“Because,” Benny began, but then hesitated, unsure of how to express what he was feeling. “Because Aunt Cathy was mine, you know? She’s my aunt. My family. They don’t have any right to disrespect my family.”
“No more than you’d go take a crap on Morgie Mitchell’s father’s grave. Or dig him up and pour garbage on his bones. You wouldn’t do anything like that?”
Benny was appalled. “What’s your damage, man? Where do you come up with this crap? Of course I wouldn’t do anything sick like that! God, who do you think I am?”
“Shhh … keep your voice down,” cautioned Tom. “So … you wouldn’t disrespect Morgie’s dad … alive or dead?”
“Hell, no.”
“Language.”
Benny said it slower and with more emphasis. “Hell. No.”
“Glad to hear it.” Tom held out the field glasses. “Take a look at the two dead people down there. Tell me what you see.”
“So we’re back to business now?” Benny gave him a look. “You’re deeply weird, man.”
“Just look.”
Benny sighed and grabbed the binoculars out of Tom’s hand, put them to his eyes. Stared. Sighed.
“Yep. Two zoms. Same two zoms.”
“Be specific.”
“Okay. Okay, two zoms. One man, one woman. Standing in the same place as before. Big yawn.”
Tom said, “Those dead people …”
“What about them?”
“They used to be somebody’s family,” said Tom quietly. “The male looks old enough to have been someone’s granddad. He had a family, friends. A name. He was somebody.”
Benny lowered the glasses and started to speak.
“No,” said Tom. “Keep looking. Look at the woman. She was, what? Eighteen years old when she died. Might have been pretty. Those rags she’s wearing might have been a waitress’s uniform once. She could have worked at a diner right next to Aunt Cathy. She had people at home who loved her. …”
“C’mon, man, don’t—”
“People who worried when she was late getting home. People who wanted her to grow up happy. People—a mom and a dad. Maybe brothers and sisters. Grandparents. People who believed that girl had a life in front of her. That old man might be her granddad.”
“But she’s one of them, man. She’s dead,” Benny said defensively.
“Sure. Almost everyone who ever lived is dead. More than six billion people are dead. And every last one of them had family once. Every last one of them were family once. At one time there was someone like you who would have kicked the crap out of anyone—stranger or best friend—who harmed or disrespected that girl. Or the old man.”
Benny was shaking his head. “No, no, no. It’s not the same. These are zoms, man. They kill people. They eat people.”
“They used to be people.”
“But they died!”
“Sure. Like Aunt Cathy and Mr. Mitchell.”
“No … Aunt Cathy got cancer. Mr. Mitchell died in an accident.”
“Sure, but if someone in town hadn’t quieted them, they’d have become living dead, too. Don’t even pretend you don’t know that. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about that happening to Aunt Cathy.” He nodded down the hill. “Those two down there caught a disease.”
Benny said nothing. He’d learned about it in school, though no one knew for sure what had actually happened. Some sources said it was a virus that was mutated by radiation from a returning space probe. Others said it was a new type of flu that came over from China. Chong believed it was something that got out of a lab somewhere. The only thing everyone agreed on was that it was a disease of some kind.
“That guy down there was probably a farmer,” Tom said. “The girl was a waitress. I’m pretty sure neither of them was involved in the space program. Or worked in some lab where they researched viruses. What happened to them was an accident. They got sick, Benny, and they died.”
Benny said nothing.
“How do you think Mom and Dad died?”
No answer.
“Benny—? How do you think?”
“They died on First Night,” Benny said irritably.
“They did. But how?”
Benny said nothing.