Beyond The Fall (Book 1): Relentless Sons

by Guess, Joshua

  The bladed end of the shield continued on, catching in her neck. And I mean it caught. Lodged deeply enough that a push and then a hard shake did nothing to loosen it.

  “Fuck,” I cursed, sliding my arm free of the shield. The confused dead woman pawed at the flat metal now attached to her, trying to find a way to yank it free. She was still at it when I brought club overhead and finished the job.

  I darted away before she even started to fall. I’d fought my way around the edge of the swarm for perhaps two minutes. The outer layer of my armored shirt went from pristine to badly tattered in that time. Several of the plastic bands were cracked, a few missing completely after breaking and falling free through the rents in the fabric.

  Now I was without a shield, but it was worth it. The entrance to Smoke’s camp was only a few yards away. I could see the front ends of weapons moving in the open space between vehicles with workmanlike efficiency. They might be a bunch of murdering assholes, but these people knew how to keep themselves from panicking and defend a breach.

  I had carefully kept myself free from any line of sight that would let the defenders on the ground see me. To my unbelievable luck, no one was up top with rifles. No sentries. Either they were afraid of being made easy targets by anyone from camp two who might be hanging around, or everybody was needed to hold the line against the swarm pressing from the outside.

  The ceaseless up and down strokes of weapons paused and a trio of spears replaced them. It was odd to see all of this from the outside, just arms and tools with no faces or bodies visible, but I formed a mental image regardless. There were at least three of them up front at any given time, likely with one-handed weapons and some kind of shield or mobile barrier. Behind them would be a similar number of people with reach weapons to drive back the dead when they got too close. Not exactly a Spartan phalanx, but close enough for government work.

  I moved in close to the nearest section of wall and reached into my pocket. My own little ampules of ammonia were still intact, and I broke one open and doused myself with it. There wasn’t much, but it was enough to cause even the blood-hungry zombies near me to rear back and create some space.

  The rest I cracked but didn’t fully open. I tossed them in a high arc toward the rear of the swarm. The effect was immediate; the swarm pushed away from the smell as a single unit. Right toward their target.

  The pressure on the defenders doubled, and then doubled again. The wall of bodies became a flood. Spears flicked forward and back with serpentine but hurried grace, the gore-covered points beginning to slow after only a handful of strikes each. Polearms were heavy and it took a good deal of force to break through a skull.

  “Into the bus,” a deep voice boomed. “Everyone but the front lines into the bus, now!”

  The sound of panicked shouts filled the eerily silent evening. The first edge of true night was beginning to fall. I crouched a dozen feet from the rear of the bus, so I decided to make myself useful and moved along the edge of the wall toward it.

  My pack had more explosives in it, which I carefully attached to the only part of the vehicle I could reach, which was the bottom of the rear bumper. Given time I’d have worked my way around the big steel plates—they lifted up once you slid a latch, but doing so would have announced my presence—but in a pinch reaching through the gaps was all I could manage.

  Still, just over a pound of C-4 will ruin your day pretty much no matter where it finds a home.

  I continued on around the bus, working my way toward one of the shorter vehicles. With everyone distracted by the retreat order and no sentries up top, I had a chance at making this work. Once I was out of sight of the bus—thanks to the steep curve of the wall and the other steel plates—I walked freely and fast. An old UPS truck was too tall and sheer for me to climb, as was a box truck with half a faded plumbing logo still visible above its armor.

  The jacked-up pickup, however, was just perfect. Its plates were held on by eye hooks at chest level rather than permanent attachments. Still a nice barrier for the dead, but not a problem for me. I reached up and put my hands on the lip of the truck’s bed and did a pull-up. My head rose just high enough to peek inside the camp.

  Standing not thirty feet away, his back facing me, was Smoke. He was impossible to mistake. He was near the six people in heavy armor holding the breach, waving everyone else toward the bus. They moved hurriedly but with control, grabbing only what was at hand and wasting no time on irrelevant items.

