The Fall (Book 3): War of the Living (16 page)

“I'll get you the directions and describe the hidden escape routes out of New Haven so you can find them,” Kate said.

The deeply observant and logical part of his brain spoke up. “I have to wonder why you needed to ask me this in the middle of the night, and why you seem so relieved I agreed. I mean, if they're coming for us after they've set up new communities, it's going to be a while before they attack us, right?”

There was a shared look between the other three people, but it was Mason who spoke up.

“We can't let that happen,” he said, all humor gone from his face. “We believe ten thousand is a lower limit. I've seen them bringing refugees up from Mexico, and they could easily hit us with twice that number, maybe three times. If we let them set up shop and give them time to build up reserves of food this close to our territory, they'll win. They're already better armed and have greater numbers.”

“So you're saying...”

Mason's eyes were hard, flinty chips of dark gray in the candle light. “We're going to force them to do something stupid. We have to make them attack us.”

Kell was sworn to secrecy about the plan to force a confrontation, even from the five people he had to choose to go with him to the emergency shelter Kate had created, though he did tell Laura. That decision was a minor hell of its own, as choosing from the group was next to impossible, especially when he realized taking Andrea would be impossible since she wouldn't leave without her children.

Which led to him realizing he would, in a worst case scenario, be abandoning all of them without a word.

The world was no longer a place where hard choices could be put off or agonized over, however, and within a few days of the meeting, Kell had his group.

Laura, of course, and Lee. They were the most dangerous and resourceful people in the group, and there was zero doubt they would hunt him down should he have left them out. With Scotty, Chris, and Dan gone his next three choices were unavailable, and Kell wasn't especially close with many other people in the group. A younger man—a boy, really—named Jaden took the third spot at Laura's suggestion. He was quick and clever and didn't seem to socialize, making him ideal for a smaller group.

The last two spots Kell left to Laura, who picked a married couple Kell hardly knew. They were two of the more dedicated students in the training program Laura and Dan had set up, between them having skills in emergency medicine, vehicle repair, armor-making, and half a dozen other fields.

When he wasn't pulling long shifts on the wall or taking classes made erratic by the shortage of people, he spent his time in the RV. The makeshift lab was not ideal for any sort of fine work, but it was more than sufficient for rough observation and experimentation.

Kate would have said he was brooding, but she would have been wrong.

“Anything new?” Laura asked one night as he huddled over a microscope.

“As a matter of fact—wait, are you actually interested? Or am I going to bore you to tears because you're just trying to keep me from being depressed?”

She was smiling at him wryly. “I guess that depends.
Are
you depressed?”

Kell sat back in his chair. “I'm really not. I hated sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I hate knowing we have to
make
the shoe drop even more, but I'm surprisingly okay. I guess once you come to terms with killing almost everyone, it's pretty hard for anything else to keep you down.”

Laura had a look of understandable horror on her face. “That's maybe the worst silver lining I've ever heard, but I'll take it. So I guess the answer is yes, I'm interested in what you're doing.”

He stared at the slides on the table in front of him, all but one neatly tucked into their box.

“I've been looking at how Chimera spreads through human hosts over time,” he said. “I have samples from normal zombies, some from New Breed, and a few from living people. My theory that the New Breed primarily come from more recently deceased people seems correct. The further along your infection, the more physically able a zombie you'll make.”

Laura cocked her head to one side. “The New Breed can infect other zombies, though. Makes them faster, stronger, all that.”

Kell nodded. “Yeah, but it only works on a fraction of them. I think those zombies must be fairly fresh, close enough that being exposed to the more advanced version of Chimera can still improve them, but who died before their own version could mutate into Chimera itself. I'm guessing the converts aren't quite as smart or strong as the real thing, but that's pretty unimportant.”

“That's cool, but how does that help us?”

“It might not,” Kell said with a shrug. “But looking at the samples from living people, I'm seeing some interesting stuff. I've been monitoring the spread in my own body, taking samples every few weeks and comparing. Chimera isn't just attaching itself to damn near system I have, it's integrating into them.”

Laura blew out a breath. “What does that mean, practically?”

