Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin, #3)(35)

“You’ve seen it more than once?” Nix gasped.

“Sarah, hush,” said Carter. “This isn’t the time or place.”

“But, Carter—look at them. They don’t look like reapers. Look at their clothes. No wings. No tassels or anything. And they don’t have the mark.”

As Sarah said this, she touched her head, but Benny did not understand the reference. What mark?

“Enough!” growled Carter.

“Look, guys,” said Benny, “I think we should all chill out and talk about this. No one wants to hurt anyone here—”

“Speak for yourself,” said Riot with quiet menace.

“—and it sounds like we have a lot to talk about,” Benny concluded, pasting on his best “aw shucks, we’re all friends” smile. The kind that used to get him a bottle of pop at Lafferty’s General Store, even when he had no ration dollars.

Carter wasn’t impressed. “If you want to talk, then tell the young miss there to put her gun down.”

“The young miss says, ‘Bite me,’” replied Nix. “You put your gun down first and then we’ll see.”

“Not a chance,” said Carter, and Riot gave a snigger of agreement.

“Look, how about you both put your guns down at the same time,” suggested Chong. “On a count of three, okay? One, two, three . . .”

They ignored him.

“This is stupid,” Benny yelled. “Nobody here wants to hurt anyone else.”

“Don’t bet on it,” said Riot.

“Absolutely,” agreed Nix.

“They’re reapers, Carter,” said Riot. “Maybe they even have some quads hidden somewhere.”

“What’s a quad?” Chong asked, but no one heard him.

“They don’t look like reapers,” repeated Sarah.

“Then they’re new converts,” countered Riot. “They could have taken the vow but haven’t yet done the ceremony of purity. But it doesn’t matter. They had Eve!”

“Yeah, we were keeping her safe,” replied Nix. “What were you doing to protect her? Letting her run around in woods full of wild animals and zoms?”

“Yeah, nice try, Freckles,” snorted Riot. “C’mon, Carter, don’t let her scramble your grits. My mother’s people are gonna be here soon. These punks are scouts or something equally squirrelly. Let’s put ’em down before we get overrun.”

Carter’s face was rigid with tension, but there was doubt in his eyes. “Sarah—?”

Eve’s mother looked up, and if Benny was expecting her to be the voice of reason, he was dead wrong. “She’s right, Carter, we can’t take any chances. Don’t hurt them, but take their weapons and gear. Then we have to go. We have to get to Sanctuary and—”

“Jesus! Hush your mouth, woman!” screeched Riot.

“Sarah,” Carter said with quiet horror. “What have you done?”

The woman clapped a hand to her mouth and her face went dead pale. “Oh God,” she said. “I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

Carter nervously shifted the shotgun barrel between Nix and Benny, as if trying to decide which of them should die first. Or maybe, thought Benny, trying to decide which one would be easier to kill without losing too much of his own soul. Benny did not believe that this man wanted to fire that gun, but he looked desperate and shoved to the edge of panic. Benny knew full well how panic could inspire the worst possible choices.

Riot’s face hardened. “Now we got no choice at all, Carter.”

In a voice loud enough for only Benny and Chong to hear, Nix muttered, “Screw this.”

“Nix,” warned Benny too quietly for the strangers to hear, “don’t do anything crazy.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she murmured.

And then she fired at Carter.





24

LILAH HAD NO CHANCE.

She heard the scuff of a footfall on stone behind her, but before she could turn the thing slammed into her. Even then she tried to dodge, but pain exploded along her side and suddenly she was flying through the air.

Blood trailed behind her like the tail of a comet, spattering the leaves and bristles of the shrubs. Her spear spun away into the weeds. Then Lilah struck the ground on the edge of the cracked shelf of rock, and the impact knocked all the air from her lungs.

She lay there, firestorms of pain racing up and down her spine. She clung to the edge of the shelf and to the edge of consciousness. Blood pooled under her. Every part of her was wrapped in pain. She tried to get up, tried to see what it was that had attacked her, but fresh pain detonated in her lower neck and back. She collapsed down with a helpless cry.

The thing wheeled toward her and grunted in awful hunger.

Lilah craned her neck and stared at it. At the impossibility of it.

It was a massive wild boar. Five hundred pounds of muscle and hunger. Brutish, ugly, with a barrel chest, short legs, and wicked tusks.

But that was not the worst part of it.

Flesh hung in bloodless strips from the massive shoulders. Its teeth were caked with rotted meat. It stank of rot and death.

It was impossible.

And yet . . . it was a zombie.