The Colony: Descent (6 page)

Aaron thudded past
him, bypassing Ken to get to the third zombie, the one that was still climbing
over seats.  The cowboy had grabbed the severed arm of one of the passenger
seats and as the zombie jumped at him he swung it.

The reinforced arm
hit the zombie with a muffled
thwump
.  Aaron wasn’t a superhero – the
zombie didn’t miraculously slam to the ground with the force of his blow – but
he changed direction a bit.  Enough to get hung up in a mass of willow-wires
hanging from a ceiling panel.  The thing struggled to get free, but Aaron just
kept pounding on it with the seat arm, and Ken heard the wet thud/crack of
flesh and bone breaking.

The zombie didn’t
cry out.  Didn’t scream.

Aaron didn’t,
either.  He panted with the effort of his attack, but that was the only sound
he made. 

Ken saw it all
peripherally.  Most of his attention was on his hand.  He held it in front of
his face.  Looked at the half-circle of tiny holes.  They wept red.

“Come on,” said
Aaron gruffly, and turned to go.  More movement in the plane.  Other bodies
were lurching to their feet.  In fact, Ken realized that
all
of the dead
were in motion.  But most of them were having trouble getting up.

Seat belts
.
  They can’t get out of the
seat belts
.

The thought flitted
through his mind, bullet-fast and leaving almost no trace of its passage.

Bitten
.
  I’ve been bitten
.

That
registered.

His hand shook.

He wondered what it
would feel like.

Would he feel the
blood come out of his pores?

Would he feel
himself change?

Would he know it
when he tried to kill his family?

He looked at
Maggie.

She hadn’t
noticed.  She was too busy looking right and left, back and forth, trying to
see all the suddenly animated corpses that were trying to lurch out of their
seats and finding themselves held strangely fast.

Buck was doing the
same.

So was Dorcas.

Aaron was busy
wailing on another zombie.  “What the hell are you people waiting for?” he said
through clenched teeth.  “We gotta
move
.”

Ken found
Christopher’s eyes.  The young man was staring at him.  One hand on the nose
that Ken had accidentally broken.  The other held a piece of metal.  Something
similar to what Aaron had used to pin that first kid to the floor.

“Shit,” whispered
Christopher.  Looking now at Ken’s hand.

He stepped toward
Ken.  He shifted his grip on the metal to a two-fisted one.

Ken nodded.

“Knock it out of
the park, kid,” he said.

There wouldn’t be
time for goodbyes.  Maybe that was best.  Certainly it was fair – how many of
the billions of dead and changed had gotten to hold
their
loved ones,
say
their
goodbyes?

No, Ken just hoped
that whatever Christopher did would be sufficient to keep him from hurting
anyone else.  From spreading this – what?  Disease?

Shouldn’t it
have happened already?  Shouldn’t I have changed?

Christopher took a
pair of quick steps, almost running.  He held the piece of metal over his right
shoulder, winding up for a home run hit.

Ken felt himself
grow dizzy and hot.

I thought it
would feel cold.

When do I start
bleeding everywhere?

When do I start
screaming?

He heard Aaron,
still grunting away as he smashed back several undead who had reached the
aisle.

Maggie finally saw
Christopher and Ken.  “What’s going on?” she said.  Then she must have noticed
Ken holding his hand in front of his face.  Her gaze flicked to the zombie that
was still gagged and bound to the ceiling by the oxygen mask.

Two plus two
equals….

Her hand went to
her mouth.

“Don’t you dare,”
she said a moment later.

“Don’t have much
choice,” said Ken.

He coughed.

Everything went
gray, then black.

He felt the floor
rushing at him.

Ken hit the floor
face-first.  The surface was carpeted, but still rough and harder than he
expected.  Explosions lit up the dark cavern behind his eyes when he slammed into
the warped surface.

“Ken!”  Maggie’s
scream punched holes in the fog that blanketed his thoughts.  “Ken, Ken!”

