Bits & Pieces (Benny Imura 5)

Joe Ledger walked up to Bones and held out his hand. The big dog licked him and danced around like a happy puppy. It twisted the knife in Rags’s heart.

The big man seemed to sense that too. He smiled at her. “Looks like you’ve been taking good care of him for me,” he said. “He’s put some weight on. Nice.”

The dog looked from him to Rags and back again.

“He’s my friend,” said Rags. “We’ve been helping each other.”

Ledger nodded. “That’s good. That’s the only way we’re ever going to get out of this mess.”

He walked past her and stood in front of Mama Rat. Baskerville came trotting up behind him, gave Bones a quick sniff, allowed one in return, then went over to sit beside Ledger. His armor clanked.

The seven skull-riders clustered even more tightly behind Mama Rat. They each still held their weapons, but to Rags it seemed as if the men had forgotten what those items were used for.

Ledger stood and studied Mama Rat for a long time, his blue eyes filled with mysteries. Finally, when he spoke, he recited lines from an old story Rags had read in school.

“?‘The time has come, the Walrus said,’?” murmured Ledger, “?‘to talk of many things. Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—Of cabbages—and kings—And why the sea is boiling hot—And whether pigs have wings.’?”

It was some nonsense poetry from Through the Looking-Glass, and its silly verses had no business on this troubled street in an abandoned city in a dying world.

Or, Rags wondered, did they?

In the stillness of the air there was magic hidden inside the ranger’s recitation. The swordsman, Tom, came and stood ten feet to Ledger’s left. The air around him seemed to crackle with a static charge of awful possibility. And Rags knew that whatever happened—and whatever had happened—it hurt the Japanese man every bit as much as those who felt his sword. Rags knew that with total certainty.

“What—what do you want?” asked Mama Rat, her voice soft and filled with cracks.

“That’s up to you, sweetheart,” said Ledger. “We’re standing way, way out on the ledge here. You know what’s down there if you take that step.”

Another tear fell down the woman’s cheek. “We’re all dead anyway.”

Ledger shook his head, but before he could say anything, Rags spoke. She hadn’t meant to and didn’t know she was going to.

“No,” she said.

Everyone looked at her.

“That’s not true,” said Rags. “We’re not all dead.”

“Look around you, girl, the whole world’s dead,” snapped the woman. “The whole world’s gone crazy, and anyone who says it’s not is crazier than the rest.”

“Maybe the world’s crazy,” said Rags, taking a hesitant step forward, “but that doesn’t mean we are.”

When she moved, Bones moved with her, standing right at her side, the way Baskerville stood beside the ranger. Captain Ledger seemed to take note of it, and he smiled to himself.

“What do you know about anything?” sneered Mama Rat. “You’re a kid. You don’t know anything.”

Anger flared hot in Rags’s chest. “I don’t? Really? I know that this plague came and killed my mom. And after she died, my mom got up and killed my dad, and my little brother, and my gram. She killed my dog.” For some reason those last words were the hardest, and Rags’s voice cracked on them. “My mom killed everyone in my house, and she tried to kill me. And I . . . and I . . .”

Tears fell like rain from her eyes as sobs broke over and over in her chest. They hurt so bad. Everything hurt so bad. And as she spoke, all the boards she’d hammered into place in the house of her memories began to come loose. Images thrust in through the windows like pale hands, doors burst open, and into her conscious mind came the shambling, lifeless things that had been her family. They filled her mind, coming for her, trying to crowd her into a corner so they could get at her and tear her apart.

“Do you know what I did?” yelled Rags, her voice rising to a shriek. “Do you know what I did?”

“Kid . . . ,” began Ledger, reaching out for her, but Rags slapped his hand away.

“No! I want her to ask me what I did.” She wheeled on Mama Rat and slapped her across the face so hard it sounded like a gunshot. “You’re so tough. You’re so scary. You ask me what I did! Go on—ask me!”

Mama Rat mouthed the words. She clearly could not speak them.

Her lips formed the four words.