Flesh-&-Bone(11)

The first of the zombies rounded the previous bend. Five of them, with more behind. One of them broke from the pack and started running along the ravine.

Oh no, thought Benny, a fast one. Oh God!

It was horribly true. Lately some of the zoms they encountered were different. Faster, able to run. Maybe even smarter.

Benny set the girl down and pushed her behind him; then he drew his knife. It was hopeless, but he had to try. For the child, he had to try.

The zom raced toward him almost as fast as a healthy human could run. Its teeth were bared and its hands were outstretched to grab. Thirty feet, twenty.

Ten. Benny gripped his knife with all his strength.

Tom . . . I need you now, man.

And then a voice cried, “BENNY!”

Everyone turned and looked. Benny, the girl, the zoms; even the fast zombie slowed to a confused walk as it cast around for the source of the shout.

Suddenly something pale and lithe dropped into the ravine. There was a fierce war cry and a flash of silver at the end of a long pole, and then the head of the fast zombie leaped into the air and bounced off the wall.

“Lilah!” cried Benny.

The Lost Girl had found him.

A moment later another form dropped from the edge of the ravine above. Smaller, rounder, with masses of curly red hair and freckled hands that clutched the handle of a well-worn wooden sword with deadly competence. A long jagged scar ran from her hairline down her cheek almost to her jaw, but it did not mar the beauty of her face. Instead it made her look like a warrior princess out of an old legend. She looked at the zoms and then at Benny, and she grinned.

“I can’t leave you alone for a minute without you doing something stupid, can I?” asked Nix Riley.





FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

Ever since Tom died Benny seems to think that he has to BE Tom.

Is that normal grief? Or should I be worried?

I asked Chong, but for once he didn’t have any answers. I think he’s worried too.





8

“TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH,” SAID BENNY, WIPING SWEAT FROM HIS EYES.“I was getting bored down here.”

He tried to make it sound cool and casual. It didn’t.

Nix snorted and started to say something else, but then she caught sight of the tiny figure cowering in the shadows behind Benny.

“What—? Oh my God! Where—where—where—?” Her words disintegrated into a baffled stammer.

“Long story,” said Benny.

Nix bent over the girl, who was sniffling at the edge of full-blown tears. She touched the girl’s cheek and smoothed her hair. “Hello, sweetie. Don’t be afraid. Everything’s going to be okay now.”

A few yards away, Lilah looked over her shoulder to see what was going on, and her eyes bulged.

“Annie?” she murmured.

Even with everything else going on around them, hearing Lilah say that name came close to breaking Benny’s heart. Annie was the name of Lilah’s little sister. Annie had died years ago trying to escape from the zombie pits at Gameland, and Lilah had been forced to quiet her when she reanimated. Benny could only imagine what was going on in Lilah’s head—seeing another little blond-haired girl, here in a pit filled with zombies. It was weird enough to Benny; to Lilah it must be totally surreal.

Another fast zom dashed along the ravine—a huge woman with wild black hair and a line of bullet holes stitched across her enormous bosom.

“Zom!” barked Benny, and Lilah blinked once. The shock on her face was gone in an instant as she turned back to deal with the running zom. The black-pipe spear she carried flashed out, and the bayonet blade cut through dry flesh and tough muscle. Lilah’s face was stone, but Benny wasn’t fooled; her mind had to be churning on this mystery, and it was evident in the renewed force with which she smashed and hacked.

Nix looked over the little girl’s head at Benny’s empty hands. “Where’s your sword?”

“It’s stuck in a zom.”

“Stuck in a—?”

Benny pointed at the soldier zom far back in the crowd.

“God. We’ll never get it!” she gasped.

“We have to,” Benny snapped.

The wall of zoms pressed forward even as Lilah cut away at it.

“We can’t,” growled Lilah. “There are too many.”

Nix cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled upward. “Chong!”