Rot & Ruin (7 page)

Tom nodded. “Do you remember what she looked like?”

“Like Mom,” said Benny. “She looked a lot like Mom.”

“You were too little to remember Mom.”

“I remember her,” Benny said with an edge in his voice. He took out his wallet and showed Tom the image behind the glassine cover. “Maybe I don’t remember her really well, but I think about her. All the time. Dad, too. I can even remember what she wore on First Night. A white dress with red sleeves. I remember the sleeves.”

Tom closed his eyes and sighed, and his lips moved. Benny
thought he echoed the words “red sleeves.” Tom opened his eyes. “I didn’t know you carried this.” His smile was small and sad. “I remember Mom. She’s was more of a mother to me than my mom ever was. I was so happy when Dad married her. I can remember every line on her face. The color of her hair. Her smile. Cathy was a year younger, but they could have been twins.”

Benny sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. His brain felt twisted around. There were so many emotions wired into memories, old and new. He glanced at his brother. “You were older than I am now when, y’know,
it
happened.”

“I turned twenty a few days before First Night. I was in the police academy. Dad married your mom when I was sixteen.”

“You got to know them. I never did. I wish I …” He left the rest unsaid.

Tom nodded. “Me too, kiddo.”

They sat in the shade of their private memories.

“Tell me something, Benny,” said Tom. “What would you have done if one of your friends—say, Chong or Morgie—had come to Aunt Cathy’s funeral and took a leak in her coffin?”

Benny was so startled by the question that his answer was unguarded. “I’d have jacked them up. I mean,
jacked
them up.”

Tom nodded.

Benny stared at him. “What kind of question is that, though?”

“Indulge me. Why would you have freaked out on your friends?”

“Because they dissed Aunt Cathy, why do you think?”

“But she’s dead.”

“What the hell does that matter? Pissing in her coffin? I would
so
kick their asses.”

“But why? Aunt Cathy was beyond caring.”

“This is her funeral! Maybe she’s still, I don’t know,
there
in some way. Like Pastor Kellogg always says.”

“What does he say?”

“That the spirits of those we love are always with us.”

“Okay. What if you didn’t believe that? What if you believed that Aunt Cathy was only a body in a box? And your friends peed on her?”

“What do you think?” Benny snapped. “I’d still kick their asses.”

“I believe you. But why?”

“Because,” Benny began, but then hesitated, unsure of how to express what he was feeling. “Because Aunt Cathy was mine, you know? She’s my aunt. My family. They don’t have any right to disrespect my family.”

“No more than you’d go take a crap on Morgie Mitchell’s father’s grave. Or dig him up and pour garbage on his bones. You wouldn’t do anything like that?”

Benny was appalled. “What’s your damage, man? Where do you come up with this crap? Of course I wouldn’t do anything sick like that! God, who do you think I am?”

“Shhh … keep your voice down,” cautioned Tom. “So … you wouldn’t disrespect Morgie’s dad … alive or dead?”

“Hell, no.”

“Language.”

Benny said it slower and with more emphasis. “Hell. No.”

“Glad to hear it.” Tom held out the field glasses. “Take a look at the two dead people down there. Tell me what you see.”

“So we’re back to business now?” Benny gave him a look. “You’re deeply weird, man.”

“Just look.”

Benny sighed and grabbed the binoculars out of Tom’s hand, put them to his eyes. Stared. Sighed.

“Yep. Two zoms. Same two zoms.”

“Be specific.”

“Okay. Okay, two zoms. One man, one woman. Standing in the same place as before. Big yawn.”

Tom said, “Those dead people …”

“What about them?”

“They used to be somebody’s family,” said Tom quietly. “The male looks old enough to have been someone’s granddad. He had a family, friends. A name. He was somebody.”

Benny lowered the glasses and started to speak.

“No,” said Tom. “Keep looking. Look at the woman. She was, what? Eighteen years old when she died. Might have been pretty. Those rags she’s wearing might have been a waitress’s uniform once. She could have worked at a diner right next to Aunt Cathy. She had people at home who loved her. …”

“C’mon, man, don’t—”

“People who worried when she was late getting home. People who wanted her to grow up happy. People—a mom and a dad. Maybe brothers and sisters. Grandparents. People who believed that girl had a life in front of her. That old man might be her granddad.”

