Dust & Decay (Rot & Ruin, #2)(104)

“Go!” Benny yelled, grabbing the shoulder of her vest and pulling her. One zom was down for good, one was crippled, and one would be able to get back up; but the most important thing was that for a moment the three of them sprawled in the middle of the tunnel, creating a temporary roadblock.

Above them the commentator was fumbling to explain this to the crowd, and his words were met by a mixed chorus of boos and applause.

“Freaks!” snarled Nix.

Benny saved his breath for running. They rounded the bend and skidded to a halt as two more zoms lumbered toward them. A side tunnel broke right, and Nix started to go that way, but Benny didn’t like it. There was no light at all down there.

The closest zom was an enormous fat man in the shreds of a blue hospital gown. He had almost no face left. Nix tried to dodge and kick, hoping to break the man’s knee, but her aim was off and her foot rebounded from the monster’s fat thigh. It swiped at her and she had to leap backward to keep from being caught. Benny tried the same kick attack and hit the knee, but the fat man’s leg wouldn’t break. As it wheeled on this new attacker, the second zom—a prissy-looking woman with gray hair in a bun and her intestines hanging out—threw herself on Nix.

Nix screamed and brought her feet up just in time, catching the zom on the chest and in the gooey mass of its entrails. The zombie scrabbled at Nix’s vest with white fingers and kept darting forward to try to bite.

Benny was too busy to help. The fat zom shambled toward him, its bulk blocking the narrow tunnel. It pawed at him as Benny chopped at it with the hatchet, knocking bloodless chunks of flesh from its face and chest.

With a final scream of wild rage, Nix swung her hatchet and buried the long glass spike in the zombie’s eye socket. The monster reeled back, shuddered, and then fell, tearing the handle out of Nix’s hand.

Benny stopped trying to get away and instead put one foot on the wall and used it to launch himself at the zom, hitting it high on the chest and driving it backward with both hands. The monster’s heels hit the other zom and he toppled backward, with Benny holding onto its shirt all the way to the massive thump! The zombie never stopped grabbing for him, and the creature was immune to the shock of the impact beyond a shudder that rippled through its layers of dead fat. The creature bit down on Benny’s ragged shirtsleeve and began shaking it the way a terrier shakes a rat. Benny hammered at it with the hatchet until he tore through the remaining tendons of the zom’s face and the lower jaw simply fell off.

Benny gaped at the monster for a moment, then threw his weight sideways and went into a sloppy roll that nonetheless brought him to his feet. As he turned he saw Nix working her hatchet back and forth to free it from the dead zom’s eye socket. It came free with a dry glup sound, and then the two of them were running again.

Nix threw him a single, crazy smile of triumph as they ran.

Is she … enjoying this? The impossible thought banged around inside Benny’s head.

The crowd was going crazy up there, but mostly applauding now. People threw stuff down at them—unshelled peanuts, cigarette butts, balled-up betting slips. White Bear was laughing with a deep-chested rumble, thoroughly enjoying the show. As they ran past another opening, Benny shot a quick look up and saw Preacher Jack. He did not know the man well enough to be able to read the subtleties of his expressions, but what Benny saw at that moment required no interpretation. It was a look of pure, malicious joy.

Why? Benny wondered. We’re winning.

When they rounded the next bend, that question was answered in the most horrible possible way. The next corridor was a dead end that ran twenty feet into a blank wall.

There were at least a dozen zoms in there. But that wasn’t what made Benny slam to a halt and stare in abject terror. It wasn’t what pulled a scream from the deepest pit of Nix’s soul.

The thing that plunged the world into absolute nightmare was the huge creature that rose up before them in the dark. A great and terrible zombie. Bigger than any they had faced. It was massive, corded with muscle and covered with scars from countless battles as a human. It wore a leather vest from which the tips of hundreds of sharp steel nails jutted out like a terrible cactus. Iron bands studded with steel points circled its neck and wrists, and a skullcap of gleaming steel covered its head and tapered down the neck to prevent any injury to the brain stem. When its lips curled back, Benny and Nix could see that someone—some madman—had filed its teeth to razor spikes.

Even all that, from its size to its fearsome armament, was not the worst thing about it. It was Nix who spoke the word that made it all beyond horrifying.

She spoke its name.

“Charlie …”





75


OUTSIDE THE HOTEL …



Lilah found a shed filled with old sporting equipment. Deflated balls, old fishing rods, Frisbees. She stared at the junk … and smiled.

Yes, she thought, this is perfect.

Inside the hotel …



“Tom!” Chong called from the hallway. He had just come back from escorting all the captive children into another room.

“I told you to stay with the kids,” barked Tom.

“Um … the kids are fine. Really.” Chong wore a quirky and bemused smile. “But … there’s something else. You’d better come.”

Tom turned from the guard. The man had collapsed into a weeping, cringing pile, and looking at him disgusted Tom. He jabbed the guard with a toe. “Stay!”