The Fall (Book 5): Exodus in Black (9 page)

The rest of the trip was routine for everyone but Mason. There were the usual scares you ran across from a group of people whose paranoia had kept them alive against all odds. A zombie herd here, the distant sound of gunfire there. Every instance of something out of the ordinary equaled a shot of adrenaline and hyper-awareness.

Not for Mason. While the others spent long periods of drive time bored with punctuation marks of excitement now and then, his experience went from bad to worse. The shot to his hip grew more painful as time dragged on, a dull ache radiating out and down until it covered the top half of his leg and his whole pelvis.

He told Judith, of course, because he wasn’t a fucking idiot, but that was as far as it went. Everyone else had to focus on getting to Haven, and worrying about him wouldn’t make that any easier. Judith was concerned, but their medicine was limited and without diagnostic capabilities beyond basic observations it was next to impossible to know the exact cause.

Mason was content with this state of affairs right up until he passed out and woke up somewhere new. One second he was sitting semi-reclined on one of the long benches in the RV, the next he was coming to in a room lit brightly by the sun streaming through windows.

A familiar room. In a familiar house.

“I don’t want to scare you,” a voice said, “but you’ve been asleep for one
hundred years
!”

Mason turned his head slowly and saw a familiar face. “Phil? How did I get here? What happened?”

Phil, who despised being called Doctor Phil and was universally known by that name, grinned. Formerly an oncologist, he’d worked under Haven’s previous medical guru, Evans, before the old man died. “Well, you clearly know you’re in Haven, so that’s good. I was a little worried there for a bit. You spiked a fever high enough that we were concerned it might give you brain damage. That by itself is really interesting, since usually people can only get that hot from an external source. Like being trapped in a small, enclosed space that gets heated up.”

“Car trunk,” Mason said. “I remember a story about some kid getting brain damage from being locked in a car trunk.”

Phil nodded. “Sure, that’d do it. Still rare, though. We think the organism did it when your infection got really bad. You were only that hot for a minute or so, then the fever broke and dropped pretty rapidly. I’ve been a doctor for a long time, man, and this is some weird shit far above my pay grade.”

The last time Mason woke up in a bed being tended to medically was when he’d received his scars. A small part of him didn’t want to ask the next question, didn’t want to think about the horrible possibilities. “So…what happened? How bad is it?”

Phil pulled a chair over and sat near the foot of the bed facing Mason. “First of all, you’re fine. Honestly. You might need a little rehab, but we’ve got access to all kinds of medicine now, so your infection is easy enough to treat. As for what happened? A splinter of bone from the gunshot to your hip wedged itself near a nerve and the whole thing got infected pretty badly. The pain you were feeling was a combination of inflammation and nerve impingement. We fixed all that.”

Relief and mild confusion flooded Mason’s brain. “Why did I pass out?”

Phil’s grin returned, this time crooked. “You were really sick. In a lot of pain. You’re a tough guy, but you’d been running on little sleep for days, virtually starvation rations, and the infection was working its way through you. I think it was mostly your body trying to conserve its energy, though I wouldn’t put it past Chimera playing some part in it.”

The word hung in the air for a few seconds.

“Chimera,” Mason said. “What’s that?”

Phil laughed. “It’s okay. I’ve known about Kell for a while. I know who he is, all that stuff. The people in charge here wanted me up to speed in case your little village suddenly needed a surgeon.”

That was a relief; Mason didn’t have the energy for pretense. “How long was I out? And when can I leave. I’m starving.”

Phil shrugged. “I’d like to observe you for a day or two. From what Judith told me, the wounds that should have killed you were surprisingly free of infection,” he said, waving at Mason’s scarred face. “Chimera fights infections, from what we’ve seen, so I find it weird and unsettling that it didn’t keep up this time. I don’t know exactly what I’ll be looking for, but I want to look for it anyway just to make sure you don’t have some weird reaction.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Let’s see; you passed out three days ago. You were in and out until your friends got you here, at which point I sedated you. Kept you under.”

