Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(71)

Cards logo or the sensationalist writing on the back. The images were more like the standard erosion portraits that people put up on the walls near the Red Zone. On the backs were names,

probable locations, and some brief biographical information. In the lower left corner was a price—the amount of ration dollars to be paid for a confirmed closure; and in the lower right

corner on some of them was a date starting with either an S, L, SU, or Q.

“S for ‘spotted,’ L is for ‘living,’ but most people use it to designate ‘loners.’ Q for ‘quieted,’” Tom said. “SU means ‘status unknown.’ Lilah’s card is in there.”


Benny shuffled through until he found the card marked with both L and SU. The picture was that of an eleven-year-old girl with wild snow-white hair, wearing ratty jeans and a bulky UCLA men

’s sweatshirt. She carried the same long spear she’d held in the more recent card. The Lost Girl. Benny turned the card over and silently read the back.

This apparently uninfected girl was

spotted in the mountains by Tom

Imura. If found, please contact Tom in

Mountainside, or pass word to “George

Goldman” via the way-station networks.

She may answer to the name Lilah or

Annie. Approach with caution, she is

considered dangerous and may suffer from

post traumatic stress disorder.

“Who’s George?”

“Remember the story Sacchetto told you?”

“Right! George was the guy who stayed behind with the girls. … But I assumed he’d died.”

“After I spotted the girl, I climbed down from the guard station as fast as I could, but she was gone by the time I reached the clearing. I looked for a few more days, but found nothing. I

don’t know whether she somehow spotted me and cleared out or just moved on. Next time I went out, I ran into George Goldman at the way station where we met Brother David. He was a nice guy,

but he was just about used up and maybe more than a little crazy.”

“Didn’t he stay with the girls? Lilah and the baby?”

“Yes,” said Tom. “George was with them for years. They stayed at the cottage, surrounded by zombies, for almost two years. At first they had plenty of food, and George made sure the girls

ate most of it. When it was about to run out completely, George made a very tough decision and went out. He locked the children in the bathroom, made sure they had the last of the food and

some water. Then he imitated what Rob had done: He wrapped himself in torn strips of carpet, took the heaviest golf club he could find, and snuck out of the house. He was nearly killed a

dozen times that night and the following day, but he managed to get to another farmhouse.

“The people who lived there were dead, and he had to fight his way through a few of them, but once he did, George was able to gather up a lot of food. He packed as much as he could into two

big suitcases on wheels and pulled them down the road, back to the cottage. Getting through the zoms around the cottage was very hard, and it took him nearly a full day of trying one trick

and then another, of running and hiding and sneaking around, before he was able to manage it. That became the pattern of their lives. About twice a month, George would go out, foraging for

food, raiding all the places where people once lived, hoping to find help, hoping to find someone else alive. He didn’t see another living soul for years. Imagine that.” Tom shook his

head. “Eventually George cleared out most of the zoms in the immediate area, and that allowed him a little more freedom. He would go foraging and bring back a wheelbarrow filled with books,

clothes, toys—anything he could find to make the lives of the girls easier. He taught them how to read, schooled them the best he could. He wasn’t a teacher, wasn’t a scholar. He was a

simple, middle-aged guy; an average and ordinary man.”

“He doesn’t sound ordinary,” Benny said. “He sounds like a hero.”

Tom smiled. “Yes, he does. I’ve heard a lot of survival stories about First Night and the times that followed, and even though a lot of people died, a lot of heroes were born. Often it was

the most unlikely of people who found within themselves a spark of something greater. It was probably always there, but most people are never tested, and they go through their whole lives

without ever knowing that when things are at their worst, they are at their best. George Goldman was one of those, and I doubt he would ever accept that anyone would think that he was a

hero.”

“What happened to him?”

“As Lilah got older, he taught her how to take down zoms. She’s small and fast, so George taught her to come up behind them and cut their leg tendons to drop them, then spike them when

they’re down. George worked it out for her, teaching her and practicing with her until she was faster than he was. He said that she had a natural talent for it.”

“That’s half cool and half sad,” Benny said. “Maybe more than half sad.”

“Yes, but it meant that she survived.”

“What about the baby?”

Tom’s face tightened. “This is where we get into the darkest part of the story. George had named the baby Annie, after his own sister who had been living in Philadelphia when the dead