The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  "Well, I did grab your boob. So maybe we're not quite even."

  That got a reaction. She jerked her gaze to him, anger rippling over her face. "You did." She dropped her hand to her hip, where her gun was holstered. "Don't do it again."

  He put up his hands. "I didn't mean to. I didn't even know it was possible to do that through body armor."

  She snorted. "You must be an expert."

  "You have no idea."

  She gawked at him. Again he raised his hands. "No, I didn't mean it like that. I meant... you don't know me. Yes, I have impulse control issues. Yes, I probably make fun of too many things, at wildly inappropriate times. But what do you really know about me? Nothing." He snapped his fingers for emphasis at the last word. Then pointed at Buck. Maggie. Aaron. Amulek. "You don't know any of us. You just know what you've been trying to accomplish, without bothering to think that we might be better as allies than as enemies – or frienemies, or whatever we are at this point."

  "You think I don't know that?" she snarled. "You think I'm trying to be the odd man out here?" She rubbed her hands on her pants, as though trying to rid them of a stain only she could see. "But what would you have done? If you were in my shoes, what would you have done different?"

  "Probably nothing." He could tell the answer surprised her. He smiled. "I just think that things are different now. You were the one who suggested the anechoic chamber, so you're willing to do something other than just run in with guns blazing. But you're still not one of..." he gestured around the Marauder, "us. And you need to be. Because they need to know they can trust you. And you need to trust them."

  She grunted. "I think that horse has already left the barn."

  "So go talk to them." He nodded at Maggie. "Talk to her. Convince her you're with us. Aaron believes you're a good person, that you were doing what you thought was best. Buck will go with what Maggie says. So you have to convince her."

  "What about you?" She stared at him, and for a moment he saw hope and fear warring a battle inside her. "What do you think?"

  "I think killing little girls is vile. Horrifying. And –" He took a breath. Rubbed his own hands against his pants as he thought –

  (the axe in her head her body tumbling away I saved them but I killed her I saved my friends and destroyed my daughter)

  – again of what was at stake. "And I understand."

  The fear in her gaze fell away. Not completely, but enough that the hope held sway. At least long enough for her to move to the seat directly across from Maggie.

  "Can we talk?"

  64

  WHEN AMULEK PULLED over, maybe ten miles down the road, Maggie and Theresa were still talking. Their voices were low, their heads together, and Christopher couldn't make out much of their conversation over the uneven roar of the Marauder. He did hear "Ken" and "Derek," and at one point Maggie had tears running down her cheeks. Not too much of a surprise, considering all she'd been through. What was a surprise was that Theresa had tears tracking their way down her own cheeks as well.

  Theresa put a hand on Maggie's knee. Maggie put her hand on Theresa's.

  They kept talking.

  Christopher gave them their space. But he smiled.

  Fate.

  It's meant to be.

  Theresa had been with them. Now she was one of them.

  The Marauder shuddered to a halt, the rasp-crackle of gravel beneath its tires as it stopped on the side of the road.

  Nice, kid. The world's gone, but you make sure to stop on the side of the road. Because RULES!

  He wondered if Amulek would put his blinker on when he pulled back out.

  If we can pull back out.

  That was a sobering thought. Christopher hadn't seen any cars on their drive thus far, and he had no desire to start walking in the middle of the night in Zombietown, U.S.A.

  He got out with Aaron, Amulek, and Buck. Amulek went to a compartment set into the side of the vehicle and opened it. He pulled out a heavy-duty flashlight, then lay down on his back and scooted out of sight.

  "I'm surprised you're not the one going down there," Buck said to Aaron. "Don't they teach you emergency car repair due to zombie attack in special forces?"

  Aaron didn't miss a beat. "They do, but I was sick that day." He pointed to the spot where Amulek had slid under the Marauder. "Besides, based on what I saw of their preparations, I suspect that kid could probably take this thing apart and put it back together again in the dark."

