Ashen Winter

by Mike Mullin

  “I can’t shoot a guy just to get wheat.”

  “Who said anything about shooting him? Just hold the shotgun on him, and I’ll tie him up or something.”

  “What if he goes for his gun? Then I’ll have to shoot him.”

  I shrugged. “You ready?”

  “I guess.”

  We crawled back to the guard shack together. Everything was still. We hid under the window. When I’d caught my breath, I peeked over the windowsill.

  The guard was still messing around with his bags of wheat. We slithered around to the other side. A sliding-glass window faced the road, kind of like a fast-food drive-thru. Next to that was the door, a normal metal entry door with a lock on the handle and a deadbolt. I crawled up to it, reached up, and slowly, very slowly, tried turning the knob to see if it was locked. It was.

  Darla pantomimed a kick. I shook my head. She had more confidence in my taekwondo skills than I did. Even with a perfect kick, I might not break the door, and then we’d completely lose the advantage of surprise.

  I waved at Darla to follow and crawled around the shack to the opposite side. We peered through the window. The guard’s back was to us. His assault rifle dangled from his chair. He seemed to be completely absorbed in sorting the wheat. I raised my head to examine the window. It was an ordinary double hung, like the ones we’d had in my house in Cedar Falls. A brass latch at the top of the lower sash held it closed.

  I ducked back below the windowsill and pantomimed my plan to Darla. She nodded after I went through it once, but I did the whole thing again just to make sure. By the time I finished, she was scowling and rolling her hand as if to say get on with it.

  I held up three fingers . . . two . . . one.

  Chapter 16

  We stood simultaneously, and Darla rammed the barrel of the shotgun through the window. The clash of breaking glass shattered the stillness. The guard swiveled in his chair and yelled, “What the—”

  “Hands in the air!” I bellowed.

  His face tightened as he took in the broken window and shotgun.

  “Get your hands up! Now!” Darla yelled.

  The guard raised his hands slowly, muttering all the while, “For shit’s sake, how many times do I have to tell the captain it’s not safe to have one guy here.”

  “Guess he’ll believe the next guy,” Darla said. She bashed out more of the window glass using the barrel of the shotgun. I reached through, careful to keep my arm away from the business end of the gun, and unlatched the window. Darla backed up a step so I could push open the sash.

  “You gonna flense me?” the guard asked.

  “Might not. You look stringy to me,” Darla said. “Hardly worth the trouble.”

  “Maybe you don’t have any shells for that shotgun.”

  “You can test that theory. You’ll find out the truth a millisecond before you die.” Darla moved to the side as I crawled through the window.

  I stood up behind and to one side of the guard, trying to stay out of Darla’s line of fire. I took the assault rifle off the back of the chair and slung it over my shoulder.

  “Hand over the wheat,” I ordered.

  “Well why don’t you ram a barrel brush up my ass while you’re at it! That’s a whole week’s pay.”

  “Black Lake pays you in wheat?” Darla asked.

  “Only idiots take cash. There’s nowhere to spend it.”

  He had a radio on his belt and a couple of leather pouches. The first one I unsnapped had an extra magazine for the rifle, which I took. In the second, I found what I really wanted: three sets of plastic zip-tie cuffs. “I’d buy the wheat from you if you promised not to report us.”

  “Alex,” Darla said, complaint clear in her voice.

  “Buy it with what?”

  “Kale seeds. You could say you broke the window leaning back in your chair too far or something.”

  “I wouldn’t know kale seeds from bird droppings. How would I know you weren’t cheating me?”

  “It’s not like you have a choice,” Darla snapped.

  “Hands behind your back,” I ordered. He lowered his hands behind the chair back, and I slipped the plastic cuffs over his wrists, cinching them tight. Then I used the other two sets of cuffs to affix his legs to the chair.

  “I broke the window by accident and cuffed myself to the chair by accident, too?” The guard snorted.

  I checked his belt and found the knife I expected on the other side. I pulled it off his belt and tossed it into the corner. I threw his radio into the corner, too. “Cut yourself free after we’re gone.”

  I reached into my jacket, carefully extracting one envelope of seeds from the cloth bag. I laid it on the table in front of the guard.

