throughout the night, crying hysterically and asking for her mother. The first few times Jason had whispered to her, telling stories and zapping monsters with his flashlight. The final time he’d simply held her and silently cried.
“You hungry?” he asked as he pushed the blankets off and stood.
“I guess,” Melissa said.
He didn’t turn on the flashlight until he reached the kitchen. Opening and closing cabinet doors, he looked for what might go bad first. The most obvious was the cereal, sickly sweet and coated with sugar. He poured two great bowls and opened the refrigerator. He yanked out the milk, hoping to keep in the cold for as long as possible. Food coloring from the marshmallows swirled the milk red and pink as Jason poured. Popping on the lid, he flung it back into the fridge, closed it with his hip, and then plopped two spoons into the bowls.
“Soup’s up,” he said, his voice muffled by the flashlight in his teeth. He carried a bowl in each hand. By the time he set them down upon the table, his jaw ached. Flicking the flashlight about, he shone it near Melissa’s bowl until she sat down before it. With a click, he shut it off.
“I can’t see,” she whined.
“You can eat cereal in the dark,” he said. “Not rocket science.”
“You would say that,” Melissa muttered.
The cereal was far from his favorite, but Jason ate every bit. His search through the cabinets hadn’t been very hopeful. Much of what he had, things like macaroni, spaghetti, and noodles, needed boiled. Thankfully he had cans of soup, which would help a ton. There was plenty of juice and soda in his fridge, which would last far longer than the milk. He’d tried the faucet only once, and the gray smudge that spurted out was certainly nothing he planned on drinking.
Milk dribbling down his chin, Jason wiped it with his arm and then let out a weak burp. A few moments later, Melissa responded in kind. Her giggles were far brighter in their gray world than any flashlight.
Above them, the roof creaked.
Jason told stories to pass the time.
“One day, papa bunny left the rabbit hole in search of a carrot,” he said. Melissa sat curled beside him, shivering under the blankets. Every hint of summer had bled out through the walls. Frost lined the inside of the windows, ash the outside.