‘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 someday 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 freaking 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 has 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.’
VII
They walked for miles under the hot sun. The 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?’
‘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 and ten million in Mexico, and you have something like four hundred and fifty million living dead. First Night 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 each other 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.’
‘What do you mean? How can something just stop rotting? That’s stupid.’
‘It’s not stupid, kiddo. It’s a mystery. It’s as much a mystery as why the dead rise in the first place. Why they attack humans. Why they don’t attack each other. All mysteries.’
‘Maybe they eat . . . like . . . cows and stuff.’
Tom shrugged. ‘Some do, if they can catch them. A lot of people don’t know that, by the way, but it’s true. They’ll eat anything alive that they can catch. Dogs, cats, birds, even bugs.’
‘Well, then, that explains—’
‘No,’ Tom said. ‘Most animals are too fast. Ever try to catch a cat who doesn’t want to be caught? Now imagine doing that if you’re only able to shuffle along slowly and can’t strategize. If a bunch of the dead came upon cows in a pen or fenced field, they might be able to kill them and eat them, but all the penned animals have either long-since escaped or they died off in the first few months. No . . . the dead don’t need to feed at all. They just exist.’
They reached the gas station. Tom stopped by the old pump and knocked on the metal casing three times, then twice, and then four more times.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Saying hello.’
‘Hello to . . .?’
There was a low moan, and Benny turned to see a grey-skinned man come shuffling slowly around the corner of the building. He wore ancient coveralls that were stained with dark blotches, but incongruously around his neck was a garland of fresh flowers. Marigolds and honey-suckle. The man’s face was in shade for a few steps, but then he crossed into the sunlight and Benny nearly screamed. The man’s eyes were missing, and the sockets gaped emptily. The moaning mouth was toothless, the lips and cheeks, sunken in. Worst of all, as the zombie raised its hands toward them, Benny saw that all of its fingers had been clipped off at the primary knuckles.
Benny gagged and stepped back, his muscles tensed to turn and run, but Tom put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze.
‘Wait,’ said Tom.
A moment later the door to the gas station opened, and a pair of sleepy-eyed young women came outside followed by a slightly older man with a long brown beard. The were all thin and dressed in tunics that looked like they had been made from old bedsheets. Each wore a thick garland of flowers. The trio looked at Benny and Tom and then at the zombie.
‘Leave him be!’ cried the youngest woman as she ran across the dirt to the dead man and stood between him and the Imura brothers, her feet planted, her arms spread to shield the zombie.
Tom raised a hand and took his hat off so they could see his face.
‘Peace, little sister,’ he said. ‘No one’s here to do harm.’
The bearded man fished eyeglasses from a pocket beneath his tunic and squinted through dirty lenses.
‘Tom . . .?’ he said. ‘Tom Imura?’
‘Hey, Brother David.’ He put his hand on Benny’s shoulder. ‘This is my brother, Benjamin.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Passing through,’ said Tom. ‘But I wanted to pay my respects. And to teach Benny the ways of
this
world. He’s never been outside of the fence before.’
Benny caught the way Tom put emphasis on the word
this
.
Brother David walked over, scratching his beard. Up close he was older than he looked - maybe forty, with deep brown eyes and a few missing teeth. His clothing was clean but threadbare. He smelled of flowers, garlic, and mint. The man studied Benny for a long moment, during which Tom did nothing and Benny fidgeted.
‘He’s not a believer,’ said Brother David.
‘Belief is tough to come by in these times,’ said Tom.
‘You believe.’
‘Seeing is believing.’
Benny thought that their exchange had the cadence of a church litany, as if it was something the two of them had said before and would say again.