Page 5 (2/2)

"Fine, then s," said Tom

"Maybe I should"

"But," interjected Benny, "don’t bring your weapons"

FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

Things We Don’t Know About Zo after a certain point

Why they attack people and animals

Why they don’t attack each other

Whether they can see or hear the way living humans can

Why they moan

If they can think (at all)

If they can feel pain

What they are

11

THE REST OF THE DAY WAS QUIET NIX WENT FOR A LONG WALK WITH LILAH, and Chong trailed along like a sad and silent puppy Morgie went fishing and Benny slouched around the house, looking at all the fa to wrap his brain around the idea that he wasn’t going to see any of this stuff anymore Even the beat-up chest of drawers in his room seemed wonderful and faood-bye to this, whispered his inner voice Let it all go

He took a long, hot bath and listened to a voice speak to him from the shadows in hisas if it were a separate part of hi voices," like old Brian Collins, who had at least a dozen people chattering in his head all the time No, this was different To Benny it felt like the inner voice he heard was his own future self whispering to hi to become A more evolved and e shortly after the events at Charlie’s caree with the voice, and often wished it would shut up and let him just be fifteen

After his soak, Benny stood for a while peering into thewho he was

After seven ier the skinny kid he’d been when he had first ventured out into the Rot and Ruin He actually had s of six-pack abs He made sure that he took his shirt off in front of Nix as often as he could reasonably justify it, usually after hard training sessions He worked hard to iggled or didn’t appear to notice instead of swooning with lust

Now he looked at his arh all those hours of training with swords and jujitsu and karate; at the tone acquired fro five to tenropes and trees and playing co howor to the boy he still believed himself to be The face seemed to fit more with his inner voice than with Benny’s perception of his current self

That was the proble On one hand he wanted to be fifteen and go fishing and play baseball and get in trouble swiping apples from Snotty O’Malley’s orchard On the other hand, he wanted to be aas Tom, as powerful as Tom He wanted people to show him the fear and respect they showed Tom

Benny knew that once they left Mountainside he would have to becohen hiend," just as Toion’s end No doubt Nix would find hiot and the tougher he beca that mattered was out there

Benny was more than half sure that if Nix actually loved hio with her into the Ruin Maybe not co he had on it

So he didn’t dare tell her that he wasn’t really sure he wanted to go

Tell her, said the inner voice Don’t lie to her

Benny ignored the suggestion

The Ruin was dangerous and it was uncertain, and everyone he’d talked to in town said that no one had ever gone past Yoseo all the way across the country, if that hat it would take to find the jet Tom, too; and Lilah

He stared into his brown eyes and studied the doubt and fear that he saw there

"Soend"

Nix believed that to stay in toas to be stifled and die behind walls, and she wasn’t entirely wrong Nearly everyone in Mountainside feared the Ruin with a dread that was so profound that they al beyond the fence line A feent out, visiting other towns, but even then they traveled in ons with the shades pulled down to block out any sight of the Ruin Only the drivers and their bounty-hunter guards rode outside the wagons Benny ions had to be sickeningly hot, but the travelers seemed to prefer that disco out theat the real world It drove Benny nuts He wondered what the passengers thought when they were inside the wagon but outside the fence Did they just shut down their higher reasoning? Did they drug theh the journey? Or was the denial so deep that they soons in the sah a doorway? Maybe to theue, but different from the one that had destroyed the world This was an emotional pandemic that blinded the eye and deafened the ear and darkened the mind so that there simply was no world other than what existed inside each fenced town

Most people had long ago stopped talking about First Night; and although no one said it aloud, it was pretty clear that they felt that they were all just waiting for everything else to end Society had collapsed, the one, nearly seven billion people had died, and the zoth They all knew that their fellow citizens of Mountainside believed that the world had ended and as left was just the clock winding down to a final and inevitable silence

It was a horrible thought, and until the big fight at Charlie’s ca to break free of the town and find someplace where people wanted to be alive Someplace where people believed that there was a future

Then there had been that fight Benny had been forced to kill people

To kill

People

Not just zo to open the way to a future?

There were so few people left Barely thirty thousand left in California, and no way to know if there were anyto increase that number? It was insane

Only here, only when he was alone and looking into the eyes of the person he was beco, could Benny admit the truth to hie and his inner voice repeated that truth, word for word They were all in total agreeot dressed and went downstairs and stood for a long ti at the map of Mariposa County and Yosemite National Park He heard voices and went to the back door and listened To across the rail fence to Mayor Kirsch and Captain Strunk Benny cracked the door so he could hear what they were saying

"It’s not just a few people, To about it"

"It’s not a secret, Randy," To since Christle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>