Nix dropped the knife. It struck point-first into the mud and stopped there, standing straight out from the ground like King Arthur’s sword. Nix looked down at it with regret. One of the men laid a heavy hand on her shoulder.

Benny darted through the shadows until he could see the big bonfire on the other side of the wagon. Working quickly, he opened the satchel and removed a few items that he hoped he’d live long enough to use, and then he tossed the bag with a slow underhand pitch, straight into the fire. It struck the center of the blaze and kicked up a huge tower of sparks, but when the men in the crowd turned to see what had happened, Benny was already back into the darkest corner of shadows, totally invisible.

“What the hell was that?” demanded Charlie.

“Nothing, boss,” said one of the bounty hunters. “Log shifted in the fire.”

Nix took that moment. She suddenly bent forward and grabbed the handle of her knife. She pivoted as fast as she could, and Benny saw a flash of steel and then the guard to her left suddenly bent double and let loose with a terrible cry of pain. The other one had been looking at the bonfire and turned at the sound, but Nix spun toward him and then he was falling, the knife buried in his chest.

Charlie bellowed in surprise and fury, and swung the gun back toward Nix and pulled the trigger.

His shot sounded like an entire barrage of artillery, because at the same second that he pulled the trigger, all of the firecrackers in Joey Duk’s satchel exploded. The sudden sound made Charlie jump, and his shot tore through Nix’s hair rather than her head.

The night was filled with a thousand sharp cracks, and all of the men ducked and dove for cover, thinking they were under armed attack. They whirled and fired in every direction, filling the air with louder bangs as shotguns and heavy pistols spat fire and hot lead. A dozen bullets ripped jagged holes in the sheet-metal sides of the wagon beside which Benny crouched, and he bent and rolled beneath the wagon, feeling the shudder as the barrage continued to tear at wood and metal.

Nix tore her knife free, rushed at the pen rail, and tried to leap over it, blade high, to stab Charlie, but the big man swatted her out of the air. The blow caught her on the shoulder, and it was so shockingly powerful that Nix went flying. She hit the ground and slid five feet. Her knife went spinning out of her hands.

Benny saw this from where he lay, and the sight of Nix falling made something snap in his mind. He rolled out from under the wagon and ran around behind it, circling the camp at a dead run to come up on Charlie from the shadows.

The bounty hunters were still firing, and someone’s shotgun pellets struck the flanks of a massive Clydesdale in the corral. The huge draft horse screamed and reared up, throwing all of its two thousand pounds of muscle and bone against a tethering line that snapped like cotton twine. The Clydesdale’s flailing hooves struck another horse, and soon the whole pack of draft animals were screaming and kicking and tearing loose. They charged across the camp, spooked by pain and the continual popping of the firecrackers, scattering bounty hunters who dove for sudden cover. One man was caught in a moment of indecision, shifting right and left half a dozen times before his last moment of choice ran out. The herd of horses ran him down and ground him into the mud. Benny saw the Hammer trying to make a grab for them, but one of the animals rammed him and sent him flying into Joey Duk’s burning tent. The Hammer landed hard, but instantly began screaming and thrashing as he rolled out of the fire. The mud and the rain put out the flames, but he lay there, smoking and dazed.

The twelve-year-old was pushing the children over the rail. She was the last one over, and they raced together into the darkened woods, but as they fled, Benny realized he was on the very path that Nix had told them to take. He tried to dodge behind a tree, but the whole pack of kids saw him at once … and screamed.

Charlie whirled, thinking that one of his men had circled to block the kids.

He stared straight into Benny Imura’s eyes, saw all nineteen of his captives fleeing past him into the shadows.

Charlie Pink-eye’s face darkened with a brutal rage, and he raised his pistol.

And Benny Imura raised his own.

53

“LIFE JUST KEEPS GETTING MORE AND MORE FUN,” GROWLED CHARLIE Matthias.

“BENNY!” Nix screamed, but the Hammer moved behind her and wrapped an iron arm around her throat. The other bounty hunters laughed, knowing that a bad night was suddenly about to become more entertaining.

