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They tried to run.
But it was already too late.
From the open hatch of the airplane came a horde of zombies. Dozens of them in colored jumpsuits, boiling out of the broken plane like cockroaches, leaping down onto the reapers, heedless of whatever bones they broke in the fall. The reapers tried to turn, tried to flee, but they were in one another’s way. The zoms dove at them.
Most of them were lumbering monsters.
But not all.
Some were fast.
Some were very fast.
Brother Alexi roared in annoyance. “They can’t hurt you, you silly buggers. You’re all wearing the tassels. Get a damn grip.”
He strode toward the reapers, who were wrestling on the ground with the living dead. His look of annoyance lasted three steps. Then he saw blood geyser up.
The screams stopped him in his tracks.
The high-pitched, awful screams.
Nix saw the way doubt carved itself onto the giant’s face, and then those lines instantly eroded into outright fear.
These dead were not stopped by the chemical on the red streamers. They did not react to it at all.
Alexi snatched up the silver dog whistle he wore around his neck and blew fiercely. The dead—a few of them—looked up briefly. Then they returned to the meat that was fresh and close at hand.
The slaughter was appalling.
Nix, alone at the top of the slope, realized with sudden clarity what had happened. She whispered a single, shocked word. “Benny.”
And as if by magic, she heard him call her name.
“NIX!”
82
BENNY LEANED OUT THROUGH THE BROKEN WINDOWS OF THE COCKPIT.
“Nix!” he yelled.
Twenty feet away Nix Riley whirled and stared in all the wrong places first. Then she spotted Benny, and the smile that bloomed on her face was the brightest and most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Come on!” he cried.
She ran along the top of the mound toward him, cutting through the shadows cast by the three dead pilots writhing on their T-bars.
“Try to climb up,” he said.
Nix turned to watch the carnage at the bottom of the slope. She winced and turned away in disgust.
“No . . . we’ll be trapped in there. See if you can climb down here.”
Benny climbed onto the control panel, kicked out the last jagged shards of the shattered windows, and wriggled out into the fresh air. He slid awkwardly down the crumpled nose and dropped nine feet to the top of the slope, landing with a grunt. Nix caught him, but they lost their balance and fell backward. Benny caught something out of the corner of his eye, and before he could twist out of the way, he struck his head on one of the T-bars. The zoms moaned down at him, and snakes of fire writhed through the air all around him.
“Benny! Are you all right?” asked Nix.
He cursed and groaned as Nix pulled him to his feet.
