Dust and Decay

by Jonathan Maberry

  Chong tilted his head toward the back door. “She didn’t want to come in.”

  Chong sighed, and Benny had to control himself not to seize the moment and bust on him. His friend had developed such a helpless and hopeless crush on Lilah that the wrong word could put him into a depression for days. Nobody, including Nix, Benny, and Chong, thought that Lilah had so much as a splinter of interest in Chong. Or maybe she didn’t have a splinter of interest in anything that didn’t involve blades, guns, and violence.

  “What’s she doing?” asked Benny, carefully sidestepping the issue.

  “Strip-cleaning her pistol,” said Nix, her green eyes meeting Benny’s and then flicking toward the yard outside.

  Lilah treated her handgun like it was her first puppy. Chong said that it was cute, but really everyone thought it was kind of sad bordering on creepy.

  Benny refilled his teacup, poured in some honey, and watched Nix pick the last scraps of meat from a chicken breast. He even liked the way she scavenged food. He sighed.

  Morgie said, “I’m going to catch the first catfish of the season.”

  “What are you going to use for bait?” asked Chong.

  “Benny’s brain?”

  “Too small.”

  It was one of their older routines, and Benny made the appropriate inappropriate response. And Tom gave the expected admonition about language.

  Even that ritual, as practiced and stale as it had become, felt good to Benny. Especially with Nix sitting beside him. He fished for something to say that would earn him one of her smiles. Nix’s smiles, which had been free and plentiful before her mother’s death, had become as rare as precious jewels. Benny would have gladly given everything he owned to change that, but as Chong once said, “You can’t unring a bell.” At the time—a year ago, when Benny’s wild attempt at driving in a home run had smashed through the front window of Lafferty’s General Store—he had thought the observation was stupid. Now he knew that it was profound.

  So much had happened since last year that he wished could be undone, but it was all written into the past and nothing—not wishing or willpower or nightly prayers—could change it.

  Nix’s mom was dead.

  You can’t unring a bell.

  “What are you attempting to think about?” asked Morgie with a suspicious squint.

  Everyone looked at Benny, and he realized as an afterthought that someone had probably asked him a question, but he’d been so deep in melancholy thoughts that it had sailed right past.

  “What? Oh … I was just thinking about the jet,” Benny lied.

  “Ah,” said Chong dryly. “The jet.”

  The jet, and all that it symbolized, was a big silent monster that had followed them around since they’d returned last September. The jet meant leaving, something that Nix and Benny were going to do and Chong and Morgie were not. Tom called it a “trip,” suggesting that they would eventually return, but Benny knew that Nix had no intention of ever returning to Mountainside. The same was probably true of Tom, who still grieved for Jessie Riley. Benny, however, did want to come back here. Maybe not forever, but at least to see his friends. Once they left, though, he was pretty sure that their road trip was going to be permanent.

  It was a horrible, heartbreaking thought, and none of them liked talking about it; but it was always there, hiding inside every conversation.

  “That freaking jet again?” griped Morgie, and gave a sour shake of his head.

  “Yeah. I thought that I’d go to the library tomorrow and see if they have any books about jets. Maybe I’ll see the one Nix and I saw.”

  “Why?” Morgie persisted.

  “If we know what kind of plane it was,” Nix said, “we might have some idea of its range. Maybe it didn’t come all the way across the country. Or maybe it came from Hawaii.”

  Morgie was confused. “I thought you said it came from the east and went back that way.”

  “They’re not air traffic controllers, Morgie,” added Chong. “The more they can learn about the jet, the better the chance they’ll have to find it. I think.”

  “What’s an air traffic controller?” persisted Morgie.

  That allowed Chong to steer the conversation away from the road trip and into areas of pre–First Night trivia. Benny cut a sly sideways look at Nix, and there it was: just the slightest slice of a smile. She reached under the table and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

  Tom, who had been watching this performance, hid a smile behind his teacup as he drained it. Then he set it down with a thump that drew all eyes his way.

  “Okay, my young Jedi … time to train.”

  Everyone jumped up, but as they headed outside, Morgie nudged Chong in the ribs.

  “What’s a Jedi?”

  FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

  Things We Know About Zombies, Part 1

  They are dead human beings who reanimated.

  They can’t think. (Tom’s pretty sure about this.)

  They do not need to breathe.

  They don’t bleed.

  They are clumsy and slow.

  They can do some things (walk, grab, bite, swallow, moan).

  They rarely use tools. (Tom says that some of them pick up stones or sticks to try and break into a house; but he says it’s really unusual.)

  They aren’t very coordinated. (Tom has seen a few turn door handles. They only climb stairs when following prey. No ladders, though.)

  **They are really scary!

  3

  “I AM A COLD-BLOODED, EAGLE-EYED, HEAD CHOPPING, TOTALLY BADASS zombie killing engine of destruction,” declared Benny Imura. “And I am so going to—”

  Nix Riley batted his sword aside and whacked him on the head.

  “Ow!” he yelled.

  “Yes, you’re truly frightening,” she said. “I’m going to fall down and faint.”

  “Ow,” he said louder, to emphasize the point in case anyone missed it.

