Dead Will Rise: The Fall, #2

By Joshua Guess

Kell McDonald killed the world.

It is a truth that haunts him every day of his life. It is a fact etched so deeply in his mind that every waking moment is haunted by his sins. But for his choices, the dead would not walk. Men would not travel the decaying highways hunting for victims. Communities of survivors would not have to struggle to lay the foundation of a new society.

Forced to migrate from his adopted home, Kell finds himself an unlikely leader. Caught between unimaginable guilt and duty to his followers, he must find a way to keep them alive while holding himself together. Whatever the cost, no matter the danger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joshua Guess
• Release date: Jul 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393023234

Book preview

Dedicated to each and every reader who has blessed me with their time and attention.

The first book in this series was a chance taken. This sequel exists solely because you made it happen.

I can't thank you enough.

A note to the reader:

This book is set in the same universe as my Living With the Dead collections. If you're a reader of those collections and/or the blog they're taken from, this book will continue to serve as an interesting back story and parallel tale. You do not need to read Victim Zero or Dead Will Rise to understand the blog, however. By the same token, new readers don't need to read the blog to enjoy this book or understand the world. They are separate stories that touch in places, but don't need each other to be understood.

One

According to the calendar, it was spring. According to the weather outside, fuck Michigan. At least that was the thought going through Kell's head as he hauled himself into consciousness.

The room was frigid. The day before was warm enough to heat the house to an almost uncomfortable level. Growing up in the Ohio Valley, he thought he'd seen the full range of psychotic weather. Southern Michigan in what should have been spring disabused him of the notion.

Working his hands to get the circulation going, he hopped out of bed and jogged in place. Muscles came to life, blood pumping and flowing through channels as the biochemical mamba teamed up with good old friction to spread heat through his body.

Kell switched to stretches. First a series of standing maneuvers, then sitting, then on the ground, all in a merciless rapid-fire barrage with no breaks. Through it all he mumbled the periodic table to himself. Elemental name, symbol, atomic number, then on to the next. It was an old habit from his teenage years, a way of tracking time. One line out of a fantasy novel about soldiers using songs to measure the passing of minutes, and a young Kelvin McDonald had to try it out.

After stretching came kata, a set of movements drilled into him by his combat instructor to help ingrain the motions of controlled violence into his muscle memory. Kell chuckled at the thought, interrupting his mantra at Osmium, Os, number 76. In the world that was, the idea of learning to fight had been silly to him. Not that people hadn't committed violent acts back then, but rather the statistical need for hundreds of hours of supreme effort was miniscule. Early in his college years Kell roomed with a boy with ten years of Okinawan Karate under his belt, and the only time he'd seen the kid fight was when bullies found out about his black belts and decided to test them.

Now things were different. Kell performed the movements in the same way he'd studied biology and genetics, with single-minded and intense concentration. Like the structure of a cell or the pattern of genes, combat was only a system. Pure physics combined with a dash of psychology and a smidgen of creative adaptation.

The ability to fight was no longer a hobby for the passionate. It was a minimal survival trait.

As Kell ran out of elements to chant, his thoughts turned to the day ahead. Training, packing, preparation. The word would come down any time now, and he and his roommates would have to be on their way. A single messenger with a simple message, and his world would change again. Gone from the home he'd built with Kate and Laura. Gone from the community he'd joined while never truly belonging.

Out on the road taking a hard march toward a new home. Through the shattered land and crumbling remains of the world that was. That road wandered through a new and more primal landscape, an empty shell devoid of civilization. A world scoured by roving bands of marauding bandits, aimless soldiers, and of course the reanimated corpses of the majority of humankind.

Zombies. Several years before, Kell had said the word because no one else was saying it. Creatures out of cheesy—and some not so cheesy—movies. Fictional bogeymen hungry for braaaaaaiiiinnnnssss as they slowly shambled across the pages of comics and novels. Nightmare beings brought to life by his own research, now an all-too-solid reality.

They weren't slow, most of them, or at least not much more so than average people. Less coordinated by wide margins, but nearly as strong and immune to pain or discomfort. Hungry for protein of any kind, rather than the stereotypical need for white and gray matter, thanks to the organism operating their muscles and nervous systems like marionettes.

