“Get off,” snapped the reaper as he smashed Chong across the face with a brutal backhanded blow.
Fireworks exploded inside Chong’s head and he sagged down, but his hand remained clamped around the red streamers. He distantly heard another thwap and Andrew’s howl of pain, but Chong’s vision was filled with black smoke. He collapsed down on his chest.
Andrew kicked free of his grip and raised a foot to stomp down on Chong’s head. But there was a cry like a hunting hawk and the meaty thud of flesh on flesh, and Chong peered up in wonder to see the reaper and Riot fall together in a snarling and deadly embrace. Andrew had his hands on Riot’s throat, but the young woman did not seem to care. She had a small knife in each hand, and as she crashed down and rolled over and over with the reaper, those blades did horrific work. Blood splashed the ground and spattered Chong’s face as he watched, dumbfounded and appalled as Riot—a teenage girl—slaughtered the monstrous reaper.
There was no better word. No cleaner word.
It was slaughter.
Then it was over. Riot rose from the red ruin that had been Brother Andrew. Blood dripped from her knives, her arms, her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked across the clearing at Carter, then at Sarah, and finally at Eve—who stood as still and blank-eyed as a statue.
That was the last thing Chong saw before a massive wave of darkness rose up and then crashed down on him, washing everything else away.
40
BENNY AND NIX KEPT MOVING, HEADING EAST. WHEN THEY LOOKED BACK there was no sign of Saint John, and the sound of the quads had all but faded out. All that remained was a faint buzz far away. There were no more yells or gunshots, either. The forest became quiet, but it did not at all feel like a natural calm.
“I don’t understand this,” said Nix.
“Don’t understand what? That guy back there or the whole freaking day?”
“People,” she said angrily. “The world ended, most of the people on the whole planet died . . . there’s no more reason for people to fight each other. There’s so much farmland we can use that no one will ever need to go hungry again. Even out here in the desert there are berries and figs and streams of pure drinking water. There’s no need to fight. But that’s all we’ve done. First Charlie and the Hammer, then White Bear and Preacher Jack, and now all this. I don’t understand it. When are we going to stop fighting? When are we going to actually want peace? When are we going to stop being so damn stupid?”
Benny shook his head. “I know, it’s crazy.”
“I mean,” Nix went on, “are we being naive about this? Are we just a couple of stupid kids who think that the world should make some kind of sense?”
“I know,” Benny said again. “I was kind of hoping we’d left that stuff behind with Gameland.”
“It can’t be everywhere,” she growled softly. “It can’t be.”
As she said it, Benny noticed that she looked up at the sky, which was just visible through the canopy of juniper branches.
“They said they saw the jet,” said Benny. “That’s something.”
She only grunted, and they walked in silence for several minutes.
Eventually Benny paused for a moment to use the sun and his wristwatch to orient himself. He squatted down and ran his fingers along the topsoil, which was darker than it had been when they’d first entered the forest.
“We should be pretty close to where Lilah went looking for Eve’s parents,” he said. “There’s some moisture in this dirt. Maybe we’re getting near to the creek Eve mentioned.”
Nix nodded, but she studied the woods. “I wonder where Lilah is. Did Chong find her? And where are they both right now?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Benny. “There was a lot of fighting going on back at the field.”
“I didn’t hear Lilah’s pistol anywhere,” said Nix. “In fact, the only gun I heard was that guy Carter’s shotgun. I don’t think the reapers have guns.”
Benny thought about that, and nodded. “I didn’t see any either. That’s something.”
“Reapers,” murmured Nix. “There’s no way that name is going to be anything but bad.”
“No kidding,” he said as they started down the trail again, angling more eastward to follow the richer soil mix. “That Saint John clown didn’t make a lot of sense. Who’s Thanatos?”
“One of the Greek gods of death,” Nix said automatically.
Benny studied her. “How do you—?”
“We studied it in school.”
“We did?”
