The Fall (Book 3): War of the Living (9 page)

“You really are a profoundly organized guy, Dan.”

“Thanks, I know.”

It was Kell's turn to grin. “I don't know if I meant that as a compliment. Back before, you might have seen a psychologist about this.”

“Psychiatrist,” Dan corrected. “OCD is a bitch, but if you learn to use your powers for the forces of good, it can come in handy.”

Kell pored over the schedule. “Even with all the stuff people named, I didn't expect so much.”

Dan leaned in, pointing out a block of classes. “I figure you can skip those. They're mostly biology and physiology.” His finger glided across the page, resting on a set of boxes outlined in black. “Those are all combat of one kind or another. Of course, you can do whatever you like, I just thought you might want to brush up a little.”

He spent the next hour learning the details, asking Dan and anyone who happened by endless questions about the content of each class, what the instructors were like, and every other relevant fact he could pull from them. When all was said and done, there were too many things he wanted to learn and too few hours in the day.

Kell pared it down to three classes a day. Two were temporary things, introductory courses he would need to move forward. One was physiology, despite Dan's assumption he wouldn't need to attend. Dan was half right; Kell didn't actually need the class, but skipping it would open up questions about his background. Better to attend and pretend to have done a basic class in college, covering for any accidental cleverness in the subject.

The other temp class was first aid, a bedrock requirement for the third, much longer set of classes. Kell had no desire to do surgery or treat patients on a regular basis, but it seemed criminal not to learn what he could, just in case. They would be in Iowa eventually, all but cut off from any help. Knowing how to keep himself or others alive might be the difference between disaster and survival.

Dan jotted notes in between making dinner, promising to schedule the other classes Kell checked off when the time came. Kell thanked him, both for the help and for cooking for the group, and took off for his nightly rounds.

Though he had no technical responsibility to do them, it made Kell uncomfortable not to do some kind of basic patrol in the evening. There were guards and sentries on duty, as well as men and women in the massive wooden watchtower situated on the top of the hill New Haven sat on. There was no shortage of watchful eyes, but knowing it in his head wasn't the same as knowing it emotionally. The need to see for himself was strong, more so tonight than usual.

It had been a trying day, after all. For as much as Kell had surprised everyone by not wanting to immediately retreat after the assault on the Hunters, parts of him truly were as predictable as the sunrise. He
had
felt that urge, the unreasoning desire to run, and had recognized it for what it was.

When his wife and daughter died, Kell had run. Granted, he'd thought it was toward death, but that single moment in time stamped itself into his brain. It was an experience like marriage or fatherhood, one that changed a person forever. It reset his reactions and forced his brain into permanent retreat mode when dealing with emotionally damaging situations.

Yes, he had seen it. Understood it. And he told his brain to go fuck itself.

Years of living with people who supported and helped him understand his reactions by never giving him an inch made for excellent soil in which to grow as a person. Realizing that he could ignore the niggling doubt in his head brought on by the destruction of the Hunter compound had been a revelation for him. The black and white world he had lived in since The Fall began had filled in with subtle color somewhere along the way. Things just weren't that simple anymore. They never had been, if he was being honest.

Still, there were some things about Kell that might be mitigated, redirected, or channeled, but they would never change. One was the hurt driving into his heart like a needle at the idea that someone he cared about could be so cruel. Even below that, on a much more basic level, was the simple fact that Kate was gone. Circumstances didn't matter. Facts didn't matter. It felt like a death. In a way, it was.

So he marched for the wall to do a long patrol of his part of New Haven, eyes open for threats. It was a form of running away, he knew that. It occupied his mind and allowed him distance from the day's events.

But it was better than the alternative.

A week after Kate left the group—only appearing once, to pick up her things—the expected change in their dynamic never happened. No one sat around talking about her spitefully, at least not where Kell could hear them. Even if they were inclined, there simply wasn’t enough time. Once his eyes were opened to the ludicrous amount of work each member was doing, it became impossible to miss.

The basic rhythm in their camp was the same, something Kell realized grew from Kate's own habits since arriving in New Haven. It was easy to forget she had left their company for good, because so much of her time had been spent away from them to start with. As Kell began taking classes, it was easy to forget the hole in his life where she had been, in no small part because the hole had been there for much longer than he realized.

Each day was full of work and learning, and ended the same; he walked the wall, greeting guards as he passed by.

December had arrived, cold winds cutting through the joints of his armor like knives. Though the moon was full, clouds covered the sky in dense gray patches. The air didn't have the tangy humidity for snow, but neither was that a very scientific unit of measure. Glancing up as he rounded from the eastern wall toward the southern, Kell saw the first glimmers of moonlight shining through in the distance. With any luck, they wouldn't get a blizzard.

