Ashen Winter (21 page)
I was still at least twenty feet from the back of the truck and even farther from the shed’s doors—plus the open area between me and the truck was close to the fire and well-illuminated. I’d never make it across without being seen. I needed some kind of distraction.
I wormed toward one of the workbenches against the shed wall, being careful to keep the snowmobile between me and the Peckerwoods. I reached up with one arm and blindly groped around the surface of the workbench. I felt something cylindrical and grabbed it.
It was a heavy flathead screwdriver. That would work. I crawled back to my hiding place alongside the snowmobile. Ready as I’ll ever be, I thought.
I reached over the snowmobile and hurled the screwdriver at the opposite wall of the shed. It clanged against the metal wall so loudly that the sound reverberated through the building. I peeked over the top of the snowmobile. Everyone was looking in the direction of the noise, and about half of them were moving that way. Now or never. I thrust myself upright and ran behind them, moving fast but running on my toes, trying to keep my boots from making too much noise.
I reached the back end of the truck and ran alongside it, so it was between me and the gang investigating the noise at the other side of the shed. The cab of the truck was sitting just inside the open doors of the maintenance shed. A beautiful rectangle of light beckoned: freedom. I ran for it, sprinting alongside the truck.
Just then, a leather-jacketed arm pushed the cab door open, blocking my escape.
I skidded to a stop. I was less than ten feet from the door. When the driver got out, I’d be dead meat. A boot appeared. I dropped to my belly and tried to worm under the truck, alongside the double set of rear wheels. My backpack caught on something. Another boot joined the first under the cab door. I scrabbled against the concrete floor, forcing myself forward. Something ripped as I popped under the truck’s dark, oily underbelly.
I heard Ace yelling from the direction of the cab. “If the rest of that meat isn’t loaded in five minutes flat, I’m adding one of you to the load.”
“But there’s someone in here, Ace!” one of the gang yelled back.
“Forget that! It’s just Brick messin’ with you. Fix his hash after I’m on the road.”
The boots disappeared, and I heard the cab door slam. A moment later thumping sounds started coming through the floor of the truck—the Peckerwoods had started loading meat again.
I had five minutes to get out of here before the truck pulled out. It seemed hopeless. If I crawled out the back or side of the truck, the guys loading meat would spot me. If I crawled out the front, Ace, in the driver’s seat, would see me.
I crawled forward. My backpack caught again. I backed up and rolled, trying to see if I could escape on the far side of the truck, but I wound up on my back with my pack holding me off the ground like a turtle upside down on its shell. I struggled, trying to turn over in the tight space under the truck without making any noise. I could smell my own sweat over the stink of grease and tire rubber—it smelled like fear.
Then the truck roared to life.
The noise of the engine was deafening. I craned my neck to look toward the back end of the truck. I was clear of the wheels. If it pulled out, I wouldn’t get crushed. Instead I’d be left lying in the middle of the shed, completely exposed to the not-so-tender mercies of the Peckerwoods. Being crushed would be preferable.
Out of desperation, I did the only thing I could think of. I groped around above me and found a greasy strut. I pulled on it experimentally—it would support my weight. Then I kicked out with my feet. My boots thumped against the spare tire stored horizontally underneath the truck. I forced my boots into the space between the undercarriage and the spare tire. My head was perilously close to the front wheel.
I heard a clang of metal on metal coming from the back of the truck, and then someone slapped the truck twice. It ground into gear and pulled out of the shed—with me clinging to the bottom like a doomed barnacle.
My backpack rubbed on the packed snow rushing by beneath me. I clung desperately to the strut as the truck dragged me down the road. The straps on my pack bit into my shoulders, and the nylon made a noise like tearing paper as it dragged, almost as loud as the truck’s engine. I straightened and arched my back, pushing harder on the spare tire with my legs, trying to lift myself off the road to spare my pack from destruction.
The noise and the pressure eased instantly. As long as I kept my back arched and my hips up, thrust against the filthy underbelly of the truck, I could ride underneath without dragging.
