Dust & Decay Read Online Free PDF

sprawled a few feet from his son. From the thing that had once been a boy the same age as Benny. A friend once. A victim recently.
    “I said I wasn’t bitten,” Benny said, shaking his head slowly as he turned away, “but I’m a billion miles from okay.”
    FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
Before First Night the United States Census Bureau estimated that there were 6,922,000,000 people alive on planet Earth.
     
Tom said that news reports claimed that more than two billion people died in the first two days after First Night.
     
By the time the Internet went down, the estimates of the global death toll were at four billion and climbing.
     
People in town believe that following First Night more than six billion people died. Most people think the whole rest of the world is dead.
     
We know that the total population of the nine towns here in central California is 28,261 as of last New Year’s census.
     

9
     
    T HEY ALL SAT ON THE PICNIC TABLE IN B ENNY’S YARD, DRINKING COLD TEA and eating enormous slices of apple pie with raisins and walnuts in it. The sun was a golden ball in a flawless blue sky, and birds chattered in the trees. However, this rampant beauty did nothing to lighten the mood of sadness and horror that hovered like fog around them.
     
    Lilah sat apart, cross-legged on the grass. She had not spoken a single word since the confrontation in Zak’s yard. No one had, except for some ordinary comments mostly related to the serving and eating of Tom’s apple pie. Benny nibbled at his, but he had no appetite. Neither did Nix, though she poked angrily at the dessert until it was a mangled beige lump of goo on her plate. Chong and Morgie ate theirs, though Chong seemed to be eating on autopilot, his eyes focused on Lilah’s stern but beautiful profile.
    Tom sat on a tree stump, looking angry and unhappy.
    “What happened back there?” Benny finally asked. “With Danny and Zak … and …”
    Tom sighed and ran his hands over his face. “It was Grandpa Houser. Looks like he died sitting on the living room couch, reading the
Town Pump
. Michelle probably thought hewas asleep. Maybe she tried to shake him awake and he reanimated and bit her. Looks like she ran out of the house to get away. Or maybe to get help. The twins said that they were out with their dad all morning, so maybe Michelle went to get Zak or Big Zak to help her. Not sure what happened next. There’s a lot of blood in the kitchen, so it looked like maybe Grandpa attacked them when they came back in. Or maybe Michelle was hurt worse than she thought. Zak must have been bitten there and ran home. I looked inside their house too. There was a lot of blood in the dining room, so Zak must have bled out there, and when he reanimated …”
    “… he attacked his dad,” Benny said.
    Tom nodded.
    Benny thought about mentioning his suspicions that Big Zak had been knocking Zak around, but there didn’t seem much point to it now. Even so, an ugly thought was forming in his mind. What if Zak had been bitten—by Mrs. Houser or Grandpa Houser—and, knowing that he was infected, had gone home to make sure that was where he’d be when he died and reanimated? Would Zak have done that as a twisted way to pay back the abuse?
    Nix reached over and gave his knee a squeeze; and when Benny looked at her he saw a complexity of emotions swirling in her green eyes. She gave him a sad little smile, and he wondered, not for the first time, if she could somehow read his thoughts. Or feel what he felt. What did they call that? Empathy? Benny was pretty sure that was the word.
    “This really sucks,” said Morgie. “Danny and his folks. Man …”
    “Zak, too,” said Chong.
    Morgie gave him a hard look. “We’re better off without any of the Matthias family around here anymore. You did us all a favor by bashing Zak’s head—”
    Nix whirled and grabbed a small fistful of Morgie’s shirt. “Shut up!” she said fiercely.
    “Hey! What’s your problem?” Morgie said,