The Fall (Book 3): War of the Living (14 page)

Lee was accepted into the group slowly over the following weeks, and if Kell had his suspicions at first, he was almost the only one. Laura pointed out the obvious, that they had encountered more than one person who knew who Kell was, or who had been ordered to search for a person fitting his description. Had Lee been planning to do him harm or kidnap him, it would have been easy enough to accomplish while he was injured.

Instead the man had watched over him, refusing to leave Kell's side.

He found himself convinced.

Once it became clear the group approved of Lee, Kell found himself the owner of a small, deadly shadow with a penchant for booze, dirty jokes, and assault rifles.

With so many people gone from New Haven, everywhere was shorthanded. Kell had recovered well enough to fight—or at least to draw a bow, which was all Gabrielle would let him do—and spent much of his time patrolling the walls. Lee had volunteered for patrol duty for all his shifts. Whenever Kell punched the clock, Lee was there.

The routine became normal, then ingrained. Every day Kell went to work on the archives, the survival manual, and whatever else Josh had on his plate. He listened, playing up his natural tendency for quietly observing. Once in a while Will would find him, wanting updates, but there was little to tell. Josh posted to his blog most days (if that could really describe the very basic text board piggybacked on cell signals and satellites) but never gave a hint to Kell that he was aware of any vital information.

He usually got lunch with Lee or Laura, who seemed to have a professional respect for each other coupled with wariness. Kell chalked the slight frostiness between them up to the mindset all seasoned fighters and trained soldiers had to live in.

After that it was to the wall for at least four hours, followed by classes or four more hours of duty, depending on the day.

Today was double duty, though Kell didn't mind. A month had passed since the first wave of volunteers from the Union had gone out into the world to begin laying traps and blockading roads to slow the advance of the UAS. It was as cold as early February should be, but the sun shone brighter than it had since autumn.

It was easy to forget the larger problems facing the New Haven and the Union. Most of their fledgling nation was far enough from the front lines to make the war seem like an abstract, an attitude reinforced by the seeming reluctance of the UAS to fire the first shots.

Well, the first literal shots. They had fired metaphorical ones every day for weeks.

The UAS was trying to win hearts and minds, and each offer they made was sent to the leadership of every Union community. Everyone had heard them, and it was all anyone could talk about.

Lee and Kell were no different.

“You think anyone will take 'em up on it?” Lee asked over his shoulder as they walked the wall.

“I doubt it,” Kell said. “Though they're getting smarter about what they're promising. At first it was just, what, protection? Like we haven't been taking care of ourselves out here for years.”

Lee chuckled. “Yeah, bit out of touch, weren't they? Then it was...”

“Land rights,” Kell said. “They'd gift anyone who joined up big plots of farmland. With a percentage of their crops sent to the UAS, of course.”

Lee shook his head in disgust. “Fucking slave labor, more like it. I saw what they were doing back before anyone knew who they were. They pressed me into service. Don't trust a goddamn word of it.”

“Still, this last one must be pretty tempting,” Kell said. “Taking anyone who wants to join up all the way back to their bunkers for medical treatment? You know there have to be some sick people in a few of the border towns, this time of the year.”

“Got one,” Lee said, pointing. “Scratch that, there are a bunch of them. Crawlers.”

Kell leaned over the edge of the wall. On the ground a few yards away were a handful of zombies, some working their way beneath the cables of the buffer, a few already rising to their feet inside it. There was no larger swarm to be seen.

“Just a random group?” Kell asked.

“Looks like,” Lee said. “I'll hop down. No reason to waste bullets.”

“Okay, I'll cover you.”

Lee uncoiled a rope hanging at his belt. It was about eight feet long and knotted, with a metal hook at the end. After setting the hook through one of the eye bolts anchored into the top of the wall, he pulled the rope tight and walked down the side of the wall a few feet before letting go. He landed lightly on his feet, already pulling his machete.

“Showoff,” Kell said, nocking an arrow.

