The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  But they did bow.

  YOU ALL WILL SUFFER.

  The King turned its gaze from them. Looked upon Ken, who was almost to the base of the building, still holding bundles that shifted in his grasp.

  The King's arms opened wide.

  MINE.

  147

  THE KING TOUCHED THE things – no longer children – in Ken's arms.

  And became one with them.

  THIS IS MY BODY. MY SELF. AND MY SELF IS ALL.

  The King's small arms flowed. They became rubbery, the distorted echo of human limbs. The hands melded with the little girls, who were themselves barely more than gelatinous lumps in Ken's arms.

  They still had faces, though. Christopher could see them, features blasphemed by the enormous grins. The grins kept widening. Widening.

  The King leaned forward. The entirety of his flesh flowed toward the queens.

  Ken bowed over. He, too, started to melt into the mass. And a moment later Maggie touched them. Hands on her once-husband's shoulders. Flesh dripping as she turned from One into Many, and a Many that would once again be One.

  Christopher tried to scream. Nothing came. He could barely breathe. He heard Theresa crying beside him, a strange sound that seemed to be a never-ending series of exhalations without any inhalations to even it out. Like she was gasping out her last breath in a series of wretched sobs.

  The warriors – Aaron and Amulek – sighed as though struggling to lift some great weight.

  I. AM. ALL.

  Christopher tried not to watch. But he felt his chin tilt up, felt his eyes focus on the sight of a family he had loved disappearing into the King. He was being controlled, made to watch. This was the King's doing, forcing him to look at the moment when all ended, when the battle was lost forever.

  Then the real suffering would begin. Not merely friends and family lost, but something much more horrible found in an intimacy that would last for all time.

  The features of Ken, Maggie, Derek, Lizzy, and Hope began their final dissolution. There was almost nothing human left of them. Less and less and less and then almost gone.

  And the voice – that other voice – spoke again.

  148

  (hope)

  (Hope.)

  (HOPE.)

  The feeling grew in Christopher's mind, the voice sounded louder and stronger until it was nearly the match of the King.

  The many-bodied mass that writhed in the street pulsed. Not the same fluid writhing that had marked its movements before, this was less coordinated. This was a jerky wave that ran through its form.

  MINE. MINE. EVERYTHING AND ALL AND ONE IN ME.

  (NO.)

  The voice was nearly as loud as the King's. So loud in Christopher's mind it now had tone, timbre. He recognized it.

  It was Derek.

  Not the voice of the creature Derek had become, the King... this was the voice of the child who had given himself to save his mother, to save the survivors.

  Christopher suddenly thought of Ken. Of a man who had never given up, and who had found a way even to come back from a strange kind of death. He wondered if Ken had heard this voice. If it had kept him going; given him hope.

  He thought so. Then knew so. Knew it in the way that we know the sun will be in the sky each morning; that the world will wake after sleeping.

  That life will go on.

  NO. MINE. MINE. MINE.

  (NO.)

  The mass pulsed before Christopher again. But the wave that ran through it was smaller this time. As though whatever fought the King for control was losing.

  MINE. MINE. MINE.

  (No.)

  The King sounded louder, his voice pressing Christopher's mind so hard he felt parts of it fold into oblivion. Blood flowed from his nose, trickled from his ears.

  Derek's voice faded under the King's onslaught. Faded as his features continued to disappear.

  ALL IS MINE.

  (no)

  (no)

  The King turned what was left of its features toward Christopher. The smile widened.

  MINE.

  149

  (hope)

  Christopher heard Derek's voice. A last gasp, a last resistance to whatever had him. And knew it wouldn't be enough. The boy would be buried forever, would disappear into the King.

  (hope)

  The ripple rolled across the King's surface again. This time Christopher found the strength to gasp, surprise wrenching the sound from him, defying the silence that surrounded them.

  (hope)

  He felt the word in his mind. But it was different this time. It wasn't Derek's voice, it was the declaration of another. A second rebel in the small resistance.

  It was Ken. Lost but not gone – not entirely. And now speaking as he joined his voice with that of his son.

  (Hope, said Ken in Christopher's mind.

  And then another voice: Hope, it said. It was Maggie.

  And still another: Hope, said the third voice, and this time the word was spoken by the child who bore it as her namesake.

  A final voice, speaking even in his mind with the subtle susurration of a newly speaking toddler: Hope.)

  The King screamed. A shriek that punched new holes in Christopher's mind, and also sounded too loud in his ears as the wail came from all five mouths the King now possessed: the physical forms that remained of Ken's family.

  MINE.

  (No.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  Each of the family spoke defiance. Each resisted. Then all spoke as one.

  NO.)

  I WILL HAVE YOU.

  (WE WILL NOT HAVE YOU.)

  And everything changed.

  150

  NO SILENCE, NOTHING Christopher had ever experienced, could compare to the funereal pause of that moment. Not even the earlier silence that signaled the approach of millions of zombies in a field.

  Here, life itself seemed to halt, and he wouldn't have been surprised to see a bird hanging, its wings mid-flap, motionless in the air.

