Nix, Benny, and Lilah all began yelling at once, telling Tom why they thought the plan was bad, arguing why they should all go, and growling at him for treating them like they were helpless. Tom took about five seconds of it before his face darkened.
“Okay—enough!”
Silence dropped over them like a net.
“This isn’t a debate. The three of you will damn well stay here and do as you’re told. That means you, too, Lilah.”
Three sets of hostile eyes glared raw heat at him. However, what Tom said next changed their looks from hostility to fear.
“If I’m not back in twenty-four hours, Lilah … I want you to take Benny and Nix back home.”
“What?” demanded Nix.
“Hold on a frickin’ minute,” snapped Benny.
“Okay,” said Lilah.
Benny and Nix whipped their heads around and looked at her liked she’d just betrayed them. Lilah’s face was a mask of stone.
Into the silence, Tom said, “Good.” He patted his pockets to reassure himself that he had everything he needed, then fished out two of his three bottles of cadaverine and handed them to Benny.
“I don’t plan to be gone long enough to need this much,” said Tom. “You might.”
“Tom, I—,” Benny began, but Tom cupped him around the back of the neck and pulled him forward. He kissed Benny on the forehead.
“Stand tough, little brother. You’ve learned a lot in the last seven months. Use it. Be warrior smart.”
Benny nodded. “Warrior smart.”
Tom hugged Nix and patted Lilah’s cheek. “All of you,” he said, “warrior smart.”
They nodded.
Tom turned and began running along the line of glacial rocks. He moved with an oiled grace that was deceptively fast. Within seconds he was nearly to the tree line; within minutes he was gone, swallowed up by the darkening forest as the sun tumbled over the edge of the world.
PART THREE
HARD LUCK AND TROUBLE
It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love.
This is how the whole scheme of things works.
All good things are difficult to achieve;
and bad things are very easy to get.
—RENÉ DESCARTES FRENCH MATHEMATICIAN
PHILOSOPHER, AND SCIENTIST, 1596–1650
32
AFTER TOM LEFT, LILAH TURNED TO BENNY AND NIX. “IF WE’RE GOING to spend the night here, let’s make this place secure.”
“Tell us what to do,” said Nix.
The first thing they did was find string and lengths of rope and construct a network of lines around the gas station. Lilah set Benny to work gathering cans from the rubbish heap out back and buckets full of small stones. Nix used a hammer and awl from Brother David’s tools to punch holes through the cans. Then Lilah strung the cans on the taut lines and filled each one with a few stones. She strung the lines at various heights so that any zom would walk right into them, and the sound of the stones rattling in the cans would be clear and loud. The strings of cans would also hopefully trip up a human sneaking up in the dark. There was some starlight but no moon, and the tripwires were virtually invisible once the sun was down.
They hung towels and sheets over the window to block out any light. Lilah gathered wood for the stove.
There wasn’t much else they could do, and so they settled down to wait.
At first it was merely tense. Benny worried about Chong and worried about Tom. But as time wore on he began to feel irritable and jumpy.
“I wish Tom was here,” he complained.
Lilah, who was cleaning her pistol again, shot him a look. “He would be if Chong had not been stupid.”
“Okay,” Benny snapped, “so Chong made a few mistakes … how about laying off him?”
“Why? He has caused every problem since we left town.”
“Chong’s just scared, okay? You going to tell me you never made any mistakes because you were scared?”
Something seemed to move behind Lilah’s eyes, but her voice was cold and steady. “Yes, I made mistakes. But they never put anyone else in danger.”
“That’s because you never had anyone else,” Benny said savagely, and immediately regretted his words as he saw the hurt register in Lilah’s eyes. “Oh, crap. Look, Lilah, I didn’t mean—”
She gave him a murderous look, flung open the door, and went outside. The sun was a fiery dragon’s eye peering through the trees.
Benny stared at the stiffness of her retreating back until Nix came and stood over him, blocking the view. The disapproval on her face was eloquent. Benny closed his eyes.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“I can’t believe I said that to her.”
Nix punched him in the chest. Not hard, but hard enough to make her point. She turned and walked away.
Benny’s inner voice said, Smooth.
“Shut up,” he muttered.
It was nearly full dark before Lilah came back into the house. She ignored Benny completely and went to the table and continued with the process of cleaning her gun as if nothing had happened. Nix locked the door and pulled the curtains over the window.
They built a small fire in the stove. They made and ate some food. They drank water from their canteens.
They slowly went crazy from waiting.
Lilah and Nix barely spoke to Benny. At first he felt bad about that, but as the evening wore on he began to resent them for it. An hour crawled by. Outside crickets pulsed in the grass, and a dry wind began to disturb the treetops.
They listened to it as they ate more of the beans and rice. Nix was the cook, and she added some onions, garlic, and spices from Brother David’s meager stores. Lilah could cook, but no one alive wanted to eat what she prepared; Benny could cook too, but he had no sense for seasoning. To him spices began and ended with salt and hot sauce.
Another half hour limped by them. Lilah gathered up every knife in the way station and began cleaning them. She placed them in a neat row.
“Are we just going to sit here?” Benny griped as he glared across the table at Lilah.
Nix gave him a cold look and flapped her hand. “There’s the door. No one’s forcing you to stay here.”
“Very funny.”
Lilah kicked the table very hard. “Nix is right. You are welcome to leave if you think you can do something useful.”
“Maybe I should.”
“Maybe you should,” Lilah agreed, getting in his face.
“Maybe you should,” Benny fired back. “We probably wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you.”
Lilah looked totally perplexed. “What?”
“Oh, come on. You think this is all Chong’s fault, and maybe a lot of it is, but he wouldn’t even have come along on this dumb camping trip if it wasn’t for how he felt.”
