The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  She pushed her way through the gap as well.

  Followed by Aaron.

  Then Christopher.

  Buck didn’t move through it all. Just stared at the head. He looked like the sight of it had frozen something in him, had sent his mind into a fractal freefall that would permit no escape.

  “Buck.” Buck didn’t move.

  Ken realized he shouldn’t have been able to see anything. Christopher was gone, and with him the light.

  He looked up.

  The entire ceiling was aglow. Bulging and curving. Acid ready to fall through not in a trickle or a stream, but in a torrent. A waterfall that would doom anyone inside the elevator.

  “Buck, we have to go. Now!”

  Buck didn’t seem to hear him. Ken tried pulling the big man. Nothing.

  He moved to the gap. “Buck, please!” he called, but he couldn’t stay. Not any longer.

  He stepped into the gap. Stepped through and up to the floor beyond. Halfway between worlds. Between one Hell and, perhaps, another.

  But at least Maggie was waiting on the floor.

  He stepped up. Leading with Hope. Half his body in the elevator. Half his body out.

  And something grabbed his hair.

  72

  A SCREAM TORE ITS WAY out of Ken’s throat. Not just fear, but indignation. He was halfway out of the elevator, halfway back to being alive, dammit. What was stopping him?

  At first he thought it was Buck. But why would the big man grab him?

  Besides, the angle was wrong. This was something else.

  The growling started again. Snarling. The ugly and yet subtly hypnotic call of the monsters, and Ken felt himself drawn upwards. He rose to the balls of his feet and realized that one of the things on top of the elevator must have reached down somehow, must have caught him.

  Something blinded him. A bouncing light that seemed far too bright and also made his skin crawl, as though the terror that held him tight had also given him temporary synesthesia. He could feel sights and hear colors and smell tastes and everything was mixed up in his mind and he wondered –

  (Is this what it feels like before you die?)

  – what was happening.

  Something tore Hope away from him. He screamed. Reached for her. The thing slapped his hand down. “Stop!” shouted a voice.

  Christopher. The light Ken was seeing was the penlight the younger man had appropriated from Buck. And now Christopher was yanking at him. Trying to pull Ken the rest of the way out of the elevator.

  But the thing above wouldn’t let go. Ken felt his neck popping. Felt like his head would be yanked free from his shoulders.

  Smoke poured out of the elevator around him.

  The elevator jounced again. Dropped another inch. Ken saw an image of Buck holding the decapitated head. Wondered if he would be severed so cleanly in half along his vertical axis.

  No, it’ll be messier.

  Christopher pulled harder. So did the thing on top.

  The elevator was groaning and moaning like a living thing about to give in to a fatal wound.

  And then something hit Ken on the back of the head.

  73

  WHERE A MOMENT BEFORE Christopher’s light had blinded Ken, now he could barely see it. His vision blurred, then doubled momentarily. He blinked, tried to shake his head. Couldn’t.

  What’s –

  Why can’t –

  Something’s got me.

  The jumble of thoughts resorted themselves just in time for something to hit him again. Christopher was pulling him forward, the monster that had reached down from on top of the elevator was pulling him up. The elevator was about to fall.

  And whump.

  Ken’s vision didn’t blur this time, but rather exploded into a collection of sparklers. The kind the kids loved to run around with on the Fourth of July. Giggling and laughing in half-joy, half-terror: caught up in the ecstasy of the celebration, but at the same time dreadfully afraid of being burnt. Little hands held as far from little bodies as possible. Little mouths wrinkled in fear-smiles. Laughter that tilted into ranges that blurred with hysteria. When you were a child, the lines between euphoria and panic could disappear in an instant.

  But they loved the things. Loved the sparklers that Ken now saw everywhere in his eyes, in his mind.

  Especially Derek.

  Have to buy extra for him this year.

  But he’s dead, isn’t he?

  Another thud. Ken felt wetness on the back of his neck. Warmth flowing down his skin.

  Stop hitting me.

  Third concussion. Or is it my fourth?

  What’s the world record for noggin knocks?

  Someone call Guiness!

  His thoughts were just so much loose change rattling in his skull. But he was suddenly aware that he was no longer lighter than himself. The thing that had been pulling him upward had stopped yanking at him.

  In fact... he turned his head. Slowly. It took longer than it should have. His neck creaked like a rusty hinge.

  He was out of the elevator.

  Everything was illuminated in flickering half-shadows. Ken couldn’t tell if that was because something was wrong with Christian’s light –

  (Wait, is his name Christian or Christopher? Or just Chris? What’s his name again? Derek?)

  – or with his own vision. Maybe both. Perhaps all three.

  Three? What three? Aren’t there more of us? Not just three? Derek, Liz, Hope?

  Hope isn’t one of us.

  You’re losing it, Ken.

  Everything seemed disjointed. Separated. But he managed to make out Buck through the gap in the elevator doors and through the clouds of acid-smoke that poured out of the cab. The big man – more a silhouette than a featured figure – threw something round behind him –

  (It’s a head where did he get a head why isn’t he wearing his head?)

  – and then leaped for the gap.

  Behind Buck, bright streams of black light poured down. A sound like bacon frying chittered into the air.

