Finally he asked Sister Hannahlily if she knew anything, and the nun confirmed that Nix and Lilah had been attacked by the living dead. From the disapproving look on the nun’s face, Benny knew that the attacking zoms had been quieted. The way-station monks and nuns opposed violence in all forms, especially against the “Children of Lazarus.” They considered it sinful to harm the mindless dead. She did not say as much, but her feelings were written on her pinched features.
“Is she okay?” asked Benny urgently. “Nix. And Lilah, too. Are they okay?”
The nun hesitated. “They were not physically injured.”
“But—?”
“But they were both very upset. Perhaps the weight of their actions was too much for them.”
And maybe bright blue monkeys will fly out of my butt, thought Benny, but he left it unsaid. “Where are they?”
“In the women’s dormitory,” said Sister Hannahlily.
“Can you—”
“They’ve had a hard day, young brother,” said the nun. “If you care for them, allow each of the girls adequate time to reflect on her actions, and to look inward for forgiveness from God.”
Benny tried fifteen different ways to convince Sister Hannahlily that he needed to get a message to the girls. He might as well have been trying to convince a zom to juggle and tell jokes.
“Perhaps an evening of quiet reflection and prayer would do you some good as well,” said the nun. With that she turned and headed toward the chapel tent for evening prayers.
Benny went to the women’s dormitory doorway, but the nun on guard there was a gargoyle-faced bruiser named, of all things, Sister Daisy. She listened to Benny without a flicker of expression, then told him to go away. She did not actually threaten physical harm — she was after all, a nun — but there was such palpable menace in her voice that Benny felt himself dwindle. He crept away.
He ate alone and went outside for a walk along the trench. There were so many things to consider and process. As the sun fell behind the mountains, the desert transformed from hot tan and burning red to a soft, cool purple. Benny came upon a huddled shape seated alone on the edge of the trench. He was ten feet away when he heard the sound of muffled sobs.
“Riot—?”
The figure straightened, and Riot turned a puffed and tear-streaked face toward him. She sniffed. “Hey, Benny.”
Benny came and sat down next to her. “You okay?”
She sniffed again. “ ’Bout as good as I look, I suppose.”
“Can I help?”
“Not unless y’all got a time machine or a magic wand.”
“I wish.”
They watched the sky darken from purple to bottomless black. Stars ignited one after the other, and soon the ceiling of the universe burned with a million points of light.
“Your mom…?” Benny ventured.
But Riot shook her head. “That’s part of it.”
“Eve?”
“That poor little girl,” Riot said in a tiny voice that was too fragile to hold back the tide of sobs.
“Shhh,” soothed Benny, “she’s safe now. She’ll be okay.”
“No, she won’t,” said Riot. “No… oh, Benny, I can’t stand it. She’s so lost. She’s all alone in the dark and I can’t reach her. No one can. They killed her. Damn them to hell, but they killed that sweet little girl.”
The sobs overwhelmed Riot, and the sound of her weeping came close to breaking Benny’s heart. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against his chest. He wanted to say something — anything — that might pull Riot back from her pain, but really… what was there to say? Her mother had been a monster and was now a zombie. Eve’s mother and father had been murdered, and Eve was so badly broken that there might not be a way to mend her.
She’s all alone in the dark and I can’t reach her.
Those words were all the uglier for being true.
Sometimes there aren’t words, Benny knew. Sometimes there are hurts so deep that they exist in a country that has no spoken language, a place where all landscapes are blighted and no sun ever shines. Benny had left his footprints in the dust of that place. It was on the day Tom brought him to Sunset Hollow, to the house Benny had lived in as a baby, to the place where his parents waited, year after interminable year, tied to kitchen chairs. Tom could have quieted their parents years ago, but he’d waited because he knew that one day his little brother would need to have a hand in the closure of their shared pain. That day — that terrible, terrible day — Tom had taken his knife and quieted Benny’s dad, Tom’s stepfather. Then he’d given the knife to Benny. It was an act of kindness and of respect that felt like the worst betrayal, the worst punishment.
Holding Riot, he closed his eyes and was right back at that moment with everything as clear and precise as a razor cut.
Benny stood behind the zombie, and it took six or seven tries before he could bring himself to touch her. Eventually he managed it. Tom guided him, touching the spot where the knife had to go. Benny put the tip of the knife in place.
“When you do it,” said Tom, “do it quick.”
“Can they feel pain?”
“I don’t know. But you can. I can. Do it quick.”
Benny closed his eyes. He took a ragged breath and said, “I love you, Mom.”
He did it quick.
And it was over.
He dropped the knife and Tom gathered him up and they sank down to their knees together on the kitchen floor, crying so loud that the sound threatened to break the world.
The way Riot wept now was her passport to that country. Nix had been there too. And Lilah. Each of them had wandered alone through that land, refugees among the war-torn devastation of their innocence.
Benny did not tell Riot that it was okay, because it wasn’t.
He didn’t tell her that this would pass. The moment would, but the scars would always be there. It was the thing that would always identify them as travelers through the storm lands of the soul.
CHAPTER 35
On a hot afternoon Sister Sun staggered out into the sunlight. Saint John and the army had been gone now for weeks, marching to California to find nine towns filled with heretics. By the time Sister Sun had returned from the remote lab two hundred miles away, the saint had already left. She felt empty without him; he was a great source of strength for her.
Her Red Brotherhood guardsmen snapped to attention. The nearest of them saw how unsteady she was on her feet and rushed to catch her as Sister Sun’s knees buckled.
“Sister—” he began, but she cut him off.
“No, I’m fine… I just need to sit down. Send a runner to find Brother Peter. At once. Good. And some water. Thanks….”
She sat in the shade under a Joshua tree and sipped water from an aluminum canteen. Her hands shook so badly that the water sloshed against her lips and splashed onto the front of her shirt, darkening the black cloth and soaking the angel wings.
“Brother Peter is coming up the hill,” said the reaper who’d helped her sit.
Sister Sun looked up to see the unsmiling young man walking toward her at a brisk pace, his own guards fanned out behind him.
“Are you unwell, my sister?” he called as he jogged the last few yards. Sister Sun grabbed his wrist and pulled him close.
“Send them away,” she whispered.
Peter snapped his fingers and the Red Brothers immediately retreated out of earshot but within visual range.
“What is it, sister?” asked Peter, his tone gentle and filled with concern. “Is it the cancer…?”