Rot & Ruin (42 page)

Benny did not want to believe Charlie, but he knew the big man was telling the truth. At least the truth as he knew it.

“Maybe you did all that,” Benny said, using his left hand now to support his trembling right. “But it still doesn’t give you the right to do the other things you’re doing.”

“Don’t it? Being ‘right’ is all about living up to a set of laws, and there are no laws out here in the Ruin. Even your worm-meat brother told you that much. The laws of places like Mountainside end at the gate, because nobody there has the guts to step past those fences and
establish
the law outside. Nobody but me, and since I’m the top dog out here, I get to make whatever laws I want.”

“I’m not talking about laws,” said Benny through gritted teeth. The moaning of the wind in the forest behind him was louder. Was the storm going to build back up again? “I’m talking about right and wrong.”

Charlie laughed. “You’re going to stand here with a gun in my face, ready to kill me, and you’re going to lecture me on right and wrong? Who appointed you judge, jury, and executioner? You pass a burning bush on the way here and get some new Commandments? I think the old ones kind of
dried up and blew away when the first of the dead rose up and started eating people. Call me crazy, but I think that was a game changer. When dead ain’t even dead no more, then as far as I’m concerned, no other previous rules apply. So that means ‘right’ is whatever I decide it is.”

“No—,” Benny began, but Charlie made his move. He stuck his left hand out to the side, and Benny’s reflexes reacted before he could control them and his eyes flicked toward the movement. With lightning speed, Charlie used his right to slap the pistol out of Benny’s hand. With one step he was chest to chest with Benny, and his face was a mask of naked fury. He grabbed Benny’s shirt with one hand and hauled him to his toe-tips and knocked his head to one side with a powerful slap of his hard open palm and then backhanded him, so that his head whipped all the way to the other side. The shock to Benny’s cheek was nothing compared to the double jolt to his neck, and Benny’s knees buckled.

“Benny!” Nix cried, but all that escaped the stricture around her throat was a desperate croak.

Charlie Pink-eye shoved Benny away in disgust. “You’re a worthless little piece of crap, kid. You talk big when you’re holding a gun, but you don’t even have the stones
or
the smarts to pull the trigger when you have the chance. That’s why people like you don’t run the world. It’s people like me—people who aren’t afraid to make the hard choices and take the tough actions—who get things done and who deserve to say what’s what. Power is the only thing that matters, pup, and the sad news is that you just don’t have enough of it.”

“Kiss my ass!” Benny snarled, and he launched himself at Charlie. His training with Tom hadn’t lasted long enough for
him to learn the subtleties of combat. He didn’t know many tricks, wouldn’t have qualified for any belt. All he had was his rage. He barreled into Charlie so hard that the big man was actually forced backward two steps. Benny came in low and fast, driving his shoulder into Charlie’s thighs, hoping to knock him down. If he could get him down, maybe he could stomp on him, break an ankle or a knee. Or Charlie’s face.

But Charlie didn’t go down. He dug his heels into the mud to stop Benny’s rush and then he clubbed Benny aside with a forearm shot to the side of the head. Benny saw it coming and ducked enough to miss most of the force, but there was still enough power there to drive him to one knee. With a growl of anger, Benny tried to hook a punch into Charlie’s crotch, but Charlie turned into it, and Benny’s fist collided with the big man’s hip bone. Pain exploded in Benny’s hand.

“Nice try, pup,” Charlie said. “Points for having
some
stones. More than I thought. Not enough, though.”

He grabbed Benny by the hair, jerked him to his feet, and then buried an uppercut so hard into Benny’s stomach that his whole body was lifted off the ground. His entire abdomen seemed to be folded around Charlie’s massive fist, and the impact drove all of the air out of the world. Benny fell, eyes bulging, face purpling, gasping, capable only of making high-pitched squeaks as he fought to take in even a mouthful of air.

He heard Nix calling his name, screaming as she fought against the Hammer.

He heard the laughter of Charlie and the other bounty hunters.

He heard his own inhuman squeaks.

