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.
"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."
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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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michaelbrent Collings is a full-time screenwriter and novelist. He has written numerous bestselling horror, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy novels, including The Colony Saga, Strangers, Darkbound, Apparition, The Haunted, Hooked: A True Faerie Tale, and the bestselling YA series The Billy Saga.
Follow him through Twitter @mbcollings or on Facebook at facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings.
NOVELS BY MICHAELBRENT COLLINGS
THE COLONY SAGA:
THE COLONY: GENESIS (The Colony, Vol. 1)
THE COLONY: RENEGADES (The Colony, Vol. 2)
THE COLONY: DESCENT (THE COLONY, VOL. 3)
THE COLONY: VELOCITY (THE COLONY, VOL. 4)
THE COLONY: SHIFT (THE COLONY, VOL. 5)
THE COLONY: BURIED (tHE COLONY, VOL. 6)
THE COLONY OMNIBUS
THE DEEP
TWISTED
THIS DARKNESS LIGHT
CRIME SEEN
STRANGERS
DARKBOUND
BLOOD RELATIONS:
A GOOD MORMON GIRL MYSTERY
THE HAUNTED
APPARITION
THE LOON
MR. GRAY (aka THE MERIDIANS)
RUN
RISING FEARS
YOUNG ADULT AND
MIDDLE GRADE FICTION:
THE BILLY SAGA:
BILLY: MESSENGER OF POWERS (BOOK 1)
BILLY: SEEKER OF POWERS (BOOK 2)
BILLY: DESTROYER OF POWERS (BOOK 3)
THE COMPLETE BILLY SAGA (BOOKS 1-3)
THE RIDEALONG
HOOKED: A TRUE FAERIE TALE
KILLING TIME
Reckoning.2015.010.21 Page 29
