“Oh… I pray he tries.”

Digger and Heap chuckled.

Nix wiped blood from her eyes. “Tom’s going to find us and-”

“Of course he’s going to find you, girl. Lord oh Lord but we’ve made it easy for him to find you. To find me.” Preacher Jack stepped closer and squatted down so that he was nearly eye to eye with Benny and Nix. “Mmm… didn’t expect that answer, did you? Tell me… what is it you think is going to happen? Do you think you’re going to be rescued by the big bad Fast Tommy? Tom the Swordsman, Tom of the Woods… Tom the Killer? Is that what you think?”

“Why are you doing this?” pleaded Nix. “Why can’t you people just leave us alone? All we want to do is leave this place.”

“Leave? And go where?”

Nix pointed east. “Far away from you and all this stuff. We don’t want any part of it.”

“You want to go east?” Something moved behind Preacher Jack’s eyes, and for a moment he almost looked afraid. Then his eyes hardened. “Oh, my foolish little sinners, you don’t want to go east. There’s nothing out there for you.”

“Yes there is,” Nix said. “There’s-” She stopped, cutting off her own words.

“What were you going to say? That there’s a plane? A big, shiny jet plane?” Preacher Jack shook his head. “I might be doing you a kindness to keep you from that path. Only thing you’d find east of here is horror and heartache.”

“As opposed to the good times and bunnies we have here,” said Benny. However, despite his snarky comment, Preacher Jack’s words-and that look that had passed behind his eyes-opened an ugly door of doubt deep in Benny’s soul. Had Nix caught it too?

“Why?” Nix demanded again. “Why are you doing this?”

Preacher Jack drove the tip of Benny’s bokken into the soft ground and leaned on it, laying one cheek against the polished hardwood. “Now that’s a wonderful question, little girl. Why indeed? Why did I come out of ‘retirement’? Until December of last year I was content to tend to my flock. I was at work in the fields of the Lord, seeing to the Children of Lazarus.”

“Zoms,” breathed Benny, wanting the word to wipe the smile off Preacher Jack’s mouth.

“Ah yes, the tactic of provoking your enemy. Did Tom teach you that? Or is it your own natural sinfulness that leads you to insult a servant of God? No… don’t answer, boy, because if I hear that word come out of your mouth, I’ll cut off your tongue and nail it to your forehead. Don’t think I’m joking, little Benjamin, ’cause it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve stilled the offending tongue of a sinner. Ain’t that right, boys?”

“Amen to that, padre,” they said.

Benny, wisely, said nothing.

Preacher Jack nodded approval. “When word came to me that Tom Imura had murdered Charlie Matthias and Marion Hammer, well… I knew that the Lord was calling me to do other work.”

“Tom didn’t murder anyone!” declared Nix. “Charlie Pink-eye was the murderer! He killed my mother!”

“Shhh, little girl. I believe you’d find it hard to speak lies with your lips sewn shut.”

Nix spat at him. Benny tensed, ready to throw himself between Nix and Preacher Jack’s retaliation, but the preacher merely laughed and wiped the spittle from the lapels of his dusty black coat. He shook his head, and his smile dimmed a little.

“Oh, child of the dust… you are just stacking up sins in the storehouse of the Lord,” he said softly. “You speak ill of Charlie, but he was a good man. Trusted by his men, good to his family, and a role model for everyone in these troubled, troubled times. Stupid and sinful people can’t see past their own inadequacies to understand the difficult choices a man like Charlie has to make in order to protect what’s his.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “To know that the man who murdered him still walks this earth is like a splinter in my mind. Tom Imura is an evil man. He’s been hounding the Matthias family for years, making spurious claims, interfering with authorized trade, and now he’s a bloody-handed murderer.”

Benny started to say something, but thought better of it. From the look in this man’s eyes, it was clear he wasn’t bluffing about his horrible threats. He briefly wondered if there was any value in telling Preacher Jack that Charlie might still alive, that he’d seen him in the field by the way station, but he held his tongue.

“I’ve seen Tom’s type in a hundred places around the world,” said the preacher. “Before First Night, before I heard the calling of the Lord that directed me to my sacred purpose, I was a different man. More like Charlie and White Bear. You see, I was a soldier once. A special operator, though I don’t suppose that label means anything to you young’uns. I served my country in black bag operations in Africa and Asia, in the Middle East and South America. We were the righteous ones, the hard ones. Heartbreakers and life takers.” He sighed. “Then things got… complicated. Too many regulations imposed on the military. So me and a bunch of my brothers in arms went private. We became contractors.”

“You mean mercenaries,” sneered Nix.

“I’m not ashamed of that word, little girl. Mercs or contractors, it’s all the same… we served the best interests of the American people. One way or t’other.” Preacher Jack laughed again. “Surely you didn’t think I learned to handle myself in Bible school, did you? No, and I’m not saying I was a saint because I was loyal to flag and country. Nope, I won’t spit that lie into the wind. Truth to tell, I was a sinner back then, I’ll admit it and testify my sins, and yet still on the side of the white hats. Still proud to be an American, no matter where I was or on what piece of backwater land I stood.” He leaned closer. “Then came First Night. Ah… that was the miracle that opened the eyes of this poor sinner. The dead rose to claim the earth. Those who had been left to decay into dust rose instead and claimed dominion over the lands of the living. The Children of Lazarus rose, and in their purity they showed us the errors of our ways. Our sinfulness was revealed. That’s when I changed my wicked ways and took to preaching from the Good Book.”

Benny found his voice and very quietly asked, “If you’re so holy, then explain Gameland. How’s that part of God’s plan?”

Preacher Jack shrugged. “This world may be paradise for the Children of Lazarus, but to snot-nosed little sinners like you… this world is hell. How’s that for a cosmic paradox? Heaven and hell coexisting out here in the Rot and Ruin, and the two of ’em forming a brand-new Eden. The towns-why, you might consider them limbo, where souls are just waiting for judgment. As for Gameland… now it would be God’s own truth to say that Gameland is purgatory. It’s where you have a chance to expunge your sins.”

“By fighting z-” Benny caught himself before he said the word. “By fighting the dead in pits?”

Preacher Jack nodded. “When a person faces one of the Children, both are being tested for their worthiness. If the Child wins, then it has shown that God’s power is alive within it, even though the vessel is dead… and the sinner himself gets elevated to a higher being as he joins the Children. If the sinner wins, then by God he’s just shown that he is more righteous in the eyes of heaven, and by striking down one of the Children he has removed imperfection from the holy landscape.”

What a bunch of crap. Benny’s inner voice yelled it, and he almost said it aloud, but he knew that those would be the last words he would speak. He wondered if the old man believed this or if it was some kind of crazy con game. Charlie had tried to justify his actions by saying that he’d earned the right by helping to establish the trade routes that kept the towns alive. Was this more of the same kind of rationalization?

He cut a glance at Nix. The bleeding had slowed, but her eyes were wild with hatred and terror. It made him wonder what lights burned in his own eyes. Aloud Benny said, “What are you going to do with us?”

“I think we all know the answer to that question. Purgatory awaits all sinners.” Preacher Jack rose and nodded to his men. “Bring them.”

63

LILAH FELL ASLEEP WITH THE CAT IN HER ARMS AND WOKE TO FIND HERSELF alone. She looked out the window and saw the Greenman working at a picnic table outside. The old man looked up briefly, saw her hesitating in the doorway, smiled, and bent over his work once more. Lilah came tentatively out of the house and stood on the far side of the picnic table, watching him. The table was covered with bowls of herbs and leaves, bunches of

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