Dust & Decay (23 page)

“Nix—stop!” Benny hissed. “Just stop. Stand still.”

Nix looked absolutely terrified as all around her hungry mouths worked as if already devouring her. “Benny …”

“Shhh,” he soothed, the sound as soft as a whisper, and then mouthed the words, “Keep perfectly still.” If she stopped moving, would the cadaverine do its job? Would the zoms closing in on her lose interest?

It’s not going to work.
Milling zoms closed around her, the ragged shreds of their clothes brushing her like insect wings in the dark. Nix shivered. The wooden sword in her hands trembled. As the zombies came closer still, she began to raise the sword.

No!
Benny almost screamed it aloud, but he clamped his control into place.
It’s your fault she’s in trouble. Be smart … find a way.

Benny nodded, but in truth he was at the threshold of panic. One wild idea after another flashed through his mind, and he slapped each one away. Brash heroics, a suicidal charge … plans that were filled with romantic heroism or
tragic sacrifice, but empty of practicality. Consider everything. The place. The time. The light. The breeze.

Benny edged toward Nix, moving with the breeze, swaying, becoming part of the movement of the crowd of dead.
You have everything you need. You have tools. You have resources.

He wanted to tell the inner voice to shut the hell up and let him think. Charlie Pink-eye was back there somewhere. Maybe aiming a pistol at him right now. Or at Nix.
Don’t make assumptions. See only what is there.

He took one hand off the bokken and slowly, lightly patted his pockets. His fingers touched the remaining bottles of cadaverine. Should he use those? Would more smell help?

No.

He touched a small oblong shape that rattled softly. Use what you have. Benny suddenly had an idea. It was a crazy, insanely dangerous idea. Around him a sea of zoms moaned as they shuffled toward the gas station, toward him, toward Nix.

He shot a look at Nix. She was trembling so badly that her bokken was visibly shaking. A couple of zoms pawed at it. One of them suddenly grabbed it and pulled. Nix began to resist, but Benny shook his head and mouthed, “Let it go.” Her eyes flared in horror at the suggestion, but her small hands opened and the zom tore the wooden sword away from her. It took the bokken in both hands, holding it like an ear of corn, and bit down on it. There was a crunch and a crack and the zombie snarled and cast the sword away, one of its teeth still buried in the hardwood.

Moving in ultra slow-motion, Benny slid his free hand into the front pocket of his jeans. The cadaverine bottles clinked, and then he found the oblong box he was looking for. It was
made of stiff paper, and it rattled dryly as he removed it.

The zom closest to him turned sharply and peered at him with dust-covered eyes. Benny wondered how it could see with dead eyes. Another mystery that he thought would never be solved.
Don’t waste time sightseeing.

The zom moaned.

Benny moaned back and shuffled a few feet to the left. The zom stood there and watched him go. The dead could not show confusion on their slack faces, but Benny could almost feel the creature’s conflict. The impulse to hunt only the living was at war with the stench of decay. It swayed there in indecision as Benny took another shuffling sideways step. The gray eyes never left Benny’s face.

Hurry.
Moving with infinite slowness, Benny thumbed open the little cardboard box. Twenty-five pale stick matches lay in tight rows. He used his thumbnail to separate one of them. He was about to close the box when his inner voice hissed at him to make a smarter choice.

The zom was still watching him. So were two others. Watching? Or just standing?

The carpet coat was hot, but ice-cold sweat ran in rivulets down the back of Benny’s shirt. His heart was pounding so hard he could not understand why it didn’t sound like a bass drum. He turned his head slightly and saw that Nix was still there, and he wondered how much time had just passed. Was it three seconds? Ten? An hour? Or no time at all? He couldn’t tell. Nothing felt real.

Hurry!

He paused, then placed the first match between his teeth and removed another. He thumbed the box closed and turned
it between his fingers, exposing a dark strip on one side. The matches were of the “storm” kind, coated with wax to keep them waterproof, with a chemical mix that would keep them burning in rain or wind.

