Rot & Ruin

Benny saw one of the zoms-it was the huge man in the tattered overalls of a mechanic-grab a bounty hunter by the throat and drive him back against a tree. The ropes that had once held the mechanic to the tree in the Hungry Forest still dangled from his wrists. Other shapes moved through the shadows behind him. Ropes dangled from withered necks and emaciated waists, and firelight sparkled in their dead, black eyes.

Benny felt a mix of savage pride and relief-it had been an insane plan, and it had taken longer than Benny had expected-but it was working. He should have trusted that Lilah would get it done.

But… Tom! Nothing in his plan explained how his brother had returned from apparent death and had come here to save them. And it was clear from what Tom had said, and from the knowing look he’d shared with Lilah, that he had known that the zoms were closing in on the camp. How had he known? Had he met the Lost Girl and, after all of his attempts, finally spoken with her? Here, on this night of storms and blood?

Benny turned to find his brother, and there Tom was, right in the thick of it. Several zoms separated him from Charlie. Several bounty hunters tried to rush Tom at the same time that half a dozen zoms closed in on him, and it was in that moment that Benny finally saw, and understood, the kind of man Tom Imura was.

His whole body was a blur of coordinated movement. Big Jim Starr, one of Charlie’s fiercest men, grabbed Tom by the shoulder and spun him around, but Tom turned into the pull, and his left hand shot out with whiplike speed. Big Jim clutched a ruin of a throat and fell away, but before he even had time to fall, Tom slashed up and wide, then left and across, and two zoms seemed to fly apart. Joker Brills pulled a pistol and snapped off a shot, but Tom had seen him go for his gun and was moving before the barrel was properly aimed. Gun and gun arm flew into the air, and Tom pivoted and cut the legs from another zom, then rose and slashed Axeman Santiago across the chest in a double cut that left a deep red X across his torso. Tom whirled and cut, whirled and cut, and his attackers-both the living and the dead-fell before him. Benny could see Charlie watching all of this from the far side of the clearing, and there was a slack expression, somewhere between shock and awe, on his heavy features.

Then a powerful hand clamped onto Benny’s leg, and he was falling. As he went down he twisted around and saw the Motor City Hammer, staring at him with black and lifeless eyes as he pulled Benny toward his bloody mouth.

Benny screamed and kicked him in the face, over and over again, but the Hammer was beyond feeling pain. Then Nix stamped down on the Hammer’s wrist and put the barrel of the pistol hard against the zom’s forehead and pulled the trigger. The Hammer’s head jerked back, and he collapsed down, dead forever this time.

“Thanks!” Benny gasped as Nix hauled him to his feet.

“Here!” Lilah said. She knelt by the Hammer’s side and pulled from his belt the heavy metal club he always carried. She tossed it to Benny, who caught it with his swollen hand.

He yelped and cursed, but he managed to close his fist around it. Maybe it’s only sprained, he told himself, then he had no more time to think about it as Vin Trang rushed at him with a butcher knife in his fist. Joey Duk made a grab for Nix, and four zoms staggered toward Lilah.

“You and your brother are a pain in my-,” Vin began, but Benny didn’t want to hear it. He used the pipe to batter aside the knife and then rang the club off of Vin’s forehead. Vin’s eyes lost focus, and Benny closed the deal with an overhand swing that put Vin down. Benny didn’t know or care if he’d killed the man or not. He needed to help Nix and Lilah, but as he turned, he saw Nix moving backward and firing with each step. Her bullets punched into Joey Duk with such force that it made him look like a puppet, dancing on the strings of a demented puppeteer. The last shot caught him high and he pitched backward into the arms of three zoms-a nun and two men in business suits. The man collapsed under the zoms, screaming as they began to feast.

Nix stared at the fallen man, then down at the gun she held.

“God…,” she murmured, her voice sounding lost, and for a moment Benny thought that killing Joey had somehow broken her. But then a zom reached for her, and Nix calmly, coldly, turned and shot it between the eyes.

