Ashfall

by Mike Mullin

  I stood there staring awhile. My brain and my stomach were arguing. Something rang warning bells in my head—his undersized clothing, outsized body, or maybe the hand-ax. I knew I should turn and ski away, but the smell of that meat made my stomach rumble in anticipation. The guy said, “It’s okay, I just need a hand shaving. I’ll pay you with some meat.”

  That tore it. I’d had nothing but a handful of candy to eat since yesterday. The aroma wafting off the meat was intoxicating. My stomach declared victory, and I slid the ski pole into my belt and skied slowly toward him, staff ready.

  “You here alone?” he asked.

  “Um . . .” I said, trying to decide whether to lie.

  “Guess so. It’s okay. I only need someone to hold this mirror.”

  As I got closer, I saw a couple more chunks of broken mirror lying flat in the ash. The back half of the guy’s head was covered in half-inch stubble. The front half was shaved bald. A few drops of blood had run down the side of his head from a nick.

  “Folks call me Target,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Target?”

  “Yeah, like the store.”

  “Alex.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Alex.”

  “Same here . . . Target.” Now I was beside him.

  He reached down and picked up the biggest shard of mirror from the ground. “I need you to hold this behind my head so I can see to shave back there, okay?”

  “Sure.” I unclipped my boots from my skis and took the piece of mirror from him. I held it behind his head so he could see it in the mirror propped in front of him, like they used to do at Great Clips when they wanted to show me the back.

  He stropped the edge of his hand-ax on the leather belt for a minute. Then he grabbed the bar of soap and dipped it in the bucket. The splash made me want to scream: perfectly good drinking water and you’re spoiling it with soap? He soaped up the back of his head and started shaving, using the blade on his ax.

  He was scary-good with that ax. He held it up near the blade and ran it quickly and smoothly over his scalp. Soap and hair clung to the blade, and he cleared it off every now and then with a flick of his thumb.

  Occasionally he directed me to move the mirror, a little to the right or tilted up a bit. He nicked his head twice. Both times he made no sound, just went on as if nothing had happened while the blood mixed with soap on his scalp. As he shaved, a design emerged from the stubble on the back of his head, a bull’s-eye. It was crudely inked there, like prison tattoos I’d seen on TV.

  “Guess you know why they call me Target now.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyone coming for me, best they aim right there. ’Cause if I can see them coming, they ain’t going to take me down. No way.”

  I couldn’t think of anything safe to say. The guy sounded seriously paranoid. Who would be “coming for him” and why? I hoped I could get some meat and move on soon.

  Target finished shaving and rinsed his head, washing away the blood and soap. I set down the chunk of mirror. The aroma of the sizzling meat drew my attention. It was a big chunk of flesh, hacked crudely out of the haunch of some animal. I could see splintered ends of yellow-white bone sticking out both ends of it. I must have been staring at it, because Target finished rinsing his head and turned to me.

  “I promised you some meat, didn’t I?” He rotated the spit and propped a stick against it to keep it from rolling back. The top edge was charred black. He cut a long strip off it with his hand-ax, set it on a smashed-flat tin can, and handed it to me.

  I bit into it too soon and burned my mouth. It was charred on one side and bloody on the other, but nonetheless the most delicious cut of meat I could recall eating. It tasted like pork, but not quite. Maybe it was from a wild pig—I had never eaten one, so I wasn’t sure what that tasted like.

  I was about to ask him what it was when Target said, “I’m getting a crew together. Some guys I know will join, if I can find them.”

  “Crew?” I mumbled past the meat in my mouth.

  “Yeah, get a few guys together—watch each other’s backs—we’ll own this messed up place.”

  “I guess so.” I was trying to be polite, not agreeing to join. But he misunderstood me.

  “Cool, you’re in.” He thrust out his hand and elbow like he wanted me to clasp arms with him.

  “I’ve got to keep heading east. I’m trying to find my family.”

  “You’re Target’s family now.”

