“Morgie!” Nix called, starting to rise, but Tom stopped her with a shake of his head.
“Leave him be,” Tom said. “He needs some time.”
But Nix didn’t leave it. She ran after Morgie and caught him as he slammed the gate behind him. Nix pushed it open again, but Morgie kept walking, almost running. Nix ran to stand in front of him. Benny couldn’t hear what she said, or what Morgie said back. At first they were shouting, but their words were muffled by distance. Then Nix was hugging Morgie and for a moment there was no response, then Morgie wrapped his arms around her and they stood there, heads buried on each other’s shoulders. Benny could see the hitch of their bodies as they cried.
“Don’t go over there, Benny,” said Chong softly.
“No,” Benny agreed.
They watched for a while, then one by one they turned away.
FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
People in the Rot and Ruin
Bounty Hunters: This is the biggest group of people who go into the Ruin, or sometimes live out there. They do jobs for pay, like clearing zoms out of a town, hunting specific zombies for pay, clearing the trade routes, finding lost people, and other work.
Tom says that most of them are dangerous and not very nice, but that “nicer people generally won’t do that kind of work.” Mayor Kirsch calls them a “necessary evil.”
People in town have been talking about a new bounty hunter moving into the area to take over Charlie Pink-eye’s territory. They call him White Bear, but that’s all I know about him … except that he’s supposed to be just as mean and tough as Charlie. Oh … great.
Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer were bounty hunters, and the people who worked with them were all bad.
Closure experts are a different kind of bounty hunter. They’re hired by people to look for family members or friends who have been zommed. This is what Tom Imura does.
Tom finds them if he can (zoms usually don’t wander far from where they reanimated), reads them a last letter from the family, and then “quiets” them as humanely as possible.
Other closure experts Tom introduced me to: Old Man Church, Solomon Jones, and Lucy Diamonds.
Bounty hunters Tom trusts: J-Dog, Dr. Skillz, Hector Mexico, Sally Two-Knives, Basher Bashman, Magic Mike, LaDonna Willis and sons, and Fluffy McTeague.
What would my name be if I was a bounty hunter? Reds Riley? Li’l Killer?
I’ll have to think about that.
10
BENNY FELT HORRIBLE AND HELPLESS. MORGIE HAD ALWAYS HAD A CRUSH on Nix and had been on his way to her house to ask her out the night Nix’s mom was killed. Morgie had tried to defend Nix and her mom, but the Hammer had struck him on the back of the head with his iron club.
The same club Benny had used to take down Charlie.
Now Morgie and Nix were deep inside the pocket of a shared experience, and the intimacy of it made Benny feel deeply insecure. But when he realized that he was feeling insecure and jealous, Benny wished he could drag his own stupid mind behind the house and kick the crap out of it.
They ate the last of the leftovers from supper and more big slices of pie. They sat in silence, trying not to look at the road. After fifteen minutes Nix and Morgie came back. They each accepted plates of pie and glasses of tea from Tom.
Morgie sat in the empty gap between Tom and Chong, and there were dried tear tracks on his face. Nix sat on t
he picnic table, but not as close to Benny as she had been before.
As if there had been no interruption, Tom picked up the conversation where his narrative of the events at the Houser place had left off.
“… and you know the rest,” Tom concluded.
“What about Danny’s dad?” asked Nix. “And the twins?”
Tom sighed. “The girls told me that they and their dad got home about two hours ago. The girls went upstairs to play, and Jack went into the kitchen. Danny must have come home sometime after Michelle was attacked but before Jack. From the way I read it, Danny, Grandpa, and Michelle attacked Jack when he went into the kitchen. He got away, but he was badly hurt. He got the girls into their room and told them to barricade the door. Then he got his gun.”
“He fired that first shot?” asked Benny.