Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(82)

“Nix,” Benny said.

“Has to be,” Tom confirmed, but he looked uneasily from the print back to the puddle.

“What’s wrong?”

“Distance is too far. If she stepped in the water, there should be a print closer to the puddle.” He quickly paced it off, shortening his stride to approximate that of a girl who stood

barely five-two. “This is wrong. Even if she stepped in the puddle with only one foot, the distance is too far. The wet print should be here.” He tapped a spot on the blacktop with his

toe.

“What’s that mean?”

Tom suddenly grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him back into the shadows of the overturned truck.

“No one else but Charlie and his crew comes out this way, so I think it means that they somehow managed to get ahead of us. Charlie knows these hills better than me. He must have a pass or

route that I don’t know about.”

“You mean … we missed them?”

“We have to get the horses through these cars. We’re falling behind again, and I don’t know how many more breaks we’re going to get.”

“Breaks? What breaks have we gotten so far?”


“Stay here,” Tom ordered, and he ran out in a low crouch, moving fast along the line of cars until he disappeared around some wreckage. He was gone for almost three minutes, during which

Benny was ready to drag Apache and Chief up and over the vehicles. Tom returned but said nothing, and took off running in the opposite direction, heading down the line of cars. Benny watched

him run, saw him stop every few hundred feet and use his arms to measure a gap, saw his shoulders sag a little more each time the gap wasn’t wide enough to allow a horse to squeeze through.

He went almost half a mile, then turned in defeat and ran back. His face was set, jaw clamped hard around his disappointment.

“Nothing?”

“No. We’re going to have to do this the hard way. Rig towlines and use the horses to pull one of the cars enough to make a gap. Horses are half dead as it is.” He swore under his breath.

He went past Benny and looked at the puddle and Nix’s single footprint. Both had almost entirely evaporated. Benny saw something register on Tom’s face as he calculated the time that must

have passed since the bounty hunters had come through here, based on the rate of evaporation. Benny couldn’t do the same calculation, but he didn’t have to. Tom snapped erect, and in a

blur he drew his pistol.

At that same moment, Benny heard a strange sound behind and above him, and he turned and looked up as something weirdly disconnected to their present circumstances sailed through the hot air

and landed on the blacktop just outside their shelter of wrecked vehicles. The thing looked like a great red snake but with many stubby legs; or like a gigantic centipede. It struck the

ground and lay there, twisting and hissing and smoking. Benny stood with his mouth open, unable to process it. This was something from summer celebrations, from garden parties and New Year’

s Eve.

“Firecrackers,” he said in a strangely conversational voice. Benny turned to see the look of concern on Tom’s face turn to a mask of absolute horror. He slammed his pistol into his

holster and whipped out his sword.

As the first of the firecrackers began to explode, Benny’s surprise evaporated, and he caught up with everything. The puddle, the carefully placed footprint. They weren’t accidents, they

weren’t clues. They were put there deliberately. To stall them, to draw their focus.

The firecrackers banged and banged, and the echoes bounced off every car and rolled out into the field of tall grass and the forest behind them. The barrage of bangs was so incredibly loud

in the still air. Loud enough to wake the dead. Or at least call them.

Almost at once Benny saw movement in the trees and in the tall grass. Dark, slow shapes detached themselves from crevices between smashed cars or tottered out from the dappled depths of the

woods. Behind Benny, the horses screamed.

They’d walked into another trap.





37


THE LAST FIRECRACKER POPPED AND A SEMI-SILENCE FELL. ALL BENNY COULD hear were the slow, scuffling steps of the zoms. The closest was still a quarter mile away, but they were coming from all

directions. The path back to the creek was totally blocked.

“Tom Imura!” called a voice, and Benny and Tom turned to see Vin Trang step out of the tall grass on the far side of the road. He stood in the one spot that was farthest from the living

dead, although a few turned stiffly toward him. Vin held a pistol in one hand and several thick strings of firecrackers in the other.

Tom’s lip curled, but when he spoke he sounded almost casual. “Where’s the girl, Vin?”

“Girl?” Vin laughed. “What girl?”

“Let’s not play games.”

There was a hissing sound to their left, and they saw a second string of firecrackers come arching out of the woods behind them. It landed on the blacktop and began popping. The zoms that

were coming out of the cars began to moan.

“Tom,” Benny whispered.

“I know,” said Tom without moving his lips. He pitched his voice louder. “The girl!”

“She’s dead!” Vin yelled back. “Zoms got her.”