Colony Z: The Complete Collection (Vols. 1-4) (31 page)
Read Colony Z: The Complete Collection (Vols. 1-4) Online
Authors: Luke Shephard
Northern Michigan- Zero Hour
This hadn’t turned out at all like Owen had expected.
“…the truth is that I didn’t come out here tonight to take you to the fair because you wanted to go. I agreed to come out here tonight for something much bigger than that.
Something much more important.”
He wanted Hannah to remember this night.
Owen didn’t talk that much very often. Not unless he was nervous or really worked up about something. Owen talked more in the ten minutes before a football game than all the rest of the week combined. And now he seemed even more nervous than he did then.
Owen mentally chided himself for not looking up the weather in the first place to make sure this wouldn’t become a problem. Why was he so stupid?
Nights upon nights upon nights of watching his dad in the downstairs ‘body-room’ working on the bodies. At first, it had terrified him. But the idea became one that he entertained. Being a doctor? Working to find out how dead people had died? It almost seemed exciting.
Usually, he’d take triumph in the fact that he’d brought her to safety or saved her, or something proud and boy-ish like that. Instead, he was eerily silent. Even for Owen this was odd.
She could feel him shaking. Owen wasn’t generally an angry person…but when he got there, it wasn’t a place your particularly wanted to be.
Owen crossed to the body and kneeled down next to it, leaving Hannah where she was and picking up the badge that had been laying on the floor. He turned it over in his hand and then clenched his fists. Now he knew what was going on. He knew exactly what was going on.
Owen stared at the destruction around him and knew he’d made one of the worst mistakes of his life. He had to get Hannah to safety and make sure everyone knew the thing was spreading.
And then?
Then he had to get the hell out of town and find Marcus.
Not because he particularly needed Marcus anymore.
No. Now he needed the boy.
Albion Camp - 2032- Two weeks later
Owen’s funeral was a sad affair, just like his daughter’s. Everyone tried their best to remember him as the man they knew him to be...but they weren’t kidding anyone.
None of them had ever known Owen to begin with.
“I’d like to say something.” Michael said from the back of the crowd. Eva’s open casket looked like the end of his world, and James lying next to her didn’t help matters. But his father’s death still hurt the most.
The man that brought the whole clan together. And yet, the coward who caused them all to be there in the first place.
He made his way to the front, just as he’d done on this same beach fifteen years ago.
“We’ve all lost three very important people in our lives…” Michael said, slowly. “I buried my sister on this beach…and now I’ll bury my wife and my father as well.”
Silence, other than the sniffling from the women in the crowd.
“We’re a small tribe, friends.” Michael said. “Small, but strong. And we’ll make it through this, somehow. We will. I know it. And, despite everything that my father did…he was a good man. He was a strong man. He kept his secrets…but he was a good man. He wanted the best for his family. And I loved him for that. Thank you.”
T
he
crowd clapped sparsely, but Michael ignored them and retreated to the cabin with Helen, Aaron, and his mother. Isaac lay cradled in Eric’s arms.
When the door was safely shut, Michael voiced what they’d all been thinking for days now.
“What do we do with the cure?”
Aaron stepped forward, as he apparently had the answer already prepared.
“When I die, the cure will die with me. If I have children, there’s no guarantee that they’ll have the same thing. We need to clone it, do whatever it was that doctors did back when we had them. We have to travel to shore and start to fix this, bit by little bit. We have the cure to change the world back to the way it was. And we have to do something about it.”
“…what if we all die trying?” Hannah asked, tears in her eyes.
“It’s worth a try, Mom.” Helen said. “If there’s something we can do to save the world, we have to do it.”
“…we have the key to mankind in our hands.” Michael said.
“Michael,” Hannah said, wrapping one arm around her son. “You have a colony on your hands. And people looking up to you to lead them. This isn’t our call. This time, it’s yours. And you choose what you do with the time you have.”
Michael thought long and hard. He thought about being safe on the island, about eventually dying out and allowing humans to disappear altogether. He considered the familiar faces around him. He remembered how sick he was of them. How much he wanted an adventure, new spaces, fresh air…
He needed to get away from this place. They all did.
“We’re getting off this god damn island.”
“We’re leaving the island!”
The colonists, who had been listening through the cracks of the door, cheered and cheered. Michael opened the door to the cabin, and was greeted with the hugs and merriment of those ready for their time.
It was their time now. Their chance to change the world.
Their chance to take back what his father had helped destroy.
And Michael couldn’t wait.
The End
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Shadow of Utopia (Vol. 1 - The Mutants)
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The Survivalist Cookbook - Recipes for
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Prepping for Survival: 65 Supplies You Need to Live Through Anything
The Dead Road: Vol. 1 - Isolation
The Dead Road: Vol. 2 -
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