Beyond The Fall (Book 1): Relentless Sons

by Guess, Joshua

  It was a cold calculation to make, but the world was a much harder place than it had been. Sometimes you had to make a tough call that meant putting people at risk if you wanted to stay alive long enough to end a threat decisively.

  Which was why the darker part of my heart got a little thrill when I saw the flash of light off glass. It took conscious effort not to snap my head up toward the spot in the trees where the glint came from. Instead I kept my stuttering step consistent and moved only my eyes as I drifted ever so gently toward the side of the road.

  The watcher was closer than I’d have liked. I had a rough location on him about five hundred feet away, and if he got a good look at me through his binoculars, I was fucked. Fortunately the glimmer of light appeared to be him doing a sweep or taking a quick look; it vanished almost as soon as it happened.

  I drifted totally off the road and down the overgrown embankment. I made sure to keep up the zombie body language until I was sure I was out of the line of sight. The advantage of climbing up into a tree on the side of a highway was that it gave you a spectacular view in either direction for a good distance. The downside was the limited wedge of that view. Once I was in the trees, I was a ghost.

  Thirty feet inside the overgrown scrub, I crouched next to an elm and pulled off the thin poncho covered in zombie guts. I swung the backpack around and dug through it for a canister before spritzing myself and my gear with it a few times. The overwhelming stench of ammonia almost knocked me on my ass. It’s the one thing powerful enough to drive zombies away for days at a time. Even when the stuff is mostly cleared away, the powerful sense of smell the undead use to hunt will pick up traces. Oh, if it’s faint enough and they’re hungry enough they’ll muscle through and take a run at you, but a fresh dose generally keeps you safe for at least half a day.

  The trick to any successful infiltration is patience. That may sound like the most bedrock common sense imaginable, but try telling it to a hotheaded twenty-year-old kid. I was that kid once upon a time, and the lesson took a few tries to sink in.

  I drifted through the woods at a steady pace, working my way carefully far to the rear and side of the hidden watchman in a wide and slow orbit. Keeping my bearings wasn’t all that hard thanks to a few decades of practice, but even so I had to pause every thirty seconds to make sure I wasn’t getting too far away.

  I worked my way in closer and got my first glimpse of the lookout through the trees. I doubt I’d have noticed him at all if I hadn’t been looking. His camouflage did its job well, but even through the obscuring branches I caught the irregular shape he made against the bole of the tree.

  From a hundred feet away, basically all I saw of him were bits and pieces of his shadow. It was enough. His discipline was strong; the guy barely moved and certainly didn’t make a sound. He was here for the long haul, so I stopped in place and waited for a minute. Better to be sure no one else was sneaking up on me before I settled in.

  When no one took a shot or yelled at me, I moseyed over to an oak and hauled myself up into the lower branches. Once I was as close to comfortable as I was likely to get, I considered the compact survival bow folded up in my pack. I’d meant to extend the leaves and string it before getting in the tree and felt like an idiot for forgetting. Climbing down to do it would risk making noise, so I shrugged mentally and stayed put. It wasn’t like any of my friends were there to see me make a mistake.

  Surrounded by foliage and functionally invisible, I watched and waited.

  Watching an enemy is harder work than most people imagine, and it takes a lot of forethought. You don’t want to eat or drink too much beforehand, because there’s no bathroom. I had an ancient cough drop in my mouth, chalky and disgusting, to get ahead of any urge to clear my throat. Being caught because you sneeze is an embarrassing reason to get shot at. I speak from personal experience here.

  I observed the enemy for a few hours. Small swarms of zombies passed near enough on the road that I could hear their shuffling gait and occasionally smell their body odor when the wind was just right. None of them caught my own scent, which was good, but more interesting was that they didn’t seem to notice the marauder scout. He was a lot closer to the road, yet might as well have been invisible.

  I had plenty of time to ponder this curiosity right up until I didn’t. That’s how shit always goes down in the field. You spend a lot of your day bored and slowly relax, then boom: things change. Sometimes with an actual boom. This was one of those occasions.

  In the distance, a familiar bell tolled. The thunder of a large caliber weapon rolled across the highway, its ripples echoing through the trees. My target reacted at once, straightening in his perch and looking east. I lost sight of him as he shifted positions. A few seconds later the sound of someone climbing down a tree drifted back to me.

  Shit. This was not a shift change. They had a target of their own.

  A few things stood out in my brain, processed in the few seconds between the gunshot and making a decision on what to do next. The first was that the shot was much closer than the miles between here and the other watchman, which meant my initial theory was wrong. There were more than two of them. Probably a series of four or five in a line, a relay system of shooters to warn the next person in the sequence of an impending victim.

  From there it wasn’t hard to work out the rest. If whoever these dicks were had a handful of people to spare, the group had to be large. I also had to assume there were other people in the relay reaching back to whatever base they were working from. Because yes, there had to be a base. Twenty or more bodies required beds, places to prepare food, all the things human bodies needed to function over time.