  Chong and Morgie sat on the picnic table. Tom leaned against the big oak in the corner of the yard. Lilah sat with her back to the garden fence. They were all laughing. At him.

  “Oh sure, laugh,” he growled, shaking his wooden bokken at them. “She hit me when I wasn’t looking.”

  “So … look,” suggested Chong.

  Morgie pretended to cough into his hand but said, “Loser.”

  “A little focus would be useful,” said Tom. “I mean … since our road trip’s in a week and you are training to save your life. To survive, you have to be warrior smart.”

  Tom had drilled them so relentlessly in his “warrior smart” program that Benny was considering disowning his brother.

  Although it was still early April, it felt like midsummer, and Benny was wearing only a sweat-soaked T-shirt and cutoffs. The months of training had hardened him and packed muscle onto his arms and shoulders. He squared those shoulders and gave Nix a steely stare.

  Nix raised her sword and in a loud clear voice announced, “I. Am. Going. To. Swing. My. Sword. Now.”

  “Hilarious,” said Benny through gritted teeth. He brought his sword up, elbows and knees bent at the perfect angles, weight shifted onto the balls of his feet, the tip of the bokken level with his eyes, his body angled for the best use of muscle in attack and the least display of vulnerabilities for defense. He could feel the power in his arms. With a loud, ferocious yell that would have frozen the heart of an enemy on the battlefields of the samurai era, he charged, bringing his sword up and down with perfect precision.

  Nix batted his sword aside and whacked him on the head.

  Again.

  Benny said, “Ow.”

  “That’s not how you do it,” said Lilah.

  Benny rubbed his head and squinted at her. “No, really?” he said. “I’m not supposed to block with my head?”

  “No,” Lilah said seriously. “That’s stupid. You’d die.”

  Lilah possessed many skills that Benny admired—fighting, stalking, almost unbelievable athletic prowess—bu
t she had no trace of a sense of humor. Until they’d brought her back to Mountainside, Lilah’s existence had been an ongoing hell of paranoia, fear, and violence. It wasn’t the kind of environment that helped her cultivate social skills.

  “Thanks, Lilah,” Benny said. “I’ll make sure I remember that.”

  She nodded as if he had made a serious promise. “Then I won’t have to quiet you afterward,” she said. She had a voice that was soft and rough, her vocal cords having been damaged by screams when she was little.

  Benny stared at her for a moment, knowing that Lilah was dead serious. And he knew she would do it, too. If he died and zommed out, Lilah would kill him—quiet him, as everyone in town preferred to say—without a moment’s hesitation.

  He turned back to Nix. “Want to try it again? I’ll block better this time.”

  “Ah … so you’re going to try the ‘smart’ part of ‘warrior smart’?” observed Chong. “Very wise.”

  Nix smiled at Benny. It wasn’t one of the heartwarming smiles he’d been longing for. It reminded him of Lilah’s face when she was hunting zoms.

  Benny did block better, though.

  Not that it did him much good.

  “Ow!” he yelled three seconds later.

  “Warrior smart!” yelled Morgie and Chong in chorus.

  Benny glared hot death at them. “How about one of you clowns trying to—”

  His comment was cut short by a sharp and sudden scream.

  They all froze, looking off toward the center of town. The yell was high and shrill.

  There was a moment of silence.

  Then another yell cut through the air. It was a man’s voice, loud and sharp and filled with pain.

  More screams followed it.

  And then the sharp, hollow crack of a gunshot.

  4

  “STAY HERE!” TOM ORDERED. HE RACED INTO THE HOUSE AND CAME out a moment later, a sword in one hand and his gun belt in the other. This was not a practice sword but the deadly steel katana he used in his job as the Ruin’s most feared zombie hunter. He slung the strap over his shoulder as he raced past Benny toward the gate. He vaulted it like a hurdler and was running full tilt while he buckled on the gun belt. “Do not move from the yard!”

  The last command floated back at them as he vanished over the hill.

  Benny looked at Nix, who looked at Lilah, who looked at Chong, who looked at Morgie.

  “Tom said to stay here,” said Nix.

  “Absolutely,” said Benny.

  And that fast they were off. They grabbed their wooden swords and swarmed through the garden gate, except for Lilah, who jumped it exactly as Tom had done. Then they were running as fast as they could.

  5

  LILAH OUTRAN THEM ALL. HOWEVER, SINCE LAST SEPTEMBER THEY HAD each put on muscle and built their endurance, so they weren’t too far behind. In a loose pack they rounded the corner by the grist mill and then tore along Oak Hill Road.

  Benny grinned at Chong, who grinned back. In a weird way, this was fun. They were warriors, the world’s last group of samurai trainees. This was what they were training for.

  Then, just as they reached the top of the hill and cut left onto Mockingbird Street, they heard a fresh set of screams.

  They were the high, piercing screams of children.

  That sound slapped the grins from their faces.

  Benny looked at Nix.

  “God,” she gasped, and ran faster.

  The screams were continuous. Benny thought they were screams of fear, not of pain. There was a fragment of consolation in that.

  They cut right onto Fairview, running abreast, their wooden swords clutched in sweating hands.

