Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(32)

all moody and introspective. What happened?”

“I got over it,” said Benny.

“No, I mean, what happened out there?”

Benny just shook his head.

“Come on, dude,” said Morgie. “Give us all the gory details.”

It was the wrong choice of words, and Benny felt his stomach turn, and his brain started flashing overlapping images of Harold Simmons, the blind eyes of Old Roger, and the squirming torsos

of the dismembered zoms in the wagon. Chong caught his change of expression, and before Morgie could say anything, he handed the last unopened pack to Benny.

“Do the honors. Maybe this one will have your own ugly face on it.”

Benny faked a smile and tore open the wax paper. The first few cards were doubles they all had. There was one new one—a celebrity zom that the bio said was Larry King, but Benny couldn’t

tell the difference between the before and after pictures. He turned over the last card. It wasn’t a bounty hunter or a famous person who’d gone zom and been bagged and tagged. No, this

was one of the elusive Chase Cards—one of only six special cards that showed up so rarely that Benny, Chong, Morgie, and Nix had only two between them.

“What is it?” Morgie asked as he tried to lean closer, but Benny moved the card away. It was a weird reflex action, and even as he did it, Benny suddenly felt as if he stepped out of this

moment, this place, and stood somewhere else. Someplace where the wind blew hot and dry, and the birds did not sing in the dying trees; where bones lay bright white on the ground, and the

sky was as hard and dark as the bluing on a gun barrel.

Benny stared at the card. Not at the words, but at the image. It was a girl about his own age, maybe a year older. She wore the rags of old blue jeans and roughly made leather moccasins. Her

blouse was torn and patched and too small for her, and the pattern had once been bright with wildflowers, but now was so faded that it looked like flowers seen through mist. She had hair

that was so thoroughly sun-bleached, it looked snow-white, and her skin was tanned to a honey brown. The girl wore a man’s leather gun belt, which held a small pistol below her left hip and

a knife in a weather-stained sheath on her right. She carried a spear, crudely made from a long piece of quarter-inch black pipe wrapped in leather and topped with the blade from a Marine

Corps bayonet. Behind her was a heap of dead zombies. The painting was incredibly lifelike—more like a photo than a painting, but there hadn’t been a working camera for years.

What held Benny’s attention—what riveted him—was her expression. The artist must have known her, because he caught her with a blend of emotions on her beautiful face. Anger, or perhaps

defiance, tightened her full lips into an inflexible line. Pride lifted her chin. But her hazel eyes held such a deep and ancient sadness that Benny’s breath caught in his throat. He knew

that sadness. It haunted his brother’s eyes every day, and since returning from the small village on the mountainside, that sadness darkened the eyes that looked back at him from the

bathroom mirror, morning and night.

This girl knew. This girl must have seen some of the things he’d seen. Maybe worse. She’d seen them with eyes that could never see things the way the bounty hunters did. This girl knew,

and Benny knew that she knew. She knew in ways that Nix couldn’t.

There was no name in the caption bar at the bottom of the card. Just these words: “The Lost Girl.”

Chong leaned over. He started to make a joke, but he caught Benny’s expression and kept his words to himself.

Morgie was a few steps slower to the plate than Chong. He snatched the card out of Benny’s hand. “Mmm, nice rack. Almost as big as Nix’s.”

Benny’s hand moved so fast that it surprised everyone. One second his fingers were open and empty, and the next they were knotted in the front of Morgie’s shirt.

“Give it back,” Benny said in a voice that was more like Tom’s. Older, uncompromising. Hard.

Morgie wore half a smile for half a second, then he saw the look in Benny’s eyes and surprise—tinged with fear and a spoonful of hurt—blossomed in his eyes.

“I … I mean … sure, man,” he said, tripping over the words. “Sure … I was just …”

Benny took the card from between Morgie’s fingers. It was bent but not creased, and Benny smoothed it on his thigh.

“I’m sorry,” Morgie said, completely confused by what had just happened. Benny looked at him without seeing him, then leaned over to peer at the card. Morgie started to say something

else, but Chong—out of Benny’s line of sight—gave a tiny shake of his head.

A shadow fell over them, and they looked up to see Zak standing on the top step, staring down at the card. He grunted once, mumbled something unintelligible as he shoved his own cards into

his pocket, then clumped down the stairs and headed home.

They ignored him. To Benny, Chong said, “Who is she?”

Benny just shook his head.

“Read the back.”

Benny turned it over and slowly read the small block of printed text.

“‘Chase Card number 3: The Lost Girl. Legends persist about a beautiful girl living wild and alone in the Rot and Ruin. Many have tried to find her, but none have. And some never returned.