Rot & Ruin (16 page)

“I don’t understand.”

The artist gave him a bleak smile. “I ran for
my
life. Not theirs. Not for George or the little kid or the baby. I ran to save my own sorry ass. I ran and ran and ran. On good nights, when I can find a little scrap of self-respect, I tell myself that I ran so far because I couldn’t find anyone alive, closer to the cottage, but that’s not entirely true. At least, I don’t know if it’s true. I saw smoke a couple of times, and I heard gunfire. I could have gone there and maybe found some people who
were still alive and fighting, but I was too scared. If there was gunfire, then they had to be firing at the zombies, and that scared me too much. I was crying and talking to myself as I ran, making up lies to convince myself that the little kids back in the house were safe, that the hunters or soldiers or whoever was firing the guns would find them in time. I ran and ran and ran.”

He stopped and sighed again.

“At nights I slept in barns or in drainage ditches. I don’t know how many days I ran. Too many, I guess. Then one morning I heard voices, and when I crept out of my hiding place, I saw a party of armed men, walking down the road. More than sixty of them, with a couple of soldiers and a few cops leading the way. I rushed out at them, screaming incoherently. They nearly shot me, but I managed to get out a few words in time. They gathered around me, gave me some food and water, and grilled me on where I’d been and what I’d seen. I don’t think I made a whole lot of sense, but when I was finally able to get myself together enough to tell them about the cottage, I realized that I had no idea where it was. I wasn’t familiar with this part of California, and I sure as hell hadn’t paid attention to the crazy path I took. They had a map, and I tried to figure it out, but it was hopeless.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “They never found the cottage. Not while I was with them, anyway. A party of about a dozen went to look for it, but they never came back. The main group pushed on, and after a week of fighting and running, we found a reservoir with a high chain-link fence and mountains behind it. It was defensible, and it became a rallying point for survivors.”

“You mean here? That’s how this town was started?”

“Yes. I helped reinforce the fence and dig earthworks and build shelters. I worked as hard as I could each day, every day. … And except for a couple of very short trips into the Ruin with Tom, I never left this town again. I don’t think I ever will.”

“What about the little girls? What about Lilah?”

Sacchetto sat back. “Well, kid, that’s where I left the story of the Lost Girl, and it’s where Tom entered it. You’re going to have to get the rest from him.”

Benny got up and fetched the coffeepot. He poured the artist a fresh cup and set the bottle of whiskey down next to it. The artist stared at the bottle for a while, then poured some into his coffee, sipped it, then got up and poured the coffee out in the sink.

“Thanks for telling me all this,” said Benny. “Most people don’t want to talk about First Night or what happened after. And those that do … They always make it sound like they were the heroes.”

“Yeah, I sure as hell didn’t do that.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Benny.

The artist sneered. “I ran away and left an infant and a little girl in a house surrounded by the living dead. I sure as hell didn’t do anything right.”

“Could you have carried them out? Both of them?”

Sacchetto gave a single wretched shake of his head.

Benny smiled at him. “Then at least you tried to do what you could do,” he said.

“Kid, I appreciate the effort, but that thought doesn’t even get me through the night.” He closed his eyes. “Not one single night.”

18

“T
ALK TO
T
OM,” SAID THE ARTIST AS HE WALKED
B
ENNY TO THE DOOR.
“If he’s willing to talk about it, then he can tell you the rest of it.”

“I will.”

“You never did tell me, though. … What’s your interest? You don’t know her. What’s she to you?”

Benny was expecting the question but hoping it would slip by unasked. He shrugged. He took the card from his pocket and held it up so they could both look at the image. “It’s hard to put into words. I was sorting through the new cards with my crew, and I saw this one. There was something about it, something about
her
. I …” He stopped, fishing for the right words, but he came up empty. He shrugged.

However, Sacchetto surprised him by nodding. “No, I get it, kid. She kind of has that effect on people.”

Sacchetto opened the door to a bright spill of September sunlight. The light was clean and dry and seemed to belong to a totally different world than the one Sacchetto had talked about. They lingered in a moment of awkwardness, neither of them sure if this was the whole of their relationship or the first chapter of an acquaintanceship that might last for years.