Kell greeted the guard positioned at the station on the corner of the wall, a platform little wider than a man's shoulders with a box made of scraps—in this case, corrugated aluminum and plywood. The guard was waving Kell on his way when the first real break in the clouds shined a spotlight on the open ground beyond the southern wall.

Tree stumps dotted the ground for a long way, broken only by the parking lot of an old nursing home that had been absorbed by New Haven's relentless expansion outward. Kell stood just to one side of the building itself, the wall having been built only feet in front of its entrance.

Though the treeline was kept far from the boundaries of New Haven as a way to keep lines of sight clear, the lack of reliable electricity at night made it impossible to see. Moonlight, however, was the universe's answer to poor night vision.

“Son of a bitch!” the guard shouted, the man fumbling for the bell in his tiny booth.

It took Kell a second to understand what he was seeing, but when his brain caught up, he swore as well.

Beyond the buffer and its tangling net of old power lines and cables, past the traps and barriers laid out along the ground, and partially obscured by the runty forest of tree stumps, were zombies. In the distance there were many, almost too impossible to see at a hundred yards in the gloom. They weren't what made Kell's heart hammer against his ribs.

That honor belonged to the dozens—perhaps hundreds—of zombies crawling through the forest of stumps. They were New Breed, and their approach had made them nearly invisible. Without the break in the clouds...

People swarmed toward the wall. Some were already awake, others groggily pulling on jackets and, in one case, trying to run and put on a boot at the same time. Kell ran to the nearest emergency light post and flipped the switch, precious battery power surging into the floodlight and washing the scene in a pale yellow glow.

Others did the same, bathing the land beyond the southern wall in day-bright illumination. The buffer cast a web of long shadows across the zombies, who began to rise as they realized their cover was blown.

Kell took a sharp breath, the air hissing through his teeth. The New Breed were smart—very smart—but this group sent a shiver down his spine.

There were hundreds of them, spread as far and wide as he could see. They didn't clump together in easy-to-kill groups, and many of the ones in the back were dragging logs. That fit with their pattern, as the New Breed were known to use tools to clear protective barriers. Not that it would do them much good with the buffer, but the fact that a group in front had enough strategic capacity to realize they would have to create a distraction in order to bring the rear units and their logs forward was enough to make his blood run cold.

That observation set off alarms. It was nothing specific, just a general sense of something being off. His eyes scanned the approaching swarm, looking for something. What was it?

There. One of the zombies was moving too well, with more dexterity and coordination than it should have had. The New Breed were nearly human in their movements. This one
was
human.

“Shit,” Kell breathed. He must have seen it without realizing it at first, but now it was obvious. There were living people, swathed in dead flesh and ragged clothes, spread among the dead. Kell could only see a handful of them, but from this distance there was no telling how many he missed.

The calculus of it was swift and brutal. As much as Will and the New Haven council might want to keep the budding war with the UAS as quiet as possible, it would only take one man with explosives to open a breach in the wall and allow the swarm inside.

Kell grabbed the nearest person, an older man with a scared face. “Go get Will and Dodger, bring them here now,” Kell told him.

The man looked at him in shock, hesitating, but the harsh bark of command in Kell's voice won him over. The older man hopped down from the wall and ran into the night.

Kell ran to the guard station, where the man on duty swung between staring at the stream of volunteers appearing and the swarm gaining ground by the second. Kell grabbed the man's shoulder, shaking from his shock. “You're in charge,” Kell said, making it a statement instead of a question. Every corner guard was in command of his section when attacks came in, and usually they were more decisive than this one was. He was young, probably a new arrival.

“Y-yes,” the man stammered. “I was just about to order archers to fire.”

“Good idea,” Kell said. “Do that, but you also need to order a unit over the wall. The archers can provide cover fire for us, but you need to send me out there right now with some gunmen and some people who know hand-to-hand. Okay?”

The guard began to pull himself together. “What? Why? We're better off just taking them down from a distance. No reason to send men out there like that.”

“Listen,” Kell said, leaning in close. “There are enemies out there, living ones. They're hiding in the swarm. They might be trying to attack the wall itself, and we can't afford to let them get close to the buffer. So you need to send a team, now, and you need to keep quiet about why.”

The guard stared at Kell in horror, then nodded.

The citizens of New Haven had a lot of practice at the sort of thing Kell was about to attempt. They were efficient, obeyed orders, and while not fearless, they didn't hesitate when, two minutes later, Kell motioned for his group to follow.

The first jump was the hardest part, but Kell had long legs. He hopped from the edge of the wall, landing atop one of the posts making up the buffer and pushing off again. The buffer was shorter than the wall, making the jump forward easier, and the second jump put him on a post at the outside edge. He dropped the last six feet to the ground.

