Molten Death

ONE

This was not what she’d imagined their Hawaiian vacation would be like.

Stretched out on a hibiscus-print couch, Valerie Corbin gazed wearily at the water streaming off the corrugated metal roof onto the shaggy lawn below and wondered when, if ever, it might stop raining. The temperature was plenty warm – she had on shorts and a tank top – but the air so damp that the pages of the Big Island Revealed guidebook she’d been flipping through felt wet to the touch. They’d now spent two days in Hilo and had yet to see the sun.

She was roused from her glum thoughts by the entrance of Kristen onto the lānai bearing a pair of drinks. ‘Thanks, hon,’ Valerie said. ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’ She accepted the proffered rum and soda and clinked glasses with her wife, who plopped down upon the wicker sofa beside her.

Being thoughtful house guests, the two had been holding off on cocktail hour pending the arrival home of their host, Isaac, a biology teacher at the local high school. But as soon as Kristen had heard him pull into the car port, she’d jumped up to make them all drinks.

Isaac joined Valerie and Kristen on the lānai, raised his gin and tonic in salute, and took a long drink. ‘Ahhh … Pau hana – done with school till Monday!’ He ran a hand through his dark hair, now wet and scraggly from a quick post-work shower, then sat forward and smiled. ‘So. What’d you two end up doing on this rainy day while I was busy teaching kids about taxonomic ranks?’

‘Nothing nearly as exciting as that,’ said Valerie. ‘We got up pretty late, and by the time we had our coffee and showered and stuff, it was after ten. We checked out the Tsunami Museum like you suggested, and the shops along the Bayfront.’

‘And the farmers market,’ Kristen added.

‘Oh, yeah – I bought some mangos and a couple of enormous avocados. I can’t believe how huge they are here! After that, we came back and just hung out here the rest of the afternoon.’

Kristen fished the lime wedge out of her Mai Tai and squeezed its juice into the glass. ‘We’re starting to run out of rainy-day activities,’ she said.

Isaac nodded. ‘I hear ya. Hilo got plenty touristy stuff for outdoors, but when it pours down like dis, not so much.’

Valerie had observed since meeting him that although he could speak perfect Standard English when he chose, Isaac preferred to sprinkle it liberally with the local Pidgin.

‘So it doesn’t rain here every day of the year?’ she asked with a smile, turning to watch a pair of brown-and-yellow mynah birds as they squawked and splashed around the small lake forming on the far side of the back yard.

‘Well, not every day,’ Isaac answered in a not terribly encouraging tone.

Valerie frowned as she took a sip of rum. ‘No offense, but I gotta say the Big Island isn’t exactly what I expected Hawai‘i to be like. I know they call it the Orchid Isle, but it seems like the Rock-Covered Isle Where it Never Stops Raining would be a far more appropriate name.’

‘She was a bit taken aback by the landscape when we landed yesterday,’ Kristen said. ‘You know, the moonscape an’ all?’

Isaac laughed. ‘Yeah, dat happens all the time. The tourists comin’ into Kona for the first time, they look out their window expecting to see some kind of tropical paradise, but instead of swaying coco palms and miles of white sand beaches like in da movies, they get hit by a barren expanse of black rock. Ha!’ He took a sip of gin, then sank back into his chair. ‘But you know what? The thing is, the whole island is pretty much just a collection of massive volcanoes, and those old lava flows you saw over dere Kona-side, they’re part of what makes the Big Island so special. Once you’ve spent more time here, you’ll understand.’

‘Maybe.’ Valerie wasn’t convinced. In fact, ever since climbing down those steps onto the tarmac after their six-hour flight from Los Angeles, only to immediately start coughing at the acrid, sulfuric tang that hung in the air – ‘vog,’ Kristen had called it – she’d been starting to seriously doubt their choice of travel spot.

‘But hey, I got good news,’ Isaac continued. ‘The storm’s supposed to pass tonight, and tomorrow should be clear. Just in time for the weekend.’

‘Awesome!’ Kristen pumped her arm. ‘You want to go check out the waves at Honoli‘i?’

‘I got way mo’ bettah idea than surfing,’ Isaac answered, his smile revealing a shiny gold tooth. ‘A guy I know, he told me he was down at Kalapana yesterday and the flow is less than a mile from the road.’ He leaned forward and almost whispered, ‘Whad’ya say to goin’ out to see – so close you can touch it – some hot, flowing lava?’

The crickets emanating from Kristen’s cell phone woke them at a quarter to four. Valerie had protested this egregiously early start the night before, but Isaac insisted it was best to get down to the end of the road while it was still dark. That way they could spot the glowing lava flow from a distance and know which direction to head out.

