“Potato!” Kate screamed.
Kell closed his eyes and ducked as the grenade went off. Thankfully she remembered to shout the warning, thought his reaction was pure instinct. She must have lobbed the thing from the far end of the RV, as it fell ten feet short of the forward vehicles.
Kell took advantage of the chaos after the explosion, raising to one knee and drawing a bead on the first soldier he saw, who happened to be laying with his feet toward the blast. Kell sighted down the shaft of the arrow, still disoriented from the grenade, and loosed as his target began to rise. His aim was off, body wobbling, and instead of striking the soldier in the arm, the arrow went through his neck.
In a moment of insane giddiness at his luck, he wondered if Andrea would be jealous he'd made a neck shot, too.
The second soldier on Kell's side of the vehicle had already stood and was just turning to face forward again when a second arrow pierced his forearm just below the elbow. The movement drew the attention of the third soldier, who was on the other side of the armored vehicle, because the man dropped behind it. Kell was frozen, trying to decide if he should risk moving, go for the injured man who would surely manage to fire despite the arrow in his arm, or run from the one who would be popping up to spray bullets at him in seconds.
Except the third soldier was early. Kell had no time to jump or move when the barrel of the man's rifle slid over the side of the truck and over the hood, followed by the soldier himself. Time slowed but not in a way at all helpful to Kell. There was no time to move, to dodge. It all happened so fast.
Laura, however, was on the job.
The bullet took the soldier in the head, a flash of red erupting from him in a gout and sending his body to the ground. Normal time resumed for him, a surge of energy and strength following it. Kell launched himself from the woods, bow in one hand and spear in the other. The injured soldier was raising his gun as Kell descended on him, bullets peppering the ground as hands made clumsy by injury slipped on the trigger. One of them bit into the side of his boot.
Heat laced the side of his foot, though not as much pain as he would have imagined. Several tugs on the fabric of his thick armored pants followed. Rational Kell was pretty sure the leg was toast; the armor would part like cheesecloth under that kind of assault.
Fortunately for him, Rational Kell was not in charge.
Kell brought his right arm down in a vicious swing, the spear tip crashing between the hollow of the man's throat and the top of his sternum. Though the spear stopped hard eight or nine inches in, the effect was immediate. The enemy toppled forward. Kell pulled the spear free and ducked to the back of the truck to gain cover.
There was no need. None of the enemy between him and the RV paid him the least bit of attention. Several were down, a few more taking refuge behind vehicles as he was. Kell was so stunned by the weakness of the enemy's resistance that it took him a moment to realize someone was screaming.
Andrea. It was Andrea.
It was then he noticed the dwindling forms too large to be women, running yards ahead of the RV. Understanding was instantaneous. There was no hesitation. Kell knew Andrea had seen the men get past the RV, probably running for their lives, but in the direction of her children.
Not taking time to wonder how damaged his leg must be, Kell pulled the knot holding the heavy pants. Armored as they were, gravity did the rest. The last piece of his original gear, so carefully designed and repaired, fell loose on his body. Shucking them down his legs in a smooth motion, Kell stepped out of the clunky fireman's boots and onto the powdery blacktop barefoot.
There was blood, but he paid it no mind as he sped back into the woods and toward the children. He only stayed in the trees long enough to get past the cars, trusting Laura and Kate to keep the enemies behind them pinned down. After passing in front of them he cut right, leaping down the embankment onto the road and putting everything he had into a burst of speed. With a thoughtless leap he cleared the downed tree in front of the RV.
In the distance he saw shapes, which grew more distinct as he ran. Andrea was locked in combat with a flabby, balding man wearing glasses who looked like an accountant. Two others were urging him to quit fighting and run, and Kell fervently agreed with them.
The slap of his footfalls alerted them, all three men looking his way as he approached. Andrea, not one to waste an opportunity, bit the fat man in the join between neck and shoulder, ripping out a hunk of flesh. With a furious screech the man slammed her against the ground hard enough to make her head bounce, and shot to his feet.
