“They're leaving,” Kell said. “Time to check with command.”
Lee led the way, following a narrow path through the woods. Kell looked back often, both to make sure no one was following and to try for a glimpse of the retreat. He didn't envy the soldiers dying in the road, trying their best to shoot men who only popped into view from behind their trees or armored nest long enough to fire a few rounds.
The closer they moved toward the command post, the thicker the concentration of soldiers. New Haven had a lot of people, somewhere in the neighborhood of two thousand, and fully three quarters of them were armed and out for blood. The Union forces who had retreated from the UAS as they forged toward New Haven had joined them, more than doubling that number.
Once word spread that the UAS was focusing its efforts on New Haven, the rest of the allied communities had sent even more people.
Even with the losses suffered a few nights before, it was easy to field eight hundred people to strike at the vanguard. Not a trick they could do twice, but enough of a swat on the nose to make the enemy cautious.
The trees thinned out, revealing a large clearing with a single large tent. Lee peeled off, muttering about getting something to eat, while Kell ducked beneath the canvas.
Will was sitting behind a desk, one headphone pressed against his ear. There was a look of intense satisfaction on his face.
“Guess it worked?” Kell said when Will finally put down the headphone.
“Perfectly,” Will said with a grin. “The three choppers managed to take out the last of their artillery and do quite a lot of other damage before turning back.”
“Is there enough fuel left for another run?”
Will shook his head. “We were insanely lucky to get that much aviation fuel. This was a one-time deal.” He smiled again, showing teeth. “But damn if it wasn't worth it. They're gonna have to come straight at us, now.”
Kell worked in the command tent for the rest of the day. Reports came in faster than usual, as the Union had no choice but to use radio contact. There was a chance the enemy would be able to listen in, but as they were only sharing information from the front lines rather than transmitting orders over the air, the risks were minimal.
The hit-and-run tactics worked for only a little while; as soon as the enemy got itself under control, they were able to mount counterattacks. The UAS was stretched across fifteen miles of road, however, so it wasn't that difficult for the Union fighters to separate into predetermined groups and act as guerrilla units.
At the very least, it would keep the UAS too busy to do more than hold their ground.
Late in the evening, Dodger returned from the field, dirty, sweating, with blood soaking the cuffs of his jacket. Kell stood as the man came into the tent, offering his chair.
“Thanks,” Dodger said tiredly. “Can you get me something to drink?”
Kell unhooked the canteen from his belt and handed it over. “All yours.”
“What went wrong?” Will asked as Dodger took a long swig of water. “You weren't supposed to check in until morning.”
Dodger belched, wiping drops of water from his lips. “Man, that's good,” he said. “Nothing went wrong. As a matter of fact, I came in to give you some good news.”
Will twirled a finger impatiently. “Go on.”
Dodger set down the canteen. “We were able to disperse our captive zombies ahead of schedule. As we speak, our people are leading them through the woods lining the road. Within the next two hours, the UAS will be dealing with a thousand zombies.”
“Good,” Will said. “Other than that, is everything going to plan?”
Dodger nodded. “Yep. Fighters are splitting off into groups of twelve, spreading out all the way to the back of the UAS line. They'll hit and run constantly, coordinate as needed, and hide the rest of the time. We have enough supply dumps hidden out there to keep our people fed for at least a week.”
“More, if we take heavy losses,” Kell said absently as he organized reports.
“That's true,” Dodger said sourly. “But we don't expect it.”
Kell leaned back in his chair, scratching at the stubble valiantly trying to become a beard. “What's the end game, though? I know the tactics, but what happens if we can't defeat them before they take New Haven?”
Dodger raised an eyebrow at Will, who shrugged. “He's going to hear it anyway. Might as well tell him.”
“If they don't turn tail and run after we've hit them with everything we've got, we let them take the place. We wait until as many of them have moved inside as possible, then we light the whole thing up.”
“What?” Kell half-shouted, horrified. “The whole point was to stop that from happening!”
Dodger chuckled ruefully. “Son, the whole point is to save as many of our people as possible. New Haven as a place isn't important at all compared to that. If it comes down to it, I'll happily slip the switch and let the explosives and fire do the work.”
Will put up a hand. “It also sends a message that we're willing to do anything to keep our people alive.”
That statement hung in the air for a few seconds. Then Kell said, very carefully, “You can't seriously think that will matter.”
Will blinked. “Of course it will.”
“I don't think it will,” Kell said with a shrug. “I'm not saying we shouldn't fight, but I don't think killing everyone attacking us will make the UAS stop in their tracks and reconsider. Look at the lengths they've gone to already and ask yourself if that seems likely.”
“You may be right,” Dodger said, “but that doesn't change anything in the here and now.”
Kell nodded. “I know. Whatever else happens, we still have to fight.”
It was full dark by the time Kell made it back to camp. The command post would move as needed to avoid the enemy, but everyone else stayed in widely-dispersed clusters of tents and other shelters. The timing of the war was a small but very real blessing; June was as close to the best time to sleep outdoors as you could hope for.
