Colony Z: The Complete Collection (Vols. 1-4) (26 page)

“…came back?”

“The government is trying to bring back the dead, Hannah. And it looks like they did it.”

There was a banging on the door, yet again. But this time, finally, a voice came with it.

“Hello?” A man yelled. “Police. Is anybody down there?”

Owen jumped up and ran, Hannah close at his heels. They opened the door and flew out toward the man, both of them trying to explain everything at once.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about?”

“Sir, there’s a boy, his name is Henry. He came to get us but…”

“There’s no one else here, son.”

“But…of course there is. His car is right outside!”

“...that isn’t your car?”

“No, sir. It belongs to my friend, Henry. He’s not in his right mind, and he’s badly hurt…”

“I haven’t seen anyone else here. Why are you hiding down there anyway? What are the two of you doing in this building in the first place?”

“Sir, please,” Hannah said breathlessly. “There’s a dead man downstairs.”

“We’re in a morgue, dear. Of course there is.”

“No.” She said, more angrily this time. “He was
killed down there, sir.
His body is really badly hurt and…and…we saw the thing that got him. It came up here, bit Henry, and now Henry is acting just like it.”

“…I don’t like the way you two are acting. Your best explanation for a dead body is what? Vampires?” The man looked disgusted with them. And Hannah didn’t know what else to say. Owen just stood there, dumbstruck. He’d never been in a situation where a cop had been angry with him before.

“Sir…please, the man downstairs is an FBI agent. He’s been tampering with the bodies, and now one of them is running around killing people.” He tried. But there wasn’t much of a response.

“You expect me to believe that?” The cop looked disgusted. “Look, the two of you. I’m going down there to get a look at this ‘body’, and when I get back I’m either going to tell you to get the hell out of my sight, or to come down to the station with me. You better hope it isn’t the latter.”

And then he was gone down the stairs.

“Owen, we can’t go to the police.” Hannah said, her heart pounding in her chest. “Mom and Dad will know I’m with you…and when they hear this…”

“Hannah, that’s not even important right now.” Owen said, staring into space.

“But…but Owen…”

“We don’t matter right now. Who cares if we get caught? What’s important right now is that one man is dead and one of my friends is seriously hurt...God damn it, why didn’t I just leave it alone?”

“Owen, stop blaming yourself. This isn’t the time to pity yourself. This is the time to
do
something. This isn’t just going to disappear in the morning. This is going to stay with us forever if we don’t step up and…”

“I know that, Hannah!” Owen said, more loudly than he’d intended.  “But this virus…what if this spreads? Then what? Then it’s my fault and this guy won’t listen!”

“…Owen, I don’t know what else to tell you. This isn’t your fault.”

Hannah was right. They had to act. They had to do something before the situation got even more out of hand and the…the zombie…got to town and started killing more people and spreading the disease. She was right. They had to go.

“We have to warn people,” Owen said. “Henry’s missing now too. This is only going to get worse. We have to warn them.”

“We can’t do that from the jail cell we’re going to be in in a couple minutes, Owen.”

“Then we’re going to do it right now.”

“What?”

Owen took Hannah’s arm and led her out the door of the morgue. They ran to Henry’s truck and, seeing that he wasn’t in it and the keys were still in the ignition, Owen flipped it on. Daylight was starting to come through the trees. They didn’t have much time.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

As they turned the truck on and drove away, the cop ran out the door and started yelling at them to come back. When they didn’t, he pulled his gun and tried to shoot out the tires.

“…we’re criminals…” Hannah whispered.

“I’m sorry, Hannah.” Owen said. And that was all that was spoken until they pulled into town.

The whole ride, all Hannah could think about was her complete failure as a girlfriend for the night. She hadn’t said yes to his proposal right away, she’d gotten them trapped in a morgue because she didn’t want her blouse getting destroyed, and now they were rampaging around trying to capture some monster-like thing because she couldn’t convince Owen to leave right away.

All Owen could think about was his complete failure as a boyfriend. He’d destroyed her feelings
and
her blouse, and then unleashed a world of pure terror on her, all within the span of six hours. What kind of complete schmuck was he?

Owen hopped out of the car in the middle of downtown, after fishtailing into a parking spot. Hannah followed closely behind, wondering what he planned to do. He made his way to the local radio station, the one in the middle of the sidewalk. The whole town tuned into this station. It was how they kept their information spreading. Sure, in a small town news traveled fast anyway. But this was different. This was a warning.

