The first one was as loud as a thunderclap. Sylvia jumped from her chair and instinctively glanced out the window, only to see bright blue sky and a manic sun.
She turned to her grandma, who had been reading the news on her iPad. “What do you think that was, Gram?”
Gram cocked her head at the noise. “Maybe it was an earthquake.” She nodded. “Did you feel any shaking?”
“We don’t get earthquakes here though!” Sylvia felt like she was defending herself and blushed. “Arizona is the most geologically stable state.” She glared out the window, daring the sun to contradict her, then sat back down with her fantasy book. Her two younger siblings, Anna and Elijah, continued playing their card game when they saw that Gram wasn’t worried about the loud noise. Geology was one of Sylvia’s favorite college subjects, and places like California scared the heck out of her. The recent movie San Andreas had confirmed her belief that Arizona was the best place in the world to be. Wildfires she could deal with. Earthquakes were as scary as space.
She looked out the window once more before returning to her book. It was a re-read of Eragon, and for some reason she enjoyed it more every time she read it. Elijah liked the series as well, and it was nice to be able to talk to her brother about common interests. If only Anna would read books too, instead of covering her pimply face with makeup whenever…
Another crack rippled through the air. Sylvia really jumped this time, at least a foot out of her chair. As she fell back to the ground, the moment slowed. Along with the horrendous noise, waves of movement swept through the house and even the air. The energy pulsed through her body, making her dizzy as she hit the floor.
She was vaguely aware of Gram on her hands and knees and Elijah and Anna rolling over on the carpet. The waves of energy suddenly stopped.
“Gram!” Sylvia cried. Anna groaned, her face tinged green.
Gram looked up, slowly getting to her feet. The ceiling hadn’t crashed down, which was nice. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to her grandchildren, motioning Anna to hurry. “If there are aftershocks, we don’t want to be in a building.” The worry lines on her forehead deepened.
They loaded into the car, Elijah glancing back at the house, Anna actually seeming serious for once. Normally the two of them would bicker when they sat together, but they silently looked out the back windows of the sedan as Gram pulled out of the garage.
“What are we going to do, Gram?” Sylvia asked. “If buildings start falling down?”
“We’ll drive very carefully and wait it out. It doesn’t seem like there was too much damage.”
They passed the trimmed gingerbread houses on Gram’s street, all of them looking prim and unhurt. Elderly couples were exiting their dwellings and taking stock of the earthquake.
As they neared the intersection, another shockwave rolled through the car.
“Gram!” all the kids screamed.
“Shush!” she said, slamming on the brake. They waited breathlessly for a moment, and then the car shook again. The kids shrieked.
“Is this normal?” Sylvia demanded, pushing on her armrests. “Like all these random shakes? I thought it’s all supposed to happen at once.” She was beginning to shiver.
“No, look!” Anna cried. “The mountain we always hike!”
All eyes jerked toward her finger. The little mountain only a few miles away from Gram’s place was…spouting fire. Sylvia scrabbled backward in her seat, her mouth open. This couldn’t be happening. Mountains didn’t just erupt in the middle of Arizona, far away from any plate boundaries or hotspots!
Her siblings and Gram stared at the mountain. It looked like a fire-breathing dragon was just testing the air to see if anyone would react. The fire didn’t even look like normal lava. Or, at least, like the lava she’d seen on YouTube.
“Gram!” Sylvia shook her grandma’s seat. “Let’s get out of here!” The mountain spouted fire again, higher than before. “Now!” she shrieked. “I’ll drive!”
Gram seemed stunned, so Sylvia got out and moved Gram to the passenger side. The mountain was getting more agitated now…and was it taller than before? Sylvia didn’t want to know.
The gouts of fire became more frequent as they drove down the street, and Sylvia had a hard time maneuvering the car every time the ground shook. She was trying to form a plan, but didn’t know what they would do even if she made it back to her parents’ house.
Then the road buckled in front of them.
Sylvia slammed the brakes, throwing her passengers sharply against their seat belts.
“Ouch!” Anna snapped, rubbing her chest.
“Sorry!” Sylvia glared at her sister. The folded road was like something from a movie. “Get out of the car!”
Anna whined, but acquiesced. The ground’s trembling made it hard to stand, and desert dust was beginning to rise all around them. It had been a warm March morning, but Sylvia felt the air growing hotter.
“Do you feel anything, Gram?” she asked. “Like heat coming from the…the mountain?” She didn’t want to name it.
Gram seemed to be having trouble standing.
“Gram, are you okay?” Sirens began to sound in the distance, and she wondered if she could flag one down to help Gram. “Elijah, help me carry Gram. We need to walk home, and Mom and Dad will help us.”