Mason belted out a grim laugh. “You were worried I’d die and come back, or lash out in my sleep.”

Phil shrugged. “You know, it’s kind of scary how that sentence doesn’t sound crazy to me anymore. I’ll see what kind of food I can rustle up for you. Since the end of the war, trade has only gotten better. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how things have changed.”

Mason snorted. “Man, I don’t care if it’s a bag of raw potatoes as long as it fills my stomach.”

They didn’t feed him raw potatoes. In fact, the meal Mason wolfed down were among the best since the apocalypse began. Haven had grown large enough and its trade was broad enough that some small luxuries were becoming common. The venison steak he ate not long after his conversation with Phil was seasoned with garlic and onion powders. When Mason asked about it, Phil explained that someone actually made them by hand.

It was the little things that made civilization.

Judith and Hal came to visit later in the evening. Judith looked him over with a clinical eye, forgoing any pretense of confidentiality or privacy as she studied the handwritten chart at the end of his bed. Hal looked more Santa than biker, his eyes as full of laughter as Mason had ever seen them when he leaned in to give him a hug.

“You’re looking better,” Hal said when he straightened. “Haven’t been that worried for you since we found you on that road.”

Mason shrugged. “The infection was pretty bad, Phil said. I guess the old bug isn’t fighting them off for me like it used to.”

Judith dropped the chart back in its plastic cradle and leaned on the foot of the bed. “Doesn’t that worry you? It concerns me. What if it’s mutating? We should have Kell take a look.”

“If you want,” Mason said. “I’d rather not distract him with side work, but if it might help him get a better handle on Chimera…”

The truth was, Mason doubted Kell would be surprised by any sudden changes to the Chimera in his system. Over the months he’d offered tissue sample after tissue sample for study, even allowing himself to be injected with early attempts at a cure. It was risky as hell since no one knew exactly how much of Mason’s physiology relied on the deeply entrenched organism to function, but he thought it was worth it, and Kell was meticulously careful.

He didn’t say any of that out loud, of course. Judith would be furious he’d let himself be a test subject without letting her know, and Hal would be equally upset for risking his health.

“I’ll go down to wherever he’s staying and have him take some blood samples,” Mason said. “If that will make you feel better. Thinking about it, where
is
he staying? Last I heard this place was almost a mile on a side.”

“Bigger,” Hal said. “And you won’t find him here. We’re set up off site.”

“We?” Mason said. “Everyone from Iowa is together?”

“Not everyone,” Judith said when Hal looked away uncomfortably. “Most of those who came with us moved into Haven. They’re staying permanently. Andrea, her kids, most everyone else. Lee will be staying with Kell and Emily as he heals. Our group is camped there.”

Mason waited for her to fill out the list. It didn’t happen.

“That’s it?” he asked. “Everyone else is living in Haven now?”

“Yes,” Judith said with a tired sigh. “That was the point of coming here, wasn’t it? To get to safety? Most of those children lost their parents. Did you really expect all of them to stay with us when there are so many more options in Haven itself?”

Mason felt his throat constrict with a sudden, powerful sense of loss. He had known their home was gone, of course, but until that moment the depth of what it meant to him was buried deep. Though he hadn’t spent much time doing the day-to-day things many others had, their little walled village was the first place he’d been able to come back to since leaving Haven long before it had been given that name.

Somehow he’d convinced himself they would carve out a place here together. Not overtly; just a set of assumptions in the back of his mind. A way to preserve something of what their community had been.

“Can’t blame them for spreading out,” Mason said. “Have to do what’s best for the kids.”

Phil returned, and Judith walked off to speak with him. Hal crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the bed.

“You okay, kid?”

Mason nodded stiffly. “Yeah. Just…hard to wrap my head around it, you know? When it was about the fight, the reality just didn’t sink in. Everyone who lived there is spread out or dead.”

“You religious at all?” Hal asked.

Mason chuckled. “Change of subject, much? No. I’m not.”