  The conclusion: this area was saturated with enemies relative to my original expectations. It was pure dumb luck that I hadn’t been seen or even run into one of them. The spacing couldn’t be very close, but it still unnerved me how wrong I was about what we were facing here.

  I stayed put, watching as the scout moved from the trees to the road. My view was poor; showing me thin slices though the branches. I did manage to catch him turn to the east and take off at a dead sprint.

  Apparently whenever prey showed up, everyone was supposed to join in on the fun.

  Terrible reality settled onto my heart. The math was as simple as it was inescapable. I could not stop what was about to happen. I have a reputation for being an expert in combat, and that’s true. I’ve been at this a long time. But part of why I’ve lived this long is a frank and pragmatic understanding of my limitations. Even if every marauder was armed only with knives and bows—unlikely in the extreme—I stood no chance against so many. I could rush out and put up a good fight, probably kill half a dozen and disable as many more, but sheer weight of numbers would take me down in the end.

  So I did the only thing I could, which was to bear witness.

  I dropped down to the forest floor, moving with caution. I knew I was at the far western end of the zone; otherwise I’d have been spotted on my way in. That meant the next closest marauder would be considerably more eastward of my position. These things were logical, but my miscalculation about the threat made me ultra-careful. It was because of this abundance of caution that I arrived at the scene of the crime while it was already underway.

  I ran the last hundred yards or so. The noise of gunfire and men shouting was more than enough to drown out any sound I made. I found a tree with a good line of sight and climbed, hauling myself up just high enough to avoid any sweeping glances to the back.

  It was an ugly sight. A small van sat in the middle of the road, surrounded by men and vehicles. Half a dozen motorcycles stood sentinel around the van, with one large pickup truck sitting across the road to block the way. A man lay on the cracked asphalt, clearly dead. Blood pooled around his body as several marauders in tight leather coats moved toward the open door of the van.

  A woman was pulled out. She fought like a cornered bear, fist cracking across the jaw of a large marauder with a crew cut and short
black beard. Her foot lashed out and took another man in the groin, a powerful shot that proved to be her undoing.

  Without a moment of hesitation, the man she kicked straightened with a roar and shot her in the face. The spray of bone and brains hit a pair of marauders, both of whom flinched back in disgust.

  Yet more leather-clad men began pulling items from the van, all the doors open. As small clusters of the murderous crew hauled goods from the van to the truck, a new development grabbed my heart and squeezed it with a grip like an angry god.

  A child emerged from the van, the dirty hand of a large man closed around her upper arm like a shackle. I read the body language of the crew, all hesitation and fear. They unconsciously shied away from the dead parents sprawled near each other on the highway, as if they didn’t want to think about what had just happened and how it would affect the kid.

  More than that, I could read in their hesitation what they were about to do next. You don’t tense up and force yourself to act when you’re planning to do something you’re okay with. No. You bite down on your bile and white-knuckle your way through things that will leave a permanent scar on your psyche.

  As predicted, the man holding the little girl led her away from the van and brought her to a stop at her dead parents. The other marauders moved away quickly. Her captor took several shallow, shaky breaths before moving with incredible speed and precision. His draw was flawless, his firing almost mechanical.

  The girl went down in a heap, hands curled around her midsection as she wailed in agony. The looting of the van took only another thirty seconds, time in which the marauders never looked toward their youngest victim. She never stopped crying out in pain, physical and emotional twisted together in a soul-deep scream.

  Within a minute, they were on their vehicles and moving away. Quick, efficient, and brutal beyond belief. Even the van was moved away, likely to some dump site. Otherwise they’d have just driven it off to their camp. This too was informative. Wherever they were located, it didn’t have much space. I’d see that for myself. Oh, yes. I absolutely would.

  Even the scouts were gone. They went with the rest of the group. I guess that meant one attack per day was more than enough.

  When the group was out of sight, I dropped to the ground and hauled ass. The girl still wept. She was still alive.

  I couldn’t leave her there. The need to do what I could for her was close to a physical law, like gravity pulling me toward the planet. I was risking my life if there was even one watcher left, but if you can’t risk your survival for the life of a child, I reckon it’s not much of a life to start with.

  Even knowing I’d have died in the attempt, not trying to help her and her parents sooner would haunt me for the rest of my days.

  6

  It wasn’t as bad as it looked, but it was bad enough. I used most of the gauze in my small first aid kit, half the roll of tape, and all of the pain medicine. I had to, after carrying the little girl into the south woods for a few hundred yards to get us to relative safety. She was in shock, barely able to keep her eyes on me for longer than a second before they darted and rolled in a vain attempt to latch on to reality again.

  I could have moved faster by slinging her over my shoulder and running, but that would probably have killed the kid. Instead I cradled her in my arms and tried to keep from jostling the small body too hard. In a weird way I was thankful for the uncomfortable reluctance with which her attacker did the deed. The wound was high on the left chest, well above the heart.