The gun left his holster, caching on the hard leather on the way out. Kell's reaction was again without conscious thought or planning; the spear blurred through the air before slamming into the fat man's chest. There was a harsh snap followed by the spear falling free from his body a split-second after entering. Man and weapon hit the ground together.
Kell was still running when one of the other men shot Andrea.
“Mommy!” Michelle screamed, bursting from her hiding place a dozen yards down the road. The man still holding the smoking gun stood, stunned and motionless. The other whipped around, raising his own weapon. He fired just as Michelle registered the threat and dove to the side, a puff of dust raising a few feet in front of where she'd been as the man fired.
Kell was on him a second later. Rage boiled through every pore as he tackled the man to the road and grabbed his wrist as he tried to swing the gun around to shoot. Thunder cracked next to his head as the terrified enemy pulled the trigger several times out of pure instinct. Kell squeezed the radius and ulna together before savagely jerking the wrist and twisting the entire arm. Bones popped. The man's screams melded with the fading of the last gunshot, though Kell was too far gone to pay either any mind.
Kell screamed wordlessly, punching with all his might. His knuckles shredded against jaw and eye socket over and over again. He felt a finger break, but only stopped when someone fired yet another shot right next to him.
He looked up just in time to see Andrea's shooter topple to the ground, head missing above the eyebrows. Michelle was just pulling herself from the ditch she had landed in, then racing toward her mother. On her side and bleeding, Andrea let her pistol fall along with her hand. The other pressed against her lower left abdomen, trying to staunch the flow of blood.
More gunfire erupted near—or from—the RV. Kell wanted to run, to help Laura and Kate, but he couldn't leave Andrea and Michelle. Or Evan, for that matter, wherever he was. Probably still hiding. Smart kid.
Michelle clung to her mother, openly weeping. “Please help her,” the little girl plead. “Save her, Kell.”
“I'll do everything I can,” he said. More than anything he wanted to kneel down and hold her, comfort her. But he stood as blood pattered to the pavement, watching for more enemies. None seemed to have gotten past the RV. A small flame of hope kindled in him.
Then, an idea.
“Listen, Michelle,” he said. “I need to go up there and help Laura and Kate. I need you to take your mom to where Evan is hiding and stay there. I'll make sure no one comes after you.”
“No,” Michelle said. “You can't leave. I don't think she can move.”
Andrea stirred, sitting up. “Listen, little bug. It's not as bad as it looks. I can walk a little ways. I'll be okay until Kell gets back. And he will come back,” Andrea said with a pointed look in his direction.
“I won't be long,” Kell said. He helped Andrea to her feet and waited for her to take a few steps before going back to the RV. The wound was serious, but not immediately life-threatening. There was no gout of arterial blood. Even a bad gut wound could be treated with competent medical care. It was just a matter of surviving until then, and getting out of this situation.
You know, easy stuff.
On the way he took up his spear again. The reason it had fallen from the body of the fat man was clear; the tip had broken off in the man. Three or four inches of aluminum were gone, the wicked spike no
longer a deadly needle but a blunt end half an inch across.
At the front of the RV he stopped, leaning the spear against the vehicle. Kell took a deep breath.
“Listen carefully,” he said with enough volume to hurt his throat. “You can walk away from this. You have thirty seconds from when I stop talking to throw your weapons down. We aren't interested in prisoners. You disarm, get in the cars you can still drive, and get the hell out of here. We'll call it a draw. If you choose not to do this, we'll come at you with everything we have. First it'll be grenades again. If you survive that, we'll get creative. There are kids with us. If you think we won't die to protect them, then please stay right where you are. Your time starts now.”
The clatter of plastic and metal hitting the ground filtered around the RV, followed by the opening and slamming of doors. Kell fell to his knees in relief. He would have fought to the end for any of them, but it was mostly a bluff. Kate only had the one grenade that he knew of.
Leaning against the grill of the RV right next to his spear, Kell tried to muster the energy to stand. He'd promised Michelle and Andrea to return as fast as he could. When he tried to wind his fingers into the grill so he could stand, he saw the damage to his hands for the first time. For a moment he felt light, then incredibly heavy.
