Dust & Decay (Rot & Ruin, #2)(21)

Chong sniffed the cadaverine and winced. “Charming.”

Tom handed them the mint gel and said to Chong, “When we use the cadaverine, it’s best to rub this on your upper lip. It overwhelms your sense of smell.”

Chong began unscrewing the cap, but Tom said, “Not yet. We’ll use the cadaverine and the mint as a last resort. We’ll conserve it for now.”

“Why?” asked Chong. “Why not buy a couple of gallons of it and take a bath in the stuff?”

Benny leaned closed and said under his breath, “Yeah, that’d make Lilah want to crawl all over you.”

Without changing expression, Chong murmured, “Feel free to fall over and die.”

Benny grinned. He was surprised he still could. He threw one last look back toward town. No Morgie. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and tried to let it go. The ache, the betrayal, the memory of Morgie’s last words. When he breathed, it felt like his lungs were on fire. He kept doing it until something in his mind shifted.

We’re leaving, he thought. It’s really happening.

At the same moment that he thought that, a second thought flitted through his mind. There’s no turning back now.

The juxtaposition of the two thoughts was deeply disturbing, and he recalled his musings yesterday when Nix asked him if he wanted to go. Part of him answered, I want to go, but a different part whispered, I am going. They were totally different answers.

Nix, intuitive as ever, caught his eye and with a look asked if he was okay. Without waiting for an answer, she cut a look back to the empty fence, and her shoulders slumped. She looked at Benny and nodded sadly.

Good-bye, Morgie, Benny thought.

“Okay,” Tom said, “here’s the way we’re going to do it. I lead, you follow. When I give instructions, I want you to pay attention. No screwing around.”

He was looking at Benny and Chong when he said this last part, and they affected to look like angels falsely accused of grievous sins.

“I’m serious,” Tom said. “I know that we’re all armed and you’ve each had some training, but in the Ruin you only get to make one mistake. And then you’re dead.”

Lilah made a noise low in her throat when Tom said that, and Benny unconsciously touched the point on his throat where she’d pressed her blade on the Matthias lawn after the fight with Big Zak and Zak Junior. Nix must have had the same thought, because she took a half step to stand between Benny and Lilah, and there was no trace of a smile on her face.

Tom adjusted the sling that supported his steel katana, then cleared his throat. “Once the fence guards draw the zoms down to the far end, we go out and head straight for the tree line. Single file. I’ll lead, then Nix, Benny, Chong, and Lilah. Got it?”

Everyone nodded.

“Keep your weapons slung. Right now speed is more important than anything. The guards will try to keep the zoms distracted until we’re clear. After that, we’re on our own.”

“What if we run into a zom?” asked Chong.

“If we do, I’ll see it first. Let me handle it. If it comes at you from the side, Lilah will take care of it.” Tom gave them all a hard look. “I don’t want any heroics. I’m still pissed at you guys for going up on Zak’s porch. You should have called me or Captain Strunk. That’s not exactly the way to be warrior smart. I know you think you’re hotshots, but you are a long way from being real samurai. A skilled fighter doesn’t take needless risks. Do you understand?”

They nodded.

“No,” Tom said sternly, “say it.”

They said it.

The glimmer of light at the tree line had brightened enough for them to see the zoms wandering in the field or standing like statues. Most zoms only moved to follow prey but would otherwise stop walking and stand still. Benny had seen zoms out in the Ruin with years’ worth of creeper vines tangled around their legs. He still wasn’t sure if that was sad or terrifying.

Tom finally gave a grudging nod. He stepped up to the gate.

“Get ready,” he said quietly, then waved to the sergeant in charge of the night shift. The sergeant whistled, and his men immediately started banging on drums and steel pots as they walked quickly north along the fence line. The zoms in the field stiffened for a moment, drawn through whatever senses they possessed by the noise and movement. One by one they turned, moaning softly, their gray-lipped mouths working as if practicing in anticipation of eating a grisly meal, and began shambling up the field. Benny and his friends watched with awful fascination.

“It’s so strange,” said Nix quietly. “How can they be dead and do that? React to sound? Follow? Hunt?”

“No one knows,” said Tom. “They don’t need to eat. They get no benefit from killing. They can go years and years without decaying any more than they already have. No one understands it.”

Chong shook his head. “There has to be an answer. Something in science.”

“As far as we know, all the scientists are dead,” said Tom. “Except for Doc Gurijala, and he was a just a general practitioner.”

“Has he ever examined one?” asked Nix.

“No,” said Tom quietly, so as not to attract the shuffling zoms. “I suggested it to him a hundred times. I said that it might help us understand what they are and what we’re up against. That was not long after First Night, when we still thought there was a way to win. He called me crazy for even suggesting it. I tried him a couple of other times since, but Doc says that science ends at the fence line.”