Page 10 (2/2)

They moved steadily down the street, always slow The sun was heading toward the western part of the sky, and it would be dark in four or five hours Benny knew they could never htfall He wondered if Toas station … or if he was crazy enough to claiht If he had to sleep in a zombie’s house, even if there was no zoo completely mad-cow crazy

"There he is," murmured Tom, and Benny looked toward the house with the red door AbayHe once had sandy hair and a sparse beard, but now the hair and beard were nearly gone, and the skin of his face had shriveled to a leathery tightness

To white picket fence He looked from the erosion portrait to the ain

"Benny?" he said under his breath "You think that’s him?"

"Mm-hm," Benny said with a low squeak

The zo at them Benny was sure of it The withered face and the dead pale eyes were pointed directly at the fence, as if it had been waiting there all these years for a visitor to coate with his toe It was locked

Moving very slowly, Tom leaned over and undid the latch The process took more than two minutes Nervous sweat ran down Benny’s face, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the zoate with his knee, and it opened

"Very, very slowly," he said "Red light, green light--all the way to the door"

Benny knew the gaht They entered the yard The old woarden suddenly turned toward them So did the zombie in the bathrobe

"Stop," Tom hissed "If we have to make a run for it, head into the house We can lock ourselves in and wait until they calm down"

The old lady and the man in the bathrobe faced them, but did not advance

The tableau held for a

"I’m scared," said Benny

"It’s okay to be scared," said Toet you killed"

Benny alht himself

Tom took a slow step Then a second It was uneven, his body swaying, as if his knees were stiff The bathrobe zo up the valley, but the old lady still watched Heron so shadow

Tom took another step and then another Benny eventually followed The process was excruciatingly slow, but to Benny it felt as if they weretoo fast No , that the zombies--all of them up, and down the street--would suddenly turn toward thereat ry dead would surround them

Tom reached the door and turned the handle

The knob turned in his hand, and the lock clicked open Toloom of the house Benny cast a quick look at theto make sure the zombie was still there

Only he wasn’t

"Toed at Tom out of the shadows of the entrance hallway It clawed for hier Benny screa happened that Benny could not understand Tom was there and then he wasn’t His brother’s body became a blur of ht arrabbed the zombie’s shins from behind, and drove his shoulder into the former Harold Simmons’s back The zo clouds of dust from the carpet Tom leaped onto the zombie’s back and used his knees to pin both shoulders to the floor

"Close the door!" Tom barked as he pulled a spool of thin silk cord from his jacket pocket He whipped the cord around the zoether to tie behind the creature’s back He looked up "The door, Benny--now!"

Benny came out of his daze and realized there was movement in his peripheral vision He turned to see the old lady, the two little girls, and the zoarden path Benny slaainst it, panting, as if he had been the one to wrestle a zo he realized that it had probably been his own shouted warning that had attracted the other zo-bladed knife and cut the silk cord He kept his weight on the struggling zoe loop, like a noose The zo to turn its head to bite, but Tom didn’t seem to care Maybe he knew that the zoray rotted teeth

With a deft twist of the wrist, To it below the chin, and then he jerked the slack, so the closing loop forced the creature’s jaws shut with a clack Tom wound more silk cord around the zombie’s head, so that the line passed under the jaw and over the crown When he had three full turns in place, he tied the cord tightly He shis and then tied its ankles together

Then Tom stood up, stuffed the rest of the cord into his pocket, and closed his knife He slapped dust from his clothes as he turned back to Benny

"Thanks for the warning, kiddo, but I had it"

"Ue," Tom interrupted quietly

Toht of ’em out there"

"Do … do we … I hed "You listen to toonails into boards, the sound would call every living dead in the whole town We’d be under siege"

"But we’re trapped"

Tom looked at hio out the front I expect there’s a back door We’ll finish our business here and then we’ll sneak out nice and quiet, and head on our way"

Benny stared at hi and

"You … you just …"

"Practice, Benny I’ve done this before C’et him up"

They knelt on opposite sides of the zombie, but Benny didn’t want to touch it He’d never touched a corpse of any kind before, and he didn’t want to start with one that had just tried to bite his brother

"Benny," Tom said, "he can’t hurt you now He’s helpless"

The word "helpless" hit Benny hard It brought back the iers--and the two young woon

"Helpless," he ether they lifted the zohter than Benny had expected--and they half-carried, half-dragged it into the dining rooht fell in dusty slants through thesince decayed to dust on the table They put it in a chair, and Tom produced the spool of cord and bound it in place The zole, but Benny understood The zole" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>