The rest of the swarm exploded with activity. There were only a dozen, but most of them were living people. Several pulled knives, darting forward to attack.
Kell screamed as he rammed his spear completely through the closest foe, using its superior reach to stay unharmed. He dropped to one knee, flexed with his entire body, and flung the enemy over his shoulder like a bale of hay.
The spear slipped from his hands just in time for another attacker to slide in front of him and thrust a knife into his belly.
Kell heard someone shout “No!” and gunfire erupted everywhere at once. His left hand locked onto the knife hand of his attacker. His right latched onto his face, armored fingers crawling upward with vise-like strength. Kell's fingers found the edge of his eye socket and scrambled to gain purchase there, sending the enemy into a frenzy. Suddenly the pressure on the knife was gone, both hands gripping Kell's right wrist in a wild effort to pull it away.
Kell let him, using the momentum to yank the man forward. Kell dipped his face, pushed his head forward, and felt the man's nose shatter against the crown of his skull. Then he yanked the knife—stuck in one of the hard plastic scales of his armor—free.
One quick slash across the throat, and the enemy was down. The thrill of satisfaction was bittersweet, primal victory tinged with sadness. It only lasted a few seconds, right until the first bullet tugged at his shirt.
The desolate spot had become a small battlefield. One of Kell's gunmen lay dying only a few feet away, ragged breathing forcing a fine mist of blood through entry wounds in his chest. Several of the enemy were down, the rest fighting.
One man, still clad in his grisly camouflage of zombie gore, caught sight of Kell. He jumped back from his own fight, hand darting inside a pocket and coming out with a small gun.
Kell dived to one side, trying to put bodies between them, but the uneven ground betrayed him. His boot caught on something, sending him sprawling. Puffs of dirt accompanied the roar of gunfire, close enough he felt the wind from the bullets. Squirming, he tried to pull himself to his feet.
Searing pain and deafening noise told him he'd been shot. A white-hot line traced itself against his ribs, and breathing suddenly became an action he had to think about and endure. Paralyzed with the sudden vise gripping his chest, Kell could only look up as the man ignored the rest of the combatants and steadied his aim.
Time slowed, as it often did in these moments. The irritating realization that Kell often found himself in these sorts of situations was compounded by the knowledge that he almost always put himself in them to begin with. The shooter, motions practiced and controlled, only waited a few seconds between shots. The tiny shifts in posture, muscle tension, and balance were obvious from this end of the gun. The tightening around the eyes might have been kabuki theater for how clear an indicator it was for the scant seconds left in his life.
The act of firing a gun looks, in slow motion, like a full-body blink. It's a dozen small actions aggregated into a single act with an inevitable outcome. Practiced fighters will recognize this and, when possible, use the tunnel vision to their advantage. Unfortunately for Kell, he was in no position to do so.
Lee, on the other hand, was both willing and able.
Kell saw him coming from behind, but Lee didn't stab Kell's shooter in the back. Instead, Lee swerved around, machete vertical in both hands. The small shoulder bump Lee gave the man was enough to throw off the shot, which carved a notch through the skin on Kell's shoulder rather than going through his throat or chest.
There was an expression of pure, wonderful surprise on the shooter's face as he took in the slim figure wielding an absurdly large blade. Surprise barely flickered on his face when Lee dropped his shoulders back, twisted his hips and wrists, and gracefully turned the blade horizontal. The cut took the shooter right below his nose.
Kell watched in shocked disbelief as Lee continued the cut, pulling away cleanly, and seamlessly attacked the next enemy. Luckily, only a few had been able to pull their guns free, as none were firing now. Going incognito meant not carrying large, obvious weapons, or Kell and his people would surely have been dead by now.
Lee never stepped more than a few feet from Kell. There was no need; like most fights, this one lasted only a few minutes that felt like days. Most of the enemy were down. Lee attacked the remaining opportunistically, slashing at easy targets when their backs were turned and their attention focused on fighting others.
