Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin, #3)(70)

Lilah could tell that he was trying to keep his tone light, but the horror was in his eyes. “That’s not the only thing that’s changed,” she said. “Some of the zoms are faster.”

“Yeah, that’s old news. I’ve seen some real Olympic sprinters in the last year. Mostly in the Pacific Northwest. Not so much here, though.”

“We saw some today.”

He narrowed his blue eyes. “You’re sure?”

“I killed two of them today. One of them picked up a stick and tried to hit me with it.”

That news seemed to jolt Joe, and he stared at her for a moment. Several times his mouth began to form questions, but he left them unsaid. They ate their soup in silence, each of them contemplating the implications of faster and perhaps smarter zoms.

Lilah held out her cup for more soup. “You haven’t asked me my name.”


“Don’t need to,” he said as he ladled more into her cup. He was smiling, but the smile held secrets. “You’re the Lost Girl, aren’t you?”





53

THE COCKPIT WAS A SMALL COMPARTMENT WITH TWO BIG CHAIRS FACING the smashed-out front windows and one chair set to one side, facing a wall of controls the like of which they had only ever seen in books. Computers and scanners. Things that belonged to a world that might as well have been ancient Rome or the Dark Ages for all that these devices related to Benny and Nix’s experience.

Light streamed in through the gaping windows.

There were three chairs, all empty, which reinforced Benny’s guess that the zoms outside had once been the crew.

“What do you think happened?” asked Nix. “Why’d it crash?”

“I have no idea,” he said. They spoke in hushed voices even though they were alone. The altar outside and the painted warning inside made them both feel like something was about to jump out at them.

There was a discarded jacket on the floor, and Benny picked it up. A small version of the same flag that was on the plane’s tail had been sewn onto one pocket, and below that was embroidered THE AMERICAN NATION.

“I don’t get it,” said Nix. “Shouldn’t it read ‘United States of America’?”

Benny thought about it. “Maybe not. This plane is definitely something from after First Night. Built before, maybe, but flown out here long afterward.”

“So?”

“There is no United States of America anymore. Not like it used to be.” He folded the jacket over the back of the pilot’s chair. “You know, I read in one book that the president and Congress were supposed to have a bunker or some kind of underground place they could go to during a national disaster or war. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe some part of the government survived and, I don’t know, kind of rebuilt things after First Night. Not the same kind of country, of course, but some kind of country.”

“The American Nation,” she said, nodding. “Maybe.”





54

LILAH TENSED.

Joe’s comment still hung in the air.

You’re the Lost Girl.

“How do you . . . ?” Her words trailed off, and she looked wildly around, then bared her teeth. Her fingers tensed around the cup of soup as she prepared to hurl it in his face. “This is all about collecting a bounty, isn’t it? Try it and I’ll paint these rocks with your blood—”

Grimm suddenly sat up and in the process transformed from a friendly dog being petted to the war hound that he truly was.

“Whoa,” said Joe, “slow down.”

Lilah growled low in her throat. So did Grimm.

But Joe chuckled and shook his head. “I’m a lot of things, kid, but I’m not a bounty hunter. Never felt the calling. That’s more Tom Imura’s gig than mine.”

He clicked his tongue. “Grimm, down and easy.”

The dog’s attitude instantly changed, this time reverting back to lazy dog. He sat and pretended to look as innocent as a puppy.

“I guessed who you are because I’ve lived out in the Ruin since everything went to hell, kid, and I spent a fair amount of time in central California. Everyone round those parts knows the story of the Lost Girl. Tom Imura spent some time looking for you. Guess he found you.”

“How did you know Tom?” Lilah asked suspiciously.

“We’ve known each other off and on for eight, ten years. We had some friends in common, once upon a time. And back before First Night I even knew his uncle, Sam. We worked together for a bit. Tom takes after him. Same kind of cool smarts, same kind of integrity. After the zoms rose, I was back and forth between the Nine Towns for a while. This was early on, when they were just getting settled, but I got bored and moved on. Haven’t been back there in years now.”

“Was Tom a friend of yours?”

Then Joe narrowed his eyes. “You keep putting Tom in the past tense. Why? Has something happened to him?”

Lilah said nothing, but she could feel her eyes filling with tears.

“What happened to Tom?” asked Joe. Then understanding and pain flickered in his eyes. “Ah . . . jeez. How’d it happen? Walkers finally get him?”

“No,” she said. “He was murdered.”

Lilah told him about Tom’s fight with the Matthias clan. About the destruction of Gameland, and about the murder of Tom Imura by the madman Preacher Jack. When she was done, Joe got up and walked over to a small table and leaned on it, his shoulders slumping. Grimm caught the sudden shift in mood and whined a little.