The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  "Where's Mo?" asked Maggie.

  "What about Mo?" Buck asked at the same moment.

  "Not comin'." Aaron didn't look back. Just looked out the side window, then back out the front. Scanning restless eyes across a landscape that seemed quiet after days of relentlessly trying to murder them.

  "Not comin'?" Buck's mimicry of the cowboy's drawl was actually pretty astounding, all things considered. Christopher wondered if he could do a good Nicholson impression. "What do you mean, 'not comin'?" He has to come! What's he gonna do, just sit there and wait to die?"

  Aaron didn't answer. He looked at Amulek. The teen kept driving, face forward, barely bouncing at all as the Marauder jounced its way over ruts and creases in the dirt.

  "We can't," said Maggie in a small voice.

  "He said he just wanted to sit there a spell," said Aaron.

  "That's a death sentence and you know it," Buck spat.

  "Yeah," said Aaron after a moment. "I do. But we all know we're doing something a might more important than one person's comfort, or even one person's life. And he knows it, too."

  "That doesn't mean he should commit suicide," said Christopher.

  "No, it doesn't," agreed Aaron. He looked at Amulek, as though gauging how much to say. As though wondering how much the teen could handle. Amulek continued with face directly forward. "But it does mean we're going to have our hands full. We've got two little girls who are unconscious, and we don't know if they'll come out of that – or what they'll be like if they do. I'm wounded, Theresa's banged up. Everyone's tired."

  "And what? So we abandon the weak?" Buck growled. Christopher wondered if the big man was going to throw himself at the cowboy. That wouldn't end well – mostly for Buck, but probably not for any of the rest of them, either, given that they were in an attack vehicle cruising at a decent speed over an unpaved road in the dead of night.

  "We didn't abandon him," said Aaron. He spun around to look at Buck and the others. His face was rigid, emotionless. "Man's a warrior. He decided that what we're doing was more important than us making sure someone was there to wipe his nose whenever he needed it."

  "No," said Buck. "We go back. We get –"

  The Marauder slammed to a halt. Stopped so hard and fast that everyone in the cargo area slammed forward into each other. Buck and Maggie and the two little girls tumbled together into a heap, while Christopher suddenly found himself holding onto Theresa.

  Amulek had his machete out. And the point of it hovered in the air only a few centimeters away from Buck's nose.

  "I don't think the kid wants us to go back," said Aaron.

  "But...." Buck looked lost. Frightened. Alone. "But he gave me cookies."

  It was the kind of nonsense that only someone else who had lived through the Change would understand. That only someone rescued and given safety and comfort – shelter and food (and, in Buck's case, even some lemon cookies, doled out by Mo when they first arrived in the bunker) – during the moments directly after the universe ended would understand.

  No one spoke. Finally, Christopher heard himself speaking. It was almost like listening to someone else. "I know he did, Clucky. He gave us all cookies." He looked at Amulek. The teen had tears streaming down his cheeks, though his expression was carved of solid granite. "Maybe we'll go back for him after all this is over, okay?"

  "Promise?" Buck's voice was pitiful. Childlike. Years sloughed away in terror.

  "Promise."

  It was a lie. They all knew it. But lies were the only thing there was to cling to sometimes, and sometimes that was enough.

  "Promise."

  Amulek put the Marauder back into gear.

  They rode into the night.

  47

  NO ONE SPOKE.

  No one made a sound.

  Just driving, driving, driving. A few times as he glanced out the windows, Christopher thought he saw that glow in the night again, but each time he tried to focus on it, it dissipated and he could never be sure if it was reality or simply his mind reaching out for something – anything – in the otherwise featureless darkness all around them.

  The bouncing evened out quickly as they went from the middle of the farm to a level path between fields, then to a paved road. Christopher wondered if there would be any cars to avoid, any vehicles crashed on whatever road this was when the Change occurred. Then he realized it didn't matter: the Marauder could probably just go up and over them as easily as a normal car might go up and over speedbumps.

