Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin, #3)(59)

Nix pointed to something on the side of the plane forward of the hatch.

“What’s that?” she asked. “Is that writing?”


Benny squinted at it, mouthing the letters as he tried to read them through a patina of dried mud. “‘C-130J Super Hercules.’”

“What’s that mean?”

“I . . . think it’s the kind of plane this is. I half remember reading something about a plane called a C-130. I just can’t remember what I read. Something about troop transports, maybe?”

“Troop transports?” Nix’s eyes went wide. “Benny! Do you think that means there’s an army someplace?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what it means. I can barely remember what it meant before First Night. Now . . . who knows?”

Nix’s eyes roved over the dead machine, then she pointed again. “Look, on the tail. More writing.”

They hurried closer to the big tail section, which also resembled a ship’s sail. It was badly smudged with soot and grime. The sun glare reflecting off the white metal was so bright that they had to cup their hands around their eyes.

“I think that’s a flag,” Benny said.

“Not the American flag,” corrected Nix. “Look, it only has a couple of stars. And there’s something written below it. I can’t make it out, though. American . . . something.”

It took Benny a few seconds to piece it together. “‘The . . . American . . . Nation.’”

Nix frowned. “Is that what they used to put on air force planes?”

“I’m not sure. I . . . don’t ever remember seeing it put that way. Besides, I was mostly looking for commercial jetliners. That’s what we saw.”

They stood there for a moment. Benny could feel indecision gnawing at him. He turned and looked back at the woods. “I haven’t heard anything for a while now.”

“No,” she agreed.

“I hope that’s good news.”

She nodded but said nothing; clearly she was more interested in the plane than in the welfare of Lilah and Chong. Benny found that profoundly disturbing.

“We need to look inside,” said Nix.

“Yeah,” Benny said, and headed to the front of the plane. The mound of dirt was so steep that he had to climb it on all fours. But as he reached the top, he saw that there was an easier path that emptied out from the woods. That wasn’t what made him freeze in place, however. “Oh my God!”

“What?” demanded Nix, who was just behind him.

“Don’t come up here,” Benny warned, but it was already too late. Nix reached the top and cried out exactly as he had.

“Who . . . ?” she began, but shook her head and didn’t finish.

The clearing in front of the plane was not at all clear.

There were several things placed just in front of the crumpled nose of the plane. They had been out of sight behind a row of twisted trees.

The first object was a small altar made from red stones scavenged from the arid ground. The altar was covered with bundles of dead flowers and small fire-blackened incense bowls. Set atop the altar was a row of human heads.

Not skulls. Heads.

Five of them. The oldest was withered and nearly picked clean by insects; the freshest could not have been more than a day old.

Nix gagged.

But the spectacle was worse than this pagan display.

Beyond the altar, standing in the shadow of the big plane, were three posts, more like T-bars than crosses, and lashed to each one was a body.

The bodies wore the faded and wind-torn rags of military uniforms.

The three bodies were withered, but they were not lifeless.

They were zoms.





FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

I remember one day when Tom got pretty cheesed at Benny. Benny was trying to impress Morgie, and he said something about having killed so many zoms that he could do it in his sleep.

Tom blew his stack.

He gave us all a big lecture about how we can never let down our guard, never rest on our laurels, never forget that every single zom is as much a danger now as they were the first time we faced them. He went on and on like that.

Benny apologized and all and said it was just a joke. But I don’t think Tom really believes him.





45

LILAH WAS NOT AFRAID TO DIE.

Death was something she knew too well, too intimately, to fear. Annie and George were on the other side of death. So was Tom.

Only Chong was here, and in her heart Lilah believed that if she died today, then Chong would not survive very long. Not even with Benny and Nix. The Ruin was too hard for them. Too dangerous. They were all town kids.

Below her the boars grunted and milled around, agitated by the nearness of living flesh.

Lilah examined the thing she held in her tanned hands. It was not as powerful as the spear she’d lost; or as quick as the gun that lay somewhere in the gloom below, but she liked the heft of it.

Using her knife, she’d cut three of the straightest branches she could reach, then shaved off the twigs and smaller branches and trimmed the branches into four-foot-long poles. Then she removed her canvas vest, stowed the last useful items in her pants pockets, and cut the vest into many long strips. Once all the cutting and trimming was done, Lilah placed the crossbar of the knife between the poles and lashed it all together with turn after turn of canvas. Lilah knew a great deal about knots and binding. She preferred soft leather—deer hide was best—but a smart warrior used the resources at hand rather than wasting time longing for what she did not have.