“If you think getting shot is fun,” Benny said, “then you’re going to die happy.”

Charlie laughed. “Boy, maybe your brother might have pulled off that kind of banter, but it doesn’t carry the same pop if your voice cracks while you’re talking trash.”

The gun was heavy, but Benny forced his hand to stay firm. Charlie appeared to be unimpressed. The rain was thinning, and the last of the firecrackers banged and then went silent. Benny licked his lips, tasting mud and cold sweat.

“If you’re going to pull that trigger, pup, do it while you still have some balls.”

“I’ll pull it,” said Benny, stepping forward in what he hoped was an aggressive move. Charlie merely looked amused. “But I want to know something first.”

Charlie grinned and looked around at the other bounty hunters. Most of them were trying to round up the horses, but a handful had stood to watch the fun. Now they were pointing guns at Benny too. “Kid wants to have a fireside chat, boys. Ain’t that cute?”

“Maybe he wants to know how to grow a set!” yelled one man.

“Maybe he wants to join,” suggested Vin Trang.

“Maybe he wants to cry about what happened to Tom,” offered the Hammer, who was scuffed and blackened, but did not look much worse for wear. He gave Benny a truly murderous look, and Benny knew that if the Hammer got his hands on him, he’d make him pay very dearly for what had just happened.

Benny could have taken his shot when Charlie was turned away, but he kept hoping that Lilah would show up. One more diversion was all he needed to rescue Nix. But all he heard in the woods behind him was the diminishing splat of raindrops on leaves and the moan of the wind through the trees.

Showing no trace of concern that a gun was pointed at him, Charlie turned back to Benny. “Sure, kid. … You got some burning question you want to ask, then ol’ Charlie’d be happy to oblige. Charlie’s everybody’s friend.”

The bounty hunters all laughed at that.

“Why do you do this?” Benny demanded. “I mean, how can you live with yourself after everything you’ve done?”

The big bounty hunter chuckled. “Grow up, boy. You think I’m evil? Sure, you want to hang that word on me, because I use muscle to take what I want, but you don’t have a clue about how the world works. It’s the same now as it was before First Night. Anyone says different is a fool or a liar.”

He took a step closer, and Benny reflexively backed away. Charlie looked pleased, and he bent forward and leered at Benny.

“You look at me and you see the Big Bad Wolf. You think I’m some kind of monster. Well, there’s a lot worse than ol’ Charlie out here in the Ruin, and I ain’t talkin’ about zoms. You got no idea what evil is.”

“I’m looking at it.”

“Hell, boy, I ain’t evil. I’m just the guy that’s in power. I’m a conqueror, like all them great kings and generals in history. You want to call me evil because of Gameland? You think that’s the height of evil? Boy, there are people who conquered half the world, slaughtered whole populations, wiped cultures off the face of the planet, and you know what history calls them? Heroes! Kings, presidents, champions, explorers. You think America was settled by white men because the Indians invited us here? No, we took this land because we were stronger, and that’s how every page of human history is written. It’s just our nature. We’re a predator species, top of the food chain. Survival of the fittest is written in our blood, it’s stenciled on every gene of our DNA. The strong take and the strong make, and the weak are there only to help them do it. End of story.”

“You’re wrong.” The gun was getting impossibly heavy. Benny’s whole arm trembled.

“I can see it in your eyes, boy, you know I’m right. You’re so wrapped up in wanting to be a hero your ownself that you can’t admit it.” He took another step, and Benny yielded ground again. It was that or pull the trigger, and he couldn’t make himself do it. Not yet. Charlie said, “I know they teach you pups history in school. They teach you about the old world, about the heroes who built this great nation, blah, blah, blah. But do you think any general anywhere ever won a war without taking exactly what he wanted, whenever he wanted? Or without letting his men have what they needed, whenever they needed it? All through history the winners ran rampant when they conquered a city or a country, and it was one big party—just as it should be. If a man is going to put his life on the line, then he deserves some benefits. It’s only fair.”

“What are you talking about? You’re not some general fighting an invading army. You’re not freeing anyone. You’re not fighting for anything!”

