Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

scout on the overpass ducked below the snow berm. “Damn, you missed him,” Earl said.
    “What are we going to do about Darla?” I said.
    “We should bandage your arm,” Earl replied.
    “Hell with my arm!” I yelled. “How are we going to get Darla back?”
    “You aren’t any use to her at all if you bleed out,” Earl replied mildly.
    One of the other guys in the pickup bed turned toward us. He had a pair of binoculars dangling from his neck. “Earl, snowmobile to our west. About a half mile.”
    “They’re flanking us!” Earl yelled. “Pull out! Back to Worthington.”
    Earl pulled me toward the truck. I whipped my left through his arms and spun, using my forearm like a crowbar to wrench myself free. The guy who’d grabbed me the first time was standing behind me now, trying to nab me again. I kicked his legs out from under him and turned back toward the overpass in time to see Earl’s fist just before it crashed into my temple. Everything went black.

Chapter 29
    I saw Darla’s face, hair streaming past, as she fell away from me. But now she was falling upward, into the yellow-gray post-volcanic sky. I reached for her, but she faded, and my hand passed through her insubstantial form, stirring it like smoke until it dissipated.
    The ground under me bucked and my shoulder blade hit it hard enough to bruise. I realized I was on my back in the pickup as it raced along the road.
    I sat up far too fast. Pain and nausea mounted a twin assault on my head and stomach. I twisted and vomited bile onto the wooden floorboards of the truck bed.
    “Y’okay?” Earl laid his hand against my back.
    “No.” I shoved myself onto my feet, ignoring the protestations of my head and stomach.
    I stumbled, and Earl grabbed my left arm, holding me up. “Worthington’s a bit different from when you were here before,” he said.
    I held onto the back of the cab for support and looked around. A gleaming wall stretched away from the road, curving out of sight in both directions. It was a solid, vertical wall of ice about sixteen feet high. A heavy wooden gate had been built across the road. Three guards struggled with each half of the gate, wrenching it open so the trucks could pass through.
    “Impressive, ain’t it?” Earl said.
    “Yeah.” It was amazing. I might have been awestruck if Darla had been there to see it with me.
    “We built it with two bulldozers and a sprayer truck. Bulldozed huge piles of snow, carved a vertical face, and then sprayed it down with water to freeze it solid.”
    I grunted.
    “Keeps us safe, anyway. And it’ll last exactly as long as we need it—’til this cussed winter is over.”
    “I gotta get going.” I took a step toward the back of the truck, wobbled, and would have fallen except for Earl’s grip on my arm.
    “You need to get that arm patched up,” Earl said.
    I glanced at it—he’d tied a rag around my right bicep. It was already blood-soaked. “I don’t care. I’m going back to the bridge.” I tried to twist free, but Earl held on.
    “There’s some hard facts to this situation,” Earl said, talking in a low voice directly into my ear. “You said Darla got shot. That might have killed her. If that didn’t kill her, they might have flensed her by now. Easier to carry meat than a person.”
    That couldn’t be true. Darla was alive. She had to be. “Let go!” I shouted. I threw a punch at him, but my right arm was weak. He caught it and wrapped me in a bear hug.
    “Don’t make me hit you again, son. Hurt my dang knuckles. You come into town, get patched up. If the mayor gives the say-so, I’ll take you back to the bridge and help you look for Darla.”
    We pulled through the gate and the guards strained to close it behind us. As it crashed shut, Earl released me. On the inside, the wall was just an enormous pile of packed snow. Steps had been carved into it here and there so defenders against a siege could easily reach the makeshift battlement at the top.
    The pickups rolled slowly through town. Nobody was outside, but that wasn’t surprising; it was too cold to be outdoors without a good reason. We pulled up at the low metal building that housed the library, city hall, and fire station—the same building where Darla and I had met the town’s librarian, Rita Mae, the year before. The fire truck that had been stuck outside was gone. Other than that and the deep snow, it looked about the same.
    “C’mon,” Earl said. It was an order, not a