  The King broke the still. He moved. The pulse that had shaken his mass before ran through him again. Again. Over and over until it was an overlapping series of waves, then even faster until the great surface of the King's misshapen body became a blur.

  The zombies that surrounded them – that surrounded the survivors, that stood in masses on every street and clung to every vertical surface – began to shake. None of them moved from the places they occupied, but Christopher could feel them under his feet as their shaking transmitted to the ground beneath him. There were creaks and sounds of shattering stone all around as the buildings began to fail under the tremors of the hundreds of thousands of things that coated each.

  No.

  Now it was the King's voice that sounded weaker.

  (YES.)

  no.

  (YES.)

  no

  (YES, said Ken.

  YES, said Maggie.

  YES, said Hope.

  YES, said Lizzy.

  And, last of all, and strongest, Derek: YES.)

  The King screamed, a final scream that had faded to a whisper of its once-self.

  His will was not as great as theirs.

  i am one.

  The whisper of defiance, rage, fear, and the pique of a spoiled child.

  i. am. one...

  And that, Christopher knew, was his undoing. He was one, standing against a family he had willingly taken into himself. A family that was willing to die for each other, to do anything for any who needed it.

  He was one. They were many.

  He took a family, and now the King bent under their will.

  As the King failed, Christopher found strength. One moment he was on bended knee, and the next he was standing in the face of the creature.

  A King no longer, but instead a deposed monarch, a monster running for its life.

  i will hate you

  It was a final thought, small and wea
k. Another thought followed it, coming from the same physical center but as different as sun and moon.

  (YOUR HATE DOESN’T MATTER, said Ken.)

  The king left.

  Ken's face, still joined to a body that had become one with the bodies of his family, turned to Christopher. It smiled. The smile was as lopsided and misshapen as the rest of him, drooping far beyond what the bones should have allowed. But the ugliness went only as far as the physical shape. There was no more malice in his friend's eyes. They had returned to their proper selves.

  (Thank you. For all you've done for my family.)

  Christopher heard it clearly. Knew the others did, too. Knew this was more than a thanks, it was –

  (Goodbye.)

  Ken toppled forward, into his family. They crumpled with him. As they did, they completed their transformation to a single mass. Then the dissolution continued, and soon there was nothing of the body/bodies, just a large wet patch on the sidewalk. Then even that seemed to dry, to evaporate.

  And gone.

  151

  IT WASN'T OVER.

  The huge creature – the thing of darkness and light, the one that had changed Derek – roared. Not a growl this time, just the animal roar of a rabid beast.

  Christopher remembered what Aaron had said about distributed intelligence. How an octopus arm, cut off from the primary nodes, would still try to feed a mouth that wasn't there.

  Oh, no.

  The hulking zombie noticed them. Cried out.

  Charged.

  And was stopped by a smaller form.

  Amulek moved so fast he was less than a blur. One moment kneeling on the asphalt, the next moment planting himself in front of a giant who had suddenly stilled.

  Amulek's knife had appeared, and was jammed up through the base of the chin, through the mouth, into its brain.

  The zombie twitched.

  "Die, you sonofabitch." And it was Amulek who said it as he stared at the thing that he had chosen as the focus of his terrible wrath.

  The zombie stared at the teen for an instant. Christopher thought he saw something in the thing's eyes. A spark of warmth, humanity peering out from behind the dark veil that had been drawn over it.

  Always before the things had gone mad. But this time was different. After the King, everything would be different.

  The zombie did not go mad. It simply fell.

  Then all of them did.

  152

  THERE WAS NO LOUD THUDDING of meat on pavement as the things folded around them. Nor was there much sound when the zombies that had held to the buildings let go and dropped. The lowest ones were mere feet above the ground, and when they fell they provided quiet cushions for those above them, who in turn provided a soft surface for those above them.

  The ones already on the ground, the ones who had been standing all around the survivors, were packed so tightly that they simply folded into themselves. Many remained standing, captured in the tangle of limbs and bodies. Some looked almost like they were embracing, like friends or lovers saying a final, melancholy goodbye.

  Dorcas, Mo, Theresa's brother, and Carina slumped. They fell curled into each other, with Mo's arm across them all as though in a final embrace.

  They were smiling.

  The other zombies had created a space between them, the King, and the survivors. Now that space saved the survivors from being crushed. It closed in, tighter and tighter, and for a moment Christopher worried that it might explode over them, a wave of flesh.

  It came to their very feet.

  And then the great fall of the creatures – the one – was over.

  Nothing moved.

  The silence reigned.

  The darkness still held the sky, but Christopher looked up and noticed for the first time how much brighter the stars seemed to twinkle when there was no other light.

  FINAL CHAPTER:

  THE COLONY

  CHRISTOPHER STOPPED for a moment. He'd been chopping wood so long his hands felt like they were denuded bone grinding against unprotected nerves. The cabin they had gone to, a lone structure just west of Boise, had a huge propane tank that Aaron had said would take them through the winter, but he had also pointed out that he didn't want to go without backup heat. Christopher didn't argue, especially with the hint that if anyone had to go out into sub-freezing temperatures to fiddle with it, the cowboy would make sure it was "the young bucks."

