“Whoa! Not a chance, duderino,” said J-Dog with a grin. “You two are going to Wawona just like your brother told you to. Skillz and I will find the kahuna.”
“No way!” snapped Nix. “You don’t expect us to—”
“—stay out of trouble? Yes, we do. If we drag you into a fight with White Bear, Fast Tommy’ll fry us for it.”
“We can handle ourselves,” Nix insisted. “Tom’s been training us, and—”
Dr. Skillz gave her a toothy grin. “I’ll bet you’re fierce as a tiger shark, Reds, but this is about speed, too. We’re gonna boogie like banshees. We got tricks for this, and believe me, you don’t know ’em.”
J-Dog nodded. “We got to catch a monster wave, dig?”
“But—,” Benny began, but left the rest unsaid because without a single additional word, J-Dog and Dr. Skillz turned and began running down the road. They ran with the easy grace of athletes. Benny knew that he and Nix could never match their speed.
Nix took a few steps after them, but it was more out of frustration than any hope of catching them. Then she turned to Benny, fists on hips. “Now what do we do?”
Benny sighed and adjusted the sling that held his bokken. “I guess we go to Wawona. At least it’ll be safe there.” Then he added, “Dudette.”
Nix giggled, and that laugh was worth more to Benny than all the homespun comforts in the world. They turned and headed down the road to Wawona.
FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
Tom says that zoms move faster or slower depending on how soon it is after they’ve reanimated and where they are in the process of decay. He says there are different stages for decay. I checked this with some medical books (and bugged Dr. gurijala about it, too. I think he thinks I’m really weird).
ALGOR MORTIS (Latin: algor—coolness; mortis—of death): the process a body goes through after death, during which the body cools to ambient temperature. Temperature drops at approximately 1 to 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour.
RIGOR MORTIS (literally “death stiffness”): the stiffening of the limbs following death as muscle cells decay.
VITREOUS HUMOR CHANGES: There is a clear gel that fills the gap between the retina and the lens of the eye. Following death, the potassium level in this gel increases at a measurable and predictable rate, which allows forensics experts to use it to measure time elapsed since death.
ENTOMOLOGY: Insects always appear on a corpse and are crucial to its decomposition.
AUTOLYSIS (literally “self-splitting”): This is the process of postmortem cell disintegration.
PUTREFACTION: the decomposition of proteins by anaerobic microorganisms called putrefying bacteria.
I’m going to go throw up now.
56
IT HURT TO RIDE HER HORSE, BUT SALLY MANAGED IT. SHE SWALLOWED HER pain and discomfort and kept moving. There were four horses following her up the winding mountain path; other figures moved through the forest to either side of the road. Solomon Jones walked beside Sally’s horse.
Sally turned gingerly and looked back at the crew they were assembling.
The barrel-chested man riding a one-eyed Tennessee walking horse was Hector Mexico, and he wore a necklace of wedding bands. He specialized in closure jobs for families. Behind him, Sam “Basher” Bashman was discussing pre–First Night baseball with Fluffy McTeague, a gigantic man in a pink floor-length carpet coat. The three horses behind them bore a little dark-skinned woman—LaDonna Willis—and her twin sons, Gunner and Dieter. The twins were short, but they were nearly as wide as they were tall, and neither of them had ever lost a fight except to each other. There were others, too, bounty hunters and trade guards, and the scavenger-turned-closure-expert Magic Mike.
The crew amused Sally. Except for LaDonna and her sons, they were mostly loners like Sally, people who preferred to live hard and alone in the wild of the Ruin. Often the only connection they had to the towns was through Tom. Maybe a case could be made that few of them were nice people, but all of them were good. They were people Tom trusted, and that counted for a whole lot. None of them were happy that he was leaving. No one had ever claimed that Tom was the leader of this band, or of any group; but it was always understood that what Tom said was the law. At least to the odd assortment of fighters and killers who followed Sally up the hill.
And there was not one of them who liked the idea of White Bear coming in to take over the territory. It had been tough enough under Charlie’s reign, because Charlie held contracts from every town, and anyone who wanted work had to go through him. Charlie always took a slice. White Bear was supposed to be worse. Younger, bigger, meaner, and—from what folks who knew both men said—smarter. White Bear was an organizer. The kind of man who inspired others to follow but who ruled with a heavy hand. If he got a solid foothold, then everyone was going to be jumping whenever White Bear yelled “frog.”
Plus, there were the rumors about Gameland. Everyone knew that it was back, but some of the rumors said that it had changed. That it was worse.
The men and women who walked or rode up this hill were not fans of Gameland. Not in the least. It was the antithesis of the freedom they treasured. And most of them had kids now, or had lost kids during First Night. Gameland was an abomination, and they all wanted to see it burn.
Sally rode, eating her pain and drawing her plans. All that mattered now was finding Tom in time.
57
TOM CRASHED BACKWARD INTO THE BRUSH WITH BOTH MEN CLAMPED around his body. There had been no chance at all for him to avoid the hit, but as they fell he wrenched his hips and shoulders around so that he wouldn’t land first. They hit hard, with Tom on top, Stosh landing on his left side, and Redhead taking the full brunt of his own weight and most of the mass of the others. Redhead’s back struck a stone the size of a football, and the bounty hunter screamed so loud that it chased the birds from the trees. The scream was almost loud enough to mask the sound of his spine shattering. His arms flopped limply away from Tom, and he lay gasping and dying under the weight of the man he had tried to kill.