The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

She flew into his arms.

  He held her. “I love you, Mags,” he said.

  And this time it wasn’t a goodbye.

  53

  THE OTHERS HAD MOVED off. They took the light with them, leaving Ken alone with Maggie in the dark. But that was all right. Dark was okay, was tolerable if she was there.

  Not just near, but truly with him.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She made a noise that sounded like something caught in a bear trap halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Are you?”

  He shrugged. Realized she couldn’t see that and said, “I don’t know. What’s going on? Where are the kids? I mean, where are...?” His voice fell away, molding itself to the blackness around them. He felt stupid. The last thing he knew, Maggie wasn’t even speaking to him because of what had happened to Derek. And here he was, asking about “the kids.”

  He realized his muscles had all tightened, as though preparing for a blow. So when he felt something touch his chest he twitched before his body realized it wasn’t a punch, it was a caress. His wife’s hand on his chest, like it had on so many nights after they made love or lay in bed just talking about the kids or life or nothing at all.

  “I’m sorry,” said Maggie. “I know none of this was you. I know Derek... you didn’t....”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  Her hand clenched a bit. “I just said that.” She sounded tired. Irritated. She didn’t move her hand away, though. That was something. She was still his wife, determined to stay with him. No matter how much he irritated her, no matter how they grated on one another.

  That was marriage. It wasn’t “being in love.” It was a determination to stay in love, even through the times when love felt like distant memory or unattainable goal. “Happily ever after” wasn’t a fairy tale, it was just the name you gave to a life already-lived with a person you loved enough to decide to stay with them even through the days when you didn’t love them at all.

  Ken put his hand on Maggie’s. Not hard, but tenderly. Asking forgiveness with his touch as well as his words. “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said hurriedly. “I meant....” He swallowed. So often in life people contented themselves with saying something acceptable, or something merely adequate. He wanted to do better here. He wanted to say something right. Something good. Something that would matter to Maggie and pay honor to his son.

  “Derek died to protect you,” he finally said. “And if I’d tried to stop him he never would have forgiven me.” Ken shrugged again, and didn’t care that the darkness cloaked his motion. Maggie would feel the movement. And she would know what he was trying to tell her. “He would have done the same thing if it had been me. Or one of the girls. He was always like that.” He fell silent for a moment before adding, “He was born to be a hero.”

  Maggie’s hand moved away from Ken’s chest. He felt empty again. Had she decided not to forgive him after all?

  Then the hand found his arm. It ran down his bicep. Touched his forearm. Fingers interlaced with his.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder, and for the first time since the world fell Ken felt like he had not merely located his wife, but truly found her.

  54

  “CAN YOU STAND?”

  Ken thought about the question. He wasn’t shivering as he had been, and he felt better than before. A long way from whole, but on the mend. Still weak, though.

  “I don’t know.” He tried shifting his legs. They felt like rubber-coated noodles. “How are the girls?”

  “That’s why I want you to stand.”

  “You can’t just tell me?”

  Ken heard the grin in Maggie’s voice. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  The smile did it. The idea that something was right – or if not right, then at least “not wrong” enough to warrant a smile – helped him find a reserve of strength.

  Maggie slid under his arm. She froze. “Is this your bad arm? The one you had to cut your fingers?”

  “No.” Ken eased himself up. Leaning on his wife for support. He suddenly remembered a teacher he’d had in Sunday School years ago, a lesson about God creating Eve from Adam’s rib because that meant they were supposed to walk side by side and lean on one another for support.

  Ken didn’t know if Genesis had envisioned a zombie attack, but the symbolism worked here.

  He realized something as he wobbled to his feet. “How’d you know about me doing that?”

  “Aaron told me. Interesting guy.”

  “He is.” Ken leaned against the cool concrete wall. “He tell you anything about himself?”

  “That he used to be a rodeo clown.”

  Ken snorted. “So nothing new.”