Chimera. Kell's crowning achievement and greatest failure. His work, taken from him and duplicated in secret, had caused the plague. Every consequence going forward from there was on his shoulders. The weight would have been bearable if not for two particular deaths. In the grand scheme of things they were insignificant. The scientist in him knew that on a cold and calculating level. Those two deaths were statistical non-events.

Still, he focused on the larger world. He recalled the decay of cities and the dead both actual and walking rather than face awake what he couldn't avoid in dreams. Two faces in a crowd, never lost in the shuffle no matter how dense the field of bodies grew.

Karen and Jennifer. Wife and daughter. Dead because of his arrogance.

Muscles rippled beneath dark skin as he moved through the workout. When cataloging the terrible consequences of his work with Chimera didn't keep the memory of their deaths at bay he switched to a mental list of amino acids, cell structures, odd genetic mutations, and every other piece of ready data his unique mind could draw upon.

Kell was a genius by any definition. The data in his brain was considerable.

It didn't work, of course. It was like the old psychology joke. Never tell yourself not to think of elephants, because then you can't not think of elephants. In the brief reprieve between sleep, where the nightmare of losing them haunted him regularly, and waking, where the memory was sharp as broken glass, had been a short period of muzzy confusion bereft of guilt.

Kell finished his morning routine and dressed, arming and armoring himself even in the safety of his shared home. The longer he lived with Kate and Laura, the more complexly their lives intertwined, the worse the dreams became. The memory cut him deeper every day.

He tightened the final strap and performed one last check. All systems green. Weapons secure. Armor in place.

So prepared, Kell left the room and made his way to the yard. But for the circumstances forcing him to leave this place, he would have been busy in the lab they'd broken down weeks before. Working in dim light with outdated equipment to do the one thing only he could do. Which by no coincidence was also the only means at his disposal to find some kind of peace. To make up in a small way for the destruction his research wrought.

Kell moved through the house toward the front door, his body ready for the morning's work in the yard. But his mind was in the now-empty basement, toiling in a lab that no longer existed.

One day he would create the cure. He would save the remaining, and in doing so, perhaps himself.

That was his hope.

––––––––

Though it wasn't much past dawn, the yard was full of people.

The house was set far back from the road, the long and twisting gravel driveway choked with the first weeds of the year. The back of the house dropped off into rolling hills, only leveling out a quarter mile away. The front was a huge swath of land cut from the surrounding trees, big enough to house a fleet of school buses with room to spare.

Aside from a large motor home and a few vans tucked away in a corner, the space was clear of vehicles. Instead there was an obstacle course of sorts, a rough thing hastily constructed out of deadwood and scraps. A dozen or so worked in that part of the yard, looking like the world's worst boot camp recruits as they hopped over barriers, balanced on rugged beams, and dashed from station to station.

That was Kate's idea. She was the drill sergeant of the group of people attached to her, Kell, and Laura. A few months before, the three of them gathered volunteers to take down a group of marauders and rescue the captives held in their camp. They'd succeeded largely because of Kate and Laura's efforts. Both women were expert in combat, armed and otherwise. Laura understood tactics better than he or Kate. Luck played a huge part. Kell knew that.

But they had done it. Against all odds they lost not a single member of their group and destroyed the marauders thoroughly while also managing to free the prisoners. In repayment for their heroic work, every person on the raid and their families were chosen to leave North Jackson, the community they were technically a part of.

The leadership gave them more reasons than Kell could count. They called the raid vigilantism—ignoring, of course, their own lack of response—and too reckless. The brass tacks were that North Jackson was too large, having taken in too many people to properly feed, house, or protect, and their sister community in the south was willing to house them. Volunteers for the dangerous trip weren't hard to find, but the leadership took the opportunity to rid themselves of potential problems by kicking Kell and his team out.

Which suited him just fine. As the central architect of Chimera, his name was well known among the informed, those who led the effort to find a cure in the early days of The Fall. They were the same people who tried to curtail the spread of the plague, to limit the damage. He had no doubt many of them had survived given how much forewarning they had. All it would take was one person who knew his name and role recognizing him, and an angry mob was sure to follow.

