THE CREATURE LIFTED ITS WHITE FACE TO BENNY AND OPENED ITS MOUTH. Blood ran over the artist’s broken teeth and dripped onto the front of the slicker.
“Mr. Sacchetto … ?”
The zombie took a shambling step toward him, raising fingers that were bone white and looked strangely disjointed, as if all of the knuckles were broken. Benny was frozen in place. He had never known anyone who had become a zom—not since the disease had taken his mother from him. He and Chong and Nix had talked about it, wondered about it, even joked about it, but even to them, even in this world, it was slightly unreal. Zoms were out there, real life was here in town, and deep inside, in a flash of understanding, Benny realized he had been just as detached from the realities of the world as everyone else. Even with people talking about quieting a relative who’d died. Even with all of the incontrovertible evidence in his face every day, Benny realized he never quite equated zombies with people. Not even his trip into the Ruin had done that, not completely. But now, as this zombie—this person—reached for him, the horrible truth of it hit him with full force.
For a dreadful moment Benny was frozen to the spot and frozen into this state of awareness. The creature’s eyes met his, and for a moment—for the strangest, twisted fragment of a moment—Benny could swear that there was some splinter of recognition, that some piece of Sacchetto looked out in blind panic through the eyes of the dead thing that he had become.
“Mr. Sacchetto,” Benny said again, and this time his voice was full of cracks, ready to break.
The zom’s mouth moved, trying to form words, and against all evidence and sense, Benny hoped that somehow the artist was in there. That he had been able, through some unimaginable way, to fight the transition from man to monster. But all that came from the dead throat was a low moan that possessed no meaning other than that of a hunger it could never understand and never assuage.
It nearly broke Benny’s heart. To see the husk of the person and to know that what had made him human was … gone. Benny felt like his head would break if he tried to hold that truth inside.
The zom stepped toward Benny, reaching with its broken fingers, and still Benny was frozen into the moment, rooted to the rain-slick kitchen floor. It was only when the very tips of the zombie’s cold fingers brushed his cheek that Benny came alive again.
He screamed.
It was terror and it was rage. The terror was for what was reaching for him—this dead and shambling thing; and the rage was for what had been taken from him—a friend, a person he knew.
Benny backpedaled away from those clutching fingers, his feet slipping and sliding on the floor until his back struck the edge of the doorway that led to the middle room. The impact galvanized him, and he spun off the frame and bolted toward the living room. He crashed into a small table and then flung it behind him, not bothering to look as he heard it crack against the zom’s shins. The monster fell over it, and Benny heard the thump of kneecaps and elbows on the hardwood, but no cry of pain. Nothing normal like that.
He burst into the living room and dove for the bag of training equipment. The best weapons were in the kitchen—knives, hammers, a toolbox. He had the wooden swords. They would have to do. Benny pulled at the rough canvas, his fingers clumsily scrabbling at the zipper, pulling it down, half tearing one of his fingernails, cursing, not caring about the pain. The bag opened, and he reached inside just as Sacchetto lumbered into the living room. Benny flicked a glance at the front door. It was locked, and he knew that he would never get the locks opened before the creature could get him. It was the reverse of what he had imagined for Tom.
Fingers brushed his hair and tried to grab hold, but Benny threw himself over the couch, dragging the bag with him. The wooden swords spilled out with a clatter. He grabbed one and spun around on his knees as the zombie bent over the couch to grab at him.
Benny rammed the tip of the sword against the zom’s chest. The impact had all of his fear behind it, and it was harder than he expected, sending shock waves up his arms. He almost dropped the sword.
The zombie swiped at his face, and Benny could feel a fingernail slice him across the cheek, from ear to nose.
He shifted his grip on the bokken, holding it like a quarterstaff, and used the span between his clenched fists to drive into the zom’s shoulders, shoving it back and knocking it off balance. It was more powerful than he thought, and he realized that Sacchetto could only have been turned recently. Just before, or during, the storm. He wasn’t decayed, hadn’t lost his mass. Maybe hadn’t even lost all of his mind. Maybe that was why he could turn the doorknob. What had Tom said?
