The Fall: Victim Zero

by Joshua Guess

  Kell blanched. “I was trespassing, then.”

  Alan let out a booming laugh. “Hell, kid, I don't shoot people for coming onto my land. I've seen you up here before, with a lady. I didn't even know you were there, to be blunt. Some...zombies came up the road and onto the hill. We went out to clear them off.”

  Paulie abruptly turned and left the room, stalking away with her shotgun in hand.

  Kell gave Alan a questioning look. The old man sighed.

  “Her boy was with us. Fifteen years old, and he got it in his head to run ahead a bit. By the time we got to him, it was too late. And when you stood up by that tree, all we could see was what our flashlights caught. You were bloody and ragged and stumbling.”

  “You thought I was one of them.”

  Alan raised his hands in a 'what can you do?' sort of gesture. “Shots weren't meant for a fella as big as you, to be honest. So used to shooting targets my own size, kind of surprised the second one got as high as your neck. Sorry about that.”

  Kell flexed his wrists, trying to loosen them up. “Don't worry about it. But why was I out so long?”

  “Well, first when we got the are cleared out and figured out you were still alive, we tried to put you in the back of that big ass truck of yours. I'm close to seventy and Paulie weighs maybe a hundred and twenty-five soaking wet. We dropped you, and you hit your head pretty damn hard. We get you back here and I'm trying to decide if I want to risk giving you something to keep you out while I fix up your wounds, which is a bad idea with a concussion, but Paulie says it'll be worse if you wake up while I'm digging a bullet out of you.”

  Kell smirked. “Smart lady.”

  Alan smiled, pride on his face. “Damn right she is. She's my brother's stepdaughter. Been working for me for the last few years. Losing Jeremiah hurts, man. Hurts a lot.”

  “I'm so sorry,” Kell said.

  “Me too, son. Me too.” Wiping at his eyes, Alan continued. “Long story short, you got real damn lucky. Got you just under your arm and in the top of your neck. Missed the arteries, though God only knows how. Did a good bit of tissue damage, but we got you fixed up. You were weak, though, and we were worried about that head injury. So I kept you under for a while.” Alan swept a hand at the medicine cabinets. “People like to joke about horse tranquilizers, but if you do them right they work wonders. Good thing, too, because your hand got infected pretty bad. Fever hit you hard, and you started to get delirious. Had to lower the dose of your happy juice, but you're so damn strong we had to keep you tied down. It wouldn't have been pretty if you painted the walls with my brains in your fever. Especially since I'm fairly sure Paulie would've followed up by doing the same with yours.”

  Alan stood up to get himself a glass of water, complaining that he hadn't spoken so much at once in a decade. Kell took the time to work on the straps across his body, which were easy enough for a conscious, alert person to undo themselves.

  The older man leaned back against the counter as he sipped from his glass. “Said I'd seen you out under that tree before once or twice. That lady you came with, she was your wife?”

  Kell nodded tensely. “She was.”

  “Came up to the old picnic spot...after? Wanted to be someplace with happy memories?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” Kell answered.

  “You were in the city, so you knew what was coming. You weren't armed, though. But you stopped here anyway. Were you looking to die, son?”

  He gave the man a steady, even look. “And if I was?”

  Alan shrugged. “Then I'm sorry for you. You got a right to pick your time, kid. Didn't mean to interfere with that, but I couldn't sit by while someone needed help, especially it being my fault.”

  Kell smiled at the old man. So earnest, so straightforward. “It's okay, actually.”

  Alan raised an eyebrow. “So you didn't want to go out, then?”

  Kell finished unbuckling himself and carefully swung his legs over the side of the cot. “No, I did. You saved my life, so you deserve the truth.”

  “But not anymore?”

  Kell stood, slowly, and tested his balance. He felt weak but not feverish or ill. “No, not now. I wanted to die because my wife, my daughter...” he trailed off at the lance of pain through his heart, but after a moment had it under control. “There didn't seem to be much point, you know?”

