by Lanza, Marie
The Colony:
ESCAPE
By
MARIE LANZA
Copyright © 2014 by Marie Lanza
http://www.MarieLanza.com
The Colony: Escape is part 4 of The Colony series.
The Colony – Escape is an original work of fiction by Marie Lanza, who holds the sole rights to all characters and concepts herein.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are productions of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
The Colony: Escape
“You and my wife would have got along perfectly. You’re both stubborn lunatics.”
Emma was emotionally drained and had physically exhausted every muscle in her body. She found herself in an alley at the edge of town, slumped in a fetal position against a wall. Emma was tired of being brave. It took all her strength to leave Andy. She knew Mike was infected. She thought back to Jim and the decision she had to make. She refused to put herself in that position again, even if that meant leaving Andy.
Emma lifted her head to find Andy standing over her, carrying his bags and sweating through his clothes. She had no idea he had followed her out of the convenience store.
Andy took a moment to catch his breath, looked over this shoulder for any Carriers that may be nearby, then back to Emma. “Seriously, Emma, you know I don’t move as fast as you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Well if you would have just waited a second. I wasn’t going to just run out on him. Like I said, we just needed to let him die in peace.” Andy offered his hand.
Emma took his help and he lifted her up from the ground. “So you left him in the store?”
“Yes. And you were right. He’s infected. From the look of him he was heading downhill fast,” Andy solemnly said.
Emma nodded, secretly relieved in Andy’s presence. “Well, let’s get moving then.” They didn’t need to speak any more about it.
* * *
Emma and Andy walked down a country road with wide open space all around them. There was nothing in sight but what Mother Nature left; a warm breeze, a blue sky and overgrown foliage.
“So, your wife, how did you lose her?” Emma asked.
Andy was caught off guard by the question and hesitated for a moment.
“Sorry, we don’t have to talk about her.” Emma sensed the pause. “Believe me, I…..”
“She was a lot like you.” Andy interrupted.” “My wife had the heart of a grizzly bear. She was an emergency room nurse and refused to leave the hospital until all the patients were evacuated. She got sick from whatever this is right at the beginning. She died in my arms at home. When she turned, I left her in our home. I figured that was where she’d want to be. It was where we spent the last 30 years together. By then it seemed everyone had fled or fallen ill. So, I headed for the hills, as they say. Found that cabin and was there till you found me.”
“Any other family?’
“We had three children and five grandchildren…. And when things got bad, we lost contact with them. All of them.”
Emma couldn’t find any words.
“What about you, Emma?” Andy asked. “I know you said you didn’t have any family, but…”
“My husband. He was my only family left. Both our parents died years ago and we didn’t have any kids. So, it was just us.
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. He was deployed overseas when the outbreak happened. Last he said they were getting on transports to get out to sea. I never heard from him again.” That was the most Emma ever told anyone about Ryan.
“I’m sorry I never asked about him before,” Andy said. “But, have you thought he could still be alive out there? Fighting, the same as you.”
“I think of our past together. It’s too hard to think about ‘what if’.”
They continued down the stretch of long country road. It slanted down bringing to view the first major freeway Emma had seen since the outbreak. She had tried to stay far away from the main freeways because, like all populous areas, Hoards of Carriers generally roamed in greater numbers.
During the first days of the outbreak, the roads became death traps. Panic stricken minds seemed to go on auto-pilot, and people instinctively fled in their cars, not realizing they were driving themselves to their graves. Traffic jams stretched for miles with people having no idea where they were going. When the Carriers came, people had no choice but to flee from their vehicles. They fought the Carriers, they fought each other, and in the end left miles and miles of road cluttered with vehicles and dead bodies. Some lay scattered across the roads while others began to roam.
Emma and Andy were part of the smaller percentage of people that followed the directions of the news broadcasts – stay in your homes and lock your doors – but even that couldn’t last forever.
From their vantage, they couldn’t tell what the situation looked like on the freeway. As far as they could see, vehicles of all sorts lay scattered on the pavement.
As they moved closer, it appeared eerily clear of Carriers. The road sloped down and continued straight, disappearing into the darkness of a tunnel that bore into a steep hillside.
“Well…” Emma began to slow her pace.
“Well we’re certainly not going through.” Andy pointed out the obvious.
The tunnel was pitch black, revealing nothing to tell them how far to the other side.
“Yeah it wasn’t much of a question.” Emma gestured upwards, “Up we go then?”
Emma and Andy cautiously moved to the side of the tunnel and carefully began to climb. The terrain was steep and the dirt on the hillside was so packed down, it became a hard slick surface. They used the trees and bushes for assistance in their hike up. At the top, miles of devastation came into view. Cars jammed together, many burned down to just their metal shells, skeletal remains littered the ground, and beyond the freeway – a city in ruins. Buildings burnt, windows broken and boarded and trash blew around with the breeze. And Carriers, hundreds of them.
