Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

fast.

Chapter 51
    “There’s a truck behind us!” I yelled.
    “I told you about the truck,” Ben said.
    “Is it the Peckerwoods?” Alyssa asked, craning her neck.
    “Who else could it be?” I said.
    “You should have killed Clevis.”
    She was probably right. I just grunted. The truck was whining loudly—I had crushed the pedal to the floor, but we weren’t going very fast. I pushed in the clutch and tried to shift to third. My hands shook from the adrenaline, and I wasn’t used to the shifter. I stalled the truck.
    “What’d you do that for?” Alyssa yelled.
    “I was trying to go faster!” I said, frantically groping at the starter button. Ben started a monotone moan. He was curled over, hugging his knees and rocking gently back and forth.
    Just as I got the truck restarted, there was a colossal crash as our pursuers rammed us. I was thrown against the wheel. The truck lurched forward, and at the same moment I threw it into gear and jammed my foot down on the accelerator.
    Alyssa started screaming, a high-pitched screech that was in no way helpful to our predicament. Ben’s moan grew in volume until they were making a cacophonous tenor/soprano duet.
    I glanced in the mirror just in time to brace myself as the deuce slammed into our rear end again. Instead of falling back to ram us again, they started to come around. I swerved, temporarily blocking them. But I couldn’t block them forever, and I couldn’t outrun them—I wasn’t a good enough driver. They were like a cat playing with a particularly inept mouse. Unless something changed, things didn’t look good for the mouse.
    “Give me the shotgun!” I shouted.
    Alyssa kept screaming, her hands up around her ears.
    I couldn’t see the truck in my mirrors, and the passenger-side mirror wasn’t adjusted right. I figured it must be on our right. I cranked the wheel over hard and heard a satisfying crunch. But seconds later, they reappeared in my left-hand mirror, still coming on strong.
    “Give me the shotgun!” I repeated. Alyssa didn’t respond.
    In desperation, I reached out and slapped her, hoping to shock her out of her hysteria. It was an awkward, backhanded slap since she was sitting right next to me and my right arm was stiff from the crash. I’d never laid a hand on a girl before—then again, I’d never been in a race to escape cannibals before, either.
    The truck was almost alongside us now. “Shotgun!” I yelled.
    Alyssa reached into the passenger footwell, pulled the shotgun out from under Ben’s feet, and passed it to me. My hand had left a pink imprint on her cheek.
    “Take the wheel!” I shouted. Alyssa gave me a blank look, so I grabbed her left hand and put it on the wheel. I flicked off the shotgun’s safety and twisted to aim out my open window.
    I was too short. My foot came off the gas pedal and our truck slowed. I squeezed the trigger as the Peckerwoods’ truck rocketed past us. The shotgun boomed, kicking me backward, completely missing the tire I’d been aiming at. On the plus side, the guy shooting his pistol at me from the other truck missed just as badly.
    My shoulder burned like it had been kicked by a billy goat. I could barely move my right arm. We were rolling ever slower, and the Peckerwoods’ truck was at least one hundred feet ahead of us. I transferred the shotgun to my left shoulder, holding it awkwardly, and leaned out the window. Would a shotgun even work at this range? I wasn’t sure. I lined it up on the back of the truck and squeezed the trigger left-handed.
    The kick knocked the shotgun right out of my hand. It clanged against the running board and fell to the icy road. I swiveled my head just in time to see it disappear behind us.
    “Crap!” I yelled. The Peckerwoods’ truck had come to a halt ahead of us. They were turning around, but the space between the snow berms was far too narrow for a U-turn. Instead, they’d started a laborious three- or four-point turn.
    Instantly I knew what to do. I dropped back into the driver’s seat and mashed the gas pedal under my boot. “Brace yourselves!” I yelled as I took the wheel from Alyssa.
    I lined us up on the center of the Peckerwoods’ truck, not that we could miss—they almost filled the road. It looked like I might be able to broadside them perfectly as they worked through their turn. It was just like a physics problem I’d had in high school—when two objects collide, the one going slower absorbs most of the acceleration