Rot & Ruin (33 page)

Benny’s match was burning down, but he had enough light left to poke among the rags and find the ranger’s name tag.

M. Horwitz.

“I’m sorry,” Benny said.

Was this the same ranger station where Tom and Mr. Sacchetto had come with their telescope? If so, there was no sign of it, and Benny guessed there were probably several similar towers scattered throughout the mountains.

He straightened and stepped out of the bathroom and then hurried through the station and around the corner to where Nix still crouched. Despite the heat she was shivering, and Benny felt a knife of panic stab him. He’d learned about
shock in the Scouts, and he knew it could be as dangerous as a bullet.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hands. Nix hesitated for a moment, her eyes unfocused, as if she didn’t quite recognize him. She reached for him, and he pulled her against his chest. Nix wrapped strong arms around him and clung to him, and after only a sliver of a second, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and back, and squeezed her with all his strength.

Together, still holding onto each other and moving in an awkward ballet, they stumbled back to the door and shambled inside. Benny kicked the door closed and leaned back against it, sliding down to the floor, taking Nix with him.

She whispered a single, heartbroken and heartbreaking word.

“Mom!”

Benny clutched her to him, sharing his heat with her.

“I know,” he said. It was all he had to say, all she needed to hear. That he knew, that he understood, was as necessary to her as it was terrible, and she disintegrated into tears that burned against his face and throat. Benny held her, and his grief for her, for her mother, for Mr. Sacchetto … and for Tom was a vast and unbearable ache that filled every inch of him.

They held each other and wept as the night closed its fist around their tiny shelter, and the world below them seethed with killers both living and dead.

39

B
ENNY OPENED HIS EYES AND REALIZED THAT HE’D BEEN ASLEEP … AND
that he was alone. The ranger station was in absolute darkness. Benny tensed, reaching for his sword, but his fingers found nothing. He remembered then that he’d left the
bokken
in the bathroom.

“Nix … ?” he whispered.

Nothing.

Very slowly he shifted onto his knees and then climbed to his feet, staying low, listening for some sound. His shirt collar was still damp from her tears, so he knew he couldn’t have been asleep for long. Half an hour maybe?

He went outside. Nix was at the corner of the rail, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her hair blowing in the breeze. There was a sliver of moon and a splash of stars, and the light outlined her face and glistened on the tears that ran like mercury down her cheeks. He stood next to her, leaning his arms on the rail and looking out at the vastness of the sky. The starlight glimmered on the canopy of leaves, and the ocean of trees seemed to stretch away forever.

“Have you heard anything?” he whispered as they sat
down on the edge of the catwalk, their feet hanging over into the lake of darkness.

“No.”

“Good. I think we’re safe,” he said, then added lamely, “Up here, I mean.”

She nodded. A mockingbird sang its schizophrenic melodies from a nearby tree.

Benny said, “When there’s light we’ll have to try and find our way back to town.”

Nix just shook her head, and the denial had so many possible meanings that Benny left his questions unasked.

“Morgie,” she said. “Is he … ?”

“No, he’s okay. Or will be. They hit him pretty hard in the head, but they say he’s going to make it.”

Benny saw Nix steeling herself for the next question, and he was pretty sure he knew what it was going to be.

“My mom,” she began, and he quietly curled his fingers around the lip of the catwalk’s metal floor. “They said that she was … They said that she’d …” Nix stopped and shook her head, trying it another way. “They wanted to leave a present for Tom. That’s what they called it. A ‘present.’”

“It wasn’t like that,” Benny said. “We got there pretty quick. Your mom was still … your mom. Tom held her all the way up to the last, and she held onto him. It was … I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. But then she was … gone. It didn’t look like she was in pain when it happened. She just went to sleep.”

“Sleep,” Nix said in a soft echo. “And … after? Did she … I mean, did they let her … God, Benny, don’t make me
say
it!”

“No,” he soothed.
“No. She never returned. There wasn’t time. Tom did what was necessary.”

“Tom?”

“Yes. With a sliver. He did it fast and quick. She never knew. And he held her afterward.”

Nix made no comment, but he could
feel
her pain. She sat and stared into the darkness of her own thoughts as the wheel of night turned above them.

“Why did they come after you, Nix?”

She turned to him in the dark. “It was because of that card. The Zombie Card with the girl on it.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Zak Matthias got one too. I ran into him yesterday. He was on his way home from the store with his Zombie Cards, and I asked to see them. He was kind of weird about it, but he showed them to me. When I saw the card for the Lost Girl, I told him that I’d seen that picture before. He seemed really interested and asked where, and I told him that my mom was friends with Mr. Sacchetto, the erosion artist. He came over to the house with Tom a few times, and they talked about the Lost Girl.”

“You never told me about that.”

She shrugged. “Why would I? It didn’t seem to involve us. Just my mom and her friends talking. But when I told Zak, he kept asking me about it. What did my mom know about the Lost Girl? What had Tom and Mr. Sacchetto told her? Did I know where the Lost Girl was?” A tear rolled down her face, and she brushed it away. “I thought he was just interested because of the picture. The girl’s so pretty, you know? Like
something out of a book. A faerie princess or something like that. Zak was smiling the whole time and … I don’t know … He’s good-looking, and he was being nice to me and …”

“And I’d blown you off?”

