43
CHRISTOPHER EXPECTED it to hurt. And it did. But he assumed the pain would come through his fingers, through the knuckles that were in line to be ground and bitten by the disfigured thing's dark teeth.
Instead he felt a searing line of pain along the back of his hand. Felt blood dripping down the sides, around his palm.
He looked at his hand, amazed he still had the ability to do so. Every other person who had been bitten had Changed instantly. Except Ken. Ken had been partially bitten, and Aaron thought that had saved him. Thought that the zombies didn't infect with blood or saliva, but with some mental pulse they focused through their mouths. And Ken hadn't gotten a full dose because he'd only been half-bitten.
Maybe that had happened to Christopher.
But... no. He hadn't been bitten at all.
The pain he had felt was the fletching of one of Amulek's arrows. It had passed over his hand so closely that the feathers at the back had sliced his hand like a knife. The arrow had rammed through the roof of the zombie's mouth, slamming the upper jaw back and inserting itself between the thing's teeth and Christopher's hand at the last second.
The zombie went mad. No longer digging, no longer attacking. It simply began thrashing as the pink muck that passed for its brains splashed out the top of its head where the arrowhead poked out.
Christopher yanked his hand back. The thing below shrieked, then spun and disappeared into the ground, spinning plates chewing up the dirt and then closing the ground behind it.
He stared, dumbstruck.
And, as always, the new world reminded him that stopping was not an option.
44
AMULEK SPUN CHRISTOPHER around, a look on his face that Christopher didn't recognize.
He's scared.
It made Christopher feel strangely better, to know that the boy had the capacity for normal fear. That he could be moved. Even fear was an important distinction between the humans and the things.
The ground was still welling up around them. Hunching mounds that split obscenely as deformed hands, arms, heads shoved their way through the surface. It was like watching a profane birth, children of the soil who had no parents, no ancestors. They were things of the Now, and existed only for this moment, the moment of the kill.
"Come on," said Aaron. He grabbed Christopher's arm. "We gotta get out of –"
He stopped speaking when Amulek pointed an arrow at his eye. The kid had already shot the arrow he had nocked, but he tossed one of the ones he had in his drawing hand into place, nocked it, and drew the string taut, all in a motion so quick and fast that Christopher could only tell what happened by replaying the motions in his head.
"I don't think he wants you to go with us."
Aaron nodded. He backed away a step.
One of the zombies grabbed the cowboy's boot. Aaron screamed – more surprise than fear or pain – and stamped on it. The thing didn't let go. Something whirred, and now Aaron's scream was tinged by pain. Blood flowed around the zombie's hand, and Christopher realized that the same things that plowed through dirt could also grind through boot leather.
Thwip.
Another arrow. This one pinned the zombie's hand to the ground, passing through it so far that only the fletching showed, the head and shaft buried deep in the earth.
Christopher looked at Aaron's ankle. Bleeding through the boot, but the cowboy was still upright so it couldn't be too bad. "Get back to Theresa," he said. He looked at Amulek. The kid had another arrow nocked, looking at the wriggling worms pushing through the earth all around them. But he glanced up at Aaron when Christopher added, "Don't follow us."
Aaron looked at the arrow beside him. The thing that had grabbed him yanked its hand away and took another swipe at him. Aaron stepped away. "Wouldn't dream of it," he said. He turned and ran down the bank of the canal, leaping and dodging like he was the protagonist of a strangely realistic video game.
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Something tugged at Christopher. Amulek. Pulling him back toward safety.
Or perhaps just toward the shelter. Because would that place be safe against these things? What was safe, now?
They ran. They jumped and danced.
And when the dance ended, when the music stopped....
Can't dance forever.
Can't live on the edge of flame forever.
Can't surf forever.
Can't live forever.
45
ONLY A FEW FIELDS LAY between the canal and the shelter. A couple hundred yards.
It was the equivalent of running from Boise to Chicago. Through a minefield. And the fact that it was dark didn't help anything.
Christopher had never met anyone as surefooted as him. Even Aaron, with skills that bordered on the preternatural, wasn't as good on his feet. Christopher had always felt like his whole body was as easy to deal with as his hand, his fingers. He just told it what to do and it was done. He had done his first backflip when he was twelve – not in school or some gymnastics class, he just felt like doing it and so he did, first try. And no pads or practice mats, he did it on the sidewalk walking to his dorm and it never occurred to him he might fail and fall and hurt or kill himself in the attempt.
Ditto climbing: he had been incarcerated in so many different jails – they called them schools, but most of them were jails, call them what you will – that when he discovered most of them could be escaped if you were willing to dare great enough heights... well, he just did it. No thought, no worries. Just attempt and success.
Even so, running in the dark over ground that swayed and shifted as living things burrowed up from the depths was a near-impossible task. He constantly tripped, constantly slipped. Almost went down a dozen times and only Amulek's firm grip kept him from falling completely.