  “Christ,” Darla said. “Those things don’t grow on trees.”

  “Sure they do.” I grinned at her. “Haven’t you ever heard of a kale tree?”

  She shook her head and glared at me, but I saw a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Then she tensed up. “Shit! Somebody’s coming.” She glanced around wildly. Then she dove through the open window into the shack with me. I heard the rumble of a diesel engine and a grinding noise as the driver shifted gears.

  “It’s a dump truck,” Darla said, popping up once to glance out the window. “Tall one.”

  The truck pulled up alongside the guard shack. The driver’s window was so high off the ground that there was no way he could see us. An arm reached down from the truck holding a clipboard and tapped it against the glass four times.

  The guard we’d cuffed started to yell, “Hey—”

  Darla wrapped her hand around his mouth. “Shut. Up.” she whispered.

  I took a step toward the window. But Darla had just come in through there to avoid being seen. I froze, unsure what to do.

  The radio in the corner crackled to life. “Hey, Benson, quit foolin’ around. We’ve got a schedule to keep. D.C. ain’t getting any closer while you jack off.”

  I had to do something. Now. I ripped the watch cap off the guard’s head and jammed it on my own. I stepped up to the window, looking down so that only the top of my head would be visible to the driver—hopefully. I slid the window open and took the clipboard. I cleared my throat and grunted, “Sorry,” like I had a cold or something.

  The clipboard held a manifest for a truckload of grain—600 bushels—to go to someplace called the Interim Quartermaster and Food Services Authority in Washington, D.C. There was a space for a signature marked GATE CHECKPOINT—ORIGINATING STATION, so I grabbed the pen dangling on a string by the window and scrawled an unreadable signature and date.

  I passed the clipboard to the driver, praying I’d get away with it, praying he wouldn’t notice my shaking hands—or the sweat dripping from my wrist.

  He took the clipboard, and there was a long pause. I balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to run.

  “Benson, you dickwad! How long are you going to make me wait to countersign, anyway? It’s already gonna be after dark when I make Atterbury.”

  I glanced around in a panic. Countersign . . . countersign what? A clipboard rested on a little table near the window. I grabbed it. A whole stack of papers was clamped in its jaw. I flipped through them—there were two types, one labeled PERSONNEL TRANSIT RECORD, the other labeled FREIGHT TRANSIT RECORD. I moved a blank copy of each to the top of the stack and passed the clipboard to the driver, keeping my head low and my face out of sight.

  “You couldn’t even fill out the basic shit for me? Well, get the gate open while I do your damn job for you.”

  I took a step toward the door. Then things started to happen way too fast. Darla screamed, an involuntary yell that she cut off in an eye blink. I looked—she had pulled her hand away from Benson’s mouth. Both her hand and his mouth dripped blood. He started shouting, “Security breach! Security breach!” over and over again at the top of his lungs.

  I heard a clatter and turned my head back toward the truck. The driver had whacked his gun on the t
ruck’s window frame in his haste to shoot me.

  Darla screamed, “Down!” and her shotgun went crunch-crunch as she chambered a shell. Benson threw himself sideways, chair and all, hitting the floor with a crash. I dove the other way.

  I heard a pop-pop-pop and then a deafening boom followed by the crash of breaking glass. Darla screamed, “Go!” The driver was holding his gun out the truck’s window. His arm was a dripping mess of raw meat and blood—Darla’s shotgun blast and the resulting flying glass had shredded it. The gun slipped from his fingers and fell between the truck and hut.

  Darla hurled herself through the window on the other side of the shack. I scrambled to my feet, swept the bags of wheat and the kale packet off the table, and jammed it all into my coat. I stepped over Benson and launched myself through the window, following Darla.

  We slithered through the hole I’d cut in the fence and sprinted along the snow berm toward Bikezilla. It was either eerily silent, or the shotgun blast had deafened me. Given how my ears were ringing, maybe some of both. I risked a look back. The dump truck was still parked beside the guard shack. I couldn’t see anything moving, but you could have hidden a platoon behind the hill of snow between us and them.

