The Fall (Book 3): War of the Living

by Guess, Joshua

  Knowing the mentality of survivors, it didn't surprise him at all that the Union forces were unwilling to do so. It wasn't the most logical choice, of course, being a tactic they had used before, but in the heat of battle the more primal drives took over. Kell felt it himself, a deep and powerful urge to destroy the dead men and women regardless of any other factors.

  What did surprise him was the reaction of the UAS, who were displaying none of the panic he might have expected. They worked in ragged groups, defending each other doggedly if also sloppier than any Union survivor would allow.

  Kell barely slowed, taking it in within a heartbeat, then surged forward with his spear held high.

  His scream pierced the air, deep and guttural, and seemed to galvanize the crowd. Lee and Laura crashed into the line of dead men at the same time as him, knives out and armored fist flying.

  Kell fought with abandon, barely pausing to find new targets. He didn't try to protect one group over the other, but focused solely on killing the dead. Should one of the UAS decide to shoot him or any of his people, there was precious little he could do about it.

  He lost the spear at some point, the shaft ripped from his hands after twisting sharply in a body. The fact only registered to him as a data point, a change in circumstance which send his hands to his belt to pull his knife and baton.

  His left hand whipped to the side, the baton snapping to full length just before crashing into the head of a zombie. The creature reeled, stunned, giving him the time to drive the point of his heavy blade through its ear.

  Kell moved like a storm, never stopping and slowing only long enough to find his next enemy. As it always did, the world faded away, his mind narrowing to a scalpel's edge as fought with everything he had. He maimed as often as he killed, taking every chance to slow and weaken the dead so others might find them easier targets. His mass gave him an enormous advantage, allowing him to kick knees in sideways or backward with ease, crush ankles, and break arms.

  A group of four New Breed came at Kell as a unit, hitting him from all sides. He was disarmed quickly, made easier by the distraction of having a zombie jump on his back from behind, its arm wrapping around his neck. His baton and knife were pulled from his startled grasp as he forced his head forward, then back, slamming his skull into the zombie's face. The arm around his neck prevented him from building up much momentum, but the zombie dangling from him was smart enough to realize head trauma was a problem.

  Its grip loosened just enough for Kell to throw the damn thing with a twist of his hips and a drop of his center of gravity.

  The zombie tumbled awkwardly over Kell's right side, crashing into the dead man latched onto his right arm, trying to remove his armor. The zombie in front of him had moved close, hands raking the breast of his coat. With massive effort, he pulled the zombie on his left arm toward him, slamming those two together.

  He jumped back, momentarily free, but refused to give the undead time to regroup. Instead he screamed again, hands grasping the head of the closest of them and twisting with a savage jerk. The wet snap of bone and cartilage giving way still rang in his ears as he grasped a fistful of another zombie's hair, this one still trying to stand, and drove his knee into its face three times in quick succession. He jumped on its neck after it fell to the earth, both legs pistoning down.

  Kell spun just in time to be tackled by the remaining two zombies, their combined weight more than he could handle. They knocked him on his back, though he managed to hold them off with one arm on each of their chests.

  A shadow fell over them, the sound of a blade piercing flesh and bone, and one of the zombies fell limp. The other reared back, moving with shocking speed to maul Kell's savior. The zombie caught the mystery man by surprise, sending him stumbling back.

  Well, now. Can't have that.

  Kell was on his feet in a flash, and this time it was his arm around a throat. He pulled the zombie away, forearm like a vise as his other fist slammed into its skull. The steel supports built into the gloves made short work of the zombie, leaving a dent the size of a grapefruit.

  Gasping for breath, throat on fire, Kell cast the corpse aside. His eyes scanned to woods for another enemy, but found no zombies. He looked at the man who had saved him, and saw the fatigues of a UAS soldier.

  The man watched Kell with caution written all over his face, his hand hovering over his sidearm. There was something else there, too, though it took him a moment to place it.

  It was the pregnant sort of hope right before the hurricane, the moment preceding learning whether you would live or die. Several men and women watched him on both sides, UAS and Union alike, the entire clearing silent in a perfect moment of anticipation.

  “Surrender,” Kell breathed, “and we'll feed you.” Slowly, he put out his hand.

  His savior stepped forward, blood soaking half his chestnut hair, trepidation in his hazel eyes. He took Kell's hand and shook it.

  “I surrender,” he said.

  Twenty-Four

  The rest of them gave up as well, all but one man who was clearly more ideological than pragmatic. The UAS in the clearing were outnumbered by the Union, a matter of pure luck on the battlefield. They were hungry and weak, better suited to shoot from a distance than fight close up. Kell's people were well fed and strong, not to mention conditioned for the strain of working or fighting all day.

  The eighteen—seventeen, once the lone voice of dissent's companions dealt with him—captives gave up their guns and followed Kell's crew back toward Union territory. Kell allowed them to keep their melee weapons, a calculated risk based on the possibility they'd run into more undead. He also roped six Union soldiers into guarding the prisoners, though several had grumbled about it.

