Colony Z: The Complete Collection (Vols. 1-4) (2 page)

“Why can’t you be more like Helen, huh? Why can’t you just trust me when I tell you that you’re wrong?”

At this, a small voice spoke up from the doorway of the cabin.

“What about me?”

Helen walked slowly into the room before her, looking at her brother pitifully, noticing the carving on the wall and knowing he was in trouble. She immediately regretted her entrance.

It was Owen who finally spoke through the silence.

“…Nothing, dear. Why are you coming to the cabin so early? It’s hot. You should be cooling off in the water and shade.”

Helen stepped forward, her long blonde hair windswept. Even Michael had to admit she was beautiful, in a haunting way. But no girl had ever been more stubborn. And no girl had ever been more strict on those around her.

“Why did you do it, Michael?” she asked.

Ignoring her father’s words, Helen stepped forward to inspect the carving on the wall.

“Why would you do this?” She repeated. “Who is this?”

“I don’t know who she is, Helen,” Michael responded through gritted teeth. “Now why don’t you run along and go swim with your admirers?”

Helen was taken aback. Generally speaking, her brother didn’t take out his anger on her. And he knew well that she was terrified at the thought of choosing a suitor. Crazy-Phillip, as everyone called him behind his back, was well out of her comfort zone; though he had been pursuing her for weeks. Balding Eric was much too old for her, and even her father had to admit it.

Aaron was her only friend and companion. He was both young and handsome. They had often talked of living together, pretending to join in a relationship for the sake of ease. But Helen disapproved of the secrecy. She liked the company of Aaron very much, but that was because only she knew he had a preference for a different kind of person than she could ever be.

This left only James. And while he was straight, fairly good looking, and an honest, hardworking man, Helen could not bring herself to trust him. If anyone in the colony were to be caught sleeping around with the wives of the other men, it would be him, she thought. He carried an air of falseness. And Helen had a very hard time believing in his words of affection.

The truth be told, if Helen had to live with a straight, single man on the island, she would choose her ignorant brother over anyone else. Michael, underneath his stupidity, was kind and understanding, and had the best intentions in mind. It would keep the both of them from ever having to be in a relationship anyway, and the want for that expectation to go away was the only thing the two of them had in common. Neither quite held the much-needed desire to start a family any time soon, if ever.

“I want to know who this girl is.” Helen said finally, in complete and utter demand over her brother’s accusatory tone. “Who is she?”

“If the boy says he doesn’t know, he does not know,” Another voice chimed in from the doorway, a more firm one. “And you would do well to let him alone about it.”

“Yes, Mother.” Helen responded obediently, before sweeping out of the cabin, avoiding her mother’s gaze. She did not return until well after nightfall. The moment she escaped the cabin, she ran to Aaron and talked with him in earnest about the picture, for she felt some wave of newness, something strange, was going on within her family.

Back in the cabin, the mother of Owen’s children walked forward and took the silent baby from her husband’s arms.

“Michael, it’s far past time that you made a place of your own.”

When Hannah said something was to be done, she said it with an air of finality. Michael stood from the bench and left the room, knowing that as soon as the sun rose the next day, he would be expected to be hard at work, building a new cabin for himself. He fled to get away from his father, and a head start on his project.

Owen turned to look at his once-teenager sweetheart. The years had worn her down. She seemed to be fading, and yet her personality still hung true. The colony loved her, adored her, and aspired to be like her. She was strict, but had the skills of leadership that Owen could only dream of. And yet, she continued to allow him to take his place as the Alpha male, at least in the eyes of everyone else on the island.

As Isaac drank his mother’s milk that night, Owen sat once more on his place in the sand. The memory of the red-haired girl had stirred something within him. Some faded glimpse of years long past.

The faded years that he knew he would do well to forget.

Albion
Camp- America - 2018

Judith Marie lie whining in
Hannah’s arms as the group gathered around the fire. The beans and sausages had been cooked, eaten, and the leftovers devoured by the dogs. Michael was throwing a tennis ball to his family pet with his small arms, and it crossed Owen’s mind that Michael would never know the sport to which this ball belonged.

The German Sheppard puppy had been more of a precaution than a family pet, though Owen never planned to tell Michael this. The zombies feared the sharp, gnawing teeth of the animals, and so they avoided the camp. At least, while the dogs were awake. At night, the travelers could hear them beating at the tall wire fence, trying to get in.

