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He searched inside his heart for hatred, but it simply was not there. Chong had never wanted this. All he had wanted was to go home and to stop being a problem for everyone. Only that. Not this. Benny still loved Chong. There would be wreckage, there would be scar tissue, but Chong was Chong and Benny was Benny. There would always be the two of them, carrying on, moving forward. Growing up.
The sheet that covered Tom’s body was still. There was no breeze; the fabric did not flutter.
“Please,” whispered Benny.
I’ll try not to come back. Benny reached down and picked up the thing Dr. Skillz had left for him. A sliver. It was polished and cool. One end was blunt for pushing, the other sharp for piercing. A pretty thing, well made. An ugly thing, dreadfully intended.
He held it in his hand while he stood and waited. Seconds fell around him like leaves from a dying tree. Inside his chest he felt something change. His heart dropped from where it had always been, falling to a lower place. A darker place. And there, he knew, it would remain.
The world itself had become darker.
I’ll try not to come back.
Benny pressed the cold, flat blade of the sliver against his forehead and closed his eyes.
“God,” he whispered, “please …” Others who had died recently had stayed dead. Most had come back, but not all of them. Not all.
Outside he could hear the first birds of morning. The world was waking up, unheeding of what had happened. Benny stared at the closed windows and wondered how nature could be so stupid, so cruel. How could the day just go on as if nothing had happened? So much was broken now. Time should be broken. Tom was gone. There had been a stopping of him. The world should have stopped then too. And yet it ground on.
Tears burned in Benny’s eyes.
I’ll try not to come back.
I’ll try.
The sheet lay undisturbed. Slowly, slowly Benny sank to his knees. Holding the sliver in his right hand, he reached out with his left and took the edge of the sheet between his fingers. His tears burned like ice on his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a voice that was almost not there.
He pulled back the sheet. Tom Imura’s face was slack, his eyelids closed, lips slightly parted. Benny swallowed and tightened his grip on the sliver. Any second now.
He’ll come back, Benny thought. The world is the world and the plague is never going to end. He knew that what he had to do was going to end him. Not Tom … it would end Benny. He looked into the future and saw that horrible moment and knew that only darkness waited for him afterward.
“I’m sorry,” Benny said again, and he bent and kissed Tom’s forehead. “I love you, Tom. I wish I’d said that more.”
Benny turned Tom onto his side to expose the soft spot at the base of the skull. The sweet spot, Tom called it. He cradled Tom’s head in his lap.
I’ll try not to come back.
Benny knelt there, holding his brother, holding the sliver.
Waiting for horror.
-2-
FIVE MINUTES LATER BENNY IMURA UNBARRED THE DOOR AND STEPPED out into the morning sunlight. He still held the sliver in his hand. Nix took a step toward him and stopped. Benny was so pale, his eyes rimmed with dark, his mouth slack.
“Benny … ?”
Chong stepped forward, but Lilah stopped him. Not by grabbing his arm, but by taking his hand.
“Benny?” Nix whispered.
Benny raised his eyes to hers. They were wet and haunted.
“Benny?” she asked again.
Benny licked his dry lips. “Tom said that he would try not to come back.”