Even before he and the ladies decided to make a run on the marauders, Kell had gained too much attention. North Jackson was a massive trading hub, temporary home to hundreds of strangers from across the region each month. The news he was being forcibly relocated came as something of a relief, though he regretted the stain he spread on the rest of the team.

Kate and Laura were the first to tell him to shut up about that, but to Kell's surprise, the rest of the volunteers agreed. They and their families decided to make the trip with Kell and the ladies, to stick together as one tight unit. Kell fought the idea at first, terrified one of them would discover his identity and his efforts to cure humanity of Chimera, but Laura persuaded him. Those people looked up to the three of them, treated them as leaders. Curing the plague would require materials and effort. Why not keep them in the dark about the specifics, Laura suggested, but use their help?

Kell had wondered about the dedication of near-strangers at first, though he respected their efforts in the raid. Any doubt he had evaporated when he saw them working in the yard that first morning. Bitter cold, they built the training ground. Snow didn't stop them, nor the constant fear of a messenger arriving to tell them today was the day they'd have to abandon everything they knew. If anything, it drove them to work harder.

The evidence before his eyes confirmed that opinion. Kate decided that if the volunteers were joining them, they would have to be trained. One third of the yard was filled with men and women working on their balance, coordination, cardio, and strength. Another third was marked off with circles of spray paint, where the people working out would go next. Combat training.

The last portion was where they kept the zombies.

Kell walked to that section. Much of what he knew about Chimera, and thus the zombies themselves, came from his work. But there was much he'd observed since The Fall, too. To keep interest from him, Laura and Kate always taught classes, presenting his observations and theories as their own.

Nine undead struggled against the heavy cable cinched around their necks. The cables ran to stakes, heavy pieces of rebar sunk five feet deep and twisted at the end to prevent them from pulling free. Laura greeted him as he approached, her students—three teenagers and two adults—giving him respectful nods.

Now that K is here, we can start, Laura said. She motioned the students back, ignoring the tense lines of their faces. It was controlled, but the fear was easy to see.

Wrapping a thick piece of cloth studded with metal plates around her neck, Laura moved toward the captive zombies. I understand the five of you haven't had much experience dealing with the undead, she said, scooping up her helmet and putting it on. You're lucky that way. Most people have had to fight them off often. Since you're all going on the trip to New Haven with us, you need to learn the best way to defend yourself. We'll tackle this in three parts.

Laura snagged the leash of the nearest zombie, quickly choking up on it until her hand was right at the nape of the thing's neck. Kell thought it looked something like a person handling a dangerous snake. She gripped the looped cable firmly, then took the ghoul's legs out from under it.

First lesson, she said, unhooking the clasp. Isn't about these things at all. It's about you.

She stood and darted toward the group of students. Kell moved forward.

The monster's attention locked onto him as he stepped within arm's reach. The zombie clawed at the loose collar, tearing it away as it scrambled to its feet.

Notice how it takes longer to stand. It's less coordinated than a living person, Laura said, falling into the lecturing tone she used to narrate these lessons.

The students didn't gasp when the thing lurched forward, fingers digging into Kell's sleeve as its teeth clamped down on his arm. Dull pain blossomed as the metal rings embedded between layers of fabric pinched his skin. Outwardly he gave no sign, instead watching the ghoul try to bite through his armor with mild interest.

Lesson one is this, ladies and gentlemen. Be prepared. Always. If you're outside, wear protective gear. If you don't have any, come see me. We'll tell you what to look for and help you find things you can't get hold of on your own. It's not just about the armor, though.

Kell took the cue, sliding a foot back and twisting at the hips to throw the zombie off. The creature staggered back, upright but unsteady, and he slid the rear foot back and shifted his weight. His heavy boot slammed into the zombie's gut and doubled the thing over.

To put some distance between them, Kell retreated several steps. There was no thrill of victory, no hint of fear. He only watched, his mind relaxed and focused at the same time. It was that ability to absorb information and process it at lightning speed which defined him. It was the foundation for everything of consequence in his life.

The zombie regained its footing. The first step was slow, awkward. The second more firm. The third was the beginning of a run. By the time the thing closed the three yards between them, it was moving at a brisk jog. Hands at his sides, Kell did a sliding step. He bent slightly, hip extended and braced by his leg.