Kell scrambled to his feet, gritting his teeth against the pain. Right hand covering the wound on his ribs, he lashed out with the knife in his left.
As one of the archers fought with an attacking woman, both fell, bloodied and sluggish. The archer dragged her down as she sank a knife into his belly. Kell got there seconds too late to help the man, but fast enough to stop the woman from rising. He dropped a knee to her back, knife to her throat.
“How are we looking?” Kell asked, too busy to glance around.
There was a pause filled with a pained grunt and a wet snap. “We're good,” Lee replied.
“How many of you are there?” Kell asked the woman, who remained carefully still.
“Just us and our scout,” she replied immediately. “Haven't seen him in a while. I guess you found him first.”
The remaining archer moved in and helped Kell secure the prisoner. Relieved of the need to hold himself carefully in one position, Kell ambled to the nearest tree trunk and sat against it.
“Do you believe her?” Lee asked, handing Kell a small flask.
“I shouldn't,” Kell said. “But I do. Maybe because I've been shot a few times tonight and don't want to imagine having to keep looking for more of these guys.” He took a sip from the flask, half disappointed to find it was water.
Lee watched the prisoner, whose hands were tied behind her back with a spare bowstring. “She didn't hesitate. I think you're right. She assumed you'd kill her if you thought she was lying, so she saw no reason to.”
Kell nodded, then met Lee's eyes. “You saved my life. Thank you. That sounds kind of lame, but...”
“But you're shot and it's hard to think of the right words,” Lee suggested. “Been there before. And you don't need to thank me. That's my job.”
Kell watched Lee organize the surviving members of the group, effortlessly taking control while making sure everyone was safe, constantly scanning for danger.
Somehow he didn't seem like such a little man anymore.
One of New Haven's attack vehicles found them after a few minutes of slow progress toward the wall. Kell had never been so happy to see a pickup truck in his life. He gladly accepted Lee's help getting in the back, where he relaxed (as much as possible) by laying flat and staring at the sky.
“I wonder if we shouldn't have them do a quick drive around, just to make sure there aren't any more people hiding out there,” Kell said.
Lee opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he said was lost to Kell. Between heartbeats, the scene was gone. It felt a little like falling asleep after a very long day. His vision fuzzed to black, and a moment later the light returned, only now he was laying in a bed and not in nearly as much pain.
“Huh,” he said.
Kell tried to sit up but was defeated by his sheet, which was wrapped around him tightly. He tried to work his arms free, but a hand settled on his shoulder.
“You shouldn't move,” said a woman's voice. Kell flopped his head over to look at her.
“Gabrielle. How'd I get here?”
Gabrielle leaned over, tucking the sheet back around him. “You passed out in the truck,” she said, nodding to one side of Kell's bed. “He helped drag you in here, then wouldn't leave until you woke up.”
Craning his head further, Kell caught sight of Lee, who was rubbing sleep out of his eyes with the back of one hand. “About time,” Lee said.
Kell grinned. “You didn't have to stay here, man.”
Lee stood and stretched. “That's a pretty damn uncomfortable chair. It was a
trial. But you know what they say, we never leave a man behind.” Lee tipped an imaginary hat at Gabrielle and made for the door. “I'll swing by after a while. I need a meal and a change of clothes.”
Still shaking off the cobwebs, Kell slowly looked around. “Am I in the clinic?”
It was a private room, though fairly small. One window was, of course, boarded up tight. The other streamed morning light from behind him. Rather than a hospital bed, Kell was reclined on a queen-sized mattress.
“Yep,” Gabrielle said. “This used to be the master bedroom of the house. We keep regular beds back here for people with serious injuries. Yours was the worst of it, so lucky you. You get a room all to yourself.”
“How bad is it?” Kell asked quietly.