If that happened there would be no getting up.
Then suddenly they were no longer dancing around mounds but around bodies. Because the things were out. Writhing over the crops –
(GIVE UP GIVE IN)
– like sightless worms searching out food. Only they avoided the greenery in search of fleshier sustenance. Arms reaching for them, flesh spitting and spinning.
Amulek was better than Christopher was. He had to admit it. The teen never seemed to fall, always appeared to know where the next hole would open up in the twisting forms. Christopher felt weirdly jealous of that fact, as though he had staked an inordinate amount of his self-esteem in his ability to outrun and outbalance anyone else still alive.
Not that that's a high bar to set. Not many of us left.
He tripped again. Again Amulek's strong hand kept him from pitching over. Again he hated the kid just a little for that.
Pay attention, Chris.
The only saving grace was that the burrowers all had arms and legs partially fused by the yellow substance, the ooze that both healed and welded objects together. They couldn't move as fast on the land as they did beneath.
Then Christopher saw something that changed the game.
"We're boned," he whispered, and felt his stomach plummet.
46
CHRISTOPHER HAD CONSCIOUSLY avoided thinking about what else might lay below the ground. What might be hidden in those deep holes that went to some unknown place.
Now he knew.
It was the zombies. Not the slow-moving slugs that writhed to the surface – dangerous if they caught you from below but avoidable when completely aboveground. Those were just the diggers, he realized. Like the engineers in a war, the ones who created roads into enemy territory and then retreated or were killed. Their jobs done.
Then the soldiers took over.
A hand curled over the side of a vacated hole. Fingers cracked and bleeding black, thick ichor. Some of them ended in gleaming bone, no doubt rubbed raw by crawl
ing through the holes behind the tunnelers.
The zombie lifted itself out. Stood. Oriented on Christopher and Amulek.
Ran.
"GO!" screamed Christopher.
47
TWO OF THE THINGS ROSE out of the ground. Like Lazarus of old, who had died and been reborn. Only these creatures were not meant to teach any spiritual lesson. They were here to kill, to maim, to Change.
Christopher and Amulek ran. Full speed, straight at them. Still jumping – not over humping mounds of soil, but over writhing tunnelers, over empty holes that were no longer empty but now held half-hidden things and fingers that gripped edges and pulled fast bodies free.
They couldn't stop. To stop would be to die.
Christopher screamed. Sped up.
Thok!
One of the things' heads jerked back, an arrow sprouting like magic from its eye. Then the head snapped forward again. Its mouth screamed silent screams to some dark god.
It turned on its brother.
Both went down. Biting, clawing at one another.
Christopher jumped over them. Amulek followed. Both running faster. Faster.
Faster.
Faster.
Give up. GIVE IN.
Faster.
Faster.
They couldn't stop.
He was vaguely aware of Amulek slinging his bow over his shoulder. No more arrows.
No more arrows.
More things rose up before them.
Three.
Four.
Six.
No stopping. Christopher and Amulek couldn't stop, they couldn't. More behind. More and more in front.
GIVE UP. GIVE IN.
To stop would be to die.
To run would be to die.
I'll go out running, thank you.
Christopher sped up.
He gritted his teeth. Forced his legs to pump faster.
Faster.
Faster.
GIVE UP. GIVE IN.
Faster.
Faster.
And then he was at the line of undead.
They reached for him.
They would have him.
48
WHAT I WOULDN'T GIVE for Sally right now.
The thought flitted in and out like a bird in a tree, passing through while looking for somewhere safe to nest. Not finding safety here. Come and gone in an instant.
But fast on the trail of the first flitting thought came another: the realization that Sally had never attacked anything but the undead. Never.
Not until Buck.
What did that mean?
He didn't know.
The second bird flitted away. All thought fled.
He ran at the zombies – now ten strong – that had pulled free of their holes in front of him. They ran, too. Ran to greet him and Amulek like lovers in a movie. Only the kisses they brought would not be those of pleasure, but of greatest pain. Not Heaven, but damnation.
He leaped over a last writhing tunneler.
Faster.
Faster.
Lowered his shoulder. Hoping to hit the closest zombie. To make it through.
Another flitting bird-thought: when he was five, still a child and not the Son of Power. Playing a game with the kids at kindergarten. Two lines of children facing one another. Each line linking hands. Taking turns calling over a kid from the opposing line. That kid had to run at the "enemy" line and try to break through. If he did he brought one of the enemy line over to be a part of his line. If not, he became the enemy.
Just like now. Get through or become the enemy.
"Red Rover, Red Rover, send Christopher over," he said. Lowered shoulder. Hoping to break through. Knowing he couldn't.
But maybe he could clear the way for Amulek.
"Fine, then send Amulek over," he said.
That would be all right.
That would be the right thing, as Dorcas would have said. Clearing the way for a friend.