Nix shot him a sharp look, but her face softened and she looked away. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What did you tell him?”

She was a long time answering, and twice her face screwed up as she fought to control the pain in her soul. “I … I told him everything I knew. It wasn’t a lot. I didn’t really pay much attention when Mom and the others were talking about her. I told Zak that Mom knew a lot about her.” She shook her head in confusion. “I don’t
know
, Benny. Zak was being so nice. … I don’t know what I said.”

“It’s okay, Nix.”

She wheeled on him. “Okay? No, it’s not okay! Don’t you get it? I told Zak that my mom knew about the Lost Girl, and I think that’s why Charlie came to the house.
It’s because of what I said!
”

She hissed the last words at him in a voice that boiled with pain and self-hatred.

“My mom’s dead because of me!”

“No, she’s not,” Benny said with a growl. He took her by the arms. She was strong. She tried to break away and stand up, but he held her. “Listen to me, Nix! Your mom’s dead, because Charlie Matthias is a freak and a murderer and a … a …” He couldn’t find a word vile enough to describe that monster’s nature.

Tears streamed down Nix’s face, but her teeth were set and bared. “Charlie knew you had the same card. All the time he
was at the house, Charlie kept saying they should have just
taken
the card from you. He was furious with you. He said that you sassed him and that if Tom hadn’t come along, he’d have shown you manners. Manners … That’s a word he used at our house. He said that we all needed to show him some manners.”

Benny let go of her arms, and Nix leaned back away from him. “Why come after your mom, though? There have to be several of those cards in print now, even rare Chase Cards like that. In all the towns. He can’t kill everyone who has one.”

“No … it wasn’t just the card. It was what he thought Mom knew about the girl. Where to find her. And … I think maybe Mom
did
know something. I think Tom might have told her where he thought the Lost Girl was.” She cut him a look. “Did Tom tell you anything about my mom and Gameland?”

Benny nodded.

“Mom had nightmares about that place. About fighting zoms to make money for us to live on. God—the things she had to do just because of me!”

“Whoa, don’t think like that, Nix. That’s going to make you crazy, and it’s not true. Your mom did what she thought was right. She did what she had to do. She did it because she loved you. Only a mother would have the guts or even care enough to do what she did. You can’t let it chew you up.”

Nix wiped more tears from her eyes and nodded, but Benny knew this was something that would take her years to work through. He hoped they would have those years.

“A few months ago Mom told me that Charlie had rebuilt Gameland. I guess Tom told her. Her nightmares were a lot worse after that, and she kept on me all the time not to ever
be alone with Charlie or the Hammer. And … and … last night, Charlie told her that they were taking me there. It hurt Mom worse than the beating they gave her. Mom freaked out and smashed him over the head with a rolling pin. I wished she’d killed him, but he turned on her like an animal.” Nix stopped, and Benny did not encourage her to tell any more of that part of the story.

The night birds kept up their continuous chorus.

“Then they hit me so hard that I guess I blacked out, and when I woke up we were already out here in the Ruin. They told me that they were taking me to Gameland.”

“Then it’s somewhere close?”

“I don’t think so. I overheard the Hammer telling one of the other bounty hunters that they were heading to Charlie’s camp up in the mountains and would turn east to Gameland in the morning.”

“I’m glad you escaped, Nix. I was going crazy thinking about you with those maniacs.”

“Charlie wouldn’t let them hurt me too much. He said that I had to be ‘fresh’ for the Z-Games.”

“The stuff they’re doing,” Benny said, “in town last night, out here, at Gameland … It’s worse than what the zoms do.”

“I know,” she said. “Zoms are driven by some disease, but, really, they’re mindless and soulless. These men
have
souls and minds, and yet they still do this stuff. Not once, but over and over again.”

There was a sound off in the distance that sounded like a scream. Not a human throat, though. Was it Apache or Chief? Or just the call of some night-hunting bird?

Benny shifted to sit a little closer to Nix. “Tom said that he’d
heard rumors about them grabbing kids from places where they wouldn’t be missed. Kids for Gameland. Did anyone say anything about that?”

“Yes. One of the men said that they’d rounded up a bunch of kids and that they were waiting at the camp.”

“Do you know where this camp is?”

“No … but it can’t be far.”

Benny chewed on that. “If Tom was … I mean … Maybe Tom would know what to do. He might be able to find the camp and get those kids out.”

Nix looked at him. “God! I wish there was some way that we could do it.”

“Us? Fat chance. We don’t have weapons, training, or anything, and there are about a million zoms out there.”

“So what are you saying? We don’t do anything? We just let those kids be taken to that place?”

Benny shook his head. “That’s not it, Nix. … It’s just that we
can’t
do anything. I mean, be realistic.”

“Realistic? Yeah, and you’re always living in the real world, Benny Imura.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re in love with a girl you saw on a Zombie Card, and you’re asking me to be realistic.” She shook her head, and they lapsed into a tense silence.

“I’m not in love with anyone, Nix. Besides, I don’t even know Lilah. Don’t be crazy,” Benny said.

Nix merely grunted.

“Benny,” she said after a while. “A couple of years ago, when Mom thought I was asleep, I heard her beg Tom to kill Charlie. She wanted Tom to find him out here in the Ruin and kill him. … But he
didn’t
do it, Benny!
He should have done it … but he didn’t.”