But there lay a quiet peace around the fire now. The sunset faded into darkness. There was a silence sifting through the air, but the families were comfortable. Michael and Judith were the only babies. The rest of the recruits were well into their preteen or teenage years, if not adults already. They knew what would come to pass. One day they would have to leave here. But not now. Not so soon after Hannah had given birth to the twins.

No. For now, they would wait.

The fire was put out, the camp dispersed, and everyone went inside the abandoned school to find their designated rooms. Only Owen’s family remained. He sat close to Hannah, each with a child in their arms.

“I can’t get Judith comfortable,” Hannah said softly. “Will you hold her?”

Owen set Michael in his mother’s arms and proceeded to take the smaller of the two newborns into his own. He rocked the sniffling child until she fell into a deep slumber, far away from the worries of the world. The moment was tender, silent. They seemed to almost be grieving.

“Owen…do you think it’s time?”

“What do you mean, sweetheart?”
Owen looked at his wife longingly. He had hoped childbirth would help her to push the repulsive memories out of her mind. “Hannah, please. It’s time to let go.”

“…you’re right. Of course you’re right.”

Owen smiled at his beautiful wife and pulled her close to his side.

“I love you, Hannah.”

“I love you too, Owen.”

They sat like that for several minutes; each in their own state of peace and serenity. Each taking refuge in the silence before the storm; the eye of the hurricane. It seemed to them that the other knew one day, maybe tomorrow or maybe three years from then, but one day, a storm would come. And this time, they would not be able to escape it. But that moment, and only in that moment, did everything feel okay. Safe.

“Take the children to bed, dear. I’m going to do the perimeter check.”

“Do you have to do that tonight?”

They both knew in their hearts that he did.

“I’ll be in soon,” Owen assured her. “I promise.”

It was one of the few promises to Hannah that Owen had ever broken. And tonight he did not do it out of personal want.

Tonight it was necessary.

Tonight he discovered the Lost Colony.

Once Hannah and the babes were inside and darkness had fallen for the night, Owen lit a lantern from the dying fire and carried it with him. Sometimes, at night, he would hear the world’s horrors. Decaying bodies, seemingly alive, would throw themselves at the gates with a force entirely inhuman. The first time this had happened, Owen had awoken the entire group, and had told them, albeit unwillingly, that they would have to move the next day, pregnant wife or not.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when none of the wall had been punctured, that he realized the silver steel was too much for the zombies to destroy. They could not seem to break it.

It was like living in a metal cage. The zombies would go about their own business during the day, but at night, they would surround the camp. Hundreds of them. Just waiting. Waiting for someone to slip up.

Owen knew it was only a matter of time before the bloody, dim-witted creatures discovered a way to break in and terrorize those within the confines of the school.

But not tonight.

As Owen circled, he was surprised by the complete lack of movement or signs of the dead anywhere. Nothing flew at the gate, nothing was thrown at him. He felt all too safe. Something could not be right. He almost felt safer when he could hear them. When he knew where they were, he could protect himself against them. But when they were seemingly invisible…how did he stand a chance?

Questions circled in his mind. Had they moved on? Had the dead finally given up on the remaining living? As Michael would tell his father sixteen years later, Owen made the fatal mistake of assuming they were the only ones left alive. Tonight he would be proven wrong.

Owen walked the two mile radius of the fence. The candles still flickered on in the distance, so he knew Hannah was waiting up for him as patiently as she could. The children would need to sleep soon, so he could not take much longer. He sped up.

And that’s when he saw the gaping hole in the fence, and the bloody thing trying to crawl through it.

Owen didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate. He snatched his gun out of his back pocket and fired three shots. With each shot the thing let out a surprisingly human-like moan. And then, after several moments of pure shock, the thing fell to the ground, unmoving.

It didn’t take more than thirty seconds for Owen to gain the courage to step forward and shine the light in the thing’s face to be certain it was dead. His heart thumped wildly in his chest, for he had a feeling he would not see what he expected.

His intuition was right. The virus had not affected the body. This thing…was a man. A perfectly healthy and safe man. Not one of
them
.

Horrified at his mistake, Owen retreated backward into the darkness, putting out the light on his lantern. What if the man, the thing, had a companion? What if anyone had seen him?

The hole in the gate now seemed a minor problem.

Owen heard footsteps in the grass beyond, and he knew he had been right. There was someone approaching the dead body. Maybe a whole group of people. A light came into fruition in the distance, another lantern like his own. It seemed to fly to the body and was set down on the ground next to it.

“…is he?” A woman’s voice whispered.

