The Fall: Victim Zero

by Joshua Guess

  “If I were going to guess,” Kell said. “I'd bet that you two are letting me follow you and camp with you because you think I might be genuine. But you're being cautious; you want to be able to get away from me if that turns out not to be true. You haven't volunteered any details about where you're from because you don't want to put those people in danger. You're trying to keep me as in the dark as you can because this is a shitty world full of dangerous people.”

  If Laura was surprised by his words, she didn't show it. Kell watched her impassively.

  “You seem pretty sure of that,” Laura said.

  Kell shrugged. “It's only logical. Both of you survived when most people died. That means you aren't stupid. You endured those trailers and were ready to kill when a chance presented itself. That means you're tough.”

  She leaned over the bed of the truck, winter eyes drilling into him. “So what does it mean if we don't want to tell you anything about where we live?”

  Kell smiled. “That you're good people. You're willing to risk yourselves, within reason, but you don't make that choice for the rest of your community. Not until you're sure about me.”

  Those bright eyes were, Kell decided, brimming not only with intelligence but also insight. He gave her nothing in his expression, but he had been that way for half his life. Putting on a show was out of the question; he was certain she would see through false pretenses easily. Laura studied him, the gears turning.

  “I won't lie to you,” she finally said. “You aren't wrong. But I can't think of any way we can be sure you're trustworthy, not immediately. But caution doesn't mean we're going to kill you in your sleep or abandon you at the first chance. I think you deserve to know that much.”

  “Thanks,” Kell said. Then he had an idea. He unbuckled the harness that held his guns; the twin weapons and their spare magazines felt heavy for reasons that had nothing to do with weight.

  Laura caught the belt when he tossed it to her. The surprise on her face was marvelous.

  “Keep them. I'm bad with guns anyway. I'll keep my hand weapons and my spear, and you guys can hold onto my bow unless we're hunting or in a fight if that will help. I'm on your side. I know it'll take time. If this helps you feel a little safer then I'm happy to do it.”

  The sound of the SUV bouncing over the hills echoed into the camp. Laura hefted the gun belt in her hand. “Let's start dinner,” she said. “If Kate agrees, I'll tell you how we got captured. It might not be what you want to hear, but I think it'll be...educational, anyway.”

  “I'm not sure when they caught us,” Laura began.

  Dusk had fallen on the camp. The three of them sat around the fire, Kell and Kate eating what passed as a sumptuous feast, beans and pan bread with a side of actual chicken. There were cases of canned chicken in the supply crates. After eating nothing but jerky and cold canned pasta for days, it was a meal fit for a king as far as he was concerned. Laura had eaten first so she could speak while the others enjoyed their meal.

  “It's been a few weeks, anyway,” she continued. “Our community—and no, I'm not telling you the name, just in case—is large and growing. We go out in teams to haul in whatever we can find. Sometimes that's food. Others, medical gear. Or even just raw materials.

  “Usually scouts travel in groups of four, and we weren't any different. It was me, Kate, her husband Joe and my husband, Joe's brother, Rick. We were in two vehicles but traveled together. At night we made camp in abandoned buildings if they were available. If not we slept in our trucks.”

  Laura cleared her throat and sipped from a bottle of water. Kate seemed mesmerized by the story, but the tension around her mouth and eyes made Kell wonder if part of her wasn't reliving it.

  “We were supposed to move west from our home along a predetermined route for three days. We were searching for critical supplies like antibiotics, food, even seeds. Our job was to haul what we could and mark locations for what we couldn't. That way the next team to go that way could easily find the stuff we left behind.

  “Our trucks were loaded with enough fuel to get us a good distance in that time, but the roads were bad enough that after the first day we were lucky to make forty miles.” She glanced at Kell. “You told us earlier that you were ambushed a few days ago? With a trap in the road?” He nodded.

  “That's how marauders operate. One of the ways. We haven't had a lot of trouble with them where we're from. That made us less cautious than we should have been. We weren't looking around us for threats from living people. We were just worried about the dead. So when we came across a school bus toppled across the road, we didn't think anything of it. Joe was the one who noticed something was off; he saw a chain attached to the frame, and that someone tried to conceal it.

  “We tried to turn around, but men popped up through the bus windows. There were enough of them that each of us had at least two rifles aimed at our faces from less than thirty feet away. Someone shouted for us to stop or we'd be shot. There wasn't much choice.”

  Laura's eyes shined in the darkness, but her voice was steady. “They obviously had practice at it. Three cars full of men surrounded us in less than a minute. They hauled us from our vehicles. Joe and Rick tried to talk it out, thinking the men were just after our cargo. We were prepared to live in the rough and walk back home if we had to.

  “There wasn't any warning. Two of the men surrounding us just shot our husbands right there in the road. As if they were animals. One second, a few ounces of pressure, and your world falls apart.”

