“Far. But don’t worry, there are way stations where we can crash if we don’t make it back tonight.”
Benny looked at him as if he’d just suggested they set themselves on fire and go swimming in gasoline. “Wait—You’re saying we could be out all night?”
“Sure. You know I’m out there for days at a time. You’re going to have to do what I do. Besides, except for some wanderers, most of the dead in this area have long since been cleaned out. Every week I have to go farther away.”
“Don’t they just come to you?”
Tom shook his head. “There are wanderers—what the fence guards call ‘noms,’ short for ‘nomadic zombies’—but most don’t travel. You’ll see.”
The forest was old but surprisingly lush in the late August heat. Tom found fruit trees, and they ate their fill of sweet pears as they walked. Benny began filling his pockets with them, but Tom shook his head.
“They’re heavy and they’ll slow you. Besides, I picked a route that’ll take us through what used to be farm country. Lots of fruit growing wild. Some vegetables, too. Wild beans and such.”
Benny looked at the fruit in his hand, sighed, and let them fall.
“How come nobody comes out here to farm this stuff?” he asked.
“People are scared.”
“Why? There’s got to be forty guys working the fence.”
“No, it’s not the dead that scare them. People in town don’t trust anything out here. They think there’s a disease infesting everything. Food, the livestock that have run wild over the last fourteen years—everything.”
“Yeah …,” Benny said diffidently. He’d heard that talk. “So … it’s not true?”
“You ate those pears without a thought.”
“You handed them to me.”
Tom smiled. “Oh, so you trust me now?”
“You’re a dork, but I don’t think you want to turn me into a zom.”
“Wouldn’t have to get on you about cleaning your room, so let’s not rule it out.”
“You’re so funny, I almost peed my pants,” Benny said without expression, then said, “Wait, I don’t get it. Traders bring in food all the time, and all the cows and chickens and stuff. … They were brought to town by travelers and hunters and people like that, right? So …”
“So, why do people think it’s safe to eat that stuff and not the food growing wild out here?”
“Yeah.”
“Good question.”
“Well, what’s the answer?”
“The people in town trust what’s inside the fence. Currently inside the fence. If it came from outside, they remark on it. Like, on the second Wednesday of every month, folks will say, ‘’Bout time for the wagons, ain’t it?,’ but they don’t really acknowledge where the wagons come from or why the wagons are covered in sheet metal and the horses wrapped in carpet and chain mail. They know, but they don’t know. Or don’t want to know.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Tom walked a bit before he said, “There’s town and then there’s the Rot and Ruin. Most of the time they aren’t in the same world, you know?”
Benny nodded. “I guess I do.”
He stopped and stared ahead with narrowed eyes. Benny couldn’t see anything, but then Tom grabbed his arm and pulled him quickly off the road and led him in a wide circle through the groves of trees. Benny peered between the hundreds of tree trunks and finally caught a glimpse of three zoms, shuffling slowly along the road. One was whole; the other two had ragged flesh where other zoms had feasted on them while they were still alive.
Benny opened his mouth and almost asked Tom how he knew they were there, but Tom made a shushing gesture and continued on, moving soundlessly through the soft summer grass.
When they were well clear, Tom took them back up to the road.
“I didn’t even see them!” Benny gasped, turning to look back.
“Neither did I.”
“Then how … ?”
“You get a feel for this sort of thing.”
Benny held his ground, still looking back. “I don’t get it. There were only three of them. Couldn’t you have … you know …”