Ashen Winter

I scuttled over two more trucks in the same way until I was lined up roughly even with the one that held Darla, but three ranks back. The truck I was perched on had its hood open. The vehicles between me and the idling deuce were both pickups—there was no way I could keep hopping from roof to roof as I’d been doing.

I looked down the aisle on the left side of the truck. The two wiry guys were standing by the driver’s door of the idling truck. If I tried to sneak down that aisle, they’d spot me. But from the aisle on my right, I’d be in plain view of the mechanic. I couldn’t afford to wait—they were gassing up the truck for a reason. I had to get on it—and fast.

I slinked away from the aisle, stood, and jumped. I caught the metal girder overhead in both hands. My whole body screamed with pain—my tortured muscles being stretched by my weight. I gritted my teeth and started slowly working my way forward, hand over hand. Even with my taekwondo practice, I probably couldn’t have traversed the beam that way ten months before, swinging from my arms. But there was one advantage to being blasted back into nineteenth-century farming by the volcano: I was at least as strong as anyone I knew, except maybe Darla.

I couldn’t see the guys by the cab anymore, but I was in plain view of the mechanic. So long as he kept paying attention to the gas, I’d be okay.

I worked my way slowly along the beam. Twenty feet . . . ten . . . I hung over the bed of a pickup about ten feet below me. The mechanic pulled the spout of the gas can out of the truck and turned toward me. I froze, praying he wouldn’t look up. If I moved, he’d spot me for sure. But maybe, just maybe, it was dark enough that if I just hung there, I’d be u

A drop of sweat rolled along the bridge of my nose. The mechanic set the gas can on a pallet loaded with empties and hefted a full can from another pallet. My arms burned from the strain of holding myself perfectly motionless, and the drop of sweat tickled my nose, threatening a sneeze.

The mechanic opened the gas can, pulled out the spout, and thrust it into the truck, turning his back to me. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and started hand-over-handing it toward Darla’s truck again.

How long would it take to empty the gas can? I didn’t know, so I moved as fast as I could. I was steadily getting closer to the mechanic. If he turned around and looked up now, there’d be no way he could miss me.

This beam didn’t pass directly over the truck. The closest I could get was about five feet from the back of it. I swung my legs, forward and back, gaining momentum and then letting go as I arced toward the truck.

I landed about in the center of the roof with a whump of compressing canvas. Instantly I fell flat, hoping the noise of the engine would cover the sound of my fall.

“What are you doing in there?” shouted one of the wiry guys.

The guy in the truck started moaning again. I heard Darla whisper, “Shh, shh.”

“Freaks,” another voice said, and they both laughed.

I pressed myself to the canvas. One of the struts supporting the roof dug into my belly.

To my right, the mechanic yelled, “Done! You only got a two-gallon reserve. You screw around at all, you won’t make it back.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the reply came.

Two doors slammed in quick succession, and the truck rolled forward. Clinging to the roof, I rode from the blackness of the garage into the thin, yellow light outside.

Chapter 46

The truck picked up speed as we left the prison compound. It roared through a couple of turns, passing through the two-story brick buildings lining Main Street. Soon we were racing along a plowed road through the deserted and snow-smothered landscape outside of Anamosa. I figured we were going more or less south. The wind sliced viciously at my face, and I pulled my ski mask down over my eyes and mouth.

I watched as the collapsed strip mall and abandoned fast food restaurants outside Anamosa disappeared behind us. Then we passed an abandoned propane distributor, the tanks painted like giant ears of corn. I drew the knife from my belt and stabbed it into the canvas below me. The wind roared so loudly that I couldn’t hear the noise of the canvas ripping.

“Darla,” I hissed urgently through the slit in the canvas, “I’m here. Make some noise. Try to get the driver to stop.”

“What? Who—”

“Just do it! Yell, bang on the cab, whatever.” I removed my face from the slit in the canvas and crawled forward until I could see the top of the cab. I clung to the edge of the roof, poised, ready to attack when the truck stopped.

I heard some thumps below me and then Darla started to yell something. But her voice was barely loud enough to hear over the wind. I couldn’t even make out the words. Come on, Darla, I thought. I know you’ve got better pipes than that. You never had any trouble making yourself heard over the noise of the grain grinder when you thought I wasn’t pedaling fast enough.

The monotone moaning resumed. The moans were louder now—they threatened to drown out Darla’s feeble shouts. A series of thuds and thumps started a counterpoint, as if someone were beating their fists and feet against the bed of the truck. The guy’s voice broke, and the moaning was replaced by a frenzied, falsetto screaming. It was almost unbelievable that such a hulking guy could make noises like those—it sounded like a little girl throwing a full-throated temper tantrum.

That should work, I thought. It sounded like he was having a seizure. They’d have to stop and check on him.

But the truck didn’t stop. The screaming fit went on and on. I heard a snatch of laughter coming from the cab. If anything, we were speeding up. The two guys riding in the cab obviously didn’t care if one of their passengers was freaking out in back. I slumped to my belly on the roof of the truck, trying to figure out what to do. The noises from beneath me were just a

I had to stop the truck. If I waited until we reached our destination, there were sure to be more than two guards to deal with. I could try crawling onto the roof of the cab. There were two ante

Maybe I could throw something from my pack. I had the extra ammunition from my lost guns. Could I get it to fire by heating it or something? Make the guards think they were being shot at? Would that make them stop or drive faster? Perhaps I could soak my extra T-shirt in lamp oil, tie it around a fistful of bullets, and light it?

Lamp oil. That was it! The primitive oil was thick, completely opaque. I inched back to the slit in the canvas.

“Darla!” I yelled. “Can you give me a hand?”

No response. Maybe she couldn’t hear me over the continued screams of the man-child with her.

I twisted my arms out of the straps of my backpack and unbuckled the hip belt. I took a firm grip on one of the straps and rolled over onto my back.

The truck bounced, and my heart lurched—for a moment I thought I was going to be bucked off. When my heart slowed a little, I scooted back, dragging my pack with me until I could jam one leg through the slit in the canvas roof. I got my leg in up to the knee and wedged my other foot against the curved rib supporting the canvas roof.

I slowly sat up. The wind ripped at my back, gusting so hard it lifted my butt off the roof now and then. I dragged my backpack onto my lap, where it was protected from the lash of the wind, and rummaged through it for the supplies I needed.

I had emptied more than half a dozen water bottles of various sizes in the two days since I’d left Worthington. The first bottles I found all had regular plastic caps. I pushed those aside, digging deeper. One of the empties got pushed out of the top of my pack, where the wind caught it. I grabbed for it, but the wind whipped it away—it spun drunkenly in the airy backwash of the truck and was gone.