  Then as one they skidded to a stop.

  Three houses stood at the end of a block of stores. The Cohens on the left, the Matthias place on the right, and the Housers in the center. Townsfolk were clustered in front of the Houser place. Most of them had axes, pitchforks, and long-handled shovels. Benny saw at least four people with guns.

  “It’s Danny’s place!” said Nix in a sharp whisper.

  Benny and his friends went to school with Danny Houser; Danny’s twin sisters, Hope and Faith, were in the first grade.

  They saw Tom on the porch, peering into the open doorway. Then he backed away as something moved toward him from the shadows of the unlit living room.

  Benny’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the figure emerge from the doorway in a slow, uncertain gait, his legs moving stiffly, his hands out and reaching for Tom. It was Grandpa Houser.

  “No!” Benny cried, but Tom was still backing away.

  Grandpa Houser’s eyes were as dark and empty as holes, and his dentures clacked together as if he was trying to bite the air.

  A deep sadness opened in Benny’s chest. He liked Danny’s grandfather. The old man was always kind, and he told the funniest fishing stories. Now Grandpa Houser was gone, and in his place was a thing that had no conscious thought, no humor or intelligence. No trace of humanity other than the lie of its appearance. It was a zombie, driven by an unconquerable hunger for human flesh. Even from forty feet away Benny could hear the creature’s low moan of endless need.

  “He must have died in his sleep,” Nix breathed.

  Chong nodded. “And he didn’t lock his bedroom door.”

  It was a sad and terrible fact of life that everyone who died came back as a zom, so everyone locked themselves in their rooms at night. It was a rare zom who could turn a doorknob, and none of them could work a padlock or turn a key. Someone dying in their sleep and reanimating was one of the constant fears for people in town.

  Because this kind of thing could happen.

  Benny caught movement to his right and saw Zak Matthias looking at him out of the side window of the adjoining house. Zak had never exactly been a friend, but for the most part he and Benny had been able to get along. They were the same age and had been all through school and the Scouts together. They played on the same baseball team, wrestled in the same weight class, and even sometimes went fishing together if Morgie and Chong were busy. But all that had been before last September.

  Zak Matthias was Charlie Pink-eye’s nephew. Although they didn’t know for sure, Benny and Nix believed that it had been Zak who’d told Charlie what Benny had found in a pack of Zombie Cards: a picture of the Lost Girl.

  Lilah.

  Charlie had come after Benny and tried to take the card from him. Benny hadn’t understood why at the time, but soon learned that Charlie was afraid that Lilah would tell people what was going on out in the Ruin. About the bounty hunters like Charlie who kidnapped kids and took them to fight in the zombie pits at Gameland so evil people like them could gamble on who would win or lose.

  Charlie’s attempt to erase all knowledge of the Lost Girl and Gameland had led to the murders of Nix’s mom and a local erosion artist, Rob Sacchetto—the man who had painted the Lost Girl card.

  Zak didn’t go to school anymore. His father, Big Zak, kept him home, and the whole family was mostly shunned by the town. Benny had heard rumors that Zak’s dad knocked him around, somehow blaming him for what happened to Charlie.

  In a strange way Benny felt sorry for Zak. He looked so lost as he stood there behind the glass and lace curtains, pale from always hiding in the house. Benny wanted to hate him, but he was sure that Zak had had no idea of the terrible things Charlie Pink-eye would do with the little bit of information his nephew had given him.

  “Be careful, Tom!” someone cried, and Benny whipped his head back to see that Tom had retreated to the edge of the porch.

  “Shoot him, Tom!” yelled the town postman.

  “No!” screamed two voices in unison, and Benny looked up to see the Houser twins at the upstairs window. “Grandpa!” they cried, their voices as shrill as frightened birds.

  “Shoot him,” whispered Morgie under his breath, and Benny turned to look at him. Morgie’s face was wet with nervous sweat. “Shoot him.”

  Tom’s gun wa
s still in its holster.

  Lilah gave him a single cold shake of her head. “No. It’s a waste of a bullet.”

  Suddenly there was quick movement on the porch as Tom’s body seemed to blur. He grabbed the zombie’s shoulders and spun him around, then pivoted so that Grandpa Houser flipped over Tom’s hip and hit the porch boards. Tom climbed on top of him, grabbing for the pale wrists, bringing them behind the man’s back, securing them with cord that he pulled from his pocket. The whole thing was over in the blink of an eye.

  “Take him,” he barked, and two burly men crept nervously forward to lift the old zom to his feet and drag him away. “Put him in the toolshed. Don’t quiet him yet.”

  When Tom said that, he ticked his head toward the upstairs windows.

  One of the other men began climbing the steps, but Tom stopped him. “No … we still don’t know where Jack, Michelle, and Danny are.”

  Benny swallowed a lump the size of a hen’s egg.

  “Should we help?” asked Chong in a voice that clearly showed that he hated his own suggestion.

  “Definitely not warrior smart,” said Morgie under his breath.

  “I’ll help,” said Lilah in her icy whisper of a voice, and she pushed her way through the crowd. Most of the townsfolk shied back away from her as if she was something wild and dangerous, and Benny realized she was exactly that.