Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

blue car blocked it in?” I asked.
    Dad shrugged. “Let’s check it out.”
    I took the precious shake light out of my pocket. The path that had been dug to the truck was so narrow and its sides so high that it felt like a cave. Dad followed me in, but Mom, Ben, and Alyssa stayed in the street.
    The inside of the truck looked as though a storm had swept through it. Scraps of cardboard and empty boxes were scattered everywhere, covered in an uneven layer of packing peanuts and bubble wrap. The keys were in the ignition, but the fuel gauge read empty. Which figured. We’d have better luck finding a scrap of paper in a blizzard than a working car in Anamosa.
    “Check this out,” Dad said, pointing at a row of four metal tanks strapped to one interior sidepanel. They were squat propane cylinders, like barbeque grills use. The tanks were linked with hoses, but the last hose in the row was disconnected, maybe knocked loose when looters rampaged through the truck. Dad grabbed the hose, slid the quick-connect sleeve back, and reattached it to the tank.
    “Is propane the same thing as natural gas?” I asked.
    “No,” Dad said. “And they wouldn’t put the tanks inside the truck, anyway. Somebody has converted this one.”
    “You think it’ll run?” I asked.
    “One way to find out.” He sat in the driver’s seat and turned the key.
    The first time, the truck made a rusty cough and died. The second, it chugged for a moment, and I breathed a prayer, “You can do it, truck. Start . . . start.” Darla would have laughed and informed me that machines run on gears and solvents, not hopes and prayers. But I knew nothing about natural gas-powered trucks; all I could offer was hope and a prayer.
    The third time Dad cranked the key, the truck choked to life. The fuel gauge twitched, moving to just above empty. Dad shut down the truck right away—we couldn’t go anywhere blocked in by the small blue car and snow. We trudged back down the narrow path and explained the situation to Mom, Alyssa, and Ben.
    “Is it even worth digging out the truck?” Mom asked, “since we barely have any fuel, anyway?”
    “I saw a propane distributor just south of Anamosa,” I said. “They had tanks painted like ears of corn. Maybe there’s still propane there.”
    “Good idea.” Dad nodded, ruminating.
    We spent the rest of the day digging out the truck. We scavenged some shelves from A NAMOSA F LORAL that we used as makeshift snow shovels and scrapers. A mountain of snow crowned the truck, entombing it completely. And we had to clear the snow from around the blue car—which turned out to be a VW Bug—not to mention figuring out some way to move it.
    By nightfall, everyone was exhausted and cranky. We all had at least one nasty blister, and Ben had cut his hand on the sharp edge of one of the shelves. But the vehicles were clear of snow and ash. We built a small fire using cardboard from the back of the truck and wood scavenged from the flower shop’s furniture. Dinner was cornmeal mush.
    The temperature dropped more during dinner. We debated sleeping inside the floral shop, but if we built a fire inside, the wood floor might ignite. None of us wanted to risk a fire inside the UPS truck near those four propane tanks.
    Instead we slept more or less on Main Street in the area we had cleared behind the truck. Each of us took a two-hour guard shift, feeding the fire and keeping a lookout. For once, Alyssa stayed awake during her watch. It figured that the one time she actually kept watch, the night would pass peacefully.

Chapter 75
    In the morning, we had to face the problem of the VW Bug. “Maybe we could roll it,” Dad said, “like L.A. rioters after a Lakers championship.”
    “Like what?” Alyssa asked.
    “Whenever the Lakers won a basketball championship, people used to go out and roll cars over for fun.”
    “Destructive way to celebrate,” Alyssa replied.
    I bent my knees and hooked my gloved hands under the side of the car. By straightening my knees, I could rock the car, but I sure couldn’t lift it by myself. “This is going to take all of us.”
    Everyone crowded in alongside the car. We could only reach the front and the back, where the car was slightly longer than the back of the UPS truck.
    “Three . . . two . . . one . . . lift!” I yelled.
    We raised the tires a couple inches, and the car settled back to the ground.
    “Harder this time. Lift with your legs,” I said. “Three . . . two . . . one .