  “Move!” someone shouted.

  It’s the cowboy man. The killer man.

  Buck made it to the doors. Pushed himself into the gap.

  The elevator started to fall out from under his back foot.

  Metal pinged. Popped.

  Buck’s face slackened. He looked... relieved. Like he’d been hoping for this.

  And the elevator fell out from beneath him.

  74

  KEN LURCHED AT BUCK. His vision had strange black spots in it now, and he couldn’t see much of what he was doing, but he saw the elevator fall, and saw the big man’s face. Saw that the man wanted to fall, wanted to die.

  Ken grabbed him. Pulled him forward, yanked him the rest of the way into the hall at the same instant the elevator’s overstressed and acid-eroded cables and brakes finally gave up their fight with gravity. The entire apparatus fell, and Ken caught a glimpse of what seemed like hundreds of zombies crawling over the top of the elevator car, vomiting that darkly glowing acid and then reaching for the gap in the outer doors as they plunged past.

  Then gone.

  Buck was weeping. Sobbing and saying, “Shoulda let me fall, shoulda let me fall,” over and over.

  Ken stared at him dumbly. He didn’t know what was happening. His thoughts still tumbled in a free-fall that matched that of the elevator.

  A crash sounded from the elevator shaft, and shrieking cries echoed up the chimney-like structure.

  “Did you hit me?” said Ken. He didn’t intend it as a way of snapping Buck out of his litany of self-pity, he was far too frazzled and confused himself to do something like that. Still, Buck stopped his recitation and nodded. He was half atop Ken again, and Ken thought, We’ve got to stop meeting like this.

  Aloud, he said, “Why?”

  “I wasn’t trying to,” said Buck. “I was trying to get that thing to let go of you.”

  “Oh.”

  “I hit you with the head.�
�

  That didn’t make sense for a second. Then Ken understood. “With the zombie head?”

  Buck nodded. “It wouldn’t let go when I hit it, so I figured....” He shrugged.

  Ken laughed. The laughter hurt his head. And his back and his ribs and everything else below his hairline. But he couldn’t stop.

  Until his daughter started shrieking.

  75

  AT FIRST KEN ACTUALLY got excited when he heard the sound. Because it was the sound of a baby crying.

  Liz.

  But when he scrambled to his feet, he saw Maggie. Saw Liz still dangling like a lifeless ragdoll from the carrier. The toddler’s head slumped forward, her beautiful blond hair obscuring her face.

  She’s dying.

  Ken ignored that thought. Even though he knew it was more than likely. Toddlers didn’t stay unconscious for this long through this much unless there was something seriously wrong with them.

  Still, he forced himself to focus on something else. On the source of the shriek that was not Liz. Was not a toddler screaming in pain and confusion upon waking to a world turned inside out.

  No, it was Hope. The seven-year-old was standing between Maggie and Ken, rigid as a steel bar, fists clenched at her sides. Her face was turned up, her mouth opened.

  And she screamed.

  Ken had never heard Hope scream like that before. She was a daredevil, always the first one on the playground, always the first one to try a new toy... and so always the first one to fall and the first one to get hurt. But even with the bumps and bruises and cuts and scrapes, he had never heard her sound like this. She sounded like every atom of her body was being ripped away, one at a time, in a torture so horrific that no one would ever understand it.

  Then she fell. The strength visibly fled from her limbs, and where every muscle had been clenched a moment before, now she transformed to a jumble of loose bones and skin.

  “Hope!” shouted Maggie.

  Aaron and Christopher were both near Ken’s daughter, one on each side of her. Both moved for her, but the cowboy reached her first. He caught the little girl before she fell, wrapping her up in his good arm.

  “Let me,” said Christopher.

  “No,” said Aaron. “I got her.”

  “Really?” said Christopher. He rolled his eyes. “You got one good arm, man.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Something moved past Ken. It took a moment for him to realize it was Buck. The big man took Hope from Aaron without a word, cradling her gently in his arms.

  He looked different holding her. Not the petulant, entitled ass he had seemed to be at first. Not the self-pitying man of a moment before.

  He seemed whole. Like he was holding not merely a little girl, but the only thing tethering him to life. Not survival, but life. Two different things, Ken knew.

  “We should go,” said Buck. His voice was strange, and Ken wondered what was happening. Not just to Buck, but to all of them. The world had changed, and the change had not escaped them.

  What are we?

  “Maybe I –“ Maggie began. She took a step toward the man.

  “Let him,” said Ken. He felt woozy, and put a hand to his neck. It came back red. Sticky. He wanted to vomit. He leaned against a wall that was painted white and had red streaks across it. Like everything else, it was dirty and bloodied.

  He felt an arm slip under his. Knew it was Dorcas.

  “Where to?” she said.

  Why are you asking me?

  He blinked. Everyone was looking at him. Everyone but Maggie, who was staring at Buck like she expected him to run off with Hope at any second.

  Ken wiped his mouth. He needed to drink something. He was thirsty.

  His fingers came up red as well. He hoped it was just a bloody cheek, and not internal bleeding.

