Jonathan Maberry - Flesh & Bone

Tom also included some of the things he learned while he was in the police academy. And a lot of stuff he learned since, including tracking and hunting, which he mostly learned from bounty hunters like Solomon Jones, Old Man Church, and the Greenman.

The training was hard, and sometimes we all hated Tom because he never cut us a break.

Now I understand. Sometimes I wish he’d been even harder on us.

Nix sat with her back to the twisted trunk of a bristlecone tree that loomed over the clearing forty yards from the edge of the ravine. She hugged the little girl to her chest as the child continued to scream and cry. Benny wondered if the kid’s mind had snapped. Those screams were hammering cracks in his own sanity.

Lilah squatted in the tall grass a dozen feet away and stared at the child with hollow eyes through which sad shadows flitted. Benny had once heard Tom refer to that kind of look as a “thousand-yard stare.” When Chong made to sit down next to her, Lilah drew her knife and stabbed the point into the earth between them.

“I can see that you need some quiet time,” he said, and scuttled quickly away.

Eventually Nix’s soothing tones and comforting embrace worked their magic on the girl, and she settled down to sniffles. Nix smoothed her hair.

“Sweetie… can you tell me your name?” she asked.

“E-E-E…” The girl tried to get it out, but every time she tried, she hiccuped a sob. “Eve,” she finally managed. Tiny jewels of tears sparkled on her face.

“Okay, Eve,” said Nix in a voice that reminded Benny of Nix’s mother. Soft and soothing, and full of the certainty of whatever was going to happen next. A parent voice. “Where did you come from?”

Eve looked at her with huge eyes and then looked over her shoulder, as if she could see her own memories. Her words came out all in a rush. “I was running after Ry-Ry, and I lost my way ’cause there were angels in the woods, and then the gray people were there and I ran some more and I tripped and fell. Where’s my mommmmeeee?”

Nix pulled her close again, and the child’s face vanished into a swirl of soft red curls. “Shhh, it’s okay, Eve. Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll find your mommy.”

Benny looked down at the child clutched in Nix’s warm arms. He was far less certain about that.

He wasn’t certain about anything. He thought about the sheer number of zoms that had come out of the forest.

Don’t forget the first rule about the Ruin , whispered Tom’s voice. Out here everything wants to kill you .

Benny closed his eyes, and even now, separated from the madness of the ravine, he wasn’t at all sure if the voice was a memory or a ghost.

Or something worse than both.

Please don’t let this be me , Benny thought. Please don’t let me be going crazy .

The sun shone and the birds sang in the trees and Benny tried hard not to scream.

In a quiet tone so that only benny could hear him, chong murmured, “Some day, huh?”

Benny jumped, and Chong shot him a puzzled look.

“What are you so twitchy about?”

For a moment Benny wondered if Chong could read his thoughts.

“Sorry,” said Benny when he was sure his words wouldn’t come out choked and twisted. “Yeah. Weird day.”

Chong sneaked a glance over at Lilah and sighed softly. “You know, I think I liked being down in that hole better. All the zoms wanted to do was eat me. I think Lilah would enjoy skinning me alive.”

Benny followed his gaze and half smiled. “It’s not you, man.”

“What?”

“She’s not mad at you. I mean, she is… but not any more than usual.”

“I fell in, and you know how she is with the whole thing about me being a clumsy town boy and—” began Chong, but Benny cut him off.

“It’s the kid. I… think she looks like Annie.”

Chong winced as if Benny had punched him in the stomach. “Oh, man…”

“Yeah.”

Benny understood Lilah’s pain. He and Tom had quieted the zombies that had once been their parents. Tom had helped him through it, though; and later, when Tom passed, Benny had been spared the horror of quieting him. Tom never reanimated. However, Lilah had been all alone with Annie. She had no older sibling to help her through it. Benny was wise enough to understand that no matter how bad his own experiences were, there were some people who had it worse.

As if reading his thoughts, Chong said, “I’d give a lot, you know? To make it different for her.”

“Yeah, man. I know.”

It was something Benny deeply understood, and he wondered if there was anything he wouldn’t give to change some of the things that had happened. To Nix’s mom. To Nix. To Tom.

To his parents.

He and Chong each drifted down the silent corridors of their personal pain as the sun burned its way through the hard blue sky. A pair of spider monkeys chattered in the trees. Benny looked at them because it was easier than looking at Eve, who still wept in Nix’s arms. He sighed, feeling immensely useless.

In town there was always someone around to help with children. The whole town looked after everyone’s kids. It was the way it had always been, at least in Benny’s experience. No one would ever let a little kid go wandering off on their own.

Nix kept stroking the sobbing child’s hair and murmuring words that Benny could not hear.

Eve was a little girl. Five years old. Helpless.

As Annie had been helpless.

Benny felt the weight of the sword slung over his shoulder. Tom’s sword. His sword now. The sword he had very nearly lost.

He felt his face flush as he thought about how Nix had chased him out of the ravine and Lilah had recovered the sword. That was wrong. It wasn’t the way things were supposed to work.

He felt eyes on him and turned to see Chong giving him a considering appraisal.

“What?” Benny demanded.

“What’s on your mind? You look like you’re trying to squeeze out a thought.”

“Nothing,” said Benny.

Chong sighed.

“Actually, there is something,” Benny said tentatively.

“What?”

“When I was in the ravine, I thought I heard something.”

“Like the sound of you peeing your pants?”

“Hilarious. Like a motor, like the hand-crank generator at the hospital. Did — did you guys hear that?”

Chong shook his head. “I didn’t. I was asleep.” Then, without meaning to, he said something very unkind. “Maybe you imagined it. You know, stress and all.”

Benny stared ahead, and for a few moments he did not actually see a thing except shadows drifting across the front of his mind.

“Yeah,” he said very quietly, “crazy, huh?”

Nix hugged Eve and kissed her hair. Then she encouraged her to drink from a canteen. Finally Nix caught Benny’s eye and gave him a tiny nod.

Benny and Chong came over, but they did not sit too close, warned off by a quick flare of Nix’s eyes. Benny sat cross-legged next to Chong and waited as Eve looked shyly at them from within the protection of Nix’s arms.

“Eve—?” began Nix softly.

“Mmm?” Eve answered in a tiny voice.

“Do you live around here?”

Eve sniffed and shook her head. “They chased us and… we had to run away.”

Ouch , thought Benny.

“Who did you run away with?” asked Nix. No need to ask who they ran from.

“Mommy and Daddy and Ry-Ry and me, we had to run away ’cause the angels came and set fire to the trees, and then the gray people came through the fence and ate all the sheep and cows and tried to eat—” She suddenly stopped and looked around, her eyes filling with new tears. “Where’s my mommy?”