The Fall: Victim Zero

by Joshua Guess

P seemed pleased. “Yes, you have seen. What is it about corners in such movies?”

  Carefully neutral so as to avoid homicide, Kell said, “I have no idea.”

  The older man shook his gray head. “You not survive long out here, thinking that slow. Thing about corners in scary movies, monsters always pop from behind them.”

  “I don't see how that matters in the real world, though.”

  P laughed and slowed the truck down to a crawl. With a thick, blunt finger he pointed across Kell's chest to a cluster of zombies in the distance. “Real world? This is scary movie, boy. One that never ends.”

  That was the easiest part of his first day with P.

  “Stop the truck,” Kell said.

  Three days out, and they had not loaded a single item on their route. Most of the areas relatively close were picked clean, but by the morning of the third day there were more and more of the marked buildings without the added paint mark indicating they had been checked.

  “What is it?” Pabiyan—who had finally pulled out a faded driver's license so Kell would stop calling him P—said in his thick accent. “What do you see?”

  Kell pointed toward the dark green marking on a building fifty yards down a side road. “Look, right there. It hasn't been touched since the scouts marked it. We're going there.”

  “No, no,” Pabiyan said. “The dead walk near it. Too risky.”

  Slowly and with a mighty effort not to lash out at the man, Kell turned to face him. “There are two. Two of them, man. It doesn't get any easier than that. And look, they're right at the door. I can corner them in there, clear them out in less than a minute, and then we're free to go shopping.”

  Pabiyan sighed. “And what if this building full of them? What if those at door only the few who cannot get inside?”

  Sensing weakness, Kell chose his words carefully. “Then I'll run back to the truck and we'll move on. You can stay here if you want until I give you the all-clear.”

  The older man considered it for a long minute. “Da, okay. You go. I will get ready to follow, but backward. That way we can escape if needed.”

  Kell clapped him on the shoulder. “Excellent! I'll come back out and wave you down when it's all clear.”

  “How long should I wait?”

  Eying the building, Kell did a few rough calculations. “The place is pretty big, looks like a local distribution center of some kind. Assuming the floor plan is open, I should be able to check it in ten, fifteen minutes. If there are any zombies walking about, a little longer.”

  Pabiyan pondered for another long moment. “Half an hour, then. If you are not back out by then, I come in for you.”

  Surprised, Kell frowned. “I thought you were all about playing it safe. Too many risks and all that.”

  Grim, the other man nodded. “I am. But also want to do the job. I have worked hard since I was small child. Do not plan to stop now.”

  “Well, look, if I'm not back out in half an hour, I'll be dead or trapped so badly there's no way you could get to me. If that happens, you leave. Head back home and don't look back.”

  “No!” Pabiyan said vehemently. “No, I will not. I would not agree to this if I am not committed. I will not leave you behind.”

  Kell was touched, a twitch of life inside that distant part of his heart long sealed off. He fought back the sudden heat in his eyes, stepping from the truck as he blinked back tears trying to escape.

  “Thank you,” He said as he retrieved his spear from the back of the truck.

  “Da, Da. Just be safe, boy. Don't like idea of telling Laura I let something happen to you.”

  Kell strode toward the building, and the zombies were nice enough to meet him on the way. There were just the two that he could see; no more came pouring out of the building. One quick upward jab with the spear took care of the first one, a spin and a swing with the butt took the second down. Just to be safe, he drove the point into the face of the second one and moved on.

  The door to the building was locked. Hope rose in him at the discovery. Chances were good the place hadn't been looted.

  Circling around, he looked for another way in. Pabiyan's warning about corners echoed in his mind as he approached the far end. Kell put ten feet between him and the side of the building as he worked his way around the corner in a slow circle, wedging it off in short steps.

  His caution paid off; a zombie was standing with its back to him. Oblivious to him, Kell stepped forward and kicked its legs out from under it.

  It was Karen.

  Kell stood frozen, spear raised for the killing blow. His mind recoiled at what he was seeing, body unresponsive to his ingrained reaction to kill.

