The Colony

by Kathleen Groger

  I flew to the truck, plopped my backpack in the passenger seat, and said a small prayer before I shoved the key into the slot. It fit.

  When I turned it, the truck roared to life. I zeroed in on the dashboard, willing the gas gauge to move toward F. Come on. Come on. It crept up to the three-quarters full mark. I yelled and jumped out of the truck.

  Adam pulled down on a heavy-duty chain and the roll door that covered the one end of the building groaned. He let go of the chain and the door opened all the way. I grabbed Megan by the hand and hauled her into the cab of the truck, pushing her into the middle of the seat.

  Adam walked to the hood of the truck. “Do you want to drive?”

  “No, go ahead.” I went to the passenger side. While I didn’t have a problem driving the ATV, cars still scared me. I had gotten my learners permit and practiced a lot with Mom, but driving still made me nervous. And with the extreme craziness of the last few hours, I wasn’t positive my nerves wouldn’t implode. I jumped into the truck, sliding my bag by my feet.

  Adam landed in the driver’s seat and tossed his bag into the back. “Buckle Megan’s seat belt.”

  The earthquake damage proved a challenge to Adam’s driving skills, and after a narrow escape with the Turbo Swirl slide, we made it to the parking lot. I wrapped my fingers around the Glock in case the Raspers had stayed in the lot, but it was empty.

  Adam hit the gas hard and the truck leapt forward, leaving the abomination of Wild Waters behind.

  With every notch in increased speed, my heartbeat dropped. I slumped back in the seat and tried to formulate a plan of what to do next, but my eyes grew heavy. Exhaustion reared its ugly head. I pinched my cheeks to stay alert.

  I glanced at Megan. She stared out the windshield. I was sure she wasn’t seeing the landscape flying by, but remembering the horror of her family dying.

  “Where are we going?” I yawned.

  “Far away from here. I want to put some distance between us and the Rasper hive before we stop and figure where we are in relation to Site R.” Adam’s voice was part tired, part pissed off.

  All I could picture was Bethany’s demise. Guilt tore at my heart, shredding it piece by piece. We shouldn’t have left her there alone. I needed to think about something else. I stole a glance at Adam. Megan’s head blocked my view, but I caught sight of his wavy hair and the determined set of his jaw.

  I shut my eyes and tried to burn his image into my memory; something to keep the bad visions away. I needed something to numb the terror threatening to push me over the edge. I slipped into a restless sleep.

  A bumping of the truck sent me scrambling for my gun. I tried to process the scene before me, but I was too tired. “What’s happening?”

  “Hold on.” Adam jerked the wheel to the right, then the left.

  The road was broken open and filled with gaping holes. The earthquake had all but destroyed it.

  “Over to the right. There’s a clearing.” I jabbed my finger toward the window.

  Adam jerked the truck off the road and onto the shoulder. With a loud shudder, the truck shifted into the field. While not a smooth surface, the ground wasn’t the roller coaster ride the road had been.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I didn’t have a warning. The road was fine, then boom, it crumbled to hell and back. You woke up right when it started anyway.” Adam opened and closed his hands around the steering wheel.

  “Has Megan said anything?” I tapped her leg. She didn’t change expressions or tell me to stop. I wished she would. I was scared she’d slipped so far away that we might not get her back.

  “No. It’s pretty creepy.”

  I opened the glove compartment of the truck and sifted through tools and papers. Nothing good. “Want a candy bar?” I extracted two out of my bag and waved them around like a flag of surrender.

  “Break me off a piece. I’m starving.” Adam maneuvered the truck back onto the road.

  “Me too.” I opened the chocolate bar and handed one to Adam, passing it right in front of Megan’s nose on purpose. She didn’t react.

  “Thanks.” He shoved the bar into his mouth in one bite.

  I opened the other one and tapped Megan on the shoulder. “Come on, you need to eat. Here, have some chocolate.” I shoved the food in front of her face a few times before giving up and eating it myself.

  My stomach growled for more, but I tried my best to ignore it.

