Now . . . finding the jet is the only thing that matters.
7
AS HE RAN, BENNY COULD FEEL THE LITTLE GIRL’S FLUTTERING HEART BEATING against his chest. It called up an old memory—the oldest memory he owned, a memory born in horror on First Night. It was a memory of being held just like this when he was a toddler less than two years old, being held tightly in Tom’s arms while his brother ran away from the thing that had been their father. And the weeping, screaming figure of their mother, who had used the last moments of her life to pass Benny through a window to Tom and beg him to run.
To run.
As Benny ran now.
Through darkness and horror, with death pursuing and no certain knowledge of a way out of the moment.
For most of his life Benny had misunderstood that memory, thinking that Mom had been abandoned by Tom, that his brother had been a coward who fled when he should have stayed to rescue her, too. But then he learned the truth. Mom was already dying, already becoming one of the living dead. She had pushed both her sons out of the window, saving them from the terror inside. And Tom had honored that sacrifice by keeping Benny safe—that night and all the other nights and years that followed.
Now Tom was gone too.
He, too, had died to save others. He, too, had sacrificed himself so that life could continue even in a world ruled by the dead.
The little girl Benny carried wept and screamed, but she also clung to him. And he to her. Even though she was a total stranger to him, Benny knew that he would die to save her.
Was it like this for you, Tom? he wondered. Was this what you felt when you carried me out of Sunset Hollow on First Night? If you were really the coward I used to think you were, you would have run off and left me. Wouldn’t you? You would have saved yourself. Alone, without having to carry me, it would have been easier for you to slip away. But you didn’t. You carried me all the way.
Was it a memory? Or now that Benny stood at death’s fragile door, was it easier for Tom’s ghost to whisper to him from the darkness on the other side?
Benny, whispered Tom, I didn’t die to save you.
“I know that, Einstein,” Benny growled back as he ran.
No—listen! I didn’t die to save you.
A zom fell into the ravine directly in front of them, and the little girl screamed even louder. But Benny leaped over the awkward form before the zom could struggle to its feet.
I lived to save you, said Tom. I lived.
“You died, Tom!” Benny snarled.
Benny . . . back then, on First Night, I didn’t die to save you. I did everything I could to stay alive. For both of us. You know this. . . .
“But—”
Don’t die, Benny, murmured Tom from the deeper shadows in Benny’s mind. The sound of Tom’s voice was comforting and terrifying at the same time. It was wrong and right.
“Tom,” Benny said again as he wheeled around a sharp bend in the ravine. “Tom . . .?”
But Tom’s voice was gone.
The ravine sloped down, becoming deeper, and soon he realized that even the gnarled tree roots clinging to the edge of the cleft were too far above his head. He’d hoped for just the opposite, figuring once they were well clear of the zoms he could pass the kid up and let her pull herself out, then scramble up himself. That plan was hopeless now.
They rounded another bend, and Benny slowed from a run to a walk and then simply stood there. Ten feet away was a solid wall of dirt and rock. The entire ravine had collapsed beneath the weight of a massive oak tree whose root system had been undercut by runoff. There was no way through it, and the sides were far too steep to climb. He and the little girl were trapped. He had no sword, no carpet coat. Only a knife, and that would not stop the mass of dead things following them.
“Now what, Tom?” he demanded, but there was only silence from the shadows in his mind. “Really? Now you’re going to shut up?”
Nothing.
Benny glanced down at the girl. Could he lift her high enough so that she could grab one of the roots and climb up? It would be her only chance, but doing it would use up the last seconds he had and give him no chance at all. Even so, he thought, he had to try. Better to die trying to save a life than share a hideous death down here in the fetid darkness. He listened for some trace of Tom’s voice, but there was still nothing.
The first of the zombies rounded the previous bend. Five of them, with more behind. One of them broke from the pack and started running along the ravine.
Oh no, thought Benny, a fast one. Oh God!