  Just that quick look had given Darla time to get about twenty feet ahead of me. By the time I caught up to her, she was struggling over the snow berm to where we’d hidden Bikezilla. “You get the wheat?” she huffed.

  “Yeah. And the kale seeds. How’s your hand?” I gasped.

  “Hurts. I’ll live.”

  We pushed the bike upright, stowed the pistol, shotgun, and assault rifle, and took off. We both stood on the pedals, straining to get the beast moving. In a few seconds we were flying away from the snow berm on virgin snow.

  I wasn’t sure why we were going deeper into the area Black Lake was guarding instead of trying to get out. Maybe Darla figured they wouldn’t expect us to double back. I didn’t know exactly how we’d get past the fence or down the embankment on Bikezilla, either. But I didn’t have the lung capacity to ask while we were pedaling like maniacs. I hoped she knew what she was doing.

  We bounced up the railroad embankment and braked hard, skidding down the back side. We came to a complete stop by crashing into the chain-link fence. “Hurry! Cut the fence!” Darla ordered.

  I grabbed the bolt cutters and started chopping chain-link as fast as I could. We needed a huge hole to accommodate Bikezilla. Luckily we were far enough south of the guard shack that we couldn’t see it and, presumably, couldn’t be seen. I finished up the hole, stomping flat the huge piece of chain-link I’d cut out. Darla nearly ran me down in her haste to push Bikezilla through. She didn’t stop, either—I had to stow the bolt cutter and remount the bike while it accelerated away from the fence.

  As we approached the steep slope down to the river, Darla didn’t slow down. If anything she was speeding up. I yelled and tried to back off my pedaling, but the pedals on Bikezilla were ganged together—I had no choice but to keep up with Darla’s frenetic pace. And all the brake controls were at the front of the bike.

  “Hold on!” Darla screamed, and we were airborne. The back end of the bike hit the slope with a thump. Then the front end slapped down, and I was pitched forward, my head thudding into Darla’s back.

  We careened down the slope, totally out of control. When we hit the ice at the bottom, the front ski flexed almost forty-five degrees, but nothing broke.

  And just like that, we were out on the river ice. We still both stood to pedal, but slightly slower than before.

  “I’m going to head south,” Darla grunted. “Cross the open part of the river somewhere out of sight from the lock.”

  “Sounds good,” I yelled.

  “You think we’re in the clear?”

  “Yeah.”

  Then I heard an engine rumble behind us.

  Chapter 17

  I glanced back. A Humvee was rolling down the embankment we’d just flown down. The slope was so steep it looked like the truck would tip forward and tumble down end over end, but it didn’t—unfortunately.

  I redoubled my efforts at the pedals. Darla veered left. The ice was slick and fast, dusted here and there with a little snow. We were moving quicker than we ever had on Bikezilla. Still, I didn’t think we’d be a match for the truck.

  We pedaled south on one of the dozens of frozen lakes that lined the Mississippi. As we raced for the far bank, I looked back. The Humvee was down the embankment, accelerating toward us across the ice. It veered slightly, so I could see the passenger window roll down and a rifle barrel emerge. Chips flew from the ice around us as bullets struck, and I heard the rattle of automatic gunfire.

  I screamed, “Darla!”

  “Shoot back!”

  I twisted and tugged at the shotgun. Freeing it or the assault rifle from the ropes one-handed was hopeless. I couldn’t quit pedaling and I couldn’t twist back far enough to reach both hands into the load bed. I snatched the pistol instead.

  I aimed at the Humvee closing fast behind us. The passenger’s head, covered by a black ski mask, was out the window now. He withdrew into the vehicle as I pointed the pistol at him. Two bullets. I waited. We were less than halfway across the lake, and the Humvee was closing in fast, seeming to swell in size even as I watched it approach.

  The rifle barrel appeared again in the window. I pulled the pistol trigger. Nothing happened. It wouldn’t even depress. The safety—I’d forgotten the safety. I poked it with my thumb, trying to snick it off without dropping the pistol as a new fusillade tore up the ice around us.

  I pulled the trigger again. Click. Nothing happened. I’d forgotten to rack the slide. I brought the pistol back in front of me, took both hands off the handlebars for a second, and jerked back the slide.

