Somewhere down there were her friends.
“Friends” was such a strange word to her. She knew it on an intellectual level from a thousand books, but since Annie and George died, she had never experienced it. Then Benny had come looking for her. As had Tom. Benny and Nix accepted her, welcomed her into their lives. They had brought her to their home, their town. They had included her in everything. They had introduced her to Chong, and he had fallen in love with her. Fallen in love. With her.
Lilah brushed away a tear. How had she repaid such kindness, such generosity? With harsh words and threats. With bitterness and dismissal. And with inaction when she saw Preacher Jack follow Benny and Nix into the east. A word … a single word from her would have prevented this moment. A single action, a stroke of her spear, would have canceled out even the possibility of what was happening below. She had chosen to pull away, and now she saw the cost of that choice.
So, you tell me … what choice do you want to make now?
Lilah had thought about that for hours. The choice, her new choice, burned in her mind. She smiled … and climbed down from the tree and continued her hunt.
70
THE THUGS WALKED BENNY AND NIX OUTSIDE, AND AS THEY EXITED the hotel it was like stepping into a weird modern version of the ancient Roman circus. There had to be more than two hundred people gathered in the field behind the hotel. Bleachers made from planks and pipes had been erected, and these were completely packed by a laughing, yelling, jeering crowd. The scene was lit by dozens of torches set atop tall poles, and their light cast the whole scene into a fiery unreality, where every pair of eyes reflected flickering flames. The whole area was fenced in by three walls made of armored wagons that had been parked tightly together, and the front was the entire back wall of the Hotel Wawona. On the right-hand side, between sets of bleachers, was a huge circus tent whose flaps were closed. Guards stood in a long row in front of the flaps, and on the top of the tent, painted in huge red letters, was the word BELIEVE.
Benny saw that the amphitheater surrounded seven large pits dug into the bare earth. The crowd cheered and yelled and laughed and made obscene jokes as Benny and Nix were led to the edge of the first pit. The dozens of guards were armed with knives and swords and spears. No guns, Benny noticed, and he thought about that. Were they afraid of wild shots in so densely packed an area? Or was there some other concern?
“Where are all these people from?” whispered Nix as she bent close to him. “Who are they?”
Benny shook his head. “I don’t know. Other towns, maybe. Or settlements. Families of bounty hunters …” His voice trailed off as he realized that he knew a few of the faces in the crowd. Not bounty hunters, but people from Mountainside! Not forty feet in front of him was Mr. Tesh, who owned a stable near the reservoir; and over by the circus tent was Barbara Sultan and her husband. They were corn farmers. He saw his high school gym teacher making a bet with an oddsmaker; and a few yards away from him was the woman who owned the feed and grain store on Main Street. He pointed this out to Nix, and she gasped.
“That’s Mrs. Rosenbaum!”
When the woman saw them looking at her, the smile on her painted mouth flickered for a second; then the man next to her made a joke, and they both burst out laughing. It was madness. These weren’t just strangers, these were people they knew. People they saw every day. He wondered how they managed to come here. What excuses and lies had they told to hide the ugliness of their appetites?
“I hate them all!” snarled Nix with incredible viciousness. Ever since they had learned that they were in the power of Charlie Pink-eye’s brother and father, she seemed ready to explode. Her eyes were filled with a glaring brightness, and her hands were shaking badly.
Don’t go away from me now, he begged silently, but when he tried to take her hand, she snatched it angrily away and stared at him as if he were an alien from Mars.
The buzz of the crowd suddenly changed as Preacher Jack and White Bear walked with their heads up, proud as kings, into the center of the amphitheater. The audience erupted into thunderous applause. White Bear encouraged the applause with upward waves of his big arms.
Nix leaned close again. “Want to hear something funny?”
“Um … sure, Nix,” he said carefully. “Seems like a great time for a joke.”
Her eyes glittered like glass as she nodded toward White Bear. “I actually like his plan.”
Benny almost smiled. “Sure. Except for the slavery part.” He nodded toward the crowd. “I wonder how loud they’ll be cheering when White Bear’s goons are putting them to work herding zoms and building fences.”
“Shaddup!” growled Digger, cuffing them again.
Preacher Jack raised his arms, and the crowd instantly fell silent. It was so quiet that Benny could hear the crackling of the torches and the popping of the canvas on the circus tent.
“My brothers and sisters,” Preacher Jack began in a voice that was deep and strong, “thank you for coming here to share in this auspicious event on this glorious day. A day we will all remember for as long as God grants us breath. As they did in biblical times, we hold these games in celebration of an important event. We are about to begin writing a new chapter in the storied history of mankind. We will begin a new holy book chronicling the foundation and consecration of a new Eden.”
The crowd exchanged looks, surprised at what appeared to be a sermon and uncertain where it was going.
“I wanted to share this day, not only with my family and friends”—and here he gestured to White Bear and then to the audience—“but with my congregation as well.”
A ripple of hushed conversation whisked through the crowd.
“I asked my congregants to join us in celebrating a new era of peace and fellowship as we poor sinners prove ourselves worthy to share in this paradise. Join me in welcoming the members of the First Church of the New Eden!”
