Actually, the school was packed.

Chapter 10

As I approached my school, I saw a group of four people wearing backpacks, trudging toward the athletic entrance. I couldn’t tell who they were—they were covered in ash and had their backs to me—so I hung back and watched. They must have been dead tired; none of them so much as glanced around.

As I got closer to the building, I could make out a few figures on the roof. They were tossing shovelsful of ash over the edge.

The group ahead of me disappeared through the double doors that led to the school’s ticket office and basketball courts. I stopped, trying to decide whether to follow them or not.

I waited a few minutes. Nothing changed. The people on the roof were still shoveling ash. The fact that they were clearing the roof, trying to keep the ash from collapsing it, seemed like a good sign. Perhaps there were more people here working together to fight the ash. It was worth checking out. I skied to the doors, cracked one open, and peeked in.

The light in the short hallway was bright enough to hurt my eyes, which were adjusted to the dimness outside. A kerosene lantern hung from the ceiling. At the far edge of the light, somebody who looked a bit like Mr. Kloptsky, the principal, sat slumped in a folding chair. Next to him was a wiry old guy with a shotgun across his lap and a big guy I sort of recognized, although I couldn’t remember his name—a senior on the football team, I thought. He had an aluminum baseball bat between his knees. A couple of brooms leaned against the wall near the doors.

“Either move on or come in. You’re letting the ash in.” Definitely Mr. Kloptsky. I’d recognize that growl anywhere.

I closed the door, bent down, and popped the bindings on my skis. I reopened the door and stepped through, carrying my skis, pole, and staff awkwardly in both hands.

The guy with the shotgun walked up, eyeing me. He had the gun ready but pointed at the floor. “Bob’ll get some of that ash off ya. Stand still.”

The football player leaned his baseball bat against the wall and grabbed a broom. He proceeded to try to beat me senseless with it, scouring my clothing, backpack, and skis with the bristles. Wet ash fell off me in clumps.

When he finished, he started sweeping up the considerable pile of ash he’d knocked off me. The guy with the shotgun said, “Go on, Kloptsky’ll talk to ya now.”

I walked down the short hall to where Mr. Kloptsky sat hunched in his chair. He gestured at the empty metal folding chair beside him, and I sat down.

“You look familiar,” he said.

“Yeah. I go to school here. Went, I guess. I’m Alex Halprin.”

“Freshman last year. Mrs. Sutton’s homeroom, right?”

“Yeah.” Damn, I was impressed. Eleven hundred students, and he remembered one quiet freshman?

“Where are your folks?”

“Warren, Illinois, I hope.”

“You can stay here. You’ll have to work, though. Every able-bodied person is doing something. I’ll assign you to a team in the morning. Food scavenging, roof clearing, or security, maybe.”

Oh, I was tempted. Finally I’d found some people organizing, working to overcome the ash instead of just looting. Maybe I’d be safe here. But last night I’d made a promise to myself: I was going to find my family. “Actually, I was only looking for a place to sleep. I’ll move on in the morning—I’m headed for Warren.”

“Better you wait for help. We don’t have any communication across Cedar Falls or Waterloo yet. Who knows what’s going on farther east.”

“I need to find my family.”

“Suit yourself. Lord knows I’ve already got more mouths than I can feed here.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You have any food with you?”

“Yeah. You want some?”

“If you’re trying to get to Illinois, you’ll need it,” he said, still whispering. “I’d advise you not to let on that you’ve got food. We ran out yesterday. We don’t keep much in the cafeteria on weekends. We’re scavenging what we can, but it’s not enough. School has its own water tank, thank God. And there are plenty of cots and blankets—we’re a Red Cross disaster site. But they planned on trucking in food during an emergency.”

“Um, thanks.”

“Cots are set up in the gym. Take any empty spot you like.”

“Thanks.”

I carried my junk into the gym. It was packed with row upon row of folding cots arrayed with the head of each almost touching the foot of the next. Narrow aisles separated each row. Maybe two-thirds of the cots were occupied. There were hundreds of people in there, not all of them students. Another kerosene lantern hung from one of the basketball goals, throwing long shadows toward the corners of the gym.

There was a cluster of empty cots in one of the dark areas along a wall. I picked a cot at random and shoved my skis, ski pole, and staff underneath. I was ravenous but didn’t want anyone to see me eating, so I settled for drinking a bottle of water. Toilet water from the girls’ restroom at the dojang, but who could be picky now?

I put the empty water bottle away, shoved my pack under the cot, and stripped down to my T-shirt and boxers. It felt great to get out of my filthy clothing and crawl into a bed.

My arms and legs ached. I’d only been skiing for a day, hadn’t even left Cedar Falls yet, but I was exhausted. Could I make it all the way to Warren? Despite that worry, I felt hopeful. If people were organizing to survive the ashfall here, maybe they’d be organizing in Warren, too. Maybe my family would be okay.

The cot was small, with a tiny pillow and scratchy blanket. People were moving around, messing with their gear or talking to their neighbors. A bunch of them were coughing, great hacking fits brought on by the ash. A mother tried to shush a crying baby, and across the gym two kids argued. I was so tired that none of it mattered. I fell asleep inside five minutes.

Baseball Bat, Tire Iron, and Chain returned to my dreams. Baseball Bat wound up and swung at my head. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. As he was about to connect, his head exploded. When he fell, he opened up a whole new vista behind him, in that weird way dreams sometimes work. Mom, Dad, and Rebecca were there, eating Chicken McNuggets. I was in a clown costume, but they didn’t recognize me. Every time I told them who I was, they laughed.

I woke up, panting quietly and staring into the darkness overhead. Someone had turned the lantern way down. I felt something bump my back through the canvas cot. I turned my head and saw a dim form kneeling beside me, reaching under my cot with one arm. I snaked my arms out from under the blanket and grabbed for it. I got a fistful of hair with my right hand and yanked it backward and up. That told me about where the guy’s throat should be, so I went for a chokehold with my left forearm.

The whole thing was over in less than two seconds. I craned my head to get a look at the side of his face.

Her face. It was a girl, maybe eight or nine years old. I let go of her hair—my right shoulder ached, anyway. I kept my left forearm locked around her neck. She had pulled two packages of peanut-butter crackers out of my pack. They slipped out of her hands and fell to the floor.

What was wrong with me? I’d been shocked to see Cedar Falls degenerate into looting and violence, but here I was with my forearm crushing a little girl’s throat, a little girl who only wanted something to eat. Was I any better than the looters?

I reached down and felt around the floor. I found both packages of crackers by touch. I scooped them up, put them back in her hand, and curled her fingers around them.

“If you tell anyone where you got these, I’ll find you and break your neck.” I tugged my forearm a little tighter against her throat to emphasize the point. I felt horrible. It was wrong, nasty even, to threaten her. But I couldn’t think of any alternative. I didn’t want everyone to help themselves to my food. She nodded, at least as much as she could with my arm crushed against her larynx.