“Oh crap.”
“Well,” said Nix, “she’s your object of obsession.”
“Very funny.”
Reluctantly and slowly, they followed.
The closer they got, the louder was the moan of the zombie. It was different from other zom voices that Benny had heard, although he couldn’t yet put his finger on what was different. Whatever it was, it made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.
They reached Lilah, and together they crept around a bend in the path. A zombie stood right in front of them. He had once been a great brute of a man, and even withered and dead he had a massive chest and broad shoulders, and hands that looked big enough to snap Benny in half. He was wearing a mechanic’s coveralls, and there was a line of gaping black bullet holes across his chest and stomach.
Nix yelped in fear. Benny cried out and brought up his knife, ready to make a fight of it. He crowded Nix backward, willing to sacrifice himself for her.
The moan of the zombie changed to a growl of immediate need, and his wrinkled lips curled away from rotted yellow teeth.
The forest around them erupted into a chorus of other hungry moans as an army of the undead began to howl for their flesh. Benny and Nix turned and saw that there were, indeed, hundreds of zombies-men and women, children and adults-and they were everywhere. Lilah had taken them the wrong way. Instead of leading them to safety, she’d stumbled into a terrible trap.
Lilah stood inches from the massive zombie. She turned to Benny and Nix… and laughed.
“What…?” Nix said, blinking as if it was her eyes and not her mind that needed clearing.
“You bitch!” Benny snarled. “You betrayed us!”
45
THE MOANS OF THE DEAD FILLED THE ENTIRE FOREST.
Benny and Nix stood back-to-back. Without realizing it they had already passed dozens of the zoms as they followed Lilah into the woods, and looking back they could see them standing there, dead eyes turned their way.
Lilah put her hand on the center of the big zombie’s chest.
The Lost Girl was still laughing. The big zombie tried to grab her, tried to bite her. But it couldn’t do either.
“What…?” Benny said softly. His mind was struggling to understand this moment.
And then he saw it.
The zombie was tied to the tree. A length of sturdy rope was wrapped around its waist, and shorter lengths anchored each hand. It could move its hands a few inches, but that’s all.
Benny turned and saw that the zombie by the next closest tree was similarly bound. And the next.
“They’re all… tied up,” said Nix, turning in a slow circle.
It was true.
The forest was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of zombies, and every one of them was tied to a tree. In some places three or four were tied to the trunks of massive oaks.
“I… don’t understand,” said Nix, but Benny did. He suddenly remembered something Tom had told him about Charlie rounding up zoms and tying them to trees, so that he could find them more easily if he got a bounty.
He knew where they were.
The Hungry Forest.
Nix wheeled on Lilah. “You think this is
Lilah’s eyes twinkled. “Yes. Very funny. Your faces!” She laughed, and the sound of it drew another series of long moans from the dead.
“What
Benny told her. Lilah listened and nodded, and Nix looked horrified. Lilah pointed out a few trees where the ropes had been cut and the zoms taken.
“God…,” Nix said, “Charlie’s
“Sometimes,” Lilah said, “I come here. Cut some loose. Let them go.”
“Why?”
“I do it when I think Charlie is coming.”
“An ambush. Sweet,” Benny said with a grin. “Sick and twisted… but sweet. Oh, and… sorry for calling you a bitch.”
She shrugged. “Been called worse. Don’t care much.”
Nix could not take her eyes off of the legions of living dead. “How many of them are in here?”
Lilah considered, shrugged. “Three thousand. More.”
“It’s horrible.”
Lilah shrugged again and turned to Benny. “You think it’s horrible?”
“I’m not sure what I think about it,” he said.
To Nix, Lilah said, “Two times I came here and let them go. Cut all ropes.”
“Why?”
“To free them. They followed me to the field. By the water.”
“Geez,” Benny said, “those were the zoms we ran into by Coldwater Creek. You let them
Lilah nodded. “Sometimes… seeing them. Tied. Makes me sad. I untie and lead them away.”
“You lead them? How do you do that without getting chomped?” Benny asked.
She looked at him as if he was a moron. “They’re slow. I’m not slow.” Then she pinched the skin of her forearm. “They follow flesh.”
Benny swallowed hard, trying to imagine a horde of zombies, shambling along after this beautiful and crazy Lost Girl.
Lilah looked up through a small opening in the canopy of leaves at the position of the sun. “Time to go.”
With that, she turned and walked deeper into the Hungry Forest. Each zombie she passed craned its neck and tried to bite her, but the Lost Girl did not appear to notice. Or care.
Benny and Nix lingered a moment longer, caught up in all of the different ways in which this place was wrong. Whether the zoms were tied to the trees or taken for bounties or freed to wander, the horror of it was overwhelming.
The zombies closest to them moaned incessantly, biting the air, as if aching to feed on just the smell of living flesh.
“Your girlfriend is deranged,” said Nix.
“She’s not my girlfriend, thank you very much. And I believe Tom said the expression was ‘touched by God.’”
“She’s touched all right. Come on, this place is way beyond creepy. Let’s get out of here, Benny,” Nix said. “Right now.”
“With you on that,” he agreed, but as they hurried along the path to catch up, Benny kept looking back, compelled to lock this image in his mind. There was something about it that was starting to shove ideas around in his head. Weird and wicked ideas.
Nix caught the look on his face. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he lied. The thoughts running through his head were not thoughts he wanted to share with her. Not yet.
46
