Beyond The Fall (Book 1): Relentless Sons

by Guess, Joshua

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a little while, eventually broken by Tabby.

  “You know, I just love hanging out with you guys.”

  21

  It took us two days to find a way through. The truth of any organization or group of people is that no matter how disciplined, there is only so much mindless work any collection of human beings can do before they make a mistake. Intentionally or otherwise, someone didn’t close off all the roads as well as they should have.

  Miles to the east we found an access road that was overlooked. True, we had to drive across a field or two before running into roads that connected with the ones running parallel to the highway the Sons camped on, but we got there.

  This is the part where you expect me to thrill you with how I suited up and hunted my prey like a character from an action movie.

  I didn’t. We didn’t. Because this was now a group effort and the stakes were too high to take stupid risks. In fact, I spent a lot of time beating myself up for the ones I’d taken the first time. Stupid call on my part. Any operator worth their salt knows better than to rush headlong into a fight with unknowns, but I planned for it anyway. I wanted it.

  Not this time. Instead of risking every life with me by moving too quickly, we were methodical. Our campsite was a few miles east of the road, picked only after thorough scouting by Allen and Greg, with Jo doing spot checks to make sure there weren’t any hidden traps. I took a lot of pride in the fact that Jo, who I’d spent years personally training, was the first to wonder if the gap in the defenses was a deliberate one meant to entice enemies in.

  We never spotted any watchers or enemy scouts keeping an eye on the crack we slipped through, so the group decided it was unlikely. But we kept watch anyway. Behind enemy lines, doing anything else was suicide.

  Allen and Greg did the majority of the scout work for the first day. They watched Smoke’s camp as well as the adjacent one, gathering descriptions of people and vehicles to bring back to Tabby. Very little changed. No large movements of people. It looked like the camps themselves wouldn’t move even if the people themselves traveled a fair amount.

  “Smoke took two guys from the other camp and headed north,” Greg reported at the end of our first day inside the lines. “Hopped in a big ol’ pickup and drove right through the swarm. Zombies actually moved aside. Guess it happens often enough that they know it’s best to get out of the way.”

  “Sounds like the dicks who kept me captive,” Tabby said as she read over Allen’s notes. “I’d have to see them for myself to be sure, but the vehicles match.”

  There was a pause in the conversation, one of those uncomfortable silences where everyone is thinking the same thing while being too polite—or afraid—to say it out loud.

  “You’ll get your chance,” I said, nodding to Tabby. The guys will try to get back over there in the morning. If that truck is back, we’ll assume Smoke is too. Not that it matters either way if you’re just trying to identify people in the other camp. The refugee one.”

  Tabby looked at me curiously. “Refugees? Is that how you think of them?”

  I shrugged. “As good as anything. We sent them running from their post, after all. Feels right. I can’t imagine their bosses are very happy with them right now.”

  I suspected Smoke taking a pair of the refugees north meant there was going to be a meeting between the guys we’d run out of our territory, Smoke, and whoever was up the chain from him. I had to think that was the man or woman at the very top. Which probably meant they’d be at the distribution hub. Not a long drive by the reckoning of how things were, but moving through the zombie swarm would stretch it out.

  Which meant we’d have the chance to watch the results as they happened. I desperately wanted to be out there watching as Smoke rolled back in, to read his body language when he rejoined his camp. Whether or not the men surely being questioned by the boss man returned with him would also be informative about how the Sons handled failure. You could tell a lot about an organization by how it treated people who fucked up.

  I’d make my first trip in the next morning. Without Tabby, to start. Getting in close enough to see without being seen should have felt like a natural thing for me to do, but to my shock I felt unease at the prospect. I’d been caught last time. Maybe I was getting old. Whatever the root cause—age, overconfidence, or just plain being reckless—the end result was the same.

  For the first time in ages, I was nervous. Not wringing my hands nervous, but even the slight flutter in my chest and tremor in my belly was more than I’d felt in years.

  Snatching up my shield and a random weapon from the line of them sitting in a neat line on a drop-down shelf attached to the outside of our cargo truck, I aimed myself for the edge of the camp. “I’ll be back. Gonna go patrol for any stray zombies and lay down a little more ammonia to keep them away.

  I grabbed a spray bottle of the stuff from one of the sentries at the outside of the camp, never bothering to look back. Me going out for a little exercise wasn’t odd. It didn’t necessarily look like I was trying to burn off the nervous energy. Certainly I didn’t expect anyone to bat an eye over it.

  Which was the whole point. I didn’t need them to see me falter, even just a little. Work seemed like the best way to clear my head.

  “Here, zombie zombie zombie,” I called softly into the woods. “I’m bored and I want to kill you.”

  Nothing. I was simultaneously pleased that our small band of people hadn’t managed to lure any of the dead away from the much larger camps, and annoyed that I didn’t have a convenient handful of enemies to work out my stress on. I fully admit how fucked up it is to need that dangerous thrill to feel satisfied, but if we’re being honest few people go into my line of work with perfect mental health.

