Bits & Pieces (31 page)

No one said a word.

“Like I said, there are conditions,” repeated Ledger. He pointed to the ground. “First, drop the hardware. All of it. Poles, knives, anything you have. Do it now.”

There were about three full seconds of hesitation as the men looked at one another and at Mama Rat and then into the eyes of Captain Ledger and Tom Imura. Baskerville stood and moved into a flanking position; and immediately Bones
pulled away from Rags and did the same on the far side of the group. It was still eight to four, but the defeat was clear in the eyes of everyone there.

Mama Rat began pulling weapons from her pockets. Knives, a hatchet, a surgeon's scalpel. They clattered to the ground.

Then the others began doing the same. The catch-poles with their loops fell first, then knives and wrenches and other things. Rags saw a pair of nunchakus and a small pistol. She guessed it was out of ammunition or the man would have pulled it.

Baskerville padded over to the pile of weapons, hoisted a leg, and peed on it.

Everyone watched.

Joe Ledger was the only person who smiled.

“Tom—?” he said, and waited as the sad-faced swordsman moved among the men and patted them down, doing it exactly the way cops did on TV. Very quick, very thorough. “Be mighty sad if he finds something one of you idiots was trying to hide,” observed Ledger.

One of the men cleared his throat, held up a hand, palm outward, and with two fingers of the other hand slipped a push-dagger from a concealed pocket. Tom got up in his face and took it from him. Their eyes locked and held until the skull-rider couldn't do it anymore and dropped his gaze.

For a moment Rags thought Tom was going to do something. His whole body trembled with potential, but instead he shook his head and finished patting down the men. When he was done he walked over to Mama Rat, who immediately laced her fingers together and placed them on the top of her
head. She closed her eyes while Tom patted her down, but snapped them open again when the young man removed something from her jeans pocket.

“Hey!” she said, making a grab for it. “That's not a—”

Tom slapped her hand away and backed up. He showed the item to Ledger, but Rags could see it too. It was a silver locket with a broken chain. Tom opened it and stared at the picture, then held it out.

Rags saw the picture inside. It was a girl of about seven. Very pretty, with a pair of braided brown pigtails.

“That's mine,” insisted Mama Rat. “Please—”

“Who's she?” asked Rags. “Is that your daughter?”

Mama Rat could not meet her eyes. She turned her head and looked at the nothingness down the empty street.

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Did . . . did the dead people get her?”

Mama Rat shook her head.

“Where is she?” asked Tom.

It clearly cost Mama Rat to answer that. “Back . . . back at our camp.”

Tom made a sick sound.

Ledger asked, “She's safe there, isn't she?”

Mama Rat nodded.

“Are there other kids there too?” Ledger demanded.

A nod.

“Kids who you people keep
safe
?” the big man growled.

Nod.

“And you bring kids like me back there?” asked Rags. “Not to keep us safe?”

No nod this time, but Rags could read the truth in the woman's eyes.

“Why?” asked Rags. “I mean . . .
how
can you be someone's mom and do that stuff to other kids? How can you be someone's mom and a monster at the same time?”

Mama Rat's knees buckled, and she sank slowly to the ground.

In that moment, Rags wanted to kill this woman herself. She could feel the need to destroy bursting like fireworks in her chest, behind her eyes. Her fists contracted into tight balls of bone and gristle and she wanted, needed,
ached
to kill. To slaughter. To destroy. Mama Rat and anyone like her. She could understand what made a person into a cold killer like Captain Ledger. She could understand what turned a gentle man like Tom Imura into the kind of person who could do the things he'd clearly done. She told herself that it wouldn't be murder. It would be no different from killing a scorpion that got into the house. Or a rattlesnake.

Bones and Baskerville seemed to feel her rage, and they both threw back their heads and let loose with howls as grim and loud as any wolf had ever thrown at a hunter's moon.

Rags held out her hand to Tom, and he gave her the locket. This tore a small cry from Mama Rat, and the woman made a half movement forward as if she wanted to grab it and take it back. But Rags stared her down, and the woman seemed to collapse back into herself.