  But there was nothing. Just the sustained drone of the engine. The whine of pavement below the wheels.

  The silence was terrible. Because it was so full of the shouts of those they had lost. Not just Mo, but Dorcas, Derek, Ken. Everyone who had been a part of the group, then left behind – to die or to be Changed.

  The silence infected Christopher, and he could tell it was working a dark kind of spell on everyone else, as well. Hard to feel chipper under these circumstances, true... but there was a difference between struggling under difficulty and just wallowing in defeat.

  He stretched out a foot. Touched Buck's toe with his own.

  "Stop touching me," he said.

  Buck drew away, just far enough that it was a stretch for Christopher to reach across and prod the big man's foot with his own a second time. "Stop touching me," he repeated. Then turned to Maggie. "Mom, he won't stop touching me."

  "What the hell are you doing, Christopher?" growled Buck.

  "You keep going on my side of the battle tank," said Christopher. He leaned forward, toward Aaron. "Are we there yet?" He touched Buck's foot with his own again. "Stop touching me." He poked Aaron's arm. "I have to go to the bathroom."

  He went to kick Buck again, but this time the big man kicked him. Buck's toe left what would undoubtedly be a large bruise on Christopher's shin. He grimaced. Pointed at Maggie. "Did you see that? Did you see him touch me?"

  "You did it first!" roared Buck. Incredibly, he didn't seem to sense the irony of the moment. He turned to Maggie. "He touched me first. All I did was get him back."

  "But he hit me harder!"

  "I did not!"

  "You did, too!"

  Theresa laughed. "Stop it, both of you! Or we'll turn this Apocalypse around!"

  Christopher laughed at that, too. A moment later, so did Maggie. Aaron.

  Even Amulek's shoulders shook, just a bit, as he drove.

  Buck didn't laugh. He grumbled. Which was as good as a laugh in Sourpussland.

  Then Aaron's laugh died away. He shifted in his seat, and held his handgun at the ready.

  "What is it?" said Christopher. But even before Aaron told him he knew. He saw the buildings looming in front of them. Not many, but they were out of the fields. They were in a small city – not much more than a town, really.

  What would they find here?

  "We're in Crow City," said Aaron. "Look sharp."

  48

  4:15.

  As Christopher watched, the numbers on the dashboard clock jumped: 4:16.

  Then he looked away, back out the windows. It was still at least an hour and a half before dawn, and aside from that strange sometime-glow on the horizon, and the splashes of light from the Marauder's headlights, there was no trace of illumination. If it weren't for the looming buildings on either side of them, it would have felt like they stumbled through a time machine into a different era. An epoch that so far predated humanity that its technology was not even a cosmic dream.

  But the buildings were there. And they were so dark, so frightening.

  Christopher had been born in Idaho. Had spent his early childhood here. But most of his youth and young adulthood had been spent in large cities as his parents sent him from boarding school to boarding school. Even during school holidays, His Emmincence the Governor was quick to ship him off to different big city tourist spots – anything to get a kid out of his hair.

  So Christopher was used to bright lights. Movement. Sound.

  This... this was
wrong. Worse than it had been in the fields. Out there at least he got the sense that silence and dark nights were somewhat normal states. Here, the dark buildings they passed between seemed like unhallowed tombs, the dark windows like eye sockets rotted to nothing in the skulls of the dead.

  They passed a general store – he knew that's what it was because it had a big red sign that looked the color of blood in the backwash of the Marauder's lights that said "General Store" in what Christopher guessed was Olde Tyme Font No. 5.

  Windows normally stretched across the front of the store, but they had been shattered – by what he couldn't tell.

  A red streak that definitely was not a quaintly inviting sign stained much of the white clapboard siding of the store. He looked away.

