72

BENNY AND NIX FELL INTO DARKNESS. NEITHER OF THEM SCREAMED. Benny was too furious, and Nix … well, Benny didn’t know what Nix was feeling. He thought he heard her laugh as the darkness of the pit swallowed them. Benny waited for the crushing impact at the bottom of a long fall, but his feet struck something soft and yielded. He hit and bounced and spun, and only then did he crash to the dirt. Behind him he heard Nix rebound and then thud down.

There was enough light to see, and as Benny sat up painfully he saw that just below the hole was a sloppy stack of old mattresses, positioned to catch their fall and keep them from shattering their legs.

“Very considerate of them,” Nix muttered.

“I don’t think they care much about us.”

“No, really?” replied Nix sarcastically.

“I mean,” said Benny, “that it’s probably not as much fun to watch cripples fighting zoms.”

“Again … really?”

They got to their feet and looked around. No zoms and not much light. The pit wasn’t circular, and they could make out tunnels leading off in six separate directions.

White Bear squatted on the edge of the pit, grinning in a way that made his burned face look like a monster out of a nightmare. “Here are the rules,” he growled. “If you’re paying attention, you might already have guessed that this ain’t a straight pit-fight. There are tunnels and side passages and a few surprises cut every which way. Some of them are dead ends, and I do mean ‘dead.’”

“Ha, ha,” said Benny.

“You might also have guessed that you ain’t alone down there.”

Benny expected Nix to say “No, really?” again, but she held her tongue, so Benny supplied the sarcasm. “Well, we figured that … these being zom pits and all.”

“Watch your mouth, boy,” snapped White Bear.

“Really?” he said, and liked how it sounded. “What are you going to do? Beat us up and throw us in a pit full of the living dead?”

White Bear seemed to chew on that and apparently decided that Benny had a point.

“You were starting to tell us about rules,” prompted Nix.

“Yes indeed, little cutie. My dad placed a church bell down there. It ain’t easy to find, but it’s there. Find it and ring it and you get a free ticket out of there.”

“Until when?” demanded Nix. “Until tomorrow’s games? And then the next day and the next until we’re dead?”

“Nope. This is a real deal, straight up and hand to God. You ring that bell and we pull you out of there and put you on the road. No weapons or rations or none of that stuff, but you walk free.”

That seemed to catch Nix off guard, and she turned sharply to Benny. “Is he telling the truth?”

“I … think so,” Benny said quietly. “What’s he got to lose? If we die, then Preacher Jack proves to the crowd that we’re sinners. If we make it out and they let us go, Preacher Jack and White Bear prove that their word is good. Either way they win.”

Nix chewed her lip. He stepped closer and touched her cheek.

“Hey … are you okay? No, wait—that is the stupidest question ever asked. What I mean is—”

Nix blinked and smiled, and for a moment she was back. The old Nix. Strong and smart and sane. She grabbed Benny and gave him a fierce hug, and in a tiny whisper filled with enormous emotion said, “I don’t want to die down here, Benny.”

“Hey!” yelled White Bear. “When you two lovebirds are done making out, can we get a move on? Lot of people paid good money for this.”

Benny and Nix made the same obscene gesture at exactly the same moment. White Bear laughed out loud, and the audience applauded.

Before Benny released Nix he whispered, “We can do this. Find the bell, get out.”

“Warrior smart,” she said.

“Warrior smart,” he agreed.

“Hey!” yelled Nix. “Aren’t we supposed to have weapons or something?”

Preacher Jack leaned out over the edge. “The Children of Lazarus carry no weapons, and yet they strike with the power of the righteous. How would it be fair to arm you against them?”

“Okay,” said Benny, “then are we going to face two zom—I mean two Children—who are the same size and weight and age as us?”

The smile on Preacher Jack’s face was truly vile. It was filled with everything polluted and corrupt and unnatural that could show through smiling lips and twinkling blue eyes.

“Prayer and true repentance are your true weapons,” he said.

He stepped back, and other faces began filling the edge of the pit. Torches were placed in stands mounted on the rim, and their light turned the maze into a dim eternity of dirty yellow shadows.

Nix suddenly grabbed Benny’s arm, and he turned to see that the shadows were not empty. Things moved down the twisted tunnels. Stiff figures shuffled toward them through the gloom, and then they heard the low, hungry moan of the living dead.