The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  138

  THE ONLY SOUND IN THE still was Aaron. He cursed quietly. It sounded less like the voice of a man than that of a ghost, something that struggled to return to a life long lost.

  "Let us come to you," Christopher said again. His hands – one holding tight to Hope, the other pressing the knife against her throat – trembled. Fear gripped him, terror for the future and for a plan he was following without understanding.

  Ken slid forward a bit more.

  "Stop. We'll come to you, but our way. Touch a single one of us, and I will kill Hope and Theresa will kill Lizzy. Your queens will die. I think that matters to you."

  Silence. Aaron didn't curse again.

  A wind swayed the trees. The rustle of leaves was all that stood between them and a long fall into void. The only reality left in the barest shade of the world as it once was.

  Ken stepped back. As he did, the voice sounded in Christopher's mind.

  COME.

  Ken stepped back still more. Melted into the mass of creatures at his back and then was gone.

  The zombies in front of Amulek – the ones in the direction he had been walking when this last threat materialized – drifted apart, creating a thin corridor between them.

  Amulek glanced back at Christopher. The teen's eyes were so wide they appeared nearly white, a look disconcertingly like that of the creatures all around.

  Christopher nodded, wondering how he had come to be in charge of this moment, if not the group in general.

  Aaron should be in charge. Maybe Theresa.

  (hope)

  This time the minute feeling wasn't a general impression. It was directed at him, the same way the king's voice had been only a moment before. Not a statement that such a thing as hope existed – it was a directive. Beyond mere encouragement, the voice instructed Christopher.

  (hope. have hope.)

  The king had brought with him an impression of great age, if not the agelessness of a creature born so long ago it could said to be eternal. This new voice was different. Young, barely understanding itself any more than Christopher did.

  But powerful for all that.

  Amulek was still looking at Christopher. "Go on," said Christopher. "Lead us out of here."

  Amulek turned. Began walking. Christopher – still holding tightly to his knife and holding that knife close to Hope – followed. He heard the sigh of grass being ground underfoot and knew Theresa was at his back. Then she was at his side. Grim-faced, looking straight ahead, holding Lizzy in a strong arm, her other around the toddler's neck. It would take nothing at all to snap the child's spine.

  And this is as it has to be. This is what has to happen.

  Christopher didn't know if that thought came from him, or from the thing that was touching him, that other thing that whispered –

  (hope)

  – so softly in his mind. And wasn't sure it really mattered in that moment. Both kept him going. Both moved his feet forward and steadied his hands.

  Christopher followed Amulek into the trees. Theresa walked with him. Aaron fell back for a moment, and Christopher knew the cowboy would be drawing Maggie along with them. Holding her, supporting her, urging her to keep on, keep going. The exact opposite of the call of the creatures. No call to give up, give in, he would be whispering encouragement. Support. Even though they were marching into something so far beyond the shadow of death it wasn't even in the same zip code.

  Christopher walked forward, leading the group from his place in the middle.

  The creatures still surrounded them, opening bare feet in front of Amulek, permitting him to move one step at a time toward a place Christopher could not see.

  The woods closed overhead.

  He kept walking. They all did.

  139

  THEY WALKED THROUGH the forest forever.

  Christopher didn't know exactly what time it was when they entered, or how long their trek continued, but he knew it was a long time. The sun moved across the sky in a slow march that would lead to its eventual death behind the horizon.

  It would be reborn, but would any of them be around to see that?

  The survivors stopped occasionally, sitting down on a fallen trunk or on the soft blanket of rotting leaves beneath the trees. Each time they did, the zombies stopped as well. Silence, until the king called, as he did every time.

  COME.

  The voice was insistent. A call filled with a need so deep that Christopher's soul ached with it.

  COME.

  But the voice never called until they had rested just enough. They were shaky, dehydrated, exhausted. But they kept moving.

  During one of their rest breaks, the shadows moved strangely. The sun was low, casting long, slanted rays through the trees that curved overhead. It was more dark than light down here, but the sun still had enough power to drive down and create shafts of weak light, mingled with shadows that grew stronger with every step.

  When the shadows shifted across Christopher's lap, he looked up. He thought at first that what he glimpsed must be Ken, flitting somewhere above the trees, following them as they went. But then the shadows were too many, too fast.

  Bugs.

  He had almost forgotten how the insects had been affected in the time after the Change. Some went mad and attacked anything that wasn't a zombie. Some simply swirled in massive tornadoes, millions of creatures that swarmed in on themselves and then died as one and lay ankle-deep on the ground below. But he hadn't seen any of the swarms – or any insects at all, now he thought of it – in days.

  Now he did. They darkened the skies. Not just a swarm, but a swarm of swarms. They drew into a cloud so massive that the sun disappeared completely behind them. Darkness fell through the power of an unnatural eclipse.

  Then they died.

  COME.

