Bits & Pieces (30 page)

He walked into the street without haste. Then he paused, raised his sword, and with a sharp downward snap of his wrist whipped all the blood from the oiled steel. It left a pattern of red drops along the sidewalk.

Captain Ledger nodded to the man, and he nodded back.

“You okay, Tom?”

Tom, the swordsman, nodded again.

“How many?” asked Ledger.

“Six,” said Tom. “I told them . . . not to . . .” He stopped and shook his head, and Rags realized that the man was very upset.

About what he had done.

Maybe about what he'd had to do.

Ledger sighed and turned to Mama Rat.

“Six men,” he said, but Tom interrupted to correct him.

“Five men and a woman.”

The captain sighed again. He did not look as upset as Tom was, but he clearly wasn't happy. He walked to the edge of the FedEx truck, bent to brace his hand on the edge, and jumped down, landing with a grunt and a flicker of pain.

“Knees are getting old,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. He clicked his tongue and Baskerville vanished, but Rags heard a clatter from the rear of the truck, and a moment later the brute came trotting out to stand beside his master. Bones wagged his tail and whined softly, and Baskerville gave a single acknowledging
whuff
.

The seven skull-riders and their leader had drawn together now and stood in a defensive knot. Mama Rat stood closest to Rags, her face filled with doubt and anger.

And horror, too.

“You killed all six of them?” she asked in a small, hollow voice. Tears glittered in the corners of her eyes.

Tom met her eyes and Rags could see such a deep pain in him that it made her heart hurt. “I gave them a choice,” he said. “They gave me none.”

“All . . .
six
?” gasped Mama Rat. “How?
How?
”

Ledger answered that. “Tom has some real talent.”

If it was meant as praise, it didn't come out that way. Ledger sounded sad, and Tom took a long, slow, deep breath and let it out.

“They gave me no choice at all,” he repeated.

Two tears fell down Mama Rat's cheeks. “No . . . ,” she whispered.

Joe Ledger walked up to Bones and held out his hand. The big dog licked him and danced around like a happy puppy. It twisted the knife in Rags's heart.

The big man seemed to sense that too. He smiled at her. “Looks like you've been taking good care of him for me,” he said. “He's put some weight on. Nice.”

The dog looked from him to Rags and back again.

“He's my friend,” said Rags. “We've been helping each other.”

Ledger nodded. “That's good. That's the only way we're ever going to get out of this mess.”

He walked past her and stood in front of Mama Rat. Baskerville came trotting up behind him, gave Bones a quick sniff, allowed one in return, then went over to sit beside Ledger. His armor clanked.

The seven skull-riders clustered even more tightly behind Mama Rat. They each still held their weapons, but to Rags it seemed as if the men had forgotten what those items were used for.

Ledger stood and studied Mama Rat for a long time, his blue eyes filled with mysteries. Finally, when he spoke, he recited lines from an old story Rags had read in school.

“ ‘The time has come, the Walrus said,' ” murmured Ledger, “ ‘to talk of many things. Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—Of cabbages—and kings—And why the sea is boiling hot—And whether pigs have wings.' ”

It was some nonsense poetry from
Through the Looking-Glass
, and its silly verses had no business on this troubled street in an abandoned city in a dying world.

Or, Rags wondered, did they?

In the stillness of the air there was magic hidden inside the ranger's recitation. The swordsman, Tom, came and stood ten feet to Ledger's left. The air around him seemed to crackle
with a static charge of awful possibility. And Rags knew that whatever happened—and whatever
had
happened—it hurt the Japanese man every bit as much as those who felt his sword. Rags knew that with total certainty.

“What—what do you want?” asked Mama Rat, her voice soft and filled with cracks.

“That's up to you, sweetheart,” said Ledger. “We're standing way, way out on the ledge here. You know what's down there if you take that step.”

Another tear fell down the woman's cheek. “We're all dead anyway.”

Ledger shook his head, but before he could say anything, Rags spoke. She hadn't meant to and didn't know she was going to.