Valerie, who’d tossed and turned much of the night, groaned and pulled the sheet up over her head, but then accepted the inevitable and sat up. Once assured she was truly awake, Kristen kissed her on the forehead, then left her to it in the converted basement guest studio and headed upstairs.

Staring out the window at the dark shape of the neighbor’s coconut palm, Valerie tried to focus on the present – on the ‘here and now,’ as Kristen would say – rather than the memories that had intruded into her early-morning dreams.

They’d originally planned this two-and-a-half-week trip to the Big Island of Hawai‘i as a joint celebration of Valerie’s upcoming big sixtieth birthday and Kristen’s recent retirement from her job as a journeyman carpenter.

Then had come the accident.

It was still hard for Valerie to think about. Or even remember clearly.

Five weeks earlier, she and her younger brother, Charlie, had been returning from a trip to the farmers market in Santa Monica to buy produce for the restaurant he co-owned – a trendy, French-style bistro in Venice Beach called Chez Charles. Valerie had been helping out a few days a week at the place for about a year, ever since retiring from her job as unit leader for a film and TV catering company. She’d fill in when an extra server was needed, and for the past several months, her brother had been teaching her how to tend the bistro’s small bar.

But they didn’t make it back to Chez Charles from the farmers market that day. And Charlie never made it out of the hospital.

As a result, the trip to Hawai‘i had now become something much more than originally planned – an attempt to take Valerie’s mind, at least briefly, off the horror of what had happened that day. And also to allow the two women to heal their twelve-year relationship, which had been suffering along with Valerie’s emotional state ever since her brother’s death. Prolonged silences during meals – Valerie brooding over what had happened, Kristen unwilling to interrupt her black thoughts. And when they did talk, it would often degenerate into bickering, the both of them strung tight as a high-voltage wire.

So maybe this vacation would be a chance to reboot – to remember what it was that had made them work so well as a couple for all those years leading up to the accident.

They’d decided on the Big Island as their destination, partly to check out a piece of property there that Valerie had been surprised to learn she’d inherited from Charlie. But it had been Kristen who’d suggested they stay in Hilo, as opposed to the more touristy Kailua-Kona on the leeward side of the island.

Several years before she and Valerie had met, she’d spent a few days in Hilo and had been enchanted by the town, which seemed stuck in some 1950s version of old Hawai‘i. Plus, there was also the fact that Kristen’s buddy, Isaac, who lived there, had offered to let them stay at his home. Kristen adored Isaac and had assured Valerie that he’d be a terrific host. And, she’d contended, wouldn’t it be better to spend the time with a local who truly knew the island and its culture, rather than some antiseptic hotel?

Having now met Isaac, Valerie had to agree. Though she’d still need some convincing about Hilo.

By four fifteen, the three of them were on the road, heading south on Highway 11. Kristen promptly dozed off in the back seat, so Valerie and Isaac were left to their own conversation. ‘This is the road to the volcano,’ he told her. ‘Or, rather, to Volcano Village, and also Volcanoes National Park, where the active volcano is.’

‘There’s a village on an active volcano?’

Isaac chuckled. ‘I hate to tell you, but Hilo’s in the path of a volcano, too. A flow from Mauna Loa came within four miles of town back in 1984.’

‘Yikes!’

‘You get used to it, living here.’

Valerie nodded, though she wasn’t at all sure she could ever get accustomed to living in the path of potential lava flows. And having seen at the museum the day before the photographs of the devastation caused to Hilo by a series of tsunamis decades earlier, she’d decided that maybe their California earthquakes weren’t such a bad thing in comparison. It was astounding to consider all the disasters that befell this tropical paradise.

Isaac turned off the highway onto a smaller road, following the signs to a town called Pāhoa. ‘Wait – I thought you said that was the way to the volcano,’ Valerie said, pointing backwards.

‘We’re not going up to the National Park. We’re headed down to the end of the road near Kaimū Beach, which is the closest access to the flow right now. The lava’s coming from a pu‘u – a vent – called Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō on Kīlauea volcano, which is up in the Park. But it’s flowing down the pali from there to an ocean entry at Kalapana.’

‘Uh … the pali?’ This was way too many Hawaiian words for her four thirty a.m. brain to absorb.

‘Sorry. The hillside, cliff.’

‘Oh.’

They drove on in silence, and in the dim dashboard lights, Valerie studied the stylized dagger inked on Isaac’s forearm. The implied violence of the tattoo didn’t jibe with his cherubic face and boyish demeanor. But then again, she’d observed that many of the Big Island locals she’d seen sported some kind of tattoo or another.