Lee moved forward without hesitation, stopping in front of the nearest zombie. It was struggling to free itself from the tangle of cables, its head and shoulders in the clear with the rest cocooned in the buffer. It had watched Lee approach with the dumb cunning of a hungry beast, ceasing its escape effort as soon as he was within arm's reach.

Lee didn't give it a chance to grab him, blade swinging down fast enough to make a sound as it cut the air.

“And yeah, I'd bet some people will take them up on their offer,” Lee said, answering Kell's earlier question. “But it won't be many. Thing about survivors is most of them aren't stupid. We've lived through enough to make us suspicious, and that's a big goddamn army the UAS is moving this way.”

“That's a good point,” Kell said, aiming at one of the risen zombies, a New Breed. “I guess if a lot of people wanted to let the UAS take over, they wouldn't have voted to form the Union.” He let his breath out evenly, releasing the arrow.

The New Breed crumpled to the ground, the arrow sticking out of its sinus cavity at a funny angle.

“Nice shot,” Lee said.

Kell snorted. “It was fifteen feet. I couldn't miss.”

Lee looked up at him, ignoring the approaching zombies. “Just take the damn compliment. I swear, you're worse than my ex.”

Kell nocked another arrow and fired, killing the crawler nearest to Lee. “Eyes on the job, little fella. I don't want to carry you back.”

They were nearly through cleaning up the small swarm when the warning bell began to ring. Kell put an arrow through the skull of the last zombie as the pattern resolved itself. Five even rings, signaling an emergency meeting of all nonessential workers.

“At least it's not an attack,” Lee said as he bent to pull Kell's arrows free of the corpses.

Kell shook his head, staring toward the center of New Haven where people were surely gathering already. “Still can't be good news.”

Lee tossed the arrows onto the wall, then climbed the rope. Kell grasped his hand, hauling the smaller man up. His healing wounds barely twinged with the effort.

They continued along the wall, but the day had lost its luster. The wind felt colder, the sun less bright, the light conversation replaced with heavy silence.

An hour later, people began to reappear. A lone figure broke off from the crowd flooding back to their homes and camps, making a beeline for Kell and Lee. The loping form slowed as it approached in the fading light, resolving into Andrea.

“What is it?” Kell asked.

“We lost an entire unit,” she said. “Almost a hundred people. Along with LaGrange, in Louisiana.”

Kell sucked in a hard breath. “They took an entire community?”

Andrea shook her head. “No, thankfully. The combat unit held them off long enough to evacuate everyone. Then they set the place on fire. Apparently everyone was expecting LaGrange to fall, so they moved most of the supplies and about half the people out over the last week.”

Lee's brows knitted together. “Then how the hell did we lose the people defending the town?”

Andrea grimaced. “They had way more firepower than we expected. Will said the people running from LaGrange saw tanks, and men using what looked like rocket launchers. They hit our guys with everything at once.”

“Jesus,” Kell said.

“There's something else,” Andrea said. “Will thinks they're trying to sneak a small attack force past our lines.”

The fear in her eyes, surely for the two children waiting for her back at their camp, said it all.

“They're coming here,” Lee said.

New Haven being what it was, there was already a plan in place. Dodger and Will had not sent their volunteers out into the world without a workable set of defensive measures just in case. As one of the guards, Kell was brought in along with the rest of the men and women who worked the walls for meetings to determine the best way to defend the community.

“We have Kate's crew running constant surveillance on the UAS team,” Will said at the first of those meetings. “They're a long way off, but our people managed to find them.”

“How?” Kell asked.

Will looked at him, and something in his body language told Kell not to ask questions. “We have a long-range asset in the field who followed them until they made camp, then reported the location to the nearest of our units with radio capability. We sent Kate's scout group in that direction.”

Kell listened from then on, content to absorb as much information as possible while trying to sift through it for things he might be missing. Will was more open with him generally than he might have been, but the fact was that Kell was essentially a junior citizen like most other people. He didn't have a working knowledge of the details of New Haven's resources or that of the Union.

By the time the meeting ended three hours later, that had changed.

