The Fall: Victim Zero (11 page)

He stopped for lunch a good while later and pulled out a map. He knew the roads in the county fairly well, but he'd spent more than two hours slowly going over the ones in just the small area northeast of the city. Driving into a disaster zone without being absolutely sure of several alternate routes was a terrible idea.

Kell searched the map for bridges he would need to cross to reach the southern half of the county. His parents were almost surely gone by now, but he had to at least try to confirm it. It also helped that their house was relatively close to his former lab, and if there was any chance to get in touch with people who could help him fight the plague, it would be there.

Three bridges in this section of the county, the nearest just a quarter mile down the road. Kell traced his finger over all the roads in the area, committing them to memory before he risked traveling over them.

While he studied the map, he chewed on jerky to quiet the rumbling in his stomach. He was tired, more so than he would have thought after such a short period of activity. The rational part of him suggested he hole up for the rest of the day and recuperate from the fight at the store. If dealing with just a handful of the undead had worn him out so deeply, how could he expect to get through thousands of them to reach his parents' house?

Rational Kell was overridden by Emotional Kell. He had failed people he loved, failed them disastrously, and if there remained even a shred of chance that his parents were alive, he wouldn't waste any time reaching them.

Yes, Rational Kell said to him, that's fine and well. But you know, or at least you've got an idea, how to fix this mess. Is it worth the lives of two people to risk that knowledge?

In the end he decided it was; there was already enough self-loathing and doubt swirling around inside him. If he abandoned his mother and father without even trying to find them, he didn't know if he could live with himself. The only way Kell was able to function as it was had to do with an unhealthy dose of denial and suppression.

He glanced out the window often as he sat there eating lunch, and after ten minutes one of the undead appeared, wandering down the road. His vehicle was tucked into a stand of trees and bushes off the road, not hidden but not obvious, either. Kell observed the dead woman as she ambled slowly toward and then past him.

Out of the car before he knew it, Kell had one of his last-minute prizes from the store in hand. There were two more in the passenger seat—ice axes. They would take some work to be optimal as weapons, assuming he could find some place with tools and he didn't cut his hand off trying to use them. The blade of the axe in his hand was pointed but not smooth. Heavy serrations designed to grip slick ice would have the same effect in the skull of a zombie. Kell could file them flat and smooth eventually, and the lightweight weapon would be easy to use and versatile.

At the sound of his door shutting, the lone female zombie turned. She was a dozen or so yards from him, giving Kell plenty of time to find a good grip on the pricey tool in his hand. The blade might not be prime for what he needed, but this particular model had a perfectly smooth handle that faded flawlessly into a hollow-sided aluminum point. Mentally Kell thanked modern engineers for combining a place to attach a line or carabiner with a point strong and sharp enough to crack glacial ice.

He waited, hefting the axe in both hands. The woman lurching toward him wore a sun dress, a strange choice for early March, and she had large, soulful eyes that made her look sad. Kell braced himself as she covered the last few feet between them, ignoring her reaching arms as they tried to find purchase on his thick coat. His arms pistoned forward, driving the spiked hilt of the axe into the woman's face just below her left eye.

The point skipped over the bone and went upward slightly, losing a little of the force as it changed direction, and plunged through her eye socket. She dropped immediately as eight inches of metal suddenly occupied the same space as her dominated brain.

Kell pulled the weapon from his victim and noted even the handle end stuck a bit after use. He'd have to work on that. After checking to make sure no other visitors were sneaking close, Kell examined the corpse. Human anatomy classes popped into his head, and he made more mental notes about the kill as he wiped off the axe.

Weakest area is the thin bone at the back of the eye socket. Small target. Need to immobilize before killing blow?

Kell stood and stretched, sure he knew the roads well enough to travel at least a few miles if the way was clear. Tired but determined, he got in the truck and moved on.

Chapter Ten

Kell perched in a tree overlooking his parents' neighborhood. His truck was half a mile behind him, parked at an angle that would let him drive away at full speed seconds after he jumped in. It was just turning to dusk, the sun on its journey to the western horizon.

It had taken hours of meticulous driving to find a way around to the county road behind the neighborhood. The first bridge he came to had been damaged, the second piled with cars. The third was clear, but farthest from his intended route. It was impossible to predict where the blockages and wrecks would be, and a dozen times he had to backtrack to find another way only to be frustrated again a few hundred yards later.

Three times he had parked and moved on foot to clear away knots of undead. Twice he had simply led them away by moving at a fast walk and letting them follow, only to circle back to the truck in a dead sprint. Once he was forced to fight, and that had only been possible because the zombies were spread out over a wide area on the road. The spear, he discovered, worked very well. He had been able to simply walk up and jab in a single motion, hitting the soft spot under the jaw easily and moving on to the next.

Kell worried about being so far from his vehicle, but there was no other way to get close enough to the neighborhood without driving through hundreds of the undead. The whole place swarmed, though many of the yards were untouched. Like his own childhood home, about half the houses were surrounded by privacy fences. Not enough to stop a determined ghoul, but as Kell watched the undead wander aimlessly around he began to see patterns in their behavior.

Like water they followed the path of least resistance. Several fences had broken places smeared with blood, and bodies in the yards that were mostly eaten. It took incentive for the undead to attempt to breach a barrier; otherwise they moved wherever was easiest. Their hearing and vision seemed less acute than that of a living person, but Kell knew his limited data was subjective at best. Safer to assume the worst.

Studying the homes before him laid out a path to his destination. There were two streets between the nearest edge of the subdivision and his goal, and about half the distance could be covered by climbing fences. The majority of the shambling population was out on the streets, and he told himself he could deal with any lurking in the back yards he would run through to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

A slow descent from the tree and ten minutes of carefully picking his way through the woods brought him to the back of the closest yard. Kell edged along the silvered wood, cautious about making noise. Five feet from the end of the fence he paused, ears straining to hear any commotion. Being spotted was a game-changer. He would have to leave.

