Ashen Winter (22 page)
Everything was quiet for a moment. Ace’s voice broke the silence. “Get some men out here to help me unload the meat,” he yelled. “I need to gas up and get back to Cascade.”
“Yeah, yeah, hold your pecker a minute,” an unfamiliar voice replied. “Everybody on kitchen duty’s busy making lunch.”
“Screw that, I’ve got all our meat here, just like Danny wants. I gotta get back and catch some fresh.”
“Whatever,” the other voice replied.
“Len!” Ace roared, “Sons of bitches are making us wait. May as well get out and stretch your legs.”
I heard the truck’s passenger door creak open and then slam. A few moments later, there was a distant scream, abruptly cut short. Who was Len? I’d had no idea there was anyone else in the truck, although I guessed it made sense—nobody with any instinct for self-preservation would travel through this failed and frozen world alone. And what was that scream? More importantly, how was I going to get out of this truck? I could try to get out through the back or sides of the truck by cutting more holes in the canvas. But I wasn’t sure exactly where Len and Ace were, and I was certainly better off avoiding a face-to-face meeting with them.
I resumed moving around the perimeter, trying to get to the front of the truck. I could hide behind the pile, but that wasn’t going to be a viable plan for long.
Something slipped beneath my feet. It rolled down the pile and hit the side of the truck, making a loud clunk. I froze.
“Something’s moving in there, Ace!” The voice sounded like it was right on the other side of the canvas wall of the truck.
“There’s something moving in a truck of meat? You been listening to zombie stories again?” Ace yelled back.
Someone pulled up the canvas at the side of the truck an inch or two, letting in a wedge of light. I quit breathing, closed my eyes, and prayed that the darkness would hide me—prayed that nobody would notice the slit I’d cut at the back. The moment stretched as I waited for Len to give the alarm, to shout the words that would inevitably end with me—or parts of me—joining the pile of meat I was leaning against.
The moment finally passed, and I heard the slap of canvas against steel. I let the breath I’d been holding escape my lips and opened my eyes. The inside of the truck was as black as an ashfall again. I remained motionless, afraid to move.
A few minutes passed before the silence was interrupted again. The same voice I’d heard talking to Ace earlier yelled, “Long pork’s on the fire—at least enough for lunch. We’ll get you—”
The voice was drowned out by a babble of men joking with each other and laughing in rough tones. Their noise was drawing steadily closer.
A memory of Darla came to me: her body hitting the roof of this truck, compressing the canvas around her. There was one direction I’d forgotten that might prove accessible. I ran up the meat pile, heedless of the noise. I hoped the talk of the approaching men would cover it.
I whipped my knife off my belt and stabbed it into the canvas roof. The noise it made as I cut the tough fabric seemed loud, but it was probably no worse than a piece of paper tearing.
The canvas at the back of the truck flapped as the men started to untie it. I thrust my knife back into its sheath and reached through the slit, grabbing one of the bows that supported the roof. The weakness and pain washed from my muscles in a flood of adrenaline. I heaved myself up through the slit, out of the darkness and rancid stink and into the light and the clean, cold air above.
I heard a heavy metallic clunk: the Peckerwoods were opening the tailgate. I reached back to make sure the slit in the canvas was closed, but I needn’t have bothered. The canvas was stretched so tightly over the bows that formed the roof of the truck that it had sealed itself behind me.
I lay on the roof, panting and trying to hold myself motionless. The bows supporting the canvas held me up—one of them dug into my thighs. My body was probably making a bulge in the truck’s ceiling, but I figured if I didn’t move, the Peckerwoods might not notice.
I rotated my head slowly left and right. I couldn’t see anyone around the truck—I was on my back, roughly in the center of the roof, so my view was blocked. Which was a good thing: If I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me.
Boots clanged against the truck floor beneath me. The Peckerwoods’ boisterous chatter was so close, it felt as though I were standing in their midst. I could even hear their grunts and heavy breathing as they unloaded the truck’s horrid cargo.
I twisted my neck, trying to see a way off the truck’s roof. Perhaps I could slide over the front windshield while the Peckerwoods were occupied, but to do that I’d have to turn around. A lump in the canvas ceiling of the truck might not be noticed, but one turning and crawling toward the front surely would be.
I looked up—the prison’s wall loomed above me. It was built of white limestone, carved and ornamented in a gothic style. I’d always assumed a prison would be spare and utilitarian, but Anamosa was fancy—more like a castle than a penitentiary. Tall, narrow windows stretched from the ground floor to the battlements, four or five stories above me. The barred windows were opaque, which was fortunate because no one inside could spot me through the frosted glass.
I could do nothing except wait and pray that I would remain unnoticed. I felt like a mouse hiding in a cat shelter. Each minute crawled past like an hour.
The truck growled back to life. The Peckerwoods withdrew from the load bed beneath me, and the tailgate clanged shut. I drew in a huge lungful of air. The truck lurched forward, and I clung to one of the bows.
The truck turned twice, circling the prison. I thought about jumping off—I sure didn’t want to go back to Cascade. Before I could do anything, we pulled into a huge metal garage.
In the sparse light admitted by the doors, I could see that the building was packed with vehicles. There was a windowed office just inside, but otherwise the garage was one big open space. I scooted to the side of the truck’s roof for a better view.
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.
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.
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.