There was nothing to gain from keeping very many secrets, so Will told them everything pertinent. Kell learned how many survivors were in the Union, spread among the dozens of allied communities making up their fledgling nation. He learned about the previously top-secret caches of weapons liberated from military bases and depots all over the eastern third of the United States. Backup plans upon backup plans for every contingency were laid out in stunning detail.

More shocking than learning there were upwards of 25,000 people in the Union or that New Haven had some truly frightening hardware stored a few miles away capable of eradicating quite a lot of enemies in a single barrage was the fact that corralled not far from their home was a field full of zombies, more than a thousand of them. They were a desperation move, a last-ditch effort to prevent soldiers from hitting New Haven on foot.

Kell was not part of the team assembled to take out the incoming enemies. The reports put their number in the thirties, and even as heavily armed as they were, they weren't a threat requiring all hands on deck. Assuming, of course, they were stopped well before an attack on New Haven was possible.

The advantage belonged to the home team, as the enemy appeared unaware they were being tracked. It made them slow and cautious, giving Will and Dodger time to put together a serious response team without having to rush.

Though the facts were there in front of him and he knew the level of threat New Haven faced was minimal, a strange sense of helplessness gripped Kell during the meeting and persisted when he left with Lee.

“It's normal,” Lee told Kell when he tried to explain the feeling. “Before it wasn't real. You knew in your head that we might be attacked, but it was just out there somewhere,” he said, waving a hand toward the wall. “Now it's real. They're coming for your home. The war isn't just happening to other people any more.”

Kell shook his head. “I've fought zombies. I've killed living people. It's not that I'm afraid, really. I just hate not being able to go out and do my part.”

Lee shrugged. “That's the deal, man. You know Will isn't going to risk you if he has another option. Until they're at the walls, he's going to keep you safe. Or as safe as he can, anyway. I have no doubt you'll find some way to get yourself in trouble.”

Grinning, Kell slapped Lee on the back. “You're probably right. I do have a knack for it.”

It was a week before the team left New Haven to attack the incoming UAS force. The closer they came, the more careful Kate and the other scouts were to make sure no enemies were sneaking away from their camp to gather intelligence on New Haven. As it turned out, the delay was a combination of factors, though mostly due to the poor state of the crumbling roads and an unfamiliarity with the area.

Lee was among the people assigned to the strike team, which was led by Kate herself. Kell said his goodbyes in their camp to avoid the awkwardness of having to see her. Lee assured him all would be well.

The UAS camped less than twenty miles away, close enough to send people in to get the lay of the land, and far enough away that they couldn't attack without warning.

The entire community shared every piece of news as it came in. A little more than a day passed between the enemy setting up camp and the order to mobilize the strike team. Long enough to let the UAS soldiers believe they had moved in unseen.

Kell huddled with the rest of his group at the picnic table in their small camp. A radio sat in the middle of the table, though if all went well they would hear nothing from it until the fight was over. Kell had traded Josh for the radio and a charged set of batteries, giving up a week of free time to put in double hours on the survival manual.

The clunky thing sat silent as a dozen people waited for any news at all. There were only a handful of them available, precious means of direct communication taken from the National Guard base nearby and tuned to the frequency Kate would use to call home.

Half an hour passed, which itself wasn't anything to worry about. It would take time to reach the enemy without being seen. Then it was an hour.

At an hour and a half Kell began to worry. His concern for Lee and the rest was short-lived, however, as the alarm bells began clanging.

The pattern repeated, though Kell was so caught off guard he couldn't work out the code.

“What is it?” he asked Andrea, who stood nearby.

“Western wall, just south of the administration complex,” she said. “Looks like a big swarm, at least several hundred.”

“Son of a bitch,” Kell said. “This can't be a coincidence.”

Kell loped to the RV, snatching his spear and armor pack from their place by the door. He tossed the pants back inside, unwilling to take the time to change into them, though he slipped on the coat and gloves as he ran.

The bell continued to ring, his mind clear enough to make out the code, which was repeating. It was a call to arms, all hands. When it began again, the pattern changed, indicating a larger number of zombies.

