Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(56)

punish the town.

“There’s more to the story,” said Tom. “A lot more.”


But he never got to tell it. Not that night, anyway. A moment later there was a flash of lightning so long and bright that even through the shutters, it lit the whole kitchen to an unnatural

whiteness, and immediately there was a crack of thunder that was the loudest sound Benny had ever heard.

And then the screaming began.





25


TOM WAS UP, AND HAD THE BACK DOOR OPEN BEFORE BENNY WAS EVEN out of his chair.

“What is it?” Benny asked.

Tom didn’t answer. The wind whipped the door inward toward him, driving him back a step. Even over the roar of the storm, they could hear people yelling. There were more screams, and then a

gunshot. A second later there were more shots.

“Stay here,” Tom ordered. “Close and bar the door!”

“I want to go with you!”

“No!” Tom growled. He grabbed his rain slicker and pulled it on, looped the strap of his sword over his shoulder, and ran barefoot into the black downpour. Benny came out onto the back

porch, but Tom was already gone, swallowed whole by the wind and blowing rain. In less than five seconds he was soaked to the skin. Lightning flashed again and again, each burst punctuated

by a huge boom, and Benny wondered if this was what it must have been like during the battles on First Night. Darkness, screams, and the bang and flash of artillery. He moved backward into

the house and forced the door shut. The locks were strong, but he realized that Tom had no keys. All his brother wore under his slicker was an undershirt and pajama bottoms. He hadn’t even

taken a gun.

Benny looked at the heavy piece of square-cut oak that stood beside the door. There were two iron sleeves bolted to the wall on either side of the frame. The bar slid through them and

completely barricaded the entrance. Benny had seen Tom install it years ago, and the bolts went all the way through the wall into steel plates on the outside of the house.

“You’d have to knock down the whole wall to get through that,” Tom had said.

Benny picked up the bar and hefted it. It was heavy and dense. Twenty zoms couldn’t crack it. He fitted one end into the closest sleeve and began sliding it across the door.

Tom was out there with nothing but a sword. No shoes, no gun, no light. If a tree had fallen over and torn a hole in the fence, who knows how many zoms could be out there.

There were more shots, a whole barrage of them. Someone was yelling, but Benny couldn’t make out any words. The hammering of the rain was too insistent.

He chewed his lip, torn by indecision.

On one hand, Tom had told him to bar the door. On the other, the door was already locked, and zoms couldn’t pick a lock. All of the windows were shuttered, and the front door was as sturdy

as this one. He was safe.

But what about Tom?

If there was a full scale invasion of the town, Tom might have to come running back here for shelter. It could come down to seconds. How long would it take Benny to get to the back door,

push the heavy bar out of the sleeves, and unlock the locks? Ten seconds? Eight?

Too long.

He pulled the bar from the sleeve and set it back against the wall.

Tom’s guns were locked up, and Tom wore the key on a chain around his neck. If he busted open the locker and this turned out to be nothing, Tom would fry him.

On the other hand …

Doubt was a hungry thing that chewed at him.

Something hit the wall outside. Hard and sharp. It wasn’t rain. He listened, trying to remember exactly what he had heard, trying to listen the way Tom listened when they were out in the

Ruin. Had it been an acorn blown out of the oak tree? No, they had a different, lighter sound. Whatever had hit the outside wall had hit fast and with a lot of power.

A bullet?

He was almost positive that’s what it had been.

He crouched low and put his ear to the corner of the kitchen window. There were more screams and a whole bunch of gunshots. Then he heard footsteps on the back porch and a second later, the

doorknob turned. Benny twisted around to see out the window, but all he could see was a flap of something glistening.

A slicker.

The doorknob turned again and again.

Tom!

Benny shot to his feet and threw open the locks. God … please let Tom be okay, he thought as he undid the four heavy dead bolts. Benny yanked the door open.

Tom staggered inside. Head bowed, his rain slicker torn and hanging in shreds, dark hair dripping with water.

Benny backed away.

It wasn’t Tom.

It was Rob Sacchetto, the erosion artist.

He was a zombie.





26


THE CREATURE LIFTED ITS WHITE FACE TO BENNY AND OPENED ITS MOUTH. Blood ran over the artist’s broken teeth and dripped onto the front of the slicker.

“Mr. Sacchetto … ?”


The zombie took a shambling step toward him, raising fingers that were bone white and looked strangely disjointed, as if all of the knuckles were broken. Benny was frozen in place. He had

never known anyone who had become a zom—not since the disease had taken his mother from him. He and Chong and Nix had talked about it, wondered about it, even joked about it, but even to