Kell opened his mouth to argue, then sat there gaping as his brain started whirring into top gear. True, he'd spent most of the last two years dividing his thoughts between trying to acquire the lab gear he'd need to start work, and the work itself. Which had focused exclusively on the later stages of his efforts; high-technology solutions.
He'd been over-thinking it. Tunnel vision took over when he'd come up with a solution based on his successes with Chimera, blinding him to the simpler, if less precise, methods he could employ with only basic tools and precautions.
Excited, he met Andrea's eyes. Had he been less entranced with the possibilities, the smug look on her face might have taken him down a peg.
A combination of a heady sense of optimism brought about by his conversation with Andrea, and cold that managed to sneak under his covers like a biblical plague kept him from sleep long after Andrea left the room to snuggle up with her kids. Eventually Kell did nod off, falling into a rare dreamless sleep, leaving him rested and fresh for the first time in months.
“Well, shit,” a voice said loudly.
Kell woke between heartbeats, throwing himself into a sitting position and standing. The floor had apparently transformed into a sheet of ice overnight. He could tell because it felt like a yeti was gnawing on the soles of his feet.
“What is it?” he asked as he jammed his feet into boots.
The door between the rooms stood open, and through it Kell saw Andrea staring through the window. “It snowed last night,” she said. “Not much, but the cold front must have pushed the locals to get somewhere sheltered.”
Kell went to his own window, and what he saw through it dried his mouth in a flash.
The parking lot below was a warren of footprints, and the few zombies he could see through the iron railing were obviously the edge of a crowd, trying to get beneath the overhang created by the walkway outside their rooms. There were no prints in the dusting on the walkway itself, but the lobby and stairs were certain to be lousy with the dead.
“We're stuck here,” Andrea said, closing the shade and resting her head against the window. “Stupid to stay on the second floor. I bet they smelled us. That's why they came close. We should have sprayed ammonia all over, kept them away--”
“No,” Kell interrupted. “We needed to ration our supplies. We saw nothing to tell us there were this many of them around.” He thought furiously for a few seconds, then took up his spear. “If they're not already on this floor, they will be soon. We need time.”
Halfway to the door she was next to him, hand on his bare wrist. She was fast, her fingers strong and callused. “What are you doing?” she whispered angrily. “You're going to go out there and do something idiotic just like you did yesterday, aren't you?”
“No,” he replied. “I'll be careful and I won't take unnecessary risks. But I need to go now. If they get up here in numbers we're all going to be stuck up here for a long time. Do you think we can all jump the rail without getting hurt?”
Andrea's eyes blazed, but she let go his arm. “Be careful. And put on a long-sleeved shirt. You're gonna catch your death out there.”
“Yes, mom,” Kell said with a chuckle.
In point of fact, he pulled on two more shirts and grabbed an attachment for his spear Kate and Laura had left for him in the bag of gear. Kell snapped it on as he stepped through the door and into the chilly world, slipping the bolt through and tightening it. The crosspiece made it nearly impossible to get his spear stuck in an enemy.
Their rooms were near the end of the walkway, which dead-ended two doors down. There weren't any undead on the second floor. Their walkway led straight to the stairs and down to the parking lot. If the group could get down them and out to open ground, then—
“Fuck,” Kell said as he reached the top of the steps. Below, a writhing mass of bodies filled the lobby, the landing, and ten feet into the parking lot besides. Several were already tripping over each other to get at him. The options sped through his brain in an instant, but no solutions to the larger problem of how to escape.
“Buy time,” he said to himself as the first zombie crested the steps.
The spear caught the thing between the eyes, a strike best suited for firearms. The point glanced off the ridge of bone, breaking it with a wet snap as it did so, and buried itself in the zombie's eye before passing into the brain. With a practiced hand Kell pulled back on the spear hard as he kicked the falling body into the undead now attempting to swarm the stairs.
