They encountered the first fence two miles up the road. It was a heavy chain-link affair similar to the one that surrounded Mountainside, but it was hidden between two rows of thick evergreen hedges that acted as screens.
“Smart,” said Nix.
A sign told them that the hotel was two miles along the road.
The road led through a complex network of trenches. There were rows of trip wires, and deadfall pits covered by camouflage screens. Directions for navigating the road safely were written on large wooden signs. Benny appreciated the strategy. Zoms couldn’t read. Instead of building defenses that were based on the way people used to protect towns and forts against attacks, these were specifically designed against an unthinking and yet unrelenting enemy. Subterfuge was unnecessary. Benny and Nix peered into some of the trenches and saw heaps of old bones—eloquent proof that the defenses worked.
“The way this is laid out,” Benny observed, “ten people could hold off a zillion zoms.”
“This is the kind of thing I’ve been talking about,” Nix said excitedly. It was true; since last year she had been making journal notes about how people could take back the zombie-infested lands while at the same time protecting themselves from the dead.
The winding path was lined with hundreds of trees, ancient oaks and many younger trees planted in the last decade or so to reduce visibility. In the distance they could see much larger trees rising up above the forest—monstrous sequoias that towered more than 250 feet into the blue sky. Then the forest opened up and the big Wawona Hotel rose above them like a promise of warm beds, country breakfasts, civil conversation, and stout locks.
“Finally,” breathed Nix, exhausted.
The Wawona Hotel had a double row of verandas—one on the ground level at the top of a short flight of steps, and the other built directly above it on the second floor. Whitewashed columns rose to the pitched roof, which was covered in gray shingles that, though weathered, looked to be in good repair. Tall willows blocked most of the view of the upper floor and roof, and these softer trees lent the place a quiet and rustic appearance that was as calming in its way as were the fortifications and weapons. Because of the trees, all they could read of the hotel’s name was a large black W painted just below the edge of the roof.
Beside the hotel was a corral filled with horses, most of them standing with heads down as they munched the green spring grass; a few stood by the rails, watching with browneyed curiosity. Beyond the corral stood more than two dozen armored trade wagons. In the distance, off behind the big building, were party sounds. Loud voices and laughter.
“If I’d known what this place was like,” said Benny, “I’d have tried to get a job here instead of apprenticing with Tom.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I’ll bet everyone out here talks about the way things are, instead of always going on about how things used to be. You’d have enough stuff to fill up your journal in a week.”
She nodded, smiling at the thought. “There seem to be a lot of people here. Maybe we can get together some kind of search party.”
They were still sixty yards from the front steps when they heard a sound behind them. A soft footfall, and they turned to see three men standing on the grass verge behind them. Benny realized that he and Nix had been so focused on the hotel that they must have walked right by them. Two of the men were strangers with the hard faces of bounty hunters—one was a brown-skinned brute with a flight of ravens tattooed across his face and down his throat; the other was a hulk of a white man with no neck and mean little pig eyes. They studied Benny and Nix with unsmiling faces. The third man, however, was smiling, and he was known to Benny and Nix.
“Well, well, if this ain’t cause to say hallelujah,” said the man. He had eyes the color of deep winter ice, cold and blue. As if conjured by the dark magic of the man’s smile, a chilly wind whipped past them, rustling the leaves and sending the birds shrieking into the air.
“God!” Nix gasped, and took Benny’s hand, squeezing it with her usual bone-crushing intensity.
Preacher Jack’s pale eyes sparkled with pleasure, and when his lips writhed into their twitchy smile it revealed teeth stained with chewing tobacco and black coffee. “Now,” he said softly, “how is it that I’m blessed with the company of two such fine young people here on my own humble front lawn?”
“What are you talking about? What do you mean your front lawn?”
Preacher Jack chuckled and lifted his chin toward the house. “Funny, you being Tom Imura’s brother, and him supposed to be so smart, I’m downright surprised you ain’t figured things out yet.”
