They stood in the silence of their own thoughts for a long time. The zombies watched them with unblinking eyes. Birds sang in the trees on Benny’s side of the divide, but there was movement in the sky above the zoms. Benny shielded his eyes from the glare and peered at a dozen large black birds drifting in slow circles high above the far side of the field. Chong noticed him looking and cupped his hands around his eyes too. He turned and saw even more of them over the forest behind them.

“Turkey vultures,” observed Chong.

“I know.”

They watched the dark, ugly birds glide without sound on the thermal currents above the endless miles of pinyon pines.

“There are a lot of them out today,” Chong said. “Seem to be everywhere.”

Benny looked at him. He could feel the blood drain from his face.

“Oh, crap . . .”

“Yeah. Carrion birds don’t eat zoms . . .”

“ . . . so what are they circling?” Benny finished.

It was one of the great mysteries of the Ruin that vermin did not feed on the zoms, even though they smelled of decay. No one understood it, and as Mr. Lafferty at the general store once said, “Kind of a shame, too, ’cause in about a month we’d have had a zillion fat crows and no zoms at all.”

Chong said, “Something’s dead out there.”

“I’d better get Nix,” said Benny.

Chapter 16

16

LILAH ANGRILY FISTED THE TEARS FROM HER EYES AND GLARED AROUND AS IF ready to bash anyone who happened to be a witness to those tears. She detested weakness of any kind. It was something she could barely tolerate in her friends and would not allow in herself.