Dust & Decay (32 page)

“Uh-huh. Bobbie tried to run that by the Bear, and look what it got him,” agreed Gunslinger. “The same thing you’re gonna get if you don’t put a lot of gone between you and the Bear’s territory.”

“No way,” said Stosh stubbornly. He produced a piece of paper from a pocket and shook it at them. “I know how much the Bear wants Tom. You see the prices on this thing? You ever
saw bounties like that? No! The Bear wants the whole bunch of them, and he’ll kiss my butt if I bring them in. All of ’em. Tommy, that skank Riley chick, the Lost Girl, and Tom’s rat-meat brother.”

Redhead took the paper and read it, nodding. “Yeah … a man could retire off of this.”

“If you’re lucky,” said Tom as he stood up from behind the bush, “it’ll cover your funeral expenses.”

The three men spun toward him. The black gunslinger made a grab for his twin .45s, but Tom drew and fired in a single smooth move that was too fast for the eye to follow. Gunslinger pitched backward, a neat round hole punched into his forehead above the left eyebrow. It was the kind of kill the bounty hunters called a “one and done.” Head shot, no need to quiet the body later.

That left Stosh and Redhead standing on either side of the corpse, both of them gaping in wide-eyed horror. “Holy jeez,” whispered Stosh. “Tom!”

Redhead sneered. “I know who it is.” He narrowed his eyes to feral slits. “You just shot an innocent man, pardner. You don’t know what kind of trouble you’re—”

Tom put a bullet in the dirt between the man’s feet.

“Save it for someone who cares,” he said quietly. “Lose the hardware.”

The smoking barrel of the gun offered no option for debate. Weapons clanked as they fell to the ground.

“All of it,” warned Tom.

They looked disgusted but began removing knives, two-shot derringers, strangle-wires, and brass knuckles from hidden pockets.

“Kick them away. Good. Now, listen to me,” said Tom, his eyes flat and hard. “You guys have one chance to walk out of this alive.”

“What are you offering?” demanded Redhead warily.

“Straight exchange. You answer my questions and I let you walk out. If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I’m a hard guy to lie to, but you’ll also know I keep my word. You walk out and go somewhere else. I don’t see you again. You don’t work these hills ever again.”

Stosh snorted. “What’s it to you where we work? Heard you were leaving town.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone. People are talking about it all through the Ruin. Fast Tommy Imura’s leaving town for good. Going on some kind of quest to find that jet plane, or at least that’s the cover story.”

“Way I heard it,” said Redhead, “is that you lost your nerve, that you’re running from White Bear. White Bear says this whole area is his now. He’s bringing in more muscle than you can handle, so you’re cutting out to save your butt. The jet thing is just a cover story to save face.”

“Anyone really believe that?” Tom asked, amused.

“Doesn’t matter. With you gone, the Bear will own the whole Ruin, and folks will believe what he wants them to believe. Bear’s like that.”

“Everyone needs a hobby,” said Tom neutrally.

“What is it you want to know?” asked Stosh. “To let us walk?”

“First, I want that piece of paper,” demanded Tom. “It’s a bounty sheet, right? Give it to me. Don’t get cute about it
either. Put it on the ground, weigh it down with a rock. Then step back.”

Redhead did as he was told. He backed up until Tom ordered him to stop. Tom stooped and plucked the paper from under the rock and glanced at it. There were four sketches on the sheet. The text read:

Reward for Four Murderers

Payment on Delivery at G

Nix Riley: ALIVE (one year’s ration dollars);
DEAD (one month’s ration dollars)

Benny Imura: ALIVE (one year’s ration
dollars); DEAD (one month’s ration dollars)

Lilah (aka the Lost Girl): ALIVE (two years’
ration dollars); DEAD (one month’s ration
dollars)

Tom Imura: ALIVE (five years’ ration dollars);
DEAD (one year’s ration dollars)

Tom stuffed it in his pocket. “Who’s looking?”

“Everyone’s looking,” said Redhead. “Whole Ruin’s filled with hunters working your trail.”

“You’re the first I’ve seen. Except for Stosh’s dead friends.”

