The Fall (Book 3): War of the Living (10 page)

The swarm spread across the southern face of New Haven like oil on rocks, seeping into every crack. Though only twenty minutes had passed, there were already signs of trouble. From where they stood hidden by a copse of trees, Kell and his team could see the armored trucks keeping their distance. The good news seemed to be that Kell's message had been passed along, keeping the vehicles safe. The bad news was, well, bad, because the normal course of events would see those trucks wade in among the zombie horde and kill them in droves.

“Look,” Lee said. “Small swarm cutting across the field.”

Kell saw, though they were too far away to make out any humans hidden among the dead. He motioned the group forward, setting off at a brisk jog toward the enemy.

The zombies took notice quickly, angling toward Kell. Lee moved up, again to Kell's right, while the bowmen spread out wide to either side. When the first zombie gave a gurgling hiss and leaped forward, broken teeth gaping wide, he gave no thought to his next move.

He stepped to the side, letting the zombie stumble past and into the four men behind him. It was the body behind the attacker Kell was interested in.
That
body pulled a knife and thrust for Kell's midsection.

If the attacker expected surprise, he was disappointed. Kell saw it coming and deftly slapped the tip of the spear into the outstretched hand, knocking the knife away and taking a little skin in the deal. He let the spear move on instinct, raising the tip and stepping into the thrust in one smooth motion.

The silver point transfixed the man through the throat. Kell yanked his weapon sideways and made a really big hole. There was a cartoonish amount of blood. What seemed like gallons of the stuff arced from the man's neck as he fell, dousing Kell and Lee from the knee down. It never failed to interest him that people with neck injuries always brought their hands to the wound no matter how grievous. There was almost nothing left, yet the dying fellow dug his fingers in as if he could somehow stem the flow anyway.

The rest of the swarm exploded with activity. There were only a dozen, but most of them were living people. Several pulled knives, darting forward to attack.

Kell screamed as he rammed his spear completely through the closest foe, using its superior reach to stay unharmed. He dropped to one knee, flexed with his entire body, and flung the enemy over his shoulder like a bale of hay.

The spear slipped from his hands just in time for another attacker to slide in front of him and thrust a knife into his belly.

Kell heard someone shout “No!” and gunfire erupted everywhere at once. His left hand locked onto the knife hand of his attacker. His right latched onto his face, armored fingers crawling upward with vise-like strength. Kell's fingers found the edge of his eye socket and scrambled to gain purchase there, sending the enemy into a frenzy. Suddenly the pressure on the knife was gone, both hands gripping Kell's right wrist in a wild effort to pull it away.

Kell let him, using the momentum to yank the man forward. Kell dipped his face, pushed his head forward, and felt the man's nose shatter against the crown of his skull. Then he yanked the knife—stuck in one of the hard plastic scales of his armor—free.

One quick slash across the throat, and the enemy was down. The thrill of satisfaction was bittersweet, primal victory tinged with sadness. It only lasted a few seconds, right until the first bullet tugged at his shirt.

The desolate spot had become a small battlefield. One of Kell's gunmen lay dying only a few feet away, ragged breathing forcing a fine mist of blood through entry wounds in his chest. Several of the enemy were down, the rest fighting.

One man, still clad in his grisly camouflage of zombie gore, caught sight of Kell. He jumped back from his own fight, hand darting inside a pocket and coming out with a small gun.

Kell dived to one side, trying to put bodies between them, but the uneven ground betrayed him. His boot caught on something, sending him sprawling. Puffs of dirt accompanied the roar of gunfire, close enough he felt the wind from the bullets. Squirming, he tried to pull himself to his feet.

Searing pain and deafening noise told him he'd been shot. A white-hot line traced itself against his ribs, and breathing suddenly became an action he had to think about and endure. Paralyzed with the sudden vise gripping his chest, Kell could only look up as the man ignored the rest of the combatants and steadied his aim.

