Escaping the Snake

When lava creeps around you on the Big Island of Hawaii... enjoy and aloha!

With explosions in the not-so-far distance, a streaming orange mass of molten rock creeping across the land, Anita wasn’t thinking clearly. She felt unsure, unable to move.

“Relax, mom,” said Estrella, her sixteen year old daughter. “The wind is blowing the other way. There’s no reason to freak out.”

“Alright, I’ll try not to think about it,” Anita replied, although her breathing contradicted her effort. She felt constricted as if an ethereal corset were wrapped around her torso. She kept wondering what would happen if the hilltop were surrounded, kept picturing a hellish ring of fire encircling them. The lava appeared to be advancing rapidly, like a many headed serpent hissing as it devoured the farmland across the highway. From the hill, Anita could see the spreading haze of toxic gas and fountain of lava hurling itself hundreds of feet into the sky. Leilani was a half dozen miles from them, but the lava geyser was so tremendous and bright that her friends, Kaikaku and Moana, could see it from the Hilo bayfront at night.

“That’s got to be the biggest yet,” Anita said. “Is that fissure seven?”

“Fissure eight,” Estrella replied.

“What if geothermal blows up?” fretted Anita. “Wouldn’t we be vaporized?”

“We’re fine. PGV moved all the pentane,” her daughter assured her, then looked back to their little cabin. “What all do you want me to pack?”

Anita was about to answer but was interrupted by another subsonic boom. It sounded like artillery, heavy shells bombarding a bunker. She felt the earth grumble, and asked, “What if a fissure opens up underneath us?”

“What if this, and what if that?” Estrella jeered. “Mom, focus. Just think about what you want to pack. You’re the one who didn’t think we grabbed everything.” Estrella had already carried a few trash bags of their belongings to the truck, but Anita was transfixed, gazing from the edge of the hill to the southwest where the fiery snake advanced.

“I don’t know,” Anita admitted. “It seemed like we had more stuff. Maybe we packed it all.”

“Well, we only have until six, so hurry up. Do you want to save the coffee table? We could try to sell it online.” Anita looked confused, so Estrella added, “It’s not that banged up.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Anita considered. “There’s still some books that are worth something.”

“Books?” Estrella squinted. “Books aren’t nearly as valuable as the coffee table.”

“Well, some of them are out of print, and even if I don’t read them, someone will. The idea of burning books is unbearable, isn’t it?”

“If you say so, I’m not carrying any. Don’t just stand there all day; we only have about a half hour until they said we need to be out.” Estrella decided to make one last sweep. There was a rusted ten speed bicycle, but she decided it wouldn’t be worth the effort of lifting into the truck bed. “Mom!” she snapped from over by the shed.

“Alright,” Anita replied and walked into the cabin. She’d taken a couple books off the shelf when she heard the sound of a car engine winding up the hill. Out the front window, she watched a familiar Volvo station wagon pull into view.

“Lila!” she called through the screen. The Volvo door opened, and a wiry little woman stepped out. She looked flustered, her frizzy hair poking out like a distressed halo.

“Anita, what are you doing here?” asked Lila. “The lava is supposed to cover Noni Farm Road in less than an hour.” Lila sauntered across the soggy grass, shaking her head in reprimand.

“I know, and at the four corner’s checkpoint they almost turned us away. My license says I live in Seaview, but luckily my daughter’s has Noni Farm Road listed as her address. Even when they saw her license, they almost didn’t let us through. Power tripping, I swear--so annoying.”

“That’s because it’s not safe. You shouldn’t even be up here,” Lila argued, then walked beyond Anita through the cabin. She looked out the window into the pasture. “Where’s your horses? Did you get them out?”

“Uh-huh. Anu brought them to a pasture up in Hawaiian Acres,” Anita explained.

“Thank God,” Lila breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled her smartphone out of her hip pocket to text the news. “The only reason I came up here was to make sure they’d been moved. Travis doesn’t want to drive up, but he’s got the horse trailer down in Waa Waa and said he would come up if he needed to. I certainly didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you moved out last week.”

“I did, but we needed to come back and collect the last of our valuables. I just thought we had more--I don’t know.”

“If the lava flows over Noni Farm Road while we’re up here, we’ll have to escape through the jungle and leave our vehicles.”

“No, we can drive out using Halemakahina,” Anna said, pointing across the lawn. “Chris, my landlord, doesn’t want anyone else to use it, but he’s been gone for two weeks. Besides, if it’s an emergency, he’ll understand.”

