The diggers. Lumpy lengths of dark flesh covered by whirring drill bits and spinning saws. They had always been fearful, but now, in the dark of their preferred environment, with splashes of Aaron's flashlight catching their bodies and creating shifting shadows that obscured and allowed imagination to run rampant, they were even more revolting. Even uglier and more ferocious.
They glistened, and Christopher realized that they were covered with a film of mucus – probably the zombies' yellow all-purpose ooze – that would allow them to slide more easily through the earth's bowels.
They fell into the tunnel. Some pushing in from the sides, others dropping in from the ceiling in long, viscous ovoids that seemed to pool in boneless masses before they straightened and reached for the survivors.
117
THE SCRABBLE OF SHOES and boots on rock sounded loudly as the survivors ran. And for a moment Christopher felt a thread of hope. The diggers were slow when moving across the earth, rather than through it. They reached for the group, but all of them ran faster than the creatures could.
We're going to make it.
Then the growl came.
Give up. Give in.
More dirt rained down.
The first zombie – not a digger, but one of the ones that owned the world above – pushed through the tunnel a digger had just left.
It oriented on the survivors. Opened its mouth. Chirped. Growled.
Give up.
More zombies pushed into the tunnel.
Give in.
Christopher screamed. "Faster! Go, go faster!"
The survivors picked up the pace as the creatures began to follow.
Fast. They're so fast.
We're not going to make it.
The run was an insane fog. Aaron's light bobbled back and forth, first scanning the tunnel ahead, then whipping back as he looked over his shoulder to see what followed, how close the predators had drawn.
Every time he did, Christopher looked back as well. And every time, he wished he hadn't. The zombies were closer each time. Their growl –
(give UP give IN)
– sounded like a chorus of snarls, the creatures a choir of demons. The voice a shriek in his mind as well as in his ears. More so.
He saw Ken ahead. He was pointing up, at an angle.
"Go there!" screamed Ken.
Christopher didn't understand what Ken was pointing at. Then he drew nearer, and saw it: a dark hole in the ceiling above. Not nearly as large as the tunnel they were in: it was only about five feet in circumference.
Amulek got there first, and turned immediately around, making a stirrup with his hands. Aaron leaped into it, dropping the flashlight as Amulek launched him upward, over the lip of the hole that Christopher now saw didn't go straight up – it was angled. Steep, heading the direction they had already been going, but moving upward as well. Held together by masses of yellow, hardened to a shell that kept the tunnel impossibly open instead of collapsing as it should have done.
Aaron's hands appeared at the lip of the tunnel. He reached down as Maggie got to Amulek. She passed Lizzy up to him. He disappeared, then moved back into view.
Christopher saw Ken moving farther down the tunnel. Not very far, he clearly just wanted to stay away from Lizzy and Hope.
What happens if he does get too close?
(GIVE UP. GIVE IN.)
(the king calls....)
Theresa pushed Hope upward. Then helped Maggie into the tunnel. The redhead followed, disappearing above. Christopher drew even with Amulek. The teen was still waiting, hands together.
Christopher shook his head. "You go."
The teen's eyes narrowed. He shook his own head.
"This isn't the time to argue! Get the hell out of here!" Christopher jerked him close. "Protect them."
Amulek paused a half-second more, then nodded. He put a foot into the cradle of Christopher's hands. Leaped. Caught the tunnel's edge. Disappeared from sight.
Aaron looked down at Christopher from above. Reached out his hand. Christopher scooped up the flashlight from where it lay on the floor. Shoved it in his pants pocket.
He jumped.
And couldn't reach.
118
HIS HEART FELT LIKE it had dropped into his stomach. At first that was despair. Fear. The terror of being trapped, yet again. He knew he could run forward – but that would just prolong the inevitable, and would leave him alone in this forbidden place.
He couldn't do that.
He couldn't leave his family. Not again.
In the next moment the sensation was less psychic and more physical as something shoved him upward.
Ken.
Apparently his daughters – if they still were his daughters, and if he was still their father – had moved far enough away that he could resist their call. He had rushed forward and put one hand into Christopher's armpit, grabbed the seat of his pants with the other.
And then Ken launched him upward with the same unnerving strength the zombies possessed. Maybe more.
Aaron caught Christopher's hands, but it was a sloppy catch. Christopher found himself turning as he hung, like a living mobile over the strangest crib ever crafted.
Aaron grunted above him, and Christopher began rising toward the tunnel, one painful inch at a time.
He kept spinning.
Saw Ken.
His friend roared as he threw himself into the first zombies that had made it this far down the tunnel. They evaporated under his attack. One moment there were the two creatures, the next instant they were a spray of ichor and a misshapen pile of twitching pieces.
Ken moved to the next zombies.
Christopher started to think this was a fight they might actually win.
The dirt below Ken crumbled. The sawblades of the diggers thrashed their way through the earth below him. Teeth and blades drilled their way into his feet. Blood spewed from Ken's legs. He screamed. The scream had pain in it, but it was mostly rage. The shriek of something great and powerful dragged down by motes in a sunbeam.