“God … let this work!” He said it aloud, and he said it too loud. The watching zom suddenly lurched forward, its rubbery lips twitching. The abruptness of its movements made the creatures around it twitch and turn and move in Benny’s direction. Had they focused on him, or were the others following the first one?

There was no time to sort it out. Benny put the white tip of the match against the strike board and flicked his wrist. The fire was small, but in the darkness of the field it flared like a tiny sun. The snap of ignition and the hiss as the flames consumed the chemicals were shockingly loud.

“No!” Nix cried, and some of the zoms turned toward her.

But many, many more of them were entirely focused on Benny. Holding the match out in front of him, he stared for a moment in nearly brainless shock as the light revealed the full horror of the moment. Hundreds of white faces had turned toward the sound and the flare of light. Their awful moan split the air. The closest zom grabbed his arm, and before Benny could pull away it bit down with savage force on his wrist. Two others closed on him and grabbed at his other arm. Teeth closed around his forearm. The pain was instant and terrible.

Benny bit down on a scream, praying that the carpet coat was protecting him from the disease carried by the bites of the living dead. He kicked out with all his force, catching the closest zom with a flat-footed thrust to the thigh that sent it
lurching away. It lost its hold on his wrist, but immediately another zom lumbered past it, reaching for the prize.

Now! NOW!

Benny tore himself free of the other zoms and darted forward as the zom closed on him. He prayed with all his might that the match wouldn’t go out. It puffed and flickered in the breeze. He had the stick of the other clamped between his teeth just in case. The zom reached for him, and Benny ducked under the pale hands, thrusting the match into the tattered folds of its clothes. In a flash the dry shreds of tie and suit jacket caught and flames shot up into the night. With a grunt of effort powered by rage and fear, Benny shoved the burning zom into the other creatures who had been closing in. They were all dry as kindling, and fire leaped from one to the other with frightening speed, sparks carried by the night wind.

Within seconds a half-dozen zombies were burning like giant candles. They did not beat at the flames, they did not scream … and that was deeply disturbing to Benny. Somehow it was worse that they were so ignorant of pain than if they shrieked and howled, though he could not grasp why. It was unnatural and wrong in more ways that he could count.

He whipped the other match from between his teeth and lit it as another wave of zoms closed in on him from behind. He used his forearm to bash aside the grasping hands and jabbed the match into the lace of a wedding gown, the folds of a loose cardigan, the ripped streamers of a halter top, the coattails of a waiter’s jacket. The match burned his fingers, and he dropped it.

“BENNY!” He heard Nix’s piercing cry and whirled to see
flames shoot up behind him. It took him a numb second to understand how the fire could have jumped that far, and then he realized. Nix had seen what he was doing, and she—beautiful, brilliant, and brave as he knew she was—had done the same. He almost laughed out loud. She ducked and snatched up her fallen sword and used it to fend off a burning zom.

Then Benny drew his bokken and swung with all the force he possessed, hitting a burning zom on the side of the neck so hard that he felt the shock through his wrist as the creature’s neck snapped. The zom fell hard into two others, and they immediately caught fire. A wall of heat slammed into him, and the laugh died in his throat.

“Uh-oh,” he said aloud. The sound of his voice didn’t matter now. The roar of the fire was immense, the heat like an open furnace.

“BENNY!”

He turned and had to squint through the yellow glare to see Nix moving at a dead run toward the southeast. Something touched his shoulder, and Benny screamed.

The first zom—the one he’d kicked—had just grabbed him with a burning hand. Intense white-hot agony shot through Benny’s shoulder as the fiery fingers ignited the fabric of the carpet coat.

Benny shrieked in pain and swung the bokken with all his force. The zom’s head exploded into thick flaming pieces and the creature fell away. But its hand still clutched the fabric of Benny’s coat. Benny kicked and slapped and hammered at the zom’s arm until the blackened fingers fell away. He slapped at the flames on his shoulder. The carpet coat was old but not as sun-dried as the rags the zoms wore, but as he beat out the
last dancing fingers of fire, he could feel burns on the skin of his shoulder and upper arm. If it hadn’t been for the thick fabric of the coat …

Then another hand grabbed him and he whirled, raising the sword to strike, but it was Nix. Her face was black from smoke, and her eyes were wild.