  “Not a thing. Interesting, but not exactly forthcoming.”

  “How’s he handling Dorcas?”

  Maggie was quiet a moment. “His lady?”

  Ken was startled that Maggie would need clarification. But when would she have really gotten a chance to know Dorcas’ name? She had only seen her for a few minutes before Dorcas died.

  Only she didn’t die, did she? Nothing so lucky. Nothing so clean.

  And then there was the question itself. Would Aaron think of Dorcas as his lady? The two had only known each other a few hours. But still, there had been something between them. Ken didn’t know exactly what it had been. But something important. “Yeah, the one we lost in the airplane,” he finally said.

  “He won’t talk about her,” she said. “Christopher asked, and Aaron told him he didn’t feel like talking about it.”

  “He said that?”

  “The exact wording involved a face full of knuckles, but that was the idea.”

  Ken almost laughed, then realized something: Maggie had no trouble with Christopher and Aaron. Dorcas’ name had been easily misplaced, but not the others’. That meant....

  “How long have we been down here?” he said.

  “Not sure. At least a few days.”

  That rocked him. And at the same time Ken realized something that had filtered in only subconsciously until now. His nose wrinkled. “What’s the smell?”

  “That’s you, my dearest husband.” Maggie took a step, leading him in the darkness. He heard one of her feet splash through the stream in the middle of the tunnel. “You’ve been out a couple days, but your body’s been pooping and peeing up a storm.”

  “Oh, geez.” He tried to push away from her, embarrassed and sickened at what he must look like. Now that he knew what it was, the smell was overwhelming.

  Maggie’s grip tightened around his midsection. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll fall.”

  “I must be horrific.”

  “Yes, you are. But that’s a separate matter, and it predated the end of the world.” She kept splashing forward, and he realized she must be using the stream as a guide in the darkness. Her hand went out from time to time as well, likely letting go of him in order to trace the wall of the tunnel. “I washed you off as best I could, but we’re a bit limited down here.”

  “I’m so sorry.” He cringed mentally at the thought of his wife cleaning his bodily wastes.

  “Don’t be stupid. I’ve done it a million times with the babies, and I just pretended you were a giant baby with a hairy butt.” She laughed quietly. “More or less situation normal.”

  He laughed as well. “So how am I not dead?” Even as he said that, his back twitched, sending a shock of pain down the back of his left leg. He twisted, almost falling. Maggie steadied him, holding most of his weight until he got his feet under him again.

  Not at one hundred percent, I guess. Not even close.

  “You had an infection,” Maggie said when he regained his balance. “At least, Aaron thinks you did and he seems to know a lot about emergency first aid. Buck had found a bunch of antibiotics in people’s coats and purses when we were looking for the EpiPens for you earlier. He shoved ‘em in his pocket and we used them to keep you alive.”

  Ken remembered the monste
rs shoving things in his throat. Not tentacles trying to plant eggs in his body, but the survivors trying to force-feed him pills, maybe food. “Lucky no one got hurt.”

  That drew another laugh. “Actually, you decked Christopher a few times. No one else, just him. You must be secretly jealous of his good lucks or something.”

  “So you noticed.”

  “I’m only human.”

  It was getting lighter in the tunnel. He could see a glimmer ahead and to the right. Could hear voices, too.

  “What about the bite?” he said. He looked at his arm and could make out the crescent, scabbed over and starting to scar. “Why didn’t I turn?”

  “Aaron has some ideas,” she said.

  “And?”

  “And he wanted to wait until you woke up before sharing them.”

  “Why wait?”

  She was quiet for a moment, then spoke hesitantly. “I imagine because his ideas depended a bit on what ended up happening with you.”

  The light was in a side tunnel that branched off from the main one. There was a slight lip to step up, so the water that streamed down the main tunnel didn’t enter the lateral line.

  Ken reached the T-intersection.

  He turned the corner. His mouth dropped open.

  Maggie laughed. “I told you you wouldn’t believe it.”