“I wasn’t trying to distract you,” Hal said. “Back when I was young, real young, I was what you might call devout. My mom always talked about signposts. Seemed like everything was a sign about something important. I bought into the idea when I was a kid, not so much later on.”

Mason smiled. “I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

Hal gave him a mock frown and brandished a fist. “Respect your elders. I don’t really think much of the idea these days, but you have to admit it’s pretty clear what we need to do.” His eyes searched Mason’s for a few seconds. “Me, Judith, our group? We’re built for travel. We do small jobs really well. Some of that is just learning to survive, some is stuff you taught us. I reckon Kell, Emily, and Lee aren’t going to let anything stop them from getting that cure done and handed out. We’re going to help them do it.”

Of course they were. Mason, at least, had always planned for it. He had assumed Hal and the others would go along, but hadn’t yet asked. “So?”

“So,” Hal said, “we don’t have anyone to worry about but ourselves, now. Everyone we helped get here is moving on without us. We’re free to do the damn job. You should be happy about that, son. Those bastards hurt us, but they didn’t stop us.”

Mason had little else to do but think after the others left. The night staff at the clinic didn’t bother him, only checking his vitals once now that he was awake and out of the woods. He stared at the ceiling for a long while, slowly tensing and relaxing muscles as a kind of dry run for getting back on his feet. The aches and pains of age, which his lifestyle had begun bestowing on him in his early thirties, had gradually faded. Chimera’s work, he knew. Fresher discomforts flashed through him as he tested the muscles in his hip and leg. Slowly and carefully, he explored his limits.

How many homes could someone lose in a lifetime before their ability to cope failed them? Mason thought he might be at his limit. Violence had always come easily, but he’d rarely had a thirst for hurting someone. Now all he could do as the muscles tensed and relaxed, joints slowly rotating, was think about the different ways he could rain hell down on Rebound and their agents. He wasn’t angry, which itself was unnerving. The fire behind the urge to make those responsible pay was fueled by that deeper sense of loss.

He wondered for the first time if Kell, who blamed himself for the fall of civilization and billions of deaths, felt this way. If so, Mason’s respect for the guy increased a thousand times over. He had lost a home, a collection of people in a specific place, and he found himself obsessing over making someone regret it. Kell’s loss was so much more profound, both in depth and scope.

He would have to ask Kell how he coped with the weight of it once he was back on his feet.

The lab, Emily had to admit, was impressive. When she’d been told their space would be located outside Haven proper, her first instinctive response was a vague anger overlaid on wary resignation. Of course they wouldn’t have the protection of the walls. Of course they’d be stuck on the ass end of nowhere.

In reality, they were right across the street. The building had formerly been part of the local National Guard airfield, meant to hold several helicopters. It was a huge slab of cinder block and prefab aluminum with doors easily capable of keeping out the undead.

The interior was cozy. So cozy, in fact, that she had a hard time waking Kell up.

“Get out of bed,” she said for the third time, with no response. “I’m literally on fire! I’m going to die if you don’t move your ass right this second!”

He mumbled and rolled over, pulling the pillow on top of his head.

“How dare you,” Emily whispered dramatically, then dropped onto him with a well-placed elbow.

“What the shit, man?” Kell shouted as he sat up. “You could have just said something.”

Rather than argue with him, Emily bounced to her feet. “We have a busy day. I have to go get your test subjects. Then bring Mason over here. Then check to make sure our supplies are stocked up. While you get to play with your new toys.”

The interior of the hangar was immense by the standards most people had for living space. What had originally been one open area with a few offices along a wall had been transformed. One bay was enclosed by walls and ceiling added by Will Price’s people. That was the lab. Two offices were converted to utility areas, one holding water tanks fed by rooftop collection, the other car batteries and the power system keeping the lights and lab machinery working.

Rather than try to build into the existing structure, the rest of the space was essentially a house without walls standing open on three sides. The south end of the building connected to the plywood rooms, which stood two levels high, but other than the floor that was the only point of contact.

“They aren’t toys,” Kell said as he hauled himself up. “I can go with you, if you want.”

