Rot and Ruin
Page 24

Jessie Riley.
As he ran, Benny repeated a single word over and over:
“Nix.”
29
BENNY RAN AS FAST HE COULD, AND EVEN THOUGH TOM WAS FAR AHEAD, by the time they passed the stables, Benny had caught up. Captain Strunk was blocks behind. As they passed the long, flat Ration Office, they ran abreast, and it was side-by-side that they jumped the hedges on the left side of the Riley property. They skidded to a halt in the wet grass.
A boy sat on the top step of the tiny house. He was neatly dressed, and he held a small bunch of daffodils in one hand, the flowers lying in twisted tangles across his thighs.
Benny said, with total surprise, “Morgie?”
The boy did not move. His head was bowed forward, as if he dozed there on the porch step. Moonlight was breaking through the cloud cover, and in its wan glow, Morgie’s face looked unnaturally pale.
“Careful, Benny,” Tom warned. He drew his sword and looked up and down the street, but except for the flicker of torchlight, nothing moved. The only sound was the nervous nickering and blowing of horses in the stables.
Benny took a step forward. Morgie sat still, his arms crossed over his stomach, his knees pressed together. He looked like he was huddled there against the cold rain and had fallen asleep. Except that his clothes were dry.
“Morgie? Are you okay, man?”
Morgie did not raise his head or move in any way.
“C’mon … don’t do this to me, Morg,” urged Benny as he moved closer. He brought the bokken in front of him, taking it with both hands. “Give me something here, man.”
Slowly, awkwardly, Morgie Mitchell raised his head, and what Benny saw tore a gasp from him. Morgie’s face was as icy pale as the moon. His eyes were dark and uncomprehending, sunk into shadowy pits, his lips slack.
There was fresh blood on his lips. It glistened like oil in the moonlight.
“No …” Benny’s breaths burned in his lungs, and he shook his head, denying the possibility of this.
Tom raised his sword over his shoulder, the steel glittering in the cold moonlight.
“Say something,” Tom ordered, his voice hard.
Morgie’s mouth worked, but no words came out. Tom’s fingers tightened on the handle of his sword.
“Tom … don’t,” begged Benny.
“I’ll do what I have to, Ben,” said Tom between clenched teeth.
Benny took another step forward. Almost in reach. Morgie’s dark eyes caught his movement, and turned to him.
“Morgie, you fat jerk, you freaking well say something!” Benny yelled. Behind him he heard Captain Strunk come huffing up.
“God!” he said, “Is that the Mitchell boy?”
“His name’s Morgan,” snapped Benny. “Morgie.”
“Is … is he turned?” Strunk glanced at Tom, who gave a tight shake of his head. Not an answer to the question, but rather a command to be quiet.
Benny took one more step closer. Definitely in reach now. Tom hissed, but didn’t move. His blade was poised to cut, and Benny knew how fast his brother was. If Morgie grabbed him, though, would it be fast enough?
“Morgie … you’re freaking me out here. If this is one of your jokes, it’s not funny.”
Morgie’s mouthed worked and worked.
“Morgie … please.”
Morgie whispered, “Nix!”
Then he bent forward and toppled off the step. Strunk cried out in alarm, clawing at his pistol. Tom almost took the boy’s head off, but checked his swing as Benny darted forward and caught his friend. Morgie was heavy, and he clamped cold fingers around Benny’s arms and pulled himself closer until his mouth was right next to Benny’s throat. Benny could feel the labored breathing on his neck.
“Benny get out of there!” Tom yelled. He grabbed Morgie’s shoulder with one hand, keeping the sword raised with the other, ready for the killing blow. “Benny!”
“Kill it!” bellowed Strunk.
Benny wheeled on them with a snarl. “Shut up!” Then he turned back to Morgie and leaned close.
“Benny …” Morgie gasped weakly. “They took Nix.”
“What? What happened?”
“Mrs. Riley … They wanted her to tell them … something … but she wouldn’t. They … beat her up. They made me stand and watch. Gun to my head. Nix tried to … stop them. Couldn’t. She was hurt. Mrs. Riley …”
And then his eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed against Benny, his limbs going slack, his head lolling.