  It was his wife.

  Pure shock overrode his logic. The zombie's skin had been dark before death. The hair the same length as hers. The face so close to the one he remembered.

  It flexed beneath him, flipping its body over and grasping at his leg in one of the too-fast lunges the undead were famous for. If not for the heavy modifications to his armor, it would have been the end. Kell felt teeth rattle against the plastic in his shin guards, the vibration at the impact setting him in motion.

  A step back, a swift kick to the head, and finally the spear plunged home. He drove it in a second time, then a third, the last so forceful it penetrated into the ground nearly a foot and stood there, pinning the zombie to the earth beside the main door.

  It wasn't Karen. It was some other woman who carried some passing resemblance to her; the right height, weight, shape, and the rest. But not her. Awake again and pulsing with adrenaline, his brain caught up with reality. Even if she were identical to his wife—and she wasn't—the wounds Karen had suffered were missing on this woman's now-still corpse.

  Kell took deep, rattling breaths as he tried to calm himself.

  The pressure was too much. That he stood in the open didn't matter; he was exposed in more fundamental ways. That his victim was not really his wife didn't matter. All the barriers within him needed, wooden and soaked in oil, was a spark.

  He fell to his knees, hand gripping the spear as the other dug into his abdomen. He was in chaos, the shock causing ripples in his mind that threatened the whole.

  Grief at the loss of his family. Guilt, not the soft thing he lived with daily, but a hungry beast with rows of chainsaw teeth, gnawed at his belly.

  For the first time since the world ended, he was truly afraid of dying. Laura and Kate, his only friends, would miss him. The thought of not seeing them again, of not hearing their voices and enduring their jokes at his expense, tore at him.

  It was fear that saved him. The sudden and inescapable rush of pent-up emotion drowned out everything else, but some part of him heard the scraping of feet on asphalt. Movement was not a conscious choice; his body responded on its own.

  Every lesson of caution and care, so hard-earned in his days alone, was left behind as he sprang to his feet and pulled his spear free in one smooth motion. Kell shot forward into the trio of zombies, shouting in rage as the tears ran down his face.

  They clung to him as he bowled all three over, bodies thrashing and rolling, teeth seeking purchase in his flesh. The spear was torn from his grip as it plunged into the gut of one attacker in the melee. Something primal was sitting in his pilot's chair, and he only had a vague notion of the weapon's importance as he grasped the throat of one zombie, squeezing as hard as he could.

  That such an attack wouldn't stop the creature also didn't matter.

  The other one under him buried its hands into Kell's vest and pulled itself toward him. The thing moved in for a strike to his neck; Kell responded with another deep shout and a headbutt.

  Over and over he slammed his forehead into the ghoul's face, until bones splintered and chipped and his own scalp burned. Blood flowed from lacerations, deep and wide, caused by the shattered remains of the zombie's face.

  Kell yanked himself on top of the first, hand still buried deeply in the soft flesh and rigid structures of its n
eck. His free hand curled in its hair, pounding its head into the ground over and over, twisting and pulling in every direction. Ligaments and muscles and tendons separated with wet snaps and squishing pops, the vertebrae finally giving out under the sharp jerks and twists.

  A soft moan caught his attention. When Kell looked for the forgotten third zombie, it was with the eyes of a different man.

  It was trying to turn over, but the spear kept the thing from gaining any traction. Kell had slaughtered countless numbers of the undead, but as he watched this one's fingers slide across the wrapped haft of the spear, he felt pity. It wasn't the faint sadness usually reserved for the memory of who the undead had been; he felt sorry for the creature in front of him. It was only as its nature demanded it be, after all. It couldn't help the urge to kill, to survive, any more than he could continue to fight back the surge of repressed memories and emotions.

  A thrust of his knife ended its sad existence. “I'm sorry,” Kell said as he pulled the spear free. “I'm so sorry.”

  As he surveyed the area around him, wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand, the familiar calm fell back over him. The tension that usually came with it did not, however. Instead of maintaining an act, he actually was calm.

