Dust & Decay(16)

Most people had long ago stopped talking about First Night; and although no one said it aloud, it was pretty clear that they felt that they were all just waiting for everything else to end. Society had collapsed, the military and government were gone, nearly seven billion people had died, and the zombie plague was still running at full strength. They all knew that their fellow citizens of Mountainside believed that the world had ended and what was left was just the clock winding down to a final and inevitable silence.

It was a horrible thought, and until the big fight at Charlie’s camp last year, Benny had been as adamant as Nix in wanting to break free of the town and find someplace where people wanted to be alive. Someplace where people believed that there was a future.

Then there had been that fight. Benny had been forced to kill people.

To kill.

People.

Not just zoms.

How was that going to open the way to a future?

There were so few people left. Barely thirty thousand left in California, and no way to know if there were any more anywhere else. How was killing going to increase that number? It was insane.

Only here, only when he was alone and looking into the eyes of the person he was becoming, could Benny admit the truth to himself.

“I don’t want to do this,” he said.

His mirror image and his inner voice repeated that truth, word for word. They were all in total agreement.

He got dressed and went downstairs and stood for a long time looking at the map of Mariposa County and Yosemite National Park. He heard voices and went to the back door and listened. Tom was in the yard, talking across the rail fence to Mayor Kirsch and Captain Strunk. Benny cracked the door so he could hear what they were saying.



“It’s not just a few people, Tom,” said the mayor. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

“It’s not a secret, Randy,” Tom said. “People have known I was leaving since Christmas.”

“That’s my point,” replied Captain Strunk. “The scouts and traders are saying that a bunch of rough-looking characters have been moving into the area since Charlie died.”

“Everyone in the Ruin is a rough-looking character. Goes with the territory.”

“Come on, Tom,” Strunk said irritably, “don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying. And don’t pretend that you don’t know what an influence you’ve had on things out in the Ruin. There may not be much in the way of law out there, but while you were going out on regular closure jobs, most of the rough trade tended to behave themselves.”

Tom laughed. “You’re crazy.”

“This isn’t a joke,” said Strunk. “People respect you in town, even if most of them don’t say it—”

“Or can’t say it,” the Mayor interjected.

“—and out in the Ruin you were a force to be reckoned with.”

“I’m not the sheriff of these here parts,” Tom said in a comical Old West accent.

“Might as well be,” said Strunk. “You could have my job anytime you want it.”

“No thanks, Keith, you’re the law here in town, and you do a great job.”

“Again, that’s my point,” said Strunk. “You know that I won’t ever step one foot outside of that fence. No way.”

“The bottom line,” barked the mayor, “is that we both feel that once you leave, this part of the Ruin is going to turn into a no-man’s-land. Traders are going to get hijacked, and if the bounty hunters band together with no one to stop them, then they are going to own this town. Maybe all the towns.”

There was a brief silence, and then Benny heard Tom sigh.

“Randy, Keith … I appreciate the problem, but it’s not my problem. If you’ll remember, I proposed a militia for the Ruin. I made very specific recommendations for a town-sanctioned force that would police this part of the Ruin and all the trade routes. Let’s see, how long ago was that? Eight years? And then again a year later. And the following year, and—”

“Okay, okay,” growled Mayor Kirsch. “Rubbing our noses in it doesn’t help us find an answer.”

“I know, Randy, and I don’t mean to be a jerk about this … but I’m leaving next week. Leaving and not coming back. I can’t be the one to solve your problems. Not this time.”

Both men harangued Tom, but he cut them off with a curt wave of his hand.