“What is it?”
“Something doesn’t make sense,” Tom whispered. He pointed to where their path curved around between two walls of rock. The red-rusted span of a train bridge arched over the path.
“There’s a spot down there that everyone avoids. It’s thick with zoms, one of the natural lowland points where the nomad zoms gather. Last time I came this way, there were a few hundred of them.”
“Hundred?”
“Yep, some of them had probably been there since First Night. Others just kind of wandered in.”
“Pulled by gravity, right? Following any downsloping path.”
“Exactly. There’s a crossroads down there. A highway intersects with two farm roads and this road we’re on. Big intersection.”
“So … why don’t we just go around?”
“We can, but the trail we’re following goes straight along this road.” He pointed to visible footprints in the soft clay beside the road.
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would Charlie go right into a nest of zoms? Isn’t he supposed to know the Ruin as well as you?”
“He knows it better than me. He spends more time out here.”
“Okay, look … I may only be your little brother, and I know I’m not a bounty hunter and all that, but doesn’t this have ‘trap’ written all over it in bright red paint?”
Tom almost smiled. “You think?”
“So you know it’s a trap?”
“Benny, this whole thing is a trap. Everything Charlie’s done since he attacked Rob Sacchetto has been a trap.”
Tom stopped and suddenly pointed to the trail of footprints that led off around the bend. The prints were mostly those of a man with big feet. Charlie. However, at one point, another set of prints suddenly appeared beside his. Small bare feet.
“Nix?” Benny asked.
Tom put a finger to his lips and whispered, “It looks like Charlie was carrying her and set her down here. See? Their prints go all the way around the bend. Right toward the crossroads.”
“Maybe they don’t know how close we are,” Benny suggested. He looked for confirmation in Tom’s face, but didn’t see any. Benny started to draw his knife, but Tom shook his head.
“Wait until you need to,” Tom cautioned. “Steel reflects sunlight, and that’ll attract zoms as much as movement. Now, I need you to stay steady, kiddo. Once we round this bend, it’s going to get weird. Maybe it’s a trap, maybe not; but even if it isn’t, this is one of the most dangerous spots out here. You’ll see why.”
“Great pep talk, coach.”
Tom grinned.
Moving very slowly, careful not to make a sound, they rounded the bend in the road, hugging close to the wall and staying in the shade of the rocks. Apache and Chief were trained for this, and they moved only when and where they were steered.
Around the bend, the view opened up, and Benny saw the roads that wandered from all directions over hills down to the crossroads.
“God!” Benny gasped, but immediately clamped a hand over his mouth.
It was neither the beauty of the vista of endless mountains nor the tens of thousands of silent cars crowding the road that tore a gasp from him. The crossroads and the fields surrounding it were crowded with the living dead. There were at least a thousand of them. Benny stared, searching for movement, waiting for the sea of monsters to turn and begin shambling toward them. But they did not. The zombies just stood there in one crowded mass. Others, alone or in small groups, stood along the roads or in the fields. All still, all silent.