Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin, #3)(11)

The little girl suddenly wrapped her arms tight. “Benny!” cried Nix. “Hurry!”

He snatched up the rope and began to climb.

At first it was easy. Tough, but not beyond his strength. Seven months of training with Tom had given him muscle and tone; another month of living wild in the Rot and Ruin had built his endurance. He was stronger than he’d ever been, and even with the fear that swirled around him like polluted water, he felt powerful. It was how he imagined Tom had felt all the time. Strong enough to do whatever he needed or wanted to do.

Those thoughts brought him about halfway up the wall.

Then, within the next three labored steps, the light-as-a-feather child suddenly felt like she weighed more than Morgie Mitchell after the harvest feast. Benny’s foot slipped on the moss-slick wall, and the little girl screeched in his ear like a frightened starling. Her tiny arms locked tighter around his throat, and suddenly Benny could barely breathe.

“Not . . . so . . . tight . . . !”

But she was too terrified to understand. She was halfway up a wall, hanging on for her life. It was going to take a crowbar to pry her off.

Benny took another step and winced as his muscles began to ache. His thighs burned, and grasping the rope felt like holding red-hot coals.

“Come on!” yelled Chong, and Benny looked up to see his friend stretch a bony arm down to him. Chong had a lot of wiry strength, but at the moment his proffered arm looked like it belonged to a stick figure. And it was still too far away.

Chong gaped. “Wait . . . what’s that on your back?”

“What . . . does it . . . look like . . . you brain-dead . . . monkey-banger?” gasped Benny.

Chong didn’t even try to answer that. Instead he leaned farther out, straining to reach down for Benny.

“No!” Benny yelled. “The edge is—”

There was a soft whuck of a sound, and then Chong was tumbling head over heels toward them, and he and a hundred pounds of loose dirt tried to smash Benny and the girl back down into the zombie pit. The little girl deafened him with a shrill wail that was loud enough to crack glass. Benny threw his weight sideways, running across the wall as Chong tumbled past, yowling like a kicked cat. Below him, Chong landed with a thump and a sharp exhalation of pain. Curses floated up through the shadows. Lilah’s and Nix’s were louder than Chong’s.

Benny’s feet slipped on the loose soil that now covered the wall like a coat of oil. The rope tried to slither through his fists, but Benny knew that if he fell, the impact would probably cripple or kill the little girl.

Hold on! cried his inner voice.

He held on, gritting his teeth against the strain and the pain.

With a grunt he took a step upward, slamming his foot into the soil to find solid ground. Using legs and back and arms, he pulled upward. The little girl was still throttling him, but Benny lowered his chin to help open his airway. He took as deep a breath as he could and hauled again, taking another step. And another.

It felt like all he was doing was inching his way up. The wall seemed impossibly high.

And then he rose from shadows into bright sunlight. Benny blinked, his eyes stinging, but he’d never been happier to see a bright, sunny sky than he was at that moment. He pulled, and pulled, and climbed and collapsed onto the grass of the torn ravine edge. He crawled forward along the rope, landing chest first on the ground with a gasp like a drowning man taking his first gulp of air.

“Climb off,” he wheezed, and the girl scrambled like a monkey over his back and shoulders and head.

“Benny!”

The cry came echoing up from the darkness, and instantly Benny staggered to his feet. His limbs trembled and his hands were puffed and red, but he was safe. Across the black gash of the gorge a hundred zombies stared at him with eternal hunger and endless patience. No more of them fell into the gorge, and Benny thanked God for that.

“Nix! Climb out. I’ll pull. Hurry!”

As soon as he felt her take up the slack, Benny began pulling hand over hand. The rope burned his palms and his muscles screamed, but he planted his feet wide and put everything he had into it. Nix’s wild red hair appeared at the edge of the ravine, and then her beautiful face, tight with effort and fear.

Nix climbed out and wiped sweat from her eyes.

“Is Chong hurt?” asked Benny.

“Not as hurt as he’s going to be when Lilah gets out of there. She’s furious with him for going down into the ravine.”

“He fell in. It wasn’t intentional,” Benny said, coming immediately to his friend’s defense.

“Yeah, well, she’s not happy with you, either.”

“Swell.” Benny tossed the rope into the hole. “How about you? You mad at me too?”

She gave him a wicked grin and punched his chest. Which hurt.

Chong came puffing and wheezing up into the sunlight. He did not weigh much more than Nix, but Benny was beyond exhausted, and it felt like hauling a bull out of the pit.

“I’m sorry,” Chong began, but Benny cut him off.

“Grab some rocks.”

“Rocks?”

“Rocks. Anything we can throw. We have to give Lilah some cover. Go!”

Chong understood at once and ran to collect fist-size stones.

Benny tossed the rope down again. “Lilah! Listen to me.”

She didn’t answer, but he heard her grunts as she fought.