“But she’s one of
them
, man. She’s dead,” Benny said defensively.

“Sure. Almost everyone who ever lived is dead. More than
six billion people are dead. And every last one of them had family once. Every last one of them
were
family once. At one time there was someone like you who would have kicked the crap out of anyone—stranger or best friend—who harmed or disrespected that girl. Or the old man.”

Benny was shaking his head. “No, no, no. It’s not the same. These are zoms, man. They kill people. They eat people.”

“They used to
be
people.”

“But they died!”

“Sure. Like Aunt Cathy and Mr. Mitchell.”

“No … Aunt Cathy got cancer. Mr. Mitchell died in an accident.”

“Sure, but if someone in town hadn’t quieted them, they’d have become living dead, too. Don’t even pretend you don’t know that. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about that happening to Aunt Cathy.” He nodded down the hill. “Those two down there caught a disease.”

Benny said nothing. He’d learned about it in school, though no one knew for sure what had actually happened. Some sources said it was a virus that was mutated by radiation from a returning space probe. Others said it was a new type of flu that came over from China. Chong believed it was something that got out of a lab somewhere. The only thing everyone agreed on was that it was a disease of some kind.

“That guy down there was probably a farmer,” Tom said. “The girl was a waitress. I’m pretty sure neither of them was involved in the space program. Or worked in some lab where they researched viruses. What happened to them was an accident. They got sick, Benny, and they died.”

Benny said nothing.

“How do you think Mom and Dad died?”

No answer.

“Benny—? How do you think?”

“They died on First Night,” Benny said irritably.

“They did. But how?”

Benny said nothing.

“How?”

“You let them die!” Benny said in a savage whisper. Words tumbled out of him in a disjointed sputter. “Dad got sick and … and … then Mom tried to … and you … you just ran away!”

Tom said nothing, but sadness darkened his eyes, and he shook head slowly.

“I remember it,” Benny growled. “I remember you running away.”

“You were a baby.”

“I remember it.”

“You should have told me, Benny.”

“Why? So you could make up a lie about why you just ran away and left my mom like that?”

The words “
my
mom” hung in the air between them. Tom winced.

“You think I just ran away?” he said.

“I don’t
think
it, Tom. I remember it.”

“Do you remember why I ran?”

“Yeah, ’cause you’re a freaking coward is why!”

“Jesus,” Tom whispered. He adjusted the strap that held the sword in place, and sighed again. “Benny, this isn’t the time or place for this, but sometime soon we’re going to have
a serious talk about the way things were back then and the way things are now.”

“There’s nothing you can say that’s going to change the truth.”

“No. The truth is the truth. What changes is what we know about it and what we’re willing to believe.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“If you ever want to know my side of things,” said Tom, “I’ll tell you. There’s a lot you were too young to know then, and maybe you’re still too young now.”

Silence washed back and forth between them.

“For right now, Benny, I want you to understand that when Mom and Dad died, it was from the same thing that killed those two down there.”

Benny said nothing.

Tom plucked a stalk of sweet grass and put it between his teeth. “You didn’t really know Mom and Dad, but let me ask you this: If someone was to piss on them or abuse them—even now, even considering what they had to have become during First Night—would it be okay with you?”

“Screw you.”

“Tell me.”

“No. Okay? No, it wouldn’t freaking be okay with me. You happy now?”

“Why not, Benny?”

“Because.”

“Why not? They’re only zoms.”

Benny abruptly got up and walked down the hill, away from the farm and away from Tom. He stood looking back
along the road they’d traveled, as if he could still see the fence line. Tom waited a long time before he got up and joined him.

“I know this is hard, kiddo,” he said gently, “but we live in a pretty hard world. We struggle to live. We’re always on our guard, and we have to toughen ourselves just to get through each day. And each night.”

“I hate you.”

“Maybe. I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter right now.” He gestured toward the path that led back home. “Everybody west of here has lost someone. Maybe someone close or maybe a distant cousin three times removed. But everybody lost someone.”

