by Lanza, Marie
The Colony:
ISOLATION
By
MARIE LANZA
Copyright © 2014 by Marie Lanza
http://www.MarieLanza.com
Cover Design by Dustin Wissmiller
www.DustinWissmillerPhotography.com
The Colony: Isolation, is part 2 of The Colony series.
The Colony - Isolation 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: ISOLATION
It’s been almost two months and Emma can still hear the gun shot.
The absence of human contact stretched back to that single moment in time. Emma hadn’t seen another living soul since Jim took his life. In her solitude, she thought about their last moments often. There was no sadness, no guilt; he was infected. Her only choice was to leave him. Jim’s choice matched the cruelty of this new world. He could wait and slowly lose himself to the Carrier virus as it ravaged his mind and body, or he could end it himself. Either way, the choice was death.
She let herself think of him in order to pass the time. Emma also used Ryan as another outlet for passing time, but thoughts of her husband were much harder. She missed him. Jim’s end had been sudden and final. Her husband had been half a world away when the world changed. There was no final, she was never going to find closure as to whether or not he had survived. She daydreamed of only happy memories together; questioning whether he was still out there would get her nowhere.
The day Jim died, Emma never stopped running until it was close to nightfall. She found a neighborhood that didn’t look nearly as bad as the others they had traveled through in the past. It was full of middle-class homes that had weathered since the breakdown of society. Grass was overgrown in the yards, and weeds filled cracks in the streets and overwhelmed what were once manicured gardens.
Emma broke into a two-story home at the end of a cul-de-sac. It hadn’t been ransacked yet by Survivors or Carriers. She put the house on full lock down, with doors bolted and furniture pressed firmly against them, curtains closed and book cases against the windows. Emma used a bedroom on the second floor as her living space. For the first time since the outbreak, Emma rested easy; locked away from the outside dangers. To get to her, the Carriers would have to break through a barricaded door or window downstairs, then break through the bedroom door and the blockade she had made with two dressers.
She used the bedroom window facing the side yard as her only entry and exit. From there she could come and go on her scavenging missions without being seen. This window also gave her a good view of the front yard and side yard to the house.
For the first several weeks, Emma had been lucky that most of the homes in the neighborhood were well supplied. She carried back as much as she could on each outing so she wouldn’t have to make too many runs. But before long, the supplies on the street began to dwindle. Emma knew it wouldn’t be long until she would need to venture farther away from the safety of the home.
***
No one was really sure how it started, but at this point it was almost irrelevant. It seemed humanity was lost and there was no recovering from the devastation the virus left in its continuing wake. The only thing that mattered was survival, or not, it just depended on the day. Most days, the loneliness was crushing. Emma maintained a daily vigil, sitting on the rooftop of the house in which she had holed up. Watching, hoping for something, anything to indicate she wasn’t alone. She spent days watching as the sun traveled across the sky; day turning into night. At night, she stared at the ceiling of the darkened room wondering how long a person could be completely alone before the madness took over. Her options were limited: survive, or die.
Survive or Die.
Some days the answer was easier than others.
To die meant no more running, no more fear…. No more loneliness. To survive meant running, fear, loneliness and…. Hope. It would be so much easier to die. An easy outlet to end the savagery the virus had bestowed. But, so far, through tears and endless fear, Emma would cling to this hope and continue to survive.
Like every day, Emma sat on the roof top of the house. She thought someone else might want a cigarette sitting up here alone. Only, Emma didn’t smoke and in this world it wasn’t as if she could go to a corner store and buy a pack for the hell of it. So she sat there, alone in her thoughts under a blue, calm sky, in a peace she knew she could take no comfort from.
Movement in the street below captured her attention. A Carrier – so decayed that skin sagged from its bones and she wasn’t even sure how it was able to still walk. One would imagine there would come a point the body would no longer be able to hold its own weight.
Emma cursed herself under her breath; it had been so long that she had seen anything – alive or dead – that she optimistically, or foolishly, thought the disease was dying out. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not to see something moving. Either way, there he was, stumbling down the street in no particular direction, a mindless walking shell, simply wandering.
She watched in silence, when suddenly a gunshot rang out, breaking the quiet and sending the Carrier onto its back. Emma instinctively ducked and quickly slid behind the eves on the side of the house to get out of view from the street.
Emma waited.
She couldn’t see anyone or anything.
The Carrier in the street rolled around trying to get back to its feet. She became distracted by its struggle, wondering if it would be able to support its own body weight. It wasn’t strong enough to lift itself back up to its feet. The Carrier released a wet, gurgled growl that echoed through the quiet neighborhood as it fought with its own weak limbs.
Why would anyone waste a bullet on a lone Carrier?
