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There was one job Benny already knew about: erosion artist He’d seen erosion portraits tacked on every wall of the town’s fence outposts and on the walls of the buildings that lined the Red Zone, the stretch of open land that separated the town from the fence

This job had some promise, because Benny was a pretty fair artist People wanted to knohat their relatives ht look like if they were zoms, so erosion artists took family photos and zombified them Benny had seen dozens of these portraits in Tom’s office A couple of times he wondered if he should take the picture of his parents to an artist and have the about his parents as zo artist, told him to try a picture of a relative first He said it provided better insight into what the clients would be feeling So, as part of his audition, Benny took the picture of his folks out of his wallet and tried it

Sacchetto frowned and shook his head "You’re ain with several photos of strangers the artist had on file

"Still mean and scary," said Sacchetto with pursed lips and a disapproving shake of his head

"They are mean and scary," Benny insisted

"Not to custoued with hi that if he could accept that his own folks were flesh-eating zo waret it through their heads?

"How old were you when your parents passed?" Sacchetto asked

"Eighteen months"

"So, you never really knew thee flashed in his head onceThe pale and inhu face And then the darkness as Tom carried him away

"No," he said bitterly "But I knohat they look like I know about them I know that they’re zoht?"

"Are they?" the artist asked

"Yes!" Benny snapped, answering his own question "And they should all rot"

The artist folded his arainst a paint-spattered wall, head cocked as he assessed Benny "Tell , kid," he said "Everyone lost family and friends to the zoms Everyone’s pretty torn up about it You didn’t even really know the people you lost--you were too young--but you got this red-hot hate going on I’ve only known you half an hour, and I can see it co out of your pores What’s that all about? We’re safe here in town Have a life and let go of the stuff you can’t change"

"Maybe I’et"

"No," said Sacchetto, "that ain’t it"

After the audition, he hadn’t been offered the job

3

"IT WAS A 1967 PONTIAC LEMANS RAGTOP BLOODRED AND SO souped-up that she’d outrun any da"

That’s how Charlie Matthias always described his car Then he’d give a big braying horselaugh, because no ht it was the funniest joke ever People tended to laugh with him rather than at the actual joke, because Charlie had a seventy-inch chest and twenty-four-inch biceps, and his sas a soup of testosterone, anabolic steroids, and Jack Daniels You don’t laugh, he gets ly usually followed Charlie becohed Not because he was afraid of what Charlie would do to hiht Charlie was hilarious And cool He thought there was no one cooler on planet Earth

It didn’t matter to Benny that the car Charlie always talked about had run out of gas thirteen years ago and was a rusted piece of scrap metal somewhere out in the Rot and Ruin Nor did it matter that the fact the car could even drive was at odds with history; not after the EMPs In Charlie’s stories, that car had lived through the bohouls and a thousand adventures, and could never be forgotten Charlie said he’d been a real road warrior in the LeMans, cruising the blacktop and bashing zohed too, though Benny was sure a couple of the it About the only person who didn’t laugh at the joke was Marion Hammer, known to everyone as the Motor City Haly and had pistol butts sticking out of every pocket, as well as a length of black pipe that hung like a club froh much, but when he was in a , and one corner of his mouth would turn up in what could have been a sht the Hammer was insanely cool too … Just not as insanely cool as Charlie Of course, no one was as cool as Charlie Matthias Charlie was a six-foot, six-inch albino with one blue eye and one pink one that was milky and blind There was a rumor that when Charlie closed his blue eye, he could see into the realht that icked, too … even if he privately wasn’t so sure it was true

The pair of thehest bounty hunters in the entire Rot and Ruin Everyone said so Except for a feeirdoes, like Mayor Kirsch, who said that Toht that was a load of crap, because Charlie said Tom was "a bit too easy on zoested Toht or didn’t have the raw nerve necessary to be a first-class zo as Charlie or asas the Hammer No, To as a bounty hunter was a tough and dangerous business None tougher, as far as Benny knew Most of the hunters were paid by the town to clear zoms out of the areas around the trade route that linked Mountainside to the handful of other towns strung out along the e Others worked in packs asmalls, warehouses, and even a few small cities, so that the traders could raid the to Charlie the life expectancy of a typical bounty hunter was six ave it azoms was a lot different from what they learned froht, and a whole lot different froht in school or the Scouts Charlie and the Ha to Charlie--and they’d been at it since the beginning, ht

"We kilt more zoether," the Haed at least once a month "And that includes the pansy-ass National Guard"

For all their bluster and bad odors and violent tendencies, Charlie and the Hammer were popular all around town, partly because they looked too tough and ugly to be scared of anything Maybe even too ugly to kill If even half of their reputation was to be believed, then they’d been indead than anyone, and certainlythis part of the Ruin They were even tougher than legendary hunters, like Houston John, Wild Bill Fairchild, J-Dog and Dr Skillz, or the Mekong brothers Then again, Benny had to o on, and in the end it probably didn’tor taken the eneral store, Charlie and the Haed one hundred and sixty-three nale kill had been a paid job, too

Charlie and the Ha a zo theh a closure rate as Toh Benny doubted it No way Tom’s rate could be anywhere near Charlie’s tally Tom never had extra ration dollars to spare, and Charlie was always buying beer, pop, and fried chicken wings for the croho gathered around to listen to his stories

"When you gonna retire?" asked Wrigley Sputters, the mail carrier, as he poured Charlie another cup of iced tea "You boys have to be rich as Midas by now"

"Midas?" asked the Hammer "Who’s he?"