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"Sure, but there’s a guard detail too"

"Sure, but it’s always better to be prepared"

As Tom sat down he spotted the object that Benny had placed in the center of the table The Zombie Card with the picture of the wild and beautiful Lost Girl

"Ah," Tom said

"Will you tell me about her?"

"Maybe Will you answer my questions first?"

"About Charlie Matthias?"

"Yep"

Benny sighed "I guess"

Toht"

"Hey!"

Touess’ doesn’t sound like a show of trust Either you will or you won’t"

"You’re going to go all Zen on ain?"

"Yes," Toive ht answer"

"Yes," said Benny "I’ll answer any question you want to ask, as long as you tell ht answers?"

"Yes But I’h," said Toht to it Do you trust Charlie Pink-eye?"

"After what happened today? No, not much"

"How much is ‘not much’?"

"I don’t know, and that’s the truth I like Charlie … or I used to, but today he really freakedto take that card from me By any means necessary"

"Do you think he would have hurt you?"

"To get the card?"

Tom nodded

"That’s a weird question, because it’s only a card, you know? I ot it It could have been Charlie’s own nephew, Zak, who bought that pack Or one of the other kids that Charlie doesn’t know It could have been Chong or Morgie Or Nix"

"Yeah, things happen in strange ways soo of the card, was that an accident or did you toss it to keep it away from him?"

"I dropped it"

"Why? Why not show hiive it to him?"

"It wasto let it bloay in the wind instead of letting Charlie have it That wasn’t about possession So as it about?"

"It’s hard to explain," Benny said "But when I first saw that card, when I saw her, I had this weird feeling that I knew her Or … would know her Does that ht, kiddo Mystical seereement, another crack of thunder rattled the crockery in the cupboards and pulled groans from the timbers of the house "Go on"

"I don’t know I felt like I needed to protect her"

"From Charlie?"

"Froirl looked fierce, and the heap of zoh "She can take care of herself"

"You say that like you know her," Benny said "I was square with you, now it’s your turn Tell "

"It’s not a nice story, Ben," Tos"

Thunder punched the house over and over again

"Like you said, this is the night for that kind of thing"

"Yeah," said Touess it is"

And he told his tale

24

"I FIRST SAW THE LOST GIRL FIVE YEARS AGO," TOM SAID "ROB SACCHETTO told me his story, of course, but I didn’t irl he left in the cottage and the wild girl I saw in the Ruin It’s hard to believe they’re the sae?"

Benny nodded

"There was roup that split off from the main rescue party that settled this town That teae No one knohere they ended up Maybe they gave up the search and found some other place to live or--more likely--they ran into trouble and died out there It’s odd … People talk about First Night as if it was just that one night, but when the dead rose, it took weeks for civilization to fall There were lots of fights Big ones with thetheir hohborhoods In the end, though, we kind of lost the fight more than the dead won it"

"What do you uide us, and that’s never the way to win Never A long ti to fear but fear itself’ That was never truer than during First Night It was fear that caused people to panic and abandon defenses It was fear that ether It was fear that inspired theiven it abo cities were destroyed; all the people killed by shock or radiation sickness Sure, some of the zoms were killed too, but those hundreds of thousands of people ere killed by the bombs came back as zoo, in which a reporter screamed and wept and prayed as she described waves of radioactive zo out of the ruins of the city They were so hot with radiation that they were killing hu before they made physical contact" Tom shook his head "It was fear that caused those bole" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>