Ashfall

It turned out to be rice. Bland, white rice—and not much of it. The paper cups held maybe eight ounces, and they weren’t full. I squeezed the rice into my mouth. When I finished, I tore the cup in half and licked the inside. I was still hungry; we’d waited most of the morning for barely enough food to satisfy a robin.

As we walked away, I saw a kid, maybe eight or nine years old, sitting on the ground, furiously scrubbing his left hand with snow. It was raw and red, but the blue paint clung to it in stubborn patches. As I watched, he scrubbed too hard, and a trickle of blood seeped out of the back of his hand, staining the snow red.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“Trying to get seconds,” the kid said. “It’s useless, they won’t feed you if your hand’s bleeding.” He looked as if he might cry.

“When is lunch?”

“Lunch? Are you crazy?”

“Di

“You could try the yellow coats. But you’re probably too tall.”

“Too tall?” Darla said. “What do you mean?”

The kid jumped to his feet. Darla tried to grab his arm but missed. He ran off.

Chapter 44

We spent what little remained of the morning exploring the camp. The main area, where we and all the thousands of other refugees were fenced in, was about a half-mile square. At the south side, between the camp and the highway, were three separately fenced areas: First, the admissions area where we’d entered the camp, which also contained tents for barracks and administration. Second, a vehicle depot that held three bulldozers, a front-end loader, a bus, and a whole bunch of trucks and Humvees. And third, a small area dotted with little sheds that looked like doghouses.

The latrine ditch we’d used the night before was in the northeast corner of the camp, as far as possible from the admin area. Along the west edge of the camp, we found a row of five water spigots attached to wood posts. People were filling every kind of container imaginable. Ice coated the ground around the spigots.

The kitchens were also at the west end of the camp. They were closed and quiet now, except for one. About a dozen people in yellow parkas worked there.

Darla and I walked along the north edge of the camp. There was nothing beyond the fence here except the path the guards patrolled, an open space, and then the woods that began at the edge of the ridge.

“I don’t think it’d take long to run to those woods from here,” I said.

“Yeah. That coil of razor wire on top of the fence is a little bit of a problem, though.”

“The captain said our names would be published in the roster—if my folks see it, they’ll come.”

“Yeah. I’d rather have a good pair of wire cutters than a promise from that captain.”

“Did he even take down our names?” I asked.

“You know, I don’t think he did,” Darla said. “Bastard.”

“I wonder if there’s any way to call my uncle or send him a letter? Or if the captain would let us, even if there were?”

“Doubt it. For now let’s go back to where those guys in the yellow coats were cooking. At least it smelled good there.”

By the time we got back across the camp, there was a line in front of the yellow coats’ kitchen. It was very different from the mob that morning—this was a fairly straight, orderly line with a few hundred people in it. Strangely, almost all of them were kids. There were a few mothers with babies up front and some kids with parents, but the line was mostly little kids by themselves. They weren’t playing or fighting the way kids did at restaurants when their parents weren’t paying attention. Some of them hung their heads, and some were sitting in the snow—on the whole, they looked miserable.

Two of the yellow coats were inside the fence with us. They moved along the line, talking to a kid here and there. When they got close to where Darla and I stood, I could read the writing on their coats: Southern Baptist Conference.

One of them approached us, a woman a few years older than my mom, with long, auburn hair. “You two can move up, you know.”

“I don’t want to cut,” I said.

“It’s not cutting. The line’s organized by age. Well, that was the original idea, but it didn’t work out, so we changed it to height. Come on.”

We followed her to a spot about fifty places farther up. It was the first time I could remember being glad I wasn’t very tall. Darla could have moved another twenty or thirty places forward, but she wanted to stay with me. The woman in the yellow coat moved on, chatting and organizing the line.

About fifteen minutes later the line began to jerk forward. Closer to the front, I saw a crowd of kids eating stew: black beans and ham served in Styrofoam bowls with plastic spoons. The acme of luxury—well, compared to breakfast.

The same two yellow coats were inside the fence, watching the crowd. Outside the fence, the rest of the yellow coats were serving the soup or cleaning up. Two guards in fatigues stood out there, too, looking bored.

We were about fifty feet from the front when everyone lurched to a halt. A low chorus of sighs floated down the line and then it dissolved—all the kids wandered away at once.

I found the auburn-haired woman I’d talked to earlier. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why’d everyone leave?”

“We’re out of food. Well, actually, we have food, but we’re rationing it, trying to make it last until the next shipment comes in. Even with as little as we’re serving, we’ll run out completely by next week if the truck doesn’t come.”

“Oh.”

“I trust—I have faith that God will provide. But everyone’s saying this winter may last for years. Food prices have skyrocketed. Everyone’s hoarding. The Baptists are one of the only churches still doing disaster relief, because we’ve been doing it for years. We were better prepared.”

“So when is di

“You are new.”

“Got here yesterday.”

“The camp quit serving di

“We’re supposed to live on one measly cup of rice a day?” Darla said.

“For now. Our pastor is doing everything he can to find donations and to pressure FEMA to bring in more supplies.”

We’d gone from a backpack stuffed with pork to this? I clenched my fists. Sure, some people might think we’d stolen the pork, but we’d worked hard butchering and roasting that pig. I’d never imagined that FEMA would make our food situation worse. But it obviously wasn’t this lady’s fault. I muttered, “Okay. Thanks,” and turned to leave.

The woman caught me with a hand at the waist of my coat. “Trust in the Lord. You never know what He might put in your pocket.” She met my eyes briefly then walked away.

Darla wanted to check out the vehicle depot again, so we meandered in that direction. We’d gotten just inside the first line of tents when someone bumped into my side, almost knocking me over.

Darla yelled, “Alex!” but I was already side-stepping to regain my balance. I glanced to my right—a tall, wiry guy was trying to thrust his hand into my coat pocket. I grabbed him by the hand and spun, twisting his wrist and arm as I went. The move ended perfectly, with me behind him and to his left, controlling his outstretched arm. I kept pressure on his wrist with one hand and launched a knife-hand strike at his neck with the other.

I didn’t know why I chose that strike. I could have kicked his knee, broken his elbow or wrist, or done any number of less lethal moves. The guy was yammering something and trying to pull away. I checked my strike at the last possible moment and only tapped his neck.

“Ah! Crap, man. I was only looking for some food!” the guy yelled.

I let go of his arm, and he ran, rubbing his wrist.

We hadn’t gone twenty feet before another guy planted himself in my path. “Got a proposition for you,” he said.