The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

Christopher took a breath. Dove.

  It was a short dive. Nothing worthy of a pearl diver – or even a kindergartner just learning how to swim. The water was moving too fast. All he saw was a white blur, the occasional fast-moving bit of brown that he suspected was flotsam dragged along in the current.

  He surfaced. Gasped a breath that was equal parts air and water. Dove again. Buck was still holding him, so it wasn't like he could go far or deep. But he managed to get below the surface far enough that the turbulence evened out. It was just a slick, unending current, but he could see – at least a few feet.

  Debris bounced through the water. Branches and sticks that had been pushed below for a moment before floating up again. A few flurries that he suspected were fish.

  He saw the Marauder. At least the general outline. Dark, far too square to be a natural deposit.

  But nothing resembling a man. No Aaron.

  He surfaced. Buck pulled him back to cliff face, and Christopher caught hold of a root.

  "Anything?" asked Maggie.

  Christopher shook his head. He was now so cold he could barely talk. "N-n-n-noth-oth-oth-othing."

  Buck's gaze fell. "He's gone."

  80

  NOT POSSIBLE. AARON can't be gone.

  And for some reason, even submerged in water so cold that hypothermia was only minutes away, with the water itself surrounded by nothing but fire, Christopher felt like it was possible his friend would make it through this.

  We've come too far to be stopped now. Not like this.

  Something splashed upriver. Everyone looked, and Christopher knew they were all hoping it would be Aaron. Even though that would have meant he swam a good way upstream, then surfaced and somehow jumped off something that was high enough he would come down with a good sized splash. Nothing but impossibilities – but then, Aaron had shown himself able to do the impossible on more than one occasion.

  It wasn't Aaron.

  It was a zombie. Flame still dancing along its flesh. Then the fire dousing with a sizzle as it tumbled under the water.

  It reared up its head. Looked at them. One side of its face was essentially gone – nothing but burnt meat and blackened bone. The other was a mass of burns as well, but retained enough of its form as to be recognizable as human – or once-human – flesh.

  Maggie gasped, sounding like she might scream. Buck clasped a hand over her mouth. "Shh," he whispered.

  The thing's eyes were gone. Burnt to nothing by the heat of the fire. But even with the small noise Maggie made, the thing turned slightly. It wasn't swimming – nothing so graceful or learned. But it managed an awkward lurch in their general direction before the current grabbed it.

  And began pulling it closer to them.

  Everyone did the same thing: shrinking back into the cliff face. Dirt and root and rocks bit into Christopher's back as he tried to wedge himself between one particularly large tree root and the wet soil it grew out of.

  The zombie came closer. Sinking out of sight, then flopping its way to the surface again. The motion was ugly. Awkward. It served to highlight just how far from human the thing really was.

  But it was also strong. And somehow it managed to fight through the current, to push in their general direction. Christopher tried to gauge whether the thing was going to make it over to them or not. He couldn't be sure. Maybe. Maybe it would make it to the cliff face a few feet downriver.

  And then what? Would it continue onward? Just floating along and perhaps eventually submerging like the most gruesome mine in all of history? Waiting to pull down any unsuspecting human that might cross this place?

  He shivered. The motion was soundless, but it drew attention to the fact that there was a noise. A sound among them.

  Buck's teeth. Chattering. He put a hand over his own mouth, but even then the sound kept coming.

  He put his hand in his mouth. Bit down. Blood flowed over his hand. Dripped into the river and disappeared.

  The zombie stopped lurching. Christopher knew it was listening. The things were strong, near-invincible – and some of them had hearing that made bats seem not only blind but deaf.

  It lurched again. And this time Christopher was sure that it was going to pass them by. It couldn't hear them over the sound of the river, the crackles and explosions of the fire above.

  Then something broke through the water right next to them.

  Aaron.

  The cowboy shook his head, flinging droplets of water in every direction. He gasped, gulping down mouthfuls of air.

