Mike Mullin - Ashen Winter

“Oh-uh?” He sounded like a mooing cow.

“Down!” I repeated.

He turned toward me slowly. I pressed the pistol harder against his head, but he kept turning, so that by the time he could look at me, my pistol was against his right temple rather than the back of his head. “Who are you?”

“Nobody! Now get down, or I’ll shoot you.”

“Oh. You’re a bad guy.”

I had to stifle a panicky laugh. I was holding a gun on a cannibal named Brick, standing in a room full of frozen human flesh, and I was the bad guy? “On. The. Floor.”

“You won’t shoot me.”

“I will.”

“You won’t.”

“What? Do you want me to shoot you?” It was like arguing with a two-year-old.

“No. But if you shoot, my brothers will hear it.”

The apartment building was about one hundred yards off. A pistol shot might not wake them. But if they had posted guards. .

Brick started turning again, slowly reaching for the gun in my right hand. I quickly sidestepped to stay behind him and snapped a front kick toward him.

My kick connected perfectly, catching him right between his legs. The hours of farm work, pedaling Bikezilla, and skiing had paid off-my kick was so powerful it lifted him onto his toes. Then he crumpled, collapsing and clutching his crotch.

When he could breathe again, he moaned, a sound that started as a low, monotonic “Oooh” and grew into a high-pitched screetch: “Eeee!” I quickly shrugged out of my pack and grabbed the first thing that came to hand from the top-a dirty T-shirt. I tied the T-shirt around Brick’s head, forcing it between his teeth to muffle him. Then I cut a hank of rope from my coil and used it to tie his hands behind his back. He didn’t resist at all-just rocked back and forth on his knees, moaning through the gag.

“Get up,” I said.

“Uh-uh,” he moaned, shaking his head.

I moved around to his front and cocked my leg behind me. Which was sort of silly-no martial artist would telegraph their moves like that-but I figured it might scare him. “If you don’t get up, I’m going to kick you again.”

He moaned and struggled to his feet.

I retrieved my gloves, safetied the pistol, and put my pack back on. “Come on,” I said. I led him out of the meat locker into the main part of the shed and shut the door behind us, sliding the broken ratchet back into place. Closing the door on that grisly morgue brought a sigh of relief to my lips. I hoped I’d never have to open it again.

Threatening him with further violations to his family jewels, I forced Brick to hide with me behind the dilapidated minivan. Then I made him sit down so I could tie his ankles together.

“I’m going to take my T-shirt out of your mouth.” I lifted my foot, letting it hover over his groin. “You know what happens if you yell, right?”

He nodded. His gaze was affixed on my foot. I knelt beside him and untied the T-shirt. He’d drooled all over it. I tossed it aside-no way was I going to put that thing back in my pack.

“Listen up,” I said. “Darla. . the girl you caught-is she in there?” I gestured toward the meat locker.

“Girl?”

“Yeah, a little shorter than me, long dark hair, cute?”

Brick shook his head.

“She was shot. She fell on one of your trucks.”

“Sky Girl?”

“Sky Girl?” I repeated, confused.

“She fell out of the sky. Whumped on the roof of the cage. Made Brick jump.”

“Cage?”

“The truck.”

“Yes, that’s right. Sky Girl.” I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to ask the next question. But I had to know. “Is she alive?”

“I dunno.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Was she alive when you found her? Did you kill her?” I balled my fists and lifted my elbow, thinking about smashing his nose.

“She wasn’t hurt too bad. Ace said she was a hardbelly. Hot enough to trade.”

“Trade? Where is she?”

“Ace took her. To trade for bullets.”

“Took her where? When?”

“To Danny. Yesterday.”

“Who’s Danny? Where did he take her?” I had to stifle the urge to yell.

“He’s the Big Willy. At Grandma’s.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“Danny’s boss of all the Peckerwoods in Iowa. At the big house in Anamosa-Grandma’s. Ace went to see him yesterday.”

“And he traded Darla to Danny? At Anamosa?”

“That’s what I just told you. He ain’t back yet.” Brick had an expression on his face like he thought I was stupid for even asking. “You gonna eat me?”

“How far is it to Anamosa from here?”

“’Bout an hour in the cage. Maybe two on a sled.”

“Sled?”

“Yeah, sled. . snowmobile, you know.”

I thought about the row of snowmobiles parked at the far side of the shed. They’d be perfect for traveling: I could stay off the roads and go cross-country, which would probably be a lot safer. An hour by truck might be forty or fifty miles, two or three days on foot-maybe longer. Darla might not have that long. I had to steal a snowmobile. The only problem was how would I find Anamosa? I vaguely remembered it was somewhere southeast of Cedar Falls.

I stepped around the minivan to the closest snowmobile. I’d never driven one before or even ridden on one. The steering seemed obvious-it had handlebars like a bicycle’s. I found the ignition, but its key was nowhere in sight.

I went back to the corner where I’d left Brick. “Where are the keys to the snowmobiles?”

“Anybody’s got their own sled, they keep the key. Posers ain’t allowed to touch the sleds or the keys.”

“Where’s your key?”

“I just told you, posers ain’t allowed to touch the keys.”

“What’s a poser?”

“Guy who ain’t got a sled.”

“Like you.”

He glared. “Yeah.”

Great. How was I going to get a key? I started searching Brick’s pockets.

“What you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for a key.”

“I already told you, I ain’t got a sled.”

“Whatever.”

“You going to let me go?”

“Not right now.”

“Let me go!” Brick was yelling now. I grabbed my T-shirt from the ground and gagged him again.

I searched his pockets, finding a billfold with a bunch of worn photos of guys on motorcycles, a handful of heads for socket wrenches, and a rock with eyes and a mouth painted on it.

I kept searching, starting with the minivan. It was hard to see-the fire had almost burnt out. I went back to the front of the shed and peeked out the door-everything outside was dark and still. There was a small pile of wood near the fire, so I threw two logs on. As it flared back to life, I saw a bundle of crude torches beside Brick’s filthy sleeping bag.

I lit a torch and resumed my search. Besides the keys, I needed a map-or some way to figure out how to get from Cascade, where I was, to Anamosa, where they’d sent Darla.

A quick pass through the maintenance shed didn’t reveal anything useful, so I settled in for a serious search. I probably spent a half hour just on the minivan. I searched the glove compartment, under the hood, under the seats, in the compartment where the spare tire used to be, inside all the cup holders-everywhere I could think of. I found three water-stained salt packets, a fossilized French fry, and an old maintenance log.

I moved on, searching each of the five snowmobiles, the pickup truck, and the tool bench. My torch burned down, and I had to swap it for a new one. It seemed like I’d been searching for hours.

The only place I hadn’t looked was the meat locker. It didn’t seem a likely place to hide anything. And I would have preferred a hatchet wound in my side to spending more time in that horrific abattoir. But I had little choice. I turned toward it, torch in hand.