Ashen Winter

by Mike Mullin

  We pulled up alongside a huge stack of gas cans. Hundreds of red, plastic five-gallon cans were arrayed in layers—each layer separated from the one above with a sheet of plywood.

  The truck’s engine cut out, and Ace slid out the driver’s door, slamming it behind him. Someone else was approaching from the direction of the office. I scooted backward on the roof, out of their view.

  “Fill ’er up!” Ace roared.

  “Five gallons should be plenty to get you back to Cascade,” another voice said.

  “Screw that! You wouldn’t be eating tomorrow ’cept for me. Fill it the peck up. All fifty gallons.”

  “Can’t spare that much juice.”

  “Whaddya mean? You’ve got a few thousand gallons here.”

  “I gotta conserve it—there’s no new supply coming in. Every tank in Iowa’s empty now.”

  As they continued to bicker, I looked around for a way down. I belly-crawled to the far side of the truck. From there I could see a large work area. A pickup sat in the middle, its hood off and engine suspended on a chain hoist beside it. Two guys were working on the engine. I pushed myself slowly backward, out of their line of sight.

  To my right—two guys and the engine. To my left—Ace and the argument over gas. To my rear—a large open space with no cover. To my front—Len, probably still sitting in the passenger seat.

  Apparently, I had an unfortunate talent for getting trapped inside cannibals’ garages.

  Chapter 43

  The two mechanics walked over and started unloading the truck parts. They were carrying everything to their work area to my right, so I couldn’t slip off the truck on that side. The bickering about gas ended. Ace and the guy from the office had agreed on twenty gallons and were pouring the first five into the tank.

  It occurred to me suddenly that I was making the same mistake I’d made just a few minutes ago. I was forgetting about one direction—up. The roof of the garage was held up by a latticework of steel trusses, like the ones that support the roofs above gas pumps. The closest truss was nine or ten feet from the roof of the truck and made up of a triangular network of steel tubes.

  Best of all, it was dark up there. Very little light from the open doors reached that high. I’d be visible from the floor, of course, but difficult to spot. And none of the Peckerwoods had a reason to look up, anyway.

  I waited until the mechanics had finished unloading. They stood over the pile of truck parts, checking them over and planning. I stood slowly, balancing on one of the bows, watching and waiting for a moment when no one was looking my way. When the moment came, I jumped. I caught the bottom strut and dangled, checking to see if I’d been spotted. The metal bars of the truss were so cold I could feel it even through my gloves. The mechanics were still absorbed in their work. I couldn’t see Ace or the guy gassing up the deuce—they must have been right up against the side of the truck.

  I slowly curled up, flexing my arms and raising my legs until I could hook my ankles over the lowest strut. One of my boots bumped it, making a resonant clunk that sounded as loud as a car crash to me. My heart leapt into my throat. I froze, dangling by my hands and ankles. They must have heard me. My mind raced. What would I do if they raised an alarm? I’d drop back onto the roof of the truck and try to fight, I decided. It would be hopeless but better than getting shot while clinging to a girder.

  But no alarm came. I slowly swiveled my head. The mechanics were sorting the truck parts. In the other direction, I still couldn’t see Ace or the other guy.

  My head swam. The room made little quarter-turns around me, spinning and then lurching suddenly back to its starting place, making me nauseated. I could hear the blood rushing to my ears. Maybe the dizziness was caused by my position, hanging with my head lower than my feet. Maybe it was the height, the risk of being noticed, or perhaps the beating my body had taken under the truck. I had to get to a more secure perch or I’d fall.

  I seized two of the crossbars connecting the struts. Using them for leverage, I strained, trying to twist my body onto my stomach. No way could I push straight back into the truss—my backpack would have gotten caught. I would have grunted with the effort, but with the Peckerwoods so close, I had to keep my mouth clamped shut.

  As soon as I got twisted all the way onto my stomach, I could push farther back into the triangular space within the truss. When I’d shoved myself completely inside, I collapsed, panting quietly and resting from the exertion of forcing my way into this tiny perch. The crosspieces that made up the truss held my body and legs securely. I closed my eyes and waited for the room to stop spinning around me.