Benny turned to look at the hotel. The chilly wind was blowing through the weeping willows, lifting the leaves to reveal the upper story, and they could now see with terrifying clarity the words that had been painted there. The black W was not the first letter of Wawona Hotel. It was the first letter of “Welcome.”
Benny’s could feel his insides turn to icy mush. Even Nix’s hand lost its crushing force as the two of them read the three words painted across the front of the hotel.
WELCOME TO GAMELAND.
61
CHONG SAT HUDDLED AGAINST THE DIRT WALL. THE TWO ZOMS WERE STILL with him. Silent and still, and yet the horror of what they represented was much worse than if they were still moaning and reaching for him.
Blood still seeped sluggishly from the bite on his shoulder. He had done nothing to dress the wound. He had not done anything at all except to lean his back against the wall and slide down to the floor. Above him the crowd was gone. Even the Burned Man was gone. There had been some rude jokes about him “winning and losing” at the same time; and one of the bettors had told him to “relax.” The crowd had left laughing.
If he turned his head, Chong could see the bite. His skin had been caught between the zom’s strong teeth, and as the creature had fallen away the pressure had popped the skin, leaving a ragged flap that had bled profusely at first but had now almost stopped.
Chong stared across the pit to the far wall. The hard-packed earth was cold and dark and lifeless. It seemed to present an eloquent window into his own future. The pipe lay on the ground between his bare feet. The weapon of the Motor City Hammer. A killer’s tool. Caked with blood, old and new. A weapon to murder humans and quiet zombies.
He picked it up. It was cold and heavy. Could such a weapon be used to kill oneself? he wondered. What would happen if he tried to bash out his own brains, and failed? What would happen if he did nothing? He could not feel any changes inside. He was sick to his stomach, but the nausea had started with the beating he’d gotten yesterday. Would he be able to tell when the infection took hold? What would it feel like? How sick would he get?
The pipe felt very solid in his fist, and Chong thumped the ground with it, wishing that he could get out of the pit and use what time he had left to avenge his own death. To go down fighting.
Would Lilah admire that, at least? A warrior’s last stand, taking as many of his enemies with him as possible?
But he knew that the Burned Man would never let him have that chance. Chong knew that he would be left down here until he zommed out or was made to fight one more time. Anger flared in his chest, and he hurled the pipe as hard as he could. It flew across the pit and struck tip-first against the wall, chunking out a lump of dirt half as big as Chong’s fist. Dirt and pipe fell to the ground.
So much for being warrior smart, he thought bitterly. He wrapped his arms around his head and tried not to be afraid of dying.And that lasted for about fifteen seconds. Then he raised his head and looked at the pipe, at the clod of dirt he’d knocked out of the wall. Then at the divot in the wall.
Despite everything, despite a future as dark as that cold wall, he smiled.
62
BENNY WHEELED AROUND TO GAPE AT PREACHER JACK.
“That’s impossible! This place can’t be Gameland!” Benny shouted.
“Nothing’s impossible in this world of wonders, young Benjamin Imura,” said Preacher Jack with a soft chuckle.
“I don’t understand! Tom said—”
“Tom ain’t been out here for a long time, boy.”
“Good thing, too,” groused the black man with the raven tattoos. “Used to be a man couldn’t piss in these woods without Fast Tommy giving him a ration of crap for it. Your brother’s a pain in everyone’s butt out here, kid.”
“Was,” corrected Preacher Jack, holding up a slender finger. “Tom Imura’s day is over. None of our fellowship need fear that sinner or his violent ways. A bright new day has dawned out here in the Lord’s paradise. Believe it, for it is so.”
Nix curled her lip in distaste. “Really? What I believe is that when Tom gets here he’s going to kick your ugly—”
Preacher Jack suddenly stepped forward and struck Nix across the face with an open-handed slap that was so shockingly fast and hard that it spun her around and dropped her to her hands and knees.
