Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

extra-tight so everything would stay put. Darla carried the fire-by-friction set under her jacket, the bow sticking out at her collar. We looked lumpy and awkward, strange aliens trudging across the snowscape. The pan rubbed uncomfortably as I moved, its edges digging into my chest through the coveralls and overshirt.
    The countryside reinforced my feeling of strangeness. Last year, more than half of the Iowa farmsteads had been occupied. Many of the unoccupied ones had collapsed under the weight of the ash and snow, but very few had burned. Now all of them were abandoned and more than half had burned. Often all that marked a former farm was a grain silo and some charred rubble. Where had all the people gone?
    A faint stench of charcoal, melted plastic, and sulfur followed us along the road. The burnt-out buildings made the countryside seem more desolate. The only break in the solitude came late that morning. We heard an engine in the distance and rushed to the side of the road, thinking we’d hide. But the noise faded, and we never saw the vehicle that made it.
    Iowa had been a vibrant place just ten months ago. Even on the back roads, you could always see signs of civilization, of people. Now . . . nothing. What kind of life could Darla and I hope for in this desolation? I took her hand and held it for a while as we walked.
    I was hungry despite the half-pan of boiled wheat I’d eaten that morning. The hunger made us tired. Our steps slowed as the day wore on, and we barely talked.
    About an hour before nightfall, we passed a whole series of burnt houses. All that remained were a few scarred and blackened brick walls and chimneys. We trudged up a slight rise. At the top perched a dark-blue, cylindrical water tower overlooking the town. C ASCADE , it read in huge white block letters. Below the town’s name, someone had spray-painted a crude drawing of a woodpecker in garish red and neon blue. The woodpecker stood on its hind feet, wings thrust into the air some twenty feet above his head. Fat red boxing gloves capped each of the woodpecker’s upraised wings.
    “Excellent,” Darla said. “Cascade is only ten miles from Worthington. But what is that drawing on the water tower?”
    “Woody Woodpecker,” I said.
    “Woody what?”
    “You know. The cartoon.” I tried to make the Woody Woodpecker sound, but it didn’t come out too well.
    She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
    “You’ve never heard of Woody Woodpecker?” I asked.
    “No.”
    “Country people.” I shook my head in mock seriousness. “They lack cultural awareness.”
    Darla slugged my shoulder. “Well, if that’s a woodpecker, it’s got a huge evolutionary advantage.”
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s so ugly, trees will die at the sight of it.”
    “Yeah, it is ugly. I wonder why someone bothered painting it up there. Must have taken a lot of spray paint to make it that big.”
    As we got closer, we could see beyond the water tower. There was an open snowfield boxed in by two small apartment buildings and a massive metal shed. The shed’s sliding door was open, and we could see a fire flickering within.
    “I think I see people moving by that fire,” Darla whispered.
    “Check it out?” I asked. “See if they look friendly?”
    “Yeah. But stay hidden ’til we’re sure.”
    We crept closer, keeping below the level of the wall of plowed snow that lined the road. Once we were within a few hundred feet, Darla and I slowly raised our heads.
    Inside the shed, four men clustered around a small, bright-yellow machine. They were big guys, heavily muscled and tattooed. They looked like they’d been eating well. Three women sat by the fire. Two of them had their backs to us. They were working on something in their laps. The other woman was hunched over the fire, cooking.
    “What’s that machine they’re working on?” I whispered. “A jet ski?”
    Darla shook her head. “A jet ski? What would they do with that? It’s a snowmobile,” she hissed.
    One of the women stood up. She carried a crude mortar and pestle. She dumped ground meal out of her mortar into a paper bag and scooped something from a feed sack. Behind her, I saw something roasting on a spit over the fire: a leg.

Chapter 26
    “Is that . . .?” I asked.
    “It’s too thin to be a cow’s leg,” Darla whispered. “Too long to be a pig’s.”
    “Let’s get out of here.”
    “We need to find a place to spend the night.”
    “Not in this town.”
    Darla