Ashen Winter

by Mike Mullin

  I had to go on the raid. Darla was in Anamosa. Or she had been a few days ago when Alyssa last saw her. “Fine. Take us all when you attack the Peckerwoods. That way if anything comes up, Ben’ll be handy. When you’re done kicking the Peckerwoods’ butts, you let us go.”

  “Five noncombatants in the middle of a firefight? Forget it.”

  “Ben can’t go by himself,” Alyssa said.

  “I could, in fact, go by myself, Sister Unit.”

  “Take us all. You can leave us outside or locked in a truck or something while you fight. We won’t be in the way.”

  Colonel Levitov nodded slowly. “Deal. Captain Billson!” he yelled. “Escort these five to the infirmary. Put them in the empty bunks with a twenty-four-hour guard, three-man detail.”

  One of the camo-clad guards yelled “Sir!” as Colonel Levitov pivoted and disappeared. They cut the cuffs off our wrists and marched us into the abandoned WalMart. It was subdivided into hallways and rooms with canvas walls. After a couple of twists and turns, we arrived at a small room into which a dozen cots had been packed.

  It was easily the most luxurious sleeping arrangement I’d seen since I left Worthington. One of the grunts even brought us two pails of water—one to wash up in and one to drink from. We huddled together and talked over what we’d learned from Colonel Levitov, trying to keep our voices low enough that the three guards just outside the doorway couldn’t hear us.

  We were stuck. We had to help Colonel Levitov no matter how much we distrusted him and hope he kept his promise to release us. Then maybe we could find Darla and hightail it back to Warren.

  “I promised to let you take the truck so you could drive to Worthington,” I said to Alyssa.

  “Well, I . . . do you think your Uncle Paul would take in a couple more people?” she asked.

  “I think he’d be glad of the extra help,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Dad said. “They were running awfully low on food when your mom and I left.”

  “Things got better. We were doing okay when Darla and I left,” I said. “And Alyssa and Ben would pull their weight.”

  “Yeah,” Alyssa said, “I’d like to go to Warren with you . . . if that’s okay.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and she leaned closer to me. “You’re the only decent guy I know in this shitball world.”

  “Alyssa, I’m not—”

  She blushed. “I know you’re not interested in me that way. But we’re friends, right? I’d rather stay close to you. I don’t know why, okay?”

  “Okay.” Alyssa had seemed different—less confident—since that morning in the tent. But I’d be glad to have both her and Ben around. I put my hand over hers and squeezed.

  Mom and Dad were looking at me. “What?” I said as I released Alyssa’s hand.

  “Nothing.” Mom shook her head.

  “I’m going to try to get some sleep,” I said.

  I picked out a cot at random, lay down on my side, and rested my head on my forearm. We had missed dinner—my stomach was gnawing on a hard knot of nothing. I was exhausted and weak, but sleep refused to come.

  My thoughts spun, revolving through the same worry over and over: Darla. I knew she was alive. She had to be. I’d know it if she were dead, right? Or was that total crap made up by movie writers and believed by overly optimistic morons like me? Was she still in Anamosa? When Black Lake attacked the prison, how could I be sure she wouldn’t be hurt?

  Amid all these worries, a tiny but fierce flame burned: hope. Tomorrow I might find Darla. Finally.

  Chapter 72

  It didn’t happen. The next day we were trapped in the infirmary. Black Lake employees came and went all day, setting up kerosene lanterns, bringing paper and pencils to Ben, and quizzing all of us about Anamosa and the Peckerwoods. They even brought food—some kind of wheat porridge—and more water.

  Mostly they talked to Ben. I saw Colonel Levitov twice, but he didn’t acknowledge anyone but Ben. We bugged our guards, but no one would give us any information. We passed a frustrating day of enforced rest and nervous chatter.

  • • •

  That night, I was startled out of a troubled sleep by the light from a lantern. A Black Lake guard barked, “Get up. We move out in fifteen minutes.”

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Getting ready in fifteen minutes was not a problem—I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing and the seeds still secreted in my jacket. I rolled out of bed, stretched, and waited for the guards.