  A few minutes later, I heard the truck roar to life. I opened my eyes just in time to see it pull away. Without the truck, it was a long fall to the garage’s cement floor—twenty feet or more. My relief at not having been seen balanced almost perfectly with my fear of heights. The guy who’d been gassing up the deuce sauntered to the office. The other two guys had resumed working on the pickup’s engine.

  I waited for nightfall, afraid if I continued to move around in the rafters, I’d be spotted. I watched the mechanics, my hand thrust into my pocket, fingering Darla’s broken chain. When the wan light outside started to fade, two new guards entered the garage, and the mechanics and day shift guard left. The night shift closed, chained, and padlocked the big entrance doors and retired to the office.

  I pushed myself up off the girder I’d been resting on. Painful welts crisscrossed my side and legs where the struts had dug in. I worked my way backward within the truss, away from the office, and then dropped down onto the roof of a parked pickup with a heavy crunch. No one heard the noise—or at least nobody came to check on it.

  I explored the garage, looking for a way out, working more by touch than sight. It was packed with vehicles parked in ranks so close that I often had to turn sideways to pass between them. In the darkest parts of the garage, the back corners most distant from the door and guardroom, the trucks were dusty and partially disassembled. Some were missing wheels or body panels. All of them had their hoods propped open. I didn’t know enough about trucks to tell for sure by touch, but I guessed these vehicles were being cannibalized for parts.

  Darla would’ve been able to figure out what they were doing with the trucks, even without being able to see clearly. That thought gave me hope. Maybe the Peckerwoods would put her to work when they discovered her genius for machines. Maybe she would walk into this very garage in the morning.

  Then I remembered the crack of the gunshot and the red bloom spreading across her shoulder. I crouched and put my head between my knees, trying to catch my breath and waiting for the trembling in my limbs to subside.

  I couldn’t find any exit except the big vehicle doors. The key to the padlock holding the garage doors shut would probably be in the office, but there was no way to get close without being seen by the guards. I retreated to the darkness of the far corner of the garage to think.

  I climbed into the bed of a deuce and curled up, holding my head in my hands. But my thoughts just ratcheted over and over the same territory, like a slipping gearshift. The longer I sat there, the more futile my situation seemed, and the more despondent I got. I was aware of being hungry but couldn’t summon the energy to take off the pack and get food. Soon I was yawning. I curled up on the floor of the truck and slept.

  In the morning, I woke to shouted curses and the clang of metal on metal.

  Chapter 44

  The clanging noise was so close it sounded as if it were coming from within my skull. I curled up more tightly. The blackness within the truck bed turned oppressive—before it had hidden me, now it presaged the moment when the cloth flap at the back of the truck would be lifted, a light would pierce my shelter, and I’d be discovered.

  When . . . if I was found, I didn’t want it to be like this. Curled in a ball on the truck floor, helpless. I stretched out and rolled silently, fighting the stiffness of my battered limbs. I balanced on my hands and feet like a tiger
, poised to spring. If anyone came through the flap at the back of the truck, I would attack. A futile, hopeless gesture—like flying a flag on a sinking ship. I drew in a deep breath, filling my lungs with stale, oily air and my heart with renewed determination. So long as any light remained, I would struggle to survive and to find Darla.

  The clanging crescendoed, like a series of hammer blows, and there was a sharp crack.

  “Throw my ever-lovin’ tie rods!” someone yelled, almost in my ear.

  “What’s wrong now?” The other voice was as rough as a dry, gravel-filled creek bed.

  “Blasted bolt sheared. I cain’t work in these conditions.” He’d switched to a fake Cajun accent—zhees condishawns.

  “If I had a gallon of gas for every time you said that—”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’d be the richest punk in Iowa. Come on, I think there’s another M35 in the far corner.”

  I listened until the sound of their boots striking the concrete floor faded. Then I let out the breath I’d been holding and relaxed, slumping to the floor of the truck.

