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

in the wall, even treating wounds.
    Kelsey wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “This is fucking crazy, man. Thirty seconds of fighting, two minutes of waiting for the next one to get close. How many of these things are there?”
    “Could be thousands,” Kell said. “If they followed those soldiers, chances are the swarm attracted more zombies over time. That’s kind of how they become swarms.”
    Juan shook his head tiredly. “We’re gonna need a break soon. I can barely lift my arms.”
    There was not disagreement to be found. The work was unpredictable and full of so much stop and go that they never had time to get any real rest. Kell stopped being the primary in their trio half an hour in, letting the other two rotate to the front as needed. It helped stave off the worst of the exhaustion creeping through their bones, but the woods were still full of approaching forms.
    No rest in the near future.
    Juan stood and put his fists into his lower back, arching as he popped the vertebrae. He stared out forlornly through the trees. “Back to it?”
    “Yep,” Kelsey said, accepting a hand up. The pair of them gave Kell a lift, and once he was on his feet the water seemed to move around in him a bit. He knew it wasn’t really that, but the small burst of energy as his circulation improved was welcome enough that he bought fully into the self-delusion.
    Kell was back in the front when a zombie rushing toward him caught his attention in a way that had little to do with how badly it wanted to eat him.
    The rest of the swarm had the tattered or often entirely missing clothes of zombies long risen. This one, however, looked almost alive. Its body was covered in black fatigues and armor, though the torso was misshapen. A knife hung on its belt next to an empty holster. The dead man stood out from the rest like a bonfire at night, so obvious it almost hurt his eyes.
    “Is that one of those soldiers?” Juan asked. “The ones who attacked us?”
    “Must be,” Kell said, trying to figure out how one of them had come so far.
    Kelsey suddenly burst into ugly, vicious laughter. “Oh, holy shit. Do you guys get it?”
    Juan and Kell shared a brief glance and shrugged. As Kell leaned forward to club the zombie to death, she explained through fading bubbles of vindictive glee.
    “Those fuckers must have left a truck behind. I’d bet anything they were going to try to sneak in with this swarm, just in case we had a fallback point somewhere nearby.”
    Juan pulled the dead soldier across the hood by its limp arm, then nudged the body onto its back once it was on the pavement. “Wonder what happened to them?”
    Kelsey knelt, measuring the dent in the hard armor with her hands. “About the size of a steering wheel. I bet they crashed. The others might be out there, though I have no idea if they’re alive or what.”
    “Probably dead,” Kell said. “If this guy got out of his vehicle, I’d guess the others did too. We’ll keep an eye out, but it’s pretty hard to imagine a crash powerful enough to kill someone outright left them in any shape to walk, much less march, and attack us.”
    It was dusk before the seemingly endless swarm began to peter out. By then nearly everyone had accumulated injuries, many people had several. Kell had missed a swing badly and got a nasty bite on his calf as a result, though his pants hadn’t ripped. The force of it still broke the skin, though, and the ache was a hell that only increased the longer he stood.
    The last few zombies fell and no others appeared to replace them. The long spring days made it difficult to tell exactly how long they’d been at it, but the evidence was littered around the space. Piles of bodies, some haphazard, others stacked like cords of wood, were everywhere. Kell’s shoulders burned from pulling them over the barrier, but letting too many land outside it would only make climbing over easier for the zombies that came after.
    “I think I’ll be able to