Benny shook his head.
“Come with me, kiddo. It’s time you understood how the world works. It’s time you learned what the family business is all about. ”
8
THEY WALKED FOR MILES UNDER THE HOT SUN. THE PEPPERMINT GEL RAN off with their sweat, and had to be reapplied hourly. Benny was quiet for most of the trip, but as his feet got sore and his stomach started to rumble, he turned cranky.
“Are we there yet?”
“No. ”
“How far is it?”
“A bit. ”
“I’m hungry. ”
“We’ll stop soon. ”
“What’s for lunch?”
“Beans and jerky. ”
“I hate jerky. ”
“You bring anything else?” Tom asked.
“No. ”
“Jerky it is, then. ”
The roads Tom picked were narrow and often turned from asphalt to gravel to dirt.
“We haven’t seen a zom in a couple of hours,” Benny said. “How come?”
“Unless they hear or smell something that draws them, they tend to stick close to home. ”
“Home?”
“Well … to the places they used to live or work. ”
“Why?”
Tom took a couple of minutes on that. “There are lots of theories, but that’s all we have—just theories. Some folks say that the dead lack the intelligence to think that there’s anywhere other than where they’re standing. If nothing attracts them or draws them, they’ll just stay right where they are. ”
“But they need to hunt, don’t they?”
“‘Need’ is a tricky word. Most experts agree that the dead will attack and kill, but it’s not been established that they actually hunt. Hunting implies need, and we don’t know that the dead need to do anything. ”
“I don’t understand. ”
They crested a hill and looked down a dirt road to where an old gas station sat beneath a weeping willow.
“Have you ever heard of one of them just wasting away and dying of hunger?” Tom asked.
“No, but—”
“The people in town think that the dead survive by eating the living, right?”