“Oh,” said Lila. “I didn’t know there was another way out. Still, you should hurry up. You want me to help?”

“No, I just need to pick out a few books.”

“Anita, books?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Some of them are out of print. You sound like my daughter.”

Lila sighed, and said, “Okay, books, but make it quick. I don’t feel like leaving you here alone.”

“Estrella is outside; maybe she needs help,” Anita said. As if on cue, Estrella appeared in the doorway, brushing a curl from her brow.

“Mom, I know I’m the one who said not to freak out but come outside. You’ve got to see this.”

They walked to the edge of the hill and saw black smoke rising up from below, much closer than it should have been.

“Oh my!” exclaimed Anita. “Is that coming up from Noni Farm Road?” She turned to Lila. “I thought you said we had an hour! It’s only been like fifteen minutes since we got here.”

“That’s what Travis heard on his police scanner,” said Lila.

“When was that?” Estrella asked.

“Oh, well it’s been...” Lila trailed off, realizing it had been a while since she’d talked to Travis.

“Mom, let’s go!” Estrella pleaded.

“Lila, would you drive down and see if lava is on Noni Farm?” Anita asked.

“Are you joking?”

“Why would I be joking?”

“Anita, sometimes you...” Lila began to say, then frowned. “You can see the smoke. There’s no reason to drive down.”

“She’s right,” Estrella concurred. “We need to use Chris’s road.”

Anita ran back into the cabin and returned with a stack of books. She tripped over the root of a mango tree in the front yard, books flying.

“Mom, just leave them!” blurted Estrella.

“Just hold your horses for one sec,” Anita said. Lila was already in her Volvo and driving across the grass toward Halemakahina. To Estrella, it took a tortuous few seconds, but then Anita had her books stacked in her arms, holding them down with her chin. “Estrella, go inside and grab a garbage bag. I don’t want these to get wet.”

“There aren’t any bags left.”

“Well, then open one of your bags up and make some room.”

“It’s not raining; they’ll be fine; let’s go!”

“It was raining in Hilo.”

“Mom, can’t you just stack them against the cab?”

As Anita was arranging the trash bags and books in the back of the truck, she heard a honk. Lila was driving back across the grass. She leaned out her window and called, “You didn’t bother to mention the pile of cinder in the road?” She looked angry.

“What pile?”

“There’s a pile of cinder in the road,” repeated an increasingly vexed Lila, her face pinched.

“What road?”

“Anita, we’re trapped!” bellowed Lila, slamming her steering wheel for emphasis.

“What?”

“Your landlord, Chris, or whatever his name is, had a load of cinder dumped at the base of his driveway. Like a whole Bryson truck load.”

“Halemakahina is blocked?”

“Yeah, that’s what I just said! You can’t even get around. The cane grass is too high on the sides of the road.”

“Okay, we need to go down Noni Farm then,” Anita concluded.

“We can’t drive over hot lava!”

“Maybe the lava didn’t reach the road. All we saw was smoke. Maybe some flying lava spattered across the highway, or--I don’t know. Why can’t you use your smartphone to see on Google maps where the lava is?”

“What?” demanded Lila.

“Mom, they don’t update the maps every fucking minute.”

“Watch your language, Estrella,” admonished Anita.

“We’re surrounded by lava, and you want me to watch my fucking language?”

“Estrella!” Anita gave her daughter a challenging look. Estrella scowled, spun on her heel and strode away, defiantly. “Where are you going?” Anita called after her.

“There’s a shovel in the shed,” Estrella answered, not looking back as she walked across the grass.

“There’s no point,” Lila called after her, “It’s an enormous pile of cinder. You’d never dig us out in time.”

“Maybe my truck can drive over the pile,” Anita ventured. Lila didn’t reply, gazing across the horse pasture. The black smoke was thicker and getting closer.

“Maybe you should call Travis,” Anita suggested. Lila blinked a few times before grabbing her phone and dialing.

“Straight to voicemail!” said Lila, looking at her phone in disbelief. “He must not have charged it and I’m down to… Oh, no.”

“What?”

“It’s dead. Please tell me you have a phone.”

“I do, but it doesn’t have a SIM card. I just got it two days ago at Walmart.”

“Mom, go see if there’s another shovel at Chris’s,” commanded Estrella who had returned with a shovel.

“We need to borrow your phone,” Anita replied.

“Remember? You told me to leave it in Keaau.”

“You left it?” said Lila, turning to Estrella. “Why would you leave it behind? You’re a millennial; don’t you always have a phone on you?”