The drills bit into his shins. His legs. Chewing them up so fully and completely that nothing was left. Just wet strings of flesh hanging from the diggers' limbs and bodies and faces.
Ken turned in place. He saw Christopher still hanging there. "Move," he snarled. Then spun back to face the two zombies that reached for him.
The diggers' bodies spun and spat.
The zombies reached Ken.
Ken screamed. He lashed out with hands that had grown blades, with arms that had sprouted sharpened ridges.
He slashed down. One of the diggers split in half.
Then Ken fell.
Another one of them... lost.
And Christopher was finally pulled up into the tunnel above.
"Come on," Aaron said.
"Ken –"
"I know. Shut up. Move."
Aaron rolled his eyes as he said it, a gesture that made Christopher look past the cowboy. He could see Maggie down the tunnel. Her eyes seemed to reflect the gleam of the flashlight that shone from Christopher's pocket.
She looked terrified. Not just for life and limb but for love lost and found again.
Christopher looked at Aaron again. Saw the unspoken request in the other man's eyes.
He nodded minutely. Knowing that Maggie would never move from here. Not without Ken.
And that meant he had only one choice.
"He's right behind me," said Christopher, "but he can't come up until we're farther away." He looked at Maggie as he said it, trying to keep his expression from cracking as he lied to a friend. "He's coming."
She remained frozen for a moment. Then turned and picked up Lizzy from the floor of the tunnel. She couldn't stand up, but there was room for her to hunch over and hold the girl in her arms.
She began moving forward. Theresa picked up Hope. Amulek followed – there was no room to change positions in this place.
Aaron held Christopher's upper arm for a moment: You d
id the right thing.
Christopher nodded. And knew he was lying again. The first lie to Maggie, the second one to himself.
I had to do it.
No. You left him. You left your family again. You let them down.
Yes. I guess I did.
He moved forward. Still hearing the echoes of Ken's last screams below.
119
THEY WALKED, A HUNCHED-over walk that had Christopher's back aching inside of seconds. He heard grunts from ahead and knew the others felt the same way. Pain, then more pain as the tunnel narrowed and they were forced lower.
All he could really see ahead of him was Aaron, carrying the light that he presumed illuminated the tunnel ahead. But it was only a presumption – he could barely see his own feet below, could barely guess at where they were headed.
Nowhere good. Fate or God or whoever was in charge now hadn't let them off easy before, so he doubted things would change now.
Christopher shuddered, walking in the near-dark in a tunnel that could lead anywhere or nowhere.
He was panting. At first with the effort of the walk, his strained posture. Then he realized that his legs were burning. His calves, tingled and then burned with the effort of traveling uphill in a hunched-over position.
And then he heard a noise. The slough of dirt, the scrape of feet over a strange mix of dirt and waxy yellow.
Give UP. Give IN.
He heard it in his mind, then heard it with his ears.
He looked behind him.
Saw nothing.
But knew they had found their way into the tunnel. They were on the trail again.
They were coming.
"We gotta get going!" he shouted. And knew they couldn't move faster. Not hunched over like this, not with two of them carrying limp burdens with nascent queens.
(I call.)
The king's voice sounded in his mind.
"Move," he said again. But it was a whisper this time. A voice without hope.
The zombies came, and he heard their call and trembled.
120
ONCE THE INITIAL PANIC left him, Christopher experienced a strange calm. Then the calm shifted again and terror reclaimed him. Closed around him until it was tighter than the tunnel.
It was hard to breathe. Getting even harder with every step. His back hurt. He could hear little over the rasping gasps that came from him and that floated back from those ahead.
The light seemed dimmer. Not weaker, not like it was running out of batteries. More like the entire world was darkening.
I've let them down.
On one level he was aware of the ridiculous nature of the thought. Aware that he wasn't responsible for the survival of the others.
But he remembered Derek. Remembered a little boy rocketing down the side of a tilted crane. Attacking a six-foot-tall-plus zombie, a blackened beast with flesh burned away on one side, the other whole and unburnt and somehow all the more horrible for that fact.
He remembered the boy, screaming as he took the bite intended for Maggie. Falling away. Turning to one of the creatures, toppling to what he must have thought in his final moments was his doom.
The boy never faltered. Never hesitated. He just did, and so saved lives.
Christopher suddenly stopped. A moment later the dancing light in Aaron's hand swung around to find him.
"What's wrong?" he said.
Christopher didn't speak. He turned his head. Looked behind.
GIVE UP.
GIVE IN.
He could see their eyes glittering behind him. One set in the lead, the others close behind in a tight pack, a centipede whose body segments were held together not by a chitinous exoskeleton but by a combined hatred of all that was not them.
He turned back to Aaron.
Derek.
Dorcas.
Ken.
Mo.
Buck.
Fate.
He felt a grin spread across his face. Something he had lost for a short time sparked to life inside him.
"Go on," he said.
"We won't –" Aaron began.
"The girls are all that matter!" Christopher almost roared it in the darkness.
