“Why?” asked Tom.
“For money.”
“Who pays them?” asked Brother David.
“People in town. People in other towns,” said Benny. “I heard the government pays them sometimes. Mostly for clearing out zoms on trade routes and stuff life that.”
“Who’d you hear that from?” asked Tom.
“Charlie Matthias.”
Brother David turned a questioning face to Tom, who said, “Charlie Pink-eye.”
The faces of the monk and the two women fell into sickness. Brother David closed his eyes and shook his head slowly from side to side.
“What’s wrong?” asked Benny.
“You can stay to dinner,” Brother David said stiffly, eyes still closed. “God requires mercy and sharing from all of His children. But… once you’ve eaten, I’d like you to leave.”
Tom put his hand on the monk’s shoulder. “We’re moving on now.”
The redhead stepped toward Tom. “It was a lovely day until you came.”
“You should get out of here,” said the younger woman.
“No,” said Brother David sharply, then repeated it more gently. “No, Sarah,” he said to the redhead. “No, Shanti,” he said to the black teenager. “Tom’s our friend, and we’re being rude.” He opened his eyes, and Benny thought that the man now looked seventy. “I’m sorry, Tom. Please forgive the sisters, and please forgive me for-”
“No,” said Tom. “It’s okay. Sarah’s right. It was a lovely day, and saying that man’s name here was wrong of me. I apologize to you, to her, to Sister Shanti, and to Old Roger. This is Benny’s first time out here in the Ruin. He met… that man… and had heard a lot of stories. Stories of hunting out here. He’s a boy, and he doesn’t understand. I brought him out here to let him know how things are. How things fall out.” He paused. “I haven’t taken him to Sunset Hollow yet. You understand?”
The three Children of God studied him for a while, and then one by one they nodded.
“What’s Sunset Hollow?” Benny asked, but Tom didn’t answer.
“And I thank you for your offer of a meal,” said Tom, “but we’ve got miles to go, and I think Benny’s going to have a lot of questions to ask. Some of them are better asked elsewhere.”
Sister Sarah reached up and touched Tom’s face. “I’m sorry for my words.”
Sister Shanti touched his chest. “Me too.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about,” Tom said.
The women smiled at him and caressed his cheek. Shanti turned and placed her hands on either side of Benny’s face. “May God protect your heart out here in the world.” With that she kissed him on the forehead and walked away. Sister Sarah smiled at the brothers and followed Shanti.
Benny turned to Tom. “Did I miss something?”
“Probably,” said Tom. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s roll.”
Brother David shifted to stand in Tom’s path. “Brother,” he said. “I’ll ask once and then be done with it.”
“Ask away.”
“Are you sure about what you’re doing?”
“Sure? No. But I’m set on doing it.” He fished in his pocket and brought out three vials of cadaverine. “Here, Brother. May it help you in your work.”
Brother David nodded his thanks. “God go with you and before you and within you.”
They shook hands, and Tom stepped back onto the dirt road. Benny, however, lingered for a moment longer.
“Look… mister,” he began slowly, “I don’t know what I said or did that was wrong, but I’m sorry, you know? Tom brought me out here, and he’s a bit crazy, and I don’t know what…” He trailed off. There was no road map in his head to guide him through this conversation.
Brother David offered his hand and gave him the same blessing he bestowed upon Tom.
“Yeah,” said Benny. “You too. Okay?”
He hurried to catch up to Tom, who was fifty yards down the road. When he looked back the monk was standing by the rusting gas pump. Brother David lifted his hand, but whether it was some kind of blessing or a gesture of farewell, Benny didn’t know. Either way it creeped him out.
9
WHEN THEY WERE FAR DOWN THE ROAD, BENNY ASKED, “WHAT WAS THAT all about? Why’d that guy get so jacked about me mentioning Charlie?”
“Not everyone thinks Charlie’s ‘the man,’ kiddo.”
“You jealous?”
Tom laughed. “God! The day I’m jealous of someone like Charlie Pink-eye is the day I’ll cover myself in steak sauce and walk out into a crowd of the living dead.”
“Hilarious,” said Benny sourly. “What’s with all that Children of God, Children of Lazarus stuff? What are they doing out here?”
“Brother David and his group are all over the Ruin. I’ve met travelers who’ve seen them as far east as Pennsylvania. Even all the way down to Mexico City. I first saw them about a year after the Fall. A whole bunch of them heading across the country in an old school bus pulled by horses, with Scripture passages painted all over it. Not sure how they got started or who chose the name. Even Brother David doesn’t know. To him it’s like they always were.”
“Is he nuts?”
“I think the expression used to be ‘touched by God.’”
“So that would be a yes.”
“If he’s nuts, then at least his heart’s in the right place. The Children don’t believe in violence of any kind.”
“But they’re okay with you, even though you kill zoms?”
Tom shook his head. “No, they don’t like what I do. But they accept my explanation for why I do it, and Brother David and a few others have seen
“And Charlie? What do they think of him? Can’t be anything good.”
“They believe Charlie Pink-eye to be an evil man. Him and his jackass buddy, the Motor City Hammer. Bunch of others. Most of the bounty hunters, in fact, and I can’t fault the Children for those beliefs.”
Benny said nothing. He still thought Charlie Matthias was cool as all hell.
“So… these Children, what do they actually
“They tend to the dead. If they find a town, they’ll go through the houses and look for photos of the people who lived there, and then they try and round them up if they’re still wandering around the town. They put them in their houses, seal doors, write some prayers on the walls, and then move on. Most of them keep moving. Brother David’s been here for a year or so, but I expect he’ll move on too.”
“Charlie said that he rounds up zoms, too. He told us about a place in the mountains where he has a couple hundred of them staked out. He said it was one of the ways he and the Hammer were making the Ruin a safer place.”
“Uh-huh,” Tom said sourly. “The traders call it the Hungry Forest. I think Charlie cooked up that name. Very dramatic. But it’s not the same as what the Children do. Charlie rounds up zoms and ties them to trees, so that he can find them more easily when he gets a bounty job.”
“That sounds smart.”
“I never said Charlie wasn’t smart. He’s very smart, but he’s also very twisted and dangerous, and his motives are not exactly admirable. He also does a lot of bulk work-cleaning out small towns and such for the traders. That doesn’t make the people in town happy, because it confuses the issue of identification when you wipe out a whole town of zoms, but salvaging for stuff is more important. We’ve become an agricultural society. No one’s made much