After about a half hour they came to a sign that read: ‘END OF ROAD – ONE MILE.’ Ignoring a series of notices reading, ‘No Trespassing,’ ‘Restricted Access,’ and ‘Authorized Personnel Only,’ Isaac continued up what had now degenerated into a bumpy gravel road.

This woke Kristen up. ‘We there yet?’

‘Almost.’ Isaac negotiated a series of boulders and pits along the route and pulled up next to a dark-colored pickup truck. About fifty feet ahead, the road came to an abrupt end, having been engulfed by a thick ooze of hardened black rock.

Valerie climbed out of Isaac’s Subaru and knelt to tighten the laces of her hiking boots. Straightening back up, her eyes took in the night sky, across which an astonishing number of stars were splashed – far more than she ever saw back home. ‘Ohmygod, there’s the Milky Way!’

‘Told you it was worth getting up early,’ Isaac said, shouldering his daypack. ‘Hele on, let’s get moving. Pele awaits.’

Kristen switched on her flashlight and started forward.

‘But don’t try to rush,’ Isaac added with a look backwards. ‘It can be tricky walking over the lava.’

‘Got it.’ Locating Kristen and Isaac with the beam of her flashlight, Valerie followed them out across the rock.

Isaac was right – it took some getting used to, crossing a lava field in the dark. Valerie was glad he was leading the way, as he was able to pick out the easiest path over the uneven terrain. She was also glad she’d followed his advice to wear blue jeans rather than shorts, since it became clear after only a few steps that it would be easy to take a tumble and slash your knee on the sharp, glassy rock.

They’d been walking for less than ten minutes, Valerie – whose legs were considerably shorter than those of her two tall companions – consistently pulling up the rear, when Isaac called out, ‘I see it!’

Catching up to the others, she turned off her flashlight and gazed out where Isaac was pointing. In the distance was a distinct red glow.

‘Looks like it’s still a ways from making an ocean entry,’ he said. ‘Too bad. But it’s great the flow is so close to the road.’

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Valerie realized there were numerous red patches forming a line stretching all the way up the hill. ‘How far away is it?’ she asked.

‘Not too far. It’s closer than it looks,’ Isaac said. ‘Gotta jam, so we can get there before sunrise.’ As if on cue, a pink tinge emerged on the horizon, stealing into the sky and giving definition to a line of puffy trade-wind clouds. They hurried on.

Just a few minutes later, they crested a small rise and there it was: a shape-shifting mass of orange and red, creeping inch by inch downhill. A couple of people were already at the flow, their silhouettes drifting in and out of view as the steam and the smoke from burning vegetation came between them.

‘My, such a smell of sulfur!’ Valerie exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, fanning her hand dramatically in front of her face.

‘Yeah,’ Isaac said. ‘You might wanna put on your bandanas if it bothers you.’

‘Oh, she’s just quoting Glinda,’ Kristen said with a laugh.

‘Huh?’ Isaac stopped and turned to look at her.

‘You know, the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz?’

‘I don’t remember that from the movie.’

‘It’s a throwaway line, so most people don’t. It happens right after the Wicked Witch disappears from Munchkin Land in a ball of fire. But she got it wrong, in any case,’ Kristen added, striding toward the glowing lava. ‘It’s "what a smell of sulfur, not such."’

With a shake of his head at the two women, Isaac walked on.

‘Whatever …’ Valerie murmured as she followed after Isaac and Kristen. But when she stopped to look up, all irritation about her wife’s need to play the know-it-all flew from her brain.

It looked alive – like some slithering beast come up from the depths to crawl slowly towards the sea. Orange fingers flowed from the main body at all angles, taking on new forms and hues as they made their way down the slope. A fine filigree of black floated on the surface of the lava, where the viscous fluid quickly cooled in the ocean air. But just underneath you could see the fiery magma, its edges a searing yellow-white where the fingers stretched till they burst, spilling forth their contents of molten rock.

‘Wow.’ Valerie stood there unmoving, unable to take her eyes from the sight. Isaac, however, was busy rummaging through his pack. He pulled out three small bananas and offered them around.

‘Oh. Thanks.’ Valerie managed to stop gawking long enough to take one from him.

‘It’s sort of a tradition,’ he said as they peeled their fruit. ‘I always eat a banana when I get to the flow, and then toss the skin out and watch it burn.’

‘It’s not disrespectful?’ Valerie asked. ‘I mean, I read that folks sometimes leave bottles of gin as offerings for Pele, but banana peels?’

