Night before last, while we were all sitting around the campfire, Chong told a joke that made Benny laugh. I think it was the first time Benny laughed since Gameland.
It was so good to hear him laugh. His eyes are still sad, though. I guess mine probably are too.
I never thought any of us would ever want to laugh again.
4
BENNY FELL FROM SUNLIGHT INTO DARKNESS AND HIT THE BOTTOM OF THE ravine so hard that his legs buckled and he pitched forward onto his face. Loose soil, tree roots, and small stones rained down on him. Fireworks detonated inside his head, and every single molecule of his body hurt.
He groaned, rolled onto his side, spat dirt out of his mouth, and clawed spiderwebs out of his eyes.
“Yeah, warrior smart,” he muttered.
The bottom of the ravine was much wider than the top and thick with mud, and Benny quickly understood that it was not a true ravine but a gorge cut by water runoff from the mountains. During the times of heaviest runoff, the flowing water had undercut edges of the slope above, creating the illusion of solid ground.
If he had kept running after he had leaped the gorge he would be safe. Instead he’d turned to gloat. Not exactly warrior smart.
Warrior dumb-ass, he thought darkly.
As he lay there, his mind began to play tricks on him. Or at least he thought it was doing something twisted and weird. He heard sounds. First it was his own labored breathing and the moans of the dead above him, but, no . . . there was something else.
It was a distant roar that sounded—impossible as that was—like the hand-crank generator that ran the power in the hospital back home. Still half-buried in the dirt, he cocked his head to listen. The sound was definitely there, but it wasn’t exactly like the hospital generator. This whined at a higher pitch, and it surged and fell away, surged and fell away.
Then it was gone.
He strained to hear it, trying to decide if it was really a motor sound or something else. There were all kinds of birds and animals out there, weird stuff that had escaped zoos and circuses, and Benny had read about exotic animal sounds. Was that what he’d heard?
No, said his inner voice, it was a motor.
Suddenly there was a soft sound from above, and a huge pile of loose dirt cascaded down on Benny, burying him almost to the neck. He began fighting his way out, but then he heard another sound and he looked, expecting to see more of the wall collapsing on him, but what he saw was far, far worse. The leading wave of pursuing zoms had reached the edge of the ravine, and the land had crumbled under their combined weight. Four zombies pitched over the edge and fell into the darkness with jarring crunches, the nearest one landing only six feet away.
Then another zombie—a teenage girl dressed in the rags of a cheerleader outfit—dropped right in front of Benny, striking the ground with a thud that was filled with the brittle crunch of breaking bones. The cheerleader’s gray and dusty eyes were open, and her mouth bit the air.
Broken bones wouldn’t kill a zom. Benny knew that all too well, and he dug through the loose dirt to find the hilt of his sword.
The zombie lifted a pale hand toward him. Cold fingertips brushed his face, but suddenly a second body—a huge man in coveralls—slammed down on top of her. The impact was massive, and it shattered even more bones.
Benny cried out in horror and disgust and began digging his way out like a mad gopher, clawing at the dirt, kicking his feet free.
Another zom fell nearby, ribs and arm bones snapping with firecracker sounds. The sounds were horrible, and Benny dreaded one of those limp, fetid corpses landing on him before he could get free. Overhead more of the living dead toppled over the edge and plummeted toward him. A soldier slammed into the gro
und to his right, a schoolkid to his left, their moans following them down as they fell, only to be cut off with a dry grunt as they crunched atop their fellows. Farmers and tourists, a man in swim trunks covered in starfish, an old woman in a pink cardigan, and a bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt—all striking mercilessly down. The impact sounds of moistureless bodies filled the air with an awful symphony of destruction.
Another zom fell. And another.
The cheerleader, broken and twisted now by the impacts, still growled at Benny and clamped gnarled fingers around both his ankles.
Benny screamed and tried to pull his legs away, but the grip was too strong. He immediately stopped trying to wriggle free and sat up.
“Let me go!” he bellowed as he punched the zom in the face.
The punch broke the zombie’s nose and rocked its head back, but that was all it accomplished. Benny struck again and again. With pieces of broken teeth falling from between its pale lips, the cheerleader used its grip to pull itself forward, climbing along Benny’s legs; and all the time its mouth opened and closed as if rehearsing the feast that was now close at hand. The rotting-meat stench of the creature in this closed space was horrific.
The zom darted out and caught Benny’s trouser leg between the stumps of its teeth, pinching some skin as well. The pain was instantly intense. Benny howled. Other twisted and broken zoms clawed along the ground toward him, crawling over one another like maggots on a piece of bad meat.
While he fought, he could almost hear Tom whispering advice.
Be warrior smart.