The crowd began to applaud, and the guards by the tent turned and began pulling back the canvas flaps. When the crowd saw that there were hundreds of people sitting in tightly packed rows of folding chairs, they applauded with greater enthusiasm, welcoming more folks to this party. Then one by one the people in the audience stopped applauding until there was only one person—a silly drunk in the far corner—clapping; and then he, too, stopped. There was a long pause in which silence reigned over the entire amphitheater, and Benny could feel Nix stiffen beside him. His own heart was hammering.
Suddenly a woman screamed, and the crowd surged to its feet. There was instant turmoil as people fought to move away from the congregation. The guards waded into the packed mass, shoving people, clubbing some, yelling at them. Preacher Jack still stood with his arms raised, a smile of great joy on his face.
Benny stared in total horror. There had to be five hundred folding chairs set in rows in the tent. Each chair was filled, but each congregant was lashed to the chair by strips of white cloth that were wrapped around their legs and chests. They all writhed and struggled against the bonds. Not just to escape … but to attack.
The entire congregation was zombies.
“Oh my God!” gasped Nix, and shrank back, but Digger grabbed her shoulder and kept her in place. Benny had been unable to move and stood stock-still.
White Bear reached under his cloak of bearskin and brought out a pump shotgun that hung concealed on a sling. He pointed it at the sky and pulled the trigger. There was a huge BOOM!
Everyone froze.
“Sit down!” he roared, and racked the slide on the shotgun. There was another moment of silent indecision, and then the crowd obeyed. In the stillness of that moment they could see that the zoms were unable to rise or attack. A few people crept back to their seats, then more, and within minutes the entire crowd was back in their places. Nobody was smiling except for Preacher Jack.
And Nix. “Did you see the looks on their faces?” She giggled. And that was when Benny realized that Nix had crossed over into some other place.
Preacher
Jack raised his hands. “Be at peace! The Children of Lazarus are all bound … we are all safe from one another, and that is the way that harmony can grow.”
The audience buzzed with troubled chatter, but gradually they all stopped talking to one another and looked at him.
“This is still a night of sport and celebration. This is what you came for!” The preacher half turned and pointed one hand down at the pits and the other at Benny and Nix.
The crowd stared for a moment longer, and then they roared with cheers and applause.
“Ah, crap,” said Benny.
White Bear goosed the applause for a full minute and then gradually quieted everyone with downward waves of his hand. “In ancient times,” he said in a voice every bit as loud and booming as his father’s, “those who had committed terrible crimes would suffer public execution.”
A ripple of applause.
“Or public humiliation.”
Bigger applause.
“But we are a civilized people!”
Applause and expectant smiles. Everyone knew what was coming now; everyone was in on the joke.
“My father is a holy man, and he says that the world is both heaven and hell and Gameland is purgatory.”
Someone in the back of the crowd actually yelled, “Hallelujah!”
Benny felt outrage bubbling in his chest. He was not the most devout churchgoer, but even he knew that this was no kind of religion. Preacher Jack might be crazy enough to believe some of this, but for White Bear it was all about manipulation.
White Bear roared, “So here in purgatory sinners get a chance at redemption. They get a chance to earn the right to be part of New Eden.”
Someone—Benny thought it was a guard—began a chant of “New Eden!” and soon the whole crowd was shouting it out as if it was something they believed in already. Sheep, Benny thought. Just sheep.
Nix laughed aloud, but only Benny heard her. It scared him as much as what White Bear was saying.
“So, tonight my father and I are going to set an example. We are making a new law, and we will be the first to abide by it!”
“Tell us, White Bear!” someone shouted, and everyone clamored the same.
White Bear pointed to Benny and Nix. “We got two sinners here. Two murderers. They led an attack on the camp of Charlie Matthias. You all knew Charlie, and you knew him as a good and decent man.” If the applause was not as enthusiastic, Benny saw, it was at least very loud. “They murdered my brother. And a few days ago they participated in the murder of my other brother, Zak, and his son. The blood of my family is on their hands!”
The crowd booed and called for blood to pay for blood.
Here it comes, Benny thought, and braced himself.
White Bear quieted the crowd once more. “But hear me—these are no longer zombie pits. It is forbidden to call them that ever again. These are the Pits of Judgment. Sinners go in there to face their crimes. Heaven itself decides the truth. If the accused is innocent, or if there is true repentance in his heart, then he will emerge unharmed from the pit. And if not …”
The crowd waited for it.
“… then the Children of Lazarus will make a sacrament of their flesh!”
The crowd went wild. Benny stared. Maybe some of them had started to believe this nonsense, or maybe it was all just a new game to them. Either way, they were totally sold on it.
White Bear, as grand a showman as his father, held one hand aloft so that the audience held their breath, and with the other he pointed at Benny and Nix. “It is time!” he proclaimed. “Cast them into the Pit of Judgment.”
Benny’s last thought before Digger and Heap pushed him over the edge was, Oh, brother.
Then he and Nix were falling into darkness.
