Ashes (Ashes Trilogy 1)

Alex had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. “That’s my fanny pack.”

“That’s crap,” said Harlan, although Alex caught a thin stiletto of sour milk now. Harlan was worried. “I’ve had that thing for years.”

“No, I packed it myself,” Alex said.

“A fanny pack’s a fanny pack,” Harlan said. “She’s gonna guess some of it.”

“Yeah.” Peter unzipped the pack. “So that’s why we’ll let you tell us first. What’s inside?”

Harlan visibly relaxed, and Alex thought with dismay, He emptied it. “Sure,” Harlan said. “Lessee, there’s a pack of tissues, some old gum, knife …” He rattled off a list of items as Peter pulled each from the pack.

“Yeah,” said Peter when Harlan was done. “That’s all of it, except this.” He pulled out Alex’s soft-shell black case. “This thing weighs a good ten pounds. What’s inside?”

Harlan opened his mouth, but Yeager said, “Just a minute.” He took the case from Peter, studied its contents, then raised his searching, bird-bright eyes to Alex. “Tell us what this is.”

“Hey, it’s my pack,” said Harlan.

“Then she won’t have the slightest idea, will she?” Yeager nodded at Alex. “Go on. Tell me. What are these?”

Later, she would wonder why Harlan had kept them. The pack, she could understand, but not the rest. Maybe, when he saw the Bible, he realized what he’d done and was just superstitious enough to think that keeping them would somehow undo all the rest. In the end, all that mattered was this: if the pack was still heavy, she knew exactly what—who—was inside.

“My parents,” she said.

50

Her parents’ ashes were there, but Aunt Hannah’s Bible—and her mother’s letter—were gone.

“The little kid musta done it,” said Harlan miserably. He was slouched in a hardback chair, looking as shriveled as a deflated balloon. Once Kincaid looked through the bags to confirm that they contained cremated remains—teeth survive cremation—Harlan had dropped the bluffing tough-guy routine. Now he stared at his hands and sighed. “She said the stuff was important to her.” He jerked his head at Alex. “Once Marjorie got killed, I had my hands full just keeping us alive. Couldn’t be watching the kid every five seconds.”

“Where is she?” Alex demanded. It was all she could do to keep from screaming and scratching Harlan’s eyes out.

Harlan hunched a shoulder. “I don’t know. Like I said, she run off maybe a day south of here.” He let out a grunt of disgust. “Brett was so sure the army was gonna let us in … only we never got that far. I told Brett we ought to keep off the interstate, and Marjorie wanted to go west—to come here, is what she wanted—but he just had to check on his sister, who lived in Watersmeet…. Anyway, that’s where we lost the truck … you know, in an ambush. Buncha guys watching the town, outnumbered us by about twenty. Shot Marjorie before we knew what was happening.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, “I know how getting ambushed and shot at feels.” Chris put a warning hand on her arm, and she bit back the rest.

“What happened after that?” Peter asked.

Harlan shrugged again. “What the hell you think? We couldn’t go south on account of we heard they wasn’t letting people across the border into Wisconsin, and we sure as hell wasn’t staying in Watersmeet. Outside that town, they don’t even give you a chance to explain, not like here; they just start shooting. So we walked.”

“You still had the little girl and the dog?” asked Yeager.

Harlan nodded. “The dog saved our ass a bunch of times. It knew way ahead of us when there was one of those things out there. The dog and the kid was with us right up until we was east of the mine, and then the dog went crazy. Just wouldn’t go any farther. Even the girl couldn’t get it to mind. The dog kept wanting to get away from here. Probably we should’ve listened to it, because that’s the night five of them kids … you know, the Changed … they got to us.”

“The dog didn’t warn you?” asked Peter.

“Well, I think it tried and we wouldn’t listen. I don’t know, man,” Harlan said. “Brett was standing watch. One minute I’m sleeping and the next the dog … it never did settle down, pacing all night long and whining. It started going crazy, and next thing I know, Brett starts in blasting away. His rifle jammed and I couldn’t draw a bead fast enough.”

No, this was a lie; Alex smelled it. But whether Harlan had dozed off or accidentally shot Brett wasn’t important. Yeager must’ve sensed something, too, because he said, “Now why do I think that’s a lie?”

The skin of Harlan’s neck flushed a mottled scarlet. He said, “What are you going to do to me?”

“You left a little girl out there to die,” Peter said. His voice snapped like an angry whip. “What do you think?”

Harlan’s Adam’s apple bobbled. His gaze skittered away from Peter’s angry face to the blank faces of the men on the bench and then finally to Yeager. “But you can’t shoot me.”

“True, but you cannot stay,” said Yeager. “Your sin stains us all.”

There were murmurs of assent from the men on the bench. Peter was nodding, but Chris’s face was impassive, the scent of his darkness very strong.

“Banned?” Harlan’s eyes filled. “Man, please, don’t make me go back out there. Those things …”

Peter, for whom most solutions seemed to involve a gun, said, “Hey, man, no skin off my nose. I’m happy to put a bullet in you right now.”

Yeager put up a restraining hand. “You’ll be no worse off than that little girl, and a fair sight better. You will have the same three days’ rations we give any person to whom we refuse sanctuary.”

“But I been a good worker,” Harlan whined. “I done nothing wrong since I got here.”

“Do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure,” Yeager recited. “You bear Azazel’s mark. We will not be pure again until you are gone. From this time forward, you are Banned.”

“No. Please. At least let me stay the night,” Harlan said hoarsely. “For God’s sake, it’s already late afternoon. It’ll be dark soon!”