“He’s dead.” A man, Owen imagined him kneeling next to the body, said with a tone of finality.

The woman began to sob. A man’s voice consoled her.

“It was bound to happen, Amy, dear,” It said. “We all know he wasn’t well. He was already badly wounded…might have become infected any day now…”

“I know…” She said, tears filling her voice. “But he was going to be a father.”

At these words, her strength left her and Owen knew she had fallen into the man’s arms by the heaving male breathing and the increase of her crying.

Owen had killed a man. A father, as he had learned. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to say something witty, something to smooth the situation over. But he could think of nothing.

“Come on,” Another man said, probably the leader. “I know things are hard and we’ve lost many over the last few days, but we need shelter. The dead will soon be out to feed and we still don’t have a place to sleep. That building out there may be our only hope.”

“There’s a murderer in there!” Someone yelled out, and Owen’s breathing stopped. “Come out you…you coward!”

“We can’t stay here,” Another voice added in the blackness. “We aren’t welcome.”

“There’s nowhere else for us to go.” The leader argued.

It was in this critical moment that Owen realized he had to act. He had killed one of their men by mistake, but the group sounded large. The leader spoke loudly enough for fifty to hear, and many different voices had come from the clearing beyond the fence. If they penetrated the opening, they may take over the school. They may throw out his wife…his children…because of
his
mistake…

He knew there was nothing else for it but to scare them off. Let the zombies take them. But they would not take his travelers and his children. They could not have them.

In years to come, Owen would often wonder why he had not invited them in warmly. Why he had not tried to dashingly become their hero and ask them to join his pack. They would have grown more quickly, and less may have died along the way. And yet, Owen could never forgive himself for killing that man. And he knew in letting the group in the camp, he would be surrendering to that guilt.

The truth was, Owen was not and never would be a hero. He did not act courageously, he acted honestly. And he knew the time had come to do something to protect his family, and that was brave enough for him.

Owen raised his gun yet again and did a horrible thing in that moment that he regretted for the rest of his life. He aimed for the shadow nearest to the lantern and he shot through the hole in the fence. He did not know if he was attempting to murder a man, a woman, or even a child, but he did not care. All he cared for was to see the shadows run far away. He wanted them to go.

There were screams and yells when the bullet passed through the chest of the leader himself. Owen would never know it, but the man, Jonathan Franklin, had been a great man, looking out for his own wife and child. But Owen conquered him with one shot, and he fell to the ground in an immediate defeat.

A moment of silence passed through, underneath all of the yells and the cries of anguish. But, finally, a woman did the first right thing any of them had done. She ran. And, as sheep do, the rest of them followed in a heavy stampede.

Owen remained in an empty clearing with two dead bodies, a lit lantern, and an open wall. He knew if the people were smart, they would not return to this school, this camp. But the fear remained within him that, if they did, and they were to talk to anyone else within Owen’s group, they would learn the truth. All of them. And Owen would be the one cast out to the zombies.

Owen’s instincts kicked in. He knew he needed to stop worrying about himself now and get the hole fixed before the dead found it. The unexpected people and the fire had kept them away, but not anymore. They would be coming.

The bodies would be his sacrifice to them. He could do nothing else with them. Pushing the trespasser back through his hole, Owen made certain that neither of the dead men had any limbs left inside.

While examining the hole, Owen realized it was not nearly as large as it had originally seemed. It was actually only large enough for a man’s torso to fit through. But it would be enough for the zombies if they found it.

Owen ran as fast as he could with the other group’s lantern to find the tools he kept stashed for this reason. They were in the storage shed behind the school, and it took him several minutes to get there. He could hear the footsteps and moans of the dead approaching.

Owen opened the lock with the key he kept in his pocket and searched frantically for the silver sheets of metal. He found one large enough for the hole, grabbed a drill, dropped some nails in his pockets, and set off again with his lantern, juggling all of these things together. Night was falling now. The zombies would be there waiting.

When he arrived back at the hole, Owen could see movement beyond it. They were coming.

As he shoved the silver sheet over the hole, a graying hand shot itself through. Owen snatched the drill off the ground, put the nose of it against the hand, and pressed the button down as hard as he could. The sound of the metal gnawing through tissue and bone was not a pleasant one, but the hand was pulled back through the hole.

Owen slapped the sheet onto the fence, grabbed a nail out of his pocket, and set to work. The metal did not want to be drilled, but Owen did not let that stop him. Time was running out and the fate of his people depended on this hole being closed. Nail after nail he shoved into the fence.