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They moved on.
As the sun began edging toward the western tree line, they crested a hill and looked down a long dirt side road to where an old gas station sat beneath a weeping willow.
“Take a closer look,” suggested Tom, handing Benny a pair of high-power binoculars.
Benny focused the lenses and studied the scene. The surrounding vegetation was dense with overgrowth, but there was a broad concrete pad around the cluster of small buildings. An ancient billboard stood against the wall of trees. It had long ago been whitewashed, and someone had written hundreds of lines of scripture on it. Rain had faded the words so that only a few were readable.
“This is Brother David’s place?” asked Chong in a leaden voice. Between the catastrophe with the rhino and finding the dead man, and then the weird encounter with Preacher Jack, Chong seemed to have lost his humor and virtually all trace of emotion. He barely spoke, and when he did his voice lacked inflection. It was like listening to a sleepwalker.
Tom caught the sound and cut a look at Benny, who nodded.
Tom mouthed the words, “Keep your eye on him,” and Benny nodded again.
“Yup,” said Benny. “He was the first monk I ever met out here. It’s him and two girls. Sister Sarah and Sister Shanti.”
“And Old Roger,” added Nix.
“Who?” Chong asked.
“He’s a zom they take care of. Remember I told you?”
Chong nodded but didn’t comment.
They descended along a path that ran beside a mammoth line of white boulders dumped there ages ago by a glacier. A thin stream of water trickled between the rocks, but it was so small that it made no sound. Chong lagged behind the rest, and Benny slowed to keep pace with him. When Benny caught a look at Chong’s face, he almost missed his step.
There were tears at the corners of Chong’s dark eyes.
“Hey, dude. What’s—?”
Chong touched Benny’s arm. “I’m really sorry, man.”
Benny shook his head and started to protest.
“No,” Chong interrupted, “I should never have come. You guys are better off without me.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Benny said, though his voice lacked total conviction. “Besides, this way you get to spend a couple of days with Lilah—”
Chong dismissed that with a derisive snort. “Ever since the rhino thing, I’m less than dog crap to her.”
“C’mon, dude, she’s like that with everyone. I mean, she’s been trying to quiet me for a coupla days now.”
Chong merely shook his head. “I spoiled everything.”
“No way. Don’t even go there.”
“I’m sorry I came,” Chong insisted, but this time he said it more to himself. Benny was fishing for something encouraging to say when Tom stopped them all with a raised fist.
He scanned the terrain for a moment, then waved everyone over.
“Is everything okay?” Benny asked.
“Let’s find out,” Tom said guardedly.
Tom headed down the slope and the others followed. For Benny this was the first moment today that wasn’t wrapped in tension. He thought Brother David was halfway to being crazy, but he was one of the nicest people Benny had ever met, and the two girls with him were sweet-natured and pretty. All three of them were good cooks, too, and even after everything he’d seen, Benny was sure he could eat a full-size rhinoceros.
They came down onto the concrete pad, on which the single gas pump stood like a great rusted tombstone to a dead culture. Tom knocked loudly on the pump’s metal casing. The echoes bounced off the hills and came faintly back to them before melting into silence.
There was no response. Tom narrowed his eyes. “Stay here.” He walked carefully to the front door of the station and knocked. Nothing. “Brother David?” he called.