Their lack of coordination was his saving grace; there were several New Breed in the group, but vastly outnumbered by lesser zombies. Most of the ones toppled by 180 pounds of meat crashing into them were not New Breed and were less able to keep their balance.
He repeated the maneuver twice more before two zombies managed to climb the stairs abreast, their bodies completely filling the space. Again the spear rose, taking one in the face. Freeing one hand, risking the loss of his spear, he stepped into a hard jab to the face of the second.
Luck was with him, both zombies tumbling back into their fellows. Hot blood dripped down his fingers from a split knuckle. The smell washed over the undead, instantly driving them into a frenzy.
Tumbling over one another to reach the delicious smell made the job easier. New Breed had been known to coordinate from time to time, but in the mass of obviously starving zombies driven mad by the scent of fresh blood, there was no chance.
Three more fell, then four, Kell's arms growing leaden from the powerful and controlled attacks he had to use in the small space. Six bodies on the stairs was enough of an obstacle to slow even the pressing swarm. Another came for him, but tripped and was crushed under the weight of a dozen others trying to move forward. The pathetic creature was pulled under their feet like wheat into a thresher and with similar results.
The number able to reach him thinned to more manageable levels, though after another four kills his arms burned with fatigue. By then there were enough bodies piling up to clog the stairway, a gory mess that made the steps slippery as well as difficult to pass.
Then a New Breed climbed over the bodies, slowly and carefully, rushing at him after regaining its balance with a speed that caught him off guard. The spear clanged against the rail and wall as Kell tried to bring it up to block the zombie's questing hands, and was only half successful. He was knocked off balance, his hip slamming into the wrought-iron rail to his left. A horrible screeching noise filled the air as the top bolts sheared from the concrete pillar.
Kell scrambled to regain his balance, throwing his weight away from the wobbling rail. He let go the spear and grappled with the zombie clawing at his chest. The hands, filthy with months of dirt and human flesh, moved for the unprotected flesh of his throat. Kell took the wrists in his own, and in his panic nearly had his face bitten as the zombie lunged forward.
He thrust a hip out and up, twisting his shoulder into the thing's face. Undeterred, the New Breed clamped onto his shoulder, teeth trying to grind through three layers of cloth. It was his injured shoulder.
Kell screamed, pain and rage overtaking him completely. All thought of caution vanished, and he bucked his hip again, finishing the movement slinging the zombie off him and into the rail. The bottom bolts sheared, the weight of the zombie hurled by Kell's throw sending the thing twelve feet to the hard concrete below.
Weary beneath the surge of adrenaline, Kell shot to his feet, snatching the spear along the way. The urge to wade into combat pushed at him, suicidal though it was. He ignored it, instead stepping down the stairs far enough to reach the seething mass of undead trying to climb the growing pile of bodies.
Downward strikes rained on the zombies, each taking an enemy in the face. More than once the enemy tried to snatch at the spear, clever New Breed hands trying to rid him of his weapon. Each time he lashed out with a heavy boot—the only armored place left besides his pants—and knocked them away. His foot throbbed and screamed at him to stop.
Kell ignored
it.
Soon there were enough dead to completely block the way up. It wouldn't last long the way the rest of them pulled at the bodies, but all told he'd left more than a dozen behind. It would keep them from reaching the second floor for a little while, maybe as much as an hour the way many of them were jammed against, and into, the stairway railing. Kell thanked his lucky stars it was in better shape than the walkway.
In a burst of inspiration, he realized how they would escape.
Thirty seconds later he was back in the room, motioning for Andrea and the kids to grab the gear and follow him. It wasn't much of a trip; he took them to the dead end.
“Okay, let's see if this works,” he said, then wedged the butt of his spear into the edge of the rail in an attempt to pry it loose. “Damn, won't budge that way.”
Grimacing in pain, he raised a boot and kicked the rail as hard as he could. It broke off at three points, hanging drunkenly by the fourth before his second kick knocked it completely free.
