Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

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 manning the roof-mounted gun. There was no sign of them now. The truck’s airbags had deployed. I shoved the deflated airbag out of the way.
    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.
    “We’ve got to go,” I told Alyssa.
    She nodded at me and led Ben toward the truck. They slid into the back seat. I put the truck in drive and headed north, away from Iowa City and the DWB slavers, toward Warren and the safety of Uncle Paul’s farm.
    The windshield was cracked so badly, it was tough to see through it. I had to bend my body and crane my neck to peer through a patch of clear glass.
    I found a map in the glove compartment and handed it to Alyssa. Darla had passed out again, and Mom was