Flesh and Bone (Benny Imura 3)

“Riot?”

The girl looked wild and terrible. Her face was bruised and crisscrossed with scratches. Blood trickled from one ear, and there was a shallow knife cut across the tanned flesh of her bare midsection.

She stood over Carter’s body with tears streaming down her face as she drew and fired stone after stone from her slingshot.

The reaper bellowed and tried to fight through the barrage, dodging some of the shots, taking others on his huge forearms as he sought to protect his face. Riot kept shooting, though, and the sharp stones cut bloody lines in the reaper’s skin.

And yet, the stones were not enough.

Brother Andrew was a monster of a man, with muscles packed onto his limbs. Riot was hurting him, but she wasn’t stopping him, and with a bear’s growl he waded into the attack, scythe clutched in powerful fists, head bowed to protect his face.

“No,” whispered Chong. “No!”

He suddenly lunged for the reaper and grabbed a fistful of the red cloth streamers on the big man’s ankle, yanking them with all the strength he had left. The sudden jerk made Brother Andrew stumble.

“Get off,” snapped the reaper as he smashed Chong across the face with a brutal backhanded blow.

Fireworks exploded inside Chong’s head and he sagged down, but his hand remained clamped around the red streamers. He distantly heard another thwap and Andrew’s howl of pain, but Chong’s vision was filled with black smoke. He collapsed down on his chest.

Andrew kicked free of his grip and raised a foot to stomp down on Chong’s head. But there was a cry like a hunting hawk and the meaty thud of flesh on flesh, and Chong peered up in wonder to see the reaper and Riot fall together in a snarling and deadly embrace. Andrew had his hands on Riot’s throat, but the young woman did not seem to care. She had a small knife in each hand, and as she crashed down and rolled over and over with the reaper, those blades did horrific work. Blood splashed the ground and spattered Chong’s face as he watched, dumbfounded and appalled as Riot—a teenage girl—slaughtered the monstrous reaper.

There was no better word. No cleaner word.

It was slaughter.

Then it was over. Riot rose from the red ruin that had been Brother Andrew. Blood dripped from her knives, her arms, her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked across the clearing at Carter, then at Sarah, and finally at Eve—who stood as still and blank-eyed as a statue.

That was the last thing Chong saw before a massive wave of darkness rose up and then crashed down on him, washing everything else away.

40

BENNY AND NIX KEPT MOVING, HEADING EAST. WHEN THEY LOOKED BACK there was no sign of Saint John, and the sound of the quads had all but faded out. All that remained was a faint buzz far away. There were no more yells or gunshots, either. The forest became quiet, but it did not at all feel like a natural calm.

“I don’t understand this,” said Nix.

“Don’t understand what? That guy back there or the whole freaking day?”

“People,” she said angrily. “The world ended, most of the people on the whole planet died . . . there’s no more reason for people to fight each other. There’s so much farmland we can use that no one will ever need to go hungry again. Even out here in the desert there are berries and figs and streams of pure drinking water. There’s no need to fight. But that’s all we’ve done. First Charlie and the Hammer, then White Bear and Preacher Jack, and now all this. I don’t understand it. When are we going to stop fighting? When are we going to actually want peace? When are we going to stop being so damn stupid?”

Benny shook his head. “I know, it’s crazy.”

“I mean,” Nix went on, “are we being naive about this? Are we just a couple of stupid kids who think that the world should make some kind of sense?”

“I know,” Benny said again. “I was kind of hoping we’d left that stuff behind with Gameland.”

“It can’t be everywhere,” she growled softly. “It can’t be.”

As she said it, Benny noticed that she looked up at the sky, which was just visible through the canopy of juniper branches.

“They said they saw the jet,” said Benny. “That’s something.”

She only grunted, and they walked in silence for several minutes.

Eventually Benny paused for a moment to use the sun and his wristwatch to orient himself. He squatted down and ran his fingers along the topsoil, which was darker than it had been when they’d first entered the forest.

“We should be pretty close to where Lilah went looking for Eve’s parents,” he said. “There’s some moisture in this dirt. Maybe we’re getting near to the creek Eve mentioned.”

Nix nodded, but she studied the woods. “I wonder where Lilah is. Did Chong find her? And where are they both right now?”