  With Lee and Laura, they were only outnumbered by slightly less than two-to-one. Kell briefly wondered if it was a decision he would regret, but gave a mental shrug. Being a part of the Union meant living according to its philosophical ideals, or so Josh told him numerous times. For Kell, that meant not killing an enemy if possible, because human lives were a precious commodity more than ever before.

  They made slow time walking, but the captives were unable to maintain a faster pace for more than short bursts. Kell considered pushing them but decided he would rather have them capable of fighting if it became necessary.

  After fifteen minutes, Laura, who was in the lead, put up a hand to call a halt.

  “What is it?” Kell asked.

  Laura gazed at their surroundings. “I'm not sure where we are.”

  Lee chuffed. “You're kidding, right? We're in the woods. Going back the way we came.”

  Laura shook her head. “Not exactly. I've been trying to steer us away from fighting. When I hear something, I veer the other way. I think we're more north of where we were. We were pretty deep behind enemy lines, so—”

  The chatter of gunfire erupted close enough to make Kell jump. It sounded like it was right next to his ear. Two of the prisoners fell in sprays of blood as several men in UAS fatigues appeared from the south. They were thirty or forty yards away, and ducked behind trees as Lee fired at them.

  “Move!” Laura said, waving for everyone to follow. She darted toward the north, moving between trees at random to make for a harder target. The captives, spurred by the gruesome death of two of their number, found remarkable wells of energy. Though they were all shorter than Kell and lacking his long strides, not a one had any trouble keeping up as they raced away from the shooters.

  In a clockwork pattern, each of the Union soldiers would stop in turn and fire shots at their pursuers. Each of these stops only cost the shooter a few seconds, which was why they switched off each time. That way no one got so far behind they couldn't catch up by sprinting.

  The return shots grew further apart, then vanished altogether. It was hard to gauge the time they'd been running, even harder to tell where they were. Kell honestly hadn't put any thought to their location when leaving with the captives, assuming the path behin
d had been swept clear.

  They approached a clearing, at which point the landmarks became blindingly obvious. Laura, in the lead, hit the empty clearing first, sliding to a stop at the scene before them. Kell slowed more gradually, coming to rest beside his friend and staring in shock as the rest of the group joined them.

  In the mad dash through the woods, they had moved in a long diagonal toward New Haven itself. The northwest corner of the wall was less than a hundred yards away. The group stood atop the hill the neighborhood that had become New Haven was built on, a fair chunk of the battle laid out before them. The black line of UAS barriers was there, with a large gap through the middle where men and women stood, guns drawn.

  Drawn, but not being fired. Kell's group had managed to get so close without realizing it because there was no fighting happening. It was so bizarre and unexpected that a wave of deep unreality washed over him, rocking him enough to make him genuinely question whether he was really awake.

  The Union forces had pulled back. Some hovered around the base of the wall, a small number compared to those who had returned to the safety of the trees. Even the twelve-man groups who would normally have been ghosting in and out of the trees were nowhere to be seen. That, more than anything, convinced him something important was happening. There was simply no way those soldiers would pass up the chance to strike at UAS soldiers who were standing without fighting.

  For that matter, why were so many of them at the camp? They knew the Union artillery could hit them there, even if those guns had been silent.

  The answer, though Kell did not recognize it as such at the time, walked from around a corner of New Haven. It was a group of men and women with their arms held up. He pulled his binoculars from his pack, needing to see them in greater detail.

  One person at the front of the group only had one arm up, the other holding a bullhorn to his mouth. At this distance it was impossible to even hear the thing, much less make out words. Everyone in the group wore light clothing, shirts and shorts or pants too thin to conceal firearms or bombs. They might have knives secreted on them, but anyone with violent intentions who planned to attack rifle-wielding soldiers with short blades would die proving Darwin 100% right.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Kell mused out loud.

  Laura took the group around the southern edge of the wall, toward what they hoped were friendly faces. Though there was an apparent cease-fire in effect, at least in the vicinity of New Haven itself, Kell and the others had no desire to risk coming too close to the enemy line.

  They walked gingerly, careful to measure every step. The last set of traps around their home was an impressive number of holes in the ground. Simple, but effective. They were another project Kell had broken his back working on, digging for hours at a stretch to create one of hundreds of four-foot spaces in the ground lined with sharpened stakes.

  The battlefield resembled a sort of insane chess board, the thin wooden and fabric coverings broken or torn away. There were no people in the holes, though scarred edges in the dirt and splashes of blood showed there had been not long before. However long the strange pause in the fighting had been going on, it had clearly been enough time to allow the UAS to retrieve their injured.

  As they rounded a small jutting section of wall leading to the south edge of the area Kell's camp was in, a sentry confronted them. His assault rifle was raised, drifting slowly between them.

  “Hold it!” he commanded forcefully. “Identify—oh, it's you.” He nodded to Laura, whose banner of red hair made her memorable. The sentry eyed the passel of mostly-unarmed men and women being guarded, his expression momentarily stunned. “You have captives?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Kell said. “And we need somewhere to put them while we go find the command post. Unless you know where it is?”

