The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7]
Page 101
Christopher sighed. He sat on a pile of wood, then patted a space beside him. Theresa sat down and leaned against him.
"We'll make it."
"We just ran."
"And that's something. I think we ran long enough that Ken and Maggie, Derek and Lizzy and Hope, could find the strength they needed. I think we survived long enough with Ken and with Maggie especially, that we gave them the time they had to have to do what they did."
"Even so, it was all luck. Luck they were chosen, luck that they could resist."
Christopher shook his head. "No. I don't think so."
"Why? Tell me why." She tilted her head toward him, the need for reassurance shining in her eyes.
"I've actually been thinking about this. And I don't think what happened to the king in the end was a coincidence at all."
"It had to be."
"No. It couldn't be." He put his arm around her. Pulled her close. "You know what every survivor we found had in common? Hell, what I bet everyone who survived the initial Change had in common?"
"Not good looks," she said, attempting to jolly herself out of her own funk. Christopher loved that about her. Even though she did tease him continually about his nose, which had never quite healed to a straight line.
"Har, har," he said, then grew serious himself. "No, it was that they were all good. They all were willing to sacrifice themselves for those around them. They found strangers and helped them. I think that's why only half of us were Changed in the first place: because whatever caused the shift wasn't compatible with that kind of thinking, and a lot of us have it as part of our makeup. I think maybe Ken and his family loved each other the most, but if any of us had been chosen – I think the king would have lost. He was a thing that existed only for itself. A selfish thing. He didn't know how to deal with sacrifice. Like matter and anti-matter, when he came into close contact with it, he exploded into nothing."
"But you said Buck's mom wasn't like that."
He shrugged. "Maybe she was chosen by mistake. But I think it wasn't a mistake. She probably would have helped us, but she loved her son more than us, and wanted him to have what life she could give him. So it wasn't that she was a hateful human, just that she was looking after her child, first and foremost. And that's what Ken and Maggie did, too, all the way to the end."
"So you think love conquered all." She said it with a joke in her tone, but her eyes were still serious.
He shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" He squeezed her again. "Love and sacrifice and dirty thoughts thrown in from time to time for good measure."
He kissed her. It was a good kiss. During the kiss he heard the cabin door open behind them, the gentle cough of a cowboy who doesn't want to intrude, and the cabin door swinging shut again.
They broke the kiss. Sat in silence. Theresa looked skyward, but he didn't feel the fear rolling off her anymore. She was just enjoying a cool fall day. Winter was coming, and many things would die. But after that spring would return, and all would be reborn.
"Holy hell in a Happy Meal."
Christopher looked over and saw a man standing at the edge of the plot of corn. The man gazed on Christopher and Theresa with a mixture of disbelief, surprise, and elation.
"We saw your smoke," said the stranger, nodding at the dark curl that emerged from a chimney atop the cabin's roof.
We.
Christopher looked behind the man and saw more people. A pair of children maybe nine and ten years old, both with the same dark eyes, clearly brother and sister. A couple in their twenties, holding hands and leaning on each other in that comfortable way that only those deeply in love can have. An old woman, her slight form held upright by a thin black cane.
The strangers stared at Christopher and Theresa. None of them knew what to say.
"What...." The man's jaw rose and fell several times, as though he kept chewing up whatever words he wanted to say before they emerged. Then he finally managed, "What happened?"
Christopher cocked an eyebrow, unsure what the man meant.
He noted, though, that he felt no fear. In all the apocalypse movies he had ever seen, they all posited that most who survived would become roving bands of selfish, often cannibalistic, murderers.
Not here.
Anyone who survived wouldn't be that way. They'd be different.
They'd be good.
"What do you mean?" asked Theresa.
The man looked surprised at his own question. Then he shrugged, an in for a penny, in for a pound gesture. "They all died. Everywhere. Just died and dried up and blew away." He looked suddenly embarrassed. "Sorry. I don't guess anyone knows." He walked toward Christopher and Theresa with an outstretched hand. "I'm Michael."
Christopher shook the hand. Then Theresa. She looked at Christopher. Nodded.
"Well, Michael," said Christopher, "I think we do know."
He started speaking. Halfway through the long tale – of survivors, of Maggie and Ken and their children, of Dorcas and Mo and special emphasis on a cantankerous, sorely missed friend named Buck, of the ones they lost and the ones who were saved – a dry mouth stopped him. He drank from his bottle. Then stood without thinking and kept talking while chopping wood, because chores still needed doing.
A few moments later, Michael began gathering the wood and piling it. The others joined in.
By the end of the day all were working together.
Amulek returned and they all ate together.
And more came, and more were found, and the world continued.
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