The reinforced arm hit the zombie with a muffled thwump. Aaron wasn’t a superhero – the zombie didn’t miraculously slam to the ground with the force of his blow – but he changed direction a bit. Enough to get hung up in a mass of willow-wires hanging from a ceiling panel. The thing struggled to get free, but Aaron just kept pounding on it with the seat arm, and Ken heard the wet thud/crack of flesh and bone breaking.
The zombie didn’t cry out. Didn’t scream.
Aaron didn’t, either. He panted with the effort of his attack, but that was the only sound he made.
Ken saw it all peripherally. Most of his attention was on his hand. He held it in front of his face. Looked at the half-circle of tiny holes. They wept red.
“Come on,” said Aaron gruffly, and turned to go. More movement in the plane. Other bodies were lurching to their feet. In fact, Ken realized that all of the dead were in motion. But most of them were having trouble getting up.
Seat belts. They can’t get out of the seat belts.
The thought flitted through his mind, bullet-fast and leaving almost no trace of its passage.
Bitten. I’ve been bitten.
That registered.
His hand shook.
He wondered what it would feel like.
Would he feel the blood come out of his pores?
Would he feel himself change?
Would he know it when he tried to kill his family?
He looked at Maggie.
She hadn’t noticed. She was too busy looking right and left, back and forth, trying to see all the suddenly animated corpses that were trying to lurch out of their seats and finding themselves held strangely fast.
Buck was doing the same.
So was Dorcas.
Aaron was busy wailing on another zombie. “What the hell are you people waiting for?” he said through clenched teeth. “We gotta move.”
Ken found Christopher’s eyes. The young man was staring at him. One hand on the nose that Ken had accidentally broken. The other held a piece of metal. Something similar to what Aaron had used to pin that first kid to the floor.
“Shit,” whispered Christopher. Looking now at Ken’s hand.
He stepped toward Ken. He shifted his grip on the metal to a two-fisted one.
Ken nodded.
“Knock it out of the park, kid,” he said.
20
THERE WOULDN’T BE TIME for goodbyes. Maybe that was best. Certainly it was fair – how many of the billions of dead and changed had gotten to hold their loved ones, say their goodbyes?
No, Ken just hoped that whatever Christopher did would be sufficient to keep him from hurting anyone else. From spreading this – what? Disease?
Shouldn’t it have happened already? Shouldn’t I have changed?
Christopher took a pair of quick steps, almost running. He held the piece of metal over his right shoulder, winding up for a home run hit.
Ken felt himself grow dizzy and hot.
I thought it would feel cold.
When do I start bleeding everywhere?
When do I start screaming?
He heard Aaron, still grunting away as he smashed back several undead who had reached the aisle.
Maggie finally saw Christopher and Ken. “What’s going on?” she said. Then she must have noticed Ken holding his hand in front of his face. Her gaze flicked to the zombie that was still gagged and bound to the ceiling by the oxygen mask.
Two plus two equals....
Her hand went to her mouth.
“Don’t you dare,” she said a moment later.
“Don’t have much choice,” said Ken.
He coughed.
Everything went gray, then black.
He felt the floor rushing at him.
21
KEN HIT THE FLOOR FACE-first. The surface was carpeted, but still rough and harder than he expected. Explosions lit up the dark cavern behind his eyes when he slammed into the warped surface.
“Ken!” Maggie’s scream punched holes in the fog that blanketed his thoughts. “Ken, Ken!”
Sounded like she was screaming louder. Either that or getting closer. Running toward him.
Don’t do that. Run away, babe. Run away.
Someone grabbed him. Flipped him over.
The explosions dimmed to gray. A dark outline. Someone holding something. Christopher, ready to hit him. Pound him to pieces small enough not to matter.
Good.
Christopher’s arms dropped. Fast. No longer a home run, this was going to be a railroad worker slamming home a spike.
And something else slammed into Christopher. Knocked him away at the last second. Ken heard a dull clunk as the bar Christopher had been holding bounced off the carpeted floor only an inch or so away from his right ear.
Ken thought it was a zombie that had knocked the young man’s hit askew. Then realized the attacking shape was a short, stocky one. Wearing cowboy boots.
“Don’t!” shouted Aaron. He kicked backward, sending another looming shape crashing backward into flames that were licking closer and closer.
“He’s bit!” Christopher screamed.
“I know it!”
“You know?” The shock in Christopher’s voice echoed the surprise bouncing through the muddled wreckage of Ken’s own thoughts.
“Yuh.” Aaron moved again. Another silent figure went flying.
“He’s going to change.”
“Don’t think so.” Aaron knelt and put a hand on Ken’s shirt, yanking him roughly to his feet.
“Then why’s he acting like that?” This time it was Dorcas speaking. Not sounding terrified of Ken’s incipient transformation, more like normal curiosity. She believed Aaron, Ken could hear that; believed the cowboy completely and utterly.
“Adrenaline’s wearing off.” Aaron nodded. “Christopher, can you hang onto him?”
“Uhhh.” Christopher gazed at Ken.
