Rot & Ruin (35 page)

“Slap some sense into that little hellcat,” demanded Skins. “Screw it … let me do it.”

Skins stepped over Benny and reached to take a handful of Nix’s hair, just as Turk caught one of her wrists and then another. Skins drew a knife with his free hand. “I’ve had enough of your crap, girlie girl. You don’t need both eyes to fight in the zombie pits.”

That was all Benny could take. Even though he could barely breathe, he dug one hand under his chest and grabbed the broken
bokken
handle, then jammed the other hand hard against the catwalk and heaved himself to his knees.

“Leave her alone!”
he screamed and with all of the fury and fear that flowed through him, he drove the jagged end of the
bokken
into Skins’s back. When the sword had snapped, it left a hardwood stump that was as sharp as a real blade, and Benny threw his weight behind the thrust. The jagged point bit deep into the soft spot above the bounty hunter’s belt, and Benny buried it to the hilt. Blood ran hot and red over his fist, and Skins whirled and clubbed him down. Benny fell, raising his arms to ward off the next blow, but Skins stood there, gasping like a fish out of water, eyes bugged wide in unbelieving surprise.

Nix stamped down hard on Turk’s foot and tore her wrists free of his grip, then shoved him in the chest as hard as she could, hoping to knock him over the rail. Turk was so busy staring at Skins that he was caught off guard, and staggered back all the way to the rail by the ladder, but he did not go over.

Instead, he caught his balance at the last second. Skins dropped heavily to his knees, the impact causing the metal catwalk to ring like a bell. His eyes rolled up, and he fell forward onto his face with a meaty crunch.

“You’re dead.” Turk snarled at Benny. He grabbed his pistol and whipped it from the holster, thumbing back the hammer in a smooth and practiced move. “I’ll friggin’ kill you both for—”

That was all he got out. It was all he would ever say again.

He looked down at his chest, at the bizarre thing that suddenly sprouted from between the ribs on the left side. Benny and Nix stared as well. The whole front of Turk’s shirt exploded with red as three gleaming inches of sharpened steel extruded from the bounty hunter’s chest. He tried to say something, but there was no air left in his lungs, no power left in his voice.

Behind him there was a blur of movement and a grunt of effort. The blade vanished, pulled back into the wound and then out of Turk’s body. Benny watched as the person behind him cocked a leg, placed a foot on the bounty hunter’s body, and shoved him forward, so that he landed face-down, inches from Skins.

The figure stood there in the harsh morning sunlight. Tattered jeans and hand-sewn leather moccasins, a shirt that had once been bright with a wildflower pattern, with a leather pouch slung across her body on a thin strap. Hair the color of newly fallen snow swirled around her tanned face, and she stared at them with cunning hazel eyes. In her tanned hands she held a spear crudely made from a long piece of quarter-inch black pipe wrapped in leather and topped with the blade from a Marine Corps bayonet.

The Lost Girl.

42

“W
HO ARE YOU?” NIX ASKED, BUT AT THE SAME TIME
B
ENNY SPOKE
her name.

“Lilah!”

The girl stiffened, and the bloody spear swung around in his direction. Her hazel eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

Benny held up his hands. “No, wait … I’m Benny Imura.”

She showed no sign of recognition.

“I’m Tom Imura’s brother.”

The girl said nothing.

“My brother, Tom … He knew George!”

If he had struck her across the face, he could not have changed her expression more quickly. The suspicion vanished to be replaced by shock.

“G—George?”

She spoke the name, as if her throat was dusty from disuse, and Benny realized that in a very real way it probably was. Almost immediately her suspicions returned, and the tip of the spear rose another inch, level with his eye.

“Where?” she demanded. “George.”

Nix glanced at Benny, putting things together very quickly. “Is this
her
?” she whispered.

“George!” the Lost Girl prompted with a shake of her spear. Her voice was still a husky whisper, and Benny remembered that horrible story that Rob Sacchetto had told him of how Lilah had started screaming when the men in that little cottage had been forced to kill her mother after she’d reanimated as a zombie.

She screamed herself raw, and then she stopped talking.
Those screams must have damaged her vocal chords for good, leaving her with a voice like a graveyard whisper.