“Thank god this place is older than dirt,” he said.
“I don't get it,” Andrea said. “What are you doing?”
Kell pointed down the walkway to the large section of broken rail. “That part down there is hanging on by one side, you can see it drooping out over the parking lot. You guys are going to drop all our gear down there and spray some ammonia. I'm going to break that rail off the rest of the way, bring it back here, and we're going to climb down it like a ladder.”
Andrea and Michelle gave him identical looks, full of doubt. The little girl was cute, but eerie at times. No one that young should be capable of such open skepticism.
“Look, we don't have a lot of choice,” Kell said.
Evan cocked his head. “Will it hold us?”
The boy spoke so rarely that Kell couldn't reply with anything but pure honesty. “I have no clue. But we're short on options. I'll go down first. I'm heaviest. If it's going to break, it'll be on me.”
Not giving them time to argue, Kell ran for the broken railing. Seeing one of the remaining New Breed working its way over the pile of bodies, he stopped and readied himself to fight. Then thunder cracked beside him, and the thing's head exploded.
Andrea moved to the top of the steps. “Go, get the rail,” she said, then calmly pointed her weapon at the milling zombies below.
The hard part wasn't breaking the rail off—the concrete was falling apart on the outside—but managing it without dropping the heavy ironwork to the parking lot. Kell ran to the kids again, pulling a length of rope from his pack, and ran back. Andrea fired six more times as he looped the nylon through the rail and around the pillar, then kicked at it until the whole thing screeched and dropped.
Hauling it back up quickly, Kell found he didn't have the strength to carry it down the walkway. Instead he dragged it along, the harsh scrape hurting his ears even through the buzz created by Andrea's gunfire. With herculean effort he slid the rail over the sheer edge of the walkway's end, then tied the top in place as best he could. Andrea returned a few seconds later.
“We need to hurry. They aren't getting up the steps, but some of them are already coming this way.”
Kell nodded, then sprayed a few ounces of ammonia over the edge. Evan surprised him again by grabbing the bottle and spraying a steady stream thirty feet back over the side of the remaining rail. The young man ran back as fast as he'd left, handing the bottle to his mother solemnly.
“What do we do when we get down there?” Andrea asked.
Kell eyed the highway. “We run. If we have to hole up somewhere, fine. I'd rather keep moving. But for now we douse ourselves with that stuff and keep going for as long as we can.”
The children had done as told and thrown his gear over the edge, thankfully after he'd grabbed the rope. With no small amount of trepidation he crouched and slung a leg onto the makeshift ladder, felt the balance of it, then moved down as fast as he dared.
The bars all creaked in warning, two of them deforming under his weight, but he made it. The ladder-rail shifted to the left as he dismounted it, and he took a moment to reset. It was then he noticed the wall of (former) humanity waiting only a dozen yards away, those closest to the ammonia barrier being shoved into it by those behind.
“Uh, Michelle,” Kell said in a shaky voice. “You jump, I'll catch you. We need to move fast.”
The little girl didn't hesitate, jumping into his arms—what was she made of, lead?—without a trace of fear in her eyes. Evan was next, moving down the rungs steadily if slower than Kell would have liked.
Andrea came last, and as she touched ground a zombie appeared on the ledge overhead. It was New Breed, and Kell realized as the thing jumped down onto them that they'd forgotten to douse the walkway. Stupid of him, again. Sloppy. Again.
Kell jerked the rail as the New Breed fell, knocking the zombie askew and making what was sure to be a bad landing into a terrible one. With a bone-crunching splat it impacted the pavement. Before Kell could move in to kill it, Andrea whipped around and fired a round into the back of its head.
They ran.
Thirteen
It was an exhausted group that collapsed in an abandoned service station two hours later. It was the first place they came to along the highway with an obvious entry. The zombies from the hotel still followed behind, kept at a distance by their dwindling supply of ammonia.
