The Fall (Book 5): Exodus in Black by Joshua Guess

over. Kell, unworried about the paint job, silently thanked the dead man for making it easy. His baton sang through the air and slammed home, its weighted end making easy work of the zombie’s skull.
    “Back up, boss,” Juan said, and Kell did.
    The young man crouched with his crowbar and thrust it toward the ground beneath the truck two-handed. Only when he’d stepped back far enough could Kell see the zombie that had tried to slip under. Juan’s strike hadn’t quite done the job—the angle was terrible—so Kell snatched the stunned zombie by its outstretched arm and yanked it forward.
    “On your right,” Kelsey said, followed by a beautiful kick worthy of any NFL punter. Her boot caved in the side of the skull and, unless Kell missed his guess, snapped its neck in the process.
    “Nice one,” Kell said. “Come on, Juan. Let’s push him back under.”
    The work had just begun. The woods made it difficult for the swarm to become a flood, but there were definitely more of them than Kell would have liked. It wasn’t the sort of combat you wrote home about with astounding play-by-plays, but closer to chopping wood. A necessary, repetitive, and fairly safe way of getting the job done.
    “Son of a bitch!” Juan shouted a few minutes later when a New Breed zombie burst through the woods at a run, and being faster, smarter, and stronger than its old school brethren, managed to hurl itself neatly across the hood of a car.
    Kell shoved the younger man to the side and threw himself into the zombie with a hard shoulder block. Fear exploded through him in an unexpectedly powerful torrent, sending a cold line of terror through his stomach and beyond. Kell tucked his head, not eager to get another scar.
    Physics, unlike biochemistry or genetics, is a predictable set of rules. The zombie had momentum, but its body was dehydrated and thin, and the person it had been wasn’t much past average in size to begin with. Kell, on the other hand, was past six and a half feet tall and even in the food-poor conditions he lived in, still outweighed his enemy by a solid eighty pounds.
    It wasn’t anything like unstoppable force meeting immovable object. The zombie bounced off Kell, its back slammed against the fender of the car it had slipped over.
    He raised his head just in time to see Kelsey flow into the narrow space between Kell and the dead man and jam her knife into its eye before it could find its bearings.
    “Thanks,” Kell said. “That’s twice now. I’m gonna have to get you a medal when we’re done.”
    His tone was light, but his heart continued to hammer. Memories of the day his face was ruined appeared and were pushed away in constant blips and flashes. He tried to stay cool, but it was nearly impossible.
    “Hey, man,” Juan said, putting a hand on Kell’s arm. “You’re okay. Nothing to be ashamed of. I almost shit my pants just then. You’re okay now.”
    Kell nodded, knuckles cracking as they gripped the baton even harder. “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m good.”
    It was an obvious lie, but the others didn’t call him out on it.
     
     
     
    If there was an advantage in having to fight for your life and work for your food after the fall of civilization, it was the conditioning. Kell would have rather fought a brief, intensely violent struggle that was over in a few minutes than the hours-long slog of slow, grinding activity that followed.
    The defenders didn’t take stupid risks, which meant no one leaping over vehicles to fight among the dead. It was something Kell might have done—had done—in the past, but the years had given him patience. The only element of such a risk he would have preferred was getting it over with quickly.
    “Here’s some water,” Kell said, handing a canteen to Kelsey, who slugged back a mouthful before passing it to Juan. The kids serving as helpers were marvelously efficient, bringing food and water to the fighters, hauling dead zombies out of the way of using them to fill gaps