  Target’s family? “Thanks but—”

  “Are you dissing me? Nobody disses Target. Ask anyone from Anamosa, if you’re in Target’s crew, you’re golden. You diss Target’s crew, there’s blood on the floor. That’s how it is.”

  “Anamosa?” I crammed the rest of the meat in my mouth, chewing fast. He was sounding more and more like a lunatic.

  “State prison. What’d you think it was, a ballet school?”

  “I gotta get going.” I fumbled around behind me to find my staff, wondering how fast I could get clipped into my skis and get out of there.

  “You know, I was going to make you first in my new crew, seeing as how I haven’t found my guys yet. But you’re too scrawny to be on Target’s crew anyway. Maybe I’ll just mess you up some.” He stood up, and I jumped to my feet, holding my staff ready between us. He had over a foot of height on me, not to mention at least one hundred pounds of muscled flesh.

  “I’ve gotta go.” I tried to slow my overly rapid breathing and took a step backward.

  “Aw, come on. Take it easy. I was just screwing with you.” He reached out his right hand as if to shake.

  I started to take another step backward and his hand moved, quick as a snake, and grabbed my staff. I managed to hold onto it, but God, the guy was strong. He whipped the staff to the right, spinning me around. I continued the motion and managed to twist my staff free. The hand-ax appeared in his left hand. He swung it overhand, chopping at my neck. I threw my right arm up to block and caught him on the wrist. That saved my neck, but the momentum of his blow was such that it slid down off my elbow, and the blade thunked into my right side just below my armpit.

  It didn’t hurt at all—not at first. There was a grinding vibration as the ax scraped my ribs. He raised it for another blow. The blade dripped red, and the coppery stink of my blood filled the air.

  I stabbed the tip of my staff forward in a desperate strike. I’d practiced it thousands of times in forms and on Bob, the training dummy, but I had never figured I’d have to use it for real. I lunged, stepping with my right foot. I aimed for his eye, guiding the blow with my right hand, thrusting with my left.

  The result was spectacularly disgusting. His eye pretty much exploded. Blood and some kind of fluid streamed down the side of his face. He staggered back a few steps, toward the fire.

  “You mother—!” he screamed and started to step forward, raising the ax again. “I’ll chop your—”

  I reversed the staff into a low strike that knocked his legs out from under him. He fell backward into the fire.

  Target screamed and screamed in an eerie falsetto. He leaped out of the fire and ran about twenty feet, which only served to fan the flames licking his clothing. Then he got smart and dropped and rolled in the ash.

  I thought about chasing him. But I’d either have to beat him to death, which didn’t appeal to me at all, or . . . do what? I didn’t even want to get close to him. Just the sight of the blood dripping from his eye made stomach acid rise in my throat. So I shouldered my backpack, causing a flash of pain to sear up my right side. Then I clipped into my skis and hauled ass.

  During the fight, the wound hadn’t hurt at all. Now it throbbed, sending pulses of flaming agony across my chest. Every time I twisted my torso, I had to bite back a scream. Blood poured down my right side, trickled past my belt, and made hot streaks down my leg.

  I glanced backward. Target pushed through the ash, following me, burst eye, fire-blackened clothing and all. He saw me looking at him
and yelled something about what he planned to do to the stump of my neck once he’d removed my head.

  The homestead had been built at the top of a large, gentle ridge. I pointed my skis down the slope toward a line of dead trees in the valley below.

  The slope was just steep enough to allow my skis to slide over the ash. I picked up speed and quickly left Target in the dust. As I slipped into the trees at the bottom of the slope, I faintly heard him yelling behind me, “I’ll find you, Alex. I’ll roast your heart. I’ll crack your nuts and . . .” I found a stream amid the trees, and the noise of rushing water drowned his shouted threats.

  Taking off my pack made my eyes water, it hurt so bad. I pulled my shirt up to look at the wound. A huge flap of flesh hung loose from the gouge. Blood welled from it, hot and wet along my side. I took a breathing rag out of my pack and pressed it against my side. Now I was crying. I couldn’t help it, it hurt that much. I tied a T-shirt over the breathing rag and around my torso as tightly as I could. It seemed to help—blood was still flowing from the wound, but more slowly.