The little girl in the picture was smiling.

No one else was.

“What's her name?” asked Rags.

“Caitlyn.”

“It's a pretty name.”

Mama Rat nodded.

“Did you have any other kids?”

“No.”

“Where's Caitlyn's dad?”

“He left,” said Mama Rat. “Long ago. Before.”

“So it's you and her?”

A nod.

Rags showed her the picture, holding it up as if the little girl could see her mother through it. “Does she know what you do to people?”

No answer.

“Does she?”

“No.”

“No,” agreed Rags. “What do you think she'd say if she knew?”

No answer. Rags caught the glance Tom and Ledger shared between them. Ledger was about to say something, but Tom shook his head. They waited, letting Rags own this moment.

“I know what she'd say.”

“You don't even know her.”

Rags shrugged. “How's that matter?”

No answer.

“What would she say?” asked Tom.

Rags still held the locket out. “She'd hate you,” she said to Mama Rat. “She'd hate you and she'd run away.”

A breath of wind swept down the street, and it made the locket sway on its broken chain. It blew some of the stink of the dead skunk away. And it carried a distant sound, something
that made everyone look. Both dogs growled softly. The sound was a moan.

Not one voice. Many.

Although she couldn't see them yet, Rags knew that the dead were coming.

The dead always came.

“We're drawing a crowd,” said Ledger. “Put a button on this, kid, and let's get out of here.”

Rags nodded. “I can't make you promise that you'll stop doing this stuff. I don't think I'd believe you even if you did promise. You're a monster. So are your friends. Monsters. Maybe you like being monsters. You seem to, and that's sick. It's sad and it's sick.”

No one spoke.

The wind carried the hungry cries of the dead.

“I'm just a kid,” said Rags, “so you probably don't care anything about me or what I have to say. Maybe I'm wasting my breath. Maybe I'm being stupid and naive. I don't know. I hope not, because I really don't want these two men and their dogs to kill you. They would, you know. If I hadn't asked them not to. If I wasn't here. They'd kill you.” Rags shook her head. “Maybe even now, if I asked them to do it, they'd kill all of you. You can see that they would. That they could. They're killers.”

Tom sighed again.

“But there's a difference,” said Rags. “They're killers, but they're not monsters.”

She went over and handed the locket back to Mama Rat.

“Maybe you can stop being monsters too.”

Rags had to wait a long time before Mama Rat took
the locket back. The woman's hands were shaking as she wrapped them both around the locket, but Rags didn't immediately let go of the chain. The brief tug-of-war forced the woman to meet Rags's eyes.

“My family used to go to church,” said Rags. “When my family was alive. When there was a world. Every Sunday we'd dress up nice and go. Since all this started, I think I stopped believing in God for a while. Not sure I believe even now. It's hard to believe in anything when everything is dying.”

As if in agreement, the dead moaned louder.

They were in sight now. A dozen of them, shambling through the park, coming from different directions. Not dangerously close yet, but coming. Definitely coming.

“One of the stories I remember from church,” continued Rags, “is the one about Cain and Abel. You know that one? Everyone does. They were brothers, and I forget why they had a fight, but Cain killed Abel. Bashed his head in. I guess that means Cain invented murder. When I first heard that story, I thought that it was going to end with God killing Cain. Like for punishment, you know? But he didn't. He let Cain live. Cain's pretty much the ancestor of everyone else. That's crazy when you think about it. Cain, the guy who committed the first murder, is the one ancestor we all share. You're white, I'm black, Tom's an Asian guy—but we all go back to Cain.”

The moans of the dead floated on the breeze.

“Do you know what God did?” said Rags. “He told everyone that they weren't allowed to kill Cain. He made it a sin to do that. And he put a mark on Cain so that everyone would
know who he was. They'd know, and they'd have to let him live. I never understood that story before.” Rags let go of the chain. “Now I think maybe I do.”