  The sentry jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Sure, it's in there. Just go to the eastern gate and you'll see it.”

  Lee frowned. “They moved back inside? Why?”

  The sentry shrugged. “Beats me.”

  The guards at the gate, bloodied and thin on patience, were unsure what to do with the prisoners. After a few seconds of everyone talking over each other, Laura put her fingers in her mouth and emitted a piercing whistle.

  “You two, shut up,” she said, pointing at Kell and Lee. Kell, having spent years with her, closed his mouth. Lee, who was young and in some ways naïve bordering on stupid, opened his to say something sharp.

  To call the gaze Laura bestowed on him cool would be an insult to it. Kell halfway wondered why Lee's eyes didn't freeze and shatter. The younger man took in her stare, and within the space of two seconds wilted into sullen quiet. Kell patted him on the shoulder in understanding.

  “Here's what you're going to do,” Laura said as she faced the guards. “You're going to take their weapons. You'll do it carefully, but you won't harm them or give them any shit. If you do, and I hear about it, you're not going to like what happens. Then you'll put them in the safe room over by the northwest corner. There's no way out of it, and you can lock the door from the outside. Make sure they have plenty of water, and have someone bring them food as soon as possible. After we're done reporting, I'm coming back this way to check on my prisoners. If they aren't drinking water and eating something...”

  She smiled, and there was nothing pleasant in it. The guards, to their credit, got the hint.

  “We'll take care of it.”

  Laura nodded, satisfied. “Thank you.” Turning to the soldiers they had conscripted into helping, she said, “If you wouldn't mind helping them get the captives situated, I'd appreciate it.” Seeing the quick nods of assent, she motioned for Kell and Lee to follow. “Let's go find out what's happening out there.”

  Finding the command post presented no problem given the bustle surrounding it. Men and women dodged around each other as they came and went, some carrying reports while others only hurried along with determined faces. Noticing them through a gap in the crowd, Will waved them over.

  The sea of people parted around them, mostly thanks to Kell's size.

  Will stood, walking from behind the folding table he was using for a desk.

  “You need to hide,” Will said to Kell without preamble. “Get to one of the fallback camps, go into a tent, and don't come out until I tell you.”

  “Can I leave the tent to go to the bathroom, at least?” Kell asked sarcastically.

  Will pursed his lips. “Don't be a smartass. The leader of the UAS force is going to be here in half an hour with half his top officers. I can't risk one of them being in the know about who you are.” He glanced at Lee. “There might be more people like him out there, people like me for that matter. Lots of former military in command positions with their army.”

  Kell put up his hands. “Whoa, wait. They're coming here? Why? What the hell is going on?”

  “Peace talks,” Will said with a note of disbelief in his voice. “I don't have time to give you the play-by-play right now. Ask someone in the camp, I'm sure word will spread that way soon if it hasn't already.”

  Kell shook his head. “The camps will be empty,” he said. “The siren was an evacuation order, remember?”

  Will nodded impatiently. “We've sent people out to tell them they can come back if they want, but there are still some people left. Injured people and their families, mostly. Now get going, I have two hours worth of shit to do and no time to do it.”

  Laura and Lee went with him to camp, though Will had asked both to return once Kell had found a place to stay. Laura took it with aplomb, while Lee grumbled. He wanted to stay and watch Kell's back, but in the end did as he was asked. It wasn't every day you got to help broker a potential peace, even if it only meant ferrying messages or providing security.

  Kell wandered the mostly empty camps one after the other. They were far enough apart to make the walk between annoying without being exhausting, even after the long morning he had already endured. He followed the rough map of their lo
cations in his head, angling toward the mobile hospital. If he was right, Jess would have pulled up stakes and moved closer to Josh. Lacking any other clear options, he would attempt to cadge somewhere to sleep from her.

  The area around the medical center was more fortified than the other camps. A ring of slender, sharpened wooden spears jutted from the ground, surrounding all but the narrow entrance path. Lines of wire looped around them, turning the individual spears into a makeshift fence. Behind that was a trench several feet deep, followed by a low earthen mound made up of the excavated dirt. Sentries stood guard at the entrance and all around the perimeter, spaced a few yards apart.

  Say what you will about New Haven, but they didn't take risks with their sick and wounded.

  The guards waved at him, cheery enough to make him certain they had heard about the stark reversal of fortune taking place at home. He waved back, then scanned the wide semicircle of tents for any sign of familiar faces.

  Jess was sitting in front of a cold fire, head down as her hands worked with almost mechanical precision. She looked up as Kell approached.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey yourself,” she replied as she worked, twisting small metal rings into chain mail. “Didn't expect to see you here. I thought you were working for Will.”

  He pulled up a seat—a section of tree not yet split into firewood—and stretched out his legs. “That was the plan, but Will had some...concerns.” He glanced around, making sure no one could overhear. “Some of the UAS might know who I am.”

  She nodded in understanding. “So you're laying low while they're not shooting at us.”

  “Yeah, and I was out in the field when that went down. What happened? One second we're shooting at each other, the next the war just stops.”