Flesh-&-Bone(131)

Lilah didn’t care about any of that.

If she got sick and died, so what?

She would not be alone in death’s kingdom. She knew that.

She listened to the beeps and willed Chong to fight.

To fight.

Fight.

“You damn well fight, you stupid town boy,” she growled.

But with every minute those beeps, those electronic signs of life, grew fainter and fainter.

Until all she could hear was a long, continuous scream from the heart monitor.

It was almost the loudest sound in the world.

Only her own, endless keening cry of grief was louder.

Hell, it seemed, had one last trick to play.

-4—

BENNY AND NIX STOOD BY THE EDGE OF THE TRENCH AS THE SUN FELL behind the world and the stars ignited overhead. The trench was twenty feet across. It might as well have been ten miles. Ten thousand miles.

They stared at the tall building with its electric lights glowing against the shadows on the walls.

Stared at one window, high and to the left.

An hour ago they had seen Lilah’s silhouette there.

There had been no sign of her since.

They didn’t even turn when Joe’s quad rumbled to a stop. They heard him switch it off, heard Grimm’s soft whuff and the crunch of Joe’s shoes on the gravel, but they never took their eyes from that lighted window.

“Listen,” said Joe softly, “I just brought back the last of the stuff from the plane. The scientists are going over it now. It was exactly what they needed. It . . . ” His voice trailed off.

“Go away,” said Benny. His voice was crushed flat and empty.

Joe walked around and stood in front of them, forcing them to see him, to react to him. He squatted down, resting his elbows on his knees. Grimm stood beside him, his eyes dark and liquid.

“I want you two to listen to me,” Joe said. “Straight talk here, okay? I know you’re hurting. I know why you left Mountainside. I understand why you’ve been searching for the jet. I know what it means to you. A better place than your little town. A chance at a real future. I get that. I’d have done the same. Tom must have thought so too, or he’d have never left and never taken you with him.”

“You don’t know anything,” said Nix.

“No? Well, I know this much,” said Joe. “You left a place that was dying on its feet. Mountainside and the rest of the Nine Towns are just going through the motions of being alive. Everybody knows that. You knew it and you got the hell out. You wanted to find a place to start something new and fresh.”

Benny glanced at him. It was almost the same thing Tom had said.

“You have,” said Joe.

“No,” said Nix.

Somewhere far away a coyote whined at the rising moon.

“You found the stuff in the jet,” said Joe. “You kids might have actually helped saved the world.”

“It’s not worth it,” Benny said. “It cost too much.”

Joe sighed and stood up. He looked up at the endless stars.

“It’s been a long night,” he said softly, “and there are still a lot of hours of darkness left. But . . . ”

He started to turn away, and Benny said, “But what?”

Joe gave him a small, sad smile. “No matter how long the night is, the sun always comes up.”

He nodded to them, clicked his tongue for Grimm, and walked slowly away. He climbed onto his quad and started the engine.

They watched him drive away.

After a while Nix turned to Benny. “Is he right?” she asked.

Benny shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He wrapped his arm around her, and they looked up at the lighted window.

The stars burned their way across the sackcloth that covered the sky.

-5—

SAINT JOHN STOOD ON A CLIFF THAT LOOKED DOWN ON A BLACK ROAD. Brother Peter stood beside him, hands clasped behind his back, head bowed in thought. It was a beautiful night, with a billion stars and a fingernail moon. Crickets chirped in the grass, and owls hunted in the air.

The saint enjoyed being out here in the wild. The desert had reclaimed much of the road over the years, but it was there, and it ran straight and true to the line of mountains that formed the border of Nevada and California.

“Nine towns,” murmured Saint John. “And a place called Mountainside.”

“Praise be to the darkness,” said Brother Peter.