The Fall: Victim Zero (9 page)

Kell let the sensation of total lucidity grip him, the hyper-awareness of his situation drenched in abject terror.

Then he took in the rest of the room, and things began to make some sense.

There were medical supplies all around the place. The cabinets, padlocked but with clear glass fronts, held giant bottles that looked like pill containers. Below the counter opposite Kell's had labels across the edge, obviously marking the contents on the shelves below. Gauze, sponges, all the goodies.

Kell tried to work up some saliva to swallow, but there was nothing. Alan tipped the cup of water up to Kell's mouth.

“You're a doctor,” Kell rasped.

Alan gave him another drink. “Veterinarian, technically, but really I'm a horse doctor.”

Kell gave him a quizzical look. Alan smiled.

“
Haven't taken care of anything but horses for almost thirty years now,” the older man clarified. “Got rich doing it down in Kentucky, taking care of thoroughbreds. Retired up this way a few years back. Well, I say I've only healed up horses, but then there's you.”

Kell took a deep breath, feeling slightly better than death now that there was a little moisture in him. “What happened?”

Alan sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Now that's an interesting question, isn't it? I wonder if you're asking about yourself, or the city, or even the rest of the country?”

Memories flooded back to Kell, but he gave no sign how that question hammered at his heart. “Let's start with the country and work backward.”

Alan's expression grew distant. “It was eight days ago the trouble started. Guess you know that since we found you on that hill overlooking the city. Reckon you ran from whatever was happening there.”

Kell gasped. “Eight days? I've been out for more than a week?”

Alan nodded. “Yep, and you're lucky to be having this conversation with me rather than Saint Peter. Things have gone to shit all over the place. Power failures left and right, big cities being evacuated. Announcements on the radio that utilities are gonna start falling apart like dominoes, one place after another. Martial law got declared a couple places a few days ago, but doesn't seem to have done any good. People are scared and stampeding away from those things. The US basically doesn't exist as a country any more, though lot of folks'll tell you otherwise.”

“
Jesus,” Kell said. “So fast.”

“
As for the city, well, Cincinnati was hit harder than most. Probably because it was first.” Alan scrubbed a hand across his nose. “Lot of other places had time to set up barricades and bring in soldiers, time to get some people out. Here, it was just mayhem all day. No response that mattered. Heard one fella say half the population died on just the first day. Almost a hundred and fifty thousand people.”

Alan became grim. “I don't doubt that's true. Those things are hard to kill. Vicious. And seems to be if you die, you become one of them. Been a long time since college, but I remember how fast diseases spread when they're in ideal conditions. This isn't much different. One infects another, both get one more each, and soon you've got more than you can count. Geometric progression, it's called.”

“Cinci,” Kell said. “Is there anyone left there?”

“
Might be survivors. Lot of folks took the bridge over to Florence, few of them even tried to blow it up behind them, though the thing didn't get much more than smoke-stained. But in the city itself? I doubt it. Place is a warren. Dead people like rats just waiting for a meal.”

Kell closed his eyes for a second, grief welling up inside him. His parents, friends, every person he knew from his everyday life. Gone. Probably in less than two days.

“As for you,” Alan said. “Paulie and I have been taking care of you since that first day. Least we could do, since I kind of shot you a few times.”

Kell laughed, which irritated his throat and sent him into a coughing fit. “You say that like you're talking about the weather.”

Alan grinned. Behind him, Paulie watched them without expression. The old man shrugged and pulled a key from his pocket. As he started to unlock Kell's handcuffs, he explained.

“
Some of those things--”

“
They're zombies,” Kell cut in.

Alan grimaced. “Really? I know they're dead, they fit the definition, but it seems so...childish. Stupid. Unreal, you know?”

“Dead people are getting back up and trying to eat the living, man. I can't think of a better definition for what they are.”

Alan rolled his shoulders. “If you say so. Anyway, couple of them wandered up this way. Your hill, the one you parked on, is actually the edge of my land. Property ends at the road under it.”

Kell blanched. “I was trespassing, then.”

Alan let out a booming laugh. “Hell, kid, I don't shoot people for coming onto my land. I've seen you up here before, with a lady. I didn't even know you were there, to be blunt. Some...zombies came up the road and onto the hill. We went out to clear them off.”

Paulie abruptly turned and left the room, stalking away with her shotgun in hand.

Kell gave Alan a questioning look. The old man sighed.

“Her boy was with us. Fifteen years old, and he got it in his head to run ahead a bit. By the time we got to him, it was too late. And when you stood up by that tree, all we could see was what our flashlights caught. You were bloody and ragged and stumbling.”

“
You thought I was one of them.”

Alan raised his hands in a 'what can you do?' sort of gesture. “Shots weren't meant for a fella as big as you, to be honest. So used to shooting targets my own size, kind of surprised the second one got as high as your neck. Sorry about that.”

Kell flexed his wrists, trying to loosen them up. “Don't worry about it. But why was I out so long?”

“
Well, first when we got the are cleared out and figured out you were still alive, we tried to put you in the back of that big ass truck of yours. I'm close to seventy and Paulie weighs maybe a hundred and twenty-five soaking wet. We dropped you, and you hit your head pretty damn hard. We get you back here and I'm trying to decide if I want to risk giving you something to keep you out while I fix up your wounds, which is a bad idea with a concussion, but Paulie says it'll be worse if you wake up while I'm digging a bullet out of you.”

Kell smirked. “Smart lady.”

Alan smiled, pride on his face. “Damn right she is. She's my brother's stepdaughter. Been working for me for the last few years. Losing Jeremiah hurts, man. Hurts a lot.”

“
I'm so sorry,” Kell said.