71
CHONG TRIED TO FIGHT THE HANDS THAT PULLED HIM FROM THE PIT, BUT his attacker bent close and in a fierce whisper said, “Chong—it’s me.”
Chong stopped struggling. The figure let go of him and moved into a patch of starlight.
“Tom!” Chong began to cry out, but Tom clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Shhhh!”
Chong nodded. “How’d you find me?” he whispered.
Tom quickly explained how he’d left Benny, Nix, and Lilah back at the way station, and about his encounter with Sally Two-Knives.
“I—I’m … Tom, I’m so sorry—”
“Save it. This is a lot more my fault than yours, kiddo. Even so,” Tom said, tapping him hard in the chest, “do not let it happen again. From here on out you follow orders exactly as given, understand?”
“Absolutely loud and clear.”
The sounds of laughter and applause, the screams and jeers, were much louder. The noise was coming from behind the place, past the line of close-parked wagons. There were a few small zombie pits out here, but Tom suspected the real attraction was over there.
“Benny and Nix are here somewhere,” Tom said, “and I have a bad feeling about where they are.”
As if to counterpoint his comment, the crowd erupted into furious applause.
“What are we going to do?”
“First things first,” said Tom. “You look pretty banged up. Are you all right?”
When Chong took too long to answer Tom pulled him into a patch of light that was screened by hedges.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
Chong turned and showed him his shoulder. “I was bitten.”
Tom closed his eyes for a moment and sagged back against the edge of the porch. “Ah … kid … damn it …”
“In the pit. They made me fight. I won … both times, but I got bit.”
“How long ago was this?”
“I don’t know. Five, six hours. I can’t really tell.”
Tom gave him a puzzled frown. “How are you feeling? Have you been vomiting? Any double vision? Pain in your joints?”
“Just a little dizzy and nauseous.”
Tom looked at the bite again. “You should be showing symptoms by now.”
“H-how long do you think I have?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “It’s different for everyone.”
Chong knew that was true. Some people got sick right away; others took as long as a day before they felt it. In the end it was going to be the same. The plague had a 100 percent infection rate. No one ever survived it.
From behind the building they could hear Preacher Jack making a speech.
“Have you seen other prisoners?” asked Tom.
Chong shook his head. “No, but I heard people talking about them. There’s supposed to be a bunch of other kids here. In the hotel, I think.”
“Then that’s where Benny and Nix will be. Preacher Jack took them.”
Chong touched Tom’s arm. “There are things you need to know. While I was still in the pit, I heard White Bear talking to someone. I’m pretty sure it was Preacher Jack. White Bear is Charlie’s brother and he … he called Preacher Jack ‘Dad.’”
Tom grabbed Chong’s wrist. “Preacher Jack is Charlie Pink-eye’s father?”
“I know … it’s scary, but it makes sense.”
“Only to madmen, kiddo.”
Chong looked away to the west. “Tom, where’s Lilah?”
Tom shook his head. “I … don’t know where she is. She could be with Benny and Nix, or she could be out there somewhere.”
“Out there” was a vast and featureless black nothing.
Chong licked his lips. “What … what do we do now?”
Tom handed him a knife. “We go find Benny and Nix,” he said.
72
BENNY AND NIX FELL INTO DARKNESS. NEITHER OF THEM SCREAMED. Benny was too furious, and Nix … well, Benny didn’t know what Nix was feeling. He thought he heard her laugh as the darkness of the pit swallowed them. Benny waited for the crushing impact at the bottom of a long fall, but his feet struck something soft and yielded. He hit and bounced and spun, and only then did he crash to the dirt. Behind him he heard Nix rebound and then thud do
wn.
There was enough light to see, and as Benny sat up painfully he saw that just below the hole was a sloppy stack of old mattresses, positioned to catch their fall and keep them from shattering their legs.
“Very considerate of them,” Nix muttered.
“I don’t think they care much about us.”
“No, really?” replied Nix sarcastically.
“I mean,” said Benny, “that it’s probably not as much fun to watch cripples fighting zoms.”
“Again … really?”
They got to their feet and looked around. No zoms and not much light. The pit wasn’t circular, and they could make out tunnels leading off in six separate directions.
White Bear squatted on the edge of the pit, grinning in a way that made his burned face look like a monster out of a nightmare. “Here are the rules,” he growled. “If you’re paying attention, you might already have guessed that this ain’t a straight pit-fight. There are tunnels and side passages and a few surprises cut every which way. Some of them are dead ends, and I do mean ‘dead.’”
“Ha, ha,” said Benny.
“You might also have guessed that you ain’t alone down there.”
Benny expected Nix to say “No, really?” again, but she held her tongue, so Benny supplied the sarcasm. “Well, we figured that … these being zom pits and all.”
“Watch your mouth, boy,” snapped White Bear.
“Really?” he said, and liked how it sounded. “What are you going to do? Beat us up and throw us in a pit full of the living dead?”
White Bear seemed to chew on that and apparently decided that Benny had a point.
“You were starting to tell us about rules,” prompted Nix.
“Yes indeed, little cutie. My dad placed a church bell down there. It ain’t easy to find, but it’s there. Find it and ring it and you get a free ticket out of there.”