  I hung my pack off my left shoulder and squeezed my right arm through the strap, scrunching my eyes closed against the pain. Slowly, I worked my way across the stream, sliding my butt along a fallen log, and staggered up the bank on the far side. I had to put some distance between me and Target and find a place to hole up and rest. I wished I’d had the foresight to bring some Neosporin and an Ace bandage from home. If the wound got infected, I’d die for sure.

  When I emerged from the trees on the other side of the stream, I glanced around. No particular direction suggested itself, so I struggled up the hill, keeping the brightest part of the sky to my back; heading east, I hoped.

  Minutes blurred into hours in a long, gray nightmare. Slowly up one low hill: step, breathe, step, breathe. Resting as I slid down the back side. Another halting sidestep up the next hill. Each time I crested a hill, I looked around, hoping for a good place to stop. Each time, I saw nothing but ash-covered slopes and a few scraggly trees. I got more and more tired, until nothing but the flaming pain in my side kept me awake. I was thirsty, too; I drank all the water I had left, but five minutes later, I wanted more.

  The ease of gliding downhill got me moving off the ridge-tops. The hope of finding shelter convinced me to push laboriously up from the valleys. Each uphill slog was slower than the last. As my legs dragged, my heart beat faster until I could feel it palpitating in my chest. My arms and legs were numb. After a while I was barely aware of them at all, as if they were merely mechanical attachments I could manipulate but not feel.

  I traversed four, maybe five hills this way. As I approached the crest of the latest hill, I thought it impossible to continue for even one more slope. I’d have to find the best shelter I could, nestled against a tree in one of the valleys, perhaps. Once I found shelter, I’d rest and wait—to heal or die.

  When I topped the ridge, I saw a farmstead ahead, only a mile or two off at the crest of another hill. I started the long, easy downhill glide toward it and tried to psych myself to battle one more uphill slope. I could make it. I would make it.

  The homestead was small and simple, just a house and a steep-roofed barn. About half the trees around it were down, but both buildings were intact. I worried about being chased off by the owners. Maybe I could hide in their barn unnoticed for a while.

  My breathing mask had been dry for hours now. The ashfall was light and thin, but every movement kicked more of the fine dust into the air. I had to stop every few steps to rest and cough, great hacking spasms that brought up nothing but flecks of blood—my throat was so dry.

  As I approached the barn, I heard a strange noise—a loud grinding, like two rocks rubbing together. I swayed on my feet, almost falling. I caught myself on the back of the barn and leaned against it for a few minutes, trying to catch my breath. The grinding noise continued uninterrupted.

  I gathered my strength and slowly skied around the barn. There was a massive set of sliding doors on tracks facing the house. Someone had shoveled the ash away from the doors and thrown them wide, letting light into the barn.

  The scene inside the barn was odd. A bicycle without its wheels had been bolted to a huge wooden workbench. A girl stood on the bike, kicking the pedals downward with her feet, sweating with effort. She looked to be my age, more or less. The back wheel of the bike had been replaced with a large gear, which connected to another gear and a belt that turned a cone-shaped chunk of concrete. An older woman was leaning over the concrete cone, pouring something into a hole in the center of it.

  Neither of them gave any sign of having noticed me. I pushed my skis forward, down the little slope where the ash had been shoveled away from the barn doors. My skis caught on the barn’s dirt floor, throwing me forward. I was too tired and weak to catch myself. My head thumped against the dirt. And everything went black.

  Chapter 17

  I woke to someone shaking me. I supposed it was a gentle shaking, but I had a headache so gnarly that it felt as if my brains were being beaten to liquid against the inside of my skull.

  “Sit up,” a girl’s voice said.

  I cracked my eyelids and reached out, trying to find my staff. I grabbed the girl’s thigh instead. She removed my hand. “Take it easy, you’re in bad shape. But I need you to sit up.”