  Part of it was the indefinable sense of relief that always comes after a hard cry, but it wasn't only that.

  Laura. Kate, he thought. Something to go home to. Something to live for.

  The street was clear, and so was he. The turbulent well of emotion was still there, still churning, but whatever wall inside him had been there was gone. The raw edges of it still hurt, but along with it came something he hadn't realized was missing.

  Hope. For something better, for something more than the ephemeral possibility that he might cure the plague. Hope for the here and now.

  Kell got back to work.

  The warehouse was, in fact, that of a local distributor. Kell entered through a window, glass already gone and only untouched because metal shutters had been hooked closed over it. The inside of the place was musty and obviously empty, the only light coming in through the single ground-floor window and several at roof level, narrow and stout.

  The main bay of the place was stacked with pallet after pallet of canned food. A quick search of the upper level, a loft area that held several offices and a bathroom, revealed a curious collection of items. Whoever had owned the place must have been connected in ways beyond stocking foodstuffs: Kell found three tactical shotguns and a dozen boxes of shells, mixed.

  A more thorough search of what he assumed was the main office netted him a set of keys on a large ring, and a single key tucked away in the very back of the desk's top drawer.

  Suddenly remembering Pabiyan, he pocketed the keys and ran to flag the man down.

  The keys were marked, allowing him to unlock the bay door and guide the older man in, truck and all. After securing the building, Kell sat on the floor as Pabiyan shut off the truck and got out, stretching.

  “Good god, boy, what have you done to your face?”

  Kell instinctively put his fingers to his forehead and was reminded of the disturbing fight twenty minutes earlier. “It's nothing,” he said as he wiped fresh blood from the oozing wounds. “Just got careless.”

  The old man swore in rapid Russian—Kell was sure that's what it was—and reaching into the truck, producing the compact medical kit runners were required to bring. Pabiyan didn't ask permission, simply ordering Kell to sit still while he treated the wounds. He was efficient about it, careful and sure.

  “Seems like you have a lot of practice at this,” Kell said.

  “Da, Da. Was medic in Russian army. Early eighties, but bodies don't change so much in thirty years.”

  Kell laughed, earning him a sharp look. “Sorry, I'll try not to move. But I think there's ample proof that bodies can change pretty fast.”

  Pabiyan waved a hand dismissively. “You know what I meant, smart ass. Scalp wounds bleed like mad, but those aren't so bad.”

  Kell was quiet for a while as Pabiyan worked, but his curiosity won out. “What brought you to the states, if you don't mind me asking?”

  The old man smiled, strange on his serious face. “I left the army when I was still very young. Cold war was still going, but dying out. Coming here was difficult but not impossible, and I wished to go to school.”

  Kell must have looked surprised, because Pabiyan scowled. “Shocked? Do not be. I moved to America, became engineer. Mechanical engineer. Just because I look like peasant farmer does not mean I am one.”

  “Sorry,” Kell said sheepishly.

  Pabiayn winked. “Though to be fair, I was born on the farm. That is why I joined the military. I had good mind for numbers, for design. Funny, though; I start learning English at ten years old, been living here for more than twenty years, but I still sound like bad stereotype. Good mind for numbers, but very bad for language.”

  “I think you do okay. I mean, you do kind of sound like a cartoon character, but that's no big deal.”

  Pabiyan scowled again, but this time Kell saw the laughter in his eyes.

  “So you know, boy, if you ask me to quote 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' I will make you change your own dressings.”

  They laughed. “I'll remember that, sir.”

  “Good,” Pabiyan said, raising a mock fist. “Else I might thump you. You learn fast after all. I do too, you know. That is why I speak such simple English. My thoughts are in Russian. My mouth cannot keep up with it. Really, is a curse being so brilliant.”

  Kell hauled himself to his feet. “Trust me, man, I know the feeling. Now,” he said, dusting his hands off and pulling the lone, hidden key from his back pocket. “Let's see where this mysterious little guy goes.”