Very few zoms can turn doorknobs, and most of them don’t have the coordination to climb out of a window. Very few could. Not “none.” Maybe it was the recent dead who could do this.
The realization gave him clarity, but not one shred of comfort. It meant that Sacchetto was even more dangerous. Stronger, faster, maybe smarter than the image of a zom that Benny had in his mind.
The zom lurched toward him again and began clambering over the couch.
Benny jumped to his feet and backed away, and as he did so, he almost unconsciously took the handle of the wooden sword into the proper two-hand grip. Fists apart for leverage, raising the sword, elbows slightly bent.
The zom reached for him, trying to grab his wrist.
“I’m sorry,” Benny said.
And he brought the sword down on the top of the artist’s head.
The creature did not stop.
Benny hit him again and again.
And again.
His arms rose and fell, rose and fell, slamming the hard wood down on the zombie’s skull. Benny could hear screams as he struck. Not the zombie’s. They were his own.
“STOP!”
Tom’s shout cut through the air, and Benny froze in place, the wooden sword raised high, his hands slick with blood and brain matter. Benny turned his head to see Tom, standing in the doorway to the middle room. His brother was covered with blood and mud and rainwater; his steel katana was in one strong hand, a thick-bladed bayonet in the other.
“Benny,” Tom said, “it’s over. You won.” Tom laid the bayonet on a table and stepped close. He reached up to take hold of the bokken. “You did it, kiddo. You killed the monster.”
“‘Monster’?” Benny said in a soft and distant voice. He looked down at the shattered, lumpy mass that was all that was left of Sacchetto. It no longer looked human. It no longer looked like a zom. All it was now was dead meat and broken bones and stuff that glistened and dripped. Benny let Tom take the sword from his hands. In truth he could barely feel his hands. They were icy, detached, alien. Those hands had just done things that he could never have done. Benny looked numbly at them; at the bloody hands of a killer.
Benny suddenly turned and threw up into a potted plant. Tea and muffins and burgers. He wished he could vomit up the last few moments of his life, to expel these memories and experiences.
Tom stood apart, a sword in each hand, panting.
“Are you hurt, Benny?” he asked. “Did he … ?”
“Bite me?” Benny wiped his mouth and shook his head. “No. He didn’t.”
Tom nodded slowly, but his eyes ranged up and down Benny, looking for injuries. The only injuries Benny had were a scratch on the cheek and a torn fingernail. However, Benny understood Tom’s caution, and he wondered what Tom would have done if he had been bitten.
Finally, Tom put down the wooden sword and used a cloth to wipe the gore from his katana.
“What happened?” Benny asked thickly. “Was it lightning? A fallen tree?”
“The lightning hit the north watchtower. It collapsed and dumped Ramón Olivera over the fence. About a couple dozen zoms rushed at him when the tower fell. The two other guards must have been spooked by the storm. They panicked and opened the gate to try and rescue Ramón, and the zoms were all over them. Sally Parker—you know her, don’t you? Lives next door to Morgie? Well … she was killed.”
“No …”
“The other guards didn’t hear the screams, because of the thunder, and before they knew what was happening there were twenty or thirty zoms in the streets. You’d think after all this time, after everything that’s happened, people wouldn’t panic. But they did. Every idiot who could pull a trigger started shooting. Three people were shot, and two others were bitten. I think the gunshot victims will all make it, but as for the others …”
He let it hang. Everyone knew there was nothing that could be done to stop the infection from a zombie bite. Depending on the strength of each person’s immune system, they’d last a day or a week, but they were doomed. All victims would be taken to the Quiet House on the far side of town. They’d be given food and water and books. A priest or pastor or rabbi would come and sit with them. The doors would be locked, and everyone would wait. Chong said that bite victims often committed suicide and that a few were murdered by friends or family who didn’t want to see them suffer. Benny didn’t used to believe Chong. Now he knew his friend was probably right.
