Benny grinned.
He ran to the edge of the trench and called Nix’s name.
The first thing she said was, “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, not a news flash.”
“But I love you.”
He nodded past her to the soldiers. “They okay?”
She gave a single, cold, dismissive shrug.
What amazed Benny was the difference between his lingering male-centric perception of girls as weaker, shy, and incapable of violence or cruelty and the way they actually were. And it wasn’t like he had seen any proof to the contrary. Lilah was a walking statement about girl power. So was Riot. And Nix, who was every bit as good with a sword as Benny was. Even with all that, the splinter of gender prejudice still festered in his mind. He wondered if he would ever stop being surprised when his preconceptions were trounced by the truth.
Riot sauntered to the edge. “Y’all got an actual plan, boy, or are you hoping for divine intervention?”
“Little of both,” Benny admitted.
“Do we get to know the plan?”
“It’s simple,” he said. “I’m going to knock on the door until they let me in.”
The girls gave him long, flat stares.
“Hey,” Benny said, “I’m open to better suggestions.”
Lilah, who had been listening, called, “Knock loud.”
He knocked loud.
FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
Every time I think about Mountainside and the other towns, I worry. Risking everything on a chain-link fence is just dumb. Even that psycho Preacher Jack was smarter about things. At Gameland they had all sorts of defenses. Smart stuff. They had a heavy chain-link fence too, but it was only the outer barrier. And it was hidden between two rows of thick evergreen hedge that acted as screens. Zoms couldn’t see through the hedge and had fewer things to visually attract them.
After the fence, the road led through this complicated network of trenches. There were rows of trip wires, and deadfall pits covered by camouflage screens. Directions for how to make it through the defenses safely were written on large wooden signs. That’s smart because humans can read but zoms can’t.
The Gameland defenses weren’t based on the way people used to protect towns and forts against attacks;
these were specifically designed against an enemy that couldn’t think but also would not stop.
The trench at Sanctuary is smart too.
Tom said that to stay safe you have to understand the nature of the threat, not react to your assumption of it. I didn’t understand that at first.
I do now.
53
“OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!” BENNY yelled, and he yelled it so loudly that echoes banged off the distant red rock mountain and ricocheted back to him over the heads of the hundreds of zombies who now shambled slowly back toward him. His fist ached and his throat was getting raw, but he stood there and kept at it. Hammering, yelling.
“Kid . . . yo, kid!” a voice said. “They can’t hear you.”
Benny whirled to see the big ranger, Joe, standing behind him. He hadn’t heard him approach.
“Where’d you come from?”
“Originally? Baltimore. Just now—the hangar.”