Rot & Ruin (31 page)

Benny was impressed, and he looked around for other evidence and immediately saw something that snapped wide his eyes. “Tom!”

On the ground ten feet away, there was half of a wet footprint, drying quickly under the sun’s glare. Not a man’s foot. This print was made by a small, delicate foot that wore no shoe.

“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

T
HE LAST FIRECRACKER POPPED AND A SEMI-SILENCE FELL
. A
LL
B
ENNY 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.”

Benny almost cried out, but Tom gave him a fierce single shake of his head. “I’m looking at her footprint, Vin. Hasn’t even had time to dry yet.”

“What can I tell you?”

“Nice trap. Who thought of it?”

“I did.”

“You couldn’t zipper your pants without instructions, Vin. This has Charlie Pink-eye all over it.”

Vin barked out a short laugh. “What’s the girl to you? I thought you had the hots for Jessie. Granted, that little girlie has some potential, but she ain’t her mama yet.”

Benny ground his teeth and started to say something, but Tom touched him, gave him another shake of the head. He bent close and whispered. “Don’t let him get inside your head.”

“I want to tear his—”

“Me too, kiddo. But let me play this my way. You keep your eye on the zoms. Let me know when they get to within a hundred feet. That’s our red zone.”

Tom yelled, “Were you at Jessie’s last night, Vin? Isn’t that where you took the girl?”

“Jessie’s? I never been to Jessie’s place—although I wouldn’t mind paying a call. But Charlie’s the one with a sweet spot for Jessie.”

“You’re saying you weren’t at her place last night? That’s funny, Vin, ’cause Captain Strunk found your lucky charm there last night.”

“My lucky … ? What are you talking about? I lost that weeks ago.”

“You lost it at Jessie’s.”

“I was never
at
Jessie’s.”

“Then how come Captain Strunk found it on the floor?”

“Four hundred feet,” Benny whispered.

Another string of firecrackers began popping behind them, and Vin yelled something in Vietnamese. No more firecrackers came flying out of the woods.

Under his breath Tom said, “He just told Joey Duk to cut it out for a minute. I think I rattled him a little.”

“What was Strunk doing at Jessie’s place?” yelled Vin. “And what do you mean that he
found
my coin on the floor?”

“Mighty bad luck for you to drop your lucky coin at a crime scene, Vin.”

“Crime scene? But … hey, man … What crime? Joey and I don’t
do
crimes in town. You know that.”

“Tell that to the town watch. They want your head on a pole, Vin. Joey’s too.”

“For
what
?” Vin demanded, and Benny thought he sounded genuinely outraged.

“For what you did to Jessie Riley.”

Silence. Then, “You’re jerking us around, Tom. We didn’t do anything to Jessie.”

“Evidence says different.”

“Well, then
ask
Jessie. She’ll tell you.”

Tom’s face wore a twisted smile. Hard and predatory. “Jessie’s dead, Vin. You and your ‘brother’ beat her so bad that she died.”

The ensuing silence was broken only by the low moans of the dead.

“Three hundred yards,” said Benny.

“You’re trying some kind of sick con on me, Tom,” protested Vin.

“Not much in the mood for games, Vin. Jessie died in my arms, and your coin was on the floor. You’re a wanted man, Vin. You and Joey. Do you know what the people in town will do to you if they catch you?
When
they catch you?”

“No way, man … no way in hell.” Vin’s voice was filled with doubt now. And fear. “You gotta believe me here, Tom.”

“Why should I believe you about anything? You’re trying to feed me and my brother to the zoms. That doesn’t build a good case for innocence.”

“Almost two hundred feet, Tom.”

The closest zoms were a mix of ordinary people in everyday clothes and soldiers in the burned remains of their uniforms. One wore the black slicker and helmet of a firefighter.

“That’s your brother?” Vin called. “That’s little Benny. Oh … hell, man.”

“Yeah, you’re really racking up the points, Vin. Beating on women, kidnapping little girls, and now you’re thinking about murdering a teenager. Yeah, you’re innocent, Vin. You’re a real saint.”

“You got it wrong, Tom. This stuff out here … This is just business. You, me, Joey—we’re pros. We know the risks, we know how it works out in the Ruin. No rules, no slack. It’s all part of the job.”

“Is murder part of the job?”