“Did they get all the zoms?”
“Yes,” said Tom. “Captain Strunk and his crew made sure of that. And Ramón will be fine. He broke his leg, and he has some burns, but there was so much wreckage around him that the dead couldn’t get to him.”
“Was anyone else bitten?”
“No. The zoms never got farther than the red zone. Strunk has forty people with rifles at the north gate while the crew repairs the fence.” He swore. “If I had a dime for every time I told the town council that we need a double line of fences …”
“Tom,” Benny said. “Some zoms must have gotten past you.”
“No. Not one.”
“But … Mr. Sacchetto … Zoms got to him, and he lives all the way over by the reservoir.”
Tom squatted down and rolled the dead artist over onto his back. He examined the man’s hands and wrists, lifted his shirt to look underneath. Tom’s lips were pursed and his eyes narrow and unreadable. Tom stood and walked quickly through the house, unlocked the back door, and stepped out onto the porch. Benny followed along and watched as Tom bent to examine the scuffed mud on the wood porch floor and the steps. The rain had washed most of it away, but there must have been enough left, because Tom made a disgusted sound and stared for a few seconds out into the darkness. Benny realized that the storm had eased, and there were no new screams, no additional gunshots.
Tom gently pushed Benny back inside and locked the door. Almost as an afterthought, he picked up the oak bar and slid it through the sleeves. Tom told Benny to wash the blood off his hands, and he gave him a bandage to wrap the finger with the torn nail. It hurt, but pain seemed to be such a small thing. All of this was done without words, and they walked back to the living room in silence and stood over the body. Benny could tell that Tom was working something out. His brother kept looking toward the back door and then down at Sacchetto.
“Damn,” Tom said softly, “I hate it when I’m right.”
Benny stood over Sacchetto, looking down at the body. He did not see the zombie. He saw the man who had painted the portrait of the Lost Girl. A man who had helped establish and build this town. A friend.
“What do you mean?” he asked Tom.
Tom studied his face for a moment and then nodded to himself, as if he’d just made a decision about whether it was safe to share his suspicions with Benny.
“Look at his fingers. Tell me what you see.”
Benny didn’t have to look. He’d already noticed how grotesquely crooked the artist’s hands had been.
“Someone did that to him,” Benny said. “While he was alive.”
Tom nodded. “His ribs are bruised, too, and it looks like someone knocked some of his teeth out, broke a couple others. Someone tortured him to death, Benny. And when he reanimated as a zom, he was brought here.”
“Brought here? Why would someone bring a zom here?” Benny demanded.
Tom looked at him with cold and dangerous eyes.
“Why, to kill us, of course.”
27
“WHO WANTS TO KILL US?” BENNY SAID.
Tom didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Did you see anyone outside? Hear anyone?”
“No. Just the storm,” Benny said, then paused. “Well … I did hear one thing. Something hit the side of the house. I think it was a bullet. You said that bullets could travel a long way, so I figured it was a stray shot from the fight. Then someone started jiggling the doorknob. I thought you were trying to get back in. You didn’t take your keys with you, so I—”
Tom touched his shoulder. “It’s okay. I understand why you opened the door, and it’s my fault for not working out some kind of code. Like three knocks and then two.”
“Or how about just yelling through the door?” Benny said.
His brother grinned. “Right. Sorry. This has me a little rattled. But go back to the doorknob. You said someone turned it?”
“A couple of times.”
They looked down at the corpse. “I suppose Rob could have done it.”
“With broken fingers?”
“Zoms don’t feel pain, remember?”
“But … turning a doorknob? Zoms can’t—”
“It’s rare, but it’s been known to happen. Usually you get that sort of thing in the first couple of minutes after reanimation, because the longer someone is a zom, the less coordinated they are. The brain continues to die.”
“Has Mr. Sacchetto been dead that long?”
Tom knelt and put his fingertips against the artist’s skin. “Mmm, hard to say. Hot day, cold rain. But I doubt he’s been dead more than an hour or two. So, we’re in a gray area.”