Ashen Winter

I looked him in the eye and tried to control the trembling in my arms. “Figures that Dirty White Boys would use a Bedazzler. You’re probably all too stupid to operate a needle and thread.”

Wolfe roared and pulled one of the guns from his belt. He raised it over his shoulder, like he was preparing to pistol-whip me.

Darla plunged the shank into the back of his neck. The tip emerged from his throat, glistening red. She wrenched out the screwdriver, and blood fountained from Wolfe’s neck as he collapsed.

Bull pulled up his gun. I kicked with my right foot—an i

Dad grabbed Bull’s assault rifle. Darla scooped up both of Wolfe’s revolvers. “You got a way out of here?” she asked, her voice as sharp as the bloody screwdriver she’d just discarded.

“Truck. Just outside the wall. Three guards between us and it.”

“Three? Usually only two.”

“Yep. Three.” I took the rifle off my back and readied it.

Bull groaned. I heard a wet crunch behind me and glanced over my shoulder. Dad had kicked him in the face. Blood was pouring from his nose and mouth, mixing with Wolfe’s on the concrete floor. The sweet, coppery stink of it filled my nostrils, flooding me with an insane joy. I wanted more, wanted all the DWBs to bleed to death.

“There’s more than a hundred of them in the apartments,” Darla said. “We’ve got to go. Fast.”

The three of us approached the open door of the garage. Chad and the two guards by the fire were on their feet, looking in our direction. Chad yelled, “Everything—” Then his eyes widened, and he reached for his gun. He was staring at me. I glanced down—my boots and coverall legs were soaked with Wolfe’s blood.

All six of us raised our guns.

Chapter 81

The air burst with gunfire—the crazed sewing-machine rattle of the assault rifles and the metronomic boom, boom, boom of Darla’s revolver. My rifle was snug against my shoulder, my eye on the sight, but I hadn’t pulled the trigger. The three DWBs were down. We’d come out expecting a fight; they were only a second or two slower, but in the new world, the postvolcano world, that was all it took. The difference between life and death was measured in seconds and inches.

“Got to go. Now . . .” Darla said. Her voice wavered, and I glanced at her, alarmed, just in time to see her crumple. I caught her as she fell, easing her to the ground while I frantically checked for blood.

I heard a rattle of gunfire from our right. Slim was standing in the doorway of the apartment building, firing an assault rifle at us. “Go!” Dad screamed. He whirled to return fire. I slung Darla’s limp body over my shoulder and ran for the truck.

I leaped into the truck, laying Darla out in the space behind the passenger seat. “Come on!” I screamed as I turned back toward Dad. Slim had ducked back into apartment building. Dad’s rifle clicked empty. He turned and ran toward the truck, scooping up Chad’s assault rifle as he passed the corpses. Slim stepped back into view in the doorway, firing his rifle. Dad stumbled, picked himself up, and kept ru

Mom was in the driver’s seat. Alyssa and Ben huddled behind the driver’s seat in the scant space beside the propane tank. Dad threw himself into the passenger seat. “Go! Go! Go!”

Mom floored the accelerator, and the truck leapt forward, racing north toward Warren and safety.

I checked on Darla. She was breathing and the pulse at her neck throbbed, hot under my fingers. I started stripping off her filthy coat, trying to figure out what was wrong. Had she been hit?

Dad groaned. My mind replayed the stumble he’d taken over and over, worrying at it.

“You’re hurt!” Mom glanced at him, her face etched with a strange combination of fear and compassion.

“Yeah,” Dad replied weakly. “But keep going. We’ve got to get out of here.”

I looked from Darla to Dad, unsure what to do. “I’ll check on him,” Alyssa said, pushing past me.

Darla was wearing the same clothing she’d had on when she was shot on the overpass two weeks before. Her shirts were crusted with old blood. I tore her undershirt at the shoulder and pulled it away from the wound.

It was weeping greenish yellow pus and smelled utterly revolting. Her whole shoulder was swollen—red flames of infection licked out from the wound, reaching down her side and along her shoulder toward her neck. The reason for her collapse was obvious—what wasn’t obvious was how she’d stayed on her feet, managed to stab Wolfe, and shot a revolver with a wound this badly infected. There was nothing I could do for her but give her Tylenol. We needed to get her to a doctor—and fast.

As I worked on Darla, Alyssa had stripped off Dad’s coat and shirts. He was already sitting in a puddle of his own blood. It was everywhere, coating her hands in a nauseating crimson glaze. She pulled up his T-shirt, revealing the bloody hole a bullet had punched in the left side of his stomach. “Lean forward,” she said.

Dad groaned as he bent away from the seat. Alyssa checked his back—low on his left side was a round, puffy entrance wound, welling blood. “I need some bandages!” she yelled.

“Janice,” Dad began.

Mom didn’t reply. She was staring at the blood welling from Dad’s stomach. Her cheeks glistened, and she’d bitten her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

“Watch the road!” Dad told her.

Ben had been moaning and rocking, but when Alyssa asked for bandages he stopped and looked directly at her for a second. Then he started rifling through the Abilify bags, tossing stuff everywhere as he searched for bandages. I was out of my mind with worry about Darla and Dad but still fiercely proud of Ben in that moment. He found several rolls of gauze and passed them up to Alyssa. She took the first roll and pressed the whole thing against the hole in Dad’s belly. He moaned but then placed his bloody hand over hers and pushed harder. “Got to stop this bleeding,” he gasped.

Darla stirred. “Cold,” she moaned.

“Lieutenant!” Ben yelled. He yelled it again before I figured out he was talking to me. “We have a tactical problem.” He pointed toward the open back of the truck.

Two pickups were racing on the road behind us, gaining fast.

Chapter 82

Both trucks had guns mounted on top of their cabs and a pair of guys standing in their beds. They were distant, but at the rate they were approaching, that wouldn’t last. We were racing down a long, straight road lined with burned-out commercial buildings.

“Can you go any faster?” I yelled.

“It’s floored!” Mom yelled back.

I heard a pop-pop-pop and the whang of a bullet ricocheting off metal as the gu

“Tie a bandage around Dad’s stomach as tight as you can,” I told Alyssa.

I climbed up onto the propane tank. The first pickup was closer now, still firing steadily. Mom started weaving back and forth. The road was rough, bouncing us up and down. I didn’t think the DWBs were likely to hit us until they got much closer.

I lifted my rifle, lined it up on the lead pickup, and pulled the trigger. Click. I’d forgotten I was out of bullets. “I need a gun!” I yelled. Ben grabbed the assault rifle Dad had taken from Chad and tossed it to me. As soon as I got it seated against my shoulder and roughly in line with the pickups, I pulled the trigger. And nothing. The trigger wouldn’t even operate.

The safety, I’d forgotten the safety. I found it on the side of the gun and snicked it to full auto.