“You ready?”
“Not even a little bit,” said Benny.
Tom loosened his sword in its scabbard, and led the way. Benny shook his head, unsure of how exactly the day had brought him to this moment, and then followed.
12
“WON’T THEY ATTACK US?” BENNY WHISPERED.
“Not if we’re smart and careful. The trick is to move slowly. They respond to quick movements. Smell, too, but we have that covered. ”
“Can’t they hear us?”
“Yes, they can,” Tom said. “So once we’re in the town, don’t talk unless I do, and even then—less is more, and quieter is better than loud. I found that speaking slowly helps. A lot of the dead moan … so they’re used to slow, quiet sounds. ”
“This is like the Scouts,” Benny said. “Mr. Feeney told us that when we’re in nature we should act like we’re part of nature. ”
“For better or worse, Benny … this is part of nature too. ”
“That doesn’t make me feel good, Tom. ”
“This is the Rot and Ruin, kiddo. … Nobody feels good out here. Now hush and keep your eyes open. ”
They slowed their pace as they neared the first houses. Tom stopped and spent a few minutes studying the town. The main street ran upward to where they stood, so they had a good view of everything. Moving very slowly, Tom removed the envelope from his pocket and unfolded the erosion portrait.
“My client said that it was the sixth house along the main street,” Tom murmured. “Red front door and white fence. See it? There, past the old mail truck. ”
“Uh-huh,” Benny said without moving his lips. He was terrified of the zombies that stood in their yards not more than twenty paces away.
“We’re looking for a man named Harold Simmons. There’s nobody in the yard, so we may have to go inside. ”
“Inside?” Benny asked, his voice quavering.
“Come on. ” Tom began moving slowly, barely lifting his feet. He did not exactly imitate the slow, shuffling gait of the zombies, but his movements were unobtrusive. Benny did his best to mimic everything Tom did. They passed two houses in which zombies stood in the yard. The first house, on their left, had three zombies on the other side of a hip-high chain-link fence. Two little girls and an older woman. Their clothes were tatters that blew like holiday streamers in the hot breeze. As Tom and Benny passed by them, the old woman turned in their direction. Tom stopped and waited, his hand touching the handle of his sword, but the woman’s dead eyes swept past them without lingering. A few paces along, they passed a yard on their right in which a man in a bathrobe stood, staring at the corner of the house as if he expected something to happen. He stood among wild weeds and creeper vines that had wrapped themselves around his calves. It looked like he had stood there for years, and with a sinking feeling of horror, Benny realized that he probably had.
Benny wanted to turn and run. His mouth was as dry as sand, and sweat ran down his back and into his underwear.
They moved steadily down the street, always slow. The sun was heading toward the western part of the sky, and it would be dark in four or five hours. Benny knew they could never make it home by nightfall. He wondered if Tom would take them back to the gas station … or if he was crazy enough to claim an empty house in this ghost town for the night. If he had to sleep in a zombie’s house, even if there was no zombie there, then Benny was sure he’d go completely mad-cow crazy.
“There he is,” murmured Tom, and Benny looked toward the house with the red door. A man stood inside, looking out of the big bay window. He once had sandy hair and a sparse beard, but now the hair and beard were nearly gone, and the skin of his face had shriveled to a leathery tightness.
Tom stopped outside of the paint-peeling white picket fence. He looked from the erosion portrait to the man in the window and then back again.
“Benny?” he said under his breath. “You think that’s him?”
“Mm-hm,” Benny said with a low squeak.
The zombie in the window seemed to be looking at them. Benny was sure of it. The withered face and the dead pale eyes were pointed directly at the fence, as if it had been waiting there all these years for a visitor to come to the garden gate.
Tom nudged the gate with his toe. It was locked.
Moving very slowly, Tom leaned over and undid the latch. The process took more than two minutes. Nervous sweat ran down Benny’s face, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the zombie.
Tom pushed on the gate with his knee, and it opened.
“Very, very slowly,” he said. “Red light, green light—all the way to the door. ”
Benny knew the game, though, in truth, he had never seen a working stoplight. They entered the yard. The old woman in the first garden suddenly turned toward them. So did the zombie in the bathrobe.