  Kate was crying softly, and Laura briefly touched her friend on the shoulder. “Kate and I were hit with something, I think it was a cattle prod or something like it, because I remember falling to the ground. I was shaking, my arms and legs wouldn't work right. We were stuffed into those trailers and tied up, but the nightmare didn't really begin for two more days. It all happened so fast that we didn't have time to fight back. Shooters at a distance, then men sneaking up behind us...we could have fought to start with, but that's the weird thing about being a survivor, you know? You don't take suicidal risks. We'd have been shot and left in the road even if we had the time to attack.

  “The men who captured us treated us like animals, but nothing more than that. They were almost...professional about it. We were fed and watered and given buckets to use as a toilet, but otherwise they left us alone. It was later, when they met up with others, that we found out our worst fears were about to come true.”

  For half a minute, there was silence. It was heavy, and Kell almost wished Laura wouldn't start speaking again.

  But she did.

  “We were traded,” she continued. “We were traded—and I remember this clearly—for ten large bags of rice, two thousand rounds of 9mm ammunition, and three cases of whiskey. There wasn't even any haggling. Do you see? Do you understand? This was such a common occurrence that these men didn't even bother to dicker for human fucking beings.”

  The tears rolled down Laura's cheeks, but she didn't bother wiping them away.

  “We fought them, Kate and I. We fought hard. Sometimes the men liked that. Sometimes they didn't, and they'd put rope around our necks. I passed out more than once...during, because I kept kicking until the man cut off my wind completely.

  “The worst part...well, not the worst, but an awful realization was knowing the people back home would still send out scouting parties. They probably assumed we were taken by the undead. They'd be more careful, at least for a while, and the men who took us would watch. They wouldn't take every group, but if they were careful and made it look like zombies did it, they could carry on abducting people that way for a long time.”

  Laura laughed bitterly. “I remember being so angry, so terrified, my mind just focused in on the price they'd gotten for us. How fucked up is that? I was furious they put a tag on us like a can of soda, so easy. Just like that I was a commodity instead of a person.”

  A soft breeze briefly caught the fire, sending whirls of sparks flaring into the night.
Kell watched them burst with light and then vanish into the deepening gloom. Gone, or so it seemed. In reality the sparks were still there, but changed forever by the fire that consumed them.

  “You know the rest,” Laura said. “That's what you get when you deal with people, K. There are good ones out there, but never for a moment forget the bad ones don't have any law to fear now. They're the worst possible versions of themselves.”

  Kate wept, her body shuddering, but Kell saw Laura's tears had dried. The thin woman leaned against her friend, who held her like a child.

  She was right. It wasn't what he wanted to hear.

  The going was very, very slow. Though his new companions knew the area well, the route they took as Kell followed behind them was wildly indirect. There were two reasons. The first was obvious, which was to avoid further encounters with marauders and because the main roads were obstructed regularly with debris both genuine and arranged. The second wasn't as plain to see, but easy enough to reason out. The women didn't want him to know exactly where he was or where they were all going.

  He suspected they could have made it to the home Laura spoke of and Kate silently yearned for in a day or two, but three slow days of travel later they were still on the road.

  At the end of that third day they camped in a small town well off the beaten path. A century and a half before it would have been called a one-horse town. The entirety of the place could be seen from their vantage point, which was on top of the town's highest building, an astounding three stories high.

  A county road split the place in two. One side, their side, contained a row of old brownstone shops and a single gas station long since looted for any goods. The square roof they huddled on belonged to a Lutheran church, an impressive river-stone edifice that looked like it could take a nuclear blast and stay upright.

  Across the road, what would have been called a subdivision in any larger city stood like a monument to an entire community. Most of the homes there were old, large farmhouses on a scale that spoke of high ceilings and hand-crafted interiors. The spaces between them were large, a reminder of a bygone time when people used their yards for social gatherings and events.

  He thought it strange that the homes should be so obviously old but so close together, when each should have sat on its own tract of land worked by families who brought sustenance from the rich, black soil. It raised questions in his ever-curious mind, and a pang of guilt and sadness shot through him. There were so many little details he would never be able to learn.

  Around the edges of the haphazard neighborhood were newer places, smaller and doubtlessly more efficient. They were uniform in their blandness and lacked the sense of history of the older homes. They, too, stood empty.

  They ate canned beans and jerky and watched the sun set over houses that served as gravestones. There were few undead in the area and no wind to speak of. Their smell wasn't attracting any unwanted attention, and Laura hadn't been exaggerating when she explained everyone from their community had to learn the hard way how to avoid detection. Kell prided himself on how sharply he had honed his own skills in that area, but the two women made him look like a rank amateur. They moved in silent grace without any apparent effort, while he, even before hurting his leg, had to concentrate on managing it.

  In the fading light, Kell smiled to himself.

  “We've talked about it,” Laura said, interrupting his reverie. “And Kate and I think it would be okay to take you home with us. We think you're all right, but if we're wrong it's more than just us two who could get hurt.”

  Kell turned over on his mat to face them, careful not to bang his broken leg against anything. “I'm glad to hear it. I hear a condition coming.”

  Laura glanced at Kate, who over the previous few days had grown more interactive. She rarely spoke and never where Kell could hear her, only in hushed tones to Laura. The quiet woman nodded to her friend, and Laura turned back to him with an almost apologetic look in her eyes.