He heard Charlie say, “Digger, Sting … You boys do me a
favor and drag his sorry butt into the pen and tie him up. Don’t be nice about it. Hammer, show the girl some manners and then tie her up with the others. The rest of you, go find those other kids and let’s get this camp together. This whole thing’s been a total clusterfu—”

And something came hurtling out of the dark and slammed into the back of the man called Digger as he bent to grab Benny. He gurgled out a single low cry and fell face forward onto the ground. Benny stared at the man, at the knife that was buried nearly to the hilt between his shoulder blades. The handle was black and ribbed, and the inch of blade that showed was equally black and double-edged.

Benny felt his brain twist around backward. He
knew
that knife!

Then a scream cut through the air as something massive leaped over the dying man’s body and crashed full force into the knot of bounty hunters. The horse was not one of the bulky draft horses that had broken free from the camp.

It was Apache!

And riding the big buckskin was a bloody man, whose clothing hung in rags, whose eyes were dark and wild, and who slashed at the bounty hunters with a glittering sword.

Tom!

54

“TOM!”
BENNY YELLED, NOT KNOWING IF WHAT HE WAS SEEING WAS
real or if he had just gone completely crazy. How was it even possible?

Apache reared up and kicked one bounty hunter in the chest, and the man flew backward, as if he’d taken a double load of buckshot. Another man rushed the horse from the side and tried to pull Tom from the saddle. Tom’s sword flashed downward, and the man fell shrieking beneath the horse’s hooves.

“Christ!” bellowed Charlie. “That’s Tom Imura. Kill him!”

He brought his gun up, but Benny came up out of the mud and once more drove his shoulder into the big man. Charlie wasn’t ready for it this time, and the impact knocked them both to the ground. Charlie’s shot punched a hole through the shoulder of Texas Jon McGoran. As the bullet slammed Texas Jon backward, his fingers jerked the trigger of his pump shotgun, and the spray caught Wild Bill Fairchild full in the face.

Benny had no chance against Charlie in any kind of a fight, but he could at least keep him from shooting Tom, so Benny lunged at Charlie’s arm and bit his wrist. Charlie
howled in pain, dropped the gun, but then used that hand to punch Benny in the face. Benny felt his nose crack. He kneed Charlie in the thigh twice and then flung himself away from a second and more powerful punch that would have easily broken his neck.

He scrambled to his feet and spun around looking for Nix. She was twenty feet away, and the Hammer was holding her like a shield as Tom advanced on him. The rain faded to a drizzle and then stopped, although thunder rumbled through the heavens and lightning flashed in the west.

“Drop that sword, Tom, or I’ll snap this little girl’s neck,” the Hammer promised. He meant it, too. He had his whole arm looped around her throat and held her so that her feet were inches above the ground.

The other bounty hunters were recovering from the initial shock of seeing Tom Imura, returning from the dead as a living, breathing, fighting man. They pulled their guns and pointed them at him.

Tom reined Apache to a stop. The buckskin still wore the remnants of his carpet coat, although it looked like it had been gnawed on by every zom from here to the state line.

“You don’t want to do that, Marion,” said Tom in a voice that was surprisingly calm. “Put the girl down.”

“Kiss my hairy butt, Tom. You drop that sword or so help me, I’ll pull her head clean off.”

Tom flicked his wrist so that the blood that streaked the sword was whipped off. It splashed Joey Duk across the face.

“Benny,” Tom said, “are you okay?”

Benny got to his feet, his head spinning from the punch to the nose. “Yeah,” he said breathlessly.

“That’s going to cost you.” Charlie growled as he also got to his feet. His gun was muddy and useless, but he didn’t need one. Tom was surrounded by nearly twenty bounty hunters.

Tom slowly raised his sword until the tip of the blade was pointed directly at the Motor City Hammer. “I’m going to give you one last chance, Marion. Let Nix go.”

The Hammer laughed, and so did the other men. “Or what?” He sneered. “You’re outnumbered and outgunned, Tom. What the hell do you think
you’re
gonna do?”

“Me?” Tom looked faintly amused. “Hell, I’m not going to do anything. But you
will
let her go.”

“Says who?”

“Says me!” A voice snarled out of the darkness, and there was a heavy whoosh as a long metal pole cut through the air, and a flash of silver as a wickedly sharp bayonet blade cut through the back of the Motor City Hammer’s left leg. His Achilles tendon parted with an explosion of blood, and he screamed—as high and shrill as a little girl—and fell. He literally threw Nix from him, and she staggered toward Benny, who rushed to catch her.

