Ashfall

I spent several minutes thinking about it before I figured out the source of my grim mood: fear. Right or wrong, I already felt somewhat responsible for her mother’s death. What if following me got Darla killed, too?

Chapter 32

It got colder throughout the day. When we stopped for lunch, I was surprised to find that the water bottles I’d packed in the outside pockets of my backpack were partially frozen. After we ate (cold strips of smoked rabbit meat), I repacked everything so that the water was inside the pack, against my back. Hopefully that would keep it liquid.

Now that she didn’t have to hold the rabbit, Darla kept up easily. She probably could have passed me—she was in way better shape than I was—but she skied behind, matching my pace.

I started searching for a place to spend the night about midafternoon. There were farmhouses along the road every half mile or so. The first three we passed had tracks in the ash between the outbuildings and the houses. Probably the people in them would have been friendly and let Darla and me hole up in one of their barns overnight, but I was tired of people and their stupid guns. I skied on.

The fourth place we came to was obviously uninhabited, obvious because the house, barn, and garage had all collapsed. The only intact buildings were two concrete grain silos. I slid twice around both the cylindrical silos, looking to see if we could get inside, but there was no visible entrance. There must have been some way to get in-they’d be useless if the farmers couldn’t load them with grain. Maybe Darla knew how they worked, but she still wasn’t talking.

The barn had stood next to the silos, but it was hopeless. The ash had flattened it completely—panels of wood siding and rafters jutted randomly from the heaped wreckage.

The front part of the farmhouse was standing, sort of. The whole back section and roof had collapsed, pulling the front wall backward so it leaned precariously at about a sixty-degree angle. I didn’t want to get near it for fear it would fall on us.

A big metal garage had stood not far from the house. The roof and walls were down, but something was supporting the wreckage in the middle. I crawled under a bent wall panel to check it out but couldn’t see anything inside. I had to duck out, fish a candle out of my pack, and try again.

There was a huge John Deere tractor inside, a combine, I guessed. It supported the wrecked roof, creating a triangular area big enough to walk around in. It seemed safe enough; certainly the tractor wasn’t going anywhere. And finding a sheltered spot to spend the night was a huge relief. At least we wouldn’t freeze to death—not tonight, anyway.

I led Darla in and built a fire beside the combine, using scraps of wood from the fallen barn. It’s a lot harder to cook over a fire than you’d think. I made corn pone. Some of it was a bit burnt, but Darla ate it, and she hates corn pone, so maybe it wasn’t too bad. Either that or she was starving. She got some cornmeal from my pack and tried to feed her rabbit. It didn’t eat much.

We laid our blankets next to one of the tractor’s huge rear wheels. The concrete-slab floor was cold, but at least we were out of the wind. “Goodnight,” I said, as Darla lay down beside me. She didn’t reply, just rolled over to face the oversized tire. I pulled my backpack close to use as a pillow and rolled onto my left side, facing away from her.

* * *

When I woke up, Darla was pressed against my back, one arm flung over my hip. It made me feel warm being spooned together. Her body heat was almost enough to counteract the chill radiating up from the cement floor. I lay as still as I could, trying to enjoy the quiet morning and the comfortable weight of her arm on my side.

The first sign I had that Darla might be waking up was when she pulled her arm tighter around me, snuggling closer. Maybe she came fully awake then, because a few seconds later, she yanked her arm back and rolled away.

We ate a cold breakfast and packed in silence.

* * *

It started to snow later that morning. Fat flakes drifted lazily down and clung to our clothes for a while before melting. At first it was great. As the snow began to accumulate on the road, our skis slid more easily. Pretty soon we were moving faster than I had since leaving Cedar Falls.

But the wind picked up and the snowfall got heavier. It got steadily more difficult to see. The wind snapped at the left side of my face, whipping icy particles into my eyes. I wished I still had Dad’s ski goggles, but I’d lost those when Darla’s house burned. Darla and I weren’t dressed for this kind of weather. When we stopped for lunch, I started shivering uncontrollably.

Darla’s lips and nose were tinged blue. Her hands were jammed into the pockets of her jeans, but I saw her shoulders quivering. I had a hard time repacking our lunch stuff because my hands shook so badly.

I set a fast pace, trying to warm up. The blizzard got worse. I skied by the edge of the road, looking for mailboxes or any sign of a place to stop and find shelter. Twice I veered off the road accidentally and had to sidestep laboriously out of the ditch.

We’d been skiing up a gradual incline for a while. Suddenly the slope changed, and I picked up speed, heading downhill. I assumed we had climbed a ridge and were starting down the backside now, but I couldn’t see it. I could barely see the tips of my skis.

I accelerated dangerously. The wind and snow whipped at my face, turning the world blindingly white. I tipped the backs of my skis outward, forcing them into a downward-facing vee, trying desperately to slow my descent. I hoped Darla wouldn’t run into me. For that matter, I hoped she was still behind me. I couldn’t hear anything over the howling wind, and I was so focused on trying to stay on the road that I couldn’t risk a backward glance.

I leaned forward and squinted, trying to see the road ahead. Tears leaked from my wind-burnt eyes and froze on my cheeks. We had to find a place to stop, but I couldn’t spare the attention to look—it took everything I had just to stay upright and on the road.

The edge of an aluminum guardrail appeared suddenly in front of my skis. I screamed and threw my weight to the right, trying to avoid a collision. My left ski clipped the guardrail. I slid down an embankment, totally out of control now, flailing my arms in an effort to stay upright.

Branches clawed at my arms and legs, breaking as I crashed through. A tree limb slapped my face, leaving a stinging line across my frozen cheek. My ski tips caught on something, and I pitched forward as my boots popped free of the ski bindings. I fell into darkness.

Chapter 33

I landed in water. It was so cold, the shock of it was electric—like getting zapped on every part of my body at once. I thrashed in panic, trying to get my head above water. A violent gray-and-white haze filled my eyes: rushing water and wind-beaten snow, indistinguishable from each other and equally frigid. Something brushed against my left hand, and I grabbed for it—a clump of dead grass or reeds, maybe. I pulled my face free of the water and drew a desperate breath.

The current sucked at my legs, trying to drag me back under. I screamed and strained my left arm, hoping to lift myself out of the stream, but the grass—or whatever it was—began to pull away from the bank. I flailed around with my right hand, reaching for something more substantial to grab. That motion ripped the clump of grass free. I slid back under the water.

I slipped deeper underwater this time, and the light faded to a dead winter twilight. My left foot tangled in some rocks, keeping me from being swept downstream. It was strangely silent, the water muffling every sound except my blood rushing at the back of my ears. Was this it, then, the way my life would end? Not with the searing flame of a fire or the boom of a shotgun, but trapped in the frigid embrace of this riverbed, dark and silent?