“Of course. It’s from Greek mythology.”
“I don’t remember anything about Thanatos or Nyx.”
“Well,” Nix said with a sniff, “while you and Morgie were trading Zombie Cards under your desks, some of us were actually paying attention.”
“Okay, then explain to me why a bunch of freaks with knives are running around the woods talking about Greek gods. Did we have a Greek apocalypse, too?”
Nix grinned. “I think your new girlfriend is on Saint John’s team.”
“What?”
“Riot. She has the same tattoos on her head. So did all the reapers on the quads.”
“First, she’s not my girlfriend,” said Benny. “My girlfriend is a crazy redhead with freckles.”
That earned him a small smile from Nix.
“And second, Riot was with Carter. Besides, the woman I saw in the field was dressed like the reapers, and she had a full head of hair. So that doesn’t prove anything.”
“Maybe she wasn’t with the reapers. I don’t know, but the ones on the quads and Saint John had the same kind of skin art as Riot, so—”
“I don’t care. Riot was with Eve’s family.”
A wide gully yawned before them, and they stopped to examine it, but there were no signs of lurking zoms or reapers with gleaming knives. Even so, they moved silently and with great caution, weapons ready, minds alert.
“Well, we have one thing going for us,” Benny said as they left the gully behind them. “We should be safe from the reapers.”
“How do you figure that?” Nix demanded.
“Aren’t you supposed to be the mother of Thanksalot, the personification of death?”
“Thanatos,” she corrected.
“Right. Praise be to the darkness.”
“Ugh. Don’t say that, it’s freaky. Besides, Thanatos’s mother was Nyx. With a y.”
“Right, I’m sure that’s going to make a world of difference,” said Benny sourly. “If we’re attacked, you can dazzle them with spelling and grammar.”
She started to say something back, but Benny caught her wrist and pulled her down behind a tree. Nix started to ask what was wrong, but then she heard it too. The sound of motors coming their way.
Benny drew his sword but kept the blade in the shadow cast by the tree. Nix had her pistol out, the barrel pointed at the lead figure in a line of three quads that bumped and rocked along the forest path. Two men and a woman drove the machines. Reapers, without a doubt.
Benny was acutely aware that Nix had only two bullets left.
Nix thumbed the hammer back, but Benny whispered, “Don’t. Not unless they see us.”
Seconds burned away as the quads tore along the path, the roar of the motors filling the air. Then, a hundred feet shy of where Benny and Nix crouched, the line of vehicles turned and headed due east. The motor sounds diminished quickly; soon the reapers were gone, and an uneasy silence draped itself over the forest once more.
Nix blew out her cheeks and leaned her forehead on her outstretched gun arm. She uncocked the pistol. Benny bent and kissed her on the shoulder.
“They’re gone,” he said as he slid the katana back into its sheath.
Without raising her head, Nix said, “You know, Benny, there was a time—was it only a day ago?—when the sound of a motor would have been like Christmas to us. It would have proved that the world wasn’t dead, that there was something out here to find.”
??
?I know.” Benny sighed. “And I remember a time not that long ago when we were happy. When we used to laugh.”
Nix raised her head and looked at him for a long moment, her lips parted as if she was going to reply. The look in her eyes was so deeply sad that Benny had to look away to hide the tears that suddenly formed in his eyes.
They got to their feet and continued moving toward the creek. Neither spoke for a long time. Then they found the stream and followed the muddy banks to a small clearing, and there they found the blood-spattered remains of several tents. They stood side by side at the edge of the creek, neither of them willing to take another step up the bank.
“God . . . ,” whispered Nix in a voice that was filled with horror.
Benny spotted something and made himself climb the slope to the camp. He bent and picked up a stuffed rabbit. It was smeared with blood. He held it out to Nix, but she just shook her head.
“There must have been an attack,” he said. “That’s why Eve ran. In the confusion she must have gotten separated from her family. From all this gear, it looks like there were a lot of people here. We only saw her parents and that girl, Riot.”
