Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(17)

Silence washed back and forth between them.

“For right now, Benny, I want you to understand that when Mom and Dad died, it was from the same thing that killed those two down there.”

Benny said nothing.

Tom plucked a stalk of sweet grass and put it between his teeth. “You didn’t really know Mom and Dad, but let me ask you this: If someone was to piss on them or abuse them—even now, even

considering what they had to have become during First Night—would it be okay with you?”

“Screw you.”

“Tell me.”

“No. Okay? No, it wouldn’t freaking be okay with me. You happy now?”

“Why not, Benny?”

“Because.”

“Why not? They’re only zoms.”

Benny abruptly got up and walked down the hill, away from the farm and away from Tom. He stood looking back along the road they’d traveled, as if he could still see the fence line. Tom

waited a long time before he got up and joined him.

“I know this is hard, kiddo,” he said gently, “but we live in a pretty hard world. We struggle to live. We’re always on our guard, and we have to toughen ourselves just to get through

each day. And each night.”

“I hate you.”

“Maybe. I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter right now.” He gestured toward the path that led back home. “Everybody west of here has lost someone. Maybe someone close or maybe a distant

cousin three times removed. But everybody lost someone.”

Benny said nothing.

“I don’t believe that you would disrespect anyone in our town or in the whole west. I also don’t believe—I don’t want to believe—that you’d disrespect the mothers and fathers, sons

and daughters, sisters and brothers who live out here in the great Rot and Ruin.”

He put his hands on Benny’s shoulders and turned him around. Benny resisted, but Tom Imura was strong. When they were both facing east, Tom said, “Every dead person out there deserves

respect. Even in death. Even when we fear them. Even when we have to kill them. They aren’t ‘just zoms,’ Benny. That’s a side effect of a disease or from some kind of radiation or

something else that we don’t understand. I’m no scientist, Benny. I’m a simple man doing a job.”

“Yeah? You’re trying to sound all noble, but you kill them.” Benny had tears in his eyes.

“Yes,” Tom said softly, “I do. I’ve killed hundreds of them. If I’m smart and careful—and lucky—I’ll kill hundreds more.”

Benny shoved him with both hands. It only pushed Tom back a half step. “I don’t understand!”

“No, you don’t. I hope you will, though.”

“You talk about respect for the dead and yet you kill them.”

“This isn’t about the killing. It isn’t, and never should be, about the killing.”

“Then what?” Benny sneered. “The money?”

“Are we rich?”

“No.”

“Then it’s obviously not about the money.”

“Then what?”

“It’s about the why of the killing. For the living … for the dead,” Tom said. “It’s about closure.”

Benny shook his head.

“Come with me, kiddo. It’s time you understood how the world works. It’s time you learned what the family business is all about.”





8


THEY WALKED FOR MILES UNDER THE HOT SUN. THE PEPPERMINT GEL RAN off with their sweat, and had to be reapplied hourly. Benny was quiet for most of the trip, but as his feet got sore and his

stomach started to rumble, he turned cranky.

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“How far is it?”

“A bit.”

“I’m hungry.”

“We’ll stop soon.”

“What’s for lunch?”

“Beans and jerky.”

“I hate jerky.”

“You bring anything else?” Tom asked.

“No.”

“Jerky it is, then.”

The roads Tom picked were narrow and often turned from asphalt to gravel to dirt.

“We haven’t seen a zom in a couple of hours,” Benny said. “How come?”

“Unless they hear or smell something that draws them, they tend to stick close to home.”

“Home?”

“Well … to the places they used to live or work.”

“Why?”

Tom took a couple of minutes on that. “There are lots of theories, but that’s all we have—just theories. Some folks say that the dead lack the intelligence to think that there’s anywhere

other than where they’re standing. If nothing attracts them or draws them, they’ll just stay right where they are.”

“But they need to hunt, don’t they?”

“‘Need’ is a tricky word. Most experts agree that the dead will attack and kill, but it’s not been established that they actually hunt. Hunting implies need, and we don’t know that the

dead need to do anything.”