That would be a good death.
49
THE FIRST ZOMBIE TOUCHED him. Its finger was hot, so hot it burned even in that single instant.
Then the heat traveled to his upper arm. Burned and burned with white-hot pain. A sound pounded at his ears.
The zombie spun around.
Then the next one.
The third.
They fell. They all fell.
A sound accompanied each fall. Two sounds.
BOOM-zip.
BOOM-zip.
The sound of gunfire, a high caliber weapon. And then, so close it was almost on top of the noise, the bee-buzz of a bullet passing through the air beside him.
Christopher realized he hadn't been burnt by the zombie's touch. The creature had been shot, and the bullet, after passing through the creature, had skated across his upper arm. The zombie had fallen, gunned down with a shot placed so perfectly it had knocked the thing off its feet and then missed – or near enough – the person behind it.
Christopher knew only one person, other than Aaron, who could make that shot.
He burst through the line of zombies. The three-zombie gap was enough for him and Amulek to break through the line, even though it was close – so close that he felt the fetid breeze of the other ones' hands snapping for him.
Christopher looked back and saw Amulek grinning. He knew. Knew who had saved them.
Mo. The Māori was covering them.
Another shot. Another zombie fell to earth.
But then, of course, it rose up again. That was what they did.
The smile disappeared from Amulek's lips. And Christopher felt a similar expression fall away from his own face.
They weren't safe. Not yet.
50
A HUNDRED YARDS. THE length of a football field.
Only there was no football. And the opposing team wanted to kill him. Change him. Destroy him.
Christopher had stood against the things before. Once, in a plane, he had even offered himself so that the others could escape.
And they passed me by, just passed me by. Why then but not now? What's going on?
But this was the most frightening of any of those events. In the dark, with things in front, behind, beside. Things below.
They ran at him and for the first time in his life he found not just one but many things that were faster than him.
And through it all: the noise.
Groans. Give up. Give in.
The sounds of crumbling dirt, of earth giving way to void. Give up. Give in.
Sounds of explosions and bee stings. Give up. Give in.
Of bodies spinning and hitting ground and then rising again.
GIVE UP.
GIVE IN.
The voices in his head were familiar. Not exactly the same, but weak echoes of the voice in his waking dream. The one that had invited him to be one with it forever. These voices sounded like that thing's weaker cousins, or children.
Or perhaps just its fingers, its toes. Body and blood to an unseen god.
One hundred yards to outrun a god.
Bangs and buzzes. Bee stings chipping away at tiny pieces of deity.
Ahead of him, Christopher saw the false rock that marked the shelter. Saw Mo propped up on some kind of stool, the long rifle he used swiveling back and forth as he pulled the trigger. Brass casings glinted in the dirt beside him. Bangs and buzzes.
Amulek ran ahead. Disappeared down the hole.
Mo stopped firing. Something dark fell into the dirt: a magazine. He slapped a new one in.
Two more shots.
Christopher felt something yank the neck of his shirt. It turned him around.
Another bang, another buzz.
The thing stopped pulling. Something still tugged at his shirt, though. He reached back as he ran, pulling off the three dismembered fingers that still clutched the fabric. They writhed in his hand, blind worms that wanted his death. As he watched, the yellow discharge oozed from the stumps. Sealing them off.
He thr
ew the fingers away with a shout. It was wrong. All wrong. Ken, the best of them, the one with a family, gone. The little girls, the innocents, infected with some unseen demons.
Buck and Sally attacking each other.
Maggie, stunning everyone unconscious with a scream.
All wrong.
"Move!" shouted Mo. He punched off three more shots. Then moved aside.
Christopher didn't bother ducking so he could run in the way Amulek had. He went into a full baseball slide, gliding into the entry ramp with a panache that Amulek hadn't managed. That made him ridiculously happy, all things considered.
One more bang. An unheard buzz.
Groans could be heard inside the shelter.
Then darkness as Mo hit the button to seal the shelter and the outer hatch swung shut.
The groans were cut off instantly.
But not the other noises.
"What is that?" said Mo. And Christopher realized what they were, and realized that Mo wouldn't know. Wouldn't understand. Maybe wouldn't believe.
"It's trouble," he said.
51
"WHAT'S THIS PLACE MADE of?"
"Made of?" Mo didn't seem to understand Christopher's question. Amulek remained silent as always.
"The outside!" Christopher was shouting now, terror bleeding any semblance of control dry. At any moment, panic was going to conquer him completely. "What are the walls of this place made of?"
"They are steel, one-eighth inch thick, lined with another four inches of lead, and the entire thing is set in a box of concrete and rebar."
Christopher thought. Kept coming up against –
(what if it's her what if it's her what if they send her again
the axe the axe in her head the skull splitting open
did I get her brain is she crazy or is she one of the sane ones
there are no sane ones not them not us nothing sane is left)
The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7] Page 70