Chapter 92

Nā‘ālehu, Hawai‘i

What looked like a glowing avalanche was coming at them less than an hour after the sirens sounded, and there was nothing Sam Aukai or anyone else in Nā‘ālehu could do to stop it.

Sam had educated himself on volcanoes when he got this job. Because of that, he understood what was happening: A phenomenon made famous by Mount Saint Helens and believed impossible in Hawai‘i. It was called nuée ardente.

This fiery cloud filled with tumbling blocks of rock could move down even slight inclines faster than fifty miles an hour, sometimes up to a hundred.

Mauna Loa's defiant geology was what he was witnessing. Fiery rocks crashed through Nā‘ālehu; the town disappeared under a dark cloud of ash.

In desperation, Sam Aukai had briefly tried to go door to door through the Kau district, all the places that were part of the permanent geography of his life: Kama‘āina Kuts, Kalae Coffee, Hana Hou Restaurant, Patty's Motel, the Nā‘ālehu Theatre, and, perhaps the most famous tourist spot in town, the Punalu‘u Bake Shop, which advertised itself as the southernmost bakery in America.

But he knew he was too late, that he'd gotten word about the avalanche of fire thundering to the south way too late. The people trapped inside those establishments were going to die there.

Sam was still ahead of the lava when he reached his car at the edge of town. Before he got in, he turned around, and he immediately wished he hadn't, because he saw bodies floating toward him on top of the lava that followed the rocky tumult. He knew the people hit by the waves of ash, rock, and lava were already dead, burning up from the inside and the outside; their lungs had been destroyed almost instantly by the heat they'd inhaled.

Sam gunned the engine, thinking that if he could stay ahead of the volcanic debris long enough to get to Nā‘ālehu Spur Road and then head west on Route 11, he would—he prayed—be safe.

"Serve and protect" had always been his code. Now he tried to protect himself.

But when he reached Route 11, all he could see ahead of him was stalled traffic; all he could hear was the constant blare of car horns. People were using both lanes to drive to Hilo; there were no cars coming back to Nā‘ālehu from the direction of South Point.

It didn't matter.

The traffic had stopped, but the lava kept coming.

Sam's was the last car in the line.

Last man out.

He heard the ring of his phone, picked it up. One of his cops, Mike Palakilu, was calling from somewhere up ahead; he told him that a finger of lava had split off and completely blocked Route 11 on the outskirts of town.

"I'm running for the water!" Mike yelled. "Only chance I've got, Sam!"

Sam Aukai pulled his car onto the shoulder of the road. He didn't want to take another look back, but he did, saw the orange and red of the blocky ‘a‘ā lava burning Nā‘ālehu and drowning it at the same time.

The air was thick with heat and gas and the smell of a burning town, making it difficult for him to breathe.

Two more bodies floated past him, their hideous red faces already unrecognizable. Maybe Sam had known them. No way to tell.

People ahead of him were abandoning their cars and running toward the water, not knowing that the water wasn't safe either, that it was part of the hot zone.

Sam ran hard for the water anyway. Sam Aukai, once the star running back at Ka‘ū High, imagining he was sprinting for daylight one last time.

Too late.

He was swept up by the lava and carried along by it, helpless. His lungs were burning up and his skin was on fire as he rode on top of the lava.

He thought of his daughter.