  When they returned, they hustled us to the vehicle depot and loaded us into a big, boxy truck Ben called an FMTV. Bench seats lined the back. We were packed in with a dozen Black Lake guys in full gear. I eyed them uneasily and got nothing but glares in return. The four of us huddled at the end of one of the benches, and Dad made a point of sitting between me and the first Blake Lake guy. Our truck joined a convoy of four other vehicles full of mercenaries and their weapons.

  The ride to Anamosa took longer than I expected—maybe two hours. From inside the truck, I couldn’t tell how fast we were traveling. I tried to peek out the back of the truck once, but one of the Black Lake guys stopped me before I could even reach the latch.

  When we finally stopped, all but three Black Lake guys vaulted out. They moved without speaking, weapons cradled to their sides, in a deadly choreographed silence. I started to ask, “What—” but one of the remaining guards put his hand against my mouth.

  When I tried to climb out of the truck, he stopped me with a palm on my chest, but that didn’t keep me from looking out the back.

  It was nearly pitch black. All the trucks were shut down, their running lights off. I heard a pop and hiss, and suddenly a flare of light appeared about twenty feet ahead of me—so bright it felt as if it were burning the backs of my eyes.

  The limestone bulk of the Anamosa prison loomed above me. We had pulled up near a heavy steel side door. The light source was a welding torch that one of the mercenaries was using to slice through the lock.

  Something metallic clanked, and the guy using the torch dialed it down from white-hot to orange. Another guy jammed an oversized pry-bar between the frame and door, wrenching it open. Then all the Black Lake mercenaries sprinted into action, charging into the prison in a double file.

  I heard the muffled pop-pop of gunfire. The echoes of screams escaped the open door. None sounded feminine, but I still felt the cold hand of terror clenching my gut. Was it a massacre? If Darla was in there, would they shoot her? I tried to leave the truck again, but one of the mercenaries shoved me back so hard I fell, crashing down on a bench. I heard a distant clang, and all the sounds blended into a cacophony of death, pain, and clashing metal.

  It was over inside of twenty minutes. Colonel Levitov emerged from the prison door, barked an order, and the headlights of the truck behind ours snapped on, bathing us in light. He stepped up to our tailgate and addressed Ben. “The prison is under control. The last of the Peckerwoods here will be dead or in our custody shortly. Your intelligence was nearly perfect. Well done.” Levitov stuck out his hand.

  Ben looked at his feet. Alyssa nudged him with her elbow, and he limply placed his hand in Levitov’s, still staring downward. “You committed to releasing Ben and his friends,” Ben said.

  “I did.” Levitov released Ben’s hand and Ben balled it up, pulling it back against his chest. “You’re free to go,” Levitov continued. “Make trouble for my camp again, and I’ll see that you regret it.”

  He didn’t deserve a handshake, salute, or thank you from me. I couldn’t give him what he did deserve, so I settled for glaring at him. Evidently Mom and Dad felt the same way—they didn’t say anything to him, either.

  I jogged toward the prison door. Levitov yelled, “We haven’t finished mopping up in there.”

  Dad sprinted up to me, catching my arm just before I reached the door. “We need to clear out of here. They might still be fighting in there.”

  “Darla’s in there,” I said. “I’m going inside to l
ook for her.”

  “We’re going back to the farm,” Mom said. “Back to Rebecca.”

  “After I find Darla.” I twisted my arm free of Dad’s grasp and ducked into the prison. Inside it was pitch black. It smelled terrible—filthy gas station bathroom blended with rank slaughterhouse. I heard Mom just outside the door, still arguing that we should return to the farm immediately.

  Dad followed me into the prison, shake light in hand. He switched on the beam. And I ducked my head, fighting back vomit. Two corpses were sprawled inside the door. A dozen or more bullets had punctured their chests, and their blood had leaked in such prodigious quantity that it nearly covered the entry hall. I was standing in it.

  I heard retching noises and looked back to see Alyssa vomiting in the corner. Ben was staring at the corpses, “These are 5.56 millimeter impact wounds,” he said, “from an AR-15 rifle. The U.S. military designation is M16. Sloppy groupings—they should do much better at short range.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “Where’s the infirmary? Where they were keeping Darla.”