“Maybe nothing,” Kell answered. “Or it could be I can't cure the living without damaging their health in some way. We altered the organism in very drastic ways when we started thinking about using it on people. None of the other variants took over bodily systems, it always piggybacked them. This is new.”

He almost began going into detail about new ideas on how he could test methods of breaking down Chimera and ways he could test the pervasiveness of it in living systems, but her eyes had already begun to glaze over in that special way so many of his fellow students had back in college.

“Anyway, I've got ideas but no way to do much more than begin,” he said. “Anything special happening with you?”

Long experience taught him much about her, especially when she was being patient and holding back from rolling her eyes. “You've been working in here all day, haven't you? Haven't heard the news?”

“I was busy,” Kell said. “People usually come get me if there's anything important going on.”

“I don't suppose this qualifies, at least not enough for anyone other than me to bother you while you're trying to save the world in here...”

Clapping his hands in front of his chest, he mock-begged. “Please don't keep me hanging, Laura, she who is the most wonderful and special lady in the entire world.”

“Fine, fine,” she said. “If you must know, the UAS defectors are out of confinement. Will had an isolated camp set up for them. They can move around with a guard, but they're supposed to stay in their homes when they aren't working.”

Kell frowned. The mistrust was to be expected—in fact, to do otherwise would have been idiotic—but the thought of those people having to live like prisoners still bothered him, even if he agreed with it. He recognized it solely as an empathetic reaction; in their situation, he would be angry and upset. People who gave up everything they know for the mere possibility of something better were bound to be disappointed by the reality they now faced.

“I know what's going through your head,” Laura said. “It's necessary, and it won't be permanent.”

Thinking back to their time at North Jackson, Kell hoped that was true.

The news over the following weeks twisted Kell's guts into knots. Most days he worked on the survival manual, listening to Josh talk about the movements of the UAS and the state of the war. The news was invariably bad as the violence increased, made worse for knowing it was actually their side pushing things to the brink.

One small border community gave up and joined the UAS after a bad outbreak of illness. To their credit, the UAS did as they promised and carted the entire population off, ostensibly for medical treatment. It was impossible to know if those people, who were willing to give up everything they knew for the chance to live, were going to have that chance. Kell admitted to himself it was just as likely they were taken far enough from the border they wouldn't be found, then shot in the head and left to rot.

The enemy moved closer day to day, clearing sections of road and setting up temporary camps to hold back the defenders. More than once, Kell heard stories of brave—and possibly insane—Union volunteers raiding in small groups to destroy supplies. One large victory involved an unknown party slipping into a heavily guarded food storage depot thirty miles inside UAS territory and burning it to the ground.

When Kell heard about it, he thought back to Mason's visit and smiled.

Every black eye they gave the UAS, every scrap of food destroyed, dared the enemy to come at the Union. The reports came in regularly, and were shared to boost morale. People laughed when they heard about volunteers scaring away game from near the Union border, or stealing kills found in traps. Their people were a plague of locusts nibbling away the food supply one tiny bite at a time, and it was having the desired effect.

Faced with no other choice, the enemy pushed harder and farther toward the heart of the Union.

Sending those men and women to die had to be a win-win for the people in charge of the UAS. They were saddled with thousands more mouths than they could feed, except for the rarefied strains of jingoism forced down the throats of the people actually doing the fighting for the UAS leadership. Kell heard the broadcasts, recorded at the front and smuggled home, decrying the Union as aggressors bent on destroying the
real
American survivors. It was poor propaganda, but for the age they lived in, it worked well enough.

The entire thing made Kell sick to his stomach, but for the most part he kept it to himself. Had the UAS left others alone, the war would have never happened.

It became impossible to ignore the effect the war was having on daily life. The first weeks had been filled with more work, but otherwise things had been close to normal. As the conflict dragged on and grew closer, things changed.

Kell found himself being drafted for odd jobs at all hours of the day and night. As one of the biggest and strongest people in the community, and as someone known as a good fighter, he was in demand.

Life in New Haven became strained. Fuel was being rationed, their reserves of food carefully meted out to save as much for the war effort as possible. No one at home could get new armor or weapons made, two examples among many of services dedicated to the fight. People understood, though they griped about it in private.

The more obvious change was the constant work just outside New Haven, where large groups of people prepared the place for the inevitable attack.