  The truck was right behind us and a little to our left now, still accelerating—preparing to turn us into a hood ornament. The passenger was hanging his head out the window again. I took aim and fired.

  My shot whanged off metal. The passenger and rifle withdrew. The truck was almost on top of us. “Darla!” I screamed.

  She cranked Bikezilla into such a tight right turn that half of the rear track lifted off the ice. I leaned into it, hoping to keep us upright. Our pursuers tried to mimic our turn but spun out, quickly turning three full circles as they slid south, away from us.

  Darla straightened the bike and the back end thumped onto the ice. Now we were headed roughly northwest, in the middle of the lake, and the closest bank was probably ahead of us.

  We flew several hundred yards before the Humvee came out of its spin and started accelerating toward us again. My neck worked overtime twisting backward every few seconds. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing—they were way out to our left and behind us, not on a direct route to intercept us.

  When the Humvee pulled even with us, about one hundred yards to our left, it became clear what the driver was doing. He drifted into a long turn designed to intersect our course and splatter us all over the ice. There was no way we’d make it to the trees at the edge of the lake. The passenger leaned out his window and started firing at us again.

  “Darla!” I yelled again.

  “I’m on it!” she gasped, but she kept us on the same course, still pedaling like mad.

  I aimed the pistol again. Click. Nothing happened when I pulled the trigger. I pulled it again, but the trigger wouldn’t even depress. Did I need to rack the slide again? I tried it, and a bullet flew out—a dud, I guessed.

  We raced toward a deadly crash. Sixty yards . . . forty yards. The passenger aimed his rifle at me. I was out of bullets. I pointed the pistol at him anyway, and he flinched. Twenty yards . . . ten. I threw the pistol at him, catching him right in the eye. His shots flew wild. Every one of my muscles tensed for the impact.

  “Darlaaaa!”

  “Stop! Now!” She slammed on the brakes and jammed the pedals to a stop so abruptly that it hurt my ankles and knees. We skidded along the ice. The Humvee shot by in
front of us. Our front ski missed their rear tire by inches.

  “Go! Go!” Darla yelled as she turned Bikezilla directly toward the Humvee. It was braking—the tires carving two shallow troughs in the ice. We picked up speed, heading directly toward the truck’s back bumper.

  I thought I understood what Darla was doing. The Humvee would have to turn in a wide arc to get lined up to try to run us down again. By then, maybe we could make it into the woods.

  But the driver wasn’t cooperating. He skidded to a complete stop, almost putting the nose of the Humvee into the woods. But instead of turning around, he started backing up. Straight toward us.

  “Christ!” Darla screamed. “Male drivers!” She kept accelerating directly toward the Humvee as it raced backward toward us. Playing chicken with a truck fifty times our size didn’t seem like a great idea to me, but I wasn’t in the driver’s seat. And Darla had dodged the truck twice now—one more time and we’d make it to the woods.

  “Yeeaaah,” Darla screeched a banshee wail. “Faster!”

  I was already white-knuckling the handlebars, pumping for all I was worth. A drop of blood oozed out between Darla’s right hand and her handlebars and was whipped past me by the wind.

  The back of the Humvee loomed. I wanted to close my eyes. I couldn’t close my eyes. At the last second, Darla swerved left. The driver of the Humvee swerved, too. The truck’s front quarterpanel sideswiped Bikezilla’s load bed just behind my right leg.

  We were thrown into a spin. I was sure we’d roll, but Darla steered into the skid, pedaling like mad, and somehow kept us upright. She shot between a pair of trees that were too close together to admit the Humvee.

  We were racing along a tiny frozen creek, forest lining either side. I looked back and almost got knocked off the bike when an overhanging branch smacked me in the side of the head. I didn’t see any sign of the Humvee.

  Both banks of the creek were overgrown with leafless bushes and trees. I had to watch Darla carefully; when she ducked, I had a split second to follow or get whacked by a branch. Several times Darla threw an arm up to block them instead. The branches were dead and shattered easily, bits of dry wood spinning away as we whizzed past.