None of us could believe Jack actually went through with it.
He'd talked about it, of course. Hell, he'd talked about it one god-damn hell of a lot, but y'know. Teenage posturing, just a kid filled with bravado and wider-world dreams. So we thought. But he did it, and then he was gone.
The town was never the same without Jack Whittinger. Despite his youth he'd become a fixture; that James Dean glance, lounging against the wall of Yurkman's General Store, a comb in one hand and a cigarette smoldering in the other. His leather jacket thick with dust which cracked and billowed in clouds when he shifted. His hair, constantly slicked back with gel, reapplied five times a day when the elements dried it out. That sneer, that smile, a curl of the lip and a point of the finger to break a young girl's heart.
Jack's pa had died some ten years ago. A lousy, mean drunk who had one too many and got into a brawl with the wrong guys. Nobody could really tell you who the 'wrong guys' were. Pa Whittinger himself was the only 'wrong guy' we knew of. No-one much missed Pa Whittinger. Jack used to tell me the world was better off without guys like that, before lapsing into an uncharacteristically maudlin silence, but moments later that half-smile would be back on his lips as he ran a comb through his hair. I never pressed him on the subject. Didn't need to.
I remember one of the girls talking to me once, Jack's latest heartbreak, disappointed and angry that she hadn't been the one to tame him.
"Jack's broken, Thomas," she told me. "His pa done fucked him up good."
I laughed at her and put my arm around her.
"I'm serious," she went on. "He's gonna up and leave one day."
Of course, I'd heard this talk before. She wasn't unique. Jack played the damaged goods card when he wanted to move on. And yes, he talked about leaving all the time. Just upping sticks and getting the hell out of Dodge, pushing on through the dust and making it out the other side. But of course he'd never try it, we all thought. Leaving Weston wasn't just a case of packing your bags and going.
Everyone's heard about the Dustbowl, the Dirty Thirties. A mass exodus due to pestilence, famine and filth. Dust storms sweeping the Great Plains. Cattle dying, crops dying, people dying. And then the country got over it. The Dustbowl settled.
Not here.
The storm never ceased around Weston. Nobody knew why, or what to do, and so many years had passed that nobody much cared any more. The entire town was surrounded by an almost-impenetrable dust storm, trapping us like caged beasts. Or protecting us, some said. The storm was most severe at the town's borders, with the center being the eye, but that didn't shield us from the elements. Harsh winds and burning, biting dust clouds swept through the town most of the day, and in the nights it was only worse. It wasn't the kind of place for someone like Jack to grow up. The rest of us? Well, we were used to it. It was our own little place in the world and we made the best of what we could.
People used to come, of course. Some were lost, drawn into the dust clouds out of curiosity, perhaps. Daring tourists, here to see the town that never escaped the Thirties. They marveled at our lack of telephone communications. They asked us how we coped without television. None of us had an answer. Sometimes they'd come back and bring us books, bottled water, clothes. We accepted it graciously and stored it in the sheds once they'd gone. Occasionally we'd see the odd thrill-seeker, looters or ne'er-do-wells looking for a way to exploit us. We had nothing worth their time, though, and often they'd go away empty handed. There was some trouble with a few guys who took a shine to one of the girls one time, but who knows what happened to them after that?
About five years before Jack left, the dust storms got worse. Before, you could occasionally glimpse the outside world. Now you really had to strain to see the plains stretching beyond Weston. People stopped coming after that. Too risky, I suppose. It suited us fine. Not Jack, though. Jack used to love the visitors. He'd hungrily take in their stories of the outside world, of Bush and Obama, Iraq, Hollywood, music, the Internet. He'd ask questions when he thought none of us were listening. But he never asked them to save him, to let him come with them. Jack was too independent for that. If he was leaving, he said, he'd go his own way.
I remember one evening I sat reading in the dining room. It was a book I'd read before; I'd read most of the town library in truth. This time it was a romance novel, brought in by someone before I was born. I barely noticed my ma coming to sit in the chair opposite.
"Tommy?" she said. I looked up. My mother had inherited many of her ancestors' genes. Her skin was dark and leathery, worn in by the dust.
"Yes ma?"
"You won't go the way of the Whittinger boy, will you?" she asked me. I knew this would come up one day. Jack had been gone some six months by now. I saw the looks some of the others gave me. Would I be next to abandon them?
I shook my head. "No, ma," I told her firmly. "No, I'm not going anywhere."
I waited, expecting her to demand more reassurance. Ma just smiled at me, almost sadly, then looked away.
One night I stood outside, the chill wind biting into any skin I hadn't managed to cover. My throat was dry, as was often the case in the dustbowl, and I took a swig from my flask. The water helped only a little. Every night, a few of the townsmen stood guard in case of severe damage or danger. Everyone took their turn. Mostly it was boring work, but important nonetheless. We looked out for each other.
That night, Jack came home. I'd moved my post to the edge of town, staring out into the pounding, billowing waves beyond the town. The moon's glow had turned the dust white and smoky. I stared. There was a figure in the ocean of filth, gradually getting larger as it struggled forward. I blinked and stood firm.
Coughing and hacking, Jack stepped from the cloud. His hair was tussled and filthy. His clothes--the clothes he'd been wearing when he left, no less--were torn. Beneath the rip on his left shoulder I saw dried blood, caked in dirt.
I ran forward and Jack collapsed against me, his knees buckling.
"Thomas," he whispered, his voice sounding raspy and old.
"Jack."
"There's nothing out there, Thomas," he said. "Nothing."
I opened my mouth to reply but Jack reached into his jacket and pulled out a newspaper, mottled and yellow with age.
"Look at this."
I took the paper from him and unfolded it, my eyes still on Jack.
"Look!" he said.
I looked at this new, returning Jack, at his vacant, terrified eyes. A gust of wind spewed forth from the dust cloud, catching the newspaper in my hands, teasing it from me. Slowly, I relaxed my fingers. I felt the pulp slide across my fingertips. The paper billowed into the air for a second, then caught on the dust cloud. It vanished into the atmosphere with a snap, as if attached to an unseen rope. The pages slapped together once, and then it was gone.
All the while I stared at my friend. He blinked, and beneath the surface I saw a trace of the old Jack, the Jack he once was; that cocksure, James Dean boy, a giant in a small town.
"Come on buddy," I said, helping him to his feet. "Let's get you home.
V - The Last Voice You'll Ever Hear