  Alan nodded. “Felt the same way eight years back. My own wife Ellen got cancer. Took her a long time to go.”

  “Still don't want to think about it, to be honest,” Kell said. “But lying down and giving up doesn't feel like the best way to honor their memory. I know Karen would have wanted me to keep on, so I will. For her, right now. But maybe, someday, for me.”

  Alan walked over and gripped Kell's shoulder. “I'm glad to hear it. Don't know what the world has to offer any of us now, but I can't say it hurts my feelings to know my last patient—and my only human one ever—is willing to see if he can find out.”

  The older man smiled and clapped Kell on the arm before turning away. “I'm gonna see if we can get some food in you. Try to walk around a little, drink some more water, and I'll be back in a few.”

  “Thanks, Alan,” Kell said with a smile.

  Alan waved and walked into the hall, shutting the door behind him.

  The smile melted from Kell's face as soon as he was alone. He hated to lie to the man who had saved his life, but it was unavoidable. Some small part of him knew Karen really would have wanted him to soldier on, but that wasn't it.

  At some point during his fever-driven delusions, the answer had come to him. Not fully-formed, but more like a maze he'd gotten a glance at. Enough to know that his ideas were on the right track. Enough to know there was a way out if he could find it.

  “I'm going to cure this fucking thing,” he said to no one, and everyone.

  Dinner was vegetable soup, from an enormous stockpot of the stuff. There were chunks of meat in it, which Kell learned was venison. When he remarked he'd never had deer meat before, Paulie laughed.

  “You're a city boy, then?” she said.

  “Yeah,” Kell replied. “From here originally, but went to school in California. Parents were never into hunting or anything like that.”

  Her crooked smile was not entirely pleasant. “Don't want to come off rude,” she said. Alan mumbled something that sounded like, “But you probably will anyway,” and Paulie shot him a withering glare.

  “Not to sound rude, Mr. McDonald, but I'm not sure how you'll make it out there. Alan says you can stay with us as long as you like, but what he's too polite to say is our supplies here are limited. And you aren't exactly a lightweight.”

  Kell looked down at the empty bowl in front of him, his second, and felt a blush crawl up his face.

  “Now, come on, Paulie. The man's barely eaten anything in the last week. He's lucky his brain didn't fry like a damn egg with a fever keeping him out so long. Or that we didn't kill him with all the tranquilizers. He needs to get his strength back before...”

  Alan trailed off, but Kell didn't need to hear the rest of the sentence. “Look, you've already done more than enough for me. I can leave tomorrow. I feel weak, but I can hop in the truck and head out. I need to, anyway, so I can see if my parents made it out of the city.”

  Paulie and Alan sat stunned. Both of them had expected some kind of argument, but Kell spoke with calm assurance.

  Then both of them started shouting at once.

  “No way you're leaving until you've got some strength back...”

  “You almost knocked out a few of my teeth, getting those cuffs on you. Not going to let you go out there and kill yourself...”

  “Bad idea, you're still healing up...”

  “Don't want to have wasted my time...”

  Kell put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together in front of his face, leaning his chin on them as he let the others work out their reactions. His arms, always thick but much more defined after a week of
living mostly off his own fat reserves, flexed as he did it.

  “You've both risked a lot for me, and I appreciate that. But let's be practical, all right? I am going to leave here. No, I don't feel a hundred percent. Yes, I feel weak. But I'm pretty sure you can't stop me short of putting more bullets in me, and that's just work, work, work. I can handle driving. There's bound to be canned food out there. I'll manage. At the very least I can drive until I find some place abandoned and take my chances. But for a lot of reasons, notably the fact that I don't want to be a burden to you any more than I already have, I'm going. End of discussion.”

  Chapter Nine

  They—mostly Alan—convinced him to stay for another day. Paulie, despite her practical reasoning to the contrary, made sure Kell was stuffed full of things to eat. Not that she cooked (Alan's forte), but she mothered him in her own abrasive way.