“Jesus,” he muttered to himself as he ran.

He reached the southwest wall in less than a minute, sweat rolling down his face. Andrea and Laura arrived a few seconds later, followed by every adult member of their group. The wall was already being manned by those who lived closer, many more milling about on the ground below.

The practiced experience of New Haven's people came into play almost immediately. Designated unit commanders were given their assignments, and called out to the people assigned to them in order. Kell's commander was near the top of the list, and he fell into place immediately. Josh, Andrea, and Laura were also in his group, which was sent to man the southwest corner.

They trotted off at once, making good time to their place on the wall, which was so far untouched by zombies. Kell followed the others up the steps and stared out from the top of the stone wall at a scene directly out of a nightmare.

The sun was almost down, still giving enough light to show the hundreds of bodies pressing against the buffer. Cables were already tearing free of their posts, the clever barrier slowing the undead down as it was designed to do, but unable to hold up to the abuse being thrown at it.

The crowd of zombies was dotted with the gray faces of New Breed, a great many of them. Kell could see groups of them holding fallen logs, no doubt to be used as a means to scale the wall. Not for the first time, Kell marveled at the fact that the old central part of New Haven was surrounded by such a solid structure, the stone wall made in one desperate summer with the work of hundreds.

Given what was in front of them, it hardly seemed enough.

It wasn't the number of zombies, though there were enough to be worried about even in the best of times. It was the circumstances sending an unfamiliar jolt of fear through Kell's brain. Half their population was gone, and another large chunk out trying to kill the enemies who had either driven these zombies here or led them at the very least. What remained were the old and young, the injured, and nowhere near enough able bodies for Kell's liking.

“Breach!” shouted a voice from down the line. Kell took his place next to the guard post on the corner of the wall. Josh and Andrea had taken their places inside the post, arrows ready. Kell could cover a huge section of wall by himself, the spear giving him a great deal of extra reach.

It was now a waiting game, either for the zombies to gain the wall at his position, or to be called to reinforce another section.

Jaw clenched, he watched.

It took only minutes for the flood of undead to reach the corner where he stood. The corridor between the buffer and the wall—unbroken here—was narrow and easily blocked. A steady stream of workers had moved up and down the steps, lobbing stones behind the makeshift barrier to steady it.

Pieces of shipping container made for relatively lightweight walls, and the hinged devices weren't hard to raise. In emergencies like this, all you had to do to prevent an incursion of zombies from completely filling the area inside the buffer was pull the rope attached to the metal barrier and make sure it couldn't be easily moved once locked into place.

Which was how they managed to contain the attack, stopping the spread from leaving the western wall. In Kell's opinion, that was the only thing saving the defenders from being overrun almost instantly.

Though dozens of zombies were caught in the traps dotting the inner corridor, hundreds roamed free. The narrow space prevented the New Breed from getting any purchase with their logs, but every zombie killed by the defenders created a stepping stone. Within minutes there were dead hands gripping the edge of the wall, ragged fingers searching for feet.

Not thirty feet from Kell, one man had his pant leg snagged and was yanked off his feet before tumbling into the seething mass below. Thankfully, someone leaned over and put him out of his misery before the undead could do more than begin biting him.

It was worse here at the corner. The barrier created another wall to work from, meaning that every time Kell crouched and put the tip of his spear through an eye or temple, another stepping stone was added. In the rare moments he was able to look north, he could tell other areas were pressed nearly as badly.

They couldn't climb down to dislodge the ramp of flesh. All Kell and the other defenders could do was kill as efficiently as possible and hope their endurance lasted.

It wasn't long before the piles of bodies grew wide and tall enough to allow the zombies to stand with their shoulders above the top of the wall, three and then four wide. Kell told himself he shouldn't be kicking them, that one of the dead men would get lucky and grab his boot and throw his balance off enough to send him hurtling toward the ground, but he didn't listen.

Instead he aimed each massive swing of his leg, timing the blow precisely as the zombies tried to haul themselves forward. He killed at least half a dozen this way, snapping necks with a mechanical ease.

