23
BENNY COULDN’T BEAR TO WATCH, BUT HE COULDN’T LEAVE NIX ALONE, either. However, she threatened him if he didn’t leave, so he slunk away to stand in the shade of a tree with Tom.
“Heck of a start,” Tom said softly.
“I’d say ‘could be worse,’ but I’m kinda thinking that it couldn’t. So … basically this blows,” observed Benny.
“Yes it does,” agreed Tom.
They stared out at the endless green of the forest.
“She’s strong,” said Tom after a while.
“Nix? Yeah.”
Minutes passed, and Benny tried to think about anything instead of how it must feel to have a curved needle—like one of Morgie’s fishhooks—passed through the skin of your face, followed by the slow pull of surgical thread. The tug at the end to pull the stitch tight. The tremble in the flesh as it waited for the next stitch. And the next.
Benny was pretty sure he was going to go stark raving mad. He kept listening for Nix’s scream. And with each second he could not understand why she didn’t scream. He would have, and he made no apologies for it. Screaming seemed like a pretty good response to what Nix was going through.
After what seemed like five hundred years, Tom repeated what he’d said.
“She’s strong.”
“Yeah,” Benny said again.
His fingernails were buried into his palms hard enough to gouge crescent-shaped divots.
“Girls are stronger than boys,” Tom said.
“Not a news flash,” Benny said.
“I’m just saying.”
They watched the forest.
“If this goes on any longer, Tom?”
“Yeah?”
“Shoot me.”
Tom smiled.
Benny looked at him and then over to where Chong still sat in the tall grass.
“Is this all really Chong’s fault?”
Tom shrugged.
“No, tell me.”
“If you really want an honest answer,” Tom said quietly, “then … yes. Chong didn’t listen when he was told to be quiet, and he didn’t listen when he was told what to do when the rhino was chasing us.”
“He’s scared.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Sure,” Benny said grudgingly, “but I’ve been out here before.”
“Don’t make excuses for him. You listened to me the first time we came out here,” Tom reminded him. “And that was back when you couldn’t stand me.”
“I know.”
“Not everyone is built to be tough,” said Tom. “Sad fact of life. Chong is one of the nicest people I know. His folks, too. If our species is going to make it back from the brink and build something better than what we had, then we need to breed more people like them. It would be a saner, smarter, and far more civilized world.”
“But … ?”
“But I don’t think he’s cut out for this.”
“I guess.”
“It’s better that he’s not coming with us.”
Benny said nothing.
“Do you agree, kiddo?”
“I don’t know.” Benny sighed. “Chong’s my best friend.”
“That’s why he’s here. He only came out here because he’s your friend, and because he doesn’t quite know how to say good-bye,” said Tom. “Saying good-bye is one of the hardest things people ever have to do. Back before First Night, I remember how hard it was just to say good-bye to my friends when I was done with high school. We wrote a lot of promises in each other’s yearbooks about how we’d always stay in touch, but even then we knew that for the most part they were lies. Well-intentioned and hopeful lies, but still lies.”
“That was different.”
“Sure, but things are relative. Just like pain. What Nix is going through is not the worst pain she’s ever felt, which is why she can deal with it. For me, saying good-bye to my friends from high school was terrible. We all were going off to colleges in different parts of the country. The old gang I grew up with was falling apart. It felt like dying. It was grief.”
Benny thought about the way he had left things with Morgie. He nodded.
“I guess I’m having a hard time adjusting to the fact that leaving is so final.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” said Tom.
“For Nix it does.”
Tom nodded.
“What are we going to do about Chong?” asked Benny.
Tom ticked his chin toward the southeast. “There’s a back road to Brother David’s way station. My friend Sally Two-Knives will be coming through here today or tomorrow. I’m going to wait at the way station until she shows, and then I’ll ask her to take Chong back home.”
Benny had the Zombie Card for Sally Two-Knives. She was a bounty hunter who worked mostly out of the towns farther north. She was a tall, dark-skinned woman with a Mohawk and a matched pair of army bayonets strapped to her thighs. The text on the back of her Zombie Card read:
Card No. 239: Sally Two-Knives. This former Roller-Derby queen has become one of the toughest and most reliable bounty hunters and guides in the Ruin. Don’t cross her or you’ll find out just how good she is with her two razor-sharp knives!
Like most of the Zombie Cards, it didn’t give a lot of information, but Benny always liked the fierce woman’s smiling face. She wasn’t pretty, but there was humor in her brown eyes.
Brother David, on the other hand, was a way-station monk, one of the Children of God who lived out in the Ruin and did what he could to tend to the living dead. Brother David and the others of his order called the zombies the Children of Lazarus and believed them to be the “meek” who were meant to inherit the earth. Benny couldn’t quite grasp the concept, especially after what he and Nix had encountered in the field.