The zombie bounced off him, landing in a sprawl. Kell's back was to Laura as she spoke.

You are your own best defense, your best weapon. We've been teaching you to fight, but you need to remember the fundamentals more than anything. Always keep your balance. Always observe weaknesses. Always know your own strengths. It's okay to be afraid. Hell, that's even a good thing. But control it, use it. Don't let it use you.

The zombie tried to stand, but its arm twisted in the middle of its bicep. With an eerie lack of reaction, the thing kept trying to balance on the shattered limb.

Look at that, Laura said. K got lucky, but all it took was a bad fall and it broke its arm. Because K kept himself balanced and calm, he was able to knock this guy off his feet without much effort. Against a single zombie, even a person with no training has a hard time losing if they're prepared.

A clattering of metal rose from behind him. Kell glanced over his shoulder, keeping his enemy in his peripheral vision, to find Laura and the two adult students releasing three more zombies.

Lesson two, she intoned. Fighting multiple enemies.

Placidity vanished, replaced by tightly reigned anger. How could she risk her students that way? She had no way to know the undead would come for him, though at least she had the sense to unleash them from the posts rather than risk the untrained getting bitten opening the collars. He saw that much before spinning all the way around to face the new threat.

Something soft splattered against his chest, small flecks of liquid hitting him in the face. The smell was strong—blood. The iron of it filled his nose.

Watch, Laura said with laughter in her voice.

The smell of the blood drew them toward him, but Kell didn't make himself an easy target. As soon as Laura tossed the  sponge soaked in deer blood, an item they often used to corral zombies, everyone else ceased to exist. He knew the damaged enemy on the ground would be working its way toward him, could hear it scrabbling in the grass as he backed up.

Kell shot sideways suddenly, moving far enough to get all four enemies in view. He circled behind the injured one and ran up to it just when the thing managed to finally get to its knees. Armored hands clenched the sides of its head and twisted. Not the sharp but short jerk you see in the movies, but a fast and continuous rotation. Bones snapped, followed by the wet tearing of connective tissue. Zombies largely lacked guile; the moment the thing went limp Kell knew it was for real. He let go and launched himself at the three remaining enemies.

The fight was blessedly short. Kell slammed an elbow into the face of one, the blow crunching through the bridge of its nose. The second he took out of the fight by grabbing the cable trailing from its neck, keeping the zombie under his control. He used the thing's weight to his advantage, pulling on the cable for balance as he stomped the knee of the third enemy inward, snapping the joint sideways before kicking it to death.

From there it was a simple matter of working his hands up the cable and grabbing the last enemy by the neck, then crushing the vertebrae. He looked at Laura, who had a satisfied look on her face.

Let's take a short break before lesson three, she said. I'd like to talk to K alone.

––––––––

Thirty feet from the confused and half-awed students, Kell let his anger show.

"What the fuck was that? You told me you'd let them go after I killed the first one. What if one of those things decided to go for the students? I wasn't ready to help them if they needed it. What the hell, Laura?"

She studied him for a moment. You're not even breathing hard. You didn't pull any of your weapons.

He blinked. What?

Laura cocked her head as if she were trying to figure out a math problem. You could have used any of your weapons and made that fight a lot easier. You didn't. Instead you kept to the lesson plan and took them out barehanded. Why?

Kell shrugged, his anger evaporating. I didn't see much point. I've fought worse odds with no weapons.

So you just think I'm stupid, then?

What? Kell asked. No, of course not.

Laura smiled. Good. Because I'm not. I know what you're capable of. I had the sponge in my pouch just in case, she said, patting the leather bag hooked to her belt. I wanted to get outside their expectations. They saw what we were doing as a controlled experiment. She waved a hand toward the woods. That out there? It's anything but controlled. Those people saw the shock on your face. They also saw you react to defend yourself. That's gonna stick with them.

It made a kind of sense. He'd learned the hard way, after all. Months on his own spent watching and learning, failing more often than he won, which involved a lot of running afterward.

To be honest, I was kinda hoping to see more of a reaction out of you, Kell. Laura's eyes locked on his. Worry filled them. You've always been withdrawn, but the last few months it's like you're someone else. So quiet, always keeping to yourself.

