The Colony: Descent (2 page)

“So… what do we
do?  About her?  About…
them
?”

No one else had
wanted to say it.  And Ken was a bit surprised that Christopher had been the
one to get the words out.  To say what they were all thinking.  Even Ken
himself.

What were they
supposed to do?

The entire building
seemed to shake.  A horde – dozens, hundreds,
thousands
? – was somewhere
above them.  Coming fast.

Called
.  Summoned by Ken’s own
child.  By his baby, by the two-year-old girl his wife was even now holding
onto, clamping the toddler’s arms down with one arm, Maggie’s other hand
covering Liz’s little mouth.

But was that true? 
Was it Liz?

Or something else?

Liz didn’t speak
like that.  She said “Lizzy poops” or “Sez-me Stweet” or “Up-up-up!”  She didn’t
look at adults with cold eyes and say, “You are not family.  You are
renegades.”

But Ken’s mind kept
replaying it.  Kept hearing her saying just those words, those impossible
things.

Her little nostrils
flared above the line of Maggie’s fingers.  She was breathing calmly.  No
longer screaming.  But Maggie’s hand didn’t move away.  Ken’s wife was staring
at him, and it looked to him like she thought all this was his fault.  Not just
whatever was happening to Liz, but the strange behavior of their other
daughter, the predicament they were now in, the fact they were on an unknown
floor in the middle of a dark building, even –

(
even Derek
sacrificing himself saving her saving Maggie and keeping her from being bitten
because I couldn’t I wasn’t strong enough or fast enough but he was oh God he
was so fast too fast and he went down the crane and saved her but took the bite
and changed and fell and was gone
)

– for the fact of
the apocalypse itself.  Like Ken was the one who had changed the world, had
rained death on the globe in a ten minute transformation that ended life as
they knew it.

She glared at him. 
And that was another small death.

He looked away from
her.  To Aaron.  The cowboy’s eyes were inscrutable.  Ken couldn’t tell if the
man was implying that they should leave Ken’s daughters behind, or take them
with, or was just thinking about how to destroy the universe.  The guy said he
was an ex-rodeo clown, and that might be true.  But he was also much more than
that.  He was good, and brave, and had saved everyone time and again.  And he
was the most dangerous person Ken had ever met.

Ken shifted his
gaze to Dorcas.  She was shivering. Shock or pain, he couldn’t tell.  She was
shrinking against Aaron, clearly drawing warmth and strength from the slightly
shorter man.  Her right arm was broken.  Aaron had made her a sling earlier,
but it was little more than a rag, the memory or intimation of first aid.  Her
face was a collection of bruises strung together by expanses of dried blood and
split skin.  The effects of a zombie who had gone insane – as they all did when
they received grievous head wounds – and tried to beat her to death before
Aaron saved her.

She looked at Ken
for a moment.  Then her eyes flicked down.  She wasn’t looking for answers on
the floor.  Guilt had shone in her eyes.  She wanted to run, wanted to escape,
wanted to flee the monsters.  And Ken could tell that included his daughters.

“I can’t believe
this.”

Ken turned to the
last member of the group.  A late arrival, Buck was carrying Ken’s other
daughter over his shoulder, hanging slack and loose as she had been for a while
now.  She had acted strange as well, vacillating between normal behavior and actually
trying
to be caught by the things that pursued them.

Ken didn’t want to
hear Buck’s thoughts.  The big man had mostly been a whiny pain in the ass.  He
had even attacked Ken for not letting him die at one point.  So he didn’t want
to hear the plans of a man who had already given up.  Because Ken hadn’t given
up yet.

Give up.

Give up.

Give in.

Give up.

Give in.

Ken shuddered.  He
realized he could hear the zombies’ growl.  The low, thrumming sound that
preceded them like lightning before a clap of thunder.  And like lightning, it
could be devastating.  It seemed to have a psychic effect, a subliminal
exhortation to annihilation.  Hearing them could tip a survivor to submission.

Give up.

Give –

“You hear me?” 
Buck looked livid.  His voice rasped in the near-darkness that gripped them
all.  “I can’t believe you.  Any of you.”

He looked at each
of the party in turn.  Ken saw Dorcas look away from the man.  Her expression
one that suggested she knew what the big man was going to say next.  Knew he
was going to suggest leaving the girls – or worse – and not didn’t just know,
but
agreed
with his inevitable next statement.  Hated herself, but agreed
nonetheless.  Aaron’s expression mirrored hers.