They made their way down the embankment to the freeway, and began the winding trek through a river of wreckage and twisted metal, peeking through windows and open trunks for anything they could pack away. There wasn’t much. Everything was already rummaged through and anything left was useless.
Emma cautiously approached an ambulance. One of the back doors was left open, increasing her curiosity. She looked inside to find a body tied down to the gurney. A wheezing came from the body, letting Emma know it was no longer human.
“Emma let’s leave it.” Andy insisted.
“We should check for medical supplies.” Emma was already climbing in the ambulance as she spoke, focused on her mission.
The Carrier was strapped at its legs, chest and wrists. Emma had never seen one in this state; starved to the point of skin and skeletal remains. It wanted to have the energy to fight in its restraints but there was no fight left. There was nothing left but rotting flesh and bones, and the last bit of raspy air exhaling from its lungs. Emma sifted through the shelves and drawers, surprisingly finding an untouched cache of medical supplies, and packed it away in her bag. As she searched, she looked over her shoulder at the Carrier, between every move she made. Its movements looked mechanical, like an animatronic and the batteries were running low; slow and shaking.
“Emma. Emma we have company.” Andy had an urgency in his vo
ice.
“Living?”
“I can’t quite tell yet.”
Emma wrapped up her search and jumped out of the ambulance. Andy pointed over in the direction of threatening figures moving in the distance.
“Let’s get out of here. Carriers or not.” Emma didn’t waste any time walking in the other direction.
“Maybe we should…”
Emma quickly interrupted Andy, “Maybe we shouldn’t.”
Andy didn’t fight her.
“What we should do is find somewhere to stay for the night.”
They continued down the highway watching the city to their left. Emma imagined in any other time that all the movement in the streets would be from a regular day; people running errands, going out for lunch, or getting to work. She pictured a regular day of traffic congestion, busy sidewalks and the smell of car engines. Emma shook her head to clear her mind and refocused on what was moving in the distance now. It was something else, something dead, and the air was no longer filled with the smell of typical pollution, but sour with a slight coppery stench that lingered in the air.
The buildings began to get smaller, turning from high rises to small businesses and neighborhoods as they traveled past the urban area and into the suburbs. Carriers gathered smaller groups to lone wanderers in the quieter parts of the city.
“Look over there,” Andy pointed out just ahead of them. “It looks like a school.”
“I think you’re right. Nice secure fence around it too.” Emma said. “Maybe a good place to stay for a few days.”
Emma and Andy made their way off the highway and down the embankment onto a side street that in past days, would have been a one way street commuters took to get on the freeway entrances.
Two Carriers had sighted them before they hit the pavement. Emma looked over her shoulder, almost annoyed she was going to have to get her hands dirty.
“Lets’ just leave ‘em. They won’t catch us.” Andy looked back at their pursuers.
“Yes, but then there’s two more and then two more.” She pulled her knife and headed their direction. “We can’t let them out number us if we can help it.”
Andy pulled his knife and followed.
The Carriers moved with limps in every step, their skin gray and their wounds leaking the vile, thick coagulated blood that still ran through their bodies. The Carriers lurched and bit at the air as they got closer to Emma and Andy.
The Carrier out front was a big man. He, like all of them, was covered in a mixture of blood, guts and dirt. Andy stepped forward between the Carrier and Emma. It lunged at Andy, and Andy met its face with his blade, grabbing it by the shoulder with his free hand and following it to the ground as it met its second death.
Emma didn’t waste any time staring at their mini battle. She quickly moved to the second one that had closed in the distance between them. It was another man, smaller in stature – a fact for which Emma was thankful. She reached out and grabbed its throat. The body was so soft that it felt as if her fingers were reaching into a bowl of jell-o. With her other hand, Emma lifted her knife to the Carrier’s temple and embedded her blade into its brain. As it collapsed at her feet, she flicked off the gooey mess left on her fingers.
Emma and Andy assured each other they were OK with a head nod. They continued down the street towards the school.
They walked the perimeter searching for a way in that wouldn’t require scaling the 12 foot fence that surrounded the school. Arriving at the front of the school, the fences opened into a large circular driveway that parents once used to drop off their children. There wasn’t a Carrier in sight.
The entrance to the school had full glass double doors with glass side panels, making it easy to see if there was anything waiting for them on the other side.
Emma approached and tested the door with a gentle pull thinking it would be locked. To their surprise, it swung open.
“That was easy,” Emma whispered staring inside as she held the door open.
“Almost too easy,” Andy murmured.
They entered.
The entrance hall opened up to a large open court yard, with the surrounding walls holding doorways to what Emma assumed to be classrooms. There was no roof over the court yard, leaving the area bright and airy. In the center, benches still sat in rows where students would have rested and socialized between classes. Nothing could surprise them in this section of the school.