“Sorry it didn’t work out with the job,” Sacchetto said with a crooked smile.

“Well, it’s not like I’m
invested
in killing zombies. If you’re hiring, I’m still avail—”

“No,” Sacchetto interrupted, “I mean, I’m sorry your art kinda sucks. You’re a nice kid. Easy to talk to. Easier to talk to than your brother.”

“My art sucks?”

“You can draw,” conceded the artist.

“I …”

“Just not very well.”

“Um … thanks?”

“Would you rather I lie to you, kid?”

“Probably.”

“Then you’re Rembrandt, and having you around would make me feel inferior.”

“Better.”

They grinned at each other. The artist held out a paint-stained hand, and Benny shook it. “I hope you find her.”

“I will,” said Benny.

That got a strange look from the artist, but before Benny could say anything, a voice behind them said, “Well, well, what’s that you got there?”

Benny knew the voice, and in the half second before he turned, he saw Sacchetto’s face tighten with fear. Benny turned to see Charlie Pink-eye, standing on the street right behind him. Next to him, smiling a greasy little smile, was the Motor City Hammer.

“Whatcha holding there, young Benjamin?” said Charlie
with the slick civility he used when he was setting up a bad joke—or something worse.

Benny was suddenly aware of the card. It was small, but at that moment it felt as big as a poster. His hand trembled as if the card itself felt exposed and nervous.

The massive bounty hunter stepped closer, and his bulk blotted out the sun. It was weird. Benny
liked
Charlie and the Hammer. They were heroes to him. Or … had been. Since the Ruin, everything in his head was crooked, as if the furniture was the same but the room had changed. The way these men were smiling at him, the way shadows seemed to move behind their eyes … It made Benny want to gag. There was nowhere to turn, no way to escape the moment unless Benny actually took off running—but that was not any kind of option.

Charlie held out a hand for the card, but Benny’s fingers pressed together to hold it more tightly. It was not a deliberate act of defiance; even in the immediacy of the moment he knew that much. It was more an act of …

Of what?

Of protection?

Maybe. He just knew that he did not want Charlie Pink-eye to have that card.

“It’s just a card,” Sacchetto said. “Like the ones I did of you and the Hammer. I did a couple new ones. You know, for extra ration bucks. It’s nothing special.”

“Nothing special?” said Charlie, his smile as steady and false as the painted grin on a doll. “Let’s see, shall we?” Charlie reached for the card the same way Morgie had. Familiar, as if he had a right or an invitation born of a long-standing
confidence. Benny was primed to react, and as the bounty hunter’s fingers closed over a corner of the card, Benny whipped it away. Charlie grabbed nothing but air.

“No!” blurted Benny, and he took a reflexive step backward, turning to shield the card with his body.

The moment—every sound, every trembling leaf in the trees beside the house, even the wind itself—seemed to suddenly freeze in time. Charlie’s eyes went wide. The Hammer and the artist wore identical expressions of complete surprise. Benny felt the blood in his veins turn to icy gutter water.

“Boy,” said Charlie in a quiet voice that no longer held the lie of humor or civility, “I think you just made a mistake. I’ll give you one second to make it right and then we can be friends again. Hand me that card, and you’d better smile and say ‘sir’ when you do.”

Charlie did not make another grab, but the threat behind his words filled the whole street.

Benny didn’t move. He held the card down by his hip and out of sight. He flicked a glance at Sacchetto, but the Hammer was up in the artist’s face, and he had his hand resting on the top of the black pipe he carried as a club. There was no help there.

“Now,” commanded Charlie. He held out a huge, callused hand, palm open and flat to receive the card. A stiff breeze filled with heat and blowing sand suddenly whipped out of the west. The card fluttered between Benny’s fingers.

“Give him the card, Benny,” urged Sacchetto.

“Listen to the man,” agreed the Hammer, laying a hand on the artist’s shoulder. The tips of his fingers dug wrinkled pits through the fabric of Sacchetto’s shirt.

Charlie stretched his hand out until his fingers were an inch from Benny’s face. The bounty hunter’s skin smelled like gunpowder, urine, and tobacco.

“Boy,” Charlie whispered.

