Ashen Winter

The gun still wouldn’t fire.

“What’s wrong with this piece of junk?” I yelled.

“The magazine is not seated,” Ben said.

I lifted the gun and banged the base of the magazine against the propane tank. There was a dull clunk of metal on metal and a click as the magazine popped into place.

As I aimed the gun again, the tank shivered under me and rang with a series of colossal blows. A row of holes appeared across the tank. Bullets ricocheted and rattled around inside it. I caught a whiff of propane and wondered briefly why I was still alive. Why hadn’t the tank exploded, instantly converting us into ash and charred meat?

“Don’t shoot!” Ben screamed.

“What?”

“The muzzle flash of the AR-15 might ignite the aerated propane!”

“Stop! Now!” Dad yelled. “There!” He pointed left to a break in the embankment that allowed access to an alley. Mom slammed on the brakes, fishtailing to a stop. The trucks behind us raced closer, spraying bullets as they came. Mom dove out the driver’s door, taking shelter in the alley. Alyssa followed, chivvying Ben along with her. Darla crawled out on her own, and I helped Dad out of the passenger seat to the driver’s side and tried to slide him out the driver’s door. He stopped and sat down.

“Come on!” I screamed. The trucks were almost on us.

Dad screwed his face up in agony, planted his left foot on my chest, and shoved. I fell backward onto the icy road. Gears ground as Dad shifted into reverse. “Goodbye,” he said calmly. “Tell everyone I love them.”

The truck shot backward. “Dad!” I screamed. The propane tank slammed into the lead pickup. I rolled, scrambling toward the shelter of the alley.

The explosion plucked me off the road and hurled me into the air. I flew for a few seconds before gravity caught me again and dashed me to earth. My back burned, as if I’d been stung by a thousand angry hornets. I smelled smoke, twisted, and realized my back was literally burning. I rolled on the icy road to put it out. The world around me had gone silent, and my ears had become hot knives stabbing into my brain. I touched an earlobe, and my hand came back covered with fresh blood.

Dad.

I looked back down the road. I had to squint against the inferno engulfing the conjoined wreckage of the trucks. The buildings on either side of the road had been flattened. One corner of a brick building was still standing, a rough masonry triangle that had sheltered Darla, Alyssa, Ben and Mom. Ben’s hands were clasped around his ears, and he was rocking again. Otherwise they all looked dazed but unhurt.

I stumbled to my feet and staggered toward the wreck. “Dad,” I breathed, releasing the word like a prayer or kiss goodbye. A secondary detonation—the pickup’s gas tank, perhaps—knocked me flat again.

A few moments later, I felt hands under my arms, lifting me up. Alyssa was there, dusting the ash and grit from my singed clothing, checking me for punctures. She said something to me, and I shook my head, pointing to my ears.

Darla was still sitting against the ruined brick wall, doubled over, maybe unconscious again. Mom stood nearby, staring at my father’s fiercely burning pyre. Her eyes were vacant and dry, but her mouth was twisted into an expression of such horror that I had to look away. Ben’s mouth was open now—maybe he was moaning, but I couldn’t hear. Anything.

I put my arm across Alyssa’s shoulders for support. “Come on,” I said, hobbling around the fire. Alyssa replied—I saw her lips move, but no sound reached my brain.

Alyssa and I gave the wreck a wide berth. Even so, the heat was intense. The snow berms on both sides of the road had started to melt. Water trickled off them to join the ashy pool forming around the entire mess.

About fifty feet farther on, I saw the rear-most pickup. It was slewed across the road, hood half-buried in a snowbank. It was huge for a pickup—both a king cab and a dually. On the left side of the truck, the windows had blown inward, and its body was the color of charred steak. The door was open, and the driver had slumped out. The left side of his face was a horrifying patchwork of blackened skin and blood-covered glass fragments.

A plume of steam rose from the back end of the truck. I thought about it a moment and realized that the truck was idling, although I couldn’t hear the engine. Despite the pounding it had taken, the truck still worked.

I grabbed the least charred part of the driver’s collar and dragged him the rest of the way out of the truck. He didn’t move at all. Maybe he was dead, but I didn’t care enough to spend the energy to check.

It occurred to me that there had been two guys in the bed of the truck ma

By the time I finished, the driver was awake, reaching up to me with one trembling arm. The horror of the situation seized me suddenly, squeezing the air from my lungs, the life from my heart. Dad, dead. Darla, hurt. Why had the DWBs followed me? Why couldn’t they have let me slip away, let me take my family back to Warren to struggle together to survive—or at least to die united?

I had no answers, just pure rage. I knelt before the bandit, pulled the butcher knife off my belt, and lifted it high over my head. Someone caught my arm from behind. I turned—Alyssa was there, shouting something at me—I saw her mouth working soundlessly. I twisted my knife hand free and brought the blade slashing down toward the driver’s throat.

Alyssa caught my arm again. She put her face inches from mine and shook her head. The rage washed out of me as quickly as it had come. I again twisted free of her grasp and threw the knife. Powered by my disgust and grief, it flew clear across the snow bank on the far side of the road.

Alyssa wrapped her arms around me, and suddenly I was sobbing. I clung to her and cried until the back of her coat was wet with my tears.

The sewer stench of death brought me back to my senses. The bandit’s arm was down, and the unburnt right side of his face had relaxed into a facsimile of peace.

I lifted my eyes past him. Tears still clouded my vision. All I could see was a blurry gray—the ashen smear of my father’s remains upon the eternal snow.

Chapter 83

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. It was weird, not being able to hear myself. I could tell I was talking only by the vibrations in my mouth and nose. Alyssa nodded.

She started to turn away. I caught her arm and gestured at the truck. “You drive?” I asked.

She shook her head and said something I couldn’t understand.

I sagged against her. I could barely walk, and now I’d have to drive.

Alyssa slid into the truck and I followed, stopping behind the wheel. The truck was an automatic. The keys were dangling from the ignition, and the fuel gauge read just shy of full. I slid the gear selector into reverse and eased my foot onto the gas. We lurched free of the snowbank with a bounce.

I backed the truck around the body of its former driver. The fire amid the wreck had died down to a dull, angry glow. I cranked the wheel over and inched past, staying as close to the berm as I could. I pulled up beside Mom and Ben. Neither of them made any move to get in. Darla was still curled against the ragged brick wall.

Alyssa and I got out. I ran to Darla. She was conscious but dazed. I helped her into the front seat of the truck, buckling her into the middle, where she’d be next to me.

I turned back toward Mom. “Can you drive?” I asked.

Her eyes were focused on a world apart from this one. Maybe her hearing was damaged, too.

“Mom!” I shouted.

Her lips were still. She stared past the dying glow of the wreck.

I took Mom’s hand. I led her like a child into the passenger seat of the pickup and buckled the seat belt around her. When I slipped back out of the truck, I saw Alyssa brushing Ben, trying to coax him into motion.