God.

“I … don’t know where he is,” Benny said quickly. “My brother knew him. He helped George look for you.”

“Look? For … me?” It was clearly hard for the girl to form sentences. It was a skill that she’d lost over time. Benny could not imagine going for years without speaking to anyone. In some odd way that was as bad as living out here in the zombie wasteland.

“When the bounty hunters took you and your sister from George, he started looking for you.” Benny risked taking a slight step toward her, despite the threat of the deadly spear. “He never stopped, Lilah. George never stopped looking for you. And for Annie.”

At the mention of her sister’s name, Lilah’s eyes filled with tears, but her mouth tightened into a bitter line.

“Lilah, listen to me. The men who hurt you, the men who hurt Annie and George …”

“Benny,” Nix said softly. “Don’t …”

“Those same men hurt Nix’s mother.” He turned his head for a second to indicate Nix. “They hurt her … and she died.”

Lilah held her ground, eyes boring into his.

“And they killed my brother.” Benny licked his lips. “Those men took the people we all loved. They took from each of us.” As Benny said it, he realized that he did love Tom. As troubled and confused as their relationship had once been, Benny felt an ache that went all the way to the core of his heart. “They hurt all of us, Lilah. Do you understand? All of
us
.” He leaned on that last word and saw how it worked on her, changing her eyes and the line of her mouth. The spear tip wavered ever so slightly.

“Us,” he repeated. “You … Nix … me. Us.”

Benny waited for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest, and then took another step forward. The tip of the spear was inches from his face now. Moving very slowly, hands open, eyes fixed on Lilah’s, he reached up and touched the point where the Marine Corps bayonet was attached to the shaft of the spear. He pushed it aside, and the Lost Girl allowed it.

After a moment she stepped back and lowered the weapon.

“Us,” she said.

“Us,” agreed Benny.

After a moment Nix said, “Us.”

Abruptly the Lost Girl stiffened and looked over the rail. Benny and Nix looked as well, but if there was something to see, they didn’t see it. Lilah, however, did.

“Go,” she snapped. “Now. Now!”

Without waiting to see if they followed, she spun around and climbed down the ladder as quickly and smoothly as a monkey. Nix followed, but Benny lingered for a moment, looking at the man he’d killed.

“Benny!” Nix called.

“Wait. Give me a second,” he said. “I have work to do.”

He took the weapons from the dead men, stripping off Turk’s gun belt and buckling it around his narrow waist. The gun was heavy, but the weight was comforting. He left the shotguns. They were big and clumsy, and he had never fired one before. Now didn’t seem like the time to fool around with unfamiliar weapons. However, he took Skins’s knife. It was not as good as Tom’s double-bladed dagger or the hunting knife Benny had lost back at the field, but it would do.

Benny knelt beside the corpse for a second, the naked blade in his hand.

“This is probably cutting you a break,” he muttered, “but we may need this place again.”

With that he plunged the tip of the blade into the back of the man’s neck, right below the skull. Quieting him. He pulled the blade free, lips curled in disgust, and then repeated the process with Turk. Then he wiped the blade clean on Turk’s shirt, slid the knife into the sheath on the gun belt, and climbed down to catch up with Nix and Lilah. His mind churned with what he had just done. Closure, of a kind, although it felt more like taking out the garbage than giving peace to the dead. Either way it was necessary work.

All part of the family business.

43

B
ENNY AND
N
IX FOLLOWED THE
L
OST
G
IRL INTO THE WOODS THAT
surrounded the ranger station. She led them thirty yards up a crooked path that had been carved by rain runoff, making sure to step on rocks or fallen logs, leaving no footprints at all. Nix noticed that first and pointed it out to Benny, and they imitated her careful ways, though it meant that they went more slowly and with far less grace than the lithe Lilah.

Lilah suddenly stopped with her head cocked to listen.

“Hide!” she hissed with quiet urgency, and immediately she appeared to vanish into a tangle of wild roses. Nix pulled Benny down behind an ancient rhododendron, and they huddled together, trying to make themselves as small as rabbits.

“What is it?” Benny whispered, but Nix jabbed him in the ribs and pointed.

