Rot & Ruin

“That was Charlie, wasn’t it? That’s what he was talking about.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you let him go?”

“To spread the word,” Tom said. “To let the other bounty hunters know that this place was off-limits.”

“And they listened? The bounty hunters?”

Tom smiled. It wasn’t boastful or malicious. It was a thin, cold knife-blade of a smile that was there and gone. “Sometimes you have to go to some pretty extreme lengths to make a point and to make it stick. Otherwise you find yourself having to make the same point over and over again.”

Benny stared at him. “How many were there?”

“Ten.”

“And you let one go.”

“Yes.”

“And you killed nine of them?”

“Yes.” The late afternoon sunlight slanting through the trees threw dappled light on the road and painted the sides of all of the houses to their left with purple shadows. A red fox and three kits scampered across the street ahead of them. “I let the wrong one go.”

“How could you have known? With one of the other guys, even Vin or Joey… It might not have been any different.”

“Maybe. But I don’t get to play that game. I made a choice, and a lot of people suffered because of it.”

“Tom… when you made that choice, you’d already beaten Charlie, right?”

“Yes. He was hurt and disarmed.”

“Then you did the right thing, I think. You can’t know the future. You believed him when he said that he’d change his ways, right?”

Tom nodded.

Benny said, “I would have done the same thing, Tom, because I don’t ever want to live in a world where something like mercy… or maybe it’s compassion… is the wrong choice. Just ’cause Charlie said you were wrong to let him live, it doesn’t make him right.”

Tom didn’t answer, but he nodded and gave his brother a small, sad smile. They stood there, taking each other’s measure perhaps for the very first time. Taking each other’s measure and getting the right values.

Tom pointed, and Benny turned toward the front door of a house with peach trees growing wild in the yard. “This is it.”

“There’s a zombie in there?”

“Yes,” Tom said. “There are two.”

“We have to tie them up?”

“No. That’s already been done. Years ago. Nearly every house here has a dead person in it. Some have already been quieted, the rest wait for family members to reach out and want it done.”

“I know this sounds gross, but why don’t you just go house to house and do it to every one of them? You know… quiet them. Release them.”

“Because a lot of the people here have family living in our town. It takes a while, but people usually get to the point where they want someone to go and do this the way I do it rather than as part of a general sweep. With respect, with words read to their dead family, and then let the dead rest in their own homes. Closure isn’t closure until someone’s ready to close the door. Do you understand what I mean?”

Benny nodded.

“Do you have a picture of the… um… people in there? So we know who they are? So we can make sure.”

“There are pictures inside. Besides… I know the names of everyone in Sunset Hollow. I come here a lot. I was the one who went house to house and tied the dead up. Some monks helped, but I knew everyone here.” Tom walked to the front door. “Are you ready?”

Benny looked at Tom and then at the door.

“You want me to do this, don’t you?”

Tom looked sad. “I want us to do it.”

“If I do my part… then I’ll be like you. I’ll be doing this kind of thing.”

“Yes.”

“Forever?”

“I don’t know, Benny. I told you that I think I’m done with this too. But I don’t know if that’s true. Besides, we don’t know the future, remember?”

“What if I can’t?”

“If you can’t, I’ll do it. Then we go to the way station for tonight and head home in the morning. After that… maybe you and Nix and I will talk about going east. That jet had to land somewhere.”

“Tom, I know I’ve asked this already, but why don’t people from town come out to places like this and just take them back? We’re so much stronger than the zoms. This place is protected. Why don’t we take everything back?”

Tom shook his head. “I ask myself that every day. They think they’re safe in town.”

“That’s not true. Ask Mr. Sacchetto. Ask Nix’s mom. It’s stupid.”

“Yes,” Tom said, “it surely is.”

He turned the doorknob and opened the door. “Are you coming?”

Benny came as far as the front step. “It’s not safe in there, either, is it?”

“It’s not safe anywhere, Benny. Not unless your generation makes it safe. My generation gave up trying.”

They were both aware in that moment they were having a different discussion than the words they exchanged.

The brothers went into the house.

Tom led the way down a hall and into a spacious living room that had once been light and airy. Now it was pale and filled with dust. The wallpaper had faded, and there were animal tracks on the floor. There was a cold fireplace and a mantel filled with picture frames. The pictures were of a family. Mother and father. A smiling son in a uniform. A baby in a blue blanket. Two women who might have been twin sisters. Brothers and cousins and grandparents. Everyone was smiling. Benny stood looking at the pictures for a long time and then reached up and took one down. A wedding picture.

“Where are they?” he asked softly.

“In here,” said Tom.

Still holding the picture, Benny followed Tom through a dining room and into a kitchen. The windows were open and the yard was filled with trees. Two straight-backed chairs sat in front of the window and in the chairs were two withered zombies. Both of them turned their heads toward the sound of footsteps. Their jaws were tied shut with silken cord. The man was dressed in the tatters of an old blue police uniform; the woman wore a tailored frilly white party dress whose sleeves were dark with blood that had dried years ago. Benny came around front and looked from them to the wedding picture and back again.

“It’s hard to tell.”

“Not when you get used to it,” said Tom. “The shape of the ears, the height of the cheekbones, the angle of the jaw, the distance between the nose and upper lip. Those things won’t change even after years.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Benny said again.

“That’s up to you.” Tom took his knife from his boot. “I’ll quiet one, and you can quiet the other. If you’re ready. If you can.”

Tom went to stand behind the man. He gently pushed the zombie’s head forward and placed the tip of the knife at the base of his skull, doing everything slowly, reminding Benny of how it had to be done.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” said Benny.

“I’ve already said it,” said Tom. “A thousand times. I waited, because I knew that you might want to say something.”

“I didn’t know them,” said Benny. “Not like I thought…”

A tear fell from Tom’s eye onto the back of the struggling zombie’s neck.

He plunged the blade and the struggles stopped. Just like that.

Tom hung his head for a moment as a sob broke in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said, and then, “Be at