Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

more than two guards to deal with. I could try crawling onto the roof of the cab. There were two antennae that would make decent handholds—if I could make it to them without sliding off. And even if I did make it, then what? Try to kick in the windshield?
    Maybe I could throw something from my pack. I had the extra ammunition from my lost guns. Could I get it to fire by heating it or something? Make the guards think they were being shot at? Would that make them stop or drive faster? Perhaps I could soak my extra T-shirt in lamp oil, tie it around a fistful of bullets, and light it?
    Lamp oil. That was it! The primitive oil was thick, completely opaque. I inched back to the slit in the canvas.
    “Darla!” I yelled. “Can you give me a hand?”
    No response. Maybe she couldn’t hear me over the continued screams of the man-child with her.
    I twisted my arms out of the straps of my backpack and unbuckled the hip belt. I took a firm grip on one of the straps and rolled over onto my back.
    The truck bounced, and my heart lurched—for a moment I thought I was going to be bucked off. When my heart slowed a little, I scooted back, dragging my pack with me until I could jam one leg through the slit in the canvas roof. I got my leg in up to the knee and wedged my other foot against the curved rib supporting the canvas roof.
    I slowly sat up. The wind ripped at my back, gusting so hard it lifted my butt off the roof now and then. I dragged my backpack onto my lap, where it was protected from the lash of the wind, and rummaged through it for the supplies I needed.
    I had emptied more than half a dozen water bottles of various sizes in the two days since I’d left Worthington. The first bottles I found all had regular plastic caps. I pushed those aside, digging deeper. One of the empties got pushed out of the top of my pack, where the wind caught it. I grabbed for it, but the wind whipped it away—it spun drunkenly in the airy backwash of the truck and was gone.
    Finally I found what I wanted: an Aquafina bottle with a sports cap—the kind you pop open with your teeth, squeezing liquid into your mouth. I unscrewed the cap and shoved it into my pocket, safe from the tearing wind.
    The bottle of oil was all the way at the bottom of my pack, of course. I hadn’t used my lamp or lamp oil in days—the risk of someone seeing the light had been too great. I finally dug it out; it was a plastic half-gallon bottle that had probably once held milk. The oil inside was polluted and black. Perfect.
    I unscrewed the cap from the jug of oil and stowed that in another pocket. Then I lifted the jug and tried to pour oil into the Aquafina bottle. The truck jostled and my hands slipped. Oil went everywhere, coating my gloves. The wind whipped the oil away from my face, but it splattered all over my legs, backpack, and the roof of the truck.
    I jammed the Aquafina bottle between my legs and cupped one hand around its neck. I upended the jug, using my hand to form a pipe connecting the two bottles. Oil splashed out, running through my hand, but some of it was flowing into the bottle. By the time I finished, more than half the oil was gone, and my glove and crotch were soaked, but I had a full squeeze-bottle of oil.
    My left glove was slick. I wiped it off as best I could on the leg of my coverall, reaching below the knee to find a patch of cloth not already soaked in oil. I capped the bottle and the jug and stowed the half-empty jug in my backpack. Putting a backpack on while racing along in a fifty-plus mile-per-hour wind wasn’t particularly easy, but I got it done. Clutching the squeeze bottle, I crawled back to the front of the truck.
    The truck was approaching a broad S-curve in the highway. A farmstead was nestled on the inside of the curve—I could see two large concrete silos protruding above the massive snow berm that lined the road. It seemed like as good a place as any to try my crazy plan.
    I clamped my left hand around the last bow supporting the front of the canvas roof, holding on in a death grip. The top of the bottle resisted my attempt to open it with one oily glove, so I pulled it open with my teeth, wincing at the acrid chemical taste. I thrust my right arm forward and squeezed on the bottle, aiming for the windshield.
    A thin stream of oil flowed out about two feet, was caught by the wind, and flung back into my face. I ducked and squeezed my eyes shut, sputtering, and almost dropped the sports bottle. I rubbed my