Time slowed, as it often did in these moments. The irritating realization that Kell often found himself in these sorts of situations was compounded by the knowledge that he almost always put himself in them to begin with. The shooter, motions practiced and controlled, only waited a few seconds between shots. The tiny shifts in posture, muscle tension, and balance were obvious from this end of the gun. The tightening around the eyes might have been kabuki theater for how clear an indicator it was for the scant seconds left in his life.

The act of firing a gun looks, in slow motion, like a full-body blink. It's a dozen small actions aggregated into a single act with an inevitable outcome. Practiced fighters will recognize this and, when possible, use the tunnel vision to their advantage. Unfortunately for Kell, he was in no position to do so.

Lee, on the other hand, was both willing and able.

Kell saw him coming from behind, but Lee didn't stab Kell's shooter in the back. Instead, Lee swerved around, machete vertical in both hands. The small shoulder bump Lee gave the man was enough to throw off the shot, which carved a notch through the skin on Kell's shoulder rather than going through his throat or chest.

There was an expression of pure, wonderful surprise on the shooter's face as he took in the slim figure wielding an absurdly large blade. Surprise barely flickered on his face when Lee dropped his shoulders back, twisted his hips and wrists, and gracefully turned the blade horizontal. The cut took the shooter right below his nose.

Kell watched in shocked disbelief as Lee continued the cut, pulling away cleanly, and seamlessly attacked the next enemy. Luckily, only a few had been able to pull their guns free, as none were firing now. Going incognito meant not carrying large, obvious weapons, or Kell and his people would surely have been dead by now.

Lee never stepped more than a few feet from Kell. There was no need; like most fights, this one lasted only a few minutes that felt like days. Most of the enemy were down. Lee attacked the remaining opportunistically, slashing at easy targets when their backs were turned and their attention focused on fighting others.

Kell scrambled to his feet, gritting his teeth against the pain. Right hand covering the wound on his ribs, he lashed out with the knife in his left.

As one of the archers fought with an attacking woman, both  fell, bloodied and sluggish. The archer dragged her down as she sank a knife into his belly. Kell got there seconds too late to help the man, but fast enough to stop the woman from rising. He dropped a knee to her back, knife to her throat.

“How are we looking?” Kell asked, too busy to glance around.

There was a pause filled with a pained grunt and a wet snap. “We're good,” Lee replied.

“How many of you are there?” Kell asked the woman, who remained carefully still.

“Just us and our scout,” she replied immediately. “Haven't seen him in a while. I guess you found him first.”

The remaining archer moved in and helped Kell secure the prisoner. Relieved of the need to hold himself carefully in one position, Kell ambled to the nearest tree trunk and sat against it.

“Do you believe her?” Lee asked, handing Kell a small flask.

“I shouldn't,” Kell said. “But I do. Maybe because I've been shot a few times tonight and don't want to imagine having to keep looking for more of these guys.” He took a sip from the flask, half disappointed to find it was water.

Lee watched the prisoner, whose hands were tied behind her back with a spare bowstring. “She didn't hesitate. I think you're right. She assumed you'd kill her if you thought she was lying, so she saw no reason to.”

Kell nodded, then met Lee's eyes. “You saved my life. Thank you. That sounds kind of lame, but...”

“But you're shot and it's hard to think of the right words,” Lee suggested. “Been there before. And you don't need to thank me. That's my job.”

Kell watched Lee organize the surviving members of the group, effortlessly taking control while making sure everyone was safe, constantly scanning for danger.

Somehow he didn't seem like such a little man anymore.

One of New Haven's attack vehicles found them after a few minutes of slow progress toward the wall. Kell had never been so happy to see a pickup truck in his life. He gladly accepted Lee's help getting in the back, where he relaxed (as much as possible) by laying flat and staring at the sky.

“I wonder if we shouldn't have them do a quick drive around, just to make sure there aren't any more people hiding out there,” Kell said.