  The king's thought impelled them as the insects fell from the sky, raining down on them with tic-tic-tics on leaf, wood, ground, and flesh. Christopher wanted to scream, wanted to shout in disgust. But it was just that: disgust. Loathing. There was no terror. In the middle of all that was happening, dead bugs hardly seemed fearful. Just revolting.

  No one else screamed, either. They just slapped the tiny carcasses away, brushed them from their hair.

  Christopher looked at Hope. She was staring into the sky, a huge grin on her frozen face. Bugs fell into her eyes and she did not blink; fell into her gaping mouth and she didn't react.

  Christopher looked away. He couldn't watch that. Too much. Too grotesque – almost profane.

  Another thought from childhood, another scripture memorized in a religious boarding school: Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

  Not anymore, he thought. No spirit of God, just something that's stolen the beautiful, made the world a hateful place.

  COME.

  They kept walking. They grew tired, but every time Christopher felt his steps turn to shambles, that voice came –

  (hope)

  – and he found just enough strength to keep on, keep on, keep on. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, and all the while moving blindly, unsure what would happen next.

  COME.

  (hope)

  The trees opened up at last.

  140

  THE FOREST THINNED around him, created gaps wide enough for him to see more than a few feet ahead, and the first thing Christopher saw was the sheer mass of the creatures that had been hidden by rises in the land, by trees that clustered close.

  There must have been a million of them. Maybe more – twice or even three times that many. Every once-human for hundreds of miles, brought here by the king to find his queens. Christopher couldn't see anything of the land, only the vast mob of zombies.

  He wondered if the jammer he'd made had ever worked at all. Maybe the fighting of the zombies with each other had been the last moments of the queen's violent ascension before the king simply took matters into his own hands, found them, and now.
...

  What? What will he do to us?

  What would any angry king do?

  His stomach curled inside his body, wrenched so tightly it hurt. Theresa took a shuddering breath – the first real sound she had made since they entered the forest. He looked at her and smiled with what he hoped was a semblance of security and conviction.

  She smiled back. He had no hands free – he hadn't stopped holding either Hope or the knife in all their long walk – but he leaned toward her in what he hoped she would understand as the closest he could come to a hug right now.

  He hoped he could hug her, at least once more before –

  Don't finish that sentence, Christopher. Don't you dare.

  "What now?" asked Maggie. Aaron was no longer supporting her, but she sagged where she stood. Physical, emotional, and psychic stresses – some of which Christopher knew he couldn't understand – had taken their toll. She had been a young woman when he first met her. And she still might be just that, physically, but her mind and soul had aged. She was no longer bright and beautiful as she had been only a few days before. The Change had made her a sad parody of the living dead: a husk, waiting only for death or worse to claim her.

  No. Not true. If that were all, she would have laid down and died, would have just given up the way the people who talked on their phones did.

  We haven't given up. That's something.

  But probably not enough.

  Suck it, me.

  You suck it.

  Great, now I'm actively arguing with myself.

  Amulek had stopped when he left the relative seclusion of the trees. Now, as though to answer Maggie's question of what to do next, he began walking again.

  The zombies opened up before him. Revealed a line of asphalt that Christopher figured must be Highway 20-26.

  When they had pulled a bit farther apart, Christopher saw that the creatures had hidden not just the road, but something on it.

  A truck. Nothing like the Marauder, just a simple and slightly beat-up looking Toyota Tundra. The truck was a coppery red – a color that made it look disturbingly as though it had been washed in blood. But Amulek kept walking toward it without hesitation. He opened the cab, leaned in. Searched for, and apparently found, something.

  The truck rumbled to life.

  Christopher wondered if the things had brought them here, to this particular stretch of highway, because they knew the truck was here. Knew it had keys, knew it had gas, knew it could take the group to the king.

  And he knew that was just what had happened. The creatures wanted them, the king called and would not be denied.

  Something flitted overhead. Christopher looked up, and this time it was Ken. His wings vibrated so fast they were just a dark green blur against the pink and blue sky. He stared down at them, and Christopher knew that if the zombies were an extension of the king's body, then Ken had become its far-distant eyes.

  COME.

  The call, insistent and powerful, urged them all to motion. They walked toward the truck. Amulek was already around back, dropping the tailgate. Then he helped Christopher and Theresa in with their burdens. Aaron helped Maggie into the truck on the passenger side, moving slowly and carefully as he would if assisting an arthritic octogenarian. Then he climbed into the truck bed as well.

  The cowboy stared at Christopher, and the look was hard. An accusation. You're going to kill us all.

  Christopher's father had looked at him like that, too many times.

  No, not like this.

  His father's look had rested on a lake of cool indifference. A disappointment that was only for himself, only for the inconvenience of an errant son. Aaron's look was that of a man let down by a friend.

  Christopher looked away from the silent censure. Found Amulek staring at him, one hand on the driver's side door. His expression questioned: Where to?

  Christopher spoke words that continued to surprise him even as they emerged.

  "Take us to Boise."

