Broken Lands (Benny Imura 6)

“Is that a . . . town?” asked Nix uncertainly.

“Yes,” said Chong, “it’s a town. Big wall made of—I think—stacked cars.”

The town was far away and the night created a lot of distortion.

“I see something rippling around it,” said Benny. “Is that water? Like a moat or something?”

Chong studied the scene for a long time, and then slowly lowered his binoculars. “God . . .”

“What’s wrong?” asked Nix.

Lilah answered for him. “It’s not water.”

“Then what is it . . . ?” Benny began, and then trailed off. A cloud had been partly obscuring the moon, and now it moved off and the full light splashed down, defining the roiling shapes that seemed to wash up against the rows of cars. Not water lapping at the walls. No. It was a river of zombies.

A lot of them.

There were flashes from the walls as the people in the town began firing down at them. But there were so many monsters climbing the walls. Shamblers did not have the intelligence or coordination to do this, but the ravagers did, and they swarmed upward.

So many.

Too many.

84

GUTSY AND HER FRIENDS STOOD on the wall and watched death come toward them.

But it was like a dream, because death did not hurtle in their direction, or even come at a fast march. It shambled. Slowly, awkwardly, but inevitably.

Hundreds upon hundreds of the living dead. Too many to count. Far more than had ever assaulted the town at one time.

“No,” said Spider, shaking his head slowly. He wore his tarantula pajamas and boots and looked six years old. But he kept his strong brown hands on his fighting staff. If those hands glistened with fear sweat or trembled while he waited, Gutsy could completely understand.

Alethea wore a bathrobe over a nightgown and fuzzy slippers. She still had her tiara, though, and somehow that anchored Gutsy to the possibility of hope. Alethea clutched Rainbow Smite as forcefully as Spider held his staff. They were both good fighters; they’d both fought los muertos before.

Never more than one at a time, though.

Gutsy wondered how many of the people in town had fought in a war. Every adult had lived through the End, and a lot of them bragged about how many of the shamblers they’d killed. Looking around at the faces of the people in the street below, it occurred to her that surviving wasn’t always the result of fighting; and stories are often just that. Could these people actually fight? They seemed to belong to another world, or maybe a fantasy world. Old-fashioned Mexican dresses, men dressed like farmers from the nineteenth century. It was part of some kind of cultural thing, reclaiming the past. Something like that. But it had never made sense to Gutsy. It was like looking in the wrong direction—backward instead of toward the future.

Now Gutsy felt more sympathy toward them, and it occurred to her that the old-fashioned clothes and some of the traditions in New Alamo were an anchor, a safety net. The people who used to wear those clothes a century or two ago didn’t have to face the living dead. Was that what it was all about? Rituals and traditions?

Maybe. Probably. Whatever.

There were too many monsters, and the night was going to last forever.

Below where Gutsy stood with her friends, Karen Peak was yelling orders, pushing and shoving people into position, checking weapons, her voice cutting through the panic. Men and women with weapons climbed ladders to the catwalk. A dozen archers took up position along the wall.

“Not enough,” said Gutsy.

“What?” yelped Spider.

“It’s not going to be enough.”

“Don’t say that,” he cried. Alethea wrapped her arm around him and pulled Spider close while glaring at Gutsy.

“Yes,” she snapped, “don’t say that. You’re supposed to be the problem solver, girl. Well, as far as I can see it, this is a really big darn problem.”

“I offered Karen my help,” said Gutsy. “She said they had it handled.”