Dust & Decay (Rot & Ruin, #2)(5)

Nix smiled at Benny. It wasn’t one of the heartwarming smiles he’d been longing for. It reminded him of Lilah’s face when she was hunting zoms.

Benny did block better, though.

Not that it did him much good.

“Ow!” he yelled three seconds later.

“Warrior smart!” yelled Morgie and Chong in chorus.

Benny glared hot death at them. “How about one of you clowns trying to—”

His comment was cut short by a sharp and sudden scream.

They all froze, looking off toward the center of town. The yell was high and shrill.

There was a moment of silence.

Then another yell cut through the air. It was a man’s voice, loud and sharp and filled with pain.

More screams followed it.

And then the sharp, hollow crack of a gunshot.





4


“STAY HERE!” TOM ORDERED. HE RACED INTO THE HOUSE AND CAME out a moment later, a sword in one hand and his gun belt in the other. This was not a practice sword but the deadly steel katana he used in his job as the Ruin’s most feared zombie hunter. He slung the strap over his shoulder as he raced past Benny toward the gate. He vaulted it like a hurdler and was running full tilt while he buckled on the gun belt. “Do not move from the yard!”



The last command floated back at them as he vanished over the hill.

Benny looked at Nix, who looked at Lilah, who looked at Chong, who looked at Morgie.

“Tom said to stay here,” said Nix.

“Absolutely,” said Benny.

And that fast they were off. They grabbed their wooden swords and swarmed through the garden gate, except for Lilah, who jumped it exactly as Tom had done. Then they were running as fast as they could.





5


LILAH OUTRAN THEM ALL. HOWEVER, SINCE LAST SEPTEMBER THEY HAD each put on muscle and built their endurance, so they weren’t too far behind. In a loose pack they rounded the corner by the grist mill and then tore along Oak Hill Road.



Benny grinned at Chong, who grinned back. In a weird way, this was fun. They were warriors, the world’s last group of samurai trainees. This was what they were training for.

Then, just as they reached the top of the hill and cut left onto Mockingbird Street, they heard a fresh set of screams.

They were the high, piercing screams of children.

That sound slapped the grins from their faces.

Benny looked at Nix.

“God,” she gasped, and ran faster.

The screams were continuous. Benny thought they were screams of fear, not of pain. There was a fragment of consolation in that.

They cut right onto Fairview, running abreast, their wooden swords clutched in sweating hands.

Then as one they skidded to a stop.

Three houses stood at the end of a block of stores. The Cohens on the left, the Matthias place on the right, and the Housers in the center. Townsfolk were clustered in front of the Houser place. Most of them had axes, pitchforks, and long-handled shovels. Benny saw at least four people with guns.

“It’s Danny’s place!” said Nix in a sharp whisper.

Benny and his friends went to school with Danny Houser; Danny’s twin sisters, Hope and Faith, were in the first grade.

They saw Tom on the porch, peering into the open doorway. Then he backed away as something moved toward him from the shadows of the unlit living room.

Benny’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the figure emerge from the doorway in a slow, uncertain gait, his legs moving stiffly, his hands out and reaching for Tom. It was Grandpa Houser.

“No!” Benny cried, but Tom was still backing away.

Grandpa Houser’s eyes were as dark and empty as holes, and his dentures clacked together as if he was trying to bite the air.

A deep sadness opened in Benny’s chest. He liked Danny’s grandfather. The old man was always kind, and he told the funniest fishing stories. Now Grandpa Houser was gone, and in his place was a thing that had no conscious thought, no humor or intelligence. No trace of humanity other than the lie of its appearance. It was a zombie, driven by an unconquerable hunger for human flesh. Even from forty feet away Benny could hear the creature’s low moan of endless need.

“He must have died in his sleep,” Nix breathed.

Chong nodded. “And he didn’t lock his bedroom door.”

It was a sad and terrible fact of life that everyone who died came back as a zom, so everyone locked themselves in their rooms at night. It was a rare zom who could turn a doorknob, and none of them could work a padlock or turn a key. Someone dying in their sleep and reanimating was one of the constant fears for people in town.

Because this kind of thing could happen.

Benny caught movement to his right and saw Zak Matthias looking at him out of the side window of the adjoining house. Zak had never exactly been a friend, but for the most part he and Benny had been able to get along. They were the same age and had been all through school and the Scouts together. They played on the same baseball team, wrestled in the same weight class, and even sometimes went fishing together if Morgie and Chong were busy. But all that had been before last September.

Zak Matthias was Charlie Pink-eye’s nephew. Although they didn’t know for sure, Benny and Nix believed that it had been Zak who’d told Charlie what Benny had found in a pack of Zombie Cards: a picture of the Lost Girl.