Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

depend on each other, to fight together for survival. About the times I’d saved her life. The times she’d saved mine. A year ago, death meant I’d have to get my armor repaired in World of Warcraft . Now it was an all-too-real shadow lurking behind the veneer of my daily life. I still wasn’t entirely sure how I’d survived. My parents didn’t interrupt much, but it still took hours to tell the whole story. I finished by telling them about Alyssa and explaining Ben’s autism, which they seemed to take in stride.
    “Ten months.” Dad had clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “It seems like a miracle that you survived all that.”
    “I wouldn’t have without Darla. I’m going to find her. Even if I get killed trying.” I held his eye, making an effort not to blink.
    Dad stared steadily back at me. His eyes were hollow, dark and gaunt, as if the father I’d known had been replaced by a shadowed replica chiseled from the same stone. “It’s going to be hard just to get out of here. We’ve been here, what, four-and-a-half months?”
    “Almost five,” Mom said.
    “Why haven’t you left? Rebecca and I didn’t know if you were even still alive.” I ground my teeth—at Black Lake, at the volcano, at my parents. They clearly weren’t getting enough to eat. Mostly I was angry at myself—why hadn’t I come sooner?
    “You didn’t notice the fence? And guys with guns?” Mom said.
    “We did try,” Dad said. “Twice. Right after we got here. We got caught. Thrown into a punishment hut. I thought they’d let us starve to death in there, but Lester bugged the guards so much that they almost threw him into a hut of his own.”
    “Lester got us released,” Mom said. “He’s very persistent—and a little crazy.”
    “I noticed,” I said.
    “Four days without food and water when you’re already weak is no picnic,” Dad said. “I wasn’t sure we’d survive much longer. So we didn’t try again.”
    “We can’t leave now,” Mom said.
    “Why not?” I asked.
    “The girls need us. People started disappearing a few months ago. Not long after I organized the school. Mostly young girls. Every three or four days, we’d get up in the morning and discover more people missing. Whole families sometimes. Sometimes just the girls. I had to do something.”
    “Your mother created a camp organization, civil defense, I guess. They call her The Principal. Talked me into helping.”
    “People are still disappearing,” Mom said. “But not as many as before. And we keep the girls safe.”
    “And the guards tolerate it? Your civil defense organization, I mean?”
    “We’re not sure why. Maybe there’re two factions of guards. One taking girls, and one supposedly in charge. We keep a low profile, but they have to know what’s going on.”
    It all fit. Alyssa being kept as a slave. Darla kept alive, instead of being flensed. The girls disappearing from the camp. I balled my left hand into a fist and punched the floor of the tent, getting nothing but bruised knuckles for the effort. I wanted to punch flesh, feel bones crack under my hands—preferably the bones of whoever was responsible for this whole cursed-to-ash situation. “I’ve got to go after Darla.”
    “I can’t leave,” Mom said. “These girls are depending on me.”
    “We patrol at night and guard the cleared zone around the girls’ tents,” Dad said. “But we can’t watch the whole camp.”
    “Who’s we?” I asked.
    “The prefects,” Dad said. “That was your Mom’s idea.”
    “And I convinced him to be Head Boy,” Mom said.
    Dad sighed heavily. “You’re the only one who calls me that, Janice.”
    “You’ll always be my head boy,” Mom said with a coquettish smile.
    Dad leaned over and smooched her.
    “Um, gross. I’m thrilled to see you and all, but I do not want to watch you make out,” I said. “Who’s taking the girls?”
    Dad broke their kiss. “We don’t know.”
    “It’s got to be the guards,” Mom said.
    “Probably. It’s time for dinner, I think.” Dad pushed himself up into a crouch and shuffled toward the tent flap. Mom got five worn Styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons from a stack in the corner of the tent.
    “They feed you much?” I followed them out.
    “Just enough food to keep us alive, not enough to give us the energy to fight.” Dad kicked a clump of snow.
    “They’ve passed out vitamin pills three times since we’ve been here,” Mom said.
    I shrugged.
    We walked