  I let my hand drop and looked around, moving my head slowly. I was on a couch in front of a fireplace. A big fire had been set—I could feel it on the side of my face and arm, but I was still freezing, like being outside without enough clothing on a sunny winter day. Someone had spread a heavy wool blanket over my otherwise naked body. I couldn’t remember getting undressed.

  The girl stood above me. A strange angel, my addlepated brain thought. Surely angels didn’t wear T-shirts and overalls. And I’d never heard of an angel perspiring, let alone sweating as profusely as this girl was.

  I slowly lifted my upper body, trying not to jostle my aching head. She jammed a pillow behind me, propping me partly upright. She held an oversized coffee mug to my lips. I freed one hand from the blanket and took the mug, drinking deeply. Warm water, but I was so thirsty that pure ambrosia wouldn’t have tasted better.

  The water brought on a coughing fit. Every rasping cough triggered a bolt of pain between my temples. When I pulled my arm away from my mouth it was spotted with globs of gray sludge and flecks of blood.

  The girl took away the mug of water. She returned with a rag that I used to clean my lips and arm. When I finished, she put four dull-red pills in my hand. “What are they?” I asked.

  “Just ibuprofen.”

  I took the pills and drank another mug of water. The older woman came into the room then, carrying a small bottle of Jim Beam. She poured a shot of it into the mug.

  “Mom!” the girl protested. “We need that. As a disinfectant, not a drink.”

  “I know, Darla, but he’s got to be hurting. This will take the edge off.” She held the mug to my lips.

  “I already gave him four Advil. Do we have to waste all our medical supplies on this kid?”

  I took a sip of the bourbon and spluttered it back out. It tasted horrid.

  “I’ll hold your nose,” the woman said. “Drink it all at once.”

  It burned my throat on the way down, and when she let go of my nose, the fumes burnt my nostrils, too. I had to side with Darla—bourbon made a better disinfectant than beverage—although I wasn’t thrilled to learn that she considered using medical supplies on me a waste.

  I started coughing again. The woman held out a rag, and I used it to wipe my mouth and arm. “Thanks. I appreciate—”

  “Don’t you mention it,” the woman said. “I’m Gloria Edmunds, by the way.”

  “Alex.”

  Darla had been doing something by the fire. Now she returned and began stripping the blanket off me. I grabbed it before she could pull it away from my groin, to preserve my modesty.

  “Let go. There’s nothing there I haven’t seen. Wh
o do you think undressed you, anyway? And honestly, I’ve seen better equipment on goats.”

  “Darla!” Mrs. Edmunds said. “Keep a civil tongue with our guest.”

  “Some guest. He’s using our medicine, drinking our water, and will be eating our food soon, no doubt. Why’d he have to find our barn?”

  “Because the good Lord led him there, that’s why, young lady. And you’ll treat him exactly as you’d want to be treated if you fell over in someone’s barn, halfway bled out.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Darla said. “But I’m not dumb enough to go wandering around in this crap,” she added, muttering.

  I let go of the blanket. Darla pulled it off me and set it aside. My equipment definitely wasn’t looking very impressive. I guess bleeding all over northeastern Iowa hadn’t done much for my manhood. The cut at my side had mostly crusted over. A little blood seeped slowly from one edge.

  “Roll up on your left side, so I can get at that wound. What happened, anyway?” Darla said.

  “Hand-ax,” I replied.

  “Christ, that was clumsy.”

  I decided not to try to explain it right then. I was too tired. It took all my strength to watch Darla and her mom. They set out a bowl of water, a pile of mostly ash-free rags, a pocketknife, a sewing needle, and some heavy black thread on the end table by my head.

  “This is going to hurt,” Darla said. “Try not to move.”

  “Uh, do you know what you’re doing?”

  She shrugged. “I got a prize in the 4-H junior veterinary program.”

  “Isn’t that for animals?”

  “Yeah, so? We’re all animals.”

  “You’ll be fine, hon,” Mrs. Edmunds said. “Darla has better hands than mine for fine work. Uncle Arthur came to visit me early.”