“Benny, look,” Nix said, pointing to the stream bed. Two bodies lay half-submerged right at the next bend. They walked cautiously down and saw that they were truly dead. Neither was a reaper. They were ordinary-looking folk, and savage blows to their heads and necks had probably killed them and prevented them from rising. An unintended mercy buried within a heinous crime.
A few yards away they found a third body, and they squatted down to examine it. It was a middle-aged woman, and it was clear that she had been stabbed in the chest. Nix tilted her head to one side and grunted.
“She wasn’t quieted,” she said. “No head wound, no incision at the brain stem.”
Benny double-checked and then nodded. “It’s happening here, too. Not all of the dead are reanimating.”
“I wish I knew if that was a good thing,” said Nix.
“It was for Tom.”
She looked at the ground for a few seconds, then nodded. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. In silence they rose and moved along the stream. They found other bodies. Many others.
This had been the scene of a terrible slaughter. Here and there they found dead reapers, too, and each of these had been quieted by knives to the base of their skulls. But most of the dead were not reapers. Benny stopped counting when the toll reached fifty. Men, women, and children.
No one had been spared.
No one.
Nix’s lips curled back from her teeth in a feral grin. “Who are these freaks?”
Benny sat down on a rock and looked at his shoes. Then an idea struck him. “I think this is some kind of death cult,” he said.
She turned sharply. “What?”
“Think about it,” he said. “What else could it be? You said Thanatos was the Greek god of death, and Saint Jerk-o kept talking about the ‘gift of darkness.’ Seems kind of obvious.”
Nix snorted. “I said Thanatos was one of the Greek gods of death. The nice one, the one that takes away suffering. These reapers don’t seem like they’re trying to alleviate suffering. Besides—I can’t think of anything stupider than a death cult after an apocalypse.”
“Maybe,” Benny said dubiously.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Benny looked at her, surprised. “Really? You’re telling me that you can’t see their point?”
“Their point?”
“Shh, keep your voice down.”
Nix stepped closer. “Benny, what are you saying? That you agree with—?”
“What?” He almost laughed. “Agree? Are you nuts? I never said I agreed with anything. All I asked was whether you could understand their point.”
“What possible point could there be to a death cult?”
Benny stared at her. “You’re serious?”
She punched him on the arm. Hard. “Of course I’m serious.”
“First . . . ow. Second, I thought you were the one who was always all torn up about people back home being so depressed and fatalistic. You were always going on about how people have just given up. That’s why we’re out here, isn’t it? Trying to find some survivors who still believe that there is a future.”
“That’s my point,” she snapped. “We need to focus on being alive.”
“We do, sure, but that’s you and me and Chong and Lilah. Maybe a few others. Everyone else is still acting like they’re at a funeral for the human race.”
“That’s grief and depression,” said Nix, “not a freaking death cult.”
“Maybe those things aren’t all that far apart. C’mon, you’ve heard all those stories about how many people committed suicide after First Night. Mayor Kirsch said that almost half the people who settled Mountainside killed themselves within eighteen months.”
“It wasn’t nearly that many,” Nix said defensively, but it was a weak parry.
“Yes, it was. I heard Captain Strunk talking to Tom about it. Pastor Kellogg did a sermon about it.”
Nix holstered her pistol. “I must have missed church that day.”
“Okay, then what about the way-station monks? Some of them let themselves get bitten because they think it’s what God wants. They think the zoms are the meek that are supposed to inherit the—”
“I know,” she said bitterly.
Benny paused, studying her face. “Are you really going to sit there and tell me that you never thought about it?”
Nix’s head whipped around so fast that her flying hair brushed across Benny’s face. “I would never kill myself.”
“Whoa! Whoa, now. Who said anything about—?”
“You did. You asked me if I thought about killing myself.”
“No, I didn’t,” he insisted. “I asked if you ever thought about people in town killing themselves.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“It’s what I meant, and you know it.”
