Mike Mullin - Ashen Winter

A woman’s gravelly voice boomed from outside the shed. “Brick, you lazy sonofabitch! Why ain’t you built up the fire for breakfast?”

I dropped my torch, stamped out its flames, and threw myself to the ground. A heavy woman wrapped in a huge, shapeless gray coat stepped into the shed. She kicked Brick’s sleeping bag and harrumphed. Then she turned and started feeding the fire.

While her attention was on the fire, I belly-crawled behind the minivan. Brick was making a low trumpeting sound, trying to shout around his gag. I put my elbow on his throat and leaned down until he got the message.

Another woman trudged through the shed’s doors. “What, Brick ain’t built the fire up?”

“He ain’t even here, lazy sonofabitch.”

“Well, where’d he get to?”

“The hell should I know? Guy’s so dumb he probably went out to piss and forgot where his own pecker was.”

Brick moaned around the gag. I jabbed my elbow against his throat again, and he shut up even before I had to press down.

The first woman said, “Fetch some belly meat, would ya?”

“Mmm, bacon.” The second woman left the fire, heading toward the door of the meat locker. I pulled my head behind the minivan.

I heard a clatter as the door to the meat locker opened. There was a long silence. I crouched behind the minivan on my hands and knees, ready to spring up to run or fight.

The door clattered again as the woman shut it and jammed the ratchet back in place. I let out the breath I’d been holding and relaxed-the fire was a lot farther from my hiding place than the door to the meat locker.

As the women cooked, more people started to straggle into the shed. They all stayed near the fire, which made sense-it was freezing in my hiding place at the far corner of the shed. But how was I going to get out of here? The only exit was through the big sliding doors-right where the fire was. I peeked out. There were now ten guys and five women clustered around the fire.

I was trapped.

I thought through my options. That didn’t take long-I could sit, wait, and hope not to be discovered, or try to make a break for it, in which case I’d almost certainly be caught and killed. I could get caught immediately or later. I sat tight, choosing later, although waiting made my stomach clench with fear. What was happening to Darla?

The meat sizzled over the fire. It smelled like bacon-if I hadn’t known what it was, the smell might have made me hungry. As it was, I wondered if I’d ever be able to eat meat again.

I tried to listen in on their conversation as they ate, but with all of them talking at once, it was hard to make out what they were saying. Someone mentioned Brick’s absence. The cook repeated her joke-that he’d wandered off to pee and forgotten where his thing was-and everyone laughed and dropped the subject. I also gathered that Ace, the boss of this group, was gone but expected back today.

After breakfast, four of the guys mounted two of the snowmobiles and roared out of the shed. That still left six guys and five women. The guys dragged a rickety table and some folding chairs near the fire and sat around playing cards.

The women put a huge steel tub on a metal rack at one side of the fire. Then they all trooped in and out of the shed, carrying bucket loads of snow to fill the tub. The men didn’t help at all-just kept playing cards. That seemed awfully sexist to me, but I guessed they weren’t the enlightened kind of cannibals.

After a while, I figured out what the tub was for: washing clothes. The women put another tub over the fire next to the first one and filled it with snow, as well. One of them dumped some Tide-where they’d found laundry soap was beyond me-and a load of clothing in the first tub and started scrubbing. The second tub was the rinse water. They were scrubbing the clothing with a serrated wooden stick, wringing it out by hand, and hanging it on a line strung near the fire to dry. It reminded me of how back at Uncle Paul’s farm, we’d found an old-time washboard someone had been using as a percussion instrument before the volcano. And we wrung out our clothes with a machine Darla built-you pushed down on a lever, and it used a series of gears to amplify the force-clothes came out of that wringer almost dry.

My hand was in my pocket-I realized I’d been running my fingers over the chain I’d given Darla. I looked around again, desperate for a way out. There were no windows, but high on each gable a big metal fan was set into the wall. Maybe I could pry the cover off one of the fans and slide through the unmoving blades. But to do that, I’d have to climb up into the network of metal trusses that supported the roof. I might be able to get up there by standing on the roof of the minivan and jumping, but I’d be completely exposed.

I checked on Brick. He looked asleep-or maybe dead. But when I put my hand against his nose, I could feel him breathing. I’d kept him awake most of the night-hopefully he’d sleep quietly for a while.

The card game got boisterous. The women were yelling back and forth to each other, too, so I couldn’t make out what any of them were saying in the general hubbub. But at least the din would cover any noise Brick or I made.

The women had just started their fourth tub of laundry when one of the men facing the shed’s door shouted, “Ace’s back.” They laid down their cards and jumped up to heave on the sliding metal doors, opening them wider. A blast of frigid air blew in, shuffling up some of the cards and eliciting howls of protest from the men.

The cloth-topped truck started backing into the shed alongside the fire. The women rushed to move their clotheslines.

When the truck was fully inside, two men hopped out of the cab. The guys instantly crowded around the driver, clasping his forearm and bumping his shoulder in greeting. When the clamor of hellos died down, I heard one of them say, “Yo, Ace, what’d Danny give you for them skanks?”

“You won’t believe me unless I show you.” Ace strutted to the back of the truck, untied the canvas flap, and pulled it away with a theatrical flourish. “Reinforcements!”

Burly guys in heavy camo jackets and balaclavas started pouring out of the back of the truck-twelve of them in all.

“We’re going to own Worthington now!” Ace shouted. Raucous cheers echoed through the shed in response. It was getting crowded. If one of them moved a few more feet in my direction, I’d be spotted for sure. I ducked into the deeper darkness behind the minivan.

Would twelve more men be enough to overwhelm Worthington’s icy walls? I wasn’t sure. But I needed to warn them. I wasn’t too happy with Mayor Kenda, but I owed Rita Mae big time. A warning was the least I could do to repay them. But I had to find Darla-fast. And reach my parents at the refugee camp in Maquoketa. It all seemed so overwhelming; I swallowed hard, gritting my teeth. First things first: Focus on getting out of this shed alive.

I thought about what one of the gang members had said. They’d traded “skanks” to Danny for reinforcements. Hearing them refer to Darla as a skank was infuriating, but it also brought hope. I’d rather hear them calling her a skank than a carcass.

A clunk of wood striking wood interrupted my thoughts. It was followed by a steady stream of sliding noises, more clunks, and the hard exhalations of men at work. When those noises ended, there was a squeal-nails ripping free of wood. Someone yelled, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” and I risked a glance around the minivan’s bumper.

A huge pile of crude wooden crates had sprouted by the back of the truck. The lid had been pried off the top crate, and Ace stood beside it, his arms upraised as if in victory. One hand held a crowbar, the other an assault rifle.