He held on, gritting his teeth against the strain and the pain.
With a grunt he took a step upward, slamming his foot into the soil to find solid ground. Using legs and back and arms, he pulled upward. The little girl was still throttling him, but Benny lowered his chin to help open his airway. He took as deep a breath as he could and hauled again, taking another step. And another.
It felt like all he was doing was inching his way up. The wall seemed impossibly high.
And then he rose from shadows into bright sunlight. Benny blinked, his eyes stinging, but he’d never been happier to see a bright, sunny sky than he was at that moment. He pulled, and pulled, and climbed and collapsed onto the grass of the torn ravine edge. He crawled forward along the rope, landing chest first on the ground with a gasp like a drowning man taking his first gulp of air.
“Climb off,” he wheezed, and the girl scrambled like a monkey over his back and shoulders and head.
“Benny!”
The cry came echoing up from the darkness, and instantly Benny staggered to his feet. His limbs trembled and his hands were puffed and red, but he was safe. Across the black gash of the gorge a hundred zombies stared at him with eternal hunger and endless patience. No more of them fell into the gorge, and Benny thanked God for that.
“Nix! Climb out. I’ll pull. Hurry!”
As soon as he felt her take up the slack, Benny began pulling hand over hand. The rope burned his palms and his muscles screamed, but he planted his feet wide and put everything he had into it. Nix’s wild red hair appeared at the edge of the ravine, and then her beautiful face, tight with effort and fear.
Nix climbed out and wiped sweat from her eyes.
“Is Chong hurt?” asked Benny.
“Not as hurt as he’s going to be when Lilah gets out of there. She’s furious with him for going down into the ravine.”
“He fell in. It wasn’t intentional,” Benny said, coming immediately to his friend’s defense.
“Yeah, well, she’s not happy with you, either.”
“Swell.” Benny tossed the rope into the hole. “How about you? You mad at me too?”
She gave him a wicked grin and punched his chest. Which hurt.
Chong came puffing and wheezing up into the sunlight. He did not weigh much more than Nix, but Benny was beyond exhausted, and it felt like hauling a bull out of the pit.
“I’m sorry,” Chong began, but Benny cut him off.
“Grab some rocks.”
“Rocks?”
“Rocks. Anything we can throw. We have to give Lilah some cover. Go!”
Chong understood at once and ran to collect fist-size stones.
Benny tossed the rope down again. “Lilah! Listen to me.”
She didn’t answer, but he heard her grunts as she fought.
“We’ve got some rocks. When I say ‘go,’ drop a couple of zoms with leg cuts to stall the others and—”
Something flashed past him, missing his head by inches. Benny recoiled from it and saw that it was Lilah’s spear. Before he could even speak, the line went taut and Lilah came swarming up the side of the wall, as fast and nimble as an acrobat. She grabbed his shirt as she came out of the hole and used his weight to catapult her body over the edge. She pitched forward, rolled effortlessly, and came to a rest on the balls of her feet. She pivoted and looked at Benny, who lay flat, and Chong, who crouched a few feet away with one arm raised to throw a rock. Benny and Chong gaped at her, unable to manage a single coherent comment between them.
Lilah reached around behind her and removed an item that she’d thrust through one of the straps of her vest, then tossed it onto the grass in front of Benny’s goggling eyes.
Tom’s sword.
Lilah stood above them, tall and beautiful, her white hair whipping in the fresh breeze, her clothes streaked with gore, her hazel eyes glowing with fire.
She turned slowly to Nix and in her ghostly whisper of a voice said, “I hate boys.”
FROM NIX’S JOURNAL