Lilah had done what she had to do. She had quieted little Annie.
For years she lived alone in the woods. She had no conversations. She spoke to no one. She didn’t even speak aloud to herself. She found books and read them. She learned the art of making weapons. She became a hunter and a killer.
Then she met Benny and Nix, and the world changed for her.
Together they destroyed Charlie and the Hammer. Together they saved other children, kids who would not die in the rain like Annie, or be left to grow strange and wild like herself. Nix, Benny, and Tom took her in, took her to their home. The Chongs welcomed her into their family, treating her like one of their own.
Now Chong was gone. Lost and probably dead in the woods. And maybe that was her fault. The thought was like a knife in her own head.
Benny and Nix walked into the east, their bodies seeming to glow with reflected sunlight.
Lilah thought about what Benny had said, and about her own words-to Benny, and to Chong. The tears would not stop.
Time rolled on, losing meaning and dimension to her. Then… there was a rustling sound behind her. A day ago she would have turned cat-quick, her senses as sharp as the blades she carried. Now she ignored it-aware but uncaring. If it was a zom, then it was a zom. The most it could do was kill her. Worse had been done to her over the years.
A figure moved from behind her and walked slowly around her.
Not a zom. Not Chong or Benny. Not Charlie.
This figure was dressed all in green. Leaves and sprigs of flowers were stitched onto his clothes. She looked up at him, seeing him indistinctly through the glaze of tears. His face was made of leaves too.
She knew the face and the clothing. She had seen them a dozen times over the years, though always at a distance. Benny had a Zombie Card with his picture on it. The Greenman.
Sunlight glittered on the hard length of something the Greenman held in both hands. Her spear. She said nothing.
The Greenman let it fall to the ground, where it almost vanished amid tall grass and shadows. Then the man removed his mask. It was really a piece of camouflage netting hung from the brim of a green cloth hat. Beneath the mask was a face that was seamed and suntanned. Bald on top and bearded below, the hair as white as Lilah’s. Laugh lines were etched around sad eyes.
Lilah stared at the man’s face. There were scars, old and new. The Greenman bent and touched the tear tracks on her cheeks. She almost flinched. She could feel it begin inside her muscles, but she didn’t. Maybe because she was too tired from lack of sleep, panic, terror and a night of running. Or maybe because this man did not seem to want to do her harm.
He rubbed his fingertips together, feeling her tears, working the moisture into his skin.
“I… I’m sorry,” she said in a pale whisper.
He smiled at her. “No.”
Then he crossed his legs and lowered himself down to the grass. He did not ask her to stop crying. He did not ask her any questions. He sat in front of her, the sunlight making his white beard glow, and he smiled. At her. At the birds in the trees and the first dragonflies of spring. Lilah caved forward onto her knees and crawled toward him. She collapsed a few inches away. The Greenman did not touch her. He did not try to pull her out of what she was feeling.
He allowed, and that was enough.
PART FOUR. HIGHWAY TO HELL
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
– BERTRAND USSELL
48
LOU CHONG YELPED IN FEAR AND BACKPEDALED AWAY AS THE ZOMBIE tumbled into the pit. He pressed his back against the cold dirt wall and threw an arm up to shield his face. The creature struck the ground with a crunch of brittle bones. The crowd above him laughed like they were watching a clown act. People were calling fresh bets based on whether they thought the zom had broken any bones that would prevent him from attacking Chong.
Chong hesitated, looking down at the zom as it moaned and tried to get to its feet.
He wanted to run and hide, but he was in a fifteen-foot-wide pit. Running and hiding were not options. He racked his brain to decide how to survive this. The moment needed action. What was the smart thing to do?
What would Tom do? Before that thought had even finished forming, Chong was moving. He launched himself off the wall, raised the iron pipe over his head, and brought it down with all his force on the back of the zom’s head.
Crunch!
The creature dropped to the ground. The crowd above him went totally silent. A single ration dollar fell downward, seesawing through the humid air.
The zom twitched. One kick of the leg. A tremble of its fingers. Chong growled deep in his throat and hit it again. Harder. This time the crunch was wetter.
The zom stopped moving.
The crowd… went wild. Cheers and applause.
Chong lowered the pipe and looked up at the crowd. The Burned Man crouched on the edge of the pit, grinning like a ghoul.
“Well, well… I’ll be double damned,” he said. “Folks, it looks like we got us a bona-fide zombie killer. Yes sir, that’s what we have here.”
The crowd cheered. Fistfuls of money flashed back and forth. “Give him another!” someone shouted, and instantly the chorus was picked up until everyone was yelling it.
“Okay, okay!” laughed the Burned Man. “Customer’s always right. Nestor? Crab? Bring us another gladiator. Let’s have something really fresh.”
The two assistants wore wicked smiles as they vanished. Betting ramped up until the oddsmaker had to yell at the crowd, “Give me a bloody chance to count, damn you!”
Chong tried not to shiver. In truth he was no longer cold, but he trembled from hair to toes as he waited for the next monster. A shadow obscured the opening, and he looked up sharply to see the long boom of a wooden crane swinging out over the edge. A figure dangled from the pulley, thrashing and twisting. A rope had been looped under its arms, and once it was down, the rope would fall away and the zombie would be free.
The Burned Man leaned over the edge. “We don’t want to damage the goods a second time,” he said, and the comment drew a fresh wave of harsh laughter.
Nestor and Crab turned the winch, and immediately the thrashing zom began descending into the fighting pit. Chong backed to the wall. This zom was massive. Burly, like a bull wrangler or one of the pit throwers back home. Huge chest and stomach, massive arms, almost no neck, and eyes that blazed with dark fire. His skin showed no signs of putrefaction. He hadn’t been dead for very long.
What had Tom told him about the newly risen? They seemed smarter. They were stronger and a little faster. More coordinated. The decay of their motor cortex hadn’t yet reduced them to staggering scarecrows.
Chong gripped the pipe and licked his lips again. “Warrior smart,” he muttered.
“Let ’er go!” ordered the Burned Man. Crab and Nestor jerked the rope from around the big man’s body and whipped it up and through the pulley. The zom dropped the last few inches and landed heavily on its feet.
The creature was immense. Maybe six foot five and at least three hundred pounds, even with no blood left in its veins. Chong was five-eight and weighed 130.
The zom landed facing the opposite side of the pit. Chong had one chance to rush in and bash it with the club. He surged forward, but before his first step touched down he was struck full in the face by a bucketful of icy water. It was so shocking, so surprising, that it stopped him like a punch to the face. Coughing, sputtering, gasping, Chong dropped the pipe and staggered backward, thumping hard into the wall. He pawed water out of his eyes and looked up to see the Burned Man holding an empty bucket.
“Got to make things fair, little man,” he said amid shrill laughter and catcalls.