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They watched the road for a long time, even though there was nothing to see.
Chong said, “On First Night, everybody saw someone they love die.”
Tom nodded.
“That’s why the whole town is like the way it is, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Tom. “They used to call it post-traumatic stress disorder. Now . . . it’s just the way things are. Everyone has been damaged by grief, and most people think there’s no escape.”
“Is there?” asked Benny.
Tom sighed. “For my generation? I don’t know. Maybe not. Most of the adults have given up hope.”
“I meant . . . for Nix,” said Benny. “Is she always going to be like this? I mean . . . it wasn’t zoms who killed her mom. It was Charlie, and he’s dead.”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “Everything in this town reminds Nix of her mom. Everything always will.”
“That’s why she wants to leave,” said Morgie, and they all turned to look at him. “I know she says it’s ’cause she wants to find that plane you guys saw, but that ain’t it. She don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t think she can be here.”
The comment was so unlike Morgie that they all stared at him. Morgie scratched at the edge of his bandage and kept looking down the road. After a while, Tom nodded.
“I know exactly how she feels,” he said, and without further comment walked slowly back to the house.
The three boys stood at the wooden fence for long minutes.
“This is all going to change,” murmured Morgie. “Ain’t it?”
Benny and Chong didn’t look at him.
“Nix. Tom. Us. All of it’s over, ain’t it?”
Chong opened the garden gate. “I’d better get home. I have work in the morning.”
They watched him walk along the path under the summer trees.
After a moment, Morgie sighed and followed.
Benny Imura stood at the open fence, pulled in so many directions at once that all he could do was stand there.
Then he turned around, crossed the yard, and picked up his sword. The handle was cool from lying in the grass, and he adjusted his hold on it, feeling the balance.
He went over to the old car tire Tom had hung on a rope from a tree. When he was little he’d swung on that tire, but he wasn’t that little kid anymore.
With a whistle and thud he swung the sword and hit the tire. It was an awkward hit, poorly executed because his arms ached and his mind was splintered. He stepped back, took a breath, and swung again.
A more solid hit this time, but still not right.
He swung again. And again. Not letting up, not dropping the swo
rd even when the ache in his arms turned to fire. He couldn’t. To do that would allow him to be weak; it would keep his skills at too low a level. And he could not afford that. He could not risk that.
As much as he hated the thought, Benny Imura knew for sure that he would need to use that sword the right way. The real way. The way a fighter would. The way a zombie hunter would.
And . . . he would probably need it soon. The world seemed to be spinning him in that direction.
As he struck and struck and struck, he did not mouth the name of their enemy. He did not say “Charlie.” Instead Benny mouthed a different word. One that tapped a different source of power than the well of hate from which Nix drank. He struck and struck and struck for what he thought and hoped was a better purpose. A cleaner one.
“Nix,” he breathed, as he trained to fight the monsters he knew lived in his world. “Nix.”