  Amulek cocked an eyebrow. Anyplace in particular?

  Christopher remembered webbing, feeding, a wall of dismembered body parts.

  He shivered, but still spoke the words that had to be said.

  "We're going to the Wells Fargo building."

  141

  AARON DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING right away, and Christopher was grateful of that fact.

  Small blessings, man. Count them one at a time, because you don't know when another one will come.

  When the truck hove into motion, Christopher watched the zombies behind the truck. They fell away, allowing a small space between them and the vehicle. Then they were running, following the vehicle in that strange silence that had fallen over them. Moving faster than humanly possible – but these weren't humans. Not anymore.

  COME.

  The truck accelerated for a few seconds. Then Amulek leveled off at well below the truck's top speed. Christopher looked around the side of the cab and saw that the zombies ahead of the truck were running as well, but they were so close that the truck verged on nudging them physically forward.

  Corralling us.

  They were keeping the truck from making any kind of escape attempt. Keeping it within running speed.

  And where would we go?

  Christopher looked around again, surprised anew at how many zombies there were. They were at the center of the largest march in history.

  Only it wasn't a march, it was a run. Coordinated, though. Like a parade, or –

  A wedding procession.

  The king was waiting. The queens were flying to his side. And Christopher was the one bringing them.

  Aaron finally spoke. His voice was low, as though he feared being overheard. "What the hell are you doing, son?"

  Christopher had to make an effort not to laugh. "I'm keeping us alive, I hope."

  Aaron's eyes flashed, a look that was almost threatening. Christopher didn't like the look. He wasn't worried that Aaron would hurt him – not exactly – but the stare reminded him how dangerous the cowboy was.

  Aaron's eyes shifted, gratefully, to Hope. She hadn't moved in the miles of walking through the forest, and didn't move now. Both she and Lizzy still wore those awful grins, those too-wide smiles. But their eyes were blank and distant, looking upon something far away and greatly desired.

  Aaron pointed at the knife Christopher had tucked under the little girl's chin. "Thought we agreed killing them would just send them home."

  Christopher shook his head. "We were wrong."

  "How do you know?"

  "Why would they try to kill each other if killing their rival would just mean sending her home?"

  Aaron muttered something under his breath. "How did we not catch that?" he said. "Stupid."

  Christopher nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but the Toyota hit a pothole – or maybe just ran over one of the creatures pressed so tightly around it – and his mouth bounced shut. His arm tightened around Hope as though she might leap away from him, using the bounce as a diversion.

  She just smiled.

  "I don't think it was a mistake," said Christopher. "Thinking that killing them wouldn't matter, I mean."

  "You just said it was," said Theresa.

  "No, I said we were wrong. But it wasn't a mistake; nothing our fault. I think we were...." He paused, searching for the right word. "Nudged. Like what you said," he gestured to Aaron, "about them planting misinformation in our minds."

  "Then shouldn't we just kill them?" whispered Aaron.

  The creatures to the sides of the truck suddenly seemed closer. Christopher wondered if they had heard what Aaron said. Or maybe just picked it up directly from his thoughts.

  "No," said Christopher. "I think the king would just start over. But it would take time. And he wouldn't like that." Again he searched for the right words. "It would be inconvenient for him."

  "So, what, he's letting us live so we can bring his queens?" asked Theresa.

  "Something like that."

  "And
we're doing this why?"

  Christopher stared at her. Unsure how to verbalize the half-formed thoughts in his mind.

  Finally: "We have to bring them together."

  Theresa stared at him like he was an alien. Another look that hurt. Another look of disappointment. He almost relented. Almost gave Hope over to the creatures, or to Aaron, or to... just anybody.

  Then he heard it.

  (hope)

  And he knew Theresa heard it, too. Her shoulders, which had been hunched around her neck, relaxed. She lost the look of near-disgust she had aimed at him.

  (hope)

  Christopher still didn't know exactly what he was doing. Only that it must be done.

  COME.

  (yes, come)

  They drove on.

  142

  IT WAS DARK BY THE time they reached Boise, and the sight of the city – dark buildings lit only by scant starlight and the occasional fire that burned somewhere in its center – was a strange one. The skyline – visible as a black shape against the near-black of the sky – was jagged, torn. Some of the buildings canted at strange angles, leaning against their neighbors. Others were ragged shells of what they had been.

  Still others: simply gone.

  Boise had never really been Christopher's home – he'd been away too often and too long for it to resonate as a place the way it might for others who lived and worked and, eventually, died here. But it was the place he had come from. It was the place of his birth, and to see it so devastated, so dark... it shocked him.

  Amulek drove the truck forward. The zombies thinned a bit as the buildings pressed around them, then Christopher caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Not from the side of the truck, where a cohort of zombies kept pace with them, but from above. He turned his face to follow the motion and saw masses of the creatures swarming over the side of the building beside them. The building on the other side of the street was similarly alive with motion, with crawling bodies that should have fallen but somehow did not.