Rot and Ruin (Benny Imura 1)

A few people chuckled or nodded vaguely, but nobody said anything specific. It was one of those times when it wasn’t clear what the right answer would be.

Charlie plowed ahead. “So me and the Hammer decide to make this a bit more fair. ”

“Fair,” agreed the Hammer.

“We laid down our weapons. ”

“All of ’em?” Chong gasped.

“Every last one. Guns, knives, the Hammer’s favorite pipe, numchucks, even them ninja throwing stars that the Hammer took off that dead zom who used to run that karate school on the other side of the valley. We stripped down to our jeans and beaters and just went in, mano a mano. ”

“Went in whut?” asked Morgie.

“It means ‘hand to hand,’” Chong said.

“It means ‘man to man,’” Charlie snapped.

Even Benny knew Charlie was wrong, but he didn’t say so. Not right to Charlie’s face, anyway. No one was that dumb.

Charlie threw Chong a quick, ugly look and plunged back into his story. “Anyways, we came up on them with just our knuckles and nerves, and we fair beat them zoms so bad, they died surprised, woke up, and died of shame all over again. ”

Everyone burst out laughing.

Someone cleared his throat, and they all looked up to see Randy Kirsch, the town mayor, standing there, his arms folded, bald head cocked to one side as he looked from Benny to Chong to Morgie. “I thought you boys were supposed to be out job hunting. ”

“I got a job,” Chong said quickly.

“I’m fourteen,” said Morgie.

“We just stopped in for a cold bottle of pop,” Benny said.

“And you’ve had it, Benjamin Imura,” said Mayor Kirsch. “Now you three run along. ”

Benny thought Charlie was going to object, but the bounty hunter simply shrugged. “Yeah … you boys got to earn your rations just like grown folks. Skedaddle. ”

Benny and the others got up and slouched past the mayor. Before they even reached the door Charlie was in full stride again, telling another of his stories, and everyone was laughing. The mayor followed the boys outside.

“Benny,” he said quietly, the hot sun glinting off the polished crown of his shaved head. “Does Tom know you’ve been hanging out here?”

“I don’t know,” Benny said evasively. He knew darn well that Tom had no idea that he spent a part of every afternoon listening to Charlie and the Hammer tell their stories.

“I don’t think he’d like it,” said Mayor Kirsch.

Benny met his stare. “I guess I really don’t care much what Tom likes and doesn’t like,” he said, then added “sir” to the end of it, as if that word could somehow improve the tone of voice he’d just used.

Mayor Kirsch scratched at his thick black beard. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again. Whatever he wanted to say, he kept to himself. That was fine with Benny, who wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

“You boys run along now,” Kirsch said eventually. He stood on the porch of the general store for a while, but when Benny was all the way down the street and looked back, he saw the mayor go back into the store.

The mayor and his family lived next door to Benny, and he and Tom were friends. Mayor Kirsch was always talking about how tough Tom was and what a good hunter Tom was and what a fine example Tom set for all bounty hunters. Blah, blah, blah. It made Benny want to hurl. If Tom set such a fine example as a bounty hunter, then why didn’t the other bounty hunters ever tell stories about him? None of them bragged about how they’d seen Tom single-handedly kick the butts of four zombies at once. Even Tom didn’t talk about it. Not once had he ever told Benny about what he did out there in the Ruin. How boring was that? Benny thought the Mayor had a screw loose. Tom was no kind of role model to anyone.

Chong said he had to get ready for work. He was scheduled for a six-hour shift in his tower, and looked pleased about it. Benny and Morgie found their friend Nix Riley, a redheaded girl with more freckles than anyone could count, sitting on a rock down by the creek, writing in her leather-bound notebook. She had her shoes off and her feet in the water. The red nail polish on her toes looked like rubies under the rippling water.

“Hello, Benny,” said Nix with a smile, peering at him from under her wild red-gold curls. “How’s the job hunting going?”

Benny grunted and kicked off his shoes. The cold water was like a happy party on his hot feet. Morgie slouched around and sat on Nix’s other side, and began untying his clunky work boots.

They told Nix about Charlie and the Hammer, and about the mayor rousting them.