The guards nodded to him as he stepped into the camp proper, little more than a handful of tents circled around a cold fire. A few glow sticks hung from tent flaps, just bright enough to let him see where he was going.
There was no warning; simply a burst of noise like thunder, then screaming. Kell whirled back toward the entrance, his brain not caught up enough to let him operate on anything but instinct. In the distance, bursts of light signaled muzzle flashes. The guards were already running, their own weapons raised.
Kell had passed dozens of people on the way here, some returning to camp, others heading out for duty. All of them armed. Shocked, he hesitated, unsure whether he should run out to assist the guards.
“Help!” shouted a familiar voice. “Someone help me! He's been shot!”
He dashed to toward the sound of the voice, saw the flurry of activity through a flap pinned open. Someone was on their back, another hunched over with hands pressed onto the chest of the prone body. A third frantically moved around the tent as if looking for something.
“K!” Jess said as he barreled through the opening. “We need help, they shot him!”
Laying on the floor, his chest struggling to rise, was her husband. Josh.
Blood welled between her fingers to run in thick rivulets down his armored coat. His eyes were open, but there was no sign of consciousness in them. Shock, of course, and the blood loss wasn't helping.
Kell knelt, assessing as quickly as he could. There was at least one wound beneath her hands, and two others that seemed less severe. The one in the upper right chest could wait, if it hadn't pierced a lung. He thought not, it was too high. If it had, there was little he could do about it. The other seemed to be a graze, so close to the edge of his coat that Kell wouldn't have thought it hit Josh at all if not for the rime of blood around the hole in the fabric.
His vision narrowed, his attention coming into such sharp focus that everything else fell away. Someone—the third per
son in the tent he'd never seen before, presumably—thrust an emergency medical kit into his hands. The only rational thought going through his head was a review of every second of his training, running at warp speed.
Jess acted as his nurse, moving her hands when he asked. This would be the worst sort of meatball surgery, if it came to that, but before he could attempt anything he had to know what he was dealing with.
The good news was that it didn't seem arterial. As Kell's gloved hands probed the wound, blood continued to well up, but not in a volume that seemed immediately life-threatening. The entry wound was large enough to allow him to slide in his index finger, which he did hesitantly.
It was while he was trying to determine whether Josh's heart had been hit that the man stopped breathing. Kell's hand, only inches from the heart, felt it stop. Across from him, Jess looked up and met his eyes, tears streaming down her face.
Kell looked at his hand, carefully watching as he pulled it free so he could begin CPR. Though, if it was blood loss, maybe internal bleeding—
Josh opened his eyes.
“Holy shit!” Kell shouted. Still no breathing or heartbeat.
Zombie.
“Why are you yelling?” Josh asked, confused, then fell unconscious.
By the time help arrived, Josh was breathing again, his heart pumping. Kell handed him off to the medical team, but said nothing about his temporary death.
Jess stayed behind at the request of the medics. They promised to send word.
“Kincaid,” she said to the man who had been silently helping. “Give us the tent, please.”
“Sure,” Kincaid said. “I'll be close if you need me.”
When they were alone, she pulled a pair of beers from a cooler. “They're warm,” she said. She sat across from Kell, scrubbed a hand across her wet cheeks, and popped the top off the bottle with one hand.
They drank in silence for a long minute.
“What was that?” she said at last. “He wasn't breathing. How the hell did he talk?”
Kell hesitated. “Can I trust you?”
She actually laughed, though there was pain behind it. “You helped when we needed it. You tried to save my husband's life. You can trust me with anything, after that.”
It was said without artifice, a statement with the ring of absolute honesty.
So he told her.
He explained Chimera, and his role in creating it. At her insistence, he even gave an overview of how it worked, including the structures the organism grew which allowed it to take in air without using the lungs.
At that, Jess gaped. “He was able to talk because he breathed through his skin?”
“It's more complicated than that,” Kell said uncomfortably, “but essentially. There would have been at least some use of his lungs, and...”
They talked for a long time after. It was only when Kincaid appeared carrying a message from the mobile hospital that they stopped.
“He's alive. You can see him,” he said to Jess.
Kell said his goodbyes, assuring her he would take the time after the fighting was done to explain everything to her husband, as well as answer any other questions she had. She thanked him and jogged into the darkness.
He only paused to scrub the blood from his hands and wrists, not even bothering to take off his boots before laying down. The thin camping mat and sleeping bag felt like a king's own bed to his weary frame. It had been a strange, exhausting day, and though his body begged for rest, his mind ran in overdrive.
Kell would happily answer any questions they had, though it wasn't solely altruism which drove him. Josh had died, yet was still alive. Chimera had done something completely new, and the rational part of his brain, the dedicated scientist and master of observation, was foaming at the mouth to get time with the man. Kell had to study him.
To get that chance, he would have offered anything.
Twenty-Two
There was a reprieve the following day. The UAS, being a much larger and ungainly force, was like a river barge; it changed course slowly but inexorably. The flood of zombies had thrown off their game, but every indication was that they would attack as soon as possible.
