Jonathan Maberry - Rot & Ruin

“You could go back. To your town. You and Nix. These people”-she waved a hand in the direction of the kids in the pen-“aren’t yours. So… why?”

Benny didn’t have a ready answer for that. There had not been time to explore his own feelings about everything that had happened or was still happening. He would liked to have made a bold speech about honor and dignity, or fired off a remark of the kind that would be quoted by future generations. All he managed was: “If we don’t do something to stop this, who will?”

Lilah considered him, her hazel eyes seeming to open doors into his thoughts. She must have seen something that she liked, or perhaps it was the simple honesty of his words, because she nodded gravely.

“Have to try,” she said.

“Have to try,” Benny said, nodding. “For Tom, for Nix’s mom… for Annie.”

Lilah closed her eyes for a moment, nodding silently to herself. Then, without another word, she turned and slipped like a promise into the shadows under the trees.

Benny and Nix climbed down from the plateau and found a dark and sheltered spot under a row of thick pines. Their part would not start for hours.

Overhead a lone buzzard drifted on the thermals.

Benny held his hand out to Nix, and she came and sat next to him. They drank from Benny’s canteen and ate some of the dried meat Lilah had given them. It was only marginally less disgusting than her stew, but they were hungry and eating gave them something to do. They said nothing for almost an hour. Benny spent much of that time reviewing the plan and looking for holes. There were plenty to be found. In fact, there were more ways the plan could go wrong than go right.

“Life’s weird,” Benny said.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

“No… It’s just that two weeks ago the worst thing I had to worry about was finding a job before they cut my rations. All summer long the bunch of us-you, me, Chong, and Morgie-all we did was goof off, hang out, and laugh. We used to laugh a lot, Nix. Life used to be fun.”

She nodded sadly.

“I have to believe,” Benny continued, “that we’ll get through this. Not just this stuff tonight, but all of it.”

“Get through it for what reason? Nothing seems to matter anymore.”

“That’s just it, Nix. I can’t let myself believe that nothing matters. You matter. We matter. We both need to believe that we’ll get past this. That we’ll be able to laugh again. That we’ll want to.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine that right now.”

He had no comeback to that. Her argument was too strong, and his was based only on wishful thinking and a threadbare piece of optimism.

They sat together and listened to the forest.

“Benny?” Nix asked quietly after a while.

“Yeah?”

“Last night… when you kissed me…?”

His throat went instantly dry. “Yeah?”

“Why did you do it? I mean, was it because I was so upset and you didn’t know how else to help me? Or was it because you really wanted to?”

“I-”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

He took a breath. “I kissed you because I wanted to,” he said.

She nodded. “Last night, when you thought I was sleeping… I saw you looking at her card.”

Benny plucked a stem of grass and ran it slowly between his fingers. It felt like cool silk. “Did you?” he asked.

“I saw you throw it away, too.”

“Did you?” he asked again softly.

“Yes, Benny… I did.”

She didn’t say anything else, didn’t speak another word for a long time. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and they sat there and waited for the day to burn away.

BY LATE AFTERNOON THE SUN WAS COMPLETELY COVERED BY A SHEET OF thick gray clouds. The temperature fell, but the humidity thickened the air to a hot soup. Benny drowsed against the trunk of one of the pines, and in his dreams he heard a sound that was like the roar of Lilah’s waterfall. The sound started small and far away, and Benny’s dreaming mind made it be the noise of the waterfall, which was a perfect backdrop for his dream of running through the woods, being chased by Charlie and the Hammer, both of who were now zoms but who also somehow managed to keep their personalities. They yelled to him in mocking voices, calling him “Little Benny” and promising to do terrible things to him. In his dream Benny ran as fast as the wind, and somehow the surrounding landscape barely moved, as if he was almost running in place. The zombie bounty hunters shuffled along behind him, almost close enough to grab him.

The roaring sound grew steadily louder, and Benny thought that maybe he was making some distance, that he was nearing the waterfall, but when he looked around, all he saw was the plateau on which the bounty hunters had their camp. Something brushed him, and he turned to see that Nix was running next to him. She was screaming, but Benny could not hear her voice. The roar of the waterfall kept getting louder and louder. And it was deeper in tone now, more of a loud drone than the splash of water.

“Benny!” Nix called his name, but it didn’t match the shape her mouth made.

The roar was huge.

“BENNY!”

With a start, Benny realized that Nix’s voice was not coming from the girl running beside him, and just as quickly he understood that he was dreaming and that the real-world Nix was yelling at him. He snapped his eyes open. The camp and the zombies vanished. The roar, however, was still there. Deep and loud, and getting louder.

“Benny!” Nix yelled.

“What… what is it?”

“You have to come and look!”

Nix grabbed his hands and fairly hauled him to his feet and then pulled him out from under the shelter of the trees. Not toward the promontory that looked down on the camp. Instead, she pulled him toward the trail that led back into the woods. She was running, and her grip was so tight and insistent that Benny ran too.

“What is it? What’s that sound?”

“You have to come see !”

They raced along the path to a clearing, and there, Nix stopped and pointed. She need not have bothered, because Benny saw it. His eyes bugged wide, and his mouth fell open as he stared up at the roaring thing.

It was silver and white, with vast wings that lifted it high above the mountains. Benny raised his hand, as if he could touch it. The thing appeared to move slowly, but that was an illusion. It was just so far away. Higher than the tallest of the surrounding mountains, skimming just below the ceiling of gray storm clouds. In another hour there wouldn’t have been enough light to see it. If the storm had started, it would have been both invisible and unheard.

But they stood there, holding hands, staring up as it roared above them, soaring with alien majesty from one horizon to the other. Coming from the west, heading east; far, far above the Rot and Ruin.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

Nix just shook her head.

“Where did it come from?”

“From the east.”

“No, it’s heading east,” he said, but Nix shook her head.

“It came from the east and turned around. I saw it and ran to get you.”

They watched it go, diminishing in size from a giant to a gnat and then to nothing, taking its roar with it. When it was gone, there was at least five minutes of silence before the birds began to sing again. They stood in the clearing for ten minutes more, hoping it would come back. Willing it to come back.

Benny said, “Nix… did we just see that? I mean, tell me we actually saw that.”

Nix’s green eyes were filled with magic, and her smile was bright enough to hold back the storm. “It’s real, Benny. We saw it.”