  Christopher wanted to scream the cowboy's name. Not just in happiness that he was back from... wherever he had gone to in the first place, but to tell him to shut up.

  Aaron blinked. Saw the creature coming their way. His jaw clamped shut. Tried to bite back the sounds he had already let loose.

  Too late.

  The zombie turned. Lurched through the water.

  Coming toward them.

  81

  NONE OF THEM HAD ANY weapons. That was the first thing Christopher realized. Everyone had been holding their guns, or had put them on the seats beside them. Even Amulek hadn't worn his ever-present bow while driving the Marauder.

  And what were the chances that any of them had thought to grab them when the Marauder hit the water? When it started to sink? Even if they thought of it, Christopher doubted that any of them actually had a chance to do anything about it.

  The zombie paddled toward them, that lurching, flopping non-swim that was still more effective than any of them could have managed.

  Its head was so burnt – was it coming for them as one of the "normal" zombies, or was it attacking in that frenzy that came over them after the brain was injured? Christopher thought it was the former: its motions, as spastic as they were, were still more thoughtful than the crazies were capable of. This thing was coming for them in particular. With a mission.

  Amulek was pulling on roots – though he was probably so he could form a spear or club or some other weapon he would make a stand with. Everyone else, Christopher included, had pressed back against the cliff in the closest thing to flight they could manage here.

  Not Aaron. He waited a moment, then just as the zombie was closing he pushed off. Threw himself toward the creature.

  He swerved for a moment. Looked back. Caught Christopher's eye. Threw something at him: a silver packet. Christopher caught it, the action reflexive – if he'd tried to do it, he probably would have messed up the catch.

  As it was, he ended up with a square piece of folded foil in his hand. No idea what it was, and no real interest right now, because Aaron was paddling toward the zombie.

  At first Christopher thought the cowboy was sacrificing himself: creating a living wall that would bounce the zombie far enough away the thing wouldn't be able to reach the rest of the group. But in the last second, Aaron moved. Christopher saw a long, thin, red cylinder wedged between the cowboy's arm and his chest. With his good hand he grabbed the top of the red stick with his other hand. Pulled, twisted, then rubbed what was in his hand against the top of the cylinder.

  Red flame sparked to life in the cowboy's hand. It came with a deep, loud hiss. White dripped to the side of what had looked for a moment like a red Roman candle but which Christopher now saw was a road flare.

  He went back for a road flare?

  He must not want anyone to crash into the Marauder.

  Christopher almost giggled.

  Aaron wasn't giggling. Deadly serious. Still paddling against the current, pushing himself toward the zombie. The thing reached for him. Opened its burnt, blackened arms. Engulfed Aaron.

  The cowboy let it happen. Let the creature drag him toward it. What was left of its mouth opened.

  And Aaron jammed the road flare right into its maw. A twisting motion that shoved the lit end through the creature's palate. Into its skull.

  The hissing didn't stop. Christopher thought he could actually see hints of light through what remained of the thing's face.


  It twitched. Made an odd coughing sound. Then its hands clapped to its face. Its head whipped back and forth so fast it was a blur, splashing down into the water all around it, then up. Madness enveloping it. But the madness was not completely directionless: there was still a will to kill. It reached for Aaron.

  And Aaron pulled a knife from somewhere in his clothes. A long black thing, with the back of the blade serrated into a saw. Aaron twisted out of the way of the zombie's twitching fingers, then jammed the saw through the back of its neck, just below the skull.

  The flare could still be heard, burning away whatever small sense the creature had once had. But the madness left its limbs as Aaron severed the spine. Christopher knew it would repair itself – in only a moment or two it would regain control of its limbs and would return to its single-minded hunt for destruction.

  But for now... for the moment... it just shivered and went still. Its face and head still spasmed above the level of the knife. But no other movement.

  Aaron jerked the knife free. Shoved the creature away. The current caught it, dragging it swiftly toward the middle of the river, away from the survivors.

