Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(8)

kill had been a paid job, too.

Charlie and the Hammer also did closure jobs—locating a zombified family member or friend for a client and putting them to final rest. Mayor Kirsch said they had as high a closure rate as

Tom did, though Benny doubted it. No way Tom’s rate could be anywhere near Charlie’s tally. Tom never had extra ration dollars to spare, and Charlie was always buying beer, pop, and fried

chicken wings for the crowd who gathered around to listen to his stories.

“When you gonna retire?” asked Wrigley Sputters, the mail carrier, as he poured Charlie another cup of iced tea. “You boys have to be rich as Midas by now.”

“Midas?” asked the Hammer. “Who’s he?”

“I think he sold mufflers,” offered Norbert, one of the traders who used armored horses to pull wagons of scavenged goods from town to town, “and then bought a kingdom.”

“Yeah,” said Charlie, nodding as if he knew that to be the truth. “King Midas. Definitely from Detroit. Made a fortune outta car parts and such.”

And everyone agreed with him, because that was the smart thing to do. Benny nodded, even though he had no clue what a muffler was. Lou Chong and Morgie Mitchell nodded too.

“Well, boys,” said Charlie with a wink. “I ain’t saying I’m as rich as a king, but me and the Hammer got us a whole pot of gold. The Ruin’s been good to us.”

“Yeah, it has,” agreed the Hammer, his purple lips pursed knowingly. “We kilt us a mess o’ zoms.”

“My uncle Nick said you killed the four Mengler brothers last month,” said Morgie from the back of the crowd.

Charlie and the Hammer burst out laughing. “Hell yes! We killed them deader’n dead. The Hammer snucked up on their place, half-past sunrise, and tossed a Molotov onto the roof. All four of

them dead suckers come staggering out into the morning light. Streaked with old blood and horse crap and who knows what. Skinny and rotten, smelled worse than sweaty pigs, and we were fifty

feet away.”

“Whatcha do?” asked Benny, his eyes ablaze.

The Hammer snorted. “We played some.”

Charlie snickered at that. “Yeah. We wanted to have some fun. This business is getting so’s killing these critters is way too easy. Am I right or am I right?”


A few people chuckled or nodded vaguely, but nobody said anything specific. It was one of those times when it wasn’t clear what the right answer would be.

Charlie plowed ahead. “So me and the Hammer decide to make this a bit more fair.”

“Fair,” agreed the Hammer.

“We laid down our weapons.”

“All of ’em?” Chong gasped.

“Every last one. Guns, knives, the Hammer’s favorite pipe, numchucks, even them ninja throwing stars that the Hammer took off that dead zom who used to run that karate school on the other

side of the valley. We stripped down to our jeans and beaters and just went in, mano a mano.”

“Went in whut?” asked Morgie.

“It means ‘hand to hand,’” Chong said.

“It means ‘man to man,’” Charlie snapped.

Even Benny knew Charlie was wrong, but he didn’t say so. Not right to Charlie’s face, anyway. No one was that dumb.

Charlie threw Chong a quick, ugly look and plunged back into his story. “Anyways, we came up on them with just our knuckles and nerves, and we fair beat them zoms so bad, they died

surprised, woke up, and died of shame all over again.”

Everyone burst out laughing.

Someone cleared his throat, and they all looked up to see Randy Kirsch, the town mayor, standing there, his arms folded, bald head cocked to one side as he looked from Benny to Chong to

Morgie. “I thought you boys were supposed to be out job hunting.”

“I got a job,” Chong said quickly.

“I’m fourteen,” said Morgie.

“We just stopped in for a cold bottle of pop,” Benny said.

“And you’ve had it, Benjamin Imura,” said Mayor Kirsch. “Now you three run along.”

Benny thought Charlie was going to object, but the bounty hunter simply shrugged. “Yeah … you boys got to earn your rations just like grown folks. Skedaddle.”

Benny and the others got up and slouched past the mayor. Before they even reached the door Charlie was in full stride again, telling another of his stories, and everyone was laughing. The

mayor followed the boys outside.

“Benny,” he said quietly, the hot sun glinting off the polished crown of his shaved head. “Does Tom know you’ve been hanging out here?”

“I don’t know,” Benny said evasively. He knew darn well that Tom had no idea that he spent a part of every afternoon listening to Charlie and the Hammer tell their stories.

“I don’t think he’d like it,” said Mayor Kirsch.

Benny met his stare. “I guess I really don’t care much what Tom likes and doesn’t like,” he said, then added “sir” to the end of it, as if that word could somehow improve the tone of

voice he’d just used.

Mayor Kirsch scratched at his thick black beard. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again. Whatever he wanted to say, he kept to himself. That was fine with Benny, who