He started knocking on the door frantically.

“Owen,
no!
What are you doing?”

“We have to warn people.” When no one came to open the door after about two minutes, Owen smashed his way through the glass with his arm and went in.

“Owen, are you crazy?!”

But Hannah continued to follow him anyway, her lack of street smarts kicking in yet again to get her into more trouble than she needed to be in. Why couldn’t she just force herself to leave him and walk home by herself? Did she really need him that badly?

He went straight to the room in the back with the radio booth and slammed into the door several times after realizing it was locked, forcing it to open and reveal an extremely confused radio-host.

“What are you…?”

Owen ignored him, ran to the table, and pushed the man out of the way, speaking into the microphone as he did.

“Listen, everyone. This is Owen. There’s something really serious going on right now, and everyone needs to stay in their homes and off the streets.”

The radio host tried to get the microphone back, but Owen held him away with almost no effort, his football skills finally coming in handy for something other than making him hate his life.

“There are very sick and mentally disturbed people wandering the streets. They’re hungry, and they
will hurt you.
They will not hesitate. They will not show mercy. Do not approach one of them if you see them. And do
not
attempt to help it. If they bite you,
you will get the infection too.”

When Owen said this, the radio host stopped fighting him. Owen put his hand down and looked at the confused man yet again.

“You gonna make sure to repeat that every few minutes?”

“You bein’ serious, man?”

“Extremely. Can you do that for me?”

The man nodded without hesitation. Owen grabbed his girlfriend and left, getting back into Henry’s truck. It was only 5:30 in the morning. There wouldn’t be many people awake. If he really wanted to, he could take Hannah back home. No one would ever know it was her, the cop had never even gotten her name. All they could track was her phone, and he could easily destroy that evidence. Hannah still had a way out.

But Owen was thinking long-term and he was thinking fast. These things were going to spread and hurt others…and they were here and only here. This was an epidemic that was going to spread. As soon as the government found out that it was on the loose, they’d quarantine the city and everyone in it would die.

This was the Zero-Hour. This, right now.

And this was the place where it began.

“Hannah, we have to leave.”

“What?”

“We have to leave town.”

“Owen, we’re not going any…”

“Hey, Owen!”
A voice yelled from across the street. Owen looked closely at him, and realized it was one of the nastier kids on the football team. He was also close to Coach, the one Owen had just finished talking to. He crossed over to Henry’s car, looking at Owen with the oddest expression.

“Heard what you said on the radio. You completely out of your mind, or…?”

“Mark, what do you want?” Owen glared at the kid crossing to their car. He had never liked Mark. Especially not how he looked at Hannah when she was around. Did he consider the kid a threat? No. But right now, he was just about the worst thing that could have happened to them. It didn’t help that he hadn’t even been able to explain to Hannah why she had to leave with him.

“Nothing…nothing at all. Just that I heard someone yelling that the cops were looking for you, and seeing as I have you right here with me…”

“Mark, please. You don’t understand.” Hannah said, leaning forward so the boy could see her. He smiled an evil smile and laughed.

“You got your girlfriend involved in this too? Owen, Owen, Owen. You’re just asking for trouble. And everyone thought you were just so perfect.”

“Mark, stop. There’s something out there and it’s gonna hurt you if you don’t get inside.”

“But I don’t want to stay inside, Owen. I want to be out
here,
with all the action. So do my boys…right, guys?”

Six other guys from the team, guys that weren’t all that fond of Owen, came out of Mark’s garage, smiling. Some of them were cracking their knuckles, others were holding baseball bats. Hannah grew pale and her eyes grew wide. She had never before imagined that people could be so terrible. If they knew what was coming for them…they never would have been outside in the first place.

“Mark, listen to me. These things will kill you. Do you understand me?”

But Mark ignored each and every word that came out of Owen’s mouth. He continued to smirk.

“Hey, one of you go get the sheriff and tell him I got his two suspects right here in front of me.” Mark directed, and one of the boys took off in the direction of the station down the road.

Owen took a deep breath before planning his next move. Hannah wasn’t going to like it, but he’d seen enough tonight to know that he could afford to take a chance. This one hardly seemed as risky as the previous ones they’d taken tonight.

“Mark, if you don’t move, I’m going to run you right the hell over. Do not test me.”

“Owen, what the hell?” Hannah said in a terrified voice. “You’re not going to do that.” But she didn’t sound very sure about that at all.