The truck lumbered through two slow turns. Its gears ground again, and as we picked up speed the wind bit cruelly at the exposed skin around my eyes and wrists. The whine of the engine was overwhelming.
My back and legs ached. The bullet wound drew a line of fire across my arm. Clinging to the truck was like holding a push-up at the halfway point—I could do it for a while, but soon it was going to start to really hurt. Eventually I’d collapse.
Would falling off be such a bad thing, I wondered? We hadn’t gone far—I was probably still in Cascade. From there, I could hike to Worthington in three or four hours. I’d probably get there in plenty of time to warn them about the reinforcements. Surely the Peckerwoods wouldn’t launch their attack until their leader had returned from his errand?
But any move toward Worthington would take me farther from the Peckerwood base in Anamosa—farther from Darla. And Mayor Kenda had tried to imprison me in Worthington—tried to prevent me from going in search of Darla. I knew Mayor Kenda meant well. She thought I’d get myself killed, and right now that seemed pretty likely. But I still had to try. Even with so little cause for hope, the thought of Darla kept me going. Worthington would have to do their best without any warning. I tightened my grip on the strut.
My hands joined the chorus of pain coming from my back and legs. My ears ached and pulsated from the chill and the roar of the engine mere feet from my head. There was nothing to do but hold on for dear life. How long would it take to get to Anamosa? An hour, like Brick said? I didn’t know for sure—didn’t know how long it would take, nor how long I could realistically hold on.
The truck was rolling down a long straight highway. We seemed to have left Cascade, although I couldn’t really tell. All I could see was the grimy underside of the truck, and out of the corners of my eyes, the snow berms on either side of the highway flying past.
I tried to shift my position, to take my weight on my right arm and let my left relax for a moment. But I sagged into the road. The ice tore at my backpack, jerking it so hard that something ripped and my fingers were pulled from the strut. In less time than it took to blink, I twisted through a 180-degree turn. My right leg bent at an impossible angle, and the spike of pain forced a moan from my lips. My left boot dragged against the ground. I strained to raise it. I craned my neck as my back dragged, trying to keep my head off the road. The truck pulled me along by my right ankle, which was still jammed between the spare and the undercarriage. Something fell out of my backpack, and I snapped my head back just in time to see the twin rear wheels of the truck bump over my sleeping bag and rifle. Not good.
I froze, despite the bone-jarring ride. The huge wheels that had just flattened my gear were less than a foot from my head.
I moaned, not knowing or caring if the Peckerwoods in the cab could hear. My right knee was twisted at a terrible angle. I strained to keep my leg bent—if I relaxed it, I was afraid my leg would be wrenched apart at the knee.
The wheels crunched through the snow inches from my face. Pellets of ice peppered my neck. The engine’s roar was all-consuming, inevitable in its bass growl. I groped frantically, trying to grab something, anything.
I got my fingers hooked around the other side of the spare tire and pulled. The instant my body was off the road, the bone-rattling shaking eased. I planted my left foot against the strut and tried to straighten my right leg. I was finally able to straighten my ankle, easing the pressure on my knee.
I was still terrifyingly close to the deuce’s rear wheels, clinging to the spare tire like a spider. I had to move—if I slipped, I’d be crushed.
I groped blindly to my right, toward the center of the truck. My glove touched a spinning shaft. It threw my hand down against the road, wrenching my arm. I snatched my arm back and flexed my fingers experimentally. My whole arm hurt, but everything seemed to work.
When I reached out again, I moved more slowly, trying to see what I was grabbing. The underside of the truck was a chaotic mess of parts spinning furiously in the dimness. I reached up past a U-beam, my right hand inches from the whirling driveshaft, and grabbed some kind of strut. Slowly I inched sideways, sliding my left hand to join the right. That moved my head out from the path of the rear tires, although now I was perilously close to the driveshaft.
I didn’t think I could hold on to the bottom of the truck much longer. I needed to get inside the truck, where I could rest. I worked my way toward the back, moving only one hand or foot at a time. The pain of my tortured muscles was excruciating—it felt like they were burning up under my skin. Tears leaked from my eyes, dried instantly by the whipping wind. I longed to let go. But every time my fingers slipped, I thought of Darla. This truck would take me to her, but only if I held on.