Benny raised the card. He did it slowly, holding it between thumb and forefinger, and all four of them watched it flutter like the wing of a trapped and terrified butterfly.

“Give me the card,” said Charlie in a voice as soft as the blowing wind.

“No,” said Benny, and he opened his fingers. The hot breeze whipped it away.

The artist gasped. The Hammer cursed. Charlie Pink-eye snaked a hand after it, but the card tumbled away from his scrabbling fingers. Benny almost cried out as the small rectangle of stiff cardboard and printer’s ink tumbled over and over, bobbing like a living thing on the wind. It struck the sign at the corner of the artist’s property and dropped to the street where it skittered for a dozen yards before it came to a sudden stop as a booted toe stepped down on it, pinning it to the hard-packed dirt.

Benny, the artist, and the two bounty hunters had followed the card’s progress with their eyes, and now—as one—they raised their eyes to look at the man who now stood in the street. The man bent and plucked the card from beneath his toe. He studied it for a moment, then blew dust and sand from its surface. He glanced over the card, then at the four people clustered together in front of the artist’s door. He smiled and slid the card into his shirt pocket.

It was the first time Benny had ever been glad to see him.

“Tom,” Benny said.

19

T
OM
I
MURA WAS DRESSED IN FADED BLUE JEANS AND A GREEN TRAVEL-
stained safari shirt with a lot of pockets. He wore old boots, an ancient Pittsburgh Pirates ball cap, and a smile that was every bit as friendly and inviting as a pit viper’s. As he strolled slowly toward the front of the house, Charlie and the Hammer took small sideways steps to be clear of any obstructions. Both men wore knives on their belts. The Hammer had his black-pipe club, and Benny knew for certain that Charlie had a four-barreled derringer in his boot top.

“So,” said Tom amiably, “what are we doing today?”

The question sounded as ordinary as Nix asking if Benny wanted to go swimming or Chong suggesting they entertain the trout down at the stream.

“Just having a chat, Tom,” said the Hammer. “Ain’t nothing.”

“Happy to hear it, Marion.”

Benny gasped. No one ever called the Hammer by his birth name. There was a story Morgie liked to tell about how when the Hammer turned fourteen, he killed his father with a screwdriver for giving him that name. And yet the Hammer didn’t say a single word about it to Tom.

“You doing okay, Benny?” Tom asked.

Benny didn’t trust his voice, so he gave a short jerk of a nod.

“Rob?” Tom asked with an uptick of his chin.

The artist said, “Just a friendly chat. The boys were just passing the time of day.”

Tom stopped a yard away from Charlie. He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and looked up at the hard, blue dome of the sky.

“And it’s a hot one, ain’t it?” said Tom, squinting at a buzzard floating like a black kite, high in the sky. Without looking down he said, “I see they put the Lost Girl on a Zombie Card. How about that?”

“She ain’t none of your business, Tom,” said Charlie with quiet menace.

Tom nodded as if agreeing, but he said, “I seem to remember you telling folks that the Lost Girl was just a myth. Or was it that she was dead ten years ago and more?”

Charlie said nothing.

Tom finally lowered his eyes and turned toward Charlie. If there was anything to read in Tom’s face, Benny wasn’t able to see it.

“And then I see you getting all worked up over her picture on a kid’s trading card. What am I supposed to think about that?”

“Think what you like, Tom,” said Charlie.

“Yeah,” added the Hammer with a laugh. “It’s a free country.”

The bounty hunters laughed, and Tom laughed with them, sharing a joke that clearly no one found funny. Benny shifted
uncomfortably and threw an inquiring look at Sacchetto, who returned the look with a shake of his head.

“Charlie, you and Marion wouldn’t be looking for the Lost Girl again, would you?”

“Can’t look for someone who’s dead,” said the Hammer.

“Seems to me that we do that all the time,” said Tom.

The Hammer colored, annoyed with himself for a foolish comment.

“The last time you were looking for her was after what happened up in the mountains. But you told me that it was all an accident. It made me wonder then, as it does now, if the Lost Girl might have seen something she shouldn’t have. Or some
place
she shouldn’t have …”

“There was nothing to see.” Charlie growled. “Like I told you a dozen times.”