Kell forced a smile, no more than a quirk at the corner of his mouth. Just getting ready for the move. That's all. I'm getting a chance to lose myself in a crowd, after all. Need to get used to being a guy nobody knows and who doesn't stand out in a crowd.

And the nightmares, they don't have anything to do with it? Laura asked with a sigh.

At the mention of them, his heart began to race. Images swirled in his mind, the terrible memory of losing Karen and Jennifer replaying over and over again.

Don't know what you're talking about, Kell said.

Laura's saw through the lie. Karen told him many years before he cried out in his sleep at times. If Laura was asking, she'd heard him. But goddammit, those memories were his, no matter how awful. They were no one's burden to bear except his own.

I'm not feeling so well. Better finish the lesson without me. Dan Rickwalder can step in, he knows the drill, Kell said.

Laura only nodded, and he walked away. Back to the house where no one would bother him. Back to his bare room with only the ghosts of his mistakes for company. She said nothing as he left, but he felt her eyes on him. Worried, perhaps, though whether it was for him or for the cure he might create, Kell McDonald didn't know.

Two

Night fell across the world, draping Kell in moonlight as he walked.

He had no fear of being caught unaware. Laura thought he didn't care about his own life, but that wasn't true. Kell didn't want to die. It was just exhaustion. The constant raw emotions each morning, old wounds torn open in his sleep. Wanting to die and not wanting to suffer were different things. It wasn't his fault the two often intersected.

Still, Laura's implication couldn't be missed. She thought he was on the edge of some mental precipice, and no matter how right she might be, Kell didn't have the energy to deal with her mothering him. She and Kate wouldn't mean for it to be an argument, but more often than not lately their concerns for his well-being turned into fights when they brought it up.

Walking was a lovely substitute. It wasn't avoiding the topic or a form of denial at all.

Beside the desire not to suffer through a heart-warming chat about his feelings, patrolling the area was a necessity. Though a good number of their expanded group lived on Kell's property now, waiting for the notice to move south, most of them didn't keep guard. They locked down at night inside their sheltered vehicles and trusted the tripwires and bells strung about the property to alert them.

Kell often thought about the raid against the marauder camp. Not all of them died in the fighting. Some ran. There was a constant worry in the back of his mind. Men who did the things those marauders were guilty of didn't take violence lying down. Rapists and murderers all, Kell lived under the persistent belief the survivors would attempt payback. It was an itch on the back of his neck with no signs of going away.

Following the fishing line and thin wire crisscrossed around the area, he searched for footprints. The ground was no longer frozen, and regular rain left the earth soft. A man taking the deliberate and careful action of stepping over a warning system had to put all his weight on one foot. Kell's analytic brain translated that into pure physics; all the weight on one foot would leave a deeper print. More noticeable. Concentrate the weight on a smaller surface area, increase the force applied to the dirt. Simple.

Which made patrolling much easier. He wasn't a great woodsman.

Though he'd looked around the property more nights than not, Kell had yet to see evidence any surviving marauders—or any new ones, for that matter—were trespassing. It isn't paranoia when they're really after you, however, and burning a man's friends alive is a powerful reason to think they are.

Not finding evidence wasn't proof they weren't close. Kell had no doubt someone was out there, though he had no idea how far away they were. Near enough to watch, almost certainly. He knew this due to a curious lack of zombies coming from the south. Directly in line with the distant flatland beyond the hills. The undead filtered in from every other direction—except the places where people lived. Human beings were good at stopping the shambling corpses.

So why would zombies be coming from the woods all around except for that one area, unless there were people camping there, offering resistance? The south was ideal for watching the house. The woods behind the place dropped off after a few dozen yards, and though the house was all but invisible from within the trees, from the flatland it was easy enough to spy on.

Kell stood next to one of the tripwires, gazing out across the land. Silvery light bathed the south as he tried to catch a glimpse of the enemy. A stray spark from a hidden fire, a whiff of smoke. Even the distant sound of the human-on-zombie violence would have been enough.

The thought sent electricity through his veins. Moving against an enemy he could see, touch. Fighting something he