Buck’s gaze reached
Maggie’s face.  He shook his head.  “You’re their
mother
,” he nearly
spat.  Then he adjusted his grip on Hope before spinning to glare quickly at
Christopher and then settling his eyes on Ken.  “We’re not leaving anyone
behind,” he said.  “Not
anyone
.”

Then he spun on his
heel and strode into the darkness.

Ken looked at
Maggie.  Only for an instant, then she was off and nearly running after the big
man holding their other daughter.

She didn’t ask what
he thought.  Didn’t look like she cared.

Christopher went
next.  Still trying to staunch the flow of blood from his broken nose, and from
the way he kept brushing at it Ken couldn’t tell if the young man was more upset
about his cracked face or the blood on his designer shirt.

Aaron looked at
Ken.  “Can you walk on your own?”

Ken nodded, though
he didn’t know if he could or not.  He had a pair of adrenaline shots running
through him, and he figured that was all that stood between him and total
systemic collapse.

What do I have? 
An hour?  Twenty minutes?  And then what?  Unconsciousness?

Death?

Will Maggie even
notice?

He turned away from
that last question, which, strangely, bothered him more than the idea of
dying.  And not because he didn’t know its answer – rather, because he was
afraid he
did
know the answer.  And didn’t like it.

Aaron motioned for
Ken to move ahead.  Ken nodded.  The cowboy held Dorcas tightly to him, waiting
for Ken to go forward.  Following the light that Christopher held as it bounced
through the wreckage of the One Capital Center building.

“Hey!” 
Christopher’s voice was excited.  “You gotta check this out!”

“What is it?”
shouted Aaron.

“It’s… well, it’s
cool!”

Ken looked at Aaron
and Dorcas.  The cowboy arched an eyebrow – a fairly expansive sign of emotion
for him.  Dorcas rolled her eyes.  Or at least one of them.  The other was
swollen shut.

Christopher was an
enthusiastic kid.  He also liked to scale the outside of buildings – and had
apparently enjoyed the pastime even before the world turned to crap.  So his
idea of “cool” allowed for a much wider range than that of most people.

Aaron gestured for
Ken to go ahead of him.

Ken took a step. 
Then heard something.  He looked behind them.

And saw a pair of
glittering eyes in the darkness.

A zombie.

The thing pulled
was on its stomach, pulling itself forward on a single hand.  The other arm was
missing at the bicep, the stump crusted over with a yellow, waxy substance that
Ken had seen before.  The zombies secreted it, much like the acid they could
also use to burn through flesh or bone or steel with equal ease.

The thing’s body
ended at the sternum.  Where the rest of it had gone, Ken couldn’t begin to
guess.  How it was still moving, he had no idea.  It was wrong.  Just like
everything else in this world, the concepts of mortality and injury had turned
on their heads.

The thing – what
looked like it had been a woman, if its hair length and makeup that smeared
across its face was any indication – snapped its teeth and growled.  The sound
was low, strangely weak.

It’s missing
most of its lungs.  It doesn’t have the air to make more noise
.

The thought should
have been a comfort.  Anything that bought a few minutes – even a few seconds –
was the closest thing they had to good news anymore.  Instead, all Ken could
focus on was the thought that the thing shouldn’t be making
any
noise. 
It should be dead.  Laying in a pool of blood somewhere.  Not moving.  Not
crawling toward them inch by agonized inch.  Not growling.

He jumped as
something touched his shoulder.  His heart hammered at the insides of his ribs,
fluttering like a bird in a cage.  He was over-adrenalized.  His
already-on-edge senses pushed over the edge by the shots he’d been given to keep
him moving.

How long do I
have?

It was Aaron. 
“Come on,” said the cowboy.  He was staring at the thing crawling toward them,
and Ken could see a question in the other man’s eyes.  He suspected Aaron was
considering whether or not to try and silence the thing.

But how?  A
“killing” head wound just drove them into mad, manic attacks on anything that
moved – including their own kind.  And cutting them up just resulted in smaller
pieces that fought on.

“Come on,” Aaron
said again.

“Guys?” 
Christopher’s voice came from ahead.  “Seriously, this is neat.”

Ken nodded at
Aaron.  He turned away from the snuffling monstrosity behind them.

And tried to ignore
the noises in the darkness behind
it
.