The four of them barely made it through the garage door and rolled it shut before the swarm caught up to them. Harried by the undead, they hadn't been able to stop long enough to refill the bottle Andrea used to spray their clothes. None of them trusted the chemical to keep the mass of hungry dead away forever, and tired as they were, stopping once could have been the mistake that killed them all.
Andrea, Michelle, and Evan lay in pile on the icy concrete floor. Kell was a few paces away, slouched against the bay door. “I'm going to look around,” he said, conscious of the press of flesh against the windows. “We can't stay here long. They'll break that glass eventually.”
With a groan, Andrea sat up. “I'll help.”
Kell waved her back down. “Stay here,” he said. “I'll only be a second. This place isn't very big.”
It was true, of course, but mostly he wanted a few minutes to himself. Still reeling from the conversation with Andrea the night before, he wanted time alone to process the situation. It was another habit he'd carried since childhood, one Laura and Kate hadn't tried to fight. Back at their house he vanished for hours at a time to be alone with his thoughts. In the few days he'd been with Andrea and the kids, the only personal time he had was sleep.
The station was larger than it looked, the back half housing a much larger service bay than the front, four lifts sitting in the floor in front of four more bay doors. The windows were small and nearly opaque with dirt and wear. Kell scrubbed the cuff of his sleeve across one to see a rear lot filled with old tires, wrecked cars, and a clear shot to the highway.
The rest of the building was worthless as far as supplies went, not surprising. Even the vending machines were picked clean, the front of the food machine shattered. Not that he had any great desire to eat a years-old Hershey bar, but after the long run his stomach was arguing loudly for the company of food.
“We should go to the back,” he said as he returned to the group. “The back bay has a steel door on the inside and no windows larger than my head. Much safer there.”
After locking themselves in, Kell noted with chagrin the lack of bathroom facilities. There were buckets full of old rags shoved into a corner, but no way to gain even a little privacy. Which was a bad thing; he had to piss in the worst way.
“Guys, I have to...uh, go to the restroom,” he said.
Laying on the floor with an arm over her face, Andrea waved a hand. “Go for it. Don't make a mess.” Michelle and Evan showed no reaction.
“Okay, I just didn't want to, you know, freak anyone out.”
Andrea lifted her arm and glanced at him, then laughed. “Wow, are y
ou actually embarrassed right now? Don't be on our part. We had to live in that little place together for a long time. I don't even know what shame is now.”
Reluctantly, he grabbed a bucket and went, though he could swear someone snickered.
Kell rejoined the group and sat on the floor. His muscles began to relax right away. Strained and damaged as they were from his injuries and the effort of running for so long, it wasn't a shock. What did catch him off guard was how quickly his mind began to unwind as well. He was lazily considering the escape possibilities—it was becoming a theme—when the glass in the front of the building cracked loudly, the tinkle of shattered fragments hitting the floor filling the place with strange music.
“Glad we got back here when we did,” he said.
“How are we going to get out?” Michelle asked.
“Well, the zombies aren't in the back lot yet, and even if they are we can drive them back for a minute and run straight for the road.”
Andrea turned on her side, propping her head on her hand. In any other situation it would have been a pose, but in the here and now it was the only practical way for her to lay and still look at him. Still, it was striking, if only for the contrast between the graceful position of her body contrasted with the dirt smudged on her face, runnels of sweat cutting through, and her thick, shapeless clothes.
“We can, sure, but it's just going to be more of the same.”
Kell frowned. “What do you mean?”
Now she sat up, crossing her legs and leaning back on her palms. “We can run out of here any time. Steel doors, no way for the dead to get in here. We have food to last a while and enough water for a few days even if there's nothing in here to drink. But when we do leave, we're just going back out into the same situation. No vehicle, zombies on our ass, and one trip away from being overrun if the ammonia stops working.”
The Fall (Book 2): Dead Will Rise Page 13