28

THEY LEFT THE OLD ROAD AND FOUND WHAT USED TO BE A HIGHWAY, so they turned and followed that. Despite the fact that his toe was hurting like crazy and his clothes were thoroughly soaked with sweat, Benny still mustered the energy to look left and right, left and right, checking every shadow under every tree for some sign of movement that could be either zoms or worse.

Charlie’s dead, he told himself, but his inner voice—the less emotional and more rational aspect of his mind—replied, You don’t know that.

He cut looks at Nix, who was also sweating heavily and yet seemed able to keep going, despite the pain and the injury. It wasn’t the first time that her strength amazed and humbled him.

They ran and walked, ran and walked.

During one of the walking times, Benny leaned to Nix. “What the heck was that?”

“Preacher Jack,” she said, and shivered. “I feel like I need a bath.”

Benny counted on his fingers. “We know—what—seven religious people? I mean people in the business.”

“You mean clerics? There’s the four in town, Pastor Kellogg, Father Shannon, Rabbi Rosemann, and Imam Murad …”

“… and the monks at the way station: Brother David, Sister Shanti, and Sister Sarah. Seven,” finished Benny. “Except for the monks, who are a little, y’know …” He tapped his temple and rolled his eyes.

“Touched by God,” Nix said. “Isn’t that the phrase Tom uses?”

“Right, except for them, everyone else is pretty okay. I mean the monks are okay too, but they’re loopy from living out here in the Ruin. But even with different religions, different churches, they’re all pretty much the kind of people you want to hang with during a real wrath-of-God moment.”

“Not him, though,” said Nix, nodding along with where Benny was going with this. “He’s scarier than the zoms.”

“‘Zoms’ is a bad word, girlie-girl,” Benny said in a fair imitation of Preacher Jack’s oily voice.

“Eww … don’t!” Nix punched him on the arm.

They walked another few paces as the road bent around a hill.

“Weird day,” Benny said.

“Weird day,” Nix agreed.

Around the bend were dozens of cars and trucks that had been pushed to the side of the main road, which left a clear path down the center. Some of the cars had tumbled into the drainage ditch that ran along one side. Others were smashed together. There were skeletons in a few of them.

“Who pushed the cars out of the way?” asked Chong.

“Probably a tank,” said Tom. “Or a bulldozer. Before they nuked the cities, back when they thought this was a winnable war.” He gestured to the line of broken cars, many of them nearly invisible behind clumps of shrubbery. “This is a well-traveled route. Traders and other people out here. All these cars have been checked for zoms a hundred times.”

Nix wasn’t fooled, and she gave Tom a sly smile. “Which doesn’t mean they’re safe. We have to check them every time, don’t we?”

Tom gave her an approving nod. “That’s the kind of thinking—”

“—that’s going to keep us alive,” finished Benny irritably. “Yeah, we pretty much get that.”

To Tom, Nix said, “He’s cranky because he didn’t think of it first.”

“Yes, I did,” Benny lied.

They moved on.

As the sun began edging toward the western tree line, they crested a hill and looked down a long dirt side road to where an old gas station sat beneath a weeping willow.

“Take a closer look,” suggested Tom, handing Benny a pair of high-power binoculars.

Benny focused the lenses and studied the scene. The surrounding vegetation was dense with overgrowth, but there was a broad concrete pad around the cluster of small buildings. An ancient billboard stood against the wall of trees. It had long ago been whitewashed, and someone had written hundreds of lines of scripture on it. Rain had faded the words so that only a few were readable.

“This is Brother David’s place?” asked Chong in a leaden voice. Between the catastrophe with the rhino and finding the dead man, and then the weird encounter with Preacher Jack, Chong seemed to have lost his humor and virtually all trace of emotion. He barely spoke, and when he did his voice lacked inflection. It was like listening to a sleepwalker.

Tom caught the sound and cut a look at Benny, who nodded.

Tom mouthed the words, “Keep your eye on him,” and Benny nodded again.

“Yup,” said Benny. “He was the first monk I ever met out here. It’s him and two girls. Sister Sarah and Sister Shanti.”

“And Old Roger,” added Nix.

“Who?” Chong asked.

“He’s a zom they take care of. Remember I told you?”

Chong nodded but didn’t comment.

They descended along a path that ran beside a mammoth line of white boulders dumped there ages ago by a glacier. A thin stream of water trickled between the rocks, but it was so small that it made no sound. Chong lagged behind the rest, and Benny slowed to keep pace with him. When Benny caught a look at Chong’s face, he almost missed his step.

There were tears at the corners of Chong’s dark eyes.

“Hey, dude. What’s—?”

Chong touched Benny’s arm. “I’m really sorry, man.”

Benny shook his head and started to protest.

“No,” Chong interrupted, “I should never have come. You guys are better off without me.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Benny said, though his voice lacked total conviction. “Besides, this way you get to spend a couple of days with Lilah—”

Chong dismissed that with a derisive snort. “Ever since the rhino thing, I’m less than dog crap to her.”