Gabrielle hooked Lee's abandoned chair with her foot, drawing it next to Kell's head and sitting. “The wound to your shoulder wasn't much. More than a graze, but the damage wasn't severe. I'd take it easy with that arm, but given how fast people heal nowadays, it shouldn't take long.”
She paused, then shrugged. “If it's the plague making us heal faster and get sick less often, and we're pretty sure it must be, then I call it a win. Anyway, you had a little cut to your abdomen. Lee said you were stabbed. Going by the state of your armor when we sliced it off you, you had a lot of near misses.”
Kell's brow furrowed. “What do you mean? I don't remember...”
“Guess it can get kind of blurry,” Gabrielle said. “Your armor was cut up pretty badly. Lee thinks someone was trying to cut you from behind, but apparently the fight was hectic. We also found two severed fingers, four broken teeth, and a couple pieces of skin wedged in there. We're pretty sure those are from zombies. You had a hell of a night.”
Kell shrugged. “It's about average, really. Any fight I walk away from is a win.”
“Which brings us to the gunshot wound,” Gabrielle said. “The bad news is you took a bad shot to the ribs. From what I've heard from treating other folks in your group, the scouts cleaned up that mess and think you were hit with a magnum load. Long story short, the bullet hit your rib and broke it. Shattered it, really. There were splinters in the wound, which we had to pull out. Normally with a fracture we'd just sew you up and wrap it, but that wasn't an option.”
Beneath his sheet, Kell gently slipped a hand over his chest, fingers gliding across the bandage stretching from his armpit to just above his hip. “What did you have to do?”
There was a tug at the corner of Gabrielle's mouth. “The first thing they teach you in school is never to open a conversation with a patient by telling them not to worry, because it makes them worry. But I'm being for real, here. Don't worry. It's not a big deal.”
“This feels really weird,” Kell said as he prodded his side.
Gabrielle slapped him on his uninjured side. “Stop fucking with it. You're doing your best impression of Adam over there, and those sutures are still fresh.”
Comprehension took several seconds, mostly because Kell had avoided church for the previous thirty years. “Y-you took my rib?” he sputtered.
Shrugging, Gabrielle stood. “Calm down, you big baby. It's not unusual. Lots of people with severely damaged ribs have had them removed. It won't really affect your everyday life. And hey, this way you don't have to go through six weeks of barely being able to breath while the bone heals. Really, we did you a favor.”
The joking tone threw him off. It was bizarre, feeling the barest outline of the void in his chest. Not that he would have known or even noticed had she not told him, but now that he did he couldn't think of anything else. It was like being a kid and constantly running your tongue over a missing baby tooth. There was a piece of his body just gone, no longer in residence.
Kell looked up from gingerly prodding the edges of the bandage when Gabrielle put a hand on one of his feet. She stood at the end of the bed, face (somewhat) serious.
“Believe it or not, this really was the best way. There wasn't much left to work with. We were concerned that even trying would be too risky. If we took a stab at putting the pieces back together, there was a chance of sharp edges sawing into your chest or splinters working themselves free. Those things can do awful things to you. We did what was best.”
Still trying to wrap his head around it, Kell muttered something.
“Didn't catch that,” Gabrielle said.
“I was just taking a walk,” Kell repeated. “When all this happened. Just a walk.”
With a chuckle, Gabrielle opened the door. “Well, I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but maybe you should consider taking less walks. This one could have easily killed you.”
Kell woke with a start.
The room was dark. Lee had come back again later in the day, not the only person to come by for a visit. Mostly he'd been drifting in and out of sleep. Between the injuries, the drugs, and the boredom, it was easy enough to do. Laura, Dan, Scotty, Chris, and the handful of other visitors hadn't stayed long. Too much to do.
Now he was completely awake, lucid. That weird pressure was in the air, the change you couldn't quite explain but somehow told you in absolute terms that someone was in the room.
Thin moonlight filtered through the window, shining across Will Price's face.
“You scared the crap out of me,” Kell said in a low voice. “Don't you knock?”