  Aaron kicked away from it. Backstroking his way to the group.

  "You catch it?" he said.

  It took a moment for Christopher to even register the question, let alone what the man was talking about.

  Then he said, "Yeah," and held up the square of foil.

  "Thanks," said Theresa.

  "Good work, Aaron," echoed Buck.

  Aaron nodded. He took the packet from Christopher's hands.

  "Damn," said Maggie. The word took Christopher by surprise, given her attitude toward cursing – especially around the girls. After the surprise wore off, fear took its place.

  He followed her gaze. Looking upstream. He cursed as well.

  Aaron started fumbling with the packet. He appeared to have some plan in mind, which was good.

  Because they didn't have much time left.

  82

  CHRISTOPHER ONCE WENT scuba diving off the coast of Anacapa Island in California. The water was cold, and he hadn't brought a good wetsuit, so he ended up spending a lot of the dive considering whether or not to pee himself just for the sake of a little warmth.

  In spite of that, it was a great dive. The place he dove – he and a few friends who had also escaped from the boarding school and who had enough funds available to take an impromptu trip – was a kelp forest. Seaweed was anchored on the ocean floor, but individual stalks extended to the water's surface, held aloft by the gases trapped in bladders along their lengths. It turned the underwater area into a playground – seals swimming among the tall, thick plants, spinning in and out of view and seeming almost to play tag with Christopher and his friends. It was delightful.

  It also scared him, just a little. There were parts where the kelp grew so thick it wove into itself, became a moving mattress that hung on its end in the water. The individual stalks couldn't be made out – it was just a single strangely-moving mass of green; no way of knowing what lay inside.

  The motion of the kelp – so many strands grown together, so many possible dangers – was what he thought of when he saw what was coming down the river toward them. A strangely writhing mattress that undulated in the river's current.

  As it drew closer, he saw what it was made of. And screamed.

  The zombie Aaron had fought off hadn't been the only one to make it through the fire. Several dozen more had managed penetrate the flames, had crashed down into the water. But these had tangled into a living kelp-bed. They were locked together, arms and legs holding tight to one another, creating a woven float that drifted downriver. Several of the creatures scuttled over the top of the broad float, finding where they could better hold onto their fellows, then sinking into the mass of flesh and bone where they held fast to the group.

  It was a small colony of zombies, making their way down the river in a way more efficient than any human could manage. Insectile, strange, and somehow more frightening now that they were on the water. There was, Christopher realized, nowhere these things could not go. No place remote enough, no environment so hostile that they could not find a way to pierce it and make it their own.

  They were headed toward the survivors. Christopher didn't know if he and his friends had been seen by the zombies, or if the things were just moving with the current. He supposed it didn't matter: the zombies were coming straight at them. Whether purposefully or by accident was unimportant. All that was important was that Christopher guessed they had less than a minute before the clot of creatures made it to them.

  83

  AARON GESTURED TO HIM. "Give it to me!" he shouted.

  "What?"

  For a moment Christopher didn't know what the cowboy was talking about. All his mental processes were dedicated to what he was seeing. To the death that floated closer to them, inch by inch.

  "The blankets!"

  This failed to compute as well. Aaron actually had to swim to him and grab the package he still held in his hand.

  Aaron tore open the silver packet. Flipped out what was inside. It turned out to be an emergency blanket – a thin, foil-like sheet designed to conserve body heat in an emergency. Aaron flicked it, and the blanket separated: not one blanket after all, but two in the package.

  Aaron tucked one blanket under his arm. Then, acting quickly, he tied several knots in the corners. Flipped the blanket into the air. Slammed it down against the water fast enough that a pocket of air was trapped between the water and the bulging quasi-sphere he had created of the blanket.

  "Take the other flare!" Aaron said. He looked at the zombies, floating closer. "Move!"

  "Where is it?" asked Christopher. Screamed it, actually.

