“Not everyone’s afraid, though. …”
“No. You’re right. … There are some people who don’t let fear rule their actions, and I suspect it’ll be your generation that turns things around. Most of the people my age or older are lost in fear, and they’ll never find their way back. But you and your friends, especially those young enough to not remember First Night … You’re the ones who will choose whether to live in fear or not. ”
“Last week, when you said that people in town didn’t trust anything out in the Ruin, that they think everything’s diseased …”
Tom nodded. “You’re on the right track. We—our town—could reclaim most of central California. Not Los Angeles, of course; that’s lost for good. But we could retake hundreds of thousands of square miles of farmland. We could reclaim whole towns. Like that town where Harold Simmons lived. Don’t you think three or four hundred armed people could retake that town?”
“We wouldn’t need anywhere near that many. Fifty people in carpet coats, with rifles, axes, and swords could do it. It isn’t a big town. ”
“Right. And there are a dozen towns within a day’s walk from here. Hundreds just a few days away, with farmable land where we could grow more food than we could eat. No one would go hungry. ”
Benny looked at the muffin he held between his fingers, and it struck him that if Nix and her mother were as poor as everyone said they were, then just the ingredients for the muffins must have cut into their own rations. He set the muffin down.
His brother leaned his forearms on the table and said quietly, “Let me tell you a secret, Benny. The first secret you and I will share, okay?”
Benny nodded.
“I’ll never let Jessie and Nix Riley go hungry. Haven’t you noticed that we don’t have meat on our table seven days a week, even though we can afford it?”
Another nod.
“That’s so there’s meat on their table. Nix doesn’t know, and you have to swear to me that you’ll never tell her. ”
Benny tried to say the words, “I swear,” but his mouth was too dry to let the words out. Thunder punctuated his attempt, and Tom nodded, as if a deal had been struck.
When he could speak, Benny said, “I don’t get it. How can the town let anyone go hungry? I mean, we have the rationing system and all. Isn’t it supposed to provide—”
“Believe it or not, it was actually worse before First Night. There were hundreds of thousands of people without homes or food. ”
“What, just living on the streets?” Benny laughed.
“Exactly. Homeless. Whole families. In every city in the country. I’ll bet they don’t teach that in school, either. The zombie uprising didn’t change everything. ”
Benny shook his head, unable to grasp the concept. “You know how Nix is always writing in her diary?”
“Sure. ”
“It’s not a diary. She’s collected everything she can about zoms. She has this idea about getting out of Mountainside. ” He told Tom about the Pacific Islands and Nix’s practical dreams of reclaiming them and starting a new life without the constant threat of the living dead.
Tom listened very attentively to every word, nodding his approval. “Darn smart girl. You ever think of asking her out?”
“Don’t go there, Tom. ”
“Oookay. ” Tom sipped his tea. “As far as Nix’s idea … I did say that it would be your generation that would probably change things. A few of us—too very few of us, really—have been trying to make changes, to get the others to shake loose from the fear. Sadly, we haven’t had much luck. Over the last dozen years, Mountainside has settled into a pattern, and the only thing more powerful than fear is routine. Once people are in a rut, it’s sometimes the hardest thing in the world to get them out of it. They defend the routine, too. They say that it’s a simpler life, less stressful and complicated, more predictable. Some of them are getting nostalgic about it, they mythologize it, as if we’re living in the Old West, except with zombies instead of wild Indians. ”
“That’s dumb,” Benny said.
“It’s fearful,” Tom corrected, “but it’s safe. At least they think it is. It allows them to think they know the whole size and shape of their world. Except for when you kids are talking, you almost never hear someone talk about the world that was. People don’t ask one another where they’re from. I mean, they kind of know, and certainly if you look around, Mountainside is a microcosm of global diversity. Doc Gurijala was born in northern India, Old Man Sanchez came here from Oaxaca in Mexico. The Mekong brothers are Vietnamese. Chong’s Chinese, our dad was Japanese. And yet as far as you could tell from conversations around town, we’re all ‘from Mountainside. ’ End of story. The rest of the world no longer exists. Do you know why?”
“I think so,” said Benny. “If they talk about where they’re from, they have to talk about what happened. And … who they left behind. ”
“Right. Fear fueled by grief. ” Tom rubbed his face with his palms.
“What about the bounty hunters and … and what you do? People have to talk about the outside world for that. ”
Tom nodded approval. “That’s true, and it’s a cultural quirk that surfaces once in a while, but once the closure is accomplished, then the client goes right back into their shell. There are plenty of people who were clients of mine in the past, who walk by me on the street without a flicker of recognition. Either they pretend to ignore me, so that they don’t have to think about the service I provided for them, or they truly have forgotten it, as if a door closed in their minds. I can count the number of former clients on the fingers of one hand who will even talk to me about the closure job I did for them. ” He paused. “Jessie Riley is one of them. ”
Benny’s teacup paused an inch from his lips. “What? Nix’s mom was a client of yours?”