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Girl.
    “I really wish I could go,” repeated Chong wistfully, still looking at Lilah while trying not to appear that he was.
    “Parents won’t cave?” Benny asked.
    “Parents won’t even talk about it. They think the idea is suicidal.”
    “They could be right,” observed Tom.
    “And that’s why I don’t want you talking to them about it anymore, Mr. Positive Energy,” growled Chong. “After the last time you talked about it, Mom wanted to handcuff me to the kitchen chair.”
    “You could just go,” suggested Lilah.
    Chong made a face. “Very funny.”
    “I am serious. It’s your life … take it.”
    “You sure that’s how you want to phrase that?” murmured Benny.
    “You know what I mean,” Lilah snapped irritably.
    “Yes,” said Tom, “and it’s a bad suggestion. Chong is a minor, and he has a responsibility to his family.”
    “First responsibility is to here,” she retorted, tapping herself over the heart. “To self.”
    “Fine, then maybe you should go talk to the Chongs,” said Tom.
    “Maybe I should.”
    “But,” interjected Benny, “don’t bring your weapons.”
    FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
Things We Don’t Know About Zoms
     
Why they stop decaying after a certain point.
     
Why they attack people and animals.
     
Why they don’t attack each other.
     
Whether they can see or hear the way living humans can.
     
Why they moan.
     
If they can think (at all).
     
If they can feel pain.
     
What they are.
     

11
     
    T HE REST OF THE DAY WAS QUIET . N IX WENT FOR A LONG WALK WITH L ILAH , and Chong trailed along like a sad and silent puppy. Morgie went fishing and Benny slouched around the house, looking at all the familiar things, trying to wrap his brain around the idea that he wasn’t going to see any of this stuff anymore. Even the beat-up chest of drawers in his room seemed wonderful and familiar, and he touched it like an old friend.
     
    Say good-bye to this
, whispered his inner voice.
Let it all go.
    He took a long, hot bath and listened to a voice speak to him from the shadows in his mind. For months now Benny had heard that inner voice speaking as if it were a separate part of him. It wasn’t the same as “hearing voices,” like old Brian Collins, who had at least a dozen people chattering in his head all the time. No, this was different. To Benny it felt like the inner voice he heard was his own future self whispering to him. The person he was going to become. A more evolved and mature Benny Imura, confident and wise, who had begun to emerge shortly after the events at Charlie’s camp.
    The current Benny didn’t always agree with the voice, and often wished it would shut up and let him just be fifteen.
    After his soak, Benny stood for a while peering into the mirror, wondering who he was.
    After seven months of Tom’s insane pre-trip fitness regimen, he was no longer the skinny kid he’d been when he had first ventured out into the Rot and Ruin. He actually had muscle definition and even the beginnings of six-pack abs. He made sure that he took his shirt off in front of Nix as often as he could reasonably justify it, usually after hard training sessions. He worked hard to make it look casual, but it was disheartening how often Nix giggled or didn’t appear to notice instead of swooning with lust.
    Now he looked at his arms and chest, at the muscles earned through all those hours of training with swords and jujitsu and karate; at the tone acquired from endless repetitions with weights, from running five to ten miles five times a week, from climbing ropes and trees and playing combat games. He bent closer, wondering how much of that face belonged to the man he was becoming or to the boy he still believed himself to be. The face seemed to fit more with his inner voice than with Benny’s perception of his current self.
    That was the problem, and it was at the core of everything. On one hand he wanted to be fifteen and go fishing and play baseball and get in trouble