Sounded like she
was screaming louder.  Either that or getting closer.  Running toward him.

Don’t do that
.
  Run
away
, babe. 
Run away.

Someone grabbed
him.  Flipped him over.

The explosions
dimmed to gray.  A dark outline.  Someone holding something.  Christopher,
ready to hit him.  Pound him to pieces small enough not to matter.

Good
.

Christopher’s arms
dropped.  Fast.  No longer a home run, this was going to be a railroad worker
slamming home a spike.

And something else
slammed into Christopher.  Knocked him away at the last second.  Ken heard a
dull clunk as the bar Christopher had been holding bounced off the carpeted
floor only an inch or so away from his right ear.

Ken thought it was a
zombie that had knocked the young man’s hit askew.  Then realized the attacking
shape was a short, stocky one.  Wearing cowboy boots.

“Don’t!” shouted
Aaron.  He kicked backward, sending another looming shape crashing backward
into flames that were licking closer and closer.

“He’s bit!”
Christopher screamed.

“I know it!”

“You
know
?” 
The shock in Christopher’s voice echoed the surprise bouncing through the
muddled wreckage of Ken’s own thoughts.

“Yuh.”  Aaron moved
again.  Another silent figure went flying.

“
He’s going to
change.
”

“Don’t think so.” 
Aaron knelt and put a hand on Ken’s shirt, yanking him roughly to his feet.

“Then why’s he
acting like that?”  This time it was Dorcas speaking.  Not sounding terrified
of Ken’s incipient transformation, more like normal curiosity.  She believed
Aaron, Ken could hear that; believed the cowboy completely and utterly.

“Adrenaline’s
wearing off.”  Aaron nodded.  “Christopher, can you hang onto him?”

“Uhhh.” 
Christopher gazed at Ken.

“Oh, for good damn
hell’s sake,” muttered the cowboy.  “They turn
fast
, kid.  He’d have
changed if he was gonna change.”  He shoved Ken at Christopher, who caught him.

Ken saw Christopher
was grinning.  Hassling the cowboy.  “No, I believe you, man.  Just I don’t
like hauling around a guy who broke my nose.”

Aaron snorted. 
Started to turn to face toward the front of the cabin.  Christopher’s voice
turned him around.  “How’d you know he wasn’t going to turn?”

Aaron spun around
again.  Back toward the bottom of the incline, the semi-slide the airplane had
become.  “You really want to discuss that now?” he said.

Christopher
gulped.  Ken saw the smile leave the young man’s face.  “Guess not.”

Ken looked.

Aaron had been
busy.  Easily a dozen zombies were wrapped up in wire, pinned to seats or to
the walls.

But there were
still another dozen or so.  All in the aisle.  All between them and whatever
might lay at the bottom of the plane.

Ken looked back.

Buck holding Hope.

Maggie holding Liz.

Dorcas, swaying on
her feet.

Another dozen
undead coming behind them.

Clunk
.

That was all Ken
could hear, for some reason.

Clunk
.

The sound of
Christopher’s makeshift weapon bouncing off the floor.

He wasn’t hearing
the moan of the dozen undead ahead, the dozen more behind.

Just…
clunk
. 
As though Ken’s only mental response to this impossible moment was an
insistence that he should have died a few moments ago.

Christopher was
holding Ken up, practically bearing all his weight.  Ken’s arm was over the
young man’s right shoulder, and Christopher held the thin bar over his head
with his left hand –

(clunk
)

– as though it
might scare back the two dozen assailants moving toward them.  Small chance. 
Though Ken did note that these zombies seemed to move differently than the ones
the survivors had encountered thus far.  Still fast, still single-minded – as
far as dead things could be “single-minded” – but they seemed a bit slower. 
Not all-the-way-slow, but certainly not the same super-speed that the things in
the elevator had been.

Ken wondered what
else was different about this brand of zombies.  What other ways the undead
zombies varied from the once-alive varieties.