Kell and Lee were among those workers more often than not, trading off between doing work and guarding the others.

“Why's it so goddamned cold?” Lee asked as he stood guard as Kell fitted a large piece of metal between two trees. “Like two days ago it was in the sixties.”

“That's March in the Ohio Valley, man,” Kell said, grunting under the weight of the steel plate. “Aren't you military guys supposed to be tough?”

Lee snorted. “Bitch, I'm from Texas. I can do hot or cold, just not one right after the other.”

“There we go,” Kell said as he tied a knot in the rope snaking through the steel and looping around the trees. “That's the last one.”

“Good, I need something to eat. We've been out here all day.”

Kell looked around, trying to see the woods surrounding the huge clearing New Haven sat in as the enemy would one day see it. He tried to pick out the dozens of other pieces of metal dotting the ground between trees, but it was impossible. They were too well hidden, as were the many other traps and surprises being laboriously installed.

“How many is that?” Lee asked.

“At least three dozen in this section,” Kell replied. “There are a lot more lining the woods on the road. I think the goal is a total of four hundred shields. That's what we have the metal for, anyway.”

“We've gotta be close to that, right?”

Kell nodded as he packed up his gear, stuffing tools and spare rope in his knapsack. “With the shields, yes. But have you looked at the work list? We still have to set up the fallback positions, install shooting platforms, and twenty other things. The work won't be over until they're on our doorstep, Lee.”

“I've been in firefights before,” Lee said. “That's when the real work will start.”

To the surprise of nearly everyone, the next few months saw the conflict slow to a crawl. The UAS continued to fight a broad war for a while, but the effort in fuel and manpower taxed their resources. A lull in the fighting began at the end of March, and no amount of prodding could make the enemy come at the Union in great numbers.

Then they began to withdraw.

It wasn't a uniform movement; valuable pieces land were held with smaller forces. The front, stretching five hundred miles north to south, shifted and changed shape as the UAS backed off to regroup. Lee theorized part of what drove the shift was the Union itself; by so aggressively attacking food supplies, they had accidentally done too much damage. It had forced the enemy to slow enough to replenish their stocks.

In practical terms, it gave New Haven and the rest of the Union more time to prepare. With hostilities at a low if constant simmer, the bulk of the volunteers were able to come home.

Things didn't return to normal or anything close to it, however. That precious time was spent using the extra manpower to add to the defenses, reinforce the fallback positions, and generally make taking New Haven as painful as possible for the aggressors.

It was the middle of June when the hammer finally dropped. In the middle of the day, as Kell sat sweltering in Josh's office as he pored over a set of records, carefully noting important passages, the alarm bell rang in a way it had never done in his memory.

It was constant, uneven. The wild banging of someone trying desperately to get everyone's attention. Kell glanced over, but Josh seemed just as confused.

While they hesitated, someone began shouting outside, calling for a meeting in the small outdoor theater near the entrance to Kell's camp. They left at once, jogging at a brisk pace to get a decent spot.

There was already a large crowd, with more people streaming in every second. There wouldn't be enough space to hold even a fraction of the bodies in New Haven, but that didn't seem to be a problem. Someone had set up a generator, large public address speakers plugged into it. Will Price stood on the tiny stage usually reserved for entertainment. He looked grim.

“As many of you know, we have been tracking the UAS very closely,” he began. “Over the last few weeks, our soldiers have pulled back as the enemy has pushed forward, drawing them deeper into Union territory. We just received word that the bulk of the UAS forces arrayed against us have moved within a hundred miles of New Haven.”

There was an outbreak of chatter, but Will put up the hand not holding the microphone. The crowd grew quiet, but it was a charged sort of silence.

“Right now, the remaining soldiers in the field will split into two groups. The smaller of the two will act as harriers, slowing the UAS down for as long as possible. The other will retreat to New Haven. Between the number of sabotaged and trapped roads and bridges and their efforts, we believe they will take at least a week to cover those last hundred miles. Some of the noncombatants have already moved from New Haven to the fallback locations. The rest will begin moving tonight. Your block captains will come around and let you know what order the groups will go in.”