Lilah blinked in surprise. “What?”
“You heard me. If you weren’t here, then there’s no way Chong would have come along. He’d be home safe.”
“Benny!” warned Nix, but Lilah cut in.
“Me? Why? What do I have to do with what he does?”
“Because he’s head-over-freaking-heels in love with you, Lilah. How can you be so freaking observant and not know—”
“Benny!” Nix jumped to her feet. “Cut it out.”
Shut up! snarled his inner voice. Benny ignored both warnings. “It’s the truth.”
Lilah stared at him with a mixture of confusion and anger. “You should shut up.”
He pointed a finger at her. “And you should open your damn eyes, Lilah. He’s been mooning over you since you moved in with him. He can’t take his eyes off you.”
“Shut up!”
“You talked with him back on the road. I’ll bet he told you how he feels and you just threw it back in his face.”
“Shut up!” Lilah yelled.
“Are you denying it? Didn’t he say anything back there?”
“Go away.”
“What did you two talk about?”
Lilah glowered. “He asked me if this was all his fault and I told him the truth. I told him that he was a town boy … he isn’t strong enough to be out here.”
“You told him that? Were you trying to make him run away?”
“No!”
“What did he say to you?”
“It’s none of your business, so shut up!” barked Lilah, banging her fist on the table hard enough to make one of the knives roll off and clatter to the floor. In the ensuing silence she bent and picked it up.
Benny knew that he should shut up, that he should leave this alone, but he couldn’t keep the words from spilling out. “What happens if I don’t shut up? You going to threaten me again? I’ll bet you can’t wait for the chance to quiet me. And Chong. And maybe Nix, too.”
Lilah’s face went dead pale. Tears, as small as chips of diamonds, glistened in the corners of her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but Nix beat her to it.
“Benny,” yelled Nix, “so help me God—”
THUD!
Something hit the front door. They froze, mouths open but silent, eyes staring at the door, ears straining to hear. The wind tossed the treetops. There was no other sound, not even the crickets.
“What was that?” demanded Benny.
Nix held a finger to her lips. Lilah tightened her grip on the knife.
Benny licked his lips. “Oh, crap,” he said softly.
Nix picked up both bokkens and handed one of the swords to Benny. They listened to the night. The crickets had stopped. They did that when they were startled, Benny knew. When they were afraid. When there was something there.
They waited, listening for sounds. Hoping to hear Tom call out. Or Chong.
Thud!
Another blow against the door. The sound was both heavy and soft. Muffled. Like a fist wrapped in a towel. Or …
Thud! Thud-thud!
Or a hand flung loosely, without purpose or conscious control.
Thud—thud—thud.
Whatever was beating on the door was not Tom. Or Chong. Or anyone alive.
Then they heard the moan.
33
“THERE’S A ZOMBIE OUT THERE,” WHISPERED BENNY.
“I know,” murmured Lilah is her ghostly voice. She used her free hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. “It must have heard you.”
“Heard us,” answered Benny, but his defense was weak and he knew it. Lilah snorted.
Thud.
“What’s it doing?” Nix asked in a horrified voice. “Is it knocking to get in?”
Lilah shook her head. “Not knocking. Pounding. It wants to get us … the door is in the way.”
Somehow that chilled Benny more than the thought that the creature was knocking. Even though he couldn’t see the zom, the thought of its limp, dead hand striking over and over again, following some impulse that existed in a brain that had otherwise died was intensely creepy. How could science ever explain that? How could anything make sense of it?
The pounding continued. There was no rhythm to it, but each blow carried the same dead-weight force.
“What should we do?” asked Nix.
Lilah’s answer was as cold as the flesh of the monster outside, and there was a weird light in her eyes. She looked more than a little crazy. “We kill it.”
They gaped at her.
Benny pointed at the door. “You want us to go out there? To open the door and actually go out?”
“If you’re afraid,” she sneered, “stay here.”
Benny suddenly felt like an idiot. “Look … about before—”
“Shut up,” warned Lilah. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Benny felt humiliated, so he tried to stand straighter, and he put what he hoped was a tough–guy, bounty-hunter, zombie-killer glare in his eye.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Lilah asked. “Are you going to throw up?”
“No, I—”
Lilah pushed him out of the way. “When you open the door, I’ll shove him back. Close the door behind me. When he’s quieted I’ll knock. Be ready to let me in.”
“We will,” promised Nix, “but shouldn’t you at least put on a carpet coat?”
Lilah sneered at the suggestion. “For one zom?”
Benny cleared his throat. “Look … Lilah … are you sure you want to do this?”
The Lost Girl gave him a funny look. “What does ‘want’ have to do with anything? The dead will keep trying to get us. Pounding can be heard.”
As if to punctuate her remark, the limp hand struck again. And again.
“Now,” she said softly. She held her knife with the easy competence that only came with years of practical experience.
“Now,” Lilah said again, and Benny jumped.
“Sorry,” he said, and reached for the handle. Lilah gave him a disgusted look.
“Wait!” snapped Nix. She looked at Lilah. “The cans.”
Lilah stiffened. “Oh,” she said softly.
“Oh, man …,” Benny breathed. “How could a zom get through them without …” He didn’t finish the sentence because there was nowhere to go with it.
“We’re in trouble,” whispered Nix. “Someone else is out there. Someone alive.”
“I know.” Lilah stepped back from the door.
Nix closed her eyes for a second. “Brother David and the Sisters didn’t just walk away.”
“I know,” Lilah said again. She slid the knife into its sheath and reached for her spear.
“Wait,” said Benny, shifting to block the door. “You’re not actually going out there, are you? Not now!”