Another body fell past Benny, and he turned to see Lilah dispatch the last of the four zoms who had rushed her. Her face ran with rainwater, and she was grinning. Grinning.

That is one spooky girl, Benny thought. From all that Lilah had been through, she was “lost” in more ways than one. He wondered if there was any roadmap that would lead her toward some kind of normal life. Or was she too far out in the wilderness of her own experience for that?

“Benny!”

Tom’s voice shook him back to the moment, and he saw his brother running toward him. The last of the bounty hunters were trying to make a stand by the bonfire, and a wall of zoms was closing in on them.

“The east path!” Tom yelled, pointing with his bloody sword, and Benny turned toward the path the children had taken. It was the only path clear of the dead. Lilah had said it was the best one for their escape, because it was elevated-part of an ancient rock wall that had long ago collapsed, and unlike all of the other paths, it didn’t directly connect with the forest. It had been their planned escape route, but in all of the turmoil, Benny had become confused.

“RUN!” Tom yelled, and even as he said it, Apache came tearing out of the shadows and galloped at full speed along the path, sensing the direction of safety. Benny began backing up, but he was still looking at the camp. There were more than a thousand zoms closing in now, and only eight bounty hunters. After all they’d done, after all the harm they had caused, Benny felt a flicker of compassion for them, and he knew that this was the same thing Tom must have felt when he’d spared Charlie’s life years ago. Back in Sunset Hollow, whatever that was.

But there was no saving these men. Lilah and Nix knew it, because they ran along the path without a flicker of hesitation. Tom knew it, though when he caught up with Benny, he too turned and looked back for a moment.

“We can’t save them,” Tom said.

“No,” whispered Benny, but his reply was lost in the rain.

“Go catch up with the girls,” Tom said. “I’ll hold this trail until you’re well clear. Leave Apache for me, because when I leave, I’ll be in a hurry.”

Benny ran down the road and whistled for the horse, and Apache stopped, turned reluctantly, and trotted back to him. Benny tied the reins in a loose pull knot to a stunted tree.

“Tom, how did you… I mean… How are you alive?”

Tom flashed him a grin. “Remember when you threw that bottle of cadaverine to me with the cap loose, and I spilled it all over myself? I think you saved my life. After I fell, I landed right in the middle of them, but they didn’t go for me. Not right away. The cadaverine gave me a couple of seconds, and I rolled under a car. I was stuck there for hours. I didn’t know where you were… or if you were alive.”

“Geez. How bad are you hurt? I saw a lot of blood…”

“I took some buckshot pellets. It’ll be fun getting them out, but it could have been a lot worse.”

The gunshots and screams were intensifying.

“Family reunion later, kiddo. Haul ass.”

Benny did just that. He turned and followed Nix and the Lost Girl out of the camp, leaving the dying to the dead.

But as he rounded the bend in the path, Benny skidded to a stop. Nix and Lilah stood on either side the road, and fifty yards beyond them was the twelve-year-old girl and the other children. Standing like a monster from some old fairy tale-covered with mud and blood, fierce and terrible-was Charlie Pink-eye.

He held the pistol at arm’s length, but his gun hand was no longer steady. He was breathing hard, and his red eye leaked tears of blood. There were deep gashes on his cheeks, and his shirt was torn open to reveal a body that was crammed with muscles and crisscrossed by scar tissue.

“Damn you all to hell,” he said in a low hiss. “You took everything I had away from me. You led those monsters here! You turned against your own kind.”

Benny’s lips curled back, but Nix got her words out first. “You’re not our kind, you freak. You killed my mother! You’re not even human.”

She pointed her pistol at Charlie and fired, but he read her intent and ducked to one side, and the shot went wide by five inches. The slide locked back with a hollow click, the magazine empty. Growling with frustration, Nix threw the pistol at Charlie and caught him on the shoulder, but he only winced. Lilah tried to gut him with her spear, but the big man moved so fast that only the tip of the blade grazed him. Even so, it drew a hot red line across his