  As I watched, he stepped forward and tapped one of the spearmen on the shoulder three times in rapid succession. It must have been a code, because the fighter immediately stepped out of the line.

  Smoke reached down and grabbed something off the ground, spun it into his hand, and took the spearman’s place. It was an enormous blade—a claymore if I didn’t miss my guess.

  The last few stragglers darted into the relative safety of the bus. Soon reinforcements would show up. I needed to be in the woods by then.

  But I couldn’t help myself. I watched in fascination as the other guards retreated behind Smoke, whose massive frame held the sword like he knew what to do with it. The first zombies reached him in a tide of gnashing, hungry death.

  Smoke showed me why he was the boss around these parts.

  He swung the sword like he knew what he was doing. There wasn’t a tremendous level of finesse to it—the thing was huge—but that’s not the same thing as not having grace, coordination, and control. Watching a large man expertly aim sweeping cuts so they lopped off heads and limbs without visibly slowing the blade was, I had to admit, a thing of beauty. Smoke moved with precision, backing himself up while holding off the swarm. I was a bit confused at first about why exactly he felt the need to do this rather than just make a run for the door with everyone else. Then I saw the bus start to move.

  Not a lot, but it had to work itself loose from the other vehicles bracketing it. Smoke was waiting until the last possible second to run, planning to hop into the door as the lumbering vehicle rolled away. He was making himself the target to prevent zombies from mobbing the bus and potentially getting caught beneath its wheels before it could work itself free.

  Despite what I knew about his people, I felt grudging respect for that. He could have gotten to safety with only marginal danger that those under his command might run into problems, but instead chose to risk his own life to improve their chances.

  And well, sometimes the risk isn’t what you think it is. For instance: I was the real danger in this scenario.

  I pulled myself fully into the bed of the truck, staying as low as possible. From a crouch I freed the 1911, and then vaulted over the other side and into the fray.

  The people on the bus saw me. The windows were all up, no one yet aiming a weapon. I caught their frantic movement out of the corner of my eye as they pounded on windows and pointed at me, desperate to alert Smoke that a threat was rushing up behind him. It didn’t matter. Even if he heard them, he couldn’t have looked and still managed to fight off the dead. What he was doing was amazing, I had to admit that much, but it took all of his concentration.

  So when I stopped, carefully aimed, and shot him in the hand from barely five feet away, things devolved quickly.

  The claymore flew off just as he began a swing, the sudden disintegration of several fingers not conducive to fighting with a two-handed weapon. Smoke instinctively grabbed the damaged hand as he spun to face me, and I put the second bullet into the opposite arm’s shoulder joint. He screamed, deep and loud, but I wasted no time. Jamming the gun into my pocket, I whipped the last of the items I’d pulled from my pack from around my shoulders.

  The coil of rope wasn’t all that long, but it was prepared exactly as I needed it. If you didn’t know what you were looking at, you’d think it was a knotted mess.

  The end was a loose handcuff knot, the loops seeming wide enough to lasso with. I snagged Smoke’s disabled arm first—the shot to the shoulder was a beast. Credit where it’s due
; the guy tried to fight. The thing about being shot, though, is that it gives your opponent a useful weapon to inflict instant and blinding pain. A quick punch to the bullet wound sent him into reflexive spasms while I remained focused on the job.

  I was able to slip the restraint around his wrists and cinch it tight. I yanked up on the rest of the rope and hooked the bowline tied in the middle of it to his neck. There wasn’t much play between the two, and it forced his hands up against his chest. With a careful flick of the wrist, I got the remaining length of rope down his back and pulled it between his legs. The last loop tied in it went in my left hand.

  Holding that loop with all my might, I dropped low, yanked on the wrist restraint, and power lifted the guy right into a fireman’s carry. A quick glance showed people moving on the bus. Probably coming out here to save their dude.

  “Blow it!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Blow it NOW!”

  I lurched to the side as the words left my mouth, trying to get a little momentum in the direction away from the pressure wave. It turned out not to be necessary; Scott was on overwatch and waited until I was almost to the gap before flipping the switch.