Oh, I'm passing--
An hour later Kell sat next to Andrea, helping the kids keep her still. His blackout lasted the thirty seconds it took Kate to leave the RV and slap him awake. Triage was a nightmare; Kell's foot and leg were in need of attention, Andrea was shot, Michelle had hurt her arm when she dove into the ditch, and Laura had been hit by a bullet fragment.
His own wounds weren't nearly as bad as he'd worried. The bullets had indeed stitched up the side of his leg starting at the foot, but the only bad wound was on the foot itself. That one required some creative bandaging, as a shallow scoop of flesh was missing almost to the bone on the outside of his left foot. The shooter must have been pulling away slightly as he fired, because each subsequent groove notched in the side of his leg was less severe. It did make movement awkward, which was why Kate threw a first aid kit at him before helping the others haul Andrea inside.
Kate hit a rough spot in the road, eliciting loud cursing from Laura, who was lying in the dining nook holding a bandage on her head. From his position on the bed, he could see her legs dangling out into the aisle.
Andrea tried to turn over, forcing Kell to put pressure on her shoulder and hip to keep her still. “Easy,” he said. “Try to stay still.”
Michelle and Evan did their part on the other side of their mother, though the younger could only use one arm. “Is she going to be okay, Kell?” Michelle asked. “Why is she like this?”
Trying to put as much reassurance into his voice as he could manage, Kell said, “I think so. I've looked at her wound, and it's not as bad as it could be.” Not arterial, anyway. Whether her intestines had been punctured, he had no idea. “She's lost a lot of blood, but I don't think she's in serious danger as long as we can get her to a doctor. And Haven has a few of those, from what I understand.”
“But why won't she answer us? Why is sleeping?”
“I don't know,” Kell said. “Might just be the trauma that made her pass out.” It could be true, of course, but he wondered. He'd been sitting next to her when it had happened, and it hadn't been like other people he had seen lose consciousness due to injury. There was no gradual descent, no slow passage into sleep. One second her eyes had been open and focused, fighting to hold herself still. The next she was out, as if someone tapped her skull with a mallet.
His eyes kept falling back on the even thump of her pulse, easily visible on her slender neck. From everything he knew about the human body, Andrea was stable. Her pulse was strong and regular, no obvious signs of any other problems beside the hole in her abdomen.
Though he had no way to prove it, Kell suspected Chimera. More than once he himself had received wounds and had lost consciousness afterward. The zombies were proof that the organism had a degree of neurological interaction while the host was alive. It was reasonable to assume Chimera would push an injured host toward sleep to force the person into a state better suited for healing. It was another piece in the puzzle of his life's work and its amazing evolutionary capabilities.
The RV glided down the highway, every second bringing them close to their new home. Holding his friend still, his mind drifted further into the realm of solutions to the plague than it had in months.
Sixteen
“What the hell happened?” Andrea said groggily.
“You fell asleep,” Michelle said, leaning in to give her mother a hug. “Kell said we shouldn't try to wake you.”
Andrea looked around, obviously confused. “Why aren't we in our truck?”
“You were shot,” Kell said. “Remember? We had to leave the SUV behind where the fight happened.” Kate had complained about the necessity of leaving perfectly useful vehicles nearly as much as she'd done about having to move them all out of the way herself since she was the only uninjured adult. It was just her way of letting off pressure. Griping was her style. She hadn't complained about all the gear she had found in the enemy's abandoned truck and on their bodies. It evened things out.
“Yeah,” Andrea said weakly. “Yeah, I remember...do we have any water? I’m so thirsty.”
Kell fished out a canteen—his own, having left it in the RV—and opened the lid. “I need to take a look at your side,” he said. “Preferably without an audience.”
Michelle’s brows knitted together in an angry V. “I don’t want to leave her.”
Andrea didn’t even have to say anything. Like clouds on an otherwise beautiful day, she released the dreaded ‘mom look’. Evan had already begun to move for the door. Michelle followed him, still angry. Even so, the little girl took her brother’s hand, knowing he would be less comfortable away from people he knew.