Even in the dim light, Will looked tired. Though a young man—much younger than Kell, who wasn't knocking on forty's door yet—the lines etched in his face were deep. The crow's feet forming at the corners of his eyes, the frown lines around his mouth, the furrows across his forehead, all these things spoke of the incredible pressure Will was under. Yet he had taken time to visit.
“Didn't want to be seen,” Will replied. “People might ask why I'm taking the time to come visit you.”
Kell smiled. “Really? I spend a lot of time in your office, man. People probably assume we've gotten to know each other pretty well. Maybe they think we're friends. You probably could have gotten away with visiting a little less suspiciously.”
Will returned the smile. “Friends. I don't have many of those around here. Between my history and being the one who takes the blame for everything that happens in New Haven, I'm not very popular. But that isn't why I'm here,” he said, shaking his head. “How are you doing? I couldn't exactly ask around.”
Kell detailed his injuries. “I'm on bed rest here until they let me go or a more serious injury comes in and they need the bed. Apparently there's a really, really big incision beneath this bandage, and they're worried about me ripping it open or getting an infection.” He shrugged. “Normally I'd argue and be neurotic about being away from my routine, but this hurts enough that I'm just going to be a good boy and enjoy being waited on hand and foot.”
“Bed rest,” Will said with a wistfully “Must be nice. You don't sound very worried.”
“I'm not,” Kell replied. “At least, not about an infection. When's the last time you actually saw someone with one? Bet it's been a while.”
Will's eyebrows rose, but his voice dropped. “You think it's Chimera?”
“Has to be,” Kell said. “Goddamn thing is actually doing what I designed it to do. Better late than never, I guess.”
Leaning back in his chair, Will steepled his fingers across his belly. “Even more reason for what I'm about to ask you,” he said.
“You've got that tone of voice that tells me this isn't going to be a request, Will.”
“It is,” Will said. “Mainly because I can't make you do it.” He paused, as if grasping for the right words. “Look, I get why you went over the wall. We made damn sure people saw the Hunters as a threat we eliminated, and we kept the UAS quiet. Some know about them, sure, and a lot more are suspicious, but nothing concrete. You were trying to help keep that information from causing us problems. Right?”
Kell nodded. “That, and I didn't want one of them to blow a hole in the wall.”
“Which I also appreciate a lot,” Wil
l said with a grin. “Point is, I get why you did it. I'm not even saying you should have done any different. Keeping people from panicking is vital, and finding out an army is out there gunning for us would do the trick. Our long-range scouts tell us the UAS are trying to make some political statement, something to scare our people into giving up before the fight even starts, spread propaganda. You know, all that bullshit people used to think worked in war.”
Will sighed. “I appreciate what you did, but you could have been killed. You've volunteered for a lot of dangerous jobs, Kell, but this time you came too close. I need you to promise me you'll stay inside New Haven from now on. Down the road, when you're healed, you can do guard rotations, but that's as close as I want you to get to being outside those walls until it's safe to send you off to work with John.”
The crisp note of authority Will usually imbued his words with was notable in its absence. If anything, he sounded uncomfortable. That convinced Kell more than anything that this was something Will desperately felt was the right call.
“Yeah, sure. I'll keep my head down,” Kell said.
“Thank you,” Will whispered. “Like I said, I don't have many friends. And I don't know if you are one, but I think you could be. That's ignoring your value to every living person on the planet...”
Kell raised his hands. “Yeah, I've heard the spiel enough times. Spare me.”
“Sorry,” Will said. “Speaking of friends, I have an easy job for you with one of mine if you want it. Since you can't fight at all until Gabby clears you, and I know you'll go insane with nothing to do, I found you some work.”
Kell snorted. “You're very altruistic all of a sudden.”
“Please, don't think of me as a hero,” Will said. “I'm just a man like any other.”
“Full of shit is what you are.”
The Fall (Book 3): War of the Living Page 10