  I was stiff, sore, ravenously hungry, and to top it all off, I desperately needed to pee. I crept to the back of the truck, stuck my head through the flap, and looked around. This corner of the garage was dark and quiet, although I could hear the rough noises of men working and talking nearby.

  I slipped out of the back of the truck and stood on the bumper, peering around. The garage doors were open, letting in the weak, postvolcanic morning light. The inside of the office was dark—its windows as opaque as sunglasses. At the far corner of the garage, a torch spread a separate pool of light, but the intervening trucks blocked my line of sight to whoever carried it.

  It seemed safe enough where I was, at least for now. I turned my attention to more pressing problems—pressing on my bladder, that was. I could pee in the corner of the garage, just a few steps away. But if anyone came back here, the smell would be unmistakable. I spent a few minutes searching for a gas can, bottle, or some other container. I found nothing. Then the obvious solution to my problem hit me.

  I found what I was looking for on the passenger’s side of the truck I’d slept in. I unscrewed the gas cap, but I wasn’t tall enough. I had to crouch on the running board to relieve myself into the tank. When I closed the tank, I couldn’t smell anything except the grease and smoke odor of the garage and my own sweat. Problem solved—although the Peckerwoods were going to have a rude surprise if they ever tried to start that truck again.

  For breakfast, I had three strips of beef jerky, a handful of wilted dandelion leaves, and a bottle of water. I had at least ten pounds of cornmeal in my pack but no good way to cook it.

  After breakfast, I crept back out to explore. The rest and food had refreshed and revived me. I would discover a way out of this garage today. If Darla was alive, I would find her.

  Two guys were working by torchlight in one corner, struggling to remove something they called an alternator bracket from a dilapidated truck. I hid behind a nearby pickup and listened to their conversation until I’d heard, “I cain’t work in zhees condishawns” so often that I was tempted to stuff a sock down the guy’s fake Cajun throat.

  Instead, I watched the office from the safety of the shadows under a parked pickup. For a long time, everything was still. I wondered if I might simply be able to saunter out into the light.

  Then I caught a flicker of movement from inside the guardroom. As I continued watching, I saw more motion—dark shadows of arms or heads floating, appearing disembodied within the darkness of the room. I thought about it a minute—the outside of the guardroom was brighter than the inside, so I couldn’t see in, but the guards could see out, no problem. If I tried to waltz through the garage doors, I’d be painfully obvious, and probably painfully dead shortly thereafter.

  I watched and waited, growing more and more anxious as the minutes ticked by, turning steadily to hours. When my stomach reminded me to eat, I retreated to the truck I’d slept in. As I ate a lunch of beef jerky, I thought about the situation. I couldn’t keep waiting and watching. But getting killed wouldn’t help, either. Maybe I could put a truck into neutral and push it into the guard shack? Or attack the two mechanics—they might be carrying keys.

  The sputter of an engine growling to life interrupted my thoughts. I stuffed the remains of my lunch into my pack and slung it over my shoulders. I clambered out the back of the truck and onto the canvas roof to observe the center of the garage. Another cloth-topped deuce was pulled up alongside the stack of gas cans. One of the mechanics was gassing it up.

  A hulking guy came around the corner of the truck. He might have been 6’4” if he had straightened up. But he walked with little mincing steps, hunched over as if he were cradling something to his chest. I couldn’t see his face or clothing; he was silhouetted in the light of the open garage doors.

  I saw a flash of brown hair around him. A girl was walking beside him, shielded by his rectangular bulk. I crawled closer, sliding across the truck roof, trying to get a better look.

  A pair of wiry guys strutted around the corner behind the hulk. They talked to each other in voices loud enough to be audible over the idling truck.

  “Iowa City is going to be off the hook.”

  “Them Dirty White Boys is scum, but they know how to party.”

  All four of them had gathered in a knot at the back of the truck. One of the wiry guys let down the tailgate.

  “What you waiting for?” the other guy slapped the hulk alongside his head. “Get in.”