“No,” she said.

Everyone looked at her.

“That's not true,” said Rags. “We're not all dead.”

“Look around you, girl, the whole world's dead,” snapped the woman. “The whole world's gone crazy, and anyone who says it's not is crazier than the rest.”

“Maybe the world's crazy,” said Rags, taking a hesitant step forward, “but that doesn't mean we are.”

When she moved, Bones moved with her, standing right at her side, the way Baskerville stood beside the ranger. Captain Ledger seemed to take note of it, and he smiled to himself.

“What do you know about anything?” sneered Mama Rat. “You're a kid. You don't know anything.”

Anger flared hot in Rags's chest. “I don't? Really? I know that this plague came and killed my mom. And after she died,
my mom got up and killed my dad, and my little brother, and my gram.
She killed my dog
.” For some reason those last words were the hardest, and Rags's voice cracked on them. “My mom killed everyone in my house, and she tried to kill me. And I . . . and I . . .”

Tears fell like rain from her eyes as sobs broke over and over in her chest. They hurt so bad. Everything hurt so bad. And as she spoke, all the boards she'd hammered into place in the house of her memories began to come loose. Images thrust in through the windows like pale hands, doors burst open, and into her conscious mind came the shambling, lifeless things that had been her family. They filled her mind, coming for her, trying to crowd her into a corner so they could get at her and tear her apart.

“Do you know what I did?” yelled Rags, her voice rising to a shriek. “Do you know what I
did
?”

“Kid . . . ,” began Ledger, reaching out for her, but Rags slapped his hand away.

“No! I want her to ask me what I did.” She wheeled on Mama Rat and slapped her across the face so hard it sounded like a gunshot. “You're so tough. You're so scary. You ask me what I did! Go on—
ask me
!”

Mama Rat mouthed the words. She clearly could not speak them.

Her lips formed the four words.

What did you do?

Rags slapped her again. “I killed them!”

Another slap.

“I came back and killed them.”

Slap.

“Mom.”

Slap.

“Daddy.”

Slap.

“Everyone.”

Slap. Slap. Slap.

Mama Rat staggered backward into the arms of her men. Her face was so raw that tiny dots of blood sprang from her pores.

Tom stepped suddenly forward and wrapped an arm around Rags. She spun and pounded her fists on his chest, but he allowed it. Endured it. He used his free arm to gather her in, and while she screamed and wept, he held her to his chest.

Apart from the sound of her agony, the street was silent.

Then Joe Ledger said, “You people come here, hunting for little girls. Thinking they're nothing
but
little girls. You don't know anything, do you?”

Nobody said a word.

“Christ, do you know how much courage it took for her to do that? For a kid of her age to go into that house and do that?”

Silence.

“Do you know how much
love
it took?”

Rags stopped fighting Tom and wrapped her arms around him. Her knife fell to the ground, and she clung to him as if he was the only thing in the world that could keep her from drowning.

Ledger spat on the ground at Mama Rat's feet.

“You think your numbers and your knives make you
strong? Sister, you don't know what strength is.” He pointed to Rags. “That?
That's
strength. That's power.”

He took a step closer, and now he was so close to Mama Rat that they could kiss.

“That's hope,” he said. “Do you understand me? Are you capable of understanding? This girl . . . and Tom here, and a few others . . . they are the future of this world. They have hope, they remember what love is, and they have the courage to do what's right.”

He shook his head.

“When I met Tom, he was already hunting you people. Like me, he'd heard about a pack of human lice who were taking kids, taking lives.”

In a movement that was too fast to see, Ledger drew his knife and pressed the edge against Mama Rat's throat. He spoke now in a deadly whisper.

“Tom Imura is a good man, and hunting scum like you is
killing
him. He's doing it because there are people trying to build something, trying to survive. He has a baby brother. He's helping to put together a town. He should be back in that town looking after his brother and planting crops. Instead people like you have turned him into a hunter and a killer. Now he's out here taking lives when we're so close to extinction that
every
life is precious.”