Benny cried out and tried to catch her while also trying to drag out his bokken. He failed in both attempts. The white man with the pig eyes grabbed Nix by the hair and pulled her away. Benny instantly stopped fumbling with the sword and punched the man in the solar plexus. The man’s torso was sheathed in hard muscle, but Tom had taught Benny how to use his whole body to put force into a punch. The little pig eyes bulged, and the man coughed and released his hold. Benny slammed him backward with a two-handed shove that sent the thug crashing into the black man. They both went down amid tangled limbs and vile curses.
Nix struggled to get to her feet, but she was dazed and bleeding. Preacher Jack’s blow had opened up some of Lilah’s fine stitchery. With a howl of rage, Benny whipped out his bokken and swung it with all his strength at Preacher Jack’s grinning mouth.
It never connected.
Preacher Jack was old—in his sixties, with a face as lined as a road map and a body as frail-looking as a stick bug—but he stepped into the blow and caught the wooden sword with one calloused hand. The sudden stop jolted Benny, but the shock of it, the seeming impossibility of it, froze him into the moment. He stared at the hand that gripped his sword and then looked up into Preacher Jack’s face. That smile never wavered.
“Surprise, surprise,” whispered the preacher. With his free hand he punched Benny full in the face. Benny reeled back, bright blood spurting from his nose and lips. He suddenly fell, and his flailing left arm struck Nix across the temple. They both crashed to the grass.
Worms of flame twisted through the air in front of Benny’s eyes, and his whole head seemed to be filled with bursting fireworks. Next to him, Nix groaned softly and rolled onto her side.
The two bounty hunters were on their feet now, and they glared down in fury at Benny. The big white man raised his leg to stomp Benny, but Preacher Jack stopped him with a small click of his tongue. “Digger, Heap—take their toys,” said the preacher. The two men seethed for a moment, their hands opening and closing. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
They shot frightened looks at the old man and immediately bent to strip Nix and Benny of knives and anything else that could be used as a weapon, including their fishing line and storm matches. The men were rougher than they needed to be, and their searching hands were far more personally intrusive than necessary. Nix yelped in pain and indignation and kicked the pig-eyed man named Heap in the thigh, missing her intended target by inches. Heap snarled at her and stepped back.
Preacher Jack stood over them. “Oh, how strange the world must be to you young people. Strange, and wondrous and full of mysteries,” he murmured. Weird shadows swirled in his pale eyes. “I know what questions must be screaming inside your heads right at this very moment, indeed I do.”
Benny spat blood out of his mouth. “You don’t know anything about us.”
“Actually, my young buck, I know more about you than you know about me … and that’s going to be so unfortunate for you.”
“Tom will kill you,” said Nix with real heat.
“Oh … I pray he tries.”
Digger and Heap chuckled.
Nix wiped blood from her eyes. “Tom’s going to find us and—”
“Of course he’s going to find you, girl. Lord oh Lord but we’ve made it easy for him to find you. To find me.” Preacher Jack stepped closer and squatted down so that he was nearly eye to eye with Benny and Nix. “Mmm … didn’t expect that answer, did you? Tell me … what is it you think is going to happen? Do you think you’re going to be rescued by the big bad Fast Tommy? Tom the Swordsman, Tom of the Woods … Tom the Killer? Is that what you think?”
“Why are you doing this?” pleaded Nix. “Why can’t you people just leave us alone? All we want to do is leave this place.”
“Leave? And go where?”
Nix pointed east. “Far away from you and all this stuff. We don’t want any part of it.”
“You want to go east?” Something moved behind Preacher Jack’s eyes, and for a moment he almost looked afraid. Then his eyes hardened. “Oh, my foolish little sinners, you don’t want to go east. There’s nothing out there for you.”
“Yes there is,” Nix said. “There’s—” She stopped, cutting off her own words.
“What were you going to say? That there’s a plane? A big, shiny jet plane?” Preacher Jack shook his head. “I might be doing you a kindness to keep you from that path. Only thing you’d find east of here is horror and heartache.”
“As opposed to the good times and bunnies we have here,” said Benny. However, despite his snarky comment, Preacher Jack’s words—and that look that had passed behind his eyes—opened an ugly door of doubt deep in Benny’s soul. Had Nix caught it too?