Trucks growled and slid across the open field beyond the buffer, swiping sideways into the swarm to thin its numbers. Small groups of highly-trained people moved on foot around the edges, attacking just long enough to kill several enemies before dancing away before they could be mobbed by a large number.

Kell saw those teams work from the very beginning of the fight, right until the first zombie managed to crest the wall in front of him and stand. It was not alone; all over the corner, zombies came up and over in a wave.

The top of the wall was narrow, even with the added wooden platforms on the inner edge. For most people, a few feet wasn't enough room to build momentum. One advantage of having as much mass as Kell was the ability to impart tremendous force over short distances.

The zombie directly in front of him was of the classic variety, and so its reflexes were far too slow to catch his foot as he kicked it in the midsection. The dead thing folded in half as it sailed from the wall, its foot catching on another climbing behind, dislodging it.

Two more appeared, both New Breed. Kell darted forward, extending his leg as far as he dared to give the thrust of his spear more power. The zombie on the right died as it tried to rise to its feet, spear all the way through its skull.

The one on the left was quick; by the time Kell began shaking the dead zombie from his weapon, the second was already on him. He let go of the spear with his left hand, continuing to shake the spear with his right.

His armored glove caught the tattered remains of the New Breed's shirt, his fingers twisting in the fabric for all the purchase he could get. The bony tips of the zombie's fingers raked his armored coat, though Kell's greater reach kept them from his face and neck.

“Turn toward me!” someone shouted.

Purely on instinct, Kell turned toward the sound, dragging the zombie around. Only a dozen feet away, it was easy to hear the distinctive snap-hum of a bowstring.

Andrea grinned and winked at him as the New Breed dropped. Kell slung it back over the edge.

The dead zombie slid from his spear, and Kell wasted no time as he stepped back into the fight. Time began to lose meaning as he fought, defined not by seconds or minutes, but by how many dead men stood against them and how quickly he could kill them. At first he was careful, aiming each blow as precisely as possible to kill in one movement. The New Breed scampering up to fight him began to learn, coming at him three and four at a time, forcing him to attack more broadly.

At some point during the struggle, the people fighting around Kell moved away, giving him room to maneuver. He only noticed because it let him cut loose without fear of hitting anyone living. He became a blur, spear snapping out ceaselessly as both point and butt found enemy weak spots.

Once in a while a zombie would manage to grab onto him. One dug both hands into the lapels of his coat, trying to draw him close. Without taking a hand from his weapon, Kell slammed his elbow down on the inside of the zombie's elbows, bending them, and thrust his head forward.

Kell's forehead broke its jaw, whipping the dead man's head backward as its shattering teeth scored cuts into his scalp. Ignoring the blood and pain, Kell pivoted his weight and tossed the zombie into its brothers.

As they lay in a struggling pile, Kell crouched over them and brought the spear down once, twice, then more times than he could count until they stopped moving.

He straightened in time to see someone just down the wall from him struggling with a zombie of their own. The defender was on his back, barely keeping the gnashing teeth from his flesh. Too close for the spear, which Kell dropped on the wall before dashing forward.

His arms snaked around the zombie's neck, yanking it away from the prone man. Kell gripped and twisted, hauling the monster into a hip throw and shattering vertebrae at the same time. He grabbed the body by its belt and shirt, then tossed it as hard as he could toward the buffer.

The zombie sailed over the barrier, just missing the highest cable. Kell paused as he watched, seeing only minor scuffles and few zombies remaining.

“Thanks,” the man he had rescued said. “Tripped on a body, and the thing was on me so fast...” There was a vacant glaze in his eyes, a hollowness in his voice. Kell put out a hand, hauling the man to his feet.

“I'll help you to the stairs,” Kell said.

As he walked the man past the dying battle, people all over the corner section, even a few inside the wall below, stared at him. Even Andrea gaped a little.

“What?” Kell asked as he walked by her.

She shook her head, then grinned. “That was...just
badass
, man.”

Though he made a dismissive noise, Kell had to suppress a smile as he moved back to his post.