33

“THERE’S A ZOMBIE OUT THERE,” WHISPERED BENNY.

“I know,” murmured Lilah is her ghostly voice. She used her free hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. “It must have heard you.”

“Heard us,” answered Benny, but his defense was weak and he knew it. Lilah snorted.

Thud.

“What’s it doing?” Nix asked in a horrified voice. “Is it knocking to get in?”

Lilah shook her head. “Not knocking. Pounding. It wants to get us … the door is in the way.”

Somehow that chilled Benny more than the thought that the creature was knocking. Even though he couldn’t see the zom, the thought of its limp, dead hand striking over and over again, following some impulse that existed in a brain that had otherwise died was intensely creepy. How could science ever explain that? How could anything make sense of it?

The pounding continued. There was no rhythm to it, but each blow carried the same dead-weight force.

“What should we do?” asked Nix.

Lilah’s answer was as cold as the flesh of the monster outside, and there was a weird light in her eyes. She looked more than a little crazy. “We kill it.”

They gaped at her.

Benny pointed at the door. “You want us to go out there? To open the door and actually go out?”

“If you’re afraid,” she sneered, “stay here.”

Benny suddenly felt like an idiot. “Look … about before—”

“Shut up,” warned Lilah. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Benny felt humiliated, so he tried to stand straighter, and he put what he hoped was a tough–guy, bounty-hunter, zombie-killer glare in his eye.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Lilah asked. “Are you going to throw up?”

“No, I—”

Lilah pushed him out of the way. “When you open the door, I’ll shove him back. Close the door behind me. When he’s quieted I’ll knock. Be ready to let me in.”

“We will,” promised Nix, “but shouldn’t you at least put on a carpet coat?”

Lilah sneered at the suggestion. “For one zom?”

Benny cleared his throat. “Look … Lilah … are you sure you want to do this?”

The Lost Girl gave him a funny look. “What does ‘want’ have to do with anything? The dead will keep trying to get us. Pounding can be heard.”

As if to punctuate her remark, the limp hand struck again. And again.

“Now,” she said softly. She held her knife with the easy competence that only came with years of practical experience.

“Now,” Lilah said again, and Benny jumped.

“Sorry,” he said, and reached for the handle. Lilah gave him a disgusted look.

“Wait!” snapped Nix. She looked at Lilah. “The cans.”

Lilah stiffened. “Oh,” she said softly.

“Oh, man …,” Benny breathed. “How could a zom get through them without …” He didn’t finish the sentence because there was nowhere to go with it.

“We’re in trouble,” whispered Nix. “Someone else is out there. Someone alive.”

“I know.” Lilah stepped back from the door.

Nix closed her eyes for a second. “Brother David and the Sisters didn’t just walk away.”

“I know,” Lilah said again. She slid the knife into its sheath and reached for her spear.

“Wait,” said Benny, shifting to block the door. “You’re not actually going out there, are you? Not now!”

“Yes.”

“Look … I’m sorry for what I said, but you don’t have to—”

She cut him off by suddenly leaning so close that they were nose to nose. Her golden eyes were fierce and hurt at the same time. “I want to throw you out there.”

That shut Benny up.

Thud! Thud!

“Right now, though,” Lilah said, turning away from him, “we need to stop the zom from making so much noise. Noise carries at night.”

“Lilah,” said Nix, “maybe you shouldn’t go out there. It could be something a lot more dangerous than a zom.”

Lilah’s voice was cold. “I’m a lot more dangerous than a zom. Open the door.”

“Lilah,” whispered Benny, “it could be Charlie Pink-eye out there.”

Lilah showed her teeth in a deadly smile. “That would be perfect.”

Outside, the zom continued to pound and pound and the endless wind blew like a black ocean. Nix closed the door on the stove and blew out the candles, plunging the room into total darkness except for a faint outline around the door etched by starlight. Benny fumbled for the door handle. He counted down from three and then pulled the door open as he leaped back out of the way.

The zombie was right there, framed by starlight. Tall, thin as a stick, and pale as wax, with black eyes and a gaping mouth. It lurched forward, reaching for Benny, but Lilah suddenly jump-kicked the zom in the chest, driving it backward out of the doorway. She went through the door like a flash of lightning. She caught up with the zom before it could fall, pivoted and slashed at the back of its knee with the bayonet at the end of her spear . It was her signature move, taught to her as a child by George, the man who had raised her after Lilah had been orphaned on First Night. With the tendon cut, the zom immediately dropped to its knees. Lilah kicked it between the shoulder blades, and as it fell face-forward onto the ground, she whirled her spear and bent forward in a powerful two-handed thrust that drove the spear point unerringly into the narrow opening at the base of the skull. The zombie instantly stopped thrashing and twisting and became completely still. Dead … for real and forever.

The whole process, from jumping kick to final thrust, had taken less than four seconds.

Benny and Nix crowded the doorway, stunned as always by how fast and efficient Lilah was. And how ruthless. They understood it, but it left them breathless.

“God …,” breathed Nix.

“I know,” said Benny.

“No,” Nix said, rising and pointing. “LOOK!”

Benny squinted to see what she meant. Lilah whirled, bringing her spear up as if expecting a sudden attack. She, too, stared in that direction.

There was plenty of starlight. More than enough to bathe the swaying trees in an eerie blue-white glow. Enough to see the lines of tin cans lying on the ground, the ropes cut and the cans carefully placed upright in neat rows. Somebody else was out here. Somebody smart and careful enough to disable the booby trap. But that was not the worst of it. Not by a long shot. What was truly eerie … no, truly terrifying … was how that cold moonlight reflected on the pale white faces of the living dead.

On the hundreds of living dead.

“God …” Benny’s mouth was too numb to say anything more. They were everywhere, an army of lifeless killers that shambled and limped and twitched as they emerged from the utter blackness of the forest. Benny spun and looked left and saw more of them, some walking, a few crawling, all of them moaning louder than the wind. He looked right, going as far as the edge of the station. He could see the long, pale line of tumbled glacial rocks. They were black with the crawling bodies of zombies. The closest of them was a hundred yards away, but they were advancing steadily toward the way station. Benny could not count the dead. They were coming. In minutes they would be here, and there was no way out.

“Please tell me I’m not seeing this,” said Benny. “This can’t be happening.”

“We’re dead,” whispered Nix. “Oh God … oh God …”

Lilah turned to them, and in the moonlight Benny and Nix could see that her iron self-confidence had crumbled to reveal a face as bloodless and empty of emotion as the monsters who closed in on all sides. She lowered her spear and it hung from her fingertips, ready to fall.

“We’re dead,” Nix said again, her voice rising to a hysterical pitch.

“Yes,” said the Lost Girl. “We’re dead.”