“Things went wrong pretty much right away. The hunter made some remark about the girls looking tough, and when George explained they had both hunted and killed zoms, the hunter really perked up. He said that the girls were worth their weight in gold for ‘the games,’ and when George turned to him to ask what that remark meant, someone hit him from behind. George woke up hours later, but the cornfield was empty and everyone was gone. He had no weapons or food and no idea what had happened to the girls. He searched every inch of that field and the woods beyond, but the girls were gone.
“He found horse tracks and footprints, but the best he could determine was that when the camp broke up, the men went in different directions. He said he went a little insane, and I can’t blame him. His whole life had been built around protecting those girls, and at the moment when he thought that they were really and truly saved from the monsters, it was people who took them away. It turned his whole world inside out. George staggered away and finally found a deserted house where he found some old cans of food. At first light he started searching for the girls. It became his obsession, and it consumed every waking second of every day.”
“What happened to the girls?”
“George looked everywhere, and along the way he met more and more people. He met the way-station monks and told them what had happened, and they started spreading the word. He started to hear rumors. One set of rumors talked about a place called Gameland that a bunch of bounty hunters and travelers had built in the mountains. The things people said about that place really tore George apart. When he described the girls and the men who had taken them, a lot of people suddenly stopped talking to him. Their fear of the men who ran Gameland was greater even than their compassion for a couple of lost children. Soon people were actively shunning George. Only the monks tried to help him, and some of those who went out to try to find the girls went missing.”
“And you don’t think it was zoms who got them?”
“Do you?”
Benny shook his head.
“By the time I ran into George, he was worn out. I told him that I’d spotted one girl, and when I described her, he said that it was Lilah. He begged me to say that I’d also seen Annie, but I didn’t. … And when I found the spot where I’d seen the girl standing, there was only one set of prints.”
“What happened to Annie?”
“I don’t know for sure. Some of the travelers I met were more willing to talk to me than they were to George. A few of them told me that there was an old rumor about a couple of girls who had been taken to Gameland and that something bad had happened and only one little girl escaped.”
“No …,” Benny said softly. “Were Charlie and the Hammer involved?”
“George gave me pretty good descriptions of several of the men in the camp. He wasn’t clear about which one hit him or who actually took the girls, but Charlie and the Hammer were definitely there.”
Benny nodded. The respect he once had for Charlie had transformed into a murderous hatred.
“What happened to George?”
“I don’t know. Brother David said there was a rumor that George had hanged himself, but I don’t believe that. George might be dead, and he might have hanged, but I don’t believe for a minute that he would have killed himself. Not as long as Lilah was still out there.”
“Somebody killed him?”
“Murder is easy out here.”
They walked on. The horses were looking better, less haggard, and Benny hoped that they’d be able to ride them again and make up the distance he felt they were losing with every minute they stayed on foot. “If we find Lilah … what do we do?”
“Try to get her to come to Mountainside with us. The kid needs a life, needs people.”
Benny took the card out of his pocket and stared at it, trying to imagine that wild creature going to school, being normal. His mind wouldn’t fit around the concept.
“Come on,” Tom said tersely. “The horses are rested enough. Let’s ride. … Let’s see if we can catch those animals.”
32
BOTH HORSES WERE SPITTING FOAM AGAIN BY THE TIME THEY REACHED the top of the mountain; then the ground leveled out, and they found the fire access road. Like all roads in the Ruin, it was badly overgrown, but Benny could see footprints, wheel ruts, and dried horse dung that looked recent.