  “Hey, there’s a sign for Jenkinsburg.” Adam pointed as the truck whipped by a sign I had no hope of reading.

  “What’s in Jenkinsburg?”

  “Hopefully no Raspers or wild animals, but lots of food. Maybe a Walmart.”

  If there was a Walmart, I hoped it would be in better shape than the one in Alberdine. It took about fifteen minutes before we reached the outskirts of Jenkinsburg. It had been a typical small town before being destroyed by the earthquakes, and possibly tornadoes.

  “This place is a war zone.” Adam drove the truck along the right edge of the road to avoid a large crack.

  “Think there’s anyone here?”

  Personally, I didn’t want to find anyone else. Our little band of survivors was hard enough to handle. We didn’t need to care for anyone else. Didn’t need to lose anyone else. I couldn’t handle any more scars on my heart. It made me sound like a total bitch, but I’d slipped so far out of the comfort zone of my rules, I didn’t know what to do.

  “Looks like the neighborhood store.” Adam wheeled the truck into a parking lot full of abandoned cars. Some of their doors hung open. Others didn’t have doors.

  I unbuckled. Luckett’s Market was still standing, but just barely. The roof, once a neat triangle, now resembled a squashed trapezoid. The glass windows were broken and a shopping cart hung on the frame of the broken door. I took a deep breath then opened the door of the truck, got out, and braced myself for the smell. It didn’t reach my nose. Odd.

  “Come on, Megan, get out.” I didn’t want to leave her alone. Not with how it had gone down with Bethany. “If she won’t get out, what if we lock her in the truck? She should be okay then.”

  Adam looked from me to Megan. “Yeah, she should be fine in the truck.” He got out, leaned back in to most likely tell Megan what our plan was, then locked her in.

  “Did she answer?”

  “No.” Adam turned back to the truck. “What are we going to do about her? She obviously needs a doctor or something.”

  “I wish I knew.”

  We walked over the broken glass and Adam tossed the cart out of the way. Like outside, the smell inside the store wasn’t bad—just a mild, musty scent. When we walked through the store, the reason for the lack of smell became apparent. The store was bare except for the fixtures.

  “Where is everything?” Adam shoved a small display cabinet, smashing it to the floor.

  “It’s been totally cleaned out. Somebody must be living around here.” It was the only reasonable explanation, but my mind wandered. For the first time in four months, I wondered if Raspers ate. They would need some sort of nutrition. Every living thing did. I learned that in kindergarten. So, did they eat normal food or is that why they took the dead? I had to think about something else.

  I slid down the wall behind the checkout counter. I was exhausted, wiped out. I rested my head on my knees and willed myself not to cry. I lifted my head, and when I caught sight of the object attached to the bottom of the counter, I felt the long-unused turn of a smile cross my lips.

  Adam snapped his fingers. “What are you thinking about?”

  “There’s a shotgun under here.”

  “What?” Adam came around the worn checkout stand and crouched down. “Hot damn.”

  I unlatched the gun and handed it to him.

  He opened the barrel. “Two shells.”

  “Better than nothing.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Adam slung the gun’s strap onto his shoulder and helped me up.

  We went back
outside. A yellow metal box by the building’s edge caught my eye. I walked toward it, hoping it was what I thought it was.

  “What are you doing?” Adam called.

  “Hang on.” My heart sped up. A newspaper box with papers. I tugged on the handle to open it, but it rattled in locked defiance. I spun around, searching for something, anything, to break the glass. The ground was as clear as the store. I went back to the truck and took the tire iron from the back. I smashed it against the plexiglass of the box. It took three whacks, but it finally broke open. I snatched a paper and glanced at the date. October 28. The day after the Great Discovery.

  “Val, come on.”

  I folded the paper, stuffed it in my bag, and sprinted to the truck.

  “What were you doing?” Adam asked when I slid into the seat.

  “Got a paper.”

  “For what?”

  “Information, hopefully.”

  “Where should we go?”

