“Uh … no. ” Tom shook his head. “How can you live in this house and not know what I do, what my job involves?”
“What’s it matter? Everybody I know has a brother, sister, father, mother, or haggy old grandmother who’s killed zoms. What’s the big?” He wanted to say that he thought Tom probably used a high-powered rifle with a scope and killed them from a safe distance; not like Charlie and Hammer, who had the stones to do it mano a mano.
“Killing the living dead is a part of what I do, Benny. But do you know why I do it? And for whom?”
“For fun?” Benny suggested, hoping Tom would be at least that cool.
“Try again. ”
“Okay … then for money … and for whoever’s gonna pay you. ”
“Are you pretending to be a dope or do you really not understand?”
“What, you think I don’t know you’re a bounty hunter? Everybody knows that. Zak Matthias’s uncle Charlie is one too. I heard him tell stories about going deep into the Ruin to hunt zoms. ”
Tom paused with his coffee cup halfway to his lips. “Charlie—? You know Charlie Pink-eye?”
“He gets mad if people call him that. ”
“Charlie Pink-eye shouldn’t be around people. ”
“Why not?” demanded Benny. “He tells the best stories. He’s funny. ”
“He’s a killer. ”
“So are you. ”
Tom’s smile was gone. “God, I’m an idiot. I have to be the worst brother in the history of the world if I let you think that I’m the same as Charlie Pink-eye. ”
“Well … you’re not exactly like Charlie. ”
“Oh … that’s something then …”
“Charlie’s the man. ”
“Charlie’s the man,” echoed Tom. He sat back and rubbed his eyes. “Good God. What could you possibly find interesting about a thug like Charlie?”
“Because he tells it like it is,” Benny said. “I mean, it’s kind of weird that we’re surrounded by, like, a zillion zoms, we learn about First Night and zombies in school, but they just talk around it for the most part. They don’t tell us about it. It’s crazy. We have all those salvaged textbooks from before First Night that tell us about the world—politics and cars and all that—but you know what we have for First Night? A pamphlet. Does that make any sense? I can tell you the make and model of every car that ever rolled out of Detroit, but I can’t tell you about how Detroit fell during First Night. I know about cell phones and computers and all that before stuff. … But I don’t know anything about what’s on the other side of the fence. … Except what I learn from Charlie. Twice a month we practice zombie killing in gym class by hitting straw targets with sticks, and we do some of that kind of crap in the Scouts, but nobody—I mean nobody—except Charlie and the Hammer ever really talks about zoms. Our teachers must think we’re all learning about zombies from our folks, but none of my friends have heard squat at home. You’re even worse because killing zoms is your job, and you never talk about it. Never. Yeah, you’ll help me with math and history and all that stuff, but when it comes to zoms … I learn more off the back of Zombie Cards than I ever do from you. Everyone over twenty years old in this stupid town acts like we’re living on Mars. I mean, how many people even go to the Red Zone let alone all the way to the fence? Even the fence guards don’t talk about the zoms. They talk about softball and what they had for dinner last night, but they all pretend the zoms aren’t even there. ”
“People do go to the Red Zone, Benny. They go there to post erosion portraits for the bounty hunters. ”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I know for a fact that most people pay kids to post the portraits for them. How do I know? Because I’ve put up about a hundred of them. ”
“You—?”
“Zombie Cards don’t buy themselves, Tom. And when people ask kids to put the pictures up, they don’t even say what they are. I mean, we’re standing there, both looking at an erosion portrait, and no one ever mentions the word ‘zom. ’ Most people just say, ‘Hey, kid, want to hang this for me?’ They never say where. They know that we know, but they can’t actually come out and say it. It’s freaking weird, man. ”
“People are scared, Benny. They’re in denial. You’re only fifteen, so you and your friends don’t really understand what it was like during First Night. ”
“No joke, Mr. Wizard. That’s my whole point! We want to know. ”
Tom pursed his lips. “I guess … people probably want to shelter you from it. ”
Benny wanted to throw something at Tom. He eyed a heavy book; that might wake him up. “How the heck can anyone shelter us? We live behind fences, surrounded by the Rot and Ruin. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Big place, used to be called America? Filled with zoms? It’s not fair that people don’t tell us the truth. ”
“Benny, I—”
“It’s our world too,” Benny snapped. His words hit Tom like a slap. Then into the silence Benny dropped another bomb. “Don’t get on my case for listening to Charlie if he’s the only one who thinks we ought to know truth. ”