Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(40)

girl only knew her mother as ‘Mama.’ We couldn’t even respect their deaths with their names. Maybe that doesn’t seem important, but it mattered to us. To me.”

“No,” said Benny, remembering Tom reading the note to Harold Simmons. “I get it. It matters.”

Sacchetto nodded. “So that left two of us. Me and last guy—a shoe salesman named George—played rock-paper-scissors to see who’d try next. Imagine that: two grown men playing a kids’

game during the apocalypse to decide which one was probably going to live and which one was almost certainly going to die. It’s comedy.”

“But it’s not funny,” said Benny.

“No,” said the artist. “No, it sure as hell isn’t. Mostly because neither of us really thought we were going to live. We just didn’t want to be the next to die.”

“You won?”

“No,” he said. “I lost. I was the one who had to try. George stayed back there with the two kids. I tore up a throw rug and wrapped strips of it around my arms, and put on a thick winter

coat I found in the closet. When I told Tom all this, he joked that maybe I invented carpet coats. Whatever. I wound five scarves around my face. All I left free were my legs. I found a bag

of golf clubs in a closet and took two metal putters, one for each hand. George went through the same ritual, banging on the front door. Zombies are as dumb as they are dangerous. They came

lumbering around to the front of the house, and I went out the back. I heard the baby crying and George yelling, but I didn’t look back. I ran. Kid … I ran for my life, and that’s what

chews me up every day and night since.”

“I don’t understand.”

The artist gave him a bleak smile. “I ran for my life. Not theirs. Not for George or the little kid or the baby. I ran to save my own sorry ass. I ran and ran and ran. On good nights, when

I can find a little scrap of self-respect, I tell myself that I ran so far because I couldn’t find anyone alive, closer to the cottage, but that’s not entirely true. At least, I don’t

know if it’s true. I saw smoke a couple of times, and I heard gunfire. I could have gone there and maybe found some people who were still alive and fighting, but I was too scared. If there

was gunfire, then they had to be firing at the zombies, and that scared me too much. I was crying and talking to myself as I ran, making up lies to convince myself that the little kids back

in the house were safe, that the hunters or soldiers or whoever was firing the guns would find them in time. I ran and ran and ran.”

He stopped and sighed again.

“At nights I slept in barns or in drainage ditches. I don’t know how many days I ran. Too many, I guess. Then one morning I heard voices, and when I crept out of my hiding place, I saw a

party of armed men, walking down the road. More than sixty of them, with a couple of soldiers and a few cops leading the way. I rushed out at them, screaming incoherently. They nearly shot

me, but I managed to get out a few words in time. They gathered around me, gave me some food and water, and grilled me on where I’d been and what I’d seen. I don’t think I made a whole

lot of sense, but when I was finally able to get myself together enough to tell them about the cottage, I realized that I had no idea where it was. I wasn’t familiar with this part of

California, and I sure as hell hadn’t paid attention to the crazy path I took. They had a map, and I tried to figure it out, but it was hopeless.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “They never found the cottage. Not while I was with them, anyway. A party of about a dozen went to look for it, but they never came back. The main group pushed on, and

after a week of fighting and running, we found a reservoir with a high chain-link fence and mountains behind it. It was defensible, and it became a rallying point for survivors.”

“You mean here? That’s how this town was started?”

“Yes. I helped reinforce the fence and dig earthworks and build shelters. I worked as hard as I could each day, every day. … And except for a couple of very short trips into the Ruin with

Tom, I never left this town again. I don’t think I ever will.”


“What about the little girls? What about Lilah?”

Sacchetto sat back. “Well, kid, that’s where I left the story of the Lost Girl, and it’s where Tom entered it. You’re going to have to get the rest from him.”

Benny got up and fetched the coffeepot. He poured the artist a fresh cup and set the bottle of whiskey down next to it. The artist stared at the bottle for a while, then poured some into his

coffee, sipped it, then got up and poured the coffee out in the sink.

“Thanks for telling me all this,” said Benny. “Most people don’t want to talk about First Night or what happened after. And those that do … They always make it sound like they were the

heroes.”

“Yeah, I sure as hell didn’t do that.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Benny.

The artist sneered. “I ran away and left an infant and a little girl in a house surrounded by the living dead. I sure as hell didn’t do anything right.”

“Could you have carried them out? Both of them?”