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Helpless

The word hung in the air Ugly and full of dreadful new

"What do we do with hi We leave him here"

"Shouldn’t we bury hiraveyard If it was you, would you rather be in a little wooden box under the cold ground or in the place where you lived? A place where you were happy and loved"

Neither thought was appealing to Benny He shivered even though the rooly hot

Tom removed the envelope from his pocket Apart from the folded erosion portrait, there was also a piece of cream stationery on which were several handwritten lines Tohed, and then turned to his brother

"Restraining the dead is difficult, Benny, but it isn’t the hardest part" He held out the letter "This is"

Benny took the letter

"My clients--the people who hire s they would like to say thes they need said, so they can have closure Do you understand?"

Benny read the letter His breath caught unexpectedly in his throat, and he nodded as the first tears fell down his cheeks

His brother took the letter back "I need to read it aloud, Benny You understand?"

Benny nodded again

Toht, and read:

My dear Harold I love you and miss you I’ve missed you so desperately for all these years I still drea I pray that you’ve found peace I forgive you for what you tried to do to ive you for what you did to the children I hated you for a long ti that happened I want you to know that I took care of our children when they turned They are at peace, and I put flowers on their graves every Sunday I know you would like that I have asked Toood entle with you I love you, Harold May God grant you His peace I know that whenwith Bethy and little Stephen, and ill all be together again in a better world Please forgive e to help you sooner I will always love you

Yours forever,

Claire

Benny eeping when Tom finished He turned away and covered his face with his hands, and sobbed Toed him and kissed his head

Then Tom stepped away, took a breath, and pulled a second knife from his boot This one, Benny kneas Toer with a ribbed handle and a six-and-a-half-inch-long blade Benny didn’t think he would be able to watch, but he raised his head and saw Tom as he placed the letter on the table in front of Harold Simmons and sently pushed its head forward, so that he could place the tip of his knife against the hollow at the base of the skull

"You can look away if you want to, Benny," he said

Benny did not want to look, but he didn’t turn away

Tom nodded He took another breath and then thrust the blade into the back of the zombie’s neck The blade slid in with alap between spine and skull, and the razor-sharp edge sliced coh the brain ste His body didn’t twitch; there was no death spasainst the silken cords and was still Whatever force had been active in hien or radiation or whatever had taken the one

Tom cut the cords that held Si it on the table, so that the dead man’s palms held the letter in place

"Be at peace, brother," said Tom

He wiped his knife and stepped back He looked at Benny, as openly sobbing

"This is what I do, Benny"

13

FOR FIVE DAYS AFTER THEY GOT BACK, BENNY DID NOTHING In the s he sat in the backyard, invisible in the cool shade of the house as the sun rose in the east When the sun was overhead, Benny went inside and sat in his rooo downstairs and sit on the top step of the porch He didn’t say more than a dozen words Tom cooked meals and laid them out, and sometimes Benny ate and sometimes he didn’t

Toave Benny a hug and said, "We can talk tomorrow if you want to"

Nix ca on the other side of the garden gate, he just gave her a single small nod She came in and sat down next to him

"I didn’t know you were back," she said

Benny said nothing

"Are you okay?"

Benny shrugged, but kept silent

Nix sat with hiie caate

"What’s up with Benny?" Chong asked

Tom sipped from a cup of water and squinted at sun-drowsy honeybees, hovering over the hedge "He needs a little tiie

Tom didn’t answer The three of therass that curled around the edges of his sneakers

"He just needs soain the next day And the next

On the sixth ht a straw basket filled with blueberry muffins that were still hot from the oven Benny accepted one, sniffed it, and ate it without comment

A pair of crows landed on the fence, and Benny and Nix watched them for almost an hour

Benny said, "I hate the that the co else they could see She didn’t knoho Benny meant, but she understood hate Her le day when her mother didn’t find some reason to curse Charlie Pink-eye or damn him to hell

Benny bent and picked up a stone, and for ato throw the rock at theie always did Not to hurt the birds, but to scare a noise frohed the stone in his palrass

"What happened out there?" Nix said, asking the question that had hung burning in the air for a week

It took Benny ten minutes to tell her about the Rot and Ruin But Benny didn’t just talk about zoms Instead he talked about three bounty hunters on a rocky cleft by a stream in thebefore he was finished, Nix was crying Benny’s eyes were hard and dry, as if all of his tears had been burned away by what he’d seen Nix put her hand on Benny’s, and they sat like that for rew older

As they sat Nix waited for Benny to turn his hand, to take hers in his, to curl his fingers or thread theh hers She had never felt closer to him, never believed in the possibility of them more than she did then But the hour burned away and turned to ash, and Benny did not return her grip He , Nix got up and went out through the garden gate Benny had not said another word since he’d finished telling his tale Nix really wasn’t sure that he knew she’d held his hand Or that she’d left