48
LOU CHONG YELPED IN FEAR AND BACKPEDALED AWAY AS THE ZOMBIE tumbled into the pit. He pressed his back against the cold dirt wall and threw an arm up to shield his face. The creature struck the ground with a crunch of brittle bones. The crowd above him laughed like they were watching a clown act. People were calling fresh bets based on whether they thought the zom had broken any bones that would prevent him from attacking Chong.
Chong hesitated, looking down at the zom as it moaned and tried to get to its feet.
He wanted to run and hide, but he was in a fifteen-foot-wide pit. Running and hiding were not options. He racked his brain to decide how to survive this. The moment needed action. What was the smart thing to do?
What would Tom do? Before that thought had even finished forming, Chong was moving. He launched himself off the wall, raised the iron pipe over his head, and brought it down with all his force on the back of the zom’s head.
The creature dropped to the ground. The crowd above him went totally silent. A single ration dollar fell downward, seesawing through the humid air.
The zom twitched. One kick of the leg. A tremble of its fingers. Chong growled deep in his throat and hit it again. Harder. This time the crunch was wetter.
The zom stopped moving.
The crowd… went wild. Cheers and applause.
Chong lowered the pipe and looked up at the crowd. The Burned Man crouched on the edge of the pit, grinning like a ghoul.
“Well, well… I’ll be double damned,” he said. “Folks, it looks like we got us a bona-fide zombie killer. Yes sir, that’s what we have here.”
The crowd cheered. Fistfuls of money flashed back and forth. “Give him another!” someone shouted, and instantly the chorus was picked up until everyone was yelling it.
“Okay, okay!” laughed the Burned Man. “Customer’s always right. Nestor? Crab? Bring us another gladiator. Let’s have something really fresh.”
The two assistants wore wicked smiles as they vanished. Betting ramped up until the oddsmaker had to yell at the crowd, “Give me a bloody chance to count, damn you!”
Chong tried not to shiver. In truth he was no longer cold, but he trembled from hair to toes as he waited for the next monster. A shadow obscured the opening, and he looked up sharply to see the long boom of a wooden crane swinging out over the edge. A figure dangled from the pulley, thrashing and twisting. A rope had been looped under its arms, and once it was down, the rope would fall away and the zombie would be free.
The Burned Man leaned over the edge. “We don’t want to damage the goods a second time,” he said, and the comment drew a fresh wave of harsh laughter.
Nestor and Crab turned the winch, and immediately the thrashing zom began descending into the fighting pit. Chong backed to the wall. This zom was massive. Burly, like a bull wrangler or one of the pit throwers back home. Huge chest and stomach, massive arms, almost no neck, and eyes that blazed with dark fire. His skin showed no signs of putrefaction. He hadn’t been dead for very long.
What had Tom told him about the newly risen? They seemed smarter. They were stronger and a little faster. More coordinated. The decay of their motor cortex hadn’t yet reduced them to staggering scarecrows.
Chong gripped the pipe and licked his lips again. “Warrior smart,” he muttered.
“Let ’er go!” ordered the Burned Man. Crab and Nestor jerked the rope from around the big man’s body and whipped it up and through the pulley. The zom dropped the last few inches and landed heavily on its feet.
The creature was immense. Maybe six foot five and at least three hundred pounds, even with no blood left in its veins. Chong was five-eight and weighed 130.
The zom landed facing the opposite side of the pit. Chong had one chance to rush in and bash it with the club. He surged forward, but before his first step touched down he was struck full in the face by a bucketful of icy water. It was so shocking, so surprising, that it stopped him like a punch to the face. Coughing, sputtering, gasping, Chong dropped the pipe and staggered backward, thumping hard into the wall. He pawed water out of his eyes and looked up to see the Burned Man holding an empty bucket.
“Got to make things fair, little man,” he said amid shrill laughter and catcalls.
The splash of the water and Chong’s own confused sputtering made the zombie turn around. It stared at him with those bottomless black eyes. Pale lips curled back from teeth that were still white and strong.
The pipe lay on the ground five inches from the zombie’s feet. Six feet away from Chong.
The zom uttered a moan of hunger that was newly awakened and that could never be satisfied. The monster raised its massive hands and then lunged for Chong.
49
SALLY TWO-KNIVES FOUND HER HORSE DRINKING FROM A STREAM. SHE clicked her tongue and the big Appaloosa-Posey by name-raised her speckled head and stared. Then she whinnied happily and trotted up the hill to meet Sally.
Sally sheathed her knife, patted the horse’s cheek, and kissed her. “You big goof!” she scolded. “You ran off and left Mama out here all alone. What were you thinking?”
“Probably thought you were dead,” said a voice from behind her. Sally whirled around, grabbing for her knife. The blade whipped out of its sheath, but the movement tore a cry of pain from Sally.
Despite the pain, she smiled as a man stepped out of the shadows beneath a tall spruce.
He was medium height, built like a wrestler, and bald as an egg, with chocolate-brown skin and a small goatee shot through with streaks of white. He had a pair of machetes slung over his back and a.45 automatic in a Marine Corps web belt strapped to his waist.
“Damn!” said Sally. “As I live and breathe!”
The man grinned. “I thought that crazy horse was yours. I tried to ride her but she tried to eat me, so we were both letting things calm down before we had another go at it.”
Sally Two-Knives gave him a charming, coquettish smile. “Solomon Jones… why are you trying to steal my horse?”
Solomon opened his arms. “Give us a hug, girl.”
Sally did, but gently, hissing a little as Solomon gathered her in his powerful arms. When he heard the hiss he let her go, ranging his eyes up and down and finally taking in the sling and the bandages.
“Whoa, now… what’s wrong?”
“Well,” said Sally, “the old girl ain’t what she used to be.” She told him everything. Solomon listened with great interest. Like Sally, he was an unaffiliated bounty hunter, mostly working the kind of closure jobs that Tom Imura took and doing some occasional cleanups and guard work. He’d come west from Pennsylvania after First Night with his two kids and a ragtag collection of refugees he picked up during the three-thousand-mile trek through what was becoming the Rot and Ruin. Solomon lived in Fairview, where, also like Tom, he had tried and failed for years to get the town to organize a militia to patrol the part of the Ruin that ran along the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
By the time Sally was done telling her story, Solomon was nodding. “This all fits,” he said, “but it’s worse than you know. White Bear’s got more than seventy goons in his crew, and some of them are real gangsters. Actual gangsters from before First Night. There’s two I know will be trouble. Heap Garrison and Digger Harris. Digger used to be a leg-breaker for the Mob in Detroit, and wasn’t Heap with the Russian Mafia? Or that’s what people