More of them.

Coming fast.

The things were
like ants at a picnic.  See one and more would come.

Only these ants
puke acid.

And you can’t
kill them.

And if they bite
you, you turn into one of them.

Ken hobbled through
the rubble of the building, moving toward the light ahead, wondering what
Christopher sounded so excited about.  The kid was a mystery.  His dad had been
Idaho’s governor, and he’d apparently seen his mother and father kill each
other in the first moments of the change.  But he didn’t seem like the son of
Power.  He seemed like the son of Crazy, with generous side-helpings of Charm
and Courage balancing things out.

Though maybe
that’s what power is.

Ken felt Aaron
pulling him forward.  Realized that the noises around them were growing louder.

The light was
getting brighter, too.

They’d been in the
middle of the building.  Now they passed through several doors – or the
crumbled semi-archways that marked where doors had once been before a stealth
fighter exploded on the upper levels of the edifice – and Ken knew they must be
getting toward the outer ring of the building.  The office they were in now was
no less destroyed, but there was light.  Not just the pin-sized illumination of
Christopher’s flashlight, but a general gray gloom.  Smoky and dim, but better
than the pitch black that had held them all for so long.

“Come on!”

The flashlight
moved up and down.  Getting larger.

Shouldn’t it be
brighter?

It was spring, so
it shouldn’t be getting dark until six or seven at least.  Was it already that
late?

Was it only that
early
?

It had been less
than a day since this all started.  Since the bugs clustered on the window of
Ken’s classroom.  Since Matt Anders had a seizure and Ricky Briscoe tore out
Becca Lee’s throat with his teeth.

Since the zombies
came.

Fifty percent of
the world turned in under ten minutes.  And a few minutes later, almost
everyone else was either dead or turned as well.

Things were moving
fast.  Too fast.

So maybe it
was
getting late.

Maybe the sun was
setting.

Then a familiar
smell hit Ken’s nostrils, and he understood why it was so dark.  So dark, and
probably about to get much lighter.

The darkness wasn’t
the black of night, or even the gloom of twilight in a city that has lost all
power.

It was smoke.

Dark clouds were
now visible, pushing at the buckled ceiling tiles above Ken’s head like foggy
fists trying to batter the building into final submission.

The thing behind
them – out of sight but far from out of mind – groaned weakly.  It trilled, a
high-pitched sound like a thousand piano wires garroting a thousand finches,
and there was an answering roar from somewhere else in the building.

On the same level.

Ken moved faster. 
He tried not to cough, even though the smoke in his lungs made his body itch
and ache from the inside out.

Aaron
did
cough.  A low, wet hack.  Dorcas said, “Shhh,” though Ken get the impression it
was an automatic response more than a command.  The things already knew they
were here.

Because Lizzy
told
them.  She
called
them.

No.

Yes.

The smoke thickened
around them.  And as Ken had suspected, it soon tinged with orange and red and
yellow – flowers of color superimposed on ashen crepe.

Crackling noises. 
The dry-leaf sound of fire.

Ken could see
Christopher.  He was standing next to Maggie and Buck.  Maggie held Lizzy, the
toddler still hanging from the carrier on Maggie’s chest.  Her arms and legs
dangled, but Ken could see his daughter –

(
if that’s what
she is
)

– looking around
with eyes bright and entirely too aware.  She caught sight of him and he
thought she winked.  It could have been his imagination, or a trick of the
smoke and light.

It could have been.

But it wasn’t.

Buck stood slightly
behind the group.  He was taller than the others, looking over their shoulders
at the thing they had found.  His mouth drooped lightly, open in mute
amazement.

Christopher waved at
Ken and the others.  “It’s awesome,” he said.  His voice was a near-reverent
whisper.

Ken didn’t
understand what he was looking at for a moment.  He understood that his
daughters were changing.  That his son was gone.  That his wife somehow blamed
him for all of it.

That the world had
ended.

But he didn’t
really understand what he was seeing.

Behind him, the
growl filtered through wreckage and destruction.  It pierced his mind, finding
the cracks of fear and levering them into full-blown crevasses of terror.

Give up.

(
no
)

Give in.

(
NO
)

Christopher’s smile
widened.  “Found our way out.”

Ken finally
understood what he was seeing.  Understood what Christopher meant to do.  And
said the only sane thing.

“Oh.  Hell. 
NO
.”