Mike Mullin - Ashen Winter

“I can’t do this much longer,” I said.

“I’ll watch for a place to stop,” Alyssa said.

“I’ve got to get back to Anamosa. You drive for a while.”

“I’ve got to take care of Ben.” She turned away from me and resumed brushing Ben and talking to him in a low voice.

She’d already wrapped his ankle-it seemed to me that he’d be fine on his own for a while.

The first farmstead we passed was a burned-out husk. Few of the walls were standing, let alone any part of the roof that could shelter or hide us. A few minutes after we passed it, I heard a faint clang in the distance, like a bell ringing, but I couldn’t figure out where the sound had come from.

The second place we found was different. The driveway wasn’t plowed, but the snow had been deliberately packed down. I couldn’t make out any footprints or tell what had packed the snow-there were no tire or snowmobile tracks.

It was a typical Iowa farm: two-story white clapboard house, red barn, three corrugated-steel grain silos, and a big metal garage that had been crushed by ash, snow, or both.

“Stop here?” Alyssa asked.

“We should keep going.”

“Ben needs rest. You do, too.”

“I don’t like it. Looks occupied. But I can’t keep driving.” I thought about suggesting we camp in the truck. But we had no good way to heat it other than running the engine, and the gas gauge had already dipped under a quarter tank. I muscled the wheel into a turn at the driveway.

The truck lurched, sinking into the snow, but the four rear wheels of the deuce got enough traction to keep pushing us forward. I didn’t have to use the brake to stop us-with the flat tire and packed snow, the truck simply coasted to a groaning stop after I let off the gas.

The farmstead was silent. I thought I smelled a faint whiff of smoke. There were no other signs of habitation.

I eased open my door. “Stay here,” I said. “If you see anything, yell or come get me.”

Alyssa nodded. I pulled the pistol off my belt, holding it in my left hand, and slipped out of the truck.

The flat tire had shredded, losing most of its tread. Some of the rubber had melted onto the wheel well. Maybe that accounted for the smoke I smelled.

I stalked to the back door. The snow on the walk was packed to icy solidity. My exhaustion vanished, replaced by another adrenaline-fueled buzz. I swiveled my head back and forth, totally alert-looking, listening, smelling, even tasting the air.

There was a lean-to addition on the back of the house. Only four inches or so of snow were on the roof; someone had cleared it off after last year’s blizzards. A skylight, slightly off center, pierced the shingles. A round piece of metal covered the center of the skylight, as though someone had patched it. The snow had melted for a foot or so all around the skylight, which meant there was, or had been, a heat source inside.

The storm door was open and askew. Its top hinge had been ripped away. The entry door seemed solid, though. I took hold of the knob, slowly twisting it.

The door was unlocked. I pushed it open.

Inside there was a small mudroom. An ancient freezer sat in one corner, redundant because the room itself was below freezing, and useless because there was no hum of power. A pile of filthy, frozen clothing occupied another corner. Aside from that, the room was empty.

The next room was a large kitchen. I could tell it had been a kitchen by the pipes protruding from the walls and the outlines in the paint showing where cabinets had once hung. A thick three-foot-square chunk of foam-board insulation lay on the floor. Someone had laid a double stack of concrete patio pavers on it, and ashes from an old fire were clumped atop the pavers. A huge jumble of branches was heaped in one corner.

The patched skylight was directly above the makeshift fire pit. A long string with a loop tied in the end dangled from the metal patch. I tugged on the string experimentally-the patch proved to be a metal cover on a spring-loaded hinge. When I pulled it fully open, the loop in the string would just reach a nail jutting from the wall. It was an ingenious setup-you could open the hatch to let smoke out or close it to keep the heat in, all without having to reach the high, sloped ceiling. People had clearly been living here since the eruption. The only question: Were they still here?

I eased through the entire house, quietly checking every room. Some held furniture and belongings, but much of what I found was broken, ruined, or frozen. I saw lots of signs that people had lived here, but none that they’d been around recently. Where had they gone? And why? I even investigated the basement, returning to the truck to get a candle so I could peer into the dark corners around the dead furnace. This place was abandoned.

I went back outside to get the others. The truck was on the opposite side of the house from the road-not exactly hidden, but it was the best I could do. When I tried to help Ben out of the truck, Alyssa waved me away. It didn’t seem like she helped him much, just offered a shoulder that he leaned on for support as they trudged inside.

I built a fire in the kitchen while Alyssa unwrapped Ben’s ankle and struggled to take off his boot. His ankle was hugely swollen and red. We weren’t sure how to tell if it was broken, so we decided to rewrap it for support but leave his boot off. We probably couldn’t have gotten it back on him, anyway.

I searched Clevis’s pack. He had a couple of two-liter plastic bottles full of water that had stayed liquid, warmed by the heater in the truck; a bundle of corn pone wrapped in paper; a plastic bag filled with dried meat; a few matches; and a small first-aid kit. I tossed the meat into the snow outside. No way would I eat any meat that came from a flenser’s backpack.

Alyssa filled one of my pans with snow and put it on the fire to melt. Ben asked to use my hatchet. I handed it over, and he crawled to the woodpile and started breaking up the branches, sorting them by size.

I was starving, so I worked on lunch. Cornmeal mush with dandelion greens and bits of beef jerky-my gourmet specialty. While I worked, I tried to find out more about Alyssa.

“How long have you two been with the Peckerwoods?”

“Been slaves, you mean?” Alyssa said. “Almost four months.”

“Why’d they keep you around?” I wanted to ask why the Peckerwoods hadn’t killed and eaten them both, but that hardly seemed polite.

“I did stuff for them.” Alyssa wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself.

“Stuff? Like what?”

Alyssa’s face turned red, but judging from her expression, she was angry, not embarrassed. “Like-none of your business.”

Oh. That kind of stuff. Suddenly I thought of Darla, held captive by the same men. I choked my words out through grinding teeth. “Sorry. And Ben. .?”

“I told Danny I’d kill myself if he hurt Ben. And I convinced him he didn’t want me to kill myself.” Alyssa’s face was cold-hard and red as a brick.

“But he was sending you to Iowa City?”

“The Peckerwoods are running out of food and gas. I guess they got a good price for me.” Alyssa shrugged. “And Danny has a new girl he got from the Peckerwoods in Cascade. He likes short brunettes. Guess she’s that Darla you told me about.”

My face grew hot, and I ground my teeth into fury. I thrust my hand into my pocket, gripping the chain ’til it cut my fingers. I had to get moving. Had to get back to Anamosa. Had to find Darla.

Alyssa backed up a step, eyeing me warily. “I. . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. . it didn’t look like she was hurt too bad.”

“What’ll they do to her?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.