“Tom!” Benny said, trying to catch his friend, to keep him from tumbling to the ground. Tom and Strunk caught Morgie under the armpits and pulled him back. The handful of crushed flowers tumbled slowly to the ground, scattering petals. They laid him on the ground.
“Give me some light,” Tom ordered, and Strunk brought the torch.
“Is he bitten?” Strunk asked. “Is he dead?”
Tom pressed two fingers into Morgie’s throat. “No. He’s alive, but he’s hurt.” He reached up to push the torchlight into place for a better view, and there it was. Although Morgie’s clothing had not appeared to be wet from the rain, the back of his hair and shirt were soaked. Benny leaned over to take a look, and gagged. The back of Morgie’s head was a tangle of matted, bloody hair, and the blood had run down his neck and soaked his back. Tom gently probed the wound, his expression lacking optimism.
“Is it bad?” Benny asked.
“It isn’t good. I think he has a skull fracture, and he’s going into shock. Keith, get me some help now.”
Even though Strunk was the head of town security and was not used to taking orders from anyone except the mayor, he nodded and went off without an argument. He ran to the end of the block where there was an alarm bell, and began ringing it loudly, calling out for the town watch.
Tom waved Benny over and laid Morgie’s head carefully onto his brother’s lap. “Stay with him, Benny. I have to check inside.”
They were both keenly aware there were lights on inside the Riley house, and no one had come out to investigate the voices and commotion on the lawn. Not even a bark from their dog, Pirate. Benny’s heart was a cold stone that kept falling through the icy waters of a deep well.
“Tom, Morgie said …”
“I heard what he said.” Tom sheathed his sword, drew his pistol, and thumbed back the hammer. As he turned toward the front door, Benny saw his brother’s expression in the moonlight. It was equal parts rage and terror.
Benny sat on the muddy ground with Morgie’s head in his lap. His friend’s mouth moved once or twice, and even though Morgie made no sound, Benny knew what he was saying.
“Nix.”
People were yelling now, boiling out of their houses with guns and axes and sharpened pitchforks. Some had oil lanterns, a few paused to light torches from the streetlight. Guards from the town watch came flying toward them on galloping horses that were covered in heavy carpet from flanks to withers.
“Where’s Tom?” demanded Strunk as he raced back, his gun in his hand.
“He went inside,” said Benny. There had been only silence from the house. No screams, no gunfire.
The silence was dreadful.
Two medics from the town watch took charge of Morgie, gently pushing Benny away. Benny rose, and he realized that for the second time that day he was covered in the blood of someone he knew. He bent and snatched his bokken and headed up the stairs.
Captain Strunk got in his way. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?
“Get out of my way.” Benny wanted to hit him with the wooden sword. “I’m going in.”
Strunk looked into Benny’s eyes, and he must have seen something that changed his view of Benny Imura. Maybe he saw the shadow of Tom in Benny’s eyes. Or maybe he saw a new version of Benny. But he nodded and said, “Okay … but with me. And stand out of the line of fire.”
The other armed guards came up onto the porch, rifles and shotguns ready.
The front door was open. Candles were lit in the living room. The party moved inside, gun barrels seeking out each flickering shadow. The living room was a wreck. It was not as comprehensively destroyed as Sacchetto’s had been, but most of the furniture was overturned, vases smashed, a guitar stomped to splinters, art torn from the walls. The floor was crisscrossed with muddy footprints. The Riley’s dog, Pirate, a tiny mixed breed, was crouched under the overturned breakfront, its eyes glazed with pain. There was a clear imprint of a muddy boot toe on its heaving side. The dog whimpered quietly, but did not move or bark. When Benny reached out to it, the dog gave his fingers a few frantic licks. Benny saw splashes of blood on the floor and a single bloody handprint on the wall outside of Nix’s bedroom.
He cut straight across the debris-filled floor to her room. It was empty, however. The mattress had been overturned; her collection of old dolls in pieces, their heads torn off. All of her clothing had been pulled out of the closet and slashed with knives. Even her sparse collection of Zombie Cards had been torn in half.
Nix was not there.
Deputy Gorman came up behind him and surveyed the room. “Looks like your friend Nix put up quite a fight,” he said.
