Page 9 (1/2)
By the tiunshots were being fired, Benny was e It was like playing ghost tag with Chong and Morgie
Toer to his lips and gestured for Benny to rerass, which led to a dense stand of birch trees Fro and shouting, and the occasional hollow crack of a pistol shot
"Stay here," Tom whispered, and then heinto the tall grass Benny lost track of hiunshots popped in the dry air
A fullconstriction in his chest and realized that he was holding his breath He let it out and gulped in another
Where was Tohter and shouts A few scattered gunshots A third e and dark rass
"Tom!" Benny almost screamed the name, but Tom shushed him His brother stepped close and bent to whisper
"Benny, listen toyou need to see If you’re going to understand how things really are, you need to see"
"What is it?"
"Bounty hunters Three of them I’ve seen these three before, but never this close to town I want you to come with me Very quietly I want you to watch, but don’t say or do anything"
"But--"
"This will be ugly Are you ready?"
"I--"
"Yes or no? We can head northeast and continue on our way Or we can go home"
Benny shook his head "No … I’et serious, I want you to run and hide Understand?"
"Yes," Benny said, but the as like a thorn caught in his throat Running and hiding Was that the only strategy Tom knew?
"Promise?"
"I promise"
"Good Now, follow me When I move, you move When I stop, you stop Step only where I step Got it? Good"
To his position in time with the fluctuations of the wind When Benny realized this, it became easier to match his brother’s movement, step for step They entered the trees, and Benny could hter of the three men They sounded drunk Then he heard the whinny of a horse
A horse?
The trees thinned, and Tom hunkered down and pulled Benny doith hihtmare Even as Benny took it in, a part of his et what he was seeing He could feel every detail being burned into his brain
Beyond the trees was a clearing bordered on two sides by switchbacks of the deep stream The stream vanished around a sheer sandstone cliff that rose thirty feet above the treeline and reappeared on the opposite side of the clearing Only a narrow dirt path led from the trees in which the Imura brothers crouched to the spit of land fraave the on with two big horses stood in the shade thrown by the birch trees The back of the wagon was piled high with zombies that squirmed and writhed in a hopeless atteon was a growing pile of severed aron were limbless cripples
A dozen other zombies milled by the sandstone wall of the cliff, and every time one of them would lumber after one of the men, it was driven back by a vicious kick It was clear to Benny that two of the men knew so and spinning kicks The hed and applauded As Benny listened, he realized that as one stepped up to confront a zombie, the other two men would name a kick The men shouted bets to one another and then rated the kicks for points The two kick fighters took turns while the thirdnumbers in the dirt with a stick
The zombies had little hope of any effective attack They were clustered on a narrow and al Far worse than that, each and every one of the masses of torn flesh and alon and saw that they were all blind as well
He gagged, but cla
The standing zombies were all battered hulks, barely able to stay on their feet, and it was clear that this ga on for a while Benny knew the zombies were already dead, that they couldn’t feel pain or know humiliation, but what he saw seared a mark on his soul
"That one’s ’bout totally messed up!" yelled a dark-skinned man with an eye patch "Load him up"
The man who apparently didn’t know the fancy kicks picked up a sith a heavy, curved blade Benny had seen pictures of one in the book The Arabian Nights A scimitar
"Okay," said the swordsman, "what’re the numbers?"
"Denny did his in four cuts in three point one seconds," said Eye-patch
"Oh, hell … I got that beat Ti a stopwatch out of his pocket "Ready … Steady … Go!"
The swordse boy who looked like he’d been about Benny’s age when he died The blade swept upward in a glittering line that sheared through the zoht ar and sliced down to take the other ar the sword laterally and chopped through both legs, an inch below the groin The zoainst all odds, re
"Time!" yelled Eye-patch, and read the stopwatch "Holy crap, Stosh That’s two point nine-nine seconds!"
"And three cuts!" shouted Stosh "I did it in three cuts!"
They hoith laughter, and the third man, Denny, squatted dorapped his burly arrunt, and carried it over to the wagon Eye-patch tossed him the limbs--one-two-three-four--and Denny added theain Stosh drew a pistol and shot one of the re zombies in the chest The bullet did no haran lu back kick!"
And Eye-patch leaped into the air, twisted, and drove a savage kick into the zo it backward into the others They all fell, and the hed and handed around a bottle while the zombies clambered aardly to their feet
Too"
He rabbed his sleeve "What the hell are you doing? Where are you going?"
"Away fro!"
Tom turned to face him "What is it you expect ent whisper
"Why?"