This move wasn’t just wasteful, it was stupid. That shot would carry well over a mile, calling all Carriers within that range to the area.
Then she heard it. A soft hum at first, like the approach of a swarm of bees. It was a sound she knew all too well, a sound that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else - Carriers. Emma watched in horror as they streamed in through the streets and across lawns. There were so many, she couldn’t even begin to count. Emma hadn’t seen a hoard this big since the day Jim died.
More shots.
Emma naturally flinched at each explosive sound.
Where are they coming from?
The Carriers fell, one by one. Some stopped moving while others dragged their bodies, trying to get back to their feet.
Emma shrunk back against the house and slid her body across the roof to the open window. She knew she needed to get inside and out of view. It would only take one Carrier to see her and the house would be swarmed; she didn’t want to think about what would happen if whoever had that gun saw her.
Emma crawled through the window without removing her eyes from the street below. Still no sign of human life except for the sound of gunshots targeting the Carriers.
The Carriers turned their attention to the direction of the shots and the one-sided battle continued on.
Emma watched from the window as the quiet neighborhood she had seemingly taken for granted, quickly turned into a graveyard of bodies.
There was no way that whoever was out there had enough bullets to take on this group,
especially the way they were missing. It would take a small army.
Bad shots, Emma thought as she peered out from inside the house.
She looked around the room at the stash she had collected that were true treasures. If she needed to run, she knew she couldn’t take all of it as it would weigh her down. Emma began packing whatever she could carry; canned food, water bottles, a small first aid kit, even though that wouldn’t help with anything except minor cuts, and of course, bullets. She packed two bags, a back-pack and an over-the-shoulder bag.
This should last at least a week.
She checked her weapons; her gun stayed holstered to her waist, a long knife strapped to her leg.
Sporadic gun fire continued to ring out in the neighborhood.
Emma walked back over to the window to take a look outside.
Bodies riddled the street, but handfuls of Carriers continued to fill the area and move towards the sound of the shots.
For her sake, Emma hoped they would continue to head away from her. But, it was just Emma’s luck, the living began to emerge from their hiding places. Just beyond a tree line at the end of the road, she saw the flash of light from muzzles and the shape of people pushing their way into the neighborhood. They were strategically spread out as they came out from the trees and walked through the brush. She couldn’t get a good sight on how many there were as she watched them make their way into the street.
The Carriers fought back.
One of the men screamed in agony as a Carrier latched onto him, sinking its teeth into his shoulder. They crumbled to the ground and another Carrier joined in the attack, biting into the man’s leg.
Then, something unexpected, the other men began to laugh as they watched their companion be torn apart and eaten alive. Emma stared, horrified. They didn’t fight for their friend. This is what humanity has become – monsters, alive and dead.
“Shoulda watched your back, bud!” One of the men shouted as he took aim and shot at a Carrier approaching him. Its head exploded from the impact of the bullet, like a watermelon being smashed open on the cement. At such close range, the Carrier’s brain and blood splattered the man’s body.
He doesn’t need to waste a bullet at such close range. Idiot.
The screams of the dying man stopped as quickly as they began, and one of his “friends” walked up, quickly dispatched the infected and casually shot the man in the head.
Emma knew this wasn’t a group with whom she wanted close contact. They watched and laughed at the death of a living being. She never wished for the death of the living until this moment. She could only hope the Carriers would eat all of them and then move along. But it didn’t look like it was going to turn in her favor. These new monsters were beginning to win.
It wasn’t long until the small battle was over.
“Go get the goods, boys!” A man shouted out. Emma couldn’t see his face hiding under a large hat.
The group began busting through the doors of homes around the cul-de-sac.
“Shit,” Emma whispered under her breath. She turned around and took another long look at the room that had been her home.
Emma had been safe here the last two months. A small part of her knew she probably wouldn’t have been able to stay in this house forever, but there was always that voice that spoke to her saying, ‘why not?’ The thought of losing all these goods was devastating. It was doubtful she would ever get this type of stock again.
As the group traveled closer, Emma knew she needed to be ready to run.
House by house the men raided the homes. She could hear the crash of furniture, doors and cabinets, but they came up empty handed. Emma had already rounded up almost everything from all the homes within the block.
“Looks like this place has been run through already,” one of the men said.
“Well, keep looking since we’re here,” the man in the big hat, hiding his face responded.
As the group gathered together in the street, Emma counted only five men. Then, the inevitable happened, they began to walk towards ‘her’ house.
The group walked through the front yard and disappeared under the porch where Emma could no longer see them. She could only hear the loud bangs on the door as they struggled to push past the barricaded door. It was only a few moments later a window shattered.
Quiet.