Isaac took a last bite and hurled the yellow skin onto a pool of lava that had broken out from the main flow. ‘Everyone can use a little more potassium in their diet,’ he replied. ‘Even if you’re a goddess.’

Valerie and Kristen followed suit. Valerie expected the peels to sink, but instead they simply sat there, floating on top of the red-black flow. After a few minutes, they finally caught fire and then were quickly gone.

‘Well, I’m gonna head uphill a bit and get some shots back this way before that amazing backdrop disappears,’ Isaac said, peering down to check the settings on his Nikon camera in the dim light. Valerie turned around and saw what he meant. A crescent moon hung low in the now-purple sky, with a single planet burning brightly above. She could just make out the thin line of the ocean, edged in the foreground by jagged black rock.

Kristen pulled her phone from her pocket and tagged along after Isaac, but Valerie stayed put. She wanted to simply sit down and watch the show. It was mesmerizing, the way the lava beast spread its limbs in its nonstop march downhill, and how it continually morphed into crazy shapes: a heart slowly breaking in two; a woman’s face with long, streaming hair; a winged dragon. The flow came nearer and she felt the force of its heat – as if the doors to a massive oven had opened wide. Standing back up to step back, she wandered down-flow, watching a small finger dribble into a crevice and quickly fill it in. Tiny ferns had sprung up in a few of the cracks nearby – resilient little plants, doomed though they were.

Looking out toward the sea, Valerie saw that the sun was now above the horizon. The low-lying clouds had turned orange and gray, and the sky was a pale blue. She faced back uphill but could see no sign of Kristen or Isaac.

Nice. To be alone, with only the sound of the wind and the crackle of rock being blanketed by the newest land on the planet. She continued on, skirting the edge of the flow. Now that the sun was up, she could tell that there were two different types of the cooled lava rock: a twisty, ropey-looking kind and a more pillowy, smooth variety. And she could see that while the older flows were a dull gray, the brand-new rock was a shiny black, sparkling in the sunlight.

Her eye was caught by a color that didn’t belong – a flash of fluorescent green – at the very edge of the flow. Curious, she walked over and saw that it was a shoe. No, more like a workman’s boot, with bright-green laces. Now, how could someone leave their boots here? she wondered. You’d never be able to hike back over the lava field without your shoes on.

And then she got that queasy feeling you experience when there’s a disconnect between what you expect to see and what’s actually there. For the shoe had not been left behind, after all: it was still on a foot.

But that was all that was visible, because the rest of the body had been covered over by hot lava.

TWO

Valerie froze as a burst of adrenaline coursed through her body like an electric shock. She blinked several times, unable to wrap her mind around the confusing scene before her, then let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding.

No. It couldn’t be …

But then she caught a glimpse of what looked to be the cuff of some tan khakis – though it was hard to be sure, since the material was ablaze and engulfed in black smoke – before the flow started to creep up over the top of the leather boot.

Yes. It was.

Letting out a cry akin to that of a wounded animal, Valerie glanced frantically about her, but could spot no one else in the area.

‘Help!’ she called out. ‘Anyone there?’ The words were carried off by the wind and met with silence.

What to do? No way could she get close enough to try to pull the body out; even at a distance, the heat was overpowering. A photo – I need to at least get a picture of it!

Reaching into her jeans pocket, she pulled out her cell phone and thumbed the home button to unlock the device. But by the time she’d flicked on the camera and zoomed in on the area where the boot had been, she could see nothing but a slight rise in the flow, with a wisp of smoke above.

Valerie stared at the advancing lava, trying to come to grips with what she’d just witnessed. It was as if she could have imagined the whole thing. Except, she realized with a twist in her stomach, for the aroma that hung in the air, faintly reminiscent of a barbecue.

And then a vision of her brother, trapped in his pale-blue Prius, made her drop to the ground. Panting, she closed her eyes tight as the image of his terror-struck face swam before her.

The guilt still seared into her soul every single day. For although she’d been able to extricate herself in time from the passenger seat of the burning car, Charlie had not been so lucky.

No. It wasn’t my fault. There was nothing I could have done to save him.

Taking several deep breaths, she forced to the back of her mind the image of her baby brother surrounded by fire and black smoke. Then, after yanking off the sweatshirt tied about her waist and dumping it on the ground to mark where she’d been, Valerie pushed herself to her feet and took off running uphill.

Kristen came into view almost immediately. She was talking to two people, gesturing towards the flow.

‘Kristen!’ Valerie screamed, and sprinted towards her. ‘Ohmygod, you won’t believe—’

She was caught by her wife as she stumbled and nearly fell to the ground. ‘What the hell?’

‘I just saw a body!’