  He saw Maggie. She was looking down. Her body held in a strange position he didn't understand. Then he realized that Buck had a hand on her shoulder. The big man's face – illuminated by a series of red LED lights that spread an arterial glow through the interior of the Marauder – looked drawn. A thin drizzle of blood ran down his chin, and Christopher realized his friend had bitten his lip.

  He saw that Buck was looking past him, through the window at his back. Christopher spun in his seat.

  Opposite the general store, there was another building – "Post Office" in Olde Tyme Font No. 9 – built circa Pony Express. Maybe before then.

  Like the general store, the post office was a simple white clapboard affair. No windows on the front of this structure, though. Just two doors. Both had been blown off their hinges, the explosion that caused it blackening the white paint around the jambs in a curiously beautiful star pattern.

  Two children sat beside the door. A boy and a girl. Neither more than ten years old. Holding hands. They could have been resting, waiting for their mother to come get them in the morning, if it weren't for the fact that the girl's head was half missing, and the boy's throat had sprayed its way across the side of the building.

  The gun that had done it was in the boy's hand. He had killed the girl – his sister? – then himself.

  Christopher didn't know what was worse: the act itself or the fact that it had been done by children forced to age rapidly by a world beyond their understanding. Childhood, maturity, death – all in a matter of days.

  He hoped the little girl hadn't known it was coming. Hoped the little boy had told her to close her eyes. And that she'd trusted him enough to do it in the final moment before he destroyed her head – and so also mangled the receptors that would have demanded she serve the creatures' whim, alive or dead.

  God, are we even worth saving?

  But he knew that the boy had acted to save the girl, to the best of his ability. Had seen a world where the nightmares had come to the waking plane. And if dreams come for us when awake, where can we go but an eternal sleep?

  No, he hadn't acted to harm his sister. He had tried to save her.

  Christopher looked away from the tableau. Looked at Lizzy and Hope. Still asleep – or what passed for sleep right now, locked partly away from the transmissions that kept them going, kept them growing.

  Could I kill them? To give them peace?

  He hoped it wouldn't come to that.

  The Marauder moved past general store and post office.

  The night swallowed the dead children behind them.

  49

  CROW "CITY" COULDN't have been more than ten buildings, total. The general store, the post office. A hardware store. A place that sold feed and tack. A bar, and two liquor stores – and Christopher figured the ratio of booze establishments to total buildings implied a lot about living in Crow City.

  They were passing by the city hall/courthouse/sheriff's station when something darted out of the darkness. It burst from the black nothing that seemed to swallow everything only a few feet away from the Maruader, a drop of ink that flowed out of the shadows and then flung itself in front of the vehicle.

  Aaron shouted at the same time that Amulek hit the brakes so hard he rose up in his seat. They hadn't been moving fast – probably barely thirty miles per hour – but it still seemed like the Marauder took forever to come to a halt.

  Momentum is not our friend.

  Before they shuddered to a stop, there was a solid, meaty kuthud from the front right of the vehicle. It sounded like it came from far away – two layers of armor shielding provided a surprising amount of noise insulation – but Christopher flinched like he'd just been punched in the gut.

  "Was it... was it...?" Maggie didn't finish. Didn't have to. Christopher could see the question on her face. Could see it in Buck's expression, the flit of Theresa's eyes.

  Was that one of them? Or did we just hit a person?

  "I don't know," said Aaron. "I didn't see." His voice came out as a harsh whisper. He was hunched low in the seat, and now he peeked over the low edge of the window. "Still can't."

  "Had to be one of them," said Buck. "No person would run out at a car like that." Like Aaron, his voice was low. Worried. "No one."

  "Unless it was someone who saw the car," said Maggie. "Maybe someone trying to flag us down and they just fell?"

  "No way to tell, short of getting out," said Theresa.

  "No thank you," said Buck.

  Amulek snapped his fingers for attention. Gestured out his window. Aaron leaned over, looking out.

  Christopher turned in his seat. He was seated directly behind Amulek, and there was a window set in the armor plating between them. He looked through.

  "Damn," he whispered.

