Rot and Ruin

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.



Charlie pointed to him. “I’m going to save you for last. After I kick your brother’s ass, I’m going to take the Lost Girl and see how she does in a zombie pit without any weapons. That goes for your redheaded friend, too. Think that’ll be fun? Afterward, I’m going to feed you to the zoms, one finger at a time.”



Nix made a lunge at Charlie, but Tom grabbed her shoulder and held her back.



“No, sweetie,” he murmured, “this animal is mine.”



Charlie gave him “a come and get it” gesture with both hands, then called to his men. “What kind of drugs are you taking, Tom? You’re frigging well surrounded and outnumbered. We’re not going to duke it out. This isn’t a fair fight. You’re just going to die. I don’t know how you escaped them zoms back on the highway, but you should never have come back here. Not alone.”



“No,” Tom agreed, “it isn’t a fair fight. And just so you know … I’m not alone.”



Charlie looked momentarily perplexed. A few of the bounty hunters exchanged looks and then everyone turned slowly around. The rain was falling steadily now, but the moaning in the forest had nothing to do with the wind.



The entire camp was surrounded by hundreds of the living dead.



Tom Imura looked at Lilah, and they both smiled.



55



THE ZOMS SHAMBLED INTO THE CAMP, AND THE MOAN THEY LET LOOSE was an unrelenting cry of hunger that now had the promise of being satisfied. The bounty hunters screamed and backed away, colliding with one another. Everyone who had a gun began firing.



“Benny!” cried Nix, and shoved him out of the way as a zom lurched toward him. She ducked under the zombie’s arms and kicked it savagely in the knee, but as it toppled, she shoved it into the arms of one of the bounty hunters. The man shrieked as the crippled zom bore him to the ground and clamped its rotting teeth onto his shoulder.



Lilah used the butt end of her spear to jab several of the zoms in the chest, knocking them away as she retreated. “With me!” she called, and Benny and Nix clustered next to her. Neither of them had a weapon. “Gun!” Lilah barked, but Benny looked around, expecting to see someone trying to shoot him. Nix, however, caught Lilah’s meaning and reached for the pistol in the Lost Girl’s holster. It was an automatic, and Nix racked the slide and took the gun in a firm two-handed shooter’s grip as the three of them kept backing toward the wagons.



Benny saw one of the zoms—it was the huge man in the tattered overalls of a mechanic—grab a bounty hunter by the throat and drive him back against a tree. The ropes that had once held the mechanic to the tree in the Hungry Forest still dangled from his wrists. Other shapes moved through the shadows behind him. Ropes dangled from withered necks and emaciated waists, and firelight sparkled in their dead, black eyes.