Fire and Ash (Benny Imura 4)

“I have to tell you in case—”

“No! Don’t, for God’s sake,” he said. “If you say it, I think it’ll kill me.”

Nix saw something in his eyes, and she took a step backward. Then with a flash of wild red hair, she turned and ran.

Benny hurried over to Solomon.

“They’re killing all the zoms,” said Benny.

The bounty hunter laughed. “Yeah, shows you what a little cooperation can accomplish.”

“We could have used a little more of that cooperation.”

Solomon drew the two machetes and gave them a quick twirl. “What’s that thing you kids keep saying?”

“Warrior smart.”

Solomon nodded. “Warrior smart.”

Benny drew his sword and began running along the fence line.

• • •

The Red Brothers and the army of reapers tore the gray people apart, but they took heavy losses to do it. Fewer than half of the forty thousand who had followed Saint John from the sack of Haven could still fight. However, half of those were injured. Some had bites from runners, and when their own fellow reapers saw those injuries, knives flashed and bodies fell.

Saint John allowed no infection among his people.

When the field was clear of the dead, Saint John walked out, Brother Peter’s knife still clutched in his hand. His cadre of Red Brothers fanned out behind him. The sergeants shoved and growled their men into tight divisions. Sixteen thousand of them stood in ordered lines before the gates of Mountainside. Every eye on both sides of the fence watched Saint John walk across the red-stained field. Now the stench of blood was nearly as strong as the stink of bleach.

Saint John walked to within a thousand yards of the fence. Well within rifle range, but no gun fired. He stopped and pointed his knife at the town.

Behind the gates, the men and women in red sashes suddenly turned and bolted, running in disordered panic from the fence line.

The reapers goggled for a moment, and then laughter rippled through their ranks. It swelled and swelled until they were all laughing hysterically. It was the sight of the defenders fleeing after all their tactics had failed, and it was the release of fear and tension from each of the reapers.

“They flee!” cried Saint John. “They flee!”

The laughter was like thunder.

Saint John bellowed out two words that floated above the laughter.

“Take them!”

The reapers began marching forward. First in orderly ranks, then faster and faster until they broke into a flat-out run. They hit the fence line, and the sheer weight of their surge tore the fence apart and ripped the poles from the ground—even at the cost of many in the front ranks being crushed at the moment of impact. The reapers flooded into the town, crossing the red zone that separated the fence line from the first rows of shops and homes, smashing through doorways of every building and house they reached. It was like a tidal surge bursting over a levee. The mass of the surge hit the town hard enough to knock walls down and uproot small trees. The thunder of all those feet shattered windows and knocked the frames of doorways out of true. The reaper army flooded into the town, knives ready, spears ready, bloodlust ready.

And they found . . . nothing.

The front ranks split apart to follow smaller streets. Knots of reapers burst through doors and ran down the halls of the school and the town hall and the hospital. Every closet door was yanked open, every cellar and attic was invaded.

But there was no one in the town.

As the last of the reapers ran across the fallen fence, the interior mass of them slowed near the center of town. They looked around, confused, frightened by the strangeness. There had been an army here minutes ago. Two or three hundred people in red sashes had fired volley after volley at them.

Where were they? The back of the town was a steep mountain wall. If any of the defenders had climbed the winding goat paths, they’d be as visible as black bugs. There was a massive reservoir near the end of town, but no one was hiding in the silent pump house.

Runners came to report this to Saint John as he walked without haste toward the shattered gates. He frowned at the news.

“There’s no one there, Honored One.”