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Nix was a statue beside Benny, her eyes huge and unblinking, and from where her arm touched his he could feel her skin turn cold as ice.
Benny wasn’t sure if he was still standing or sitting. Or dreaming. The world spun drunkenly around him, filling him with sickness, making him want to scream.
This man had not been attacked by zoms.
He had been fed to them.
25
“WHY?”
It was the fourth ti
me Chong had asked the question. Maybe the fifth. Benny couldn’t quite remember. Chong kept walking away and coming back and walking away. Each time he came back he demanded an answer. As if there was one that could explain this.
Benny felt totally numb, but he could not make himself look away. Something deep inside demanded that he stand there and look at every inch of the dead man. It made him count the bites. It made him catalog all the things that had been taken from this man.
No. Within his mind a voice that did not feel like his own rebelled at the use of so weak and inaccurate a word as “taken.” The cold detachment required honesty in evaluation. No, the voice said, don’t lie to yourself. If you hide from the truth behind soft words, then you’ll be soft. Then you’ll be dead.
Nothing had been taken. Parts of this man had been consumed. Eaten.
That’s the truth of what you are seeing. That’s the truth of what zoms do.
As he listened to the voice, he also heard a sound. A sob. He blinked and looked around. Chong had walked away again and now he squatted down by the side of the road, arms crossed over his head, his whole body trembling.
Benny glanced again at the dead man, and then turned to go over to Chong, grateful to have a reason to turn away. It wouldn’t feel like cowardice if he was going to help Chong instead of looking at the corpse.
Be strong, whispered his inner voice, then faded into silence.
Benny sat down next to Chong and put his arm around his friend’s shoulders. He wanted to say something, but his inner vocabulary did not include any words that would make sense out of this moment.
“I—I’m sorry,” murmured Chong. He lifted his head and stared straight ahead. His face was streaked with tears and his nose was running. “I don’t—I mean, I can’t—”
“No,” said a low rasp of a voice, and they both turned to see Lilah standing there. The breeze blew her snow-white hair like streamers of pale smoke. “Tears don’t mean you’re weak.”
Chong sniffed and wiped his nose and said nothing.
Lilah sat down in front of Chong, laying her spear in the dusty weeds. “Benny,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Go away.”
Benny started to say something, but he did not. Instead he nodded and got to his feet. He had no idea what Lilah was going to say, or what she could say. Compassion, tenderness, and most other human emotions seemed to be beyond her. Or was he wrong about that?
Benny nodded to himself and walked back to where Nix and Tom stood.
“Tom … do you know what happened? Who did this?”
“No,” Tom said, but there was something in his tone that made Nix give him a sharp look.
“What?” she asked.
He hesitated.
“Come on, Tom,” Benny insisted. “If we’re going to be traveling out here, then you can’t treat us like this. You can’t protect us from stuff.”
“It’s not that,” Tom said slowly. “But … tell me something first.”
