Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

Darla slid both guns and my staff under the ropes on top of the load so we could get at them in a hurry if we needed to.
    Then we said our goodbyes. I hugged everyone in turn—my aunt, uncle, and sister. I’d said goodbye to my cousins Max and Anna earlier. Max was still too woozy to get up, and Anna was keeping an eye on him.
    By this time, I was itching to get moving. I straddled the bike’s back seat. I figured Darla should be in front, because she’d be better at spotting the trail than I would. Plus the view was better from the back seat of Bikezilla. Not that there was much to look at—Darla was wearing heavy winter coveralls, and her luscious dark hair was wrapped in hats and scarves. But still.
    The biggest problem with Bikezilla was getting it started. Darla and I had to stand on the pedals, straining against our handlebars, just to get it inching forward. Once we got it going, though, we sailed across the snow.
    I glanced back. My family had receded to tiny figures, indistinguishable from each other. They were already dispersing to start their morning chores. The land around us was low, rolling hills suffocated under the never-ending burden of ash and snow. Occasionally the sad remnant of a tree protruded from the snow, its branches broken and leafless.
    Darla clicked into a higher gear and we sat down, settling into a ground-eating pace. My side hurt, but I ignored the pain as best I could, and soon it dwindled to a numb ache.
    I thought we’d have to move slowly to track the bandits, but if anything, Darla was speeding up. I craned my neck to peer around her and figured out why. The bandits had left a trail of trampled snow heading roughly south across the fields. Every thirty or forty feet, a few drops of blood stained the snow—easy to see against the nearly featureless white expanse.
    We raced along the trail for a half hour or so before it intersected a twelve-foot-high snowbank that ran north and south as far as I could see. Darla stopped Bikezilla beside it. Deep leg holes had been punched into the snow. Our two bandits had struggled across the bank directly in front of us. One of them had been leaking blood, staining the snow pink. I stood on the pedals, trying to get enough height to see over the berm. “Can’t see over. Scout it on foot?”
    “Yeah, guess so.”
    We dismounted Bikezilla and clambered over the snow berm.
    On the other side there was a road, plowed but not salted. A fine dusting of snow blew over the icy surface the plow had left. It looked little-used, which wasn’t surprising: Nobody but FEMA had much gas anymore. Keeping the roads clear was about the only useful thing FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was doing—they were often more of a danger than a help to survivors.
    “Well, they didn’t cross here,” Darla said as she inspected the far side of the road.
    Between the packed surface and blowing snow, no footprints were visible anymore. Figuring they’d probably keep going in the same general direction, I wandered south. About 50 feet down the road, a drop of blood stained the snow. I turned and discovered that Darla had been following me.
    “They’re heading south, away from Warren. How are we going to get Bikezilla across that mountain of snow?” I asked as we walked back to the bike.
    “Get up some speed and jump it, maybe?”
    “Jump it?” It sounded more like a formula for a wreck than a plan.
    “Yeah, sure. Didn’t you ever watch snowmobile races on TV?
    “Um, no.”
    “You’re weird. Snowmobile races are the best. Were, anyway.” Her voice sounded uncharacteristically nostalgic.
    “If you say so.” I climbed onto Bikezilla’s back seat.
    We strained to get the bike moving, and Darla steered us in a wide arc until we were lined up perpendicular to the snowbank. She shifted into a higher gear and stood up on the pedals. I stood, too, pounding my legs down, trying to put on as much speed as possible. As we flew up to the berm, Darla yelled, “Hold on!”
    Bikezilla tilted backward and my stomach lurched as the front ski started to climb. Then it caught in a nearly vertical wall of snow, and the back end of the bike kicked up, throwing me over the handlebars and into Darla. We face-planted into the embankment in a jumble of arms and legs.

Chapter 5
    Bikezilla fell sideways behind us and slid partway back down the slope. I lifted my head out of the snow and grabbed Darla’s arm. “You okay?”
    She looked dazed for a moment.