“Tom did a good job,” said Strunk as they watched Morgie hammer away at the tire. “Bet Tom would be proud of him.”
The wooden sword whipped and flashed and pounded, again and again and again.
CHAPTER 12
Benny walked along the trench — well away from Lilah — until the weight of the sun’s heat slowed him to a less furious pace. Finally, drenched in sweat and feeling about as low as he could feel, he stopped, shoved his hands into his pockets, and stood there, staring across the trench at the dead. A few of them moved restlessly, but the rest stood as still as if they were the tombstones of their own graves.
Movement caught his eye, and Benny turned to see Riot as she walked Eve to the playground and handed her over to the head nun, Sister Hannahlily. Then Riot spotted him and came his way.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
“Hey,” said Benny.
“I saw that fuss in the dining room. You fighting with Red?”
Benny shrugged.
“This about Chong?”
“Yeah,” said Benny. “I suppose.”
“He’s pretty messed up, huh?”
“He’s sick… and if you want to lecture me, too, about—”
“Whoa — slow your roll, boy,” she said. “Just asked a question.”
“Yes,” Benny said slowly. “He’s in bad shape.”
“Red wants to put him down, is that the size of it?”
“Yes.”
“She know that Lilah’d skin her quick as look at her, right?”
“She knows.”
“So, where’s that leave everyone?”
Benny sighed. “In trouble.”
“Life don’t never get easy, does it? It just keeps getting harder in stranger ways.”
They watched Lilah, who had stopped pacing and now stood as silent as the dead, staring across the trench toward the blockhouse.
“That Lilah’s a puzzle,” said Riot quietly. “I must’a tried fifty times to talk to her. Not deep conversation, just jawing about the time of day. All she did was tell me to go away. That’s it, two words. Go away.”
“Lilah’s had a really hard life,” said Benny.
Riot’s face took on a mocking cast. “Did she now? Well, she sure don’t hold the deed on grief and loss, son. We all been mussed and mauled by bad times. But that girl’s done gone and shut down. I met gray people with more personality.” She tapped her temple with a finger. “I’m beginning to suspect there ain’t nobody home.”
“She’ll snap out of it once they do something for Chong.”
Riot cocked her head to one side. “Y’all really think so?”
“Yes,” said Benny with far more certainty than he felt. In truth he was frightened for Lilah. Any gains she had made since he and Nix had found her — wild and almost unable to communicate with people — seemed to have crumbled away. And secretly, he agreed with Riot’s assessment that Lilah’s personality seemed to be… well, gone. She would participate in combat training, but otherwise there was nothing.
His inner voice asked, How deep inside your own heartbreak do you have to fall before there’s no outward sign of life?
It was a sad question, and that made him wonder what Nix would have been like if she’d dealt with her mother’s murder without friendship and support.
Or what he would be like after Tom’s death if it hadn’t been for Nix, Lilah, and Chong.
He ached to do something. If this was an enemy he could fight, he’d have his sword in his hands, but the truth was that there were some enemies you could not defeat.
Benny nodded toward the blockhouse. “You were in there, right? A few years ago? In the lab area. What was it like?”
“Those boys didn’t let me see much. They stuck me in a little room with a cot, a commode, and nothing else. Not even a good book to read. All I got to do was stare at the walls all day, every day, and that ain’t even as entertaining as it sounds.” She thought about it, then chuckled. “I was right happy when I heard that Lilah done busted up the place. They’re good people over there, but they sure ain’t nice.”
Benny grunted and changed the subject. “Have you seen Joe today? I want to ask him about Chong.”
She shook her head. “No. He was out at the wreck until late last night. Not sure when he got back. Saw that big ol’ dog of his this morning — one of the monks was walking him.”
Benny said, “What do you think of him?”
“Joe? You should ask Red,” said Riot. “She thinks the sun rises and sets around that feller. Better watch out, boy — I think she’s sweet on him.”
“It’s not like that. Nix has been pumping him for information.”
“Information for what? For that silly diary of hers?”
“It’s not silly and it’s not exactly a diary,” said Benny. “She’s been collecting information on zoms.”
“Like what?”
“All sorts of stuff — traps, barriers, and like that. How to fight them. She’s been working out how we — people, I mean — can take back the world. It’s smart, too. Joe gave her pages and pages of notes. She’s been asking him how to fight the reapers, too. Like, if we settle in a town or maybe start a settlement somewhere, Nix wants to be ready to defend it against anyone, living or dead.”
Riot nodded approval. “If that happens, let’s put her in charge of the defenses.”
He nodded.
Riot smiled. “Wow. And all this time I thought she was writing love poetry or stories about princesses and unicorns.”
“You really don’t know Nix, do you?”
“Apparently not. She’s a…”
Riot’s voice trailed off, and she stared openmouthed at something across the trench. When Benny followed the line of her gaze, he saw a figure that made him feel sick and sad.
It was a zombie. A woman. In life she had been beautiful, with masses of wavy black hair and a face as coldly regal as any of history’s great queens. Now her flesh was gray and wrinkled, the moisture leeched away by the heat, and her hair hung in matted strings.
Mother Rose.
Once the spiritual leader of the Night Church. Once consort to Saint John.
Once Riot’s mother.
Now… what was she?
Mother Rose stood at the edge of the trench, and in some weird and inexplicable way she must have recognized Riot. The two of them, mother and daughter, stared at each other. Benny tried to calculate all the things that separated them. Beliefs, remorse, life itself, so many things, all of them greater than actual measurable yards, feet, and inches.
Two small tears broke and fell down Riot’s cheeks. “Oh God.”
“Riot, don’t look,” sad Benny quickly. “Go back to the hangars, don’t let—”
“Go away,” said Riot.
“Hey, no, I just meant—”
“Just go.”
Riot crossed her legs and lowered herself slowly to the ground. She sat there, staring across the trench at the thing that had been her mother.
Benny turned and slowly walked away.
CHAPTER 13
Benny went back to the mess hall to find Nix. He didn’t want to be mad at her. Maybe if they talked it out she’d understand the thing with Chong.
But she wasn’t there.
The breakfast crowd was mostly gone, but Benny saw the ranger, Joe, come in. The big man wore camouflaged pants, a sweat-stained gray T-shirt, and handmade sandals. His blue eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. His skin was burned to a red-gold except for white lines from scars old and new. There were a lot of scars. Although he had to be in his late fifties or even early sixties, Joe was very fit, with ropy muscles that flexed under his tough hide as he walked. Ordinarily Joe was vibrant with good humor and rapid-fire snarky comments, but today he shambled to the steam table, and it looked like he needed to use serious concentration to spoon eggs onto his plate. Joe’s dog, a monster of a mastiff named Grimm, trailed along behind him. Joe thumped down into a chair at a table by the far wall; Grimm collapsed on the floor next to him. Everyone at the adjoining table got up and moved.