Jonathan Maberry - Rot & Ruin

The first book in the Benny Imura series, 2010

Special thanks to some real-world people who were willing to enter the world of Benny and Tom Imura. I believe that if the world ends, youll still be there. My agents, Sara Crowe and Harvey Klinger; David Gale and Navah Wolfe at Simon & Schuster; Nancy Keim-Comley, Tiffany Schmidt, Greg Schauer, Rob and Andrea Sacchetto, Randy and Fran Kirsch, Jason Miller, Sam West-Mensch, Keith Strunk, Charlie and Gina Miller, Arthur Mensch; and the Philly Liars Club: Gregory Frost, Don Lafferty, L. A. Banks, Jon McGoran, Solomon Jones, Ed Pettit, Merry Jones, Maria Lambra, Sara Shepherd, Kelly Simmons, Keith Strunk, and Dennis Tafoya.

Excerpt from The Onion Girl by Charles De Lint used by permission of the author.

Richard Pryors comment used by permission of Jennifer Lee Pryor.

BENNY IMURA COULDNT HOLD A JOB, SO HE TOOK TO KILLING.

It was the family business. He barely liked his family-and by family he meant his older brother, Tom-and he definitely didnt like the idea of business. Or work. The only part of the deal that sounded like it might be fun was the actual killing.

Hed never done it before. Sure, hed gone through a hundred simulations in gym class and in the Scouts, but they never let kids do any real killing. Not before they hit fifteen.

Why not? he asked his Scoutmaster, a fat guy named Feeney who used to be a TV weatherman back in the day. Benny was eleven at the time and obsessed with zombie hunting. How come you dont let us whack some real zoms?

Because killings the sort of thing you should learn from your folks, said Feeney.

I dont have any folks, Benny countered. My mom and dad died on First Night.

Ouch. Sorry, Benny-I forgot. Point is, you got family of some kind, right?

I guess. I got Im Mr. Freaking Perfect Tom Imura for a brother, and I dont want to learn anything from him.

Feeney had stared at him. Wow. I didnt know you were related to him. Hes your brother, huh? Well, theres your answer, kid. Nobody better to teach you the art of killing than a professional killer like Tom Imura. Feeney paused and licked his lips nervously. I guess being his brother and all, youve seen him take down a lot of zoms.

No, Benny said with huge annoyance. He never lets me watch.

Really? Thats odd. Well, ask him when you turn thirteen.

Benny had asked on his thirteenth birthday, and Tom had said no. Again. It wasnt a discussion. Just No.

That was more than two years ago, and now Benny was six weeks past his fifteenth birthday. He had four more weeks grace to find a paying job before town ordinance cut his rations by half. Benny hated being in that position, and if one more person gave him the fifteen and free speech, he was going to scream. He hated that as much as when people saw someone doing hard work and they said crap like, Holy smokes, hes going at that like hes fifteen and out of food.

Like it was something to be happy about. Something to be proud of. Working your butt off for the rest of your life. Benny didnt see where the fun was in that. Okay, maybe it was marginally okay because it meant only half days of school from then on, but it still sucked.

His buddy Lou Chong said it was a sign of the growing cultural oppression that was driving postapocalyptic humanity toward acceptance of a new slave state. Benny had no freaking idea what Chong meant or if there was even meaning in anything he said. But he nodded agreement because the look on Chongs face always made it seem like he knew exactly what was what.

At home, before he even finished eating his dessert, Tom had said, If I want to talk about you joining the family business, are you going to chew my head off? Again?

Benny stared venomous death at Tom and said, very clearly and distinctly, I. Dont. Want. To. Work. In. The. Family. Business.

Ill take that as a no, then.

Dont you think its a little late now to try and get me all excited about it? I asked you a zillion times to-

You asked me to take you out on kills.

Right! And every time I did you-

Tom cut him off. Theres a lot more to what I do, Benny.

Yeah, there probably is, and maybe I would have thought the rest was something I could deal with, but you never let me see the cool stuff.

Theres nothing cool about killing, Tom said sharply.

There is when youre talking about killing zoms! Benny fired back.

That stalled the conversation. Tom stalked out of the room and banged around the kitchen for a while, and Benny threw himself down on the couch.

Tom and Benny never talked about zombies. They had every reason to, but they never did. Benny couldnt understand it. He hated zoms. Everyone hated them, though with Benny it was a white-hot consuming hatred that went back to his very first memory. Because it was his first memory-a nightmare image that was there every night when he closed his eyes. It was an image that was seared into him, even though it was something he had seen as a tiny child.

Dad and Mom.

Mom screaming, running toward Tom, shoving a squirming Benny-all of eighteen months-into Toms arms. Screaming and screaming. Telling him to run.

While the thing that had been Dad pushed its way through the bedroom door that Mom had tried to block with a chair and lamps and anything else she could find.

Benny remembered Mom screaming words, but the memory was so old and he had been so young that he didnt remember what any of them were. Maybe there were no words. Maybe it was just her screaming.

Benny remembered the wet heat on his face as Toms tears fell on him as they climbed out of the bedroom window. They had lived in a ranch-style house. One story. The window emptied out into a yard that was pulsing with red and blue police lights. There were more shouts and screams. The neighbors. The cops. Maybe the army. Thinking back, Benny figured it was probably the army. And the constant popping of gunfire, near and far away.

But of all of it, Benny remembered a single last image. As Tom clutched him to his chest, Benny looked over his brothers shoulder at the bedroom window. Mom leaned out of the window, screaming at them as Dads pale hands reached out of the shadows of the room and dragged her back out of sight.

That was Bennys oldest memory. If there had been older memories, then that image had burned them away. Because he had been so young the whole thing was little more than a collage of pictures and noises, but over the years Benny had burned his brain to reclaim each fragment, to assign meaning and sense to every scrap of what he could recall. Benny remembered the hammering sound vibrating against his chest that was Toms panicked heartbeat, and the long wail that was his own inarticulate cry for his mom and his dad.

He hated Tom for running away. He hated that Tom hadnt stayed and helped Mom. He hated what their dad had become on that First Night all those years ago. Just as he hated what Dad had turned Mom into.

In his mind they were no longer Mom and Dad. They were the