They had a good view of the open space at the base of the tower and the various game trails that crisscrossed in front of it. At first Benny didn’t see anything, but then the tall grass in the clearing shifted and a man stepped very cautiously out of hiding.

Charlie Matthias.

Nix gave a sharp inward hiss and grabbed Benny’s arm
with such force that he thought she’d break the bones. Her fingernails dug into his flesh, and from that point of contact he could feel a shudder of disgust and murderous fury wash through her. Here was the man who had killed her mother. With his other hand Benny reached for the pistol at his hip, but Lilah appeared out of nowhere and touched his arm. When he looked at her, she shook her head and nodded to the other side of the clearing. Three more men stepped into the sunlight. The Hammer and the Mekong brothers. All of them carried guns.

The men walked to the foot of the ranger tower, casting cautious looks at the surrounding woods and checking the ground for footprints. When they passed the spot where Lilah had led Nix and Benny into the woods, the men saw nothing to attract their attention.

At the base of the ladder, the Hammer cupped his hands around his mouth and gave a short, sharp whistle that sounded like a woodland bird. He waited for a few seconds, then made the call again. He turned to Charlie and shook his head.

“Go on up and see what’s what,” Charlie growled to Vin. His voice carried easily in the clear morning air.

“Yeah, maybe I’ll find my lucky coin,” Vin said as he turned toward the ladder, but Charlie grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

“You have something to say, boy, you say it to my face.”

Vin looked up at Charlie, and for a moment Benny thought that the smaller man was going to try something. He was holding his shotgun; he could have stepped back and brought the gun up into Charlie’s face. One act of courage or
pride, and the devil would be on his way down. Nix gripped Benny’s wrist and gave it a pump, as if that would somehow encourage Vin to do the right thing.

In the end, however, Vin did the cowardly thing. He mumbled something and lowered both his eyes and his gun.

“Go about your business, then,” Charlie said flatly. “Git your skinny butt up that ladder and see what those two morons are doing,”

Vin shot a quick look at Joey Duk, but he didn’t let Charlie see his expression. He slung his shotgun across his back and began climbing as the other men trained their weapons on the catwalk. Vin went up carefully and slowly, and when his head and shoulders were just above the level of the platform, he froze. Benny could hear his curses floating through the trees.

“What is it?” demanded Charlie.

“You better get up here, boss.”

With a growl, Charlie and the Hammer climbed to the catwalk while Joey remained at ground level to guard the ladder. Benny had to crab sideways a few yards to see the three men as they stood there, examining the bodies of their fallen comrades.

It was then that the reality of what he’d done hit Benny.

I killed a man.

Not a zombie … but a real, living human being.

He listened inside for his conscience to scream about the wrongness of it, but all he heard echoing through his internal darkness was the sound of Morgie’s trembling voice back at Nix’s house, and the sound of Tom’s voice as he held Jessie Riley. And the sound of Nix’s awful sobs last night. If his
conscience had something to say about what he’d done, it didn’t dare say it loud enough to be heard. And some other part of him wished that he’d driven that wooden spike into the big man with the pale skin and the one red eye, who stood with his fists on his hips thirty yards away. If only Tom had taught him how to shoot. But then, he reflected, he knew enough about handguns to understand that thirty yards was a long way for any kind of accuracy. Even if he emptied the entire magazine at the catwalk, he might not hit anyone and would, in turn, draw deadlier fire from their long guns. Charlie had a rifle slung on his back.

He bent close to Nix and Lilah, and mouthed the words: “Stay or go?”

Lilah made a palms-down gesture. Stay.

Charlie went to the rail of the catwalk and looked out over the mountain slope and the surrounding forest. He swept his eyes slowly from one side to the other, and for one chilling moment his gaze rested on the spot where Benny and the girls crouched. Could that evil red eye see them? Then the big man’s gaze swept past.

The Hammer came and stood beside him. “This is a complete waste of time, Charlie. We need to get them kids and get ours asses over the hill.”

“I don’t like leaving it like this,” growled Charlie. “Unfinished business is sloppy.”

“Yeah, well, wasting time is wasting money,” retorted the Hammer. “We already got us a round dozen for the games.”