Dust and Decay (Benny Imura 2)

It took two mouthfuls of eggs and three potatoes before he caught up with her. “Man, I’m slow!”

“Gee, that’s a news flash,” she said, her cheeks filled like a squirrel.

“The Greenman!”

“Question is,” Nix said, swallowing, “why?”

“He’s a friend of Tom’s.”

She nodded. “Wonder why he didn’t hang around to say hi?”

“No idea. Wish I knew where he lived. Tom said it’s around here somewhere. Probably pretty well hidden, though. Guy’s not supposed to be very social.”

They ate for a while, then Nix said, “God … there are so many questions. What’s happening with Tom and Chong? Where’s Lilah? Who took the cans down last night? Why did all those zoms attack us? And what’s with that freak Preacher Jack?”

Benny smiled. “Since when did you think I knew what the heck was going on?”

“Always a first time.”

“Maybe,” he said, “but today isn’t that day.” He rubbed his hands briskly over his face. “Okay … so, what’s the plan?”

“Plan?” she replied. “Don’t you have one?”

“Um … what makes you think the ‘no answer’ guy is the ‘I have a plan’ guy?”

“’Cause I don’t have a plan either,” she said.

“Ah.” They looked around, watching the woods as if answers would magically appear. “We could wait here and see if the Greenman comes back.”

Benny shook his head. “I don’t think he will. He didn’t wait for us last night, and he didn’t stick around to have breakfast with us this morning.”

Nix sighed. “Maybe we should go back and take a look at the field and the way station. From a distance, I mean. See what’s what.”

“Sure,” he said, brightening. “That’s very plan-like.”

They shared the last of the eggs and potatoes and stuffed their pockets with the strawberries. They wiped the plate clean with leaves and left it at the base of the tree. Benny wrote “Thanks!” in big letters in the dirt.

He turned and caught her watching him, her smile faint and her eyes distant.

“What?” Benny asked.

She blinked, and he thought he saw shutters close behind her eyes. “Nothing.”

Back in town Benny would have let that go, but in a lot of ways he felt like he had left behind the version of himself who was afraid to ask these kinds of questions. So he said, “No … there was something. The way you were looking at me. What is it?”

Birds sang in trees for almost five seconds before she answered. “Back in town … on your roof … I asked you if you loved me. Did you mean it?”

Benny’s mouth went dry. “Yes.”

“You haven’t said it since.”

A defensive reply leaped to his lips, but instead he said, “Neither have you.”

“No,” she admitted, her voice small. She squinted into the morning sunlight. “Maybe … maybe if leaving town had been easier …”

He waited.

“… it would be easier to say,” Nix finished. “But out here …”