  "Which is handy, since that's basically what he's doing now," said Christopher. He looked at Buck. "Good job with the gas back there," he said.

  Buck looked like he was contemplating a snarky reply. Then he shrugged. "I had a good role model."

  Christopher looked to his left and right, then back at Buck. "Wait, do you mean moi?"

  Buck's teeth ground together. "Don't make me regret the compliment."

  "I wouldn't dream of it, big guy." His grin faded, and he punched Buck in the shoulder. "Seriously. That was awesome. Couldn't have done better myself."

  Buck nodded. He managed to look irritated, happy at the compliment, and pleased with himself all at the same time.

  Amulek pulled himself out from under the Marauder, the movement shifting the rocks and sand beneath him with a low rasp.

  "What's the problem?" asked Aaron.

  Amulek seemed to ignore the question. He went back to the tool compartment. Put the flashlight down on its side and pulled something out: a small whiteboard with a black dry erase pen velcroed to the side.

  "Something wrong with springs and shocks," he wrote.

  "What?" asked Buck.

  Amulek shrugged. Wiped off a corner of the whiteboard and wrote, "My guess is zombie-related."

  Christopher laughed. Aaron rolled his eyes and Buck looked at Christopher and said, "Great, just what we need. One more smart-ass." Then he looked back at Amulek. "Can we get to Micron?"

  Amulek shrugged again. Rubbed a patch of the whiteboard.

  "Hope so."

  65

  AFTER THAT THERE SEEMED to be little else to do. Just get in the Marauder and continue on. Air whistled through the hole in the floor – which everyone was sitting as far away from as possible – and the vehicle continued to wobble its way along. Christopher guessed they were going thirty miles per hour or so. A speed that would lengthen their trip to five or six hours – at best.

  Maggie and Theresa kept talking. Buck sat back in a chair and – amazingly – seemed to go to sleep. He closed his eyes and didn't move, and Christopher would have worried that something strange was going on if the big guy hadn't started snoring softly in the red glow of the cargo space.

  The girls – Hope and little Lizzy – slept as well, though their sleep was of a much deeper sort. Neither moved, not so much as a sigh. They had been left in the center aisle between the seats at one point, and as Christopher watched them they rolled back and forth ever so slightly. Not under their own volition, simply rocked by the wobble that was now the Marauder's permanent driving style.

  As he watched them, something tugged at his subconscious. Something wrong, or at least troubling. He didn't know what it was at first, then the suspicion was born inside. He looked closer to confirm.

  "What's going on?" asked Buck.

  Christopher jerked, surprised by the voice. Before looking he glanced out the side window. They weren't traveling the small road anymore. They had gotten to what he guessed was Highway 20-26, traveling along the center of two lanes with no sign of any other vehicles.

  He looked back at the girls. "Their breathing."

  Buck squinted at him. "I would hope so."

  "No, not 'they are' breathing. Their breathing." He pointed at the girls. "Look at their breathing."

  Buck turned his gaze on the girls. Christopher realized that Maggie and Theresa were watching as well. "What is it?" asked Maggie. A minute quaver made her voice tremble. It was a sound Christopher knew well: the sound of someone waiting for news that could only
be bad.

  "What's wrong?" she added.

  Christopher sighed. "They're breathing in time," he said.

  In-out, in-out, in-out.

  66

  THERESA SPOKE. "WHAT does that mean?" she asked.

  "I thought you said they couldn't communicate," said Aaron.

  "Yeah, but we gotta remember who we were relying on to make that happen," said Buck.

  Christopher glared. "Thanks for the encouragement, Clucky."

  "Wasn't trying to be encouraging, dumbass."

  "I don't feel any different."

  The last voice was quiet. So low it barely registered over the rattling thud of the Marauder's rapidly deteriorating wheels. Still, everyone turned to look at Maggie as quickly and completely as if she had shouted the words into the silence of a church at mass.

  "What do you mean?" said Theresa.

