The Colony: Shift (The Colony, Vol. 5)

by Michaelbrent Collings

  He had to react. There was too much going on to let him sit still and come up with master plans. But his reactions could be careful, and calm, and cunning.

  He dropped to a flatcar. Rolled. Came up in a full-tilt sprint.

  Three more cars to back the engine.

  He jumped up the back of the boxcar ahead of him. Clambered up as quickly as the zombies might have done.

  Looked back.

  The things were within thirty cars. A mass of arms and legs and open mouths waiting for flesh. The growl almost painfully loud now that the sounds of the train had been silenced. The things swarmed so close to one another that Ken couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began. A leg might belong to this creature, or to thing beside it. An arm could be the possession of this man, or the woman tangled up in him as they crawled together over the remains of the train.

  And, really, did it matter whose arms or legs they were? Weren’t they all, at some fundamental level, just a single creature that wanted only one thing: to destroy all humanity?

  Ken ran again.

  He launched himself over the divide between this boxcar and the penultimate one. Felt a hand on his shoulder. Aaron.

  “They’re in there,” said the cowboy. Panting a bit. That made Ken glad for some reason. Nice to be reminded that the guy was at least somewhat human.

  Aaron pointed down. The car at their feet.

  Ken went totally still.

  Waiting.

  Only four people dead in that massive Hatfield crash.

  But what if some of the dead here were his?

  He listened. Not long – they didn’t have long – but he stood silent for an instant.

  Long enough to hear….

  Nothing.

  No calls, no cries. No whimpers or screams.

  The car below sounded empty.

  Or lifeless.

  39

  Ken couldn’t do what he wanted to. Couldn’t just throw himself over the side of the boxcar; jump over and fling himself to the door and open it to see what had happened to his wife and children, not to mention Christopher and Buck. It wouldn’t be the same as hitting the bed of a flatcar: loose gravel, rock, and sand lay on either side of the train in a gentle slope that led to a sort of dry wash on either side of the tracks. Pitching himself over the side of the train would have been a sure way to break an ankle, a leg – a neck.

  He cast about for a ladder, for a rail to grab.

  Aaron was well ahead of him. The cowboy apparently heard the same lack of motion – lack of everything – that Ken did. A spasm of terror jammed its way into his expression, and Ken was glad to see it. He didn’t think the other man’s fear was anything strange, either. Despite his surprise attack and his talk of death, Ken was starting to feel more and more as if the other man still… what? Cared? Worried?

  Ken didn’t know what the right word was. How could you define someone who talked casually about the murder of two children in one instance, then a few minutes later had the aspect of a man whose own kin were at risk?

  Once again, Ken struggled to understand the rapid shifts in the world around him. Once again he failed. He would have to content himself with survival. Hopefully with protecting his own.

  Perhaps, if he lived long enough, understanding would eventually come.

  Regardless, Aaron didn’t suffer the constraints of gravity or physics that hampered lesser mortals. He ran to the right edge of the train, then jumped. In midair he spun around, catching a rail on the top of the car with his good hand. He disappeared from view, only his clenched knuckles visible. Then they opened and his grip released.

  Ken ran to the side of the train in time to see Aaron land perfectly on a set of rungs beside a latch that obviously held shut the sliding door on the side of the boxcar.

  Aaron flipped back the latch as Ken started to lower himself over the side. Much slower than the older man had done.

  The door slid open as Ken’s feet cleared the top of the car, and he swung himself into the doorway. It was a smoothly coordinated pair of movements, and he suspected that an onlooker would have assumed he and Aaron had practiced this open-and-enter routine often. For what purpose, who could know.

  Ken’s feet fell inward and down as he released his grip on the roof rail. He was calling out before he hit the wood flooring that lined the inside of the boxcar.

  “Maggie! Girls!”

  There was no answer.

  But there was light enough to see the still forms that lay in a jumble all around the car.

  40

  Vomit rose in Ken’s throat.

  The lumps that lay all around were not moving, not breathing.

  There was no life in here. No life any of the five… six… eight….

  He blinked.

  Too many.

  Only a second passed. Only a second for the fact that the things on the floor were not his family and friends to sink in.

  He died a thousand times in that second.

  But it was not his family.

  Just moving blankets. Lumps of fabric that had once protected cargo and now twisted across the floor and looked like bound bodies in the half-light of his terror.

  He turned on Aaron, who hung half-in and half-out of the boxcar.

  “Where are they?” he demanded. The words came out as a snarl, a sound the equal in menace to the growl that now saturated the air around them.

  Give up.

  Give in.

  The call should have been harder to resist. But Ken’s rage was damping it. He was terribly afraid, yes. But if he gave into his fear – not for himself, but for his wife and children and friends – then he would be paralyzed. So he let the fear shift to anger. Anger was a close cousin to fear, the reason so many fights began in fright, so many murders were subtle twists of terror.

  Anger was terrible, yes. But, sometimes, useful.

  “Where?” he screamed again.

  Aaron actually shrank back a moment, drawing more fully out of the boxcar. “HellifIknow,” he finally said. It was all one word. Confusion and his own fear and the rush to move melding the syllables into a single mass as seamless as the horde that was moving toward them.