  Still, he figured he'd chopped enough this morning to last a few days at least.

  He planted the axe in the log he'd been working on. The thok of metal into wood was satisfying. He hated it, given that he had somehow found himself turned into the Official Chopper of the group, but it was a natural sound. Clean. The sound of things moving forward, of life making way for itself.

  It was September, and the flies were thick. They'd be around until the end of fall, when the first cold snap would kill them all off, but for now they buzzed and whined near his ears. He didn't bother slapping at them anymore, though he did wear a shirt when working outside, no matter how hot it got. He didn't like the sensation of the bugs crawling over him. For some reason it reminded him of the touch of the things. So no matter how much he sweated, he kept his shirt on, kept chopping wood, kept working.

  People depended on him.

  It felt good.

  Besides, he liked being out here. One time he saw something in the woods, a flash of black and white, and thought it was Sally. Hoped with a ferocity that the snow leopard would come to him, would be with them again. Even though he knew that the urges that had made her a part of the group would be gone, the hope was still there.

  Whenever, he chopped wood now, he always spent a minute looking at the forest. Not because he believed he'd ever see the big cat again, but because it pleased him to imagine the cat happy in the newly-wild world.

  A voice startled him. "You trying to break the wood with telekinesis?"

  Christopher grinned as he turned to see Amulek. The teen had a bow in his hands. It was much nicer than the one he'd started out with – easy to pick the best when the Cabela's store was wide open and the hunting section unguarded. Still, he complained endlessly about the loss of his first bow.

  Christopher shook his head. "No. Just thinking I liked you way better before you started talking."

  Amulek grinned back. "Never had anything to talk about before." A hint of darkness flickered across his face. "At least, not since Mom and Dad died."

  Christopher nodded. Somber for a second, then he chuckled. "Well, you've got us now."

  "Huge step down."

  This time the chuckle was a full-throated laugh. "I can't disagree." He nodded at the bow. "Going hunting?"

  "Yeah. Gonna drive up past McCall and see what I can find. I'm pretty sick of canned food."

  "Hey, don't knock the canned food. It's gonna keep us going until we can get ourselves to self-sustaining."

  "I still want something fresh." Amulek nodded at the small plot of corn growing nearby. "Some venison with fresh vegetables sounds good."

  "It does. And I'm hungry enough to eat an entire deer, so you better bag two."

  "You could come with me."

  "I suck at hunting."

  "True."

  With a final smile, Amulek went around the side of the cabin. A moment later Christopher heard the roar of the Ford F-350 Superduty the teen had claimed as his own. The rest of the group had tried to convince him for weeks not to leave without taking someone with him, but after he'd disappeared ten or fifteen times they finally just gave up and let him go. Theresa called it "A Māori thing," and Aaron just shrugged and stopped talking to the kid about safety protocols and the buddy system.

  Christopher picked up his bottle of water. It wasn't the Aquafina the label proclaimed, but came instead from a well the cabin had. It had taken some getting used to the natural stuff – he'd had diarrhea for a few days – but now he liked it much better than the bottled water Theresa periodically brought in with her supply runs.<
br />
  "You thinking about me?" Christopher looked up slightly, raising his gaze to the level of the window that looked in on the cabin's kitchen. Theresa was looking out through the screen.

  "Actually, yes."

  "Dirty thoughts?"

  "Actually, yes."

  "Good." She peered at him, and her expression changed from playfulness to concern. Her face disappeared from the window and a moment later the back door clacked open and she stepped out. "You okay?" she said.

  Christopher nodded. No hesitation, because he didn't have to think about it for the slightest instant. "Yeah. I'm good." Theresa nodded and turned back to the cabin. "Hey," he called after her. "You thinking of me?"

  She started to nod, but gesture was a half-hearted one.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "Just...." She paused, searching for something. "I wonder sometimes if we're going to make it."

  "Sure we will. We've got unlimited food, water from a ready supply, and," he made a wide, sweeping gesture, "enough firewood to last us forever because I am made of Awesome." Then he grew serious, because he saw she was serious. "Hey, we'll be fine. We made it through all that, we'll make it through this."

  He didn't have to ask if she knew what he meant by "that." The word was the only way any of them ever referred to all that had happened. He knew they thought of Ken, Maggie, Hope, Lizzy, Dorcas, Buck, Mo... even Sally. But no one spoke much beyond saying "that" occasionally. Like all that had happened was a dark magic that could only last as long as you spoke its name.

  "Did we?" she asked. "Did we really 'make it through'?"

  Christopher's brows drew together. "What do you mean? We're still here, aren't we?"

  "Yeah, but what did we do? I mean, what did we do? We just ran. We didn't even kill a single Z that I can think of – even when Buck dumped them through the rock crusher, the bits were still moving. We just ran, but even that didn't matter. We were caught." She chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I think the only people who actually accomplished anything were Ken and his family, and I can't help thinking that was just luck. Thinking that if any other family had been picked, we'd all have been wiped out." She turned her face up, looking at the cloudless sky. "And I can't help wondering if it – or something like it – is still out there. If it didn't die, but just left, and will come back."