Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

find a town burned out and looted by the Peckerwoods.
    The truck was handling badly, pulling to the left. Or maybe I was doing it, trying to drive one-handed. I wasn’t much of a driver even when both my arms worked. The pull got steadily worse. The truck started listing to the left and making a rhythmic whap-whap-whap sound.
    “Something’s wrong,” I said. “I’ve got to stop.”
    “Okay.” Alyssa didn’t even look at me. “Does it hurt anywhere else?” she asked Ben.
    “Ankle,” he said.
    “How did you hurt your ankle?”
    “It got twisted in the straps of the backpack when we crashed,” Ben said.
    “I need to check it for you.” Alyssa ducked down into the passenger-side footwell.
    I let the truck coast to a stop and got out.
    The front left wheel well was crushed. Its edge had carved a deep groove in the tire, shredding it. Now it looked like the whole tread might fall off.
    The spare was obvious—it was attached horizontally just behind the driver’s door. I’d clung to a spare tire on a deuce like this one during my wild ride from Cascade to Anamosa. What I didn’t see was a jack.
    I’d never changed a tire before, but I’d watched my mom do it once. She’d gotten a little plastic case that held the jack out from under the spare. I looked all around the spare, even wormed under the truck on my back, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a jack. I went to look in the cab.
    Ben was stretched out on the bench seat. Alyssa bent over his left ankle.
    “How is he?” I asked.
    “His ankle is hurt. It’s swelling. I’m afraid if I take his boot off he won’t be able to get it back on.”
    “Don’t then. We might have to walk. And we’re still way too close to the wreck.”
    “I don’t know if he can walk.”
    “Wrap his ankle and foot in an Ace bandage. Over the boot. Try to immobilize it.”
    “Okay.”
    “Ben, do you know how to change the tire on this thing?”
    “Which thing does Alex mean?”
    “The truck we’re sitting in.”
    “Yes. The operator must loosen each lug nut from the damaged wheel but not remove them. Then the operator must use the hydraulic jack to raise—”
    “That’s what I want to know. Where’s the jack?”
    “In the toolbox.”
    “Where’s that?”
    Ben swung his legs off the seat and started to slide out of the truck. Both Alyssa and I protested, telling him not to move, but neither of us was in position to stop him. When his feet hit the road, he screamed and crumpled to the ice.
    I ran around the cab, ignoring the pain of my bruised right leg, but by the time I got there, Alyssa was already helping him up. Or rather, he was helping himself up, using Alyssa’s shoulder for support. She barely touched him.
    “Ben’s ankle is not functioning properly,” he said.
    “No, it’s not,” Alyssa replied. “Lie down on the seat, and I’ll wrap it up for you.”
    “Where’s the toolbox?” I asked.
    “Under the operator’s door,” Ben replied as Alyssa helped him back into the cab.
    I went around to the driver’s side. There was a metal compartment that I hadn’t noticed before between the running board and the door. I twisted the handle and opened the toolbox. It was freaking empty.

Chapter 54
    “There’s no jack,” I told Alyssa. “We have to walk.”
    “Ben can’t walk,” she whispered.
    I’d sort of known that already. But we had to get away from here somehow. Maybe I could rig some kind of stretcher using the frame from my backpack and drag Ben along. But he was a big guy.
    The engine was still running. I’d seen people driving along the shoulder of the interstate on flat tires before. They never went very fast, and Mom said it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t remember why. Whatever—if it worked at all it would beat trying to drag a gigantic teenager down the road.
    The passenger door was still open. Alyssa and Ben were busy wrapping his leg, so I limped around the cab and slammed their door myself.
    I only stalled the truck once getting it in gear. It would move on a flat tire, but not fast. The speedometer never passed ten miles per hour. Still, it was far better time than we would have made walking.
    I had to fight to keep the steering wheel straight, which was tiring using only one hand. The truck moved like it wanted to crash into the left-hand snow berm. After a while, keeping it on the road became a real test of my endurance and willpower.
    At the first intersection, I turned right. I wanted to put several