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"That’s just it!" he cried "Even if they’re only like a squirrel or a cat, or even if they’re only as ss feel pain"

She shook her head and looked at the twisted wreckage of zo to drive yourself crazy thinking like that To about the pain"

"Hoould he know?"

"Tom would know," she said fir in her voice A tremor of doubt

Let it be, whispered his inner voice Now’s not the ti that he was agreeing with her Benny stepped onto the ash and walked slowly over to the way station The building was a total loss Only the front wall still stood; the rest lay in heaps Benny touched a finger to the outside wall It was alain, considering things very carefully, and then used his finger to write a e

T / L / C

WE’RE FINE HOPE YOU ARE TOO

HEADING ON YOU KNOW WHERE TO

LOOK FOR US

WS

B / N

"WS?" Nix murmured "Warrior sht us"

"So … we’re heading east?"

"I guess," he said "To Yoseo back to town I sure don’t want to wait around here I don’t knohat drove all those zoht, and I don’t want to find out"

He hadn’t yet told her about thethe zoms The man he was pretty sure was Charlie Pink-eye How could he tell Nix that herthe world free?

Benny kneould have to tell her soon But not here and not now

Nix touched the wall below the first line T for To "It’s funny, but Mo care’" She turned away "That was a different world"

"Yes, it was," he agreed

"We don’t belong there anymore"

"No"

She narrowed her eyes and surveyed the way ahead Past the blackened ruins, toward the green expanse of the forest and the mountains in the east "It’s funny," she said "I actually thought this part--getting started, I et harder later, but I thought that this would be … I don’t know … kind of ordinary We’ve been out to Brother David’s a million times … but we’re not even twentyto be easy, Nix"

She glanced at hiht between her even white teeth She said, "Benny … if you say, ‘Let’s go back,’ I will Right now So help o back"

He looked into her eyes and then turned and stared across the charred field of bones to the path that led up into the northwestern slopes Then he drew a breath and let it out before he turned back "You already said it, Nix," he said "We don’t belong there any here?"

"I don’t know" He knelt and used a handful of withered grass to wipe the soot froot to tell you, Nix, it cost us too "

"We don’t have to prove anything, Benny"

"Yeah," he said, "I kind of think we do" Then he smiled The first real smile he’d worn since they left the tree "Don’t ask htly on the line of stitches that crossed her brow, and then more firmly on the lips

She kissed him back, and it wasn’t merely reflex She kissed him like she reen eyes that were filled with a thousand mysteries For once Benny felt like he understood some of theether they turned away froraveyard of the dead and headed east The road before thelirass

As they walked away they did not see the figure that stepped from behind a stand of fire-blackened pines It was a tall man Thin as a scarecrow in a black coat, hite hair that fluttered in the hot wind He watched the two teenagers as they walked along the road

The man moved as silently as a shadow as he crossed the field to the way station He stopped and those cold eyes read the e written in the soot His lips moved as he read the words, and then he chuckled softly to hi ti the words Then he used the hard, flat palm of his hand to wipe theure turned and looked at the road Nix and Benny were tiny dots now, and as he watched they vanished into the far woods

The man smiled and, quiet as death, followed

FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

Toh the brain stem and you switch off your zombie The same holds for a sword or ax cut, or sufficient blunt force traue to the brain steht be unable to bite or unable to maintain balance The bottom line here is that the real off buttons for a zombie are the brain stem and the motor cortex"

47

LILAH CROUCHED BENEATH THE SHELTERING ARMS OF A MASSIVE OAK TREE Cool green darkness wrapped around her Her white hair was tangled withrips in her shirt She had no memory of what had torn the fabric Sharp branches or broken fingernails Her pistol was gone Her knife was gone She’d left her spear buried in the chest of a zoe of the burned field It was hours before she realized that she was no longer carrying it

She had no ht Her head felt broken As broken as her heart When she touched her face she was surprised to find fresh tears, but an hour later the surprise turned to panic when she realized that she was still crying That she could not stop crying There were no sobs Just tears Cold against the fevered heat of her skin

From where she crouched she could see Benny and Nix enter the field She sahat Benny wrote on the wall, and she watched them walk away to the east She saw the tall man with the snohite hair follow them Three times she almost rose to her feet, almost waved Almost called out their names

Each time she did not Each time she felt that her whole body was one lu seemed to work, none of the muscle and bone seemed to be connected to her brain Her body squatted there under the tree, and her h the prison s of her eyes

Tears broke and rolled and fell in a terrible silence

Lilah had barely known her ht She re carried Sometimes by a woman--probably her mother--and so as she gave birth to Annie, Lilah’s sister Those o

It had not been her e Goldman He wasn’t her father Lilah never kneho her father was George was another survivor of the zoroup that had fled froe hadn’t known Lilah’s mother except for a few desperate hours They hadn’t swapped life stories Lilah’s mother had died, and then she’d coe and the other survivors had done as necessary<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>