Nix narrowed her eyes at him in an expression that was half a glare and half an inspection of his eyes.
“Whatever,” she said, and turned away again. She drew her bokken, then stood there, pretending to study the landscape.
Benny stared at the back of her head and did not dare say anything else. Nix had been absolutely correct. He had asked her if she ever thought about killing herself.
The thing was . . . he did not know why he asked that.
He wondered if beating his head against the tree trunk would help the moment any. It seemed like the most reasonable option.
Nix abruptly walked into the woods, heading to an upslope that led away from this scene of carnage. “Let’s go,” she called over her shoulder.
“Where?”
She pointed toward a line of white rocks beyond the trees. “Up there. We can climb those rocks and see if we can spot Lilah and Chong.”
She moved off, not looking back to see if he followed.
After several heavy seconds of indecision, Benny rose and ran after her.
They moved carefully through the brush, and the closer they got to the line of bright white rocks, the less certain Benny became that they were rocks at all.
Maybe it was a building, he thought. There had to be a ranger station or something out here.
Nix reached the edge of the woods first and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
“No . . . ,” she said softly.
Her bokken dropped from her hand and clattered on the rocky ground. Benny hurried to catch up, and as he did Nix screamed out a single word.
“NO!”
She yelled it so loudly that birds erupted from the trees. The echo bounced off the surrounding rocks. It was loud enough to be heard a mile away.
Loud enough for everyone to hear them.
Chong. Lilah.
Riot.
The reapers.
The dead themselves.
Louder still than her scream was the thunder of Ben
ny’s heart as he saw what had torn that shout of denial out of her.
There was no ring of white rocks. There was no ranger station or a forgotten farmhouse.
It was a huge machine that had been smashed against the unforgiving landscape.
And it was heartbreakingly familiar.
It was an airplane.
PART TWO
BROKEN BIRDS
Shallow men believe in luck.
Strong men believe in cause and effect.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
41
“NO!” CRIED NIX AS SHE SHOVED PAST BENNY AND RUSHED FORWARD, but he darted out a hand and caught her arm.
“Wait,” he warned in a sharp whisper.
“Let me go,” she said viciously, and tore her arm out of Benny’s grasp, giving him a wild and murderous glare. “Don’t you see what that is?”
“It’s a jet—”
“It’s the jet.” Tears broke and fell down Nix’s freckled cheeks. “Look at it. Everything’s ruined. Oh God, Benny . . . everything’s ruined.”
Benny pushed back a low-hanging branch and stepped out of the woods so he could see the wreckage. His heart sank in his chest, and his fingertips were ice cold from shock.
Beyond the trees was a plateau. One side dropped away into a crevasse that was choked with tall pines; the other side leveled out into a section of flat forestland. A long trench was cut into the mud of the flatland, stretching back at least half a mile, and the nose of the craft was smashed into a mound of mud. Benny had slid into enough bases in rainy baseball games to understand the physics of that. The plane had not simply crashed; instead the pilot had tried to land it, coming in low and then sliding to a long, messy stop on the forest floor.
Because these woods were part of the Mojave Desert, the soil was loose and sandy, which had probably kept the plane from disintegrating on impact. The fuselage was almost intact, though there were jagged tears all along the side they could see. Both wings had been sheared clean off. One was wrapped like wet tissue around a tall finger of rock two hundred yards down the trench. The other wing had torn off closer to where the craft stopped its fatal slide, and it had twisted into an upright position, looking like the sail of an old-time vessel. The main fuselage was almost a hundred feet long and was cracked in two places, but the plane had not torn itself to pieces. Even so, bits of debris were littered behind it, some blackened from fire, others still gleaming white where they were visible against brown sand and green pinyons and junipers. Creeper vines clung to the metal skin of the plane and to each of the fractured wings. The vines were draped like spiderwebs between the blades of the four big, silent propellers.