  Dad said, “Alex—”

  “I’m going after her. Now.”

  “Third floor, toward the front. There is a staircase around the corner.” Ben sloshed along the hallway.

  “Won’t it be locked down?” I asked as I hurried to catch up to Ben.

  “Only the cellblocks will be locked down,” Ben replied.

  As we reached the staircase, Dad pushed past us both. I caught his arm and tried to pass him again, but he blocked me, stopped, and shook his head. He pointed me to the rear, but when he started up the staircase I crowded his heels. Darla might be at the top of these stairs. If I could, I’d be in the front, taking them at a run. Maybe that was why Dad had wanted me to take rear guard.

  The distant boom of a shotgun echoed through the stairwell. The squelching sounds our boots made ended before we reached the third floor, but the coppery stink of blood followed us.

  We emerged from the stairwell into a wide corridor. Ben led us right, and we passed through double doors set into a heavy steel gate. The flashlight’s beam landed on a wide, hospital-style door. The doorplate read INMATE INFIRMARY.

  Dad and I burst through the doorway side by side. An oil lamp at the far side of the room lit up rows of hospital beds. One held a large man with a wild, unkempt beard and mustache. He was asleep or unconscious, and despite the cold room, his skin gleamed with sweat.

  A weathered woman in her fifties stood leaning against a Formica desk at the back. It took me less than a second to take in the entire room and focus on the single thing that really mattered: the muzzle of a rifle, pointing directly at us.

  Chapter 73

  The woman raised the rifle to her shoulder. I dove right and Dad dove left, seeking cover behind the beds. Mid-leap, I realized that I was leaving Ben, Alyssa, and Mom completely exposed.

  The woman pivoted into a shooting stance, sighting down the barrel.

  Alyssa shouted, “Elsa! Don’t shoot! You owe me.”

  “Don’t owe nobody nothing,” she said.

  I peeked over the top of the bed. Alyssa was striding down the aisle toward the woman. Ben and Mom had retreated into the hall outside.

  “Those weren’t your tears splashing on my stomach? The first time you stitched me up? And then you sent me back to them!”

  “Weren’t nothing I could do,” Elsa replied, her voice still gruff but softer.

  “Well, there is now.” Alyssa was only ten feet from her.

  “You stop there,” Elsa ordered, gesturing with the rifle.

  Alyssa stopped, her palms outstretched. “That girl they brought in here, with the wound on her shoulder. Darla. Where is she?”

  “You mean Biter? Don’t know nothing about no Darla.”

  I stood up. “Biter?”

  “Yeah. Crazy girl. Had to strap her to the bed, she fought so hard. Beeyotch bit my thumb.” Elsa took one hand off the rifle and waved her thumb. A crusty, dull-red scab encircled it.

  “You tied Darla to a bed?” I was up and striding toward Elsa before I had time to think about it.

  Elsa’s hand slapped back into place on the rifle as she leveled it at my chest. “Had to gag her, too, so she wouldn’t bite none of our fingers off.”

  “You . . . you gagged her? So help me God if she was raped. . . .” I passed Alyssa and kept walking.

  “Alex . . .” Dad whispered.

  I strode directly toward the gun until my chest was pressed against the barrel so hard I could feel the circle it made in my flesh. This was my fault. I should never have stood up on that overpass. Warning Earl and his guys about the ambush had been a horrible mistake. Darla had told me, over and over, that we had to look out for each other first. If I’d listened, if I hadn’t screwed up, she wouldn’t have been a prisoner. Wouldn’t have been . . .

  “Where is she?” I yelled.

  “You back off or I’ll pull this trigger,” Elsa said. Her voice quavered, and her hands shook.

  “You’d best not,” Alyssa said, her voice soft and menacing.

  Elsa took some of the slack off the trigger. I didn’t care. I pressed my chest harder against the barrel, forcing Elsa to step back. Her legs were pushed against the desk now.

  “Where’s Darla!” I whipped my hand out, slapping the barrel of the rifle in an open-handed strike. It flew from Elsa’s hands and clattered against the wall ten feet away. Pain flared in my hand. I didn’t care. More fuel for my rage.

