Jonathan Maberry - Rot & Ruin

“What did they do?” Nix asked, and this time there was more compassion in her voice.

“They beat me.” Lilah shrugged as if that was nothing, as if measured against all that she had endured, it was a small thing. Nix paled and Benny shivered. “Beat me a lot. No food.”

Nix cursed.

Lilah gave another shrug. “Made me tougher. Made me mad. Mad enough.”

“And Annie?”

“She… ran.”

They looked at her and saw a tear break from the corner of one hazel eye and roll down her tanned cheek. It glistened like a diamond in the lantern light.

“Ran?”

“Fought and ran. Stormy night, lots of rain. Annie ran, the ugly man chased her. Hammer. He chased. Annie tripped. Slipped on mud. She fell. Badly. Hit her head on a stone.”

“No…”

“I couldn’t do… anything.” Lilah shook her head in denial of the memory. “They left her there. Like trash out in the rain. Like she was nothing. I was already out of there, escaped two days before, but came back. Sneaky, quiet. To get Annie. But… when I found her, Annie was gone. Already gone. Then she… came back.”

“Oh God, no…”

“Tried to bite.”

More tears fell from Lilah’s eyes. It was all that Lilah would say on the subject. Nix asked her what she’d done with her sister, but Lilah just shook her head. Benny matched this against what Tom had told him, of the man Lilah has been trying to kill over and over again. The Motor City Hammer. All these long, frustrating years, Lilah had been killing the image of the Hammer in the hopes that one day she’d get him within range to take revenge for what had been done to her and her little sister.

“I’m sorry,” said Nix.

Lilah turned to her, eyes cold, voice frosty. “Sorry? Does that bring Annie back?”

“Well, no, but I-”

“Save words like ‘sorry.’ Save for the dead. Living don’t need them.”

She snatched up her spoon and forcefully stirred the stew, slopping some bits into the fire. Benny reached out and took Nix’s hand.

“How can the world be this cruel?” Nix asked quietly.

There was no chance that Benny could answer that question, but there was something about the warmth and reality of the hand he held in his that made an argument that cruelty wasn’t the only force at work in their world.

Nix said, “Lilah, will you come back to town with us?”

The Lost Girl looked up. “Why?”

“So you’ll be safe,” said Nix.

“Safe now.”

“It’s safer in town,” Nix said, but Lilah laughed.

“Charlie and the Hammer killed your mother in your town.” She pointed to Benny. “Killed his brother out here. Nowhere is safe.”

Before Benny or Nix could reply to that, Lilah added, “Out here- I kill . Walkers, bad men. I kill and I live. I’m safe here.”

That put an end to the conversation until after the stew was cooked. She dished out food, and Benny had to use real effort to maintain a straight face, because the one thing this wild girl could not do was cook. The stew tasted like hot sewage. He noticed that Nix was pretending to enjoy it while not actually eating much.

“Lilah,” Benny said, “Charlie Pink-eye’s camp is up here, right? On the other side of the mountain?”

Lilah nodded.

“Nix, you heard him,” Benny said. “He has kids up there, right?”

“Yes,” Nix said with a shudder. “They’re taking them to Gameland. It’s where they were going to take me.”

“Gameland,” Lilah said, and she bared her teeth like a hunting cat. Her fist knotted around her fork until the tendons in her hand were as taut as fiddle strings. “Annie.”

“Gameland,” repeated Nix in a sick, flat voice.

“Charlie and the Hammer have destroyed all of our families. They’re worse than any zom out here in the Ruin. They’re worse than a world of zoms. At least the zoms don’t know that what they’re doing is wrong. Charlie and the Hammer do. They’re evil.”

“Evil,” Lilah said, and the Nix echoed the word.

“Where are you going with this, Benny?” Nix asked.

He set down his dish and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Look,” he said, “I’m nobody’s idea of a hero, but I don’t think I want to go back to town just yet. In fact, I don’t think I can go back to town, knowing that those other kids are up there.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked Nix. “That we march into his camp and ask him to release those kids?”

“I don’t know, but we have to do something ,” said Benny. He jumped to his feet in agitation and began walking back and forth as he spoke. “I can’t just go on with my life, knowing that they’re out there and that they’re going to just go on destroying other families and other lives without anyone even trying to stop them. Tom said that before First Night, people wouldn’t do anything. They’d let families live on the street and starve. I can’t . That’s not the kind of world I want to live in.”

“But the camp,” said Lilah. “Too many men.”

“How many?”

She thought about it. “Maybe twelve. Maybe twenty.”

“Too many of them, but-,” began Nix.

“Not enough of us,” said Lilah, finishing the thought.

Benny suddenly straightened. “Wait, wait… Let me think for a second. Lilah, you said it. There’s not enough of us. Right… riiiight…” He trailed off and looked at the rocky ceiling, as if he could see out of the cave and through the mountain and all the way to Charlie’s camp. An idea was forming in his head. But the idea was insane and stupid. It was absurd and impossible.

“What is it?” asked Nix.

“Hm?” he said distractedly.

“Why are you smiling?”

He hadn’t realized that he was, and he certainly had no reason to smile. The idea that had started to take form in his head wasn’t funny. It was suicidal.

“Okay,” he said, his eyes brighter than the lamplight. “I have an idea, but you won’t like it.”

“Tell,” insisted the Lost Girl.

“For this to work,” said Benny, “we’ll need to create a diversion and then get the kids out.”

“What kind of diversion? The guys are used to being out here. They’re always on guard. Whatever we do, they’ll see it coming.”

Benny Imura gave the girls a very strange, very dark grin. “No,” he said, “I can guarantee you they won’t see this coming.”

And he told them what that was.

LILAH AND NIX STARED AT BENNY IN TOTAL SILENCE FOR MORE THAN TWO minutes. The stew in the pot began to bubble and burn; the waterfall roared softly in the background. Somewhere deep in the cave, water dripped with the constant rhythm of a metronome. Benny stood there and waited out the silence.

“You are crazy,” said Lilah.

“Probably,” said Benny.

“Are you serious?” asked Nix.

“As a heart attack,” said Benny.

Lilah took the burning stew off the fire and set it on the rocks. She leaned toward Nix. “Is he… damaged?” She touched her head to indicate where the suspected damage might lie. Nix held one hand up and seesawed it back and forth.

“Opinions vary,” she said.

“It could work,” said Benny.

“We could die, Benny,” Nix said.

“We could,” admitted Benny. “Maybe we will.”

“Maybe not,” said Lilah, and they both looked at her. A crooked smile had worked its way onto her lips, and she appeared to be re-evaluating his plan.

“Maybe not,” repeated Benny.

Nix ran her fingers through the red tangles of her hair. “Maybe not,” she agreed eventually, although with far less conviction.

The shadows made the cave seem as vast as outer space.