Everyone turned as a pale figure jumped forward into the firelight, her snow-white hair swirling as she landed and pivoted and slashed again with her spear. The air was suddenly filled with a new rainfall, but these drops were a red so dark that it was almost black. The Hammer clamped both of his hands around his throat. His eyes went wide and were instantly filled with the dreadful certainty that no matter who won this night’s conflict—Charlie Pink-eye or Tom Imura—he, Marion Hammer, would own no piece of either victory or defeat, and that he would play no part in whatever future was
being written here. He tried to speak, to say something, to articulate the terror and need in his heart, but that bull throat of his was no longer constructed for speech.

He toppled slowly forward, like a great building finally yielding to years of corruption and decay, and then he fell into the mud.

The Lost Girl stood over him, her hazel eyes as cold as all the hatred and loss in the world, and then she spat on the unmoving back of the man who had chased her sister into the rain and then left her body in the mud, as if it was garbage.

“God,” Nix breathed, massaging her bruised throat.

Charlie Matthias stared at his fallen friend, his mouth open, disbelief painted on his features. Benny could only imagine what was going on in the big man’s mind. Benny had heard all of the stories of Charlie and the Hammer. He’d sat in Lafferty’s General Store on far too many afternoons and listened as they recounted their adventures. Always
their
adventures. Always together, a pair of devils, drawing power from each other, enabling and supporting each other. The right and left fist of violence out here in the great Rot and Ruin.

And now the Hammer was dead.

In a few minutes he would reanimate as a zom. As one of
them
, as one of the things that Charlie and the Hammer hated and humiliated and debased for fun and profit.

As Benny watched, Charlie’s face changed. His eyes went from wide shock to narrow slits filled with lethal intent, and his mouth tightened into a grimace of bloodlust.

“I’m going to rip you apart, girl,” he said. “I should have done it five years ago, and now I’m going to make sure it’s
done and done right. By God you are going to scream all the way to hell!”

Lilah raised her spear, and the bounty hunters raised their guns. Benny and Nix stepped up to flank her, the three of them ready to make a stand against Charlie Pink-eye.

Tom stepped between Charlie and them.

“A long time ago I gave you a chance,” said Tom. “Your goons here don’t know it, but I had you down and bleeding when you tried to invade Sunset Hollow. Your life was in my hands, Charlie, and you begged me—
begged
me—to give you another chance. You swore to me that you’d change, that things would be different. I didn’t know then that you were the one who was behind everything bad that goes on out here. That
you
started Gameland and that
you
were the one who kept it going. Back then I thought you were just a hired gun, working for someone else. Now I know different, Charlie. Now I know the truth, and every day for the rest of my life I’m going to feel sick, knowing that I let you live when I should have just switched you off. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was being merciful. Never kill a helpless enemy.” Benny saw Tom’s face darken with self-loathing. “I’ve got five years of blood on my hands, Charlie. How many lives is that? How many men, women, and children whose futures were ruined? How many people tortured or murdered?”

Charlie was not impressed. “Yeah, you suckered me once and got the upper hand, big friggin’ deal. You think that makes you tougher than me? You think that makes you
anything
? You ain’t nothing but a sad footnote in an old history book, Tom. You’re not a cop and you’re not a samurai. You’re
not even a good bounty hunter. You don’t have the guts for it. You’re nothing but a fool and a coward.”

Benny stepped forward and punched Charlie in the face. He put every ounce of outrage and almost fourteen years worth of inner conflict into that punch, and it caught Charlie on the point of the jaw and spun him halfway around.

“My brother is not a coward!” he bellowed.

Time seemed to grind to a halt.

Charlie turned slowly back to face them. There was a purple knot forming on his jaw, but if the punch had done him any real harm, then it didn’t show on his face. His eyes danced with humor, and he wore an ugly butcher’s smile.

“You throw a good punch for a little pup,” he said. “How’s the hand?”

Benny said nothing. In fact, he had to clamp his mouth shut, because he was pretty sure that he had just broken his hand. Every one of the thousands of nerve endings in his fist was sending white hot flashes of pain to his brain, and his knuckles were swelling like balloons. He tried to block out the pain, tried not to let his eyes fill with tears. He concentrated on hating Charlie and tried to figure out a way to save Nix. The rain started falling again, and the wind was moaning louder than ever in the trees.