“Mom wouldn’t let me bring it,” answered Estrella, glaring at Anita. “She thinks it’s gonna ruin my eyes and that I don’t listen to her when I have it.”

“Oh, that’s right. Oops,” Anita apologized.

“Do either of you have an iPhone charger?” Lila asked.

“Is that the same kind as the Samsung chargers?” Anita asked.

“No, mom. They’re different, obviously.”

“Tone, Estrella. Don’t talk to me like that,” Anita warned.

By way of reply, Estrella raised the shovel, and proclaimed, “I’ll be the one who gets us out of here. I was packed and ready to go a half hour ago. This is on you, mom.” With that, she turned and headed back across the grass.

“That pile is enormous,” Lila reminded her. “It’ll take all night, and by then, well...”

“Should we walk out to highway 132?” Anita offered.

“Even if we got there, I still need my car,” Lila said. “Why’d you say we could get out on Halemakahina when there’s a giant pile of cinder blocking us in?”

“You think I knew? You honestly think that I would intentionally withhold that information? My landlord told me not to use his driveway, so I’ve always come up from Noni Farm.”

Lila mulled this over, then asked, “What if we break into his house? He must have a phone.”

“Absolutely not,” Anita protested.

“Why not? This entire hill is about to be surrounded by lava. It doesn’t matter if your landlord owns half of Puna. This is an emergency. We need to use his phone.”

“It’s still breaking and entering,” Anita insisted. “He’d kick me out. I’m already a month behind in rent. Using his driveway is one thing, but I need to stay on his good side.”

“Rent? You’re worried about paying rent? Anita, wake up. Neither you or your landlord is ever going to be able to live here again. Once the lava blocks highway 132, then there’ll be no access to--”

“Fine, fine, let’s go,” Anita caved in and fired up her truck’s engine. Lila got back in her Volvo, and a half minute later, they pulled in front of Chris’s mansion.

“Well, now what?” Anita asked, as she got out and closed her truck’s door.

“Just break a window,” said Lila.

“You do it,” Anita said.

“Okay, I will,” Lila said, looking around. “Darn it, there’s nothing around. Where’s a rock when you need one?”

Halemakahina ended in a driveway that wound up a steep incline to Chris’s mansion. There was nothing in sight but an expansive lawn, fruit trees, and a wall of thick cane grass hemming in the property.

“Can’t you just kick down the door?” Anita asked.

“Do I look like I can kick down a door?”

“Wait, you can use my rock,” Anita said, and began digging around through trinkets she had in piles around the cab of her truck. “Where is it?” She reached behind the seat and then was on her knees shuffling through paper cups, napkins, an old purse overflowing with condiments, and several paperback books she intended to read some day.

“Anita, we don’t really have any time to--”

“Here it is!” Anita said, triumphantly. In her hand, she presented a perfectly round slate colored lava rock. It was about the size of a softball, having been rounded and smoothed by the ocean’s tides. “This should work, yeah?”

“Where’d you find that?” Lila asked.

“I’ve had it in my truck for--”

“No, I mean, where’d you find it on the island?”

“It was behind my seat. You just watched me--”

“No, I mean… nevermind.” Lila reached over and took the rock from Anita.

“Oh, I see what you mean. I found it down in Waa Waa. Isn’t it awesome?” Lila nodded with a determined look and went around the house to look for the best place to break and enter.

“Alright, I think this is the place” Lila said, standing next to Anita. She heaved the rock at a sliding glass door under the deck in the back of the house. Instead shattering the door, there was an alarm that shrieked. It was high in pitch and caused both women to jump. The rock bounced off the glass, rolled down the hill, Anita running after it.

“Chris is gonna be pissed!” Anita shouted over the alarm when she returned with the rock. She pointed up at a small video camera they hadn’t noticed. “I bet he’s watching us from his smartphone. I think he went to Costa Rica. Hi Chris,” Anita smiled, waving to the camera.

“Hand me that rock again,” Lila said, snapping her fingers. Again, she hucked it with all her might against the glass. Once more, it bounced off, but Anita was quick to snatch it up before it started rolling.

“Is that security glass, like bulletproof or something?” Lila asked.

“Mom, what are you doing?” Estrella asked. She’d come running up the hill at the sound of the alarm.

“Where’s the shovel?” Anita asked.

“Down in the cinder pile.”

“Go grab it--oh wait! Estrella, weren’t you in fastpitch? Try throwing my rock through the glass.”

“Why?”

