Jonathan Maberry
Dust Decay
The second book in the Benny Imura series
© 2011
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to some real-world people who allowed me to tap them for advice and information, lean on them for support, and in some cases shove them into the middle of the action. My agents, Sara Crowe and Harvey Klinger; my editor, David Gale, and all the good people at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; experts Dr. John Cmar, of Johns Hopkins University Department of Infectious Diseases, and Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us (Thomas Dunne Books); fellow YA authors Nancy Holder, Michael Northrup, Heather Brewer, and Maria V. Snyder; the King of the Zombies George A. Romero; and cadaverine experts Ellery and John Griswold.
This one’s for Don Lafferty, Arthur Mensch, and Sam West-Mensch.
And-as always-for Sara Jo.
– J. M.
PART ONE. ROAD TRIP
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
– LAO TZU
1
BENNY IMURA WAS APPALLED TO LEARN THAT THE APOCALYPSE CAME with homework.
“Why do we have to study this stuff?” he demanded. “We already know what happened. People started turning into zoms, the zoms ate just about everyone, everyone who dies becomes a zom, so the moral of this tale is: Try not to die.”
Across the kitchen table, his brother, Tom, stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Are you deliberately trying to be an idiot, or is it a natural gift?”