Charlie’s face darkened. “Oh I’m not, am I? Well, learn a little of your own history then. I was there when we found Mountainside. Me, Charlie Matthias. I helped build that stinking town. I scouted the first trade route through the Ruin. I brought the first wagons of supplies from the cities to help reinforce the fence. I was the one who raided the hospital and brought back half a ton of medical supplies. Most of the men who protect the traders and city scavengers now work for me or were trained by me. And I brought more survivors, including a couple hundred whole families out of the Ruin to Mountainside. I’ve saved more people than you ever met, my young pup. So don’t tell me I haven’t been fighting for anything.”

He took one more step, and this time Benny was too flummoxed to step back.

“Benny!” yelled Nix. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just trying to confuse you.” She would have said more, but the Hammer flexed the massive muscles in his arm, and his biceps choked Nix to silence. Benny licked his lips.

Charlie said, “Once upon a time I met a group of travelers in these mountains, who were half dead and running from a pack of zoms. A group that included a skinny Japanese kid and his baby brother … and I showed them the path to Mountainside. So, boy, you want to get your facts right before you tell me that I ain’t been fighting the good fight. A hundred years from now, when they write the history of First Night and the years that followed, they’ll put my name down as the greatest hero of the zombie war. Me, Charlie Matthias.”

Benny did not want to believe Charlie, but he knew the big man was telling the truth. At least the truth as he knew it.

“Maybe you did all that,” Benny said, using his left hand now to support his trembling right. “But it still doesn’t give you the right to do the other things you’re doing.”

“Don’t it? Being ‘right’ is all about living up to a set of laws, and there are no laws out here in the Ruin. Even your worm-meat brother told you that much. The laws of places like Mountainside end at the gate, because nobody there has the guts to step past those fences and establish the law outside. Nobody but me, and since I’m the top dog out here, I get to make whatever laws I want.”

“I’m not talking about laws,” said Benny through gritted teeth. The moaning of the wind in the forest behind him was louder. Was the storm going to build back up again? “I’m talking about right and wrong.”

Charlie laughed. “You’re going to stand here with a gun in my face, ready to kill me, and you’re going to lecture me on right and wrong? Who appointed you judge, jury, and executioner? You pass a burning bush on the way here and get some new Commandments? I think the old ones kind of dried up and blew away when the first of the dead rose up and started eating people. Call me crazy, but I think that was a game changer. When dead ain’t even dead no more, then as far as I’m concerned, no other previous rules apply. So that means ‘right’ is whatever I decide it is.”

“No—,” Benny began, but Charlie made his move. He stuck his left hand out to the side, and Benny’s reflexes reacted before he could control them and his eyes flicked toward the movement. With lightning speed, Charlie used his right to slap the pistol out of Benny’s hand. With one step he was chest to chest with Benny, and his face was a mask of naked fury. He grabbed Benny’s shirt with one hand and hauled him to his toe-tips and knocked his head to one side with a powerful slap of his hard open palm and then backhanded him, so that his head whipped all the way to the other side. The shock to Benny’s cheek was nothing compared to the double jolt to his neck, and Benny’s knees buckled.

“Benny!” Nix cried, but all that escaped the stricture around her throat was a desperate croak.

Charlie Pink-eye shoved Benny away in disgust. “You’re a worthless little piece of crap, kid. You talk big when you’re holding a gun, but you don’t even have the stones or the smarts to pull the trigger when you have the chance. That’s why people like you don’t run the world. It’s people like me—people who aren’t afraid to make the hard choices and take the tough actions—who get things done and who deserve to say what’s what. Power is the only thing that matters, pup, and the sad news is that you just don’t have enough of it.”

“Kiss my ass!” Benny snarled, and he launched himself at Charlie. His training with Tom hadn’t lasted long enough for him to learn the subtleties of combat. He didn’t know many tricks, wouldn’t have qualified for any belt. All he had was his rage. He barreled into Charlie so hard that the big man was actually forced backward two steps. Benny came in low and fast, driving his shoulder into Charlie’s thighs, hoping to knock him down. If he could get him down, maybe he could stomp on him, break an ankle or a knee. Or Charlie’s face.