“We need to call someone to come rescue us.”

“Mom, we can still walk out to the highway. No one needs to come rescue us.”

“What? And leave my truck and Lila’s Volvo? Out of the question. No, come on Estrella, just throw it like you would in fastpitch. We need some help here.”

Estrella rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ve always hated Chris anyways.” Winding up her arm like she did in fastpitch, she gave an underhanded toss, and tink, a small crack appeared in the glass.

“I should get the shovel,” Lila decided.

“Again Estrella, you’re doing great, honey,” Anita encouraged. Estrella hurled the rock again. This time, the glass spider webbed with a dozen different fissures. The fifth time Estrella threw the rock, just as Lila got back with the shovel, there was a two inch hole in the glass. The alarm was still wailing. Anita shrugged apologetically as she looked up at the camera. Lila began to hit the back end of the shovel against the door, but her efforts were feeble and ineffective.

“Let me do it,” Anita said, and took the shovel. She dug the tip of the spade into the hole and began twisting. “It’s like a windshield,” she complained, but in less than a minute, there was a hole in the glass wide enough for her to reach her arm through and unlock the door.

“Where’s a phone?” Lila yelled. The alarm was much louder inside.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been in here,” Anita said. “I’ll check his bedroom; you two look around.” They split up in opposite directions, but a frustrated moment later, reconvened in the living room.

“Unbelievable!” Lila exclaimed. “White leather couches, that enormous TV, all this fancy-pants artwork, but no phone?”

“No one needs a landline,” Estrella surmised. “He probably has WiFi and a smartphone. There’s no point in a landline anymore.”

“No point?” scoffed Lila. “There’s a point, Estrella. Like right now, for instance.”

“No point for Chris,” Estrella countered, admiring the decor.

“Well, what now?” Anita asked, looking back and forth between them.

“Who were you gonna call anyways, mom?”

“The cops or Mitch. Maybe he could shovel us out.”

“I can shovel,” said Estrella, “but it’s gonna take an hour to get through that pile. Do we have that long?” They looked to one another, as if one of them might know the answer.

“Fucking fuck! This is so retarded!” Estrella announced.

“Estrella will you watch your--”

“Save it, mom; this is all your fault!” She stormed out of the house and headed down the hill.

“We should probably help her out,” Lila said. “Is there another shovel or--”

“Okay, I’ve got an idea,” Anita interrupted. “Why don’t you go down Noni Farm Road and see what the lava is doing, and I’ll grab a--I don’t know, like a bucket or something to help Estrella dig us out.”

“This is so ridiculous!” spat Lila, but decided to comply.

Not much time had passed, and Anita and Estrella made more progress than they’d thought possible, when Lila returned in her Volvo.

“So much for Noni Farm,” Lila said. “There’s like a twenty foot wall of lava coming--”

“How fast is it moving?” Anita cut in. “Is it moving down highway 132? How much time do we have before it--”

“Slow down! It cut us off from the highway. I could see that much, but I couldn’t see if it was heading down 132 or not. I assume it is. Downhill, right?”

“Can’t you run down Halemakahina and check?”

“Run down?” Lila complained.

“What? By the time you get back, we’ll probably be able to drive out.”

“You’re using a plate,” Lila noted, pointing at the large ceramic plate Anita had been shoveling with.

“It works, and unless you want to trade off and let me run down Halemakahina…”

“Enough chit chat,” Estrella said, still shoveling.

“Estrella, can I use your shovel and you use your mom’s plate?” Lila asked.

“No,” replied Estrella without looking up.

Lila looked at Anita’s plate and heaved a sigh, deciding, “Okay, I’ll go, but I’m not going to run.”

“Walk quickly, then,” Anita said. She crouched back down to resume tossing cinder with the plate. Lila had just began to walk away, when Anita called out, “Wait! What’s this?”

Lila turned around and looked. The tip of a very large rock was poking out of the cinder pile. Estrella excavated around it with her shovel determining that it was much too big to roll away.

“Great, just great,” Lila said. “So even if you two shovel all the cinder away, how are we gonna move that thing?”

“Shit,” Estrella said.

“Estrella,” warned Anita. She turned to Lila. “Can’t we just chain it to my truck and drag it out of the road?”

“Do you have a chain?” Lila asked.

“No, but…” Anita paused to think. “Okay, why don’t you check the highway, and me and Estrella will clear off the rest of the cinder. We’ll have to do that regardless of the rock. Maybe I can push it out of the way with my bumper.”

