Ashfall

“Come on. She’s a friend.” When I said it, I was only trying to get information, but then I realized it was true.

The guy shrugged. “Where’s the harm? She went home.”

“She didn’t tell me she was leaving.”

“It was a sudden thing. Some kind of dispute with Director Evans.”

“About what?”

“That’s all I’m going to say. I’ve got to go help clean up.”

I trudged to the vehicle depot. There was no sign of Darla there, so I walked to Gate C, where she’d met Chet that morning. She was standing a few feet outside the gate, waiting for me. There were grease stains on her shirtsleeves and a big splotch of oil on her jeans. I didn’t care. I wrapped her up in a tight hug.

“Let’s go to the tent,” she said.

“Okay.” I took her hand and we started walking. “How was it?”

“Not bad. Chet’s not much of a mechanic. He didn’t even know to open the bleeder valve when you’re draining brake fluid. He didn’t get the line clear, so when I pulled the first master cylinder, I got oil all over myself.”

“I wouldn’t have known any of that stuff, either.”

“You’re not getting paid to be a mechanic.”

Nightfall was at least two hours off, but there were two people in our tent when we got there. They seemed to be asleep—resting, I guessed. We ignored them and shuffled to the back, where we knelt side by side, facing the corner. Darla reached down the front of her jeans. She didn’t need to unbutton them to accomplish this, which reminded me how much weight she’d lost—weight she couldn’t afford to drop. She pulled out a crumpled plastic package and surreptitiously passed it to me.

I glanced at the front of the package. Something was written there, but it was too dark in the tent to read it. I ripped off the top of the package. An intoxicating scent wafted to my nose: chocolate. Saliva filled my mouth, and I felt a little dizzy. I hoped the other two people in the tent were sick; maybe stuffed-up noses would keep them from smelling that heavenly aroma. I ate a piece—the first chocolate I’d had in seven weeks. Somehow it tasted even better than I had remembered.

The bar had been crushed to crumbs in Darla’s pants. I poured myself a handful of chocolate and threw it into my mouth. I ate like a starving beast, but then again, I was starving. I wasn’t a beast, though. I stopped myself before I’d wolfed it all and offered some to Darla. She put her lips against my ear and whispered, “No. Eat it all. I had one already. I’d have smuggled them both to you, but Chet was watching me too closely. Sorry.”

I snarfed the rest of the chocolate and licked the inside of the package. Then I licked off my hands, which gave the chocolate a gritty, sulfurous taste. I stuffed the wrapper into my pocket. I’d find a place to bury it later.

Chapter 48

The next morning, Darla insisted that I eat her cup of rice as well as my own. I tried to argue, but she was right. She’d gotten two full meals out of Chet yesterday—MREs, the prepackaged meals the military gives troops in the field. She was probably eating ten times as many calories as I was.

Four more days passed like that. I’d heard nothing about the wheat. The yellow coats didn’t know anything about it. When I asked to see Director Evans, they told me he was busy. Clearly the yellow coats were ru

Darla, on the other hand, got more energetic and cheerful. Two solid meals per day were doing wonders for her. I took the first guard shift as usual, but twice she woke and relieved me before I’d finished my 360 circuits of our tent.

Darla got in the habit of sleeping in her “clean” set of clothes and changing into the greasy ones right before she went to work. That way only one change of clothes got messier. Although, to be frank, the grease was probably cleaner than the dirt that covered us head to toe. There was nowhere to wash clothes in the camp, nowhere to bathe or take a shower. Everyone was filthy. My head itched terribly. I hoped I didn’t have lice, but I was afraid to ask Darla to check.

I watched the vehicle depot while Darla was at work. Usually, I couldn’t see anything. They did most of their work in the big tent they used as a garage, which made sense because it kept them out of the wind. Sometimes I’d see Chet moving a dozer or towing a pickup truck into the garage. Once I saw Darla driving a bulldozer. Chet was crammed into the seat beside her. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she laughed about something. The blade on the front of the dozer lifted and dropped. It looked like Chet was teaching her to drive it. I should have been grateful to him for giving Darla a job and making sure she got enough to eat, but right then I wanted nothing more than to smack him silly.

Since I wasn’t getting any answers from the yellow coats about the wheat barge, I pestered the guards. Every time I saw a new one on gate duty, I asked about it. None of them knew what I was talking about.

Finally, I thought to ask Chet. He picked up Darla at the gate every morning and brought her back at night, since she wasn’t allowed to be outside the refugee enclosure unescorted. He hadn’t heard of the wheat barge, either, but at least he listened. I told him the whole story: how we’d met with Director Evans and Colonel Levitov and told them about the bounty of wheat on the Mississippi. And how we’d heard zilch about it ever since.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Chet said. “But if you don’t have anything else to do, you guys can wait here, and I’ll go see what I can find out.”

“Sure,” I said. Of course we didn’t have anything else to do. Duh.

We waited about twenty minutes. Then Chet emerged from one of the admin tents with Captain Jameson in tow—the guy we’d met the first day, the one who’d ordered Jack shot. I hoped he wouldn’t recognize us. Maybe he did, because as he passed through the gate to where we stood, his lips thi

“We’re the ones who found it,” I said. “We told Colonel Levitov about it.”

“Oh? I guess we owe you, then. But it’s classified now. Don’t talk about it anymore.”

“Classified? What? Why—”

“We won’t tell anyone,” Darla said. “I’ve got a good job helping Chet. You can count on us.”

“Good.” Captain Jameson turned to go.

“But where’s the food? Why are we eating rice when there’s all that wheat nearby?” I said.

“Wheat’s not ours. The colonel kicked it up to Washington. Turns out Cargill owns it.”

“Cargill?” I asked.

“Huge grain distributor,” Darla replied.

“Yeah,” Captain Jameson said, “Black Lake got a nice contract to guard it until they can pick it up. Bonuses all around, I hear.”

“People are starving!” I gestured with my clenched fists, which was better than what I really wanted to do with my fists.

“People are starving all over. There’ve been food riots in fifty-six countries.”

“Countries?” I said. “What, did some other volcanoes erupt?”

Captain Jameson gave me a condescending smile. “Nope, the U.S. produced twenty percent of the world’s grain. And even before the volcano, there was less than a two-month supply. All that’s gone. Whole world’s starving, except the people with the guns. We’ve got more security contracts than we can service, but I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“All I know is that people are starving right here, right now, and there’s plenty of food close by.”

“What, you think we should steal that food? That’s private property, son. Plus, I’d get fired. Maybe we do owe you for bringing it to our attention—I’ll see that Chet gets you a candy bar or something.”