  It wasn't a person. Not as Christopher understood the word anymore. The zombie had hit the front right of the car, then must have been pulled under by the wheel, hung up on something below the Marauder, torn to bits in a fraction of a second. Now it was just a torso attached to a head and a single arm that was clawing an aimless path through the dirt.

  "Go," Aaron said to Amulek.

  "Wait," said Christopher. Shouted it, really. He looked at the creature that was pulling itself along the road. It had almost reached the sidewalk, guts spilling from its body cavity in dark, glistening knots.

  "Why?" said Aaron. "We gotta get moving. Before more come."

  "I know, just...." A froth appeared where the creature had been wounded. Sealing the gashes, the tears. The glistening yellow substance Christopher had seen before. The zombie took no notice, just kept pulling its way up toward the sidewalk on the far side of the street.

  It was now about twenty feet from the Marauder.

  "What the hell are we doing?" growled Theresa. "Let's get going."

  "Christopher," said Aaron. Christopher ignored the cowboy. Just kept watching the zombie as it crawled.

  Up the sidewalk.

  Twenty-five feet away.

  Thirty.

  Black ichor trailed behind it.

  "Christopher, we should go before more come," said Aaron.

  "Why is it doing that?" said Christopher.

  "What?" said Buck.

  Maggie understood. "It's crawling away." She didn't leave her seat, but craned her neck to see as the zombie pulled itself away, inch after inch. "Why is it crawling away?"

  "The doodad," said Buck. He pointed at the remote, still wedged in Hope's pocket. "It must have been like what happened to the others. It got called, then got in range of the remote, got confused, and left."

  Christopher shook his head. The creature's wounds were completely sealed. It kept pulling itself away. Silent. Almost lost in the darkness now.

  "I don't think that's it, Buck. Aaron, was it even attacking the car in the first place?"

  "I don't know." The cowboy shrugged. "Just seemed to run out in front of it, almost like...."

  "Like it was confused?"

  "Maybe." Aaron squinted. "What are you getting at, son?"

  The zombie wore the remains of a white t-shirt with a red collar. The collar stood out as garish and nearly obscene. A mockery of the blood that had been spilled through all this.

  He shook his he
ad. "I don't know. I...."

  Then something sparkled in the headlights. A light. Two lights. Four. Ten.

  Eyes.

  Zombies, crowding the narrow road in front of them.

  50

  THE EYES SPARKLED THE way that animals' eyes did – catching the Marauder's headlights and casting them back as a series of diamond sparkles that stole all warmth; left only a sense of sterile emptiness.

  The creatures weren't moving.

  "What are they waiting for?" murmured Aaron.

  Christopher was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question, but it was the same thing going through his own head. The zombies were many things: fast, nearly indestructible, crap-your-pants scary... but subtle wasn't one of them. For the most part, they had two basic modes: Attack, and Attack More.

  These were doing neither. They just stood there. Three were on one of the street's narrow lanes, hunched together near a liquor store curb like the world's most grisly delinquents. The other two were in the middle of the street, just... laying there.

  But when the Marauder's lights washed over them, all the creatures looked up. The three that were near the liquor store ambled to the point where the twin cones of the headlights converged. A strange, lurching shamble that was totally unlike the smooth lope Christopher had grown accustomed to seeing in the creatures.

  The three approached the Marauder. They passed the two who were laying on the street, and those two stood. As they did, the five of them drew into a knot. The instant it happened, a subtle change came over all five of the creatures. Some of the jerkiness fell away from their movements. Instead of lurching they now walked. They drew low to the ground, no longer standing tall as would an unsuspecting person, but rather crouching like....

  Soldiers. Behind enemy lines.

  Their faces, which Christopher could see clearly in the headlights, changed as well. The ones near the liquor store had seemed... vaguely Buckish, for lack of a better term. Irritated. Pissed off with the world.

  The ones on the street had been blank. Faces a total vacuum, like people in comas. Barely more than vegetables.