  55

  BUCK WAS SITTING CROSS-legged on the ground, back against the cement wall of the side tunnel.

  And on his lap: Hope.

  She was dirty, her face grimed with dust and soot and a thousand other things. Streaks showed in the gunk where someone – probably Maggie – had tried to clean her off. That had proved to be a lost cause.

  Still, through the multiple layers of dirt Ken could see his daughter’s face. Her eyes. And it was Hope again. Smiling.

  “Daddy!” she shouted. But she didn’t move from Buck’s lap. She looked happy there, and the big man looked pleased at her decision to remain with him. Buck hadn’t struck Ken as a fatherly type, but he wondered now how much of that was because of the man and how much of that had been the effect of his mother.

  How much of our lives are determined by the nets cast by others? he wondered. How many of us died in the Change... and how many were set free?

  Aaron was sitting against the opposite wall, a hand in his mouth as he took a pill. He dry-swallowed it with a grimace.

  “We’re all taking the antibiotics Buck found,” said Aaron, as though Ken had challenged his movements. “We’ve all probably got loads of infected wounds, and better safe than sorry.”

  Christopher was taking a pill as well. His other hand held a small, battered-looking flashlight with a weak beam: the source of the illumination that Ken and Maggie had followed to the tunnel.

  And Liz....

  The toddler was curled up, completely naked, asleep and snoring lightly, half on the hard concrete tunnel floor, half on something else. Her fingers held loosely to soft hairs, her head propped up on a moving pillow.

  Looking at his sleeping baby, Ken knew what had dragged him out of the water. What had lain with him and kept him warm in the dark. What had saved him.

  The male snow leopard glanced at him. It licked its lips, a pink tongue lapping once over massive fangs, then turned to look at Liz as though to verify she hadn’t wandered from her spot against his rumbling chest. Apparently satisfied, it returned its head to rest on the large paws that seemed to splay halfway across the tunnel.

  “Dad?” said Hope. Ken diverted a tiny piece of his attention from the big cat to his older daughter. She wore a huge smile. “Can we keep him? Can we keep Sally?”

  56

  KEN WAS A TEACHER. A high school teacher. And even in a genuinely nice place like Boise, that meant he’d brushed up against all manner of insanity. Teenage pregnancy, drugs. Girls beaten by boyfriends who they insisted “really loved them.” But he always felt like he could help. Could at least offer some advice, even if it wasn’t taken.

  However, when faced by a request that his daughter be allowed to keep a very obviously male predatory cat she’d inexplicably decided to name Sally, he found that words failed him.

  Aaron chuckled. Christopher sounded as though he tried to do the same, but it came out a sort of mangled snort that made a chunk of half-dried blood explode from one of his nostrils. He grimaced.

  Buck did the most surprising thing. He wrapped his big arms around Hope in a huge bear hug. “Of course we can keep him, honey.” Then he stared at Ken with eyes like bullets wrapped in velvet. “Right?”

  “Uhhh....” Ken nodded. Mostly because he felt like something needed to happen and when confused his body tended to default to a nod. That was the great to a happy marriage: when in doubt, agree. So as a well-trained good husband his body was falling back on its established pattern.

  Hope squealed and clapped. The snow leopard – Sally – looked at the girl with an expression that seemed decidedly stern, as though reminding her that there was a sleeping baby in the area.

  Hope clapped small hands over her mouth. “Sorry, Sally.” She looked around the group. “We have to be quiet.”

  “Right,” said Buck. Another hug to Hope. “We’ll be quiet, Hope.”

  Ken looked at everyone as well. Not to urge them to silence, but almost feeling like he was in one of those strangely real dreams we all find ourselves trapped in from time to time. And unsure whether we want to wake up screaming... or let the dream continue forever.

  He looked at Christopher and Aaron, shoulder to shoulder against one wall. Legs out like they were resting against a tree in a forest, shooting the breeze on a campout.

