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all that—but you know what we have for First Night? A pamphlet. Does that make any sense? I can tell you the make and model of every car that ever rolled out of Detroit, but I can’t tell you about how Detroit fell during First Night. I know about cell phones and computers and all that before stuff. … But I don’t know anything about what’s on the other side of the fence. … Except what I learn from Charlie. Twice a month we practice zombie killing in gym class by hitting straw targets with sticks, and we do some of that kind of crap in the Scouts, but nobody—I mean nobody —except Charlie and the Hammer ever really talks about zoms. Our teachers must think we’re all learning about zombies from our folks, but none of my friends have heard squat at home. You’re even worse because killing zoms is your job, and you never talk about it. Never. Yeah, you’ll help me with math and history and all that stuff, but when it comes to zoms … I learn more off the back of Zombie Cards than I ever do from you. Everyone over twenty years old in this stupid town acts like we’re living on Mars. I mean, how many people even go to the Red Zone let alone all the way to the fence? Even the fence guards don’t talk about the zoms. They talk about softball and what they had for dinner last night, but they all pretend the zoms aren’t even there.”
    “People do go to the Red Zone, Benny. They go there to post erosion portraits for the bounty hunters.”
    “Oh, yeah? Well, I know for a fact that most people pay kids to post the portraits for them. How do I know? Because I’ve put up about a hundred of them.”
    “You—?”
    “Zombie Cards don’t buy themselves, Tom. And when people ask kids to put the pictures up, they don’t even say what they are. I mean, we’re standing there, both looking at an erosion portrait, and no one ever mentions the word ‘zom.’ Most people just say, ‘Hey, kid, want to hang this for me?’ They never say where. They know that we know, but they can’t actually come out and say it. It’s freaking weird, man.”
    “People are scared, Benny. They’re in denial. You’re only fifteen, so you and your friends don’t really understand what it was like during First Night.”
    “No joke, Mr. Wizard. That’s my whole point! We want to know.”
    Tom pursed his lips. “I guess … people probably want to shelter you from it.”
    Benny wanted to throw something at Tom. He eyed a heavy book; that might wake him up. “How the heck can anyone shelter us? We live behind fences, surrounded by the Rot and Ruin. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Big place, used to be called America? Filled with zoms? It’s not fair that people don’t tell us the truth.”
    “Benny, I—”
    “It’s our world too,” Benny snapped. His words hit Tom like a slap. Then into the silence Benny dropped another bomb. “Don’t get on my case for listening to Charlie if he’s the only one who thinks we ought to know truth.”
    Tom stared at him for a long time as different emotions flowed like water over his face. Finally he threw the last of his coffee into the bushes beside the porch, and stood up.
    “Tell you what, Benny … Tomorrow we’re going to start early and head out into the Rot and Ruin. We’ll go deep, like Charlie does. I want you to see firsthand what he does and what I do, and then you can make your own decisions.”
    “Decisions about what?”
    “About a lot of things, kiddo.”
    And with that Tom went inside and to bed.

6
    T OM AND B ENNY LEFT AT DAWN AND HEADED DOWN TO THE southeastern gate. The gatekeeper had Tom sign the usual waiver that absolved the town and the gatekeeping staff of all liability if anything untoward happened once they crossed into the Ruin. A vendor sold Tom a dozen bottles of cadaverine, which they sprinkled on their clothing, and a jar of peppermint goo that they dabbed on their upper lips, to kill their own sense of smell.
    “Will this stuff stop the zoms?”
    “Nothing