Benny said nothing.

“I don’t believe that you would disrespect anyone in our town or in the whole west. I also don’t believe—I don’t want to believe—that you’d disrespect the mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers who live out here in the great Rot and Ruin.”

He put his hands on Benny’s shoulders and turned him around. Benny resisted, but Tom Imura was strong. When they were both facing east, Tom said, “Every dead person out there deserves respect. Even in death. Even when we fear them. Even when we have to kill them. They aren’t ‘just zoms,’ Benny. That’s a side effect of a disease or from some kind of radiation or something else that we don’t understand. I’m no scientist, Benny. I’m a simple man doing a job.”

“Yeah? You’re trying to sound all noble, but you
kill
them.” Benny had tears in his eyes.

“Yes,” Tom said softly, “I do. I’ve killed hundreds of them. If I’m smart and careful—and lucky—I’ll kill hundreds more.”

Benny shoved him with both hands. It only pushed Tom back a half step. “I don’t understand!”

“No, you don’t. I hope you will, though.”

“You talk about respect for the dead and yet you kill them.”

“This isn’t about the killing. It isn’t, and never should be, about the killing.”

“Then what?” Benny sneered. “The money?”

“Are we rich?”

“No.”

“Then it’s obviously not about the money.”

“Then
what
?”

“It’s about the
why
of the killing. For the living … for the dead,” Tom said. “It’s about closure.”

Benny shook his head.

“Come with me, kiddo. It’s time you understood how the world works. It’s time you learned what the family business is all about.”

8

T
HEY WALKED FOR MILES UNDER THE HOT SUN
. T
HE PEPPERMINT GEL RAN
off with their sweat, and had to be reapplied hourly. Benny was quiet for most of the trip, but as his feet got sore and his stomach started to rumble, he turned cranky.

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“How far is it?”

“A bit.”

“I’m hungry.”

“We’ll stop soon.”

“What’s for lunch?”

“Beans and jerky.”

“I hate jerky.”

“You bring anything else?” Tom asked.

“No.”

“Jerky it is, then.”

The roads Tom picked were narrow and often turned from asphalt to gravel to dirt.

“We haven’t seen a zom in a couple of hours,” Benny said. “How come?”

“Unless they hear or smell something that draws them, they tend to stick close to home.”

“Home?”

“Well … to the places they used to live or work.”

“Why?”

Tom took a couple of minutes on that. “There are lots of theories, but that’s all we have—just theories. Some folks say that the dead lack the intelligence to think that there’s anywhere other than where they’re standing. If nothing attracts them or draws them, they’ll just stay right where they are.”

“But they need to hunt, don’t they?”

“‘Need’ is a tricky word. Most experts agree that the dead will attack and kill, but it’s not been established that they actually hunt. Hunting implies need, and we don’t know that the dead
need
to do anything.”

“I don’t understand.”

They crested a hill and looked down a dirt road to where an old gas station sat beneath a weeping willow.

“Have you ever heard of one of them just wasting away and dying of hunger?” Tom asked.

“No, but—”

“The people in town think that the dead survive by eating the living, right?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“What ‘living’ do you think they’re eating?”

“Huh?”

“Think about it. There’re more than three hundred million living dead in America alone. Throw in another thirty-odd million in Canada and a hundred ten million in Mexico,
and you have something like four hundred and fifty million living dead. The Fall happened fourteen years ago. So—what are they eating to stay alive?”

Benny thought about it. “Mr. Feeney says they eat each other.”

“They don’t,” said Tom. “Once a body has started to cool, they stop feeding on it. That’s why there are so many partially eaten living dead. They won’t attack or eat one another even if you locked them in the same house for years on end. People have done it.”

“What happens to them?”

“The trapped ones? Nothing.”

“Nothing? They don’t rot away and die?”

“They’re already dead, Benny.” A shadow passed over the valley and momentarily darkened Tom’s face. “But that’s one of the mysteries. They don’t rot. Not completely. They decay to a certain point, and then they just stop rotting. No one knows why.”