He pressed the knife against her, lifting her onto her toes.

“I'm out here doing my part. Hunting, too, though unlike my friend Tom, I'm not as sentimental. I'm already a killer. I'm already a monster. Even before all this started I was out hunting monsters. Killing them. Monsters like you.”

A bead of bright-red blood popped onto the edge of the
knife and slid down its silvery length. Ledger raised his voice.

“Tom . . . why don't you take our new friend out of here. Take her back to Mountainside, maybe.”

“Joe,” said Tom, “I can't just leave you here.”

“Sure you can.”

Rags pushed herself away from Tom and pawed the tears out of her eyes. “What are you going to do?”

Ledger smiled the most frightening smile she had ever seen. “I'm going to dance with Mama Rat here. Her and her boys.”

Baskerville uttered a loud, sharp, single bark. Like a promise.

“Please . . . ,” whispered Mama Rat. “Please don't.”

“You called this play, darlin',” said Ledger. “You pushed us both right out onto this tightrope. What choice do either of us have?”

“Let her go,” said one of the men, but his voice lacked all force and conviction. Bones and Baskerville growled him to silence.

“Go on, Tom,” urged Ledger. “Get the girl out of here. She shouldn't have to see this.”

“Let her go.”

This time it was not any of the men who spoke. Nor was it Tom.

It was Rags.

Trembling, tear-streaked, flushed with psychological pain, she stood there and shook her head. “Please,” she said, “just . . . let her go.”

Ledger looked at her with a mixture of surprise, annoyance, and pity. “Seriously? You want me to cut them loose?”

Rags sniffed and wiped at her streaming eyes. “Y-yes.”

“Why on earth would you want me to do that? I mean it,” said Ledger. “Why?”

“Because we shouldn't kill each other.”

A slow, sad smile formed on Ledger's mouth, but it didn't reach his eyes. “Do you have any idea what these freaks were going to do to you?”

Rags nodded.

Ledger kept the knife against Mama Rat's throat. “Do you think this witch or any of these scum-suckers would have carved off even a splinter of mercy for you?”

Rags shrugged.

“Think about the worst things that could happen to a person,” growled Ledger, “then triple that because you're a girl. Now hold that in your mind and tell me again that you want me to let them go.”

“It's you, isn't it?” Rags asked. “You and this other guy. I keep finding people with skull tattoos. Dead people. Not walking around dead, but left to rot. That's you two, isn't it?”

“It's us,” said Tom Imura.

“Sure,” agreed Ledger. “It's us. We're at war. The whole damn world is at war, or haven't you noticed, kid? Oh, wait, that's right, you're already a veteran of this war. You did what you had to do. That took courage. It also took smarts and compassion. Bottom line is, it
had
to be done. So does this.”

“Why?”

“Why the hell do you think?” snapped Ledger.

Rags said nothing. She felt like she was standing on wobbly ground that was going to tilt under her. She turned to Tom, but his face was a mask, and he avoided her eyes.

Bones whuffed softly. He walked over to Rags and leaned against her. Rags knelt, wrapped her arms around his neck, and tried to lose herself in his fur.

“We have to stop killing each other,” she said. “Or death is going to win.”

The words seemed to hang in the air, and Rags heard them like an echo, as if it was someone else who spoke. Even to her own ears those words didn't sound like they came from her. Not from the little teenager who knelt in the dust surrounded by killers and madmen.

Rags closed her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said, and in that moment she wasn't sure if the words were meant for Ledger or for the people he wanted to kill.

Then she heard Joe Ledger sigh. And curse softly.

She looked up to see him lower his knife. Behind her, Rags heard Tom sigh too.

“Okay,” said Ledger, and the frustration was there in his voice, woven into a fabric of anger and regret. “Okay. But there are conditions.”

“Anything!” blurted Mama Rat, but Ledger growled at her.

“Shut up and listen. I don't want to hear any of you talk until I ask a question. You stand there and shut the hell up.”