The Fall: Victim Zero (32 page)

After a tense wait, the marauders moved forward. The tracks left by the Jeep were clear enough, and as the last of them moved from his line of sight Kell keyed his mic and spoke softly.

“
You've got incoming. Three groups of five, one group of ten in a truck. I'm counting to thirty then heading in,” he said.

“
Understood,” Laura said, then swore. “We didn't expect this many. Watch your ass.”

Kell chuckled. “Me? I'm planning on hiding somewhere. Probably won't even get to fight.”

Thirty seconds later he was threading his way down the tree and into the woods. The area was dense with trees, which made his descent into the outskirts easy enough. The long stretch of open land between the treeline and the nearest building was the riskiest part of the plan for him, but the marauders had moved into the town proper by the time his tired legs reached the pavement.

He ran behind buildings, keeping to the edges and glancing through alleys. A constant patter of updates played in his ear, alerting him to the location of the enemy. Kell kept a map of the place in his head, sketchy but good enough.

The ability to quickly memorize a lot of data helped him sneak up on the first of them, a pair of men who had fallen to the far rear of the marauder group. Whether they were playing rear guard or were just undisciplined Kell didn't know. In the end it didn't matter; he reached into the small pouch Laura had given him that morning. Precious cargo, and peering at the two lagging men he couldn't think of a better time to use it.

Though he lacked talent with firearms, Kell had great aim with a baseball. Grenades aren't so different when you thought about it.

He didn't waste any time waiting to see the effect. Kell lobbed the thing on the run, down an alley and in front of the men he was stalking on a parallel street. The explosion was powerful enough to make his ears ring, even with a building between him and the blast.

Kell ran on, listening to updates through his radio and planning his next move.

“Three just moved in to check for signs of life,” Laura said in his ear. “Another group of five just split off and are heading up the street from the explosion, toward us.”

“
I'm on it,” Kell said into the mic.

“
There are five of them, K,” she said, a note of worry in her voice.

“
Not for long,” he replied.

He poured on the speed, moving ahead of the group. Laura and her team were set up in a church at the end of the street with its back facing the forest. The place was stout and had a perfect view of every approach. Kell cut over onto the main street two blocks before the church, which put him—according to the voice in his ear—three blocks up from the approaching marauders.

Crouched next to the porch of a large colonial, Kell watched them draw near. The two on the far end of the line had rifles. The nearest one had no firearm that he could see. The two in the middle carried handguns. All of them scanned the surrounding buildings with the intensity of hunting sharks.

When they were a block away, Kell grabbed a piece of gravel from the driveway next to him and chucked it at a house across the street. The heavy
pock
of stone against wood startled the jumpy men, who all reacted without hesitation.

While they fired at the empty house, Kell rose and loosed an arrow at the nearest of them. None of the five was looking his direction. The unarmed man didn't see the arrow that slammed into his ribs.

Kell dropped back as soon as the arrow hit, flowing back behind the houses.

“
They didn't see you,” Laura said. “If you're heading south, come around the blue house. One is staying with the injured man. The other three think you hit them from farther up the street.”

Kell clicked his radio in acknowledgment and followed Laura's advice. From there he lobbed his second and last grenade into the path of the three men before diving behind cover.

“Oh, very nice,” Laura said after the blast. “Two of them are down. Third lost his weapon.”

The spear slid easily from his back as Kell dashed forward, bounding from the dirt. The last of the three men was just pulling himself up, obviously dazed, when Kell rammed the spear's point into his ribcage. Bone cracked and sinew parted, the pain so terrible that only a choked squeak escaped before the unlucky man toppled to the pavement in a boneless heap.

“Down!” a man bellowed. Kell dropped on pure instinct.

The air above him was torn with the high whiz of bullets. Down the road, the last living member of the group knelt next to the arrow-shot man. His gun clicked empty as Kell watched, then red blossoms appeared on his chest.

“You okay?” A deep voice asked. Kell looked up to see one of his people striding over.

The man, Scotty Atkinson, wasn't especially large, but his gun was. The rifle was nearly as tall as Scotty himself, though he held it in one hand as he helped Kell to his feet.

“I'm fine,” Kell replied. “Thanks for the save.”

Scotty grinned. “No problem. Let's get inside before more of them show up.”

The interior of the church was homey bordering on austere. There was no garish art, no signs of wealth. Only subtle earth tones and thick carpeting. It was the kind of place Kell wouldn't have minded taking a long rest in.

Laura, however, had other plans.

“Here's the deal,” she said to the group. “We don't have much time. Kate had an idea, and she's already following through. She's going to lead a group of zombies into town. The hope is the marauders will use up whatever ammunition they have on them, which will make our job a lot easier.”

“
You're assuming they'll stick around for that,” Kell said.

“
I've sent Jason out to harass them,” she replied. Jason Craft was the brother of one of the prisoners, and the first to volunteer when they'd put out the call for help. “I'm pretty sure he can keep them interested. Kate already radioed in, and she's got a nice group following her back.”

“
So what do we do?” Scotty asked.

“
We watch,” Laura said. “If they run dry while they're fighting the swarm, we wait. We only start shooting if they run. This isn't about personal vendettas. This is about ending the threat as safely for ourselves as humanly possible.”

With that they took positions in the high windows of the church and watched the chaos unfold.

They were fighting in the streets. Whatever Kate's original idea was, the swarm of zombies wasn't aware of it.

Kell knelt in a narrow alley as he waited to see if the marauder in front of him would win the fight with the ghoul attacking him. In less than two hours the entire town was infested, that first large group of undead brought by Kate attracting more and more of the creatures. In the end the teams all retreated back to the church, where the rescued women still waited.