Emma put on her backpack and wrapped the other bag over her shoulder. Looking for reassurance, she felt for her gun then her knife.
Emma only had half of her escape plan figured out. She would exit the window and take the ladder down to the backyard. There was a busted area of the fence she could easily squeeze through into the neighbor’s yard. The neighbor’s side yard would be a good place to hide until she could figure out her next move.
She hoped that they would take what they found and move on so she could go back to the safety of the shelter that she had built for herself. Unfortunately, Emma had few other options. All of her plans had involved escaping the infected, not sneaking away from the living. The woods behind the homes weren’t safe this late in the day. She didn’t want to be stuck without shelter when night fell, but at the moment she was more worried of the men ransacking her ‘home.’ Moving anywhere through the neighborhood, she could be easily spotted.
She carefully made her way over to the door, tip-toeing to prevent any sounds that might reveal her presence. Emma leaned in, pressed her ear against the door and listened.
The commotion downstairs sounded as though whoever went through the window was moving the furniture she had piled against the front door. Then, the front door opened. They were in.
“Fuck.” Emma made her way back to the window and peeked out to make sure it was all clear.
It seemed as though the entire group had entered the house together. Emma didn’t want to lean out the window too far in case she missed a lookout.
She hesitated to leave too quickly, hoping that they may just do a quick look and leave.
Emma understood the process of scavengers all too well. The kitchen was always the first stop. Food and water was rare, but vital. Next, look for weapons, which were even rarer these days. After that, if you found a fresh pair of clothes or shoes that fit, you grabbed them.
Footsteps traveled up the stairs.
Emma was in the last bedroom down the hallway. She knew as soon as they tried the door and found it was barricaded, it would be suspicious enough that they would break through.
She listened, her breath and heartbeat rattling in her ears as the sound of boots moved down the hall, stopping at each door to throw it open, walk around and move to the next room.
She stopped breathing as the door handle in front of her rattled.
“It’s locked,” said the voice on the other side.
“Forget it, let’s get going,” another voice said.
Emma let out a long sigh of relief. She was going to catch a break on this one. These men would leave and she would be able to stay in the safety of her hideout.
Emma moved away from the window and removed her shoulder bag from around her neck.
Maybe she was tired, maybe she just wasn’t paying attention, but Emma dropped the bag full of canned goods, completely missing the chair she had intended to place it on. It all seemed to happen in such a slow motion. She felt as though time froze and she could grab the cans before they hit the floor one by one. The thud of cans dropping was deafening. Her heart stopped. Every muscle in her body stiffened. Emma didn’t move.
There was a knock on the door. A calm knock. One that a mother may do before she enters her kid’s room.
Emma stayed still.
A quiet whisper came from the other side of the door, “You can come out now. It’s the living out here.” The door handle twisted around.
Emma kneeled down without removing her eyes from the door. She began picking up the cans and placing them back in the bag. She stood back up, wrapped the bag around her shoulder, and stepped slowly towards the window, making eve
ry effort not to make a noise.
“I can hear you in there. Don’t be afraid.” The words were smooth, but they were punctuated by a body violently slamming against the door.
Emma watched in horror as the wood around the lock began to splinter.
She knew she couldn’t waste another second. Emma dove out of the window and made her way to the ladder she had leaned against the house to get her down from the roof.
“There’s someone on the roof!” A voice yelled from the front yard.
Emma knocked the ladder down when she reached the ground. She slid through the broken fence into the neighboring yard and immediately began searching for a way out to the woods behind the home.
She quickly scanned the yard, looking for a gate, a broken board, anything. Jumping the fence seemed to be Emma’s only option. She saw a wood pile stacked against the far corner of the yard. Emma closed her eyes, took a deep breath and dashed across the yard. She scrambled up the woodpile, throwing her bags over the fence and then threw a leg over the rough wood. She took a quick look back before disappearing over the fence. Emma picked up her bags and ran into the woods.
It was late in the afternoon; with the heavy canopy of the trees, the forest was losing light much faster than if Emma was out in the open. The smallest sounds of crackling leaves and snapping twigs beneath her feet seemed to travel loud and clear. Her surroundings got denser the deeper she traveled into the woods.
Being chased by the living was a first for Emma. Even in the beginning when people were looting and rioting, she got away easily. No one really cared about anyone else - unless they were in their way, and then there was bloodshed. She watched neighbors, friends and family turn on each other for food and daily household items. Traveling far from the cities was the best chance for survival, but safe shelter, no matter what, was key.
Emma could hear the group behind her; voices calling out to each other but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She couldn’t imagine what her pursuers wanted from her. Pure boredom was a solid guess. Not only was she now running from Carriers but uncivilized humans with total disregard for human life.