Rot & Ruin

“Are you pretending to be a dope or do you really not understand?”

“What, you think I don’t know you’re a bounty hunter? Everybody knows that. Zak Matthias’s uncle Charlie is one too. I heard him tell stories about going deep into the Ruin to hunt zoms.”

Tom paused with his coffee cup halfway to his lips. “Charlie-? You know Charlie Pink-eye?”

“He gets mad if people call him that.”

“Charlie Pink-eye shouldn’t be around people.”

“Why not?” demanded Benny. “He tells the best stories. He’s funny.”

“He’s a killer.”

“So are you.”

Tom’s smile was gone. “God, I’m an idiot. I have to be the worst brother in the history of the world if I let you think that I’m the same as Charlie Pink-eye.”

“Well… you’re not exactly like Charlie.”

“Oh… that’s something then…”

“Charlie’s the man.”

“Charlie’s the man,” echoed Tom. He sat back and rubbed his eyes. “Good God. What could you possibly find interesting about a thug like Charlie?”

“Because he tells it like it is,” Benny said. “I mean, it’s kind of weird that we’re surrounded by, like, a zillion zoms, we learn about First Night and zombies in school, but they just talk around it for the most part. They don’t tell us about it. It’s crazy. We have all those salvaged textbooks from before First Night that tell us about the world-politics and cars and all that-but you know what we have for First Night? A pamphlet. Does that make any sense? I can tell you the make and model of every car that ever rolled out of Detroit, but I can’t tell you about how Detroit fell during First Night. I know about cell phones and computers and all that before stuff… But I don’t know anything about what’s on the other side of the fence… Except what I learn from Charlie. Twice a month we practice zombie killing in gym class by hitting straw targets with sticks, and we do some of that kind of crap in the Scouts, but nobody-I mean nobody-except Charlie and the Hammer ever really talks about zoms. Our teachers must think we’re all learning about zombies from our folks, but none of my friends have heard squat at home. You’re even worse because killing zoms is your job, and you never talk about it. Never. Yeah, you’ll help me with math and history and all that stuff, but when it comes to zoms… I learn more off the back of Zombie Cards than I ever do from you. Everyone over twenty years old in this stupid town acts like we’re living on Mars. I mean, how many people even go to the Red Zone let alone all the way to the fence? Even the fence guards don’t talk about the zoms. They talk about softball and what they had for dinner last night, but they all pretend the zoms aren’t even there.”

“People do go to the Red Zone, Benny. They go there to post erosion portraits for the bounty hunters.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I know for a fact that most people pay kids to post the portraits for them. How do I know? Because I’ve put up about a hundred of them.”

“You-?”

“Zombie Cards don’t buy themselves, Tom. And when people ask kids to put the pictures up, they don’t even say what they are. I mean, we’re standing there, both looking at an erosion portrait, and no one ever mentions the word ‘zom.’ Most people just say, ‘Hey, kid, want to hang this for me?’ They never say where. They know that we know, but they can’t actually come out and say it. It’s freaking weird, man.”

“People are scared, Benny. They’re in denial. You’re only fifteen, so you and your friends don’t really understand what it was like during First Night.”

“No joke, Mr. Wizard. That’s my whole point! We want to know.”

Tom pursed his lips. “I guess… people probably want to shelter you from it.”

Benny wanted to throw something at Tom. He eyed a heavy book; that might wake him up. “How the heck can anyone shelter us? We live behind fences, surrounded by the Rot and Ruin. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Big place, used to be called America? Filled with zoms? It’s not fair that people don’t tell us the truth.”

“Benny, I-”

“It’s our world too,” Benny snapped. His words hit Tom like a slap. Then into the silence Benny dropped another bomb. “Don’t get on my case for listening to Charlie if he’s the only one who thinks we ought to know truth.”

Tom stared at him for a long time as different emotions flowed like water over his face. Finally he threw the last of his coffee into the bushes beside the porch, and stood up.

“Tell you what, Benny… Tomorrow we’re going to start early and head out into the Rot and Ruin. We’ll go deep, like Charlie does. I want you to see firsthand what he does and what I do, and then you can make your own decisions.”

“Decisions about what?”

“About a lot of things, kiddo.”

And with that Tom went inside and to bed.

6

TOM AND BENNY LEFT AT DAWN AND HEADED DOWN TO THE southeastern gate. The gatekeeper had Tom sign the usual waiver that absolved the town and the gatekeeping staff of all liability if anything untoward happened once they crossed into the Ruin. A vendor sold Tom a dozen bottles of cadaverine, which they sprinkled on their clothing, and a jar of peppermint goo that they dabbed on their upper lips, to kill their own sense of smell.

“Will this stuff stop the zoms?”

“Nothing stops them,” said Tom. “But this slows them down, makes most of them hesitate before biting. Even drives some away. It gives you an edge and a little breathing room, but don’t think you can stroll through a crowd of them with no risk.”

“That’s encouraging,” Benny said under his breath.

They were dressed for a long hike. Tom had instructed Benny to wear good walking shoes, jeans, a durable shirt, and a hat to keep the sun from boiling his brains.

“If it’s not already too late,” Tom said.

Benny made a rude gesture when Tom wasn’t looking.

Despite the heat, Tom wore a lightweight jacket with lots of pockets. He had an old army gun belt around his narrow waist, with a pistol snugged into a worn leather holster. Benny wasn’t allowed to have a gun yet.

“Eventually,” Tom said, then added, “Maybe.”

“I learned gun safety in school,” Benny protested.

“You didn’t learn it from me,” Tom said with finality.

The last thing Tom strapped on was a sword. Benny watched with interest as Tom slung a long strap diagonally across his body, from left shoulder to right hip, with the hilt standing above his shoulder so that he could reach up and over for a fast right-handed draw.

The sword was a katana, a Japanese long sword that Benny had seen Tom practice with every day for as long as he could remember. That sword was the only thing about his brother that Benny thought was cool. Benny’s mom, who was Tom’s adopted mother, was Irish, but their father had been Japanese. Tom once told Benny that the Imura family went all the way back to the samurai days of ancient Japan. He showed Benny picture books of fierce-looking Japanese men in armor. Samurai warriors.

“Are you a samurai?” Benny had asked when he was nine.

“There are no samurai anymore,” Tom said, but even back then Benny thought that Tom had a funny look on his face when he said that. Like maybe there was more to say on the subject, but he didn’t want to say it right then. When Benny brought the subject up a couple of times since, the answer was always the same.

Even so, Tom was pretty damn good with the sword. He could draw fast as lightning, and Benny had seen him do a trick once when Tom thought no one else was looking. He threw a handful of grapes into the air, then drew his sword and cut five of them in half before they fell to the grass. The blade was a blur. Later, after Tom had gone off to a store, Benny counted the grapes. Tom had thrown six into the air. He’d only missed one. That was sweet.