Page 3 (1/2)

Sounded great, sounded very heroic, but Benny knew the irrefutable truth that swinging a sword required effort, and each ti bloould spend some of the limited resources he had

Zoms never tired

Even if he killed thirty of theet hi flesh Fatigue and muscle strain were as deadly to hie of that, the shocking awareness of it, did not spark him into action It did exactly the opposite It took the heart froged back against the mud wall His knees wanted to buckle

Benny looked into the faces of the zoms as they shuffled closer to him In those last moments he saw past the sun-bleached skin and desiccated flesh; past the rotting death and milky eyes For just a moment he saw the people they had been Not otten sick, or who had been bitten, and who had died only to be reborn into a kind of hell beyond anything anyone should suffer

But they eat people! Benny had once said to his brother, yelling the words during an argument on their first trip to the Ruin

To words Benny had ever heard

They used to be people

God

"Nix," he said, feeling a wave of wretched guilt because he kne much his death would hurt her And how much it would disappoint her; but there did not see he could do about that

All of the zoms were close now A knot of dead-pale faces fifteen feet away Monsters co for hiry The mouths worked, but the eyes were as empty as s that looked into abandoned houses

"Nix," he said again as the dead came closer and closer

Each face that Benny saw lookedlost Blank and without direction or hope Farmers and soldiers, ordinary citizens, and one s of a dress that must once have been pretty Peach silk with lace trim She and the zoe Maybe a year or two older Kids going to a prom when the world ended

Benny looked froht about what it would be like to be dead When these zoh of hi dead? He looked around at the ravine There was no visible way out of this pit Would he and all these dead be trapped down here, standing silently as the years burned themselves out above?

Yes

That was exactly ould happen, and Benny’s heart began to break The helplessness was overwhel, allowing the sword to dip in defeat before the battle had even begun

"Nix," he said one last tier popped like a flare in his chest It did not chase away Benny’s pity and grief--it fed on it

"Tom!" he yelled "You left me! You were supposed to be there You were supposed to keep the er, his voice was ser than his years

"You weren’t supposed to let me see this"

Tears ran like hot mercury down his cheeks

The dead reached for him

6

THEN SUDDENLY THE AIR ABOVE HIM WAS SHATTERED BY A HIGH-PITCHED scream of total terror

Benny whirled and looked up

The zoers inches frohting wildly for balance at the brink of destructionwas a little girl Maybe five years old

Not a walking corpse

A living child

And all around her were the ravenous living dead

Benny stared at the child in absolute horror

A hundred questions tried to squeeze through a crowded doorway in Benny’s dazed brain Where had she coirl could not see Benny down in the pit

"Get away froirl’s scream froze as she twisted to look doild eyes "Get away froe!"

"Help!" she screeched "Pleasedon’t let the gray people get me!"

She backed away from the zo a half second before her retreating foot came down on empty air With a shriek so loud that Benny was sure every zoirl pitched into the pit Her tiny hands darted out and caught the crooked roots under the lip of the edge and she hung there, legs kicking, her screa The zoms in the pit moaned and reached for her

The zombies choked the narrow ravine, and Benny knew that if he held his ground, their sheer nuer swing the katana Attack was the only option, and that h them, impossible as that seemed It was reckless and crazy, but it was the only choice left to hi

The katana snapped up and flashed outward, and the head of one zom fell to the dirt Benny spun away fro off dry ars and sending zonored theency filled him

The undead fell before him, but they did not fall back Retreat was an impossible concept They crowded forward on both sides, their attention shifting back and forth between the prey above and the prey at hand

"Moraaayyyy peeeepuuuull!"

He slashed back and forth to clear so front kick to the chest that sent it staggering backward into two others The three of the over their bodies, his feet wobbling uncertainly as he stepped on thighs and stoain as a s of a soldier’s unifor at his It was a move he had seen Tom do several tis out froh, and his blade struck the heavy thighbone and stuck fast!

The jolt tore the handle out of his hands and sent darts of pain shooting up his arms

Even with the sword blade notched into his fe zoirl screah the roots Cold hands reached down froe and up from the pit