The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  It was only the girls, Lizzy and Hope, who had shown some effect from the ordeal.

  Perhaps Derek, their older brother, might have joined his sisters in their trek toward the alien place they were closing in on. No one would ever know, he supposed: Derek had been Changed saving his mother. Had fallen from a tower and come back a zombie.

  And not just a zombie, but some kind of leader, a thing that the others deferred to. Dorcas, another one of their group who had lost herself, lost her humanity when bitten while defending them all, had come back at his side. Changed and willing to kill at his command. Her and the huge, half-white, half-charred and blacked zombie that had Changed Derek.

  All bowing to the child. A tiny emperor wielding some strange power over them.

  What does it mean?

  "Where are we?"

  Lizzy hadn't made a sound yet, though she continued to look around with an utterly befuddled expression. So the high, clear voice wasn't hers.

  No, it was Hope. She was finally sitting up from her recumbent position on the couch. Looking around in a panic, then calming down a bit when she saw her mother, then returning to panic when she saw Maggie's blank expression.

  She turned wide eyes on Christopher. They were the eyes of a child, no trace of that alien presence that caused so much terror when it appeared. But he found no comfort in them. No comfort because he didn't know how to answer her next words.

  "What happened to Mommy? And where's Daddy?"

  11

  SCREAMING.

  That was what happened when you told a seven-year-old her daddy was dead.

  Not that Christopher told her. Not that Buck told her.

  Maggie was the one who said it.

  "What happened to Daddy? Where's Daddy? Someone tell me where's Daddy?"

  "He's dead."

  Just like that. Maggie said it without even looking at her daughter. She sounded like a robot.

  Christopher was still standing by Mo, wondering if the guy was going to die, right there on the poker table. Buck stood a few feet away, looking utterly lost when Maggie said that, and Hope just started screaming.

  But it was a comforting scream. As bad as it was, as terrible as it was to hear the grief-torn shrieks of a little girl, the sound shattering as it slammed into the pipe-walls of the shelter, it was still a good scream. Because it was the normal scream of a little girl. Not the chittering, gasping scream of a thing calling to other things. Not the laughing shout of something that none of them could understand, but that they all feared.

  It was simply a little girl who didn't really understand what Mommy had said. Whose world was not big enough to encompass life without Daddy.

  Christopher understood that. He had been sent to his first boarding school when he was barely older than Hope. Brought back for a month or two, then off to another one. Never time to really catch his breath, to get his feet solidly under him.

  And, at first, so hard to understand where his parents were. Why they weren't in his life anymore. He was the one who was traveling, but it seemed like they were the ones who had left.

  He had gradually come to understand that he had been shipped off because he didn't fit their lifestyle. He was a political necessity – politicians with families were more likely to get elected than those without – but a personal inconvenience.

  He didn't know who was better off in the final analysis: a boy who grew up with parents, but rarely saw them and knew they hated him; or a girl who lost a father early, but would have only good memories of him and his love. He thought he would rather have had the latter than the former.

  Hope was still screaming.

  Maggie didn't look at her. Just stared at nothing. And now the toddler on Maggie's back started to scream as well. Another sign of normalcy, the two-year-old picking up on her sister's fear and grief and mirroring it with her own voice.

  Christopher still didn't know what to do.

  He knelt down in front of Hope. Put a hand on her arm. "Your father was a very brave man, sweetie," he said. "He –"

  Hope shook his hand off, thrashing him away so hard and fast it was an act of violence. "No!" she screamed. "NO NO NO NO!"

  A hand wrapped around Christopher's shoulder, then yanked him backward. He went down on his butt before sliding a good four feet on the tile floor.

  "That's not how you talk to a kid, idiot," murmured Buck as Christopher slid by. Then the big man knelt where Christopher had been. He held his arms out and engulfed the little girl in a bear hug that buried her cries in his chest.

  "I'm here," he whispered. He stroked her hair. "We're all here for you."

  "Where's Daddy?" came Hope's muffled voice.

  Sally roused himself from his resting spot. He curled his tail around Lizzy's feet. The two-year-old responded to the touch, her own screams lowering in pitch and volume.

  "He saved us, baby girl," Buck said to Hope.

  "Daddy saved us, Clucky?"

  "He's a hero, Chicken."

  Hope kept crying.

  Lizzy kept crying.

  Maggie stared ahead, but one arm reached into Buck's embrace. Pulled out her daughter. The three girls – Maggie, Hope, Lizzy – tightened into a knot.

  Buck didn't let go. Now holding all three of them.

  And suddenly Christopher was there as well. He didn't remember getting to his feet. Didn't remember putting his arm around them all. But there he was.

  He felt something tickle his legs. Sally wrapped himself around their feet. His tail still twined around Lizzy's ankle.

  The members of their group who were still alive held onto one another. They always would. Because they were all they had.

  Hopefully that was all they would need.

  12

  THEY HELD EACH OTHER for a time that seemed outside the passage of minutes or hours or days. A time that Christopher would never be able to measure, but that he would look back on as long as he lived. All the bad and good mixed into a single inseparable mass.

