The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  Christopher struggled against Buck's bulk. Managed to achieve something approaching a sitting position.

  Saw what had happened.

  Five zombies had hit the front of the vehicle.

  One grabbed onto the hood. Crawled inside.

  The others blew out the back in so many crumpled chunks. Or, at least, that was what Christopher thought had happened.

  But one of them had managed to hold on. To grab the undercarriage of the vehicle, dragged along the road, back flaying away but keeping hold, never letting go.

  And when the one above had burned a hole through the floor of the Marauder, the one below saw its chance. It reached through. And grabbed Aaron.

  The acid on the floor seemed to have lost its strength after eating away at the floor. So Aaron didn't get burned by the caustic fluid – not that that was much of a consolation. The creature below the Marauder had a death grip on Aaron's jeans, just above the cowboy's right boot. The boot itself had disappeared below the level of the armor flooring, along with most of Aaron's lower leg.

  Christopher couldn't see the thing's head. That was the most important part. The part that could Change Aaron. One bite was all it would take. Just one nip. The cowboy boots would give the older man some protection, but for how long?

  Aaron grunted, and slipped a few inches deeper into the darkness beneath the Marauder.

  "Get off me," said Christopher. He shoved at Buck. "Get off!"

  It was a measure of how out of it Buck was that he didn't complain about Christopher's words or tone. Just rolled to the side. Maggie groaned as the big man almost toppled onto her. She managed to catch him – more or less – and turn his tumble into something of a controlled fall.

  Right onto Theresa, who had been on the verge of freeing herself. Now they all tumbled to the floor.

  Christopher got to his feet. Duckwalked to Aaron. The man's muscles were straining, every bit of him rigid as he tried to pull himself up, to yank himself out of the pit below.

  The circumference of the hole, Christopher noted, was significantly smaller than the circumference of the cowboy. But the zombies were strong – so, so strong. And he had no doubt that the hand yanking on Aaron would eventually pull him down through that hole. Aaron would just be made to fit.

  Christopher reached for the hand pulling on his friend. One of the fingers was missing, which made him think for a moment of Ken –

  (We could really use your help right now, buddy.)

  – but the remaining ones felt like steel bars. Cold, immovable. Only a slick layer of ichor that streamed over one of them evidenced the fact that this was an organic – if alien – creature.

  "It's... pulling...." Aaron went down another inch.

  Christopher yanked at the fingers. Batted at the hand. It did precisely nothing. "I can't get it off!"

  A bit more of Aaron disappeared.

  Christopher heard a moan. Realized it wasn't coming from inside the Marauder. It was the sound of the creatures that still followed them. Carried in through the still-open door that Aaron had thrown open before tossing their unwelcome passenger out on his ass.

  Christopher looked at the open door. It banged shut, but didn't catch. It opened again. Shut, opened. Shut. Opened.

  He looked at Aaron. Fighting a losing battle against something far too strong to be resisted for long.

  The door opened again.

  Christopher jumped out.

  59

  ON HIS WORST DAYS, Christopher wasn't suicidal. Or at least, his suicide dreams never involved tossing himself out a tank's little brother so he could be crushed only moments before being trampled and subsequently Changed by a zombie horde.

  So he turned in midair.

  Grabbed the side of the door as it completed its outward arc.

  Used the momentum to swing toward the rear of the Marauder. There was a ladder apparatus attached to the side there, and he grabbed it, his feet finding a small outcropping of metal that allowed him to stand for a moment.

  He looked around. Spotted the ladder they had all climbed to get into the beast of a vehicle in the first place.

  He dropped. Fell past it. Caught the last rung.

  Beat that, Aaron.

  As with the door, the catch switched his momentum. Turned downward to a jerking sideways, and he swung his body at the same time. Hitched up his feet so that they wouldn't drag on the ground below. Pushed them out.

  Beneath the Marauder.

  Where the zombie was.

  He was kicking blindly. And knew that was stupid. The thing could be waiting there with its mouth wide open in the dark, just waiting for him to try something like this. This could be his last moment as Christopher Elgin, daredevil extraordinaire, and his first moment as Oogah Boogah, zombie creep.

  His right foot connected with something firm. Not metal. Flesh.

  There was a grunt. Then the resistance the thing's body had provided disappeared. There was a slight bump as the Marauder ran over something.

  Christopher nearly fell. The precarious hold he had on the ladder disappeared as the bit of his weight that the zombie had borne – even if only for a fraction of a second – was suddenly thrown into empty space.

  One of his hands slipped.

  The other.

  He fell.

  60

  HANDS CLAPPED AROUND his right arm.

  "Gotcha."

  The voice was gravelly. Torn.

  Beautiful.

  He looked up and saw Theresa leaning out of the Marauder, her throat trickling blood from where Ken had cut her, but not letting go in spite of the pain she must be feeling.

  Maggie had a hold on Theresa's belt. Leaning back as much as she could, adding her weight to the anchor that was keeping Christopher alive.

  "I love you!" he shouted at Theresa.

  She didn't answer. Just began pulling him up, inch by painful inch.

