Dust & Decay(97)

They slowed and walked under the shade of a line of young white oaks. “Story time,” said J-Dog. “The kahuna said—”

“Who?” interrupted Benny.

“Tom, man. Tom’s the big kahuna. He’s a crusher, he’s the legend.”

“Okay … but can we just call him ‘Tom’?”

Dr. Skillz grinned. “You guys are rough.”

“We don’t speak surfer,” said Nix. “We’ve never even seen the ocean.”

“Yeah.” Dr. Skillz sighed. “And we ain’t seen it since First Night. Sucks.”

“Tom,” prompted Benny.

“Right … Tom said you guys were heading east to find the jet. Said to meet you at the way station, but we just came from there and it’s mosty-toasty. Someone had a luau supremo and roasted a lot of zoms.”

“That would be us,” said Benny uneasily. He and Nix explained what happened.

Dr. Skillz grinned. “Way to think outside the box, duderman.”

“We lost Lilah, though,” said Nix. “She ran away.”

“Spook girl got spooked?” J-Dog shook his head. “Lot of forest to get lost in. Anyway … Tom said you’d be hitting Brother Dave’s first and then cruising to Wawona, so we caught a wave and here we are.”

“Nice timing,” said Benny appreciatively. “Thanks.”

“Hey, our pleasure,” Dr. Skillz said with a grin. “Fast Tommy’s saved our butts enough times.”

“Totally,” said J-Dog. “Wawona’s not far from here. Good place to kick back.”

“Is that where you were coming from?” asked Benny.

Dr. Skillz removed his shades to clean them. “Nah. We ain’t been there in almost three months. Been doing a lot of guard work for the scavenge team way over at Lushmeadows Estates. Got hired to clear out all the zoms and then babysit the scavenger team.”

J-Dog gave an enthusiastic nod. “Yeah … made some nice green, too. We ran into Tom last week and told him we’d be crashing at Wawona, though. Still some snow high up, so we were gonna rest up, then go high and snowboard. It’ll be a powwow for sure. Saaaa-weeeeet!”

“Um. Okay,” said Benny uncertainly, not sure what a “snowboard” was.

“We were heading to Wawona,” Nix interjected, “but we don’t have to. I mean … there’s four of us now. Shouldn’t we go try and find Tom and Chong?”

Dr. Skillz put his shades back on. “No doubt. Kind of surprised Tom isn’t already back.”

“Wait,” yelped Benny, “what are you saying? That Tom’s in trouble?”

“I didn’t say he was in trouble,” said Dr. Skillz. “It’s just that a lot of weird stuff’s been happening in the last few weeks. We missed most of it ’cause we were over at Lushmeadows. Bunch of animals coming out of the east, and an upsurge in the zom head count.”

“And now we got fast zoms,” said J-Dog. “Weird times.”

“It’s weirder than you think,” said Benny, and he told them about the man who hadn’t reanimated.

“Whoa,” said J-Dog. “You sure?”

“Tom was sure,” said Nix.

The bounty hunters looked at each other, then turned and looked back the way they had come, as if some kind of answer was painted on the forest.

“For the record, dude, I do not dig this,” murmured Dr. Skillz.

The four of them walked in silence for almost five minutes as they considered their next move. Nix asked, “Have you met anyone who saw the jet?”

“Sure,” said J-Dog. “Lots of people. Us too. Kinda wild.”

Dr. Skillz nodded. “Tom said that’s where he was taking you guys. A quest thingy to find whoever has that jet.”

“Yes,” said Nix firmly. “Whoever fixed and fueled that jet is trying to bring civilization back.”

“You sure?” asked Dr. Skillz. “Bad guys and freaks can fly jets too.”

Nix either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore the remark.

Dr. Skillz abruptly stopped. “Dog,” he said, “I think we’re making a mistake here.”

“Why? Tom wanted us to lifeguard these guys and—”

Dr. Skillz cut him off. “Wawona’s only six or seven miles. They can do that without us. But that dead guy bothers the crap out of me. The way he was killed? That’s got Charlie’s tag on it.”