“Then you’re looking in the wrong place. Everyone knows the routes you usually take, and we got word from town that you were heading out yesterday. Everybody—and I mean everybody—knows that White Bear’s got a stack of cash on this.”

Tom considered. He’d taken Benny and the others out on a route he hadn’t used in months. His intention had been to
keep the kids away from the areas of heaviest zombie infestation, but now it seemed as if that decision had saved all their lives. At least so far.

“Paper says ‘payment at G.’ G for Gameland?”

“Yeah. This is all off the record, so to speak,” said Stosh, grinning at Tom with uneven yellow teeth. “From what I heard, they’ll pay double if the young’uns are brought to Gameland with some spunk left in ’em. People say you’ve been training ’em a bit. That means they’d last a whole week, maybe two in the pits. There’s serious money in the Z-Games.”

“This is a lot of money. What’s White Bear’s stake? Especially if I’m leaving?”

Both men looked momentarily confused. “What do you think, man?” asked Stosh, totally perplexed.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask,” said Tom. “And you’re wasting my time.”

“Oh man,” said Redhead, “this is great. This is like those old comedy shows from back in the day. This is fricking hilarious!”

And suddenly Redhead made his move. He kicked a baseball-size rock at Tom and charged forward in a powerful tackle. They must have shared some kind of signal, because Stosh was only a half step behind him. Redhead caught Tom around the chest, and Stosh slammed his shoulders into Tom’s thighs. The three of them crashed backward into the bushes in a cloud of torn leaves, dust, grunts, and yells.

And then a single male voice let loose a high-pitched scream.

A death scream.

FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

Information on bites (zombie and human) that I’ve collected.

I copied some of this from notes Tom put together for us to study before we leave.

Male adult humans bite with more force than adult females.

Adult humans bite with more force than human children.

Zoms do not bite as hard as humans, because their teeth ligaments have decayed.

A “fresh” zombie will be physically stronger in both limb and bite-capability than a weak one, but still less than a human. So the more the zoms decay, the weaker they’ll get.

Dr. Gurijala said (after I bugged him about it fifty times), “Teeth are not fused to bone but rather are attached to the bone by a ligament system. As decomposition occurs, this ligament breaks down and releases the teeth. Morphology of the tooth root will sometimes cause them to be retained in skeletal remains, but the cone-shaped roots of the incisors tend to make them more prone to postmortem loss.”

The act of biting through skin and actually avulsing or tearing out a piece would require forces at the high range of the human biting force. So zombies aren’t likely to tear out large chunks of a person, as people claim in their First Night stories. If they do tear off something, it’s probably from a weak and vulnerable piece of anatomy (e.g., an earlobe).

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

B
ENNY,
N
IX,
J-D
OG, AND
D
R.
S
KILLZ STOOD IN THE ROAD AND WATCHED
the three zoms shuffle toward them. Sister Shanti was out in front, with Brother David and Sister Sarah close behind. They were still sixty yards away.

“They’re still moving slow,” said Benny. “Not like the ones from the barn.”

“Totally,” agreed J-Dog.

Benny looked at him. “So how come the others were fast? I never heard of fast zoms before. Have you?”

“Tall tales out of the east,” said Dr. Skillz. “No one I know’s put goggles on ’em, though.”

“That’s crazy. How can zoms be fast?” demanded Nix.

J-Dog grinned. “Dudette … how can they be zoms?”

Dr. Skillz pulled down his sunglasses and peered over the dark lenses at the monk and the sisters. “That’s a bummer. Brother David’s trippy but totally boglius.”

“I can’t understand anything you’re saying!” grumbled Nix irritably.

“Yeah, okay,” Dr. Skillz chuckled, “busted. Let’s see if you grok this. The Dog and me are friends with Brother Dave. Between you and me, cutie, I think Dog’s sweet on Shanti.”

“She’s bootylicious—,” began J-Dog.

“English,” insisted Nix.

“She’s fine.” Then J-Dog looked down the hill, and his goofy surfer grin drained away to reveal genuine sadness. “She was fine. Sweet, too.”

“They were friends of ours,” said Dr. Skillz. Benny caught a look in his eyes that was miles from the sun and fun of a beach. In that unguarded moment, he could see the hurt in the hunter’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Benny. “I liked them too.”