  Unsatisfied, I hung the claw hammer at my belt and unhooked the sprayer of ammonia. We were trying to keep a thicker layer of coverage on the side of our camp facing west, since that was where the enemy camps rested. It would only take one bad shift in the wind to draw zombies to us, and if that happened a barrier would come in handy.

  I worked for about twenty minutes, slowly walking the quarter mile stretch and laying down a fine mist of repulsive smell. I found myself lost enough in the work that my normally active peripheral vision missed the incoming scout until he was almost on top of me.

  I’d made a point to memorize all the names. “Scott, right? What are you doing back so soon? I thought you and your partner were taking the overnight shift. Something wrong?”

  Scott, a reedy guy in his mid-twenties with a thick dark blond beard and dark eyes, looked more nervous than worried. “I don’t know. Kara is still back at her post, watching the camps. She sent me here to tell you what we saw. Thought it might be important.”

  He paused to let me talk, an annoying habit some scouts adopted. It was a sad truth that in any bureaucracy, people in charge of others felt it was their responsibility to interrupt needlessly even when critical information was being passed along. Some folks just needed to feel more important than receiving intelligence gathered from the hard and dangerous work of another person made them. “No foreplay, son. Just tell me.”

  “Looks like there’s some tension between Smoke’s people and the ones who captured you,” Scott said. “We saw people in the second camp arming up. They have two sentries posted on top of their vehicles, but they’re not keeping watch for intruders. They’re focused on Smoke’s people. We thought maybe they were worried about the pair that were taken away.”

  I cocked my head at him. “And you thought this was important enough to leave your post for?”

  I didn’t put any accusation in the words, but I could see from his reaction that Scott still found it in them anyway. Which was fine; I wanted to hear his reasoning. It was why we sent people out in twos in the first place. Always leave coverage in case someone has to run back to share intel.

  “I did,” Scott said a little defensively. “If they’re worried th
e other Sons are gonna kill them, they might rabbit. If they do, we’ll have to pick between chasing them or staying here to watch the rest of them. Figured you’d want a heads up and have people ready either way.”

  I favored him with a grin and slapped him on the shoulder. “You were right. Head on back to Kara and be super careful they don’t see you coming. I know you’re good, but if Smoke’s people expect violence, they might be looking harder at the trees just out of habit.”

  Scott nodded, a serious expression on his face. “We know the drill, sir. If they see us, we’ll head away from the rest of you.”

  “Good man,” I said, though the words felt hollow. Of all the hard edges people had to develop since the Fall, the almost religious belief in self-sacrifice over putting others in danger was the most troubling to me. On the surface it was admirable, a trait to be lauded and encouraged in others. But the degree it was taken to made my bones itch. I found it creepy to an incredible degree. Scott wasn’t saying he’d run south and try to lose any pursuers before circling back to us. He was saying he’d keep going until he was totally free or dead, and then figure out what to do from there.

  The Union, and on a granular level all the communities that formed it, centered on the idea of people working as one toward a greater goal. At first this was survival. Eventually that benchmark was well and truly achieved. Then it was stability. After that, rebuilding civilization.

  It was the last one I worried about. The crucible of those early few years tempered the human race, but maybe not in an ideal way. The mindset needed to endure the horrors of watching most of the people in the world die and to walk over their corpses to manage basic things like eating and finding a safe place to sleep...it might not be the best fit for the long and often boring work needed to remake what was lost.

  Scott turned to go, but I put out a hand to stop him. “Listen. If some shit goes down, whether it’s a fight or even if your spotted, both of you haul ass back here. Now that we know things might get dicey soon, it’ll be better to have two more trigger fingers than a few extra minutes of safety. Besides, if they come they’re gonna have to do it on foot or on bikes. Otherwise they’ll have to drive along the highway until they hit a path through the trees. Blocking off all those side roads is a two-edged sword.”

  Scott searched my face, though what he was looking for I couldn’t say. Maybe to see if I was humoring him or speaking from pity, though neither was the case. I just didn’t see a need for a couple kids to throw their lives away for minimal benefit.

  God knows I’ve watched enough wasted potential drain away in front of me. The world being what it was, I saw no reason to witness it again. Not unless I had to.

  “You’ll give everyone the heads up?” Scott asked.

  “Of course,” I said with a wink. “We’ll be planning contingencies before you’re out of earshot. Like I said, be careful. I thought the woods were safe, too. And then they got me. Eyes open, son.”

  Scott gave me a little two-fingered salute and moved off at a measured trot. There was nothing military in his bearing or attitude. I doubted he’d ever served. But he was disciplined. All of them were. I took solace in the fact that, properly aimed and constrained, the feral need to protect could be channeled into the extreme focus and dedication needed to become something like me.

  In the old world, I was a rarity. The sorts of training and skills I developed were rare.

  Now a new generation absorbed those lessons like mother’s milk. Scott had been in his late teens when the Fall happened, but he adapted to be able to kill at need, ghost through enemy territory at will, and observe brilliantly. The younger kids were even better. This was the only life they could remember.

  Again that dichotomy of emotions welled up. Relief that they would be so prepared balanced against a deeper dread about what that meant for them.