  The blast buckled the rear of the bus up and pushed everything else within ten feet away in a sudden burst. But the demo charge wasn’t enough to cause true devastation. I had no doubt there were dead on the bus itself, but it was purely a localized thing. People in the front probably survived. Not ideal. The rest of the team would be taking care of that shortly.

  My job was getting my squirming prisoner away safely. I faced the swarm and took a deep breath before rushing forward.

  Thankfully, the ammonia soaking my clothes helped. The front-most rank of the dead reared back as the scent assaulted them. There was a little room around the entrance already, and this made a bit more. I kicked the nearest zombie as best I could with two hundred and fifty pounds of struggling murderer on my shoulders. It was enough to take the damn thing’s balance, though I had to credit the disorientation from the explosion at least partially. I almost ate it right there. My balance was terribly off thanks to Smoke.

  “We got you,” Allen said, his voice shockingly close. My eyes snapped to the right to find him nestled in the crowd of zombies. Without another word he raised a pistol with an extended magazine and methodically began taking head shots from point blank range.

  Greg popped up from a group of zombies in a pile, blood soaking every inch of his face from the eyebrows down. He swiped an arm across the sheet of red and drew his own weapons.

  Together the brothers cleared a path. They never batted an eye. Even when Allen rushed away from me once I reached the edge of the woods and started heading back toward my people, his face was steady.

  I knew what he was about to do to the surviving members of the Relentless Sons on that bus. I understood the need to keep his composure. One crack and the whole thing might break.

  25

  As I moved into the woods, my own swarm showed up. These were the people tasked with clearing out the enemy whether they were dead or alive. Hard as it was to believe, only a few minutes passed from the first explosions. Backup would be here soon as the sentries reported the noise—those within visual range were quietly killed just before we moved—and we could leave no one behind here to tell any tales.

  Should I say I felt fine with that? It feels like it. If this were a movie, I’d spare a backward glance at most, perhaps a hint of regret on my face before I set my sights on the next objective. The truth was messier. Those people back there being mowed down by my traveling companions weren’t innocent. The worst of them chose this life, chose to prey on the weak and kill children. I didn’t give two shits about them. It was the ones pressed into service because the Sons took their kids that bothered me.

  They didn’t ask for any of this. What would any parent do with a child held hostage by an enemy who outnumbered them on such a drastic scale? This was what their sacrifice bought them. Death on a highway, shot up in a metal box with their fears about the ultimate fate of their kids left unanswered. Sheared off like an unfinished sentence.

  The calculus of this situation kept shifting on me. I walked on quicksand, every new piece of information leaving me less steady, less sure of where I stood. The other wars Haven found itself in were clearer cut. This was wholly different. The danger that we’d get true innocents killed for our trouble weighed on me almost as much as the human tank I carried.

  I sat Smoke down about thirty feet into the woods and pulled the rope tight behind him like a leash. “You walk with me. Don’t do anything stupid. I won’t bother threatening you. You seem like the kind of guy who gets where this is going.”

  Smoke nodded as best he could with his fists now pushing up against his chin and a length of rope around his neck. “Okay,” he said in a strangled voice.

  A figure limped toward me out of the gloom, revealing Tabby. Her expression was haunted, every line of her body tense. She looked ready to run if I so much as looked at her sideways. “You actually did it,” she breathed, then winced as she shifted weight unconsciously to her bad ankle.

  “I did,” I said. “This gonna be a problem? I don’t want to fight you again, but I’m not letting you fuck this up.”

  Tabby’s eyes darted from me to Smoke, who was still bleeding a lot. There was no subtlety to how she measured the situation, nor any doubt about the conclusion she had to reach. I was still relatively healthy, and she was not. Smoke was injured.

  She shook her head, misery written in the lines of her face. “No. Goddammit, no. Logan is going to die and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “No,” said that strangled voice. Tabby and I both looked at Smoke in surprise. He rotated his neck, trying to get a little slack. “Patch me up and I’ll tell you.”