Seven other bodies fell around him. Four carried firearms, which were rarely used in zombie attacks. It was easier and more efficient to save ammunition by fighting the undead hand to hand or with arrows, but there were always some people on call with rifles and pistols in case things got bad.

Two others carried bows, tight compound models, and the last person stepped up beside Kell. He was unfamiliar to Kell, a short man with wiry black hair and beard who carried one of the huge machetes common among fighters in New Haven. Kell wondered idly if he had made that machete back in North Jackson.

Flights of arrows streaked overhead in the night, catching stray glimmers of moonlight. “Okay, guys,” Kell said, hunkering down. “This is need to know, so don't go telling anyone, but we have living people out here, hiding in the swarm. Our job is to flush them out and kill them before they can get close to New Haven. My guess is they'll hang back when the majority of zombies get to the wall, which will be soon. They'll use the distraction to move in.”

“Unless they're planning to circle around and sneak over the wall somewhere else while our attention is here,” the short man said.

Kell gave an appreciative grunt. “Didn't think of that. What's your name?”

“White,” the smaller man said. “Lee White.”

Pointing toward the swarm with his spear, Kell nodded. “Lee might be right. All the more reason to take these fuckers down as fast as we can. Any questions?”

No one said a word. Kell slapped Lee on the shoulder. “Let's go!”

The last flight of arrows thrummed from their bows, each finding a body to lodge in. Most were aimed shots, striking faces of the undead, rather than volleys meant to take out ranks of humans. Standard procedure when a team was moving below the wall was to shorten firing range to keep stray shafts from killing team members, which meant that archers on the wall would be threading a fine needle as long as Kell and his people were out here. Firing at close enough range to keep the team safe, yet still trying to keep the undead from piling up on the buffer.

Kell did not envy the work.

He had left hasty instructions with the guard in charge of the assault, telling him to pass on the details to Will or Dodger only. There would be other teams among the undead in minutes, men and women in vehicles used to mowing down their enemies without leaving the armored confines of their rides. That wouldn't work so well this time, should one of the living people decide to take out a truck by throwing a grenade in the back. Kell had warned against getting too close.

Which left his group on its own.

It wasn't that bad.

Lee moved at Kell's right like a ghost, quiet and smooth. He held himself with the fluid strength of a soldier, and despite being much smaller than Kell—probably average height, but at
Kell's
size everyone was a child—he had surprising strength. The first zombie Lee kicked was knocked completely off its feet, going flat in the air. The man swung the machete before the body even hit the ground.

Kell only killed the undead when he had no other choice. They were on the edges of the swarm, moving steadily south and avoiding engaging the enemy wherever possible. Every fifty feet, one of the gunners fired a shot or two, trying to provoke a reaction from the enemies hiding in the swarm.

“They had to have let the swarm move forward without them,” Kell said between heavy breaths. “They moved in with the New Breed, but they'll let them get all the attention before doing whatever it is they're here to do.”

“There,” Lee said calmly, pointing with his machete.

Kell looked just in time to see a man shrug off a tattered coat, using it to wipe zombie gore from his face. He was near the edge of the swarm, in an island of relative calm. The lack of zombies nearby had probably given him a window to move out toward his objective.

There were zombies milling between them, however. “I'll make a hole,” Kell said. “Move through after and take your shot when you're close enough.”

Ignoring the sputtering protests following that, Kell hurled himself toward the roiling mass of undead.

The first few zombies saw him coming, but knowing did them no good. Kell lashed out with a kick, bowling the nearest into those behind. He kept his spear near chest level as he moved, not bothering to kill as he scythed through the ranks. If he slowed enough to aim death strikes, the sheer mass of human flesh would overwhelm him.

So he danced on the outside of the swarm's arm, knocking a body down here, kicking in a knee there, occasionally slamming the butt of his spear into the head or neck of a zombie.

“You're insane,” Lee said, stepping into the fray. His voice was perfectly calm, as if he were talking about the weather, though there was a smile on his face.

Shots rang out as they mowed a space clear. Kell's head snapped to where the target had been crouching, waiting for his moment. The man was still there, but on his hands and knees, grasping at his chest as blood poured on the dead grass. Another shot, and a large portion of his skull disintegrated.

“That's one,” Kell shouted above the fray.

The group pulled back from the edge of the swarm, resetting themselves for the inevitable surge of undead. Which, as it turned out, didn't happen.

“What the hell?” Lee said, machete resting on his shoulder.

The swarm ignored them, even the zombies they had knocked down and pushed around. One or two glanced at them as they moved toward New Haven, but seemed drawn forward by something. Kell had a good idea what was happening, but even if he could have told them, it wouldn't have made much difference just then.

“They don't want to attack, let's not complain,” Kell said. “Come on, we should pull back a little and see if we can find the rest.”