Ashen Winter

“You signaled to stop,” the guy shouted. “Why? What’s on the other side of the overpass?”

“Let go!” I yelled again. “Darla, I’ve got to get to Darla!” The words didn’t come out clearly. I realized I was sobbing.

The man let go of my right arm and slapped me. The blow rocked my head sideways, brought fire to my face, and stopped my sobbing. “What’s on the other side of the overpass?” he yelled.

I sucked in a deep breath. “It’s an ambush. There are eight guys on snowmobiles set up on the far side in a semi-circle. If you go under that bridge, it’ll be a massacre.”

The guy turned toward his buddies in the truck, still holding one of my arms. “Ambush! Eight snowmobiles. Far side of the overpass.” They all readied their rifles. Four guys jumped down from the truck to take up flanking positions on either side of the road.

“Four snowmobiles. Eight guys,” I said. “Now let me go—I’ve got to go after Darla!” I thrashed, trying to break the guy’s grip. I reached across my body with my left hand and dug my fingers under his pinky. That put more pressure on my wound, and pain spiked up my arm so intensely I saw colored lights. I ignored it as best I could, concentrating on bending his pinky backward.

The biggest guy in the world can be holding you, but if it’s your whole hand against his pinky, you can break his grip—or his finger—either of which should do the trick. The guy holding me let go rather than allowing me to break his pinky, and I cranked his hand around, twisting him into an arm bar.

I could have broken his elbow or kicked him in the nuts, but I was just trying to get away. I settled for a round kick to the back of his legs, forcing him to his knees in the icy road. Then I turned to run.

Another guy had jumped down from the back of the pickup and planted himself squarely in my path. He looked familiar.

“You run under that bridge, you’re dead for sure,” he said. He grabbed the collar of my coveralls as I tried to dodge around him.

The driver’s window was down. The guy at the wheel said, “Just let him go. What do we care if he gets his fool head shot off?”

“He saved us from a serious ass-kicking,” the guy holding me said.

“This is how you show your gratitude?” I tried to snake my right arm through his arms, preparing to throw him off, but a burst of pain so intense that it left me gasping stopped me.

“I’ve seen you before,” he said. “In Worthington with Darla Edmunds.”

Suddenly I placed the guy. The sheriff who’d met us outside Worthington last year. He was thi

“Earl. How—”

“They’ve got Darla. She fell onto the roof of that army truck. She’s been shot. I’ve got to go after her.”

“Thought you said there was an ambush over there?”

“There is! But that’s the way Darla went.”

“Guys on snowmobiles are probably part of that bandit gang we were chasing. You go through there alone, you’re dead,” Earl said.

“Well, come with me, then!”

“We drive into that ambush, we all might die. Wouldn’t do us or Darla any good. And these pickups are no good in deep snow—we can’t get around and flank them.”

“But they can flank you pretty easy on their snowmobiles. They had a scout up on the overpass. Guy who shot Darla,” I glanced at my arm, “and me.” The outside of my coat dripped blood.

“We should see to that arm,” Earl said. “Looks like it needs stitching.”

I sca

One of the guys still on the truck lifted his rifle, took aim, and fired. The scout on the overpass ducked below the snow berm. “Damn, you missed him,” Earl said.

“What are we going to do about Darla?” I said.

“We should bandage your arm,” Earl replied.

“Hell with my arm!” I yelled. “How are we going to get Darla back?”

“You aren’t any use to her at all if you bleed out,” Earl replied mildly.

One of the other guys in the pickup bed turned toward us. He had a pair of binoculars dangling from his neck. “Earl, snowmobile to our west. About a half mile.”

“They’re flanking us!” Earl yelled. “Pull out! Back to Worthington.”

Earl pulled me toward the truck. I whipped my left through his arms and spun, using my forearm like a crowbar to wrench myself free. The guy who’d grabbed me the first time was standing behind me now, trying to nab me again. I kicked his legs out from under him and turned back toward the overpass in time to see Earl’s fist just before it crashed into my temple. Everything went black.

Chapter 29

I saw Darla’s face, hair streaming past, as she fell away from me. But now she was falling upward, into the yellow-gray post-volcanic sky. I reached for her, but she faded, and my hand passed through her insubstantial form, stirring it like smoke until it dissipated.

The ground under me bucked and my shoulder blade hit it hard enough to bruise. I realized I was on my back in the pickup as it raced along the road.

I sat up far too fast. Pain and nausea mounted a twin assault on my head and stomach. I twisted and vomited bile onto the wooden floorboards of the truck bed.

“Y’okay?” Earl laid his hand against my back.

“No.” I shoved myself onto my feet, ignoring the protestations of my head and stomach.

I stumbled, and Earl grabbed my left arm, holding me up. “Worthington’s a bit different from when you were here before,” he said.

I held onto the back of the cab for support and looked around. A gleaming wall stretched away from the road, curving out of sight in both directions. It was a solid, vertical wall of ice about sixteen feet high. A heavy wooden gate had been built across the road. Three guards struggled with each half of the gate, wrenching it open so the trucks could pass through.

“Impressive, ain’t it?” Earl said.

“Yeah.” It was amazing. I might have been awestruck if Darla had been there to see it with me.

“We built it with two bulldozers and a sprayer truck. Bulldozed huge piles of snow, carved a vertical face, and then sprayed it down with water to freeze it solid.”

I grunted.

“Keeps us safe, anyway. And it’ll last exactly as long as we need it—’til this cussed winter is over.”

“I gotta get going.” I took a step toward the back of the truck, wobbled, and would have fallen except for Earl’s grip on my arm.

“You need to get that arm patched up,” Earl said.

I glanced at it—he’d tied a rag around my right bicep. It was already blood-soaked. “I don’t care. I’m going back to the bridge.” I tried to twist free, but Earl held on.

“There’s some hard facts to this situation,” Earl said, talking in a low voice directly into my ear. “You said Darla got shot. That might have killed her. If that didn’t kill her, they might have flensed her by now. Easier to carry meat than a person.”

That couldn’t be true. Darla was alive. She had to be. “Let go!” I shouted. I threw a punch at him, but my right arm was weak. He caught it and wrapped me in a bear hug.

“Don’t make me hit you again, son. Hurt my dang knuckles. You come into town, get patched up. If the mayor gives the say-so, I’ll take you back to the bridge and help you look for Darla.”

We pulled through the gate and the guards strained to close it behind us. As it crashed shut, Earl released me. On the inside, the wall was just an enormous pile of packed snow. Steps had been carved into it here and there so defenders against a siege could easily reach the makeshift battlement at the top.

The pickups rolled slowly through town. Nobody was outside, but that wasn’t surprising; it was too cold to be outdoors without a good reason. We pulled up at the low metal building that housed the library, city hall, and fire station—the same building where Darla and I had met the town’s librarian, Rita Mae, the year before. The fire truck that had been stuck outside was gone. Other than that and the deep snow, it looked about the same.