The Fall (Book 3): War of the Living (12 page)

Josh pulled up his shirt, and Kell's breath hissed between his teeth in sympathy. It was only after Josh began to list out his injuries and illnesses that Kell began to grow seriously interested.

By the end of the conversation, he was fascinated by the possibilities in front of him.

In the dark, he could think. There were no distractions, not even light. The back of the RV was perfect, almost a sensory deprivation chamber in its unobtrusiveness.

The attack had been minor, just a random herd of zombies with a New Breed leader who managed to get through the buffer before they were stopped. A lazy guard had fallen asleep at his post. If the stories Kell had heard were true, the man would not soon make that mistake again.

Far, far more interesting was the time line of injuries and illnesses he had heard from Josh. It was one thing to know that Chimera was growing more pervasive over time, cementing its integration with its human hosts, but even the bare details given to him about those injuries were eye-opening. They laid out a solid pattern for him to see, with plenty of data. Josh had kept records of everything, of course. The hard part had been coming up with a decent excuse for wanting to see them that didn't give away his biology background.

Fortunately, Kell was taking medical training, and Josh was overly trusting. It was an easy sell.

If he was right, the man might be a perfect case study for the progression of Chimera over time. He mentally reviewed the broad strokes, growing more sure of it. Recovery times shortened inversely to the length of time the plague had existed. Severity of wounds mattered less. Early on, Josh had been stabbed and it took him weeks to recover. A bout of flu around the same time sidelined him for another ten days. A year later, he recovered from surgery—an appendectomy—in half the time it should have taken.

Kell had left the papers containing all the information on his desk. Taking them with him would have looked strange. But he had memorized as much as possible.

“I need to compare this with John's work,” he said to himself.

“Gonna have to wait a while for that.”

Kell snapped out of his near trance. “Andrea,” he said. “Didn't hear you come in.”

Andrea absently flipped her honey-colored hair over her shoulder as she sat on the bench to the right of Kell's chair. “You missed dinner. We were getting a little worried about you.”

“Did I?” Kell asked. “What time is it?”

“Almost nine,” she said. “You've been back her for hours. We saved you some food, though.”

“I'll be out in a minute.”

“No, you're coming out now,” she argued. “You're healing. You need food. And if I leave you here, you'll just zone out again and forget to eat. Come on.”

Slight as she was, Andrea was strong. More important, she was determined. She grabbed his huge wrist with both of her slim hands and made good progress dragging him from his chair before he laughed and gave in.

She stopped him at the door. “Oh, before I forget, Will sent word. He wants you to stop by his office and talk to him.”

Kell frowned. “That can't be good.”

She nodded. “That's what I figured. His note also mentioned that he'd be in his office all night.”

“I better take that plate to go,” Kell said.

The walk to the office complex went by quickly. Kell scarfed down his food without tasting it, wondering which of the very few reasons Will had for wanting to speak to him was the right one. The worst—that something had happened to John—was also the most likely. Being alone only a handful of miles from the abandoned lab was insanely dangerous. Their only hope was that the UAS thought John dead.

Anything but that, he could cope with. He had made the decision to move John, and he had promised to return quickly. That was a promise broken, which gnawed at him regardless of the logic behind the decision.

Light spilled from the window of Will's office, the stout glass square in the door dancing with refracted candles. Kell tapped a knuckle lightly.

“Come in.”

The sight of the room stopped him cold. Even at the height Hunter activity, it had remained organized. Messy, sure, but not chaotic. Will kept his work handy, arrayed in usable pieces. This was definitely not that. Maps were strewn everywhere, from walls to chairs, Will's desk, even on the floor. Stacks of reports sat in haphazard piles, files scattered like leaves on the wind.

Despite being calmly invited in, Kell had a brief, unreasoned fear that the room had been ransacked.

Will Price himself, leader of New Haven and head of the governing council, sat on his desk with his legs dangling over the edge, hunched over a book.

“You wanted to see me,” Kell said.

Will looked up sharply. Whatever the state of his work space, the man was still focused. Too focused, maybe, based on how Will looked. His clothes were wrinkled, the neck of his shirt stretched oddly, as if he'd been absently yanking on it. His hair, just long enough to need at least
some
taming, stuck together in clumps. For all that, he was not in a daze. It was as if things like personal hygiene or giving a crap what other people thought simply fell off his priority list entirely.

“Yeah,” Will said, his eyes latching on to Kell. “I'm glad you came by tonight. I've got some bad news.”

“Is it John?” Kell asked, dread rising in his stomach.

Will blinked. “What? No. John is fine, or he was as of the last scout mission.”

Kell deflated, putting one hand on the back of a chair for support. The map there crumpled under his fingers “Oh, thank God,” he said.

“
That
is why I wanted to see you,” Will said, pointing to a new map taped to the steel wall. Kell walked over to it, tried to understand what he was seeing.

It was a laminated map of the United States, or what was left of them now that governments had gone the way of cassette tapes. Tiny blue dots had been added, roughly corresponding to New Haven and other communities of survivors he knew of. There were many more he had never seen or heard of, also marked in blue. Out of curiosity, he glanced at Iowa, but there was nothing to note John's location.

At the deepest southern edge of the map, clustered at the bottom of Texas and spreading out thinly across surrounding states, were red dots. Three very large red dots sat at equal distances near the Mexican border, smaller marks interspersed between them.

“The UAS,” Kell said. “A lot of them.”