  So much of life consists of little boxes. Presents given under trees, at birthdays, for anniversaries. Discrete moments in time given by gods either kind or cruel, depending on what they held within.

  This moment, though... it was all. It was nothing. Christopher could not fully understand it. Words would not do it justice. Feelings go beyond the limits of human vocabulary.

  They had lost so many. Dorcas. Derek. Ken. All gone because they had dared the greatest risk: caring for others more than for themselves. Refusing to abandon friends and family when they could have, time after time.

  But they were still together, those that remained. They would not flee each other's sides.

  Family was gone.

  Family remained.

  Most things had changed.

  Some things would remain the same.

  They held each other and cried. And when the tears stopped they still held one another. Silence that started heavy with grief and then became lighter with memory and with relief at the luxury of being able to hold one another; at being able to stand still and simply breathe for the first time since everything fell down.

  Mo spoke. "I am glad."

  Christopher turned. He could barely see the big Māori, his vision still blurred by tears only half-dried. He blinked and was glad to realize that the hunter was sitting up. Face whiter than it had been, stark behind the dark tattoos, but the man was smiling. He had a hand to his shoulder, the palm so big it easily covered the bandages on both bullet wounds. One swat with that thing would probably fell a bear.

  "Glad of what?" Buck said – ever willing to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even one provided by a dude tough enough to bring down a tank with a bubble pipe and an angry stare.

  Mo didn't lose his smile. "I am glad that I have found good people. That I have brought them home."

  Christopher smiled back at the man's big grin. But he also felt a twinge of fear. The words seemed nice, but it was also the kind of thing that the serial killer said right before as
king hapless hitchhikers "to dinner" and then proceeding to eat their faces.

  "Why did you invite us in?" said Buck. Apparently he was thinking along similar lines. And again Christopher had to wonder if he was turning into a younger version of his crotchety, irritable friend.

  Christopher had thought that Māori tattoos were designed to make the wearer look ferocious, animalistic. But apparently they served more to highlight a person's facial features, whatever they were, because when Mo smiled the curls seemed to turn his lips up higher than was possible. Now they twisted around in lines that made a near-caricature of confusion. "I don't understand," said Mo. "I brought you here because you needed it."

  Christopher was a bit dismayed to hear how suspicious his voice now sounded. "I thought survivalists wanted to survive alone."

  Now the tattoos grew rigid, and he worried he had said something – perhaps the truth? – that would kill them all.

  13

  THE LOOK ON MO'S FACE only lasted an instant. Barely a flicker. Enough to show that there was another man underneath the good-natured exterior. A man who could shoot a special forces attacker, could wound him and put him down at long range in a torrential downpour, even though wounded himself.

  And all without making a sound. Let's not forget that freaky little fact.

  Then the ferocious visage disappeared. The smile came back. "Oh, I understand. My eyes were blind, but now I see." He smiled a bit wider, as though at some private joke. "I did not build this to keep people out." He gestured with his left arm, the right hanging at his side, still coated in blood. The motion took in whole room. "I built it to give others a place. A home when the bad times came."

  "How did you know they would?" said Buck.

  "They always do."

  Buck finally nodded, as though in this pessimistic statement he had finally found something he understood.

  "You were looking for us?" said Maggie. She wiped her eyes. Her voice, Christopher was relieved to hear, sounded normal. Shaky, but back to the woman he had grown used to over the last days.

  "Not you, but people like you. People who would need help."

  "Are you a superhero?"

  That was Hope. She looked at the huge man behind theblood-spattered poker table, evidently not understanding all that was going on, all that had happened. But knowing that this man had done something for them.

  "Supergirl!" said Lizzy. At least, Christopher was pretty sure that was what she said. It could have been "Soupy gills," too.

  The two-year-old wiggled in the undersized baby carrier that bound her to her mother. "Off, down, off!" she shouted. Maggie started loosening the straps on the Baby Bjorn.

  Christopher couldn't help but smile at that. The toddler sounded like a two-year-old. Bossy, mercurial, a pain.

  Normal.

  Sally purred and resumed cleaning himself. Whatever had happened to the girls, it seemed to be loosening its hold here.

  "Well, are you?" demanded Hope. "You have those magic drawings all over you. So are you?"

  Mo's smile disappeared. He stood. His right arm dangled, his face whitened. But he walked over to the girl and knelt in front of her. He held out a huge, callused hand. She took it.

  "I am no superhero, te tamahine. If I were such a thing, I would have saved all of you."

  They remained like that a long time. Maggie inhaled, that gasping breath. Christopher worried she was going to start crying again. She didn't. She put Hope down and the two-year-old immediately kicked Sally in the side. "Sally play!" Lizzy shouted. Sally looked at the toddler with the longsuffering that only a predator can bestow, then resumed preening himself.

  Maggie put a hand on Mo's good shoulder. "Thank you," she said. "You saved my children."

  Mo nodded. He squeezed Hope's hand, then switched his gaze to Maggie. "I meant what I said before. I will return for him. Bravery deserves honor, and those who die like the shark will not be abandoned like the octopus."