“Out here? Hell, you know it is.”

“Tom,” Benny said urgently. Tom turned and saw more zoms emerging from the forest. The terrified horses nickered
and tossed their heads, pulling at the tethers that held them to the axle.

“Okay, Vin, but how’s the girl fit into all of this?”

“She’s Charlie’s niece. Or cousin. Something like that. He said so.”

“And you
believed
him?”

No answer. Even Benny knew that Vin probably didn’t believe that story, but like most people, Vin Trang was not in the habit of calling Charlie Matthias a liar.

“Didn’t you think it was strange that he should take his niece away from her mom by force and in the middle of the night?”

No answer.

“The coin, Vin … what about the coin?”

“Someone must have put it there.”

“Why?”

“To frame me.”

Tom smiled and winked at Benny. “And why would they do that, Vin? Who would want to go those lengths to throw suspicion on you?”

It was a long and ugly silence. The zoms were almost at the hundred-foot line. Benny counted sixteen of them in the first wave. Cold sweat ran down his face and back, and pooled like slush at the base of his spine. He had his
bokken
in his hands, but the hard wood felt like a toothpick against what was coming for them.

“Charlie wouldn’t do that,” Vin protested. “He’d know that we’d clear our names once we got back.”

“You mean
if
you got back. You said it yourself, Vin. No rules out here in the Ruin.”

“Hundred feet,” Benny said, and edged backward, raising the sword in both hands. “We have to go!”

“Vin,” called Tom. “I have to get Benny out of here. You let us walk, and I promise to help you with Captain Strunk and the court.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” Vin said after a pause.

“Because you know what my word’s worth,” said Tom.

The moans of the dead were as loud as the shouting men. Tom whirled and saw that the firefighter and one other zom were out in front of the pack. With a snarl he leaped toward them, and the silver blade of his
katana
flashed in the sunlight. Tom backpedaled as the zoms fell one way and their heads crunched and rolled the other.

“Clock’s ticking on that offer, Vin.”

“I could just let the zoms have you and take my chances with the court. Joey and I never broke no laws in town. We have a clean record.”

“Tell that to the court when Strunk gives them the only piece of evidence found at the scene. They’ll hang you just to have someone to vent on.”

The fourteen remaining zoms were now only fifty feet away. Tom stared at them and then at the horses. “Damn it!” he said with a growl, and with a flick of his wrist, he cut the reins that held the horses to the overturned truck. With his free hand he slapped their rumps and yelled at them. Chief needed no urging and was already racing away. Apache ran a few steps, then stopped and looked back at Benny. He was just starting to turn to come back when a zom made a grab for him. Apache reared up and kicked the corpse in the face, then
with a whinny of protest he wheeled around and galloped after Chief. They headed for the trees, but Benny saw that the woods were filled with the hungry dead. Even with the carpet coats, how could the horses hope to survive?

And how could he and Tom survive without them?

“Benny!” Tom snapped. “Climb!” He pushed Benny toward the Escalade, and Benny scrambled up onto the hood and then turned and scaled the mangled front of the panel truck. Tom pivoted in place and hacked at the zoms who were closing in on them now. Hands and parts of arms and heads flew, but there were far too many of them. Tom slammed his sword into its sheath and jumped onto the Escalade, just as the living dead reached for him. He kicked backward and then Benny was there, reaching down a hand to pull his brother to safety.

They crouched on the overturned truck, completely exposed. On the far side of the road, Vin Trang stood with his pistol raised.

Tom slowly straightened, and in a movement so smooth that it looked like flowing water, Tom pulled his pistol and pointed it at Vin. The range was too great for accurate handgun shooting, but Tom’s hand was rock steady. Even from that distance Benny could see that Vin’s whole arm trembled.

“If you take a shot, Vin,” Tom warned, “you’d better pray you kill me with the first round.”

Vin tried to meet Tom’s stare, tried to man it out, but after a few seconds he lowered his gun.

“Where’s Charlie taking the girl, Vin?” Tom asked.

But Vin shook his head. His will was broken enough to refuse to fight, but his fear of Charlie was greater than his
fear of Tom. Still shaking his head, he backed away and then turned and ran full-tilt into the deep grass. Benny could hear him yelling in Vietnamese to Joey, and soon Joey Duk broke from the woods and ran in Vin’s wake.