  After all, there was a reason people like me were rare.

  22

  We decided to put off bringing Tabby along to view the enemy camps. I wanted to get my eyes on the situation first. I didn’t think she’d suddenly decide to give us away, not really, but neither did I want to risk having to run without soaking up the details at my leisure first.

  Moving in close was easier than I expected. The woods had grown wild and thick in this area as they did almost everywhere people weren’t. The season was still green enough that visibility from the road was limited. I followed a series of hashes cut into the trunks of trees by the scouts, showing the best way to the observation post they’d set up.

  The trick was to find a spot you could look through without being seen. I’m making it sound way easier than it is. The work is tedious. You have to climb a lot of trees to locate a sweet spot in the branches that offers cover and visibility. Allen mentioned to me it took him and Greg nearly four hours to find one, and they had to move in fits and starts the whole time to avoid being seen.

  I moved along a trail they blazed, and I was silently thankful for it. There was no crushing ennui in play. I didn’t have an overwhelming dread or sense of pointlessness clawing at my mind. But I was tired, mentally and spiritually. Part of it was being injured. Part was worrying about Jo’s theory that the Chimera in my body might be slowly doing terrible things to me even as it tried to help. Then there was the fear of what happened if I got seriously hurt again. Say...while attacking a group of enemies I promised to kill.

  None of those thoughts would stop me from doing what I had to, but I did worry a doubt or fear would strike at just the wrong moment, and that worry pissed me off. I was supposed to be beyond that sort of thing. I’m famous for being able to push everything else aside and get the damn job done.

  “Ugh,” I quietly grumbled as I carefully climbed the tree using the knotted rope one of the scouts lowered down to me. That was the upper limit of how much I was willing to express my inner turmoil to the external world. Yay for unhealthy suppression!

  The blind—and that was how I thought of it, because it resembled nothing more than a hunter’s cozy little hideaway—was too small for three of us, but the scouts were way ahead of me. Scott and Kara left when I arrived with Greg and Allen, and Allen kindly climbed a few branches down and slumped back against the tree.

  Greg silently handed me a small set of binoculars and nodded toward the break in the coverage, which was artificially increased here with extra branches and leaves. We were about three quarters the way up an especially tall white oak in a sea of shorter trees. Thanks to the efforts of the Relentless Sons in clearing their camp areas on the highway, there was just the right combination of clear space around them to give me a good view of it all while keeping us hidden.

  The tension was obvious at once, but it was only one detail of many. The way I absorb this kind of information isn’t always easy to relay. It comes in flashes as I connect facts to experience to theorize. Here’s what went through my head in the first ten seconds.

  Two guards in camp two sitting on top of trucks. Both facing camp one—Smoke’s camp. The angle was high enough to show me the interior of camp two, presumably belonging to my captors. The handful of people visible inside its makeshift walls didn’t mill about. They sat in a group, heads tilted toward each other, bodies leaning in. They were strung tight. Ready for anything.

  Camp two also had sentries. Four of them, all lazily seated on lawn chairs atop a school bus making up one wall of the space. Only one actively watched their opposite numbers. The others spoke to each other, gesturing expressively as they carried on a silent conversation in pantomime. None of them were watching the zombies in the road. Or for other threats. The position of the two encampments kept us out of their line of sight unless they looked up. It wouldn’t be hard. They didn’t do it.

  Each of the camps was made up of circled vehicles with drop-down panels added to create a relatively solid outer wall. Common tactic, one we used ourselves. There were no other vehicles sitting outside camp two. They must have used all of theirs to construct the safe space. Camp
one had two extras, both surrounded by zombies. But they were modified with roof access. Ladders stretched across the small distance from those roofs to the top of the bus.

  Sloppy. It was a way in. All you had to do was wade through the swarm of dead.

  A small fire burned in camp two, not far from the wary group. A sudden swirl of sparks rose up, and all four watchers on the bus immediately gave the smaller camp their full attention. I heard the faintest pop and immediately understood; a knot in a piece of firewood had burst. The immediate reaction from the four guards said a lot. Their lizard brains interpreted the sudden noise as a threat, and however relaxed they appeared, they were instantly ready to do violence.

  Interesting. And useful.

  “I know that look,” Greg said in a low voice.

  “Hmm?” I almost hummed, distracted. “What look?”

  Greg nodded toward the enemy with a wry look on his face. “You’ve got an idea rattling around in your head. Something mean, if I know you at all. You just got that hard glint in your eyes. And that smile.”

  I shook my head. “I had the binoculars over my eyes, man. There’s no way you could see my eyes.”

  Greg waved a hand at me. “Please. It was all over your face. Don’t even try that shit. So what’s the play?”

  I rested my chest against the trunk of the tree and tapped my fingers along the bottom of my chin as I thought. “That depends. How far away are the other camps? And how thick are the zombies between here and there?”

  Greg looked at me curiously for a few seconds before realization dawned. His own expression was not what I’d call saint-like. “You mean, say, if they heard a commotion and needed to come running, how long would it take ’em to get here?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Pretty much that.”