  Christopher didn't understand what the hell that meant, but Maggie nodded like it made perfect sense to her. Whether it actually did or not he had no way of telling. And it didn't really matter, he supposed. What mattered was that they had found a friend.

  Mo stood. "Come," he said. "I will show you your home."

  14

  "ISN'T this our home?" said Buck, gesturing at the room.

  Christopher nodded, confused. What kind of tour did Mo think he was going to provide?

  But Mo laughed like the big man had said something hilarious. He went to the hatch next to the shelving from which he had removed the first aid kit. Then he apparently changed his mind. Turned back to the poker table, packed up the first aid kit, and returned it to its spot.

  "We will clean the rest later," he said. His tone of voice was reassuring, as though he worried that the group would fret about the mess. As though to say, "I know that zombies have taken over, that people are dying, but don't fret, cleaning time is still scheduled for six p.m."

  This guy likes everything in its place.

  It was a reassuring thought. They had stumbled into a pocket of... what? Sanity might be too strong a word, considering they were in an underground tube outfitted like a bachelor pad. But order, yes.

  Order. And that was a welcome change.

  Their host turned back to the hatch.

  "Do you really go by Mo?" said Buck.

  "Yes," said the hunter. He was the same size as Buck, probably about the same age, too. Christopher wondered who was stronger. Buck was an ex-contractor, thick around the middle but with arms and legs strong from years of hard labor. But the newcomer was sturdy and tough as a worn saddle.

  Christopher decided not to get in the middle if the two ever started swinging at each other.

  "So... Mo the Māori?" said Buck. He giggled. The kind of sound you might make if suddenly pulled out of a shark tank full of famished great whites.

  Mo nodded. "Just so," he said. He did not sound offended, or even aware of the joke.

  Hope giggled as well. Their benefactor turned the wheel in the center of the hatch, then the hunter turned to her, and Christopher saw the broad smile that already rested on his face. "Perhaps with such a name I may one day become a superhero, te tamahine?"

  Hope nodded. The wheel clicked and stopped spinning. Mo the Māori pulled the hatch open. He stepped through the hatchway, though he had to duck to do so, and very nearly had to turn sideways because his shoulders were so broad.

  Buck followed the hunter through, and Christopher heard his friend say, "This is it?"

  "Patience, takatāpui."

  "Yeah, patience, poopy," said Christopher as he followed through the hatchway. Though once through the portal he had to admit he understood Buck's reaction.

  "Shut up, Christopher."

  "Make me, poopy."

  "That's not what he said!"

  "It's what I heard." A borderline evil grin tugged at Christopher's lips. "Poopy." He was taking his life in his hands, but it felt good. A return to the existence he once enjoyed, when life was full of fast cars, parties, and witty one-liners. Now what was it? Death, running.

  And family. For the first time, a group of people that loved him, that he knew would not leave him.

  Maybe it was a good trade.

  Buck took a looming step toward him. Christopher started to reconsider the wisdom of his zingers.

  "Boys, stop it. Or I'll turn the bomb shelter around and we'll go home." Maggie stepped through the hatchway, the girls in tow. Another good sign that she was already resuming her den mother role in the group. She sounded thin, her voice a fraying tissue. Even the joke was delivered in a near-monotone. But she was stepping back into life. She had to. None of them could take the time they needed to grieve, to heal. The world wouldn't allow them that, any of them – but least of all the mother among them.

  Baby steps, Maggie. Baby steps are good.

  Christopher exhaled a breath he hadn't known he was holding; wondered if he had been holding it since Ken d
ied. Probably.

  They had all lost friends. Family. But they had to go on. Because they still had friends and family. Only the already-dead could lie down and just give up.

  Though in light of recent events, he supposed that not even the dead were always afforded that luxury.

  It's a get-up-and-go world for everyone, living or dead.

  Sally apparently did not deign to see whatever lay on the other side of the thick metal door. He remained in the bachelor pad portion of the underground installation.

  As for the rest of them... after stepping through the hatchway they found themselves in what amounted to a short tube full of nothing. Just a cylinder that ended in a solid concrete wall covered in metal piping.

  "So this is home?" said Hope.

  "Yucky," said Lizzy.

  "No, Lizzy," said Christopher. "It's pronounced, Poopy."

  Buck growled again, and Christopher knew this was it: death would come at the hands of his maybe-best friend in this little tube fifty feet underground.

  He laughed. It seemed the right thing to do.

  15

  "PATIENCE," SAID MO with a laugh that very nearly matched Christopher's. He was already at the far wall, a forbidding expanse of gray concrete broken only by lines of piping that ran top to bottom, disappearing through both ceiling and floor. The floor itself had been built up to a flat plane, allowing for easy walking. Christopher wondered if it was hollow below the flooring, or full of some kind of filtration or power equipment.

  It wasn't idle curiosity: diving through the floor of a plane had saved the group before. In a previous life, Christopher had just paid attention to exits as a means to getting to his car first so he could escape the parking lot before traffic got crazy after a packed concert. Now he paid attention to them so he could escape before masses of coordinated zombies cornered and killed him or his friends.

  "Takatāpui is the word for a close or honored friend," said Mo. He pulled on a small pipe behind the others.