It was all
academic.  Whether or not the –

(
clunk
)

– things moved
super-fast or just normal-fast, they were about to pounce.  Ken could see that. 
The ones in front and the ones behind.  Gathered to jump.

Maggie and Buck,
each holding their frightening and precious passengers, had drawn close to one
another.  Then pulled closer to the rest of the group.  Dorcas and Christopher
and Ken were already in a tight knot.

Clunk
.

Aaron was standing
on the lower edge of the survivors, and Ken could tell the older man was
debating whether to make a stand here with the last of his friends or wade into
the dozen zombies that were now about fifteen feet away and go out fighting.

CLUNK
.

The sound was
louder in Ken’s mind, almost reaching audible levels.  Muffled but powerful,
the sound of a life ending.  Hollow, as if to signify it didn’t have any
meaning.

The zombies behind
them, the ones that were higher on the tilting slide that the plane had become,
moved closer.  As though taking care to make sure nothing went wrong.

CLUNK
.

That damn hollow
sound.  The empty noise of humanity’s passing.

Maggie began to
weep.

Aaron tensed, and
Ken could tell the cowboy was going in.  He wouldn’t go calmly, wouldn’t meet
death with the silence of the undead things around them.

Buck whispered
something.  Ken thought it was “Mother.”

Christopher
chuckled.  A nervous laugh.

Dorcas was quiet. 
Watching Aaron, just him.  Like the rest of the world suddenly didn’t matter
much.  Her lips moved.  Ken couldn’t tell through the smoke in the cabin and
the fog in his mind what she was saying to herself.

All he heard was…
CLUNK.

Hollow.

Empty.

Aaron crouched for
his final moment.

“Clunk!”

Everyone stopped. 
It might have been Ken’s imagination, but it seemed like even the undead
swiveled to stare at him for just a moment.  Like the amount of random
stupidity in that single syllable was enough to stop even the world’s final
death-spiral for a moment.

Then they –
silently – reoriented on the group.  Began moving forward.  Most of them were
focused on Aaron, as though they had figured out he was the primary threat –
the thing to be first neutralized.

But the others
seemed to be staring at Maggie and Buck.

Or was it that they
stared at Liz and Hope?  The little girls were still insensate, limp in their
carriers’ arms.

Ken fought to
focus.  He hadn’t wanted to shout “clunk.”  Hadn’t wanted to say that at all. 
But he
had
wanted to say something.

He just couldn’t
remember what it was.

Everything was
whirling.  Darkness taking over his vision.  He felt himself draining, emptying
of life.  Growing hollow.

Hollow….

Clunk….

He found the
thought.  Held it.  And shouted again.  This time managing to say the word he
had intended to say in the first place: “
Down!
”

Everyone looked at
him again.  Just for a moment.  Buck and Maggie, even Christopher all spared
him only the barest of glances before returning their gazes to the menace
crowding them.

Dorcas looked
longer.  Confused.  Concerned.  Wondering.  Then, perhaps, a light in her
eyes.  Ken knew he could explain to her.  Could tell her.  If only he could get
his mouth to move.

But he couldn’t. 
Everything was going wrong, not just in the world outside, but in Starship
Ken.  His hull was damaged, his circuits fried, his main computer in some kind
of shutdown mode.

He looked at
Aaron.  The cowboy was looking at Ken, too.

And
smiling
.

Not a big smile,
but Ken felt like someone had gotten what he was trying to say.

Clunk.

Down.

Hollow.

Starship Ken was
malfunctioning, but somewhere deep within its core, there was something trying
to make sense of things, to come up with a way out.  It had been barking
messages at Captain Ken, trying to make him understand.  But the messages had
been coming out as code; as ciphers to be interpreted.

Clunk.

Down.

Hollow.

Clunk.

Down.

Hollow.

Clunk down
hollow.

Clunkdownhollow.

Maybe they weren’t
trapped, after all.