He went past Benny and looked at the puddle and Nix’s single footprint. Both had almost entirely evaporated. Benny saw something register on Tom’s face as he calculated the time that must have passed since the bounty hunters had come through here, based on the rate of evaporation. Benny couldn’t do the same calculation, but he didn’t have to. Tom snapped erect, and in a blur he drew his pistol.
At that same moment, Benny heard a strange sound behind and above him, and he turned and looked up as something weirdly disconnected to their present circumstances sailed through the hot air and landed on the blacktop just outside their shelter of wrecked vehicles. The thing looked like a great red snake but with many stubby legs; or like a gigantic centipede. It struck the ground and lay there, twisting and hissing and smoking. Benny stood with his mouth open, unable to process it. This was something from summer celebrations, from garden parties and New Year’s Eve.
“Firecrackers,” he said in a strangely conversational voice. Benny turned to see the look of concern on Tom’s face turn to a mask of absolute horror. He slammed his pistol into his holster and whipped out his sword.
As the first of the firecrackers began to explode, Benny’s surprise evaporated, and he caught up with everything. The puddle, the carefully placed footprint. They weren’t accidents, they weren’t clues. They were put there deliberately. To stall them, to draw their focus.
The firecrackers banged and banged, and the echoes bounced off every car and rolled out into the field of tall grass and the forest behind them. The barrage of bangs was so incredibly loud in the still air. Loud enough to wake the dead. Or at least call them.
Almost at once Benny saw movement in the trees and in the tall grass. Dark, slow shapes detached themselves from crevices between smashed cars or tottered out from the dappled depths of the woods. Behind Benny, the horses screamed.
They’d walked into another trap.
37
THE LAST FIRECRACKER POPPED AND A SEMI-SILENCE FELL. ALL BENNY COULD hear were the slow, scuffling steps of the zoms. The closest was still a quarter mile away, but they were coming from all directions. The path back to the creek was totally blocked.
“Tom Imura!” called a voice, and Benny and Tom turned to see Vin Trang step out of the tall grass on the far side of the road. He stood in the one spot that was farthest from the living dead, although a few turned stiffly toward him. Vin held a pistol in one hand and several thick strings of firecrackers in the other.
Tom’s lip curled, but when he spoke he sounded almost casual. “Where’s the girl, Vin?”
“Girl?” Vin laughed. “What girl?”
“Let’s not play games.”
There was a hissing sound to their left, and they saw a second string of firecrackers come arching out of the woods behind them. It landed on the blacktop and began popping. The zoms that were coming out of the cars began to moan.
“Tom,” Benny whispered.
“I know,” said Tom without moving his lips. He pitched his voice louder. “The girl!”
“She’s dead!” Vin yelled back. “Zoms got her.”
Benny almost cried out, but Tom gave him a fierce single shake of his head. “I’m looking at her footprint, Vin. Hasn’t even had time to dry yet.”
“What can I tell you?”
“Nice trap. Who thought of it?”
“I did.”
“You couldn’t zipper your pants without instructions, Vin. This has Charlie Pink-eye all over it.”
Vin barked out a short laugh. “What’s the girl to you? I thought you had the hots for Jessie. Granted, that little girlie has some potential, but she ain’t her mama yet.”
Benny ground his teeth and started to say something, but Tom touched him, gave him another shake of the head. He bent close and whispered. “Don’t let him get inside your head.”
“I want to tear his—”
“Me too, kiddo. But let me play this my way. You keep your eye on the zoms. Let me know when they get to within a hundred feet. That’s our red zone.”
Tom yelled, “Were you at Jessie’s last night, Vin? Isn’t that where you took the girl?”