Rot & Ruin

“Yeah, I sure as hell didn’t do that.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Benny.

The artist sneered. “I ran away and left an infant and a little girl in a house surrounded by the living dead. I sure as hell didn’t do anything right.”

“Could you have carried them out? Both of them?”

Sacchetto gave a single wretched shake of his head.

Benny smiled at him. “Then at least you tried to do what you could do,” he said.

“Kid, I appreciate the effort, but that thought doesn’t even get me through the night.” He closed his eyes. “Not one single night.”

18

“TALK TO TOM,” SAID THE ARTIST AS HE WALKED BENNY TO THE DOOR. “If he’s willing to talk about it, then he can tell you the rest of it.”

“I will.”

“You never did tell me, though… What’s your interest? You don’t know her. What’s she to you?”

Benny was expecting the question but hoping it would slip by unasked. He shrugged. He took the card from his pocket and held it up so they could both look at the image. “It’s hard to put into words. I was sorting through the new cards with my crew, and I saw this one. There was something about it, something about her. I…” He stopped, fishing for the right words, but he came up empty. He shrugged.

However, Sacchetto surprised him by nodding. “No, I get it, kid. She kind of has that effect on people.”

Sacchetto opened the door to a bright spill of September sunlight. The light was clean and dry and seemed to belong to a totally different world than the one Sacchetto had talked about. They lingered in a moment of awkwardness, neither of them sure if this was the whole of their relationship or the first chapter of an acquaintanceship that might last for years.

“Sorry it didn’t work out with the job,” Sacchetto said with a crooked smile.

“Well, it’s not like I’m invested in killing zombies. If you’re hiring, I’m still avail-”

“No,” Sacchetto interrupted, “I mean, I’m sorry your art kinda sucks. You’re a nice kid. Easy to talk to. Easier to talk to than your brother.”

“My art sucks?”

“You can draw,” conceded the artist.

“I…”

“Just not very well.”

“Um… thanks?”

“Would you rather I lie to you, kid?”

“Probably.”

“Then you’re Rembrandt, and having you around would make me feel inferior.”

“Better.”

They grinned at each other. The artist held out a paint-stained hand, and Benny shook it. “I hope you find her.”

“I will,” said Benny.

That got a strange look from the artist, but before Benny could say anything, a voice behind them said, “Well, well, what’s that you got there?”

Benny knew the voice, and in the half second before he turned, he saw Sacchetto’s face tighten with fear. Benny turned to see Charlie Pink-eye, standing on the street right behind him. Next to him, smiling a greasy little smile, was the Motor City Hammer.

“Whatcha holding there, young Benjamin?” said Charlie with the slick civility he used when he was setting up a bad joke-or something worse.

Benny was suddenly aware of the card. It was small, but at that moment it felt as big as a poster. His hand trembled as if the card itself felt exposed and nervous.

The massive bounty hunter stepped closer, and his bulk blotted out the sun. It was weird. Benny liked Charlie and the Hammer. They were heroes to him. Or… had been. Since the Ruin, everything in his head was crooked, as if the furniture was the same but the room had changed. The way these men were smiling at him, the way shadows seemed to move behind their eyes… It made Benny want to gag. There was nowhere to turn, no way to escape the moment unless Benny actually took off running-but that was not any kind of option.

Charlie held out a hand for the card, but Benny’s fingers pressed together to hold it more tightly. It was not a deliberate act of defiance; even in the immediacy of the moment he knew that much. It was more an act of…

Of what?

Of protection?

Maybe. He just knew that he did not want Charlie Pink-eye to have that card.

“It’s just a card,” Sacchetto said. “Like the ones I did of you and the Hammer. I did a couple new ones. You know, for extra ration bucks. It’s nothing special.”

“Nothing special?” said Charlie, his smile as steady and false as the painted grin on a doll. “Let’s see, shall we?” Charlie reached for the card the same way Morgie had. Familiar, as if he had a right or an invitation born of a long-standing confidence. Benny was primed to react, and as the bounty hunter’s fingers closed over a corner of the card, Benny whipped it away. Charlie grabbed nothing but air.

“No!” blurted Benny, and he took a reflexive step backward, turning to shield the card with his body.

The moment-every sound, every trembling leaf in the trees beside the house, even the wind itself-seemed to suddenly freeze in time. Charlie’s eyes went wide. The Hammer and the artist wore identical expressions of complete surprise. Benny felt the blood in his veins turn to icy gutter water.

“Boy,” said Charlie in a quiet voice that no longer held the lie of humor or civility, “I think you just made a mistake. I’ll give you one second to make it right and then we can be friends again. Hand me that card, and you’d better smile and say ‘sir’ when you do.”

Charlie did not make another grab, but the threat behind his words filled the whole street.

Benny didn’t move. He held the card down by his hip and out of sight. He flicked a glance at Sacchetto, but the Hammer was up in the artist’s face, and he had his hand resting on the top of the black pipe he carried as a club. There was no help there.

“Now,” commanded Charlie. He held out a huge, callused hand, palm open and flat to receive the card. A stiff breeze filled with heat and blowing sand suddenly whipped out of the west. The card fluttered between Benny’s fingers.

“Give him the card, Benny,” urged Sacchetto.

“Listen to the man,” agreed the Hammer, laying a hand on the artist’s shoulder. The tips of his fingers dug wrinkled pits through the fabric of Sacchetto’s shirt.

Charlie stretched his hand out until his fingers were an inch from Benny’s face. The bounty hunter’s skin smelled like gunpowder, urine, and tobacco.

“Boy,” Charlie whispered.

Benny raised the card. He did it slowly, holding it between thumb and forefinger, and all four of them watched it flutter like the wing of a trapped and terrified butterfly.

“Give me the card,” said Charlie in a voice as soft as the blowing wind.

“No,” said Benny, and he opened his fingers. The hot breeze whipped it away.

The artist gasped. The Hammer cursed. Charlie Pink-eye snaked a hand after it, but the card tumbled away from his scrabbling fingers. Benny almost cried out as the small rectangle of stiff cardboard and printer’s ink tumbled over and over, bobbing like a living thing on the wind. It struck the sign at the corner of the artist’s property and dropped to the street where it skittered for a dozen yards before it came to a sudden stop as a booted toe stepped down on it, pinning it to the hard-packed dirt.