  He looked back. The zombies behind them were still close.

  And gaining. Fast.

  At first he couldn't figure out why. Were they speeding up?

  Not cool. Not fair.

  Then he realized that the Marauder wasn't moving as quickly as it had. And on the heels of that realization he saw the reason why: something was wrong with the rear right wheel. It must have run over some of the acid that made its way through the Marauder's flooring and to the ground below. Now it was wobbling enough that it sent a shudder through the entire vehicle. Caused it to yaw to the right, then swerve back to the left as Amulek brought it back under control.

  They weren't going to be able to get away.

  61

  CHRISTOPHER THREW HIS other hand around Theresa's wrist. Concentrated on not falling. Concentrated on not thinking about the things that were behind them.

  Coming closer. Closer.

  He looked.

  They were close enough that the ones in the front were reaching broken, wrecked, rotten fingers for the back of the Marauder. And when they pulled themselves onto it, the others would follow. Christopher remembered a video he'd seen on some nature show – ants bringing down an unlucky grasshopper who had ventured too close to their turf. Swarming over it, biting it, rendering it a crippled, crumpled twist of nothing.

  That was what the zombies would do to the Marauder. They'd bring it down. Weight, acid... relentless ferocity. The vehicle made for war was totally inadequate for the kind of rage made flesh that followed close behind.

  Theresa grunted. Christopher felt himself pulled a few inches higher. Not that going inside the Marauder was going to be much safer. But he supposed at least he'd get to die with friends.

  Everything's better with friends, right?

  Shut up, man. We're alive. As long as we're alive, there's hope.

  Sure. Right.

  Theresa – with Maggie at her back – hauled him up another foot. Far enough for him to get a foot on the bottom rung below the door. He levered himself halfway into the vehicle.

  And an explosion nearly
tossed him right back out the side.

  62

  CHRISTOPHER COULDN't spare a glance around to figure out what had just happened. All he could do was throw himself against the Marauder's cool metal floor, try and think glue-thoughts and hold on tight as the thing swerved madly to the left. Then back to the right, correcting. Another swing to the left.

  His legs, still hanging out the door, flipped back and forth – dead weights that threatened to drag him right back out the vehicle.

  Again, he felt Theresa's hands on his arm. Yanking him inward. Pulling him to safety.

  No. Not safety. No such thing.

  He managed to lurch forward a few inches. Just enough to change his center of gravity so that it was over the lip of the Marauder, then a bit farther. He pulled a knee onto the flooring. Felt another hand on his upper arm.

  Aaron. The cowboy was still stuck in the hole, but was using it to his advantage – as leverage that allowed him to pull Christopher inside with almost his full body weight.

  Christopher was inside.

  Another explosion. It tossed him backward, and he grabbed Theresa as she went sailing past him – almost thrown right out the door he had just gone to so much trouble to get in through.

  There wasn't time for anything fancy. He just threw his arms around her as she whipped past. One of his hands grabbed something softer than the other and Theresa stiffened in his arms and he was pretty sure that, make it through the current emergency or not, he was going to be killed very soon.

  "Leggo of me!" she shouted.

  "Fine!" He resisted the urge to keep hanging on – not to be creepy, but just to piss her off. "I'll let you shoot out the side next –"

  BOOM!

  The third explosion was the biggest, and Theresa fell back into his arms again. Thankfully he managed to put his hands into "safe zones" on her shoulders and stomach – he was pretty sure she'd just murder him outright if he made another mistake.

  He looked around. Finally saw the origin of the explosion: Buck. The big man had the tailgate of the Marauder open and was tossing out gas cans. They hit and cracked open. The zombies ran right through them, heedless of what they were doing.

  Buck had a handgun. He aimed. Fired.

  A fourth explosion.

  The flames leaped so high that Christopher could barely see through them. Then they died down and he saw the charred shapes of the zombies, still loping after them. Skin charred, clothes falling off.

  Still following. Things were indestruct –

  One of the zombies veered into the three or four at its side. Attacked them with undiluted rage. They went down.

  The action spread like a plague through the zombies. Every fourth or fifth one turned on its neighbors as the heat from the flames destroyed its head, cooked the receptors that were all that was left of its brain.

  The zombies devolved into a mass of flesh and bone, turned on itself by flame.

  Buck spun back toward the others. Spotted Christopher. "See?" he crowed. "You're not the only one who can make things blow up!"

  63

  CHRISTOPHER HELPED Aaron free of the hole in the floor while Buck secured the gas cans that remained – only two, Christopher noted – and swung the tailgate closed.

  Maggie and Theresa sat down. They gave the hole in the floor a wide berth, but Christopher noted they also stayed as far from each other as the cargo space in the Marauder allowed.

  Small wonder.

  He couldn't imagine what Maggie was thinking: forced to watch her son and husband die – be Changed – then to do the bidding of some alien creature, and now having to travel with the woman who had most fervently argued for the death of her remaining children.

  The Change had stolen so much from them. Friends, loved ones. Would it take their humanity?

  Did it matter?

