Dust and Decay (Benny Imura 2)

—HELEN KELLER

17

THEY RAN DEEP INTO THE WOODS, FOLLOWING A PATH THAT WAS ALWAYS kept clear for the traders who brought in wagons of goods scavenged from warehouses and small towns throughout that part of Mariposa County—or what had been Mariposa County before First Night had invalidated all the old maps. As the sun rose it was easier for Benny to avoid stepping in the wheel ruts. Chong, who was much less coordinated, tripped several times. Lilah helped him up each time, but instead of it being an act of kind assistance, she growled at him, and each time she shoved him forward a little harder. Nix caught up to run side by side with Benny, and they both grinned back at Chong. He mouthed some words at them that made them laugh and that would have shocked Chong’s parents and earned a sharp rebuke from Tom.

After a half mile Tom slowed from a full-out run to a light trot, and a mile later eased down to a walk; and finally stopped for a rest. Benny was winded and walked around with his hands over his head to open his lungs up. He was sweating, but the exertion felt good. Nix’s face glowed pink, and her skin gleamed with a fine film of perspiration, but she was smiling.

Chong went over to the side of the road and threw up.

Leaning on her spear, Lilah watched with unconcealed contempt.

It was not that Chong was frail—he had trained as hard as everyone else and his lean body was packed with wiry muscles—but he never reacted well to sustained exertion.

Benny patted Chong on the back, but as he did so he bent down and quietly said, “Dude, you’re completely embarrassing our gender here.”

Between gasps Chong gave Benny a thorough description of where to go and what to do when he got there.

“Okay,” said Benny, “I can see that you need some alone time. Good talk.”

He wandered off to stand with Nix, who was taking several small sips from her canteen. Tom came over to join them.

“Chong okay?” Tom asked.

“He’ll live,” Benny said. “He doesn’t like physical exertion.”

“No, really?” Tom grinned and gestured to a fork in the road. “Soon as everyone’s caught their breath, we’ll go that way. It’s high ground, so we’ll see fewer zoms today. Tomorrow we’ll see about going downland to where the dead are.”

“Why?” asked Nix. “Wouldn’t it be better to avoid them completely?”

“Can’t,” said Lilah, who had drifted silently up to join them. “Not forever. Dead are everywhere. Even up in the hills.”

Benny sighed. “Swell.”

“Are we going to hunt them?” asked Nix, her eyes wide.

Tom considered. “Hunt? Yes. Kill? No. I want you to be able to track them, but I mostly want you to be able to avoid them. We can go over theory from now until the cows come home, but that’s not the same as practical experience.”

“Sounds wonderful,” muttered Chong as he joined them. His color was bad, but better than it had been during the last quarter mile of their run.

“It won’t be,” Tom said seriously. “It’s going to scare the hell out of you, and maybe break your heart.”

They looked at him in surprise.

“What?” Tom said slowly. “Did you think this was going to be fun?”

They didn’t answer.

“You see, this is one of the reasons I wanted to bring you out here,” Tom said. “When everything is theoretical, when it’s all discussion rather than action, it’s easy to talk about zoms as if they’re not real. Like characters in a story.”

“They’re abstract,” Chong suggested, and Tom nodded approval.

“Right. But out here they’re real and tangible.”

Benny shifted uncomfortably. “And they’re people.”

Tom nodded. “Yes. That’s something we can’t ever forget. Every single zom, every man, woman, and child, no matter how decayed or how frightening they are, no matter how dangerous they are—they were all once real people. They had names, and lives, and personalities, and families. They had dreams and goals. They had pasts and they thought they had futures, but something came and took that away from them.”

“Which is another one of the mysteries,” said Nix under her breath.