I slid under the first rear axle, clinging to it with my hands and dropping a few crucial inches closer to the road. My pack dragged, and more of my supplies flew out the top. Moving one hand or foot at a time, I slowly pulled myself under the second rear axle to the back of the truck. My muscles had become ribbons of fire, scarcely holding my battered skeleton together. My butt had been dragging—it felt like everyone at my dojang had practiced round kicks on it for an hour instead of using the punching bags.
I got a grip on the truck’s tiny rear bumper and tried to pull myself up. My feet fell and were whipped from under me. Now I was hanging from the back of the truck, my body dragging behind it. I bent my arms, pulling myself upward, groaning through clenched teeth with the effort.
I couldn’t climb into the load bed. The canvas cover was tied too tightly. I groped for my knife, breathing a sigh of relief when I found it still on my belt. Clutching the knife, I stabbed upward, cutting a slit about two feet wide in the canvas. I heaved myself over the gate, sliding through the hole I’d made.
I collapsed into the darkness inside the truck. My arms trembled spastically. Something sharp dug into my side—one of the spare truck parts the Cascade Peckerwoods had loaded into the truck, maybe. I tried to breathe deeply, gulping air, but that didn’t help—there was a vague rotted scent in the air that nauseated me. I jammed my head through the slit in the tarp. Clean outdoor air poured over me, and gradually the trembling in my limbs subsided.
Something shifted in my backpack, and I heard a clunk behind me. I pulled my head back into the truck. One of my pans had fallen out of the backpack, thunking into a metal truck part I couldn’t identify. I shrugged out of my pack to check it—that pan had been packed securely when I left Worthington.
Dragging the pack along the road had torn the top flap off and shredded much of its body. I’d packed or tied the most important and useful things at the top, where they would be easy to get at. My rifle and sleeping bag were gone. I’d lost a lot of my food, water, and extra clothing. Three bags of wheat were gone, too. Only the stuff packed at the bottom had stayed put. I inventoried what was left by touch. I had plenty of food, four or five days of drinking water in a wide assortment of old plastic bottles, some extra ammo, a change of clean clothes, a lamp, and a plastic bottle of low-quality lamp oil. I checked my belt—I’d lost the pistol at some point and not even noticed. I was relieved to find that the kale seeds and two bags of wheat I’d packed inside my coat were still there.
I’d packed a needle and thread in the first-aid kit at the bottom of the backpack. I dug it out and set to work trying to repair my pack. I sat on one of the truck parts and lifted my leg, forcing my boot into the slit in the canvas. That pose was supremely uncomfortable, but it let enough light into the truck to see and kept my hands free for sewing. My hands shook—my muscles were still a limp, noodly mess from being dragged under the truck. Forcing the needle through the nylon with shaking hands was tough, and the thread I had wasn’t really heavy enough, but I managed a crude repair. It would be good enough—I hoped.
That done, I put my pack back on and started exploring, hoping the truck might contain something useful—maybe even a gun or two. A mountain of frozen flesh filled the front of the load bed, and the truck parts were at the back with me—luckily not the other way around. I navigated here and there by feel. I went all the way around the perimeter of the load bed, winding up back by the tailgate. If there was anything useful in the truck, I hadn’t found it.
The truck slowed and tilted through a series of turns. Had we been on the road long enough to reach Anamosa? The truck swung through a final, wide arc and stopped. I held my breath, reserving every ounce of energy for listening and trying to figure out what was happening. I heard a gear grind, and the truck lurched into reverse.
I thought about looking out the back. But if anyone was standing there waiting to unload, I’d be seen for sure. Of course, when they opened the tailgate, it was going to be pretty obvious that some of their meat was still alive and kicking. I started scrambling around the pile, thinking I’d hide behind it.
The truck stopped again and the engine sputtered off. I froze, only halfway around the pile. I was afraid to move without the engine’s growl to cover any sound I might make. I heard the cab door slam, and a moment later a banging noise like someone beating on a door.
