“Sure, the kids who never grew up.”
“They’re like that. On one hand they work the bounty trade and they can fight like demons, but on the other they don’t really want all this to be real. For them it’s like living inside a video game. Remember when I told you about video games?”
“Sure,” Benny said, though the concept was incredibly alien to him. “With Dr. Skillz and J-Dog… they don’t actually think they’re at the beach, do they?”
“Hard to say,” said Tom. “Everything’s a big game to them. They can be ankle deep in blood or fighting a hundred zoms with their backs against the wall and they’re cracking jokes in their surfer lingo. It’s their way of surviving, and I guess it works for them. Don’t ask me how.” He paused and smiled. “Lot of people can’t stand them. I like them a lot.”
“Weird world,” said Nix.
“You have no idea, sweetie,” said Tom. Benny noticed that he didn’t get the ninja death stare for calling Nix sweetie. Tom gestured to the southeast. “Now… the Greenman has a cabin up there. I got word out to him and a bunch of others that we’re coming. We’ll have friends out there and safe places to rest.”
“Chong’s mom might go for the overnight thing,” Benny said hopefully. “She’d probably think that it would scare the pants off him and get the whole ‘go and see the world’ thing out of his system.” He thought about it. “Probably will work, too. Chong’s not big on roughing it.”
“And Morgie?” Tom asked.
Nix shook her head. “No, Morgie won’t go.”
Benny and Tom looked at her. “You seem pretty certain,” Tom said.
“I am.” But she didn’t explain, and they didn’t press the issue.
“Okay,” said Tom. “If we’re going to get out of here, then I have a week’s worth of stuff I need to get done today. You two better say your good-byes.”
“There’s no one I need to say good-bye to,” Nix began, but Tom cut her off.
“That’s not true and you know it. We’re leaving Mountainside, Nix… we’re not discarding the people who live here. The Kirschs, Captain Strunk, the Chongs… they’ve been kind to you, and they deserve the courtesy and respect of a proper good-bye.”
Nix gave a contrite nod, her face flushed with embarrassment.
“And both of you are leaving friends behind. If Morgie and Chong aren’t going, then are you planning on walking away from them without saying good-bye? Remember, they think we’re going next week. This is going to be hard on them, too.”
Benny sighed, and nodded.
“Leaving is never easy,” said Tom. “Even when you know you have to go.”
FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
People in the Ruin
Traders: They bring all sorts of stuff from town to town in armored wagons pulled by horses covered in carpet and chain mail. You can buy almost anything from a trader, or make a request and he’ll get it for you for a price, and traders’ goods are always expensive.
Scavengers: These people are nuts. They go into towns and raid houses, stores, warehouses, and other places for all sorts of things: supplies, canned goods, stockpiles of seeds and flour, clothing, weapons, books, and everything else. Sometimes they have bounty hunters go in first and clear out the zoms, but then they have to share their profits with them-so a lot of scavengers prefer to risk going into zombie-infested areas. Tom says that the life expectancy of a solo scavenger is two years, but if they survive, they can make enough money to retire. He says he knows of only three who have retired. He’s quieted over two dozen others who weren’t as lucky.
Loners: These people scare everyone. They live alone (or in small groups), and once they’ve staked out their territory they’ll kill anyone who comes close-human or zom. There’s a rumor in town that some of them are cannibals.
13
Tom went back into town to buy some last-minute supplies. Nix and Benny went into the house and upstairs to Benny’s room and then out of his window to sit on the porch roof. Benny dragged a couple of big pillows out and placed them side by side.
The gray clouds were dissolving into pale white wisps that looked like wet tissue paper over a blue ceiling. From up there they could see the whole town. To the west, the flat reservoir backed up against the steep wall of mountains and the miles of fence line that framed the town on the north, east, and west. Adjacent to the town, miles upon miles of enclosed farmland vanished over the horizon lines. It had always baffled Benny why the townsfolk had not pushed out the fence line to incrementally reclaim more and more of the Ruin. The traders who plundered warehouses and construction sites in abandoned towns could bring in as much chain link and poles as people wanted, but the town limits hadn’t budged in years. There was Town and there was the Ruin, and that was as far as people seemed able to think.
As much as it bothered Benny, it nearly drove Nix crazy. She not only wanted to expand the town, she wanted to go to the coast, take boats, and reclaim some of the big islands just off the California coast: Catalina, San Clemente, or any of the other islands big enough to sustain a few thousand people and fertile enough to farm. Nix had a list of islands in the little leather journal she always carried; and detailed plans for how to remove the zoms. She’d copied reams of notes from books on farming and agriculture.
They lay back on the pillows and looked up at the gulls and vultures soaring high on the thermal winds.
“I’m really going to miss Chong and Morgie,” Nix said.
“I know. Me too.”
“But I have to go.”
“I know,” said Benny.
They heard voices down in the yard. Tom and someone else. Nix sat up, but Benny put a finger to his lips and they lay flat on their stomachs and shimmied to the edge of the roof.
Below them, Tom stood talking with a bounty hunter Benny had met a few times at New Year’s parties. Sam “Basher” Bashman. He was a slim, dark-haired man who carried two baseball bats. Both were old and battered, but from what Tom had said, Basher had owned them since the days when he played second base for the Philadelphia Phillies in a world that no longer existed.
“So, you’re really bent on taking your brother and his girlfriend out there?” asked Basher.
“Absolutely,” Tom said.
“Why? No one’s seen the jet since that one time. And I’ve asked everyone about that.”
“Still have to look,” said Tom.
Basher shook his head. “Ruin’s getting weird, man. You haven’t been out there much lately, but people are dying, and it’s not zoms. With Charlie gone it’s an all-out fight to take over his territory. You think this trip’s wise, man?”
“Not really,” Tom admitted.
“Then why do it?”
Tom paused, and Benny and Nix shimmied an inch closer to the edge. “If I don’t take them out there… they’ll find a way to go by themselves.”
There was more to the conversation, but Tom and Basher were now walking away, heading back to town.
Benny sat up and stared into the middle distance.
Nix turned to look at him, and the afternoon sunlight made her hair even redder. And her eyes greener.
“Benny…? Can I ask you a question and get a real answer?”