  “Sh-she’s not here.” Elsa’s hands were in front of her face, palms out, as if warding off an angry demon. She backed up farther, sitting on the desk now.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dad pick up the rifle. I stepped forward. My thighs touched Elsa’s knees. “I see that. Where. Is. She?”

  “Danny had a deal with them DWBs. T-t-to get vitamin tablets and food.” Elsa glanced at Alyssa. “She was part of the trade. When you all got away, Danny had to get more goods together. Had to include a girl. He sent Biter.”

  “Her name is Darla.”

  “O-kay. Darla.”

  I noticed my fists were balled and chambered to strike. It took a real effort of will to unclench them. “So you sent Darla to the DWBs. Where are they based?”

  “When we Peckerwoods kicked them DWBs out of Anamosa, they went to Iowa City. Later we started trading with them.”

  “So Darla’s in Iowa City?”

  “Might be. I heard they trade stuff all over, though.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Drugs, guns, girls . . .”

  My fists had clenched again of their own accord. “Darla is not ‘stuff.’ No girl is.”

  “Ain’t the same world now,” Elsa whispered.

  I brought my fist up. Elsa flinched. At that moment, hitting her would have brought me a vicious, unclean joy. But she wasn’t worth bruising my knuckles over. She shrank into the corner near her unconscious patient, and I turned away.

  Dad kept the rifle trained on Elsa. Ben had moved up beside him and was staring at the gun, muttering about Remington 700s, M24s, and M40s.

  “See if you can find some ammo,” Dad said.

  “I’ll look,” Alyssa replied and started sifting through the desk drawers.

  I heard a moan. Mom stood straight and stiff as a board in a corner of the room, clutching the rails of a bed. She looked white as snow. I stepped over to her. “You okay?”

  She turned to face me, and her right hand shot out, slapping me so hard that my head rocked back and I saw colored lights. I was so shocked I almost didn’t notice when she raised her left. I blocked her blow, catching her wrist and holding it. She drew her right back, and I caught that wrist, too.

  “Do not ever do anything like that again!” she yelled. “Do you think I want to see my only son blown to bits? What were you thinking?” She pulled on her arms, trying to free her wrists.

  Mom and I had fought often over the last three or four years, but verbally—she’d never struck me before. I easi
ly held her wrists. It had never occurred to me that I was stronger than she was. “Are you done hitting me?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t look the least bit apologetic.

  I dropped her wrists. “I will do whatever it takes to find Darla. Take any risk. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “What I understand is that you’re with me and you’re alive. I want it to stay that way, Alex.”

  “Getting killed doesn’t scare me half as much as returning to Warren and never finding out what happened to her. How would I live with myself if I abandoned Darla now? If I have to become as callous as the flensers, why would I want to survive?”

  “You don’t even know if Darla is still alive.”

  “No. But all the same, I’m going after her.”

  “Doug,” Mom said, “talk some sense into your son.”

  “If it were you, Janice, I’d go,” Dad replied calmly.

  “That’s different, and you know it,” Mom said.

  “Maybe not.”

  “We’ve got no food, no supplies—”

  “Got extra rounds for the rifle.” Alyssa lifted a box of ammo from the file cabinet she’d been searching.

  “We need to get back to Warren. Rebecca’s all by herself,” Mom said.

  “My brother and his family will keep watching over her,” Dad said.

  The argument was pointless. For me, there was no decision to be made. “I’m going to Iowa City.”

  “I’ll help—if you want,” Alyssa said softly. “Look for Darla, I mean.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. Why would Alyssa want to help me find Darla? But before I could ask her about it, Mom started up again.

  “We’re going back to Warren. All of us. That’s final.”

  “I don’t think Alex is going to Warren, honey,” Dad said mildly.

  “We could make him.”

  “I don’t know that we could. Even if I were willing to.”

  Mom turned back to me. “Alex. I know you think—I know you love her, but you need to go back to Warren. With your family.”

  “Darla is my family.”

  Even by the lantern’s weak light, I could see the fury reddening Mom’s face, the tension in the cords on her neck. “We will talk about this later.”