“I-81. Near Dickson City. You’re in Werner’s car. It rolled down a slope.” Her voice was distressed. “Dad, everything’s fucked. People are—” She paused. “Listen, you’re upside down, but I’ll get you out.”
“Call 911.” His head suddenly throbbed. He needed to get free and breathe. “Hurry, Ashlee.”
“Listen, Dad, something’s wrong. I can’t call 911. The phones are dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“Forget it. Let’s get you out.”
“Okay.” He tried to control his breathing. Keep it together, big man. “Can you open the door?”
A hollow pop sounded, followed by scraping. Ashlee groaned. Then came more scraping, along with a dull thud. Ashlee swore.
“Something wrong?”
“Door’s stuck,” she said. “The car landed funny, and the roof got crushed. I’ll try the other side.” He heard her footsteps crunch outside, and soon the door near his foot scraped open. Snowflakes tickled his naked heel. “Gonna pull you out now. Wait, where’s your other foot? I see this one,” she said, squeezing his right heel, “but not the other.”
Panic danced through his bones. He could only feel one foot, the right one. His left leg buzzed, but not below the knee.
“My foot! Is it gone?”
“Calm down, Dad. I found it. It was hiding because you’re sandwiched in there pretty tight.” Her hand seized his ankle. “I’ll get you out now. Ready?”
The moment she pulled, fire shot up his left leg. He roared into the towel.
She stopped pulling. “Dad?”
Gritting his teeth, he said, “Keep going!”
Her efforts dragged him sideways then backward. Each sharp, jerky movement made him howl, which cost his lungs more air. Before long his head was pounding in a hundred places. He prayed for it all to stop, even if stopping meant death. The pain in his leg worsened, the roof pinching in harder below the knee, keeping his agony fresh, hot, and unbearable. He thought of the tortilla presser at Werner’s shop. He pictured his leg being flattened between hot irons, his muscles melting while his bones were crushed to dust.
Then his leg popped free, bestowing a sensation of cool, thrilling looseness.
The comfort lasted mere seconds before renewed heat exploded, the nerves along the kneecap screaming.
“Almost, Dad!”
Ashlee yanked his legs, first hard to the right, then backward. His stomach slid along bits of glass until he finally flopped onto powdery snow. It chilled his chest and wasted no time reminding him how naked he was. Shivering, he sat up and squinted through the darkness at his left leg.
“Dad!” Ashlee panted, hunched over her bent knees, grinning with relief. “You’re okay!”
“I’m bleeding.” He spotted a leaking gash along his kneecap. He slapped both hands over it, applying pressure. “Quick, throw snow on it. Cold’ll slow the bleeding.”
Ashlee scooped a thick clump of snow and pressed it down. The cut stung like the devil’s tail. He snatched his towel from the backseat and knotted it above the gash.
“Keep that snow coming!”
Using both arms, she swept snow together into a generous mound and patted a handful over the gash. He flinched from the shocking cold, pressing his eyelids shut. When he opened his eyes again, his mouth fell open.
“A-Ashlee!”
She pressed more snow onto his wound. “What, Dad?”
“Your hand!” He nodded toward it, laughing. “You got it back—that means we’re free to go!”
“Actually, Dad,” she replied, her expression grim, “we can’t.”
68
By the time Ash had spilled every detail, she hated herself. What a stupid trade. She had her hand back, but at a cost she couldn’t fathom. There was no telling how far that murderous fog had spread. People sat dead up and down the highway, and she shuddered to think there might be hundreds, thousands, or even millions more. Hell, even one corpse was too many; she learned that the moment she saw Cheeto hanging lifelessly in the van. Now her guilt-smothered mind wandered to him every chance it got. With him gone, her goals no longer mattered. Playing a big-time concert in Florida seemed so silly, so meaningless. There would always be more shows, but there would never be another Cheeto.
The thought ravaged her. Consumed her.
Standing in the snow beside Werner’s flipped car, she couldn’t clear her head. She tried to distract herself by focusing on the howling winds or the scratchy taste of car exhaust in the air, but her mind kept veering back to Cheeto. There was no escape.
Groaning, she drooped forward, ready to collapse face first into the snow.
Dad caught her by the arm. “Hey, now. Don’t go fainting on me.”
“Does it matter?” She staggered in place. “Everyone’s dead.”
“Not everyone,” he said, zipping his oversized jacket. While she’d been recounting events, he had removed the clothes from Werner’s dead body and dressed himself. “We’re alive, Ashlee. There’s gotta be others. Just need to find them.”
“Dad, I drove five miles from the edge and didn’t see a breathing soul until you.”
“Well, think about that. You and me, we’re alive. That’s gotta mean something.”
“Only that we’re damned.”
“Now, hang on,” he said, double-checking the safety on a gun he found in Werner’s pocket. “We both traded, right? And we’re both still breathing. Maybe we survived because we’re Traders.”
“Lauren was a Trader, though.”
Dad paused. “Yeah, until you drove her out.”
Ash winced. “Okay, right, but what about Werner? He’s dead.”
“Naturally dead,” he said, nodding toward the body. “Fella bled out.”
Earlier, Ash had avoided looking at Werner’s corpse, but now her curiosity nudged her in his direction. The body lay on its back, naked but for smears of blood along the neck and face. His head looked shriveled like a rubber Halloween mask after losing his traded skull. Her phone’s flashlight caught a shard of broken glass protruding from his throat. He had indeed bled out; Dad was right. What was even more encouraging was the fact that Werner’s face bore none of the damage that had afflicted Cheeto and the others.
Hope sprang within her. She took a step back, solidifying her balance. Since she, Dad, and Werner hadn’t caught this…this fog disease…it was possible that Traders were immune. While that was potentially great news, it didn’t offer any sunny outlooks for the rest of humanity. If Snare’s fog wiped out everyone else, Ash and the sixty-odd survivors might as well join them.
“L-let’s say the Traders survived.” Her voice trembled. “Wh-what can we even do? March up to the creek and ask Snare to restore everyone to normal? Hell, she’ll probably kill us.”
“Not if we make her listen.”
She scoffed. “How?”
He rubbed his mustache. “Remember yesterday when Snare stole your hand?”
“Hard to forget.”
“Remember what you said to Snare right after?”