Rot and Ruin

“Wait. Were these guys bounty hunters?”



“Yes.”



“What happened?” Benny asked with a sinking feeling.



“Things went wrong pretty much right away. The hunter made some remark about the girls looking tough, and when George explained they had both hunted and killed zoms, the hunter really perked up. He said that the girls were worth their weight in gold for ‘the games,’ and when George turned to him to ask what that remark meant, someone hit him from behind. George woke up hours later, but the cornfield was empty and everyone was gone. He had no weapons or food and no idea what had happened to the girls. He searched every inch of that field and the woods beyond, but the girls were gone.



“He found horse tracks and footprints, but the best he could determine was that when the camp broke up, the men went in different directions. He said he went a little insane, and I can’t blame him. His whole life had been built around protecting those girls, and at the moment when he thought that they were really and truly saved from the monsters, it was people who took them away. It turned his whole world inside out. George staggered away and finally found a deserted house where he found some old cans of food. At first light he started searching for the girls. It became his obsession, and it consumed every waking second of every day.”



“What happened to the girls?”



“George looked everywhere, and along the way he met more and more people. He met the way-station monks and told them what had happened, and they started spreading the word. He started to hear rumors. One set of rumors talked about a place called Gameland that a bunch of bounty hunters and travelers had built in the mountains. The things people said about that place really tore George apart. When he described the girls and the men who had taken them, a lot of people suddenly stopped talking to him. Their fear of the men who ran Gameland was greater even than their compassion for a couple of lost children. Soon people were actively shunning George. Only the monks tried to help him, and some of those who went out to try to find the girls went missing.”



“And you don’t think it was zoms who got them?”



“Do you?”



Benny shook his head.



“By the time I ran into George, he was worn out. I told him that I’d spotted one girl, and when I described her, he said that it was Lilah. He begged me to say that I’d also seen Annie, but I didn’t. … And when I found the spot where I’d seen the girl standing, there was only one set of prints.”



“What happened to Annie?”



“I don’t know for sure. Some of the travelers I met were more willing to talk to me than they were to George. A few of them told me that there was an old rumor about a couple of girls who had been taken to Gameland and that something bad had happened and only one little girl escaped.”



“No …,” Benny said softly. “Were Charlie and the Hammer involved?”



“George gave me pretty good descriptions of several of the men in the camp. He wasn’t clear about which one hit him or who actually took the girls, but Charlie and the Hammer were definitely there.”



Benny nodded. The respect he once had for Charlie had transformed into a murderous hatred.



“What happened to George?”



“I don’t know. Brother David said there was a rumor that George had hanged himself, but I don’t believe that. George might be dead, and he might have hanged, but I don’t believe for a minute that he would have killed himself. Not as long as Lilah was still out there.”



“Somebody killed him?”



“Murder is easy out here.”



They walked on. The horses were looking better, less haggard, and Benny hoped that they’d be able to ride them again and make up the distance he felt they were losing with every minute they stayed on foot. “If we find Lilah … what do we do?”



“Try to get her to come to Mountainside with us. The kid needs a life, needs people.”



Benny took the card out of his pocket and stared at it, trying to imagine that wild creature going to school, being normal. His mind wouldn’t fit around the concept.



“Come on,” Tom said tersely. “The horses are rested enough. Let’s ride. … Let’s see if we can catch those animals.”



32



BOTH HORSES WERE SPITTING FOAM AGAIN BY THE TIME THEY REACHED the top of the mountain; then the ground leveled out, and they found the fire access road. Like all roads in the Ruin, it was badly overgrown, but Benny could see footprints, wheel ruts, and dried horse dung that looked recent.



“Is this the route the traders take?”



“Yes. This is the same area where I first saw the Lost Girl,” Tom said. “This is where I found the first couple of zoms that Lilah killed. I told you they were all similar in size and look.”



“Yeah,” Benny said. “Like she was hunting one person over and over again. Hard to believe that a little girl could do that.”



“What, kill a full-grown man? All it takes is stealth and the right weapons.”



“No,” said Benny. “It’s hard to believe that a little girl could kill anyone. I mean, sure, zoms … but how does a kid get to the point where they want to take a life?”



“Fair question, Ben, but let me ask you one in turn. If Charlie Pink-eye was in front of you, right now this minute, would you want to kill him?”



Benny nodded. “In a heartbeat.”



“You’re sure?”



“After what he did?”



“Even if we get Nix back unharmed?”



“No question about it, Tom.”



Tom studied him for a while before he said, “Couple things about that. I hear you when you say you’d kill Charlie, and for the most part I believe you, but there’s a little hesitation in your voice. If I’d have asked the same question last night, you’d have said yes without the slightest hesitation, because the hurt was immediate. It was right there in your face. But this is hours later. The blood cools, and the more distance you put between the heat of passion and any act of commission makes something like killing much harder to do. When people talk about killing in cold blood, they’re referring to something someone does even after they’ve calmed down and had time to think. If it takes us a month to find Charlie, you might not want him dead at all. You might want to see him put on trial, you might want to see the system work instead of getting blood on your own hands.”



“Okay, okay, I get the idea. You said there was a couple of things. What’s the other?”



“Why do you want Charlie dead?”



“Is that a real question?”



“Sure. I mean, he didn’t physically hurt you. He didn’t kill anyone in your family. He didn’t kill Nix, at least as far as we know. … And I don’t think he has, even now.”



“He …,” Benny began, but faltered. “Because of Mr. Sacchetto and Nix’s mom. Because of what he might be doing to Nix. What kind of question is that?”



“So, you want to kill him for revenge?”



