Ashen Winter

Maybe ten seconds passed each time I said the rhyme. Six rhymes a minute. Three hundred and sixty mind-numbing rhymes an hour. Fourteen hundred and forty before I could wake Alyssa. I’d probably have nightmares about stupid little piggies.

By the time I finished, I was speed-mumbling, saying the rhyme in seven or eight seconds instead of ten. My fingers hurt from tapping the floor, but if anything, I hit it even harder. The pain helped keep me awake.

I grabbed Alyssa’s ankle and shook her. “Your turn to keep watch.”

“Uh? ’kay.” Alyssa slowly sat up. She’d taken off her coat to use as a pillow. The lavender sweater she wore underneath wasn’t exactly form fitting, but it looked good on her.

I rummaged in my pack, looking for a pair of jeans to use as a pillow. “Good night,” I said once I got settled. “And please don’t fall asleep. We need to stay safe.”

“You know, I never did thank you. For rescuing us.” Alyssa squatted by my head, feeding the fire.

I would have shrugged, but I was resting on my left shoulder and my right hurt too badly. “I thought you were Darla.”

“I think you would have helped us, anyway.”

“Maybe so.”

Alyssa put a hand on my shoulder, and I winced. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot.” Her hand wandered up to my neck.

“It’s okay. Goodnight.”

“How did you beat Clevis? And learn to climb around on moving trucks like an action movie star?” Her hand caressed my cheek. I wasn’t sure how to feel about her touch—my mind was a

“I’ve been training in taekwondo since I was five. Although we never practiced climbing around on a moving truck, that’s true.”

“You could, you know, come to Worthington with Ben and me.” Alyssa was whispering, bent over me so our faces were close.

“I can’t. I have—”

She kissed me. I knew it was wrong, was appalled with myself, but still I returned her kiss, my lips open, drinking in her hypnotic softness. I rolled away, onto my back, which Alyssa took as a sign of encouragement, kissing me more fiercely, her hands busy at my chest, spreading the warmth from my lips down toward my groin.

I pushed her away. “No.”

“Why not? I could make you happy.”

“No. You could make me feel good. Not happy. There’s a difference.”

“Most of the guys I’ve met don’t think so.”

I shrugged.

Her face scrunched, as if in pain. “You’re just going to get yourself killed chasing after her.”

“Probably.”

I rolled back onto my side and stared into the fire, waiting for the tempestuous mix of desire, regret, and shame to subside. Alyssa was silent, staring at me. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to take me.

• • •

I dreamed of pigs. A hog squealed as Darla slashed its throat. Blood fountained out as the pig cried, sounding exactly like my sister in the midst of a full-blown temper tantrum. Darla’s arms and face were splashed, dripping red in my candlelit dream. She smiled then seemed to see me. Her head turned and her sanguinary visage shifted, mouth open in a little O, eyes wide with pain and betrayal.

Then the dream shifted and suddenly Darla was naked, suffocatingly beautiful. Her arms and face were still covered in blood. She drew a finger through the blood, painting herself, writhing suggestively, and whispering, “Alex . . . Alex . . .”

I woke up. Alyssa was spooned against my back, her arm resting on my shoulder, which hurt. On the other side of the fire, less than ten feet from me, a strange man stood, aiming a rifle at my chest.

Chapter 57

The man was lean and grizzled, his scraggly beard frosted white. His brown Carhartt coveralls were filthy, as if he’d been sleeping on dirt.

I pinched Alyssa’s hand, and she startled awake. “Nice job keeping watch,” I hissed.

“Sorry,” she whispered back.

The man growled, “Don’t move. Take that knife and gun off his belt, Brand.”

I rotated my head to see who he was talking to. About five feet behind me stood a woman clutching a silver revolver in a two-handed grip, pointing it at Alyssa’s back. A boy, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, stood next to her. He stepped over to where Alyssa and I lay and bent to take my knife and pistol. His hands were shaking so badly I was afraid he’d cut me with my own knife. He retreated to stand beside the woman.

Ben sat up. I hadn’t even realized he was awake. The man swiveled, pointing his rifle at Ben. “I said, don’t move!”

“Your tactical doctrine is flawed,” Ben said.

The man gaped.

“In a three-person team, optimal tactical doctrine calls for enveloping the target in a triangular formation.”

“Just don’t move, okay?” the man said.

“If the Sister Unit or Her Attachment stood up, you’d be in each other’s field of fire. If you missed or just grazed your target, you could easily wind up shooting one of your team members.”

Her Attachment? Me? And what was he doing lecturing these people about infantry tactics? “Shut. Him. Up!” I hissed at Alyssa.

“Like I could,” she whispered back.

Ben kept talking. “With a Winchester Model 70 at a range of twelve feet, even a hit might pass through the target and impact a team member.”

The man looked down at his rifle, clearly surprised.

“Fixing your deployment would be easy. You, Short One,” Ben said, addressing the kid. “Move over here, on the other side of me.”

Great, I thought, now he’s telling people how to kill us more effectively.

To my amazement, the boy did it, moving away from the woman.

“No. Farther away,” Ben said, “so you can’t be used as a shield or hostage easily.”

The boy took two steps back.

“Now, you,” Ben said to the woman. “Take three big steps to your right.”

She started to turn.

“No,” Ben said. “Sidestep. So your weapon stays on the target.”

The woman sidestepped so that now the three of them formed a neat triangle around us.

“Good,” Ben said. “Now if you discharge your weapons, each of you will have a clear field of fire. This formation is not recommended in situations where there is a risk of encountering flanking forces. In that situation, an enfilade deployment is preferable. . . .”

Ben kept talking about the benefits and drawbacks of an enfilade deployment, whatever that was. The man’s mouth formed an O, probably because it couldn’t very well form the letters WTF. The situation was so ridiculous and tense that I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing.

Everyone looked at me as if I were crazy. Which was fair, I guessed. Then the man holding the rifle started laughing, too, and pretty soon everyone but Ben had joined in.

When the hilarity had died down, the man said, “You all are just crazy enough that I think I understand why you’re still alive.”

“Yeah,” I said. I pushed myself slowly upright, keeping both hands in view. Maybe this guy was laughing, but he still had a rifle pointed my way. I took a step closer to him and stretched my left hand out as if to shake. My right arm still wasn’t working too well.

He snicked on the safety and moved the rifle to his shoulder, pointed upward. His handshake was a little too vigorous for my liking—I could move my left arm, but it still hurt when he pumped it. “I’m Eli. My wife there’s Mary Sue, and that’s my son, Brand.” He was so dirty he left a smudge on my hand. Not that my own hands were any too clean.

“What’s wrong with him?” Brand said, looking at Ben.

“Nothing’s wrong with him,” Alyssa snapped as she stood up.

“He’s autistic,” I said.

“He doesn’t seem artistic,” Brand replied.

Alyssa wasn’t smiling. “Autistic. And he’s smarter than everyone else in this room put together.”

“Sorry,” Brand muttered.

Ben was ignoring us all, sketching something with his fingertip in the dust on the floor. More infantry tactics, maybe.