Of course, Benny would sooner eat broken glass than tell Tom how impressive he thought it was.
“Why are you bringing that?” he asked as Tom adjusted the lay of the strap.
“It’s quiet,” Tom said.
Benny understood that. Noise attracted zoms. A sword was quieter than a gun, but it also meant getting closer. Benny didn’t think that was a very smart idea. He said as much, and Tom just shrugged.
“Then why bring the gun?” Benny persisted.
“’Cause sometimes quiet doesn’t matter.” Tom patted his pockets to do a quick inventory to make sure he had everything he needed. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”
Tom tipped a couple of fence runners to bang on drums six hundred yards north, and as soon as that drew away the wandering zoms, Tom and Benny slipped out into the great Rot and Ruin and headed for the tree line.
Chong waved to them from the corner tower.
“We need to move fast for the first half mile,” cautioned Tom, and he broke into a jog-trot that was fast enough to get them out of scent range but slow enough for Benny to match.
A few of the zombies staggered after them, but the fence runners banged on the drums again, and the zombies, incapable of holding on to more than one reaction at a time, turned back toward the noise. The Imura brothers vanished into the shadows under the trees.
When they finally slowed to a walk, Benny was sweating. It was a hot start to what would be a scorcher of a day. The air was thick with mosquitoes and flies, and the trees were alive with the sound of chattering birds. Far above them the sun was a white hole in the sky.
“We’re not being followed,” Tom said.
“Who said we were?”
“Well… ever since we left you keep looking back toward the fence line.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Or are you looking to see if any of your friends came to see you off? Other than Chong, I mean. Maybe a certain red-haired girl?”
Benny stared at him. “You are completely delusional.”
“You’re going to tell me that you don’t have a thing for Nix Riley?”
“A world of no.”
“How come I found a sheet of paper with her name written on it maybe a million times?”
“Must have been Morgie’s.”
“It was your handwriting.”
“Then I guess I was practicing my penmanship. What is it with you? I told you, I don’t have a thing for Nix. Let it go.”
Tom turned away without another word, but Benny caught his smile. He cursed under his breath for the next mile.
“How far are we going?” Benny asked.
“Far. But don’t worry, there are way stations where we can crash if we don’t make it back tonight.”
Benny looked at him as if he’d just suggested they set themselves on fire and go swimming in gasoline. “Wait- You’re saying we could be out all
“Sure. You know I’m out there for days at a time. You’re going to have to do what I do. Besides, except for some wanderers, most of the dead in this area have long since been cleaned out. Every week I have to go farther away.”
“Don’t they just come to you?”
Tom shook his head. “There are wanderers-what the fence guards call ‘noms,’ short for ‘nomadic zombies’-but most don’t travel. You’ll see.”
The forest was old but surprisingly lush in the late August heat. Tom found fruit trees, and they ate their fill of sweet pears as they walked. Benny began filling his pockets with them, but Tom shook his head.
“They’re heavy and they’ll slow you. Besides, I picked a route that’ll take us through what used to be farm country. Lots of fruit growing wild. Some vegetables, too. Wild beans and such.”
Benny looked at the fruit in his hand, sighed, and let them fall.
“How come nobody comes out here to farm this stuff?” he asked.
“People are scared.”
“Why? There’s got to be forty guys working the fence.”
“No, it’s not the dead that scare them. People in town don’t trust anything out here. They think there’s a disease infesting everything. Food, the livestock that have run wild over the last fourteen years-everything.”
“Yeah…,” Benny said diffidently. He’d heard that talk. “So… it’s not true?”
“You ate those pears without a thought.”
“You handed them to me.”
Tom smiled. “Oh, so you trust me now?”
“You’re a dork, but I don’t think you want to turn me into a zom.”
“Wouldn’t have to get on you about cleaning your room, so let’s not rule it out.”
“You’re so funny, I almost peed my pants,” Benny said without expression, then said, “Wait, I don’t get it. Traders bring in food all the time, and all the cows and chickens and stuff… They were brought to town by travelers and hunters and people like that, right? So…”
“So, why do people think it’s safe to eat that stuff and not the food growing wild out here?”
“Yeah.”
“Good question.”
“Well, what’s the answer?”
“The people in town trust what’s inside the fence.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Tom walked a bit before he said, “There’s town and then there’s the Rot and Ruin. Most of the time they aren’t in the same world, you know?”
Benny nodded. “I guess I do.”
He stopped and stared ahead with narrowed eyes. Benny couldn’t see anything, but then Tom grabbed his arm and pulled him quickly off the road and led him in a wide circle through the groves of trees. Benny peered between the hundreds of tree trunks and finally caught a glimpse of three zoms, shuffling slowly along the road. One was whole; the other two had ragged flesh where other zoms had feasted on them while they were still alive.
Benny opened his mouth and almost asked Tom how he knew they were there, but Tom made a shushing gesture and continued on, moving soundlessly through the soft summer grass.
When they were well clear, Tom took them back up to the road.
“I didn’t even see them!” Benny gasped, turning to look back.
“Neither did I.”
“Then how…?”
“You get a feel for this sort of thing.”
Benny held his ground, still looking back. “I don’t get it. There were only three of them. Couldn’t you have… you know…”
“What?”
“Killed them,” said Benny flatly. “Charlie Matthias said he’ll go out of his way to chop a zom or two. He doesn’t run from anything.”
“Is that what he says?” Tom murmured, then continued down the road.
Benny shrugged, then followed.
