He leaned forward, and Benny could almost feel the heat from the man’s intense stare.

“The school, the hospital-even the town hall-run on electricity from hand-cranked generators, and as long as right-minded people draw breath under God’s own heaven, there won’t be any ostentatious machinery in our town.”

There was a whole pitcher of iced tea on the table, as well as quite a pile of cookies, and Benny realized that Mr. Merkle probably had a lot to say on the subject and wanted his audience comfortable for the whole ride. Benny endured it for as long as he could and then asked if he could use the bathroom. Mr. Merkle, who had now shifted from simple electricity to the soul-crushing blasphemy that was hydroelectric power, was only mildly thrown off his game, and told Benny where to go inside the house. Benny went inside and all the way through and out the back door. He waved to Chong as he vaulted the wooden fence.

Two hours later Chong caught up with him outside of Lafferty’s, the local general store. He gave Benny a long and evil look.

“You’re such a good friend, Benny, I’ll really miss you when you’re dead.”

“Dude, I gave you an out. When I didn’t come back, didn’t he go looking for me?”

“No. He saw you go over the fence, but he kept smiling that smile of his and said, ‘Your little friend is going to burn in hell, do you know that? But you wouldn’t spit in God’s eye like that, would you?’”

“And you stayed?”

“What could I do? I was afraid he’d point at me and say ‘Him!,’ and then lightning bolts would hit me or something.”

“Scratch that job off the list?”

“You think?”

Spotter was the next job, and that proved to be a good choice, but only for one of them. Benny’s eyesight was too poor to spot zoms at the right distance. Chong was like an eagle, and they offered him a job as soon as he finished reading the smallest numbers off a chart. Benny couldn’t even tell they were numbers.