Will swept his gaze across the gathering, pausing here and there on a familiar face. He looked older than Kell had ever seen him, cheeks hollow and lines etched around his eyes years before they should have appeared.

“We have drilled for this,” Will said. “But more importantly, we're survivors. We've been through worse than those people can even imagine.” He nodded to a tight gathering of people. Kell recognized them as the refugees from the UAS. “Ask them, if you don't believe me. We're not going to let our home be taken, and we won't let them kill us. The price for victory will be high, but we'll pay it just like we always have.”

There was no jubilant reaction. No one cheered or whooped. Instead there was only the steely gaze of hundreds of scarred veterans of a harsh world, ready to do what was required. Some nodded, others clenched their fists, but nowhere did Kell see anyone disagree with Will's words.

“Come on,” someone whispered, putting a hand on his back. Kell first thought it was Josh, who had been standing next to him, but he had vanished. Instead he found Lee, whose face was unusually haggard. Kell allowed himself to be led, snaking through the packed crowd as the first of the block captains stepped up to the mic to direct his assigned citizens.

“What's going on?” Kell muttered, but Lee only shook his head. He said nothing until they were back at camp, standing in front of the RV. There, Laura stood with Jaden and the married couple, Brian and Angie. All four of them had packs at their feet. Two more waited on the picnic table.

“Time to go,” Laura said.

For all the processing power Kell's brain possessed, it took him several seconds to grasp what was happening.

Then he got it.

“What the fuck?” he growled.

Lee sat on the picnic table, feet on the bench. “Look, man, I know we agreed you'd leave if it looked like we were gonna lose. I've been told what's coming for us. Trust me, we need to go.”

“No,” Kell said. “Not gonna happen. If things get really bad, I'll go, but no way am I running before the fight even starts.”

“Kell, listen to him,” Laura said. “There are thousands of them. They have artillery. Every one is better armed than any of us. We might have a chance, but it's much more likely they'll win. If we go now, when they're still days away, we'll have the best chance to survive.”

“I'm not an idiot,” Kell spat. “I know it's dangerous. This is my home, Laura. And until it looks like I'm going to lose it, I'm not running.”

They stared at each other, and Laura broke into a wry smile. “I knew you'd say that.” She turned to Lee. “You heard him. He's not going. Pack it up.”

Lee made a frustrated noise in his throat, but did as asked. Jaden and the others left, chatting as they returned to their tents. Kell watched them go, pointedly keeping his eyes from Laura as the sound of blood thumping in his head slowly receded.

“What the hell, Laura?”

She raised her palms toward him. “I know, I know. Lee was convinced if he came at you straight about this, you'd agree. He has a point. I mean, it's logical. He just doesn't know you as well as I do.”

He was about to speak when their block captain—which they had even though they didn't live on a block—shouted up the hill as he jogged toward them.

“You're all leaving in the morning,” he said, barely slowing as he moved through the camp. “Noncombatants to the fallback points, the rest report to me for defense assignments at eight.”

There were only a few people in their group who wouldn't be fighting. Andrea would leave with her children, as would a few others who had young ones. Everyone over the age of fifteen who wasn't pregnant was on the books for combat. Kell found himself almost looking forward to it.

The rest of the day went by slowly, Kell retiring to the RV to change into his armor. Even though he was free of guard duty, he would still go out. The idea of sitting in this tin can while people left their homes was intolerable.

A few hours later, he walked with Andrea and her children toward one of the buses waiting to take them to their fallback camp. Lee joined him, though the smaller man wisely said nothing. Kell wasn't angry that he wanted to leave, but he would have liked to have been asked rather than confronted with it. It left him a little sore at Lee.

Andrea gave him a quick hug, then led the kids into the bus. It didn't feel like a goodbye, though a part of him worried about their safety away from New Haven's walls.

Then he remembered what those walls would have to stand up to in the near future and thought better of it.

The bus was just one of many vehicles lined up, just as Andrea's small family was one of many waiting nervously to leave for the relative safety of seclusion.

The huge field Kell's camp rested in was filled with people. It was rare to see them all in one place; even the outdoor theater only held a fraction of the populace. Now they spread out among the train of vans and cars, buses and sport utility vehicles. It was the only place in New Haven with enough empty space not occupied by crops, and the sight was staggering to behold.

