The Colony: Descent by Michaelbrent Collings Page A

Buck tossed Ken into
Aaron’s arms, then knelt and started pushing a piece of crumbling concrete to
the side.
    “What are you
doing?” said Maggie.
    “This is why I
wanted to come down here in the first place,” said Buck.  Ken had forgotten
that.  Had forgotten that it was Buck who had been the first one to advocate
going into the plane.
    He knew.  Knew
about something down here .
    The muscles in the
back of the big man’s neck bulged.  He exhaled in a steady stream.  The
concrete started to rasp against whatever was under it.  Moving an inch at a
time.
    Aaron put Ken
down.  Moved to help Buck.
    Ken could see up. 
The zombies streaming down from the sides of the buildings, moving lower and
then dropping.  Lit by the still-burning plane.
    Above them, dimly visible
through clouds of smoke… stars.  The sky had taken no notice of humanity’s
demise.
    The grinding noise
stopped.  “What’s that?” said Aaron.
    Buck shifted and
started moving whatever had been under the concrete.  This time the noise was
metallic.  “Storm drain access.”  More noise.
    The zombies started
growling.
    Give up.
    Give in.
    Ken heard his
daughters start to laugh.  Then scream.  He didn’t try to look at them.  Didn’t
want to see.
    “Get in,” said
Buck.  “ Hurry .”
    Ken felt himself
dragged.  Then stop, then dragged again, pulled into a hole.
    Down again. 
Down the elevator shaft, down the plane, down into the ground.
    Where will we go
when we can’t go down anymore?
    The growling took
on a different tone as he dropped into the darkness.  Not just the call to despair:
there was rage, too.  And something else.  Something even darker.  Something he
dared not think about, for fear it would drive him mad, or just kill him
outright.
    Ken was in Aaron’s
arms.  Maggie stood beside the cowboy, holding their children –
    (Are they our
children?  Or something else? )
    – protectively,
both of them ankle-deep in running water.
    Ken realized he
must be standing in the water, too.  But he couldn’t feel it.  Couldn’t feel
anything below his thighs.  Everything was just cold.
    Buck dropped down
into the tunnel.  It was barely tall enough to let him stand.  He reached up to
grab the metal grid that still lay partially over the entrance.
    And a hand grabbed
his.

  45
     
     
    Buck screamed.  So
did Maggie.  Aaron twitched, and Ken could feel the sudden indecision in the
cowboy: hang onto Ken, or help Buck?
    Buck started
batting at the hand, still screaming.
    The hand started
hitting him back, flailing at Buck like the two were engaged in the most
over-the-top slap-fight ever.  Ken thought that was odd.  The zombies were more
of the claw-at-you/pull-you-to-pieces school of fighting.
    This kind of thing
– what Ken’s high school students would have called a series of bitch-slaps –
were not their style.
    “Stop it.  Stop it,
dammit!”
    Buck kept
screaming.  Kept slapping, even when the hand disappeared.  Even when the feet
popped into the hole.
    Even when
Christopher dropped down among them.
    “Christopher!”
Aaron screamed, and dragged Ken across the sluicing water in a huge, leaping
step in order to engulf the young man in a one-armed hug.  He let go and Ken
caught a glimpse of Christopher’s grin.  Then Buck hugged him.  An even bigger
hug.
    “How did you –“ 
Aaron looked on the verge of tears.  He swallowed audibly.  “They were coming
in.”
    Christopher
shrugged.  “I held ‘em off.  Tried to fight them when they got through.  But
they didn’t seem like they cared about hurting me.  Just wanted past me.”  He
felt at his right arm for a moment, and Ken saw that his shirt sleeve was a
mass of tears, the flesh of his arm shredded and rent as well.  Then
Christopher shrugged.  “They just forgot I was there.”
    “So Dorcas….”  The
hope in Aaron’s voice was apparent.
    Christopher’s smile
disappeared.  He shook his head.  “No.”
    “But they left you