“
Me too, son. Me too.” Wiping at his eyes, Alan continued. “Long story short, you got real damn lucky. Got you just under your arm and in the top of your neck. Missed the arteries, though God only knows how. Did a good bit of tissue damage, but we got you fixed up. You were weak, though, and we were worried about that head injury. So I kept you under for a while.” Alan swept a hand at the medicine cabinets. “People like to joke about horse tranquilizers, but if you do them right they work wonders. Good thing, too, because your hand got infected pretty bad. Fever hit you hard, and you started to get delirious. Had to lower the dose of your happy juice, but you're so damn strong we had to keep you tied down. It wouldn't have been pretty if you painted the walls with my brains in your fever. Especially since I'm fairly sure Paulie would've followed up by doing the same with yours.”

Alan stood up to get himself a glass of water, complaining that he hadn't spoken so much at once in a decade. Kell took the time to work on the straps across his body, which were easy enough for a conscious, alert person to undo themselves.

The older man leaned back against the counter as he sipped from his glass. “Said I'd seen you out under that tree before once or twice. That lady you came with, she was your wife?”

Kell nodded tensely. “She was.”

“Came up to the old picnic spot...after? Wanted to be someplace with happy memories?”

“
Yeah, something like that,” Kell answered.

“
You were in the city, so you knew what was coming. You weren't armed, though. But you stopped here anyway. Were you looking to die, son?”

He gave the man a steady, even look. “And if I was?”

Alan shrugged. “Then I'm sorry for you. You got a right to pick your time, kid. Didn't mean to interfere with that, but I couldn't sit by while someone needed help, especially it being my fault.”

Kell smiled at the old man. So earnest, so straightforward. “It's okay, actually.”

Alan raised an eyebrow. “So you didn't want to go out, then?”

Kell finished unbuckling himself and carefully swung his legs over the side of the cot. “No, I did. You saved my life, so you deserve the truth.”

“But not anymore?”

Kell stood, slowly, and tested his balance. He felt weak but not feverish or ill. “No, not now. I wanted to die because my wife, my daughter...” he trailed off at the lance of pain through his heart, but after a moment had it under control. “There didn't seem to be much point, you know?”

Alan nodded. “Felt the same way eight years back. My own wife Ellen got cancer. Took her a long time to go.”

“
Still don't want to think about it, to be honest,” Kell said. “But lying down and giving up doesn't feel like the best way to honor their memory. I know Karen would have wanted me to keep on, so I will. For her, right now. But maybe, someday, for me.”

Alan walked over and gripped Kell's shoulder. “I'm glad to hear it. Don't know what the world has to offer any of us now, but I can't say it hurts my feelings to know my last patient—and my only human one ever—is willing to see if he can find out.”

The older man smiled and clapped Kell on the arm before turning away. “I'm gonna see if we can get some food in you. Try to walk around a little, drink some more water, and I'll be back in a few.”

“
Thanks, Alan,” Kell said with a smile.

Alan waved and walked into the hall, shutting the door behind him.

The smile melted from Kell's face as soon as he was alone. He hated to lie to the man who had saved his life, but it was unavoidable. Some small part of him knew Karen really would have wanted him to soldier on, but that wasn't it.

At some point during his fever-driven delusions, the answer had come to him. Not fully-formed, but more like a maze he'd gotten a glance at. Enough to know that his ideas were on the right track. Enough to know there was a way out if he could find it.

“I'm going to cure this fucking thing,” he said to no one, and everyone.

Dinner was vegetable soup, from an enormous stockpot of the stuff. There were chunks of meat in it, which Kell learned was venison. When he remarked he'd never had deer meat before, Paulie laughed.

“You're a city boy, then?” she said.

“
Yeah,” Kell replied. “From here originally, but went to school in California. Parents were never into hunting or anything like that.”

Her crooked smile was not entirely pleasant. “Don't want to come off rude,” she said. Alan mumbled something that sounded like, “But you probably will anyway,” and Paulie shot him a withering glare.

“Not to sound rude, Mr. McDonald, but I'm not sure how you'll make it out there. Alan says you can stay with us as long as you like, but what he's too polite to say is our supplies here are limited. And you aren't exactly a lightweight.”

Kell looked down at the empty bowl in front of him, his second, and felt a blush crawl up his face.

“Now, come on, Paulie. The man's barely eaten anything in the last week. He's lucky his brain didn't fry like a damn egg with a fever keeping him out so long. Or that we didn't kill him with all the tranquilizers. He needs to get his strength back before...”

Alan trailed off, but Kell didn't need to hear the rest of the sentence. “Look, you've already done more than enough for me. I can leave tomorrow. I feel weak, but I can hop in the truck and head out. I need to, anyway, so I can see if my parents made it out of the city.”

Paulie and Alan sat stunned. Both of them had expected some kind of argument, but Kell spoke with calm assurance.

Then both of them started shouting at once.

“No way you're leaving until you've got some strength back...”

“
You almost knocked out a few of my teeth, getting those cuffs on you. Not going to let you go out there and kill yourself...”

“
Bad idea, you're still healing up...”

“
Don't want to have wasted my time...”

Kell put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together in front of his face, leaning his chin on them as he let the others work out their reactions. His arms, always thick but much more defined after a week of living mostly off his own fat reserves, flexed as he did it.

“You've both risked a lot for me, and I appreciate that. But let's be practical, all right? I
am
going to leave here. No, I don't feel a hundred percent. Yes, I feel weak. But I'm pretty sure you can't stop me short of putting more bullets in me, and that's just work, work, work. I can handle driving. There's bound to be canned food out there. I'll manage. At the very least I can drive until I find some place abandoned and take my chances. But for a lot of reasons, notably the fact that I don't want to be a burden to you any more than I already have, I'm going. End of discussion.”