“Close the door, please,” Kell said as he began gently removing Andrea’s bandage.
“I’ll get it,” a tired voice said. He looked up to find Laura on her feet. She closed the door behind her, leaving the three of them alone.
“Are you sure you should be up?” Kell asked.
“I’m fine.”
He gave her an even look. “You were hit in the head with a bullet fragment.”
“Which didn’t stop me from shooting perfectly fine, as you may have noticed from the fact you’re still breathing,” Laura said, irritated. “Besides, you wouldn’t be pulling that bandage off without a reason.”
“Half right,” he said with a sigh. “Except I have no plan to remove Andrea’s dressing. I just wanted a little privacy.”
Andrea perked up. “For what?”
Kell began stripping the tape from the bottom of his foot, which hadn’t been replaced since the day before. It was dirty from his barefoot run, but the wound was almost a week old and wasn’t in as much danger of getting infected. “I’ve been working under the idea that Chimera is helping us, making us function more efficiently. Even helping us heal.” He grunted as the tape resisted being pulled off, feeling like he was going to rip the skin away with it. “I think it’s also doing things to us beyond simple passive assistance.”
The tape came off with a distinct tearing sound, but Kell was able to suppress the—very manly—yelp which rose in his throat. He stared at the sole of his foot, expression carefully blank.
“What the hell?” Andrea said.
Laura stared, eyes full of questions.
Where a thick, dark, rough scab should have been was instead a smooth off-white patch blending together with the skin of his foot perfectly. Even with the lighter pigment of his foot, the plug of material contrasted heavily. Kell pulled the first-aid kit over and removed a pair of tweezers. He prodded the wound gently, surprised at how hard the strange white scab was. He pushed a little harder, then jabbed.
Andrea grimaced, recoiling. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Not at al
l,” Kell replied. “I can feel it, but it’s like wearing a glove. Sensation without value.” Pursing his lips, he glanced at Laura. “Reach behind you and hand me the little black bag on the shelf.”
She did, and from it he removed a small butane torch. Laura brought out her own version of the Mom Look. “You aren’t seriously going to do that.”
Kell heated the end of the tweezers for a five count, then brought the hot tip toward the scab. A millimeter before contact, a small circle of material blackened, the ring expanding as he brought it closer.
“Huh,” he said. “I knew heat would do it, but that's a pretty low tolerance.
“So that...” Andrea said, a look of revulsion on her face. “That's Chimera we're looking at?”
Kell nodded. “Yes. And it's working very well. I wonder how much faster I'm healing under there.”
Laura put a hand on his wrist. “Can we not find out just now? Why are you even messing with it?”
Kell put down the tweezers and began dressing the wound. “Because I've done very little research lately. And I was curious. I was thinking we could use heat to kill off big groups. People already are, but I'm thinking much, much bigger. Like using sodium chlorate and water, maybe. Though that comes with its own risks. There's enough of the stuff laying around paper mills to do it.”
Laura snapped her fingers at him. “You're wandering. How does this help you figure out a cure?”
“Sorry. It doesn't, really,” Kell said. “I've actually been thinking about that a lot since I met Andrea, and I have a few ideas. There are things I can work on with the equipment we already have. There's just one other thing I'll need.”
“What's that?” Laura asked.
“Tissue samples. A lot of them.”
An hour later, as Kell reclined in a folding chair jammed next to the fold-out bed where Andrea lay with Michelle nestled beside her, Kate yelled back.
“We'll be in New Haven in ten minutes!”
A low chill swept through him. Their new home was a virtual unknown, everything he knew about it stitched together from snippets passed to him second and third-hand. The place had electricity but not all the time. It had a fraction of North Jackson's population but was geographically larger. The leadership was supposed to be more relaxed in how it ran the place, but Kell had every reason to doubt. Survivors were by and large not the kind of people who let others tell them what to do. Making it out in the world called for toughness, independence, and a generally suspicious nature.
The Fall (Book 2): Dead Will Rise Page 16