Everyone else dove into the fray. It was the only option once the zombies started beating at the windows, to draw them off and keep the captives safe.

One good thing about the surprise increase in the size of the swarm was the outright panic in the marauders. They'd come loaded for bear, but in a desperate attempt to cut a path through the wall of bodies crashing over them in waves they blew through even their own large stores of ammunition.

Kell was the last member of his war party still near the church. Being the fallback guy wasn't his idea, but the rest of the team were better shots. Out there hunting down the scattered enemy amid the dead he would be a liability. It chafed, but Laura and Kate knew their business.

The marauder put down the zombie attacking him by bludgeoning the thing with the butt of his assault rifle. The man's back faced Kell, and he wasn't one to waste an opportunity, reaching the man in three long strides and wrapping his left hand around the jaw while the right slipped in and slashed.

There were other undead about, but the slope of the streets leading to the church discouraged them. Still, that much blood was going to put the spurs to them. Pulling his cloak tighter and praying the gore spread across it was still fresh enough, Kell melted back into the dark space next to the church.

He watched dispassionately as the corpse he made was torn to pieces by a group of zombies.

Voices shouted not far away, too vague to identify. His hand drifted to the ground, tightened into a fist around his spear. The sounds of combat followed, the wet parting of flesh flowing with the hollow crack of breaking bone. Skulls coming apart had a certain resonance, one almost every living person could point out.

Kell backed up carefully and let his body become a spring. Several zombies appeared in front of the narrow gap, pushed by a gang of men almost to the steps of the church. He didn't recognize any of them, but a familiar voice rang out from the rear.

Then Lucas stepped into view.

A few hours could change a person. Half of the older man's face was a blistered mass of reddened skin and singed hair. The air of calm authority was gone, replaced by a wild fierceness as he snarled orders at his men. Lucas fought with abandon, defending the rear of the group by himself while three others took the front.

Kell chose his moment. Just as Lucas extended himself in a vicious strike against one of the zombies, Kell shot out from his hiding spot, silently praying these men hadn't held any bullets back just in case.

It was his bad luck that Lucas saw him coming from the corner of his eye, heavy machete changing course mid-swing to knock the tip of Kell's spear aside. The man was old but he moved like water, legs flowing in a smooth circle to put him behind the zombie and pushing the monster directly onto Kell.

If the tactic was meant to scare him, it failed. The zombie latched onto Kell's right arm and snapped its teeth into his sleeve, but other than a hard swing to break the thing loose he paid no attention to it. The men behind him cried in surprise as he flung the zombie at them before lunging at Lucas again.

The old man was already swinging his machete, blade whistling through the air as Kell tried to block. He was half-successful; the blade stopped against the spear, but only after biting into Kell's left arm just below the shoulder. The cut hurt like hell. He tried not to think about the damaged chain mail rings digging into the wound as he slid his hip into Lucas.

To his credit the old man reacted well, moving in the same smooth rhythm that reminded him of all those days spent training with Kate. But the distance was too short, the slope of the street too steep, and Kell was too large and heavy.

His weight crashed into Lucas, throwing the old man back a few feet and sending him scrambling for footing on the blood-soaked road. The butt of Kell's spear darted out, bursting through Lucas's left eye and crushing the socket.

It was over that quickly. One thing Kate's lessons taught him was fights never end like they do in the movies.

Then someone shot him in the back. Which hurt. A lot.

The strike plate took it but the blossom of agony spreading across his upper back washed away everything else. With the pain came anger. In a split second the dam inside him burst and Kell's world went red.

He was vaguely aware of Lucas screaming, still alive but gravely injured, as he launched himself at the rest of the group. Kell's spear dipped and weaved, seeking out any vulnerable flesh. One man raised a gun, the fact registering to his overwhelmed brain only as the primary danger, and Kell broke his wrist with a savage downward stroke.

The gunman dropped his weapon but Kell whipped the spear across his face, tip shredding the man's sinus cavity as it tore a furrow reaching from the edge of his jaw to the opposite temple.

His weapon lodged there, stuck. Kell let go, pulling a knife and leaping at the next man, who was engaged with a zombie. The blade slipped into his gut easily, angling upward toward the sternum.

A bright new pain in his side forced him to lash out, whipping his elbow into the face of the last marauder. Kell fell on him, bearing the man to the ground. There was no art to his punches, no clever skill. They twisted against each other, each trying to find a better position. His opponent did something to Kell's injured side, the pain overloading his senses.

A few seconds later his head began to clear. The last marauder was dead, an unfamiliar knife buried in his throat, Kell's own hand still around the hilt.

His fingers slowly unclenched as his equilibrium reasserted itself. His side was bleeding, though the armor had stopped some of it, and not for the first time he thanked the universe for the time he'd had to reinforce it with more chain mail. The wound would hold until he got home.

If I get home.

The marauders were screaming, except for the one he was still straddling. Lucas rolled on the ground trying to hold his face together. The other man with the ruined face only let out irregular burbling squeaks, each accompanied by a fresh spray of blood. The other was trying to fend off a zombie and shove his guts back in at the same time, with poor results.

There were only a few undead around, and only the one was trying to attack. The open abdominal wound was too much for its self-control. The other three stood watching, bodies tense.

Lucas worked himself from his knees to standing, one hand pressed tight to his wounded eye. The nearest zombie backed away from him, its gaze...wary was the best description Kell could think of. It waited for Lucas to make a move, and when the old man lurched away, body bent near in half as he shuffled, the cagey look in the eyes of the last three zombies vanished.