“Okay. Well, describe the man she killed. The human, I mean. ”
“Not as big as the dead zoms, but sturdy. ”
“Was he a farmer or something?”
“No. From his weapons and equipment, it seemed pretty clear that he was a bounty hunter. ”
/>
Benny sat back and thought about it, and Tom let him. The more he thought about it, the less he liked what he was thinking.
“She’d have been, what … eleven, twelve?”
“About that. ”
“And she was only killing men?”
“Yes. ” Tom was no longer smiling.
“Men who kind of fit a ‘type’?”
“Yes. ”
Benny stared at Tom’s hard, dark eyes for as long as he could. Thunder beat furiously on the walls.
“God,” he said. “What did they do to her out there?”
But he already knew the answer, and it hurt his heart to know it. He thought of what Tom had said, of the fighting pits at Gameland, and tried to imagine a young girl down in the dark, armed with only a knife or a stick, the dead gray hands reaching for her. Even if she survived it, she would have scars cut deep into her mind. Benny and Tom sat together and listened to the storm punish the town.
“There’s more to the story,” said Tom. “A lot more. ”
But he never got to tell it. Not that night, anyway. A moment later there was a flash of lightning so long and bright that even through the shutters, it lit the whole kitchen to an unnatural whiteness, and immediately there was a crack of thunder that was the loudest sound Benny had ever heard.
And then the screaming began.
25
TOM WAS UP, AND HAD THE BACK DOOR OPEN BEFORE BENNY WAS EVEN out of his chair.
“What is it?” Benny asked.
Tom didn’t answer. The wind whipped the door inward toward him, driving him back a step. Even over the roar of the storm, they could hear people yelling. There were more screams, and then a gunshot. A second later there were more shots.
“Stay here,” Tom ordered. “Close and bar the door!”
“I want to go with you!”
“No!” Tom growled. He grabbed his rain slicker and pulled it on, looped the strap of his sword over his shoulder, and ran barefoot into the black downpour. Benny came out onto the back porch, but Tom was already gone, swallowed whole by the wind and blowing rain. In less than five seconds he was soaked to the skin. Lightning flashed again and again, each burst punctuated by a huge boom, and Benny wondered if this was what it must have been like during the battles on First Night. Darkness, screams, and the bang and flash of artillery. He moved backward into the house and forced the door shut. The locks were strong, but he realized that Tom had no keys. All his brother wore under his slicker was an undershirt and pajama bottoms. He hadn’t even taken a gun.
Benny looked at the heavy piece of square-cut oak that stood beside the door. There were two iron sleeves bolted to the wall on either side of the frame. The bar slid through them and completely barricaded the entrance. Benny had seen Tom install it years ago, and the bolts went all the way through the wall into steel plates on the outside of the house.
“You’d have to knock down the whole wall to get through that,” Tom had said.
Benny picked up the bar and hefted it. It was heavy and dense. Twenty zoms couldn’t crack it. He fitted one end into the closest sleeve and began sliding it across the door.
Tom was out there with nothing but a sword. No shoes, no gun, no light. If a tree had fallen over and torn a hole in the fence, who knows how many zoms could be out there.
There were more shots, a whole barrage of them. Someone was yelling, but Benny couldn’t make out any words. The hammering of the rain was too insistent.