Rot and Ruin (Benny Imura 1)

“So … we could take back whole sections of the country. ”

Benny nodded. He told her about his brief conversations on this topic with Tom and Rob Sacchetto. Neither of those conversations had gone very deep, though; and neither of them had the passion in their voices that he heard in Nix’s.

“Out in the Pacific there are islands not that far off the coast. I read a book about them. Santa Cruz, San Miguel. Catalina. Some of them had only a few thousand people on them, and even if all of them are filled with zoms, we have enough people, enough weapons and know-how, to take them away from the zoms. Zoms can’t swim; they can’t use boats. We could take those islands. The book said that there’s farmland on several of them. ”

“It would take years to do all that. ”

“We have years. We have nothing but time, Benny. Years and years and forever, because that’s all we have left. ”

“How’s all that better than what we have here? We have farmland that we don’t have to fight for. ”

“Because out there on the islands, eventually there would be nothing left but people. Even if there was an outbreak where someone forgot to lock themselves in at night and zommed out, it wouldn’t lead to another First Night. Not anywhere close. Everyone knows the basics of how to control a zom. Everyone. We played games about it when we were in first grade. We’re a culture of zombie hunters, Benny, even if most of the people here don’t want to accept it, or pretend otherwise. ”

Benny thought about that, tried to poke holes in it, but couldn’t.

“If there was nothing left but people,” Nix continued, “we wouldn’t have to live in fear all the time. There wouldn’t be any need for bounty hunters, either. It would be a real world again. ” She looked toward the east, as if she could see the fence line from Benny’s backyard. “You see the fence as something keeping the zoms out. I don’t. I see it as the thing that pens us in. We’re trapped here. Trapped isn’t ‘alive. ’ Trapped isn’t ‘safe. ’ And it isn’t ‘free. ’”

Benny looked at her, at the side of her face as she stared toward the unseen fence line. Nix was so pretty, so smart, so … everything. Open your mouth you idiot, he told himself. Just tell her.

“Nix,” he said softly, but he had no idea what he would say next.

“What?” She still stared to the east, watching as more gulls came from that direction and flew over them toward the unseen coastline behind them.

“I do want to see the ocean. ”

Nix turned toward him.

He said, “The ocean, the islands to the west, or whatever’s on the other side of the Rot and Ruin to the east. Maybe what’s in another country. Whatever’s there, I want to see it. I don’t want to live my life in a chicken cage. ” He took a breath, fishing for the right way to say it. “You’re right. If we don’t get out of this town, we’re going to die here. And I don’t mean just us. You and me. The caged birds. I mean all of us. Mountainside was how Tom and the other adults survived First Night. But now it’s—”

She finished it for him. “Now it’s a coffin. No room, no air, no future. ”

“Yeah. ”

Even though his inner voice screamed at him to say more, he couldn’t make his mouth form the words. He sat there, staring into her green eyes. After a long time Nix sighed. She touched his face. No more than a ghost-light brush of fingertips on his cheek.

“One of us is the stupidest person in the whole wide world, Benny Imura,” she said. Then she rose and went inside to wash up.

23

THE CLOUDS SWEPT OVER THE MOUNTAINS AND ACROSS THE VALLEY, blotting out the sun. Morgie, Chong, and Nix stayed for roasted corn and hamburgers that Tom made on a stone grill in the yard, but as the first fat raindrops splatted down, they bolted for home. The wind picked up, and the Imura brothers ran to close the shutters and button up the house. By the time they were done, lightning was flashing continuously, throwing weird shadows across the lawn and stabbing in through the slats of the shutters.

“This is going to be a bad one,” Tom said, sniffing the air.

Inside, they changed out of their workout clothes, washed, and shambled back into the kitchen in pajama bottoms and T-shirts. The temperature dropped like a rock, and Tom brewed a pot of strong black tea, flavored with fresh mint leaves. They drank it with honey-almond muffins Nix’s mother had sent over.

“How come Mrs. Riley sends us stuff so often?” Benny asked, halfway through his third muffin.

Tom gave an enigmatic little shrug. “She thinks she owes me, and this is how she repays the debt. ”

“Does she owe you?”

“No. When a friend does a favor for a friend, it isn’t with the expectation of repayment. ”

“What favor? Getting her out of Gameland?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Tom said. “And it was a long time ago. But I think it makes Jessie feel better to send us what she can. ”

Benny nodded, uncertain what to make of Tom’s answer. He nibbled the muffin. “She’s a pretty amazing baker. ”