Will hopped down from the desk and walked over. “Yeah, and here's the really bad part.” He pulled a marker—red—from his pocket and popped the cap off with his teeth. His hand flew over the map, cleaning off dry erase here, adding more there, until the shape formed by the mass of enemies changed. It was no longer a scattering centered around the three huge dots representing enormous emergency bunkers.

Now the pattern bulged upward and to the east. The movement wasn't huge; they were nowhere near Kentucky. But it was enough to show their target.

“How long did that take?” Kell asked.

“About a week.”

Kell sketched out back of the napkin math in his head, using the map as a reference. “They could spread upward fast enough to get between us and Iowa in two weeks.”

Will shook his head. “Sooner. They've got advance elements moving all the time. Our best guess is they'll spend as long as they can entrenching themselves before actually picking the fight. There are so damn many of them, they can hit a lot of targets at once.”

Kell looked at the map again. “You're telling me we can't get to John any time soon,” he finally said.

“No, it's your call,” Will replied. “We knew the UAS would be a bigger problem eventually, but until now we had no idea how serious a threat they are. We didn't expect them to mobilize so quickly or quietly. I didn't want you to leave until we could start seeding new communities between here and John's place in Iowa, which couldn't happen until the UAS was either dealt with or stopped operating in the north.”

“What changed?” Kell asked. “I mean, it's more dangerous for me to leave now, right? There's a higher risk of both of us getting killed out there than before.”

“That's true,” Will said. “The difference is that.” He pointed at the map. “They know we're here, they have to know at least something about the communities allied with us. They're not afraid of a fight, and they have to know movements like this are going to look like a threat. I can't see this going anywhere but full-on war. Basically, it's going to be just as dangerous here as anywhere else.”

“No,” Kell said. “We're not ready. I didn't realize until recently just how much work we'll have to do to build a home out there. John can get by with the supplies he has and by staying close to home. There's almost no chance anyone would see him. But the entire group? We'd attract attention, probably even draw the UAS to us. Better for everyone if we stick things out here.”

Will nodded appreciatively. “That's...honestly more mature a response than I expected. I figured you'd take the chance while you had it.”

Kell shrugged. “I might have, before I found out how hard my people are working to learn how to survive out there. New Haven has been good for us. For me. Seeing the progress this place has made kind of opened my eyes.”

“Aww, shucks,” Will said, dropping into a southern drawl. “You're makin' me blush.”

Kell opened his mouth to make a joke, but an idea stopped him. “The entire group would be easily noticed, but I bet a small group could get there and stay under the radar. It would make the move easier on everyone if we had some people out there to gather supplies, prep the house, get things ready for us. Or, worst case, keep John safe if something happens here. Do you think we could manage something like that?”

Will smiled.

An hour (and a hasty explanation) later, Kell had his volunteers. At first no one had been terribly excited to leave the group, especially after he explained how, one way or another, the trip was likely to be permanent. That attitude changed quickly after he mentioned the likelihood of New Haven coming under attack.

There were few young children in the group, and it was a small blessing none of their parents volunteered. Kell would have been heartbroken to explain the need for able-bodied adults for the early trip west.

In the end there were four in the group. Kell perched on the counter in the cramped RV's kitchenette, boots resting on the edge of a half-open drawer. The four men sat in the dining nook, with Laura standing on one side and Andrea on the other.

“I know you'll all work together,” Kell said. “It's going to be a lot to handle. Dan will coordinate the preparations. That means he'll be in charge. Scotty will work with John on gathering everything we'll need for medical care and day-to-day needs. Chris, you're our construction guy. Plan for a big group, and for it to grow larger over time.” Kell turned to the last of the four, the only volunteer he didn't know well.

“Jim, I don't know what you've been studying, but I've seen you fight. Help out where you can, but keep these guys safe. John, too.”

Jim, a burly man who had the proportions of a Middle-Earth dwarf, nodded. “Horticulture, mostly. I used to be a farmer.”

“Nice,” Kell said. “That's gonna come in handy. Do you think you'll be able to plan out our food supply and get things started?”

“Sure,” Jim said. “It's farm country anyway.”

“Good,” Laura said. “The schedule is going to be tight, so we'll need to load you up with everything you'll need tonight. That way you'll be ready to leave whenever Will puts together a scout escort.”

“That'll probably be soon,” Andrea chimed in. “If there's an army moving this way, we're going to have people all over the place keeping an eye on them.”

Laura nodded. “Which will make it easier to explain where these guys are going. Will can use the scouts as cover...”

Jim cleared his throat. “Don't mean to interrupt, but can you tell me why you're staying?” he asked Kell.

“A bunch of reasons,” Kell said. “Partly because there are things I'd like to learn here. A little because I still think New Haven is safer. Doesn't hurt that we have the entire eastern third of the country to retreat to, where the UAS can't get us.” He glanced around the tiny kitchen. “The biggest reason is because I think I can finally make some headway here. Part of why I want to work with John is because he has a lot more data than I do about the way the disease has mutated over time. But even his information is taken from limited samples.”

Jim's eyebrows came together. “You find something better?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kell said, a note of excitement in his voice. “This place has tons of records about treatments, tissue samples, even a time line of extensively documented symptoms and physical changes. It's a treasure trove. I need time to study and copy as much of it as possible.”

Which was true, as far as it went. He didn't tell them the sneaking suspicion crawling through his brain every minute since the medical records of Josh and every other person in New Haven had been put at his disposal.

Chimera might not
be
curable at this stage. More vital, Kell was no longer sure it should be.