Dust & Decay

“What are you going to do?”

“Just do it!”

Benny and Nix obeyed, but they ran only a dozen yards and then slowed to watch as Tom took a few steps toward the enraged rhino and aimed his gun.

“Sorry about this, old girl,” Tom said aloud.

The sound of the shot was strangely hollow. A pok! Benny expected it to be louder. The bullet hit the rhino in the shoulder. The creature howled, more in anger than in pain, but a second later it lunged at Chong.

Tom fired again, aiming at the creature’s muscular haunch. The rhino shrieked, and this time there was pain in its cry.

It turned with mad fury in its eyes… and charged Tom.

“Why doesn’t he shoot it in the eye?” demanded Nix, but Benny shook his head.

As the rhino rumbled past where they stood, Benny and Nix waved with silent urgency at Chong. He saw them, hesitated, looked at the retreating back of the rhino, and did nothing.

“Crap!” growled Benny. “He’s too scared to move.”

Then something pale rose up out of the weeds behind Chong.

“Lilah!” gasped Nix.

“Why didn’t you idiots climb a tree?” she demanded. “What was all that running around?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, and instead grabbed Chong’s shoulder and fairly dragged him along behind her. The four of them ran through the grass and shrubs toward the trees and then out onto the road.

“In here,” Lilah commanded, pointing, and the four of them plunged into the woods on the far side of the road. They ran through sticker bushes and hanging vines and leaped a gully and then broke into another clearing. At the far side was a squat and solid tree with a stout limb that dipped low. “Go!”

They raced to it and one by one jumped for the limb. Lilah shoved their butts upward, and when it was her turn she crouched and sprang, caught the limb as nimbly as a monkey, and climbed to safety.

Far away they heard two more hollow gunshots.

And then nothing except the triumphant roar of the rhinoceros.

FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

Tools of the Zombie Hunter Trade, Part Three

Tom Imura’s sword is a katana. That kind of sword was developed in ancient Japan by the samurai-the elite warrior class. The katana originated in Japan’s Muromachi period (1392-1573). Samurai sometimes wore a second, shorter sword called a wakizashi with it, but that one was used for committing suicide if the samurai felt his honor had been lost.

(When I asked Tom why he doesn’t carry the short sword, he said, “I believe in survival, not suicide. Besides, aren’t there already enough dead people in the world?”)

The katana is known to be the sharpest sword in the world.

His sword is called a kami katana. He says it means “spirit sword” or “demon sword.” Kind of cool, but a little freaky, too.

His kami katana has a twenty-nine-inch blade and a ten-and-three-quarters- inch handle. The handle was originally wrapped in black silk, but when that wore down, my mom covered it in silk and leather with some Celtic knots worked into the design.

(Mom really loved Tom.) I miss her. So does Tom.

21

THEY CROUCHED LIKE FRIGHTENED BIRDS IN THE TREE, WATCHING THE forest and seeing only trees. There was no sign of Tom or the rhinoceros. Benny peered at Nix. Her red hair was pasted to the right side of her face by a film of drying blood. Her cheek was bruised, and she didn’t meet Benny’s eyes. When he reached out to push her hair from her face, she batted his hand away. “Don’t.”

“I want to see how bad it is.”

“It’s not bad. Don’t worry about it.”

The others went instantly silent. Nix looked at them and then glared at Benny.

“It’s not a bite,” she said. “I hit my head on something when I fell.”

“Show us,” demanded Lilah, and when Nix hesitated, she snapped, “Now.”

With a trembling hand, Nix touched her forehead, and then slowly pushed the hair back. It wasn’t nothing, and it was still bleeding… but it wasn’t a bite, and Benny breathed a vast sigh of relief. Then his face clouded with concern. There was a jagged cut that ran from Nix’s hairline down her cheek almost to her jaw. It wasn’t bone deep, but like most head wounds it had bled furiously.

“Oh, man.” Benny hastily dug some clean cotton squares from his first aid kit. He tried to apply them, but Nix snatched them from him and pressed them in place.

“I know,” she snarled. “It’s ugly.”

Benny smiled at her. “No,” he said, “it’s not that. I’m just sorry you got hurt.”

Her eyes were hard to read in the shadows under the leaves. She turned away without saying anything.

“We have to go find Tom,” whispered Benny.

Nix touched her face. “When he sees this, he’s going to make us go back home.”

“That doesn’t matter, Nix. Right now we have to find him and-”

“He said to stay here,” she insisted. “If he’s looking for us and we’re looking for him, we might never find each other.”

“Yes,” agreed Chong hastily. He was green with sick fear and sweating badly. He clutched the trunk of the tree as if it was trying to pull away from him. “Staying here is good.”

Lilah nodded. “Tom is a good hunter. He’ll find us.”

“But what if he doesn’t?” demanded Benny.

“He will.”

“What if he can’t?”

“He will.”

A voice said, “He has.”

Benny whipped his head around so fast that he nearly fell out of the tree. “Tom!”

Tom Imura stood in the waist-high grass at the base of the tree. He was covered with mud and streaked with grass stains. His black hair hung in sweaty rattails, but he didn’t even look out of breath, and he held Lilah’s spear in his hands.

“Come on down,” he suggested with a grin.

One by one they crawled down to the lowest limb and then dropped. Chong was last, and his legs were visibly trembling.

Benny ran over to Tom. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, and then gave his brother a quick, fierce hug. He abruptly let Tom go and pushed him back like he was radioactive. “Okay, we’re done.”

Nix came in for a hug too.

“Heck of a start,” Tom said. It was meant as a joke, but Nix’s eyes flashed with concern.

“Tom… I don’t want to go back!”

“I do,” said Chong.