Tooth & Nail

6

Benny Imura went as far as he could get from Captain Ledger, his stupid training methods, and everything related to that oversize old creep. He was so mad that he growled at several of the monks, who shied back away from him.

Every time Benny thought about how Ledger tried to lord it over him or prove that he was a better fighter than Tom, or knew more than Tom, or could teach better than Tom, it made Benny even madder. He bent and snatched up a big rock and threw it as hard as he could against the side of the nearest of the big gray airplane hangars. The impact made a loud karooom that Benny suddenly realized must have sounded like thunder inside.

He stopped and stared horrified at the spot where the rock had struck.

The hangar was filled with the sick and dying.

“Oh… jeez…”

The back door opened and a nun stepped out. Sister Hannahlily.

“Sorry!” yelled Benny, edging away.

The nun gave Benny a look that could have quieted a whole pack of zoms. He managed to endure it for two full seconds before he turned and fled. He could feel the heat of her disapproval stabbing him in the back like arrows.

Behind the hangars, foothills of red stone rose in broken walls to which tenacious vines clung. Spiky weeds sprouted up from the clefts. Benny caught movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced up to see a goat picking its way nimbly along a path so narrow that it wasn’t even visible from ground level. The goat threaded its way along the face of the cliff, and Benny kept pace with it, trying to let a pointless and temporary fascination divert him from his own glum thoughts.

Benny marveled at the goat, wondering how it had gotten here. Sanctuary was so remote and supposedly impossible to find without a guide. And yet here was a goat that was walking with the kind of confidence that suggested it was familiar with these rocks.

He felt himself frowning and actually had to stop and take mental inventory.

Why was he reacting that way?

Was something wrong about this?

If so… what?

Benny looked around, but there was no one to ask. He didn’t dare go ask one of the monks or nuns, not after the look Sister Hannahlily had given him. And there was no way in the world he was going to ask Captain Ledger. He’d rather kiss a zom than say another word to that jerk.

No, he decided, he’d find out for himself.

To satisfy his curiosity, he told himself.

To figure out why the presence of that goat bothered him so much.

He adjusted the katana that he wore strapped across his back. Tom’s sword.

His sword now.

Benny took a breath, reached for the closest lip of rock, and began to climb.