  The hulk hunched further over and moaned, an unnatural-sounding monotone noise that continued long past the point at which most people would have had to stop and breathe. The girl was saying something to him but too softly for me to hear her words.

  Still moaning, the hulk took hold of the edge of the tailgate in both hands and hopped into the truck like a rabbit, both legs moving at once. There was a tinkling sound as he moved. Just before he vanished within the blackness of the truck, I saw why—his ankles and wrists were connected with lengths of heavy chain.

  The girl heaved herself up onto the tailgate. I had a clear view of her back for a moment. My brain flooded with fierce light, and my heart leapt. Her height, her shape, the way her hair bunched around her shoulders—I’d recognize her anywhere. Darla.

  Chapter 45

  That truck wasn’t going to leave the garage without me. Either I’d be on it, or I’d get killed trying to hitch a ride.

  Darla disappeared into the blackness of the truck bed, following the hulking guy. One of the wiry guys closed the tailgate and tied down the flap. Then they strolled around the corner of the truck, heading toward the cab, out of my line of sight.

  The only person I could see now was one of the mechanics. He was facing away from me, holding a five-gallon can above the truck’s gas cap.

  Only about two feet separated me from the roof of the nearest truck. I crawled to the gap and reached across, eyeing the mechanic the whole time. Once my hands touched the other truck, I swung my legs across. The mechanic didn’t even glance up.

  I scuttled over two more trucks in the same way until I was lined up roughly even with the one that held Darla, but three ranks back. The truck I was perched on had its hood open. The vehicles between me and the idling deuce were both pickups—there was no way I could keep hopping from roof to roof as I’d been doing.

  I looked down the aisle on the left side of the truck. The two wiry guys were standing by the driver’s door of the idling truck. If I tried to sneak down that aisle, they’d spot me. But from the aisle on my right, I’d be in plain view of the mechanic. I couldn’t afford to wait—they were gassing up the truck for a reason. I had to get on it—and fast.

  I slinked away from the aisle, stood, and jumped. I caught the metal girder overhead in both hands. My whole body screamed with pain—my tortured muscles being stretched by my weight. I gritted my teeth and started slowly working my way forward, hand over hand. Even with my taekwo
ndo practice, I probably couldn’t have traversed the beam that way ten months before, swinging from my arms. But there was one advantage to being blasted back into nineteenth-century farming by the volcano: I was at least as strong as anyone I knew, except maybe Darla.

  I couldn’t see the guys by the cab anymore, but I was in plain view of the mechanic. So long as he kept paying attention to the gas, I’d be okay.

  I worked my way slowly along the beam. Twenty feet . . . ten . . . I hung over the bed of a pickup about ten feet below me. The mechanic pulled the spout of the gas can out of the truck and turned toward me. I froze, praying he wouldn’t look up. If I moved, he’d spot me for sure. But maybe, just maybe, it was dark enough that if I just hung there, I’d be unnoticed.

  A drop of sweat rolled along the bridge of my nose. The mechanic set the gas can on a pallet loaded with empties and hefted a full can from another pallet. My arms burned from the strain of holding myself perfectly motionless, and the drop of sweat tickled my nose, threatening a sneeze.

  The mechanic opened the gas can, pulled out the spout, and thrust it into the truck, turning his back to me. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and started hand-over-handing it toward Darla’s truck again.

  How long would it take to empty the gas can? I didn’t know, so I moved as fast as I could. I was steadily getting closer to the mechanic. If he turned around and looked up now, there’d be no way he could miss me.

  This beam didn’t pass directly over the truck. The closest I could get was about five feet from the back of it. I swung my legs, forward and back, gaining momentum and then letting go as I arced toward the truck.

  I landed about in the center of the roof with a whump of compressing canvas. Instantly I fell flat, hoping the noise of the engine would cover the sound of my fall.

  “What are you doing in there?” shouted one of the wiry guys.

  The guy in the truck started moaning again. I heard Darla whisper, “Shh, shh.”