  When I say it wasn’t as bad as it looked, I mean there wasn’t as much blood loss as I expected. I’m no more than a passing field medic. Jo was the one with the real training. I knew enough to understand that the trauma of the shot itself might be causing enough swelling to occlude the flow of blood. Whatever the situation, I had to get her better medical attention than I could manage, and fast.

  I moved in a straight line toward the van, not caring about leaving a trail or moving in a wide circle to shake off anyone who might be following. At that point it seemed likely I’d already have been shot were anyone aware of my presence, but even if someone was staying well back in order to follow me to our little base camp, I was fine with it.

  Anyone who came close was going to regret the decision, if only for a very short time.

  I was halfway to the van when I encountered a couple zombies. I couldn’t outrun them carrying the girl, but putting her down was not an option. They’d swarm her in a heartbeat, and there was no guarantee I could disable or kill all of them before they did. Just goes to show you there are limitations to any fighter no matter how skilled or capable. No one is unstoppable. My own limitations were keenly obvious as I listened to the girl’s labored breath and considered my options.

  My gait stuttered for only a second as I made the decision to at least try outrunning them. The area around me was wooded on every side, a narrow surface road cluttered with years of debris from trees shedding branches and leaves. The road was covered in this mulch a good two or three inches deep, making it easy for my feet to slip should I get too clever about how I maneuvered.

  The problem was the four zombies were directly between me and the way I needed to go and spread out across the road. It wasn’t exactly the Spartan defense of Thermopylae, but the coverage was good enough to make getting to them dicey at best.

  They came, as tireless and driven as the hungry dead always were. I rushed forward as quickly as I safely could, drawing moans of pain from my passenger.

  “Shh, it’ll be okay,” I said between deep breaths. “I’m gonna get you some help. You’re gonna be okay.”

  I kept on trucking until the zombies and I were about ten feet apart. One huge advantage against them is that unlike people, their body language is utterly literal. New Breed might be able to think enough to feint, but not these. My direct line down the middle of the road made them drift more into a cluster there, and when I slowed my roll and swung to the left, they had to reorient.

  It almost worked.

  The furthest left zombie snagged my shoulder with a clawed hand and spun me around. I let it, using the momentum to pivot on my right leg and pull my left up into a tight knee strike. The impact put me off balance and drew another cry from the girl. I had to do a little hop to keep from falling and even then I slid.

  I lifted the girl up and just a hair away from my body, letting the bends of my elbows act as shock absorbers as I did a little dance with the dead people. It was hard—you try holding sixty or so pounds out from your chest a few inches while retaining enough mobility in your arms that they don’t react like iron bars.

  I stomped hard on the knee of the zombie I’d checked, buckling it in sideways. This was a favored move among nearly every survivor because it worked. You don’t mess with results like that.

  But it wasn’t going to be enough; I knew that right off the bat. I took a few steps back and shifted the kid into the crook of my right arm—my dominant arm. I pulled her tight against me and put the left side of my body toward the zombies, giving her all the protection I could.

  I pulled the screwdriver from the pocket of my coat. I decided on a standard grip rather than a reverse since I’d be doing more precision thrusts than slashes. I mean, it’s a screwdriver, right? It’s all pointy end. That’s its purpose.

  I parried away the hand of a zombie reaching for me in the classic Romero pose, limbs outstretched toward my face. I pivoted to the side, sliding my left hand forward as I used the dead woman’s momentum to add some force. The tool drove into her face less smoothly than I’d have liked thanks to her last-second realization that a length of hardened steel was approaching her milky eye.

  I put some pepper onto the last six inches of travel just to make sure. The screwdriver scraped against the inside of her eye socket but broke through the back and into the brain in the end.

  I gave the dead woman a push toward the leg-broke zombie and was rewarded with a nice collision that ended with her weight sprawl
ed across his lower body. The pair of them were between us and the two functional zombies. I set myself for more combat, and then shook my head. Stupid lifetime of fighting got in the way of basic logic. I had a window to get away. I didn’t need to fight them.

  I turned and lurched toward the base camp once more, hoping I wouldn’t be too late.

  Bobby and Jo saw me coming long before I saw them. By the time I got close to them, I was flagging badly. Bobby rushed from his cover and took the girl from me. Bending over with hands on my knees, I took a bunch of long, deep breaths. Then I sucked it up and walked to the van.

  Jo was already working. The girl moaned in pain, and Bobby held her hand. There was a wildness around the edges of his eyes, not to mention being red-rimmed. He’d lost his own daughter to illness before the world fell apart, and I kicked myself for not thinking what the sight of an injured kid might do to him. Not that the consideration would have changed anything. I’d have still brought her here. Yet I felt shitty anyway, because Bobby would have at least realized the problem had our situations been reversed.

  “How’s it look?” I asked, standing close enough to help but far enough away not to bump any elbows.

  Jo had cut away the girl’s shirt and irrigated the wound. “She got incredibly lucky. Unless I miss my guess, the bullet hit at just the right angle and bounced off the outside of one of her ribs. That’s why the skin here is so torn up. Went in and out in the space of maybe an inch. It’s basically a flesh wound. A bad one, but no organs seem to be hit.”