“Oh, for good damn hell’s sake,” muttered the cowboy. “They turn fast, kid. He’d have changed if he was gonna change.” He shoved Ken at Christopher, who caught him.
Ken saw Christopher was grinning. Hassling the cowboy. “No, I believe you, man. Just I don’t like hauling around a guy who broke my nose.”
Aaron snorted. Started to turn to face toward the front of the cabin. Christopher’s voice turned him around. “How’d you know he wasn’t going to turn?”
Aaron spun around again. Back toward the bottom of the incline, the semi-slide the airplane had become. “You really want to discuss that now?” he said.
Christopher gulped. Ken saw the smile leave the young man’s face. “Guess not.”
Ken looked.
Aaron had been busy. Easily a dozen zombies were wrapped up in wire, pinned to seats or to the walls.
But there were still another dozen or so. All in the aisle. All between them and whatever might lay at the bottom of the plane.
Ken looked back.
Buck holding Hope.
Maggie holding Liz.
Dorcas, swaying on her feet.
Another dozen undead coming behind them.
22
CLUNK.
That was all Ken could hear, for some reason.
Clunk.
The sound of Christopher’s makeshift weapon bouncing off the floor.
He wasn’t hearing the moan of the dozen undead ahead, the dozen more behind.
Just... clunk. As though Ken’s only mental response to this impossible moment was an insistence that he should have died a few moments ago.
Christopher was holding Ken up, practically bearing all his weight. Ken’s arm was over the young man’s right shoulder, and Christopher held the thin bar over his head with his left hand –
(clunk)
– as though it might scare back the two dozen assailants moving toward them. Small chance. Though Ken did note that these zombies seemed to move differently than the ones the survivors had encountered thus far. Still fast, still single-minded – as far as dead
things could be “single-minded” – but they seemed a bit slower. Not all-the-way-slow, but certainly not the same super-speed that the things in the elevator had been.
Ken wondered what else was different about this brand of zombies. What other ways the undead zombies varied from the once-alive varieties.
It was all academic. Whether or not the –
(clunk)
– things moved super-fast or just normal-fast, they were about to pounce. Ken could see that. The ones in front and the ones behind. Gathered to jump.
Maggie and Buck, each holding their frightening and precious passengers, had drawn close to one another. Then pulled closer to the rest of the group. Dorcas and Christopher and Ken were already in a tight knot.
Clunk.
Aaron was standing on the lower edge of the survivors, and Ken could tell the older man was debating whether to make a stand here with the last of his friends or wade into the dozen zombies that were now about fifteen feet away and go out fighting.
CLUNK.
The sound was louder in Ken’s mind, almost reaching audible levels. Muffled but powerful, the sound of a life ending. Hollow, as if to signify it didn’t have any meaning.
The zombies behind them, the ones that were higher on the tilting slide that the plane had become, moved closer. As though taking care to make sure nothing went wrong.
CLUNK.
That damn hollow sound. The empty noise of humanity’s passing.
Maggie began to weep.
Aaron tensed, and Ken could tell the cowboy was going in. He wouldn’t go calmly, wouldn’t meet death with the silence of the undead things around them.
Buck whispered something. Ken thought it was “Mother.”
Christopher chuckled. A nervous laugh.
Dorcas was quiet. Watching Aaron, just him. Like the rest of the world suddenly didn’t matter much. Her lips moved. Ken couldn’t tell through the smoke in the cabin and the fog in his mind what she was saying to herself.
All he heard was... CLUNK.
Hollow.
Empty.
Aaron crouched for his final moment.
23
“CLUNK!”
Everyone stopped. It might have been Ken’s imagination, but it seemed like even the undead swiveled to stare at him for just a moment. Like the amount of random stupidity in that single syllable was enough to stop even the world’s final death-spiral for a moment.
Then they – silently – reoriented on the group. Began moving forward. Most of them were focused on Aaron, as though they had figured out he was the primary threat – the thing to be first neutralized.
But the others seemed to be staring at Maggie and Buck.
Or was it that they stared at Liz and Hope? The little girls were still insensate, limp in their carriers’ arms.
Ken fought to focus. He hadn’t wanted to shout “clunk.” Hadn’t wanted to say that at all. But he had wanted to say something.
He just couldn’t remember what it was.
Everything was whirling. Darkness taking over his vision. He felt himself draining, emptying of life. Growing hollow.
Hollow....
Clunk....
He found the thought. Held it. And shouted again. This time managing to say the word he had intended to say in the first place: “Down!”
Everyone looked at him again. Just for a moment. Buck and Maggie, even Christopher all spared him only the barest of glances before returning their gazes to the menace crowding them.
Dorcas looked longer. Confused. Concerned. Wondering. Then, perhaps, a light in her eyes. Ken knew he could explain to her. Could tell her. If only he could get his mouth to move.
But he couldn’t. Everything was going wrong, not just in the world outside, but in Starship Ken. His hull was damaged, his circuits fried, his main computer in some kind of shutdown mode.
He looked at Aaron. The cowboy was looking at Ken, too.
And smiling.