Aaron looked at him. Christopher couldn't see much in the darkness behind the light that illuminated him. But he thought he glimpsed a quick motion of the head. A nod.
The light swung away.
Christopher turned to the zombies.
The dark took him.
He was glad.
"Come on, you shits."
He heard Maggie's voice in his head. Language.
"Sorry," he whispered. "I meant, 'come on, you futhermuckers.'"
He grinned wider.
He reached for those that reached for him.
121
THE THINGS CAME CLOSER.
Christopher waited.
Waited.
He held his hands at the ready, but did not move.
GIVE UP. GIVE IN. GIVE UP. GIVE IN.
The growl rolled over him, but something was different. Something –
(fate)
– kept him from faltering before the creatures. Kept him motionless save for the grin that cracked wider and wider until he felt his cheeks ache.
They reached out. Fifteen feet away. Ten.
He moved.
He slammed himself sideways as hard as he could. Hit the side of the tunnel. Something crackled above him and a shard of yellow wax-ooze bounced off his head.
The creatures came forward. Eight feet.
He used his momentum to ricochet off the one wall and into the opposite side of the tunnel. It was awkward – a ping pong ball in a Yahtzee cup. Barely room to move; he hoped it would be enough room.
He hit the side again. More wax rained down. A few trickles of dirt.
The things were six feet away. GIVE UP GIVE IN GIVE UP GIVE IN.
He bounced again. The first side again. More dirt.
Four feet.
A last, desperate smash into the wall of the small tunnel. This time he reached up and punched into the ceiling with all the force he could muster. The angle was wrong and he felt like the hit probably had about the strength of an invalid geriatric.
It worked.
The first zombie was reaching. Fingers slamming together in anticipation of the kill, the Change.
The ceiling collapsed.
Christopher threw himself backward. Crabwalked as fast as he could. Sheets of dirt and rock sluiced through cracks in the wax-coated ceiling. The zombie fingers still reached. Pierced the curtain of rubble.
Then, with a roar, the tunnel disappeared. There was only dirt and rock, a solid wall that ended only an inch from Christopher's feet.
He was still grinning.
Who's the big hero now, Buck?
For some reason the thought of his lost friend didn't make him sad in that moment. He heard Buck's voice in his mind: You just had to go and be a hero again, didn't you?
Yeah. It's like a billion to one, my favor.
You wish, Christopher.
He stared at the dirt and rock at his feet for a few moments. Waited for it to move.
It didn't.
"Futhermuckers," he said again. And he heard Maggie sigh in his mind, like an exasperated mother who couldn't decide whether to scold her child or just give in and laugh. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or that strange ability she had shown to appear in his thoughts from time to time.
He decided he didn't care.
He turned over so he was on his hands and knees. Then rose up as high as he could. Still grinning.
Fate.
He ran – a hobbled, lurching run – toward the other survivors.
122
IT WAS PITCH BLACK in the tunnel. Aaron's light had disappeared in the distance at some point after the tunnel cave-in. Christopher was alone.
He still felt good. Better than he had in a while. As though when the tunnel collapsed, something else was built. A new feeling inside, a determinati
on to find a way out of this. Not just out of the tunnel, but out of the world that had swallowed them all up.
Fate.
He had a moment of fear a few minutes later, making his way blindly through the tunnel. His left hand was on the wall, while his right glided over the ceiling just ahead of his head, making sure there were no outcroppings or obstructions that would crack him in the head or – worse – bang up his already well-banged-up nose.
Left hand on the wall. Right on the ceiling.
What's wrong with that?
I need a third hand.
That was it. That was what sent a momentary chill through his body, that made his hands tremble against the cold mix of soil and wax. He was only touching one side of the tunnel, and the ceiling. Which meant that he wasn't touching the other side.
What if there had been a side tunnel? What if the others had taken it – either because they figured it would keep them safer, or because they just bumbled into it in the dark?
The moment he thought that, he saw a glimmer ahead. The dance of a firefly in the darkness, which became a ghostlight, which in turn shifted to the broad beam of Aaron's light, shining directly into his eyes.
"Christopher?" The cowboy's drawl was tinged with an equal mix of disbelief and happiness.
"Present and accounted for, Sarge."
Aaron snorted. "You are a cat with fifty lives, kid."
"Fifty-one, sir."
"If you don't cut out the military act, I'm going to shove a boot up your butt."
"Will your foot be in it? Because I have a thing for feet."
Another snort. The light moved off his face.
"What is it?" Theresa's voice scraped its way back to him. There was fear in it.
"Just me, beautiful."
This time it was Theresa who snorted. "Never been called that before."
"Better late than never."
She snorted again.
Maggie shouted, "Christopher! You all right?"
"Present and accounted for."
"How'd you get away?" said Aaron. "Thought you were a goner."
"Not this cat, Sarge." Then, before Aaron could make good on his boot-to-butt threat, he added. "I collapsed the tunnel on them. Don't think they're close right now, but I think we should keep moving as fast as possible."
The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7] Page 94