Benny didn’t answer. Apache blew loudly, scaring some robins from the grass.



“Will that bring Rob Sacchetto or Jessie Riley back from the dead? Will it fix Morgie’s head or guarantee that we’ll find Nix safe and unharmed?”



“No, but—”



“So, why do you want Charlie dead? What good will it do?”



“Why do you want him dead?” Benny snapped, frustrated by Tom’s questions.



“We’re not discussing me,” said Tom. “We can, but we’re not right now.”



Benny said, “Charlie’s hurting people that I care about, and last night we agreed that Charlie’s going to come after us. To shut us up or whatever. He knows that we know, and he knows that we’re not going to let it go, even if the court clears him.”



“Right,” said Tom. “Charlie’s smart enough to have figured that out. So … you want to kill him to prevent him from killing you?”



“Us, not just me. But, yeah. That makes sense, man. Doesn’t it?”



“Sadly, yes, it does.”



“Why sadly?”



“Because it’s the way things still seem to be among us humans. Like Leroy Williams said, we never seem to learn.”



“What’s the alternative? Do nothing and let Charlie kill us?”



“No. I’m a pacifist by inclination, but I have my limits. And on top of that I’m not a martyr.”



“So, you intend to kill Charlie?”



Tom’s eyes were black ice. “Yes.”



“So why are you grilling me on this stuff, Tom?”



“Because the things that happened yesterday just kicked you into the same world as the Lost Girl. There’s some logic to it, even some justice in it, but the more you walk in that world, the more damage it’s going to do. And I don’t think there’s a way for us to turn back. Not anymore.”



“What do you mean?”



“The bodies that I found. The girl wasn’t just trying to kill a certain person or a certain type of person. She was trying to punish the image of that person that existed in her mind. Something had been done to her that was so bad, so tragic, that it changed her—maybe forever. Revenge isn’t really enough of a word to explain what she’s feeling and why she’s doing what she’s doing. It’s more like an infection of the spirit, and it distorts everything she sees and everything she does.”



“So,” Benny said, sorting through it, “she’s trying to kill the idea of this guy? That she’s trying to kill the infection by killing what caused it?”



Tom cut a sharp look at Benny.



“What?” asked Benny.



“That may have been the smartest thing you ever said, kiddo. It shows that you have insight. Yes, that’s exactly what Lilah is doing.”



“So … who’s the guy she’s trying to kill?”



“Maybe one of the bounty hunters killed Annie, or maybe she died in the Z-Games and Lilah’s fixated on the image of the man who put her into one of the pits. Finding that out is one of the reasons I want to find her.”



Benny digested this as they came out from under the shade of the trees into a gorgeous field in which wildflowers ran rampant and proclaimed their freedom in shouts of colors. The sky was a distant blue, and massive white clouds sailed across it. The image was so lovely that Benny’s mind saw but discounted the abandoned cars that were covered with weeds and probably filled with old bones.



“It’s hard to imagine that there is so much hurt and harm out here, isn’t it?” said Tom softly.



All Benny could do was nod. He took the Lost Girl card out of his pocket and stared at it. Such a beautiful, proud, tragic face. “Lilah,” he murmured, but the breeze through the tall grass answered him in Nix’s voice.



They reached the creek and turned north; riding in silence for several miles till Tom swung out of the saddle and squatted down by a rusted metal footbridge. Benny watched his brother’s face as he examined a series of overlapping footprints and turned his head to see which direction their prey went.



33



THEY CAME DOWN ANOTHER SLOPE AND THERE, NESTLED BETWEEN A LONG tumble of boulders left over from a glacier thousands of years ago, was a stream that glimmered like a blue ribbon through the forest. They dismounted and led the horses as they followed a crooked path that kept trees between them and whoever might be down there—bounty hunters or zoms. Chief clearly did not want to go that way and tugged on the reins; Apache looked equally nervous.



Tom picked up some loose bits of dirt and leaf debris and threw it into the air, watching where the wind took it. “Wind’s blowing toward us. If we stay on this side of the creek, we should be okay. But we’ll need to keep our voices low.”



The path along the creek had once been a scenic country road, and it was wide enough for them to walk side-by-side, leading the horses.



“Tom?”



“Yeah.”



“We’re going to find her, aren’t we?”



“Lilah? I—”



“No,” Benny said, “Nix. We’re going to find her, right?”



“We’re going to try.”



“That’s not good enough, man. We’ve got to find her. She’s lost everything. Everyone. We can’t … abandon her.”



“We won’t.”



“Swear it.”



Tom looked at him.



“Swear that no matter what happens, we’ll find her. That we’ll never stop looking for her.”



In another place, under other circumstances, what Tom did next might have seemed silly or corny, but out here in the Rot and Ruin it had a strange sense of grandeur, perhaps of nobility. Tom placed his hand over his heart.



“I swear to you, my brother, that we will find Nix Riley. I swear that we will never stop looking for her.”



Benny nodded.



They walked on, entering the thickest part of the forest that ran alongside the creek. Under the roof of leaves the air was cooler, but it was as damp as a cave. There were so many songbirds singing in the branches that it was impossible to pick out a particular voice.



Half a mile in, Tom knelt and ran his fingers over the damp grass. “Got you, you bastard!”



“What is it?”



“Footprints. Big, have to be Charlie’s. Grass hasn’t even had time to unbend all the way.”



“How long?”



“Half an hour. We’re close now, kiddo. Time to move quick and quiet.”



“The horses make a lot of noise.”



“I know, but it’s what we have, so we’ll need to be twice as vigilant.”