“C’mon, dude, she’s like that with everyone. I mean, she’s been trying to quiet me for a coupla days now.”

Chong merely shook his head. “I spoiled everything.”

“No way. Don’t even go there.”

“I’m sorry I came,” Chong insisted, but this time he said it more to himself. Benny was fishing for something encouraging to say when Tom stopped them all with a raised fist.

He scanned the terrain for a moment, then waved everyone over.

“Is everything okay?” Benny asked.

“Let’s find out,” Tom said guardedly.

Tom headed down the slope and the others followed. For Benny this was the first moment today that wasn’t wrapped in tension. He thought Brother David was halfway to being crazy, but he was one of the nicest people Benny had ever met, and the two girls with him were sweet-natured and pretty. All three of them were good cooks, too, and even after everything he’d seen, Benny was sure he could eat a full-size rhinoceros.

They came down onto the concrete pad, on which the single gas pump stood like a great rusted tombstone to a dead culture. Tom knocked loudly on the pump’s metal casing. The echoes bounced off the hills and came faintly back to them before melting into silence.

There was no response. Tom narrowed his eyes. “Stay here.” He walked carefully to the front door of the station and knocked. Nothing. “Brother David?” he called.

Absolutely nothing.

Scowling, Tom waved the others over and they approached with great caution, their weapons in their hands.

“Be ready,” Tom said as he reached for the door handle. It turned easily, and the door swung inward. Tom drew his pistol and moved silently inside. The others crept after him. Lilah broke to Tom’s right. Benny slipped in next, with Nix at his back, and they shifted to Tom’s left.

However, there was no need of caution.

“Where is everyone?” whispered Nix.

Tom shook his head and took a few tentative steps into the room.

Most of the front part of the station was set up for trading and an attempt at comfort. There were folding chairs, a wood-stove, and a table for meals. Benny, Tom, and Nix had stayed here several times and eaten the modest but well-cooked food offered by the Children of God; and Tom always brought some supplies as gifts.

The rest of the way station had been converted into living quarters for the monk and the two female disciples. There were bedrolls and plastic milk crates that served as bureaus and night tables. Sheets were strung on clothesline to provide marginal privacy. Garlands of flowers and herbs were hung from pegs set into the walls.

“Where are they?” Nix asked again.

“Lilah,” Tom said, “check the sheds.”

She nodded and slipped out the door without a word. It annoyed Benny a bit that Tom never asked him to do something like that, but this wasn’t the time to start an argument.

Nix crossed to the stove and looked into the pots, then held her hand above the burners. “It’s cold, but there’s food in the pots. Hasn’t gone bad yet.”

“Teacups on the table, too,” said Benny. “And it looks like all their stuff’s back there. That’s Sister Shanti’s traveling bag on her bed. Think they went out for a walk? A day trip or something?”

Tom shook his head. “No … looks like they just got up and walked out.” He knelt and picked up a pair of reading glasses. One of the lenses was cracked from side to side. “Brother David’s.” He frowned. “And there’s more. I sent a load of supplies here. Carpet coats, tents, cooking gear, extra rations, and some weapons. I don’t see any of it here.”

The door opened and Lilah came in. “Someone broke the lock on Old Roger’s shed. He’s gone … tracks lead east.”

“How long?” asked Tom.

“Late morning.”

Tom nodded again. “I think that’s when everyone left.”

They stood in the dusty sunlight, thinking that through, silently letting the implications shout at them.

“Okay … we don’t have enough daylight left to get back to town,” said Tom, “and I sure as hell don’t want to sleep up in the hills tonight. Too many weird things going on.”

“I’ll second that,” mumbled Benny.

“So we have two choices. We hole up here and fortify this place, or we push on to Sunset Hollow. If we run most of the way, we can make it by full dark.”

Benny was already shaking his head. Sunset Hollow was where he and Tom had lived before First Night. It was where the zombies of their parents had been kept by Tom for fourteen years; and it was where they were buried now. On one hand it had a high wall and a fence they could lock; on the other hand, Benny was sure that if he went back there he would go totally ape crazy.

“Nix can’t do all that running,” he said, fishing for a reasonable excuse. “And Chong has to go home tomorrow.”

“Don’t make this about me,” said Nix defiantly. “I’ll outrun your narrow butt any day of the week, Benny Imura.”

Benny winced.

“Stay here,” voted Lilah. “Five of us can hold this place.”

“There’s no back exit,” Tom replied.

Lilah considered that and said nothing. She turned and looked at the others, then frowned. “Where is Chong?”

They all turned to the door, each of them realizing that Chong had not come inside with them.

“Was he outside when you checked around back?”

She nodded but immediately rushed outside. Tom was a half step behind her.

Chong was nowhere in sight.