  “Here's the offer, K, and we'll accept whichever choice you make. In the morning, you can leave. Kate and I will load up as much extra fuel as you can carry, since what's in our tank is enough to get us home. We'll give you half the food and half of the rest of the stuff we took from those bastards, and you can be on your way. We will go home and tell our people about you, so they know you helped us out and left peacefully. If you should ever run into one of us in the future, that good will might save your life.”

  For the first time since he had met her, Laura appeared unsure of herself. She picked at her nails as she hesitated.

  “You don't want to tell me the other choice,” Kell said. “The one that lets me come home with you.”

  She met his eyes, shaking her head. “I think you're a good man. Honestly, if you wanted to hurt us you could have done so. If all you were after with those marauders was to kill them and take their gear, you wouldn't have freed us.”

  Her eyes grew distant for a moment, and a flash of grief moved across her face. “If you meant to, you could have raped either of us, just like those men.”

  A lifetime of social pressure pushed on him. Kell wanted to reach out and hold her, to comfort both of them the way he had done with his own wife. To assure them that everything was going to be well.

  Except it wasn't. And they had suffered enough at the hands of men that no matter how he wanted to follow through on the notion, the reality was he didn't need to. It would not be a comfort to them, only him. They were strong, tough.

  So, instead, he only said, “No. I couldn't have.”

  Laura smiled at him, small but bright. “I believe you. I don't think you would do that. Ever. I've seen how hard you try to keep your distance from both of us. It's a little thing, but it matters. For that, I want to thank you.”

  Her voice hardened. “And because I think you're a good man, I want to urge you to take our first offer. You should leave. Go somewhere else. Our place is full of good people, strong folks, but they're going to put you through the wringer. They will grill you, and you'll be treated with suspicion. You won't be allowed weapons until they're sure you're trustworthy.”

  Kell had expected as much. “Sounds like they're reasonably careful.”

  Laura nodded. “And if they think you're really a marauder, or that you're planning to hurt people or steal, they'll kill you in your sleep. No warning, no trial, no second thoughts. You'll just be dead.”

  “That's...not encouraging, but again, not really shocking.”

  “If that doesn't scare you off,” Laura said, “then here's the offer. You go in blind. If Kate and I take you in without being able to see how you got there, there's a good chance that even if our community doesn't want to risk having you there, they'd let us take you back out in the same way. Drop you off somewhere far away and let you travel on.”

  Laura looked away. “You'll have to be totally helpless, do you understand? We'll have to take your weapons away and keep you from being able to see where you're going. That means either sticking you somewhere dark or tying you up with a blindfold on.”

  Ahh, he thought, finally able to see. She's asking me to be made helpless, just like she was.

  No wonder the woman was so emphatic that he not agree.

  “You don't want me to do it,” Kell said. “You think your precautions are too much, but some part of you thinks I'd mess with a blindfold unless I'm tied up.”

  Laura frowned at him, her eyes narrowing. “You're not Sherlock Holmes. Don't pretend to be able to read me like a book, K. I do think it's too much, but I'm not telling you this because I don't trust you not to fucking peek. I'm telling you because I know that even the possibility you might see the route to our home would preclude the possibility of my people letting you leave alive if they decide you're a threat.”

  Her eyes blazed in the last shreds of sunlight. “What I'm trying to do is save your life, you arrogant asshole. So make your choice and remember I warned you.”

  Part Four: Gravity

&nbs
p; If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight.

  Albert Einstein, on the realization which led to his theory of gravitation

  Chapter Fourteen

  The inside of the trailer was completely dark.

  It had taken only a short search to find another trailer. None of them had any desire to bring the ones that had served as Kate and Laura's prisons with them. Kate had thrown the match which ignited a small amount of their precious gasoline before they left the marauder camp, engulfing the two small boxes in flames as they set out for somewhere brighter.

  Not far from the town where they stayed the night before was a larger town, and there they found what they were looking for at an abandoned rental company.

  Inside the trailer, it was sweltering. Small vents in the floor helped somewhat (and more importantly, didn't allow him to see anything but a sliver of the road itself) but within half an hour he had stripped to his boxers and laid as flat as he could, thankful that heat rises.

  The box itself was five feet on a side, which made it impossible for him to rest comfortably. The idea had been simple enough, that traveling without being tied up or blindfolded would be preferable to laying hogtied in the bed of a truck or in the cargo area of his SUV, which Kate was driving. It was only after the sweat began to pour down his body that he reconsidered; his vehicle had air conditioning, and the bed of the truck would have at least had a breeze.

  There wasn't anything for it but to endure. Laura assured him the trip would only take a few hours, and he had a two gallons of clean water to keep him hydrated. After the first hour he'd emptied one, which was a good thing since there would be no bathroom breaks.

  Curled up on the floor and against every expectation, he fell asleep.

  Sometime later he woke to the sudden blaze of August sun pouring in through the door of the trailer, which nicely silhouetted the small army of men and women pointing guns at him.