The four of them stood and watched the three zoms struggle up the hill. Even though he knew they were beyond feeling anything, it seemed to Benny that each step looked painful. It made his heart hurt.

“Who would do something like that?” demanded Nix.

“A real monster,” said Benny.

Dr. Skillz nodded. “For sure. There’s killing and then there’s murder. Brother Dave and the girls never hurt no one.”

“What … should we do?”

“Quiet them,” said J-Dog. “Put ’em to rest.”

“No,” said Nix and Dr. Skillz at the same time.

“It’s not what they would want,” said Benny.

J-Dog sighed, and under his breath muttered, “Son of a bitch must pay.”

“Word. But dude, we’d better roll,” suggested J-Dog. “Or we won’t have a choice.”

They turned and hurried away at a light jog, putting a mile of crooked road between them and the zoms. Soon Brother David, Sister Shanti, and Sister Sarah were out of
sight. Benny knew that without prey to follow, the zoms would stop pursuing them. He wondered if they would stand in the road for years like so many zoms did.

They slowed and walked under the shade of a line of young white oaks. “Story time,” said J-Dog. “The kahuna said—”

“Who?” interrupted Benny.

“Tom, man. Tom’s the big kahuna. He’s a crusher, he’s the legend.”

“Okay … but can we just call him ‘Tom’?”

Dr. Skillz grinned. “You guys are rough.”

“We don’t speak surfer,” said Nix. “We’ve never even seen the ocean.”

“Yeah.” Dr. Skillz sighed. “And we ain’t seen it since First Night. Sucks.”

“Tom,” prompted Benny.

“Right … Tom said you guys were heading east to find the jet. Said to meet you at the way station, but we just came from there and it’s mosty-toasty. Someone had a luau supremo and roasted a lot of zoms.”

“That would be us,” said Benny uneasily. He and Nix explained what happened.

Dr. Skillz grinned. “Way to think outside the box, duderman.”

“We lost Lilah, though,” said Nix. “She ran away.”

“Spook girl got spooked?” J-Dog shook his head. “Lot of forest to get lost in. Anyway … Tom said you’d be hitting Brother Dave’s first and then cruising to Wawona, so we caught a wave and here we are.”

“Nice timing,” said Benny appreciatively. “Thanks.”

“Hey, our pleasure,” Dr. Skillz said with a grin. “Fast Tommy’s saved our butts enough times.”

“Totally,” said J-Dog. “Wawona’s not far from here. Good place to kick back.”

“Is that where you were coming from?” asked Benny.

Dr. Skillz removed his shades to clean them. “Nah. We ain’t been there in almost three months. Been doing a lot of guard work for the scavenge team way over at Lushmeadows Estates. Got hired to clear out all the zoms and then babysit the scavenger team.”

J-Dog gave an enthusiastic nod. “Yeah … made some nice green, too. We ran into Tom last week and told him we’d be crashing at Wawona, though. Still some snow high up, so we were gonna rest up, then go high and snowboard. It’ll be a powwow for sure. Saaaa-weeeeet!”

“Um. Okay,” said Benny uncertainly, not sure what a “snowboard” was.

“We were heading to Wawona,” Nix interjected, “but we don’t have to. I mean … there’s four of us now. Shouldn’t we go try and find Tom and Chong?”

Dr. Skillz put his shades back on. “No doubt. Kind of surprised Tom isn’t already back.”

“Wait,” yelped Benny, “what are you saying? That Tom’s in trouble?”

“I didn’t say he was in trouble,” said Dr. Skillz. “It’s just that a lot of weird stuff’s been happening in the last few weeks. We missed most of it ’cause we were over at Lushmeadows. Bunch of animals coming out of the east, and an upsurge in the zom head count.”

“And now we got fast zoms,” said J-Dog. “Weird times.”

“It’s weirder than you think,” said Benny, and he told them about the man who hadn’t reanimated.

“Whoa,” said J-Dog. “You sure?”

“Tom was sure,” said Nix.

The bounty hunters looked at each other, then turned and looked back the way they had come, as if some kind of answer was painted on the forest.

“For the record, dude, I do not dig this,” murmured Dr. Skillz.