“COME ON!” she screeched, and dragged him away. Heat pounded them like fists on all sides, and the air itself was becoming too hot to breathe.

“Where’s Lilah?” he yelled.

“I don’t know. God—we have to go!”

They ran. The zoms were drawn to the massive flames, and as they crowded toward the commotion, more and more of them caught fire. The breeze caught pieces of burning cloth and burning flesh and whipped them across the field, setting new blazes here and there and soon … everywhere. As they ran it seemed as if the whole world had suddenly caught fire.

FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

(Benny: If you are reading my journal, STOP. This part is private. If I find out that you read this, so help me I’ll beat you to death and then when you reanimate I’ll beat you to death all over again.)

Dear Future Nix:

I haven’t written for a while. I’ve been too busy collecting zombie information. I tried to talk to Lilah about this, but she doesn’t understand boys. At all. Not even a little bit.

Benny keeps wanting me to act like we’re a couple. And we ARE a couple, but sometimes I just can’t do the lovey-dovey stuff. It feels weird. I never had a boyfriend before, and even though I’ve liked Benny since—what? Since we were six?—I’m not sure if I want to get totally wrapped up. Not that there’s anyone else. We’re out in the Ruin and there really is NO ONE ELSE. It’s just that ever since last year it feels like there’s stuff wrapped around my emotions. Nothing feels really real. Except being scared. That’s always real. And being angry. I’m ALWAYS angry. Even when we’re all
joking, I’m always angry. Benny doesn’t know about that. I’m good at hiding it, and boys aren’t so good at seeing it.

It’s really confusing. Benny and I are never going back home. We may not meet other kids our age. Do I want to be with him because we don’t have a choice or because that was our choice?

You’re reading this in the future. You know how it all worked out. I don’t.

I do like Benny. I probably love him, but it’s hard to tell the difference between the crush I’ve had all these years and real love.

What does that feel like? Will I ever know?

W
HEN
L
OU
C
HONG WOKE UP THE FIRST TIME, HE THOUGHT HE WAS
in hell.

When he woke up the second time, he knew he was.

The first thing he was aware of was pain. The bones of his face ached so deeply that his gums hurt. When he tried to move his head, the strained muscles in his neck flared with darts of searing pain that lanced through him. He tried to touch his face, to see how bad he was hurt, but his hands would not move. Which was when he felt the pain in his wrists and ankles.

“W-what?” he asked. Except that he could not speak. A thick and noxious rag was tied around his head, a knot of it shoved between his teeth. All he could do was groan. Like a zom.

He blinked his eyes, trying to clear them. Vision returned very slowly. At first all he saw was dirt and some clumps of crooked grass. At least that helped him orient himself. He was on his side, on the ground.

And he was bound and gagged. Panic was a trembling thing that fluttered inside the walls of his chest. He wanted to scream out, to attract attention, to be able to say, reasonably
and calmly, that this was all a mistake. He wanted to apologize for whatever he must have done to have made someone this mad at him. Had Captain Strunk thrown him in jail? Had he and Benny and Morgie broken someone’s window? Had they been caught stealing eggs from the Lamba Farm again? Or had one of the town watch caught them throwing the eggs at the old Pettit place?

Pain rolled up and down him like a tide, never pausing, missing nothing. He could not believe that he was capable of hurting in so many places at once.

“Help!” It came out as a weak grunt of meaningless noise.

“Well, well,” said a voice. “Look who’s awake.” A booted foot stepped down inches from Chong’s nose. “You was out so long I thought I was going to have to quiet you.” The man had a deep voice that was strangely familiar and at the same time alien. Chong’s head hurt too much to make logical sense of it.

He tried to crane his neck to look up, but he couldn’t move his head far enough. It felt as if the gag was tied in some way to whatever had been used to bind his ankles and wrists.