“Get ready,” he said quietly, then waved to the sergeant in charge of the night shift. The sergeant whistled, and his men immediately started banging on drums and steel pots as they walked quickly north along the fence line. The zoms in the field stiffened for a moment, drawn through whatever senses they possessed by the noise and movement. One by one they turned, moaning softly, their gray-lipped mouths working as if practicing in anticipation of eating a grisly meal, and began shambling up the field. Benny and his friends watched with awful fascination.
“It’s so strange,” said Nix quietly. “How can they be dead and do that? React to sound? Follow? Hunt?”
“No one knows,” said Tom. “They don’t need to eat. They get no benefit from killing. They can go years and years without decaying any more than they already have. No one understands it.”
Chong shook his head. “There has to be an answer. Something in science.”
“As far as we know, all the scientists are dead,” said Tom. “Except for Doc Gurijala, and he was a just a general practitioner.”
“Has he ever examined one?” asked Nix.
“No,” said Tom quietly, so as not to attract the shuffling zoms. “I suggested it to him a hundred times. I said that it might help us understand what they are and what we’re up against. That was not long after First Night, when we still thought there was a way to win. He called me crazy for even suggesting it. I tried him a couple of other times since, but Doc says that science ends at the fence line.”
“What does that mean?” asked Nix.
“It means,” Tom said, “that Doc Gurijala believes that whatever makes the dead do what they do isn’t science. It’s something else.”
Nix cocked an eyebrow. “Magic?”
Tom shrugged.
Chong said, “Magic is fairy-tale stuff. If this is happening, then there has to be an explanation. Maybe Doc Gurijala doesn’t know enough science to understand what’s happening. I mean … this has to be a specialty.”
“Like …?” Nix asked.
“I don’t know. Physics. Molecular biology. Genetics. Who knows? Just because we don’t have anyone here who understands it doesn’t mean that we have to jump right into a supernatural answer.”
Tom nodded at this.
“What about something else?” asked Nix. “What about something evil? What if it’s demons or ghosts or something like that? What if this is something … I don’t know, biblical?”
“Oh boy,” breathed Chong. “What—there was no more room in hell, so the dead started walking the earth?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
“Impossible.”
“Why?” she challenged. “Because you don’t believe in anything?”
“I believe in science.”
Nix pointed to the creatures in the field. “How does science explain that?”
“I don’t know, Nix, but I believe there’s an answer.” Chong cocked his head to one side. “Are you saying that you don’t believe in science? Or are you saying that there has to be a religious answer? And since when did you get religious? You skip church as much as I do.”
Benny gave Tom an Oh boy, here we go look.
Nix shook her head. “I’m not saying anything has to be anything, Chong. I’m saying that we should keep an open mind. Science may not have all the answers.”
“I keep a very open mind, thank you very much … but I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere looking for answers outside of science.”
“Why not?”
“Because—”
“Enough!” Lilah’s ghostly voice cut through their debate and silenced them. “Talk, talk, talk … how does that get anything done?”
“Lilah,” began Chong, “we were just—”