  She also took him out to the garage to help him equip for the trip. Kell tried to cry off, but there were many items she and Alan could do without or had extras of that would be handy for him to have. The backpack she gave him had belonged to Jeremiah, Paulie explained, as had the hunting knife and other items. If Paulie had a problem gifting her dead son's possessions to Kell, she showed no sign.

  The backpack was loaded with useful items. The knife, of course, but also a small but well-stocked medical kit, water purification tablets, a tarp, a blanket, fishing line and hooks, enough food to see him through several days, up to a week if he rationed and went hungry often.

  The only thing he really needed that they didn't jam into that pack was clothes, but horses didn't wear them, and they were the only ones of a matching size.

  Though far from comprehensive, the tools and items they gave him would be enough to survive in the short term if he managed to avoid the undead. As both Paulie and Alan were aware of his plans to drive through the city and there were no firearms to spare, Paulie took it on herself to make sure Kell was armed to some degree or another.

  She called it a garage, but the huge room was much more than that. Alan was retired, but until the world had fallen apart had still worked now and then to relieve the boredom. His home housed the clinic area, which was mostly storage since horses couldn't fit into it, as well as a stable and the garage, which was where he treated his patients.

  Aside from the usual things, the garage—which was large enough for five vehicles to occupy in a comfortable row, with plenty of room left at the end—also held a wide array of tools and supplies. There were farming implements for the large gardens Alan maintained. Machetes, a pair of axes and several hatchets, spare mower blades, replacement parts for all sorts of machines he used regularly. Kell looked over all of those items and more, eventually settling on one.

  Looking at his choice, Paulie raised an eyebrow. “You're joking, right?”

  It was a length of aluminum stock about six feet long and three-fourths of an inch thick. Heavier than he'd have thought, it was still easy enough for Kell to carry and swing. “I can use it as a walking stick, and to keep those things at a distance. I don't know how well I'd manage with a blade, and even if I get hold of a gun, I have very little experience with them.”

  She cocked her head, considering. “Assuming I agree, it's still not ideal for a closed space. You need something small in case you don't have enough room to swing that thing.” Her eyes lit up. “Oh, haha. I just had two really good ideas.”

  She rummaged through a box of tools for a minute before coming up with a small, thin crowbar. She handed it to him, obviously pleased with herself. “That's lighter than most prybars you'll find. It's aluminum, too, which you normally can't find. Usually they're steel because that holds up better when you're tugging on them all the time. But you might use it to break in a door once in a while. As a weapon, it should work out fine.”

  She took the aluminum rod from Kell and waved him off. “This thing needs a bit of work. I'll bring it out in a little while. Just don't leave without it.”

  Alan kept a large supply of gas at his house, and he spared eight gallons to top off Kell's stolen SUV. He and the horse doctor chatted while they waited for Paulie to appear, and both of them were curious what the hellish racket coming from the garage was.

  She came out twenty minutes later carrying the aluminum staff, only now the last six inches of it tapered to a smooth, wicked point. Paulie tossed the simple spear to Kell, who caught it out of the air. Up close he could see the rough patches on the sharpened section, but he whistled in appreciation at his new weapon.

  “How'd you do that so fast?” he asked.

  Paulie shrugged, though she was clearly pleased with herself. “We've got power, so I just milled it down a little with a carbide bit, then used the metal grinder to smooth it as much as I could. No problem.”

  Kell smiled, and surprisingly she smiled back. “Thanks, this is great.”

  Then Kell frowned. “Oh, motherfucker,” he said with a pained expression.

  Alan leaned forward, looking around for zombies. “What's wrong?”

  Kell hefted the long weapon in his hand. “I just realized what I'm holding.”

  Paulie tilted her head for a second, then burst out laughing. “Oh, my god, okay. I'm sorry, I know that's not funny, but your face...” She trailed off, trying to hold back her giggles.

  Alan looked perplexed. “I don't get it.”

  Kell sighed, a long-suffering sound, and gestured at Paulie to explain.

  “See, Alan, he's holding a spear. And he's a big black guy, you know...”