  I put the tire iron behind the seat and set my bag on the floor. “Let’s get out of this town and back on the interstate. We’ll try the next town for food.”

  “Maybe we should check for other survivors first. Someone had to clear out the store.” Adam tapped his fingertips on the dash.

  “You know, I was thinking about something.”

  “What?”

  I leaned forward in the seat to look around Megan so I could see his face. His stubble was even thicker today, but not in the beard range yet. “Well, it occurred to me that it might have been Raspers who cleared the store out.”

  There, I said it. I spoke the new fear aloud, but it didn’t lessen its intensity like it should have. It didn’t settle the candy bar churning in my stomach.

  “Why would they clear it out?”

  “Have you ever seen one eat anything?”

  “No, but…” Adam wrinkled his forehead, which told me he was probably reaching the same thought pattern I had.

  “Everything needs to eat. Do they eat normal food or something worse? I mean, are they like flesh-eating zombies?”

  Megan whimpered, but remained glass-eyed.

  “Sorry, Megan.”

  “Maybe we should talk about something else.” Adam raised his eyebrows.

  “Let’s just go to the next town. It’ll be easier that way.” I gave Adam a glare, which hopefully pleaded my case strongly enough to move on. “Regardless of what Raspers eat, there isn’t anything here for us.”

  Adam started the truck and I leaned back in my seat, lost in my thoughts. Was it Adam’s intention to find any and all survivors? While it was a compassionate gesture, my practical side balked at the idea. Right now, we didn’t have much food and who knew what the state of other stores were. Maybe Alberdine’s stores were the exception rather than the norm. It was becoming painfully obvious I had no idea what was really happening in the world.

  I took out the newspaper and read the headline about the Great Discovery. Nothing new there. I flipped the paper over and below the creased middle, a picture of a group of people stared back at me.

  Blood rushed away from my face and a chill sliced through my veins.

  16

  I read the caption below the picture.

  Geo-scientists from Pearan Chemicals hailed after the discovery of a cache of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

  I couldn’t swallow; my mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls. I’d seen the one scientist before. He was the Rasper from the car. The Rasper who freaked me out the most.

  With shaking hands, I folded the paper in half again to block the penetrating stare. A scientist was a Rasper. Or was the Rasper a scientist? I couldn’t process what it really meant. All I could think was, why me?

  “Find anything?” Adam asked.

  “No.” I wanted to say yes, but decided to keep the information to myself right now. I shoved the paper deep into my bag, tried to focus on anything but his face, and failed. For hours, I kept seeing his yellow skin and smelling his retched breath.

  I watched out the window. We were in the middle of farmland. For miles and miles there was nothing but fields of out of control grain and corn. There was nothing to distract me from the thoughts swirling in my brain. I’d survived for months. Alone. Now the Raspers were tracking me. Why? I rubbed my hand down my throat. Maybe I was just being paranoid.

  “How much ammo do we have left?” Adam’s question broke into my thoughts.

  I counted the bullets. “A full round in my Glock, and ten extras. You have about six and two in the shotgun. Not enough.”

  “Damn.”

  When the reds and oranges of evening crept into the sky, panic tightened my chest and climbed up my throat. We needed to stop somewhere. Driving at night with the Raspers out in groups would be downright idiotic. And I still couldn’t shake the Rasper’s image from my brain.

  “We need to find a shelter.” I leaned past Megan and glanced at Adam.

  “I know. I’ve been looking, but it’s all fields out there.” He waved his hand at the windshield.

  I gazed out of the truck, mesmerized by the muted colors of the sky behind the rolling clouds. It all seemed normal. The sky gave no indication that humans were all but dead and Raspers and Bugs covered the planet. The twilight display reminded me of one of my mom’s paintings, and I couldn’t stop the tears that leaked out of my eyes. I kept my face turned toward the window.

  “Hey, there’s something.”

  I ran my sleeve across my cheeks and turned to Adam.