  "No, she's right," said Buck. He looked down at his hands, feet, body. He felt them as though worried he might have dropped something somewhere down the road. He looked back up at the group. "We were under some kind of spell when they were broadcasting, right? Me and Maggie? So if they were doing that again, wouldn't we feel different somehow?"

  "Yeah, I think you're right," said Aaron. He spoke without looking back, still staring ahead, then looking to the side in slow, measured sweeps that would keep him aware of their surroundings at all times. "You definitely acted a bit crazy when I showed up again."

  "So what are they doing, then?" asked Theresa. One of her feet inched toward Hope, as though she were contemplating nudging the little girl to check for some reaction.

  Maggie beat her to it. She leaned over and shook her oldest daughter's shoulder. Hope's body was loose, jogging back and forth under her mother's light touch.

  "Nothing," she said, disappointment clear in her voice. Christopher wondered if the disappointment was that of concerned mother for afflicted child – or if it was something deeper. Darker. More frightening.

  He hoped it was the former.

  "So what, then?" asked Theresa again.

  Christopher remembered something he had seen on the ultrasound. A moment when the creature in Hope's body faded out of this existence, this dimension. Perhaps to go – at least in part – to the dark place from whence it was born.

  And when it came back....

  "Growing," he said. He looked into Buck's eyes. "I bet the things inside them are growing." Then he looked around the car.

  "We don't have much time."

  67

  DAWN PEAKED OVER THE horizon. A sliver of light in the otherwise perfect dark of the night. The sliver became a spear, slicing through the night and leaving it in ribbons of gray interspersed with pink and orange.

  At one point Christopher thought he saw something north of the freeway. A bright yellow building whose signs screamed "FIREWORKS" and "YEAR ROUND" and "BIGGEST LEGALLY AVAILABLE."

  There was a swatch of darkness at the side of the building. The darkness shifted and shrugged in on itself. One piece of it broke away to roam around the front of the building, then seemed to lurch back to the darkness it had come from – small group of zombies.

  The creatures didn't follow. Didn't even seem to notice them.

  Christopher felt his eyes grow heavy. Begin to droop. He hadn't understood how Buck could possibly sleep. Not with all that was happening, and all that might happen. Now, though, he realized that sleep was not only coming – it was absolutely going to overtake him. The wobble of the car, the whistle of wind through the hole in the floor ceased to be an assault and somehow shifted to a lullaby.

  He slept.

  He dreamed.

  The dreams were short and sharp – shocks of pain and fear that came as pure feeling more than image. Despair as he saw a tiny child with a face grown strange and alien. Then blood and pink and black as he cut through the face with an axe. The axe shifted to something that wriggled and struggled in his hands. A many-legged creature who wanted to be free be free –

  (let me GO!)

  – and pushed thoughts of rage and hatred into his mind.

  Another flash, another shift. Holding Buck's bloody body in his arms. Buck's head gone, but still somehow speaking. Saying, "Don't let her take me," over and over. And Christopher could do nothing to give him respite, because how do you let something rest that never ceases to live?

  More flashes. Growing queens. Dying friends. Blood running down the handle of the axe, staining his hands forever red.

  "What now?" asked Buck.

  Christopher jerked awake, catching hold of the words and following them to consciousness.

  The Marauder had slowed; he had a fuzzy half-sleep memory of feeling it shudder as Amulek let up on the gas and the tempo of asphalt slabs passing below the tires changed slightly.

  "What's going on?" he asked.

  Then he saw.

  68

  TWO CARS HAD CRASHED into each other in the middle of the highway. Whether because one of the drivers had Changed and veered into the other vehicle as understanding fled, or because both had Changed and slammed into each other, Christopher could not say. He saw the cars, saw the hoods crumpled. A bright flower of red blood had been drawn across the inside of one of the front windows. A vague smear as of a hand clawing at the side window.

  No bodies.

  And then he realized he was looking at the wrong thing. He had prepared internally for cars, so when he saw them that was the logical thing his mind jumped to as being the cause for the slowdown. But Amulek wove the Marauder around them, and barely seemed even to notice them.

