Mike Mullin - Ashfall

Darla turned away from the woods, cutting across the field. At the far side, we stumbled onto a berm of snow. After we’d struggled across it, we found a gift: there was the road. It was a two-lane county road, but someone had plowed it to a solid layer of packed snow.

“Which way?” Darla asked.

“I don’t know. We’ve got to find Stagecoach Trail. It runs mostly east-west.”

“Okay, so I think we were going north, or maybe east. If we were going north, then this is an east-west road, and it might be Stagecoach Trail, so we should turn right.”

“I don’t think it’s big enough.”

“If we were going east, then we should turn left, and we’ll run into Stagecoach Trail.”

“And what if we were going south or west?”

“Then we’re screwed. So which way do you want to turn?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know this area. You do. You have to decide.”

“Left,” I said, just because I was tired of talking about it.

We plodded along the road, walking next to the snow berm on the left. It was much easier-we were probably going three or four times faster than we had been through the snow. Despite the faster pace, I could almost keep up.

“If we hear a car or see headlights, dive over the snow berm and hide,” Darla said.

“They’ll see our tracks.”

“Maybe not-it’s dark, and hopefully they’ll be moving fast.”

I grunted.

We hadn’t been walking long when we came to an intersection. The road we’d been following teed into a highway. A road sign poked out of the snow on the far side of the intersection, but it was so dark we had to walk right up to it to read it: W. Heller Lane and Stagecoach Trail.

“Good call on the left turn back there,” Darla said with a smile I could barely make out in the darkness.

“Lucky, for once.”

We turned right on Stagecoach Trail. Maybe it had started as a trail years ago, but now it was a plowed highway. We followed the same strategy, walking on the left side of the highway along the berm, ready to dive over it if we heard anything coming.

The road was deserted all night. I dragged my feet along in a fugue state, not thinking anything, trying not to feel anything: right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.

Not long after dawn we passed over a bridge. A sign that barely protruded from the snow berm read: West Fork Apple River. I told Darla we were close, although I couldn’t remember exactly how much farther we had to go.

An hour or so later I woke to Darla shaking my shoulder. “Get up. Get up!” I looked around woozily-I was lying in the road. “Goddamn it, Alex, get up and walk!”

“What happened?”

“I looked behind me, and you were fifty feet back, taking a nap.”

“Sorry.” I struggled to my knees. Darla knelt beside me and tucked her head under my arm. Leaning on her, I found I could stand. After that, we hobbled down the road with my arm over her shoulders.

Sometime later, we heard the noise of an engine approaching behind us. Darla dragged me toward the berm. We were still trying to thrash our way over the snow pile when a car whizzed past.

The next time we heard a car engine, we didn’t even bother trying to hide. There was no sign of Black Lake; if we were lucky, they were busy chasing refugees closer to the camp.

I found I could close my eyes and keep moving, stealing a sleepwalking nap with my arm draped across Darla’s shoulders.

Ages later, I woke from one of those semiconscious snoozes. “Alex, hey, you in there?” Darla asked. “We’re close, check it out.” I cracked open my eyes and looked around. There was a graveyard on the left side of the road, with a sign: Elmwood Cemetery. I could see the buildings of Warren ahead.

“Canyon Park,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“Think we went too far. Supposed to turn south on Canyon Park Road.”

“We passed that an hour ago. I think you sleepwalked through it.”

“Ugh. Turn around. Sorry.” I was too tired even to feel upset with myself over the extra hour of walking.

Darla must have felt the same way, because she didn’t say anything. She just wheeled us around, and we crossed the road, walking on the other side back in the direction we’d come. I fought to stay awake, to spot the turnoff we’d missed. “Left here,” I said. “It’s close. Less than five minutes in a car.”

Canyon Park Road was plowed, which surprised me. I remembered it as a little-used dirt road. The prospect of ending my journey brought out some hidden reserve of energy within me. I leaned less on Darla and picked up the pace some. My mother, father, and sister might be only a few hundred yards down this remote lane.

We’d walked about a half-hour when I saw the front of my uncle’s long driveway. It wasn’t plowed, but someone had shoveled a path in the snow. The light wasn’t bad; it was early afternoon, so when we got closer I could make out his house at the end of the driveway. The barn and duck coop were still standing, and there were two other structures, long half-cylinders constructed of wood and plastic sheeting. Greenhouses, I remembered. Darla and I turned up the driveway, walking in the shoveled path.

We’d traversed maybe half the driveway when we heard a faint noise from inside the house. A drape was thrown open, and I saw my uncle looking through the window, holding a long gun against his chest. Then I heard a high-pitched shout. The front door was flung open, and my sister tore down the driveway toward us.

“Alex! Alex!” she screamed. She ran pell-mell into my arms, knocking me backward into the snow. “You’re alive! You’re alive-”

“Good to see you, too, Sis.” I didn’t know if she was laughing or crying or some mixture of the two. I wanted to do both, but I couldn’t summon the energy. So I just hugged her close and looked over her shoulder.

Uncle Paul, Aunt Caroline, and my cousins, Max and Anna, were all standing around us now. Everyone looked thinner and older than I remembered. I scanned the faces again, looking for my parents.

“Where’s Mom and Dad?” I said.

My sister’s laughter ended abruptly. She didn’t reply.

“Where’s Mom, Rebecca?”

“They’re…”

“They’re what?”

“They’re gone, Alex. They’re both gone.”

I woke in a bed, confused. It was sublimely soft, made up with old cotton sheets conditioned by hundreds of washings to near-perfect comfort. A heavy bedspread lay over the top. Despite my uncertainty about how I’d gotten there, I felt warm and safe for the first time since I’d left Cedar Falls.

Darla was slumped in a chair beside the bed, napping. Her head was completely bald.

“Darla…” I said. “You awake?” The question didn’t really make sense. She was asleep-I was trying to wake her.

“Uh?”

“You in there?”

“Yeah.” She stretched her arms and yawned. “You scared me. Just folded up right there in the snow.” “I don’t remember.”

“I don’t know if it was starvation, exhaustion, or what, but you passed out. How are you feeling?”

“Okay. Hungry and thirsty. Sore. How long have I been out?”

“I dunno. Not sure how long I’ve been asleep.” Darla walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside. “It’s getting dark. Guess we’ve been asleep all afternoon.”

“What happened to your hair?”

“Bald is beautiful, huh?” Her tone of voice didn’t suggest she found it particularly beautiful.

I shrugged.

“Well, you look pretty odd without your hair, too.”

I touched my head. Sure enough, my hair had all been shaved off. “What? Why?”

“Lice. We were lousy with them, ha ha.” She didn’t sound the least bit amused. “They don’t have any pesticide shampoo, so…”