  A constant vibration was writhing through the car. The things were close.

  “Come on,” Ken said. He jumped out the side door, not pausing to see if Aaron followed or not. His feet hit the gravel beside the train and he did not slip in the loose dirt. He ran forward. Toward the engine.

  The girls had to be there. Maggie had to be there. Christopher and Buck and even Sally. They all had to be there.

  The alternative was unthinkable. Therefore it could not be true.

  They have to be there.

  41

  He ran. Faster than he should have, faster than he could have. He had too many injuries, too many aches and pains. But the hum of bruises and the thrum of sprains and strains pushed into the background as his feet covered the terrain.

  He looked down at the wheels of next car they passed. Still off the tracks. But close. So close.

  The next car. The last car.

  Still off the tracks.

  He passed it.

  Give up.

  Give IN.

  The growl rose and rose as the things came. Thousands of them swarming over the metal of the train, painting it black as night, black as despair, black as death.

  And Ken still ignored it. Before he had found it nearly overwhelming. Now… he brushed it aside. Still a force.

  But so was he.

  He thought he heard Aaron’s steps stutter. Didn’t know if it was because the cowboy was dealing with the psychic attack as well, or because he had hit a loose patch of sand. Nor did Ken care. The other man wasn’t his family.

  And his family was his only focus.

  He passed the final boxcar.

  Came upon another figure.

  Ken stopped automatically, halting so fast that his feet dug furrows in the gravel that underlay the tracks. His mind flashed auto
matically to the conclusion that it was a zombie; that the things had made it in front of them.

  Then he realized the thing was alone. Not running toward them, but struggling against something at the rear of the boxcar.

  And it was huge. Six-foot-seven at least, a hulking mass of muscle clad in body armor with “Boise Police” stenciled across the back, a WWII-issue gas mask dangling from his neck. Perfect white teeth stood out in stark contrast against skin so dark it was nearly an absence of light.

  Elijah, one of the people who had rescued Ken only to point a gun at his children and take them hostage, gritted his teeth. His voice, deep as summer thunder, boomed, “Don’t just stand there, dammit. Help me!”

  42

  Ken felt like his awareness had heightened. Like he could sense more than he should have been able to. Not just what was happening in front of him, but even what was out of sight.

  The zombies were coming. Within perhaps twenty cars.

  Aaron, rushing forward to help Elijah. But he had only raised his foot; hadn’t yet had time to put it down. He was moving so slowly. Did he always move that slowly? Or was Ken just… processing things this quickly?

  Elijah was straining at a lever that extended under the coupling between the boxcar and the next part of the train. The last of the three engines. The lever was bent, torqued out of alignment.

  Aaron’s foot still hadn’t come down.

  Next to the train: sand, gravel, dirt. The same slope to a dry wash. Then a twenty-foot stretch of nothing before the sand became scrub, then another twenty or thirty feet before scrub became woods.

  Ken had no idea where they were.

  He could feel life in the woods. Or at least imagine he could. Small hearts beating in feathered breasts, furry creatures peering out from hidden blinds as curiosity and terror tore at them in turns.

  Aaron’s foot finally came down.

  Time snapped back to itself.

  “What’s going on?” said the cowboy.

  “Draw bar’s bent all to hell!” snapped Elijah.

  Ken didn’t understand that, but apparently it meant something to Aaron. He joined Elijah at the bar and both of them pulled on the metal. Nothing happened.

  Give up.

  Give in.

  The growl. Louder. Close enough that individual voices could now be heard: high-pitched, low, trembling, firm. A cacophony of violence, sweeping and inevitable.

  Ken thought of the unofficial motto of the United States: E pluribus unum. Out of many one.

  He doubted Congress had had a thundering mob of zombies in mind when they pasted the phrase all over the nation’s seals and coins.

  “What are you waiting for?” shouted Elijah. He waved to Ken. “Get over here and help us!”

  Ken didn’t move. “Where’s my family?”

  The big man gaped. “Man, we don’t have time for this!”

  “There’s always time for family, pal,” said Ken. Still not budging. “Don’t you ever watch Dr. Phil?” Elijah appeared to be flummoxed by this.

  “Tell him!” hollered Aaron.

  Elijah screamed, “They’re safe! They’re at the engines, they’re all safe, dammit. Now help!”

  Ken stepped forward. Put a hand on the bar. Didn’t pull. Not yet. “If you’re lying to me… I’ll kill you, Elijah.”

  It should have been ridiculous. The other man outweighed Ken by easily a hundred pounds – all of it muscle. He looked combat-ready, and was definitely armed.

  But the big man stepped back. He nodded mutely, and his gaze dropped away from Ken’s.

  Ken put his hand to the lever.

  The three men lifted.

  The growl was closer.

  “Fifteen cars,” he murmured. He tried to convince himself it was a bad guess. That the things could be farther back than that.

  He failed.

  43

  The lever moved an inch, accompanied by an angry screech, then seized up again. Elijah grunted, and Ken saw the veins and sinews come out of the man’s neck so far someone could have played them like harp strings.