“Your tires will spin out,” Lila objected. “This is cinder. There’s not enough traction.”

“Lila, will you just… ugh. I’ll go. Here.” She handed Lila the plate and began jogging down Halemakahina.

The sky was darkening, and just on the other side of the hill, there was smoke wafting upwards to greet yellow tinged clouds by the time Anita returned.

“Okay, I ran into this guy on 132 videoing the lava, and he’s going down to the four corner’s checkpoint to find someone with a truck.” Anita hadn’t finished when they saw the top of a white cab come into view. It was a big utility truck with two surly looking locals who got out and looked curiously up the hill.

“What’s that noise?” one of them asked.

“A house alarm,” Anita confessed. “We broke in to use the phone, but Chris didn’t have one, so--” she indicated the pile of cinder and protruding bolder.

“Is that your house?”

“It’s my landlord’s. Chris is in Costa Rica.”

The two big men frowned, shifting uncomfortably.

“Honestly, we just came back to get our stuff,” Anita said. “We’re not rippers. The lava is on the other side of the hill, and Halemakahina is the only way out. I would have never broken the door if Chris hadn’t dumped this cinder pile and rock in the road.”

The locals, after conferring silently with suspicious looks, shrugged, deciding that Anita was telling the truth, grabbed a pair of shovels from their truck bed, and went about excavating around the boulder with Estrella’s help. Having finished, they harnessed a cable which was attached to a wench on the front of their truck around the rock. The thin cable went taut, and for a moment Anita thought it might snap, but then the rock began to slide. After trying a couple different angles, the bolder was out of the road, leaving just the amount of space for the truck to get around it.

“Mahalo,” Anita said. “Thank you so much.”

Both locals, who seemed to prefer silent communication, nodded.

“Well, we could have done it ourselves if we had that truck,” Estrella said as they watched the truck disappear around the bend.

“There’s probably still time to grab a couple more books,” said Anita.

Lila shook her head, saying, “Don’t push your luck. We’ve already dilly dallied longer than we should have. Tutu Pele might take offense.”

“Fine,” Anita said and sighed. “We should at least take a look at the lava before we head back through Waa Waa.”

Out on highway 132, they turned up to behold a wall of tumbling lava that loomed up in the road. From fifty feet back, they had to shield their faces from the heat.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” asked a thin man in boardshorts who had a tripod set up in the center of the road, videoing.

“No, it isn’t beautiful,” Lila replied. “I know a lot of people down that road who are gonna lose everything.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” the man said. “I just meant that--”

“I know what you meant, but I still think it’s rude to--”

“Hey, there’s no point in arguing,” Anita cut her friend off. “I think I have some marshmallows behind my seat. I’ve always wanted to roast some on the lava, and now, well, what do you think? Pele wouldn’t mind, would she?”

The man with the camera smiled, and asked, “Mind if I video you?”

“I mind,” Lila snapped, not at all liking the camera man.

“I don’t,” said Anita and began rummaging through her truck. “Oh no, it looks like the fire ants found the marshmallows, nevermind. Could be worse.”

“How?” Lila asked.

“Lava could have found the truck.”

The cameraman chuckled and Lila leveled a malevolent gaze, and said, “You know, none of this is funny.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t,” said the cameraman.

“Maybe if I dust the marshmallows off?” Anita proposed.

“Gross,” Estrella declared.

“They’re just ants,” Anita said. “It’s not like you’ll get sick.”

“I’ll take a marshmallow if you’re offering,” the cameraman said.

“Alright, I’ll roast you one.” Anita walked to the side of the road and broke off a branch from an unhappy tree. After dusting off a marshmallow, she skewered it, and approached the lava, shielding her face.

“It’s so hot!” she yelled over her shoulder. The marshmallow caught on fire almost instantly. “Oh no!”

“That’s quite alright,” said the cameraman. “I prefer them burnt to a crisp.”

“That figures,” Lila said and rolled her eyes. But, after watching the look of pleasure on the cameraman’s face, she and Estrella decided fire ants couldn’t be that bad. Anita burned a few more marshmallows, and the four of them stood there watching the land get swallowed up as they savored the sugary goodness.

“I always liked them toasted brown, but these are tasty,” Estrella said.

“A little hot, but if you wait a couple seconds, they’re perfect,” Anita said.

“Perfect?” Lila asked.

“Absolutely,” the cameraman concurred. Anita nodded. Lila sighed. Coqui frogs began to chirp. The first planets began to twinkle, and the four of them took a few steps back as the lava lurched down the highway.