  They spent three hours cataloging every item of use in the warehouse. Along with the pallets of food they found several large crates of toilet paper, a sight that made Pabiyan almost break down in tears, two small boxes of powdered detergent, a defunct freezer tucked away under the offices from which a smell emanated that was so vile Kell sealed the edges of the door with duct tape.

  They also found the duct tape, three huge boxes of the stuff. There were smaller amounts of odds and ends, ropes, pulleys, tools, camping equipment, and the like. Kell tried the hidden key on every lock he came across, but there weren't many of them and by the time the cataloging was done he had exhausted the options.

  They had dinner at a small table next to a vending machine in what must have been a break area. It was in the back of the building on the bottom floor, beneath the offices.

  “I was sure this key went to something here,” Kell said.

  Pabiyan spooned some canned pasta into his mouth, talking around the food. “Was thinking about it. Why would man bring his weapons here, his camping gear?”

  Kell shrugged. “Maybe this is just where he kept his things.”

  “Da,” Pabiyan said with a smile. “Exactly. This is where he kept his things. If this key goes to something at his home or somewhere else, why hide? Only makes sense it fits something here.”

  The old Russian's eyes narrowed. “Stay here,” he said, and hurried out the door. A minute later he returned to a confused Kell, who cocked his head.

  “What was that all about?” Kell asked.

  A little smug, Pabiyan grinned. “Wanted to see if there was crawlspace entrance. Foundation is solid all the way around.”

  “Ah. So there's access somewhere in here. But I didn't see a door or hatch or anything. And most of the floor is open enough we couldn't have missed something like that.”

  Pabiyan raised a finger. “Except one place,” he said, lowering his finger to point at the table.

  Kell looked down and noticed the carpet beneath them, an area rug worn by years of feet drumming. “I'll be damned,” he said. “Pabiyan, you're a genius.”

  “I know, boy. I know. Try to keep up, okay?”

  Together they pulled the rug out of the way, taking the table with it, to
reveal a large slab of a door set in the smooth concrete floor. The door itself was steel with a concrete inlay, a heavy steel ring set in it. Kell grabbed the ring and flipped it out of its recess, setting his feet to lift the massive door.

  Which rose effortlessly when he began to pull, causing him to overbalance and fall back.

  “Son of a bitch,” Kell said. Pabiyan helped him up.

  The door was where Kell left it, hovering a few inches from the floor at one end. There were pistons holding it in place. They pivoted the thing all the way open until the low ramp it made was nearly vertical, the entire slab held up by the pistons.

  A staircase led down, lit by LED strips.

  “That's weird,” Kell said. “Must be a battery or something.” Pabiyan grunted and followed Kell down the short flight of stairs.

  The hallway before them was narrow. The cinder block walls didn't match up exactly with the floor. “Must have added all this in,” Kell noted.

  The hall ended in a heavy steel door without a handle. Instead, a thick steel loop connected to the wall held it shut, a padlock threaded through them. The key fit, the lock opening with a sharp click. Hand on the door, Kell turned to Pabiyan. “You ready?”

  “Da.”

  Kell opened the door, and let out a gasp.

  “What is it?” Pabiyan asked. Kell went through, holding the door open.

  “Good god.”

  The room before them was a bunker. There were lights burning low and steady in the ceiling, revealing crates of food, water tanks, a camp toilet, a cot, and an entire wall full of weapons and ammunition.

  The room wrapped around the narrow hallway. There was a small mechanical room that had served the building above, but the rest of the space was dedicated to a truly neurotic amount of preparation. While Pabiyan examined the cache of weapons, Kell began writing down the rest of the bunker's contents.

  An hour later, Pabiyan asked Kell's thoughts.

  “At a guess,” Kell began, “I'd say one person could survive down here for two years, longer if they went hungry a lot. The water tanks seem to be hooked up to the roof, so they collect rain. There's a five hundred gallon tank for drinking water hooked up to a pump, and a fifty gallon for washing, showering, and the like. One whole corner is just propane tanks, the big fat upright kind. I don't know how fast they burn, but there's a heater and stove over there, all vented.