  He pointed to a collection of buildings where the one field ended. He turned the truck up a dirt driveway riddled with bumps and divots. I grabbed my bag with one hand and held onto the rollover bar with the other. Megan made no move to steady herself. She needed to snap out of the horrors in her mind and I had no idea how to bring her back. I had enough trouble keeping myself sane. I felt bad about Bethany. But Megan wouldn’t survive much longer if she didn’t rejoin reality. Maybe I was a monster for not having more compassion. Maybe it was because of the Rasper sting. Maybe I was just making excuses so I could cope.

  Adam pulled the truck to a stop. There were three buildings, as well as the smashed remains of what once had been a house.

  “Looks like a tornado ripped apart the house.” Adam echoed my thoughts.

  “And part of that building’s roof. Think the place is secure?”

  Adam shrugged, opened his door, and got out. “It’s too late to search for anything else now.” He reached in and latched onto Megan’s hand. “Come on, Meg, we need to get out.” He guided her from the truck and hoisted the shotgun onto his shoulder.

  I got out, slung the bag on my shoulders, and reached for my Glock.

  “Which building, do you think?” Adam whispered.

  I took in the options. There was a grain silo, two large rectangular buildings, a barn, and I didn’t know what the other was. “The barn looks the most intact,” I whispered back.

  The air here was clean and fresh smelling. No rotten or moldy scents, just the aroma of nature. Adam and I moved to opposite sides of the barn door. He shoved Megan behind him and nodded. I pushed it open with my right hand and pointed the gun. The only light in the building came from the opened door. It was difficult to make out the interior, but it seemed empty.

  “Get your flashlight,” Adam said, low enough that only I heard him.

  I let go of the door, pulled out my light, and shined it into the cavernous space. Along the left side, five stalls that probably once housed horses stood empty. A loft filled with hay rimmed the top of the barn.

  “This should work.”

  I was damned tired. Adam had to be tired too. At least I’d had a quick nap in the truck. How he and Megan were keeping their eyes open was beyond me.

  Four saddle blankets sat on a shelf next to the horse stalls. Along with the hay, they would make a decent bed. I helped Megan lie down and stuffed a sweatshirt under her head. I lit a small jar candle I’d brought with me. The flicker of light threw shadows across
her features.

  “Are you hungry?” I got out some cans of tuna I still had. She didn’t answer. I hadn’t expected her to. She was really starting to freak me out.

  Adam sat next to me and opened one can. The scent of the tuna churned my stomach, but I was hungry enough to ignore my aversion to seafood. Dad had loved shrimp and lobster. Mom didn’t really like the taste, but she told me she cooked it to make him happy. She always made me mac-n-cheese on seafood nights. I pulled out a fork and the two of us split the can. When I glanced at Megan, she had her eyes closed. I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not. I hoped she was. Her mind needed to rest and recharge.

  “Think she’ll be okay?”

  “I hope so…I don’t know. She probably needs a hospital or something.”

  Adam scooted closer to her and ran his hand over her hair. The candle’s glow bathed his face in amber light.

  A burning sensation flared through my stomach. When Adam kissed the top of her hair, I almost punched something. My reaction didn’t make sense. He wasn’t mine; I had no claim on him. Still, it tore me up to see his lips on her. I stood.

  “What’s up?” Adam stroked Megan’s hair.

  Nothing besides the fact I had a sudden urge to slap his face. Oh, my God. It was true. I was insanely jealous of him touching a girl who had just watched her family get shot to death and her cousin devoured by a lion. I couldn’t believe myself. I was a total bitch. “I need some air.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Always.” I was careful about everything. Except my heart.

  I left the barn and went outside in the dark, violating my rules again. My skin prickled when I realized I hadn’t retraced them lately. Leaning against the side of the barn, I ran my hand across the faded words.

  I sank to the ground, pulled up my knees, and wrapped myself into a ball. I rocked back and forth for a while, then I raised my head. Stars shone bright in the sky. Were Mom and Dad up there somewhere watching me? What about dogs? Did they go to heaven? I missed my beagle, Barney. Missed his wet kisses. I dug my nails into the palms of my hands.