“You and Chong can say your good-byes in the morning.”
“Will Chong be safe? I mean … will Sally Two-Knives be enough protection for him?”
Tom laughed. “More than enough. She doesn’t like killing zoms, so she knows all the routes that are clear and safe.”
They were silent for a while, each cutting looks over at Lilah, who was still working on Nix.
When Tom next spoke he deliberately made his tone light. “If we’re lucky we’ll catch up with Greenman, maybe stay a couple days at his place.”
“Greenman, really? Cool! I can’t wait to meet him,” said Benny. He had the Greenman card too. The image on the card was that of a tall, thin man wearing clothes entirely covered in green leaves, berries, and pinecones. The artist had depicted him wearing a mask made from oak leaves and acorns. The card read:
Card No. 172: The Greenman. Little is known about this mysterious figure seen haunting the forests between Magoon Hill and Yosemite. Is he a myth? A ghost? Or is he a dangerous madman waiting to pounce on unwary travelers? Beware the Greenman!
“Sounds like someone from a story.”
“He’s real enough,” said Tom, “but he is a bit of a character. His real name’s Artie Mensch. Used to be a forest ranger over in Yosemite, but since First Night the Ruin has become a real home to him. Never comes into town, doesn’t talk to too many people. Prefers to be alone.”
“Does he really dress like that?”
“Sometimes. When he has his camouflage on you can walk right past him and not see him. Fools the zoms, too. And he’s been experimenting with mixtures of herbs to get the same effect as cadaverine. Not sure if he’s worked it out yet.”
“The Zombie Card says that he might be crazy,” Benny said.
Tom shrugged. “Most people are a little crazy, especially since First Night, and doubly so if they live out here. But Greenman’s a good man, and he’s a friend to the right kind of traveler.”
“What’s the right kind?”
“Let’s just say that Greenman wouldn’t have invited Charlie or the Hammer in for tea.” Tom stared into the distance as if looking into his own thoughts. “I’ve spent many a long night with him. Talking about the old days, and learning what he has to teach.”
“You learned from him?”
“Sure. He might be the wisest person left alive. Certainly the wisest I know.”
A few minutes later, Benny nodded toward the forest. “How far have you been?”
“Since First Night? All the way to the far side of Yosemite, but I rarely go that deep. Once we pass through the park, it’ll be as new to me as it is to you guys.”
“And we’ll be roughing it all the way?”
“Nah. I dropped off some supplies at Brother David’s a few weeks ago. Carpet coats, more cadaverine, some weapons, tents, other stuff. Anything else we need we can get from the traders over in Wawona. Roughing it was just for tonight. For the real trip I want us to be as well supplied as we can be.”
Benny looked over and saw that Lilah was applying a bandage. The stitchery was done and Nix still hadn’t made a sound.
“Speaking of crazy,” Benny murmured.
Tom glanced over. “Nix or Lilah?”
“Take your pick.”
Tom snorted. “You ever try to imagine what it’s like being inside Nix’s head?”
“All the time.” Benny shook his head. “I’ve known her my whole life, and we’ve talked about everything … but then I catch a look in her eye when we’re training, or she’ll say something odd, and then I wonder if I really know her at all.”
“I don’t know. I … can’t quite put it into words. Since last year she’s different. She’s obsessed about this trip. When we talk about it, most of the time she’s really focused and logical, but if I bring up any reservations about it … she either bites my head or acts as if I didn’t say anything.” He looked at Tom. “I know you’ve seen it too.”
“I have,” Tom admitted, “but I don’t know if it makes her crazy. Her last blood ties are gone, Benny. In a lot of ways she feels that she’s all alone.”
“She isn’t!”
“Sure she is. We’re each alone inside our heads, some more so than others. Lilah’s been alone inside her head for years, and she may never come completely out.”
“So you’re saying that Nix is just obsessed and lonely?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m agreeing with you that there are forces at work in her life. I don’t know if she’s truly crazy—as in a danger to herself and others—but I suspect that her sanity is a work in process. Keep your eye on her.”
He clapped Benny on the shoulder, and they walked over to see how Nix was doing. She was pale, almost green, and her face—what Benny could see of it under the bandages—ran with sweat. Lilah sat on a tree stump, carefully cleaning the needle with alcohol.
“World’s dumbest question,” Benny said to Nix, “but how do you feel?”
“Like I was attacked by Mrs. Lafferty’s quilting circle.” Nix’s face was puffy, and she barely moved her lips when she spoke. Her eyes were glassy with pain and the fatigue that comes from enduring pain. “Thanks,” she said to Lilah.
“I don’t want to go back to that town either,” Lilah said, and walked away.
Benny and Nix looked up at Tom.
He sighed, then said, “Okay. We keep going.”