  Christopher thought of Maggie, insisting that the others not curse around the girls. He had thought that silly at the time – even annoying. But now he wondered if it had some value. It showed a concern for the children. Not just for their survival, but for their well-being – two things that Christopher intimately knew could be mutually exclusive.

  And if they were concerned for the girls' well-being, then that meant... it meant they were still human. Not just as a species, but as a culture. They still meant something beyond their DNA, beyond the meat that carried them around.

  Perhaps that was what it meant to have a soul. Not the will to survive, but the will to ensure that the survival meant something beyond mere genetic propagation.

  Once Aaron was free, the cowboy retook his place in the front passenger seat of the Marauder. Went back to scanning their environs with the hard look of a professional. Seeing everything, noting everything, missing no threat, no matter how small.

  "We should keep going a few miles at least," he said to Amulek. "Put some distance between us and them, then pull over long enough to check the wheel."

  Amulek nodded, and Christopher noted the beads of sweat on the teen's face and neck. Not from fear of what had just happened – he suspected you could put hot pokers to the kid's testicles and not elicit more than a shrug and maybe a written statement that he was going to kill you – but from the effort he was putting into holding onto the steering wheel. The muscles of his arms were corded, bunched, the striations standing out in the heightened shadows of the interior lights.

  The Marauder was wobbling like mad. Shimmying as though caught in a perpetual hurricane. But Amulek kept it going straight down the middle of the deserted road that Christopher assumed would eventually lead to Highway 20-26.

  And from there, to Micron. To an anechoic chamber that might or might not provide some safety.

  At least it should give us more answers. Fingers crossed.

  Buck moved past him. Heading back to sit with Maggie, who was picking up Lizzy and Hope – they had somehow been dumped in a pile directly behind Amulek's chair during the fracas. Maggie moved Lizzy's arms and legs, obviously checking for injuries. Just as obviously unsure how to even tell if they were present. Christopher felt an ache he couldn't hope to salve. The pain of a parent faced with a child's hopeless situation.

  He had seen the hospital his daughter had been in – pulverized. Rubble. He had known the despair that comes from not being able to do anything. Not a damn thing, just standing there, crying, wishing the world would end because at least then you wouldn't have to feel this way.

  And then –

  (the axe in her face, the split in her head and her rolling away from the bus, my little Carina – only not mine no not anymore)

  – and then he had endured worse.

  He wouldn't let that happen to Maggie. He would spare her the feeling of having to do what he had done. If it ever came to that, he would take care of the girls himself. No parent should have to do that to their own kids.

  He knew that. Maybe it was the only thing he really knew.

  He realized with surprise that he was contemplating the death of two little girls. More than that, he was thinking of the possibility that he would be the one to kill them. Would volunteer to do it, if the circumstances were right.

  Christopher looked at Theresa. She was staring straight ahead. Looking at no one, seeming to see nothing.

  They had all condemned her so quickly. But what had she done wrong? Really, what was it she had tried to do?

  He remembered fleeing from the Wells Fargo building. Buck's mother had been with them. They climbed out onto a crane, then slid into the next building over. And in the fall the old woman had been impaled. Wounded, probably fatally – and certainly pinned in place beyond the survivors' ability to move her.

  They had been followed by zombies. Had been chased, no time to think, only to act.

  Aaron killed the old woman. So she wouldn't be visited by the horror of waiting alone for a fate worse than death. He broke her neck.

  And no one judged him to be a monster. They saw it as a mercy offered, a relief received.

  So w
hy was he a hero, and Theresa a villain?

  It was two things, he knew. One was that she had turned her weapons on the girls without offering to explain. Without understanding, her actions seemed simply murderous. By the time she did get around to explaining, that first impression had solidified in the others' minds – the one possible explanation for a woman's need to kill the smallest, most vulnerable members of their group.

  And that was the other reason: it was children she threatened. Not an old lady, dying and threatened with the cruelty of a life that was a kind of damnation on Earth. No, these were babes. Whole, unblemished... the very images of a world's hope. For what could there be if the children were no more? What hope for humanity if it turned to murdering its small ones?

  Christopher understood now. He had contemplated the death of the children. Even without the possibility of the rest of the world depending on it, he found in himself the ability to do it. Not for fun, not because it would be easy. But because sometimes death is the only thing standing between agony and peace. And sometimes it is a stepping stone to greater life.

  Were two little girls worth a whole world? Would it be worth it to sacrifice his own humanity to murder them, if it meant the human race could continue – or at least have a chance?

  He didn't know. But he knew he no longer hated Theresa. He understood her, and it is impossible to hate someone you truly understand. Hate is born of making an alien of someone else – making them creatures whose decisions are irrational, and making of them therefore creatures whose value as humans is lessened.

  We can only hate those who are mysteries to us. So we can only murder those we choose to misunderstand.

  Christopher slid into the seat beside Theresa. She didn't look at him. Gave no indication she noticed him at all.

  "Thanks for saving me," he said after a moment.

  "You saved me," she said. Still looking into a nothing somewhere straight in front of her. "We're even."