It gave the Union soldiers just one day to prepare, but Will and Dodger decided to do the last thing anyone expected and ordered an attack of their own.
Kell had no doubt it would be brutal, but after hearing every detail, he was convinced it was the best idea. Given the current situation, going on the defensive would be tantamount to suicide.
The day of rest came and went, and the Union forces found themselves spread out along the wooded perimeter surrounding New Haven. Kell was among them, watching through his binoculars as the seething mass of UAS soldiers built up along their front. They had begun returning at dawn, and even hours later they were still showing up.
The road was a solid wall of people and vehicles for as far as Kell could see.
“We're not fighting that,” Lee said. “You're not moving toward them even an inch, so stop thinking it.”
Kell's mouth twitched as he held back a smile. “You can't read my mind, little fella.”
“I might be smaller than you,” Lee said in a lazy drawl, “but don't think I won't put you down and cuff you for your own good. You're too important to walk into that meat grinder. I was crazy to let you do it once. Twice is out of the question.”
It was hard to argue the point, given the odds. The UAS was more careful this time, watching the trees for any sign of movement. They would find none, at least on the road close to them. Not only was the morning sun up, making staying hidden next to impossible, but it had also been a tactic with a limited lifespan.
“How long?” Kell asked.
Lee glanced at his watch. “Less than a minute.”
The seconds ticked by glacially, Lee counting down the last ten. “...three, two, one.”
Nothing happened. Kell frowned.
Fifteen seconds later, the UAS line exploded.
“It's the end of the world,” Lee said. “You can't expect the timing to be perfect.”
It happened with cruel efficiency, just as Will and Dodger had planned. Far to the east, well beyond where the UAS could have possibly sent scouts without being seen, were three pieces of artillery. They had been in place for more than a month, their aim perfected as much as possible for exactly this moment.
They fired in sequence, so close together the booming reports were one continuous fluctuating sound. The shells fell among the crowded men and women, blasting dirt and asphalt and body parts outward in expanding rings of destruction.
The initial salvo did its primary job, which was to cause riotous panic. The front ranks, packed with several hundred bodies, ran forward in a desperate bid to escape the death raining down on them.
Those unfortunate souls, Kell saw, had the presence of mind to keep their weapons raised as they fled. It was an act of bravery, strength, and level-headed thinking he would have been proud to see in his own people.
It did not save them.
The landmines were arrayed in staggered lines to allow the maximum number of people to hit them at once. Even from a distance, the sound hit Kell as a solid wall of force, like standing next to a fire alarm going off. The Union soldiers, waiting for this moment, fired even as the dust and debris from the mines was still rising.
Their bullets raked those clouds, unconcerned about whether they hit the people still running through them. Their target was the huge gathering of enemies at the mouth of the clearing, who were once again trying to regroup.
Those hundreds of rounds acted as suppressing fire, a deterrent against more UAS soldiers heading toward the mostly depleted mine field. Before the smoke could clear and the enemy could unify once more, the last trap was sprung.
All down the road, hidden antipersonnel mines went off in a massive staccato burst of detonations. Kell watched in fascinated horror as forty of them exploded at once, tearing people apart with terrible ease.
Ar
ound him, New Haven soldiers moved through the trees. They stopped here and there, using a trunk for cover as they fired off a shot. Most of them carried hunting rifles with scopes, an army of men and women used to calmly killing targets at a distance.
A bell began ringing frantically in a pattern which made Kell's blood run cold.
Soldiers were attacking Union command.
Kell ran, long legs eating up the distance. Lee shouted at him as he tried to keep up, but his words were lost in the rush of blood pumping in Kell's ears. Laura was at command, as Will's body man. There were other facts, including the limited number of guards there due to the massive attack taking place at the moment.
Command had been moved northeast since the previous day, moved to a position which should have been all but impossible for the enemy to find. Nestled atop a hill deep behind a copse of pines and shielded on two sides by sheer rock face, the idea that anyone could have stumbled across it was ludicrous. More, the band of scouts assigned to patrol the area should have given warning if anyone was sneaking about.
Kell burst from the trees at the base of the hill with his spear at the ready. It wasn't a steep ascent, but he didn't think he'd be making the climb. At least forty soldiers carrying assault rifles trudged toward him from the opposite direction. The first to notice him cried out, leveling his gun.
He would have died then if not for Lee. The smaller man made good on his promise, tackling Kell with the perfect form of an NFL veteran. They tumbled to the ground together, Kell's spear flying from his grip, as bullets shredded the air above them.
The few soldiers who had been climbing the hill, firing toward the trees, turned to face the commotion below. Kell saw that much as he tried to regain his footing. Lee had bought them a few more seconds, but that was all.
Gunfire tore into the ground a foot from his head. Kell pushed against the earth with all four limbs, frantically trying to stay a moving target. It was a miracle he hadn't been hit yet.
The Fall (Book 3): War of the Living Page 19