Ashfall

I didn’t know what to say. I stood and stared at him in total disbelief.

He cast his eyes at Darla. “Look, if you’re that desperate, your girl could get some extra food entertaining soldiers in the evenings. Lots of girls are doing it, some not as pretty as she is.”

Something about the way he said “your girl”—as if I were her pimp, not her boyfriend—stoked my fury past the boiling point. I screeched like the wail of a roiling teakettle and lashed out, kicking Captain Jameson squarely in his nose. His head snapped back, and his nose erupted with blood. He fell backward into the snow. I stepped forward, intending to beat on him a bit more, but the gate guards closed on me from either side. I blocked the one on my left, but the guy on my right clubbed my temple with the butt of his gun. I went down. As he raised his gun again, Darla screamed, “Stop! Don’t—” Then the gunstock dropped and the world went dark.

Chapter 49

I woke to the evil stepmother of all headaches. For a while, I lay curled up in a tight ball. When I finally tried to sit up, my head hit something, touching off a fresh wave of pain and nausea. I lay still and focused on my breathing, trying not to vomit.

When the nausea had subsided slightly, I opened my eyes. I was in a room barely big enough to hold my coiled body—one of the doghouse-like buildings just outside the main camp enclosure: a punishment hut, I figured. Thin horizontal lines of gray light filtered in through the boards that formed the walls. The lines danced as I watched, merging and doubling, doing a slow, repetitive minuet that told me I literally wasn’t seeing straight.

I closed my eyes again and waited. Time doesn’t pass in the same way when you’re suffering from a headache that severe. While I lay there, it seemed as if I’d always been in that hut and always would be: There was nothing but the pain. It might have been thirty minutes or all evening for all I could tell.

Eventually the nausea and double vision passed, and the headache faded to the a

The punishment hut’s walls and ceiling were made of rough slats, like the ones used for wood pallets. Posts at each corner provided structure. The floor was ash, which was okay—it wouldn’t be the first time I’d slept on a bed of ash. A hatch had been cut into one wall. The hatch had a little play in it, as though the padlock didn’t hold it tightly closed. Maybe I could break one of the slats, force the door, or dig though the ash floor. But I didn’t have the energy to try anything right then. Instead, I slept.

* * *

I woke with a horrible crick in my neck and pain in the small of my back. Before I remembered where I was, I tried to stretch out and cracked the knuckles of my hand against one of the corner posts.

There was daylight outside now. Of course, the inside of the hut was dark, but enough light filtered between the boards so that I could see a bit. I heard noises from the camp, the muted murmur of fifty thousand talking people. By squirming around, I managed to roll over, putting my other side against the ash floor. I noticed there was dry blood on my boot—Captain Jameson’s, I figured, smiling.

I didn’t want to try to break out during the daytime, so I waited. At first, I hoped that a guard would bring water, my rice ration, or maybe tell me how long they pla

I realized I couldn’t count on anyone to bring me water or food. Maybe they’d let me sit out here for a few days. I thought about it for a while and figured out a solution to my two most immediate problems.

To deal with the thirst, I dug in the ash. The hut had been built after the ashfall, so I could excavate a small tu

Peeing was the other problem. My captors had made no provision at all for hygiene. I dug a hole in the ash at one corner of the enclosure. I peed as carefully as I could into the hole—which wasn’t easy, since I had to do it lying on my side—and covered it with ash.

Then there was nothing to do but wait. I listened to the sounds of the camp, hoping I’d hear Darla. But either she didn’t try to yell to me, or I was too far away to hear her. The concussion and lack of food had taken something out of me; I found myself yawning and sleepy only a few hours later. There was no point in fighting it—the nightmares that haunted my dreams would beat the waking nightmare my life had become—so I let myself drift back to sleep.

Chapter 50

I woke to a cracking sound and the scream of nails pulling free of wood. For a moment, I flashed back and thought I was in my bedroom in Cedar Falls, hurtling across the room as the house collapsed. I curled into a tighter ball and put my hands over the back of my neck.

A diesel engine growled from very close by. The hut suddenly began to lift around me. The concrete foundation of two of the posts came up with them, scraggly lumps of rock poised above my head. I desperately scrambled away, clawing in the snow to escape the doom above my head. Then the whole hut toppled backward, landing on its side in the snow behind me with a surprisingly soft thump.

There was a bulldozer blade above my head. I heard Darla scream, “Get up! Go!” I rolled over, out from under the blade, and pushed myself upright. She was sitting in the dozer’s cab. I climbed up onto the track and from there into the cab. She wore different clothing—fatigues and combat boots, like the guards. Her shirtsleeves were rolled up at her wrists, and the boots looked like clown feet on her.

There was only one seat in the cab, so I climbed onto the armrest beside her. I bumped a joystick as I was getting situated, and the dozer lurched forward, crushing the punishment hut under its treads.

“Stay off the throttle!” Darla screamed.

She grabbed the joystick and slammed it over to one side, sending the dozer into a slow turn. She straightened it out and drove straight toward the camp.

“Um . . . where are we going?” I croaked.

“I’ve got a plan.”

We rolled toward the fence around the refugee yard. Darla steered straight into one of the posts. It broke with a low, metallic pong.

Darla turned the dozer and drove directly over the fence line. She revved it to the max so that every second or so we were hitting another metal fencepost. Pong! Pong! Pong! The chain link and razor wire disappeared steadily under our treads as if the dozer were eating them. Within a few seconds, we’d left the punishment huts behind.

We weren’t going very fast, but there was still a breeze on my face. I leaned into it, tasting freedom on my tongue. I was tired, sore, and starving, but despite my maladies, I laughed.

It was too dark to see much beyond the dozer’s ru