The Fall: Victim Zero by Joshua Guess

Author:Joshua Guess
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

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.

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