She reached out and touched the skull tattoo on Mama Rat's chest.

“Anyone who looks at you can see the same mark.”

Mama Rat touched the tattoo as well, and for a brief moment their fingers touched. Something passed between them, like a static shock. Rags felt it, and she knew that Mama Rat did too.

“We're supposed to survive this, you know,” said Rags, stepping back. “This plague, all this disease and stuff. We're supposed to survive it.”

“How . . . how do you know that?”

Rags thought about it, then shrugged and shook her head.

“Because we're still alive. That has to mean something.”

“What if it doesn't mean anything?” asked Mama Rat, clutching the locket to her breast. “What if none of this means anything?”

Rags shrugged again. “No. What if it does?”

With that she turned away. The dead were coming closer.

Captain Ledger and Tom stepped back and glanced at each other. Then they turned away too. The dogs were the last to leave.

The two men, the girl, and the two big dogs walked together along the street. Away from the dead, and away from the eight monsters who stood together near their pile of discarded weapons.

That night they camped on the top floor of an office building. Tom stayed with Rags while Ledger and the dogs cleared the building, checking for the dead. When it was clear, they went up to the fifth floor and found an office that had two couches and big windows. They made a cooking fire in a metal trash can, and Ledger produced cans of Spam from his pack. They ate in silence. In fact, none of them had spoken a word since they'd left Mama Rat.

When they were done eating, they sat on the couches and watched the sunset. Bones laid his big head on Rags's lap. Baskerville, free of his spiked and bladed armor, crawled under a big desk and began snoring.

It was Tom who broke the silence. “What you did back there?” he began, his voice soft. “What you said? That was very brave.”

“Brave?” said Rags, surprised.

“Oh yeah,” agreed Ledger. “You're something else, kid.”

Rags shrugged.

“Want to tell us about your family?” asked Tom.

She shook her head.

They nodded.

The sun set and the stars came out. With no lights in the city, there were ten billion jewels in the nighttime sky. They sat and watched them and said nothing.

Finally Tom said, “Do you want to come with us? There's a small town out near Yosemite. It's an old reservoir, but we're building a fence and planting some crops. We have about a
thousand people now. More coming in all the time. You'd be welcome. You'd be safe.”

Instead of answering, Rags asked, “What do you think she'll do?”

“Mama Rat?” asked Ledger. Then he shrugged. “I know you'd like to believe that she and her crew are going to have a change of heart and devote the rest of their lives to good works. But . . .”

He let the rest hang.

“If she hurts another kid,” said Rags, “is that on me? Will that be my fault?”

“Ooh,” said Ledger, wincing, “that is one tough philosophical question.”

“No,” said Tom, “it's not. You're asking if mercy is wrong if the person who receives it goes out and does something wrong again.”

“I guess I am,” said Rags. “I've been sitting here thinking about it and wondering if I did something stupid or wrong.”

The men gave it serious thought. They all did, and Ledger surprised her by being the first to answer. “No,” he said. “If mercy's the wrong choice, then how screwed are we as a species?”

“But you'd have killed them,” said Rags.

“Yes, I would have,” he admitted. “And I still wish I had.”

“But—”

“But that doesn't make me right. And showing mercy to a monster doesn't make you wrong.”

She shook her head. “I don't really understand it.”

Tom smiled for the first time. A sad and wistful smile. “Who ever does?” He leaned over and patted Rags on the knee. “But I have to tell you, the difference between what I
would have done, and what Joe would have done, and what you did, is simple. And it's important. Maybe more important than anything. Maybe more important than mercy itself.”

She studied his dark eyes, waiting.

“What you did was based on hope.”

“Hope,” she echoed.

“If we give up hope, then this world really will belong to the monsters and the dead.” He smiled again. “And I thank you for that.”

Ledger looked thoughtfully at Tom, then nodded to Rags. “Yeah. That says it. Hope.” He grinned and shook his head. “In this day and age, who'd have thought there was any of that left?”