Broken Lands (Benny Imura 6)

It was Mama, going home.

PART EIGHT

VALLEY STATE PRISON

CHOWCHILLA, CALIFORNIA

ONE WEEK EARLIER . . .

CHOICES

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,

while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

—LAO TZU

42

THEY STOOD ON THE ROOF of the prison and looked at the sea of gray faces.

“Well,” said Benny quietly, “that’s not good.”

Morgie snorted. “Rough count, maybe four thousand of them.”

“At least,” said Riot.

The zoms milled around, bumping into one another, walking in wavering lines to and fro. Many stood still, their eyes fixed on nothing, hands slack at their sides. Benny’s quad stood in the middle of an ocean of death. Some of the dead were dressed in ordinary clothes, many in rags that had been military uniforms. Some were children. Many looked like they had been older when they died. And some, Benny saw, were Reapers. Had been Reapers.

“How come we didn’t see them when we drove up?” he asked.

“I’ll show you,” said Chong. He tapped Benny’s shoulder and led him all the way to the far side of the roof, brown gravel crunching under his shoes. Chong stopped and pointed down. Benny knelt on the edge of the roof and leaned out a little to look down. There were hundreds of dead cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and vans scattered around the back of the prison, all of them half-consumed by a hungry sea of weeds.

“Nix thinks that people came here during First Night,” said Chong. “Strong walls, bars, locks, guns

, and guards, you dig?”

Benny nodded.

“Now . . . see that?” Chong pointed, and Benny leaned farther out. A large section of wall had been crushed inward by a massive rusted yellow bulldozer. Chunks of debris half covered the machine, all of it thick with weeds and even a few small saplings. “Way I figure it, someone busted in to try and free the prisoners. Wouldn’t have been people trying to find shelter, because it wouldn’t make sense to ruin the wall. But something stopped whoever drove the dozer from letting the convicts out. Nix, Lilah, and Riot all think that by the time the wall was knocked in, the people who came to hide here had already turned. There’s some places inside here where there was obviously a big fight, and a couple of rooms had been used as infirmaries. Lots of old, bloody bandages.”

“People didn’t understand the rules,” said Benny. “Not during First Night. Maybe they brought people with bites inside and they turned.”

“Yeah, that’s the theory,” said Chong. He pulled Benny back from the edge. “When the bulldozer knocked in the wall, the zoms inside swarmed them. And after that the nukes went off and the EMPs killed all the cars. If there were any survivors, then they either got away on foot, or . . .”

Benny winced. Everyone alive knew what “or” meant in these kinds of stories. “I guess some of them used to be prisoners? Though in old comic books, didn’t they always wear orange jumpsuits? Do you see any of them?” When Chong didn’t answer, Benny glanced at him. “What . . . ?”

43

CHONG SHOWED HIM.

They went back down into the administrative wing of the prison and then through several interconnected offices, down several corridors, and into a bleaker, darker part of the building. Lilah used wooden chair legs, rags, and gasoline to make torches.

“I found the keys to the cellblocks,” said Riot, jangling a thick ring.

“I think everything was supposed to work electronically,” said Morgie. “There are printed instructions on how to open the security doors to each cellblock, but in case the power went out, there were keys. But . . .”

“But what?”