Not a big smile, but Ken felt like someone had gotten what he was trying to say.
Clunk.
Down.
Hollow.
Starship Ken was malfunctioning, but somewhere deep within its core, there was something trying to make sense of things, to come up with a way out. It had been barking messages at Captain Ken, trying to make him understand. But the messages had been coming out as code; as ciphers to be interpreted.
Clunk.
Down.
Hollow.
Clunk.
Down.
Hollow.
Clunk down hollow.
Clunkdownhollow.
Maybe they weren’t trapped, after all.
24
“GET READY,” SAID AARON.
Ken felt Christopher’s body jerk. Couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or a shudder. “Get ready?” The young man whipped his gaze around, the implication that that kind of advice was coming their way a bit late more than clear. “For what?”
“This.”
Ken hadn’t really seen Aaron fight before. Bits and snatches, but it had been mostly cloaked in darkness, made nearly invisible by competing events and Ken’s own fear.
Now....
Aaron didn’t just move. He flowed.
It was like watching liquid mercury, fashioned into the shape of a man and poured into a pair of cowboy boots. The older man jumped the last ten feet between him and the undead that were crawling up toward them from below in a move that would have shamed an Olympic athlete half his age. He seemed to stop in mid-jump, though, an impossible trick of physics that made Maggie gasp.
Ken was shocked as well, and would have staggered if he wasn’t already utterly dependent on Christopher for his ability to stand. Perhaps that was why he actually saw that Aaron had snagged something – a piece of wiring conduit? – that hung down in the middle of the slanted aisle. The cowboy used it like a pole in a jungle-gym, going from near free-fall to sideways motion, his heavy boots kicking out...
... and catching the lead zombie square in the temple.
Ken knew from his own martial arts experience that the temple was the thinnest part of the human skull – only about twice the thickness of an eggshell, and so particularly vulnerable to fracture.
Then again, he suspected that a lead plate would have crumpled under the power of the kick Aaron brought to bear on the undead before and below them.
The thing’s head caved in, going from smooth oval to concave polygon. One of the monster’s eyes literally flew out of its socket, seeming to leap away as a sentient creature might from a doomed life raft. But instead of swimming into the darkness it just lay on the floor, a limp, slowly deflating sac of vitreous fluid.
The zombie itself was knocked into a row of partially-askew seats. Black-red gore spewed out of its now-empty eye socket and from the crevasse Aaron had opened in the thing’s head.
Ken could see into its skull. Where the brain should have been. Only there was no brain. Just more of that grotesque viscous matter, like the thing’s brain had rotted and melted and half-congealed in the space of an instant. It made Ken ill to see, and he suspected he would have vomited if he had the strength.
Aaron had rebounded off the kick, using the wire conduit to pull himself back away from the rest of the zombies. Just out of reach.
So the wounded one was still close to him.
But closer to the other zombies.
It opened its mouth. And for the first time, one of the undead made a sound. It screamed. A harsh, grating sound like dirt being churned in a river of blood.
Then it attacked.
25
KEN HEARD THE SCREAM as two things: terror and triumph. Terror because the crushed skull of the zombie signaled the entry of one more uncertainty into their world.
Triumph because someone else had understood. Aaron had comprehended the message his injury-addled subconscious mind had been trying to convey.
Clunk.
Down.
Like many infrequent air travelers, Ken n
ever really thought much about the specifics of flying. He just got on the plane at the terminal, got off at the other end of the flight. Hopefully his luggage made a similar flight.
But there was more to it than that. This cabin, for instance. A quick look around showed that it only took up about half the internal volume of the fuselage. So what else was there?
Baggage?
Landing gear?
Whatever there was, it was underneath the passenger cabin. And when Ken had heard that muted clunk he realized there was more to the plane than what he could see.
There was a below. Something they could flee to, if only they could find a way.
The injured zombie threw itself at its once-brothers and sisters. The lower portion of the plane became a maelstrom of destruction, the thing that Aaron had maimed trying to destroy anything it could lay hands or feet or teeth on.
The other things tried to ignore it. Tried just to crawl over and around and past it to get to the survivors.
The injured zombie snagged one of the others. Ripped its nose off with a jerk of its teeth, even though its jaw hung half-askew from the force of Aaron’s hit. Then it slammed the injured monster into the thin padding of a coach-level headrest.
More black-red gore spewed in a weird mix of liquid and congealed clay. Now two insane zombies were in the mix, madness buying the survivors some time.
Aaron was bent over behind one of the chairs in a nearby row. The chairs had pulled apart, spreading like fingers in a giant game of Cat’s Cradle, wires and oxygen tubes running like webbing between them. The chairs looked like they were taller than the ones around them, but Ken realized that was just an illusion: the chairs were the same, but the flooring they were bolted to had been pulled slightly upward. Torqued by the forces of the crash, buckled by the impact with the building against which the plane slanted.
Aaron was pulling up on the seats. Lifting with all his might. Ken could hear the sound of metal creaking, could see the tendons in the cowboy’s neck standing out in stark relief.
The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7] Page 32