The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chapter 58

Tom knelt by a cold campfire and studied the ground. This was the second place where he'd found Benny and Lalon's footprints and signs of violence. The first time had been the spot where Sally Two-Knives had tried to rescue the teens. There were indeed two dead men there, and Tom recognized them. Denny Spurling and Kevin Watts, bounty hunters of the low-life variety who usually ran with a third man named Stanley Stosh. Still had given them a little taste of their own medicine. Rough justice, but justice of a kind.

Tom knew Sally's history. She'd been a rough, hard-edged girl in Seattle, her mothers were Roller-Derby blockers with one of the Rat City Rollergirl teams. Sally was only a teenager when the Black Night came. She'd been the mother of two little kids in Seattle's quarantine zone, and she'd fought her way across Seattle to a small apartment. By the time Sally for back to her home, the lobby was splashed with blood. It took her a couple of years to tell Tom the whole story. It came out in broken fragments, and none of it was pretty. There was no happy endings, and when she reached the tenth floor apartment, all she found was heartbreak.

Broken as more than half-crazy from loss, Sally headed south and made as far as Portland. She raided a sporting goods store for weapons. Previous looters had already taken the guns, so she loaded up with knives, including the two bowie knives that eventually became her trademark and her name.

It was nearly two years before she made it into Mariposa Country, where she met Tom and discovered that there were towns filled with survivors. Tom remembered the Sally he's first met: filthy, wild-eyed, almost feral, and more than half-dead from bacterial infection she'd picked up from drinking bad water. He had gotten her first to a quarantine zone and then into town.

Tom knew that Sally felt she owned him a debt, but in his view, if she helped someone else, then a different kind of infection would spread. Generosity could be as contagious as the Infected plague as long as enough people were willing to be carriers.

Tom rose from where he'd been crouching as he studied the scene.

Something caught his eye, and he parted some weeds and saw Benny's bokken lying there. He picked it up. It was undamaged. Tom rigged a sling and hung the sword across his chest. As he did so he walked slowly around the clearing, looking at the prints. There were five distinct sets. Benny's waffle-soles shoes and Lalon's heavy roper shoes. Sally's cross-grained hiking boots. Prints that match the shoes of the two dead men. And a fifth set that entered the camp from upslope. Tom placed his foot into one of the prints, and it dwarfed his. Tom was not a big man, and he wore a size nine-and-a-half shoe. This print had to be at least fourteen extra wide, and the impression was ground well into topsoil. A big man. Tall and heavy.

Like Charlie. Tall, slim but heavy.

Tom continued to walk the edges of the clearing until he found an even deeper set of footprints leading away. Same shoes, but clearly a heavier footfall. The answer was there to be read. There were no trace of their shoes, which meant that the big man had carried the boys off.

That have Tom some hope. If they were dead, he would have been left for the crows. If they were alive and being carried, then even a big man could not move at top speed. And it was virtually impossible to cover your tracks while carrying a burden.

Tom was not carrying a burden. He could move very fast, and even a blind man could follow those tracks. He set out, moving quickly. He had the kinds of lean and wiry body that was built for running, and he knew how to run. Two hours later he found the remains of a campfire and the clear and distinct marks of Benny's waffle soles. The campfire was almost cold. Dirt had been kicked over the small blaze, and it had cooled more slowly than if it had been doused with water. Tom judged that he was now no more than four hours behind the big man. He was making up the time he'd lost by tensing to Sally last night; and the big man had stopped to rest. When they'd started out again, the boys were walking instead of being carried. Good.