Damage & Decay

Chapter 5

Part One: Family Business

"I don't know what's waiting for us when we die– something better, something worse. I only know that I'm not ready to find out yet."
- Charles De Lint, The Onion Girl

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That evening Arming and Eren sat on the front steps and watched the sun set over the mountains. Eren was depressed. He looked at the sunset as if it was a window into the future, and all he saw was forced closeness with Armin and the problems that went with it. He also didn't understand Armin. He knew Armin had run away and yet he now made his living killing zoms. Armin never talked about it at home. He never bragged about his kills, didn't hang out with the other bounty hunters, didn't do anything to show how tough he was.

On one hand, zoms were not supposed to be hard to kill in a one-on-one situation--not against a smart and well-armed person. On the other hand, there was no room for mistakes with them. They were always hungry, always dangerous. No matter how he tried to work it out in his head, Eren could not see Arming as the kind of person who could or would hunt the living dead. It was like a henhouse chicken hunting foxes.

Over the last couple of years Eren had almost asked Armin about this, but each time, he'd left his questions unspoken. Maybe the answers would somehow show more of Armin's weakness. Maybe Armin was lying and really doing something else. Benny had worked out a number of bizarre and unlikely scenarios to try and explain chickenshit Armin as a zombie killer. None of them held water. Now, with the reality of what they were going to do tomorrow morning as clear and real as the setting sun, Eren finally put the question out there.

"Why do you do this stuff?"

Armin cut a quick look at him, but he continued to sip his coffee and was a long time answering. "Tell me, kiddo, what is it you think I do?"

"Duh! You kill zoms."

"Really?"

"That's what you say," Eren said, then grudgingly added, "That's what everyone says. Armin Jaeger, the great zombie killer."

Armin nodded, as if Eren had said something interesting. "So, far as you see it, that's al I do? I just walk up to any zombie I see and pow!"

"Uh. . .yeah."

"Uh. . .no." Armin shook his head. "How can you live in this house and not know what I do, what my job involves?"

"What's it matter? Everybody I know has a brother, sister, father, mother, or haggy old grandmother who's killed zoms. What's the big?" He wanted to say that he thought Armin probably used a high-powered rifle with a scope and killed them from a safe distance; not like Charlie and Hammer, who had the stones to do it mano a mano.

"Killing the living dead is a part of what I do, Eren. But do you know why I do it? And for whom?"

"For fun?" Eren suggested, hoping Arming would be at least that cool.

"Try again."

"Okay. . . then for money. . . and for whoever's gonna pay you."

"Are you pretending to be a dope or do you really not understand?"

"What, you think I don't know you're a bounty hunter? Everybody know that. Zak Matthias's uncle Charlie is one too. I heard him tell stories about going deep into the Ruin to hunt zoms."

Armin paused with his coffee cup halfway to his lips.

"Charlie--? You know Charlie Pink-eye?"

"He gets mad if people call him that."

"Charlie Pink-eye shouldn't be around people."

"Why not?" demanded Eren. "He tells the best stories. He's funny."

"He's a killer."

"So are you."

Armin's smile was gone. "God, I'm an idiot. I have to be the worst brother in the history of the world if I let you think that I'm the same as Charlie Pink-eye."

"Well. . .you're not exactly like Charlie."

"Oh. . .that's something then. . ."

"Charlie's the man."

"Charlie's the man," echoed Armin. He sat back and rubbed his eyes. "Good God. What could you possibly find interesting about a thug like Charlie?"

"Because he tells it like it is," Eren said. "I mean, its kind of weird that we're surrounded by, like, a zillion zoms, we learn about First Night and zombies in school, but they just talk around it for the most part. They don't tell us about it. Its crazy. We have all those salvaged textbooks from before First Night that tell us about the world--politics and cars and 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 every 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 al 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, Eren. 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, Armin. 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, Eren. 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."

Armin pursed his lips. "I guess. . .people probably want to shelter you from it."

Eren wanted to throw something at Armin. He eyes a heavy book; that might wake him up. "How the heck can anyone shelter us? We live behind fences, surrounded by the Wastelands. Maybe you've heard of it? Big place, used to be called America? Filled with zoms? It's not fair that people don' tell us the truth."

Armin 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, Eren. . .Tomorrow we're going to start early and head out into the Ruins. 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 Armin went inside and to bed.