Every few minutes a vehicle would leave from the side gate, trundling down the road splitting the old parts of the settlement from the newer ones. The larger groups of refugees had guards to see them to the fallback areas, though even here the pragmatism which defined New Haven was clear. Smaller groups had no one but themselves for defense, purely a matter of math. There weren't enough free bodies to guard them all, so those who were available protected the largest number possible.

Kell would have gone himself—wanted to—but once the order to evacuate had been given, there were too many other tasks to be seen to. If New Haven the place was to survive, it was going to take a lot of work and even more luck. Even with all the preparations, there was a high likelihood their home would fall when the enemy showed up at the gates.

Teary-eyed families hugged as mothers and fathers separated from children. A great many of those families were not forged from blood, but from the fire of shared loss. Not far from where Kell stood, an Indian man kissed his wife as she took their adopted children away. The boy and girl must have been twins, and couldn't be older than six, both with vivid blue eyes and hair so blond it was almost white.

If his time with Laura and the rest of his people taught Kell anything, it was that family wasn't dependent on genetics.

Lee stood with him for nearly an hour, silently watching the people of New Haven leave through the gate like blood spurting from an artery. With every load of refugees, the life in the place dimmed a little.

Laura eventually found them as they stood in the dying light. “Come on,” she said, beckoning them to follow. “Will wants to speak to us.”

“You're here because each of you has a set of skills more useful than just pulling a trigger,” Will said to the twenty or so people gathered in front of his office door. “Some of you are especially good at moving around unseen. Others know the best ways to disable vehicles and weapons. We've asked your block captains to select people for this job, but it's voluntary. Mostly because it's going to be incredibly dangerous. If you aren't interested, leave now.”

No one moved.

“Good,” Will said. “I'm going to split you into teams, then give you your assignments.”

The numbers weren't evenly split, as one might have expected. Instead, each group was weighed based on talents and skills versus the type of job. Will made no special effort to let the other groups hear what was being said, but neither did he try to keep it secret. Two teams of five were supposed to hit vehicles and weapons, with the sole purpose of sabotage. Another team of four was set to do some kind of recon—Kate was assigned to lead that group.

Kell couldn't hear what the other group of three was supposed to do, but when Will came to his group—himself, Lee, and Laura—at last, he had some idea of what to expect.

“I'd like the three of you to be my floaters,” Will said. “I need people to fit in wherever there are holes. I might need you to run between here and the fallback points, cover a retreat, maybe do some scouting. Basically I want the three of you as my personal team.”

“That's flattering,” Kell said.

Will smiled tightly. “You're all trustworthy. You can fight, and you won't take stupid risks. I'm having another one of these meetings in a few minutes. Hopefully I'll manage to find another couple people I can say the same about, but I'm not holding my breath.” His tired eyes met Kell's. “What do you say?”

“Of course,” Kell said. “You've done more for me than I can ever repay.”

Lee shrugged. “I go where he goes,” he said simply.

“I'll keep these two out of trouble,” Laura said with a smirk.

“Good,” Will said, smiling faintly. “I'll want you here early tomorrow. No telling what kinds of problems the evacuation will throw at us.”

The next group of people began to filter in. Kell motioned Lee and Laura to follow him. As they made their way back to camp, he couldn't help noticing the difference in his adopted home. The essence of the place had always been a strange mixture of disciplined, almost militaristic wariness and a casual acceptance of the world as it was. People didn't find it odd to lean over fences to gossip with assault rifles slung over shoulders.

That delicate balance was gone. The people were either in their homes, preparing to leave, or already at the evacuation site. The few who remained were either guards running to their places on the walls or workers passing messages. Otherwise, the streets and yards were empty. The vibrant personality of New Haven was, if not dead, paused and something of an endangered species.

It pissed Kell off.

“How much of Will's game plan have you seen, Lee?” Kell asked as they ambled into camp. “You seem to think we don't have much of a chance. I'd like to hear why.”

Lee stepped onto the bench of the picnic table and spun, sitting on the tabletop. “You reconsidering? Thinking about leaving?”

“No,” Kell said, “but that doesn't mean I don't want your take on what we're up against. You know your business.”