As they walked in, entrances to other hallways came to view. Emma pulled her knife and slowed her pace. Andy did the same.
The hallways were dark, too dark to be comfortable setting foot down them. Emma reached inside her shoulder bag and pulled out two green glow sticks. She popped them, watching their eerie glow light up the entry to the hallway, before tossing them as far as she could down the hall. One crashed early into the wall, falling short, while the other went a little farther, hit the ground, and slid a few feet more.
They waited.
There was nothing. No movement, no sounds.
It was an uneasy silence.
“Maybe we should see if any of the classrooms in this area are open first?” Andy said with a question in his tone.
“Yeah,” Emma didn’t seem quite sure. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
Andy made his way back to the court yard and began checking doors.
Emma took a long look down the dark hall. She figured if there were Carriers, they would have made their way towards the sound and there was no doubt she would have heard them before seeing them. Something still bothered Emma, only she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Emma met up with Andy who walked along, checking door after door. All locked. Emma walked to the other side and began checking the others.
“It’s our lucky day.” Andy said just loud enough for Emma to hear him from across the way.
Emma made her way over as Andy disappeared into a room.
When Emma entered the room, Andy was staring out the windows with his back to her. Emma looked past him and noticed blood smeared across the glass. She entered, closing the door behind her.
Andy didn’t move. He stood quietly, just staring.
Emma heard it first, the familiar sound of the hoard. When groups of Carriers were together, their growls and snarls created a loud humming buzz like a swarm of bees. When Emma got to Andy’s side, she froze. It was the worst thing she’d seen since the outbreak. It was everything she never wanted to witness.
Children, handfuls of them, all Carriers.
“Oh my God.” Emma whispered under her breath.
Outside was a small yard, once a play area for the children, now those children, none looked older than ten years old, were still there, roaming aimlessly, bloody, dirty, and feeding off bodies that littered the yard. Andy walked to a large desk and braced himself up. He stared hard at a small trash can next to his feet, thankful it was there as he took in deep breaths holding down vomit.
Emma dropped her bags to the floor and sat in a small desk. “We stay here for the night. Then we get the fuck out.” She focused hard on her hands placed firmly on the desk, breathing slowly so as not to revisit what she had for breakfast.
Andy nodded. There were no words he could use to express how much he agreed with her. He couldn’t look out the window again and only hoped night would come quickly to hide the horrendous nightmare outside.
“Babies.” Emma spoke to herself. “Those are just babies.” She looked up at Andy, “How do you think they got stuck in there?”
Andy shook his head, “I don’t want to think about it, Emma.” He shifted his body weight in an attempt to find comfort. “I’d say we should put them out of their misery, but there’s just too many.”
“I honestly don’t think I could.” Emma said as she stood back up. “I have to…. I don’t know…” Emma began pulling pushing desks around the room. She just needed to do something, anything to get her mind off of the horror that existed just outside the windows.
Andy didn’t move.
He only watched. He knew she needed to keep her mind occupied with actions rather than thoughts. Andy watched Emma for the better part of ten minutes moving desks around the room to create a barrier around the door and an area barricaded where he figured they would rest for the night. Emma then laid her eyes on a large cabinet, stared at the windows to the play yard and began pushing on the cabinet towards the glass.
Andy only watched her for a few seconds before getting up and walk over to help her. He tugged while she pushed. The cabinet was blocking a large portion of the window in no time.
Emma gave Andy a satisfied glance and headed over behind the wall of desks she had piled in the back of the room.
“I don’t think this is really necessary in here.” Andy picked up her bags that were still laying on the floor and followed her.
“Just habit. Plus it makes me feel better.” Emma sat down against the wall.
Andy dropped her bags next to her feet. He sat down and leaned against the wall.
“Just babies.” Emma repeated again. “Someone had to put them there.”
“Don’t think about it anymore. We get out of here first thing in the morning.”
Emma faded fast. The emotional exhaustion, on top of physical exhaustion, weighed on her much heavier once she sat down and rested.
Andy watched Emma’s eyes get heavier and then eventually close. In the silence of the classroom, the moans of the children outside captured his attention again. He listened. He watched the sliver of yellow light from the late afternoon sun fade to pink, and finally to darkness with only a hint of blue from the moon.
He listened. Almost hypnotized from the buzzing. All those little bodies outside still roaming. Andy couldn’t stop thinking that maybe Emma was right – someone put them there. Someone left them in that yard to die and rise again. Then he heard it. A sound under the moans. A small whimper. A living, human whimper.
Andy looked to Emma. She was still sleeping soundly against the wall. “Emma.” He whispered.
Then the whimper again. It was faint, but Andy was certain of what he was hearing. Andy looked at Emma, still deep in sleep. He took a deep breath, carefully stood up and moved towards the door.