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Benny nodded

"So the footprints we’re seeing here are almost certainly human Question is whether these are older prints that were mostly, but not entirely, erased by runoff, or prints left byheavy loads The last of the runoff blurred the edges and in this area here, the topsoil is thinner, because we’re coh here recently, then it has to be Charlie and the Haht away "What botherssmall footprints"

"Nix’s?"

He nodded "We saw her prints earlier, but I haven’t seen one in the last hour Not one"

"What if one of theround was softer, we could make that call, because one of the ht, but I’ here look like they’re from several different pairs of shoes"

"More than Charlie and the Hammer?"

"Yes"

"The Mekong brothers?"

"Could be the fourelse, but stopped hih

"What?"

"There are a couple of other options, Benny, and we have to be ready for them"

"What are they?"

"The option I like is that Nix somehow escaped If that’s the case, her trail could have split off at any tiround instead of trying to go back to town"

"Because there aren’t as her up, there’s always the chance of finding food and shelter There are some monks out here If she runs into one of theet word to me"

"What’s the other option? The one you don’t like"

Tom met his eyes "There are a lot of places out here to hide a body, Benny"

There was nothing Benny wanted to say to that On some superstitious level, he felt that to respond to it would be to increase the chances that it ht to take hold in either his heart or head Nix’s notebook was still in his back pocket, and he touched it like it was a talisman, to ward off any evil possibility

His throat was so dry that his voice was a dusty croak "So what do we do now? What can we do?"

"If I was Charlie and I wanted to lay low … I’d either head for the trader’s compound on the eastern slopes, or …" He frowned

"Or what?"

"Gameland"

"Do you have any idea where the new location is?"

"No But there’s an old fire access road that we can use to cut across country to a spot where they’d have to pass no h to areas that have more or less been cleared of zoms, and it’s the route all travelers take"

As they walked, Tom said, "I never finished my story about how I found the Lost Girl We’ll talk about it th later, but just in case we have to try and find Ga the human that Lilah had killed, I was able to pick up her trail It took about four days, but I finally tracked her to one of the er station up on stilts, built high on the mountain, and I cliuess I was up there for two or three hours when I saw her She walked out fro for a couple ofan ear of raw corn She was dressed like she was on the Zombie Card Not the one you have, but the earlier one"

"Earlier one? What do you mean? I have nearly the whole set …"

Tom shook his head "You don’t understand, Benny, but the Zombie Cards weren’t intended for kids to collect That came later, when the printers wanted to inal purpose of them was so that bounty hunters could carry pictures of the dead that had been reliably sighted, so that people could reach out to arrange for closure" Still holding Chief’s reins, Tom reached into his pack, pulled out a soft leather pouch, and handed it to Benny

Benny opened the pouch and reh them "I never saw most of these And … they’re different" The cards didn’t have the Zo on the back The ies were more like the standard erosion portraits that people put up on the walls near the Red Zone On the backs were naraphical information In the lower left corner was a price--the amount of ration dollars to be paid for a confirht corner on so with either an S, L, SU, or Q