Rot & Ruin

The crack of bone on rock was lost as thunder boomed overhead, but Benny saw the shiver that ran through the man’s whole body. He dropped to his knees and fell face forward into the mud, an inch from Benny’s toes.

Benny looked dumbly at the fallen man for a moment, then dropped the broken remains of the stick onto his back. He gagged at the thought of what he had just done, but even while his chest was still hitching, he drew his knife, positioned the tip of the blade in the correct spot at the base of the skull, and pushed. When he straightened, the world seemed too loud and too bright for a moment, and he took a couple of dizzy steps away from the corpse.

“One down,” he mumbled, his voice thick, his heart hammering. “Only twenty-two to go. We can start the victory party now.”

He took a breath to steady his nerves, turned, and ran as fast as he could through the rain.

Nix wormed her way to the outside of a tent that was at the very edge of the camp. The tent’s occupant had crawled out when the rain had started, and had run to another point in the camp. Nix listened at the side of the canvas long enough to assure herself that there was no one else in the tent.

She drew her knife.

“Come on, Benny,” she whispered. “Please …”

Benny reached the far edge of the camp and slipped inside without anyone noticing. He could see groups of the bounty hunters, standing together under tarps strung between trees. Benny remembered that trees could attract lightning strikes, but he didn’t think his good luck extended to a timely bolt from the heavens that would fry all these creeps.

He kept to the shadows, moved to the rear of the tent, and squatted down. There was no light from inside and no movement. If Vin Trang was still in there, then he was being very quiet. Benny fished in the mud for a stone and lobbed it in a slow overhand, so that it hit the far side of the tent.

Nothing. No movement. No head poking outside to see what had made the noise.

Benny grinned and moved from his spot, keeping the tent between him and the rest of the camp. When he reached the flap, he tossed another wet rock inside.

Still nothing.

Benny drew a breath and slipped inside the tent. It was pitch-dark, and Benny wasted several seconds feeling around for what he wanted, finding only socks, a dog-eared book, some toiletries. Nothing of use.

He had to risk a light.

“Crap,” he whispered as he fished in his pockets for his tin of matches. He rattled them and then dried his fingers hastily on Vin’s bedroll. Then he opened the tin and removed one of the three remaining matches.

He closed his eyes and took a breath. Then he struck the match on the knurled end of the tin. The match flared at once, and the light filled the whole tent. There were two bedrolls and a lot of junk scattered around. Two shotguns lay on one bedroll. For a moment Benny didn’t think he would find what he was looking for, and without it the whole plan was going to come crashing down. Then he saw that the thin pillow of one of the bedrolls rested on a small leather satchel.

He found what he was looking for in the satchel.

“Perfect …,” he said breathlessly.

“Hey!”

Benny heard the cry and recognized the voice at once. Joey Duk.

The flaps were closed, so Joey could not have seen him, but the glow from the match made the whole tent glow. Outside, there were shouts and the slopping sound of feet running toward the tent. There was no time to do anything but act. Benny dropped the burning match on the bedroll, slung the satchel over his shoulder, and drew his knife.

The match ignited the bed linen, and fire spread with frightening speed. Benny used his knife to slash at the rear wall of the tent. Even in his haste he did it the smart way—cutting the bottom of the wall, right where the lacing was wrapped around the aluminum frame—and then he pushed the canvas up and slithered out like a snake. The canvas fell back into place, so that the back of the tent appeared undamaged.

Jonathan Maberry's books