Ashen Winter

“Is that shotgun safetied?” I asked.

Ben didn’t say anything. I glanced at Alyssa. “How should I know?” she said.

“Find out, would you?” I tried to shift into second gear and stalled the truck again. “God—”

“Don’t cuss around Ben,” Alyssa interrupted. “He doesn’t like it.” She turned back toward Ben while I restarted the truck. “You remember your social interactions class, Ben?”

He didn’t respond.

“What are you supposed to do when someone asks you a question?”

“I am supposed to choose an appropriate response.”

“And what did Alex just ask you?”

“Alex asked me whether I safetied the Remington 870 shotgun. I always check the safety before I handle any weapon. I always check the safety when I set a weapon down or pass it to someone else. I never disengage a weapon’s safety.”

“That’s good.” I’d gotten the truck restarted, even managed to put it into second gear. Ben was hanging his head out the window. “Would you close the window, please?” I asked. “I’m cold.”

Ben pulled in his head and started rolling up his window. “The deuce-and-a-half behind us is an A3, remanufactured under the extended service program between 1994 and 1999.”

“Wait, you mean our deuce-and-a-half, right?”

“No, the truck in which I am riding is an A2 with the multifuel feature and a manual transmission.”

I cranked my window down and adjusted the mirror. A truck was racing toward us, gaining far too fast.

Chapter 51

“There’s a truck behind us!” I yelled.

“I told you about the truck,” Ben said.

“Is it the Peckerwoods?” Alyssa asked, craning her neck.

“Who else could it be?” I said.

“You should have killed Clevis.”

She was probably right. I just grunted. The truck was whining loudly—I had crushed the pedal to the floor, but we weren’t going very fast. I pushed in the clutch and tried to shift to third. My hands shook from the adrenaline, and I wasn’t used to the shifter. I stalled the truck.

“What’d you do that for?” Alyssa yelled.

“I was trying to go faster!” I said, frantically groping at the starter button. Ben started a monotone moan. He was curled over, hugging his knees and rocking gently back and forth.

Just as I got the truck restarted, there was a colossal crash as our pursuers rammed us. I was thrown against the wheel. The truck lurched forward, and at the same moment I threw it into gear and jammed my foot down on the accelerator.

Alyssa started screaming, a high-pitched screech that was in no way helpful to our predicament. Ben’s moan grew in volume until they were making a cacophonous tenor/soprano duet.

I glanced in the mirror just in time to brace myself as the deuce slammed into our rear end again. Instead of falling back to ram us again, they started to come around. I swerved, temporarily blocking them. But I couldn’t block them forever, and I couldn’t outrun them—I wasn’t a good enough driver. They were like a cat playing with a particularly inept mouse. Unless something changed, things didn’t look good for the mouse.

“Give me the shotgun!” I shouted.

Alyssa kept screaming, her hands up around her ears.

I couldn’t see the truck in my mirrors, and the passenger-side mirror wasn’t adjusted right. I figured it must be on our right. I cranked the wheel over hard and heard a satisfying crunch. But seconds later, they reappeared in my left-hand mirror, still coming on strong.

“Give me the shotgun!” I repeated. Alyssa didn’t respond.

In desperation, I reached out and slapped her, hoping to shock her out of her hysteria. It was an awkward, backhanded slap since she was sitting right next to me and my right arm was stiff from the crash. I’d never laid a hand on a girl before—then again, I’d never been in a race to escape ca

The truck was almost alongside us now. “Shotgun!” I yelled.

Alyssa reached into the passenger footwell, pulled the shotgun out from under Ben’s feet, and passed it to me. My hand had left a pink imprint on her cheek.

“Take the wheel!” I shouted. Alyssa gave me a blank look, so I grabbed her left hand and put it on the wheel. I flicked off the shotgun’s safety and twisted to aim out my open window.

I was too short. My foot came off the gas pedal and our truck slowed. I squeezed the trigger as the Peckerwoods’ truck rocketed past us. The shotgun boomed, kicking me backward, completely missing the tire I’d been aiming at. On the plus side, the guy shooting his pistol at me from the other truck missed just as badly.

My shoulder burned like it had been kicked by a billy goat. I could barely move my right arm. We were rolling ever slower, and the Peckerwoods’ truck was at least one hundred feet ahead of us. I transferred the shotgun to my left shoulder, holding it awkwardly, and leaned out the window. Would a shotgun even work at this range? I wasn’t sure. I lined it up on the back of the truck and squeezed the trigger left-handed.

The kick knocked the shotgun right out of my hand. It clanged against the ru

“Crap!” I yelled. The Peckerwoods’ truck had come to a halt ahead of us. They were turning around, but the space between the snow berms was far too narrow for a U-turn. Instead, they’d started a laborious three- or four-point turn.

Instantly I knew what to do. I dropped back into the driver’s seat and mashed the gas pedal under my boot. “Brace yourselves!” I yelled as I took the wheel from Alyssa.

I lined us up on the center of the Peckerwoods’ truck, not that we could miss—they almost filled the road. It looked like I might be able to broadside them perfectly as they worked through their turn. It was just like a physics problem I’d had in high school—when two objects collide, the one going slower absorbs most of the acceleration and gets damaged the worst. I kept the pedal mashed to the floor.

The guy in the passenger seat of the Peckerwoods’ truck had his pistol out, firing at me as we approached. I ducked under the dashboard. I couldn’t see a thing, but all I had to do was keep our truck straight. I heard the pop-pop of his pistol twice more.

And then there was a tremendous crash.

Chapter 52

I was thrown against the steering wheel, but the lap belt kept me from flying farther. Our truck was at a dead stop. I slowly leaned back.

The Peckerwoods’ truck was about forty feet ahead of us, upside down across the road. It was wrecked. The cover over the load bed was crushed so that the truck was tilted, its nose thrust into the air. Every window had shattered and the doors hung open. I couldn’t see any movement inside.

Alyssa and Ben were curled over and squeezed together by their shared seat belt. “Are you okay?” I asked. Alyssa sat back. Ben’s eyes were glassed over—he looked dazed. A cut on his forehead was bleeding heavily. A trickle of blood snaked into the corner of his eye. He blinked twice and started screaming—howling, really—in a way I hadn’t heard since kindergarten.

“Is he hurt really bad?” I reached toward Ben.

Alyssa batted my hand away. “I got it. You touch him, you’ll just make it worse.” She turned back to Ben, talking to him in a calm, firm voice. “Ben, let me check your cut. I can fix it.” She was bent low but not facing him, sort of talking in his ear. She pulled off one of her gloves, balled it up, and started brushing it down his arm. He kept screaming.

I saw movement in the Peckerwoods’ truck. The driver was hanging upside down by his seat belt. He slid out of the belt and started dragging himself through the door. He was bleeding and didn’t appear to be armed, but I didn’t want to hang around and find out for sure.

I mashed in the clutch and pushed the starter button. The truck chugged for a moment and then roared to life.

My right arm had frozen up. I had to reach across my lap with my left arm to operate the gearshift. I was shaking so badly that I wasn’t sure I could do it at all. Somehow I managed it without stalling the truck—maybe I was getting better at driving.