After thirty seconds and no unwanted visitors, Kell put his hands to the top of the fence and slowly put weight on it. The wood began to bend and creak immediately.

Damn it
.
What the hell was I thinking? Too heavy for this. I'm not fourteen.

While he was trying to think of an alternative solution, a zombie rounded the corner of the fence. Kell jumped back a few feet and swallowed a scream. The thing moaned at him, a piteously thin sound, and Kell regained his composure quickly. He grabbed one of its arms as it reached for him and twisted, pulling back and down as he did so.

The zombie hit the ground face-first. Kell put a knee to its back and drove the butt of his axe into its head with all his might.

Another one appeared at the far end of the fence, and it was not alone.

“Fuck this,” Kell muttered, and took off running.

Though he was a foot taller and more than twice the weight, suddenly Kell
was
fourteen again. He spent a lot of time running around this place when he was young, enough that his feet knew the fastest way home without him giving them any commands.

His lungs burned with the effort, and his body reminded him almost instantly that he'd spent a week near death recently, but he ran. Keeping to the narrow strip of land between the backs of yards and the woods beyond—his original path but sans fence-jumping—Kell minimized his exposure. Nonetheless, he passed zombies in that slim space between, and saw others notice him in the gaps between homes. When he stopped, wherever that was, it wouldn't be without a train of followers.

Three houses away from his parents' place, Kell saw his possible salvation—a baseball lying forgotten in the grass. He swerved and slowed to scoop it up, narrowly avoiding being grabbed by a zombie, and clutched the ball in his free hand. He slid the axe through the loop dangling from his belt and into the thin cover that served as a holster. With his teeth he worried at the thick gauze wrapped around his injured hand, hoping for blood, though the wounds were well on their way to being healed.

“
Damn,” he huffed as he ran, seeing no telltale crimson on the stained white cloth. Needing more time, he took a right and ran between several houses as he built up courage. The head of his axe was exposed, a danger he hadn't considered when the plan was to jump fences, but he was glad for it now. He bit his tongue and slapped his injured hand onto the point of the axe head, feeling it tear open a deep but narrow gash.

Kell balled the gauze up in his fist and swerved back around. He had to time it just right.

A few quick wipes and a hasty knot that would have made his troop leader kick him out of the scouts, and Kell had a rough bullet ready. His legs pumped as he outdistanced the zombies around him, spinning back toward his parents' house at top speed. The fence was whole; he'd seen that from the tree further up the hill, and up close the house itself looked untouched. The train of zombies following him was cut off as he raced to the far side of the house. Luck was with him, there weren't any undead in sight.

That wouldn't last. The space was narrow and uninteresting, but his followers would make it much more lively. Kell knocked over the giant trash container, putting his feet on it and pulling himself up over the fence at the same time. His massive frame flipped midair and only a last-second twist kept him from impaling himself on the ice axe. He scrambled to his knees and wiped the bloody projectile against his still-bleeding hand once more before throwing it as hard as he could.

Five years of baseball from middle school until his sophomore year paid off; the ball sailed over the fence and flew free until it crashed into a window of a house down the road. Kell told himself it was all him, and that it worked out well, but he knew it was blind luck. He didn't dare stand up to see if the ruse worked, so he trusted the sound and smell of his blood would draw off pursuit. Reasonable, in his estimation, since they hadn't seen him hop the fence.

On his hands and knees, Kell made his way to the back door. Nothing tried to break down the fence that he could hear, and he felt a sense of triumph.

Then he noticed the plywood completely blocking the glass door, and his heart sank.

Slumped against the door, he looked up at a sky fading into darkness. The stars weren't visible yet, but a thousand nights of gazing up at them from this spot reeled off through his head. It would have been peaceful if not for the nearby cries of the undead. Familiar.

Home.

Kell closed his eyes as he rested against the door, but they shot back open instantly. Spinning around, he examined the door more closely. The plywood was on the inside, and it wasn't one piece. The pieces were offset by about an inch, with a narrow gap between them.

Like someone had planned to be able to open the door.

Feeling a glimmer of hope, Kell lifted the back door mat. There was no key under it, but that didn't deter him. His parents had mentioned the new mat to him when they bought it; they considered it unusually clever. It was one of those thick, tacky faux-grass things, bright and shiny and obviously plastic. In one corner there was a barely visible indentation. Kell worked his fingernail into it, and with some effort the nearly invisible lines of a cutout appeared. Bending it back, he felt a hard shape concealed within.

Yes! Score one for mom and dad, and their obsessive need for useless crap!

He slipped the key into the lock on the sliding glass door, and it gave a well-oiled
snick
as the mechanism opened.

Kell turned the handle and carefully slid the door open just enough to let him crawl in, then closed it behind him.

He knew the house should be searched. He knew he should make sure there were no undead within, even if they were his parents. Instead he lay on the floor and shrugged off his pack, staring at the ceiling as he relaxed in the relative safety. After a few minutes he sat up, which was when he noticed the single sheet of paper centered on the scarred surface of the kitchen table.

Kelvin,
it read, written in his mother's flowing script.
Or Karen, or whoever finds this. If you find this, son, we should have listened to you earlier, but we didn't think anything like this was really possible. When the riots broke out we started to get worried. By the end of that day your father blocked off all the doors and windows. Not enough to stop a person who knew what they were doing, but it fooled those things just fine. By then there were a lot of them around, and everyone had heard about them. We thought about staying and trying to make it here, but in the end I convinced your dad we should head north.