  It was then that Christopher – still throwing off the drunken effect of a dream too vivid to be real, too real-seeming to be easily cast aside – saw the snow.

  Snow?

  Drifts of white floated down around the car. Bits of gray flitting across the front windshield of the Marauder, flowing over the top as the wind took them, then disappearing in the wake of the vehicle's passage.

  Snow? It's spring. How could –

  The answer came to him as the last bits of dream finally loosed their grip on his mind.

  Not snow.

  Ash.

  And then he saw – finally realized he saw – the light as well. He remembered the glow he had thought he saw in the darkness of the night before. A strange, flickering aura vaguely visible on the horizon to the north, but so dim it might be nothing more than a dream.

  Now he saw. Saw a dream made real, one more nightmare close by and waiting to envelope the survivors.

  He had no idea what started the forest fire. Perhaps another crash like the one he had just seen on the freeway. Perhaps lightning from the storm they had weathered only a day –

  (Is that all it's been? Just one day?)

  – ago.

  He wondered if it might have been started by the zombies. Perhaps intentionally for some deep purpose he could only guess at?

  That made him shiver.

  No matter the cause, the fire had grown, had become huge. It flowed over the trees near the north side of the freeway. The flames looked like a cresting wave, falling forward, driven before the wind, but never finding a shore that would stop their momentum. This wave would go until it had been stopped by something greater than itself. Perhaps only time, since first responders and firemen were a thing of the past.

  Embers began to float around the Marauder. Flitting through the air like the ash had done, caught in the draft of the vehicle, flung about the windshield like fireflies in a hurricane, then flitting past on their way across the highway.

  The flames to the right were enormous. And it might have been his imagination, but it seemed hotter in the Marauder.

  Just then Aaron reached forward. He adjusted something on the dash, and the sound of the air conditioning that had been blowing on them all shifted tone just slightly.

  "What are you doing?" said Buck. He was staring out the window at the fire, looking almost hypnotized by the dancing flames.

  "Turning the
outside air off," said Aaron. "We don't want to be sucking ash into the car, breathing the fire."

  "Can we even keep going?" asked Theresa. She was looking at the fire, too. But unlike Buck she didn't appear hypnotized. She looked scared. Her hands clenched on her black pants, white fists standing out in stark contrast against the dark fabric.

  "We don't have a choice," said Maggie. Her voice slid from her lips. Like Buck, she sounded almost hypnotized. Christopher wondered if the impossible commands of the queens nestled in Lizzy and Hope were starting to bleed into the safety bubble his cell jammer had created.

  Were they getting stronger?

  Theresa looked at Christopher, an eyebrow raised. Even in her fear, she had noticed the change in Buck and Maggie as well.

  After a short silence, Aaron spoke. "We should turn around. Find another way past. We don't want to get caught in this."

  Amulek nodded. Before he could turn the wheel, though, Christopher spoke.

  "Keep going."

  Aaron turned his head to look at him. "What are you talking –"

  His voice stopped as he turned to look at what Christopher had seen.

  The fire was large here, to the side of the highway. Behind them, it was a firestorm that blew long tongues of flame all the way across the freeway.

  And it was coming closer.

  "Don't turn, Amulek," said Christopher. Then he added, "Hurry."

  "Can we outrun it?" asked Theresa.

  Christopher watched the fire pull closer behind them. Not just the flames on the side of the road, but the ones that seemed to close that road behind them. Driving them forward.

  "I hope so," he said.

  69

  THEY MANAGED TO OUTPACE the fire, but only barely. Cars were growing more frequent as they traveled east along Highway 20-26, and Amulek started swerving back and forth to avoid their crashed and crushed remains. Many of them had spun completely off the highway – into ditches on the north side, into fields of alfalfa that stretched along the south side of the highway. But enough had come to rest on the highway itself that Christopher started to feel carsick with the swaying motion of the Marauder's zigzag pattern.