  Alan blanched, but didn't laugh. “That's awful.”

  Kell smirked. “Yeah, well, the irony is just overwhelming. At least if some old bastard who even knows that particular epithet decides to use it on me, he won't be lying. Maybe I should get a chainsaw or something.”

  Alan shook his head, and Paulie apologized. Kell winked at her. “Doesn't bother me. There are worse things out there than people who laugh at racist shit. I'd take a world full of them over what we've got now.”

  Paulie sobered, then, and Kell said his goodbyes. He climbed into the truck and rolled the window down a few inches, waving at their receding forms as he drove away.

  The drive into the city wasn't as dangerous at first as he expected it to be. The outbreak had spiraled out of control in a matter of hours—though Alan explained to him that the news organizations had vastly downplayed the reality on the ground—and as a consequence the roads were clearer than he expected.

  Though there weren't as many abandoned cars blocking the way as Kell would have thought, he did have to turn the heat in the SUV off. Bodies were everywhere, and the smell, even inside a vehicle, was nearly too much for Kell to handle. Try as he might it, was impossible to avoid driving over some of them. The sound of bones cracking beneath his tires was stomach-turning, so Kell tried to find something on the radio.

  There were no stations broadcasting.

  The CD player was empty, so he gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the irregular crunching as he moved through the outskirts of Cincinnati.

  “Good god,” Kell muttered as he got his first look at the desolation. It would have been less shocking if the destruction were total. Seeing familiar places painted with blood and soot and body parts made it difficult for him to concentrate on the road. Kell saw the roadside cafe he and Karen liked to visit on their way back from their picnics, the front door ripped halfway off and the dim silhouettes of stumbling forms inside. There was the small family-owned grocery a few doors down, kept in business by busy travelers who didn't want to fight the lines at big chain stores in the city. The grocery had obviously been looted from floor to ceiling. There wasn't even any glass left in the windows. On Kell's side of the road and a few hundred yards down was the outdoors shop where he'd picked out overpriced camping equipment, gear he'd never used since Karen had come up pregnant just a few days later and all thoughts of leisure drifted into the wind.

  Kell stopped and put the truck into reverse, then swung into t
he shop's parking lot.

  The place was closed up and didn't have any obvious damage. Kell glanced around the parking lot and nearby businesses, but didn't see any undead. Alan and Paulie had drilled a mental checklist into him, and from their instruction Kell knew the place wouldn't stay ignored for long. Sound would attract them, especially vehicles, so if he wanted to risk going in and trying to stock up, he had to do it now.

  Kell turned off the SUV and slipped the keys in the pocket of his coat. He left the spear in its place, wedged in the passenger seat floorboard and against the leaned-back seat. Kell rested a hand on the heavy knife at his belt and snagged the light crowbar from his pack.

  The door of the shop was locked at the handle and with a deadbolt, but the building was old and made of wood. Kell considered knocking out the window and opening the locks by hand, but thought twice when the mental image of a zombie laying out of sight against the door invaded his brain. The idea of having his fingers bitten off when he reached in was not an appealing one.

  He had his doubts about the durability of the aluminum tool, but Kell jammed it in the gap anyway and applied steady pressure.

  The bar popped out and slipped from his fingers, ringing loudly as it fell to the pavement.

  “Son of a bitch,” Kell spat. “No need to be quiet now.”

  One massive foot and three solid kicks later, and he was in.

  The shop hadn't been looted, but it looked as though the owner had taken what he wanted. The firearms racks were all empty, as were the ammunition shelves. Kell recalled the general layout of the place, and especially how the sizing for clothes—always a concern for a man of his dimensions—was organized. Working quickly, he grabbed the largest pair of sports bags he could find and threw them open in the middle of the floor.

  Heavy jacket. Boots. Another first-aid kit. Tarps. Emergency blankets. Many pairs of pants, most in greens and browns and tree patterns for hunters. Six t-shirts. Rope. Several knives. Bundles of arrows and packages of various heads to screw onto them. Two compound bows and a fistful of spare strings.