Benny swallowed and nodded. “She would.”
“She a tough girl?”
“You have no idea.”
“She’ll need it,” Gorman said as he turned away. “It looks like they took her.”
Although he already guessed it, the words were like bullets striking his heart. As he turned to leave, he spotted the corner of a familiar book sticking out from the debris of her writing desk. Benny bent and picked it up. It was her diary. He pressed it to his chest.
“Nix,” he whispered.
“In here,” someone called, and Benny rushed out of Nix’s room to see the guards clustered around the entrance to Jessie Riley’s room. Benny pushed his way through the throng, but Strunk grabbed his shoulder.
“You don’t want to go in there, kid.”
“Let me go. Tom!” With a wrench he tore free of Strunk’s grip and charged into the room. And stopped.
It was a small room. When he and Nix had been little, they’d played hide-and-seek in this house, and Nix’s mom’s room had always been too neat, too sparse to offer any good hiding places. Now it was a ruin. The cheap dresser had been kicked to pieces, and all of Mrs. Riley’s clothes—pants and blouses, stockings and underwear—lay scattered on the floor, trampled by heavy feet and stained with blood.
Tom sat on one corner of the collapsed bed. His pistol lay on the floor next to him. Jessie Riley lay curled against him. Benny could see that her face—always a kind and pretty face—was an unrecognizable mass of bruises and torn flesh. One eye was puffed closed, the other with bright and glassy with shock. She clung to Tom, holding his chest and sleeve, as if they were all that tethered her to this world. Her knuckles were red and torn. Like Nix, she had fought back, and fought hard.
“Mrs. Riley,” Benny said, but the woman showed no sign of having heard.
“Not now, Benny,” Tom murmured. “She needs to sleep.”
“Tom,” said Benny, “will she be okay?”
Tom slowly raised his head, and from the lost and broken look in his eyes, Benny knew that nothing was ever going to be okay. That time had passed when men with brutal fists and empty hearts had invaded this home.
“We have medics, Tom,” said the captain.
Tom shook his head. “Give me a sliver.”
A sliver. A simple word, and yet to Benny, it was so ugly that it made him want to scream. The thing Tom wanted was a six-inch length of polished metal, flat on one end for pushing, sharp and narrow on the other for piercing. Everyone on the town watch had a holster full of them. Tom never carried one. He used the black-bladed dagger he kept in his boot. Benny had seen him do it, but Tom did not want to use that knife now. Not for this.
“Oh, no …,” Benny protested as Captain Strunk slid one out of a pack strapped to his gun belt and offered it to Tom.
Tom nodded, and then glanced at the door and back up at Strunk. Immediately the captain turned and ushered everyone outside, although they lingered in the hall. Benny stayed right where he was.
He said to Tom, “Maybe she’ll get better, Tom. Maybe you’re wrong.”
“No,” said Tom in a ragged voice. “She’s already gone.”
And Benny saw it then. The hands that clutched Tom were held in place only by the fingers caught in the folds of his shirt, but the knuckles were slack and the elbows sagged under their own empty weight. Tom hugged her closer to him, and as he did so, her dead hands fell away, opening like dying flowers on the edge of the bed. Tom held her with one hand and reached around behind her to place the tip of the sliver against the base of her skull.
Everyone who died came back as a zombie. No matter how, no matter who. Everyone.
“Go outside, Benny.”
“I … can’t.”
“Benny … please!”
Benny backed away only as far as the doorway, but he could not make himself leave.
Tom closed his eyes, first lightly, as if asleep. And then he squeezed them shut with all of his might, as if lost in a terrible nightmare in which he was unable to scream. His lips curled back from his teeth, and his chest heaved—once, twice—and then there was a flash of silver.
Jessie Riley never returned from death. She had suffered enough and would be spared that last indignity.
Benny stood in the doorway for several minutes as Tom sat on the edge of the bed and rocked her back and forth in his arms. Tom did not weep, did not cry out. Instead he ate his pain, biting down on it hard enough to drive all of the poison deep into his soul. Benny understood that. Maybe there would be some other time when that rage could be allowed out. But not now, and not here.