  "Back pocket!"

  Christopher saw the red stick. Grabbed it from Aaron's back pocket. "Light it and stick it under the blanket," said Aaron.

  Christopher just stared at the flare. "I don't know how to light this thing," he finally said.

  "Oh for goodness sake." He felt himself elbowed aside, the flare plucked from his grip. Buck glared at him, then popped the white cap off the flare. Reversed it. Inside Christopher saw a dark red surface, rough to the point of nearly being pitted. Buck tilted the flare away from him, then slid the top of the flare against that rough patch.

  The flare sputtered to life. Buck waited a quick moment for the fire to turn white, a hissing column that ate through the red flare, dripped white globs of chemical into the river. He plunged it under the water.

  Christopher watched, expecting the flare to go out. But it didn't, and Buck raised it up quickly. Christopher couldn't see it anymore, but he could hear it, hissing away in the middle of the balloon Aaron had made.

  Aaron nodded. "Take it out. Fast – we need it to stay lit for the next one."

  Buck jerked the flare back down, back up. Holding it in his hand. The thing didn't seem quite as bright, but it still managed to blaze away.

  The zombies were thirty seconds from reaching them.

  Aaron took a breath. Went under. The silver balloon bobbed back and forth as he did something to it. Then he surfaced. "Christopher, Maggie, Theresa. Grab the girls and hold onto this. Paddle for the other side."

  He glanced at the zombies. Several that sat on top of the living mattress were already reaching out, anticipating the capture of their prey. "Hurry," he added.

  Christopher nodded. He wrapped his arm partway around the silver balloon. It turned in his arm, and he worried he might lose it. Then he grabbed something that jutted out of its side. A knot. That must have been what Aaron was doing underwater: tying the blanket's corners tightly together, creating an airtight globe that Christopher found was pleasantly warm to the touch. That must be what the flare did: heating the air in the balloon, rendering it both more buoyant and warm enough to stave off the hypothermia that threatened.

  He gestured at Maggie and Theresa. They joined him around the balloon. It was awkward, and the motion took
several seconds they didn't have. Aaron had the second blanket balloon tied off in the time it took them to get situated. They held onto each other, settling their arms around Lizzy and Hope, trapping them next to the balloon.

  They kicked away from the cliff wall at their backs. It was awkward and ungainly, but soon they were out into the main current. The balloon felt warm against his chest where he leaned against it – blessedly warm. He was so happy about that that he nearly forgot the creatures still floating toward them.

  He looked back. The carpet the zombies had created of themselves still floated – better and more stable than the improvised floats/heaters Aaron had made – but they didn't look like they could steer very well. Even as coordinated as the zombies were, their sheer mass outweighed the ability of the ones on the edges to kick them perpendicular to the current.

  Christopher kept flailing his legs as fast as he could. Pushing himself and the others deeper into the river.

  The zombies reached for them. Closer. Closer.

  They missed. Still several feet away when they finally drifted past. So close that Christopher stared right into the enraged eyes of the ones on top. They thirsted for him, but could not touch him.

  They came even closer to Aaron, Amulek, and Buck, who followed. Near enough that Buck shouted and kicked madly and Christopher thought he saw a hand reaching up from the water, grabbing at his friend.

  Then the three men were past as well. Two small groups paddling for the center of the river.

  Christopher finally dared look ahead. Spotted the other side of the river. The land was black, parts of it still smoking, a few embers visible in what remained of the brush and trees.

  And he had to ask himself: where were they going to go?

  84

  IT WAS GETTING HARDER to do the stuttering kick that had pushed him a little more than halfway across the river. Not just because pushing across the current was exhausting in itself. Not just because the heat the balloon had carried was rapidly dissipating, allowing the cold of the water that pushed around and against them to once more seep into his flesh and freeze his bones. It wasn't even the dread question of what they were going to do once they actually reached the other side of the river.