  Aaron puffed. The only sound he made, but Ken could feel the strain coming off him.

  Ken dug deep. Pulled. He saw his family’s faces. Maggie. Lizzy. Hope.

  Derek.

  The lever popped up. It felt like all resistance had disappeared, like the thing had held itself against them until it completely failed.

  Something jerked up below the coupling between the boxcar and the rear locomotive. The joint between the two popped open. Mostly.

  “That gonna be enough?” said Aaron. “The Janney ain’t –“

  “Gonna have to do!” shouted Elijah. He pointed, and Ken swung around but already knew what he was going to see.

  They were here. The horde.

  Ten cars away. Nine.

  Eight.

  Seven.

  The lead creatures saw them. Some were whole, not even the bites that had Changed them apparent. Some were hideously torn and mutilated – almost foul in their destruction. A few of them had the scabrous growths on their faces that Ken had seen before: black encrustations that sprung out of the creatures’ cheeks, foreheads, chins.

  Eyes.

  One of them had a face entirely covered by the growth. There was only a small hole where the mouth should be. But it ran smoothly as the others, and faster than most. It chirped occasionally, a sound Ken thought must be some kind of echolocation. Though it could just as easily be the way the thing farted or some kind of zombie love poem.

  “Can we get outta here fast enough?” said Aaron.

  “Probably not,” said Elijah. But he began to run.

  Aaron followed. Ken brought up the rear.

  And the things kept coming.

  They would never stop.

  44

  As with Aaron, a combination of panic and desperate hope drove Ken to higher levels of strength. He passed Aaron; had to concentrate on not passing Elijah. The only reason he didn’t was that the big man knew where Ken’s family was.

  The three locomotives loomed to their left. The massive caboose-like engine farthest back. Two windows at the rear, two at the front. Next came the flat unit. Lower than the preceding engine, and the main part of it was also slightly narrower than the rest of the train to allow for the walkways on either side. The front unit – the one that most looked like what people thought of as the locomotive – was an iron monster with a room-sized area in back for the train’s crew.

  The whole thing was painted a dull olive green with a few yellow and white markings on the side.

  Ken also knew that there was a small door in the front of the cab that led to a basic toilet. That had surprised him for some reason, the first time he saw it on a trip to the Boise Depot on a date with Maggie and they had a freight locomotive on display. It was a cheap date for a couple who had no money and didn’t particularly need any to enjoy themselves. The background activity wasn’t the important thing, it was the company that mattered.

  Why the toilet had seemed strange to him then, and why he suddenly remembered it now, were mysteries to him. The mind flits back and forth between memory and reality, between Then and Now, at its own whim. Sometimes this is blessing, sometimes curse. Sometimes simply strange.

  In the next moment he didn’t wonder, he didn’t care. Because he saw something. A face. Not human, but nor was it alien to him. It was something familiar, and something that gave him hope.

  The snow leopard was leaning out over the top of the center engine. Peering at him with a look that seemed almost human. Maybe Ken was anthropomorphizing – surely he was – but the animal seemed to be staring at him with a mix of irritation and contentment. As though to say, “It’s you. Finally.”

  Ken breathed the snow leopard’s name. A name both ridiculous for its mistaken gender and wonderful for its source. “Sally,” he said.

  The leopard chuffed.

  And another voice answered. Quavering. “Ken?” said the voice. “Is that you?�
��

  Maggie.

  45

  Aaron and Elijah ran on.

  Ken did not.

  He swerved sideways. Ran to the middle of the engine and leaped straight up. A jump that should have brought him crashing into the side of the train, but again his muscles were fueled by something more than himself, something outside of his pain.

  Maggie.

  The voice had come from above. From the top. Maybe from the other side.

  He grabbed the walkway and clambered up the rail. His pulse beat in his ears, drowning out the shrieks and growls that were close, close, closer.

  He didn’t have long.

  “I’m coming, Maggie!”

  Why isn’t she coming to me?

  A moment later he had his answer.

  “Kenny, what’s happening?”

  The words came to him as he made it over the rail. Stood on the steel walkway behind it. He peered over the top of the low box that was the center of the car.

  Maggie. Buck. Christopher.

  The girls.

  They were all there.

  All of them were tied to various metal outcroppings. The three adults had blindfolds on, and Buck and Christopher were gagged. Maggie and the kids weren’t – apparently the kidnappers weren’t unchivalrous.

  Ken’s blood pressure spiked. He heard thuds and knew it was Aaron and Elijah climbing into the front cab. Had to restrain himself from turning to run after them.

  What would he do? Attack them? Die in a hopeless fight?

  Then he noticed – really noticed – the girls. Hope and Lizzy. He had thought they were tied together, they lay so close. But then he saw that they were merely laying on top of one another.

  Maggie was curled in a tight ball, her head down as though the seven-year-old was trying to burrow into the train’s hood.

  Lizzy had her little head on her sister’s legs. Her tiny body splayed out beyond. Right hand tied to something below her body. Eyes wide open.