Emily shook her head. “No, sir. You need to make sure everything is set up in there. Check all your weird biology nerd supplies. Calibrate things, or whatever it is you do. I’ll handle the rest. Besides, I’ll have Allen and Greg with me. I’ll be fine.”

She gave him a peck on the cheek and stepped through the open doorway and into the hangar. The steps leading down from their second-level bedroom looked suspicious due to their rough construction, but they were solid. They didn’t so much as creak as she loped down them two at a time.

“There you are,” Allen said as she dashed toward the passenger van serving as their loyal steed for the day. “What took so long?”

Emily smiled. “You try waking his ass up sometime. It’s like raising the dead.”

Allen chuckled as they piled in. Greg was behind the wheel, and when Emily opened the side door she found Jo, the young woman in Mason’s group, staring out the window.

“Uh, hey,” Emily said. “I didn’t know you were tagging along.”

Jo jumped as if startled. “Oh. I needed to get away from the boys. I hope you don’t mind.”

“The boys?” Emily asked with a frown. “Mike and Randy?”

There was a lot to read in Jo’s grimace. “Yeah. They’re getting kind of clingy. Always following me around.”

Emily nodded sagely. “Well, sure. I don’t mind if you come along. Every hand helps.” Then, because it needed to be said by someone, she added, “But if you think they’ll stop acting like teenage boys all on their own, you clearly haven’t met many teenage boys.”

“I wanted to get out today so I didn’t have to punch them in the face,” Jo said placidly. “I’d rather not have to deal with the fallout if I can avoid it.”

Emily chuckled and lightly socked the younger woman on the arm. “I think we’re going to get along well.”

From the driver’s seat, Greg spoke up. “Where are we going, anyway? I’ve never lived here. This is all new to me.”

Leaning forward, Emily pointed to the road separating them from Haven itself. “Just turn left, follow the wall. Once we past it and into the town proper, we shouldn’t have any trouble finding zombies.”

It was true enough; large communities produced huge quantities of smells that attracted the undead. Haven used various means to drive them off, but mostly they let the walls keep people safe. The heavy stone wall around the original small neighborhood making up the settlement had long been dwarfed by its expansions. The thin but strong additions, made up of re-purposed shipping containers pulled apart and welded back together, seemed to stretch on forever.

They ended soon enough.

“We’re not here to fight,” Emily told the group. “Please remember that. We want to take four or five of them without doing any serious damage. Kell needs intact subjects.”

“And this is the best place to find them?” Jo asked, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.

They sat parked in the middle of the main road running through this side of town. It was a major thoroughfare for people of all kinds, alive and dead.

“Yes,” Emily said. “There have been all kinds of fights here. Big ones. The eastern half of the county is cut off from this side. All the bridges across the river are blown for miles to the north and south.”

“Ah, I see,” Allen said. “They have to come this way.”

Emily waggled a hand. “Have to? Not really. But they can smell all the people here and there aren’t any other easy ways to travel. Will told the sentries up and down the road to leave a few stragglers alone, so when they show up we’ll be able to catch them.”

The setup was simple, considering they were using themselves as bait. Even in the quietest of times, a steady trickle of zombies made their way from the south or west and moseyed onto the surface streets. The trick wasn’t going to be attracting them—repelling zombies was a problem Emily would have given a limb to have—but keeping good specimens from taking too much damage while also not getting killed themselves.

Jo served as lookout, laying on the roof of the van with binoculars. Barely five minutes passed before she called out.

“Incoming. Looks like a pair.”

Emily shrugged into her armored coat, heavy gloves, and protective neck wrap. The zombies crested the hill and caught sight of the group, picking up speed as they sensed prey. She pulled two pair of handcuffs from her belt, tossing one set to Jo. “You partner with Greg, and wait until he gives you the all-clear to bind them.”

Jo caught the cuffs and slid down the side of the van. She stared at Emily, uncomprehending. “You’re letting me help?”

“Of course I am. Why would I let you come with us, otherwise? Now get ready!”