“I don’t want to walk there!” Anna said. Her eyebrows furrowed in the expression that always made Sylvia want to vomit. “You guys meet me here with bikes or something.”
“You idiot!” Sylvia cried. “You’ll get burned by fire and swallowed by the earth!”
“Like you’d care!”
Like hell. Sylvia bit back a retort and focused on Gram again. Her grandma was slowly walking down the street, her sleeve over her mouth to keep the dust out.
“Gram, wait a minute!” Sylvia dove back into the car and grabbed her purse. “I know it’s in here somewhere,” she muttered. Her purse was about ten pounds, but it had everything she thought she would ever reasonably need…including a handkerchief. She grabbed her water bottle too, mostly out of habit. She’d brought that flayed, dirty Nalgene into some pretty embarrassing places.
“Thanks honey,” Gram coughed into the handkerchief. “The ground keeps sucking at my feet…I’m afraid I can’t walk much faster.”
Sylvia looked down with horror at her own feet. Indeed, the ground seemed to be crumbling a bit around her tennis shoes. As she stood there, her feet slowly sank into the earth.
“It’s eating me!” Sylvia yelped. The ground rumbled in response, and the glow of fire from the mountain burned through the dust.
“Run!” Elijah yelled. They leaped toward the buckled asphalt, pulling Gram along behind them. Anna followed, looking jumpy.
They jogged down the broken street for a good five minutes, trees shaking around them and more dust from the dry earth billowing up whenever it slid from a steep slope. The sun was at its zenith, but the majority of the heat prickling Sylvia’s spine came from the mountain behind them. Elijah’s hair was damp and Gram was breathing heavily. Sylvia gave them some water, trying to wash the dust from her own throat as well.
Anna kept looking back at the random bursts of fire from the mountaintop. “Why isn’t there any lava coming over the sides?” she asked, catching up to her siblings.
“You’d better hope there isn’t lava,” Sylvia said. “Maybe the magma is too solid to come out. Or—”
The shockwave blasted them to the ground.
It felt like a bomb had just exploded. Sylvia’s ears rang. Her left arm had scraped along the street, and it was covered in bleeding scratches. She turned to the mountain to see a cloud of ash and smoke billowing into the sky.
She held her breath, watching it, then screamed. Lava chunks flew out of the cloud and hurtled toward the earth. And then she saw what she had only read about, never seen: volcanic lightning. The cloudless sky was torn apart by bright flashes emanating from the billowing ash. She screamed again.
Elijah was suddenly at her shoulder, patches of red blooming under his dark hair. “Sylvia, Gram!”
“What?” Her ears were popping.
“Gram!” He yanked her arm, his eyes desperate.
Sylvia saw what he was pointing at and fell to her knees, the ground crumbling around her. Gram lay on the ground, her head twisted unnaturally.
“Can you fix her?” Elijah yelled over the rocks beginning to rain down, his hands over his head. “Don’t you have a tourniquet in your purse or something?”
Anna started crying.
Sylvia shook her head. She forced herself to stand and checked Gram’s pulse. No blood ran through the veins under her fingers. She glared up at the deadly sky. “Why!” She left her purse by Gram’s body and snatched her siblings’ arms, pulling them in a sprint toward the small patch of blue sky that was left, far away.
Lava poured down the mountainside toward them. They ran faster, but the glowing orange rock ate up the ground like a demon. The ground shook harder and deep cracks appeared, one splitting right behind their frightened feet.
The ash cloud reached them. The siblings stumbled in the sudden darkness and covered their faces. Sylvia felt like she was breathing in glass.
“We have to stop!” Elijah coughed.
“We’re gonna die!” Anna wailed.
“Shut up!” Sylvia tried to think. They could make a plan. They had to make a plan. She started, looking down, as something tugged on her ankles. The unstable ground was crumbling around her, sucking her in.
“I’m drowning in the dirt!” Anna screamed, flailing her feet. The glow of the lava was moving closer.
A crack ripped through the air right beside them. Elijah let out a howl as he fell into the earth’s newest gash, his voice echoing as he disappeared, far down. Sylvia and Anna screamed as one.
Sylvia lunged away from the fissure and grabbed Anna in her arms. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry for being mean to you all the time! I don’t want to die!” she sobbed. She held tight, but her sister held tighter, her desperate hug squeezing the air from Sylvia’s lungs.
Anna’s body was shaking. “I’m sorry too. Please don’t be mad at me.” She choked on the ash. “I always act so stupid. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”
Sylvia rocked her sister in her arms, the two of them sinking into the ground, as the lava streamed toward them and boulders fell from the sky.