Lee opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he said was lost to Kell. Between heartbeats, the scene was gone. It felt a little like falling asleep after a very long day. His vision fuzzed to black, and a moment later the light returned, only now he was laying in a bed and not in nearly as much pain.

“Huh,” he said.

Kell tried to sit up but was defeated by his sheet, which was wrapped around him tightly. He tried to work his arms free, but a hand settled on his shoulder.

“You shouldn't move,” said a woman's voice. Kell flopped his head over to look at her.

“Gabrielle. How'd I get here?”

Gabrielle leaned over, tucking the sheet back around him. “You passed out in the truck,” she said, nodding to one side of Kell's bed. “He helped drag you in here, then wouldn't leave until you woke up.”

Craning his head further, Kell caught sight of Lee, who was rubbing sleep out of his eyes with the back of one hand. “About time,” Lee said.

Kell grinned. “You didn't have to stay here, man.”

Lee stood and stretched. “That's a pretty damn uncomfortable chair. It was a trial. But you know what they say, we never leave a man behind.” Lee tipped an imaginary hat at Gabrielle and made for the door. “I'll swing by after a while. I need a meal and a change of clothes.”

Still shaking off the cobwebs, Kell slowly looked around. “Am I in the clinic?”

It was a private room, though fairly small. One window was, of course, boarded up tight. The other streamed morning light from behind him. Rather than a hospital bed, Kell was reclined on a queen-sized mattress.

“Yep,” Gabrielle said. “This used to be the master bedroom of the house. We keep regular beds back here for people with serious injuries. Yours was the worst of it, so lucky you. You get a room all to yourself.”

“How bad is it?” Kell asked quietly.

Gabrielle hooked Lee's abandoned chair with her foot, drawing it next to Kell's head and sitting. “The wound to your shoulder wasn't much. More than a graze, but the damage wasn't severe. I'd take it easy with that arm, but given how fast people heal nowadays, it shouldn't take long.”

She paused, then shrugged. “If it's the plague making us heal faster and get sick less often, and we're pretty sure it must be, then I call it a win. Anyway, you had a little cut to your abdomen. Lee said you were stabbed. Going by the state of your armor when we sliced it off you, you had a lot of near misses.”

Kell's brow furrowed. “What do you mean? I don't remember...”

“Guess it can get kind of blurry,” Gabrielle said. “Your armor was cut up pretty badly. Lee thinks someone was trying to cut you from behind, but apparently the fight was hectic. We also found two severed fingers, four broken teeth, and a couple pieces of skin wedged in there. We're pretty sure those are from zombies. You had a hell of a night.”

Kell shrugged. “It's about average, really. Any fight I walk away from is a win.”

“Which brings us to the gunshot wound,” Gabrielle said. “The bad news is you took a bad shot to the ribs. From what I've heard from treating other folks in your group, the scouts cleaned up that mess and think you were hit with a magnum load. Long story short, the bullet hit your rib and broke it. Shattered it, really. There were splinters in the wound, which we had to pull out. Normally with a fracture we'd just sew you up and wrap it, but that wasn't an option.”

Beneath his sheet, Kell gently slipped a hand over his chest, fingers gliding across the bandage stretching from his armpit to just above his hip. “What did you have to do?”

There was a tug at the corner of Gabrielle's mouth. “The first thing they teach you in school is never to open a conversation with a patient by telling them not to worry, because it makes them worry. But I'm being for real, here. Don't worry. It's not a big deal.”

“This feels really weird,” Kell said as he prodded his side.

Gabrielle slapped him on his uninjured side. “Stop fucking with it. You're doing your best impression of Adam over there, and those sutures are still fresh.”

Comprehension took several seconds, mostly because Kell had avoided church for the previous thirty years. “Y-you took my rib?” he sputtered.

Shrugging, Gabrielle stood. “Calm down, you big baby. It's not unusual. Lots of people with severely damaged ribs have had them removed. It won't really affect your everyday life. And hey, this way you don't have to go through six weeks of barely being able to breath while the bone heals. Really, we did you a favor.”