  More screams came from inside the elevator shaft. Closer. They were climbing back up.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  He pushed away from the wall.

  Dorcas had to help him.

  76

  “WHERE NOW?” ASKED CHRISTOPHER. Ken waited for someone to answer, then realized with a start that they were looking at him.

  Waiting for him.

  He didn’t know why. Maybe because he was from Boise? But so was Christopher.

  Because he had family? That didn’t make much sense.

  Regardless, they waited. And he hated it. He hated that suddenly he had more than just a daughter in a coma and another who wanted to go to the monsters and a wife who hated him for losing their son to worry about.

  Now he was responsible for everyone? When had that happened?

  He didn’t have time to figure it out, or time to argue about the fairness of it. He looked around. They were in another hallway, and one that didn’t look familiar. He’d never been here before. He’d been in the upper floors of the building – though the floors had been several blocks over at the time – but he had no idea if the layout was the same or not.

  He decided to assume they were.

  “Left.”

  They moved. Christopher took point, leading the way with his light, sweeping it left and right. Buck and Maggie followed, each holding a silent child.

  Ken and Dorcas limped behind them.

  Aaron brought up the rear. Ken saw the older man sag for a moment, and wondered how badly he was hurting. But then the dangerous look returned to the cowboy’s eyes and Ken knew that anything – man, beast, or monster – that came upon Aaron in the next few minutes would likely regret the move.

  The corridor was deserted. Doors lined the way, and papers littered the floor where they had fallen from several billboards on the walls. Probably advertising local businesses and clothing drives and the upcoming “Fill the Boot” drive where local firefighters stood in the streets with empty boots asking for donations for burn victims.

  No more of those. Plenty of victims, but the first responders were gone. Dead or themselves converted to the scourge that had swept the earth nearly clean of human life.

  It was a marvel that this place was even standing. The top of the building had been blown clean off by a combination of a collision with a stealth fighter and exploding ordnance, and Ken figured it wouldn’t take a whole lot more for the whole place to come down around their ears.

  Everyone else seemed to be thinking the same thing. No one spoke. It felt like they weren’t in a building, but in a hole deep underground. The kind of place where touching the wrong thing would cause a subterranean landslide.

  He and Dorcas were falling behind the others. Ken realized it at the same moment he felt a hand at his back, gently urging him to greater speed.

  “I don’t know if he can,” said Dorcas, responding to Aaron’s unspoken exhortation.

  “Gotta,” said Aaron.

  And Ken knew why. He could hear it, too. Could hear the things coming out of the elevator shaft in the darkness behind them.

  Some of them must have perished in the fall. Or if not perished, then at least been damaged beyond the ability to climb back up. Laying at the bottom of the shaft, their broken bodies intertwined with the wreckage and cables.

  But some had made it up. More than some.

  It sounded like a lot.

  77

  “HERE!”

  Ken heard Buck shout, then saw the big man dart to the side. A moment later Christopher wheeled around and followed. So did Maggie.

  Ken moved through the open doorway the rest of them had disappeared through, partially of his own volition and partially because Dorcas more or less pushed him through. He didn’t know what would happen if she let go of him, but suspected he’d just fall and lay there. Maybe twitch a bit if he was lucky.

  Once inside the door, everything disappeared. Literally. There was no trace of Buck or Maggie or Christopher or the kids. No trace of anything at all, for that matter. No office, no floor, no nothing. Just empty space before them, dimly lit from somewhere below.

  It took a moment for K
en to refocus, to crane his neck down, each vertebra popping and screaming in protest as he did so. He felt something trickling on his lip and figured his nose was bleeding as well.

  Can’t keep this up.

  Not much choice.

  Sure, keep telling yourself that, Ken.

  He finally saw the floor. It had collapsed a few feet past the doorway, falling away at a forty-five degree angle and ending in a pile of rubble on the level below.

  At the bottom of the ramp, Maggie was being helped to her feet by Buck and Christopher. Buck was still holding Hope, and Liz sagged from her carrier, arms and legs limp and lifeless-seeming. It was clear that they had all slid down, and just as clear that this was the best way to make their way one floor closer to freedom from this building.

  “Come on!” shouted Buck.

  “You’re nuts,” said Dorcas. Ken couldn’t tell if she was talking to him or Buck or herself.

  “Not much choice,” he said.

  A grunt sounded behind them. Aaron. He squeezed into the small area of the floor that still remained intact and then slammed the door shut. “Go,” he spat.

  Dorcas sighed. She sounded beyond tired. Weary. Losing hope.

  How much longer before we just stop? Before dying becomes preferable?

  But that wasn’t really the question. If death had been the stake, then Ken suspected they would have given up long before this. It wasn’t just death, though. It was whatever waited at the end of a bite. Whatever cross between madness and oblivion would claim them.

  Not just death, but damnation.

  Dorcas helped Ken lower himself to a seated position, then sat behind him, her arms clasped around him and supporting most of his weight. He remembered doing this with Liz and Hope and Derek, all of them sitting in a long train on the slide at the local park, sliding down and laughing and then laughing harder when their combined mass inevitably caused them to stall halfway down. “Daddy’s Choo-choo” they called it.