  I thought about asserting some authority just then, the long habit of my work rising up to take control. I got a handle on the impulse at once. I wanted him to talk. That was the whole fucking point of this. Above that, the look of sudden, fierce hope on Tabby’s face was all the motivation I needed.

  “Then we better get back to camp,” I said, fixing my gaze on Tabby. “All of us.”

  She blinked in surprise but didn’t argue. Maybe she was biding her time, but I doubted it. Smoke just handed her a light in what must have seemed an infinite darkness. If she was anything like most parents I knew, she’d take any risk and endure any punishment for the chance to learn more.

  We moved on, hurrying as best we could. The sound of gunfire behind us quickly went from an almost physical thing to fading and sporadic pops like logs in a dying fire.

  Within two minutes, those who finished the job began to catch up with us. Allen rushed past carrying Greg over his shoulder. Kara met up with us and let Tabby wrap an arm around her for support. Everyone picked up speed, even Smoke. He was smart enough to know there would be consequences for deliberately slowing down or trying to yell for help. His best bet was to bide his time and hope he could escape, and he knew it.

  Leaving a fresh hell behind us, we filtered through the woods and made our escape.

  Most of the vehicles were still at camp when we got there. Let me clarify: all the vehicles that should have been there were accounted for. I let Jo and Bobby take Smoke off my hands, though I stayed with them as everyone loaded into vehicles. Now that we had our prize and had done our damage, there was no reason to stay.

  Scott drove the van while Bobby and I acted as nurses for Jo. Digging a bullet out of a man in a moving vehicle was a great way to slip and knife an artery, but fortunately the wound to the shoulder was mostly clotted. It could wait until we stopped. The hand, however, was a nightmare. Jo worked on it for a solid half hour, picking out bone fragments and using a soldering iron to cauterize here and there.

  That was a fun experience. Bobby had to sit on Smoke to make it possible, and I put his arm into a joint lock and spread his remaining fingers so Jo could work. As hard as it was physically, holding the prisoner dow
n was basically mindless work. My brain switched to its usual routine as I zoned out, leading me to wonder how far-reaching the consequences of today would be.

  I glanced at Tabby, who sat in a jump seat watching all of this go down.

  Jo finally sat back and wiped her brow. “Okay, you’re good for now. Once we stop I’ll pull the dressing and see if I can take that bullet out.”

  “Thanks,” Smoke said automatically. He grimaced at once, apparently realizing how bizarre it was for him to thank his captors. He craned his neck to meet Tabby’s eyes. “So you want to know about the kids.”

  “I want to know about them,” I said coldly. “Them first, but we have a lot of long discussions ahead of us. You said Tabby’s son is still alive. Let’s start there.”

  I ignore the startled look on Jo’s face. Bobby, sitting next to me, gaped. “What? You mean her kid is...holy shit.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. He’s one of the captives. Tabby mentioned that right before she pulled my own gun on me.”

  The van jostled a little. Guess Scott overheard that part. Jo’s jaw locked tight, her manner going as frosty as my voice was moments before. “Did she, now?”

  “Hang on,” Bobby said to Jo, raising a hand. “I’m not happy about it either, but we should hear her out. I mean, she could’ve killed Mason or taken him prisoner when he was hurt. She didn’t.”

  Jo was remarkably wise for her years—maybe just in general—but we were family. Not the kind you’re born into, but the sort you choose on your own. Aside from her quick mind, she was one of the most...well, normal people in my life. Her reactions were what you’d expect from any young woman whose much loved older brother was mistreated.

  She was pissed.

  “I’ll listen. I won’t make any promises about whether or not I beat her face in. Just so we’re crystal.”

  “Eh, I’ll take it,” Bobby said. He glanced at Tabby and a dim shadow crossed his expression. He could sympathize with her as a parent who lost a child, but he wasn’t the type to be blinded by it. “Make it good.”