For someone who had only heard the method of capture described to her a few minutes earlier, Jo did well. She and Emily separated, each drawing a zombie with their movements.

Emily singled out the more dangerous of the two, a New Breed still fresh enough to look almost alive. She jingled the cuffs in her hand, raised her fists like they were going to duke it out. Emily moved carefully, swinging around to put the zombie between her and Allen while also keeping her distance.

Allen was quick in his rush to snag the zombie with his catch pole, but the New Breed was quicker. It jumped forward unexpectedly and slashed with its claws. Emily batted the seeking hands away with her forearm, continuing the motion and using the force of it to spin away. Suddenly not being where she was supposed to forced the zombie to overextend and stumble, which let Allen catch up to it.

“Got it,” he said as he yanked the loop tight. Though the zombie didn’t need to breathe, it still had the instincts of a living creature. It didn’t want to have a loop of steel braid around its neck, controlling its movements. It clawed at the metal pointlessly, and in its momentary panic, Emily swooped in.

The first bracelet went on in the blink of an eye, and with it secured she had leverage to drag the arm down and back. In a liquid movement she got the zombie in a hammer lock and wrenched the other arm back. That part was easy since the damn thing was trying to reach back and slash at her by then. Ducking under the pole, Emily secured the second cuff and held the zombie by the chain between.

With her free hand she grabbed the base of the loop where it disappeared inside the catch pole and guided the bound zombie toward the rear of the van. Someone had opened the doors, revealing the segregated containment area. A heavy sheet of perforated steel made a barrier between it and the passenger compartment. Though the fit was snug, there were six cages nestled inside.

Emily wrestled the zombie into the row of cages on the left, which were actually one long cage with several doors to make separate spaces. By the time she had pushed the zombie all the way to the back and latched the inner gate closed, she was pouring sweat and listening to Jo sigh impatiently as she waited to cage her own catch.

“Calm your tits,” Emily said as she backed out of the van. “This isn’t easy, you know.”

When she got back on the pavement and straightened, she saw Jo standing behind her captive holding it still with one hand. Greg had already removed his loop.

Jo had managed to wrap her belt around the chain of the cuffs while also using the looped end to gag and restrain the zombie. The thing was arched back, having to almost dance to keep its balance as Jo gently guided it with her slim hand.

“No one likes a show-off,” Emily groused. Jo favored her with the sort of shit-eating grin only a supremely confident teenager can pull off.

They had to wait almost half an hour for the next zombie to roll in, this one by itself. When Jo shot her a questioning look, Emily waved her on. “By all means, youngster. Show me how it’s done. I’ll be basking in your superior technique while sitting on my ass inside the van.”

Allen laughed hard at the look on the girl’s face, an unusual sound from him. “That’s why you don’t show up your elders,” he said. “You just tricked yourself into extra work.”

Jo considered this for a second, then without a trace of embarrassment became laser-focused on the task at hand. Emily was quietly pleased; Mason spoke highly of the girl. He spent months teaching her to fight, and according to him she picked up combat like some children absorbed a new language or a sport. It was nearly an instinct.

What mattered most wasn’t the natural aptitude, of course, but how much work someone was willing to do when the easy parts were over. Jo didn’t seem to mind shedding her own share of sweat, an attitude Emily could relate to.

The second go round was as flawless as the first, an almost balletic performance. Jo had control and grace, enough caution to keep her safe and the right amount of confidence to prevent hesitation. It had been a small test, decided on the spot, but a test all the same. The unavoidable truth was that the destruction of the compound highlighted a weakness desperately in need of shoring up.

Kell, Emily, and Mason were not enough. If they were going to make a run at Rebound one day, or just move on from Haven at all, it would require skilled people. More than just the three of them.

Jo would do. Emily would have approved of the girl sight unseen, just on the strength of Mason’s judgment. Still, it was reassuring to see the proof with her own eyes that a long-term prospect for joining them in whatever insanity they dedicated themselves to was up to snuff.

She hoped the others, especially the boys, were even half as good.