  Then Buck and Hope, sitting together like a girl curled up with her favorite and long-absent uncle.

  And let’s not forget Liz’s new babysitter, Sally.

  Ken looked at his wife. She was watching the group with a strange expression. It reminded him of last Christmas. The family had been together: Derek and Hope in their chairs around the table, Liz in the high-chair she was just starting to grow out of. Maggie stared at them all and got this look in her eyes, like she was seeing them all for the first time. “My family,” she said.

  And that was the right thing to say.

  People said adequate things all the time. Not many right ones.

  Ken looked at the group in the tunnel. The survivors.

  The family.

  57

  CHRISTOPHER HELD UP the flashlight and gave it a small jiggle. Light and shadow danced a perfectly synchronized jitterbug on the walls.

  “I’m gonna turn this off. Save some batter-trees.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Hope and she giggled as though sharing a private joke.

  Christopher flicked the switch on the flashlight. Darkness fell around the group again.

  Ken felt his way to the nearest wall and slid down. He felt shaky. Weak. The sight of his children had invigorated him, the sight of the snow leopard had shocked his system into a momentary overdrive. But both effects were wearing off now.

  He just felt tired. Tired and achy. His back and left leg hurt most of all, even more than the stubs of his left pinky and ring finger, but all his half-healed scrapes and sprains were throbbing. Dull palpitations that joined into one pulsing pound that reverberated up and down his frame. Better than the lancing pain he’d been having, but still far from comfortable.

  “How long have we been here?” he asked as he sank down, trying to ignore the stench that wafted up as his shredded pants shifted, the crinkling noises that his clothes made.

  “We’ve been here for seven poops,” said Hope in a bright whisper.

  “Hope,” Maggie said in a warning tone.

  Hope giggled. Ken was struck again by the strangeness of this moment. Not just at the fact that he was hearing his daughter laugh in a glorified sewer under the crumbled remains of civilization, but that she was giggling at all.

  He saw her as she had been in the elevator: reaching eagerly for the zombies that tried to kill them. Cooing as they
tried to destroy the survivors.

  Her eyes rolling back. Laughing as death loomed.

  And now... she was fine?

  What’s going on with her?

  Ken didn’t know. But he suspected it wasn’t over. Perhaps this was a lull, but it wasn’t the end of the storm.

  “We’re not sure how long we’ve been here,” said Maggie. “We were afraid to move you, so we couldn’t leave. Just tried to feed you and give you water when you seemed up to it, and kept watch.”

  “No one could leave?” Ken was flabbergasted. “Didn’t anyone try to, I don’t know, explore or find a way out or anything?”

  “Don’t need to explore,” said Buck. “I know exactly where we are, and where to get out. Assuming it’s still there since our arsonist-in-training blew up in the universe.”

  “Big assumption,” said Christopher. “And it wasn’t the universe, it was just a jet. Part of a jet. And I saved us, by the way, so you’re welcome. Again.”

  Hope giggled.

  Ken was starting to feel disoriented. The survivors’ voices were coming at him from everywhere in the darkness. It was like having a conversation with a convocation of ghosts.

  “Well, it’s what we’ve got, so it’s what we’ll use,” said Buck. Ken noted he wasn’t nearly as nice-and-lovey sounding with Christopher as he was with Hope.

  “Clucky, be nice,” said Hope. Apparently Ken wasn’t the only one who registered the edge in the big man’s voice.

  “Sorry, Chicken,” said Buck. Hope squealed as though tickled.

  Ken’s disorientation increased. Clucky? Chicken? Christopher and Hope had silly code words for flashlight parts? Hope and Buck had pet names?

  He felt like he had left a familiar room, only to return and find every piece of furniture shifted a few inches to the right. Everything was still there, but the configuration was just wrong enough to be jarring.

  “Anyway,” said Buck, “I know where we are. But the way out’s a bit of a walk. And we decided to stick together. Until you got better, or....”